Brexit discussion thread X (Please read OP before posting)

prawnsambo

Laois_Man wrote: »

ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE IRISH BORDER REPORT & PROTOCOLS

18th July 2019


File attached!

Came across this on page 105 (Anti-smuggling section) which I'm not sure is true:

Around 80% of EU trade remedy measures are applied to industrial products, often semi-finished and chemical intermediaries, which are not used by IE industries.

Does this not include the very large Irish pharmaceutical industry?

Kermit.de.frog

They seem to believe the country exports Guinness and nothing else. That's the image they have.

listermint

Sometimes, at some point in the day a tweet just needs to be shared.


This is one of those tweets , I credit the creator

https://twitter.com/jimthehedgehog/status/1164443362180653063

Nody

Laois_Man wrote: »

ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE IRISH BORDER REPORT & PROTOCOLS

18th July 2019


File attached!

In essence if you read through the lines the report says NI should get special treatment and be in the EU trade zone. There are also funny items such as "we propose a common rule book for the island of Ireland and UK which UK should be allowed to diverge from"; then what's the bloody point of a common rule book in the first place? And of course we're back to the whole "we got controls but the controls are not at the border so it's ok that way" approach as well.

Lackadaisical

Simon Coveney highlighted earlier that the status quo in Northern Ireland has broad support there when he mentioned how the backstop had widespread support in the agricultural and business communities etc, yet we're hearing none of that being debated in the English media bubble. It's entirely about English views of Northern Ireland and the DUP. The majority of Northern Ireland is now basically a passive bystander, without control over their own future. I don't even see any prospect of them being asked.

Northern Ireland (as we all know) is not a normal electoral environment and the DUP represent roughly 1/3 of those who voted, so roughly 2/3 of the population i.e. nationalists, moderate unionists and the very large number of people who are not really seeing themselves as either and just want the status quo, are not represented at all in this debate.

I really think we (all of us pragmatists, including most of commentary in Ireland, much of it in the UK media and also the EU institutions) are engaging in extremely naive optimism by thinking that the Tories or the DUP give two hoots about the GFA. Some of them may be seeing it as an opportunity to get rid of what they probably perceive as something that was imposed upon them.

The DUP was openly hostile to the Belfast Agreement / GFA and only really started playing ball when they got into government. On the unionist side it was the UUP who were the pragmatists and peace makers in this and they got rewarded with being pushed out of office by the hardline electorate.

The Tories are also a very broad church and range from the likes of John Major and other liberal, open-minded pragmatic people who were great during the early days of the peace process and even today, to the right wing of that party who are in charge now. They largely see the solution to everything as beating it into submission by force and that's how they saw Northern Ireland being solved. It was never a political negotiation to them. They saw that as a humiliation or displaying weakness to terrorism and see the whole thing as being a simple law and order issue to be resolved with extreme policing or the army.

I think it's incredibly dangerous to assume that any of those who whole sway in London at the moment care one jot about Northern Ireland. Even those who are more agnostic about it in the right of the Tories just see it as an annoyance to be bulldozed out of the way, but I worry a lot about the other attitudes that run through the party.

When you look at things like the antagonism towards enquiries into military personnel etc etc, the attitudes start to be laid bare.

We are not dealing with a normal, centrist, pragmatic British Government. This is a very different scenario to anything we've seen in decades. Even by comparison to Thatcher, who was harsh but at least logical in how she acted and willing to listen, this lot are utterly off the wall and seem to be prepared to destroy even their own economy for the sake of what amounts to extreme nationalism.

I think Macron can see them for what they are - maybe he's used to dealing with Madame Le Pen, but Merkel just strikes me as being in collegiate, multilateral, optimistic mode very used to the sanity of pragmatic, consensus building proportional representation. It won't work. They don't do that kind of thing and only understand power.

I really think we need to be reaching out to the Lib Dems and Labour far more than we are doing and ignoring the tit-for-tat crazy that's going on within Labour too. The pragmatists need help!

Otherwise, I think this is just going to roll on to Halloween and they'll exit with an unmerciful crash. What happens after that is anyone's guess.

ath262

Laois_Man wrote: »

ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE IRISH BORDER REPORT & PROTOCOLS

18th July 2019


File attached!

some of the conclusions and recommendations from the section on the of Movement of Agricultural and SPS Goods (pg. 116)... more fantasy



".....Until that point, the British and Irish Isles Zone will maintain a common rule book of SPS regulation, which while theoretically being capable of diverging from EU SPS rules...But if the EU refused, IE could break the Common Area if it so chose....."

trellheim

Laois_Man wrote: »

ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE IRISH BORDER REPORT & PROTOCOLS

18th July 2019


File attached!

Yes, 'alternative arrangements' ... widely dismissed as waffle , if it was possible it would be on the table.

That report was produced by Prosperity UK ...


HA look at the parliamentary members , tells you all you need to know ( tldr ; Arlene Foster and the co-heads of the ERG are in there )

ASK THE Back of My unmentionables

https://www.prosperity-uk.com/aacabout/

Bim Afolami MP
Steve Baker MP
Lord Bew
Sir Graham Brady MP
Suella Braverman MP
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP
Rt Hon Stephen Crabb MP
Rt Hon David Davis MP
Rt Hon Nigel Dodds MP
Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP
Rt Hon Philip Dunne MP
George Eustice MP
Rt Hon Sir Michael Fallon MP
Baroness Finn
Rt Hon Arlene Foster MLA
Marcus Fysh MP
Mark Garnier MP
Rt Hon Dame Cheryl Gillan MP
Lord Glasman
Luke Graham MP
Rt Hon Damian Green MP

Rt Hon Greg Hands MP
Kate Hoey MP
The Lord Hogan-Howe QPM
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Lord Lilley
Emma Little Pengelly MP
Alan Mak MP
Kit Malthouse MP
Lord Marland
Rt Hon Esther McVey MP
Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP
Neil O’Brien MP
Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP
Chris Philp MP
Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
Lee Rowley MP
Lord Trimble
Shailesh Vara MP
Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP
Charles Walker MP
Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise

CelticRambler

Laois_Man wrote: »

So Johnson in his press conference with Macron has pointed everyone to THIS PAPER by Greg Hands and Nicky Morgan as the replacement to the backstop

I do love how all of the existing "alternative arrangements" example borders they cite are between countries that have are in either a single market FTA or shared customs area. And all of them have hard infrastructure on the border.

I reckon the best example, though is the "border" between Australia and New Zealand. If only someone could come up with a way of separating GB from Ireland by a decent stretch of water ... :rolleyes:

prawnsambo

Nody wrote: »

In essence if you read through the lines the report says NI should get special treatment and be in the EU trade zone. There are also funny items such as "we propose a common rule book for the island of Ireland and UK which UK should be allowed to diverge from"; then what's the bloody point of a common rule book in the first place? And of course we're back to the whole "we got controls but the controls are not at the border so it's ok that way" approach as well.

Yeah. These two paragraphs at the beginning caught my eye:

13. The most challenging issue is the regulation of agri-food where SPS measures and the requirements for veterinary checks at Border Inspection Posts must be mitigated.In this area, we would need (in the absence of a common SPS area or any of the special zones proposed) to use the geographic flexibilities allowed in the Union Customs Code and BIP Regulation to move any facilities away from the border and to use mobile units to conduct checks where possible.

14.For other technical checks related to standards, and Technical Barriers to Trade (“TBT”) checks, we advocate greater reliance on the private sector to conduct product conformity assessment and increase use of in market checks, together with stronger penalties for non-conformity. The EU will want to see increased market surveillance in IE.

Basically what I highlighted earlier from Johnson and his use of the word 'at' and the inevitable Tory fall back to the 'private sector' and failing that, well, the EU can clean up our mess.

ArmaniJeanss

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

These are the MEPs - I don't know most of them individually so I'm visually looking to see which are from minority groups. And on that basis it doesn't strike me as particularly representative of UK demographics.
https://thebrexitparty.org/meet-our-meps/

Especially in an election that was done on a list system, so the party could have quite easily placed BAME candidates at the top of the list.

To my eye I would have thought 3 were BAME. 3/29 is 10.3% against <13% of the general population. Close enough I would have thought.

54and56

prawnsambo wrote: »

It's a bit more than a technical issue. The text of the agreement says "unless and until" such arrangements can be put in place. There are no such arrangements that could be put in place before October 31st, so it would be an unacceptable risk to remove the backstop from the WA without such arrangements being in place.

100% correct.

It's very hypothetical obviously and given where we are highly unlikely but if a satisfactory solution was in fact identified and agreed it would be possible for B Day to be extended to a future date when said solution had been implemented, tested and accepted by both parties as satisfying their requirements.

Obviously the ERG/Farage type Brexiteers would get their knickers in a twist about a potential delay of up to a decade or more to Brexit (didn't the UK own civil service say the identified alternative arrangements would take at least that long to implement?) so none of this is very likely but it is hypothetically possible.

serfboard

CelticRambler wrote: »

I do love how all of the existing "alternative arrangements" example borders they cite are between countries that have are in either a single market FTA or shared customs area. And all of them have hard infrastructure on the border.

As Tony Blair's negotiator pointed out before, as soon as you put up one camera or one checkpoint, it will become a target. Then you need police to protect that and then you need the army to protect the police, and before you know it, hello NI 1970s.

trellheim wrote: »

look at the parliamentary members , tells you all you need to know

Yep, a true "basket of deplorables".

One other point about this document. It's nearly 300 pages long so not a hope in hell that Boris Johnson has read it or will read it. That's the "detail stuff" that he's not interested in.

jimmycrackcorm

prawnsambo wrote: »

Came across this on page 105 (Anti-smuggling section) which I'm not sure is true:

Does this not include the very large Irish pharmaceutical industry?

Perhaps if the UK realised that Viagra and Botox ate made here they'd be a bit quicker to solve the Backstop question.

fash

Question to the floor: if it were accepted that it would be for (roughly) the people of NI to decide on sufficiently ok-ish alternative arrangements or alignment with the EU, what would the best way to allow NI to decide?

50+1% referendum? (But who would trust the Tories/DUP not to gerrymander and propagandise). Is a 50+1% referendum good enough- if it disenfranchised the people at the border? (Assume for a second it doesn't go the way Irish people expect).

What about a cross community vote to move away from the status quo? So it needs buy in from both communities (and the NI Assembly set up!)? If both communities accepted alternative arrangements were satisfactory, I think it hard for Ireland to argue otherwise.

Presumably in addition the determination should take place at the earliest at the end of the transition period - possibly giving time for the UK to do its best on alternative arrangements? (E.g. WA transition + 3 years).

Just thinking out loud on this- it presupposes some level of pragmatism on the UK side which of course doesn't exist.

fash

Question to the floor: if it were accepted that it would be for (roughly) the people of NI to decide on sufficiently ok-ish alternative arrangements or alignment with the EU, what would the best way to allow NI to decide?

50+1% referendum? (But who would trust the Tories/DUP not to gerrymander and propagandise). Is a 50+1% referendum good enough- if it disenfranchised the people at the border? (Assume for a second it doesn't go the way Irish people expect).

What about a cross community vote to move away from the status quo? So it needs buy in from both communities (and the NI Assembly set up!)? If both communities accepted alternative arrangements were satisfactory, I think it hard for Ireland to argue otherwise.

Presumably in addition the determination should take place at the earliest at the end of the transition period - possibly giving time for the UK to do its best on alternative arrangements? (E.g. WA transition + 3 years).

Just thinking out loud on this- it presupposes some level of pragmatism on the UK side which of course doesn't exist.

Bit cynical

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

All Merkel said was that Brexit is a British problem requiring British solutions and Britain need to propose a credible alternative solution to the backstop. I am baffled at how the British press and Brexiteers have tried to present this as a “victory”.

I think what Merkel did was quite clever. She knows that no alternative is possible that would satisfy the EU and indeed from the EU's perspective no alternative indeed can be better than the backstop as written in to the WA. She therefore knows that the idea of coming up with an alternative whether in thirty days or thirty years is impossible and Johnson knows that too.

Yet on the surface to most of us it seems reasonable and this puts Johnson in a difficult position. I'm sure he would have loved to have dismissed the idea but he's got to take into account what the average punter understands. So he has to go along with it and pretend there's going to be a proposal that the EU might accept.

54and56

fash wrote: »

Question to the floor: if it were accepted that it would be for (roughly) the people of NI to decide on sufficiently ok-ish alternative arrangements or alignment with the EU, what would the best way to allow NI to decide?

50+1% referendum? (But who would trust the Tories/DUP not to gerrymander and propagandise). Is a 50+1% referendum good enough- if it disenfranchised the people at the border? (Assume for a second it doesn't go the way Irish people expect).

It would be hard to justify a super majority such as 66% or 75% being required when the entire Brexit fiasco was decided on a simple 50% + 1 basis.

fash wrote: »

What about a cross community vote to move away from the status quo? So it needs buy in from both communities (and the NI Assembly set up!)? If both communities accepted alternative arrangements were satisfactory, I think it hard for Ireland to argue otherwise.

That does sound reasonable and I'm sure if there was a functioning assembly it would have given the DUP cover to protest against but ultimately concede to there being a backstop.

fash wrote: »

Presumably in addition the determination should take place at the earliest at the end of the transition period - possibly giving time for the UK to do its best on alternative arrangements? (E.g. WA transition + 3 years).

Just thinking out loud on this- it presupposes some level of pragmatism on the UK side which of course doesn't exist.

I'd say for the WA to have any chance of getting through the HoC any such NI quasi referendum on the backstop or vote in the NI Assembly if it could be resurrected would have to happen before the WA was brought back to the HoC.

prawnsambo

fash wrote: »

Question to the floor: if it were accepted that it would be for (roughly) the people of NI to decide on sufficiently ok-ish alternative arrangements or alignment with the EU, what would the best way to allow NI to decide?

50+1% referendum? (But who would trust the Tories/DUP not to gerrymander and propagandise). Is a 50+1% referendum good enough- if it disenfranchised the people at the border? (Assume for a second it doesn't go the way Irish people expect).

What about a cross community vote to move away from the status quo? So it needs buy in from both communities (and the NI Assembly set up!)? If both communities accepted alternative arrangements were satisfactory, I think it hard for Ireland to argue otherwise.

Presumably in addition the determination should take place at the earliest at the end of the transition period - possibly giving time for the UK to do its best on alternative arrangements? (E.g. WA transition + 3 years).

Just thinking out loud on this- it presupposes some level of pragmatism on the UK side which of course doesn't exist.

I thought we'd decided that non-binding referendums were a bad idea?

Other problems (apart from the ones you've identified) are the lack of time available, the difficulty of framing an accurate enough question that would elicit a clear answer, the difficulties of presenting (and getting people to read) a complex document explaining such arrangements and finally, working out how you weight the responses to accurately reflect the views of those people who'd be most affected by it.

fash

prawnsambo wrote: »

I thought we'd decided that non-binding referendums were a bad idea?

Other problems (apart from the ones you've identified) are the lack of time available, the difficulty of framing an accurate enough question that would elicit a clear answer, the difficulties of presenting (and getting people to read) a complex document explaining such arrangements and finally, working out how you weight the responses to accurately reflect the views of those people who'd be most affected by it.

I think it could only be done as part of the political declaration - and then only to approx 3 years after the end of the transition period - and perhaps cross community vote only - let the communities decide the due weighting etc.

prawnsambo

fash wrote: »

I think it could only be done as part of the political declaration - and then only to approx 3 years after the end of the transition period - and perhaps cross community vote only - let the communities decide the due weighting etc.

Not following this bit. Are you suggesting a time limit of some kind on these proposed arrangements?

fash

prawnsambo wrote: »

Not following this bit. Are you suggesting a time limit of some kind on these proposed arrangements?

Rather WA transition period at end immediately kicks into regulatory alignment and 3 years later NI Assembly gets to decide to keep regulatory alignment or move to whatever AA exist. Gives some breathing room for everything - avoids claims of " not democratic" etc.

bobmalooka

fash wrote: »

I think it could only be done as part of the political declaration - and then only to approx 3 years after the end of the transition period - and perhaps cross community vote only - let the communities decide the due weighting etc.

This is something that would have to be very very carefully thought through. Very difficult to work through the possible scenarios and consequences and impact of such options between now and Halloween.

Finding stalemate is NI politics speciality. And the implication of a binary question on technical border arrangements could quite possibly lead to the GFA being inadvertently rejected or undermined.

Lessons must be learned from brexit

Varta

fash wrote: »

Question to the floor: if it were accepted that it would be for (roughly) the people of NI to decide on sufficiently ok-ish alternative arrangements or alignment with the EU, what would the best way to allow NI to decide?

50+1% referendum? (But who would trust the Tories/DUP not to gerrymander and propagandise). Is a 50+1% referendum good enough- if it disenfranchised the people at the border? (Assume for a second it doesn't go the way Irish people expect).

What about a cross community vote to move away from the status quo? So it needs buy in from both communities (and the NI Assembly set up!)? If both communities accepted alternative arrangements were satisfactory, I think it hard for Ireland to argue otherwise.

Presumably in addition the determination should take place at the earliest at the end of the transition period - possibly giving time for the UK to do its best on alternative arrangements? (E.g. WA transition + 3 years).

Just thinking out loud on this- it presupposes some level of pragmatism on the UK side which of course doesn't exist.

Why on earth should this be accepted?

Nody

EU throwing Ireland under the buss!!1

Mr Macron warned the prime minister that the withdrawal agreement and its included Irish backstop were "not just technical constraints or legal quibbling" but in fact "genuine, indispensable guarantees" to preserve stability in Ireland and the integrity of the single market.

The French president said the EU had "always said that it was available to discuss, depending on the wishes of the UK, our future relationship" but that its two red lines above could not be changed.

Or back in reality the Brexiteer's promise of "EU running over Ireland, just you wait and see!!!" even as recent in the last week and as long as over two years turns out to be exactly as stated on this thread, complete and utter BS. EU is behind Ireland 110% and has remained there the whole time not because Ireland is a special cookie but because it makes 100% sense for EU to do so.

An Claidheamh

Laois_Man wrote: »

So Johnson in his press conference with Macron has pointed everyone to THIS PAPER by Greg Hands and Nicky Morgan as the replacement to the backstop

So at the end of 30 days, his proposed solution will be exactly this - with a new cover on it!

EDIT: Seems like the server has crashed in the last few minutes. Try later!

The paper arouses suspicion alone by calling it the Irish border.

"Today’s young people in NI and IE are the first generation to have known peace, and,
in addition to preserving that peace, it is vital that we work hard to generate economic
opportunities on the Island of Ireland. This is a task that all of the people of the Island
of Ireland should be engaged in, and one in which both IE and UK Governments play a
critical role."


Patronising guff, the first generation no to know peace, it was Britain that fermented and prolonged the conflict, Britain that occupied all of Ireland and prevented peace and Britain that got bombed due to it.


Attempting as usual to explain all this as an "Irish thing".
Not my job to fix their mess or help their economy.


If the British, after 3 years can only point to a think-tank's sloppy attempt to sound like they know what they're talking about, they really are a joke.


Britain would be a banana Republic except for they don't even have the right to vote for their leaders.

SleetAndSnow

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1164506819617837057?s=20

Uhm what? Telegraph really has gone downhill.

Merkel: ''Nothing changed!''
Macron: ''No new deal and the backstop is a redline we won't cross, you won't get a deal in 30 days''
Telegraph: ''VICTORY FOR BORIS AS MACRON SAYS WA CAN BE REPOPENED!!!!!''

Tikki Wang Wang

What has Katya Adler got to say about all of this??

fash

Varta wrote: »

Why on earth should this be accepted?

I am conscious of both the Brexiter talking point that the backstop is not "democratic" and one of counter arguments often used or implied that "the backstop is wanted by the majority in NI - let them decide" - however I distrust what Boris, Arlene, Sammy and JRM if that were allowed. Hence the brainstorming.

prawnsambo

fash wrote: »

Rather WA transition period at end immediately kicks into regulatory alignment and 3 years later NI Assembly gets to decide to keep regulatory alignment or move to whatever AA exist. Gives some breathing room for everything - avoids claims of " not democratic" etc.

And what about the people on this side of the border? Do they not get to have a say in this? The impact of brexit is an equal opportunities impact. All cross border activity is affected. On both sides.

Lackadaisical

It seems the Telegraph is just reporting from a parallel universe:

The Telegraph wrote:

Brexit latest news: Major boost for Boris Johnson as Emmanuel Macron says Withdrawal Agreement can be amended

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/22/brexit-latest-news-boris-johnson-no-deal-irish-backstop/

and meanwhile Merkel has apparently clarified what she actually said and corrected how it's being reported in the UK (via Reuters)

Angela Merkel: 'I did not set 30-day deadline'.

"I said that what one can achieve in three or two years can also be achieved in 30 days."

"It is not about 30 days. The 30 days were meant as an example to highlight the fact that we need to achieve it in a short time."