Another new Brexit thread

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We ripped up 40 years of industrial and foreign policy overnight with no idea what to put in its place. What do you think we were doing?

We haven’t ripped up anything yet and if we did it wouldn’t be a revolution. We couldn’t have a revolution in this country I wouldn’t know whose head to put on a spike.
 
I have a view that we joined a trading bloc and helped shape it to become a prosperous continent

In decades gone by the ideologues have hijacked that trading bloc and sought to expand it both in scope beyond simply trade and in footprint as it pursues an ever increasing eastwards expansion

The result is that it is on course to be a far from prosperous political union and will go the way of other past empires

We have proven that we are unable to check the trajectory and momentum of the ideologues so we need to exit

Bottom line is that May has been a disaster - looking at the way Boris is handling things now I bet she wishes she had been a bit (lot) more authoritative. I am not a Boris fan - but fuck - he is bringing a lot more focus and decisiveness.
You must know better. It was never just a trading bloc. Ever closer union was foundational to the EEC.

Treaty of Rome ARTICLE 2 The Community shall have as its task, by establishing a common market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the States belonging to it.

Eastwards expansion? That's where nearly all of Europe was to the original members.

But this "trading bloc only" stuff is rewriting history and (despite The Promise) the rabid Tories set their face against the nearest thing to it of staying in the EEA. But of course it's Remainers' fault for not "compromising" - bullshit.
 
You must know better. It was never just a trading bloc. Ever closer union was foundational to the EEC.

Treaty of Rome ARTICLE 2 The Community shall have as its task, by establishing a common market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the States belonging to it.

Eastwards expansion? That's where nearly all of Europe was to the original members.

But this "trading bloc only" stuff is rewriting history and (despite The Promise) the rabid Tories set their face against the nearest thing to it of staying in the EEA. But of course it's Remainers' fault for not "compromising" - bullshit.

PPI
 
You must know better. It was never just a trading bloc. Ever closer union was foundational to the EEC.

Treaty of Rome ARTICLE 2 The Community shall have as its task, by establishing a common market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the States belonging to it.

Eastwards expansion? That's where nearly all of Europe was to the original members.

But this "trading bloc only" stuff is rewriting history and (despite The Promise) the rabid Tories set their face against the nearest thing to it of staying in the EEA. But of course it's Remainers' fault for not "compromising" - bullshit.
You are quite correct, but there is clearly an expansionist /federalist agenda there couched in a lot of economic euphemism
 
That’s because you wrongly assume any deal must be a win/lose scenario. Negotiations like this have to be a win/win ie in a trade deal there must be enough positives for both sides to accept it. In the Brexit negotiations Barnier refers to them as a lose/lose scenario in which, given the goal is the withdrawal of the U.K. from the trading bloc, both sides inevitably lose. The EU consider that the WA is acceptable loss for the EU and Robbins considered it acceptable loss for the U.K.

Demands by the U.K. to ditch the backstop or not pay a penny or whatever is back to us demanding that we ‘win’ and no deal is the threat to allow us to ‘win’. This the EU will simply not do. It cannot do this as Brexit is an external negotiation with a third country and the EU does not bend its rules or laws in negotiations with third countries. The EU will bend rules and laws in internal negotiations between member states but even that has limits. Just ask the Greeks.

The EU is governed by Treaty law. It runs on internal rules and regulations. It cannot compromise Treaty law and it will not compromise internal rules and regulations for non EU countries. If it did there would be no EU.

Finally the EU doesn’t like the backstop. It is there because a member state, Ireland, wanted an insurance policy so the EU will back a member state to the hilt against a non member state. To change or replace the Backstop with something else Ireland is the key. And to change Ireland’s stance Ireland needs to ‘trust’ the U.K. to do the right thing. One of the many reasons I would have traded the ‘threats’ of no deal for the currency of ‘trust’ from the outset.
With respect - I do not know your experience in major negotiations - I certainly have quite a lot of experience.

Based on that experience I can state that you are describing a number of key principles of negotiation correctly - but really only as if you had recently read them in a ' Negotiation for Dummies' handbook and well out of kilter with practice of how you use those principles in managing negotiations

To be clear - I am referring to the series of handbooks - no barb

A Win - Lose deal is one that quickly ends up in termination and causes enormous dissatisfaction for one party.

The May WA is a massive win for the EU and a massive lose for the UK - so apply your principle to that and wonder how we got here. Barnier saying it is a lose - lose is utter bollocks and that is fucking obvious to anyone not firmly inserted up the EU arse.

They have been facing off against incompetence and have won hands down - of course they will not want to lose any of the hoard of benefits they have been allowed to secure.

It has been said that we will not see movement from the EU unless and until they face the possibility of a walk away option and the political will to use it.

That is another basic negotiation fact

This trade walk - away for trust is just pure sillines. Trust between which parties?

The EU are fronted by professional negotiators - are you saying that we should have confidence to simply 'trust' the other party to look after our interests in negotiations and just hand over all the levers to them. (spoiler - we did and got royally shafted)

Such a promise from the other side is not worth the paper that it is not written on - which is another basic tenet of negotiations.

And frankly Bob - your comments are evidenced as being - at best - inconsistent

Would you advocate that we just 'trust' the US to look after our interests and declare our willingness to accept whatever they draft?, what about China? " Japan? Etc.

You have made a lot of posts saying different

Frankly - what you say is detached from reality.
 
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Many? Well, let's just say we abolished it before the USA, the Germans, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Portugese, the Danes, the Turks, the Swedes and many others apart from the Greeks who abolished it the year before us. "Slavery was the default condition of humanity as soon as agriculture began, as far as we can tell. The transatlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries was unusually oppressive, but no state rejected it in principle till quite late. The French Revolution abolished slavery, but later restored it."
I see. You think our colonial history was a civilising influence and now justify slavery as part of that by suggesting that all these other European countries were also civilising the natives. Unless you mean that Britain's civilising influence was different - which takes us straight back to British exceptionalism as the root cause of our current stupidity.
 
We haven’t ripped up anything yet and if we did it wouldn’t be a revolution. We couldn’t have a revolution in this country I wouldn’t know whose head to put on a spike.

We voted for revolution. We just didn’t realise it. This isn’t new I said this on here two years ago.

When you have Ministers saying ‘there will be enough food’ or refuse to confirm they will obey laws passed by Parliament or renaging on international treaties all in the name of ‘the will of the people’ then you are in revolution country whether you like it or not.

And there will be plenty of people happy to put heads on spikes. There always are.
 
Who takes a bigger hit in the event of No Deal?

The UK of course - so - do you think that is proving or disproving a point?

I still make effort with you and your sidekick - now that is a waste of time as you are too entrenched in being petty and snide to actually think and debate
 
Th UK - so - do you think that is proving or disproving a point?

I still make effort with you and your sidekick - now that is a waste of time as you are too entrenched in being petty and snide to actually think and debate
I’d say yes it does prove a point.
A master negotiator such as yourself should know that a threat of action that has a worse effect on yourself than on the other party is not a credible threat.
 
Except Ireland. Ireland is a member state. The U.K. is not. First rule of Fight Club. The EU always backs member states over non member states.
I have already explained one of what are probably several ways forward that would have been agreeable if the UK had not been led by incompetents

And will probably work now once the brinkmanship stops

What is better for Ireland between what I have proposed and no-deal (spoiler - no-brainer)

Have you not heard a change in Coveney's tones this week?
 
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No, not "the British". Just those who are proud of being a nation of thieves and oppressors.
Look around at the great civic Victorian buildings in any large city in the UK, especially Glasgow, Liverpool and Birmingham, and you see the spoils of the exploitation of people with more pigment in their skin. Something I'm sure George thinks we should all be very proud of.
We should indeed admire the architecture in Manchester etc and around the Commonwealth cities and those of our former Empire as well. Colonization spread rational, Enlightenment culture throughout the world and allowed capital to accumulate in places where it could be applied to advancing art, science, and technology--that humanity as a whole has benefitted from colonization is impossible to deny. You can argue the colonizers sucked their wealth out of the rest of the planet but they also established countries, enabled most of them to prosper and improve life expectancy, living standards, infrastructure, sanitation, education and health. In every respect the British were superior to all the other countries in bringing those benefits to the people they colonized. These positives need to be set against our crimes and I believe outweigh them. That does not exempt us from guilt and nowhere have I suggested it should.
 
I’d say yes it does prove a point.
A master negotiator such as yourself should know that a threat of action that has a worse effect on yourself than on the other party is not a credible threat.
Ha ha - you are precious

Sometimes I think that you are just pretending to not understand simple things

Then you make me have 2nd thoughts
 
Seriously - I have just answered that in another post and I have explained what to with the border issue a couple of times in recent days - so no (genuine) red lines issue

No point Johnson putting that to parliament whilst barnier is writing in UK papers that he will not negotiate

It has been true foe over 3 years that we will not see movement from the EU unless and until they face the possibility of a walk away option and the political will to use it

Current events prove the truth of that
They're facing the possibiity of a walkaway. I can't believe that you expect Barnier to say he will negotiate - would that not suggest weakness to your opponent in negotiations?
 
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