Brexit discussion thread X (Please read OP before posting)

prawnsambo

Limpy wrote: »

Leo et al went all in from the get go. The UK will leave without a deal and we will be worse off. Ireland have more in common with the UK then any other nation, but we are treating them like they are from the other side of the world.

We could of agreed a deal between the two governments due to the northern Ireland situation.

Instead the government and the EU are trying to stop Brexit by all means.

We couldn't have agreed a deal between the two countries. The UK isn't leaving us, it's leaving the EU. Hence it's an EU negotiation and strangely enough, Article 50 is in the Lisbon Treaty. The EU (y'know - that body that the UK is leaving) have agreed a withdrawal agreement with the UK (the country that is leaving the EU) that protects that other thing that the UK agreed to (the GFA) and is now looking on bemused as the UK threatens to break the GFA and renege on all its other obligations that it agreed to honour. But somehow it's all our fault?

Dytalus

Limpy wrote: »

Leo et al went all in from the get go. The UK will leave without a deal and we will be worse off. Ireland have more in common with the UK then any other nation, but we are treating them like they are from the other side of the world.

If we were treating them like "any other nation" Brexit would likely be done by now. It is precisely because of the close relationship (and history) that getting a deal was so essential.

We could of agreed a deal between the two governments due to the northern Ireland situation.

Nope. For all border/trade/customs issues the EU acts as a single body. As a result, larger nations cannot steamroll the smaller ones. Without the backing of the other EU member states, Ireland would have had no leverage in trade or border negotiations with the UK.

They'd have been calling all the shots and we'd have nothing to hold our own with.

Instead the government and the EU are trying to stop Brexit by all means.

By what means?

The backstop was a UK invention. The EU has had less red lines than the UK, and has (grudgingly) accepted that it must bend its own rules to accept the Northern Ireland situation. No other nation in the world would get the same kind of treatment from the EU. They've compromised as much as they are willing, and as much as they are allowed to (by law). The Withdrawal Agreement was signed and agreed by their executive. Only their parliament refused to ratify it.

So....by what means is this anything other than a problem of the UK's own invention?

First Up

BarryD2 wrote: »

OK, but again Irish consumers will surely expect increases in their cost of living. It always costs more when you live on an island, whether that's us off on the western edge of Europe or some offshore island of our own. Just a fact of trade, small markets, transport.

Taking the UK out of distribution and supply chains may add cost but it won't stop goods getting here.

And I wouldn't underestimate the ingenuity of suppliers.

LuckyLloyd

What is all this ‘we have more in common with the UK’ nonsense supposed to mean? Our position is based on hard political and economic facts. Their political situation is deteriorating to the point where they are an unstable and unreliable nation. All you can do is hold to the economic / political principles that favour you and wait for them to see the light.

And if they never do see the light, so be it. The mealy mouthed suggestion that we should exit the Single Market or assent to a hard border / ripping up of the GFA because of a minority of trade is bonkers. Absolutely decoupled from reality.

MrMusician18

First Up wrote: »

Taking the UK out of distribution and supply chains may add cost but it won't stop goods getting here.

And I wouldn't underestimate the ingenuity of suppliers.

Doesn't that cut both ways though. It's not like the EU has a monopoly on ingenuity.

First Up

Limpy wrote: »

Leo et al went all in from the get go. The UK will leave without a deal and we will be worse off. Ireland have more in common with the UK then any other nation, but we are treating them like they are from the other side of the world.

We could of agreed a deal between the two governments due to the northern Ireland situation.

Instead the government and the EU are trying to stop Brexit by all means.

We are responding to a situation created by the UK. Membership of the EU has been transformative for Ireland and that is where our future lies. Our relationship with the UK will continue to be as an EU member.

Nobody is trying to stop Brexit; just to make the best of it.

briany

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

What is all this ‘we have more in common with the UK’ nonsense supposed to mean? Our position is based on hard political and economic facts. Their political situation is deteriorating to the point where they are an unstable and unreliable nation. All you can do is hold to the economic / political principles that favour you and wait for them to see the light.

And if they never do see the light, so be it. The mealy mouthed suggestion that we should exit the Single Market or assent to a hard border / ripping up of the GFA because of a minority of trade is bonkers. Absolutely decoupled from reality.

Andrew Neil: But do you know what's in A24 paragraph 5c?

Johnson: ..........no!

When you have a man like Johnson in charge, talking like that, you can say that the UK have gone rogue, politically. When those in the UK talk about the EU throwing Ireland under the bus, you really wonder how much of that is projection, as in the the UK government would like to throw Ireland under the bus themselves.

Enzokk

BarryD2 wrote: »

I'm inclined to disagree - we were smart, we got our foot in the door first and worked the withdrawal agreement so as to use the Good Friday Agreement to help maintain the open borders that we aspire to with the UK. It was a good tactic as long as the British government were happy to work towards a soft Brexit. It's not so smart if the lunatics have taken hold of the asylum and are prepared to get out at any cost. Because we're taking proportionately a significantly bigger hit than our EU friends. And no I don't read the English trash papers - just try and look at the situation sensibly.

Mind you, I don't think we can back out of that position now without losing a lot of face. We've burnt our bridges and have to to trust in the interests of 'strangers'.

How do you explain this though?

PSNI chief warning over post-Brexit threat

The PSNI Chief Constable has accused some Westminster politicians of failing to understand the dangers of terrorism in Northern Ireland post -Brexit.

In an interview in the Sunday Times, George Hamilton warns that the government is failing to prepare for the impact of the UK leaving the EU on the peace and security in NI.

He said that he is not getting the information and clarity needed.

Mr Hamilton said that some Westminster politicians view NI as "peripheral".

"There's a feeling that as regards the Troubles and the conflict, Northern Ireland is sorted and we don't need to worry about it, when actually we're working flat out 24/7 to keep a lid on it," he said.

Mr Hamilton issued a similar warning when he appeared before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in June.

And this?

Hard Brexit would be 'detrimental' to peace process, says PSNI chief

The chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has warned that a hard Brexit would have an “absolutely detrimental” impact on the peace process.

During a press conference in Belfast, Simon Byrne painted a stark picture of a potential worst-case scenario of farms and agricultural businesses going bust and animals being culled, leading to potential unrest within communities.

So that is 2 different Chief Constables of the PSNI warning of trouble if Brexit has an adverse impact in Northern Ireland. You could argue that George Hamilton may have some skin in this fight, he could be parroting the Irish line. But how does that square with Simon Byrne who has worked most of his time in Merseyside also deciding to follow the Irish line?

Or maybe they have seen the reports on the ground and know what the reality is and what will happen if the UK makes a hash of Brexit?

Seth Brundle

Limpy wrote: »

Leo et al went all in from the get go. The UK will leave without a deal and we will be worse off. Ireland have more in common with the UK then any other nation, but we are treating them like they are from the other side of the world.

We could of agreed a deal between the two governments due to the northern Ireland situation.

Instead the government and the EU are trying to stop Brexit by all means.

What utter nonsense!

trellheim

briany wrote: »

Andrew Neil: But do you know what's in A24 paragraph 5c?

Johnson: ..........no!

When you have a man like Johnson in charge, talking like that, you can say that the UK have gone rogue, politically. When those in the UK talk about the EU throwing Ireland under the bus, you really wonder how much of that is projection, as in the the UK government would like to throw Ireland under the bus themselves.

This actually gets much funnier if you use the full context ( and forget you were trying to get one over on Andrew Neil )

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/watch-boris-johnson-taken-to-task-over-brexit-plan/

AN: So how would you handle – you talk about Article 5B in GATT 24 –

BJ: Paragraph 5B. Article 24. Get the detail right. Get the detail right, Andrew. It’s Article 24 paragraph 5B.

AN: And how would you handle paragraph 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, because that is –

AN: How would you get round what’s in 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B which is enough for our purposes.

AN: Do you know what’s in 5C?

BJ: No.

prawnsambo

FYI everybody, Rachel Johnson (Boris's sister) is sitting in for Sheila Fogarty on LBC at the moment. Well worth a listen. Quite diametrically opposed to her brother's view on brexit.

VinLieger

prawnsambo wrote: »

FYI everybody, Rachel Johnson (Boris's sister) is sitting in for Sheila Fogarty on LBC at the moment. Well worth a listen. Quite diametrically opposed to her brother's view on brexit.

When it comes to the Johnson family don't trust a thing they say, shes written several articles for the telegraph supporting him and his views in the last few years as well from what i remember.

Igotadose

Enrico Palazzo wrote: »

Ireland is to take by far the biggest hit

Please don't link dump especially what (to this lay-reader) are obtuse papers from economists projecting what might happen.

Please summarize why you think Ireland is to take the biggest hit, or at least quote chapter and verse. Otherwise yours is a useless post. Thanks

prawnsambo

VinLieger wrote: »

When it comes to the Johnson family don't trust a thing they say, shes written several articles for the telegraph supporting him and his views in the last few years as well from what i remember.

Well if she's running some sort of disinformation campaign, she's failing miserably. She's had that chap Ciaran the white van driver of 3 blokes in a pub fame on already and shut down a NI unionist who was suggesting that border problems wouldn't happen pdq. And just now that a US UK trade deal would not be the easiest in history.

prawnsambo

And now Jason Hunter; another of the 3 blokes on.

trellheim

Igotadose wrote: »

Please don't link dump especially what (to this lay-reader) are obtuse papers from economists projecting what might happen.

Please summarize why you think Ireland is to take the biggest hit, or at least quote chapter and verse. Otherwise yours is a useless post. Thanks

Article in fact says Ireland loses out in ALL scenarios except Revoke (Hard and WA ) - see page 30 but I do agree that is a heavy old paper , but how on earth is this a shock

prawnsambo

This is bizarre from a sister of Boris Johnson. Suggesting that Irish re-unification would be one of the few bonuses from a hard brexit!.

Igotadose

trellheim wrote: »

Article in fact says Ireland loses out in ALL scenarios except Revoke (Hard and WA ) - see page 30 but I do agree that is a heavy old paper , but how on earth is this a shock

Oh, no surprises at all, but link dumps are bad and the paper, for all the formulae, might be wrong, too. It was in 2018 after all, and has a lot of assumptions.

Anyway, yeah, Brexit is bad. Next.

PeadarCo

trellheim wrote: »

This actually gets much funnier if you use the full context ( and forget you were trying to get one over on Andrew Neil )

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/watch-boris-johnson-taken-to-task-over-brexit-plan/

I haven't see Boris in action recently but if you follow the link and see the actual link on twitter the UK look doomed with him in charge. His response to the hard question sure can't we all just get on. Parts of it wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Father Ted. He came across as incredibly naive and out of his depth. Now obviously the guy at least on the UK political scene is a very good politician, however he looked out of his depth.

Trade deals at the best of times are incredibly difficult to negotiate. I don't understand how the UK expects to deal with the EU, US in a no deal situation and BJ in charge. BJ has done nothing as PM so far than what May didn't do. He sounds like a carbon copy complete with ERG undermining him with their comments about the backstop.

Imreoir2

Limpy wrote: »

Leo et al went all in from the get go. The UK will leave without a deal and we will be worse off. Ireland have more in common with the UK then any other nation, but we are treating them like they are from the other side of the world.

We are quite different to the UK. While our policies within the EU were sometimes convergant, on the international stage our forighn policy stance have been compleatly seperate for ages. Ireland did not participate in WW2 and we have gone our own way diplomatically ever since. We did not join NATO and maintained a non-aligned stance through the cold war. We value the multilateral community of nations approch on the international stage which is why we have been so heavily involved in the UN and the EU. We are far closer to the core of the European Project than the UK have ever wanted to be.

We could of agreed a deal between the two governments due to the northern Ireland situation.

Instead the government and the EU are trying to stop Brexit by all means.

Go on then, describe the deal we could have done. But fairy tales and unicorns wont cut it, nor will flagrant lies about what international treaties like the GATT and the WTO allow. We are really not trying to stop Brexit, but we are trying to ensure that the UK lives up to its obligations under the GFA. It's not our fault that Brexit is not easy because of the UKs entanglements in international trade and the legacy of its colonial past on this island.

LuckyLloyd

The answer to ‘Ireland loses out in all Brexit scenarios’ is not Irexit, or assenting to a hard border, or leaving the Single Market or whatever. It’s what we have been doing: decoupling from the UK, developing alternate trading patterns / routes and robustly defending the GFA.

Some of the talk here involves making a difficult situation for Ireland much worse for the sole advantage / benefit of the UK. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, such talk is the outcome of propaganda and fear mongering from biased voices in the media here and abroad.

Enzokk

Here is an interesting piece comparing Cummings to Varoufakis in that he didn't come from a party but had an ideology that he wanted to implement. For Varoufakis it was ending austerity by taking the euro hostage and for Cummings it is leaving the EU, something that he has worked 25 years on.

I didn't know this about Cummings, if true it would worry me and would make sense on the direction Johnson has taken. Add in his own dislike for Europe and the EU and it all makes sense. You do wonder whether it will end for them like it did for Varoufakis, in defeat when reality stared them in the face.

Dominic Cummings reminds me of Yanis Varoufakis – he could face the same fate

Covering the Greek crisis for BBC Newsnight in 2015 meant spending long days in a very hot Athens, eating too much room-service kebab and trying to stay on top of a series of twists and turns in Greek and European politics while all the time keeping an eye on the financial markets. The fundamental question was: will Greece do a deal or will it crash out of the euro?

At the time, I had no idea that my crash course in European standoffs would prove useful to understanding what has emerged as the key question in British politics, Brexit: deal or no deal.

On the first day of the Boris Johnson government, the emergence of former Vote Leave strategist Dominic Cummings in the role of senior adviser in Downing Street was taken to be more significant than any cabinet-level appointment. There’s a long tradition of talking up backroom operators in British politics, from Alastair Campbell in the 1990s to Nick Timothy under Theresa May, but, to me, the most striking parallel is with Greece.

Although I imagine neither man would welcome the comparison, Cummings now seems to be playing the role of Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister in 2015. Cummings’s hardline approach to negotiations with Europe echoes that of Varoufakis. Like his counterpart in 2015, Cummings is in favour of pressing ahead with no-deal planning in order to secure a deal. And perhaps like Varoufakis in 2015, Cummings’s interests are not fundamentally aligned with those of the prime minister he serves. The point may come when Cummings has to be ditched.

Both men are outsider insiders with no deep attachment to the party they work for. Varoufakis spent his working life in economics before being appointed finance minister, while Cummings has never been a member of the Conservative party. Most importantly, both have a sense of mission that is bigger than any individual prime minister, government or party. For Varoufakis, ending austerity in Greece was the goal, and he was prepared to risk slipping out of the euro to achieve it. For Cummings, exiting the European Union has been something he has spent the best part of 25 years trying to achieve.

Infini

InTheShadows wrote: »

Money makes the world go round. At the end of the day the EU don't give a toss about Ireland. They'll do what's best for the big boys.

Pointless drivel. Ireland IS the EU in all of this. We were out the gate even before the referendum because we needed everyone else to know and understand exactly what kind of damage this was going to cause. The fact that we were warning the rest of the EU about how thick and stupid their politicians (conservatives expecially) act when they cant get their own way and how they'd try and Isolate ireland from the rest has only helped to reinforce support from the rest of the EU.

At the end of the dag it's BRITAIN that doesn't give a toss about Northern Ireland as they're allowing a group of idiots (DUP) to dictate the position of the region even though they dont speak for a majority or represent the views of the majority there. They dont actually care in Westminster because Ireland is an obstacle to their Brexit delusion.

The EU has done well by Ireland for a long time and will certainly do everything it can to support us if Britain decides to do a kamikaze run off the cliffs of dover with its economy not just because the EU is all about solidairity but also because a few might also like to stick it to the conservatives for acting like pathetic tools and causing so much damage out of noting more than to be spiteful idiots than just admit theyre wrong on this.

briany

Infini wrote: »

Pointless drivel. Ireland IS the EU in all of this. We were out the gate even before the referendum because we needed everyone else to know and understand exactly what kind of damage this was going to cause. The fact that we were warning the rest of the EU about how thick and stupid their politicians (conservatives expecially) act when they cant get their own way and how they'd try and Isolate ireland from the rest has only helped to reinforce support from the rest of the EU.

At the end of the dag it's BRITAIN that doesn't give a toss about Northern Ireland as they're allowing a group of idiots (DUP) to dictate the position of the region even though they dont speak for a majority or represent the views of the majority there. They dont actually care in Westminster because Ireland is an obstacle to their Brexit delusion.

The EU has done well by Ireland for a long time and will certainly do everything it can to support us if Britain decides to do a kamikaze run off the cliffs of dover with its economy not just because the EU is all about solidairity but also because a few might also like to stick it to the conservatives for acting like pathetic tools and causing so much damage out of noting more than to be spiteful idiots than just admit theyre wrong on this.

Ireland never mattered to the UK, so naturally there'll be those in the UK who'd have expected that Ireland shouldn't matter to the EU.

listermint

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

What is all this ‘we have more in common with the UK’ nonsense supposed to mean? Our position is based on hard political and economic facts. Their political situation is deteriorating to the point where they are an unstable and unreliable nation. All you can do is hold to the economic / political principles that favour you and wait for them to see the light.

And if they never do see the light, so be it. The mealy mouthed suggestion that we should exit the Single Market or assent to a hard border / ripping up of the GFA because of a minority of trade is bonkers. Absolutely decoupled from reality.

Its a nonsense talking point that originated from the two plastic doll sisters out of Tufton street being financed by ultra wealthy right wing american fundamentalists.

It was published last week on youtube no doubt facebook dwellers lapped it up like milk

BonnieSituation

BarryD2 wrote: »

We're on a hiding to nothing here and the sooner the public cop on the better. Maybe it's time that our government started looking after the interests of the citizens of this Republic. We've done our bit to help our northern friends even in a situation where many of their elected representatives have been sitting on their hands.

Even for the partitionist outlook of many a contribution in here. That really takes the biscuit.

Our "Friends" in this case are our fellow citizens.

Jesus.

First Up

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Doesn't that cut both ways though. It's not like the EU has a monopoly on ingenuity.

I'm not talking about the EU. I'm referring to traders and transport companies trying to move goods to where they are needed in a timely and cost efficient way.

If the UK is a permanent traffic jam at ports, with paperwork for every shipment, traders won't be long finding the best ways to move stuff between Ireland and mainland EU that don't involve the landbridge

prawnsambo

BonnieSituation wrote: »

Even for the partitionist outlook of many a contribution in here. That really takes the biscuit.

Our "Friends" in this case are our fellow citizens.

Jesus.

There's always that blind spot that hears 'border' and thinks north of the border instead of both sides of it. But it's the same tired old narrative in the background that the EU (and us) are 'using' the GFA to somehow screw the UK. They always conveniently forget that they were warned about this umpteen times before the referendum was even held. Just dismissed as 'project fear'.

54and56

Trump when asked right now at the G7 if the trade deal he wants to do with the UK will "do over" the UK he responds that no he won't do over the UK as he loves the UK and has a number of properties in the UK including Turnberry in Ayrshire and Doonbeg in Ireland -

Laois_Man

prawnsambo wrote: »

they were warned about this umpteen times before the referendum was even held. Just dismissed as 'project fear'.

The general British population don't know that though - because their media barely mentioned it!