Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

"You do have to wonder why Johnson and Frost are continuing to poke the protocol and the border issue". Why? To provoke the loyalists into violence so as to get concessions from the EU. After all, from their point of view, if the paddies were allowed to use the threat of republican violence to get what they want, why shouldn't we be allowed to use the threat of loyalist violence to get what we want?

"it may be as simple as they didn't know what the hell they were doing". They absolutely do know what they are doing. They are provoking the loyalists, so that they can now, having "Got Brexit done", force the EU to renegotiate the "terrible" deal that they themselves signed.

TBF, it has got them into power, and kept them in power. From their POV why change?

The world knows what the UK are like. This looks like the "concession" that the UK will get and we'll announce a new agreement in a couple of weeks and be told just how the plucky Brits got one over the All powerful EU. Same as it ever was.

Further confirmation of my points, ignored by pro EU here, that the Commission is weak and failing a member state.

This is appeasement of gangster politics in London and it reinforces my view on Ireland's precarious position in the single market.

Those who have no defence for the commission continuously talk about the "long game" when they have little argument.

That's the opposite of what's needed here. It could not be more opposite

This is weak and again I firmly believe despite the denials we are counting in months now regarding Ireland and the single market because the EU refuses to do what it should do.

I go back to my first principle:

If we were Germany...

If/When the inevitable happens here (as I say my view within months) we need to have a serious rexamination of our membership against that outcome.

Two things are completely lacking in Kermit’s longstanding but incomplete analysis:

The first is what he expects to happen if the EU adopts the bull-in-a-China-shop policy that he advocates. Does he expect the UK to collapse in heap, beg for forgiveness and become servile and biddable? If so, why does he expect that? If not what does he expect? Has he considered that the upshot may be to give the Brexiteers the excuse they are looking for to repudiate the NI Protocol and blame the EU for provoking this? How would he see that scenario playing out? Would the Irish border remain open? If it did, would the EU feel compelled to adopt controls on IRL/EU-26 trade, the very thing he claims to fear? In Kermit’s scenario, how would the EU avoid the need for that? We’re not told.

The second thing that is never explained is how, in Kermit’s mind, we get from the present EU slow-and-steady policy to Ireland being excluded from the Single Market within a matter of months. As he has predicted it many times and it has never happened, he’s had plenty of time to reflect on how it is supposed to have happened and why it hasn't but somehow still will, but we have not so far been favoured with the fruits of his reflection.

Regardless of whether the EU sticks with slow-and-steady or switches to bull-in-a-China-shop, the ultimate question remains the same: will the UK accept and comply with the measures needed to keep the Irish border open without imperilling the integrity of the Single Market? And, regardless of whether we pursue slow-and-steady or bull-in-a-China-shop, there is the possibility that it will not. And, if that does happen, the dilemma we face is the same, regardless of whether we have followed slow-and-steady or bull-in-a-China-shop in order to get there.

In that scenario, one of two things must happen. Either there must be some degree of control on trade across the Irish border, or Ireland’s position within the Single Market must be imperilled.

Although Kermit hasn’t laid out his thinking on this, he does seem to assume that this choice will be made by the EU and force on us. He is basically implicitly buying into the Brexiter tropes (a) that the EU acts independently of its member states, (b) that it rules over its member states in much the way that the UK once ruled over its colonies, and (c) that Ireland is a “small state” that the EU will cheerfully trample on in the exercise of its imperial powers. The fact that reliance on these beliefs has produced such poor outcomes for Brexiters over the past 5 years has not shaken his faith.

I think he is wrong. If we do arrive at that dilemma, the decision about which unpleasant end of the shîtty stick to grasp will not be the EU’s; it will first of all be Ireland’s. If the UK’s actions make trade controls on the Irish border necessary, Ireland can accept that that has happened, and there will then be no question of our participation in the Single Market being imperilled. There will be controls on the Irish border. 

Because avoiding a hard border requires bilateral co-operation the UK can enforce a hard border by simply refusing to co-operate with the measures needed to avoid it. But it cannot force Ireland to leave the Single Market; that can only ever happen if we choose it.

We will not choose it. The entire arc of Irish history for the past several centuries has been Ireland asserting its sovereignty against Britain, even if - as in recent decades - this meant putting up with partition. We’re not about to change that course of action now. The UK cannot make us, despite what Kermit and/or UK Brexiteers may think.

This does not mean that we would accept a hard border as the final outcome; of course not. Kermit can say what he likes about the slow-and-steady approach, but he cannot deny that it has got IRL/EU to the point where, while the UK can still enforce a hard border in Ireland, it can only do so in violation of the treaty obligations it has undertakien, and at enormous legal, political and diplomatic cost to itself. So, even if we do reach this point, the story isn’t over. IRL/EU will still be well positioned to maintain pressure to the UK to comply with its obligations so that the hard border can be softened again. 

(Which is one of the reasons, incidentally, that Ireland will choose a hard border over trade control between IRL and EU-26. If we accept the UK’s actions and the Irish border is still kept open, the UK is under less pressure and the situation is more likely to be permanent. Both options for us in this situation are unpleasant, but the option that maintains international pressure on the UK is the less unpleasant.)

TBF to Kermit, it's not irrational. It is seeing the UK appear to trample over agreements and appear to have no pushback.

From acceptance of unilateral decisions, to the engagement in talks, reopening the WA. At every step it appears that the more the UK kicks and screams the more the EU are willing to move.

But it is all appearance. The EU are getting the main things that they want at every turn. There is no doubt who is coming out of this whole sorry debacle in a better position. Regardless of the economics of it all, the political and diplomatic success has all been the EU's. While the like of Frost and Johnson complaining incessantly about the unfairness of it all plays out well in the media in the UK, it clearly carries no weight in the US, NZ and the EU as three examples.

But I understand where Kermit is coming from. It is frustrating to think that the screaming kid in the corner appears to be getting what they want when everyone else is ignored. So the desire to see 'justice', by way of legal action or pulling out of talks or whatever, is a completely understandable desire. I know that I have wanted it many times when I read the latest diatribe coming from NO 10.

But, what we have seen conclusively over the last 5 years, and very aptly demonstrated by the near invoking of Art 16 earlier in the year, is that while it may give one a feeling of control, that lashing out is exactly what the UK is looking for. They want to drag this down into the gutter, as they know that in reality they have nothing else.

Its an odd take.

You must also agree that the UK looks completely ridiculous, not to mention completely untrustworthy, to the rest of the world since they are looking to welch on the agreement they said a few months ago was brilliant.

The UK don't need to be emboldened to agitate more. It has been their modus operandi for the last few years, increasing as the decision time came up. It is all they have.

They have los the argument, there is simply no benefits to Brexit, they have painted the UK into a terrible corner and the only way to save themselves (for that is all it is about, nothing to do with saving the UK) is to continue to paint the EU as both an unmoving dictatorship and also a weak limp wristed surrender monkey.

Even if they're trying to use to use the NIP as an agitant to sustain the noble Brexit struggle, it is falling flat in the English Tory heartlands as they gave Johnson the stomping majority to bypass the DUP.

Attacking the deal they negotiated and boasted about back in December is also putting the Brexit heartlands to sleep.

Re. Ireland leaving/forced out of the SM

• Is there any law/article/something in the EU that can allow a member be removed from the SM against its will?
• Would an EU treaty change be required to remove a member, and if so would IE need a referendum on it and could we veto the proposed change?

The lack of any coherent anti brexit rejoin initiative in England convinces me that the EU action is the correct one. If there was a political party polling well on a pro EU stance then it would be a lot easier for the EU to take a more outwardly aggressive stance towards Johnson. But taking an aggressive stance towards Johnson and then watching a surge in Tory support would be a terrible outcome. The effects of brexit will have to do the job on changing the political weather in England.

The EU doesn't give a damn about domestic politics in the UK. It's none of their business. One of the things that has handicapped the Brexiter implementation of Brexit has been their compulsive need to posture for the domestic audience, prioritising local crowd-pleasing over securing any traction with the EU.

The EU's policy in dealing with the UK's threatened and actual defaults is based on one consideration only; what course of action is likely to produce the best outcome for the EU? We don't really care how the UK is affected by it.