Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

PeadarCo

ujjjjjjjjj wrote: »

Well the endless criticism, laughing at truck queues, looking at problems, the 'they made their beds now they can lie in it' type comments etc etc. Don't have to go very far to find them...... It's a mindset shift - along the lines of okay you voted to leave the EU so how can we reframe our relationship and look for opportunities. The UK is a market of 60 million people on our doorstep. We could simply ignore the rest of the world the UK alone would be a large enough market for Irish farmers, industry and tourism to thrive off. Not saying we should only exclusively trade with the UK but we have a massive market right there.........the mindset shift needed to maximise it firstly needs to move on from Brexit. Not sure we are there yet.

The reason for all the "laughing" at truck queues is because pretty much everyone knowledgeable on the subject warned the UK government of this exact situation including many people on this thread. At worst the response was outright denial ie project fear or disbelief ie you can't predict the future. The EU is treating the UK as it wants to be treated. However the consequences have come as a bit of a shock. The thing is for the UK the opportunities available post Brexit will never make up what it lost outside the EU in the short to medium term. And wait until people in the UK realise the EU hasn't gone away and still in practice decides certain UK laws/constrains the UKs ability to do trade deals with other trade blocs. And this time the UK will really not have a say because a hard brexit is bad enough without a no deal brexit. And if think I'm making stuff look at Norway and Switzerland and what it means for a relatively European small(in global terms) country has a trade deal with the EU.

The UK has 64 odd million people excluding NI, the EU has 450 odd million. The UK is governed by England with other nations inside the UK being irrelevant. The EU hands even its smallest members veto rights in certain areas. Its not hard to see how much better deal the EU provides Ireland before you look at Ireland pre EU(effectively an extended part of the UK economy) and post accession to the EU.

Widdensushi

PeadarCo wrote: »

The UK has 64 odd million people excluding NI, the EU has 450 odd million. The UK is governed by England with other nations inside the UK being irrelevant. The EU hands even its smallest members veto rights in certain areas. Its not hard to see how much better deal the EU provides Ireland before you look at Ireland pre EU(effectively an extended part of the UK economy) and post accession to the EU.

Not sure how much say we have at the table, Ireland now has the largest waters in the eu with other eu nations taking the most of the fish out of them, yet when the deal was done on fisheries Ireland lost the most, while French boats lost very little yet gained the most, fishing up to 6 miles of the UK, a deal paid for with irish fish. The bigger members like France win out in all these deals.

Hurrache

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Jamie and his friends trying to flex their muscles in Larne:

https://twitter.com/BBCJayneMcC/status/1356327089545355273

What's ridiculous is that members of loyalist paramilitary groups met with UK government officials only within the last few weeks to discuss the issue of the the UK/NI border, groups that are supposed to be disbanded. I've no doubt threats like this arose, and maybe the UK government weren't too pissed if what's happening did arise, in a way it suits their agenda.

Hurrache

hotmail.com wrote: »

Don't piss off Britain. They are still our nearest neighbour and have already signalled they will help us with vaccines.

Doff the cap sir, sorry sir.
Is the problem your inferiority complex?

ujjjjjjjjj

Seth Brundle wrote: »

So you'd like us to go back to the 1950s? We learnt the hard way not to depend on a single market such as the UK. We had no say in how it was run and were at the mercy of the serving government.
By joining the EU we suddenly had access to a wider market which we had a voice.
We should never go back. To propose such a move is sheer economic idiocy!

Not at all, world is totally different now to the 1950's, open global economy. Just take advantage of both the UK and the EU - both massive opportunities. I think it will move this way and some encouraging signs that it will settle down in time. It's easy to poke fun and pick holes in Brexit but if we are all at it it gets under the skin and it's really just self defeating. The brits would be delighted of a close friendly neighbour next door and it can only benefit Ireland.

Jizique

hotmail.com wrote: »

I was presenting their side of the story. I'm not getting into the 2016 arguments.

Again, Irish people want to focus on a small minority of British people to make their point. They ignore all the glaring signs that England doesn't like Europe.

If you actually looked at the broad view, you would see that most English people are tolerant, decent and ordinary people with a rich diversity and openness. One of the most tolerant nations in the world. They are proud of their history, like all the major powers. That's as far as it goes for most English people.

They just happen to want to not be in the EU. It's perhaps time for Irish people to get over this and respect their decision.

All great in theory, but the bus is being driven by the ERG, by Baker, who if you saw him on Ridge on Sunday, said the appointment of Dacre of OFCOM was welcome.
This was a sop to the anti-lockdown brigade.
The new TV news channel run by Andrew Neil, the new head of BBC, and now the vaccine war. And most of those now agitated are on record calling it the flu and wanting everything open (I digress).
I don’t want to go all 1930s Germany (like with Trump) but the U.K. is in a dangerous place and in 30s Germany, most just wanted their beers and football and Jews were #12 of the top 5 issues in society, just like EU membership in 2012/3 England.

View

hotmail.com wrote: »

Last week's fiasco has shown that we really have lost an ally in the EU.

Given that we know Ireland doesn't figure too highly in the agenda of UK governments, they do at least consider us much more than France or Germany and most of Europe.

Many in Europe see us as a rock in the middle of the Atlantic.

This just isn’t true.

The reality is that voting in the Council of Ministers was analysed in the past for a ten year period (circa 2004-14 if I remember correctly).

In virtually every area, the U.K. consistently voted against “the Irish position” on issues. The main exception was in the area of banking regulations and we all know how well that worked out for us subsequently.

wexfordman2

ujjjjjjjjj wrote: »

Well the endless criticism, laughing at truck queues, looking at problems, the 'they made their beds now they can lie in it' type comments etc etc. Don't have to go very far to find them...... It's a mindset shift - along the lines of okay you voted to leave the EU so how can we reframe our relationship and look for opportunities. The UK is a market of 60 million people on our doorstep. We could simply ignore the rest of the world the UK alone would be a large enough market for Irish farmers, industry and tourism to thrive off. Not saying we should only exclusively trade with the UK but we have a massive market right there.........the mindset shift needed to maximise it firstly needs to move on from Brexit. Not sure we are there yet.

We can respect a vote, and critisise the implementation of it, and seeing as the impact of how brexit was to be implemented would have an enormous impact on the economic well being of this nation, and the peace process, we were dam well entitled to.criticise it, and fight against it being imposed on us.

They had a democratic election, they made a decision, yippee for them, now implement it in a way that has respect for the well being of your neighbours.

You talk of respecting their decision, while the British said that Ireland will.do what Ireland is told,.because britian is much bigger and much more.imprtant than Ireland, and while British senior politicians compared brexit to escaping from the ussr, and talked of using threats if food embargo in Ireland as a means to get their deal.

Respect there decision,.not they are a bunch of clueless racist gobshytes..respect their democratic vote, yep, they voted to leave,.and re enforced that intention more than once, I have no problem.with that.

I warmly welcome brexit as an irishman,.I warmly welcome our turn away from the uk and toward europe.even further, it can only be of benefit.

ujjjjjjjjj

wexfordman2 wrote: »

We can respect a vote, and critisise the implementation of it, and seeing as the impact of how brexit was to be implemented would have an enormous impact on the economic well being of this nation, and the peace process, we were dam well entitled to.criticise it, and fight against it being imposed on us.

They had a democratic election, they made a decision, yippee for them, now implement it in a way that has respect for the well being of your neighbours.

You talk of respecting their decision, while the British said that Ireland will.do what Ireland is told,.because britian is much bigger and much more.imprtant than Ireland, and while British senior politicians compared brexit to escaping from the ussr, and talked of using threats if food embargo in Ireland as a means to get their deal.

Respect there decision,.not they are a bunch of clueless racist gobshytes..respect their democratic vote, yep, they voted to leave,.and re enforced that intention more than once, I have no problem.with that.

I warmly welcome brexit as an irishman,.I warmly welcome our turn away from the uk and toward europe.even further, it can only be of benefit.

Well I can see I ain't gone to sway your mindset Nothing was imposed on Ireland, Britain made a democratic decision to leave the EU and there was negotiated brexit deal, its over now and time to move on and look for opportunities. The NI protocol has secured an open border between the North and the South suiting Irish needs perfectly.

If you think its wise to push totally away from the UK, fine. I think it is short sighted, self defeating and dare I suggest influenced by a bit of the old 800 years nonsense.

Maybe and just maybe its also worth keeping a close eye on exactly what is going on in the EU too purely to ensure our interests are best served. Very easy to assume everything EU is great just to prove the point that Brexit was a disaster. Barely a month into Brexit, and yes I know it is early days in a developing new relationship for Ireland the UK and the EU, but some early signs with the incompetent EU vaccine roleout and the EU commissions total mis-step the other night that just perhaps we need to keep our eyes open and don't fall into easy narratives about the black and the white of Britain and the EU.

Maybe it might also be worth considering that not everyone who voted for Brexit was clueless, racist and a gobs*ite. It is kind hard to move on with that type of language being used.

fash

RobMc59 wrote: »

The general gist of your post is very reasonable but the bit about people like me saying the EU is trying to bully is where I disagree.The EU is trying to bully to cover up it`s own failings.Claims that I`m posting in bad faith or can`t back up my claims is only relevant if you don`t want to believe brussels is ever wrong.

... Or more accurately - since the UK has had export bans on Covid medication since early 2020 and explicitly sought to have AZ prioritize vaccines for it to the detriment of the EU- the bully here is the UK (back to its old tricks) - to cover up its many, many, many fiascos - its brexit failures (welcome to impoverished vassalage: population: you), Covid (so many deaths, so much economic damage), corruption (how many billions have the Tories stolen in 2020?)- but, as you show, the UK doesn't like when others defend themselves against UK bullying.
You better get used to it though - you are on your own now - taste that sovereignty - have you felt the bitter aftertaste yet?

fash

ujjjjjjjjj wrote: »

The NI protocol has secured an open border between the North and the South suiting Irish needs perfectly.

You know that even today David Davis called for the renegotiation of the NI protocol claiming it didn't work?
The NI protocol will remain under permanent attack by the brexiters.

It is in Ireland's interest that NI is permanently resolved by reunification asap - and the UK is broken by Scotland achieving freedom. The sooner that happens the better and the more steps we undertake to achieve that, the better.

wexfordman2

You are correct, not everyone who voted for brexit was a clueless racist gobshyte, but you can bet every clueless racist gobshyte voted for brexit, and I fully respect the outcome.

Prior to brexit, I used to look enviously across the water at British domestic politics, but since the brexit vote, I have seen and witnessed enough evidence across every walk of british life, from the man on the street, to the media, business, politics and government, I've witnessed enough outward openly exprrssed ignorance and vindictiveness towards the eu and particularly towards Ireland, that I don't need any convincing that Ireland getting as far away from dodge as possible is unquestionably the right way to go.

The uk is a mess, it is in a very hazardous place, and it's going to get even uglier that I have no doubt.

Led by a tory government, and anti euroean government (yes, anti european I meant that, not ant I eu), elected by it's people,.brexit, voted.for.by it's people, bj voted in to power and given an overwhelming majority.

There is no question where the majority of the public sit in the uk.

Peregrinus

Well, a clear majority of the public voted against Boris. And all the opinion polls indicate that since about 2018 a majority of the public have consistently thought that Brexit is a mistake. How they would vote in a referendum is not known because they are not allowed to have a referendum because apparently it would be undemocratic or something.

Strazdas

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, a clear majority of the public voted against Boris. And all the opinion polls indicate that since about 2018 a majority of the public have consistently thought that Brexit is a mistake. How they would vote in a referendum is not known because they are not allowed to have a referendum because apparently it would be undemocratic or something.

It's incredible though that a deeply divided referendum and general election (2019) has virtually handed the keys of Britain over to the Brexiteer / right wing / reactionary section of the population. It may as well have been 99% Leave and 99% Tory, given the level of control the Brexit brigade have (in England anyway).

Junkyard Tom

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Ireland has shown time and again the benefits of being in the EU for a small nation. The UK have always treated the Irish as being inferior upstarts who need to learn their place.

It's for exactly the above reasons that I'm immediately suspicious of Irish people who are anti-EU. How can an Irish person fail to understand that being in the EU enhances our sovereignty and counterbalances the biggest threat to that very sovereignty?

I suspect anti-EU Irish people are fanboys of the likes of Paul Joseph Watson and Carl Benjamin and their predilection for reactionary rants has anti-EU rhetoric bundled in with it creating an imagined grievance.

fash

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

It's for exactly the above reasons that I'm immediately suspicious of Irish people who are anti-EU. How can an Irish person fail to understand that being in the EU enhances our sovereignty and counterbalances the biggest threat to that very sovereignty?

Quite - if Ireland were on its own, what could we do when the UK and others started hoarding their vaccines? Lockdown for the extra year?
And that is only one of many "long tail" risks: how would we deal with the UK's perennial bullying/threats to northern Ireland?

schmoo2k

hotmail.com wrote: »

Even allies can be difficult sometimes.

But I maintain they are still an ally in so many ways, not least we share a similar culture, distinct from mainland Europe.

Brexit has been a disaster for Ireland. We are isolated out In the Atlantic now.

Doesn't that imply that must be even worse for the UK?

ancapailldorcha

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Calling the UK an ally of Ireland is hilarious! since we are militarily a neutral country that leaves social, economic sense of the word i suppose.

It's not as beyond the pale as one might expect. According to Tony Connelly's excellent, if somewhat dated Brexit & Ireland, the UK were apparently staunch defenders of Ireland's corporation tax regime and the Irish government and representatives in Brussels could always count on their British allies. He says the same about the Danes and the Dutch and that the three countries were the most friendly nations in the EU towards Britain, probably for similar reasons.

hotmail.com

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Calling the UK an ally of Ireland is hilarious! since we are militarily a neutral country that leaves social, economic sense of the word i suppose

So lets recap as to how our "ally" (or dear colleague as Boris would say) behaved towards us in Ireland in not so distant past (it only gets worse as it you go further back, was it not bloody sunday anniversary few days back?).

* their current minister threathened to starve us
* their government going out of their way (and only held in check with EU threathening them with economic devastation) to rollback decades of progress in Northern Ireland.
* their military boats threathened our fishermen
* they are preventing this whole island from locking down New Zealand style with all of Ireland getting infected with their new UK bred worse strain of coronavirus (with news yesterday with an even worse south african variant appearing there)
* they are not giving 2nd dozes of vaccine on time, ignroing scientists and experts who are screaming that it could cause a vaccine resistant variant of covid to appear, all for political point scoring by Tories

Yeh some ally

Well whilst Pitel's comments were ridiculous, I don't think you can make too much of it.

The original deal that Theresa May had, dealt with Northern Ireland. It was Labour and the DUP that voted it down.

The second dose policy is a domestic policy that doesn't really interfere with us. And the UK want to introduce quarantine hotels before us. So not sure what you mean about them points.

We're allies because we share almost identical values and cultural norms, the same language. We all have friends and family there and we visit English cities like London very often. We have many Irish personalities on British tv etc.

We now have friendly relations. This is why it was so disappointing for Irish people that Britain decided to leave the EU.

ancapailldorcha

hotmail.com wrote: »

Well whilst Pitel's comments were ridiculous, I don't think you can make too much of it.

The original deal that Theresa May had, dealt with Northern Ireland. It was Labour and the DUP that voted it down.

The second dose policy is a domestic policy that doesn't really interfere with us. And the UK want to introduce quarantine hotels before us. So not sure what you mean about them points.

We're allies because we share almost identical values and cultural norms, the same language. We all have friends and family there and we visit English cities like London very often. We have many Irish personalities on British tv etc.

We now have friendly relations. This is why it was so disappointing for Irish people that Britain decided to leave the EU.

Enough Conservatives voted it down as well such as Baker, Rees-Mogg and Johnson. This idea that it was some sort of remainer plot is ridiculous. It's the job of opposition parties to hold the government to account. Brexiters promised the sun and the moon so it makes sense no sense to let them push through a version of Brexit that satisfies nobody, hence the Conservative opposition.

hotmail.com

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Yet yourself and other Brexiteers deposited a mountain of excrement when commission made unofficial noise (and promptly u-turned) about article16

Compare that to Pitel who still hasn’t apologised for her threats

I'm a Brexiteer?

Eh ok.

hotmail.com

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Enough Conservatives voted it down as well such as Baker, Rees-Mogg and Johnson. This idea that it was some sort of remainer plot is ridiculous. It's the job of opposition parties to hold the government to account. Brexiters promised the sun and the moon so it makes sense no sense to let them push through a version of Brexit that satisfies nobody, hence the Conservative opposition.

The majority of Tories voted in favour of it. The vast majority of Labour and Lib Dems as well as all of the DUP voted against it.

It led to May stepping down, Johnson getting in and needing an election for a mandate, which he received.

ancapailldorcha

hotmail.com wrote: »

The majority of Tories voted in favour of it. The vast majority of Labour and Lib Dems as well as all of the DUP voted against it.

It led to May stepping down, Johnson getting in and needing an election for a mandate, which he received.

If the DUP and the Tories had voted with their own government then it wouldn't have mattered. There are 650 seats in the House of Commons. Between them, 327 is more than sufficient for a majority when you omit certain seats whose occupants don't vote.

May cared about the Union so much so that she'd have stayed in the single market and customs union if that's what it would have taken. Plenty of Tories don't as we saw with the meaningful votes. They care much more about not taking responsibility for its breaking up than they do about the welfare of Scotland, Wales, NI and for that matter, Northern England and the Midlands.

Leroy42

hotmail.com wrote: »

The majority of Tories voted in favour of it. The vast majority of Labour and Lib Dems as well as all of the DUP voted against it.

It led to May stepping down, Johnson getting in and needing an election for a mandate, which he received.

Johnson voted against it!

yagan

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Ain’t there several other Eu countries with even smaller corporation tax? And a ton of countries with flat income taxes?

I think it was Slovakia that from the start copied out our CTR before they joined the EU.

Tax fairness is a massive domestic issue in France which is why they're so vocal about it. In reality some of their national champions end up paying 0% CTR with all the domestic loops so it's easier for their media to attack transparent CTR.

The French media work on the assumption that everyother nations tax regime is as riddled with tax loopholes as France.

hotmail.com

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

If the DUP and the Tories had voted with their own government then it wouldn't have mattered. There are 650 seats in the House of Commons. Between them, 327 is more than sufficient for a majority when you omit certain seats whose occupants don't vote.

May cared about the Union so much so that she'd have stayed in the single market and customs union if that's what it would have taken. Plenty of Tories don't as we saw with the meaningful votes. They care much more about not taking responsibility for its breaking up than they do about the welfare of Scotland, Wales, NI and for that matter, Northern England and the Midlands.

Yes we know a lot of the Tories don't care about the union. As with Labour as well.

ancapailldorcha

hotmail.com wrote: »

Yes we know a lot of the Tories don't care about the union. As with Labour as well.

To be fair, only one of those parties has the word "Unionist" in their title.

Sam Russell

hotmail.com wrote: »

Yes we know a lot of the Tories don't care about the union. As with Labour as well.

Neither the Tories nor Labour are well represented in NI (not at all) or in Scotland (Labour have one seat in Scotland). So why would they care?

Redesigning the Union flag might be their greatest concern.

Sam Russell

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

To be fair, only one of those parties has the word "Unionist" in their title.

The other one concerns it self with Unions.

ancapailldorcha

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

I think Tories are also unionist officially according to Wikipedia at least

——-

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, and also known colloquially as the Tories, Tory Party, or simply the Conservatives, is a political party in the United Kingdom.

That's what I was referring to. Out of the two primary parties, only one has a reference to Unionism in their title.