The Irish protocol.

Doesn't tally very well with your previous statement;

So there is a border in the Irish Sea but it isn't a border?

I admire your confidence, Peregrinus 😂

Predictions are all laid bare now. That being said, I might hedge my bet a little with a second alternative prediction; Downcow may also come back and claim that they never actually claimed that they would win the court case (along with demanding quotes that state so explicitly), but just asked us to have the courage of our convictions to voice our predictions that they wouldn't.

So to avoid that and to ensure we DO have a direct quote should our own prediction be accurate, I'll turn your request back on you @downcow. Will you have the balls to say you'll be surprised if they DON'T win their case in the end? To be clear, we're talking about winning the actual case in court, not some abstract moral victory you can claim you meant all along.

Pigs might also fly downcow.

No I don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of winning and ultimately my opinion is 'so what if they do?' But that doesn't rule out the possibility that they may win.

The onus is back on Unionists and the UK if they do win, not us and the EU. That is WHAT they will win. Good luck foisting that mess back on the UK.

I addressed this in an earlier post in this thread. Such is the crapulousness of Boards these days that I cannot work out how to quote that post here, so I'll just copy-and-paste the relevant bit:

"So it seems their strategy is to ask the court to rule that the regulations adopting the consent mechanism are legally invalid, on the grounds - a degree of guesswork on my part here - that Lewis had no power to amend the NI Act 1998, or at any rate that he had no power to amend it in this particular way, by adding this particular consent mechanism.

As pointed out in my earlier post, should they succeed in this, the (legal) result is not that the Protocol is removed and replaced, or anything of the kind. Legally, it would continue to apply and, in the absence of any valid consent mechanism, it would apply indefinitely. The fundraising page is tactfully silent on the question of how they hope to get from successfully attacking the consent mechanism to getting the Protocol removed and replaced.

I think - more guesswork - they could be thinking of two possible avenues:

One: If the current consent mechanism is invalidated by the courts, the UK is under an obligation - ironically, set out in the hated Protocol itself - to introduce a valid one. Their hope may be that the UK will make regulations applying the existing “petition of concern” mechanism to this question, and they reckon they can block consent with this mechanism.

Not a very realistic hope, to be honest, and even if it comes to pass they’d still be stuck with the protocol until 2024, which is very much not what they want. So they may be placing more hope in . . .

Two: A court order invalidating even part of the implementation of the Protocol will bring renewed political pressure to bear on the UK government. They’ll have to do something, and the something that they will do will be limited by the fact that they can no longer get away with bare-faced lies about the protocol not obstructing GB:NI trade, etc, etc. The pressure will force the UK either to repudiate the Protocol and suffer the consequences or, more realistically, to try to renegotiate the Protocol with the EU into something that creates less of an NI:GB barrier.

This, too, is not a massively strong hope. Johnson got away with telling barefaced lies the first time around, and it was widely pointed out at the time that they were barefaced lies. Anybody who cared about this issue then was wholly aware of what Johnson was doing and what the consequences for NI would be. And, as Johnson’s superpower has always been telling barefaced lies and being forgiven for it, there is no reason to think that that strategy will fail him now. If the court action forces Johnson to do something, Johnson will do something, and claim that the something he has done has solved the problem, a claim which will be accepted by everybody who matters (matters to Johnson, that is). And indeed it will have solved the problem, if you think the problem is Johnson’s political embarrassment. But it will certainly not have solved the problem, if you think the problem is the NI Protocol. Johnson will not approach the EU to renegotiate the NI Protocol because it's a racing certainty that the EU would (a) refuse, and (b) point out to Johnson that if he needs or wants to reduce NI:GB barriers there are lots of things the UK can do to bring that about without amending or replacing the Protocol."

No they aren't.

Like first time around, it will be a question for those who want their cake. Remember first time around downcow? It was the UK who had the onus on them to come up with a solution that remained inside the criteria laid down by existing international agreements.

They tried several times and failed (because of Unionism) and eventually achieved an 'oven ready' deal - the WA (inc The Protocol)

Everyone else had to sit on their hands waiting for the UK to come up with this proposal.

That is what will happen again. So unless you guys have figured out a 'new' way to solve the issues then you have zero strategy/forward planning.

Yes there is. The Protocol was necessary to get a WA.

That is something the UK needs if it wants a trade agreement with the EU.

If you don't want that and take NI with you, then what is the 'plan/strategy'?

Do you seriously believe you can collapse the Protocol and replace it with nothing? 😁

they wished for brexit and we all know the outcome of that ......