Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

storker

Thargor wrote: »

Had a look at the comments on the express for a laugh, even they're saying the UK caved.

A quick glance at the Daily Wail comments is similar. A lot of people seem to feel they're in the process of being cheated. Oh well...

Sierra Oscar

Commission twisting the knife - no good just making the commitment if it's not followed up with action.

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1336323937341382656

ancapailldorcha

Strazdas wrote: »

Polly Toynbee predicted yesterday in a Guardian article that Brexiteers will be furious no matter what happens and claiming they have been 'stabbed in the back' and 'sold out' etc.

Exactly. The Tories, instead of leading threw them read meat and they developed a liking for it. They're hardly going to just sit down and be satisfied now are they?

storker wrote: »

A quick glance at the Daily Wail comments is similar. A lot of people seem to feel they're in the process of being cheated. Oh well...

This was always going to happen once Brexit was defined in real and clear terms. Since it can't be all things to all people then at least one of the factions was always going to be disappointed.

Lumen

Thargor wrote: »

Had a look at the comments on the express for a laugh, even they're saying the UK caved.

I think it's more significant that the Express is reporting this as an EU climbdown.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1369871/brexit-news-eu-uk-trade-deal-northern-irelaland-latest-brexit-michael-gove

The agreement has secured significant climbdowns from the EU side on previous threats to blockade food supplies and cut shipments of sausages and burgers to Northern Ireland.

Perhaps the Express is prepping their readership for the declaration of victory on a trade deal.

forgottenhills

Imreoir2 wrote: »

Except for the mass protests, bombings, shootings, rocket attacks, and killings at posts all along the lenght of the border you mean...

The Irish Times put together a map of the hundreds of incidents that happened along the border. Really highlights the nonsence that is the suggestion that customs posts were benign infrastructure that caused no problems in the past.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit/borderlands/the-border

Most of the people that were engaged in those attacks are still alive and living along the border today. Do you think none of them will take exception to a hard border being imposed on them again?

Sorry I didn't know that the PIRA had kicked off their campaign over trade controls and that they had the concerns of the business community as their main driver. And there was I thinking that it might have been their rejection of democracy and love of psychopathic violence. Well, well.

fly_agaric

forgottenhills wrote: »

The Irish government has been remarkably coy about the contingency arrangements for this, I certainly haven't heard about these.

When I've raised this here I've been told about potential "mobile customs checks" in an emergency, but as far as I know, I've never seen govt. release details about that in their Brexit planning documents.

Also mentioned before that I believed Varadkar instructed Revenue to stop any planning for how to implement a goods border with NI during the UK withdrawal negotiations (this happened due to a leak of an internal Revenue report on the horrible potential [no withdrawal agreement] Brexit consequences for the NI border).

I was told I was wrong, that that Varadkar instructed them to continue quietly/secretly (wasn't my own memory of what happened, but I found my own recollections hard to verify when searching news sources published at the time so I may be wrong).

I think Irish government see all this as a "solved problem" that they will not go poking with a stick & worrying about until they absolutely have to. Can't say I agree with that really but the government tends to be quite reactive and short sighted in my own view - wait for the crisis to blow up, then decide what to do about it. Would feel better knowing they were ready + had published plans in place for all eventualities (but that is just me, and at the end of the day I'm a "joe soap" who does not "need to know"...).

It should of course be a non issue once UK acts in good faith and upholds prior committments whether there is an EU-UK Free trade deal or not and hopefully they will now after news posted earlier today.

Nitrogan

How does removing a recently concocted mechanism to break an agreement you made a year ago count as a concession in any negotiation?

The internal market bill was a big fcuk EU from the Brexiters, what was the point if they're going to drop the contentious bits they spent significant domestic effort and political capital to keep?

The only explanation is that the UK is now run by delusional charlatans who think the rest of Europe is as stupid as the idiots who voted for Brexit.

CelticRambler

forgottenhills wrote: »

In any scenario where NI was not going to be treated as part of the Single Market then Ireland/the EU would be forced to introduce border controls on the land border to protect the Single Market. The Irish government has been remarkably coy about the contingency arrangements for this, I certainly haven't heard about these.

Anyway great news today that there has been agreement on the implementation of the NI Protocol ...

fly_agaric wrote: »

I think Irish government see all this as a "solved problem" that they will not go poking with a stick & worrying about until they absolutely have to.

Because it is a solved problem. It was solved on Jan 24th when Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement. Today's "great news" is nothing more than one idiotic Brexiter promising to do what another idiotic Brexiter promised to do eleven months ago, then unpromised it just to prove how idiotic he really was, but didn't actually do anything - not one single act or gesture - to stop the implementation of the Protocol.

Over and over and over again people have been posting here this year about potential problems with the Ireland-Northern-Ireland border, and complaining that the FG-FF administration aren't doing enough - but FG made the problem go away (with the help of the EU) and all year long the British have been putting the NI Protocol into action, regardless of the nonsense spouted by British tabloids and Tory politicians.

Gove's pronouncement and photo op today means nothing at all in the real world. It won't undo the measures that've already been put in place, nor will it ensure the necessary IT systems are ready in time. As previously discussed on this thread, the contentious articles in the IMB wouldn't even have changed the situation for NI businesses - all of that was (and still is) English politicking for an English audience, and has feck all to do with Northern Ireland or its people.

robindch

Leroy42 wrote: »

Of course, but there is nothing stopping them from declaring war either. Except for the consequences of such decisions.

The current HMG has shown more interest in playing domestic politics at home than caring about its reputation abroad or the domestic economic consequences of its policies.

fly_agaric

CelticRambler wrote: »

Because it is a solved problem. It was solved on Jan 24th when Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement. Today's "great news" is nothing more than one idiotic Brexiter promising to do what another idiotic Brexiter promised to do eleven months ago, then unpromised it just to prove how idiotic he really was, but didn't actually do anything - not one single act or gesture - to stop the implementation of the Protocol.

Over and over and over again people have been posting here this year about potential problems with the Ireland-Northern-Ireland border, and complaining that the FG-FF administration aren't doing enough - but FG made the problem go away (with the help of the EU) and all year long the British have been putting the NI Protocol into action, regardless of the nonsense spouted by British tabloids and Tory politicians.

Gove's pronouncement and photo op today means nothing at all in the real world. It won't undo the measures that've already been put in place, nor will it ensure the necessary IT systems are ready in time. As previously discussed on this thread, the contentious articles in the IMB wouldn't even have changed the situation for NI businesses - all of that was (and still is) English politicking for an English audience, and has feck all to do with Northern Ireland or its people.

Fair enough. I accept that it (NI border problem) should be solved to Ireland's satisfaction by what was agreed already (and the last Irish government deserve some praise for that). I said as much above.
The Internal Markets bill isn't quite the only evidence of bad faith/heel dragging - think there was some kerfuffle over the EU having an office in NI and staff on the ground also.

I just have a very high level of distrust of this particular UK government.
Breaking the agreements made with the EU about NI would be pretty unprecedented for the UK but I still worry it is a risk. I think I will feel that way until things get up & running next year & we have more evidence the UK will stick to its commitments.

Strazdas

robindch wrote: »

The current HMG has shown more interest in playing domestic politics at home than caring about its reputation abroad or the domestic economic consequences of its policies.

Brexit is 100% political. It's clear that everyone who believes in it is prepared to trash the economy and break up the UK in order to achieve it.

10000maniacs

lawred2 wrote: »

This is good news right?

Now for the hard part. Convincing Macron to say "sorry folks" to his fishermen.

1st dalkey dalkey

SNIP. No childish insults please.

CelticRambler

fly_agaric wrote: »

The Internal Markets bill isn't quite the only evidence of bad faith/heel dragging - think there was some kerfuffle over the EU having an office in NI and staff on the ground also.

Yes, but that was all hot air and pantomime theatrics. They didn't actually undo anything that had already been done, and they carried on doing what needed to be done (awarding of contracts, etc).

54and56

Thargor wrote: »

Had a look at the comments on the express for a laugh, even they're saying the UK caved.

Jeff Taylor on YouTube should be worth a watch later!!!

Dubh Geannain

fly_agaric wrote: »

Fair enough. I accept that it (NI border problem) should be solved to Ireland's satisfaction by what was agreed already (and the last Irish government deserve some praise for that). I said as much above.
The Internal Markets bill isn't quite the only evidence of bad faith/heel dragging - think there was some kerfuffle over the EU having an office in NI and staff on the ground also.

I just have a very high level of distrust of this particular UK government.
Breaking the agreements made with the EU about NI would be pretty unprecedented for the UK but I still worry it is a risk. I think I will feel that way until things get up & running next year & we have more evidence the UK will stick to its commitments.

Evidence of bad faith goes back a long way with the British Government and you cannot take them on their word. I know it's normal for politicians to break promises but the macro promises broken over the decades by the British Government I think are in a league of their own. From the unkept promises made to the Scots during their Indy ref, to the policies they never implemented to reinforce the Good Friday Agreement cf. the Emma De Souza case. They even shafted the DUP while the DUP were actually in government themselves. As a negotiator I'd simply hate to be dealing with them.

forgottenhills

Nitrogan wrote: »

How does removing a recently concocted mechanism to break an agreement you made a year ago count as a concession in any negotiation?

The internal market bill was a big fcuk EU from the Brexiters, what was the point if they're going to drop the contentious bits they spent significant domestic effort and political capital to keep?

The only explanation is that the UK is now run by delusional charlatans who think the rest of Europe is as stupid as the idiots who voted for Brexit.

We cant be 100% sure that the IM bill didn't win some concessions for the UK side on the implementation of the NI Protocol.

To know this we would have to see the precise positions of both sides in the committee agreeing the implementation of the protocol before and after the IMB wheeze was introduced. We do know that there have been some changes agreed in how the implementation was envisaged from this time last year. At the very least the UK side could claim that the prospect of the IMB bill might have focused minds on getting to an agreement. We probably will never know if the IMB did bring some gains to the UK side. In terms of the bigger picture it trashed the UK's reputation on the international front but the current UK government is very radical and seems not to care. Hence my concerns now over a no deal.

CelticRambler

Before the snip, 1st dalkey dalkey asked why Johnson wasn't meeting "someone from the Council" - presumably because the various EU heads of state have better things to do with their time these day. It may be a hard concept for Brexiters to grasp, but here on the Continent, Brexit Britain and her antics are no longer of any great importance, so it is entirely appropriate that Johnson - a renowned time-waster with little respect for constitutional norms (even those of his own country) - meets with no-one higher than a senior civil servant.

fly_agaric

CelticRambler wrote: »

Yes, but that was all hot air and pantomime theatrics. They didn't actually undo anything that had already been done, and they carried on doing what needed to be done (awarding of contracts, etc).

It may all prove to be "hot air" or "pantomime" but it has serious effects.
Not well up on practicalities but last I read about it was they (UK) won't be ready to implement NI protocol for January but that is to be expected.
Setting aside any deliberate/strategic heel dragging on NI, or other games, the whole UK approach to Brexit has been chaotic. Even after 4 years it seems to me their govt. cannot make up their mind what they want to do (hence us all discussing & guessing about what is going to happen as the clock winds down), which made work to prepare for Jan 1 2021 far harder.

BonnieSituation

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Plus a hard border will re-ignite trouble in NI. No British government will want to start that up again and it would mean no trade agreement with the US.

You say that. But you forget that the British government couldn't give a crap about Paddies knocking the shoite out of each other. As it always was.

A civil war in their jurisdiction didn't bother them until it landed on England's doorstep.

The threats of strife at the border only bother them as so far as the EU and Ireland don't want trouble thus they want to implement policies to ensure that doesn't happen but these plans conflict with their Cakeist Plans for a free and true Brexit.

In other words, same as it ever was.

Mr.Nice Guy

It's hard to know how to treat the news about the protocol as it's in the Tory party's DNA to be duplicitous. These comments by Sefcovic sum up the understandable lack of trust:

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1336323937341382656

forgottenhills

fly_agaric wrote: »

It may all prove to be "hot air" or "pantomime" but it has serious effects.
Not well up on practicalities but last I read about it was they (UK) won't be ready to implement NI protocol for January but that is to be expected.
Setting aside any deliberate/strategic heel dragging on NI, or other games, the whole UK approach to Brexit has been chaotic. Even after 4 years it seems to me their govt. cannot make up their mind what they want to do (hence us all discussing & guessing about what is going to happen as the clock winds down), which made work to prepare for Jan 1 2021 far harder.

Here is a real world example of how cross-border businesses (unless this has changed with today's announcement) are still not sure how things are going to work out in January.

Lakeland Dairies is a large dairy co-operative group based in Cavan with a turnover of €1 billion after is takeover/merger last year with LacPatrick Dairies of Northern Ireland. It has milk suppliers on both sides of the border and processes milk in plants based on both sides of the border. Probably has employees into the thousands at this stage. Because its milk comes from both NI and ROI it has what is regarded as a mixed origin milk pool.

In its AGM held only last week the CEO stated that it was still not sure how this mixed origin milk pool and the products derived from it would be treated by either the EU or UK after January 1st. It was talking to everybody and hoping for a deal but not sure what would happen with country of origin rulings in the event of No Deal which could potentially be very damaging for it.

Does anyone know if the NI Protocol will fix country of origin rules for mixed ROI/NI sourced products or will agreement in this area rest with the wider EU/UK trade talks? (I must have a good read of the NI Protocol implementation agreement when details are published).

Nitrogan

forgottenhills wrote: »

We cant be 100% sure that the IM bill didn't win some concessions for the UK side on the implementation of the NI Protocol.

To know this we would have to see the precise positions of both sides in the committee agreeing the implementation of the protocol before and after the IMB wheeze was introduced. We do know that there have been some changes agreed in how the implementation was envisaged from this time last year. At the very least the UK side could claim that the prospect of the IMB bill might have focused minds on getting to an agreement. We probably will never know if the IMB did bring some gains to the UK side. In terms of the bigger picture it trashed the UK's reputation on the international front but the current UK government is very radical and seems not to care. Hence my concerns now over a no deal.

The IMB had no credible strategic merit to it other than feeding the hard right wing base.


It was a Trumpian gambit. There was no strategy to it at all. Act tough and hope to bluff your way through.

looksee

forgottenhills wrote: »

Here is a real world example of how cross-border businesses (unless this has changed with today's announcement) are still not sure how things are going to work out in January.

Lakeland Dairies is a large dairy co-operative group based in Cavan with a turnover of €1 billion after is takeover/merger last year with LacPatrick Dairies of Northern Ireland. It has milk suppliers on both sides of the border and processes milk in plants based on both sides of the border. Probably has employees into the thousands at this stage. Because its milk comes from both NI and ROI it has what is regarded as a mixed origin milk pool.

In its AGM held only last week the CEO stated that it was still not sure how this mixed origin milk pool and the products derived from it would be treated by either the EU or UK after January 1st. It was talking to everybody and hoping for a deal but not sure what would happen with country of origin rulings in the event of No Deal which could potentially be very damaging for it.

Does anyone know if the NI Protocol will fix country of origin rules for mixed ROI/NI sourced products or will agreement in this area rest with the wider EU/UK trade talks? (I must have a good read of the NI Protocol implementation agreement when details are published).

At risk of victim blaming, and I appreciate that hindsight is a wonderful thing, you would have to wonder who thought it would be a good idea to deliberately go into a cross-border arrangement as recently as last year?

forgottenhills

Nitrogan wrote: »

The IMB had no credible strategic merit to it other than feeding the hard right wing base.


It was a Trumpian gambit. There was no strategy to it at all. Act tough and hope to bluff your way through.

That's just your opinion which may be true but we wouldn't know that this was a fact unless we saw the positions of both sides in the NI Protocol implementation agreement negotiations before and after the tabling of the IMB. The UK side could even argue that the optics of them preparing for a No Deal outcome refocused negotiations. In reality we will probably never know.

Have you ever being involved in high stakes deal negotiations? I have and you would not believe the gambits that other sides pull when the stakes are high, both legal and bordering on the illegal or downright immoral. All is fair in love, war and deal negotiations.

Strazdas

Johnson to meet Ursula tomorrow :

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1336368289157681152

Seth Brundle

Amazon seemingly are letting customers know that things won't suit them as much come January...

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1336339735350939651

Strazdas

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Amazon seemingly are letting customers know that things won't suit them as much come January...

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1336339735350939651

Tony is still downbeat on the deal btw and is not at all convinced Johnson is about to shift his position.

Seth Brundle

Well the German car msanufacturers seem to have reneged on the Tories belief that they'd force a deal to suit the UK

https://twitter.com/UKVolkswagen/status/1336276412752343040

Widdensushi

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Well the German car msanufacturers seem to have reneged on the Tories belief that they'd force a deal to suit the UK

https://twitter.com/UKVolkswagen/status/1336276412752343040

Or they do but they think the public don't and they will get sales without having to pay the extra tax after.