That's what I thought. We are accepting a legal obligation.
OTOH we could just say shove it to the EU, "because you are not acting in good faith", just keep our money, and I am not sure what the EU could do then.
The money is also AIUI meant to be paid in stages, at any stage we could just stop paying.
Except if we’re begging countries to sign deals with us abrogating our obligations isn’t a good look.
Depends on the optics. If, to the world, it looks like the EU is trying to extort money from us, then other countries might be sympathetic.
Either way I agree with the consensus on here. TMay is dithering and useless. Put a red-blooded Leaver in charge, or just someone with some cullions, like Javid.
And start visibly preparing for NO DEAL.
Must have been a different SeanT that called me a twat when I said WTO was likely if we voted Leave.
Most probably. There are several versions of 'SeanT' each hour.
We work in shifts.
Over the years, we have had posters who appear to do that.
I think it was first created well over ten years or so ago, on weebl and bob's site. It got so much traction that it was featured in a Virgin ad last year (along with some other Internet memes). Half the people in the office were playing it for a couple of weeks, and we used to try to 'sing' it in the canteen ...
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
That's their choice, if they want to put up a border to block people/goods in NI from crossing into RoI it really isn't anything to do with us. We can choose not to police the border coming into NI (or the UK in general) and most people will live with that. I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Shinners would allow the EU to erect any kind of border between RoI and NI, especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
The UK has no intention of putting a border across Ireland. The EU, on the other hand...
You don’t get it.
Neither side wants a hard border but for the UK government it is an impossibility. So we are in the bizarre situation whereby the EU can threaten something it doesn’t want and the UK cannot risk any negotiation which results in one so will acquiesce as described above.
The UK can unilaterally guarantee no hard border for RoI -> NI, there is nothing the EU or RoI could do to stop that. If the EU decided not to reciprocate that's on them and the government needs to have the stones to let them take the fall for it.
I feel a thread coming on!!
The UK cannot have a hard border. They can’t have someone, anyone, still less a foreign power put a border up. Or threaten to put one up. The UK government cannot be in a negotiation one of the outcomes of which is a hard border so we will acquiesce.
Everything is a problem to arch remainer Faisal Islam
Nothing is agreed including the 40 billion until everything is agreed
WTO is becoming more likely day by day
"WTO is becoming more likely day by day"
Unless there is some amazing alternative negotiation going on behind the scenes, then I agree with you.
I really do believe that Barnier is overplaying his hand and driving UK opinion against the EU at a speed that makes WTO most likely to be acceptable to the majority in the UK
No Deal would be fascinatingly spectacular. It could decimate our economy. I have no doubt we would take a very big GDP hit - 5-10%?
That said, we could also bounce back very quickly. Cf Iceland post Credit Crash.
I think that is way too high. We export 28% of our GDP. Of that about 11% of GDP is exported to the EU at the moment. WTO could reduce that by 10%, probably less given the level of WTO tariffs that would apply. That would reduce our GDP by 1.1%. Set against that, if imports from the EU fell by the same percentage we would, on paper, actually have a GDP gain.
Of course it would be more complicated than that. There would be a potential disruption of supply chains, there would be a loss of confidence, there might be some business transferred into the Single Market. My guess is that Sterling would take a bit of a beating offsetting and then some the loss of "free" access to the single market making our exports more competitive. But in Sterling terms the effect would be very modest.
I think your GDP 'gain' is simply wrong. Don't forget that when an iPhone is bought at the Apple Store, it adds more to UK GDP than to Chinese or US.
If EU imports fell 10%, they would either be replaced by non-EU (no change to net import level), or they would be matched by a fall in consumption (which would magnify the GDP decline).
Some would, some wouldn't as some production might be onshored. I accept it would be wrong to simply assume that our balance of payments would somehow magically improve. That's why I said "on paper".
The most significant effect is likely to be on Sterling. If Sterling fell by 10% then it really should lead to some improvement in our balance of payments in the medium term.
My comment has been eaten, so I will repeat. What evidence is there that voter fatigue will disproportionately affect Labour? It must be at least as dispiriting voting so often as a LD or Con. In Lewisham, at least, the Labour voter gets a win at the end of it.
Historically Labour voters are less likely to turn out in elections that aren’t general elections.
Historically, yes. However, that was also seen as because of lack of transport, awareness and political engagement. i.e, it was as much a function of social class, as of being a Labour voter per se. Are we sure these apply to the same extent to the Labour voters of Lewisham today?
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
One of the many consequences of the genius of David Cameron is that vast amounts of political and governmental energy is being diverted from many other important issues into the dead end of Brexit. And this will persist for the forseeable future.
Tell me about it. I haven't done a stroke of work today, and it's 3pm. I have a novel to write, and fast.
Fuck Brexit.
I'm having a Nespresso and then I'm gonna DO ME SOME THRILLER-WRITIN'
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
The UK has no intention of putting a border across Ireland. The EU, on the other hand...
You don’t get it.
Neither side wants a hard border but for the UK government it is an impossibility. So we are in the bizarre situation whereby the EU can threaten something it doesn’t want and the UK cannot risk any negotiation which results in one so will acquiesce as described above.
The EU won’t put a border across Ireland, they’re bluffing and we need to call them on it.
We can’t.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
Of course we can. We can commit to nothing that looks like a border on our side, but it’s entirely up to Ireland and the EU what they want to do on their side. Any border that the EU wish to put up is their problem - and boy would it be a problem for them.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
The UK has no intention of putting a border across Ireland. The EU, on the other hand...
You don’t get it.
Neither side wants a hard border but for the UK government it is an impossibility. So we are in the bizarre situation whereby the EU can threaten something it doesn’t want and the UK cannot risk any negotiation which results in one so will acquiesce as described above.
The UK can unilaterally guarantee no hard border for RoI -> NI, there is nothing the EU or RoI could do to stop that. If the EU decided not to reciprocate that's on them and the government needs to have the stones to let them take the fall for it.
I feel a thread coming on!!
The UK cannot have a hard border. They can’t have someone, anyone, still less a foreign power put a border up. Or threaten to put one up. The UK government cannot be in a negotiation one of the outcomes of which is a hard border so we will acquiesce.
We wouldn't have a hard border, we'd have an open border. RoI would have a hard border. One way, yes, but still very much open.
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
One of the many consequences of the genius of David Cameron is that vast amounts of political and governmental energy is being diverted from many other important issues into the dead end of Brexit. And this will persist for the forseeable future.
That’s why, if he wins, Corbyn and his supporters are in for a shock since a lot of them don’t seem to think Brexit is going to impact their plans to transform Britain at all.
@Barnesian Something has gone wrong with our editing so I will start again.
It was for this reason I was very surprised that May managed to get the Cabinet to sign up to the December agreement. I said at the time that it was remarkable that Leavers in the Cabinet had signed up to this.
But leaving the EU ultimately means leaving the CU and the SM (it does not of course mean leaving a Free Trade area with the SM). There is far too much baggage in the SM including the 4 freedoms, in particular freedom of movement. May will not be able to sell that. If she tries her government will fall.
She has already sold that last December in the backstop agreement and also in the transition agreement. The key is that it is seen as time limited. How can she prevent the EU from refusing to accept any agreement so that the backstop continues indefinitely? That is the question that I think they are working on now.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
That's their choice, if they want to put up a border to block people/goods in NI from crossing into RoI it really isn't anything to do with us. We can choose not to police the border coming into NI (or the UK in general) and most people will live with that. I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Shinners would allow the EU to erect any kind of border between RoI and NI, especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
Let me guess:
Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit Brexit
Still confident on your Lewisham bets ?
Lets see - the substance of the Business insider article is as follows:
In canvassing seen by BI, the Lib Dems are set to finish second place with 25% of this vote, up 21 points on last year's election. Labour will retain the seat but with a vote share 19 points down on last year. The Tories will drop 7 points to third.
Which yields
Labour 49 Lib Dem 29 Con 16
That'd make my bets net losers, hopefully the canvass data is an improvement on the Vauxhall data at the GE:
The most significant effect is likely to be on Sterling. If Sterling fell by 10% then it really should lead to some improvement in our balance of payments in the medium term.
A bigger impact, IMHO, would come from a rising savings rate thanks to lower house prices.
I'm also not sure there is much hard evidence that a falling exchange rate actually benefits exports that much. The Euro has been much stronger than Sterling in the post 2008 period - from 2.10 to 1.33 for the Pound, versus 1.40 to 1.15 for Euro/USD. Yet Eurozone countries have seen much stronger export growth than we have. And Switzerland, who's currency has appreciated, has seen stronger export growth.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
That's their choice, if they want to put up a border to block people/goods in NI from crossing into RoI it really isn't anything to do with us. We can choose not to police the border coming into NI (or the UK in general) and most people will live with that. I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Shinners would allow the EU to erect any kind of border between RoI and NI, especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Anye NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
The UK has no intention of putting a border across Ireland. The EU, on the other hand...
You don’t get it.
Neither side wants a hard border but for the UK government it is an impossibility. So we are in the bizarre situation whereby the EU can threaten something it doesn’t want and the UK cannot risk any negotiation which results in one so will acquiesce as described above.
The UK can unilaterally guarantee no hard border for RoI -> NI, there is nothing the EU or RoI could do to stop that. If the EU decided not to reciprocate that's on them and the government needs to have the stones to let them take the fall for it.
I feel a thread coming on!!
The UK cannot have a hard border. They can’t have someone, anyone, still less a foreign power put a border up. Or threaten to put one up. The UK government cannot be in a negotiation one of the outcomes of which is a hard border so we will acquiesce.
We wouldn't have a hard border, we'd have an open border. RoI would have a hard border. One way, yes, but still very much open.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
That's their choice, if they want to put up a border to block people/goods in NI from crossing into RoI it really isn't anything to do with us. We can choose not to police the border coming into NI (or the UK in general) and most people will live with that. I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Shinners would allow the EU to erect any kind of border between RoI and NI, especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
One of the many consequences of the genius of David Cameron is that vast amounts of political and governmental energy is being diverted from many other important issues into the dead end of Brexit. And this will persist for the forseeable future.
Tell me about it. I haven't done a stroke of work today, and it's 3pm. I have a novel to write, and fast.
Fuck Brexit.
I'm having a Nespresso and then I'm gonna DO ME SOME THRILLER-WRITIN'
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
One of the many consequences of the genius of David Cameron is that vast amounts of political and governmental energy is being diverted from many other important issues into the dead end of Brexit. And this will persist for the forseeable future.
Tell me about it. I haven't done a stroke of work today, and it's 3pm. I have a novel to write, and fast.
Fuck Brexit.
I'm having a Nespresso and then I'm gonna DO ME SOME THRILLER-WRITIN'
To be fair to the EU, Barnier has played an absolute blinder in the negotiations. No doubt he has had the stronger hand but fair he's played it to more or less maximum advantage.
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
That's what I thought. We are accepting a legal obligation.
OTOH we could just say shove it to the EU, "because you are not acting in good faith", just keep our money, and I am not sure what the EU could do then.
The money is also AIUI meant to be paid in stages, at any stage we could just stop paying.
What would that do to the country's credit rating?
Not much. It's just a dispute (about whether the money is due) between the UK and the EU.
A lot actually.
It would be registered as a default against us.
But our credit rating would already be in the toilet if we went WTO.
Because tradng under WTO terms is, like, the end of the world.....
(And presumably we would present a legal opinion to the WTO that said the EU can fuck right off....)
I wouldn’t say that Elliot is a right wing Tory, but tbh he doesn’t come off as a social democrat but as centrist that leans right, especially on cultural issues. Labour did the ‘tough on immigration’ thing he’d like the party to go and do now in 2015, and they didn’t win. This is a very good article on the matter of centre left parties and immigration: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/06/lesson-swedish-social-democrats-not-one-you-think#amp
Research shows that voters lost to the far-right will not return to the social democratic embrace. Having rejected their traditional party affiliation, these voters state they would rather switch to other conservative parties rather than go back. And in many ways they shouldn’t. The hardening of rhetoric on immigration by social democrats is little more than the left following the far right. Voters who state “immigration” as their primary concern will always choose the real thing rather over the forced imitation.
I am on the centre left. It is just that many of my fellow travellers abandoned the centre ground to run into the arms of left wing radicals. NPXMP is a clear example. It is fair to say I am more Blue Labour on cultural issues. Part of that might be the fact I am ethnic minority and we tend to have more tough-minded views on people acting out.
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
ow that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
They're not hard and fast rules.
In the WTO’s own words, the principle “is so important that it is the first article of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which governs trade in goods…”.
Sure, there is some wiggle room, but it’s fairly circumscribed: https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.htm Some exceptions are allowed. For example, countries can set up a free trade agreement that applies only to goods traded within the group — discriminating against goods from outside. Or they can give developing countries special access to their markets. Or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded unfairly from specific countries. And in services, countries are allowed, in limited circumstances, to discriminate. But the agreements only permit these exceptions under strict conditions. In general, MFN means that every time a country lowers a trade barrier or opens up a market, it has to do so for the same goods or services from all its trading partners — whether rich or poor, weak or strong…
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
The UK's self-deception is that it is a nation. Even if you succeeded in rallying the English public behind a 'no deal' siege mentality, it would only hasten the break up of the UK.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
That's their choice, if they want to put up a border to block people/goods in NI from crossing into RoI it really isn't anything to do with us. We can choose not to police the border coming into NI (or the UK in general) and most people will live with that. I find it very, very difficult to believe that the Shinners would allow the EU to erect any kind of border between RoI and NI, especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
You have an official border. You just choose to not enforce it upon that stretch. That is what happens in plenty of borders in the world to no penalty.
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
The UK's self-deception is that it is a nation. Even if you succeeded in rallying the English public behind a 'no deal' siege mentality, it would only hasten the break up of the UK.
The same argument was used to claim a Brexit vote would increase Scottish independence support.
That's what I thought. We are accepting a legal obligation.
OTOH we could just say shove it to the EU, "because you are not acting in good faith", just keep our money, and I am not sure what the EU could do then.
The money is also AIUI meant to be paid in stages, at any stage we could just stop paying.
What would that do to the country's credit rating?
Not much. It's just a dispute (about whether the money is due) between the UK and the EU.
A lot actually.
It would be registered as a default against us.
But our credit rating would already be in the toilet if we went WTO.
Because tradng under WTO terms is, like, the end of the world.....
(And presumably we would present a legal opinion to the WTO that said the EU can fuck right off....)
Not exactly - but the transition to WTO terms from where we are now would likely involve considerable economic pain.
And on your second point, larger entities usually have something of an advantage in arguing such cases - and we have already allowed the principle that we do owe them something.
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
The UK's self-deception is that it is a nation. Even if you succeeded in rallying the English public behind a 'no deal' siege mentality, it would only hasten the break up of the UK.
The same argument was used to claim a Brexit vote would increase Scottish independence support.
The premature election of May as Tory leader was remarkably effective in postponing the real-world consequences of Brexit.
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
The UK's self-deception is that it is a nation. Even if you succeeded in rallying the English public behind a 'no deal' siege mentality, it would only hasten the break up of the UK.
The same argument was used to claim a Brexit vote would increase Scottish independence support.
The premature election of May as Tory leader was remarkably effective in postponing the real-world consequences of Brexit.
Ah, just like how Cameron delaying Article 50 postponed the year long recession. Funny how the eurothreats are always postponed and never arrive.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
You have an official border. You just choose to not enforce it upon that stretch. That is what happens in plenty of borders in the world to no penalty.
And it the EU were to protest that we were enforcing a border with France, but not Ireland ? (I don't actually know the answer - I'm curious.)
I wouldn’t say that Elliot is a right wing Tory, but tbh he doesn’t come off as a social democrat but as centrist that leans right, especially on cultural issues. Labour did the ‘tough on immigration’ thing he’d like the party to go and do now in 2015, and they didn’t win. This is a very good article on the matter of centre left parties and immigration: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/06/lesson-swedish-social-democrats-not-one-you-think#amp
Research shows that voters lost to the far-right will not return to the social democratic embrace. Having rejected their traditional party affiliation, these voters state they would rather switch to other conservative parties rather than go back. And in many ways they shouldn’t. The hardening of rhetoric on immigration by social democrats is little more than the left following the far right. Voters who state “immigration” as their primary concern will always choose the real thing rather over the forced imitation.
I am on the centre left. It is just that many of my fellow travellers abandoned the centre ground to run into the arms of left wing radicals. NPXMP is a clear example. It is fair to say I am more Blue Labour on cultural issues. Part of that might be the fact I am ethnic minority and we tend to have more tough-minded views on people acting out.
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
One day you get accused of being a hardcore Blairite.
The next you get accused of your "utter hatred" of Blairites.
That's what I thought. We are accepting a legal obligation.
OTOH we could just say shove it to the EU, "because you are not acting in good faith", just keep our money, and I am not sure what the EU could do then.
The money is also AIUI meant to be paid in stages, at any stage we could just stop paying.
What would that do to the country's credit rating?
Not much. It's just a dispute (about whether the money is due) between the UK and the EU.
A lot actually.
It would be registered as a default against us.
But our credit rating would already be in the toilet if we went WTO.
Because tradng under WTO terms is, like, the end of the world.....
(And presumably we would present a legal opinion to the WTO that said the EU can fuck right off....)
Not exactly - but the transition to WTO terms from where we are now would likely involve considerable economic pain.
And on your second point, larger entities usually have something of an advantage in arguing such cases - and we have already allowed the principle that we do owe them something.
Given we have a transition period until 2019, we would be paying the membership fee anyway.
I wouldn’t say that Elliot is a right wing Tory, but tbh he doesn’t come off as a social democrat but as centrist that leans right, especially on cultural issues. Labour did the ‘tough on immigration’ thing he’d like the party to go and do now in 2015, and they didn’t win. This is a very good article on the matter of centre left parties and immigration: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/06/lesson-swedish-social-democrats-not-one-you-think#amp
Research shows that voters lost to the far-right will not return to the social democratic embrace. Having rejected their traditional party affiliation, these voters state they would rather switch to other conservative parties rather than go back. And in many ways they shouldn’t. The hardening of rhetoric on immigration by social democrats is little more than the left following the far right. Voters who state “immigration” as their primary concern will always choose the real thing rather over the forced imitation.
I am on the centre left. It is just that many of my fellow travellers abandoned the centre ground to run into the arms of left wing radicals. NPXMP is a clear example. It is fair to say I am more Blue Labour on cultural issues. Part of that might be the fact I am ethnic minority and we tend to have more tough-minded views on people acting out.
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
This thread has already descended to a carbon copy of about 1000 previous threads.
One of the many consequences of the genius of David Cameron is that vast amounts of political and governmental energy is being diverted from many other important issues into the dead end of Brexit. And this will persist for the forseeable future.
Tell me about it. I haven't done a stroke of work today, and it's 3pm. I have a novel to write, and fast.
Fuck Brexit.
I'm having a Nespresso and then I'm gonna DO ME SOME THRILLER-WRITIN'
On topic, I can understand why Mike is betting as he is in the '2nd place' market, and I'd agree with him.
I can also understand why CCHQ is running a lower-key campaign, beyond May's natural reluctance to put any effort into anything that looks like a lost cause.
For what it's worth, running a strong Leave-based campaign might have paid dividends. While the seat voted 65% Remain, that still leaves 35% to go at and with a turnout likely to be less than half that of the referendum, that's potentially a winning share if Lab/LD split closely enough chasing the Remain vote. But that's not the by-election we have and in any case, to run a Leave campaign means having a Leave policy that backs it up, which the government doesn't do at the moment.
Having said all that, this still looks a comfortable Lab hold, and the LDs run of defeats in Lab-held seats while Labour is in opposition will go on.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
You have an official border. You just choose to not enforce it upon that stretch. That is what happens in plenty of borders in the world to no penalty.
And it the EU were to protest that we were enforcing a border with France, but not Ireland ? (I don't actually know the answer - I'm curious.)
We say we are being more diplomatic in how we enforce the Irish border due to past history, that French and Irish goods face the same checks when they go through the same borders, and that of course a sea port has more consistent checks.
That's what I thought. We are accepting a legal obligation.
OTOH we could just say shove it to the EU, "because you are not acting in good faith", just keep our money, and I am not sure what the EU could do then.
The money is also AIUI meant to be paid in stages, at any stage we could just stop paying.
What would that do to the country's credit rating?
Not much. It's just a dispute (about whether the money is due) between the UK and the EU.
A lot actually.
It would be registered as a default against us.
But our credit rating would already be in the toilet if we went WTO.
Because tradng under WTO terms is, like, the end of the world.....
(And presumably we would present a legal opinion to the WTO that said the EU can fuck right off....)
So many countries trade solely on WTO don’t they ?
But given what we currently have it would be like going from eating caviar to eating pineapple on pizza a shit sandwich.
The legal advice of the leavers has been very wrong in the past.
It would be the ultimate resignation of control (remember that?) for us to commit to no hard border, which we have done, and then allow a foreign power to erect one.
especially if the UK government chose not to. A one way border which makes it more difficult for Northern Irish to go to the Republic. Think about how that would go down in the Republic, the EU would literally be cleaving NI from the South and we don't have the power to compel the EU to act in any other direction. One wonders whether the likes of Junker would need to fear IRA bombs.
In reality, I think neither side would erect a border. The unpoliced, unmonitored NI/Eire frontier would just become some massive EU anomaly that everyone would choose to ignore, for fear of something worse. Probably there would be more random customs checks elsewhere, in both NI and RoI, but it would all be subtle and discreet.
Entire states, devoid of logic, have been created for similar reasons, cf Belgium.
Of course, it's academic. The minute we declared we would unilaterally have an open border in Ireland regardless of any trade outcome the EU would be forced to follow suit. If they didn't I think Brussels would need to start looking out for IRA bombs as well as ISIS ones.
What about WTO rules and the principle of non-discrimination ?
You have an official border. You just choose to not enforce it upon that stretch. That is what happens in plenty of borders in the world to no penalty.
And it the EU were to protest that we were enforcing a border with France, but not Ireland ? (I don't actually know the answer - I'm curious.)
We say we are being more diplomatic in how we enforce the Irish border due to past history, that French and Irish goods face the same checks when they go through the same borders, and that of course a sea port has more consistent checks.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place. The EU has already secured a commitment from the UK to do what is necessary to avoid one. If the UK tried to renege on that commitment it would have the same effect as giving up its claim to Northern Ireland and reunification would rapidly follow.
I am on the centre left. It is just that many of my fellow travellers abandoned the centre ground to run into the arms of left wing radicals. NPXMP is a clear example. It is fair to say I am more Blue Labour on cultural issues. Part of that might be the fact I am ethnic minority and we tend to have more tough-minded views on people acting out.
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
Re Anazina, disliking Blairites (although I haven’t seen her hate on them much at all) and Tories doesn’t equal = Corbynista. My dad hates both of those groups and he’s certainly not a Corbyn supporter.
I’m also a person of colour, and while I know quite few people of colour with small c Conservative views here and there, this doesn’t tend to be the case on the matter of immigration. In fact, Blue Labour seems to be designed less to appeal to BME groups and much more about WWC voters (although it should be said Corbyn actually did pretty decent with young WWC voters, it’s the older ones where it does terribly).
It was Gordon Brown who called Gillian Duffy a bigot in 2010. In 2015, Ed Miliband was producing tough on immigration mugs and promising this: Labour pledges to "control" immigration by hiring an extra 1,000 border staff, increasing the powers of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and banning the recruitment of only overseas workers. Migrants will not be able to claim benefits for two years, or send child benefit overseas. People working in public facing roles in the public sector will be required to speak English. .... How it compares to the Tories David Cameron has pledged to end benefits for migrants for four years, and remove them from Britain if they have no found work after six months. Beggars and fraudsters removed from Britain face longer re-entry bans.
And he still lost the last election. The left will always be the ‘imitation’ even with policies like this, because the right will always be able to out do the Left on this issue.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
I sometimes wonder whether the rump Brexiteers on here actually have jobs or whether they are, by and large, childless, rich and retired?
They seem to care not a fig for the health of trade and the economy, it really is a sight to behold.
Each time we slip towards a worse settlement these paleoconservative botettes pop up to tell us that really it isn't that bad, as if WTO or similar, collapsing London house prices, and the all the rest is in any way desirable by those who have to make a living.
May might be a dullard, but at least she is vaguely sane, unlike PB's army of deranged ideologues.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
Full alignment for Northern Ireland was agreed to by the UK. It's entirely a matter for the UK how that impacts the UK domestically. If you're opposed to an East/West border you must support staying in the customs union and single market.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
Full alignment for Northern Ireland was agreed to by the UK. It's entirely a matter for the UK how that impacts the UK domestically. If you're opposed to an East/West border you must support staying in the customs union and single market.
In the event of no deal. Perhaps it's actually time to start negotiating the FTA, rather than spending months of time on what would happen if they don't negotiate one?
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place. The EU has already secured a commitment from the UK to do what is necessary to avoid one. If the UK tried to renege on that commitment it would have the same effect as giving up its claim to Northern Ireland and reunification would rapidly follow.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
Full alignment for Northern Ireland was agreed to by the UK. It's entirely a matter for the UK how that impacts the UK domestically. If you're opposed to an East/West border you must support staying in the customs union and single market.
And on the day after even a WTO brexit, there would be no regulatory difference between the whole UK and the ROI.
If the EU are negotiating in good faith, then they will recognise that and move on to talks of a trade deal.
I wouldn’t say that Elliot is a right wing Tory, but tbh he doesn’t come off as a social democrat but as centrist that leans right, especially on cultural issues. Labour did the ‘tough on immigration’ thing he’d like the party to go and do now in 2015, and they didn’t win. This is a very good article on the matter of centre left parties and immigration: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/06/lesson-swedish-social-democrats-not-one-you-think#amp
Research shows that voters lost to the far-right will not return to the social democratic embrace. Having rejected their traditional party affiliation, these voters state they would rather switch to other conservative parties rather than go back. And in many ways they shouldn’t. The hardening of rhetoric on immigration by social democrats is little more than the left following the far right. Voters who state “immigration” as their primary concern will always choose the real thing rather over the forced imitation.
I am on the centre left. It is just that many of my fellow travellers abandoned the centre ground to run into the arms of left wing radicals. NPXMP is a clear example. It is fair to say I am more Blue Labour on cultural issues. Part of that might be the fact I am ethnic minority and we tend to have more tough-minded views on people acting out.
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
Full alignment for Northern Ireland was agreed to by the UK. It's entirely a matter for the UK how that impacts the UK domestically. If you're opposed to an East/West border you must support staying in the customs union and single market.
In the event of no deal. Perhaps it's actually time to start negotiating the FTA, rather than spending months of time on what would happen if they don't negotiate one?
No FTA in the world delivers frictionless borders. Neither the EU/EEA nor NAFTA does. If the UK wants frictionless borders as part of its deal, that deal can only mean the full single market and customs union.
I sometimes wonder whether the rump Brexiteers on here actually have jobs or whether they are, by and large, childless, rich and retired?
They seem to care not a fig for the health of trade and the economy, it really is a sight to behold.
Each time we slip towards a worse settlement these paleoconservative botettes pop up to tell us that really it isn't that bad, as if WTO or similar, collapsing London house prices, and the all the rest is in any way desirable by those who have to make a living.
May might be a dullard, but at least she is vaguely sane, unlike PB's army of deranged ideologues.
Lots of us have jobs. It just so happens that we think the long-term democratic, cultural and ultimately economic interest of our country outweighs short-term costs, even if they affect us adversely on a personal level.
You’re welcome to vote solely in your immediate personal interest. Don’t expect everyone else to.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
I cannot believe we will lurch into a No Deal, which is so destructive for BOTH sides. This is either dangerous game of chicken, and one side will finally blink and veer away, or it is just theatrics to please the audience, and the real deal is being hashed out somewhere else.
It is a direct consequence of Tezza spending her entire premiership attempting to negotiate with the headbangers on her backbenches, instead of reality.
Indeed. What we need is May gone and for the EU to be negotiating with our headbangers instead of her.
Yes, that will work! I can imagine the likes of Jacob Rees will be perfectly placed to get us a moderate deal that unites the country and protects the economy!?
Jesus, you really do see some utter shite on this forum now and then.
There are more Leavers than just Mogg. Someone like Gove would work just as well. Either way a deal that both the EU and Mogg can agree is more likely to unite the country than a deal the EU and an EU supplicant can agree to will.
You don't reach a settlement by agreeing with your own side, you get a settlement by the opposing sides agreeing. The EU needs to negotiate with a Leaver.
The negotiating car crash is not happening because we do not have a believer doing the negotiating, it's because the EU hold all the cards.
The only advantage of having a leaver doing the negotiating is that it will force Leave to confront the reality of their self deception.
The EU's self-deception is that the UK will take whatever they tell us to. The public's already said no to that but while the public chose to walk away, we have representing the nation a Remainer who isn't so why should the EU give us anything? They see no need to.
The UK's self-deception is that it is a nation. Even if you succeeded in rallying the English public behind a 'no deal' siege mentality, it would only hasten the break up of the UK.
You seem to think that most English Scots Welsh and Northern Irish are suffering from a form of false consciousness. We're the ones who are marching out of step with you.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
I sometimes wonder whether the rump Brexiteers on here actually have jobs or whether they are, by and large, childless, rich and retired?
I suspect there are more self-employed/contractors/company directors amongst PB leavers than employees.
People used to ploughing their own furrow, understanding the true impact and costs of business decisions and risks.
I realise that applies to you (you are an independent bookseller aren't you?) but I get the impression many of your brexiteer and neobrexiteer colleagues pontificate from rather different circumstances.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
What good would calling this 'bluff' do you when it merely plunges you into a new negotiation about the future of Northern Ireland which can only end with it no longer being part of the UK?
I sometimes wonder whether the rump Brexiteers on here actually have jobs or whether they are, by and large, childless, rich and retired?
They seem to care not a fig for the health of trade and the economy, it really is a sight to behold.
Each time we slip towards a worse settlement these paleoconservative botettes pop up to tell us that really it isn't that bad, as if WTO or similar, collapsing London house prices, and the all the rest is in any way desirable by those who have to make a living.
May might be a dullard, but at least she is vaguely sane, unlike PB's army of deranged ideologues.
Lots of us have jobs. It just so happens that we think the long-term democratic, cultural and ultimately economic interest of our country outweighs short-term costs, even if they affect us adversely on a personal level.
You’re welcome to vote solely in your immediate personal interest. Don’t expect everyone else to.
Anazina reminds me an awful lot of another poster, no longer here, who was once incensed when I suggested that a fall in house prices would not be universally unpopular.
After a bit of questioning and input from me and others, it turned out that this other poster had just taken out a large mortgage and didn't like the concept of negative equity. Well of course. Who would? But that isn't to say that it negated my argument for one minute.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
No UK govt will allow a border in the Irish Sea, either.
It's an impasse. No Deal looms.
1. Wholly electronic border 2. CU/SM whole UK membership
There can’t be a no deal for precisely the no hard border reason
If there is no agreement then there will be a hard border. Saying it cannot happen is meaningless.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
No UK govt will allow a border in the Irish Sea, either.
It's an impasse. No Deal looms.
1. Wholly electronic border 2. CU/SM whole UK membership
There can’t be a no deal for precisely the no hard border reason
If there is no agreement then there will be a hard border. Saying it cannot happen is meaningless.
The period of legal limbo wouldn't be sustainable, so 'no agreement' ultimately leads to an agreement which would be even worse for the UK.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
What good would calling this 'bluff' do you when it merely plunges you into a new negotiation about the future of Northern Ireland which can only end with it no longer being part of the UK?
That will be a decision for the people if Northern Ireland. You have no idea what the outcome of that vote will be.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
The EU is not threatening to put a hard border in place.
Well thats ok then. Glad we've cleared that up.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
Full alignment for Northern Ireland was agreed to by the UK. It's entirely a matter for the UK how that impacts the UK domestically. If you're opposed to an East/West border you must support staying in the customs union and single market.
In the event of no deal. Perhaps it's actually time to start negotiating the FTA, rather than spending months of time on what would happen if they don't negotiate one?
No FTA in the world delivers frictionless borders. Neither the EU/EEA nor NAFTA does. If the UK wants frictionless borders as part of its deal, that deal can only mean the full single market and customs union.
I don't think the trade has to be frictionless, just that there be no infrastructure on the border since it is so totemic.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
What good would calling this 'bluff' do you when it merely plunges you into a new negotiation about the future of Northern Ireland which can only end with it no longer being part of the UK?
It negates what the EU (and you, as you keep demonstrating) thinks is a clever way of forever keeping us in a low earth orbit of EU and putting off the steps necessary for us to take control of our own trade policy.
It gives us back a bit of power.
I wonder why unelected bureaucrats hate the idea of that? Can anyone smell federal bureaucratic centralisation? I know I can...
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
No UK govt will allow a border in the Irish Sea, either.
It's an impasse. No Deal looms.
1. Wholly electronic border 2. CU/SM whole UK membership
There can’t be a no deal for precisely the no hard border reason
If there is no agreement then there will be a hard border. Saying it cannot happen is meaningless.
The period of legal limbo wouldn't be sustainable, so 'no agreement' ultimately leads to an agreement which would be even worse for the UK.
Again you are making utterly unsubstantiated claims.
To make things harder the CON candidate is a leaver in a seat that was 65% remain.
Another way to look at this is to say that the Tory has 35% of the vote to themselves.
But then turnout matters a lot in by elections.
That is a non sequitur because it makes the assumption that Brexit is the most salient issue when people cast their votes. In my view that is far from being the reality - whatever political anoraks on here and the commentariat appear to believe.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
No UK govt will allow a border in the Irish Sea, either.
It's an impasse. No Deal looms.
1. Wholly electronic border 2. CU/SM whole UK membership
There can’t be a no deal for precisely the no hard border reason
If there is no agreement then there will be a hard border. Saying it cannot happen is meaningless.
Except it cannot happen.
If you do not grasp this simple truth, then you are not really fit to be contributing to a political blog.
Saying there will be a fudge (a la @SeanT) whereby it is a gaping hole in the "integrity of the [European] Union political order" shows more political nous than you who say "there will be a hard border".
Think about that: a drink-sodden, sometime drug-addled, sybaritic space cadet who posts on here before, during and after his various episodes has shown greater political insight than you.
I sometimes wonder whether the rump Brexiteers on here actually have jobs or whether they are, by and large, childless, rich and retired?
They seem to care not a fig for the health of trade and the economy, it really is a sight to behold.
Each time we slip towards a worse settlement these paleoconservative botettes pop up to tell us that really it isn't that bad, as if WTO or similar, collapsing London house prices, and the all the rest is in any way desirable by those who have to make a living.
May might be a dullard, but at least she is vaguely sane, unlike PB's army of deranged ideologues.
Lots of us have jobs. It just so happens that we think the long-term democratic, cultural and ultimately economic interest of our country outweighs short-term costs, even if they affect us adversely on a personal level.
You’re welcome to vote solely in your immediate personal interest. Don’t expect everyone else to.
You being the same guy who said economic collapse is a price worth paying to deliver your preferred version of Brexit?
To be fair to the EU, Barnier has played an absolute blinder in the negotiations. No doubt he has had the stronger hand but fair he's played it to more or less maximum advantage.
I think his lack of movement and continual briefing of the press will lead to the UK just walking away with no deal as no Party can sell the deal that Barnier wants to give the UK as it will be electoral suicide. He thinks he is being clever but his arrogance will come back to bite him.
Clear from Barnier's slides that he's not going to accept anything short of NI in both the CU and SM. In other words not accepting anything short of NI remaining in the EU in all but name.
No, absolutely not. Time to walk away. Any East/West border like he's proposing is as much a violation of the Good Friday Agreement as a North/South one. If Barnier won't agree to a deal its time to walk and once the hard border is erected along the NI border we can start negotiations as equals.
An East/West border as a result of NI staying in the SM/CU is not Barnier’s proposal but a consequence of Brexit. If that’s unacceptable you have a choice between vassal state Brexit and no Brexit.
Nope. The other choice - and the one that will become increasingly attractive if the EU continues on this course is No deal. In which case the border will be between North and South and will be in whatever form each side chooses to impose.
No UK govt will allow a border between North and South, as the EU no doubt it aware. It is an asymmetrical situation. They can threaten something they don't want and they have the power to impose, and the UK govt will acquiesce.
That's just the reality. Not to say it is a reason we shouldn't have voted Leave, just to say it is a very real issue that perhaps was not given sufficient airtime prior to the vote.
No UK govt will allow a border in the Irish Sea, either.
It's an impasse. No Deal looms.
1. Wholly electronic border 2. CU/SM whole UK membership
There can’t be a no deal for precisely the no hard border reason
If there is no agreement then there will be a hard border. Saying it cannot happen is meaningless.
Except it cannot happen.
If you do not grasp this simple truth, then you are not really fit to be contributing to a political blog.
Saying there will be a fudge (a la @SeanT) whereby it is a gaping hole in the "integrity of the [European] Union political order" shows more political nous than you who say "there will be a hard border".
Think about that, a drink-sodden, sometime drug-addled, sybaritic space cadet who posts on here before, during and after his various episodes has shown greater political insight than you.
Plainly it can happen.
Whether it would be likely to happen, or whether we would want it to happen, are c different issues.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
I think the comfort is coming from the collapse in Corbyn’s ratings.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
I think the comfort is coming from the collapse in Corbyn’s ratings.
Huge mistake. He is one campaign away from winning.
As was mentioned this morning, quite likely it is housing (or lack of) that will sink Tories in the end.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Because NI/RoI transcends the normal EU/UK negotiating ambit. It is a matter of critical importance to the UK and to the RoI. No government could countenance (still less survive) a hard border in NI. Uniquely, and bizarrely, this puts the EU in the very strange position of doing exactly as you say - "we can't have a border, otherwise we'll impose a border".
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
What good would calling this 'bluff' do you when it merely plunges you into a new negotiation about the future of Northern Ireland which can only end with it no longer being part of the UK?
I went into that at the weekend. We're rapidly heading towards a situation where the options are effectively No Brexit or No Deal, both of which are so far from ideal that the negotiations need shaking up so as to open up the EU to other options.
Ultimately, what N Ireland does is a matter for the people living there. I'd rather they stayed, just as I'd rather that Scotland remained in the Union, but that tail cannot be used to continually wag the dog. But what shouldn't be allowed to happen is a de facto transfer of the province without the consent of the electorate.
The wreckers are out in force on PB today, showing their true colours. God forbid people who share their destructive ideological tendencies ever hold the levers of power.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
There is so much wrong with that tweet that it'd take more than a PB post to reply, never mind a response on Twitter.
In the event of NO DEAL, the UK would abide by its commitments, and would not erect infrastructure on the NI border.
The onus would then fall on the EU (and specifically the Dublin government). Would they start building customs post on the Irish side of the frontier, would they be unrolling barbed wire across the roads of east Donegal and north Louth?
No, of course they would not. It's a load of bluffing nonsense. Neither side would do anything, and this quasi-legal anomaly would be quietly accepted by everyone, as being superior in all ways to a hard frontier.
The EU is understandably using the NI problem to exert maximum leverage, at this crucial moment of negotiation, but as we near the doomsday event itself, it would become clear it was and is a bluff.
In the event of No Deal, the choke point will be trade across the Channel. The UK will be forced back to the table very quickly.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
I think the comfort is coming from the collapse in Corbyn’s ratings.
Huge mistake. He is one campaign away from winning.
As was mentioned this morning, quite likely it is housing (or lack of) that will sink Tories in the end.
Plus there’s the unspoken belief that we can’t run a campaign as bad as last time.
Firstly, the Tories are not just running a 'token' campaign in Lewisham East. I was out on Saturday in the seat with about 40 Tory activists and 2 MPs.
Secondly more Lewisham voters voted Leave at the EU referendum than voted Tory at GE17 so having a Leaver as the Tory candidate is not necessarily a negative.
Thirdly I detected little Tory to LD movement on Saturday, the Tory vote is holding reasonably firm but there was some Labour to LD movement and let us also not forget only the Tories have ever beaten Labour in Lewisham East, winning the seat twice in the 1980s, the LDs have never won the constituency.
Given the majority of ROI/NI trade is northbound (and onwards to the UK), and the majority of NI trade is eastbound, an EU/ROI threat to put a hard border into place needs to be called.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
"They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it."
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
What good would calling this 'bluff' do you when it merely plunges you into a new negotiation about the future of Northern Ireland which can only end with it no longer being part of the UK?
I went into that at the weekend. We're rapidly heading towards a situation where the options are effectively No Brexit or No Deal, both of which are so far from ideal that the negotiations need shaking up so as to open up the EU to other options.
Ultimately, what N Ireland does is a matter for the people living there. I'd rather they stayed, just as I'd rather that Scotland remained in the Union, but that tail cannot be used to continually wag the dog. But what shouldn't be allowed to happen is a de facto transfer of the province without the consent of the electorate.
There was an argument at the time of the Scottish independence referendum, that Scotland would vote for independence because it would not tolerate a Conservative government. At the time, I thought I'd regret it if they voted to leave, but the rest of us could not be held to ransom.
The wreckers are out in force on PB today, showing their true colours. God forbid people who share their destructive ideological tendencies ever hold the levers of power.
Should we just take what the EU want to give us then?
In the event of NO DEAL, the UK would abide by its commitments, and would not erect infrastructure on the NI border.
The onus would then fall on the EU (and specifically the Dublin government). Would they start building customs post on the Irish side of the frontier, would they be unrolling barbed wire across the roads of east Donegal and north Louth?
No, of course they would not. It's a load of bluffing nonsense. Neither side would do anything, and this quasi-legal anomaly would be quietly accepted by everyone, as being superior in all ways to a hard frontier.
The EU is understandably using the NI problem to exert maximum leverage, at this crucial moment of negotiation, but as we near the doomsday event itself, it would become clear it was and is a bluff.
But it is going to work. The UK as mentioned cannot be in a position whereby one outcome of a negotiation would be a hard border.
People say "let the EU put up a border on their side" as if the physical location were miles away and that it wouldn't be, er, a hard NI border. And thus what would the government's chances of survival be if they were to abnegate their responsibility (let's call it control) of the northern Irish border?
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
I think the comfort is coming from the collapse in Corbyn’s ratings.
Huge mistake. He is one campaign away from winning.
As was mentioned this morning, quite likely it is housing (or lack of) that will sink Tories in the end.
The Tories are building thousands of new homes right across the Home Counties as part of their local plans, despite LD opposition, in the Midlands and North housing is cheaper anyway
The wreckers are out in force on PB today, showing their true colours. God forbid people who share their destructive ideological tendencies ever hold the levers of power.
Should we just take what the EU want to give us then?
To be fair to the EU, Barnier has played an absolute blinder in the negotiations. No doubt he has had the stronger hand but fair he's played it to more or less maximum advantage.
Part of that is down to the ineptitude of May and Hammond not getting our WTO ducks in a row. They've systematically undermined our negotiating position and strengthened our opponent's one. They are without a doubt the worst peace time leadership duo we've ever had. Worse than Brown or Blair IMO.
The wreckers are out in force on PB today, showing their true colours. God forbid people who share their destructive ideological tendencies ever hold the levers of power.
Should we just take what the EU want to give us then?
That appears to be the view of Theresa May.
She might be proved right that that is the best strategy.
To be fair to the EU, Barnier has played an absolute blinder in the negotiations. No doubt he has had the stronger hand but fair he's played it to more or less maximum advantage.
Part of that is down to the ineptitude of May and Hammond not getting our WTO ducks in a row. They've systematically undermined our negotiating position and strengthened our opponent's one. They are without a doubt the worst peace time leadership duo we've ever had. Worse than Brown or Blair IMO.
What exactly would WTO ducks in a row have meant? How many billions would we have had to devote to do it properly?
In the event of NO DEAL, the UK would abide by its commitments, and would not erect infrastructure on the NI border.
The onus would then fall on the EU (and specifically the Dublin government). Would they start building customs post on the Irish side of the frontier, would they be unrolling barbed wire across the roads of east Donegal and north Louth?
No, of course they would not. It's a load of bluffing nonsense. Neither side would do anything, and this quasi-legal anomaly would be quietly accepted by everyone, as being superior in all ways to a hard frontier.
The EU is understandably using the NI problem to exert maximum leverage, at this crucial moment of negotiation, but as we near the doomsday event itself, it would become clear it was and is a bluff.
In the event of No Deal, the choke point will be trade across the Channel. The UK will be forced back to the table very quickly.
In the event of no deal the channel tunnel goes bust because EU lorries can not drive on our roads and vice a versa. The container ports would be busy though, perhaps this is why Rotterdam and Felixstowe are doing upgrades at the moment. Also according to ESRI If the CET is applied then trade will fall by 45% both sides EU and UK and we make our own or buy from the ROW. ROW trade is air freight or container. Dover is running a massive PR campaign for a reason and it is loss of business.
To be fair to the EU, Barnier has played an absolute blinder in the negotiations. No doubt he has had the stronger hand but fair he's played it to more or less maximum advantage.
Part of that is down to the ineptitude of May and Hammond not getting our WTO ducks in a row. They've systematically undermined our negotiating position and strengthened our opponent's one. They are without a doubt the worst peace time leadership duo we've ever had. Worse than Brown or Blair IMO.
What exactly would WTO ducks in a row have meant? How many billions would we have had to devote to do it properly?
We estimated between £7bn in one off subsidies and around £3bn in recurring costs to deal with customs issues (a figure supported by the Swiss foreign minister, the French ports company and the Dutch ports company, but not HMRC who estimated a laughable £20bn facilitation cost) before the vote.
Not exactly an earth shattering figure, one year's worth of net contributions if you want to put it into context.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHUsIUQ6YCc
Ah, for the days I used to read b3ta daily ...
The UK cannot have a hard border. They can’t have someone, anyone, still less a foreign power put a border up. Or threaten to put one up. The UK government cannot be in a negotiation one of the outcomes of which is a hard border so we will acquiesce.
The most significant effect is likely to be on Sterling. If Sterling fell by 10% then it really should lead to some improvement in our balance of payments in the medium term.
Are we sure these apply to the same extent to the Labour voters of Lewisham today?
https://uk.jura.com/en/homeproducts/automatic-coffee-machines
It's like having a world class barista in your living room.
In canvassing seen by BI, the Lib Dems are set to finish second place with 25% of this vote, up 21 points on last year's election. Labour will retain the seat but with a vote share 19 points down on last year. The Tories will drop 7 points to third.
Which yields
Labour 49
Lib Dem 29
Con 16
That'd make my bets net losers, hopefully the canvass data is an improvement on the Vauxhall data at the GE:
http://www.lambethlibdems.org.uk/final_push_to_polling_day_to_make_george_turner_vauxhall_s_next_mp
'Lib Dem canvass data puts George just two points behind UKIP-backed Labour candidate Kate Hoey, with the Conservatives and Greens out of the race.'
Personally I'm hoping for this one to land shortly that I placed back in 2013 or so...
"I can confirm that the bet is for Chris Froome to win the Tour De France 5 or more times. "
I'm also not sure there is much hard evidence that a falling exchange rate actually benefits exports that much. The Euro has been much stronger than Sterling in the post 2008 period - from 2.10 to 1.33 for the Pound, versus 1.40 to 1.15 for Euro/USD. Yet Eurozone countries have seen much stronger export growth than we have. And Switzerland, who's currency has appreciated, has seen stronger export growth.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.144625444
If anyone wants to back UKIP I'd be very obliged.
It *could* be @SeanT’s fudge.
But bizarrely the EU is in the position of being able to threaten something that we must ensure doesn’t happen.
Except one, obviously...
(And presumably we would present a legal opinion to the WTO that said the EU can fuck right off....)
I also wouldn't say the party leader calling a white working class Labour voting woman a bigot for complaining about immigration is a great example of the strategy you describe. More importantly, it has to be a strategy of actually reducing immigration rather than seeing it as a PR issue. That would not be a "forced imitation" but the real thing.
Sure, there is some wiggle room, but it’s fairly circumscribed:
https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e.htm
Some exceptions are allowed. For example, countries can set up a free trade agreement that applies only to goods traded within the group — discriminating against goods from outside. Or they can give developing countries special access to their markets. Or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded unfairly from specific countries. And in services, countries are allowed, in limited circumstances, to discriminate. But the agreements only permit these exceptions under strict conditions. In general, MFN means that every time a country lowers a trade barrier or opens up a market, it has to do so for the same goods or services from all its trading partners — whether rich or poor, weak or strong…
And on your second point, larger entities usually have something of an advantage in arguing such cases - and we have already allowed the principle that we do owe them something.
(I don't actually know the answer - I'm curious.)
The next you get accused of your "utter hatred" of Blairites.
Only on PB.
Duffy was, and probably still is, a bigot.
Mind you with the right zero hours contract...
Has someone set an app up yet for an on demand personal barista ?
I can also understand why CCHQ is running a lower-key campaign, beyond May's natural reluctance to put any effort into anything that looks like a lost cause.
For what it's worth, running a strong Leave-based campaign might have paid dividends. While the seat voted 65% Remain, that still leaves 35% to go at and with a turnout likely to be less than half that of the referendum, that's potentially a winning share if Lab/LD split closely enough chasing the Remain vote. But that's not the by-election we have and in any case, to run a Leave campaign means having a Leave policy that backs it up, which the government doesn't do at the moment.
Having said all that, this still looks a comfortable Lab hold, and the LDs run of defeats in Lab-held seats while Labour is in opposition will go on.
https://twitter.com/DavidJFHalliday/status/1006183519406772225
But given what we currently have it would be like going from eating caviar to eating pineapple on pizza a shit sandwich.
The legal advice of the leavers has been very wrong in the past.
Because it is at best a bluff, and at worst a monumentally stupid proposition. Which is why Kenny's government was working with us. Varadkar is on a hiding to nothing. 'We can't have any border, otherwise we'll impose a hard border' is laughable.
Why are so many remainers critical of a British government using its natural strength over certain issues, but so willing to defend the EU doing the same?
I’m also a person of colour, and while I know quite few people of colour with small c Conservative views here and there, this doesn’t tend to be the case on the matter of immigration. In fact, Blue Labour seems to be designed less to appeal to BME groups and much more about WWC voters (although it should be said Corbyn actually did pretty decent with young WWC voters, it’s the older ones where it does terribly).
It was Gordon Brown who called Gillian Duffy a bigot in 2010. In 2015, Ed Miliband was producing tough on immigration mugs and promising this:
Labour pledges to "control" immigration by hiring an extra 1,000 border staff, increasing the powers of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and banning the recruitment of only overseas workers. Migrants will not be able to claim benefits for two years, or send child benefit overseas. People working in public facing roles in the public sector will be required to speak English.
....
How it compares to the Tories
David Cameron has pledged to end benefits for migrants for four years, and remove them from Britain if they have no found work after six months. Beggars and fraudsters removed from Britain face longer re-entry bans.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11532277/manifesto-2015-summary.html
And he still lost the last election. The left will always be the ‘imitation’ even with policies like this, because the right will always be able to out do the Left on this issue.
Now we can move on to the trade deal and the EU can stop trying to interfere in UK politics.
They seem to care not a fig for the health of trade and the economy, it really is a sight to behold.
Each time we slip towards a worse settlement these paleoconservative botettes pop up to tell us that really it isn't that bad, as if WTO or similar, collapsing London house prices, and the all the rest is in any way desirable by those who have to make a living.
May might be a dullard, but at least she is vaguely sane, unlike PB's army of deranged ideologues.
People used to ploughing their own furrow, understanding the true impact and costs of business decisions and risks.
No UK govt can say "go for it". And for two reasons. First, having spent a lot of time telling us how they would work to avoid a hard border, the government can't then say: "actually it doesn't matter we will happily let a foreign power put up a border when we have said we didn't want one." And secondly, the mere threat during negotiations of a border would be too much of a risk for the UK government. They cannot be in a set of negotiations whereby one outcome is a hard border and everyone knows it.
Defying the laws of logic it may be, but that's the reality of the situation.
If the EU are negotiating in good faith, then they will recognise that and move on to talks of a trade deal.
You’re welcome to vote solely in your immediate personal interest. Don’t expect everyone else to.
This is EXACTLY the position the EU have with regard to a hard border.
It is a bluff. And bluffs have to be called. As businesspeople and poker players well know.
Really? Tories are taking comfort from the polls? I thought it was more they are so terrified of losing to Corbyn that they will do virtually anything to avoid an early GE.
After a bit of questioning and input from me and others, it turned out that this other poster had just taken out a large mortgage and didn't like the concept of negative equity. Well of course. Who would? But that isn't to say that it negated my argument for one minute.
It gives us back a bit of power.
I wonder why unelected bureaucrats hate the idea of that? Can anyone smell federal bureaucratic centralisation? I know I can...
If you do not grasp this simple truth, then you are not really fit to be contributing to a political blog.
Saying there will be a fudge (a la @SeanT) whereby it is a gaping hole in the "integrity of the [European] Union political order" shows more political nous than you who say "there will be a hard border".
Think about that: a drink-sodden, sometime drug-addled, sybaritic space cadet who posts on here before, during and after his various episodes has shown greater political insight than you.
Whether it would be likely to happen, or whether we would want it to happen, are c different issues.
As was mentioned this morning, quite likely it is housing (or lack of) that will sink Tories in the end.
Ultimately, what N Ireland does is a matter for the people living there. I'd rather they stayed, just as I'd rather that Scotland remained in the Union, but that tail cannot be used to continually wag the dog. But what shouldn't be allowed to happen is a de facto transfer of the province without the consent of the electorate.
Secondly more Lewisham voters voted Leave at the EU referendum than voted Tory at GE17 so having a Leaver as the Tory candidate is not necessarily a negative.
Thirdly I detected little Tory to LD movement on Saturday, the Tory vote is holding reasonably firm but there was some Labour to LD movement and let us also not forget only the Tories have ever beaten Labour in Lewisham East, winning the seat twice in the 1980s, the LDs have never won the constituency.
People say "let the EU put up a border on their side" as if the physical location were miles away and that it wouldn't be, er, a hard NI border. And thus what would the government's chances of survival be if they were to abnegate their responsibility (let's call it control) of the northern Irish border?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5827965/Italy-turns-away-rescue-boat-carrying-600-migrants-including-123-children-seven-pregnant-women.html#comments
The container ports would be busy though, perhaps this is why Rotterdam and Felixstowe are doing upgrades at the moment.
Also according to ESRI If the CET is applied then trade will fall by 45% both sides EU and UK and we make our own or buy from the ROW. ROW trade is air freight or container.
Dover is running a massive PR campaign for a reason and it is loss of business.
Not exactly an earth shattering figure, one year's worth of net contributions if you want to put it into context.