Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

that sounds good if one only looks at one parameter , but ommits that also the euro, for the first time ever i think ,fell bellow parity to the dollar in the last few weeks. and that apart in 2018 where the pound was a good bit stronger than the euro , the pound and euro are relatively syscronised since the brexit referendum.

And, interestingly, the person he blames for this is Crawford Falconer, the UK's Chief Trade Negotiator and Interim Permanent Secretary of the Dept of International Trade. You may remember Crawford as the New Zealander that the May government headhunted in 2017, to great Brexiter acclaim, to bring high-level experience of international trade negotiations (he had done this job for New Zealand) and a proper Brexity attitude (he was involved with the Legatum Institute) to the implementation of Brexit.

And Eustice himself is a longstanding Brexiter — he came into the Tories via UKIP.

Eustice's complaint, specifically, is that the UK publicly committed itself to an early trade deal with Australia, and this gave the Australians a strong hand — they knew if they stood their ground the UK would cave to avoid missing their self-imposed deadline. And Crawford duly caved.

But, of course, the need for a quick deal was itself driven by Brexiters — they were desperate to secure a trade deal with a country that the EU didn't already have a trade deal with, so they could point to it as a plausible "Brexit benefit". That was the reason for the breakneck speed and the self-imposed deadline. Yes, the Australians took advantage of this. They had previously said, in as many words, that they would, so nobody should have been in the least surprised.

In short, what we have here is a Brexiter complaining about the implementation of Brexit by other Brexiters on terms driven by the needs of the Brexit movement itself.

This comes just days after Brexiter Lord Wolfson, CEO of Marks and Spencer, whose business is badly affected by Brexit, complained that real-world Brexit is "not the Brexit I voted for", while noted Brexiter Theresa Villiers objects to the pet project of noted Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg to scrap all UK laws derived from the EU as "unworkable and unnecessary".

Brexiters criticising Brexit as implemented by other Brexiters. Expect a lot more of this as they all try to distance themselves from the harm they have done

yes i saw that it had fallen bellow parity when it was still a virtual currency, so it should say it fell the first time bellow parity since it became a real currency. so point taken.

i would argue that the pound had an unusual high point in 2016 and if we were to take the average since 2008 after the financial crises when the pound took a real dive , we could say the pound has not really lost against the euro since 2008.

and since we are at 2008 it shoes the the uk have struggled a lot with market confidence before brexit . what iam trying to say here there was a lot of problems the uk had before brexit that have not changed after brexit, and i dont think we can use them as brexit arguments. what i am saying would cconsumer confidence in the uk higher if they were still in the eu. maybe a bit better but not good either i guess

and neither would i think that uk gov is more unstable than the quoted italy. the only pm that really fell over brexit was theresa may . boris as bad as he was had partygate, and lizz would likely have tried this if uk was still in eu.

so of course i think we can fairly clearly say brexit is having an negative impact and the 4 percent projection was likely quite good . but we have to be careful what is brexit impact and what would have happened if britain had stayed in the eu. i guess its fair to say it would not have prospered either .

or in other words the eu is only useful for countries that want to make it work , and a well govered country could still do better outside the eu than a badly governed country inside the eu . badly governed outside the eu is of course the worst case scenario.

Not sure about any preference to rejoin, I think that is an argument that is many years away from being won.

What I do think is happening is people are, rightly, questioning just when these glorious benefits are going to materialise. It all sounds great talking up the supposed benefits of Brexit, but people want to see it for themselves. Nurses can't get a payrise, food bank usage is massively up, big projects like HS2 are being postponed.

After a while, people don't care about why the problems exist, only that the MP's should be doing something to solve them.

And when the likes of Hunt and Sunak cannot even bring themselves to admit that Brexit is causing problems people see that as they are more concerned with shifting the blame than actually dealing with the consequences.

The last GE in 2019 was won, and lost, on getting Brexit done. The next election will be about what is in it for me. The Tories are going to have a really tough time trying to convince anyone that they have the answers.

Plus we've seen the likes of Farage and Banks attacking Sunak as an "elitist" and a "globalist" - despite the fact he was a committed Brexiteer in 2016. The whole movement is an absurdity.

I couldn't help referring back to what the Daily Telegraph said about this Australian deal at the time, once you got past their triumphant headlines the main body of the text reporting on that agreement was pretty damning.

Here's what I posted back then. Ah, nostalgia!!!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117444245/#Comment_117444245

Thanks for that.

Results night starts page 26. Its mad reading through and reliving it. Tis also gas seeing the few "EU is finished" posters and the ones playing down NI issues.

It also took us at least 12 Brexit threads before "Brexit got done"

A few points about the right/wrong to leave poll:

This question has been regularly polled by YouGov since the UK left at the start of 2020, going on for 3 years ago.

Initially “right to leave” consistently led, but in March-May 2021 opinions crossed over, and since early June “wrong to leave” has consistently been ahead of “right to leave”.

“Wrong to leave” first hit 50% in November 2021. It hasn’t fallen below 50% at any time since May 2022. 

“Don’t knows” have been a pretty stable 10-14% all along. It doesn’t appear that the shift in opinion is a result of the previously undecided making up their minds. Rather, people who were of one opinion have changed to the other.

Other dismal findings for the government: 23% think the government is handling Brexit well. This is the lowest at any time since Brexit. 65% think the government is handling it badly; this is the highest. Again, the don’t knows (12%) have barely moved.

On the other hand, the fact that a substantial majority think Brexit was a mistake and that the government is handling it badly does not mean that a similar majority wants another referendum or that, if there were to be another referendum, they would vote to rejoin. People might think, for instance, that it was a mistake to leave but that it would not be desirable to rejoin if rejoining meant, e.g., accepting the euro. 

Nevertheless it is striking that that a persistent, substantial and growing majority think Brexit was a mistake, but neither of the major parties are willing to be critical of Brexit, or to acknowledge any links between Brexit and the UK’s current woes. And the result of this is that, on the question “which political party would be best at handling Brexit?”, 21% plump for the Tories and 19% for Labour. Those figures are dwarfed by the 46% who answer either “none” (27%) or “don’t know” (19%). It looks from this as if there should be a significant reward available to the party that will engage honestly with Brexit and reflect the concerns of the majority about it, but at the moment neither of the majors wants to claim that reward.

An extraordinary aspect of the Brexit disaster is that the party which caused it and enacted it and the media who were the cheerleaders for it are all still in position. So as 'elephants in the room' go, this is a gigantic one - they can't bring themselves to admit the scale of the disaster, because this would mean they (the Tories and their numerous right wing press pals and the billionaire newspaper owners) having to admit they caused the whole thing and did huge damage to their country.

Brexit taking a hammering on BBC Question Time this evening and the audience applauding every attack on it.

Looks like all the bluster and denials from the disciples is not cutting through at all.

The core brexiter vote probably can't define either a gerbil or a combine harvester. its all about the feelings

@ancapailldorcha wrote "Next election will be interesting. We'll be told that Labour wants to balloon the public debt and hike taxes when the Tories tried the former and then had to do the latter to fix their mistake."

i have said here before that there is an opportunity for a political party to call out the nonsense of Brexit. But it will not be the Labour party under Keir Starmer.

If you check out Labours website you will see that Keir Starmer intends to make Brexit work. I quote

"Setting out Britain’s relationship with Europe under a Labour government, Starmer will say: “With Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.” He will add: “We will not return to freedom of movement to create short term fixes. Instead we will invest in our people and our places, and deliver on the promise our country has.”

It is as likely that a new Tory leader will emerge to do a U-Turn on Brexit.