Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

I'm an Irishman who has lived in the UK for 20 years but the suggestion that the Brits are full of whatever you think they're full of and that panic has set in over the Brexit not being what they were promised is not a country I recognise.

Brexit is barely mentioned these days and Northern Ireland even less so.Apart from a few die-hard online Leavers most people have accepted it and moved on.I don't see much buyer's remorse anywhere,particularly as the warnings of doom,widespread job losses, shortages in the shops,lorry stacks in Kent,disruption to medical supplies etc have all failed to happen.

That's not to say that any or all of those things might not still happen once the Covid pandemic is over but for the moment most people I know at least seem unconcerned about events which seem to exercise the minds of people on the other side of the Irish Sea much more.

And calling them thick or having been sold a kipper is not going to make them change their minds.

It's why Johnson's Tory party remains consistently ahead of Labour in the polls. They understand the electorate far better than Her Majesty's official opposition and have done so for some considerable period of time.Remember the Tories have 164 seats more than Labour. 164!

Petty and vindictive? If the UK didn't like the deal, why didn't they reject it, after all, we were assured on about 6 billion occasions, that no deal was better than a bad deal

The Johnson government deliberately waited until the very last moment to publish anything related to the deal in a deliberate attempt to avoid any kinds of scrutiny and ram it through Parliament

Johnson signed this deal not caring what was in it, because had no intention of ever following anything he agreed to

The EU acted in good faith throughout the entire 5 year negotiation period. May, and Johnson did nothing but try to pander to the extremist elements in their own party and use their own population and peace on these islands as hostages against the EU to try to get them to deliver them some kind of victory that would satisfy the lunatics who had taken over the Asylum (the ERG and populists like Johnson)

Do other posters ever read what Brexiteers say?

[quote]The UK can unilaterally end the agreement, then what's the EU going to do? Per EU law the Irish Republic has to enforce border controls on the Northern Ireland border, the UK need not. Then the Irish Republic violates the GFA, and it's not the UKs responsibility.[/quote]

https://www.city-data.com/forum/united-kingdom/3124200-brexit-here-104.html

NI and the border are just pawns to be used to suit the Brexit agenda.

I'm no legal expert either and just following this lengthy saga with interest in the media.

Apart from the text, there is an FAQ document and a presentation about aspects of the Withdrawal agreement in plainer language on the Europa website.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/relations-united-kingdom/eu-uk-withdrawal-agreement_en

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_104

and there are similar available for the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation agreement (TCA). e.g. about the governance structures/dispute mechanisms etc.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/slides_on_governance_and_enforcement_1.pdf

From a look at first link, the "dispute" process within the Withdrawal agreement appears very slow and legalistic to me. The ultimate place it ends up (after an Arbitration panel and possibly the CJEU rules in the EU favour and there is no satisfaction coming from the UK) would allow the EU to suspend the Withdrawal agreement (excluding Citizen's rights parts) or portions of any other agreements the UK has made with the EU (e.g. TCA say).

However, the mechanisms for a response within the TCA appear to be faster (there are "safeguarding/remedial" measures [p11] alongside the "dispute" mechanisms). So I think if the EU or UK deems that agreement is being breached by the other in some way they can retaliate against it almost immediately and then let the correctness (i.e. legality) of the action be sorted out after the fact by dispute mechanisms. It seems the EU Commission can decide to do this itself which is I suppose is what you'd expect as TCA is a trade agreement. Maybe that ability to retaliate fast is standard for such trade agreements (? again no expert), but I wonder if it reflects a lack of mutual trust after how the withdrawal process went. After a year of Covid-19 and the UKs selfish actions and unhelpfulness around vaccine procurement not to mention NI Protocol mess, I imagine trust between the EU and UK and between the UK and member states must be completely in the toilet!

However I'm unsure what it all actually means if EU and member states conclude the UK is not implementing the NI protocol at all + has no intentions of ever doing so, rather than this being some dispute over aspect of implementation. That document from UK government was asking to suspend NI Protocol and reopen some new negotiations outside it. It is not (I think?) calling on these dispute mechanisms within Withdrawal agreement itself. e.g: if they think the Customs checks for NI, data sharing etc. the EU is now expecting are disproportionate & unenvisaged in the Protocol somehow.

So Europe is as much an issue for the electorate now as it was when Dave called his pointless referendum back in 2015. Isn't that the real tragedy of It? And we know the average mainlander, for want of a better phrase, hasn't the first notion about anything to do with NI and probably could care less if it was cut off and left to drift up the North Sea. No news there.

The conclusion is that the Orange folks (the real ones, the Dutch) are 58% more efficient at carrying physical checks. 😎

Poots should build proper custom posts so that the EU staff can be properly "orange" and match the Orange folks' productivity. After all, the DUP love the orange colour...

Not a bargaining chip. It's basically the only card they can play to destabilise, threaten and blackmail the EU. They want and need a permanent conflict and instability with regards the EU. Honestly, Frost et al are fast approaching Russian foreign policy tactics at this stage.

But there was no public clamour for a vote before 2016, it never registered with the electorate as an issue of significance until Cameron made it happen and suddenly the idea of being free and independent again, of sticking one to fritz and, whisper It, getting a few undesirables out, began to have its appeal. I'm not having a go, brexit is complex and difficult and beyond the scope of most ordinary people to grasp or even have a genuine interest in. I think in many cases it was just a temporary fix for lots of people, a shot in the arm and probably worth paying a price to get it.

I presume the likes of Orban can always be counted on for support but i think the most important capital in all this might be Washington. Fudge does seem inevitable though, i think you are correct there.

Ha - not sure where that (58 %) comes from. Looking at what the article calls the "physical checks" (seem to be the most disruptive type of the 3 and there's also figures stated for both edit: NI and Rotterdam to compare)...The 70 staff in Rotterdam are doing 843 of these "physical checks" per year each, vs 266 per year each for the 15 in NI.

So 200 % more checks per year each than the unfortunate/fortunate staff in NI - yay!

The NI physical checks would make up ~ 6 % of an estimated combined total over the 2 months (666/(666 + 9833)). That seems quite high given NI is small and there must be massive vols of trade through Rotterdam, but as mentioned it is a weird situation. It can be nowhere near the "20 % of checks across the entire EU external border" UK govt. is making out. 

They must be comparing apples and oranges (!) somehow when it comes to these "checks" to come up with 20 % if figures in RTÉ article are right so the stat is misleading.

I would say they have stopped discussing it - but that is 'not' the same thing as Brexit having gone away. How can it? The UK has a political and economic bloc of 450m right on its doorstep and the relationship with it is fractious.

Brexit is not over or settled, even if the organ grinders in the English tabloids don't wish to discuss it.

Most Britains wanted some Covid restrictions to remain in place in the run up to 'freedom day' and YouGov polls have a majority of people saying Johnson is performing badly. Like you say the facts are clearly there to see so I don't know where you're getting your belief that polls are saying the exact opposite to what they actually are.

Lol. I don't remember "vote leave to make things better in 10 or 20 years" on the side of any bus.