Brexit discussion thread VIII (Please read OP before posting)

Enzokk

AllForIt wrote: »

Cameron is unremitting in respect of calling the ref. I agree with him. He did the right thing. Because some don't want Brexit doesn't make his calling of the ref in any way 'wrong'.

The question is if he believes EU membership is the right path for the UK. If he does then calling the referendum is a monumental mistake. Why would he gamble with an integral part of what makes the UK the success it is today?

Zubeneschamali

Enzokk wrote: »

The question is if he believes EU membership is the right path for the UK.

We know the answer to that since he called for a Remain vote.


Why would he call the referendum? Because just that recently, say 2015, Brexit was a mad notion on the right wing of the Tory party, not a real thing at all. He called the referendum assuming he would win and bury the Brexiteers for a generation.


Also, he's a twat.

Enzokk

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

We know the answer to that since he called for a Remain vote.


Why would he call the referendum? Because just that recently, say 2015, Brexit was a mad notion on the right wing of the Tory party, not a real thing at all. He called the referendum assuming he would win and bury the Brexiteers for a generation.


Also, he's a twat.

Hindsight is 20/20 but the UK has always been skeptical of the EU so they could have called for a referendum on membership and lost it for a few years now. The solution to this is not to flirt with leaving but to ignore the calls if you believe it is the right course for your country.

It was bad luck for Cameron as he expected to be in a coalition again and could drop the referendum as a condition of the coalition. I still think he should never have entertained the thought of a referendum.

Nody

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I disagree. People will still have petrol, work will still be open, they'll have food etc. It would take a few months for it to start feeling really off, and by then, they'll be told it's the EU's actions since Brexit that is causing those issues.

Within 24h flowers will stop arriving and a long queue will build at dover (I e flower shops closing due to lack of flowers to sell), within 72h fresh veggies etc. that are imported will stop appearing in shelves and limit premade sandwiches. Within a week cancer medicine is likely to stop for certain isotopes as well as several food manufacturers will have to halt multiple product lines due to lack of certain ingredients. With in two weeks car manufacturers are announcing delays to scheduled plant start ups again. At around a month certain medications will start to run out due to hoarding as there are only a few months supplies at best and only some are brought in with priority.

Main driver for the above is goings to be the issue of trucks going back from the UK being stuck and hence limited capacity even if UK opens it's borders completely.

briany

Enzokk wrote: »

It was bad luck for Cameron as he expected to be in a coalition again and could drop the referendum as a condition of the coalition. I still think he should never have entertained the thought of a referendum.

Another incredible lack of foresight from Cameron. He and his party spent their 2010 term cutting the nuts off the Lib Dems, making them renege on key election promises like the tuition fees thing. How he expected that they'd be in a position for another coalition I don't know.

MPFGLB

AllForIt wrote: »

Cameron is unremitting in respect of calling the ref. I agree with him. He did the right thing. Because some don't want Brexit doesn't make his calling of the ref in any way 'wrong'.

Of course (as many learned and informed persons have commented) Cameron was wrong to call the EU referendum. A yes/no referendum was never going to provide a solution to the Brexit dilemma and was in jeopardy of being hijacked as an emotional rather than a logical issue ... He did it not to give the UK a choice on Europe but to silence once and for all the anti Europe side of the Tory party...he thought he would win.So a referendum for a limited number of Tory politicians and constituents was wrong.

Having called the referendum he then under estimated the Leave campaign both on underhand tactics and the insane brilliance of Dominic Cummings.

Most MPs in the HoC are Remainers , no one there wanted it...and no one in the country but a hardcore of Tories wanted it....

But by the time the Leave campaign had finished vast sways of the country had adopted Brexit as the solution to all their ills,including poverty, immigration, jobs, globalisation, the modern world, nationalism,identity, freedom,sovereignty...and bloody foreigners...every bull**** the right wing media had feed them over the year

So Brexit became a wish unfulfilled for so many .... It was a foolish and ridiculous move by a prime minster .Tony Blair did well to promise and side step it

Even May and Boris Johnson are remainers ...just bending for political expediency

But as the man said ...once its out there you cannot kill an idea even if it ludicrous

Enzokk

Enzokk wrote: »

The damage Brexit is doing, other than economically, will be analysed in the years to come and the UK political class will not be looked on in any positive light. I feel it is inevitable that another tragedy will happen to a MP due to the words from the likes of Mark Francois.

Just signed in to agree thoroughly with this. It is clearer by the day where all this is going. No hyperbole and no exaggeration now. The genie is out, and there will be deaths and violence before these people will be forced to put it back.

Laois_Man

When the former Governor of the Bank of England (Mervyn King) is saying in the last few days that a 'No Deal' Brexit would be no problem (with a little more preparation time), and that leaving would be economically no different than staying in, you would be forgiven for thinking again about all the doomsday statements.

Now, nobody here has this guys qualifications or experience - and look what he's saying (his morals aside). I'd have liked the interviewer to probe him more on how he thinks having tariffs with its neighbors wouldn't be hugely damaging to the UK or how he thinks enough Trade deals can be completed in 6 months or whatever.

fash

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

I think the opposite is true too, though, the anti brexiters said that there wouldn’t be the option of a CU or SM.

But as Peregrinus correctly noted- when you vote, you vote for the good things your side say about about a proposition- you don't vote based on the bad things the other side says about the proposition.

NIMAN

This is getting more embarrassing, and worrying, by the day.

It really is the mother of all feck-ups.

Peregrinus

fash wrote: »

But as Peregrinus correctly noted- when you vote, you vote for the good things your side say about about a proposition- you don't vote based on the bad things the other side says about the proposition.

This. Although the Remain Campaign did claim that Brexit entailed loss of participation in the single market, customs barriers between the UK and the EU, etc, etc, the Leave Campaigns didn't endorse this; they rubbished it and called it Project Fear. They decided (for obvious reasons) not to seek a mandate for a no-deal Brexit, and cannot now claim that they have one.

Infini

briany wrote: »

Another incredible lack of foresight from Cameron. He and his party spent their 2010 term cutting the nuts off the Lib Dems, making them renege on key election promises like the tuition fees thing. How he expected that they'd be in a position for another coalition I don't know.

Maybe with any luck if a hard brexit happens its the tories getting shafted next time...

Calina

Infini wrote: »

Maybe with any luck if a hard brexit happens its the tories getting shafted next time...

Unlikely. Labour have not stepped up to the mark and the UK's electoral system mitigates against.

Enzokk

Laois_Man wrote: »

When the former Governor of the Bank of England (Mervyn King) is saying in the last few days that a 'No Deal' Brexit would be no problem (with a little more preparation time), and that leaving would be economically no different than staying in, you would be forgiven for thinking again about all the doomsday statements.


Now, nobody here has this guys qualifications or experience - and look what he's saying (his morals aside). I'd have liked the interviewer to probe him more on how he thinks having tariffs with its neighbors wouldn't be hugely damaging to the UK or how he thinks enough Trade deals can be completed in 6 months or whatever.

That is some interview. I guess that is John Humphreys interviewing him and would explain the soft approach to his answers and the facts he is stating. You can dismiss anything he says in the first few minutes to be honest, he seems to refer to GATT Article 24 as he talks about the EU agreeing with free trade with the UK while negotiating the deal. He correctly states, which is more than most Brexiters, that is would be needed to be agreed by both parties. He doesn't point out that this has never been done before by 2 countries and is there for the purposes of 2 countries agreeing a free trade agreement, not undoing one as the UK and EU would do.

That as you say is dangerous as it feeds into the myth about "project fear" if a former Governor of the BoE says it would be all right. I mean he said that it would take about 6 months to ward off the threat of no-deal for the UK and that its impacts would not be more significant than EU membership. I mean not even the ERG economists thinks this, they at least acknowledge that manufacturing will be destroyed in the UK but the benefits outweigh the loss of that industry.

Calina wrote: »

Unlikely. Labour have not stepped up to the mark and the UK's electoral system mitigates against.

Corbyn has been better the last few days on Brexit. A little too late? I think so but his statements after the votes and the way Labour has been voting and been told to vote is at least in the same direction as their members direction from the previous conference.

No if you could only get a leader that actually has some semblance of control over his party, that would be nice. But if the leader is known for defying the whip, what chance does he have in trying to get others to do the same?

https://twitter.com/Kevin_Maguire/status/1112831928737193985

Abugarcia

It was criminally irresponsible of David Cameron to have gone with a simple Remain / Leave referendum on such a complex issue. There again, maybe he assumed that including more Leave options, would make it all just too complicated for the people. Maybe he was right.


I’d agree 100%
Did he realistically think it was going to be as straight forward as that. He presented what allot of people thought was cut and dry. The problem is you utter a word of the repercussions you risk the chance of never getting out of discussions.

CelticRambler

Strazdas wrote: »

No....the shock of the UK crashing out at a moment's notice and without warning would lead to panic buying in the shops and supermarkets followed by a glut of instant bad news stories on the TV news (major crash of the pound sterling, long queues and tailbacks at Dover and Calais, reports of businesses being absolutely spooked) and this would all be within 36 hours or so.

Nody wrote: »

Within 24h flowers will stop arriving and a long queue will build at dover (I e flower shops closing due to lack of flowers to sell), within 72h fresh veggies etc. that are imported will stop appearing in shelves and limit premade sandwiches. Within a week cancer medicine is likely to stop for certain isotopes as well as several food manufacturers will have to halt multiple product lines due to lack of certain ingredients.

The thing is that stockpiling and a forward planning by a certain number of enlightened businesses will mitigate the effect of any shortages, which in themselves will only affect a relatively small number of people in the short term (the cancer patient who needs that isotope on that day, the bride who can't have those flowers on her wedding day, people in Kent whose commute just got four hours longer, etc). Meanwhile, you'll have all the Brexit media celebrating the day the UK gave the Big Bad EU a good kicking. Hard to do that while painting a picture of a country riven by chaos. These things always take time to become clear.

20silkcut

CelticRambler wrote: »

The thing is that stockpiling and a forward planning by a certain number of enlightened businesses will mitigate the effect of any shortages, which in themselves will only affect a relatively small number of people in the short term (the cancer patient who needs that isotope on that day, the bride who can't have those flowers on her wedding day, people in Kent whose commute just got four hours longer, etc). Meanwhile, you'll have all the Brexit media celebrating the day the UK gave the Big Bad EU a good kicking. Hard to do that while painting a picture of a country riven by chaos. These things always take time to become clear.

What is the situation in regard to the land bridge to Europe from here??

Are we not facing the same shortages as the U.K.??

I know the ferries to France won’t be delayed but what is the crossing time on them?? 13/14 hours ??

Peregrinus

20silkcut wrote: »

What is the situation in regard to the land bridge to Europe from here??

Are we not facing the same shortages as the U.K.??

I know the ferries to France won’t be delayed but what is the crossing time on them?? 13/14 hours ??

Not the exact same shortages, since our import/export requirements differ from theirs.

And not to the same degree, since all of the UK's trade routes will be thoroughly gummed up, whereas only a chunk of ours will be.

But, yeah, I can't imagine but that this will cause us some fairly severe supply-chain problems. They may not be as bad for us as they are for the UK, but they will not be pleasant.

L1011

Some products will have to go air freight when they previously could be landbridged. This will increase the cost - and possibly displace some existing airfreighted non perishable products as there is finite capacity there also. Ryanair don't offer a cargo service which reduces the amount of belly cargo capacity in to Ireland suite significantly

We've known about this since the off and have made more preparations for it than the UK has for their vastly worse situation - there's also been no public laughing stock moments like Raab's Dover-Calais or Grayling's not-a-ferry-compang luckily

Its down to finding the least worst solutions in Parliament now. Ian Dunt took a proper swipe at the Common Market 2.0/customs union/2nd ref proponents last night on twitter and accused them of Brexiteer type behaviour for refusing to support the other motions but their just their own one. They need to get together quick and sort something out to stop the impending car crash.

prawnsambo

Enzokk wrote: »

That is some interview. I guess that is John Humphreys interviewing him and would explain the soft approach to his answers and the facts he is stating. You can dismiss anything he says in the first few minutes to be honest, he seems to refer to GATT Article 24 as he talks about the EU agreeing with free trade with the UK while negotiating the deal. He correctly states, which is more than most Brexiters, that is would be needed to be agreed by both parties. He doesn't point out that this has never been done before by 2 countries and is there for the purposes of 2 countries agreeing a free trade agreement, not undoing one as the UK and EU would do.

The purpose of GATT 24 is not for a free trade agreement but a free-trade area. This has often been spouted by brexiters as the two seem interchangeable when they are not. To be exact, the parties have to be negotiating a customs union or a free-trade area and both stating this to be the case. A crash-out brexit is the exact opposite of what GATT 24 is for.

Leroy42

As these were indicative votes, I really don't understand the position of the likes of the SNP in abstaining from some of them. Listening to 5Live this am, the SNP guy was saying that they abstained because the CU vote didn't deal with FoM.

Well, fair enough, but getting that passed would have signaled that the HoC wanted something other than a No Deal. TM will come back today and claim that since there is no alternative agreed, then it must be her deal or No Deal.

Surely they should have voted for any of them, and all of them, that moved the HoC position closer to where they want it to be.

They all, remainers and brexiteers, seemed to be only ever to vote for the 'perfect' solution.

blackwhite

20silkcut wrote: »

What is the situation in regard to the land bridge to Europe from here??

Are we not facing the same shortages as the U.K.??

I know the ferries to France won’t be delayed but what is the crossing time on them?? 13/14 hours ??

Our requirements are different to the UK - chiefly being that we produce a significantly higher percentage of our own food than they do!

The Landbridge is going to come under significant pressure, but if the delays at Holyhead (in particular) or at Dover become too much, all of the major ferry operators on the Irish Sea have vessels capable of switching from Dublin-Holyhead or Dublin-Liverpool to French routes instead.

Peregrinus

Leroy42 wrote: »

As these were indicative votes, I really don't understand the position of the likes of the SNP in abstaining from some of them. Listening to 5Live this am, the SNP guy was saying that they abstained because the CU vote didn't deal with FoM.

Well, fair enough, but getting that passed would have signaled that the HoC wanted something other than a No Deal. TM will come back today and claim that since there is no alternative agreed, then it must be her deal or No Deal.

Surely they should have voted for any of them, and all of them, that moved the HoC position closer to where they want it to be.

They all, remainers and brexiteers, seemed to be only ever to vote for the 'perfect' solution.

The problem is that if you lend your votes to create a majority for a Customs Union Brexit, the likely outcome is that you'll get a Customs Union Brexit, with no second referendum, and Freedom of Movement still ended. The notion that if, with 11 days to go, Parliament finally agrees to something, this opens up all kind of possibilities for other kinds of Brexit, is not a very plausible one. If Parliament agrees to a form of Brexit at this stage, that's got to be the odds-on favourite for the kind of Brexit the UK will get.

I don't think you can accuse the SNP of being obstructionist here. They voted in favour of three of the four options offered in indicative votes, and did not oppose the fourth. Whereas a signficant number of customs union supporters voted against/failed to support every other option offered.

It's the process that's at fault here - it penalises compomise- and consensus-seeking behaviour. But the process reflects a dominant political culture that similarly penalises such behaviour. The SNP are probably doing more than Some Parties I Could Mention, Jeremy, to resist that culture, and seek to change it.

prawnsambo

L1011 wrote: »

Some products will have to go air freight when they previously could be landbridged. This will increase the cost - and possibly displace some existing airfreighted non perishable products as there is finite capacity there also. Ryanair don't offer a cargo service which reduces the amount of belly cargo capacity in to Ireland suite significantly

We've known about this since the off and have made more preparations for it than the UK has for their vastly worse situation - there's also been no public laughing stock moments like Raab's Dover-Calais or Grayling's not-a-ferry-compang luckily

I'm not sure there's that big a difference between the landbridge and ferries from France. Minimum time on the landbridge would be about ten hours and longer if using conventional ferries which take about 8 hours to cross to Liverpool and 3 hours to Holyhead on fast ferries. And that doesn't include waiting times. Ferries from France take between 14 and 17 hours.

First Up

blackwhite wrote:

The Landbridge is going to come under significant pressure, but if the delays at Holyhead (in particular) or at Dover become too much, all of the major ferry operators on the Irish Sea have vessels capable of switching from Dublin-Holyhead or Dublin-Liverpool to French routes instead.

Every transport operator, importer and exporter has been working on this for two years+.

Its not a coincidence that we have new ferries, new continental ferry routes and expanded port facilities. Supply chains have been adjusted to by-pass UK distributors.

Traffic to, from and through the UK will be slowed but the alternatives are being well developed. There will be delays and added costs but we will not be strangled - or held hostage.

ArmaniJeanss

Leroy42 wrote: »

As these were indicative votes, I really don't understand the position of the likes of the SNP in abstaining from some of them. Listening to 5Live this am, the SNP guy was saying that they abstained because the CU vote didn't deal with FoM.

Well, fair enough, but getting that passed would have signaled that the HoC wanted something other than a No Deal. TM will come back today and claim that since there is no alternative agreed, then it must be her deal or No Deal.

Surely they should have voted for any of them, and all of them, that moved the HoC position closer to where they want it to be.

They all, remainers and brexiteers, seemed to be only ever to vote for the 'perfect' solution.

Their entire system based on FPTP doesn't do that sort of compromise. The idea that there might be a second-choice partially acceptable solution that you could vote for is like an alien concept to large swathes of them.
Even those of us here who admire Letwin's doggedness can see the method he uses his flawed - it seems a perfect situation for some kind of ARV, STV ballot but that never gets raised as a possibility.

robinph

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not sure there's that big a difference between the landbridge and ferries from France. Minimum time on the landbridge would be about ten hours and longer if using conventional ferries which take about 8 hours to cross to Liverpool and 3 hours to Holyhead on fast ferries. And that doesn't include waiting times. Ferries from France take between 14 and 17 hours.

It's a massive difference in capacity though, even if the time is about the same. The bottlenecks at Dover and Holyhead are far easier to deal with on a few ferries doing multiple trips a day than the same ferries doing 1 and a half trips a day direct between Ireland and France.

blackwhite

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not sure there's that big a difference between the landbridge and ferries from France. Minimum time on the landbridge would be about ten hours and longer if using conventional ferries which take about 8 hours to cross to Liverpool and 3 hours to Holyhead on fast ferries. And that doesn't include waiting times. Ferries from France take between 14 and 17 hours.

Holyhead crossing on cruise ferry is 3.5-4 hours.

The fast ferries (currently only Irish Ferries running one) don't take freight.

Enzokk

Brexit will never end for the UK. They are looking at a long negotiation if they pass the WA that will most likely mean the backstop is activated and NI and the DUP becomes a wildcard. If they go for no-deal things doesn't get easier, we are back at square one and there is the chaos that comes with it.

https://twitter.com/JamesERothwell/status/1112985381077692417

So Barnier confirming in no-deal the price to start negotiations is to guarantee the backstop, pay the divorce bill and guarantee the rights of citizens. The only way to stop all this is to revoke article 50 and just try and pretend the last 3 years hasn't happened. The other options all look terrible for the UK.