Brexit discussion thread V - No Pic/GIF dumps please

Zubeneschamali

Peregrinus wrote: »

Or alternatively the purpose of this narrative is to smooth the way for HMG to shift their position to the extent needed to secure a Withdrawal Agreement, and to spin that shift as a UK victory.

Yes, they'll take some token language from the EU and spin it to Parliament as "We won this participation trophy from the EU negotiating team!", declare victory, go home.

demfad

Sabotage attempt by the ERG.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/back-down-on-brexit-or-face-revolt-may-warned-ncdlpc7nx

Steve Baker is proposing an amendment to a NI Bill which would allow only Stormont approved of back stop.
If the amendment passes it's no-deal, simple as that.

EDIT:

I think it's becoming clear that the ERG's favoured position is and always was no-deal.

It puts the most distance with EU. Climate change policy appears to become unaffordable. Also it allows disaster Capitalists to cash in.

This is not just greed: The chaos allows the new system to take shape quicker. Regulations need to be burned and the UK will pivot towards US.
Also society will divide into an overclass of oligarchs in charge of everyone else. The troublesome middle class will dwindle.

Look what will happen to agriculture as an example: To actually get enough food in under no deal tariffs there would be no chekcs. This kills the agriculture industry. Farms get bought up by very wealthy men the land is owned again by huge landlords and we are back to pre 1914 conditions.

No Deal is Downton Brexit.

J Mysterio

Coveney sharing a clip of Tony Blair attacking Farrage in EU parliament, way back when:

https://mobile.twitter.com/simoncoveney/status/1053943854896947200

Blair emphasising what EU 'get' from EU

J Mysterio

Coveney and McEntee saying 'no Withdrawal Agreement without Backstop'. Strong comments.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney raised the prospect of a no-deal Brexit should the UK fail to honour its backstop commitment within the deal with the EU. “There will be no withdrawal agreement without the backstop, end of story,” he said.

The British government had already agreed to “a legally operable backstop” within the accord. “To suggest moving away from that now is not going to fly with Ireland or the EU as a whole,” he said.

“What we need now is for the negotiators to get back to work in Brussels and finish the final 10 per cent of the withdrawal agreement. This will not be achieved in newspapers or over the airwaves,” said Mr Coveney. “Ireland wants a close future trading deal with the UK, but at this point the commitments already made need to be honoured.”

The EU, supported strongly by the Government, insists that any backstop should last unless and until there is another solution found in a future EU-UK trade pact.

Minister for European Affairs Helen McEntee said that if London reneged on the backstop, then agreements already reached on citizens’ rights and the so-called divorce bill could be reopened.

“I don’t think in terms of the negotiation that you can go back and undo something that has been agreed on both sides and sets a new red line on something that has been already agreed in negotiations. I don’t think anyone can or should be able to do that,” she said.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/coveney-uk-repudiating-border-pledge-not-going-to-fly-1.3671026?mode=amp

Leroy42

demfad wrote: »

Sabotage attempt by the ERG.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/back-down-on-brexit-or-face-revolt-may-warned-ncdlpc7nx

Steve Baker is proposing an amendment to a NI Bill which would allow only Stormont approved of back stop.
If the amendment passes it's no-deal, simple as that.

When will people like Baker be called out on the approach they are taking? At no point was no deal ever on the cards during the campaign. What is Bakers plan for dealing with No Deal? How is he going to replace the promised £350bn pw that was promised?

It just seems to me that No deal is simply being accepted as one of those things, sure what can you do. As if it was always likely and sure no harm. It is staggering, to me, that people like him are allowed peddle this without being completely laughed at by the interviewer.

Can you imagine if Corbyn turned around and said that he was going to potentially decimate the economy based on his ideals? This is exactly what these guys are doing. I just think that it is unbelievable that Mp's are actually putting forward an idea that could lead to significant challenges and not even have a plan of how to deal with it. Simply saying 'everything will be fine' seems to be the extent that people need to do.

I recall many arguments over budgets where peoples numbers would be questioned, how are you going to fund this tax decrease, how will the NHS cover a shortfall etc. But in this case they aren't asked any questions. Who is going to pay for all these new IT systems, all the new customs personnel, the extra costs that business will have to pay in terms of customs and cashflow.

Even to the extend of still, at this stage, they haven't been able to give any examples of what laws/regulations all this 'taking back control' is going to mean. And they haven't been asked about the level of immigration they are going to sign up to, surely this is one of the key points that people voted for yet none of them have given a top line number.

LeinsterDub

J Mysterio wrote: »

Coveney and McEntee saying 'no Withdrawal Agreement without Backstop'. Strong comments.

It's been the official line for nearly a year. It's been an official red line since a week after the brexit vote if you want to consider before the backstop became a thing

Zubeneschamali

Leroy42 wrote: »

It just seems to me that No deal is simply being accepted as one of those things, sure what can you do.

I don't think so. No Deal is still being treated as an obviously silly idea that won't happen, which is dangerous as it WILL happen if the UK team don't get their act together.

If the City decides No Deal Brexit is actually happening, Sterling will drop below parity with the Euro in a day, the stock market will melt, billions will flood out of the UK, and capital controls will be hastily introduced.

Perhaps then no-deal will be taken seriously by the UK team.

LeinsterDub

https://twitter.com/DarranMarshall/status/1054319490081677314


We have always been at war with eastasia. The doublethink is frightening how the UK has gone from easiest deal in history to no deal will be great is hard to comprehend.

Water John

The more the ERG show their true colours as wanting a crash out no deal Brexit, the easier it will be to isolate the small rump that they are, in Parliament.

It is fairly pathetic that the UK's reach for the finish approach is all about getting rid of a backstop they already agreed to. It's not on offer.

EdgeCase

This illustrates the problem with all of this utter nonsense being spewed in the UK:
I was talking to a UK national living here this morning.

She had long term visas for the US and China on her UK passport and was concerned that if the UK leaves in a crash out that their government might go off in some mad passport booklet replacing nonsense and her visas would end up being cancelled.

I was trying to reassure her that that was highly unlikely but we both concluded that given the utter madness over there, nobody really knows. She's applying for Irish citizenship because she's just fed up with the instability and uncertainty and prefers to just live here now.

I mean, as it stands we have members of the Tories spewing all sorts of nonsense about stuff like the above, banning EU jets (incidentally nobody as flown 'jets' for decades.. they're all turbofans), ranting and raving about various things.

At this stage, it could well be the uncertainty and chaos that brings down the UK, never mind Brexit. There's only so much of this crazy that will be tolerated by people trying to get on with their day-to-day lives and businesses trying to make decisions.

I mean, it's almost like you're dealing with some kind of developing world country where things are in turmoil due to dogmatic politics.

ancapailldorcha

I recall reading that the UK press is the least trusted in Europe though the link was from early last decade.

I found this on Reddit though I don't know what the source data is:

Water John

That Davis kite reflects to the old headline, Fog in English Channel, Europe cut off.

Imreoir2

seamus wrote: »

While the British and French have been at eachother like cats and dogs for centuries, the German relationship is a more interesting one. Germany (or at least large parts of it) and the UK would probably have ended up forming a union of sorts, had the Kaiser not decided to take Germany on a world conquest attempt. After that, the British propaganda machine ensured that everyone would know Germans were evil geniuses and not to be trusted.

Prior to the first world war, parts of Germany had been allied to the UK far more often than they had been on opposing sides. The UK was in a personal union with Hanover for decades and they could not have finished Napoleon off with out Prussian support.

And to be fair the Kaiser did go on a world conquest attempt, Germany despite all the propaganda were not the agressors. Austria Hungary invaded Serbia which set off a series of tripwires leading to the war. Germany invaded France because that was their only hope to win the war. They were surrounded on two sides with major powers, they had to try to knock France out right at the start or risk Russian troops marching through Berlin by Christmas. Germany never really played an agressive or expansionist role in Europe prior to WWII.

LuckyLloyd

demfad wrote: »

EDIT:

I think it's becoming clear that the ERG's favoured position is and always was no-deal.

It puts the most distance with EU. Climate change policy appears to become unaffordable. Also it allows disaster Capitalists to cash in.

This is not just greed: The chaos allows the new system to take shape quicker. Regulations need to be burned and the UK will pivot towards US.
Also society will divide into an overclass of oligarchs in charge of everyone else. The troublesome middle class will dwindle.

Look what will happen to agriculture as an example: To actually get enough food in under no deal tariffs there would be no chekcs. This kills the agriculture industry. Farms get bought up by very wealthy men the land is owned again by huge landlords and we are back to pre 1914 conditions.

No Deal is Downton Brexit.

I completely agree with your analysis of their end objective, and have for some time. I think the important thing to remember from our perspective is that this should not motivate any softening of our position on the Back Stop. Terrible as a crash out No Deal Brexit will be for the UK economy and its populace, and taking into account that it will have a negative effect on aspects of our own economy - it is still entirely a problem of their own making. It will not benefit us (and the EU by extension) to have the UK force a fudge on the four freedoms just because they have a rump of wealthy elites deliberately willing to drive them off the cliff edge for their own narrow self interest.

Because ultimately if they get their No Deal Brexit and try to force Singapore on Thames it might be the thing that prompts a crushing societal awakening that restores reasonable societal discourse and - over a ~ten year period - we could have the UK regain sense and rejoin the EU project in a fully committed way. Just as they wish to play the long game (and Brexit is the result of ~three decades of spreading lies and disinformation about the EU), so must we.

demfad

Leroy42 wrote: »

When will people like Baker be called out on the approach they are taking? At no point was no deal ever on the cards during the campaign. What is Bakers plan for dealing with No Deal? How is he going to replace the promised £350bn pw that was promised?

It just seems to me that No deal is simply being accepted as one of those things, sure what can you do. As if it was always likely and sure no harm. It is staggering, to me, that people like him are allowed peddle this without being completely laughed at by the interviewer.

Can you imagine if Corbyn turned around and said that he was going to potentially decimate the economy based on his ideals? This is exactly what these guys are doing. I just think that it is unbelievable that Mp's are actually putting forward an idea that could lead to significant challenges and not even have a plan of how to deal with it. Simply saying 'everything will be fine' seems to be the extent that people need to do.

I recall many arguments over budgets where peoples numbers would be questioned, how are you going to fund this tax decrease, how will the NHS cover a shortfall etc. But in this case they aren't asked any questions. Who is going to pay for all these new IT systems, all the new customs personnel, the extra costs that business will have to pay in terms of customs and cashflow.

Even to the extend of still, at this stage, they haven't been able to give any examples of what laws/regulations all this 'taking back control' is going to mean. And they haven't been asked about the level of immigration they are going to sign up to, surely this is one of the key points that people voted for yet none of them have given a top line number.

They have a long term plan and a short term one. They just can't share them so they lie about the inevitable chaos.

They will use the short term chaos to accelerate the transfer of remaining power away from the middle classes to the elite.
You either align with EU or USA regulatorily. They will align with US and will sign a trade deal similar to what the Cato Institute has produced. This will completely transform the UK economy and end the NHS or as Hannan calls it the "failed socialist project".

The remaining problem on many fronts is the EU. Their regulatory system is the world driver, their liberal laws impenetrable. This is why all behind this project want the EU gone. THis si why they claim that Brexit will be beneficial in 20-30 years: They think the UK/US will have an advantage if they can drag the EU down.

If they do you have a new world order, resembling in many ways those pre 1914. I don't know if World war would be inevitable as the world would be controlled by a group of International globalist individuals. State power would be captured and used to preserve the system.

One problem with all fascist systems is that there is no checks to keep them on track. So a fascist system can very efficiently and systematically lead itself to disaster. This is how all fascist systems tend to end.

It's not useful to bring to mind NAZI Germany when trying to visualise Fascism. Doing so might stop us identifying with other kinds.
Here's a decent identifier with regard to Brexit : https://sergiograziosi.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/fascism-for-dummies/

The democratic world is at a cross roads:
Democracy should inevitably adopt Climate change economics and politics to preserve a habitable planet. This means sharing resources and using non fossil energy which must transform consumerist capitalism as we see it.
Peter Thiel said that he no longer believes Capitalism and Democracy are compatible.

A Fascist system with elite rulers, a facade of democracy (Surkov's Russia) means that Capialism can be preserved and controlled. Internal enemies will be targetted to distarct the lower class.

Sam Russell

An interesting article from today's Irish Times:

Politicians on both sides of the Irish Sea and in Europe are trying to find their way though a maze of borders, barriers and Brexit red lines. These feverish weeks of negotiations are entering their final stage and tensions are high.

We in the all-island Irish trade union movement know a thing or two about negotiations. I would suggest there are five key elements for any negotiation, whether it is about a pay claim or extracting your state from the EU.

– You need to know what you want.

– What you want has to be somewhat achievable and realisable.

– Your position has to have a level of flexibility.

– You need to have the capacity to bring your people with you.

– You don’t have to like the other side but you need to ensure they understand ultimately what your bottom line is to secure an agreement.

I will leave it to readers to determine how successful or indeed competent the British Tory government has been to date in such negotiations when considering its performance under these five criteria.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/workers-must-not-pay-a-trade-unionist-s-guide-to-negotiating-on-brexit-1.3670795

He also said a 52% vote in favour of a strike was not enough to go ahead with the strike. With that vote, the softest of soft Brexit should be the aim.

I think the UK Gov score nothing on the five criteria listed above.

LuckyLloyd

The fact you can't bat demfad's post away as conspiracy theory nonsense should give us all a shudder.

demfad

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I completely agree with your analysis of their end objective, and have for some time. I think the important thing to remember from our perspective is that this should not motivate any softening of our position on the Back Stop. Terrible as a crash out No Deal Brexit will be for the UK economy and its populace, and taking into account that it will have a negative effect on aspects of our own economy - it is still entirely a problem of their own making. It will not benefit us (and the EU by extension) to have the UK force a fudge on the four freedoms just because they have a rump of wealthy elites deliberately willing to drive them off the cliff edge for their own narrow self interest.

Because ultimately if they get their No Deal Brexit and try to force Singapore on Thames it might be the thing that prompts a crushing societal awakening that restores reasonable societal discourse and - over a ~ten year period - we could have the UK regain sense and rejoin the EU project in a fully committed way. Just as they wish to play the long game (and Brexit is the result of ~three decades of spreading lies and disinformation about the EU), so must we.

Sorry I posted above already before seeing your reply.
My worry is that a new fascistic system will rise. The signs are there already with attacks on the Judiciary in the UK.
Last week a story emerged that the Metroplitan police had not investigated the Electiosn Commissions findings 5-6 months later due to "political sensitivities". Are the police now compromised?
We also learnt that a Dark company is spending money on hard Brexit ads.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45926892
Facebook don't care. Facebook enabled the chaos we see. From Trump to Brexit to the genocide in Rohinga. Almost every single piece of disinformation was fed through Facebook.
Lies and hatred make more clicks so the world is being recreated in the image of this monster. If you have Facebook, you have the election and believe me the Authoritarian right who rise after a hard Brexit will have Facebook.
I am slowly starting to wonder if avoiding a no-deal is better than them crashing out.
If democracy prevails, your are correct they will return to their senses.
If it doesn't things will get worse, more extreme. I would fear for our future then.

An Ciarraioch

If it looks like a backstop...

http://twitter.com/MatthewOToole2/status/1054312238637637634

LuckyLloyd

demfad wrote: »

Sorry I posted above already before seeing your reply.
My worry is that a new fascistic system will rise. The signs are there already with attacks on the Judiciary in the UK.
Last week a story emerged that the Metroplitan police had not investigated the Electiosn Commissions findings 5-6 months later due to "political sensitivities". Are the police now compromised?
We also learnt that a Dark company is spending money on hard Brexit ads.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45926892
Facebook don't care. Facebook enabled the chaos we see. From Trump to Brexit to the genocide in Rohinga. Almost every single piece of disinformation was fed through Facebook.
Lies and hatred make more clicks so the world is being recreated in the image of this monster. If you have Facebook, you have the election and believe me the Authoritarian right who rise after a hard Brexit will have Facebook.
I am slowly starting to wonder if avoiding a no-deal is better than them crashing out.
If democracy prevails, your are correct they will return to their senses.
If it doesn't things will get worse, more extreme. I would fear for our future then.

When they come for the NHS and when the last remnants of well paid manafacturing jobs in middle and northern England evaporate the penny will drop. And in this context, they will have "control" of their borders so it will be an awful lot harder to bring the immigration bogeyman out as the root cause.

These ideas need to be faced down, they require a clean moment of reckoning otherwise they will continue festering off to the side like an infected sore. Things are darkest before the dawn. Right now, two years into Trump's presidency and two year's post Brexit it is tempting to think we are doomed. But I still believe there is only so far you can push people and therefore we have to let this play out whilst steadfastly retaining our principles.

Water John

'Referring to the joint report in December, in which Theresa May and EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier signed off on the need for a “backstop” insurance policy for Ireland in the event of no deal, she said that commitment still stood.

“We are committed to everything we have agreed to in the joint report and we will ensure there is no border on the island of Ireland,” she told the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly in London on Monday.'

So Karen Bradley says their will be no border. Who from the UK Cabinet are we supposed to believe?

Imreoir2

Sam Russell wrote: »

An interesting article from today's Irish Times:


https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/workers-must-not-pay-a-trade-unionist-s-guide-to-negotiating-on-brexit-1.3670795

He also said a 52% vote in favour of a strike was not enough to go ahead with the strike. With that vote, the softest of soft Brexit should be the aim.

I think the UK Gov score nothing on the five criteria listed above.

I would give them one out of five, they may not agree on what they want and some of what they want is not even slightly realistic, but the reality of the deal thus far has shown flexibility on the UK side. Compared to what they claimed they would get, and what they say they want, the actual detail of the 90% that has been agreed has been nothing short of a capitulation by the UK. They have made all sorts of threats and come up with all sorts or red lines, but thus far not one of them has stuck in the end. Perhaps the backstop will be one concession too far for the Brexiteers to stand, but I am guessing that they will ultimatly conceed on that too.

Whatever the Brexiteer elite want to do to the UK and indeed to the EU, the EU has proved to be more than a match for them to date.

Leroy42

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

When they come for the NHS and when the last remnants of well paid manafacturing jobs in middle and northern England evaporate the penny will drop. And in this context, they will have "control" of their borders so it will be an awful lot harder to bring the immigration bogeyman out as the root cause.

These ideas need to be faced down, they require a clean moment of reckoning otherwise they will continue festering off to the side like an infected sore. Things are darkest before the dawn. Right now, two years into Trump's presidency and two year's post Brexit it is tempting to think we are doomed. But I still believe there is only so far you can push people and therefore we have to let this play out whilst steadfastly retaining our principles.

I think in that scenario, it will be a few years and then a person similar to Trump will come along to MUKGA. Farage has already shown the appetite is there, but due to the electoral and parliamentary system in the UK, it needs more than just a single person.

But getting a person like Farage, or Johnson etc, to lead a party would do the trick and we would get an even more reactionary UK, turning away from previous allies.

Zubeneschamali

Water John wrote: »

'Who from the UK Cabinet are we supposed to believe?

Don't listen to any of this noise. What they say to the papers doesn't matter. What they say to the BBC doesn't matter. Only two things matter:

1) What they agree with the EU at the negotiations and

2) How they vote in Parliament on that agreement.

All the signs are that the agreement will be a FTA as the Future Relationship with NI in the SM as needed to have no Border as the backstop, as it has been since Barnier's Powerpoint slide last December.

The UK team are not admitting this yet because of 2). They will wait til the last second, spring a vote on parliament and tell them it's this or Mad-Max-on-Thames.

McGiver

demfad wrote: »

One problem with all fascist systems is that there is no checks to keep them on track. So a fascist system can very efficiently and systematically lead itself to disaster. This is how all fascist systems tend to end.

It's not useful to bring to mind NAZI Germany when trying to visualise Fascism. Doing so might stop us identifying with other kinds.
Here's a decent identifier with regard to Brexit : https://sergiograziosi.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/fascism-for-dummies/

Good article and it posits rightly that fascism is a marriage of corporations and the state. You could argue that this is the reality in the US. Or that they are not very far from a complete corporate takeover of the state.

Note that Nazism and Fascism are quite different. Nazism is politically rather centrist with socialist elements, fascism proper is more right-wing. Pinochet's regime is good example of fascism, it was fantastic for "the markets" and the big corporations. Not so great for the people as human rights go.

McGiver

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

When they come for the NHS and when the last remnants of well paid manafacturing jobs in middle and northern England evaporate the penny will drop. And in this context, they will have "control" of their borders so it will be an awful lot harder to bring the immigration bogeyman out as the root cause.

Right, but they can easily turn their anger to millions of "forinas" who are already there. No new immigration is needed. It happened like that with Jews in Germany, no immigration was taking place.

Capt'n Midnight

seamus wrote: »

While the British and French have been at eachother like cats and dogs for centuries, the German relationship is a more interesting one.

The Merchandise Marks Act 1887 forced German imports to the UK to be marked as "Made in Germany" in retaliation to German tariffs on imported goods. (These tariffs also made food more expensive for German workers but that's another story.)

The plan was that the UK public would reject inferior foreign goods and buy locally from the "Workshop of the World".

However the public soon associated the new mark with higher quality goods. So it kinda backfired.


But back then they didn't have the luxury of hindsight the Brexiteers have.
And there weren't any WTO tariffs that kicked in automatically.
And Moldova wouldn't have been an issue with the WTO.

Would you rather a Japanese car made in Japan or in the UK ?
Would you pay an extra tariff to get one made in the UK ?

Hurrache

The DUP, unsurprisingly, have said they're backing the amendment that will make any backstop illegal.

Peregrinus

McGiver wrote: »

Good article and it posits rightly that fascism is a marriage of corporations and the state. You could argue that this is the reality in the US. Or that they are not very far from a complete corporate takeover of the state.

Note that Nazism and Fascism are quite different. Nazism is politically rather centrist with socialist elements, fascism proper is more right-wing. Pinochet's regime is good example of fascism, it was fantastic for "the markets" and the big corporations. Not so great for the people as human rights go.

A bit OT for this thread perhaps but, gosh, no, Naziism is not centrist; nor was it perceived to be so in the 1920s and 30s when it was competing with other political philosophies. It's strongly authoritarian and ultra-nationalist, and completely rejects the centrist notion of a balance between the individual, groups within society, and society as a whole. For Naziism it's all about the Volk, end of.

If anything, Italian Fascism would be a bit closer to political centre (though that's not saying very much) with it's vocationalist elements.

Zubeneschamali

The CBI issuing a warning:

CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn said: “Unless a withdrawal agreement is locked down by December, firms will press the button on their contingency plans. Jobs will be lost and supply chains moved.

...

She added: “Many firms won’t publicise these decisions, yet their impact will show in lower GDP years down the line.