Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

They cannot admit Brexit is an abject failure and that they should never have left the Single Market (as the UK was in no way ready or prepared to do so).

We're effectively watching a western democracy being hijacked by a rogue regime and a rogue set of voters (anyone who votes Conservative or who voted Leave).

It's worth pointing out that the EU doesn't care about, and certainly doesn't object to, this particular delay. The UK's inability to operate customs controls on goods imported into the UK is a problem for the UK. It's a benefit for countries that export to the UK.

The decision to withdraw from the Single Market after 25 years of core membership for purely political / ideological reasons is a mind boggling one. One explanation is that the regime itself didn't even remotely understand what the Single Market is and how it operates - the UK civil service probably does, but has been overruled at all points by the loons (including Johnson) giving out the orders.

One key takeaway from this is that the Brexit leadership are not very intelligent people. A Thatcher or Major or Blair would instinctively understand how important the Single Market is and that leaving it would be a disastrous move. I get the impression the Brexit godfathers, despite all their gusto and bravado, are not very bright and are a really poor calibre of politician. Most of them wouldn't have even got into a Cabinet 20 or 30 years ago.

I would still argue they are a very poor calibre of politician. The likes of Johnson, Raab, Patel, Hancock, Williamson, Truss etc probably wouldn't have even gotten into a Tory Cabinet thirty years ago - we're talking about utter mediocrities and people who are not especially bright or gifted.

The genuine talents like Dominic Grieve and Rory Stewart were hounded out of the party for being anti-Brexit.

If you’re a van driver or driving a commercial vehicle with a trailer from the uk doing drops to the EU a you’re in for a rude awakening,

£1100 to operate now for uk drivers in the EU.

I’ve heard rather expression death by 1000 cuts , but the EU is really biting Brexiteers hard.

Also I saw two Van life female campers explaining really well and intelligently, how Europe differs from EU and ultimately Schengen area.

they explained how the 180 / 90 day rule works and how UK people could use the Schengen area to legally circumvent not having to return to the actual UK auto stay legal in Europe and not fall foul of EU rules if you wanted to stay away from the UK for more than a year.

this was about 3 months ago.

In fairness they weren’t being , smart, arrogant or smug about this but were demonstrating a genuine way to stay in Europe post Brexit for more than 3 months by using non Schengen areas and Turkey etc.

However their plan was to stay in Slovenia and Croatia, but now, in December, Slovenia and Croatia are snowed under so instead of ideally being down around the warm med ,Brexit has forced them to be frozen out , and they are on their way home to UK now, and going to spend post Christmas in Scotland .

Also apart from the cold the native winter time (as against summer holiday makers)reaction to the now mandatory UK and GB sticker has caused them untold hostility from the normally friendly locals.

After the first IRAQ war reading a book about how the US got involved there, one of the fascinating things was a lot of the supporting cast, including the guy that had first used the term shock and awe, were brought into the inner circle specifically because of their views. Several were people that in the states contributed to right wing websites and publications. The controlling element in the Republican party were itching for an opportunity to demonstrate how awesome the US Military were.

People who parroted that line were promoted into policy decision making areas. I think the same happened with the Tories. Having a solid block of MP's that defined themselves only as opposed to Europe, any aspiring MP seemed to need to bow o the ERG grouping if they wanted to progress their careers. Theresa May was a good example. I wonder if she held such venomous attitudes to immigrants or was it simply the best way of progressing to the top.

Boris is in an impossible position now, he has emboldened a rump of the party that is now almost drunk on it's own power. They have huge power with little responsibility, I believe they don't want to be ministers, I think they feel their in a perfect position.

All of this again brings us back to the disaster that is FPTP. In a voting system like PR you would not get anything at the level of ERG or momentum because those MPs would have probably split years ago knowing they could still get elected but as we saw with UKIP any Tory defectors were ousted at the first election as UKIP candidates.

These lobby groups within lobby groups within parties are a joke

Johnson took over from TM, having served in her cabinet and voting for her deal, and not only did the voters wipe the slate clean, they gave the very same Tories that had presided over the mess of the previous 3 years, a whopping great majority.

If Johnson does move on, it will be because the Tories are looking to wipe the slate clean and start anew, as if they hadn't been in power for the last 11 years.

(Short) article commenting on UK move to exempt Ireland from its Customs changes in Jan next year:

It's interesting what the UK is doing here.

Maybe I'm getting sour & full of paranoia wrt. actions of this UK govt. but to me looks like their trade policy towards Ireland is following the immigration/citizenship policies they have which post Brexit prevent Ireland ever joining Schengen, and any deeper successor aggreements between Schengen members (because Ireland doesn't wish to lose these "benefits"). It's effectively a roadblock on Ireland getting deeper into that aspect of EU integration, we will need opt outs etc. in future.

So they are cutting us out of the EU with respect to trade and giving special treatment, maybe in a hope of creating similar barriers over time (on other aspects of our EU membership...we won't wish to disrupt the "special" relationship with the UK). 

Maybe redirection of Irish trade to the continent has worried them badly. Frost has mentioned our trade shifting (i.e. East-West + vice versa) which he obviously sees as still "their" trade in a sense despite the dispute in the 20s, as a problem for the UK which must be addressed immediately, not just the NI protocol issues.

They also lose some of their best leverage over the EU (which is mainly through their ability to make Ireland suffer badly) the more we disconnect our economy from them so they are trying to stop or at least slow that down by allowing our exporters a benefit. They might need that leverage in future. Overall it's not really a good thing I think (apart from the short term benefits).

Yeah it is "good news" on the face of it. As you say it is a problem for the EU though. We may not always be a beneficiary of countries trying to divide the EU on trade like this for whatever reason (e.g. see trade sanctions China is trying to impose on Lithuania only at the moment).

I don't think there are any tariffs involved here, but their food imports from this country would be made slower/more difficult by new Customs requirements on 1 Jan and of course the Irish exporters may then be further encouraged to shift away from the UK to avoid red tape/problems. The UK has to import alot of food from somewhere in the end.

As said I may be overly cynical. There's alot of possible reasons for this like the UK Customs not being ready, or not wanting to disrupt/slow food imports from a major supplier country (...but then they also import large amounts of food from other EU members like all the veg. from Spain/Netherlands, so why is Ireland singled out?).

does this mean we are effectively in the same boat as NI wrt trade to the UK and EU ?

I assume WTO rules will put the kybosh on this.

yes, but when they start imposing rules and tarrifs on other countries ( including EU ), wont we effectively be in the same position as NI, in that we have access to GB and EU ?

Sorry I meant nothing negative as in people don't need to worry about our trade to France or anything like that.

I just see this as the UK secretly agreeing to the oven ready treaty they wrote and signed in the first place

What would be the point. If you leave 1 door open the whole system is useless.

I think it is hard to be certain of the reasons behind policies with this UK govt. I'm very suspicious of the motive of everything they do as regards their relations with Ireland or more particularly the EU. However (somewhat thankfully, given the first point) they are also not very competent, and (as others said) they can be very led by the polls & opinions of their supporters in decisions they make, so will sometimes turn on a dime.

An example would be the complete about face for now as regards starting more trouble with the EU over the NI protocol. The leaders and the party seem to badly want it to happen but basically fear of the consequences (edit: I mean political result for them at home, not effects on relationships with the EU, Ireland or the US) is staying their hand.

It's just impossible to really know what they are at half the time.