Brexit discussion thread IV

spuddy

For those who may not have come across this guy yet, check out Jason Hunter. He's a former trade negotiator, he doesn't mince his words, knows his stuff, and as a result, can absolutely wipe the floor with the pro Brexit lobby. He even rings them up when they're on TV / Radio, enjoy!

Rees Mogg yesterday
https://vimeo.com/289365609

Farage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPb2JO0QcqI

Even on RT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=s1dWOUOTuyQ

And preaching to the converted, with James O'B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8qpBdyyG9c

EdgeCase

Awful listening to the ERG, chaired by Rees-Mogg discussing "the Irish issue" in received pronunciation, as if it were some kind of awful abstract social problem.

There's something extremely wrong with this process.

It looks and sounds like something from the bygone days of colonialism - a bunch of upper class imperial administrator types making decisions for their roguish Irish subjects.

Imreoir2

EdgeCase wrote: »

Awful listening to the ERG, chaired by Rees-Mogg discussing "the Irish issue" in received pronunciation, as if it were some kind of awful abstract social problem.

There's something extremely wrong with this process.

It looks and sounds like something from the bygone days of colonialism - a bunch of upper class imperial administrator types making decisions for their roguish Irish subjects.

Except of course that today, whatever decisions thay make will have to take account of the decisions we make, and the decisions that are made by the EU in consultation with us.

Where once the decisions of the upper class imperial administrator were carried out at the point of a bayonette, now they reach us in the form of a "pritty please".

Hurrache

EdgeCase wrote: »

Awful listening to the ERG, chaired by Rees-Mogg discussing "the Irish issue" in received pronunciation, as if it were some kind of awful abstract social problem.

Barnier just making sure Mogg knows what the reality is
https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1039794986739486721

And I liked this caption on this infamous photo
https://twitter.com/Otto_English/status/1039533186102034432

Leroy42

Wow, that is quite the tweet from Barnier.

Have the ERG presented the, til now, secret and elusive solution to the NI border problem yet?

lawred2

Barnier's commentary is slowly but surely becoming more and more hardline.. For a long time he was playing it very softly softly with the UK. Symbolically putting the arm around the shoulder if you will.

To persist with that metaphor - it's now more akin to holding some by both shoulders and giving them a forceful shake to bring them to their senses.

Frustration levels with the UK must be immense at this stage.

Hurrache

Leroy42 wrote: »

Have the ERG presented the, til now, secret and elusive solution to the NI border problem yet?

Here they are
http://2mbg6fgb1kl380gtk22pbxgw-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ERG-The-Border-between-Northern-Ireland-and-the-Republic-of-Ireland.pdf

lawred2 wrote: »

Barnier's commentary is slowly but surely becoming more and more hardline..

There are indeed
https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1039793257646116864

EdgeCase

That tweet from Michel Barnier underlines a huge and very profound difference between the UK and the EU when it comes to its constituent members.

It's almost like the Tories are shocked that the EU doesn't just throw the Irish under the next bus in exactly the way the British establishment always did.

I mean imagine having an organisation that is based on voluntary membership, where people actually joined it rather than being invaded by it and taken over and then having it behave by treating its members fairly and with solidarity and without having a notion of superiority by one region that runs the place.

I find it even is further highlighted by endless attempts by the UK to directly negotiate with Germany, which they mistakenly assume is the decision maker, yet Germany keeps telling them to go away and talk to the EU.

Everything about UK history has been about the supremacy of London and England. They've never really understood sharing power, federalism or serious devolved power going all the way back to the American Revolution demanding adequate representation, not getting it and going to war to get rid of them.

There's an element of political culture of a bygone age still encapsulated within the English right and it's just not compatible with multilateralism.

Leroy42

Just reading the executive summary of the ERG paper and 8 paragraoghs in and it all falls apart

For agricultural products, the Government should agree equivalence of UK and EU regulations
and conformity assessment. Since UK and EU standards are identical and will remain identical
at the point of departure, determining equivalence after Brexit should be straightforward. The
current smooth movement of agricultural products across the Irish border, without the need for
border inspection posts, can be continued by maintaining the island of Ireland as a Common
Biosecurity Zone.

The bolder bit (my emphasis) is the key issue. What happens when, as the UK have stated on many occasions, they are no longer identical? I stopped reading after that.

EdgeCase

Again it's a notion of exceptionalism and superiority.

They assume that EU standards will be inferior to British standards. They're seemingly not prepared to provide any mechanism to regulate / enforce these either to ensure equivalency.

They've a history of throwing spanners in the works of regulation they've nothing to do with too, particularly the evolution of the Eurozone.

The concerns at EU level are justified too based on the ranting about ripping up "red tape" whish is often stuff like consumer product regulation, safety regulations, fair play / fair trade rules etc etc

Imreoir2

Leroy42 wrote: »

Wow, that is quite the tweet from Barnier.

Well, actually he was quoting Junker, the President of the Commission.

Have the ERG presented the, til now, secret and elusive solution to the NI border problem yet?

No.

kowtow

Leroy42 wrote: »

Just reading the executive summary of the ERG paper and 8 paragraoghs in and it all falls apart

For agricultural products, the Government should agree equivalence of UK and EU regulations
and conformity assessment. Since UK and EU standards are identical and will remain identical
at the point of departure, determining equivalence after Brexit should be straightforward. The
current smooth movement of agricultural products across the Irish border, without the need for
border inspection posts, can be continued by maintaining the island of Ireland as a Common
Biosecurity Zone.

The bolder bit (my emphasis) is the key issue. What happens when, as the UK have stated on many occasions, they are no longer identical? I stopped reading after that.

They are suggesting equivalent, rather than identical standards but leaving that aside (and the specifics of the mechanism to determine equivalence) I assume that, if standards were to diverge, the arrangements would fall away - and the need for a hard border would re-emerge..... but surely that is the case whatever agreement is reached?

I assume also that in terms of the December 2017 agreement what is proposed here is proposed as a "specific solution" and therefore is intended to obviate the need for a backstop.

_Puma_

If that was the Brexiters big hope to sweep the border issue away to progress with talks the game is up. Time to prepare in full for a no deal scenario (Sounds like Barnier was preempting this with his series of tweets this morning). May will be gone by October and the UK will be staring over the precipice. Whether they jump or not will be solely determined by their parliament vote(ie Labour) and how bad things will get before then for UK business/manufacturing with supply chains been moved wholesale out of the UK.

Leroy42

kowtow wrote: »

They are suggesting equivalent, rather than identical standards but leaving that aside (and the specifics of the mechanism to determine equivalence) I assume that, if standards were to diverge, the arrangements would fall away - and the need for a hard border would re-emerge..... but surely that is the case whatever agreement is reached?

I assume also that in terms of the December 2017 agreement what is proposed here is proposed as a "specific solution" and therefore is intended to obviate the need for a backstop.

So we would be back to this at a later stage, is basically what they are suggesting!

We can't think of how to resolve it now, but trust us and sure when a problem does arise we will work together to solve it (except in this case where we haven't even tried to solve it but instead blame you for creating the problem in the 1st place!)

It is staggering that after all this time the sum amount of their plan is, Trust us, it will all be ok and sure its only NI anyway!

Hurrache

The ERG lays all the blame regarding issue surrounding the Belfast Agreement on the feet of Varadkar firstly, then Dublin, then Barnier/the European Commission

That refusal, however, has been very strong in Dublin, Brussels and Whitehall, with some
suggesting that Brexit might even threaten peace in Northern Ireland. This is in contrast to the
previous co-operative and practical approach of Enda Kenny, who initiated studies into
technical border solutions after the Brexit vote.
18 Lord Trimble – one of the courageous
architects of the Belfast Agreement – said in May, the current Taoiseach “is endangering more
than three decades of goodwill built up between London and Dublin”, seeking to “disregard
the facts for the sake of temporary political advantage in what should be a mature
negotiation.”19
It is now accepted that the European Commission has made a major error in taking advice on
matters relating to the island of Ireland almost solely from Dublin. It must seek to learn more
from respected voices in Northern Ireland. As a result of this error, Lord Trimble goes on to
say that “if anyone is threatening the return of a hard border it is the reckless intransigence of
Michel Barnier.” The Withdrawal Agreement proposals are a clear breach of the Principle of
Consent enshrined in the Belfast Agreement, designed to respect the border and leave the
choice about its future solely, democratically and peacefully in the hands of the people of
Northern Ireland.

ancapailldorcha

They keep getting away with it because they're free of any scrutiny that either a strong opposition, a functional government or a free press with a shred of integrity might impose on them.

The Economist has an article on Britain's "Equilibrium of incompetence" this week:

The Economist wrote:

The two major parties are incompetent as well as divided. Their leaders, a charisma-free robot and a superannuated Marxist, are two of the most unimpressive in recent history. The cabinet and shadow cabinet are stuffed with hangers-on. Chris Grayling made a thorough hash of things as justice secretary, only to be put in charge of transport, where he has made an even bigger mess. Leslie Rowse, a historian of Elizabethan England, argued that the basic rule of academic life was that second-raters would always appoint third-raters over first-raters. Rowse’s rule now applies to politics on both sides of the parliamentary aisle.

kowtow

Leroy42 wrote: »

So we would be back to this at a later stage, is basically what they are suggesting!

We can't think of how to resolve it now, but trust us and sure when a problem does arise we will work together to solve it (except in this case where we haven't even tried to solve it but instead blame you for creating the problem in the 1st place!)

I see what you are getting at but surely that is the case whatever arrangements are agreed in the future.. short of an obligation to adhere to EU standards as interpreted by the ECJ being enshrined in UK law ... Chequers / BRINO perhaps.

The ERG position is that the interpretation of the "backstop" .. or the apparent desire to run to a backstop without first working in good faith to develop a specific solution is the only issue holding up negotiations.

Your post above (as I read it) - and perhaps the general approach of the EU side - is that no solution will ever be possible based on any form of mutual equivalence, and that an agreement could only ever move forward on the basis that the UK was committed to continue to follow the ECJ in full regulatory alignment.

In other words - that the backstop is vital not simply for the island of Ireland but because it has the practical and political effect of locking the UK in to alignment.

Imreoir2

Hurrache wrote: »

The ERG lays all the blame regarding issue surrounding the Belfast Agreement on the feet of Varadkar firstly, then Dublin, then Barnier/the European Commission

If they want to maintain that the backstop breaches the principle of concent, the solution is simple, put the backstop to a vote in NI. They wont of course becasue they know the assertion that the backstop changes the UK constitution is false, and they also know that if they were to give NI the choice they would take the backstop in a heartbeat.

Panrich

Sanitary and
phytosanitary checks
 Maintenance of the all-island Common Biosecurity Zone.
 Mutual recognition of SPS standards on either side of the border

The Devil in the detail.

Anthracite

The ERG position, in essence, is that the DUP _is_ Northern Ireland. The facts that they represent, what, 35-40% of voters, and the electorate actually rejected Brexit do not really seem to register with them.

Trasna1

EdgeCase wrote: »

That tweet from Michel Barnier underlines a huge and very profound difference between the UK and the EU when it comes to its constituent members.

It's almost like the Tories are shocked that the EU doesn't just throw the Irish under the next bus in exactly the way the British establishment always did.

I mean imagine having an organisation that is based on voluntary membership, where people actually joined it rather than being invaded by it and taken over and then having it behave by treating its members fairly and with solidarity and without having a notion of superiority by one region that runs the place.

I find it even is further highlighted by endless attempts by the UK to directly negotiate with Germany, which they mistakenly assume is the decision maker, yet Germany keeps telling them to go away and talk to the EU.

Everything about UK history has been about the supremacy of London and England. They've never really understood sharing power, federalism or serious devolved power going all the way back to the American Revolution demanding adequate representation, not getting it and going to war to get rid of them.

There's an element of political culture of a bygone age still encapsulated within the English right and it's just not compatible with multilateralism.

If Germany wanted to lead on this issue, like it did with the Eurozone crisis, then the British strategy would be appropriate - the UK seemed to have banked on the threat to German industry as a necessary driver for this approach to be taken again. Time has moved on however and it appears the Germans now value cohesiveness of the Union over Great Powers settling issues themselves (for this issue and for the time being).

The UK has right to be surprised, since the EU can be great at throwing it's members under the bus when it suits it - looking to Greece and Italy here, solidarity certainly lacking, apart from sending a navy Mediterranean transport service for migrants. The way it dealt with the Eurozone crisis, had, quite literally, the highest possible interest rate was extracted, and members were only leant to to defend the Euro project.

There are still 28 national interests at play here.

Imreoir2

kowtow wrote: »

In other words - that the backstop is vital not simply for the island of Ireland but because it has the practical and political effect of locking the UK in to alignment.

The backstop is not about locking the UK in alignment, it is about locking NI in alignment. The island of Britain can diverge all it wants, it just cant take NI with it. The simple reality is that the only way to prevent a hard border is to ensure that the same regulations and standars apply on both sides of that border.

If the UK as a whole wants to be part of a customs union with the EU then the issue largely disapeers because both the island of Britain and NI will be closely aligned with the EU, and as such the need for a customs border between NI and Ireland goes away. If the UK wants to diverge from the EU, then it must leave NI behind, this is the only way to avoid a hard border. Thats why the backstop is needed. If the UK wanted to stay in the Single Market and Customs union and only leave the EU institutions, then the issue of a backstop would not arise.

Imreoir2

Trasna1 wrote: »

If Germany wanted to lead on this issue, like it did with the Eurozone crisis, then the British strategy would be appropriate - the UK seemed to have banked on the threat to German industry as a necessary driver for this approach to be taken again. Time has moved on however and it appears the Germans now value cohesiveness of the Union over Great Powers settling issues themselves (for this issue and for the time being).

The UK has right to be surprised, since the EU can be great at throwing it's members under the bus when it suits it - looking to Greece and Italy here, solidarity certainly lacking, apart from sending a navy Mediterranean transport service for migrants. The way it dealt with the Eurozone crisis, had, quite literally, the highest possible interest rate was extracted, and members were only leant to to defend the Euro project.

There are still 28 national interests at play here.

When has the EU ever thrown a member state under the bus when dealing with a third country?

It's one thing to say that one member state cannot expect all the other members states to bail them out every time they make a mess of their own economey.
It's quite another for the EU to do a deal with a third country which damages one of their members to further the interests of that third country. No one should be surprised that the EU would put its members interests ahead of a third countries, they have always done so.
When it comes to Brexit, there are 27 national interests that matter, and it is in the interest of each one of them to maintain the integerity of the Single Market and Customs Union.

jm08

Trasna1 wrote: »

The UK has right to be surprised, since the EU can be great at throwing it's members under the bus when it suits it - looking to Greece and Italy here, solidarity certainly lacking, apart from sending a navy Mediterranean transport service for migrants. The way it dealt with the Eurozone crisis, had, quite literally, the highest possible interest rate was extracted, and members were only leant to to defend the Euro project.

There are still 28 national interests at play here.

In fairness to Germany (and Sweden) - they did an awful lot more than just provide transport for migrants.

Leroy42

kowtow wrote: »

Your post above (as I read it) - and perhaps the general approach of the EU side - is that no solution will ever be possible based on any form of mutual equivalence, and that an agreement could only ever move forward on the basis that the UK was committed to continue to follow the ECJ in full regulatory alignment.

In other words - that the backstop is vital not simply for the island of Ireland but because it has the practical and political effect of locking the UK in to alignment.

Imreoir2 answered it far better than I could have, but too add my 2c into it is is not about locking anybody into anything.

The UK has made a decision le leave, but that decision does not render all other decisions void and the GFA remains in place. Thus the UK are faced with a choice. Remain fully aligned across the entire UK (which have have the added benefit of dealing with the Gibraltar issue) or backstop NI to ensure that no border is required.

The UK seemingly cannot make the decision and want to blame everyone else for not thinking of it sooner. They never envisaged this being a problem when they were planning to leave the EU. It was never written on the side of a bus.

What is therefore galling for the likes of JRM (and I expect every UK citizen) is that in reality they are faced with either leave the EU (CU/SM) or lose NI. I don't blame them for being upset about the position they are in, but have no sympathy for them.

Why should the EU place any trust on the UK when throughout this process they have shown to be anything but trustworthy. They agreed the December Agreement, which was diluted to help TM) yet since then have done everything to try to wrangle out of it and blame the EU.

Its the classic "I wouldn't start from here" position. Rather than deal with the reality, they want to reimagine the reality to suit themselves

EdgeCase

Trasna1 wrote: »

If Germany wanted to lead on this issue, like it did with the Eurozone crisis, then the British strategy would be appropriate - the UK seemed to have banked on the threat to German industry as a necessary driver for this approach to be taken again. Time has moved on however and it appears the Germans now value cohesiveness of the Union over Great Powers settling issues themselves (for this issue and for the time being).

The UK has right to be surprised, since the EU can be great at throwing it's members under the bus when it suits it - looking to Greece and Italy here, solidarity certainly lacking, apart from sending a navy Mediterranean transport service for migrants. The way it dealt with the Eurozone crisis, had, quite literally, the highest possible interest rate was extracted, and members were only leant to to defend the Euro project.

There are still 28 national interests at play here.

I'm not arguing that the EU's perfect. It's far from it and has a lot of issues and internal arguments. However, it's designed to be a fair and balanced multilateral organisation, even if it is definitely always a work-in-progress.

On the Eurozone crisis, it very much depends at what point you start the history of that particular story. There were a lot of issues around fairness and burden and structural reforms that weren't being implemented. So, it ended up in a major shouting match over who was willing to pay what.

I mean for example, the Irish friction with the ECB started when we unilaterally, and without any consultation with anyone, extended a blanket bank guarantee, effectively dumping the banks' private debts and risks onto the national finances and into the realm of the EU and ECB.
I don't think anyone, including most of the Irish electorate, would have underwritten Anglo, had we known what we were being signed up to at the time. A limited guarantee that protected consumers would have been more than adequate.

The migration crisis issues are undoubtedly being mishandled by the EU. This is largely because there's neither policy nor really any formalised EU agency with the competency to deal with this.

Also this is largely a major and unprecedented mass exodus of people from a war zone. It's something that is way beyond just national politics in Italy, Sweden or Hungary and, to date, it hasn't been dealt with properly by any of the major players involved and the war just keeps rolling on and on driving an ever increasing humanitarian crisis.

The EU needs to have a cohesive policy on this that's agreed. We're no where near that yet.

All I'm saying is that the EU's a solid multilateral organisation and it's basically unprecedented. The fact that it's not perfect and gets things wrong doesn't take away from the success story that it has been, when compared to centuries of European history right up to the mid 20th century and late 20th century for many of the newer members who faced oppression under dictatorships in the case of Spain, Greece and Portugal or under various expressions of the soviet system in the eastern members.

You can make a very strong argument that the EU structures provided the fabric for ending the Northern Ireland mess in the 1990s. What's worrying is that the peace process directly coincides with the complete removal of the border which only occurred in 1993.
For the first time since partition, that border no longer mattered.

Trasna1

Imreoir2 wrote: »

When has the EU ever thrown a member state under the bus when dealing with a third country?

It's one thing to say that one member state cannot expect all the other members states to bail them out every time they make a mess of their own economey.
It's quite another for the EU to do a deal with a third country which damages one of their members to further the interests of that third country. No one should be surprised that the EU would put its members interests ahead of a third countries, they have always done so.
When it comes to Brexit, there are 27 national interests that matter, and it is in the interest of each one of them to maintain the integerity of the Single Market and Customs Union.

Greece and Italy were essentially left to fend for themselves to deal with an external threat from migration. From the UKs perspective, it would not have been a crazy thought to think that Brexit would be driven by the nation states (like migration was) as opposed to the commission.

It was an astounding feat of Irish diplomacy for them to have helped steer the EU ship wrt the negotiation in the direction it did.

ancapailldorcha

Trasna1 wrote: »

It was an astounding feat of Irish diplomacy for them to have helped steer the EU ship wrt the negotiation in the direction it did.

On this note, you might enjoy Tony Connelly's Brexit & Ireland very interesting as it does flesh out the Irish diplomatic mission to Brussels in detail.

Leroy42

Whist the Irish have indeed done well through this, I thin the assumption that NI was never going to be an issue is simply false.

The Irish were successful in bringing it to the fore, and thus not allowing the UK to try to wiggle their way out of their obligations, which they are very much trying to do anyway.

But that the Irish achieved was to show the EU that without this in a deal, then there really wasn't a deal to speak of as the entire SM would be in jeopardy.

EdgeCase

The Northern Ireland issues were being highlighted by many, many people the moment that Brexit was even starting to be discussed a few years ago. The commentators and politicians in Britain just ignored it completely as if it were a non-issue that didn't matter and wouldn't make any impact on anything or could be somehow brushed aside.

They've a complete blindspot about Northern Ireland, even though the whole situation on this island plays a massive part of their history. The UK effectively broke up in 1921/2 and they just pretend it didn't happen. Maybe it's too traumatic for them to even allow themselves to comprehend?

I can understand, to a point, that they just don't think about Ireland that much, but at the same time I seem to find that people who should know a lot better often have a total blind spot to it too.

Even bringing the DUP into a confidence and supply agreement is quite shocking, given how right wing some of their policies are on a range of social issues. A lot of British people I spoke to at the time had absolutely no idea who or what the DUP was until it was far too late to do anything about it.

It's a very difficult one to explain. It's almost like some kind of dissociative disorder or detachment disorder expressed at a national level. They know Northern Ireland exists, but they don't want to know anything about it because it's too problematic to be part of vision of the UK that they imagine it to be.