Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

fly_agaric

Leroy42 wrote: »

Johnson is still including the line about 'our European friends' ad naseum in almost every interview

It's being used as a rhetorical device. It's very irritating to listen to but that is probably the whole point. It's kind of like "listen chief/pal"...
It is anything but "friendly" IMO, it is passive-aggressive.
What precedes or follows it is some general whinging or criticisms of these "friends" of the UK.

Strazdas

One thing that came across very strongly this weekend is just how poor a politician and 'leader' Johnson is. The other G7 leaders plus EU leaders all had an air of authority and statesmanship about them. Is he even intelligent at all? He can barely string a sentence together and is terrible under pressure in interviews.

nc6000

Strazdas wrote: »

One thing that came across very strongly this weekend is just how poor a politician and 'leader' Johnson is. The other G7 leaders plus EU leaders all had an air of authority and statesmanship about them. Is he even intelligent at all? He can barely string a sentence together and is terrible under pressure in interviews.

He can't even pay attention during interviews. I watched the Beth Rigby one and he keeps looking away and up to his right at something going on behind the cameras.

Professor Moriarty

Strazdas wrote: »

One thing that came across very strongly this weekend is just how poor a politician and 'leader' Johnson is. The other G7 leaders plus EU leaders all had an air of authority and statesmanship about them. Is he even intelligent at all? He can barely string a sentence together and is terrible under pressure in interviews.

He is strategic rather than being particularly intelligent. It's all about his ego, he actually doesn't really care about policy or people. He so much wants to be seen and remembered as a Churchillian figure. His 'likeable' persona is simply a front for ruthless narcissism.

Strazdas

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

He is strategic rather than being particularly intelligent. It's all about his ego, he actually doesn't really care about policy or people. He so much wants to be seen and remembered as a Churchillian figure. His 'likeable' persona is simply a front for ruthless narcissism.

If you watch though the clip of Macron talking about the Protocol yesterday, the contrast is striking : articulate, intelligent, on top of the detail, able to speak for two or three minutes on it without interruption. It's almost excruciating having to listen to Johnson's ramblings and incoherence.

Professor Moriarty

Strazdas wrote: »

If you watch though the clip of Macron talking about the Protocol yesterday, the contrast is striking : articulate, intelligent, on top of the detail, able to speak for two or three minutes on it without interruption. It's almost excruciating having to listen to Johnson's ramblings and incoherence.

Welcome to populism!

ancapailldorcha

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

He is strategic rather than being particularly intelligent. It's all about his ego, he actually doesn't really care about policy or people. He so much wants to be seen and remembered as a Churchillian figure. His 'likeable' persona is simply a front for ruthless narcissism.

I don't think it's strategy so much as a combination of contempt and laziness. I very much get the impression that he just wants to wave away any problems and deal with them in the future only for the cycle to repeat itself. The backstop is a perfect example. It enabled him to push on with Brexit but it was never resolved, only kicked down the road.

I think that he's played the bungler too long now to know anything else. It's an act that's as old as it is transparent. If it weren't for the weird obsession with Churchill, I would have thought he'd have better off frequenting the trendy wine bars of Marylebone & Mayfair as a columnist than dealing with the stresses of being PM.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

But did Macron offer to make anyone tea or abseil into the event wearing giant Union Jack boxer shorts or have perfectly tussled hair and a suit that had been disheveled by London’s top disheveleers?!

The British media doesn’t want someone who is on top of the details. They want someone who is a class clown and provides acres of headlines, while socking it to Johnny Foreigner.

Sadly that’s where the U.K. is these days. The tabloids have a tabloid journalist in high office and he’s providing them with the headlines they’ve always wanted.

Boris is the first celebrity PM. He’s famous for being Boris and being a bit zany as a host of HIGFY or pulling some random stunt.

The public is presented with a character and in many ways a caricature and that’s what they’re buying into

I think we are in new territory with this prime minister and he isn’t going to just be ousted very easily now that he’s in.

They’re also very much taking the Trump line of being in continuous campaign mode. They are not going to give up campaigning for Brexit, even though it’s now delivered. The fight with the EU is playing right into that.

Professor Moriarty

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't think it's strategy so much as a combination of contempt and laziness. I very much get the impression that he just wants to wave away any problems and deal with them in the future only for the cycle to repeat itself. The backstop is a perfect example. It enabled him to push on with Brexit but it was never resolved, only kicked down the road.

I think that he's played the bungler too long now to know anything else. It's an act that's as old as it is transparent. If it weren't for the weird obsession with Churchill, I would have thought he'd have better off frequenting the trendy wine bars of Marylebone & Mayfair as a columnist than dealing with the stresses of being PM.

Exactly. He really doesn't care about the UK's problems. Nor does he care about detail. Ego, ego, ego. It's just a constant stream of obfuscation and rhetoric now. It's kind of pathetic how much he tries to emulate Churchill. Problem is, he isn't half as intelligent as Churchill was.

Strazdas

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't think it's strategy so much as a combination of contempt and laziness. I very much get the impression that he just wants to wave away any problems and deal with them in the future only for the cycle to repeat itself. The backstop is a perfect example. It enabled him to push on with Brexit but it was never resolved, only kicked down the road.

I think that he's played the bungler too long now to know anything else. It's an act that's as old as it is transparent. If it weren't for the weird obsession with Churchill, I would have thought he'd have better off frequenting the trendy wine bars of Marylebone & Mayfair as a columnist than dealing with the stresses of being PM.

We've no reason to believe that anything Dominic Cummings said about him recently is incorrect. Changes his mind twenty times a day, doesn't believe in anything and isn't committed to anything (except himself and his image).

A disaster of a leader in other words.

breatheme

CelticRambler wrote: »

From the very beginning, this has always been a landmine waiting to be stood upon by the Loyalists. The Irish government recognised very quickly how NI would be a huge problem if Leave won the referendum; and the EU were very quickly persuaded that NI was a huge problem when Leave won the referendum.

Johnson & Co are only now catching up with what the rest of us have known (and game-planned) for five years. And - such sweet irony - Johnson's fall-back position is exactly the same red line with which he strangled Theresa May: not wishing to stand over the break-up of the Kingdom.

However, he's pushed the Great Buccaneering Brexit boat out so far now that he's at risk of encouraging the real British people (you know, the ones who were born and raised in Britain, not the ones in some overseas territory who speak with a weird accent and pledge their loyalty to the Dutch monarchy every July) ... of encouraging those Britons to demand the Brexit he promised.

If the 17.4m want a border in the Irish Sea so that "the Mainland" can get on with their buccaneering, they'll get their border in the Irish Sea.

17.1 million, when you exclude the Leavers in NI, who for sure did not mean to cut off NI from rUK... :rolleyes:

ancapailldorcha

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Exactly. He really doesn't care about the UK's problems. Nor does he care about detail. Ego, ego, ego. It's just a constant stream of obfuscation and rhetoric now. It's kind of pathetic how much he tries to emulate Churchill. Problem is, he isn't half as intelligent as Churchill was.

Strazdas wrote: »

We've no reason to believe that anything Dominic Cummings said about him recently is incorrect. Changes his mind twenty times a day, doesn't believe in anything and isn't committed to anything (except himself and his image).

A disaster of a leader in other words.

The thing that melts my mind a bit is that this guy is apparently a historian so you'd think he'd be well aware of how a man forges a legacy. He even has a role model to boot.

When the public here think of Churchill, they think of the man who used stirring rhetoric to rally the nation in its darkest hour. My strategy game plays exerpts from his speeches both to Parliament and to the public when the war breaks out and in fairness, they're pretty stirring. Whatever one might think about the man, he was a superb orator.

Johnson by contrast helped to invent a problem that nobody needed for his own and then failed spectacularly to solve it. Where Churchill left a legacy of quotes, Johnson has to date a three-word slogan almost certainly created by Cummings and a history of lying to the country he professes to love perfectly encapsulated in a certain red bus.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

I think though you have to see Boris as playing to a British love of the eccentric. He’s portraying himself a bit like Eddie the Eagle does politics and there’s a large cohort who just lap that up.

ancapailldorcha

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I think though you have to see Boris as playing to a British love of the eccentric. He’s portraying himself a bit like Eddie the Eagle does politics and there’s a large cohort who just lap that up.

I disagree.

It was fine years back when he could get away with it because he'd yet to expose himself as the cold and ruthless figure that he is. Now, there's nothing really to lap up as he's the most powerful man in the country. There's a gulf of difference between being an unconventional mayor of London and pretending to splutter and stammer on the world stage.

Lemming

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Some changes might be needed, like Policing might require the establishment of the highest court in the land to be in Scotland as opposed to London, (presuming that is the case) but the changes would be in the background or on the admin side of things. Take payroll, the NHs payroll is presumably centralized for the Uk. Scotland will have to build its own department and take over admin but contracts would remain the same and employees wouldn’t notice.
.

NHS Scotland is a separate, autonomous entity to NHS England & Wales

Strazdas

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I think though you have to see Boris as playing to a British love of the eccentric. He’s portraying himself a bit like Eddie the Eagle does politics and there’s a large cohort who just lap that up.

Yes, it's not a bad analogy. He's not a serious politician ; a layabout journalist who thought he 'might have a go at this politics malarkey'. I guess even many within the Tory Party know just how utterly useless he is, but have sold their souls as he has brought them an 80 seat majority.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

The problem is he won’t expose himself as a cold ruthless figure. That will be one of his minions like Patel. Boris will come in as the lovable rogue and keep playing that and getting away with it.

I’m not saying it won’t all eventually come crashing down, but it’s looking likely that he’ll be able to continue to do this for long enough to do a lot of damage.

There are comparisons to Trump, but they’re not entirely comparable. Trump is much, much more directly aggressive and nasty.

Boris plays the clown to mask the policies. He’s a worrying ability to continuously use the “dead cat” distractions or just the playing the affable entertainer when challenged.

If Labour had any sense they would draw him out and make him angry. He’s a very different character and much less likeable when he’s been really aggressive in Parliament. There were a few occasions the mask slipped but Starmer is too polite to keep pressing that button.

They should be mocking, poking, annoying and causing as many tantrums as they can cause, but they won’t because they’re not really capable fighting fire with petrol, which is what is needed.

ancapailldorcha

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The problem is he won’t expose himself as a cold ruthless figure. That will be one of his minions like Patel. Boris will come in as the lovable rogue and keep playing that and getting away with it.

I’m not saying it won’t all eventually come crashing down, but it’s looking likely that he’ll be able to continue to do this for long enough to do a lot of damage.

There are comparisons to Trump, but they’re not entirely comparable. Trump is much, much more directly aggressive and nasty.

Boris plays the clown to mask the policies. He’s a worrying ability to continuously use the “dead cat” distractions or just the playing the affable entertainer when challenged.

If Labour had any sense they would draw him out and make him angry. He’s a very different character and much less likeable when he’s been really aggressive in Parliament. There were a few occasions the mask slipped but Starmer is too polite to keep pressing that button.

But he has done. Repeatedly. Look at the comment about bodies piling up. Or using the NHS to push Brexit. Or conspiring to have a reporter assaulted. Or cheating on his wife while she had breast cancer.

He's here for at least a few more years but I think there are plenty of people who see through the faux-bungling now.

CelticRambler

Strazdas wrote: »

One thing that came across very strongly this weekend is just how poor a politician and 'leader' Johnson is. The other G7 leaders plus EU leaders all had an air of authority and statesmanship about them. Is he even intelligent at all? He can barely string a sentence together and is terrible under pressure in interviews.

Indeed. Although we were treated to a preview when we had the "compare and contrast" exercise of his joint press conference with Leo Varadkar back in Sept 2019. (Link to sarcastic take on British media coverage)

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The tabloids have a tabloid journalist in high office and he’s providing them with the headlines they’ve always wanted.

Boris is the first celebrity PM. He’s famous for being Boris and being a bit zany as a host of HIGFY or pulling some random stunt.

The public is presented with a character and in many ways a caricature and that’s what they’re buying into

I think we are in new territory with this prime minister and he isn’t going to just be ousted very easily now that he’s in.

New territory? Maybe. Then again, we have a model of what could happen next - in the form of Trump being ousted and replaced by a more traditional figure, one who is currently trying to make amends for his predecessor's amateurish attempt at filling the role.

Quin_Dub

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I disagree.

It was fine years back when he could get away with it because he'd yet to expose himself as the cold and ruthless figure that he is. Now, there's nothing really to lap up as he's the most powerful man in the country. There's a gulf of difference between being an unconventional mayor of London and pretending to splutter and stammer on the world stage.

As I've said before the "Brexit supporter in the Street" hasn't really felt the impact of the utter shambles that their Government have made of it , or if they have it's been hidden by or blamed on Covid etc.

It's part of the reason Boris et al are willing to sabre rattle about Northern Ireland - They know that the vast vast majority of their voters will neither notice nor care how bad things might get there.

It's something that Ireland and the EU care about , but the typical Tory voter couldn't give a monkeys about.

Over the coming months however those same voters will really start to feel the impact of lost jobs , increased prices etc. etc. that's what Boris et al are really scared about.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

But he has done. Repeatedly. Look at the comment about bodies piling up. Or using the NHS to push Brexit. Or conspiring to have a reporter assaulted. Or cheating on his wife while she had breast cancer.

He's here for at least a few more years but I think there are plenty of people who see through the faux-bungling now.

There aren’t enough people seeing through it. That’s where Labour should be aiming everything, but that’s not what they’re doing.

ancapailldorcha

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

There aren’t enough people seeing through it. That’s where Labour should be aiming everything, but that’s not what they’re doing.

There's no point. As has been pointed out, none of this stuff hurts him. Wasting more time on it just hands him another election win.

Labour need to push for some sort of radical agenda for 2024. Starmer wrapping himself in a Union flag will just depress his base and keep them at home.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Quin_Dub wrote: »

As I've said before the "Brexit supporter in the Street" hasn't really felt the impact of the utter shambles that their Government have made of it , or if they have it's been hidden by or blamed on Covid etc.

It's part of the reason Boris et al are willing to sabre rattle about Northern Ireland - They know that the vast vast majority of their voters will neither notice nor care how bad things might get there.

It's something that Ireland and the EU care about , but the typical Tory voter couldn't give a monkeys about.

Over the coming months however those same voters will really start to feel the impact of lost jobs , increased prices etc. etc. that's what Boris et al are really scared about.

And he’ll blame the pandemic or he’ll blame the EU and they’ll lap it up because they don’t want to believe that Brexit could be the cause and because they’ve bought into an idea that Brexit is the solution to all ills, and that it’s based on plucky British Britishness and so on.

You aren’t going to get through to those people with logic or facts. It’s like trying to talk about the economics of a United Ireland to the DUP supporters.

This is very likely to turn into “nasty and unreasonable EU destroys British economy”

Where that goes, I have no idea, but it will potentially, along with the idea of a vaccine bounce, probably keep the Boris show on the road for some time to come.

ancapailldorcha

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

And he’ll blame the pandemic or he’ll blame the EU and they’ll lap it up because they don’t want to believe that Brexit could be the cause and because they’ve bought into an idea that Brexit is the solution to all ills, and that it’s based on plucky British Britishness and so on.

You aren’t going to get through to those people with logic or facts. It’s like trying to talk about the economics of a United Ireland to the DUP supporters.

I'm not seeing it.

His slogan for 2019 was "Get Brexit done" for a reason. These things are carefully calibrated. There aren't nearly enough of these people that you describe for him to be secure.

The tabloids will blame the EU but that's sod all use when people are feeling the pinch. They called the emergency services when KFC ran out of chicken. What'll they do when they start losing money in a sustained way? It won't be taking it because the tabloids have a funny caricature of Emmanuel Macron to show them.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

I actually see the U.K. becoming a dysfunctional mess that isn’t able to right itself again after this. They may well just go into ranting and raving mode for years. Blaming the EU won’t achieve anything in terms of practical benefits but it may well serve domestic political purpose.

I think you’re going to be looking at a declining, paranoid U.K. that’s wrapped up in an internal populist, nationalism problem in England and trying to contain a departing Scotland.

Their electoral system will easily deliver another Tory government without anything but a very technical majority. 37% or so is sufficient to win many constituencies.

Unless Labour delivers a viable alternative, and so far that hasn’t happened, this isn’t going to improve.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this takes a decade or more to resolve.

ancapailldorcha

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I actually see the U.K. becoming a dysfunctional mess that isn’t able to right itself again after this. They may well just go into ranting and raving mode for years. Blaming the EU won’t achieve anything in terms of practical benefits but it may well serve domestic political purpose.

I think you’re going to be looking at a declining, paranoid U.K. that’s wrapped up in an internal populist, nationalism problem in England and trying to contain a departing Scotland.

Their electoral system will easily deliver another Tory government without anything but a very technical majority. 37% or so is sufficient to win many constituencies.

Unless Labour delivers a viable alternative, and so far that hasn’t happened, this isn’t going to improve.

This is a little ridiculous. Most of what the government here is doing is based on the fact that it is stuck in campaign mode. The civil service here and the rest of the state are operating fairly well. This is why the average Brexit voter has yet to feel the impact of what they voted for.

What will happen is that skilled labour and capital will slowly emigrate at a low level as future investment decisions may be cancelled and migrants decide to leave if the place no longer suits them. I applied for a job in Belgium recently and am working on applying for another in The Hague right now. I'm happy to stay and happy to leave but there's not going to be an economic catastophe, just a slow and persistent leaking of capital and skilled people.

ambro25

Quin_Dub wrote: »

As I've said before the "Brexit supporter in the Street" hasn't really felt the impact of the utter shambles that their Government have made of it , or if they have it's been hidden by or blamed on Covid etc.
(…)
Over the coming months however those same voters will really start to feel the impact of lost jobs , increased prices etc. etc. that's what Boris et al are really scared about.

There are mounting reports today, that the Brexit-caused haulage driver shortage crisis, long-announced by supply chain specialists, is happening and now at the stage of beginning to bite fresh produce retailers and supermarket shelves:

https://twitter.com/NationwidePlc/status/1402220278764212225?s=20

A situation witnessed by none other than Gisela Stuart, in a spectacularly-ironical Tweet today:

https://twitter.com/GiselaStuart/status/1404058126760955904?s=20

ClosedAccountFuzzy

While you could see an economic catastrophe happening if investor and market sentiment on the U.K. were to suddenly sour, that’s unlikely.

I think however you’re going to see the U.K. bumbling on as a political mess. It’s rapidly burning bridges, damaging its reputation and creating a very unstable regulatory environment in which to do business or plan anything.

There’s a very strong possibility of a very dramatic decline as all of those political and economic realities start to emerge and I’m just totally unconvinced that there’s the political ability to steer a different course.

The problem with Brexit is that it’s now dogma and it’s something that (and it’s supported in polling) that a large cohort of the electorate are willing to take hardship to achieve.

The issue with that is that it’s also a notional concept around an undefined concept of sovereignty. So it’s always been about delivering an emotional ideology, not anything concrete.

They’ve managed to bolt national pride to a series of dangerously self destructive policies and that’s to me where the U.K. will flounder for years to come.

BlitzKrieg

To avert further deterioration in relations both sides have just two weeks to strike a new deal on implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, with the UK government threatening to delay what it has called a “bonkers” outright ban on the sale of chilled meats including sausages from Great Britain that is due to come into force on 30 June.

its reporting like this that even the guardian is guilty of (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/14/uk-and-eu-try-to-settle-standoff-over-northern-ireland-brexit-checks) that is infuriating me. It has created this impression in the UK that its not about the UK actually making an effort to implement the protocol but about renegotiating.


It's not about renegotiating, it's about implementing the agreement in front of you first and foremost. How can something be even renegotiated if the UK has not made a single effort to begin with.

Strazdas

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

While you could see an economic catastrophe happening if investor and market sentiment on the U.K. were to suddenly sour, that’s unlikely.

I think however you’re going to see the U.K. bumbling on as a political mess. It’s rapidly burning bridges, damaging its reputation and creating a very unstable regulatory environment in which to do business or plan anything.

There’s a very strong possibility of a very dramatic decline as all of those political and economic realities start to emerge and I’m just totally unconvinced that there’s the political ability to steer a different course.

The problem with Brexit is that it’s now dogma and it’s something that (and it’s supported in polling) that a large cohort of the electorate are willing to take hardship to achieve.

The issue with that is that it’s also a notional concept around an undefined concept of sovereignty. So it’s always been about delivering an emotional ideology, not anything concrete.

They’ve managed to bolt national pride to a series of dangerously self destructive policies and that’s to me where the U.K. will flounder for years to come.

The crazy thing is they will endure all this hardship to secure an intangible form of sovereignty with no positive pay off. The net win will be the Daily Mail informing them they are now sovereign.....it seems a lousy trade off and not even remotely worth the effort.