Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)

Professor Moriarty

Water John wrote: »

'Geoffrey Cox is facing a backlash in Brussels and Dublin after claiming the Irish backstop posed a risk to the human rights of people in Northern Ireland.

In the latest round of negotiations in Brussels, the attorney general told Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, the arrangement could potentially breach the European convention on human rights (EHCR).' Guardian

Cox is coming out with daft stuff.
“The attorney general said there was a risk of violating the ECHR,” a senior EU source said. “He said a lot of surprising things this week.” Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/07/attorney-general-geoffrey-cox-rejects-eu-brexit-deadlock-complaints

Cox is in the trenches with Weyand. I know who I would back. She's top notch on her brief.

Beat me Hurrache.

This kind of diversionary nit picking is going to create loads of goodwill for Britain within the EU. Not.

jm08

First Up wrote: »

That's funny. I thought the accusation was that the EU is run by the "unelected bureaucrats" in the Commission. The European parliament is elected, so how does reducing its power improve democracy?

It doesn't. The EU is far too democratic for the Tories and the likes of Orban and some of the far right in Europe. The European Parliament have a habit of calling them to heel. It would be much better for them if they, as a member of the Council of Ministers were telling the Commission what to do.

An Ciarraioch

Penneys taking jobs back within the Dublin fold, by moving 220 product control positions from their Primark office in Reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/07/primark-tells-200-uk-staff-to-move-to-dublin-or-risk-redundancy?CMP=share_btn_tw

First Up

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I understand well what the EU is and how it functions, thank you very much. The issue is that, at the end voter level in all 28 member states, any debate they may have on the EU feels like it evaporates into the ether once it goes up to consensus building level across the institutions. Every member state government is pro EU, to varying degrees and gets on board with the end policy almost uniformly.

Well you obviously never attended an EU meeting at official or political level where the representatives of the member states fight their corner with vigour against each other and with the "faceless bureaucrats" in the Commission and other institutions.

Every member state government is "pro EU" inasmuch as they were elected on a mandate that includes EU membership. That does not mean that anyone meekly accepts "end policy" - anything but. It does however mean that throwing your toys out of the pram is not an effective argument, as the UK is in the process of finding out.

Representative democracy involves electing people to represent your interests. That applies at local, regional, national and trans - EU level. It gets more complex as you move up but the same principals apply.

If you can't trust those you elect, you can elect others. If you can't trust anyone you can revert to a system based on family allegiance or village elders but the evidence suggests we are better at it the way we do it now.

An Ciarraioch

Latest UK "alternative arrangements" hardly inspire confidence :

http://twitter.com/mattholehouse/status/1103702877866999808

Silent Running

Cutting edge new technologies? RFID?? Seriously?

prawnsambo

There are so many holes you could drive a fleet of trucks through them. The first one being that they can do all that stuff on one side of the border, but who's going to pay for, run and monitor it on the other side that they don't control? And what happens when somebody turns up at an infrastuctureless border without all that gubbins they need? And of course smugglers don't register for 'trusted trader' schemes.

Hurrache

There's a guy on Twitter who as an experiment decided to give GPS a go as a means of tracking when he crossed the border in one direction or the other as he would make the trip regularly. Due to the nature of the border it wouldn't register or would register him incorrectly or belatedly when he went from one side to other.

Spanish Eyes

I am sure I will be considered to be wrong.

But I doubt NO DEAL will happen.

I do understand (as a lurker mostly) that Brexit is a disaster, but I also think that a quiet revoke at the last minute might just happen.

Another unicorn here!

martingriff

First of all I have to preface this by saying I am in a wheelchair and have been for 21 years. We were talking about brexit today in work and one of us was talking about pallets and the size the EU use and how Britian only have x amount of them and after there gone it will cause chaos . I piped up and said there is more chances of me walking on the 29th of March then Brexit happening on that date. The look of shock I got from the lady in front of me was priceless. She went that horrible you shouldn't be like that and I was going what it was a joke on my expense the rest had a good laugh though

Hurrache

Isn't the issue with the pallets due to how they require treatment for a certain type of bug? For transport within the EU it's seen as one country so no specific treatment required, whereas the UK will be a third country and they'll require the specific pallets.

Edit, yes
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/26/uk-pallet-crisis-no-deal-brexit

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal the overwhelming majority of wooden pallets, used to transport a vast range of consumer goods from breakfast cereal to pet food, beer and chocolate, will not meet strict EU rules designed to stop the spread of bark beetles and other pests.
......
At present pallets moving between EU member states, including the UK, are exempt from the ISPM 15 standard. Industry experts said fewer than a third of the pallets used for EU-UK trade comply with the standard.

“In the event of no deal, all WPM [wood packaging material] moving between the UK and the EU must meet ISPM15 international standards by undergoing heat treatment and marking,” Defra said in an official notice last week. “All WPM may be subject to official checks either upon or after entry to the EU.”

An Ciarraioch

http://twitter.com/SiCarswell/status/1103750457128902656

prawnsambo

Hurrache wrote: »

Isn't the issue with the pallets due to how they require treatment for a certain type of bug? For transport within the EU it's seen as one country so no specific treatment required, whereas the UK will be a third country and they'll require the specific pallets.

Edit, yes
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/26/uk-pallet-crisis-no-deal-brexit

It's not just that. I think they have to be a different size for third countries.

Hurrache

prawnsambo wrote: »

It's not just that. I think they have to be a different size for third countries.

I don't understand that though, if they're already using euro standard pallets why as a third country do they need to change that?

lawred2

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

http://twitter.com/SiCarswell/status/1103750457128902656

Yeah but 33% of NI voters are happy with them. And that's enough for the DUP. The rest don't matter to them.

prawnsambo

Hurrache wrote: »

I don't understand that though, if they're already using euro standard pallets why as a third country do they need to change that?

I'm not sure tbh. It's a while since I saw the info. I assumed at the time that it was because there would be no other way to identify the source of the pallets. A different size would make them easier to spot and check.

martingriff

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not sure tbh. It's a while since I saw the info. I assumed at the time that it was because there would be no other way to identify the source of the pallets. A different size would make them easier to spot and check.

Also the pallets used by EU countries probably have some standard stamp that without then you have to check

Professor Moriarty

lawred2 wrote: »

Yeah but 33% of NI voters are happy with them. And that's enough for the DUP. The rest don't matter to them.

Actually, only 20% are happy with the DUP's handling of Brexit. 13% are Don't Knows.

lawred2

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Actually, only 20% are happy with the DUP's handling of Brexit. 13% are Don't Knows.

That's getting a bit closer to the bone for them I suppose

Jim2007

Peregrinus wrote: »

The result is that immediately after Brexit Northern Ireland will be a region outside the EU in which a majority of the population - and virtually the entire adult population - will be EU citizens. I'm pretty sure that this is not a situation which has arisen before...

Yes of course it has. We have German towns on the Swiss border in which all the citizens are EU, but it is administered by Switzerland and Swiss towns that are under German administration and so on.

This kind of stuff happens all the time, you just don't hear about it in Ireland. So one I remember was when an Italian chief of police took his team to lunch over the boarder in Switzerland, their squad car and bus were ticketed by Swiss traffic warden....

Hurrache

Plenty of interesting findings in that Irish Times poll, particularly on the question of should SF take their seats in Westminster.
https://twitter.com/PatLeahyIT/status/1103759114155540485?s=19

Nody

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not sure tbh. It's a while since I saw the info. I assumed at the time that it was because there would be no other way to identify the source of the pallets. A different size would make them easier to spot and check.

Sorry prawn but you are confusing two different issues here. First of all yes, UK tend to use a different pallet size (1m x 1.2m) and rest of Europe tends to use what's commonly called a EUR pallet or 0.8 x 1.2m. They both fit the exact same volume in a normal truck; they only difference is the size of the pallet (and the fact you don't want to mix the two in trying to fill a truck in general). Due to this there is some pallet redistribution going around etc. but this is not the issue with pallets due to Brexit. UK companies do export on EUR pallets and vice versa; hence there is no possibility to use pallet size for checking.

The issue with pallets due to Brexit is that most pallets are made of wood; as long as they are only rotated in EU they don't need any special treatment. However for third party countries they need to be confirmed as heat treated to ensure any exotic bugs are killed off and this will start to apply to all pallets leaving the UK for EU on 30th March (it's marked on the pallet directly if they are heat treated). That's what's causing the problem here because most companies have zero such pallets as there was no need for them previously and replacing every single pallet (and remember they are not getting this type of pallets back by default since pallets tends to rotate around a lot as companies reuse them) means they will need to constantly buy and send of new heat treated pallets when exporting to Europe but there are currently only 3% of export volume of pallets available. Hence someone has to start mass producing these pallets (no one are going to want to do that until it's 110% confirmed it will be required) or all export on "normal" pallets will have to be rejected for failing to meet standards and be reloaded over to an approved pallet basically (this part is my assumption on how it would be handled) once it hits the border.

Capt'n Midnight

Britain matches EU offer to maintain flights in no-deal Brexit scenario

So the UK will match the EU's offer of reciprocal rights on flights for a year.

And allow member state airlines operate inside the UK until Oct 27 to cover the summer season. Then again how many UK airlines are foreign owned.


I wonder will this be presented as a win ?

Enzokk

So it seems like May is now begging the EU again to get her out of her own mess.


https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1103780124812603392


She will make a speech tomorrow in Grimsby and will then once again iterate that the EU will have a big decision to make on the deal. The nerve of her, it is her red lines that is causing all of these problems and she is blaming the EU now for her inability to get a deal through parliament.

Capt'n Midnight

Polls suggests No Deal is a 15% chance.

If the Brexiteers can accomplish this there's fortunes to be made.

Sterling could slide 9% if there's no deal - Reuters Poll of economists

All Reuters polls ahead of that vote correctly predicted sterling would fall in the event of the country choosing to leave the European Union.

A separate Reuters poll of economists this week showed the chance of a no-deal Brexit had fallen to 15%, but if the two sides do part ways without agreement, one forecaster predicted sterling could sink as low as parity to the dollar.

Good luck getting a good trade deal with the US when your currency is devaluing which makes your exports cheaper at a time whe the the US has a record trade deficit and sorting out that was Trump election promise.

Shelga

Dominic Raab on Question Time saying “people want Brexit done and dusted on March 29th”- audience claps- are people genuinely so stupid that they think this issue is going to be put to bed completely on March 29th.

When it comes to the average Briton, sadly I think I know the answer.

Kermit.de.frog

What Theresa May will say tomorrow:

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1103785118961946624

boggerman1

Shelga wrote: »

Dominic Raab on Question Time saying “people want Brexit done and dusted on March 29th”- audience claps- are people genuinely so stupid that they think this issue is going to be put to bed completely on March 29th.

When it comes to the average Briton, sadly I think I know the answer.

Isn't a pity that someone with the intelligence of a Dominic raab couldn't make it to be a minister for brexit.just sayin

Shelga

boggerman1 wrote: »

Isn't a pity that someone with the intelligence of a Dominic raab couldn't make it to be a minister for brexit.just sayin

He is allowed by the BBC to rant on about how the EU is ‘trapping’ them in the backstop. IT WAS THE UK GOVERNMENT’S IDEA TO EXTEND IT TO THE WHOLE OF THE UK; THE EU JUST WANTED IT TO BE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND.

Very sorry for the caps lock, but the sheer neglect of the media and particularly the BBC is enraging. Why is no one from the government EVER challenged on this point. I am so sick of the lot of them. The disregard they have shown for Ireland is disgusting.

VinLieger

Shelga wrote: »

Dominic Raab on Question Time saying “people want Brexit done and dusted on March 29th”- audience claps- are people genuinely so stupid that they think this issue is going to be put to bed completely on March 29th.

When it comes to the average Briton, sadly I think I know the answer.

I wouldn't rely on the question time audience as a barometer, apparently the producer in charge of picking the audience whose name is allison fuller pedley has some UKIP and Britain First connections, the suspicion is she has been heavily stacking the seats with pro brexit people.