Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

ArmaniJeanss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037731#Comment_120037731

I discussed this a little with my sister (high fallutin job in an investment bank in 'the city'). Working with intelligent people both in her own company and other companies who would have been able to analyze the deal and see the potential problems. Her company had been anti-Brexit, campaigned and donated for Remain. Yet in December 2019 these people pretty much 100% voted Tory, donated Tory, campaigned Tory.

Its kinda fascinating. There seemed (among her peers) to be a general assumption that the Johnson deal was a stepping stone to a better deal, and that ultimately any drawbacks with the deal paled into insignificance compared to the potential problems of a Corbyn administration.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037779#Comment_120037779

They are probably people who will vote Tory no matter what because "I worked hard for my money" and not paying extra tax trump's all else.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037731#Comment_120037731

Resigned is a very generous term for what happened those PMs

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037731#Comment_120037731

I blame lack of scrutiny from the UK media for this too and downright lies and misinformation from large parts of them. The English media should never have found itself campaigning for Brexit in 2016 and ordering its minion columnists and editors to argue in favour of it. Once that had happened, they became hugely compromised and part of the Brexit shambles. It was always a gamble on the roulette wheel being pushed by cranks like Farage and the ERG, with all political parties officially opposed and the media should not have got involved in promoting it.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037779#Comment_120037779

It was naive and arrogant of the instigators of brexit to think the EU needed the UK more than the UK needed the EU. The EU was never going to let the UK leave and be better off or on the same footing.It would have meant other countries would want to do the same and the EU would have collapsed which the instigators of brexit appeared unable to grasp that .

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038708#Comment_120038708

They were neither naive, nor arrogant.

The maths were simple. So simple a bright 10 year old could understand them.

They claimed a massive trade surplus of Britain, over the EU. They were right of course. But what they failed to mention - and opponents were negligent in not highlighting - was relative dependence. That same trade only represented 9% of EU27 - UK.

But it represented 45% of UK - EU27. Who's dependent now....

They were neither naive, nor arrogant. They just lied.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038738#Comment_120038738

Reverse-paraphrase of an old saying:

"Never attribute to incompetence what's due to malice." Brexit to a T.

Another good one: "The result is the goal." The UK got what it wanted.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038738#Comment_120038738

I notice a new argument being put forward by the disciples on social media is that the Brexit vote was never meant to be about trade, but instead about 'independence' and 'sovereignty'.

A complete rewriting of history though - most of the "Great Brexit Debate" from the SSE Wembley Arena on the BBC on June 21st, 2016 was spent discussing trade and immigration.

wexfordman2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039241#Comment_120039241

Ghana is sovereign!!

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039314#Comment_120039314

This all gives me Newsroom flashbacks if I'm honest; then again Brexit is Trump two years later in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2HKbygLjJs

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039906#Comment_120039906

My head went straight there too.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120039241#Comment_120039241

You have a point regarding independence and sovereignty,Apart from France and Germany it does appear you have to do as you're told by brussels. .Many here(in Britain)believed we were subservient to brussels.Whether this was a reasonable assumption or not is open to debate.As someone who wanted to remain, I did think brussels meddling was galling,although this could have been the endless sh*te the media was churning out.i thought Cameron should have snatched brussels hand off regarding the conditions offered although this would probably have caused unrest amongst other members.

Just to confirm, I didn’t think there were any plausible reasons for the UK to leave the EU.Differences could have been discussed but the right wing zealots within the tories manipulated the situation.

timetogo1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040060#Comment_120040060

That kind of glosses over the fact that the rules from Brussels are voted on by EU members. Many in the UK seemed to think that it was Brussels vs the UK rather than the UK was part of the groups in Brussels.

The UK voted against EU laws 2% of the time since 1999, abstained 3% and voted for 95%. So the "being told by Brussels" was being told to follow rules that the UK mostly voted for and in many cases had a hand in creating.

It was an advantage for the UK government. Hard rules that the government agreed with and the public didn't like were all "the EUs fault". Rules that the public agreed with were "all the governments doing".

In recent years I remember the UK government taking credit for reducing roaming fees for UK citizens around the EU.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040060#Comment_120040060

It's not open to debate. The idea that countries are "controlled" by Brussels is moronic.

It was shown time and again (most famously the childish passport colour whinge) that the UK could have already done many of the things it was "not allowed" to do.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040060#Comment_120040060

Sorry Fraser, but this is the lies and half-truths that British people have been fed on for forty years or more. Brussels does not impose any rules or laws on the UK. The laws and rules are the result of policies agreed by the Council. Even the European Parliament has little say. This idea that Brussels are creating laws out of nowhere, without a mandate from the member states, is the propaganda of the Brexiteer , and before that, the Anti Europe brigade going back into the eighties, along with curvy ( or straight , I forget which ) bananas.

You talk about differences between Brussels and UK but the UK were members. It was differences between one member and fellow members. That occurs in all organisations and groups. But for the UK it was always Brussels telling us what to do. Britain could never get it's head around the idea that it sat down with equals. In fact I think it was a real shock to the UK ministers to see Ireland treated as an equal when we had only joined on the coattails of the UK. That wasn't the way the UK was used to being treated. And in all the years of member ship they never thought of the EU in terms of a group of equals. I really don't see that attitude changing in the next few decades and until it does , the UK really have no place with the nations of Europe. The best they can hope for is that they align their standards and rules on the EU and the Eu allow them continue trading without too much barriers.

An example British exceptionalism is the problem SMEs are having posting items to the EU. It has already been pointed out to GB that their Post Office is causing problems for their own exporters

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/12/13/an-post-row-with-uk-post-office-causing-return-of-online-purchases/

but instead of fixing the problem they attack the messenger, pointing out that the problem is with the Royal Mail rather than the Post Office. The PO even had wrong information on their website. But of course they are never wrong and EU post offices are being overly vigilant.

And this latest article reinforces the point about British exceptionalism.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/27/uk-traders-on-brexit-its-increased-paperwork-stress-everything

Again, it focuses on what the Eu can change in order to fix GB/UK interests.

timetogo1

But they weren't even equals either (which is fair). UK had 73 MEPs, Ireland had 11. Only Germany & France had more votes than the UK so maybe that played into the psyche of blaming other countries.

The UK seemed to send a hell of a lot of muppets to be MEPs (and in fairness in Ireland, we have a few too) so that probably reduced the effective power the UK had. E.g. Farage was a member of the Fisheries committee and attended 1 out of 42 meetings.

The UK & Ireland & other countries used to combine votes so they'd be more likely to be successful when voting in the parliament.

fly_agaric

^^I was listening to their (Irish Times) podcast yesterday about that postal issue.

Post Office (read the UK govt. - they own and control it) will not do system changes that would implement EU customs needs properly (in light of fact that UK is now a "3rd country"). That would ease export of goods to EU (including Ireland) for SMEs in the UK that are relying on the Post Office to process/send their items.

I think at base it is a similar thing to the incidents like initially digging in heels and refusing to recognise the EU's ambassador, forcing EU flags to be removed at meetings the UK govt. is attending (and I suppose the big/far more serious one is the obstructionism and deliberate sabotage efforts on NI protocol). It comes from the same place.

The current lot in charge of the UK since Boris Johnson became PM do not believe the EU is a legitimate actor now the UK has left. It was supposed to collapse once Brexit "got done". So they think they can make up their own reality, and wish away the EUs stubborn continued existence with this kind of stupid stuff. It (postal issue + items getting sent back to UK) is just another one where it's causing self harm (and harm to Ireland as well) as a result of rigidly following political ideology.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040279#Comment_120040279

The EU parliament was of no real consequence until relatively recently.

The real power within the EU was the Council of Ministers where each member state has one seat and one vote. States can either vote yay or nay (veto - only one nay kills the vote). That was changed in some decisions to be by a majority vote. Clearly a veto is rare because they stay up all night until the veto is withdrawn after a bit of fudge is handed around. The Commission proposes resolutions and the Council votes on them. Now the Parliament gets involved.

The UK just proposed the resolution and accepted the decision and went home to bitch about it. It was the EU's fault we had to do it!

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040155#Comment_120040155

What's the point of partaking in a thread about brexit if certain aspects aren't open to debate and discussion between posters with different views?

Leroy42

It's not open to debate in that it is simply not true. To debate it would be to debate something that doesn't exist.

You could certainly debate how the UK felt that they were ruled by Brussels, that they felt they had no power and that they felt they had no control over the laws.

But that would then lead to the debate being about how the UK failed, in as much as that feeling has any validity beyond their own sense of entitlement, to manage the relationship with the EU. Being one of the biggest, and thus theoretically important, members should have given them the ability to have a stronger level of control. In fact one of the key aspects of their thinking behind how easy it would all be was the belief that the UK was so important that the EU would simply accede to anything the UK wanted. 'They needs us more...'

What nobody ever seems to have asked if that if that were true, then why could the UK not use that clear leverage within the EU itself.

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040413#Comment_120040413

You've expressed a view about Brussels being in charge and Breezy has countered that view - how is that anything other than the matter being open to debate?

Now out of interest can you tell me specifically what you mean when you say Brussels?

yagan

Anyone in favour of temp bans for posters who repeatedly sprout debunked Brexiter narratives from spamming this thread?

edit to add, once the UK officially left the EU the discussion about Brexit ended and moved onto discussing consequences, yet some here have a problem internalising that.

FraserburghFreddie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040599#Comment_120040599

No ban required. I won't be posting on this thread again. I have received a couple of warnings over the last few weeks, one which was for back seat modding.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040060#Comment_120040060

Brexit was being pushed by cranky right wing and eccentric types on the fringes of British politics in the decade or so up until 2016 (against a background of general 'Euroscepticism' among the media and population). Unfortunately for the UK, once the referendum was called by Cameron, the cranks moved front and centre and people actually began to take their simplistic slogans and soundbites seriously and then the car crash happened a few months later : Britain had voted to leave the EU with no plan in place, no agreement on what it might look like but with the cranks on the fringes announcing 'democracy has prevailed' and the decision was irreversible.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040413#Comment_120040413

Plenty of things to debate but the "dictatorship in Brussels" narrative pushed by Brexiters like yourself is just a lie and you can't debate a lie.

pixelburp

The kernel of the entire europhobic attitude towards the EU is neatly surmised by the fallacy of London being "bossed by Brussels".

The UK was the EU. We are the EU. By and large a flattened hierarchy of European states and yet London could never accept that status without concessions politically - and a consistent diet of bullshít peddled by a pressed determined to make an Us Vs Them narrative.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040733#Comment_120040733

Fintan O'Toole's theory in his book was that in the Brexiteer mindset, you can only be a coloniser or be colonised - a rule giver or a rule taker. The idea of 28 nations sharing or pooling sovereignty equally is completely anathema to them. Hence, the EU being described as the 'EUSSR' and the 'Fourth Reich'.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120040909#Comment_120040909

Same mentality as Putin's Russia.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120038738#Comment_120038738

A trade imbalance paid for by a surplus of services. WTO and trade deals cover goods but not services.

If the UK keeps diverging from EU data protection they could lose the services with 30 days notice.

This thread is painful to read during the gaps between meaningful events happening.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037631#Comment_120037631

It should also be pointed out that the UK made a substantial profit on the loan. I wish we'd told them where to stick it as the constant BS about it ever since from the brexiters just isn't worth it.