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Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

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Comments

  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,340 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    From poker-addict - 'Is there laws or parts of Brexit which compel France to stop people leaving France? Or is it just British domestic political distraction that paints France as the problem?'

    Quite the reverse.

    If the UK was still part of the EU, they could invoke the Dublin Protocol where refugees were obliged to claim refugee status in the first EU country they arrived in. Of course, since Jan 2021, that no longer applies, and there is nowhere to send said refugees 'back' to - they have to afford them due process.

    It is all political distraction. They are short of fruit and veg pickers, and short of meat factory workers, and short of HGV drivers. If they brought 10,000 of these refugees into the UK on condition they be trained and then worked to fill these vacancies, then that could be sold as a Brexit benefit. Unfortunately the Brexiteers would not like it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,960 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    Whole debate on 'immigration' in England is beyond toxic. EU citizens using FoM, illegal migrants and refugees / asylum seekers are lumped together as one homogenous group (keep in mind that the Brexit referendum was intended or used to try and keep all three groups from entering Britain i.e. nobody is welcome). The right wing press are driving the narrative, fuelled by the prejudice of their readers.



  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    My one observation, because we have been asked not to discuss refugees on this thread, is that 27 people drowning in the English Channel have been driving the narrative this week.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,960 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    Well, my comment was about British media and political reaction to the asylum situation post-Brexit, not about the rights and wrongs of it, so is very much on topic.

    I wouldn't agree that the horrible loss of life this week has been the catalyst, this has been building for weeks with the ongoing tabloid coverage and various right wing figures (such as Farage and Patel) stirring things.



  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    Patel is the UK's Home Secretary.

    It is her job to prevent people entering the country illegally and enforcing existing cross-channel agreements between France and the UK that have nothing to do with Brexit.

    What would be your solution to prevent people drowning ?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,472 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Let them enter the country legally, assess their claim and deal with that.

    Forcing them into the hands of criminal gangs, after they have fled from dictators and the effects of UK foreign policy is only the answer if you're only wish to to act tough.



  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    SNIP.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,960 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    Indeed, and many Brexiteer assertions are going to be seriously challenged in coming months and years. Eu migrants drive up house prices / EU migrants keep wage levels artificially low / schools, housing and the NHS are at bursting point because of EU citizens etc. Let's see how true this actually is.



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,231 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Patels job isn't to stop asylum seekers from entering Britain. People have a right to seek asylum. The way things are going in the UK there could well be a time in the future when British people are forced to flee to seek refuge from a totalitarian government



  • Posts: 533 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    The diplomatic issues come down to the fact that the Tories are both blaming France in the media and on social media. They've made false and frankly insulting comments about how they've "given France money," as if France was actually worried about €50m that is a contribution towards joint security of a common border area.

    There's an endless list of these kinds of things and I think the French government has just had it with them. They're not going to engage with what amounts to policies that resemble tabloid headlines nor are they going to be dictated to by an obnoxious neighbour.

    I also don't know who the Tories think they're playing with or playing to. The French Government doesn't care what people who read the Daily Express think. It's irrelevant to them. However, the Tories seem to think that's all that matters. If they continue to just whip up francophobic garbage in the press, they'll just destroy diplomatic relationships with their closest continental neighbour and one of the largest and most influential countries in the EU and NATO. It's absolutely nuts.

    Why exactly would the French Government be bothered dealing with a counterpart that is rude, arrogant, insulting, twists facts, openly lies to the media and hurls abuse at them?

    The humanitarian side of it is awful and that has been pointed out multiple times and very publicly by the French Government, but the Tories seem to be keen to use it as a weapon to bash the French over EU issues and to continuously whip up domestic hysteria about immigration. It's nasty in the extreme.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,359 ✭✭✭✭Professor Moriarty


    Don't elect populists, especially those who don't give a flying fcuk about anyone or anything other than themselves.



  • Registered Users Posts: 26,021 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    If that's her job, she's doing it very badly. Numbers have risen sharply on her watch. Her policies of cruelty and vilification are clearly not working; all she's doing now is doubling down on the policies that have already been shown not to work. Meanwhile her boss does his best to undermine the existing cross-channel agreement with France - six out of seven candidates in the coming French presidential election want to withdraw from the Le Touquet treaty, Macron being the exception, and Johnson thinks this is a good time to patronise Macron in order to curry favour with Daily Mail readers? Please.

    I take your point that the Labour party under Starmer has not exactly set the world on fire, but things are not as grim for them as you (like to?) think. Whatever about red wall voters, I don't remember "Starmer's many attempts to overturn the referendum result" but, even if red wall voter think they do, the political damage that entails will get less and less as Brexit is more and more widely seen to have been a bad Tory idea, badly implemented by the Tories - a development that is well under way. And even if people continue to think Starmer a bit dull, they may come to the view that dull is better than the Tories' signature blend of sleaze and incompetence.

    Post edited by Peregrinus on


  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    SNIP. No name calling.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,914 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    Bottoms up! Well, the maybe if you're drinking tapwater (though, be careful if you're in the areas where HMG's made it o.k. to discharge untreated sewage): Brexit->Not enough drivers->not enough booze for Christmas

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/25/business/wine-liquor-shortage-uk-christmas/index.html



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,644 ✭✭✭storker


    "I would gladly pay you Toosday, for some security today," as Wimpy might have put it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 26,021 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus



    In the first place, the claim that Starmer voted against attempt in Parliament to proceed with Brexit is false; he voted in favour of triggering Art 50.

    More to the point, voting against Brexit as implemented by the Tories is not at all the same things as voting to reverse the outcome of the referendum. Other, less self-harming, Brexits were possible.

    This is a distinction that is going to become more politically salient as the ruination of Johnson's Brexit become more and more apparent - Brexit supporters are going to have to conclude either that they were conned into voting for Brexit, or that they have been let down by the Tory failure to deliver the Brexit they voted for. Which do you think they will conclude? And a corollary of the latter conclusion is that those who, at the time, opposed the implementation of Brexit were correct to do so. Starmer will benefit from this.

    And I don't think a Tory supporter should be drawing attention to Labour's "shadow cabinet of third-rate no-hopers". This invites a comparison which cannot possibly favour the Tories.



  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    Johnson will lose votes over Brexit but not in the way you think.

    The Tories biggest shift in support will come from those who don't think Boris has gone far enough with Brexit - hence the Reform Party polling at similar levels to the Greens and Lib Dems.

    The idea that Red Wall voters have buyer's remorse is nonsense - they're still waiting for the threatened logjam at Dover and Christmas supermarket shelves empty of produce to happen.

    What will eventually do for the Tories is Johnson's green lunacy.No-one likes to be colder and poorer.



  • Registered Users Posts: 47 Mayfielder


    ' Could ' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that story.

    As it is in this Observer piece over the weekend which finally concludes there may be a run on pigs in blankets but that everything else will be ok.

    It seems the great Christmas Turkey Shortage Scare of a few weeks ago has been well and truly stuffed :)

    And just take a look at the rivers of booze on offer at Tesco Online or any other supermarket chain in the UK.

    Hardly the action of an industry facing Christmas shortages.

    Didn't anyone learn the lesson from the original Project Fear ?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,083 ✭✭✭The Raging Bile Duct




  • Registered Users Posts: 5,994 ✭✭✭ambro25


    Darmanin (IIRC) went on record this weekend on the back of the EU Ministers’ meeting over immigration, with a claim of €17m paid out by the UK out of the €67m (£50m) promised…when patrolling the French north coast reportedly costs the French tax payer €250m.

    I’m seeing a lot of Yorkshire-esque “calling a spade a spade” from French ministers about the UK atm, no doubt on instructions from Macron…

    …who will be taking the EU presidency in about 1 month’s time.

    I think the sudden, summary and very public cancellation of Patel’s invitation to that EU Ministers’ meeting over immigration, is very much the shape of diplomatic things to come, at least from France, for the next 6 months. Including for all things Brexit, whilst France presides the EU, especially as Macron co-temporously runs his presidential re-election race.

    UK keeps in line, things keep progressing. UK steps out of line, gets its nose instantly rubbed into it, hard. Works OK with puppies.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 22,231 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    While I can see the political benefit in cosying up to brexit voters by blaming the ills of Brexit on the implementation rather than the principle of the thing, and while this is also true, I think it could end up being costly in the long run

    Sometimes bad ideas need to be completely defeated, rather than diluted, because when you dilute a damaging political ideology, that can end up with elements of that ideology seeping into your own party

    I'm not making a case for ideological purism, but the left should stand up for it's core principles, and if it's going to approach the EU, it should be in solidarity with others from the same political sphere



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,914 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    So the wine and spirits association are lying? https://www.wsta.co.uk/archives/press-release/wine-and-spirit-businesses-call-time-on-hgv-driver-shortage-crisis?

    Project Fear is a misspelling. It's project reality. Economy is weak, trade is dwindling and all that's grown, is hostility within and towards the UK. But please, more Tory talking points. It's worked so well in the past.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,914 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    City's lost jobs and huge amounts of assets. But, I'm sure things will be better in 50 years per JRM.


    (among many). The good news is, a lot of those jobs are moving to Dublin. Of more concern are the assets being moved, the firms aren't all that up-front about it.

    FWIW, the # of Jobs in the article is 7400. Bank of England predicted 10,000 right after the referendum. And, this is the first year of full-on Brexit so we'll see.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,065 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Mayfielder permabanned for being a rereg troll. Please do not respond to their posts.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,472 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    There are real problems being created by brexit. Those problems have been reduced by the continued pushback of the full effects (another significant impact due in Han 2022) such that Brexit still has been fully delivered.

    However, even with the pushback, business and individuals has seen the negative impacts. Hence the pushback in the first place as even the UK government accept the negative impacts.

    But, as usual, business will find a way. Tesco, for example, cannot afford to have no alcohol as they would lose huge business to competitors. Not just the booze sales. So Tesco will do what it can to avoid such a scenario .

    But that doesn't mean protect fear is wrong, just that people have found a way to deal with it. Possiblr outcomes were predicted, and many have come to pass.

    The most telling proof that Brexit is a disaster is that even now no-one can point out a single benefit. Or point to a time when it will all be worth it.

    The billions spent, the loss of diplomatic relationships, the time wasted that could have been spent dealing with other issues.

    All wasted on a failing idea that lives on solely on the basis that to stop now would be embarrassing.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,994 ✭✭✭ambro25


    Much like other direst consequences of Brexit, predictions about hundreds of thousands of City jobs vanishing overnight were predicated on a no deal outcome. Which, as we all know, did not happen - still less under the preparatory framework of the WA of December 2019 with the ‘go light for one year’ TCA started on 1/1/21.

    Rather, what did happen, continues to happen, and will continue to happen for the foreseeable future, as equally foretold (and chronicled since around 2019), is a slow bleed of high-value financial jobs tied with EU markets and trading activities, variously in retail and corporate banking, wealth management, (re)insurance and more.

    A good proportion of these relocated jobs did not actually go to Dublin, Paris or Frankfurt (but Dublin got the lion’s share, good for them), but went to NY or Singapore instead since, 3rd country for 3rd country, might as well take the opportunity of a restructuring forced by Brexit to reorganise for efficiency. Whether the EU27 gained or not is moot: the UK lost all the same.

    This bleeding of City jobs (and elsewhere, e.g. Leeds) will endure and, if not amplify, then stay at least constant, as the EU gradually repatriates ever more prerogatives in financial activities as time goes by, until such time as the UK financial jobs market reaches equilibrium based on zero (or close to) access to the EU financial markets. Latest example:

    The jobs themselves matter a lot less than the assets under management, transactions with which attract a substantial volume of taxes. On that particular score, GB plc is at least a $ trillion down by now, through asset exfiltration due to Brexit. This has been well chronicled in the FT and other MSMs.

    Sunak told Johnson that there is no more money to be had for his ‘levelling up’ agenda last week, so feel free to follow the non-money and find out how much less no.11 Downing St is getting out of the City now and for the foreseeable future, and maybe connect dots.

    Post edited by ambro25 on


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,960 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    One reason Brexitism is failing so disastrously is the idea that Brexit EU thinks it can simply bypass or ignore the EU and look for friends elsewhere. This is nutcase diplomacy and can only end very badly. It would like Peru or Bolivia thinking it can ignore or snub all its neighbours in S. America and instead try and form friendships with countries in Europe or Asia.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,798 ✭✭✭An Ciarraioch


    NI has been almost totally insulated from the 2021 economic impact of Brexit on GB regions - what could possibly be the reason?

    https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1465302099567251474



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    David Frost has previously admitted the whys: this is why they're so dead set against the NI Protocol; 'cos once the dust settled, a successful Northern Ireland would show Brexit for the folly that it is. A perfect encapsulation within the UK itself. With Brexit vs. Without Brexit. The Tories have been lucky in many respects; lucky that within NI there lives a demographic who'd burn their own house down to appear loyal and eager Loyalists for the cause. Without them there'd never even be this ongoing tedium.



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  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,660 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Unless and until they upgrade the road to the port in Scotland there is no point in building a bridge or tunnel. There's a reason why most of the shipments to NI used to go through Dublin. Also a road bridge would have to be closed in bad weather which is much of winter.

    Permanent links to Sakhalin from Japan and Russia would be a much better investment, though you'd also have to upgrade the Baikal-Amur railway line too.



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