Another new Brexit thread

[BobKowalski]

On a more serious note how did we elect someone so stupid? Every fucking Tory MP voted for this and every fucker pointed out this shit at the time.

‘Source quote amazing...

“You cant have both” in terms of protecting EU single market & unfettered access NI-GB. Also May’s deal had “unforeseen consequences” - but the issues arise precisely out of changes PM renegotiated ...and foreseen by May, DUP, all Brexit watchers etc...’ @ Faisal Islam BBC

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Actually it was Varadkar and Johnson. Merkel‘s involvement was limited to telling Johnson that she and the other E26 leaders were firmly behind Dublin and if he wanted something sorted then he had to talk to Varadkar.

Barnier’s role is to fulfil the mandate the E27 leaders give him. If there needs to to be a decision outside of the mandate then the E27 leaders will take it. In reality it will be Berlin, Paris, Dublin and Madrid who will decide as they have the most vested interests. Dublin will be the really key player.

I think we've given up on NI/Eire now. I'm not sure some people have ever taken a close look at the physical features of the border with NI.It's not as neat as it looks on the bbc weather map, but a very complicated line full of historical compromises I assume. Frequently turning back on itself so three sides of a square field will have the border running along them and sometimes running down the middle of streets. It also sweeps up the west and over much of the north of NI. It's pretty much impossible to enforce as the British Army found to their cost. Watchtowers / checkpoints will be largely inflammatory political gestures unless someone is going to start cratering minor roads and blocking farm tracks, but then we really are back to 1972. The porous nature of the border will probably present excellent black economy opportunities to both sides of it in the event of a 'hard' border without an agreement.

 

[BobKowalski]

We signed, ratified it and passed it into law. What the fuck do they expect the EU, in reality Dublin, to do? We signed it, we lump it. We want to renegotiate then we had better come up with something that is at least as good as what is already ratified.

FT view.

 

[BobKowalski]

Faisal Islam of the BBC really not having it.

‘It was all in the impact assessment released in October with the revised Protocol, literally renegotiated by the PM...’ Tweet from October:

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

We signed, ratified it and passed it into law. What the fuck do they expect the EU, in reality Dublin, to do? We signed it, we lump it. We want to renegotiate then we had better come up with something that is at least as good as what is already ratified.

FT view.

I may be wrong as I'm no expert on these matters,but I think the EU is struggling to deal with us as a nation that is no longer a member. It has no more say over us than any other non-EU country unless it suits all of us. Clause 38 in the WA actually outlaws what the EU have been trying to do in imposing authority / level playing field post brexit. As I say, I'm no expert and may be wrong on this but it seems the clause 38 amendment modifies the declaration of Parliamentary sovereignty, so that it explicitly takes into account the Sewel convention - in rag terminology, we can do what we want.

 

[Bovril]

Reg? Though he was dead? He actually lost a leg at Arnhem - or was it D-Day? - and unlike Whelan he dind't fucking constantly bang on about it lol

Losers you would think a soldier could actually find a random leg :-)

 

[BobKowalski]

I may be wrong as I'm no expert on these matters,but I think the EU is struggling to deal with us as a nation that is no longer a member. It has no more say over us than any other non-EU country unless it suits all of us. Clause 38 in the WA actually outlaws what the EU have been trying to do in imposing authority / level playing field post brexit. As I say, I'm no expert and may be wrong on this but it seems the clause 38 amendment modifies the declaration of Parliamentary sovereignty, so that it explicitly takes into account the Sewel convention - in rag terminology, we can do what we want.

No. We can’t. You cannot legally amend a binding international treaty between two parties through unilateral legislation. Politically you can say ‘we no longer feel bound’, but legally we are still bound and then it goes to the courts and jurisdictions tasked with resolving disputes. Saying we ‘didn’t understand it‘ is not legal grounds. The only way to change it is renegotiate the WA and the NI protocols and get all parties to consent or we negotiate a future deal that replaces in whole or in part the WA.

This was all foreseeable. NI, internal trade border, checks on goods, it was all spelt out what would happen, and that it would happen deal or no deal. Yet it was ignored and Johnson and the Govt lied and pretended it wasn’t an issue. Now all of a sudden ’the problem was unforeseen’. The only ‘problem’ is that when you govern based on fantasy and lies, you eventually run out of road. We are starting to run out of road.

 

[mcfc1632]

I may be wrong as I'm no expert on these matters,but I think the EU is struggling to deal with us as a nation that is no longer a member. It has no more say over us than any other non-EU country unless it suits all of us. Clause 38 in the WA actually outlaws what the EU have been trying to do in imposing authority / level playing field post brexit. As I say, I'm no expert and may be wrong on this but it seems the clause 38 amendment modifies the declaration of Parliamentary sovereignty, so that it explicitly takes into account the Sewel convention - in rag terminology, we can do what we want.

We can expect the Remainers to be getting their giggles by banging on about how the WA was signed etc. and now the government seem to want to dump not only the entirety of the PD but also parts of the WA.

I just wonder if there is less going on here which is just a bumbling PM and more the enactment of some quite steely and callous planning

The WA was the product of the depressingly inept May/Robbins leadership and it could just be that when Johnson (Cummings) came to power there was a decision taken to not bother with renegotiation but to just get the fuck out of the EU and then work to unpick the damage to the UK done by May/Robbins by totally dumping the PD and then bringing forward legislation to reduce the impacts of the WA.

Given there is still more than 4 years to run to the next GE I can understand the logic that concludes that we should not waste further time in negotiations with the EU - but just get on with recovery as an independent nation.

I agree with your view:

I think the EU is struggling to deal with us as a nation that is no longer a member.

They had 3 years of being able to give May/Robbins orders and instruction - I think that Cummings is a very shrewd individual and capable of acting quite 'coldly' to achieve his goals. To win the next GE there is much that needs to be done to reward the traditional Labour voters that backed Johnson - and changing the approach of the Tory party seems to be a passion for Cummings - to make the investments that will be needed the UK cannot be under any state aid controls

I really hope that there is a callous and dispassionate plan to largely repudiate or neutralise the WA - and it is not just the confusion and bumbling that Remainers hope for.

I thought these articles could be near the mark:

Will Boris Johnson’s No-Deal Brexit Gamble Hurt Keir Starmer More Than The PM?

Tory and Labour MPs alike wonder if this is Starmer's most tricky "culture war" of all.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

The reason why Boris Johnson is jeopardising an EU free trade deal | ITV News

You may wonder why on earth a Tory government led by Boris Johnson, the heirs to Thatcher for goodness sake, are sacrificing the prospect of a trade deal with the EU because they want the right to subsidise British industry.

www.itv.com

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

No. We can’t. You cannot legally amend a binding international treaty between two parties through unilateral legislation. Politically you can say ‘we no longer feel bound’, but legally we are still bound and then it goes to the courts and jurisdictions tasked with resolving disputes. Saying we ‘didn’t understand it‘ is not legal grounds. The only way to change it is renegotiate the WA and the NI protocols and get all parties to consent or we negotiate a future deal that replaces in whole or in part the WA.

This was all foreseeable. NI, internal trade border, checks on goods, it was all spelt out what would happen, and that it would happen deal or no deal. Yet it was ignored and Johnson and the Govt lied and pretended it wasn’t an issue. Now all of a sudden ’the problem was unforeseen’. The only ‘problem’ is that when you govern based on fantasy and lies, you eventually run out of road. We are starting to run out of road.

I'm not sure you understand - we are no longer subject to the courts you cite. I'm not saying it's moral or fair btw - just how it is and the legal basis for departure from some terms of the WA. With regard to fantasy and lies I think you may be confusing the public utterances of the govt with its intent. I'm surprised you are surprised BJ has been talking shite all year - most folk seem to realise this.

 

[mcfc1632]

I'm not sure you understand - we are no longer subject to the courts you cite. I'm not saying it's moral or fair btw - just how it is and the legal basis for departure from some terms of the WA. With regard to fantasy and lies I think you may be confusing the public utterances of the govt with its intent. I'm surprised you are surprised BJ has been talking shite all year - most folk seem to realise this.

You can bring forward a lot of primary legislation with an 80 seat majority and following the culling of those MPs that would vote against the government

 

[BobKowalski]

We can expect the Remainers to be getting their giggles by banging on about how the WA was signed etc. and now the government seem to want to dump not only the entirety of the PD but also parts of the WA.

I just wonder if there is less going on here which is just a bumbling PM and more the enactment of some quite steely and callous planning

The WA was the product of the depressingly inept May/Robbins leadership and it could just be that when Johnson (Cummings) came to power there was a decision taken to not bother with renegotiation but to just get the fuck out of the EU and then work to unpick the damage to the UK done by May/Robbins by totally dumping the PD and then bringing forward legislation to reduce the impacts of the WA.

Given there is still more than 4 years to run to the next GE I can understand the logic that concludes that we should not waste further time in negotiations with the EU - but just get on with recovery as an independent nation.

I agree with your view:

I think the EU is struggling to deal with us as a nation that is no longer a member.

They had 3 years of being able to give Mgs ay/Robbins orders and instruction - I think that Cummings is a very shrewd individual and capable of acting quite 'coldly' to achieve his goals. To win the next GE there is much that needs to be done to reward the traditional Labour voters that backed Johnson - and changing the approach of the Tory party seems to be a passion for Cummings - to make the investments that will be needed the UK cannot be under any state aid controls

I really hope that there is a callous and dispassionate plan to largely repudiate or neutralise the WA - and it is not just the confusion and bumbling that Remainers hope for.

I thought these articles could be near the mark:

Will Boris Johnson’s No-Deal Brexit Gamble Hurt Keir Starmer More Than The PM?

Tory and Labour MPs alike wonder if this is Starmer's most tricky "culture war" of all.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

The reason why Boris Johnson is jeopardising an EU free trade deal | ITV News

You may wonder why on earth a Tory government led by Boris Johnson, the heirs to Thatcher for goodness sake, are sacrificing the prospect of a trade deal with the EU because they want the right to subsidise British industry.

www.itv.com

The WA, and specifically the NI protocols, were negotiated by Johnson. Put to the people in a GE, endorsed by the people in a GE, then passed by the new Johnson Govt as per it’s mandate to ratify the WA.

And now we should repudiate a binding international treaty, a treaty that was ratified and endorsed as per a manifesto commitment and by Tory MPs who all pledged to do so? An agreement that the people voted for in an election?

Christ.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The WA, and specifically the NI protocols, were negotiated by Johnson. Put to the people in a GE, endorsed by the people in a GE, then passed by the new Johnson Govt as per it’s mandate to ratify the WA.

And now we should repudiate a binding international treaty, a treaty that was ratified and endorsed as per a manifesto commitment and by Tory MPs who all pledged to do so? An agreement that the people voted for in an election?

Christ.

Cheer up Bob, we get to vote again and kick them out in 4 years. What you are seeing now is made possible by Boris's thumping majority, and we all know how / why he ended up with that.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

The WA, and specifically the NI protocols, were negotiated by Johnson. Put to the people in a GE, endorsed by the people in a GE, then passed by the new Johnson Govt as per it’s mandate to ratify the WA.

And now we should repudiate a binding international treaty, a treaty that was ratified and endorsed as per a manifesto commitment and by Tory MPs who all pledged to do so? An agreement that the people voted for in an election?

Christ.

A reinvention of recent history.

 

[BobKowalski]

I'm not sure you understand - we are no longer subject to the courts you cite. I'm not saying it's moral or fair btw - just how it is and the legal basis for departure from some terms of the WA. With regard to fantasy and lies I think you may be confusing the public utterances of the govt with its intent. I'm surprised you are surprised BJ has been talking shite all year - most folk seem to realise this.

No. I do understand. The WA states that it has supremacy over UK law therefore any future legislation that is inconsistent with the WA will be ruled as such. If we pursue the issue it’s a matter for UK courts as well as the ECJ to decide whether the new legislation is ‘inconsistent’ or not.

 

[BobKowalski]

Cheer up Bob, we get to vote again and kick them out in 4 years. What you are seeing now is made possible by Boris's thumping majority, and we all know how / why he ended up with that.

Yeah, he said electing him would mean we could pass his ‘oven ready‘ Brexit deal, end the arguments once and for all and move the country forward.

How’s that working out for us? Oh, that’s right, that ‘oven ready’ deal Johnson promised and you all got suckered into voting for turned out to be a bad one.

Arf.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Yeah, he said electing him would mean we could pass his ‘oven ready‘ Brexit deal, end the arguments once and for all and move the country forward.

How’s that working out for us? Oh, that’s right, that ‘oven ready’ deal Johnson promised and you all got suckered into voting for turned out to be a bad one.

Arf.

I didn't vote for him mate. It seems too many people did for our votes to matter though - Arf indeed.

 

[Rascal]

Since this whole fiasco started I have veered from leave to remain and back again, I am now in the curious position of thinking we should leave but also thinking we should stay at this point. Leaving is the correct thing to do, the EU is a neo-liberal monstrosity that has a huge democratic deficit, but the UK at this moment under this current administration is even worse.

I worry how far Johnson and his nutjob wing will go to get there dream and has they have lied time after time, obfuscated and misinformed I am finding it hard to support something they want so badly. I am not a conspiracy nut, I try to evaluate the situation and inform myself as much as possible but at the moment I am probably more confused than I was before the whole process started. I really do think we should leave, but I also really do think we should stay. Its not being helped as the positions of both camps have hardened and become more trenchant and I do genuinely fear that many of us who are not firmly entrenched in one camp or the other will get the worst of both worlds from both sides. The more Johnson and his nut jobs pull us towards extreme no deal leave, the more the FBFE nutjobs harden in their Pro-EU attitudes.

If we take into account the effects of COVID on the economy then leaving at this point with no deal is insane, the economy is already in serious trouble and leaving with no deal will exacerbate it and I fear it could lead to total collapse and the loss of even more jobs than are already forecast. I ask myself the question, can I really support leaving if it means people lose their jobs and plunge into poverty at a time when poverty is on the rise. I also ask myself if being true to my political ideology is more important than peoples livelihoods, but I also see that a way to escape the neo liberal hell hole is to leave and if we have the capacity to use state aid to save those jobs that can be lost then leaving is still the correct thing to do. Can I trust this Government to deliver on that given their appalling record since coming to power, because it has been one clusterfuck after another and we have a PM who is veering dangerously towards authoritarianism and that has negative effects on the democracy I want us all to live under.

There is also the underlying nastiness of leaving that has been promulgated by the rise and acceptance of some rather sinister far right ideology. Can I really support a position that allow the far right to have such influence on society and make our country a place in their image. Do we really want to be a country where the far right are standing on the cliffs of Dover spouting anti immigration/refugee rhetoric, because I don't want that I want immigration to be controlled not used as a tool to punish people escaping the hell holes of Syria or Iraq. I want immigration to be used to make sure it works for the country and makes it a better place for everyone, immigrants included not as means to use against people actually born here and suffering the same disgusting treatment as the Windrush generation.

To leave means being free to do what is best for this country, which as a patriotic Socialist who believes that the only way we can become a truly Socialist society is to leave the Neo-liberal club I am actually questioning whether my hopes and dreams are worth sacrificing to stem the rise of this far right nonsense that is seen now almost on a daily basis. Are we sacrificing everything this country is and has always been to satisfy a small number of fanatics? Because as I wrote earlier the nation is becoming more extreme and Johnson is desperate for a win and being the narcissistic **** he is I am convinced he will put himself and his ego before the nations needs.

This whole BREXIT debacle and it has been a debacle there is no doubt in that has led us to a point where compromise is seen as weakness and negotiation seen as conflict, this cannot help the people of the UK or the EU when politicians on both sides have lost those arts we now desperately need more than ever.

I still thinking leaving the EU is the correct thing to do, it has the weight of a Democratic mandate behind it but by fuck its been handled badly and I speak to friends of mine who live in Spain and Portugal and they tell me the locals think the UK has lost the plot, we used to be respected for sensible level headed politics and good old British diplomacy now we look like a rotten rabble who could not organise the proverbial piss up in a brewery, we are a laughing stock and because of our uncompromising stance we are treated as a laughing stock. Laughing stock Britain is not the epitaph I want from leaving the EU, but that is how we will be portrayed and that saddens me, that though is not anybody who voted for Brexit's fault, its the fault of the sheer incompetence of our politicians and the underhand machinations of a select few hard line nutters who live in a fantasy world of village green cricket, tea and scones at Mrs Miggins pie shop and the Royal Navy ruling the high seas.

If there was another referendum today I would vote leave because its the only way Socialism can be realised, but as we are under the governance of the worst administration in UK history letting them conduct this process is borderline insane.

 

[mcfc1632]

Cheer up Bob, we get to vote again and kick them out in 4 years. What you are seeing now is made possible by Boris's thumping majority, and we all know how / why he ended up with that.

But - between now and then a lot of legislation can be passed by a government that holds an 80 seat majority

Remainers will cry 'no fair' - but I suspect (or at least hope) that there is a callous mind steering Johnson's actions that will seek to break the UK free of EU's controls - starting with No LPF - No ECJ - PD binned off and then limitations on the WA impact

Being free to invest in the midlands and Northern constituencies is the way for Johnson/Cummings to secure a further term

 

[Vic]

But - between now and then a lot of legislation can be passed by a government that holds an 80 seat majority

Remainers will cry 'no fair' - but I suspect (or at least hope) that there is a callous mind steering Johnson's actions that will seek to break the UK free of EU's controls - starting with No LPF - No ECJ - PD binned off and then limitations on the WA impact

Being free to invest in the midlands and Northern constituencies is the way for Johnson/Cummings to secure a further term

Did you even read the article you quoted? The irony of a Tory government going crazy over the right to spend public money on propping up unprofitable industries.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Good to see Frost remind Barnier that the UK is a sovereign state and should have the same deal as other sovereign states not tied to EU rules as best suits them. Barnier should stop his whining and realise this. But he likes to whine doesnt he, I feel he is showing his hand somewhat. Keep it up Frost.