Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Unlike some Brexiteers who use "they're onto their fifth one" as a sneer, I don't regard the validity of French republicanism as at all diminished by the efforts of Napoleon and the increasingly ridiculous pound-shop "emperors" succeeding him. Quite the opposite in fact.

Edit: Actually think it was under an article about the future of the UK monarchy, not Brexit, where I read those comments...

The interesting thing about Ireland's accession to the EEC in 1973 is that the country knew full well the country was joining an economic and political union and that it was a massive deal. There was none of this "we thought we were merely joining a trade bloc" you hear from the modern Brexiteers / right wing English nationalists.

They are just fooling themselves "I was all for it as a trade bloc but now" is down to those old people being young and open minded back then, Tories were pro Europe back then and some of them are just straight up lying to fuel the "unelected bureaucracts" myth.

I remember hearing that phrase a lot during Question Time running up to Brexit and I always got a very insincere feeling from the audience members in question.

As if a trade bloc can exist without standards and a supra-national means of enforcing them. It's completely disingenuous revisionism.

They signed up to a treaty containing the words "ever closer union".

About that pilot license exchange: were these ever exchangeable between EU member states as licences within the common meaning of the word, associated with wheeled vehicles? Or are they considered more like professional qualifications, similarly to doctors, lawyers and other high-skill occupations?

The recognition of professional qualifications between EU member states is nowhere near as straightforward and ‘automatic’, as many Europhiles would have you believe. I’m speaking from expert knowledge (in my professional field, which is not aircraft operation) and repeat experience with that.

And the situation is far, far worse for the recognition of 3rd country (driving) licenses and professional qualifications which, so far as I am aware, remains a national prerogative only, unharmonised at the EU level.

Where there is harmonisation, there is often a triple test (cumulative) associated with the right/privilege of using such license or qualification in a professional context, i.e. EU27 qualification, EU27 nationality and EU27 residence.

Slightly off topic, but this is a much repeated notion based on very little. People do not, on the whole, become significantly more conservative as they age. If they were young and liberal then they are likely to be old and liberal. There is a very slight tendency for people to swing to conservatism as they get older, due to factors such as changed lifestyle, and also the changing topics for indicating liberality, but it is slight, it is not enough to accommodate this lazy generality that all older people are going to become conservative.

Politicians don't need age to change their views, they will go with whatever gets them re-elected, voters vote for what sounds like the best argument to accommodate their own needs at any point in time.

Look at yourself, presumably you consider yourself to have liberal attitudes? Do you see yourself abandoning your views that sexuality is the business of the individual, that people have the right to choose what happens with their own body, that skin colour is not a reason for judging someone and so on? If a new idea comes along - say vegetarianism becomes mainstream, for example - your own children may adopt it as absolutely reasonable, are you likely to abandon meat eating because that becomes current thinking?

At an anecdotal level I think I have become more liberal with age, and I can think of several friends in their 70s and 80s who have very easy, live and let live, liberal views. I also know some people in that age group who are conservative in their views, they are people who have always been conservative. Overall numbers of older people have a tendency to conservatism simply because they are a product of their time, not because they have significantly changed stance. A person who was considered liberal 50 years ago may now be seen as somewhat conservative simply because attitudes have changed.

It's less they give a sht about things that would concern young people, its more likely that older people have more stuff that make conservatives more appealing to them. Someone in their 50's is more likely to own or be invested in a business of some size and they tend to be a homeowner in some fashion. 2 key areas that conservative policies tend to favour. Age has actually nothing to do with it beyond the odds of having one or both of these issues be important increases with age. It's why you can find young conservatives but they also happen to be people who (often with family help) got on to the property ladder really early or started a business right out of school or college, or simply will inherit all of that so their parents concerns to protect it become theirs.

It's also why the tories have a bit of a crisis on their hands with the housing market etc because home ownership is for a lot of people a later and later prospect, owning your own business or being invested in a business enough to actually have it affect your voting habits is also in decline so the tory traditional voting base has been getting smaller and older. hence the pivot into anti woke social issues to pad out the numbers.

my main issue is not with portugal but with the eu as they have set no proper time frame. when thos cards have to be issuesd . For travelling it is actually an eu issue that can affects eu citizen in the same way that is does affect those uk people . As far as i am concerned ,in the guardian article , the uk people mentioned , asked for nothing that was not granted to them by the withdrawal rights , it has nothing to do with british exceptionalism or entitlement issues, so i dont see the reason to include that into this issue. we have discussed this issue 1000 times and agreed on that almost as often as we agreed 1000 times FPTP is not good,

it also has nothing to do with brexit means brexit .... that a lot of people have used in this context .

its about withdrawal agreement rights are withdrawal agreement rights regardless if it is an uk or an eu issue .

what you are calling teething problems are not really teething issues those issues exist in the eu ,for eu people travelling with a stamp 4 spouse ,for decades. they are now just transferred to those uk people that exercised their free movement right before brexit . The main issue really is that there is no good data sharing between eu countries, for what documents are to be accepted, by border control , and the more you deviate from standard card the more issues you create . and even with the card its not plain sailing as there is still many border control people that dont know the basics. for the uk people it just adds another level of things that can go wrong for them. of course some issues are teething issues but in the travel case i do not see it for the above reasons.

portugal does not break the the rules , as those temporary documents are allowed in accordance with the withdrawal agreement and there is no official timeline written when those cards have to be issuesd , as the same time it does also not follow the rule as its says those uk people have right to get those cards and in reasonable time. i would argue ,and the eu commison, would seem to agree with me that portugal is not acting in good faith, . The eu commission monitors the situation, if there was no problem they would not monitor it , i think we can agree on that . Especially since many other countries have issued those entitled uk citizens residents cards.

for some rules are black and white but this rule is not black and white as it is not well defined , and people that should not suffer ,have issues . of course every system has cracks people fall through but i think we agree that the best way would be to reduce those cracks and not to use them as an excuse for something that happens and see how we can close them .

So while in theory even with the current document nobody should have troubles travelling , the reality is known for many many years even before brexit was a word that it creates issues . so what is a possible solution .... portugal manages, to send out cards to ukranians in 2 weeks , thats great and i applaud them for that , but that would suggest they could send out this cards to those uk citizens too and that would be one or 2 issues less , as those cards create far less issues.

there is people that say, one of the guardian article issues pointed out has nothing to do with the issue ie the uk south african couple . i have to assume that the guardian fact checked this and this south african had a EU treaty rights stamp 4 residency card before brexit , which means that as an spouse to an eu citizen she or he has the right to be in portugal and travel in the eu 90 out of 180 days without visa ,Those rights transferred over with brexit , as nothing has changed in that legislation , but of course with a temporary paper its no suprise this happens, as it is another layer where a not well trained border control person can make a mistake. if there was a proper data system there should be no problem. it will be interesitng if they will get a court hearing in germany and what will be the outcome of it. and then we can make a more informed decision on it .

sure there is teething issues but there is just as many system issues that could have been rectified many many years ago even before brexit was a word . and i dont think shouting brexit means brexit is the solution to this, not that you do but others did . and not breaking rules does not mean the rules are followed.

But the Guardian article doesn't show any significant problems with the system.

It lists three people/couples. One is a British South African couple travelling into Germany where their residency in Portugal was apparently not accepted for entry into Germany. The issue might be in Germany rather than Portugal. One was a pilot who couldn't exchange his German driving licence for a Portuguese one when he probably is not entitled to do so. And one is someone who paid for health care when another person in the report had no problem accessing health care.

Considering, according to the article, there are 42000 UK citizens who are resident in Portugal, i would say the system is working remarkably well.

Just catching up on this thread again after a few days away and a few things come to mind. On the conservative vote it is definitely a thing that as people age and are more secure in their estate they vote to protect it, not dissimilar to here where many people decry the housing situation but remain content with the status quo as long as their property value increases.

I wish I could find it now but I think I read before that on the day of the Brexit vote there were as many voters over the age of 55 as there were under.

On the weaponising of past wars it's definitely been a thing in britain in recent decades, whereas before when there were enough actual veterans to remind everyone that "war is hell" such occasions as armistice remained reflective, whereas now they've been commandeered by people with second or third hand memory of war.

On Ambro's post above it is interesting how the british mindset believes that rules that apply to all non EU/EEA/Schengen citizens are being imposed on them as they can never internalise that it is they who imposed third party rights on themselves.

Finally, as we've been unsettled for over a decade as ping ponging migrants we finally got a TV again and it is bizarre to see how insular UK television is now. It seems there's always a movie or TV drama on that includes a crackly radio announcement stating "Britain is at war with Germany". It reminds me of an irish teacher in London telling me that the literature curriculum no longer covered non English born writers.

Global Britain was empire, and it was imposed. They simply don't know how to be in this world without domination.

“On Ambro's post above it is interesting how the british mindset believes that rules that apply to all non EU/EEA/Schengen citizens are being imposed on them as they can never internalise that it is they who imposed third party rights on themselves.”

Well, on that one…

…wait until the EU’s ETA system starts next year, mirroring the UK’s including Patel’s proposed ‘no UK ETA visa for people with a criminal record’ 😏

(a stat I read in a YorkshireBylines article today: 30+% of British males have at least 1 criminal conviction by the time they reach 53)

edit-here: https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/home-affairs/immigration-plans-increase-cost-of-european-holidays/

Polish general Stanislaw Sosabowski was shafted after the failure of (Montgomery's) Arnhem operation in 1944. Word was put about that the Poles weren't enthusiastic about fighting the Germans; a ludicrous libel. He ended his days as a factory worker in Acton, West London, and when he died his co-workers were amazed to find out about his war record, since he had never talked about it.

The Tories are the masters at reframing history, or at least attempt to be. By the end of their time in charge you will probably find that they will have recast Thatcher as being a staunch Brexiter who hated the EU and the single market.

Interesting that the UK is now threatening

legal action against the EU over the Horizon grants

I hope all the 'i' are dotted and the 't's crossed on EU side.

But I also think, and stop me if I am beginning to sound like Kermit, but I do think the EU need to be far more stringent in its dealings with the UK who are clearly showing bad faith. Up to and including an immediate suspension of the Trade agreement. Otherwise we are going to have this legal back and forth for years.

So what if it goes on for years? The negotiation phase for the EU is over and now the UK is dealt with by the dedicated EU departments who look after all third party agreements.

Obviously what happens in UK politics is tangible to us because of Northern Ireland, but otherwise the UK loses when it treats the international agreements it signs as optional.

As I understand it - Horizon is part of TCA and the NIP is part of WA

So I doubt what you suggest would work as the legal arguments for each issues are over two different signed agreements.

and TCA is dependent on WA

Was this not why the EU wouldn't agree the TCA until the Withdrawal agreement was signed?