Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

fash wrote: »

RobMc59 wrote: »

Your claim that the English tipped the Welsh vote is pretty bizarre ...

East Wales - the part infected with English migrants who commute into England voted for brexit while the less infected West part voted remain.

The Guardian had last year an article about the Brexit votes in Wales.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/22/english-people-wales-brexit-research

Lars

RobMc59 wrote: »

That's actually a very racist post fash.

Racist? I hardly think you could call it that... Anglophobic maybe?

robinph wrote: »

Swap around the location and nationality for Kent and Syrians and have it printed in The Daily Mail and I think most people would be calling it out as being racist.

Well ... yeah, if you change all the original parameters, other than sticking with the same species, you could present a convincing argument ... :rolleyes:

More to the point is that Brexit has created a situation where the English are now increasingly considered by other white West Europeans in the same category as Syrian immigrant/refugees - either an "infection" responsible for societal problems, or a third world country deserving of our pity and charitable aid.

I have a young Welsh lass staying with me at the moment, and her comments about the English are definitely more anglo/xenophobic than what fash has written. Listening to her now, in the summer of 2020, I am reminded of conversations I had with youths of the same age back in Dublin in the 1980s. That was not a good time to be English in certain parts of Ireland.

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the UK right now about the government's mishandling of the attribution of A-level grades - another entirely foreseeable but manageable problem that they seem to have made much, much worse by not thinking it through. This, IMO, is the hallmark of Brexitry and all who adhere to the cult; and I quite convinced that their continued "racially" insensitive blundering will radicalise parts of Scotland and Wales in ways that eventually require the need for either a new Act of Union or a GFA-equivalent on the island of GB.

robinph wrote: »

Swap around the location and nationality for Kent and Syrians and have it printed in The Daily Mail and I think most people would be calling it out as being racist.

In that instance, it actually would be racist... I'm not saying what he wrote isn't offensive but it wasn't racist. I'm probably being overly pedantic.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Fine with me,fash had been trolling me for a couple of days and his 'infected'comment did annoy me but if he just has a 'phobia'about the English that's amusing although not sure he would be happy you describing him as 'having an extreme fear of the English'.

Phobic can also mean 'having an intolerance or aversion for' according to Merriam-Webster, hence the terms transphobic or homophobic. It doesn't just mean an 'extreme fear of'.

RobMc59 wrote: »

his 'infected'comment did annoy me

I don't blame you for being annoyed.

If there had been an article in the Daily Mail/Express in the 1980s describing Kilburn as a part of London "infected with Irish migrants", there would, quite rightly, have been a storm of protest about it.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Fine with me,fash had been trolling me for a couple of days and his 'infected'comment did annoy me but if he just has a 'phobia'about the English that's amusing although not sure he would be happy you describing him as 'having an extreme fear of the English'.

Me "trolling" you?
You are the one claiming that a border is NOT the inevitable consequence of the UK leaving the single market and that if a border is installed it is only because of the nasty EU and the UK would never go such a thing - despite the fact that nowhere in the world in history has there ever not been borders between regulatory areas.
You are also entirely unable to explain why if that were indeed the case the UK nevertheless installed a (militarised) border in Ireland, employed 1/3rd of the British army to police it plus murdered hundreds etc. to ensure it remained in place.

I'm waiting for your explanation - or if you were being honest your admission that Brexit inevitably means borders - and one had to be put between NI and GB or else reinstalled (with inevitably escalating violence) upon the resentful border population.

In the meantime, it is interesting to look at the evidence of the inevitable cognitive dissonance battle occasionally leaking out.

RobMc59 wrote: »

This is my post about borders.
You're being economical with the truth about what I said along with your 'infestation 'comments fash which I view as racist.

In what way was I "economical with the truth"?
Again to paraphrase, you said "I don't think the brave, honest and noble Brexit UK would but I suspect the the evil cowardly EU would force the poor Irish to do so".
Yet when given the opportunity to NOT put up a border in the past (according to you - but not to any competent or honest person who speaks on the matter), the UK has done so.

So the follow-up question to your point (which you refuse to answer because it shows that you are trying to make a point that you know is wrong and doing so what in to me can only be bad faith) is if what you were saying were true, why did the UK install a hard militarised border?

Look I'm going to keep asking you this question until you answer or leave the forum. So you might as well answer now.

Peregrinus wrote: »

We've already discussed this. They militarised the border because the political/security situation required it.

And, Brexit or no brexit, Single Market or no Single Market, if things went pear-shaped in NI again and the political/security deteriorated to a point where military control of the border was required, the UK could have erected a security border again.

The Custom Union guarantees that there will be no customs border. The Single Market guarantees that there will be no fiscal border, and no regulatory border. But neither the Customs Union nor the Single Market ever guaranteed that there would be no security border. And even if the UK remained in the Customs Union and the Single Market, that would not guarantee that a security border could not be erected again.

Conversely, the UK leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market does not mean that a security border will arise. What it does mean, if nothing else happens, is that a fiscal and regulatory border will arise. And if the UK Brexited, and failed or refused to enter into agreed replacement arrangements with the EU to avoid the need for a fiscal and regulatory border, then the UK would be choosing to erect a fiscal and regulatory border and would be responsible for doing so, and Brexiters who claimed otherwise were either fools or knaves. But dragging in questions about militarised borders and security borders and so forth simply obscures this key point. If I were you I'd drop it. You're on a hiding to nothing.

As regards the customs and regulatory border (and its relationship to a militarised border)- yes, I know that, you know that - and everyone with a basic understanding knows that - however RobMc refuses to acknowledge it and instead parroted and continues to parrot the frankly dishonest and insulting Brexiter assertion that UK wouldn't have installed any border infrastructure in NI at all (and wouldn't have been responsible for the necessity for same) - even had the UK left the single market and customs Union. Assuming his statement were accurate, the question then arises, if true, why didn't the UK do so?

Edit: ... Or to put it another way, to apply your words to the current situation is RobMc being a "fool or a knave"?

Nevertheless, I take your point.

fash wrote: »

As regards the customs and regulatory border (and its relationship to a militarised border)- yes, I know that, you know that - and everyone with a basic understanding knows that - however RobMc refuses to acknowledge it and instead parroted and continues to parrot the frankly dishonest and insulting Brexiter assertion that UK wouldn't have installed any border infrastructure in NI at all (and wouldn't have been responsible for the necessity for same) - even had the UK left the single market and customs Union. Assuming his statement were accurate, the question then arises, if true, why didn't the UK do so?

Nevertheless, I take your point.

If Rob is saying that, then focus on that. You're just clouding the issue by introducing the question of the militarised/security border. So don't introduce it.

If the UK brexited and did not enter into replacement arrangements to avoid a fiscal/regulatory border, I myself doubt that they would have failed to apply fiscal and regulatory controls at the NI/RoI border. Certain Brexiters claimed that the UK would not apply controls to the border but (a) the UK governnment never said that they would not and (b) not doing so would have created huge legal, practical and political problems for the UK. So I think those Brexiters were a bit dim, to be honest.

We'll now never know for sure, since the UK has signed up to arrangements to avoid the need for controls on the Irish border. Determined as ever to bring themselves and their country into ridicule and contempt, certain Brexiters are calling for those arrangements to be unilaterally repudiated by the UK, but I don't think the country has fallen to quite the level where it might do that.

But, hypothetically, even if the UK had not entered into the WA, and had decided not to control its border with RoI, the RoI would have controlled the border. In that situation the UK would, by its intentional and unilateral choice, have created the need for the RoI to do so, so the UK would still have been wholly responsible for the erection of the hard border, on the principle that countries, like adults, are responsible for the forseeable inevitable consequences of their actions. Again, Brexiters who don't regard the UK as a grown-up country will quibble about this, but most can grasp the point well enough.

RobMc59 wrote: »

Doesn't the CTA between the UK and Ireland override the requirement of EU citizens to apply for settled status?

No. The provisions of the Ireland Act 1949 mean that Irish citizens don't need to apply for settled status, but that is no help to citizens of the other 26 member states.

ambro25 wrote: »

Beside Peregrinus' answer, the benefit of the CTA does not extend to non-Irish and non-British family members of Irish citizens, who reside with their Irish relative in the UK under EU FoM (House of Commons Library, Research Briefing, Oct.2019).

So the (e.g.) Spanish wife of an Irish man needs to apply for Settled Status, so do their (e.g.) Polish adopted kid.

Nitpick: if the adoption was done in Ireland, or was done abroad but has been registered in Ireland, the Polish adopted child is an Irish citizen.

Peregrinus wrote: »

We've already discussed this. They militarised the border because the political/security situation required it.

And, Brexit or no brexit, Single Market or no Single Market, if things went pear-shaped in NI again and the political/security deteriorated to a point where military control of the border was required, the UK could have erected a security border again.

The Custom Union guarantees that there will be no customs border. The Single Market guarantees that there will be no fiscal border, and no regulatory border. But neither the Customs Union nor the Single Market ever guaranteed that there would be no security border. And even if the UK remained in the Customs Union and the Single Market, that would not guarantee that a security border could not be erected again.

Conversely, the UK leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market does not mean that a security border will arise. What it does mean, if nothing else happens, is that a fiscal and regulatory border will arise. And if the UK Brexited, and failed or refused to enter into agreed replacement arrangements with the EU to avoid the need for a fiscal and regulatory border, then the UK would be choosing to erect a fiscal and regulatory border and would be responsible for doing so, and Brexiters who claimed otherwise were either fools or knaves. But dragging in questions about militarised borders and security borders and so forth simply obscures this key point. If I were you I'd drop it. You're on a hiding to nothing.

Are there many of examples of fiscal and regulatory land borders that don't have a high level of a visible military/police presence? I'd have thought it inevitable that the latter follows the former.

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Are there many of examples of fiscal and regulatory land borders that don't have a high level of a visible military/police presence? I'd have thought it inevitable that the latter follows the former.

If you go back in time, just about all EEC borders pre-Lisbon. Members weren't as fiscally- and regulatorily-aligned then, as they are now.

I was commuting regularly from France into Germany or Luxembourg in those days, customs/border forces were always present, but pretty light (think a couple of guys with an Alsatian, at the smaller crossings), and controls/searches were fairly infrequent, unless you 'stuck out' (passing same border back 'too soon', car reg indicating not local, etc.)

Same with Switzerland before it embarked on its european 'semi-integration'.

Only time I've seen military at a border in recent times, was at Coquelles waiting to board the Eurotunnel, with French paratroops in full gear patrolling car queues between FR & UK booths. Last year or the year before. I expect that it was terrorism alert-related (had seen them patrolling cities aplenty, but never seen them there before, in years and years of using Eurotunnel), they must have been on the lookout for someone/something.