Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

View

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

My point is that the negotiations will be over, one way or another, before the bill is law.

Just as they will be over before the EU complaint about the law is heard.

I am not saying the Bill is great, I'm saying the EU is correct to object to it and keep talking. If a deal is agreed, it will include scrapping the objectionable parts of that bill. If No Deal is agreed, the EU will have a lot of leverage over the UK to force them into line.

As has been pointed out, it will be U.K. law within a month and the negotiations are unlikely to have ended by them.

And it is a violation of international law to have brought forward this legislation, so the question for all EU countries is why should any of us trust that the U.K. will honour any U.K.-EU Trade agreement that arises from the current set of negotiations?

Zubeneschamali

The Lords can delay the bill for a year, and they will.

Patser

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The Lords can delay the bill for a year, and they will.

I've been thinking, would this not suit Johnson and co. The threat of the IMB still hovering, even after whatever deal/no deal there is, bit with him ablemto say its no in is his control really, its been passed to the Lords.

So in future he could possibly reignite tensions or even take unilateral decisions whenever the IMB returns from the Lords, but even for the moment its just hovering as a threat.

Nody

Patser wrote: »

I've been thinking, would this not suit Johnson and co. The threat of the IMB still hovering, even after whatever deal/no deal there is, bit with him ablemto say its no in is his control really, its been passed to the Lords.

So in future he could possibly reignite tensions or even take unilateral decisions whenever the IMB returns from the Lords, but even for the moment its just hovering as a threat.

Not really; as already noted earlier the fact it was even raised to be a potential law is a breach of the deal's good faith clause. He can't then complain that it's hold up in Lords because the fact he created the law in the first place is what's the breach of good faith; where it's currently stuck is not really relevant.

Leroy42

What the IM bill shows, and was intending to show, was that regardless of if and when the bill is passed the UK will break an agreement is they no longer accept that agreement.

So the EU, and the world, knows that any deal agreed with the UK is only good at that point in time and open to change at any point.

Of course that is technically true of every agreement, but most disagreements are dealt with through diplomacy and inter government discussions to at least see if resolution can be achieved.

The UK have signalled they intend to unilaterally decide.

Joe_ Public

I think on balance id agree with zub here. It will likely be heading for December before the IM bill finishes its first, inevitable failed, passage through the hol so, whatever else happens, it won't be in the statute books within a month. The lords can amend it, send it back and then a ding dong that could carry on for months before any final vote is even taken. On the assumption they're not totally as stupid as they make themselves seem sometimes, i think they would have known that and also anticipated how the eu would react, so i remain slightly perplexed and open minded as to what they hoped to achieve with this frankly ludicrous gambit.

ancapailldorcha

Joe_ Public wrote: »

On the assumption they're not totally as stupid as they make themselves seem sometimes, i think they would have known that and also anticipated how the eu would react, so i remain slightly perplexed and open minded as to what they hoped to achieve with this frankly ludicrous gambit.

I'm interpreting it in one of two ways.

Firstly, this is an attempt to justify no deal. They can say that they're simply trying to protect the British market even though they negotiated the deal by which it was allegedly compromised. I think that this is unlikely because they could always have blamed no deal on the EU's apocryphal intransigence.

Secondly and more likely in my opinion, this is yet another of No 10's tiresome games. Unless the British get what they want, they'll just unilaterally amend or revoke the WA or at least this is what they want the EU to think and fear. Can't see this working and ultimately, Johnson will either have to capitulate at the last minute as he and May have done before or be the PM to preside over an artificial recession and economic disaster.

Joe_ Public

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm interpreting it in one of two ways.

Firstly, this is an attempt to justify no deal. They can say that they're simply trying to protect the British market even though they negotiated the deal by which it was allegedly compromised. I think that this is unlikely because they could always have blamed no deal on the EU's apocryphal intransigence.

Secondly and more likely in my opinion, this is yet another of No 10's tiresome games. Unless the British get what they want, they'll just unilaterally amend or revoke the WA or at least this is what they want the EU to think and fear. Can't see this working and ultimately, Johnson will either have to capitulate at the last minute as he and May have done before or be the PM to preside over an artificial recession and economic disaster.

I'm certainly open to those interpretations. If they're headed for no deal anyway, which they may well have decided, then it may just be they are trying to set it out on their terms.

I think one of the issues for them is they will be playing to an ever shrinking base. Getting brexit done last December is an altogether different beast to what is happening now with their international reputation on the line. Maybe most english people don't care a huge amount about NI but i bet they still understand the significance of the gfa and the risky road they're going down in messing with it. That's all on top of the inevitable chaos in kent and elsewhere so i remain sceptical about how well the eu as the great big ogre line will play internally for johnson even in the short term.

fash

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I think on balance id agree with zub here. It will likely be heading for December before the IM bill finishes its first, inevitable failed, passage through the hol so, whatever else happens, it won't be in the statute books within a month. The lords can amend it, send it back and then a ding dong that could carry on for months before any final vote is even taken. On the assumption they're not totally as stupid as they make themselves seem sometimes, i think they would have known that and also anticipated how the eu would react, so i remain slightly perplexed and open minded as to what they hoped to achieve with this frankly ludicrous gambit.

Don't forget that the main "renege on the agreement" bill is the finance bill - and that cannot be held up in the house of lords. Being charitable as to motives: when though the UK did agree an all weather "front stop", (and regardless of the rest it had signed or its called promised and undertakings)it did so in order to get to FTA discussions with the EU - no FTA, then why bother being good? Plus it might act to put pressure on the EU in a 50/50 situation and create some theatre for their followers.
Of course I think as something to help their negotiating position, it would be an asset failure: the only one that comes under real pressure is Ireland- every one else just see someone reneging on an agreement and will want stronger reassurances that that won't happen in future.

Detritus70

The UK is displaying fine brinkmanship here.
My guess is, crash the negotiations, "ruin" the EU because they just lost their "most" valuable trading partner, give them a few years and they will come crawling back, desperate for a deal and will agree to anything.
Their calculations are 100% correct, but out by 180 degrees.
At this stage, with the market bill being a foregone conclusion, no deal looks inevitable.
The Brits will simply wait for a better deal to come along, which won't happen.
So, how will they sell deliberately crashing the negotiations and accepting a much worse deal further down the line? Because it will be worse.
Right now the EU is negotiating with an ally and ex member who will get preferential treatment.
A few years down the line, they will be just A. N. Other country looking for a deal.

Joe_ Public

fash wrote: »

Don't forget that the main "renege on the agreement" bill is the finance bill - and that cannot be held up in the house of lords. Being charitable as to motives: when though the UK did agree an all weather "front stop", (and regardless of the rest it had signed or its called promised and undertakings)it did so in order to get to FTA discussions with the EU - no FTA, then why bother being good? Plus it might act to put pressure on the EU in a 50/50 situation and create some theatre for their followers.
Of course I think as something to help their negotiating position, it would be an asset failure: the only one that comes under real pressure is Ireland- every one else just see someone reneging on an agreement and will want stronger reassurances that that won't happen in future.

They'd need both, wouldn't they? Amending the finance bill to dictate tariff arrangements between UK and NI would hardly have much effect or purpose if the protocol still held. The IM bill may be only half the job but the rest depends on its successful implementation. There is a convention that the lords dont mess with finance or "money" bills, very unlikely they'd make an exception but i wouldn't entirely rule it out given the circumstances and passions involved. The irrepressible Alf Dubs and pals are currently giving the government a very hard time over its post brexit immigration bill, they're certainly not going to make it easy anyway.

Sam Russell

Detritus70 wrote: »

The UK is displaying fine brinkmanship here.
My guess is, crash the negotiations, "ruin" the EU because they just lost their "most" valuable trading partner, give them a few years and they will come crawling back, desperate for a deal and will agree to anything.
Their calculations are 100% correct, but out by 180 degrees.
At this stage, with the market bill being a foregone conclusion, no deal looks inevitable.
The Brits will simply wait for a better deal to come along, which won't happen.
So, how will they sell deliberately crashing the negotiations and accepting a much worse deal further down the line? Because it will be worse.
Right now the EU is negotiating with an ally and ex member who will get preferential treatment.
A few years down the line, they will be just A. N. Other country looking for a deal.

I think the UK are heading down the EU's international pecking order - soon to be below Turkey, and possibly Russia.

Turkey, while having a deal with the EU, are moving away from the rule of law, and into dictatorship, have moved from a potential member, and into accession negotiations, have basically moved out of that and into conflict with the EU.

The UK are quickly passing them out as far as the EU is concerned, by breaking the recently agreed WA.

Seth Brundle

Looks like BBC Spotlight will be covering the sea border (were it to go ahead) on Tuesday...

https://twitter.com/JP_Biz/status/1315204297412546560?s=19

johnnyskeleton

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Maybe most english people don't care a huge amount about NI but i bet they still understand the significance of the gfa and the risky road they're going down in messing with it. That's all on top of the inevitable chaos in kent and elsewhere so i remain sceptical about how well the eu as the great big ogre line will play internally for johnson even in the short term.

I would put it slightly differently. They dknt care about NI, they dont care about the GFA either, but they do care quite a lot about the idea of territorial integrity / losing territory. The Brexiteers have managed to win the narrative of the EU trying to steal their territory, which has gotten parts of England in a furious rage.

If they were to look at it dispassionately, they probably dont even want NI. Its trouble for them and costs them a lot. But it has whipped something up in them akin to the falklands war. They dont really care about the territory, they care about losing territory. And that is the worrying part.

johnnyskeleton

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think the UK are heading down the EU's international pecking order - soon to be below Turkey, and possibly Russia.

Turkey, while having a deal with the EU, are moving away from the rule of law, and into dictatorship, have moved from a potential member, and into accession negotiations, have basically moved out of that and into conflict with the EU.

The UK are quickly passing them out as far as the EU is concerned, by breaking the recently agreed WA.

They would have a long way to go to get to Turkey levels. Turkey is threatening war with Greece and Cyprus. At peast the British arent seriously threatening war (though some newspapers do like to use the language of war).

Sam Russell

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

They would have a long way to go to get to Turkey levels. Turkey is threatening war with Greece and Cyprus. At peast the British arent seriously threatening war (though some newspapers do like to use the language of war).

Well they are sending their expensive aircraft carriers to the South China Sea, armed with a few RAF badged American war planes and plenty of US Marine war planes to defend the Artic route from China's Navy and their commercial ships getting to the North Sea quicker through the Artic than through the Suez Canal.

I think war is not far off their mind at the moment, it just depends on who they can choose to fight, and have some chance of winning.

View

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The Lords can delay the bill for a year, and they will.

Any attempt by the HoL would just see Johnson create huge numbers of new pro-Brexit Lords to ensure it is passed. The argument advanced would be the “undemocratic, unelected” HoL was acting against “the will of the people” and that would be that.

And given that Johnson has already shown himself perfectly willing to illegally prorogue (the last) Parliament, it would take little for him to perfectly legally create those new pro-Brexit Lords. As acting unconstitutionally didn’t dent his popularity, acting as the champion of “the will of the people” certainly won’t with his voter base.

Joe_ Public

View wrote: »

Any attempt by the HoL would just see Johnson create huge numbers of new pro-Brexit Lords to ensure it is passed. The argument advanced would be the “undemocratic, unelected” HoL was acting against “the will of the people” and that would be that.

And given that Johnson has already shown himself perfectly willing to illegally prorogue (the last) Parliament, it would take little for him to perfectly legally create those new pro-Brexit Lords. As acting unconstitutionally didn’t dent his popularity, acting as the champion of “the will of the people” certainly won’t with his voter base.

Would take months to do that, if it were even achievable. They were going to appoint 20 new peers a while back, i think, but that was put on hold due to pandemic. I don't know how many they'd need for a tory majority but it would be several multiples of 20 i'm certain. He could probably win a war against the brexit blocking lords if necessary, but how many fronts do they want to be fighting on?

Edit: sorry i tell a lie there as i forgot they did appoint a bunch of new peers just recently!

Peregrinus

View wrote: »

Any attempt by the HoL would just see Johnson create huge numbers of new pro-Brexit Lords to ensure it is passed. . . .

He doesn't have to do anything so dramatic.

If the Lords reject the IM Bill, Boris can wait a month, then prorogue Parliament, then reintroduce the IMBill in the Commons. If the Commons passes the same bill in two successive sessions, the Lords can't hold it up any further.

Obvs, proroguing Parliament would be a sore point. But the fact that the last time Johnson tried to do this it turned out to be illegal doesn't mean that it would be illegal this time. He could do it perfectly legally. It would be disruptive, mind, since all the other government legislation wending its way through Parliament would be reset to zero and would have to restart the process, but if he wants to rush the IM Bill against opposition in the Lords he can do it.

But my guess is that he won't want to do this. Enacting the IM Bill increases the difficulty of agreeing any deal with the EU (including agreeing a deal after the end of transition), and increases the domestic political cost to him of doing so. I can't see any reason why he would want to narrow his options in this way.

CelticRambler

Peregrinus wrote: »

I can't see any reason why he would want to narrow his options in this way.

No ... but then again, this is the unnecessary-deadline-setting Boris Johnson we're talking about!

Zubeneschamali

Peregrinus wrote: »

If the Lords reject the IM Bill, Boris can wait a month, then prorogue Parliament, then reintroduce the IMBill in the Commons. If the Commons passes the same bill in two successive sessions, the Lords can't hold it up any further.

Creative, but he doesn't have many months to work with.

Peregrinus

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Creative, but he doesn't have many months to work with.

Depends.

If he wants an FTA agreed before the end of transition, then he doesn't have many months left to work with. (He doesn't have many weeks left to work with.) But if he wants an FTA before the end of transition, then absolutely the last thing he needs is for the IM Bill to get enacted into law, since that further increases the obstacles to an FTA. An essential condition for any FTA is that the offensive provisions of the IM Bill get pulled, and it's a lot easier to pull them before the IM Bill is enacted than afterwards.

If he hopes for a deal after the end of transition, he has more time to work with. There's no particular rush about getting the IM Bill enacted, and so far as getting a deal eventually is concerned it's probably better if it isn't enacted.

If his desired landing-ground is an enduring state of no-deal then, yeah, getting the IM Bill enacted is conducive to that, but it's not necessary to that, so no particular rush.

And, if he doesn't know what he wants, getting the IM Bill enacted narrows his options so, again, no particular reason to rush that.

trellheim

Depends.

If he wants an FTA agreed before the end of transition, then he doesn't have many months left to work with. (He doesn't have many weeks left to work with.) But if he wants an FTA before the end of transition, then absolutely the last thing he needs is for the IM Bill to get enacted into law, since that further increases the obstacles to an FTA. An essential condition for any FTA is that the offensive provisions of the IM Bill get pulled, and it's a lot easier to pull them before the IM Bill is enacted than afterwards.

If he hopes for a deal after the end of transition, he has more time to work with. There's no particular rush about getting the IM Bill enacted, and so far as getting a deal eventually is concerned it's probably better if it isn't enacted.

If his desired landing-ground is an enduring state of no-deal then, yeah, getting the IM Bill enacted is conducive to that, but it's not necessary to that, so no particular rush.

And, if he doesn't know what he wants, getting the IM Bill enacted narrows his options so, again, no particular reason to rush that.

Which was my read too. However a deal after transition means "no-deal" plus all its attendant nastiness until and unless they do get a deal up and running, or am I missing something ? In that case surely for example - fishing - (to take one example ) will quickly sour positions all round.

PS : And unless Johnson sees some political capital in "No Deal" ( he's already got the brexiters on side so I cant see it being a plus ) , so what ? what audience is being played to here ... is it the UK public being taught some sort of lesson ?

Joe_ Public

If the actual intention is truly to see the IM bill onto the statute books, as i suppose we'd have to assume to be the case, then i'm all agog to see what their next dastardly ploy will be to secure the US trade deal which, we were assured time and time again, was a critical piece of the eu divorce jigsaw from the very beginning. Do they then start a war against the elite democratic establishment blocking progress on both sides or something? Cos that's some weak hand they'd be playing if it ever came to that.

Can definitely see the attractiveness of initiating a very public war with the hol as, realising the days of the tories ever dominating the second chamber like they once did are long gone, the next best thing is softening its cough and reducing its power even further, bit like they are currently doing with the civil service. That has the potential to get quite nasty i think.

An Ciarraioch

Interesting Stormont opinion poll today highlights the impact of Brexit on NI politics - the DUP has lost support to TUV over the Irish Sea border (the latter's minus being an error of the Twitter a/c), and Alliance appear to be gaining from SF, UUP and others:

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1315572430149226502

Piehead

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Interesting Stormont opinion poll today highlights the impact of Brexit on NI politics - the DUP has lost support to TUV over the Irish Sea border (the latter's minus being an error of the Twitter a/c), and Alliance appear to be gaining from SF, UUP and others:

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1315572430149226502

Well those numbers don’t add up.

An Ciarraioch

The remaining percentage would plausibly be independents, who wouldn't come under "others", which refers to tiny parties.

L1011

There's very few Independents in NI but they do have at least one MLA, the former Justice Minister, can't remember her name. Unionist but non-party.

Peregrinus

trellheim wrote: »

Which was my read too. However a deal after transition means "no-deal" plus all its attendant nastiness until and unless they do get a deal up and running, or am I missing something ? In that case surely for example - fishing - (to take one example ) will quickly sour positions all round.

PS : And unless Johnson sees some political capital in "No Deal" ( he's already got the brexiters on side so I cant see it being a plus ) , so what ? what audience is being played to here ... is it the UK public being taught some sort of lesson ?

It may not be so much that he sees political capital in no-deal, as that he sees political risk in any deal. If a deal is made, he made it, and he's accountable for the deal and what happens under it. But if no deal is made, he can at least try to argue that that is someone else's fault, the "someone else" being the EU, and to the extent that people buy that argument then he is not accountable for the lack of a deal and the consequences of that.

So, it's not that there's political capital for Johnson in no-deal; it's that there's lower political risk for him in no-deal.

But, yeah, you're right. No-deal means Johnson's purgatory isn't over. He may not be held responsible for the problems of no-deal, but he still has a responsibility to address those problems, and the only way to address them is to try and get a deal. And the EU will be happy to talk to him about a deal, so he won't be able to escape that responsibility by saying that the EU refuses to talk.

The only way Johnson escapes the bind he's in is by facing down the ERG.

An Ciarraioch

Interesting La Repubblica interview (in English) with the EU Ambassador to the UK - highlights that due to ratification, Halloween would be the absolute deadline for a deal to be completed, and interestingly, has been in discussions with the Scottish and Welsh governments, as well as Westminster. Recently visited NI, so recognises the impact of the IM Bill, and also has interesting insights on global trade:

https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2020/10/12/news/eu_s_first_ambassador_to_london_we_want_a_brexit_deal_with_the_uk_but_the_european_union_is_ready_for_no_deal_-270279617/