Political relations between UK-EU

[Ban-jani]

You fucking wind me up.....:)

And you I.

To be fair you’re not one of the worst though.

 

[Saddleworth2]

What was dishonest? No-one can tell us a strategy that would have got Labour more votes.

Vic, what is the point of a discussion on this. Who is going to vote for a party that wont say what it will do or what is best for the country. It was abdication pure and simple. Last word on it. Looking forward not back :-)

 

[Saddleworth2]

Excellent post

I have a lot of agreement with this post - even though it is dealing with a different aspect of 'management arrangements' to what @Saddleworth2 and myself have mentioned and are experienced in.

We are essentially commenting on 'once the scope and intended outcomes/delivery' etc. are established - how a change programme should be managed.

But - you raise an excellent point - because before you get too far into implementation planning you need to decide the outcomes to be delivered.

What May should have done - right up front is an 'options appraisal' and I would guess that of (let's say) 10 options that would have been considered then only 3 or 4 would have been short-listed and none of those would have been the option of No-Deal and perhaps also not the deal that has been achieved.

The BRINO option would have certainly been on the short-list - as would Norway and others that reflect close-alignment. The 'contingency' of Remaining would have been kept alive as well.

And - again you are right - if we had achieved for example @Mëtal Bikër 's desire for an EFTA solution - then the majority of people would have been satisfied and the extremists on both sides would have been left to whinge. There may have been some residual 'rumblings' - but this would have been ignored and the populace would have moved on.

I certainly would have been happy - in fact I would have expressed myself as being delighted. Notwithstanding that I am far more delighted with the actual outcome.

I come from the starting point of never thinking that we would leave - and then (even worse) in 2017-2019 thinking that we were going to end up in May's fucked up unfettered backstop.

I would have taken an EFTA arrangement in an heartbeat back in the dark days

You are indeed - spot on

The entire episode has been a series of fuckups and incompetence due to being driven and affected by self-interest groups.

The end result - what we have now - feels like some perverse game of 'musical chairs' - with this deal being the last one to get a seat - pure luck.

But - you raise an excellent point - because before you get too far into implementation planning you need to decide the outcomes to be delivered.

A TOM!
First question of any struggling programme. Do you have a target operating model? If the answer is no, you know you are fucked.

 

[stonerblue]

I am good my old friend thanks. Hope you are too.

The EU has some good points, i am on record as saying i would want further integration and an EU superstate that had the chance to be a Socialist EU superstate. However I wasn't comfortable with the status quo as that served to enhance capitalism. It put limits on state spending, as in they had to stay within parameters set by the ECB which hampered countries who wished to use Keynesian economic theory to get out of economic slump. The EU is designed as a free market kind of utopia with a nod to social protections i accept, but we could have more protections for workers and we could have our own say on economic policy.

Freedom of movement, was not just about our freedom to go to Ibiza on a beano, it was freedom of movement for Employers too, that meant they could take jobs out of the country by moving to another part of the EU to take advantage of lower wages. Some people call this 'social dumping'. It's about undercutting local wages and conditions by shipping in workers from overseas or basing your company's legal status on wherever saves you the most money or where you recieve the highest subsidy. That results in competing interests between employers and employees and the ECJ tends to side with the Employer's which can lead to an erosion of workers rights.

I would consider the EU as a barrier to Democratic Socialism rather than Social Democracy, The EU is not implicitly against nationalisation but it is for competition and aims to prevent monopoly, so in reality you cant have a Nationalised rail service as that would be a monopoly. If you nationalised the railways you have to allow competition and offer equal subsidy to any competitor to the nationalised service which sort of defeats the point of nationalisation. It tries to stop state aid as it creates unfair competition although in reality it cant and there are ways around it if you are devious. But as we Brits are always up for fair play we don't obviously.
The main thrust of European economic policy has been to extend and deepen the market through liberalisation, privatisation, and flexiblisation, subordinating employment and social protection to goals of low inflation, debt reduction, and increased competitiveness, basically it is a neo-liberal construct of its time, although it does have echoes of Scandi Social democracy.

I was as i said all for changing the EU from within, but there was no political will in this country to do that, it was status quo or leave, status quo is unacceptable, so that left the leave option.



'.

Good ta mate.
Interesting stuff and food for thought.

 

[stonerblue]

And you I.

To be fair you’re not one of the worst though.

nicest thing anyone's said too me all day

 

[Saddleworth2]

And the Daily Express wakes up:

Brexit deal betrayal as 'crucial section' missing from text to benefit Macron and Merkel​

BORIS JOHNSON's Brexit trade deal does not include an EU-wide arrangement for financial services because France and Germany wanted to focus on goods, which was to their economic advantage, the former director of Special Projects at Vote Leave has claimed.​

I think that goes in the no shit sherlock workstream.

 

[Ban-jani]

nicest thing anyone's said too me all day

And there’s plenty more where that came from

 

[Saddleworth2]

(In the EU) overseas seafood exports from Scotland rose nearly 1000% since 2007.

is that a fact Vic. Where did you reference that from. I was looking for such a stat. I wonder what the export vlue was prior to the CM?

 

[Saddleworth2]

And there’s plenty more where that came from

this is the nicest fight I've seen on here for a while.

 

[mcfc1632]

Just for fun, no waffling - what would your virtual workstream have come up with to "deal with" the 16.2 - 17.4 problem? (Bear in mind that you're unusual and most of the people working on the workstream would have voted Remain. What would be the remit of the workstream? How to reconcile the irreconcilable or produce another stage in the political lies about Brexit?)

I am serious. I don't believe you could even set the parameters for that workstream without having a workstream to set the parameters, especially as from the outset you didn't want the only easy way to do it - BRINO.

Oooh - a genuine question

Shame you could not resist the barb about no waffling. I have been quite succinct in my posts on this subject today - you should see what I can pour out when being paid my day rate;-)

But I have to point out a couple of flaws in your posts - and genuinely I am not being 'pointed'

As the Programme Director / Senior Manager/SoS / Person responsible etc.

I would be undertaking the Change Programme for 'a client/organisation' etc. in this case HMG. My personal preferences or those of the staff in the workstreams would be irrelevant - that is not how these things work. It is professional management - not achieving personal goals/interests.

I would have ensured the options Appraisal was undertaken - probably within the a development of a Business Case to make sure that I have the budget - and I would have made sure that No-Deal was put forward as an option - as well as BRINO and a range options in between.

Once the options appraisal chose the short-list - No-Deal and the current deal would not have had a chance - I would have ensured a further 'down-select' process was undertaken to determined the 'preferred option' and the backup/contingency

That then would lead me to determine the intended outcomes and start to do the activity planning of each of the workstreams.

Re the workstream that you refer to with 16.2 - 17.4 - 'Stakeholder Management and Communications' - that would have been a breeze actually. That is because the preferred option in 2016 - Summer 2019 would have undoubtedly have been a version of close alignment.

So managing the communications of that would have been straightforward - although a very large workstream with a large budget and a lot of actions. I would have just done that - 'cos it would have been my job.

In undertaking the activity based planning of other workstreams I would have ensured that the required policies, risks, dependencies etc associated to agriculture, fishing and other sectors were assessed and determined - that would have led to addressing the issues that dids and bob refer to.

Of course - there would have still been teething issues and therefore 'transition arrangements' required - including funding for people that lose out inappropriately and these would have been put in place.

@Saddleworth2 - just top of the head and missing a lot of detail - would you have approached it fundamentally differently?

Vic - does that make sense to you