Will (or indeed should) the UK ever rejoin the EU?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037158#Comment_118037158

So, your solution is to cover the costs of building their facilities? Globalisation offers huge benefits but it needs to be managed like anything else. Neoliberal governments ideologically oppose this sort of management but it's absolutely necessary as this pandemic has shown.

I'm not really sure what this has to do with the UK possibly rejoining the EU in any case.

fly_agaric

The ironic thing here is (I think) the UK as a large member state (and esp. when having a Conservative govt. in charge) would have been one of the important supporters of these now somewhat discredited and falling out of favour pure free market ideas at EU level (i.e. preventing governments giving "state aid" + kneecapping ability of the state to influence development of industry etc.). I think Ireland probably was as well (one Commissioner we sent, Charlie McCreevy comes to mind).

It may be good (for the UK) that they are doing somewhat of a 180 on it under Boris Johnson, but the way this is now all put retrospectively on UKs EU membership as is tradition at this point...enough to make a cat laugh.

Seems like just another "blame the smell on the dog/the barking spider" (EU membership) when it comes something causing a problem in the UK.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037196#Comment_118037196

Do you think Slovakia went from building no cars, to being the worlds largest car producer per capita by accident, or that Dell decided to up stick from Limerick and open up in Poland for the fun of it? Governments offer inventives all the time. The question is, how can one government manage something that is to its detriment, if it benefits 12 other countries in the EU?

when the UK can address some of this imbalance that globalisation has created, then it will be in a position to rejoin the EU and I am confident that it will.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037386#Comment_118037386

Quite easily I would imagine. Germany has managed to develop a strong manufacturing sector while being in the EU.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037655#Comment_118037655

yeah, it has. Or at least it has managed to retain it's manufacturing sector and keep it's wages relatively high as well. This could be, in part, their refusal to allow migrants from the secession states freedom of movement in the early days.

The problems with the UK aren't recent events, the decline of indigenous manufacturing goes back further than the UK's EEC/EU membership, I just feel they need to be addressed before the UK will be in a position for the country to look at going back in to the EU. It might just be that the adjustment the UK is going through now will help with that.

I see Amazon are offering signing on bonuses now, so this will ultimately have a knock on effect. If the UK was still in the EU, their solution would be to ship over a load of Poles rather than pay realistic wages.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037804#Comment_118037804

It doesn't. Manufacturing collapsed under Thatcher. The British electorate simply doesn't care about manufacturing as they keep voting in the party who destroyed it.

jm08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118036325#Comment_118036325

The head of the Jenner Institute is Irish who devoted his life to developing vaccines for tropical diseases such as malaria and covid. Dr Teresa Lambe (UCC graduate) was one of the leading scientists developing the AZ vaccine (there was no way they were getting any credit for their part in Brexit GB). The development of mRNA vaccine by the Turkish-German company will probably have a lot more uses than the Oxford vaccine so should be regarded as a major break through in medicine. By the way, the EU Commission was a major funder of the Oxford vaccine. I don't think the British Gov. got in on the act until it needed to manufacture it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037882#Comment_118037882

Which is not only incorrect, but also irrelevant to my point.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037820#Comment_118037820

Nissan in Sunderland, Honda in Swindon and Toyota in Derby would indicate otherwise.

companies like British Steel and British Leyland (showing my age now) collapsed in the seventies. All the thatcher government did to stop the tax payer propping it up.

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118036924#Comment_118036924

Across Europe be it the EU or Brexit Britain the main economic mover needs to be very much along the lines of what you are suggesting here - what is the point in attracting endless IP and R&D jobs when the manufacturing goes to China................

Bottom line is we have to start manufacturing more in Europe and accept it will cost more but it is essential not only to remove dependence on China but for a zillion environmental reasons (shipping widgets from China is a disaster environmentally) along with the obvious one of providing well paid skilled manufacturing jobs instead of mindless zero hour service jobs or poxy call centres. Some countries are better than other - in Germany skilled manufacturing jobs are highly regarded - less so elsewhere in Europe and all of Europe needs to priortise moving manafacturing back to Europe - if the whole Covid fiasco has taught us anything it's this.....

Interesting you raise Halewood - British Government ponied up 30 million pounds to secure that investment and it looks like a major win - I am not a EU 'illegal state aid' expert but is this a clear and simple case of the UK being able to do something that it couldn't have when in the EU ?? Heaven forbid an advantage of being outside the EU ??

I know it's not a popular position on here but there MAY be advantages to the UK being outside of EU regulations.........any armchair experts on EU illegal state aid rules do feel free to chip in !!

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118038139#Comment_118038139

Would they? A slew of firms have been moving jobs out of the UK since the vote (Source). The UK's just missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to be the new global hub for the manufacture of superconductors. That was a golden opportunity given the Taiwan situation and is a heck of a price to pay for misunderstood notions of what sovereignty is.

To get back on topic, the UK should absolutely rejoin but it won't happen while this nationalist, authoritarian government is in power.

It’s only a good move if the jobs created are sticky. In that those jobs and the knowledge they create, can not be easily shipped out to a lower cost country at the whim of a board of directors in the US.

i agree on the environmental impact. Seeing all those container ships lined up at various ports around the world does make you think about the impact international trade has.

An Oligarchs mega yacht can burn €5000 of file per day. Think how much a monster container ship gets through.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118036325#Comment_118036325

Not sure what figures you're using there. China is responsible for about half of the vaccines that have been administered globally, Pfizer would be next in line, then AZ.

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118038139#Comment_118038139

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118037820#Comment_118037820

There is plenty of world class manufacturing in the UK - Rolls Royce, BAE, Bentley, Lotus, Aston Martin, Mini, Jaguar Land Rover and a whole slew of smaller niche companies who are experts in their field be it Barbour Jackets or Triumph motorcycles etc etc, one could go on and on. Like so much manufacturing the lure of the Far East in recent decades has stripped manufacturing from so many areas in the UK and Europe.

Europe (and yes the UK) across the board needs to pull more manufacturing back from China etc.

techman1

The problem for Europe though is how does it bring back those manufacturing jobs and still reduce its carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Building new factories and starting producing things again is incompatible with such drastic carbon reductions. Part of the reason why European carbon emissions slowed down was due to outsourcing dirty energy intensive production to China.

Something is going to have to give somewhere and I think it will result in a very angry Greta Thurnberg

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118038213#Comment_118038213

The vast majority of those firms you name are no longer British owned and, you would imagine, as soon it no longer suits their purpose, they will stop manufacturing in GB. Whether that goes to China or Europe or anywhere else is essentially a moot point from a British perspective, but the most recent big investment I'm aware of by any of them was a new R&D centre for Jaguar-Land Rover. Where? In Shannon, Co. Clare.

Would that have been outside Britain if they remained in the EU? Unlikely.

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039603#Comment_118039603

Not sure what point you are making, all I was pointing out was that there was plenty of world class manufacturing taking place in the UK. Yes many of the companies I list are not British owned but if I wanted I could spend an age and send you a list of 100% British owned companies who still make stuff in the UK. Volkswagen a German company own Seat who have several large car factories in Spain but it still means there is a sizeable car manufacturing industry in Spain. In Ireland we have dozens of foreign owned multinationals who employ people but that doesn't detract from the fact that they are in Ireland employing Irish people or should we consider them as not really counting as pharma plants or data centres as they ain't Irish owned ? Ireland's new non existent pharma industry......Just like German owned Bentley employ a load of Brits manufacturing cars....in the UK but that doesn't count as they are German owned ?

As for Indian owned JLR but predominantly British based manufacturing wise, the software investment in Shannon is very welcome but I or you have no idea whether it had anything to do with Brexit and in the scheme of things is a rather tiny part of JLR. From a quick Google looks like a separate company down there which JLR is a lead partner in. But it also involves other companies so who knows and the Shannon site seems ideal for what they want !! It is very easy to try and make out that Brexit was the reason this ended up in Shannon but was that the case or does it just suit the simple narrative of Brexit caused this.....I genuinely don't know.

Re the thread topic, no it won't. It should require both political parties to switch to pro-EU membership for the EU to even consider it.

The UK is big enough that in a few years, whatever its economy is doing will be the new normal. Comparisons like the current HGV or fuel crisis will lose relevance the longer the UK and GB are economically apart.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039862#Comment_118039862

I think the only way that this happens is for the Labour to pull another Blair and conclusively win at least two consecutive elections. I can't see it in their current form given all the internecine bickering endemic in the party but were that to happen, we'd get a completely different Tory party as has happened many times before.

Ironically, if this were to happen, it'd be a portion of Labour taking the UK back in with Tory support not unlike 1975.

However, this is at least decade off. We need to fully acclimatise to life post-EU membership before even discussing rejoining.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118039822#Comment_118039822

JLR are of course building a lot of their current product in Britain because that is easier. However, the new Defender, replacement for the original Land Rover (from 1948) will be built in Slovakia. So loyalty to the UK might be short lived.

That might be the story with a lot of these large foreign owned companies. 'Hey, HMG, we find this Brexit stuff a bit too difficult to manage with all this extra costs because of Brexit and all the red tape so we are moving to Slovakia or Poland unless you give us a bit of financial subsidy - say a billion or two - how about it? Of course, it will be a great deal for Global Britain to retain such a world wide product as ours.'

tanko

The minute the UK voted to leave the UK the only workable solution to the disaster on the way was some sort of BRINO and it still is the only solution today. That solution will last for about thirty years and then they’ll rejoin the EU when most of the people who voted for Brexit are dead.

PommieBast

Customs union maybe but EU itself is well off the agenda. Bigger question is whether both the UK and EU will still be around long enough..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040687#Comment_118040687

car manufacturers have been having that conversation with governments long before Brexit.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118042059#Comment_118042059

Maybe, but they have a better argument now.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118032946#Comment_118032946

Why should we agree to a border in Ireland? We didn't want it, weren't asked about it and make clear we are not going to accept it. Brexit was Britain's decision. It necessitates a hard trade border. That means that one of the parties to the conflict that the Good Friday Agreement attempted to solve, and largely did so, HAS TO LOSE!!

Border in the Irish Sea: Unionists not happy.

Border along Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Down county lines: nationalists have to lose out.

I don't know how old you are but I, as a mature Irish citizen in the late 1990s got my vote on whether to accept the GFA. Our part of the deal was a referendum amending Articles 2 and 3 of our Constitution to "soften" the claim on Northern Irish territory. I voted for it willingly because of the spirit of the times, the desire for peace, the give and take and the principle that "Nothing was agreed until everything was agreed." With the British promise that a border referendum would be accepted if a majority ever wanted it, and the internal Northern commitment to power sharing, I was all in favour of compromising. And I suspected that with Ireland and Britain both in the EU there would never be a need for a border poll anyway because it was so "Soft" in the wake of the post 1992 single market anyway.

Now what has happened is that the British are saying "Hah! Fooled you! We've changed our mind and you're just going to have to suck it up! The border is going back because it has to go somewhere. And we're not dividing our precious realm just because a generation of politicians of good will in the UK (Major and Blair) and in Ireland north and south (Hume, Trimble, Ahern, Bruton, Spring) sweated blood to get a compromise agreement. Tough ****, Paddy!!"

Of course this is exactly the reason why the numbskulls of the DUP were so in favour of Brexit and why a majority of Ordinary Decent People in Northern Ireland were so opposed to it. They KNEW and KNOW that somebody is going to have to suck up a loss. This is really lost on plummy English Brexiteers who never gave it a moment's thought. To see them preen now that "Northern Ireland is as much a part of our country as is Somerset" like that Lord Snooty lookalike Rees Mogg does is truly nauseating.

I really despise them!!

You're right of course that Brexit is Britain's decision and they should be allowed sail off into their new independent status without us carping and sneering about the terrible mess it has caused in logistics, food harvesting and medical provision. We should avert our eyes from petrol and lorry driver shortages. They will sort that out eventually. All it takes is more cash for drivers and a few cleaners working a few extra shifts in motorway service station toilets.

But the Northern Ireland bit and the location and function of the border ARE our business and we have an absolute right to fight our corner.

If only for practicality's sake, a border in the Irish Sea for animal and food products makes the most practical and logistical sense. If Britain goes for GMO food and angel-dust fed beef from the other side of the world, how do we safeguard our agriculture sector with a border as porous as exists on our island?

Sure, it's a fudge but the trade border on the Irish Sea is the only practical alternative to our leaving the EU or Britain rejoining it. And neither of those are going to happen.

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040687#Comment_118040687

May be the way it plays out for sure and no doubt any company with half a brain cell will look for government support if they think they can get away with it. But without EU competition regulations on state aid that an also be played positively by the UK too.

By the way JLR in 2015 (prior to Brexit) made intentions clear about building a new factory in Eastern Europe, no doubt diversification and cost based. They have temporarily been getting some of their electric models built in Austria did to capacity issues in the UK (this was pre Brexit) and pending new Eastern European factory opening. Point is the decision by JLR to diversify some manufacturing elsewhere was made before Brexit and very much in line with the strategy of many global manufacturers in the car industry.

To keep vaguely on thread about whether the UK will ever rejoin, a large part of this will be economic progress or lack of in the UK in the next 15 years or so. If it does go pear shaped then yes you would expect pressure to build, if if goes fair to middling or heaven forbid the UK prospers then I can't see anyway they are likely to rejoin in the mid term. Long term who knows....

ujjjjjjjjj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118043005#Comment_118043005

Entirely agree with you re not wanting a border on the border.......and also I 100% agree that it ain't going to happen as politically it ain't possible in Ireland.

But it is still is a fudge and a fudge which is going to keep causing problems because it exists. I ain't a fan of the DUP etc but do respect their right to exist within the UK and clearly aware of the dangers of giving them a stick to beat on and on about. Whether we like it not sticking a border in the Irish Sea is an emotive issue for them. Yes in reverse a border on the border would have been an emotive issue for nationalists.....the gift of the North just keeps on giving !!

Not having a border between North and South is totally illogical in every practical sense as you have two countries with potentially differing standards and tariffs etc etc but I understand it is politically required and the NI protocol is the fudge to fix this.

Suppose I fall into the camp of at all costs maintain peace in the North and if a border had appeared I wouldn't have considered it a huge problem if peace was maintained and certainly not one worth one episode of unrest for in my book. I suspect others may disagree. Let me be clear I don't want a border on the border but I want lots of things I can't have !! Blame Brexit for this mess yes, but it was a side effect of Brexit not an intention of it.

I too voted for the GFA BTW and I really believe its fundamental strength was giving the North control over their own destiny, that for me is it's most important point as it gives both communities some sense of control and balance. It was a landmark agreement but I suppose no one foresaw Brexit !!

Delighted you agree that the time for carping and sneering at the UK is past, we have had our fun, time to move on. Whether you or I or anyone like it the two countries are extremely closely linked and have much to gain from keeping these links close. Sometimes being the 'bigger' person in a spat makes most sense.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118040972#Comment_118040972

Talk that the EU might collapse soon seem fanciful (and usually made by people with a pathological hatred of the union i.e. people with an agenda). Many pundits have suggested there is no reason it won't celebrate its 100th birthday in 2058. It is nothing like the Soviet Union for example : an authoritarian and genocidal dictatorship which is estimated to have murdered 20 million of its own citizens.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118044675#Comment_118044675

I wish to God I could part-quote these things.

Two things you say I want to pick up on:

"Blame Brexit for this mess yes, but it was a side effect of Brexit not an intention of it."

And:

"Delighted you agree that the time for carping and sneering at the UK is past, we have had our fun, time to move on."

Whether damage to the peace settlement in Ireland was the intended outcome of the way Brexit has been implemented or was simply a side-effect is irrelevant. It's enough that was the outcome of the way Brexit has been implemented. (Indeed, it was the foreseeable outcome of the way Brexit was implemented.) Therefore, those who implemented Brexit are responsible for the damage. It doesn't matter that they didn't intend to inflict this damage; that it was just a by-product of the actions they took to achieve some other end. We are responsible for the consequences of our actions, even if we didn't intend them or they are not what motivated us to acct. We expect our children to grasp this somewhere between the ages of about 4 and 7 years old.

If the way Brexit was implemented requires some fudge in NI and if, as you say, all fudges are necessarily unstable, then the UK is squarely to blame for the instability they have imposed on NI; the UK made, and maintains, the choices which required the fudge. Is it unreasonable, or at any rate unrealistic, to ask people to stop "carping and sneering" at the UK when the UK has yet to accept any responsibility for what it has done - indeed, for what it is still doing?

And the other part of the injunction is to "move on". But how, exactly, do we "move on"? If the problem is that Northern Ireland has been destabilised by the way Brexit has been implemented, then "moving on" surely requires addressing that instability and working to resolve it. And that means changing the way Brexit is being implemented. And that, of course, requires a shift on the part of the UK government. They need to stop making decisions which exacerbate the instability in NI, and to start reversing some of the decisions they have already made.

It may be that "carping and sneering" at the UK is unlikely to get them to to change their course, but shutting up, meekly accepting it and lying down like good croppies is even more unlikely to get them to change. Those who want the carping and sneering to stop need to be bringing forward positive proposals for advancing the kind of changes that are needed.

fly_agaric

Blame Brexit for this mess yes, but it was a side effect of Brexit not an intention of it.

Originally, but since Boris took over and then was made secure by his huge majority, the UK govt. is deploying NI and Ireland's ties to it to damage the EU. Kind of (re)doing things the way they believe they should have been handled way back when Theresa May was PM. They "project" on this matter of course and say the EU used/uses NI against them and against "Brexit".

All possible outcomes of pushing this NI based strategy to the end are I believe seen as very positive by the UK government. The only fly in the ointment (IMO) is the damage a strong EU response to it (trade sanctions of some type) could inflict on the UK economy and fear of this is why they take it very slowly.

The displeasure of the US is likely already "priced in" (no chance in hell of a US trade agreement until Biden is gone + maybe they don't think US will do anything else concrete, and they don't care about criticism [they are well used to that]).

I think I put it to you earlier this year (unless was someone else, can't check...??) that this was the developing UK strategy (put the gun to a few heads on the "open" NI border vs integrity of single market and see if something breaks somewhere in the EU/Ireland). You said no, there's nothing at all malevolent (towards Ireland) about what is happening...they are just somewhat poorly organised & struggling to get the NI protocol implemented but it will be worked out (eventually). I think the events since then make it clear enough what is going on.