Brexit discussion thread V - No Pic/GIF dumps please

lawred2

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Boom!

https://twitter.com/MarkusBecker/status/1052664397057875968

That not just more of TM saying what those around her want to hear?

When she's back home, it'll be back to the usual rhetoric about red lines and the union blah de blah.

Nothing she says carries any weight or value.

Dyr

Rhineshark wrote: »

Tbh, I reckon the US is ready to have the UK for breakfast at its earliest convenience, given a desperate and much smaller country begging for a deal and publically dependant on it being made is basically about Trump's level of "making a deal". Even he can probably manage not to screw that up.

Given Trump doesn't think a deal is good unless it is palpably much worse for the other side, it won't go well for the UK.

The Americans always considered the UK to be their man in the EU, which is why they never wanted to see the UK outside the European tent but god only knows how Trump sees it. He always indicated that he thought the UK leaving was a good idea.

charlie14

LeinsterDub wrote: »

No deal is the most likely outcome at the moment. No deal means no transition. Hence the nose dive

I get that, but from the post I took it that sterling was taking a nose dive due to a possible extension of the transition period where I would have expected it to rise.

Junkyard Tom

I must say, as a person who isn't all that fond of politicians, I'm very impressed with the performance of Simon Coveney and Mairead McGuinness on British media today. Cool, fact-based rebuttals combined with calling out interviewers when they amplify comments by bit-players and cranks and like Boris Johnson.

Fair play to them.

Akrasia

charlie14 wrote: »

I get that, but from the post I took it that sterling was taking a nose dive due to a possible extension of the transition period where I would have expected it to rise.

Its nose diving because the November summit seems to be off. This October meeting was the deadline for agreement, then a November summit was proposed which pushed the deadline out. By cancelling the November summit the markets might be considering if the deadline for a withdrawal agreement may be already realistically past.

Edit, actually, is sterling even down for the day? Looks like its recovered from an earlier dip

CZ 453

Sterling is not nose diving. It's stable enough at the moment. Neither strengthening nor weakening. It's about the same as it was 5 days ago

charlie14

Akrasia wrote: »

Its nose diving because the November summit seems to be off. This October meeting was the deadline for agreement, then a November summit was proposed which pushed the deadline out. By cancelling the November summit the markets might be considering if the deadline for a withdrawal agreement may be already realistically past.

Edit, actually, is sterling even down for the day? Looks like its recovered from an earlier dip

That to me would make more sense. That the markets earlier considered there was no hope of a deal and sterling dipped, but with there being a possibility of an extension to the transition period it then improved.

charlie14

Bambi wrote: »

The Americans always considered the UK to be their man in the EU, which is why they never wanted to see the UK outside the European tent but god only knows how Trump sees it. He always indicated that he thought the UK leaving was a good idea.

America didn`t become a major economic power based on sentiment. Something the UK will quickly learn when not being America`s man in the EU when they go looking for a trade deal.

Imreoir2

I'm not going to pretend that I understand currency markets and I can't say I have a firm grasp on how they should be expected to act. It is interesting that Sterling seems to be holding up better at the moment than it was back in August, given that the Brexit situation is hardily better now than it was then. Perhaps they expect this kind of rough patch before a deal is finally agreed?

One assumes that this is not the signal for no-deal that will tip them over the edge into panic, clearly a deal is still possible at this stage, though one wonders what it is that will finally convince the markets that there will be no deal should it go that way. That full on crisis in the markets might not come until December, or even January.

Still, they were positivly skitish earlier in the year, even a slightly pesimistic comment from the EU sent them into a tail spin for a day or two once upon a time. There are much more pesimistic statements from the EU at this point and yet the markets seem much calmer in their reaction. Are they getting desenseitised? Are they focusing on the bright side? Are they assuming that the more unhappy everyone looks, the closer to a deal we really are?

Water John

By not placing a Nov date they have taken away the false pressure that comes with deadlines. They want the negotiating teams to continue to work hard. They seemed to have made good progress in other areas over the last two weeks. That leaves one issue, the backstop.

Imreoir2

Water John wrote: »

By not placing a Nov date they have taken away the false pressure that comes with deadlines. They want the negotiating teams to continue to work hard. They seemed to have made good progress in other areas over the last two weeks. That leaves one issue, the backstop.

The problem is that there is one very hard, very real deadline fast approaching. It takes three months for a treaty like this to be ratified. If the deal is not agreed by the end of the year, then it won’t be agreed at all. May has shown up to several EU council meetings with nothing to offer. If there is no meeting in November, then the December meeting is the last chance to do a deal. Without a November deadline, there is only one deadline left, and if a deal is not done then, the deal is dead. In avoiding a false deadline with false pressure, they are facing straight into a real deadline with real pressure.

There is no point in talking about extending Article 50 or any other measure to give more time. As Michele Barnier has said, lack of time is not the problem, it's a lack of decisions from the UK government. The issues faced by TM will be no different in November than they are now, they will be the same in December and they will be the same in January. If she can’t agree a deal now with five months to go, then giving her another few months won’t make any difference.

MrMusician18

Imreoir2 wrote: »

The problem is that there is one very hard, very real deadline fast approaching. It takes three months for a treaty like this to be ratified. If the deal is not agreed by the end of the year, then it won’t be agreed at all. May has shown up to several EU council meetings with nothing to offer. If there is no meeting in November, then the December meeting is the last chance to do a deal. Without a November deadline, there is only one deadline left, and if a deal is not done then, the deal is dead. In avoiding a false deadline with false pressure, they are facing straight into a real deadline with real pressure.

There is no point in talking about extending Article 50 or any other measure to give more time. As Michele Barnier has said, lack of time is not the problem, it's a lack of decisions from the UK government. The issues faced by TM will be no different in November than they are now, they will be the same in December and they will be the same in January. If she can’t agree a deal now with five months to go, then giving her another few months won’t make any difference.

If a deal is done in January say, art. 50 will be extended to allow time for ratification.

Indeed once the sides are still talking time will be made for the later necessities.

Spook_ie

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You know the way the live and neutral pins have some plastic on them to stop you getting electrocuted if you touch one while a plug is half way in or out ?

EU rules.

I sseem to recall 3 pin square plugs replacing the old round pins long before the EU.

Spook_ie

Spook_ie wrote: »

I sseem to recall 3 pin square plugs replacing the old round pins long before the EU.

1947 ish according to Quora



https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-UK-change-from-three-round-pin-electrical-plug-to-three-rectangular-pins

CrabRevolution

Spook_ie wrote: »

1947 ish according to Quora

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-UK-change-from-three-round-pin-electrical-plug-to-three-rectangular-pins

I don't think it was the rectangular pins themselves that the poster was referring to, but the plastic sleeve covering on the pins.

Peregrinus

lawred2 wrote: »

Will the UK be excluded from those votes? Or included by deign of the fact that they are still members of the EU?

Or does article 50 preclude the leaving nation from partaking in those votes?

Excluded, for the reason you suggest. In all matters relating to the negotiation and implementation of Brexit EU processes operate as though the UK were already a third state. This makes sense, and suits both sides.

Spook_ie

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I don't think it was the rectangular pins themselves that the poster was referring to, but the plastic sleeve covering on the pins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets:_British_and_related_types#Pin_insulation

Pin insulation
Initially, BS 1363 did not require the line and neutral pins to have insulating sleeves. Plugs made to the recent revisions of the standard have insulated sleeves to prevent finger contact with pins, and also to stop metal objects (for example, fallen window blind slats) from becoming live if lodged between the wall and a partly pulled out plug. The length of the sleeves prevents any live contacts from being exposed while the plug is being inserted or removed. An early method of sleeving the pins involving spring-loaded sleeves is described in the 1967 British Patent GB1067870.[46] The method actually adopted is described in the 1972 British Patent GB1292991.[47] Plugs with such pins were available in the 1970s, a Southern Electricity/RoSPA safety pamphlet from 1978 encourages their use.[48] Sleeved pins became required by the standard in 1984.

For reference AFAIK the equivalent EU coding to BS1363 would be EN 60950 which was in 2005

Spook_ie

I noticed in a few replies references to a document with green text from March about the backstop, which document is that as all i seem to come up with is the December declaration which has the caveat "nothings agreed until it's all agreed" on the first page

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_report.pdf

Remarks: This report is put forward with a view to the meeting of the
European Council (Article 50) of 14-15 December 2017. Under the
caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, the joint
commitments set out in this joint report shall be reflected in the
Withdrawal Agreement in full detail. This does not prejudge any
adaptations that might be appropriate in case transitional
arrangements were to be agreed in the second phase of the
negotiations, and is without prejudice to discussions on the
framework of the future relationship.

and a draft coloured agreement dated 19th March were the section refering to Ireland is still yellow and the only reference to a backstop is actually in "blue"

The colouring of the text corresponds to the following meanings: text in green is agreed at
negotiators' level, and will only be subject to technical legal revisions in the coming weeks. For text in
yellow, negotiators agreed on the policy objective. Drafting changes or clarifications are still
required. Text in white corresponds to text proposed by the Union on which discussions are ongoing.
With respect to the DRAFT PROTOCOL ON IRELAND/NORTHERN IRELAND, the negotiators agree
that a legally operative version of the “backstop” solution for the border between Northern Ireland
and Ireland, in line with paragraph 49 of the Joint Report, should be agreed as part of the legal text of
the Withdrawal Agreement, to apply unless and until another solution is found.
The negotiators have reached agreement on some elements of the draft Protocol. They further agree
that the full set of issues related to avoiding a hard border covered in the draft reflect those that
need to be addressed in any solution. There is as yet no agreement on the right operational
approach, but the negotiators agree to engage urgently in the process of examination of all relevant
matters announced on 14 March and now under way.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_agreement_coloured.pdf


reference Paragraph 49 from the joint report which reads

49. The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to
its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible
with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom's intention is to achieve
these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should this not be possible,
the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique
circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United
Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the
Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the allisland
economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.

That is subject to the caveat of "

Under the
caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,

Neither of which read to me as TM etc. agreeing to a backstop but that they should be discussing a backstop?

Peregrinus

The green text is the text of the draft Withdrawal Agreements which the parties have agreed is settled, and should not be revisited.

It's not legally binding, because no part of the Withdrawal Agreement is legally binding until the whole text is settled, signed as between the Commission and the UK, and ratified by the European Parliament and the Westminster Parliament.

But it's politically binding in this sense; if the UK seeks to revisit that text they are inviting the UK to "unpick" the parts of the draft treaty that they have previously accepted as settled, and go back to an earlier stage of the negotiations. This would be bad enough at any point in the process but right now, when there is so little time left, a suggestion that the process should actually go into reverse - which is what this amounts to - is very unlikely to be acceptable. To some, it would look like the kind of tactic a state might use when it wishes to terminate negotiations but doesn't with to be seen to be the party that terminates them.

Spook_ie

Peregrinus wrote: »

The green text is the text of the draft Withdrawal Agreements which the parties have agreed is settled, and should not be revisited.

It's not legally binding, because no part of the Withdrawal Agreement is legally binding until the whole text is settled, signed as between the Commission and the UK, and ratified by the European Parliament and the Westminster Parliament.

But it's politically binding in this sense; if the UK seeks to revisit that text they are inviting the UK to "unpick" the parts of the draft treaty that they have previously accepted as settled, and go back to an earlier stage of the negotiations. This would be bad enough at any point in the process but right now, when there is so little time left, a suggestion that the process should actually go into reverse - which is what this amounts to - is very unlikely to be acceptable. To some, it would look like the kind of tactic a state might use when it wishes to terminate negotiations but doesn't with to be seen to be the party that terminates them.

But where is it in green, certainly not in March 2018's document that google threw up, so which document is it in?

Peregrinus

Spook_ie wrote: »

But where is it in green, certainly not in March 2018's document that google threw up, so which document is it in?

No, that's the document. Large parts of the Ireland protocol are yellow or white, right enough, but what's in green is Art 15, which provides that the backstop is superseded by "a subsequent agreement between the Union and the United Kingdom which addresses the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, avoids a hard border and protects the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions". That's the language that precludes the "time-limited backstop" that some in the UK have started to mutter about lately; hence the recent references to green text.

No updated text has been published since March but work has continued, and the negotiators recently said that 80%, and later 90% of the text of a draft agreement is now in green. So it's likely that a good deal more of the Irish Protocol is now green, but we don't know exactly how much, or what it says.

Hurrache

Spook_ie wrote: »

But where is it in green, certainly not in March 2018's document that google threw up, so which document is it in?

I posted a screen shot of it with it in green and the reference to the document earlier in this thread. On mobile so it's too much of a pain to try search for it at the moment.

Leroy42

Ireland certainly believes they had a commitment, the EU certainly believes they had a commitment and the UK, up until relatively recently, talked about the backstop. The UK also continue to state that they are committed to no hard border which the backstop was designed to deal with.

Johnson and others in the cabinet at the time say that they were lied to in regards to the real meaning of the backstop.

So all the available evidence would suggest that the backstop was certainly agreed and moved on from.

Leroy42

Peregrinus wrote: »

No updated text has been published since March but work has continued, and the negotiators recently said that 80%, and later 90% of the text of a draft agreement is now in green. So it's likely that a good deal more of the Irish Protocol is now green, but we don't know exactly how much, or what it says.

I seen some commentators say that the Backstop has not been part of the negotiations since March on the request of the UK as it seen as so contentious and they wanted to try to revolve the other areas, and also in case of any leaks which would place massive pressure on TM.

So it could be that everything but NI is sorted but that NI backstop hasn't moved one inch since March.

Nody

Now I know this is highly unlikely but is May going to use the "threat" of the extension to swing the Irish backstop through? Basically tell the ERG et al that either we need to extend the negotiations ("costing us billions") or we accept the back stop for now while working on the technical solution which we know is not going to be ready by March anyway. So really it's not a permanent thing only a minor hold over to save billions and it will go away once our technology solution is in place anyway so while it's not time limited on paper it will be in practice (which is never but hey they think they can swing it). It would give her some leverage to get them to accept the current EU deal and provide the ERG with a win to use as the excuse for accepting the deal towards their voters because let's be honest here; they could not care less about NI at the end of the day.

Professor Moriarty

Nody wrote: »

Now I know this is highly unlikely but is May going to use the "threat" of the extension to swing the Irish backstop through? Basically tell the ERG et al that either we need to extend the negotiations ("costing us billions") or we accept the back stop for now while working on the technical solution which we know is not going to be ready by March anyway. So really it's not a permanent thing only a minor hold over to save billions and it will go away once our technology solution is in place anyway so while it's not time limited on paper it will be in practice (which is never but hey they think they can swing it). It would give her some leverage to get them to accept the current EU deal and provide the ERG with a win to use as the excuse for accepting the deal towards their voters because let's be honest here; they could not care less about NI at the end of the day.

Good thinking. A very clever strategy if true.

Inquitus

Nody wrote: »

Now I know this is highly unlikely but is May going to use the "threat" of the extension to swing the Irish backstop through? Basically tell the ERG et al that either we need to extend the negotiations ("costing us billions") or we accept the back stop for now while working on the technical solution which we know is not going to be ready by March anyway. So really it's not a permanent thing only a minor hold over to save billions and it will go away once our technology solution is in place anyway so while it's not time limited on paper it will be in practice (which is never but hey they think they can swing it). It would give her some leverage to get them to accept the current EU deal and provide the ERG with a win to use as the excuse for accepting the deal towards their voters because let's be honest here; they could not care less about NI at the end of the day.

Massive scope Government IT Projects lol, we all know how they end up, they'll be in the EU forever!

Nody

Inquitus wrote: »

Massive scope Government IT Projects lol, we all know how they end up, they'll be in the EU forever!

Well this is sales pitch for the backstop for NI; UK could then move on and NI remain in SM/CU while the technological solution is being worked out. I'd agree it's a big white elephant of money drain but it's not about reality as much as giving a plausible excuse to move on. Having said that I don't think May will use it that way but I think she potentially could use it that way but May has a tendency to disapoint when it comes to the initiative side of things.

swampgas

Nody wrote: »

Now I know this is highly unlikely but is May going to use the "threat" of the extension to swing the Irish backstop through? Basically tell the ERG et al that either we need to extend the negotiations ("costing us billions") or we accept the back stop for now while working on the technical solution which we know is not going to be ready by March anyway. So really it's not a permanent thing only a minor hold over to save billions and it will go away once our technology solution is in place anyway so while it's not time limited on paper it will be in practice (which is never but hey they think they can swing it). It would give her some leverage to get them to accept the current EU deal and provide the ERG with a win to use as the excuse for accepting the deal towards their voters because let's be honest here; they could not care less about NI at the end of the day.

Interesting idea - but what if the ERG actually wants a no-deal Brexit? If JRM and others can profit from a hard Brexit then I wouldn't put it past them to try to make it happen. While pretending the opposite of course.

Peregrinus

swampgas wrote: »

Interesting idea - but what if the ERG actually wants a no-deal Brexit? If JRM and others can profit from a hard Brexit then I wouldn't put it past them to try to make it happen. While pretending the opposite of course.

ERG wants a Canada-style deal, and no backstop.

They don't call for a no-deal Brexit, but they do argue that it could be managed if it had to be. The thinking here is to persuade the EU that the UK will accept a crash-out rather than the backstop, so the EU decides to drop the backstop in order to get a deal.