Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Yeah, but who's going to harvest those crops?

We finally get down to what Brexit was really about. Big companies upset that the EU tries to do evil things like protect it's citizens from dodgy GM crops and chlorinated chickens.

Very depressing watching this play out. Assuming this UK govt. lasts the whole term and can get their agenda done, I think this sort of regulation drift is going to f-ck Ireland eventually (thanks to the NI border fudge). I don't expect govt. here are up to challenges like that. To be fair, it would be a very difficult situation even for a competently run country that can make plans and implement them (Ireland usually has the planning/implementation abilities of a chicken whose head has been just chopped off). I get extremely pessimistic about this situation at times.

I think it is clever in so far as it plays on the liberal metropolitan elite narrative. They've convinced people in some of the most deprived areas of England that they, the party that has been in power for a decade, are the ones to give those media studies Islington dwellers a kicking and to provide places like Doncaster, Blackpool and Bolton a financial boost.

If Theresa May or John Major fronted this slogan then you would think maybe, MAYBE, but to have Boris Johnson, a man who wouldn't waste his urine on you if you were on fire, be the person to push this slogan is equal parts amazing and also reflective of idiocy/desperation (choose your own word) of the electorate.

It is a "fudge" in reality because the UK has not properly implemented the agreement (NI Protocol) which is supposed to protect the EU market from smuggled goods or the likes of unregulated non EU GM foods and hormone-treated or chlorine washed meat, and may never implement it fully or even renege on it if they get up the gumption; they want to but are afraid IMO. However, NI border with Ireland is a very real external border of the EU post Brexit with all that implies.

I don't know? Nothing too serious other than perhaps (??) some diversion of Irish imports from UK to come via NI to avoid more extensive customs in Irish ports. These won't go beyond this island by definition, so they aren't much of a problem for anyone except us.

The (stated) direction of travel of the UK post Brexit (deliberate divergance from EU regulations) is quite concerning though, hence my first post/response to that BBC GM crops deregulation story.

For the UK govt., I think NI and its border with Ireland is just a handy tool to be deployed to damage the EU or gain leverage over it. As you say they don't actually care about NI or the DUP. The damage that tool might suffer as they wield it is of no concern to them whatsoever.

There have been limits to how far they have gone in using that tool, not because they care about upholding treaties but because they are afraid of the EU and US reaction. However, unfortunately there is nothing that can make the UK keep its agreements if they are willing to suffer the (possibly considerable) pain of not doing so.

On the contrary, I think the Americans had more genuine interest in science and space exploration. They've been at the forefront of science for well over a century. Yes, there was certainly a propaganda element to the space race via the Cold War, but they had no real need to prove themselves.....they were already perceived by everyone as the richest and most powerful country on the planet.

The space race and the Cold War were very real. However, the bid to put men in space and on the moon would almost certainly have happened anyway, even if the Soviet Union didn't exist. Once rockets had been developed by von Braun in 1944, everything that happened afterwards was inevitable. The only difference might have been the timeframe, it may have taken longer.

In brexit news, The Labour party have announced that they are going to 're-open brexit talks' with the EU if they get into power after the next election

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-labour-boris-johnson-deal-keir-starmer-david-lammy-b1928982.html

Thereby proving that the Labour party under Starmer are just as delusional or dishonest as the Tories. The EU will not re-open negotiations over the brexit deal.

Brexit is over, the deal is done, as far as the EU are concerned.

Any new negotiation is not a brexit negotiation, it is the UK coming cap in hand to the EU begging to be let back into the customs union or single market, in the hope that relationships aren't so badly damaged that the EU will consider their application in a timely manner.

The EU may consider a genuine request to re-join the Customs Union or single market, but at that stage, they might as well be restarting accession talks because Brexit has absoliutely no benefit to the UK without the unicorn promises of 'global Britain' pursuing its own trade deals around the world

The Brexit deal as negotiated is definitely closed, but he said Britain is always welcome to negotiate a closer future relationship, which let's face it means a customs union with the bloc, membership of the EEA or full application for rejoining the bloc with the previous optouts.

Honestly I can't see a UK ever rejoining the EU, but further domestic decline may refocus the narrative in Britain. Perhaps five years from now a narrative may take hold whereby the previous EU membership wasn't good enough because of the optouts etc..

Their fondness for fantasy means anything is possible really.

The GB identifier was chosen in 1910, under the Paris Convention with respect to the International Circulation of Motor Vehicles. The "GB" code was the UK government's choice. At the time, the UK referred to itself internationally as "Great Britain and Ireland", in much the way that France was (and is) called "France" rather than "French Republic".

So, nothing to do with the EU, or with Brexit. They could have changed it at any time.

Although the UK has now chosen "UK" as its identifier, "GB" lives on in GBA, GBG, GBJ, GBM and GBZ, the identifiers for Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey, Man and Gibraltar respectively. I don't know if the governments of any of these territories have any plans to request the UK government to make changes on their behalf.