Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Heard an interview yesterday with Simon Kuper the author of a new book "Chums" about the elite close knit private school caste that rule the UK.

Because the facts don't seem to matter as much as they should when the game is let develop the way it has......(the more people are aware of how rigged it is perhaps something might change. What they have done is a direct consequence of the system that has been let fester.....That needs to be tackled before things improve and people need to be aware of a problem before steps can be taken to solve it long term)

I think this has been the end game all along. I'm just surprised it's taken so long. I always thought there was little real concern for the longevity of peace process amongst Brexiters, they just didn't want to be blamed for its collapse.

In a Brexiters mind that is Dublin's role. For them, it's all about blame if any troubles return, that's why the UK won't enforce a border, so they can disingenuously say it's nasty Dublin and the EU that put up a border. Not us!

So when the "benefits" of Brexit such as chlorinated chicken arrive in Northern Ireland its will publicised so Dublin is forced to protect it's place in the single market. It will force Ireland to protect it's border and then degenerate it for doing so.

From Brexit's perspective, they cannot allow for it to be said that the EU is a peace project and a benefit of membership for the UK in the EU was peace in Northern Ireland. From a Brexiter's perspective UK must be shown to to do better on it's own and Dublin/EU to be an unnecessary and unhelpful interference.

If the EU trade agreements are torn up, then it counters the argument that the EU helped keep the UK together of only because it makes Northern Ireland (and Scotland) even more reliant on the UK internal market. Northern Ireland is given the choice, poverty or an abusive marriage.

As for UK's international reputation....we are taking about the country that invaded Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya? Laundered money for the Russian oligarchs? .....do I need to mention the Opium war, Bengal famine? The world knows exactly what the UK is like. It's just the Daily Telegraph that is ignorant.

But be under no illusion, there nothing personal about the malice, it's enterally strategic.,,,,and that strategy is the survival of the status quo.

The worst thing from a Brexiter's perspective is that Ireland thrives, becomes a magnet for unemployed British workers, holds a mirror up to the Brexiters face on what was lost.

I expect things to get much nastier over the next few years.

But I do feel very sorry for the very many decent English friends I have been fortunate to meet and have as friends....but that is, and always has been, the nature of the ruling Oxbridge class.

If there is strategy, it's probably with the people pulling the Tory party strings with big donations. There are those for whom the EU is a threat, because it's not as corruptible as the UK or the US. Murdoch hates the EU, so do a lot of US billionaires who see the EU's ability to punish things like anti-competitive behaviour with huge fines as a threat to their god given right to screw their customers for an extra dollar. China and Russia (and the US, to be fair) see the EU as a competitor for global influence. Russia in particular has been trying to poison EU politics with its IRA trolls and disinformation for years, and Brexit has played into that.

The owners of the big right wing UK papers are also (I assume) billionaires who hate the idea of their off-shore money coming under scrutiny.

The strategy, then is to damage the EU in any way possible, for the benefit of an elite group of people who aren't exactly worried about where their next meal is coming from. The likes of the Tories, Johnson, Orban, the DUP and Brexiters in general are just useful idiots for the money men's long term goal of diminishing the EU's influence, or destroying it completely.

Possibly less relevant than during the Brexit campaign, but not completely. The Newspapers (even if in decline) get to set the agenda in a way that far outweighs their circulation. The radio and TV stations often have a morning news item along the lines of "what it says in the papers" - amplifying whatever editorial agenda the big papers are pushing.

I agree the EU is better off without the toxic UK, but there well be nervousness that any closer alignment with the EU in the future (perhaps under a Labour goverment) may come with regulatory strings attached. If I were an oligarch with funds in the UK or UK tax havens, I would be keeping up the pressure to antagonise UK-EU relations.

So another week another business as usual with the protocol. I’m sure they’ll rip it up any day now….

https://www.nisra.gov.uk/sites/nisra.gov.uk/files/publications/Overview-of-NI-Trade-with-GB-May-2022.pdf

www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/eu-exit-analysis/eu-exit-trade-analysis

Or here for that matter.

I'm so glad we pivoted.

Yes, by not using the landbridge

Was quietly scrapped there end last year- too expensive (shock, horror) to build.

I said it before if there’s ever to be a GB to Ireland crossing or tunnel the ONLY economically viable crossing is from Dublin across to north Wales linking down into central onto southern England- this is where the population and economic centre of gravity is. A complete folly to connect a Scottish backwater to another one in the north. Was all a bit of sweet talk to shut unionists up for a few months.