Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Leroy42

Totally destroying the UK economy? Who is calling for that?

What benefits do you see to the EU to simply letting the UK take the lead in batteries?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965227#Comment_119965227

Beautiful lack of answering my question there.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965048#Comment_119965048

I think up until 2018 or so, it might have been an option, but the UK has become such an economic and political basket case since Johnson became PM (and then his successors), that literally almost nobody in Europe would want Brexit UK back into the EU at the moment and not for a good few years yet. If there was a referendum tomorrow to let them back in, I would vote against it - and I would have been in favour in the aftermath of Brexit.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965258#Comment_119965258

Do you believe the UK is trying to dominate battery production(highly unlikely imo)or just 'get a piece of the action?'

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965662#Comment_119965662

If the UK wants a ‘piece of the action’ in the EU market, it would have to produce to EU standards and cheaper than EU manufacturers, because competition.

Who do you think influences the said EU standards, current and future?

Here lies a sterile debate that’s been had innumerable times on the run up to the referendum and since: set the UK as a 3rd country party, and there was not much of anything that the UK produces, and still isn’t now, which EU buyers cannot source elsewhere, either in the EU still with zero red tape, or outside the EU cheaper. The trade stats since 2019 give all the evidence of the fact that you need, and FDI decisions by large investors, again before 2019 but particularly since, are baking in still more productivity problems into UK industry for years to come.

You can view that as ‘intending to destroy the UK industry’ or whatever other diatribe. Or drop a bit of bias, grab a bit of objectivity, and see it for what it is: simply observing a self-inflicted death foretold.

If the UK wants a go at making EV batteries, more power to them. I’m struggling to envisage who’s going to underwrite the £bns’ worth of investment required, like, but hey, “l’espoir fait vivre” (hope gives life).

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119965662#Comment_119965662

Both the EU and the UK are seeking to get a piece of the action, so far as EV battery production goes.

But the UK has put itself in a very difficult position here. Oversimplifying very slightly:

UK is too small a country to sustain a motor industry on the basis of the home market alone; it must produce for export. Looking to the future, it must produce EVs for export.

But, because of Brexit, those EVs must contain UK-produced batteries — the battery is such a large part of the value of an EV that an EV with an imported battery won't qualify as UK produce under the rules of origin embodied in most trade deals, including the UK/EU deal. (This isn't some sinister punitive measure imposed by the EU; it's the natural consequence of the "Canada-style" trade deal that Brexit Britain sought and obtained.)

And, just as the UK is too small a market to sustain a viable motor industry, it's really too small a market to sustain a viable EV battery production industry. So the industry will be dependent on government subsidy, and so subject to political control and direction, in a way that hasn't worked very well for British industry in the past.

The best way out of this cul-de-sac is for the UK to produce EV batteries that can compete internationally, so that they can export them, and thereby have a battery production industry that isn't dependent on state support. But this is going to be a challenge. The obvious export market, the EU, is challenging, again because of Brexit. If the EU wishes to export EVs to the rest of the world under its network of trade deals, they too must comply with rules-of-origin, so they must contain EU-produced batteries. So the EU will have little interest in buying UK-produced batteries.

Where does that leave the UK? It leaves them hoping to export EV batteries mainly to countries that want to build EVs but don't want to export them (there'd be very few of those, I think) or to countries that want to build and export EVs but don't have a lot of trade deals (so aren't fussed about rules of origin when it comes to exporting EVs). You'd be looking at developing countries that can manufacture very cheaply — so cheaply that, even when subject to tariffs, their EVs will still be competitive in other countries.

rock22

I despair of UK politicians addressing Brexit in an honest manner, owning up the mistakes they made and considering what THEY can do to solve the problems caused.

In order to address the damage that Brexit has done to the UK economy, Peter Hain is suggesting that the EU should change its' rules for British ( ormaybe all non EU, it is not clear) visitors.

Quote from the article. "Among the measures Hain suggests, in addition to moves to help UK companies restore exports with the EU, is a negotiated removal of post-Brexit travel restrictions including the 90-day limit on UK citizens visiting the EU in any 180 days. "

Are UK politicians not capable of owning the damage they have caused to the UK and stop suggesting how the EU should change it's rules and procedure to solve domestic UK problems.

report here

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/keir-starmer-economic-disaster-of-brexit-labour-grandees-peter-hain

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119982908#Comment_119982908

Farcical. They left voluntarily. Why should we let them back in? They've not even implemented what they agreed to.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119982908#Comment_119982908

The current bunch aren't going to admit brexit has been a monumental failure. That will only be addressed when the tories have been turfed out.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119983030#Comment_119983030

Until either both main parties are stable and sane or, preferably, the voting system is changed there's no point in re-admitting the UK. They'd only be a malign influence if the Tories ever ended up with a competent leader.

I think in the long term, it's in both the EU and the UK's best interests to have the UK rejoin but that's at least half a dozen years away. Substantial change needs to happen and it begins with Sir Keir Starmer's proposed reforms.

Leroy42

It's not a failure of Brexit,as they see it,just in the implementation.

It was supposed to be all upsides. EU needs UK more etc.

They would get all the benefits without any of the costs. UK would still get a final call on regulations, and the world would demand alignment to UK standards anyway.

Countries like Spain would never put a block on UK people living there, its bonkers economically obviously. While at the same time economics is not worth more than having control!

The mistake remainers make is thinking that there is some point at which Brexiteers will see the truth. But Brexit was always about hope and some non defined future. So there is nothing that can prove that to be wrong. Just have to wish harder, negotiate better, wait a bit longer.

It will all work out

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119982908#Comment_119982908

They are still negotiating with themselves. Busy work, makes it look like are doing something when they aren't.

Until the UK offers concessions there's no reason for the EU to listen. Adhering to the Withdrawal Agreement and honouring EU citizen's residency rights is not a concession.

2. Negotiations under Article 50 TEU will be conducted in transparency and as a single package. In accordance with the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot be settled separately.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119983162#Comment_119983162

At the moment, Brexit looks completely irreversible. The Brexit hardliners have burned their bridges with Europe and nobody in the EU wants the UK back (I'm not even sure if our own government would want them back at this point). We're probably looking at two decades at least before anything could even begin to be discussed - the right wing press are still calling the shots and practically creating government policy, the ERG are still around, Farage is still there, a substantial section of the population simply don't like or respect the EU.....very difficult to see how such a country would be compatible with even Single Market membership.

Enzokk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119983358#Comment_119983358

Brexit is not reversable until the hold of the tabloids have dissipated on the British public. It is easy for us to sit here and snigger and hold ourselves as superior to the UK at the moment, but I don't think we understand the gaslighting that has happened the past few decades. This call about refugees proves my point,

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1602988501070499840?s=20&t=ipoqoXauYsmG8ujJhtx7NA

I don't think anyone of us here would be saying the same tripe this gentleman is, but he and his friends has been groomed by the media and politicians to believe this. I fear as you sometimes hear the similar stories from people in Ireland about people from Europe or refugees so it can happen here. But this is just an illustration of why Starmer, for me, is lying about Brexit. Because people will not believe him when he holds up the mirror to their faces and tells them the truth. They will not want to acknowledge the facts when it is staring at them in the face.

So lie to them about Brexit because that is the only way you get into power to actually start chipping away at the damage. And it will have to be small steps to reverse the damage because those same billionaires that own the media will still pump their poison into the public sphere if they feel threatened. My hope is that Labour starts losing support in the polls before an election and has to start talking seriously about election reform. That will be one easy way for the damage to be reversed in a more expedient fashion, although when it comes to UK politicians doing the right thing I don't hold out hope.

Podge_irl

Brexit is not reversible full stop. Any future relationship with the EU will be very different to the one that the UK has left.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119998588#Comment_119998588

I disagree.

The tabloids hold was always a dubious idea. No prime minister has won a majority in the House of Commons for several decades. Hardly indicative of an iron hold over the population. Then there's the fact that newspaper sales have been plummeting.

The newspaper industry in the United Kingdom has had a difficult time over the last few decades. Fewer households are purchasing print news publications, and expenditure on newspapers fell from 4.45 billion British pounds in 2005 to under 2.8 billion GBP in 2020. National newspaper circulation in the UK has been declining for years and fell well below million copies in 2021 even among leading brands like The Daily Mail. The circulation of leading regional daily newspapers also dropped year-on-year, and in the first half of 2022 only two such publications reported a circulation of over 25 thousand.

https://www.statista.com/topics/5932/newspaper-industry-uk/#topicOverview

I'm not defending the press here. The problem with social media is even worse and what standards lay in TV News seem to have been abandoned.

I think the bigger problems are over-centralisation, FPTP, Brexit and the Tory party.

Take the UK's being one of the most centralised countries in the world. The union is coming apart and it's only the constitutional glue holding it together. It was never a union of equals and Brexit brought this home for people in a way that decades of general elections failed to. Large portions of this country have been allowed to rot as both parties endorsed supply-side economics which only led to further radicalisation of parts of the population (or maybe I'm playing too much Victoria 3).

FPTP contains radicalisation to a degree but at some point, the pressure bursts the seams of the system. UKIP took 4.4 million votes in 2015 and got one MP, Douglas Carswell for Clacton-on-Sea. Had Cameron stood firm, he may have haemhorrhaged more votes to them but in the UK, 25% is the magic number at which seats start to be won en masse. Cameron opted to put his career and his stewardship of his party above union and country. He did it in 2014 and then again in 2016 when he saw how well it worked. The problem is that Scottish resentment was a pale shadow of England's and out we came by a sliver which was used to justify all sorts of Conservative corruption in a desperate attempt to hold the party together.

Labour have some good ideas so for those alone, I hope they win. As demographics change, I think Starmer or his successor will be forced to once again re-evaluate the European question. For now, I'll settle for a little more democracy.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119998588#Comment_119998588

If you took Boards or a survey of Irelands many barstool experts as an accurate representation* of Ireland then lots of people spout the tripe this caller is speaking.

* Thankfully it's not.

ancapailldorcha

I'm not even surprised:

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1604076336255041540

Nothing embodies Brexit better than the man who negotiated a deal that he spent years afterwards fulminating against taking a wad of taxpayers' cash he didn't earn while people choose between food and warmth.

rock22

I listened to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning. Yvette Cooper , Labour Shadow secretary, was interviewed and asked about Labours plan for Asylum seekers crossing the channel. ( As a side note, she avoided answering any question directly, to the point that I was beginning to think she was a Government minister !)

Anyway, she continually referred to the need for a new' Dublin agreement'. I assume she is referring to the Dublin regulation which tries to manage asylum application in the EU with a single defined country having responsibility for any single application. But this is now superceded by the new Pact of Migration and Asylum.

"On 23 September 2020, the European Commission adopted the New Pact on Migration and Asylum following consultations with the European Parliament, Member States and various stakeholders. The New Pact covers all the different elements needed for a comprehensive approach to migration. In particular, the New Pact recognises that no Member State should shoulder a disproportionate responsibility and that all Member States should contribute to solidarity on a constant basis."

I wonder has she forgotten that the UK is now no longer a member of the EU?

Enzokk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120010485#Comment_120010485

Without knowing what she meant, my assumption is that she means the UK needs a new agreement like the Dublin Agreement that they are not part of any longer as they have left the EU.

CrabRevolution

I'm not sure why I'd bother agreeing to a "new Dublin agreement" if I were the French. The UK offering to take in any asylum seekers who arrive in France from the UK is a hollow offer since the traffic only goes one way. There'll be few, if any returns of asylum seekers from France to the UK, whereas you can be certain the UK will be using it to the max to return people to France.

France has all the leverage here really.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120011552#Comment_120011552

Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the Dublin agreement but as EU countries are obliged to recognise the asylum seeker status of refugees,isn't it wrong to push the problem on to the UK which is a third country?As many here are always pointing out the UK isn't subject to EU rules.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012414#Comment_120012414

Why is it wrong? If they want to go to the UK, then the UK should police its own borders as the government has been relentlessly virtue-signalling about for over half a decade now.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012414#Comment_120012414

The EU wanted to continue the Dublin Agreement, but the Home Office and Brexit government insisted on ending it. There was no particular need for the agreement to end post-Brexit but controversially, the UK insisted it had to go.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012428#Comment_120012428

Regarding policing borders,perhaps the EU should police the refugees passing through multiple EU countries instead of claiming its not their problem.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012692#Comment_120012692

If a refugee passes through an EU country in transit and has no intention of claiming asylum in the country they are currently in, they are not in fact breaking any law. Why would the authorities need to detain anyone who intends to 'leave' the country imminently? It would surely be illegal to stop them leaving.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012692#Comment_120012692

Why should the European taxpayer have to pander to British xenophobes?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012414#Comment_120012414

In what way is the EU seeking to "push the problem onto the UK"? Per the report, it's a UK politician who is suggesting there is a need for an agreement with France. Do you think that, in asking for this, she is somehow an agent of the EU?

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012711#Comment_120012711

Doesn't it bother you so many people are transversing EU countries unchallenged, without any questions being asked?

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120012722#Comment_120012722

How is being concerned about unregulated immigration xenophobic?Are the protestors worried about it in Dublin xenophobes?