Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

I think you're completely and utterly wrong about that. There is plenty of mileage in this for the Tories as the party has essentially become an English nationalist party in all but name. Any nationalist movement needs an enemy to act as a focal point, and make no mistake that will be the EU for the forseeable future.

As for your confidence that they do care about a revival of The Troubles, one wonders then why they have been content to whip up tensions within the loyalist community? Why have they been content to follow a policy that has seen pressure on the Irish government to establish a hard border, or risk its place in the Single Market? There have been enough warnings from the Irish government and the US to deter them. They don't care. Many of them would be happy to have a hard border. Many of them, like Gove, didn't support the GFA in the first place.

I think you are dreaming + taking a polyannaish view of it by saying it is just "setting out stalls".

Afair idea of getting rid of the EU oversight of NI protocol was mentioned in that paper setting out all the changes Frost was looking for. It was maybe the most unrealistic element. I think it will be an EU "red line", because rules allowing NI to operate in the Single Market, even limited ones, cannot exist without at least some EU oversight of their workings (like giving those EU officials access to ports, and being allowed see the GB-NI trade data which has been denied) and the EU supreme court (CJEU) being ultimate arbiter for those rules.

I think it is a sovereignty issue which from what we read Lord Frost is supposed to be very sensitive to at all times (obviously limited empathy there though!). If this is the real UK "red line" emerging after the sausage and medicines day to day stuff they went on about, then UK govt. definitely signed up to the NI protocol of EU Withdrawal agreement in bad faith for political purposes domestically ("get Brexit done") with no intention whatsoever of actually implementing an agreement at all. It is the final proof now if any more is needed.

If they are claiming the EU should have no oversight of how its own law is implemented in NI because the "British" sovereignty over all aspects of governing NI must be total and take precedence (which I think goes against "GFA" as well as NI protocol?) then its all over really, and what is there to negotiate (or "set out stalls" for) any more?

There was a good thread tweeted out a few days ago by Professor Michael Dougan, a European law professor, about the Tory's strategy:

"Wondering why Johnson Regime is so determined to insult & antagonise EU, disrupt UK relations with Member States? Swopping partnership & cooperation of EU membership for other extreme, of petty belligerence, wasn't inherent in UK withdrawal. It's a deliberate policy choice. Why?

"Now clear to all, save the most swivel-eyed Leave fanatics, that Brexit - particularly in the extreme incarnation pushed by Johnson & Co - has no particular upsides and a great many very considerable downsides. So if Brexit is to be fabricated into a "success", it can only be by doing everything in Tories' power to drive deepest possible wedge between "us" & "them": whipping up nationalist resentment in UK, acting so obnoxiously that EU is glad to see back of them. Brexit can be warped into a "success", for minds poisoned by anger & bitterness which makes whole enterprise even more shameful: Johnson & Co risk a generation of division & antagonism in Europe, & wider western world, just to vindicate their own lies & distract from their false promises. Which should make rest of us even more determined not to let them.

"& while we wait for, eg the Labour Party to pluck up courage to get stuck into the challenge of saving EU-UK relations from Tory nihilism, all of us can still do our bit - big and small. Even just reaching out to EU friends & friends in EU to remind them: we're not all like that."

I do wish the Labour party would call this stuff out, but they're so terrified of upsetting the Brexit voters that they're afraid to speak out. Seems to me that Scotland and NI have 2 choices now. Either get caught up in this predominantly English anti-EU frenzy, or cut ties and forge another path.

Based on the totally false assumption that the previous estimates were correct. In fact, the ONS published a piece about how the media reports were incorrect: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/02/are-there-really-6m-eu-citizens-living-in-the-uk/

The only information I could find on the topic was essentially that the raw number of applicants for settled status is the wrong metric, and the best estimate is 200,000 fewer EU citizens living in the UK when comparing current to prior estimates using the same data sources.

The guardian, BBC, Bloomberg and many others have articles with a similar analysis to the ONS report. None of them are implying there's been a net increase in migration, never mind 1,000,000+ extra immigrated since Brexit.

But the protocol is the compromise. Frost signed off. And parliament voted for the oven ready deal.

The EU should just start a trade war and reengage after Christmas and see how they are then. Instead of kicking the cab down the road again and again

When the people are sufficiently hungry

Perhaps - the other possibility is that in order to avoid taking the blame for brexit Christmas shortages, they would like to have an excuse to blame the EU.

Put simply if the UK decide to give the EU uncontrolled access to it's markets it the first thing every other country who does a trade deal with UK will want. It means the import checks if the UK ever actually gets around to putting them in place are rendered pointless. Anybody who wants to ignore UK regulations can send them in via the Irish border. At best the UK is forced to accept EU standards(as it won't stop EU goods that don't adhere to UK regulations entering the UK) that it has no control over. At worst every other country will look for the same access.

To be honest this is just a repeat of conversations that we have had on the various incarnations of this thread countless times at this stage.

The EU is very good at imposing highly targeted sanctions rather than blasting a shotgun into the UK's face. They can easily find out which key industries are located in all the marginal Tory seats and target those industries with tariffs. They don't even have to punish the UK economy to any great extent. They did it to the US during the Boeing/Airbus dispute. The other side can't retaliate in the same way because the EU decision makers aren't on the end of some MP's phone. It's a huge strength of the EU.