Brexit discussion thread XII (Please read OP before posting)

Professor Moriarty

serfboard wrote: »

One of the things it says is that the time limit is so short because, according to Tokyo’s chief negotiator:


The article also says that this kind of news "highlights the risk of the UK being bounced into bad deals".

Intriguingly, "Tokyo is dangling the prospect of a second chance for more leisurely negotiations if the UK applies to join the [TPP]". I hadn't realised that TPP was still going, but there is a sequel - TPP-11 - so-called because there are 11 signatory countries.

In one way, this sounds like a good idea for the UK.

In another, I thought that they didn't like free-trade agreements like the European Single Market?

Unusually for The Telegraph, they have a negative opinion piece about trade deals with NZ and Australia. In the context of Truss advocating joining the TPP, the piece finishes with:

"But the irony of Britain leaving one bloc for another of similar size, 450 times further away, will be lost on few."

johnnyskeleton

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Unusually for The Telegraph, they have a negative opinion piece about trade deals with NZ and Australia. In the context of Truss advocating joining the TPP, the piece finishes with:

"But the irony of Britain leaving one bloc for another of similar size, 450 times further away, will be lost on few."

Also ironic is that they are talking about a trade deal with the US and also about joining TPP, when TPP was never ratified because the US didnt want to be bound by a trade deal.

declanflynn

LeinsterDub wrote: »

https://twitter.com/nicktolhurst/status/1275332263627173888

6 weeks basically means sign the deal we have with the EU and clarify any u-boats you might not have

Time now for the EU to start turning the screw on the uk and extract as much as possible from them.

BonnieSituation

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Unusually for The Telegraph, they have a negative opinion piece about trade deals with NZ and Australia. In the context of Truss advocating joining the TPP, the piece finishes with:

"But the irony of Britain leaving one bloc for another of similar size, 450 times further away, will be lost on few."

The problem is that it will actually be lost on many.

johnnyskeleton

declanflynn wrote: »

Time now for the EU to start turning the screw on the uk and extract as much as possible from them.

I think we are past analogies of winning or getting more from a trade deal. The EU and UK agreed on a broad framework for a future relationship. Either UK is on board with that or its not

Professor Moriarty

BonnieSituation wrote: »

The problem is that it will actually be lost on many.

Exactly. Blind faith.

Capt'n Midnight

First Up wrote: »

I think it was won on the back of "Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable for a long list of reasons".

It wasn't won.
It was lost because labour voters didn't go out to vote.

The Tories didn't gain many votes but Labour shed lots and FPTP means safe seats are safe but marginals swing at the drop of a hat.

In 2017 May got 13,636,684 votes vs Boris 13,966,454 in 2019 an increase of 329,770


For Labour it was 12,878,460 vs 10,269,051 a drop of 2,609,409

Labour lost eight times as many votes as the Tories won.

Compare the drop to
The Lib Dems got 2,371,910 in 2017
The SNP got 1,242,380 in 2019
The total electorate in NI for the 2019 election was 1,293,971

Capt'n Midnight

Tropheus wrote: »

Take a story about Japan rushing the weak UK into a potentially bad trade deal, put a spin on it, and BOOM a Brexit victory courtesy of the Daily Express.

The Express was it ?

Brexit domino effect: Shock warning Ireland could follow Britain out of EU exposed it goes on to say, oddly enough the exact opposite

For instance, both Sinn Fein and the Green Party have shown their support for the EU in recent months, despite previously opposing the bloc.

Indeed, as Mr Mac Cormaic pointed out: “The EU is widely associated with some of the best things that have happened in Ireland over the past two generations: the peace process, laws on women’s rights and social protection, the foreign direct investment strategy and new opportunities for trade and travel and study.

Can't remember the bit about the Greens being anti EU, but until Brexit SF were rabidly against the EU since before we joined in the 1970's.


At the end it drags up the old chestnuts about having two votes for two EU referendums and Shock! Horror! the common defence policy :rolleyes:

The level of phoning it in reminds me of this Dilbert cartoon
https://assets.amuniversal.com/cbf770a0e4f2012fed51001dd8b71c47

Professor Moriarty

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The Express was it ?

Brexit domino effect: Shock warning Ireland could follow Britain out of EU exposed it goes on to say, oddly enough the exact opposite Can't remember the bit about the Greens being anti EU, but until Brexit SF were rabidly against the EU since before we joined in the 1970's.


At the end it drags up the old chestnuts about having two votes for two EU referendums and Shock! Horror! the common defence policy :rolleyes:

The level of phoning it in reminds me of this Dilbert cartoon
https://assets.amuniversal.com/cbf770a0e4f2012fed51001dd8b71c47

His article is essentially a warning against complacency rather than a warning that Ireland is about to leave the EU. Anyway, at the end of April 2020, a poll showed that 84% of Irish people believed that Ireland should remain in the EU. The Eurosceptics have a way to go yet.

BonnieSituation

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The Express was it ?

Brexit domino effect: Shock warning Ireland could follow Britain out of EU exposed it goes on to say, oddly enough the exact opposite Can't remember the bit about the Greens being anti EU, but until Brexit SF were rabidly against the EU since before we joined in the 1970's.


At the end it drags up the old chestnuts about having two votes for two EU referendums and Shock! Horror! the common defence policy :rolleyes:

The level of phoning it in reminds me of this Dilbert cartoon
https://assets.amuniversal.com/cbf770a0e4f2012fed51001dd8b71c47

They must have been storing that one up:

THE EXPRESS wrote:

Brexit domino effect: Shock warning Ireland could follow Britain out of EU exposed
IRELAND could end up following in the UK's footsteps and leaving the EU unless it acts, according to an Irish commentator.

---

Ruadhan Mac Cormaic wrote an opinion piece in The Irish Times in February which claimed that Ireland needs to learn from the defeat of British Remainers.

February?

First Up

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

It wasn't won. It was lost because labour voters didn't go out to vote.

All elections are won (and lost) by swing voters. True blue Tories and blood Red Labour supporters don't change sides.

The "labour voters" who deserted Corbyn may have been first attracted in Blair's New Labour days but were turned off by Iraq. They didn't come back to Labour under Milliband either and were never voting for Corbyn.

Elections are won in the centre, not the extremes.

Thargor

The Express had a piece the other day about Irish voters punishing Leo for not being a Brexit cheerleader, the article completely failed to mention that he'd be back in in 2 years time.

Peregrinus

First Up wrote: »

All elections are won (and lost) by swing voters. True blue Tories and blood Red Labour supporters don't change sides.

The "labour voters" who deserted Corbyn may have been first attracted in Blair's New Labour days but were turned off by Iraq. They didn't come back to Labour under Milliband either and were never voting for Corbyn.

Elections are won in the centre, not the extremes.

But 2.6 million people who voted for Corbyn in 2017 didn't vote for him in 2019. They didn't turn to the Tories or others; they just stayed home.

So clearly there is a large group of people who were not "never Corbyn" types. They not only were prepared to vote for Corbyn but did actually vote for him. But they weren't loyalists; they were prepared to withdraw their support if he failed to meet their hopes or expectations.

First Up

Peregrinus wrote: »

But 2.6 million people who voted for Corbyn in 2017 didn't vote for him in 2019. They didn't turn to the Tories or others; they just stayed home.

So clearly there is a large group of people who were not "never Corbyn" types. They not only were prepared to vote for Corbyn but did actually vote for him. But they weren't loyalists; they were prepared to withdraw their support if he failed to meet their hopes or expectations.

We could play with numbers all day. For example, John Major had a 21 seat Tory majority in 1992 with a 78% voter turnout, while Blair won a 179 seat majority in 1997 with a much lower (71%) turnout. So who voted and who stayed home?

There wasn't a huge difference in turnout between 2017 and 2019 (68.7% to 71.3%) so did the 2.6 million Corbyn voters stay home, or vote for someone else in 2019?

Labour broadened its support under Blair beyond its traditional working class base. Iraq lost them a lot of that. They didn't regain it under Gordon Brown or Ed Milliband and were certainly not coming back to Corbyn's vision for Labour.

We'll see how Starmer gets on.

amacca

dogbert27 wrote: »

FFS. Express and the Daily Mail deserve the Brexit they'll receive. :rolleyes:

Thats hilarious...in a not funny misleading the public sort of way. Is there any way the chickens won't come home to roost for the UK if this is what represents "journalism" over there?

Mind you, some of our lot aren't much better.

Peregrinus

First Up wrote: »

We could play with numbers all day. For example, John Major had a 21 seat Tory majority in 1992 with a 78% voter turnout, while Blair won a 179 seat majority in 1997 with a much lower (71%) turnout. So who voted and who stayed home?

There wasn't a huge difference in turnout between 2017 and 2019 (68.7% to 71.3%) so did the 2.6 million Corbyn voters stay home, or vote for someone else in 2019?

Abput 40% stayed at home; about 60% voted for someone else but, mostly, not the Tories.

In summary, between 2017 and 2019:

- Labour vote fell by 2.5 million
- Tory vote rose by 0.3 million
- Lib Dem vote rose by 1.3 million
- SNP vote rose by 0.2 million.
- UKIP/BXP vote rose by 0.04 million

Obvs, the 40% who stayed at home are prepared to vote for a left-wing candiate, since they did in 2017. They may be prepared to do so again if a left-wing leader less flawed that Corbyn is offered. Similarly a chunk of Lib Dem voters are potentially open to being attracted to a credible Labour left leader.

It's also worth pointing out that, between the 2015 and 2017 general elections:

- Labour vote rose by 3.6 million
- Tory vote rose by 2.2 million

Clearly, over that period, when they switched from Milliband to Corbyn, Labour was attracting lots of new voters (but not from the Tories - these were mostly new voters in every sense).

So the thesis that, as the Labour party moves left, it bleeds votes isn't really born out by the evidence.

An Ciarraioch

Liz Truss is now saying that no trade deal with the US is better than a bad deal - given the economic motivation for Brexit was a libertarian global trade policy, it's ironic that the US is proving to be even more protectionist than the EU:

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1275786315628494851

First Up

Peregrinus wrote: »

Abput 40% stayed at home; about 60% voted for someone else but, mostly, not the Tories.

In summary, between 2017 and 2019:

- Labour vote fell by 2.5 million
- Tory vote rose by 0.3 million
- Lib Dem vote rose by 1.3 million
- SNP vote rose by 0.2 million.
- UKIP/BXP vote rose by 0.04 million

Obvs, the 40% who stayed at home are prepared to vote for a left-wing candiate, since they did in 2017. They may be prepared to do so again if a left-wing leader less flawed that Corbyn is offered. Similarly a chunk of Lib Dem voters are potentially open to being attracted to a credible Labour left leader.

It's also worth pointing out that, between the 2015 and 2017 general elections:

- Labour vote rose by 3.6 million
- Tory vote rose by 2.2 million

Clearly, over that period, when they switched from Milliband to Corbyn, Labour was attracting lots of new voters (but not from the Tories - these were mostly new voters in every sense).

So the thesis that, as the Labour party moves left, it bleeds votes isn't really born out by the evidence.

418 seats in 1997 under Blair, 202 seats in 2019 under Corbyn.

fash

. suggests that the Japanese "take it or leave it" deal to the UK allows mega trawlers into UK fishing waters. Is that true!? If so, it sounds like the Japanese have a peculiar sense of humour!

LeinsterDub

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Liz Truss is now saying that no trade deal with the US is better than a bad deal - given the economic motivation for Brexit was a libertarian global trade policy, it's ironic that the US is proving to be even more protectionist than the EU:

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1275786315628494851

So potentially they'll have no trade deal with the EU, Japan or the US. What exactly is the plan?

CelticRambler

LeinsterDub wrote: »

What exactly is the plan?

To #TakeBackControl, and build a Better Future for a Global Britain.

Other than inventing sound-bitey slogans, I'm not sure they really bothered very much with those silly things like plans and strategy.

Spanish Eyes

Let them at it now. Far too much water under the bridge to make any sense of what they are at anymore.

I actually don't think they know themselves TBH. I just hope EU protects little countries like our own who will be impacted by certain decisions.

listermint

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Let them at it now. Far too much water under the bridge to make any sense of what they are at anymore.

I actually don't think they know themselves TBH. I just hope EU protects little countries like our own who will be impacted by certain decisions.

They're looking for the EU or the US to fix the mess they've made. Each day is a wait and see. No coherent strategy.

briany

listermint wrote: »

They're looking for the EU or the US to fix the mess they've made. Each day is a wait and see. No coherent strategy.

There has to be some sort of a plan, even if it's one that they don't want to admit to because it might make them look bad in the eyes of even a diehard Tory supporter. Has May and Johnson been walking into cabinet meetings for the last 4 years and asked 'What's the plan?', to be met with coordinated shrugging?

Even if the government appears to be in chaos, that could be a plan. Adam Curtis has argued that elaborate political theatre is a good way of holding power because it divides the electorate and deepens bad faith in politics. It can't be said that this is not what is happening in Britain. You can't get through to the average Brexiteer with logic, and they'll always vote Conservative (so long as the Conservatives are pro-Brexit, anyway).

The Raging Bile Duct

https://www.ft.com/content/4fd04fd9-7209-4b7c-97a1-97466f226159


Pound is becoming an emerging market currency, says BofA analyst
Brexit has permanently altered investors’ views on sterling, warns strategist

The British currency has not recovered to levels before the UK voted to leave the EU, losing about one-fifth of its value

The pound is now an emerging-market currency in all but name, according to analysts at Bank of America, who say that Brexit has turned it into a mirror of the “small and shrinking” UK economy.

In the four years since the UK voted to leave the EU, trading conditions in the pound and the big swings in exchange rates make it a better match with the Mexican peso than the US dollar, said Kamal Sharma, a currency analyst at BofA. He said that movements in the currency since the June 2016 Brexit vote have become “neurotic at best, unfathomable at worst”.

The bit above should be quotes but I don't know how to do it in my phone.

johnnyskeleton

LeinsterDub wrote: »

So potentially they'll have no trade deal with the EU, Japan or the US. What exactly is the plan?

The way that Brexit has been sold to the baying masses for all these years, they simply have to get trade deals that meet the following criteria:
1. Are with large economies;
2. Are with countries or blocks that the EU has no trade deal with, or is currently in drawn out negotiations with;
3. Are done more quickly than trade deals are normally done.

Those are the win conditions for Brexit, which they have set themselves, and have been unwilling or unable to change despite calm reasonable voices urging caution on them.

In a way, trade deals have become a mcguffin. The desire to do trade deals has ceased to be about importing cheaper bikes and garlic from China, or removing tarffs and quotas on whisky and lamb to the USA, which are laudible, if naieve, aims, and instead have become an end in themselves.

As a matter of national pride, and to avoid embarrassment, Britain has to do trade deals with the world. It seems like the penny has finally dropped with Liz Truss that trade deals are difficult, detail orientated and a finely balanced trade off between various different interests, but rather than come out and admit it, she has doubled down by using the same anti-EU rhetoric against the USA.

So the plan as far as Brexit and Boris Johnson are concerned is to still get those trade deals. Truss, having expressed concern about the outcome of this plan, might be looking at a return to the back benches rather than force the government to admit that fast and dirty trade deals are a bad idea. Though, to be fair, I can't say that the plan to abolish the Department of International Trade has anything to do with the recent events on the trade negotiations.

Kudos to Japan for saying that they wanted to do a deal really quickly. They literally used the UK's own rhetoric against them!

Leroy42

briany wrote: »

There has to be some sort of a plan, even if it's one that they don't want to admit to because it might make them look bad in the eyes of even a diehard Tory supporter. Has May and Johnson been walking into cabinet meetings for the last 4 years and asked 'What's the plan?', to be met with coordinated shrugging?

Even if the government appears to be in chaos, that could be a plan. Adam Curtis has argued that elaborate political theatre is a good way of holding power because it divides the electorate and deepens bad faith in politics. It can't be said that this is not what is happening in Britain. You can't get through to the average Brexiteer with logic, and they'll always vote Conservative (so long as the Conservatives are pro-Brexit, anyway).

They certainly had a plan, but the plan was based on the idea that everyone needed the UK and that others would simply give the UK what they wanted. It was based on the view that the UK was the best, that everyone else would struggle to cope with them in the negotiations and without them in a trade deal or union.

This can be clearly seen when you compare the two leave referendums (Scotland and Brexit). In the former it was all based on the view that Scotland were stronger in a union, which if course meant that being attached to England was advantageous to Scotland. Brexit was based on the view that the EU were taking advantage of a constrained and emancipated UK and that the EU's the union with the UK (again really England) was advantageous to the EU but England were no longer prepared to be held back.

David Davis had laid out the plan many times, and continues to do so whenever he is asked. German car manufactures will buckle, fastest trade deal in history etc. It was all going to be so easy. Britain had once ruled the world, and the world still needed the UK to do anything right.

When you start off with a position like that, that everyone will simply give you want you want, then there really isn't much need for a plan beyond 'lets go'.

Zubeneschamali

Johnson won't last until the next election, the knives will come out as soon as the EU relationship is settled.

Peregrinus

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Johnson won't last until the next election, the knives will come out as soon as the EU relationship is settled.

The EU relationship will not be settled until well after the next election.

ambro25

LeinsterDub wrote: »

So potentially they'll have no trade deal with the EU, Japan or the US. What exactly is the plan?

The UK does not have 'the plan', it never did.

The multifarious vested interests pushing, initially UKIP (turning it from politicsl curio into enough of a political scarecrow for the Cons/Lab to emulate in order to catch up), then the UKIPified Tories (gradually purging the political influence and relevance of the centrist/moderate body therein) for the past 7+ years at least, each have 'their' plan, aspects of which are mutually beneficial.

Plainly, oligarchs/kleptocrats/autocrats intent on fragilising the EU, as a global trend- and standards-setter in ever more ways of business and non-business life, and in particular impede or evade its efforts towards increased fiscal harmonisation and good (redistributive) practice, also towards enhanced data privacy ; and intent on maintaining the UK -the City- in its central role of access coordinator to remaining tax heavens.

This is (IMHO) what all of the evidence accumulated, over years now, by the likes of Cadwallahr and consorts, points to; and why the same names (Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, FB, Sputnik, etc) keep popping up all over the globe, behind every useful-idiot populist elected to office (Trump, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Duterte...) time and time and time again.