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Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 17,833 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    But any negotiations about the Protocol are directly between the UK and the EU and don't even involve the Taoiseach. What is being discussed is how to implement checks between GB and the EU Single Market (the Republic has no presence at NI or GB ports).



  • Registered Users Posts: 23,370 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    It doesn't help when you have a leader always seeking middle ground when there is no middle ground.

    Varadkar understands there is no half way. He is far better than Martin at getting that across. Martin always seeks a compromise and soothing language.

    There is either a land border or there isn't.

    We have an agreement and the British should implement it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,833 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    Absolutely, but what I'm saying is Martin has little or no input into what is happening with the Protocol. This is not a three way process - it is purely between the UK and the EU and concerns how customs and phytosanitary checks are carried out between GB and NI.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,961 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    They ARE implementing it for the most part. They are just moaning about it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,754 ✭✭✭fly_agaric


    I think he (and other leaders) will become involved at point the EU Commission decides this is just not working, the talking is done and UK have to be compelled to implement what they agreed to.

    I read most of that UK govt. pdf posted, wasn't much in it as far as I could see. Usual distortions of history and bending the truth, alot of blaming of the NI protocol on the EU for being intransigent/bullying and prior UK govt.s for not being "Brexity" enough.

    Very short on proposals other than trusting businesses moving goods to declare, scouts honour, when they are destined for Ireland (rather than NI). The UK then claim they would of course do all EU required Customs checks in such cases + be really really dilligent (honest). They also re-promise alot of stuff they already said they'd deliver on + failed to, like granting the EU access to data/systems etc.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,833 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    For sure, but the point would be that those who fear Martin saying 'Go easy on the Brits' to the EU have nothing to fear. It's essentially a bilateral negotiation between the EU and the UK and doesn't even involve the Irish govt. Also, the rules of the Single Market are the rules of the Single Market and they couldn't renegotiate the Protocol even if they wanted to (would set a very dangerous precedent for future EU agreements).

    It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. Despite all the bluff and bluster by Frost, Johnson and Lewis, the Brexit UK position is incredibly weak and they are virtually friendless if they try to take on the EU.



  • Administrators Posts: 53,126 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    EU will not renegotiate Brexit's Northern Ireland deal - Sefcovic | Reuters

    “We are ready to continue to seek creative solutions, within the framework of the Protocol, in the interest of all communities in Northern Ireland. However, we will not agree to a renegotiation of the Protocol,” he said.


    Well, that didn't take long. 🙂



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,442 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    The jist of their new 'plan' seems to be exactly what their plan was a few years ago. They want all the benefits of SM but none of the obligations.

    Ah, but they know they will never be a runner so they, quite brilliantly I think we can all agree, have put in that far from not following the EU rules, which of course impinge of UK sovereignty, the UK will ask all traders to be really, really, really honest and fair and promise, scouts honour, that they won't ever try to bend of break the rules to gain any sort of advantage.

    And that if they get what they want this time, they 100% promise that they will totally stick to it and won't be back looking for even more again.

    And of course everything should be put in transition until all of this can be agreed, even though they were offered an extension previously and claimed that it was a terrible idea because business needed certainty.

    In any healthy democracy this government would be out of office by the end of the day.

    And lest we forget, to get the deal both sides had to make compromises. So to change anything the UK will have to offer up something to the EU. I note that they offered nothing. They are still under the illusion that simply their own importance is enough.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,831 ✭✭✭RobMc59


    So are you saying that Ireland had no direct involvement or say in formulating their fishing quotas?

    That is extraordinary.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6 JoePirate


    "They are still under the illusion that simply their own importance is enough"

    That's exactly their attitude: "I know we signed this contract two years ago, old bean, but it just doesn't suit me any more and, well I'm BRITISH, so you'll have to change the contract to suit me now. Oh, but you'll have to honour all the parts of the contract that I like and you don't. Ok, old bean? That's a good little European. Off you go now."



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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    Seem to be conflating 'Ireland' and 'Irish government' there buddy The EU is an inter-governmental body so as per representative democracies it goes citizens protest to their national government and their government is meant to take that protest to the EU as they directly represent their people in 2 of the 4 institutions of the EU, the people can also protest to their meps to raise it to 3 of the 4 institutions.


    the "UK" we are talking about is the actual bloody government, there is a key difference



    On a side topic I was recently commenting on a video on youtube about the recent issues in Northern Ireland and I encountered another user with the name Robert MC who had quite a silly response to me on the topic so I'm am curious now if you are the same mr MC or is it just strange coincidence.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,831 ✭✭✭RobMc59


    I have never commented on any videos on YouTube.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,961 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    Irish fisherman had no direct involvement.

    The UK government literally were at the table.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg




  • Registered Users Posts: 4,831 ✭✭✭RobMc59


    How the EU divide up their fishing quotas is nothing to do with the UK.



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,442 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    The point the poster is making about Irish fishermen is that as part of the EU they are quite entitled to lobby for additional quotas or changes to regs.

    The UK having left, and left on the basis that staying was too much to bear, and having a deal in place, one that they apparently wanted and won on election on the back of, have no right to complain.

    They can of course look for a different deal, but should do so through the normal channels and with the position that nothing can change until everything is agreed.

    The seem to believe that they are still members, that negotiations are still ongoing and that everything is still on the table.

    A simple solution is to pause Brexit, take a further two or three year extension, with the consequences such as continuing ECJ, paying into EU budget etc, and look to yet unknown solutions



  • Registered Users Posts: 18,921 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    Brexit's done. There's no option for "extending".

    They can discuss extensions to transition periods if they so wish, but they literally just turned down that option but a few weeks ago.

    We're at the "let them run and jump" point, again. Well, we would be if the man in the Taoiseach's office wasn't so useless and acquiescent.



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,442 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    Afaik, didn't they ask for an extension today?

    They couched it in terms of suspension of timetable or whatever but it is essentially an extension to the transition period.

    UK would agree to stay aligned to the EU for everything but claim they aren't.

    I can only see an advantage in that for the EU. Effectively kicking the can down the road and hoping that the UK eventually starts to see sense



  • Registered Users Posts: 33,372 ✭✭✭✭listermint


    Give them nothing. The Tories are slowly being found out. Giving them a leg up anywhere extends their reign of terror.


    You have to take the wording reign of terror in a literal sense. This extends to their oversight of hundreds of thousands of dead, mass deportations, hunger, tearing up social contracts , and removing foreign aid.

    Allow them continue. Because the lustre will vanish quickly.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,251 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Cutting foreign aid is seen as a good thing by British conservative supporters. The argument being that the money should be spent at home first. Then they go and do feck all for their own disadvantaged anyway.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 18,921 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation




  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    No; the UK were at the table when the WA was made. They were one of the parties that made it; it literally couldn't have been done without them.

    The Irish fishermen are not complaining about an allocation of fishing quotas that they made. But the UK literally is complaining about the treaty that it itself made.

    If the UK political establishment (a) really thought that the WA is a bad treaty; and (b) really took the UK seriously as a democratic sovereign nation, then Johnson and Frost would be out on their ears. They did this. They did this very deliberately and very intentionally. But now they are saying it was a bad thing to do. Why are they not being held to account?



  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    It is pretty much exactly the plan which Johnson tabled in September 2019, and which went nowhere then. So UK is basically making proposals which have already been rejected, and it is doing so at a time when it has much less negotiating clout and credibility than it had the first first time around. They cannot seriously expect this to go anywhere, and the signal they send by tabling such a hopeless proposal is that they have no real interest in a genuine negotiation. If you wanted a genuine negotiation, you wouldn't start this way.



  • Registered Users Posts: 17,568 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    Sammy Wilson vs Barry Andrews on NT just there, i dont think i need to go into much detail about how it went, sammy lied and then andrews and ciara kelly corrected him continuously.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,410 ✭✭✭KildareP


    This is Olympics grade obfuscation Rob.

    You brought up the comparison between Irish fishermen and the UK government.

    But to paraphrase you, the UK subsequently being unhappy with what they signed up to, but unable to offer anything in return or unprepared to offer any sweeteners for modifying that deal, is really no concern of the wider EU.

    Don't sign up to anything - be that a job, a mortgage, a mobile phone contract, a car loan, an international treaty - unless you're absolutely happy with what you are committing yourself to. And if you don't bother reading the contract, you don't have any right whatsoever to go back to the other side and say "Sorry, I didn't realise XYZ isn't going to work for me!" if it later transpires that what you signed up to doesn't really suit you after all. That's entirely your fault, not the other side, and refusing to release you out of your agreement is not overzealous, mean spirited, anti-democratic, belligerent or any other name the Brexiters have labelled at the EU.



  • Registered Users Posts: 44 MustangMick


    Yes all the way back in 2018 when Irish Government / Enterprise Ireland / Local Chambers of Commerce were running conventions and webinars on the basis that the UK would become a "3rd Country" (Deal or No Deal) Any (so called) "imposed restrictions on import/export to EU are the direct result of the UK (GB since NI protocol) of becoming a 3rd country....the so called "Australian Deal" the Tories were promoting.

    Its no more difficult than that.

    EU are not imposing any additional restrictions compared to any other "3rd country", in fact much less with all the exemptions and extensions the UK have been given in the WA and NI. Protocol. Other 3rd countries may withhold Trade deals because of all the special exemptions UK have been given so far.

    The difference between importing from Australia than your nearest trading neighbour is as it takes 6 weeks to get from Australia, so you have 6 WEEKS to sort out the paperwork for Import. Not 10 mins in a Ferry Port queue in France.

    Farmers and businesses in GB would cut off their arm to have the opportunities to sell within UK plus have free access to the EU Market

    Mick



  • Registered Users Posts: 19,015 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    And of course they did know what the terms meant. They signed the deal regardless, knowing they were going to repudiate it later. They are untrustworthy liars. The people of the UK should be embarrassed that these people represent them.



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,442 ✭✭✭✭Leroy42


    And the short sightedness of riding the vaccine 'its was Brexit wot won it' horse is hardly going to help.

    Johnson, and the rest of the government have been rubbing the EU noises for months over their supposed brilliance in terms of vaccines. Not only that, but they have also been at pains to claim that the EU were actually crap.

    Now, apparently, the UK are totally unable to implement the deal they negotiated. That they deemed a massive success.

    If I was VdL, and I accept she won't do this as she isn't childish, is that I would demand that before any discussions Johnson needs to publicly admit that the EU has done a reasonable job on vaccines, has continued to export vaccines to the UK to help it achieve its success and that Brexit had nothing to do with it.

    The problem, as I see it, is that the UK have still not faced up to reality. They still cannot accept that this is Brexit, this is what they wanted what they voted for.

    This is just the consequences of their own decisions. The irony of demanding freedom, and yet demanding that the EU gives them special treatment, appears totally lost on them.

    As mentioned, yesterday should have meant the collapse of the government. They rushed this through, ignored calls for greater scrutiny, ignored warnings of possible trouble.

    Looking to cancel this deal is undemocratic and it should be labelled as such. For a campaign that spends so much time complaining about the unelected bureaucrats of the EU, they are now confronted with those they elected on the basis of a particular deal unilaterally ripping that deal up without even a hint of asking what the voters think.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,246 CMod ✭✭✭✭Nody


    And in the "We're shocked I tell you, shocked" news of the day:

    Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng appears to have conceded that ministers did not know the full extent of what the Northern Ireland Protocol would, or could, mean for the island of Ireland until after Britain had already left the EU.

    And of course when the truth does not fit; blame EU!

    But presenter Kay Burley refuted this point. “When you said ‘nobody knew’, am I not right in saying that at least three previous prime ministers warned that this would happen?” she asked.


    After stumbling over his words to correct himself, Mr Kwarteng criticised the EU for being “inflexible”, adding “nobody thought the Protocol would define the role of Northern Ireland within the UK”.


    And before we get the usual "Well if borders goes up it's EU's fault" brigade; here's an international view from a US Congressman on the topic which states clearly were the blame lies:




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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 50,694 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    The baffling thing is that the NI Protocol is a stupid hill to die on. The Protocol leaves NI in a pretty good place in terms of trade, a best of both worlds really and only a few bone headed loyalist zealots are against it. I'm just baffled who the Tories are fighting for. Their electorate couldn't give a ****. The vast majority in the North would support the protocol. And the Loyalists fighting it are too stupid to realise they are shooting themselves in the foot and will never vote tory anyway. Unless anyone can explain otherwise it really just seems to be the Tory party being extremely petty. Brexit has been a complete shitshow for them and they need to distract the masses away from that news and fighting the NI Protocol is their only way of trying to make an enemy out of the EU to distract the masses from their growing collection of colossal **** ups.

    Post edited by Retr0gamer on


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