Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

5GMadeMeDoIt

Johnson cant do another u-turn and survive. They've boxed themselves in badly.

ambro25

Patser wrote: »

And just to counteract all that, the Eu have given Johnson til end of month to sort out the bill and not break international law

https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-eu-demands-uk-scraps-plans-to-override-parts-of-withdrawal-agreement-by-end-of-the-month-12068247

It's not a statutory or regulatory deadline, though, like the Art.50 deadlines were.

I can see the point of it, to try and focus British minds on either side of the ideological debate ("deal or no-deal", since we are now long and well past "Brexit or no Brexit").

But the (equally non-statutory or regulatory) 'October' deadline to close a draft deal for running it through the EU27 and EU ratifying processes in time by 31.12, still looks "harder" (more important/relevant) to me, in the absence of a pre-arranged extension to the WA beyond 31.12 and the quasi-impossibility of arranging one ('quasi', because never say never if needs must...but that would be *some* fudge by the parties to behold).

Strazdas

Patser wrote: »

And just to counteract all that, the Eu have given Johnson til end of month to sort out the bill and not break international law

https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-eu-demands-uk-scraps-plans-to-override-parts-of-withdrawal-agreement-by-end-of-the-month-12068247

That does sound like an EU ultimatum. There is no legal requirement on the EU to continue trade deal talks and they can break them off at any moment of their choosing.

Infini

Indestructable wrote: »

Well I think they just got their fight.

EU demands UK scraps plans to override parts of Brexit deal by the end of the month.

Sky News headline.

Not really when you think about it, by giving them to the end of the month it allows the sound of that ticking clock to get louder and louder and make them sweat more. Truth is regardless of this latest absolute bellended decision to break an international agreeement only months after agreeing it, October really was the point of no return of wether an agreement would be reached or not.

By all account this just basically has shown what everyone already knew: They intended to engineer a car crash from the start they just too drunk on their ideological bullshít to realize that this would have been expected everywhere else in Europe it was just hoped they might not be actually that stupid. That being said if it's a car crash they want it will be Boris and friends who will have intentionally caused it by breaking an international agreement intentionally and they will get absolutely slaughtered for it until they're thrown out of power.

Strazdas

I'd say the chances of a trade deal are down to 5% or less. Unless the UK backs down - but surely the ERG and the right wing press would go into meltdown if Johnson / Cummings were seen to waver in the face of an EU ultimatum.

I think the EU are playing this well btw. They haven't collapsed the trade deal talks but have fired a huge shot across Brexit UK's bows.

road_high

54and56 wrote: »

When someone is hell bent on running straight into a concrete wall and you cannot change their mind sometimes the best thing you can do is step out of their way, let them get it out of their system and see if having hurt themselves they continue to repeat running into concrete walls or acknowledge the stupidity of doing so and re-join the adults in the room.

That sums up my feelings on Brexit tbh. Yes, it's a huge shame and risk for our economy but they are not the only country in the world we can trade with and we want to trade with them as we do now and have done- it's they who want to muddy the relationship and structures.

Zubeneschamali

There will be a trade deal, but not, by the looks of it, on Jan 1st.

Instead, the UK are going to learn that they need a deal the hard way, the Yellowhammer way.

Hurrache

Strazdas wrote: »

That does sound like an EU ultimatum. There is no legal requirement on the EU to continue trade deal talks and they can break them off at any moment of their choosing.

I think it's in the agreement already signed, don't think it's an ultimatum they've just come up with.

https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1304068015894470660

The UK gov had said this earlier, basically saying International Law is meaningless. I presume we're just about within our 100 year cooling off period in which we can take the 6 counties back?

https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1304067662897704961

Hurrache

And if you want to put yourself to sleep, here's the UK attorney general's defence. As it is, she doesn't have much standing in the UK based on her previous actions while in government, she's being gutted over this by those with a bit more sense.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1304066214596153345

This law professor gives it a good trashing

https://twitter.com/ProfMarkElliott/status/1304076133827309569

Frank Bullitt

https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1304085938323312642


No Deal is in the lead it seems, and with the reasons applied above, it makes sense.

Patser

Sterling is plummeting, down from £1 = €1.12 at start of week, to £1 = €1.08 now, and .02 of that was just today

Enzokk

Maybe I am off base, but I think I understand now why the Home Office gave up the fight, temporarily, on the Emma De Souza case. If they had gone to court and lost and was told that international treaties that are agreed by the government takes precedent over domestic laws it would have blown all of this argument out of the water.

As a refresher, the De Souza case was about the UK not changing domestic law to reflect the GFA where citizens born in Northern Ireland can choose to be Irish, British or both. They maintained that people are British automatically and if they want to take Irish citizenship they have to apply to surrender their British one. If the court found that the UK were bound by the GFA and had to change their domestic law, as we did, then none of this was even a starter.

Hurrache

Are they messin', or having a break down?

This was just posted.
https://twitter.com/DominicRaab/status/1304060029105037312

And this was just said
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1304094525724467200

Does as we say, not as we do.

Hermy

Patser wrote: »

An interesting take by Ian Dunt here, and I'm thinking he's right. Starmer's refusal to bring up Brexit in PMQs yesterday and the EUs refusal to storm out of talks, removes all of Johnson's oxygen of conflict, and fighting for brexit, and defending sovereignty. Instead it leaves him still back at square 1, trying to explain what his plan actually is and what result he wants, not saying THEY (whoever the they might be that day) did it.

I did wonder about this yesterday, particularly watching a later interview with Starmer where he sounded quite conciliatory towards Johnson on the matter of Covid.
Makes sense now.

Patser wrote: »

Sterling is plummeting, down from £1 = €1.12 at start of week, to £1 = €1.08 now, and .02 of that was just today

Would I be right to assume that someone is making money off the back of this drop? I'm thinking of Farage and his twice conceding defeat on the night of the referendum and wondering if Boris's recklessness is from the same play book. Really disgusting if that's all this amounts to.

Enzokk

Michel Barnier has put out a update on the latest talks,

Statement by Michel Barnier following Round 8 of negotiations for a new partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom

The eighth round of negotiations on the future EU-UK partnership took place in London this week.

The EU remains committed to an ambitious future partnership with the UK. This would clearly be to the benefit of both sides. Nobody should underestimate the practical, economic and social consequences of a “no deal” scenario.

In order to maximise the chances of a deal, the EU has shown flexibility to work around the UK's red lines and find solutions that fully respect the UK's sovereignty. In particular with regard to the role of the European Court of Justice, the future legislative autonomy of the UK, and fisheries.

However, on its side, the UK has not engaged in a reciprocal way on fundamental EU principles and interests.

Significant differences remain in areas of essential interest for the EU.

The UK is refusing to include indispensable guarantees of fair competition in our future agreement, while requesting free access to our market. We have taken note of the UK government's statement on “A new approach to subsidy control”. But this falls significantly short of the commitments made in the Political Declaration.

Similarly, we are still missing important guarantees on non-regression from social, environmental, labour and climate standards.

Modern trade agreements are about ensuring sustainable and fair partnerships with high standards in areas like the environment, climate, employment, health and safety, and taxation.

These principles are now at the heart of EU trade policy: with the UK, and with other partners around the world.

And they are at the heart of the EU's negotiating mandate. For the EU, its Member States and the European Parliament, any future economic partnership, regardless of its level of ambition, must ensure that competition is both free and fair.

The UK has moreover not engaged on other major issues, such as credible horizontal dispute settlement mechanisms, essential safeguards for judicial cooperation and law enforcement, fisheries, or level playing field requirements in the areas of transport and energy.

There are also many uncertainties about Great Britain's sanitary and phyto-sanitary regime as from 1 January 2021. More clarity is needed for the EU to do the assessment for the third-country listing of the UK.

***

To conclude a future partnership, mutual trust and confidence are and will be necessary. The Chief Negotiators and their teams will remain in contact over the coming days.

At the same time, the EU is intensifying its preparedness work to be ready for all scenarios on 1 January 2021.

So basically if the plan was to get the EU to walk away it failed. There are concerns, a lot of them, but the EU will be there and ready to talk. I wonder what the next moves will be from the UK.

It seems to me that he is also giving a lot more detail on where there is disagreements with the UK at the moment. I don't see how any of it changes with the current cabinet. They are all wedded to no-deal it seems and the least ideological seems to be Johnson. But he doesn't care other than to stay in power so he will not rock the boat to stay in position. Gove stabbed him in the back once before, I am sure he will do so again without hesitation and Cummings is a Gove man before he started working with Johnson as well.

What a mess the UK find itself in right now.

Infini

Hurrache wrote: »

Are they messin', or having a break down?

This was just posted.
https://twitter.com/DominicRaab/status/1304060029105037312

And this was just said
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1304094525724467200

Does as we say, not as we do.

Look's like they're gone full retard for real this time, Sterling's just gone into a bloody nosedive in the last few hours up to 92.5p from 90p this morning.

5GMadeMeDoIt

Hurrache wrote: »

Are they messin', or having a break down?

This was just posted.


And this was just said


Does as we say, not as we do.

It's as if the UK government is being run by a bunch of teenage 4chan incel gamers. The world's first troll government

An Ciarraioch

Some senior Tories planning a rebellion that would place a "parliamentary veto" on the IM Bill, yet if the Commons were determined to enact it, no parliamentary mechanism could prevent it from doing so?

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1304103835674304512

Leroy42

That list of areas from Barnier is actually pretty extensive. It seems they are much further apart than many, or at least me, thought.

The blow up in the last few days makes even more sense. There was no way that all of those areas could be closed off in the next couple of weeks, not without some significant movement from either side.

From the very start of this entire process, the UK have been caught completely unprepared. From the wording of the Ref itself, to the control of the ref, to the aftermath of the result when Johnson and Give looked totally bewildered.

May came to power and it was clear that whilst Leave had won, they had no idea what to do next. They rushed Art 50 notice, and it was clear as day they hadn't the slightest idea what they actually wanted to achieve. Brexit means Brexit was thought of as some imaginative political slogan that was everything to everybody, but it turns out it was that vague because they hadn't a clue what Brexit was actually meant to do.

Davis spent ages telling everyone about sector reports, which then turns out they didn't have any. Fish then suddenly became a thing, when it was hardly even mentioned before.

It was care that NI came as a total shock, t both the public but also to the politicians.

And they have continued on in that vain, stumbling on like a drunk in the dark trying to find a lightswitch, but smashing the lamp in the process.

Even now, they have absolutely no idea what success actually means. They still cannot point to any actual benefits of all of this. The costs just keep mounting but at this stage they are so far in, they have spent so long on this they they have little choice but to continue to double down each time in the vain hope that at some point their luck surely must change.

Detritus70

5GMadeMeDoIt wrote: »

It's as if the UK government is being run by a bunch of teenage 4chan incel gamers. The world's first troll government

Second troll government.

Enzokk

This is some statement from Whitehall on the current situation,

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1304131578638012416?s=20

This is a statement from Jonathan Jones who resigned a couple days ago. He is currently serving his notice and he is basically saying other than the breaking of international law, everything else is above board according to the new Cabinet Secretary.

54and56

Enzokk wrote: »

This is some statement from Whitehall on the current situation,

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1304131578638012416?s=20

This is a statement from Jonathan Jones who resigned a couple days ago. He is currently serving his notice and he is basically saying other than the breaking of international law, everything else is above board according to the new Cabinet Secretary.

Who'd have thought that as Brexit rhetoric crashes into Brexit reality the wheels would come off BoJo's government.

It's going to be a humourous few weeks......... in the darkest sense of the word.

looksee

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1304145415307132930

Johnathan Jones' letter becomes an episode of Yes Minister when deconstructed.


Edited in an attempt to get the correct twitter thread to show. Further edit. Sorry, cannot figure out how to get the twitter thread that shows the deconstruction to work. If you can find it its a very good inside look at Civil Service speak.

A Dub in Glasgo

Why does Peston quote Jones but put ' ' around breach of international law?

looksee

Because he is quoting bits of the letter.

storker

Sounds fine to me: it's all legal apart from the illegal bit.

A Dub in Glasgo

looksee wrote: »

Because he is quoting bits of the letter.

the letter does not have the ' ' around the breach bit

“Notwithstanding the ‘breach of international’ law”

Enzokk

looksee wrote: »

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1304145415307132930

Johnathan Jones' letter becomes an episode of Yes Minister when deconstructed.


Edited in an attempt to get the correct twitter thread to show. Further edit. Sorry, cannot figure out how to get the twitter thread that shows the deconstruction to work. If you can find it its a very good inside look at Civil Service speak.

Here is the Thread reader link

Let's go through the statement, as it is really so delightful


The 'Government has today published...'

Note: not the Treasury Solicitor, not the Attorney General's Office, not the Lord Chancellor

The 'Government'

And, indeed, oddly it was the Cabinet Office that published the 'statement'


Note also the passing jab at 'statement' - not even accorded the word 'opinion'

A mere assertion, not anything reasoned

Let's move on



'provisions that are contrary to our legal obligations'

No equitation: 'are' contrary

Not 'might be' or 'some would say may be'

'are'



Next, a beautiful civil service phrase

'staff will wish to note'

Ouch

That means: staff should not take what follows seriously

'note' here is brutal Whitehall-speak for something of the lowest possible import

And now the best bit



'that the Cabinet Secretary has determined that, notwithstanding the breach of international law...'

Wow

Not seen anything quite this brutal in Whitehall before

In terms, this (bare) 'determination' in defiance of the law is entirely on the Cabinet Secretary



But what is the determination?

Now this is the clever bit

'in executing this course of action agreed collectively by ministers...civil servants are acting within their obligations under...Civil Service Code'

In effect: officials' and government lawyers' backs are now covered



Significantly, this is *not* set out as his view as Treasury Solicitor, and he does not endorse this 'determination'

You will also notice the 'rightly' in the first sentence which is then conspicuous in its absence for the rest of the statement as he sets out the views of others



Only the concerns of colleagues are accorded 'rightly'

He *twice* state expressly the government is in breach of the law

This is taken as a straightforward fact



And the cherry, which makes this such a fun statement to interpret and analyse, is the masterful trolling in the use of the word 'notwithstanding'

You get the impression that the sentence with 'notwithstanding' in had to be worked so as to get the word into the statement



So a clever and subversive statement there from the government's chief legal official



Perhaps overall the most important thing about this is the sheer distance the Treasury Solicitor is putting between him and 'a statement' of the 'government'

There is some serious dislocation in government - more than even before

Hope its okay to post the whole thread, it really is a very good analysis of what and how it was written by someone who has worked for the civil service and is very much aware of what is being said.

10000maniacs

looksee wrote: »

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1304145415307132930

Johnathan Jones' letter becomes an episode of Yes Minister when deconstructed.


Edited in an attempt to get the correct twitter thread to show. Further edit. Sorry, cannot figure out how to get the twitter thread that shows the deconstruction to work. If you can find it its a very good inside look at Civil Service speak.

Peston always fawned over Johnson's regime on his show. This is just his attempt to make his tweet get talked about. Laura Kuensburg was up to the same carry-on over the last two years. Their aim was to normalise Brexit as something credible while talking out of both sides of their mouths. When Peston has Johnson or Gove on next, he'll be fawning over them as usual.

Peregrinus

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Some senior Tories planning a rebellion that would place a "parliamentary veto" on the IM Bill, yet if the Commons were determined to enact it, no parliamentary mechanism could prevent it from doing so?

https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1304103835674304512

If enough Tories rebel they can amend the Bill any way they want, or defeat it entirely. But (assuming the DUP support the Bill) that would require something like 50 Tory rebels which, in a parliamentary party purged of integrity and hand-picked for spinelessness, is a long shot.

The Lords, I think, could dealy the Bill for up to 12 months - certainly beyond the end of transition on 31 December. But whether that is politically likely I can't say.