Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

political analyst

UK government sources said that the Windsor Framework allows for a dynamic relationship between the UK and the EU. This article was published last month.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/28/the-stormont-brake-how-can-it-be-used-northern-ireland-eu-laws-brexit

Vivisectus

Because surely, the DUP would not abuse this emergency measure on the first and indeed on every occasion. Bless you, no. Not at all.

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120391536#Comment_120391536

Is Brexit really a complete failure or are we pointing at the wrong things when we point out its failings?

The primary goal, namely leaving the EU, was achieved and, much like Trump in the States, the failed politicians and their failed policies were merely the conduit for that goal, and the chaos and division that ensued (which I fear shows no sign of abating) was perhaps the ultimate aim of those behind Brexit.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399165#Comment_120399165

Depends on which Brexit you voted for.

If you voted to stop immigrants it's working. But if you thought it will free up jobs it's failed.

If you are a disaster capitalist like the ERG lads its going great.

If you like Sunak claims believe in Singapore on Thames it's a disaster.

If you voted for Brexit to "take back control" and get your blue passport back you are a moron and no type of Brexit can fix that.

Ben D Bus

AFAIK it has only succeeded in stopping European immigration. Numbers of immigrants is actually still climbing?

I'm open to correction on this.

Larbre34

Certainly true. EU citizens have no reason to look to Britain for work.

But illegal migration / asylum seeking / refugee migration to the UK has increased by more 100% each year for the last four years.

Not to mention, legal economic migration that is unskilled is also increasing and absolutely not replacing the semi-skilled, skilled and professional migrants that are no longer coming in numbers from the EU, or indeed just left.

So in fact Brexit has freed up jobs. Jobs that are necessary to advance the British economy but for which there are no candidates. On top of the health and social care jobs so important to the Community which are also vacant by the thousands.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399165#Comment_120399165

It was certainly sold to the electorate as having multiple benefits (economic, political and sociological). All of these have failed to come to pass.

It's an interesting question though. I think Farage and Johnson both wanted the Leave vote to be defeated - I suspect the DUP were in this category too. More sinister elements like the ERG, IEA and the owners of the Mail and Telegraph 100% wanted out of the EU at any cost.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399834#Comment_120399834

Farage needed his forever war with the EU. Actually winning put him out of a few handy jobs. Including the one where he took the EUs soup.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399860#Comment_120399860

I actually wonder if he was even a genuine Eurosceptic or had any interest in Europe. The ERG lunatics are still ranting about it, but Farage rarely or never even mentions Brexit and Europe these days

joeysoap

Farage has 4 children. All have eu passports. (By eu wives)

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399834#Comment_120399834

I feel like it was sold to the electorate as whatever they wanted it to be - one for everybody in the audience - but ultimately there was only one version of Brexit on sale, the one that involved leaving the EU. All the other stuff was just window dressing which managed to suck people in despite it being patently obvious that Brexit couldn't deliver what it promised.

CelticRambler

Meanwhile, back in the daily reality of the present, it's worth remembering what that club of "unelected bureaurcrats" gets up to on the quiet: EU coordinated action to deter certain fraudulent practices in the honey sector

'Tis but a detail in a short paragraph, but the sort of detail that might undermine any promise that the UK can and will ensure that "British" produce meets the EU's high standards:

The highest absolute number of suspicious consignments originated from China (66 out of 89, 74%), although honey originating from Turkey (14 out of 15, 93%) had the highest relative proportion of suspicious samples.

Honey imported from the United Kingdom had an even higher suspicion rate (10 out of 10, 100 %). However, the available traceability information suggests that this could be the result of honey produced in other countries but further processed and re-exported by the United Kingdom.

Chinese jeans, anyone?

timetogo1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401723#Comment_120401723

It's paradoxical. If Brexit is defined as "leaving the EU" then obviously it worked. But that could never fail. Article 50 was there to facilitate that.

When somebody says "I want to leave the EU because ...." then it gets into the failure bit. So many reasons why people wanted to leave the EU. Many of them nothing to to with the EU or not possible to be achieved without totally wrecking the UK. But the bit after the "because" didn't matter to proponents of Leave as long as they achieved the first part.

It's telling that several years after Brexit when you ask a politician what the benefits are they just downright lie (as in the case of the covid vaccine rollout). If there were any benefits they'd be shouting them from the rooftops.

While typing this I thought I should google "benefits of brexit" just in case any have been identified. Nope. Here's a HM Gov doc from a year ago The Benefits of Brexit: How the UK is taking advantage of leaving the EU (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Apart from the usual taking back control they do list blue passports and putting the crown onto pint glasses. Maybe they are benefits (to somebody). When you weigh against the costs and impact to the UK, not so much.

Sam Russell

One benefit of Brexit that I can think of is that it has fully exposed the DUP to scrutiny by the general GB electorate - and not in a good light.

When it comes to a UI, it might be the GB electorate that eject NI from the UK.

Hermy

Just to be clear I think Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster but I say that from the standpoint of valuing the benefits of EU membership.

Those who agitated for Brexit don't share that view and don't want the UK populace to enjoy those benefits for whatever nefarious reasons.

So from their standpoint Brexit might not be viewed as a failure but that's a damnable indictment of their position.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401821#Comment_120401821

Yep I hope they enjoy sitting on their couch with their crown pint and blue passport because they can't afford to go to the pub or on holiday.

Anyone who voted on those reasons and they do exist is an absolute moron.

storker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399165#Comment_120399165

When it comes to assessing Brexit, the right things to point at are the major selling points put forward by its supporters.

It was supposed to stop immigration, but it's only stopped the kind of immigration the Brexiteers tolerated most. Other immigration is up.

It was supposed to lead to a bonanza of wordwide trade, which hasn't happened and shows no signs of happening.

It was supposed to rid the UK of all those tiresome EU laws (that the UK voted for) which still havn't been repealed even three years after exiting and it seems that this is because undoing them all at a stroke will lead to a legal and regulatory fiasco.

It was supposed to result in £350m per week extra for the NHS, which hasn't happened.

The main benefit that has been achieved is that little Englanders get a warm and fuzzy feeling because they are "out of Europe" and they got to stick it to the "remoaners". And Johnny Foreigner, of course. Unforunately for the UK, none of these factors translate into real economic or social benefits.

serfboard

Lads, the worry is over now - Wetherspoons is back in profit (https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0324/1366048-jd-wetherspoon-half-year-results/).

I wonder how much of that profit is being generated from their EU (Irish) outlets?

Larbre34

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-damage-uk-economy-covid-b2308178.html

Pretty damning by UK Inc.'s own statistics body.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401723#Comment_120401723

The actual referendum was utterly shambolic, as was the subsequent campaign. The ballot paper didn't even specify what 'the European Union' was and whether people were also being asked about membership of the Single Market.

A BBC opinion poll in July 2016 showed that a clear majority of people (well over 60% I think) thought the UK would remain in the Single Market post-Brexit, suggesting people hadn't got a clue what they had voted on or what question they had just been asked.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399226#Comment_120399226

November 24 2022 Annual UK net migration hits record high of more than 500,000 most of those leaving are EU nationals.

from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63743259

Obligatory lip service quote October 05 2022 Suella Braverman: I want migration cut to tens of thousands.

In other news OneWeb has completed their first block of satellites so maybe when the next generation is up the UK might be able to us it for positioning and save some of the £5Bn it would cost to replicate the Galileo GPS functionality they had when in the EU. Then again the Refugee council were predicting that £1.4Bn a year will be spent sending people to Rwanda.

Grassey

It's really just Brexit win after Brexit win these days....

https://www.ft.com/content/961dcf55-bcb5-4947-919b-523e8929f87c

UK re-entry into EU Horizon programme threatened by cash dispute

Britain seeks to reduce contributions to €95bn research network

The UK argues that its annual contribution to the seven-year programme should be reduced because its late entry has diminished the value of programme’s returns.

“The EU’s delays over the last two years have had a damaging and lasting impact on UK R&D,” said a UK government spokesperson. “Discussions on a way forward will need to reflect the financial reality that we have missed over two years of the seven-year programme.”

Under the terms of the TCA, the UK must contribute an amount proportionate to the size of its economy, which is around 18 per cent of that of the EU, according to statistics agency Eurostat.

Britain had been expected to contribute £15bn for the full seven-year programme.... But reducing London’s contribution would involve reopening the TCA, something Brussels refuses to countenance.

pixelburp

When a headline pretty much says it all: Britons have more faith and confidence in the EU than their own government.

Not sure I'm interested in what David Davis has to say but his remarks that the reduction in fake news dogpiling on Brussels from the usual media outlets might have helped arrest the resting antipathy. Aside from the whole "Brexit was a stupid idea" angle - but I doubt the former Brexit Secretary would say that.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/30/britons-more-confidence-in-eu-than-westminster-poll-brexit

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120418698#Comment_120418698

[David Davis] suggested that since Brexit, the media – he named the Sun, Daily Telegraph, Times and Daily Mail – have stopped “kicking Brussels all the time” as they did in the run-up to the 2016 referendum. “No one reads about square strawberries or straight bananas any more,” he said.

Very interesting comments, but they don't explain the whole picture. According to the article, confidence in the EU has been growing since 2009. What makes it newsworthy is the sharp declines in confidence in Parliament and the UK government. However, they still enjoy more confidence than the press, which has fallen to 13%, the second lowest out of all the 24 countries.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120418698#Comment_120418698

Interesting graph there showing that trust in the EU fell steeply in the 1990s. This would would have coincided with a lot of xenophobic Europe bashing from the likes of The Sun and the Telegraph throughout that decade and then the next decade saw the rise of Farage and UKIP.

retalivity

When you have to use 6m Countryfile viewers to pad out the numbers, you can only imagine what resounding success the festival of brexit was.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/30/116m-brexit-festival-saw-just-a-fraction-of-visitors-and-income-predicted

Would love to know who pocketed the 100m+ to fund these events, no doubt it was tendered for and awarded impartially.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120419091#Comment_120419091

Well having paid much more attention to the commons in the years after brexit and the votes, it’s no wonder that confidence has dropped. At times it was an utter farce.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120419281#Comment_120419281

If I'm not mistaken I remember Tony Blair holidaying in France being lauded as a sort of betrayal by such rags.

Peregrinus

The UK had a fairly torrid recession in the early 1990s, with GDP contracting for five straight quarters and unemployment exceeding 10% by 1993. This (like most recessions) had a variety of causes but part of it was high interest rates cause by Nigel Lawson's attempts to keep sterling within the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a policy sharply reversed on "Black Wednesday", which in turn led to sharp decline in sterling. This created a climate favourable to the message that EU policies weren't particularly beneficial to the UK, and that too much entanglement with Europe was bad for Britain because Britain was Special and Different. And so here we are.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120433645#Comment_120433645

George Soros and his friends helped with it, this was the period where he 'broke' the BofE. https://www.thebalancemoney.com/black-wednesday-george-soros-bet-against-britain-1978944