Brexit discussion thread XII (Please read OP before posting)

It's a pretty bizarre notion from Brexiters that Varadkar will be punished for his Brexit stance in the election. They conveniently ignore the fact that the other Irish parties stopped calling for an election for the guts of 2 years, in order to let Varadkar continue his work on Brexit.

Outside the Scottish Parliament last night

https://twitter.com/HeartScotNews/status/1223383371033739264

Bit cynical wrote: »

Well certainly from the point of view of Cameron, it was a mistake and he paid for it with his career. His intention was for the UK's position in the EU to be secured for a long time through a strong vote to remain, but of course that did not happen.

He was totally playing with fire though : stoking up the English hard right and the populists / authoritarians.

Even if had 'won' the referendum 52-48, who knows what would have happened in the aftermath. It may have emboldened UKIP and Farage and the Daily Telegraph and made them more Europhobic than ever.

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

Outside the Scottish Parliament last night

https://twitter.com/HeartScotNews/status/1223383371033739264

The way that Scotland has effectively been told to get stuffed by England on this issue and "We voted to leave as one country" is disgraceful. The Brexiteers are admitting they couldn't give a flying fig what Scotland thinks.

Leroy42 wrote: »

It simple goes to show that England only want union when they are in charge. That is the nub of all of this.

All this talk about Turkey, EU army is all nonsense. It was amplified to create a narrative. Just like the blaming of the EU for not giving UK a better deal. No deal was ever going to be good enough, not until they had control.

They simply cannot accept that they should abide by anything other than their own views. Hence talk of the precious Union, only because they are in complete control of it.

Even know it talk of FTA, taking back the fish etc. No hint of compromise. They NEED us. They will have to give it to us otherwise we walk away.

And it is for that reason that I believe any deal, even the WA, is doomed to failure. Because no matter how we split it, and some point they are going have to agree to be part of something they are not in control of, and it will eventually collapse.

The shocking thing about that referendum is that Scotland, Wales and NI had no power of veto over England, not unless the result was 50.3%-49.7% or something.....whatever England voted for was the result.

What's worse is that the English Brexiteers don't even care about this : no expressions of sadness or regret at the collateral damage of Brexit. As you say, just the desire to be in control and to dominate others. The idea of having to be equal partners is anathema to them.

briany wrote: »

it appears that Barnier will be 'overseeing' the FTA, while Hogan will be the actual one heading up negotiations.

Not to question Hogan's abilities as a negotiator, but I would have thought keeping on with the same personnel would have been wiser, especially since they've proven quite adept so far.

And who is the Senior Civil Servant in Hogan’s Department (or in Commission terms, the Director General)?

Sabine Weyand AKA Barnier’s no. 2 in the negotiations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Weyand.

Much as the present Irish Government likes to go on about how good Big Phil is, the Germans would never have conceded to him being appointed Trade Commissioner without a tough German actually running the show behind him.

And it actually also makes sense in a way to have an Irish Commissioner, because we will be so directly affected by Brexit.

Despite not having much faith myself in Hogan, I’d be fairly confident that between himself and Weyand, they’ll be a pretty good double act in preventing the English trying any funny stuff.

gooch2k9 wrote: »

It's just them thinking they are the centre of all things. Nothing changed from the last three years.

Andrew Neil got a good response earlier!

This is page 417 of the twelfth version of the Brexit discussion thread. Doesn't that tell you something?

Strazdas wrote: »

The way that Scotland has effectively been told to get stuffed by England on this issue and "We voted to leave as one country" is disgraceful. The Brexiteers are admitting they couldn't give a flying fig what Scotland thinks.

The United Kingdom voted as one country, as it should have because it was a single member of the EU. If England had voted to leave but the overall result had been to remain, do you think the remainers would still be making this argument?

What can Scotland actually do though?

They are trapped by the previous independence referendum in a way, and have no way to force a new one

Strazdas wrote: »

The shocking thing about that referendum is that Scotland, Wales and NI had no power of veto over England, not unless the result was 50.3%-49.7% or something.....whatever England voted for was the result.

What's worse is that the English Brexiteers don't even care about this : no expressions of sadness or regret at the collateral damage of Brexit. As you say, just the desire to be in control and to dominate others. The idea of having to be equal partners is anathema to them.

16% of the UK's population does not live in England, that could well have swayed the vote but the fact remains that there are a lot of leavers in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Anyway, the idea of England as a monolith means nothing in a vote like this, different areas voted differently but only the total vote was important

SantaCruz wrote: »

I think those pointing out the outright lie that the UK is a democratic union of nations would still be making it, yes.

That would be a difficult point to make because the United Kingdom is a democratic union of nations.


In fact the biggest challenge to it being democratic is that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all over represented in Parliament.


The average constituency size in Wales is 56,000, in Scotland 67,200, in Norther Ireland 68,300, in England 72,200.


It happened in the EU too. The United Kingdom had fewer MEPs per constituent than any other nation.

brickster69 wrote: »

If a car has a margin of 4-6% and has a tariff of 10% then the sale price has to raise by about 15% to make the same profit.

Back to school and learning arithmetic.

UK car price in UK = 100% = 94-96% cost + 6-4% profit

UK car price in EU = 100%+10% = 110% - with existing profit

UK car price in EU = 94-96%+10% = 103.4 -105.6% - without any profit

UK car price in EU = 90.9%+10% = 100% - EU price unchanged, but at a loss.


Prices on almost all UK goods can't be higher on the large and competitive EU27 single market - and the market for cars within the SM is very, very competitive.

Why buy an Astra at a 10% higher price, when VW Golf, Peugeot 308 or Citroen C4 are available without the 10% higher price ?
Why produce an Astra in the UK, when the factory owner PSA has car assembly lines with spare capacity in many EU27 countries.

This is a fundamental difference between the UK post-Brexit market and the large EU27 SM. The UK buyers will simply have to pay the full tariffs for most imported goods, as EU27 and other exporters will all have to pay the UK tariffs and will see little competition on the UK market, while the EU market will not lose much of its competitive power after a the (partial) loss of UK exported products.

Most industrial product have low tariffs, but e.g. agri products, fish/fish products and finished cars have significant - devastating - WTO MFN tariffs into the EU27.

Lars

fash wrote: »

Only because the UK is no longer an EU member does it have fewer MEPs, otherwise France has the fewest number - similar to the electoral college system in the US. Both systems are designed to ensure a disproportionate voice to the smallest states to compensate for their small size.

The UK had 73 MEPs. Of these 27 has be reallocated to other EU27 member states to reflect the change in population in each member state since the number of MEPs for each member were fixed.

France got 5 extra MEPs reflecting a population growth from 63 million to 67 million (2006-2017).

Ireland got 2 extra MEPs reflecting a growth from 4.2 million to almost 4.8 million in the period.

Lars


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/12/how-many-meps