Brexit: A New Era for the UK?

[Stavros]

I woke up this morning for the first time in 47 years in a country that is no longer part of the European project that was launched in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome. The trade deal with the EU that was signed before Christmas is over 1,000 pages long and contains a 'wealth' of detail that I am sure will emerge as the year rolls on. We know now that producers of Sausage and minced meat will no longer be able to export their products to the EU chilled -they must either be deep frozen, or cooked -in both cases incurring extra costs, on top of the customs forms that must be filled in. Indeed, while there is 'tariff free' trade with the EU's Single Market, the extra costs of the paperwork alone suggest that while they might not be tariffs on goods, the UK must pay in another way to export to the EU. And Northern Ireland remains in the Customs Union with regard to goods.

Again, free movement has come to an end, yet the Common Travel Agreement that was first signed with Ireland in 1923 remains unaltered, and at the last minute, the UK and Spain agreed to allow Gibraltar to remain in the Schengen Zone with free movement in an out of Spain, though as with other aspects of the Trade Agreement, including fishing quotas, these are all subject to review over the next five years.

If one were to try and be positive, the argument would look like this. The UK opted out of the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s but by the 1960s the simple economic fact of life was that with industry in decline, the UK needed to join trading blocs to expand its opportunities. It was thus a founder member of the European Free Trade Area in 1960, and by 1972 this bloc had recorded increases in growth for its members, so the step forward to the EEC in 1973 was a logical conclusion of this trend.

The difference now, is that with the service sector accounting for 80% of the UK economy, the reasons that led the UK into the EEC/EU no longer retain their importance. Moreover, because the City of London has retained its status as a major financial hub, the argument is that it will not only retain this over the next ten years but that it gives the UK the potential to become a Singapore off the coast of Europe. Or, the City will retain its status, but not become that Singapore, because the decline of financial passporting will not make London an attractive and practical gateway into the EU for non-EU states with investment capital directed there. One the one hand growth, on the other, decline.

Every potential benefit also contains a potential threat.

Another difference, is that while manufacturing has declined, it has not disappeared, and if, for example, we see a transition over the next 10-20 years away from petroleum based energy to renewables, and notably the growth of UK based electric vehicle manufacture, there is no reason why we should not be making a new generation of vehicles in the UK. Or, the fact is that automation means that even new start ups in vehicle manufacture do not create thousands of jobs. And, Ineos proposed to build a new generation of 4x4 vehicles in Bridgend in Wales, but have since pulled out to make them in France.

So on the one hand the UK is a diferent country, economically, than it was in 1973, and has its services sector plugged into the Global economy from which it should still benefit without being in the EU. But, the profile for jobs does not suggest the benefits will be wide-spread, the profile for income might be better but the Government will not want to impose high taxes on the few successful industries we have, and the UK enters a new era with a colossal debt problem exacerbated by the costs of Covid which must result in an increase in income and secondary taxes some time soon rather than never.

I therefore suggest that it will take time for the full impact of Brexit to be felt, that pre-existing problems related to debt and the costs of Covid-19 will undermine any economic growth that might result from Brexit and that at the very least the word 'disappointing' will dominate the news this year.

But the UK was never in favour of the 'Ever Closer Union' that has been at the core of the European Project and is in the first sentence of every treaty agreed since 1957. In the end, the irony of this Brexit project, is that it was primarily political rather than economic, but that the result mght be a decline in the economy relative to the EU, and a legacy of bitterness and division that threatens to end the very Union that defines the United Kingdom.

Other views are available.

[Stavros]

From a short statement, the fact that with Brexit, the UK has lost access to the EU's Galileo satellite system, in which it had invested £1.2 billion, with its replacement, OneWeb, collapsing into insignificance at a cost to the taxpayer of £500 million.

This is what the Government website stated last week:

"The UK no longer participates in the EU Galileo or EGNOS programmes.
...
Areas where UK involvement has come to an end The UK:


does not use Galileo (including the future Public Regulated Service (PRS)) for defence or critical national infrastructure
does not have access to the encrypted Galileo Public Regulated Service
cannot play any part in the development of Galileo
cannot play any part in the development of EGNOS
from 25 June 2021 UK users will not be able to use the EGNOS SoL service and the EGNOS Working Agreements (EWAs), which will no longer be recognised by the EU

This also means that UK-based businesses, academics and researchers cannot bid for future EU GNSS contracts and may face difficulty carrying out and completing existing contracts."
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-involvement-in-the-eu-space-programme


To compensate for this loss, and to create its own alternative, the UK goverment invested in a firm called OneWeb (with thanks to super-high-tech genius Dominic Cummings). As reported in the Financial Times in July this year-

"Downing Street pushed ahead with an investment in a bankrupt satellite operator as part of its post-Brexit independent space strategy despite a top civil servant warning the “unusual” deal could see taxpayers losing the entire $500m with “no wider benefits accrued”. The UK won the auction for satellite broadband operator OneWeb with a joint $1bn bid with India’s Bharti Enterprises earlier this month. Under the deal the British government will invest $500m for an initial stake of about 45 per cent in the unprofitable company, which is building a low-earth orbit satellite broadband network."
https://www.ft.com/content/d0721bad-e721-457a-8b1c-b11500f6bb6a

That this investment was sanctioned without the formal scrutiny one expects from HM Treasury, that other experts were incredulous that the UK would not seek to re-negotiate access to Galileo but invest in a dud firm, is exposed to ridicule with the classic comment from Business Secretary Alok Sharma-
"“I have been informed that even with substantial haircuts to OneWeb’s base case financial projections the investment would have a positive return,”".

Some haircut. OneWeb went the way of most internet bubble companies, taking £500 million of taxpayers money with it and leaving the UK outside the very system that works which it contributed to for years in terms of money and brains, the latter being absent in the government of Boris Johnson. Well, at least it helped show Dominic Cummings the door -but should anyone else be accountable?

A comprehensive account of this fiasco is here, and highly recommended to all-

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/06/30/uks-rival-to-galileo-a-brexit-farce/

[Laphroaig]

Last I heard they were grovelling to be allowed back into the Galileo program. That was a few months ago though and I've not read anything about it since.

[Jericho]

We've royally fucked ourselves...The END!

[Stavros]

Congratulations to BBC journalist Faisal Islam for identfying some of the bizarre details in the EU-UK Trade Agreement -it relates to tariff free trade, but the way in which 'tariff free' is defined when specific goods are challenged on a 'Rules of Origin' agreement so that they are not, in fact, tariff free...

He has identified Grated Cheese, the Shelling of Nuts, the Assembly of a Table, and Doll's Eyes which, if exported to the EU, could have tariffs imposed if the products violate the 'Rules of Origin' agreement that the EU and UK have signed. Thus

“if the only operation that is performed on (imported EU) cheese is grating in a manner that does not require special skills” - [it] won’t qualify..."

"Nuts from the EU can contribute towards something qualifying as made in Britain, and this for zero tariffs, only if sufficiently processed. “All shelling of nuts is an insufficient process, even if machinery is used” as this is too “simple”..."

"A wooden table that was assembled in the UK from non UK desktop and and leg “will not be considered originating in the UK” even if both were sourced from the EU as “bilateral cumulation could not apply”.

"If eyes of a doll made in Britain did not come from the UK or EU, then doll could not qualify for tariff free trade with EU. But if the eyes and all other non originating material in same tariff category were less than 10% of value, Govt would tolerate it."

Faisal Islam provides the detail in the detail which either makes for hilarious reading, or anxiety for exporters....or just Why? from people like me.

Get stuck into the use of the word 'Simple' in his exposition-
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1344025083803787267

[Stavros]

Another day, another lost sandwich...

"Dutch TV news has aired footage of customs officers confiscating ham sandwiches from drivers arriving by ferry from the UK under post-Brexit rules banning personal imports of meat and dairy products into the EU.
Officials wearing high-visibility jackets are shown explaining to startled car and lorry drivers at the Hook of Holland ferry terminal that since Brexit, “you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news), like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff.”
To a bemused driver with several sandwiches wrapped in tin foil who asked if he could maybe surrender the meat and keep just the bread, one customs officer replied: “No, everything will be confiscated. Welcome to Brexit, sir, I’m sorry.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/11/dutch-officials-seize-ham-sandwiches-from-british-drivers

[Stavros]

The Scottish Fishing industry, depending on who you are and where you are, is either on the point of collapse (Scotland) or merely having to deal with the 'teething problems' (England) that are part of thet transition away from the EU. Fish and live seafood that used to be landed on the coast and shipped to the Continent within 24 hours have been rotting away because the new regulations require significantly more paperwork per delivery than was the case before, while the delay has meant the catch has led major distributors to ask Scottish fishermen to stop fishing until the backlog of cases has been cleared, thus-

"The prices of some Scottish seafood are down 40 to 50 percent this week, dropping 80 percent in some instances. "This is because processors and intermediaries are not buying, as they are not guaranteed to be able to sell seafood on to EU customers because they can't get it out of the UK," said industry body Seafood Scotland in a statement (https://twitter.com/SeafoodFromScot/status/1349652442066149376?s=20). They call it a "seafood crisis."
"Issues from computer failure to lack of clarity on paperwork have rendered some Scottish companies' efforts to export seafood all but impossible," they added. Last week, they pointed out, a Scottish seafood company that usually sells £1 million worth of seafood into the EU each week was only able to sell £12,000."
https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-drives-scottish-seafood-crisis-not-happier-fish/

The Scots are blaming the English, not least because the Fisheries Minister admitted she had been too busy organizing a Nativity Trail last Christmas and thus had not actually read that part of the EU-UK Trade Agreement dealing with fishing, while the English have blamed the SNP Government-

"A UK Government spokeswoman said: “We are working closely with the industry to help understand and address the issues they are experiencing, including contacting exporters, their representatives and transporters to advise on the requirements for keeping their goods moving.
“The Scottish Government cannot abdicate their responsibilities to Scottish businesses. Over the past 18 months they have assured the fishing industry that the systems they were putting in place would be adequate. They clearly are not.
“The Scottish Government need to step up and ensure there are no delays to food exports being checked at hubs in their area.
“We have given the Scottish Government nearly £200m to prepare for leaving the EU, to minimise disruption and guarantee business readiness.”
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/more-delays-for-scottish-seafood-firms-exporting-to-europe?top

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has pledged £100 million in compensation (is that all?) for the failure of his Brexit Project, while the Leader of the House of Commons, said the Government was 'tackling' the matter, but that

"The key is we've got our fish back. They're now British fish. They're better and happier fish for it.”

Hmmm...Yesterday I interviewed a Langoustine, Auld Lang Stein, and he told me he was fed up. "I have been yanked out of my bed to sit here in a box freezing to death on a miserable, wet Scottish afternoon when I shoud be all dressed up and on a plate in Paris- I mean, I promised the wife..."

[Stavros]

As described above, the Scottish fishing industry is in crisis. But not accordig to the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab-

"Faced with warnings that the Scottish fishing industry is “drowning under red tape” and that generations-old firms could collapse in a matter of days, the foreign secretary claimed he was “not convinced” that the chaos was a result of Brexit."

“I think this is a great deal for the fishing industry, both short-term and long-term. We get control over our fisheries back, full control as an independent coastal state. There’s an immediate 15 per cent uplift in terms of our access to fisheries for the UK sector in the first year. That rises to two thirds in the five-year transition period, then we have annual negotiations.
“And of course, the fishing industry is going to want to increase its capacity to take advantage of those increased stocks, and that’s why we’re putting in £100m to shore up, to strengthen the fishing industry right across the whole of the UK to make sure that this really important opportunity of leaving the EU can be properly grasped.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-news-live-brexit-starmer-latest-b1788497.html?page=3#post-410271

Dominic Raab is a contributor to the Libertarian pamphle Britannia Unchained which heralds the UK's exit from the EU as an opportunity to eliminate red tape, EU regulations, and return UK financial contributions to the UK. Yet not only has leaving the EU created more layers of regulations for exporters than they had when the UK was a full member of the Single Market, Raab defends the £100 million injection of funds into a market that in Britannia Unchained he says the Govt neither needs to, nor should interfere with. The reality is that if he were Libertarian in practice as he is in print, the Govt would not be giving the fishing industry a hundred pence, never mind a hundred million quid. From where I am sitting, the market has failed, and Raab is a blithe spirit in the 'throw money at the problem' claque in Downing St, which is another way of saying he doesn't really care about the problems Scotland has, which in any event are now dismissed as 'teething problems', as if our friends in the North were toddlers.

To say the UK's fishermen now own more of their stock is beside the point, when the primary market for the fish is next door on the Continent, and some of the most lucrative seafood is expected to go from coast to cutlery in 24 hours, or perish and be worth nothing. Perhaps Mr Raab should go to Scotland and talk to the fishermen and the workers in the packing and processing plants many of whom could lose their jobs, for he is Foreign Secretary. Think of it as a dry run for a future when Scotland is no longer part of the UK - and in present circumstances, who can blame them for going solo?

[Stavros]

The Brexit Levies continue to wreak havoc to British business. Either the incompetent fools we call 'The British Government' swallow their pride and re-negotiate the Trade Agreement, or more jobs and livelihoods will go.

It beggars belief, but the Department for International Trade is recommending to UK Businesses that they seek entry into the EU Single Market that the UK has left!

Here-

"British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/08/business-finds-snags-in-johnsons-jumbo-tariff-free-brexit), the Observer can reveal.
In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/23/brexit-hit-firms-advised-government-officials-set-up-shop-in-eu

The Brexit Levies do not just affect Fish or Ham Sandwiches, but also Cheese, tourisng Musicians -and Bananas, there must be Bananas in this farce.

Bananas
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-tariffs-bananas-africa-farmers-b1791225.html

Cheese
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/23/cheshire-cheesemaker-says-business-left-with-250000-brexit-hole

William Keegan's article today
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/24/brexit-has-left-us-all-at-sea-even-the-fishing-industry

[Stavros]

Another robust article by Rafael Behr, for example-

"Were it not for the pandemic, loose ends and lost jobs would be making more headlines. Whether they would also be changing public opinion is a different question. Some enthusiasm is surely dropping into the chasm between Brexit as liberation theology and its real-world incarnation as rotting fish (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/12/farage-flotilla-rotting-brexit-fish) undelivered to a Calais market. But British political culture contains deep reserves of stoical resignation to adversity (especially other people’s adversity). There is no simple road back, no better deal on the table, and it is easy for ministers to spin the pain mandated by their deal as aggression by vengeful Europeans.

Leavers will be attracted to that story because it spares them the discomfort of admitting that they voted for a con, and then made a prime minister of the con artist."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/23/brexit-machine-perpetual-grievance-britain-brussels

But as the UK faces the prospect of emerging from the Lockdown in stages, the day must come when Brexit, far from being 'done', is back at the top of the news cycle, with the excuses running out of crediblity.

[obslam]

I woke up this morning for the first time in 47 years in a country that is no longer part of the European project that was launched in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome.

You must have had a long sleep as the UK left the EU on 31st January 2020. Not 31st December 2020.

[broncofan]

You must have had a long sleep as the UK left the EU on 31st January 2020. Not 31st December 2020.
He said no longer part of the European project launched with the Treaty of Rome. It participated in the single market and the customs union until the end of 2020.

[Stavros]

You must have had a long sleep as the UK left the EU on 31st January 2020. Not 31st December 2020.


I was wide awake, and as for the intricacies of the relationship, allow the UK Govt to clarify-

"The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021."
https://www.government.nl/topics/brexit/question-and-answer/when-will-the-united-kingdom-leave-the-european-union

[Stavros]

Meanwhile, the former French Ambassador to the UK has said some sharp things about Mr Johnson

"Boris Johnson is “an unrepentant and inveterate liar” who feels he is not subject to the same rules as others, Sylvie Bermann, the former French ambassador to the UK during the Brexit vote, says in a new book.

She also claims some Brexiters are consumed with hatred for Germany and gripped by a myth that they liberated Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) on their own, describing Brexit as a triumph of emotion over reason, won by a campaign full of lies in which negative attitudes to migration were exploited by figures such as Johnson and Michael Gove.

Johnson, she says, comes from an Eton and Oxford University class that believes they are entitled to use language to provoke. Describing him as intelligent and charming, she says he uses “lies to embellish reality, as a game and as instrument of power. The ends justify the means. He has no rules.”

Asked at a Royal United Services Institute thinktank event about her description of him as an unrepentant liar, she said: “He would not object to being called that. He knows he is a liar. He has always played with that. He was fired from his first post for that reason.”

Full report here-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/24/boris-johnson-a-liar-who-will-seek-to-blame-brexit-costs-on-covid-says-diplomat

[obslam]

I was wide awake, and as for the intricacies of the relationship, allow the UK Govt to clarify-

"The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021."
https://www.government.nl/topics/brexit/question-and-answer/when-will-the-united-kingdom-leave-the-european-union

The UK ceased to be a signatory to the Treaty of Rome on 31/1/20 - but I'll let you get back to your solitary thread to post to yourself.

[Stavros]

The UK ceased to be a signatory to the Treaty of Rome on 31/1/20 - but I'll let you get back to your solitary thread to post to yourself.


I post items and create threads which interest me, as others do, and as you have been a member for 13-14 years with 67 posts I think you will agree that a lot of members read, but do not comment on posts, which is their choice. It is up to others to join in a thread if they want.

I could thank you for joining the debate on Brexit, but so far you have only expressed an interest in my evident confusion over when the UK 'left the EU' depending upon which pinhead you wish to dance. If you feel that my error renders my posts invalid and of no interest, that is a consequence of the way I present things, and is entirely my fault, whatever it is that the Govt says.

What is clear so far, is that you do not appear to have an opinion on Brexit, and may not reveal it to us at any time, happy as you are to condemn me to this isolation, shaped as it is by your own apparent indifference to engage with the topic.

[obslam]

I post items and create threads which interest me, as others do, and as you have been a member for 13-14 years with 67 posts I think you will agree that a lot of members read, but do not comment on posts, which is their choice. It is up to others to join in a thread if they want.

I could thank you for joining the debate on Brexit, but so far you have only expressed an interest in my evident confusion over when the UK 'left the EU' depending upon which pinhead you wish to dance. If you feel that my error renders my posts invalid and of no interest, that is a consequence of the way I present things, and is entirely my fault, whatever it is that the Govt says.

What is clear so far, is that you do not appear to have an opinion on Brexit, and may not reveal it to us at any time, happy as you are to condemn me to this isolation, shaped as it is by your own apparent indifference to engage with the topic.

OK, apologies for being pedantic and wanting to correct what you wrote - and I am sorry if you are struggling with Brexit.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that I have had enough of people (not necessarily you) who still want to moan about a referendum with a clear result that took place almost five years ago. They would be better concentrating on their own lives, when the true affects of Brexit will only have any long-term meaningful affect on the lives of a very, very small handful of people.

For the vast majority, virtually nothing material will change for them...

For a good example, a large part of the moaners can't even tell you when we left the EU - yet they want to claim that life worsened markedly when we did! It's pathetic.

[Jericho]

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that I have had enough of people (not necessarily you) who still want to moan about a referendum with a clear result that took place almost five years ago.

I feel like that when I hear certain quarters twanging on about the "blitz spirit" .




when the true affects of Brexit will only have any long-term meaningful affect on the lives of a very, very small handful of people.
.

Yeah, I imagine that second billion will be very 'meaningful' to 'em!

As for the "vast majority", I don't give a fuck about them.
All I know is, I can no longer just jump in the car and bum around Europe for a couple of weeks any time I feel like.
And as for my plans of retiring to Portugal...
But no, that's all up in smoke because "the vast majority" were too stupid to know any better and followed a bus driven by a liar, over a cliff edge.

[filghy2]

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that I have had enough of people (not necessarily you) who still want to moan about a referendum with a clear result that took place almost five years ago. They would be better concentrating on their own lives, when the true affects of Brexit will only have any long-term meaningful affect on the lives of a very, very small handful of people.

For the vast majority, virtually nothing material will change for them...

It's interesting that back in 2016 the Brexiters claimed there would be great benefits from leaving the EU. Now their best argument seems to be that most people won't notice any difference.

I'm willing to bet that most people's lives were unchanged in 1973 when the UK joined the EU. Is there a difference between people moaning about Brexit and people who previously moaned about the EU?

[Stavros]

It's interesting that back in 2016 the Brexiters claimed there would be great benefits from leaving the EU. Now their best argument seems to be that most people won't notice any difference.

I'm willing to bet that most people's lives were unchanged in 1973 when the UK joined the EU. Is there a difference between people moaning about Brexit and people who previously moaned about the EU?

The most immediate change that was notieable when the UK entered the Common Market/Euroepan Economic Community in 1973, was the repacement of the old 'Sales Tax', by VAT. Decimalisation that meant the UK making calculations as they did in the CM became law in 1966 and in effect since 1971 so had nothing to do with membership of the Common Market/EEC.

I was able to work in the South of France in the mid-1970s because seasonal, temporary work was exempt from labour/residency laws that required work permits, which meant that from May to October coach loads of Spaniards would pick their way through the season frm Cherries to Olives without any need for work permits. In that sense, the free movement of people under the Single Market Act merely made it easier for people from member states to work in the EU, but in all forms of work, qualifications being the most obvious criterion.

Yes, it was gradual. When I was living in North London before the aborted move to France, the supermarkets did not sell a variety of cheeses, other than the staple English cheeses -the only challenger to Stilton was Danish Blue, which smelled and tasted as if it had been made from petroleum. If you wanted Camembert or Brie and could not get to a shop in Ambleside in the Lake District (their clientele I was told, were the nuclear scientists who worked at nearby Windscale), or Paxton & Whitfield on Jermyn St off Piccadilly, there were a small range of delis in places like Chelsea and Hampstead, or there were the Italian delis -at one time in Soho alone there were at least five that I can recall, and all of them have no gone. I had never heard of goat's cheese until working in France, but then in those days if you wanted Houmous and didn't know how to make it, you either had the -mostly Cypriot- tavernas in North London (Greek in Camden, Turkish in Islington), or a trip to the Eastern Med.

These days the UK or rather London is spoiled for choice, though someone I know was taken to an Ethiopian restaurant a few years ago and says the food was, in a word, 'horrible'....other establishments are available (but can't recall the name of the offender...)

[Stavros]

OK, apologies for being pedantic and wanting to correct what you wrote - and I am sorry if you are struggling with Brexit.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that I have had enough of people (not necessarily you) who still want to moan about a referendum with a clear result that took place almost five years ago. They would be better concentrating on their own lives, when the true affects of Brexit will only have any long-term meaningful affect on the lives of a very, very small handful of people.

For the vast majority, virtually nothing material will change for them...

For a good example, a large part of the moaners can't even tell you when we left the EU - yet they want to claim that life worsened markedly when we did! It's pathetic.


The 'pedantry' is really due to the fact that the UK transitioned out of the EU and at any one time between 2019 and 2021 many people were confused as to what our status was- some, including members of the Govt, are still not sure where the international boundary between the EU and the UK is, given that is has not been demarcated, but appears to exist.

I also think the irony of your post is that it is not so much the 'moaners' who have a point, but those who voted to Leave and who, if they are in the fishing industry, see their live exports and other goods rotting away, or prevented from making a smooth exit to the EU as a result of the technicalities that were approved in the EU-UK Trade Agreement that has more or less trashed most of what Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and the other 'vilains' promised us in 2016. From being told the UK would not be leaving the Single Market to being told we have to, there lies the not so mysterious fact that Johson and his crew never bothered to finesse the detail because they didn't care about it. Not so long ago, Lord Lamont even insisted he was not bothered about the economics of Brexit because for him at was the politics that mattered.

I think the fact is there has been a double dose of lies comparing 2016 to 1970. In their 1970s manifesto, the Conservatives said they would open negotiations on entering the EEC, but that the final decision would be made by the British people -this did not happen until 1975 when Labour was in power but I have not seen any evidence that Heath intended to bring it to Parliament or a referendum in what would have been his first term as PM. Crucially, for the politics, Heath never mentioned 'Ever Closer Union' which has been in the first sentence of every 'Euro' Treaty since Rome in 1957 because it defines the purpose of the relationship that member states enter into. We were told we were joining a 'Common Market', and not a Federalist project, indeed, Federalism was never mentioned until it became a matter of contention between Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors in the 1980s. And though Blair said in 1997 he wanted the UK to be 'at the heart of Europe', he never believed in 'Ever Closer Union', indeed if that phrase meant anything to him, it was a description of the UK's Atlantic relationship.

The UK was never fully committed to the EU project, indeed, I think we needed to make a decision on that, and regret the one that was made though I can't do anything about that. But it also begs the question of Scotland's view that if it were independent, it would apply for EU membership, because that not only requires Scotland to adopt the Euro, it must surely sign up to 'Ever Closer Union' because I can't see the EU giving Scotland all the 'opt-outs' it gave to the UK given the small size of the economy.

As for the impact, yes indeed, there are long term consequences, but now we have the long term impact of Covid to add to the exit from the EU. Because the Single Market imposes the sort of rules that were not there in the 1970s, I doubt even seasonal labour is open to young people who want to do something different somewhere outside the country but not so far away, and Jericho's point abut Portugal is important too, though Portugal may pass laws making residency easier, but not sure about that.

We have yet to know if the Brexit Levies that have created a crisis in the fishing and export industry are 'teething problems' or long term realities, and it is not clear to me if the Govt is attempting to re-negotiate the Trade Agreement to sort these problems out. The situation with Musicians and Performing Artists is aso one I don't think will change, because, again, the rules now are different from what they were before the Single Market Act, and as I don't see any change over the next 10 years Brexit has been a catastrophe for the arts in Britain.

Thus I am with most experts who say that the UK will adjust to the reality of being outside the EU, but that the economy will not grow at previous levels -I don't think it will exceed 2% a year- and that money saved from the EU budget will not be enough to compensate for losses from trade, and so far that is mostly in goods, as we have yet to see how the exit affects Financial Services in general, and the City of London in particular.

How Covid affects work itself, such as commuting to an office, with knock-on effects on transport is still too early to tell. But what also matters is that the lies keep coming from Boris Johnson, with little or no imaginative let alone the practical alternative from Keir Starmer. But for Dominic Raab to dismiss all the current woes on the basis we need 'ten years' to deal with Brexit is a stab in the back and an insult to all, as it is rather like telling an 18-year old, the next ten years of your life have been cancelled, get over it!

We went from being part of a stable order, to disorder. We had access to the largest single market in the world on our doorstep, now we are not part of it. Looking back is no longer an option but to the question, what does the UK want? -there seems to be no coherent answer.

[obslam]

It's interesting that back in 2016 the Brexiters claimed there would be great benefits from leaving the EU. Now their best argument seems to be that most people won't notice any difference.

I'm willing to bet that most people's lives were unchanged in 1973 when the UK joined the EU. Is there a difference between people moaning about Brexit and people who previously moaned about the EU?

I voted leave, but I never thought or claimed it would make our lives better. My opinion was and remains that staying in would have made our lives worse in the decades ahead. I don't see the EU existing in its current form 20 years from now.

[Stavros]

And the inherent dilemma is the fact that we never solved the relationship between politics and the economy in the EU -many Leave advocates claimed they were happy to be part of the Single Market, but could not accept Ever Closer Union, and that at some point in the future the UK would not be able to opt out of that. It is a fair point, though in defence I would argue had we had the debate on Ever Closer Union before 2016 we would at least have been able to make a judgment based on a more open and wider understanding of what the EU is all about, though even then I think Leave would have won the Referendum -the English think they are better than the Continentals, it is that crude, and that stupid. Indeed, had Ever Closer Union been discussed at the beginning, I doubt even Heath could have taken us into the EEC. But it has been important for Europe because of the Continent's bloody history and the fact that France and Germany have been key players in its origin and development with the smallers states such as Belgium and the Netherlands keen associates of the project.

The dilemma for the UK has always been that alone, the UK economy is worse off when it is not part of a European trading bloc, as was clear from the membership of EFTA which the UK helped to create in 1960. Indeed, the UK created one European trading bloc, and was a prime developer later of the EU's Single Market, yet Daniel Hannan and people like him claim the UK would be better off on its own when all the evidence suggests the opposite is the case, even with the major changes that have taken place to the economy since 1979.

Lastly, the sovereignty issue is the oddest one, because sovereignty is a slippery concept and should be 'treated with care'. The UK never lost control of its borders or its laws, so 'take back control' was just a slogan, and where for some it mattered, it had more to do with prejudice agaist non-EU immigrants. On issue such as climate change there is obviously no sovereignty, but neither does the UK control the value of its own currency, and just as the UK ceded a degree of authority to the EU in matters of law, so it has ceded legal powers to the United Nations, though I don't recall anyone campaigning against our membership of the UN.

I voted Remain for economic and politica reasons -the UK economy was better off in the Single Market rather than out of it; and I approve of European Federalism because I despire Nationalism, which is a pox on humanity. I thought my generation and my parents generation had defeated the Nationalists, even though we knew they had not gone away- but they were an iirritant on the fringes of politics. The new breed of Nationalist anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Vaxx and 'anti-Woke' activists offer nothing positive for the world I live in, but they exist, and they must be confronted, and it seems every generation but be educated into the crimes of the past these people deny and seek to revisit upon us, as was shown in the US on the 6th of January.

[Jericho]

I voted Remain for economic and politica reasons -the UK economy was better off in the Single Market rather than out of it; and I approve of European Federalism because I despire Nationalism, which is a pox on humanity. I thought my generation and my parents generation had defeated the Nationalists, even though we knew they had not gone away- but they were an iirritant on the fringes of politics. The new breed of Nationalist anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Vaxx and 'anti-Woke' activists offer nothing positive for the world I live in, but they exist, and they must be confronted, and it seems every generation but be educated into the crimes of the past these people deny and seek to revisit upon us, as was shown in the US on the 6th of January.


That's the problem though, init. Anyone who tries to teach British *history* isn't going to be in their job very long.
(I learnt more about Coulson when he was thrown in the bay than I ever did in the 100 odd years his statue was upright).

[Stavros]

That's the problem though, init. Anyone who tries to teach British *history* isn't going to be in their job very long.
(I learnt more about Coulson when he was thrown in the bay than I ever did in the 100 odd years his statue was upright).


Indeed, the problem of what British history consists of, who decides the curriculum, and who teaches it has never been solved. The Conservative bias means on one level for many years the 'top down' approach used the various dynasties that have ruled, with additional support for the establishment of Church-Military-Judiciary-Parliament so that one can take in the wars, Christianity, political change and so forth, but when economic and social history entered the fray in the 1960s-70s the acrimony began, because history is a mess of highs and lows, and I know I never heard the word slavery when I was in school, but I am old enough to have been marched into the schoolyard on Empire Day (24th May) to watch the Union Jack being hoisted up a pole.

The Industrial Revlution is crucial to the history of modern Britain -to teach it one has to balance the achievements of science and engineering in partnership with capital to explain agricultural machinery, cotton mills, coal mining, the railway engines, etc -but surely this must also explain how slavery and empire provided Manchester with the cheap cotton it used to make its more expensive and desirable goods? And the textile mills destroyed the weavers who had populated towns and villages to make the people clothes, a grim history documented in part of EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class- but should a text by a Marxist be acceptable, or for that matter, to describe factory conditions in the 19thc, the most read chapter, probably the only chapter of Marx's Capital Vol 1 most people have read, ie Ch 10: The Working Day -? Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1851) is a rich text of description, but does anyone use it to teach 19th century history in school, when it is one of the most eloquent books of its kind?

All history is edited, in part for practical reasons to make it possible to teach 2,000 years of history to schoolchildren, but also to edit out the diffculties and the controversies, which can be explored at University level. I wonder how many schoolchildren have heard of Thomas Rainsbrough, one of Cromwell's leading naval commanders, who, in the Putney Debates in 1647 declared, much to the concern of both Cromwell and his General, Ireton-

"I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Rainsborough

The fate of this early advocate of 'oone man, one vote', was assassination the year after his incendiary remarks in Putney...thus history is, often literally, a battlefield.

What will future historians make of Brexit? A tragic mistake, or a Liberation from Continental Europe?

[Jericho]

What will future historians make of Brexit? A tragic mistake, or a Liberation from Continental Europe?

With the benefit of hindsight, supercomputers (to keep track of the lies), and a degree in forensic accounting...the biggest heist in history.

[Stavros]

I wonder if Covid has pushed Brexit off the news as the No 1 item? The threat to the integrity of the UK might appear to have receded with regard to Scotland, and Alex Salmond's spite-filled attempt to sabotage the party he used to lead, though the appeal of Independence there remains high among the people who matters most, the voters. But it is in Northern Ireland where the contradictions of Brexit present what seems to be a problem without a solution that is not a United Ireland -or the UK as a whole, rather than just NI- returning in some form to the EU's Single Market.

The article linked below concerns the Democratic Unionist Party and their delusions with regard to both Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement, which they opposed throughout the negotiating period, until they didn't, the late Rev. Ian Paisley realizing that if they did not agree to it, they would be powerless -he agreed to it and formed an alliance in the power sharing exective with former Quartermaster of the Provos, Martin McGuinness -no such spirit of compromise now -but as Susan MKay argues, this is turning into one of the most profound challenges to the Union of the United Kinndom and Northern Ireland since the Treaty of 1921, but without any leading politician with vision of guts to see it through to its most obvious conclusion, thus-

"Speaking to the Welsh affairs committee, Mark Drakeford said that the union was effectively over. There was “no institutional architecture” to make the UK work, and the current prime minister’s approach to the devolved nations was “ad hoc, random and made up as we go along”.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/06/unionists-northern-ireland-good-friday-dup

[obslam]

"Speaking to the Welsh affairs committee, Mark Drakeford said that the union was effectively over. There was “no institutional architecture” to make the UK work, and the current prime minister’s approach to the devolved nations was “ad hoc, random and made up as we go along”.

Ad hoc, random and made up as we go along sounds like a very good description for Mark Drakeford!

When it comes to the Union, I am sure he realises that Wales has a very different legal standing to both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[Stavros]

Ad hoc, random and made up as we go along sounds like a very good description for Mark Drakeford!
When it comes to the Union, I am sure he realises that Wales has a very different legal standing to both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Wales is an irrelevance, that has been the English position even before their cherished Brexit. Even one of my oldest friends doesn't care about the place, and he was born and bred in Cardiff.

So what do you have to say about Nothern Ireland, or the UK Government signing a Trade Agreement with the EU and then deciding to ignore the legal obligations that it contains, because of the brutal fact that so far, Brexit Kills Jobs? When Boris said, 'Fuck Business', he meant it. Michael Gove, presented with the factual evidence that trade in goods is on the point of collapse offers an alternative which claims the opposite, but without a single shred of evidence, thus proving that the English never really thought their Brexit would be anything but a roaring success -and like Trump in his Florida prison, refuse to accept the reality even when it slaps them in the face.

It really is simple -Brexit Kills Jobs. Perhaps that is why the English Kill Truth?

[obslam]

You claim your facts as facts but denounce others as lies. And do you think the PM ever really said 'fuck business' as you think he did?

There is zero evidence as yet either way as to whether Brexit will cost net jobs. Some people will lose jobs but other, new jobs will also be created.

[Stavros]

You claim your facts as facts but denounce others as lies. And do you think the PM ever really said 'fuck business' as you think he did?

There is zero evidence as yet either way as to whether Brexit will cost net jobs. Some people will lose jobs but other, new jobs will also be created.

Not my facts, and not my lies.

Claim A, by the Road Haulage Associaton-
The Cabinet Office run by Michael Gove (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/michaelgove) has been officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports.
The criticism follows a story in the (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/06/fury-at-gove-as-exports-to-eu-slashed-by-68-since-brexit)Observer (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/06/fury-at-gove-as-exports-to-eu-slashed-by-68-since-brexit) on 7 February that cited a survey by the Road Haulage Association (RHA) of its international members showing export volumes had dropped by a staggering 68% in January through British ports and the Channel Tunnel.
The RHA wrote to Gove at the time saying: “Intelligence that we are collecting on an ongoing basis from international hauliers suggests that loads to the EU have reduced by as much as 68%, which can also be evidenced by the increased number of empty trailers which are not currently considered in the statistics (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/use-of-unpublished-statistics-in-news-release/).”
The RHA also accused Gove of failing to heed its warnings that trade would be damaged unless there was a dramatic increase in the number of customs officials (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/28/extra-50000-border-staff-needed-for-post-brexit-trade-says-gove).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/06/uk-statistics-authority-rebukes-gove-over-observers-brexit-figures?fbclid=IwAR0HX6iYxPfJfQ4fPtgSRqMCc4PgH5HsK 2Oz6L9b4z23707q2pNz0LWe60k

Claim B, Response from HMG as reported in Claim A above-
Thanks to the hard work put in by hauliers and traders to get ready for the end of the Brexit transition period, there are no queues at the Short Straits, disruption at the border has so far been minimal and freight movements are now close to normal levels, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-points-raised-in-road-haulage-association-letter-to-the-chancellor-of-the-duchy-of-lancaster

And Now for Something Completely Different-

"Asked about corporate concerns over a so-called hard Brexit, at an event for EU diplomats in London last week, Mr Johnson is reported to have replied (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/06/23/eu-diplomats-shocked-boriss-four-letter-reply-business-concerns/): "Fuck business."
Mr Johnson, who was reportedly speaking at the time to Rudolf Huygelen, Belgium's ambassador to the EU, was also overheard saying he and others would fight Theresa May's soft Brexit "and win".
The foreign secretary, who was a key figure in the Leave campaign, was pressed on the issue in Parliament by Labour MP Owen Smith, who asked him if the comments were correct and, if so, whether they could be "remotely justified".
"I don't think anybody could doubt the passionate support of this government for business," Mr Johnson said.
"It may be that I have, from time to time, expressed scepticism about some of the views of those who profess to speak up for business."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44618154

I quite agree that some people will lose their jobs, and that new jobs will be created. It has happened in the past, and it will happen again. But when? And how many jobs?

And what about the fact that freedom has been taken away from those citizens in the UK who enjoyed free movement throughout the EU, a right that has been taken away?

Maybe this is The Truth? The insight into Brexit of John Redwood in his FT article of 2017-

"In his FT piece Redwood encourages investors to take their money out of Britain and put it elsewhere. You read that right. The same man who will not let one day pass without emphasising how well Britain is going to do out of Brexit is at the same time talking down the markets and encouraging capital flight. To call this bizarre might be too generous. Still, that’s what disaster capitalists do."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/14/john-redwood-brexit-money-britain-eu

Remember Edward Heath's campaign 'I'm Backing Britain'? -or not, as in the case of Redwood.

Or Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose Somerset Capital has been in the vanguard of brokers moving their money out of the UK and into the EU, specifically, the Republic of Ireland-

"A leading Brexiteer has suggested it could take 50 years to judge whether Brexit has been an economic success amid fears quitting the European Union will lead to a downturn."
The influential Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group of backbench Tories, was pressed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News (https://www.channel4.com/news/ways-to-change-the-world-a-new-channel-4-news-podcast-jacob-rees-mogg-mp) about whether he would quit if the “economy does take a hit next year” when Brexit happens.
Rees-Mogg insisted the full impact will not be known for “years to come” as he hailed leaving the EU as the “greatest opportunity, economically, for this country”.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jacob-rees-mogg-economy-brexit_uk_5b54e3b5e4b0de86f48e3566

Are you willing to wait 50 years? What happens in between now and 2070?

[filghy2]

You claim your facts as facts but denounce others as lies. And do you think the PM ever really said 'fuck business' as you think he did?

There is zero evidence as yet either way as to whether Brexit will cost net jobs. Some people will lose jobs but other, new jobs will also be created.

This is the analysis done a few months ago by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. The logic is pretty simple - if you increase barriers to trade with your predominant trading partner there must be a negative impact on the economy. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/15079

[Stavros]

This is the analysis done a few months ago by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. The logic is pretty simple - if you increase barriers to trade with your predominant trading partner there must be a negative impact on the economy. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/15079


To which I would add that a key problem with the EU-UK Trade Agreement is 'divergence'. Here, for example, is what Boris Johnson said over a year ago, before the very problems we have in Northern ireland emerged in the wake of our more formal exit this year-

"Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated he wants the UK to be able to diverge from the European Union rules and regulations after Brexit, with Number 10 saying the future partnership, “must not involve any kind of alignment.” (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-meeting-with-eu-commission-president-ursula-von-der-leyen-8-january-2020) European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has responded (http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/Events-Assets/PDF/2020/01-LT/20200108-Speech-by-President-von-der-Leyen-at-the-London-School-of-Economics.pdf) by spelling out the EU’s principle that access to the EU’s market is intrinsically linked to acceptance of the bloc’s rules, institutions and legal obligations. “The more divergence there is, the more distant the partnership has to be,” she said. But in practice the EU’s approach is likely to be even tougher: the moment the UK obtains the right to diverge from EU rules, it will – in most areas – be treated by the EU as if it has already done so. The flexibility to diverge does not come for free, as I explain in my latest analysis for the CER. (https://cer.eu/insights/flexibility-does-not-come-free) The UK government claims to have accepted that gaining the freedom to regulate as it sees fit will mean new trade friction. But it is not clear that businesses and the public understand what this means in practice (https://www.cer.eu/insights/what-boris-johnson-eu-uk-free-trade-agreement-means-business?fbclid=IwAR1aq7r5nEHhmmpN2398df9mr2N6Kpcg-ohYUhJ_aGEtjcesylEYxL-4fzQ)."
https://encompass-europe.com/comment/freedom-to-diverge-after-brexit-will-cost-uk

Though the author of the above is -or was- more positive about the effects, we now see how in reality divergence can create friction and costs, with Lord Frost as usual blaming the EU for the problems he created in the text of the Agreement he negotiated on behalf of Boris Johnson's govt. Note also, that Divergence may be at its most critical in Financial Services, rather than scallops and sauasages, as these two additional notes from a law firm suggest-

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/eu-uk-trade-divergence-cost-benefits
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/brexit-spur-divergence-regulation-digital-services

Simon Jenkins has written a bracing article on Northern Ireland, and I recommend some of the readers posts too-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/08/boris-johnsons-brexit-northern-ireland-customs-union-border#comment-147926201

None of this needed to happen, we were doing fine in the EU and its Single Market before Leave Saboteurs insisted on smashing all the crockery just as dinner was being served.

[Stavros]

A powerful editorial from today's Observer on Brexit. Right now it is a mess, will it ever deliver? First few paragraphs the rest in the link.

"When the British people narrowly voted to leave the EU in 2016, they did not give the government a mandate to wreck our economic and political relationship with Europe. When Boris Johnson (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) won the general election in 2019, he was expected to forge workable new arrangements with the UK’s largest trading partner, not allow exporters to be strangled by red tape and ruinous extra costs. Nor was he given a green light to break legally binding promises.

When Johnson and his rightwing Leave campaign pals claimed to have “got Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) done” on 31 January last year, they failed to say the patchwork agreement they signed had more holes in it than a Cumbrian coal mine. Johnson did not admit he had fudged crucial issues such as Northern Ireland’s borders, and sold out Britain’s fisheries, in order to claim a bogus victory.
Yet truth will out. Day by bleak day, the epic damage caused by this execrable deception, this shameful Conservative con, becomes ever more evident. No amount of Michael Gove spin can hide the facts. No amount of distortion of official statistics can conceal the harm. Feeble claims by David Frost, Brexit booster-in-chief, that Covid and EU hostility are to blame will not wash. It’s clear where responsibility lies. And “lies” is the operative word.
Johnson and his team cannot dissemble away alarming figures showing UK exports of goods to the EU plunged by 40.7% (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/12/exports-to-eu-plunge-in-first-month-since-brexit-uk-economy) in January, caused in large part by Brexit bureaucracy, incompetence and delays. That’s a £5.6bn loss when the economy can least afford it. Exports of food and live animals were particularly badly hit, down by 63.6%. Producers of fish and shellfish (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/02/eu-rules-on-some-types-of-shellfish-leave-uk-fishermen-devastated), who Johnson personally pledged to protect, saw their exports collapse by 83% year on year."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/14/the-observer-view-on-the-grim-effects-of-brexit-being-impossible-to-hide

[obslam]

Just because a pro-left, pro-labour, anti-conservative journal writes shit, that doesn't mean it's true, nor does it mean you should be repeating it.

You can tell the narrative right from the get go - "narrowly voted" my arse. Personally, I support the reduction in food miles, as I think it one of the worst things that harms the environment for no good reason at all.

[Stavros]

Just because a pro-left, pro-labour, anti-conservative journal writes shit, that doesn't mean it's true, nor does it mean you should be repeating it.

You can tell the narrative right from the get go - "narrowly voted" my arse. Personally, I support the reduction in food miles, as I think it one of the worst things that harms the environment for no good reason at all.


The Guardian is not a left-wing newsaper, and since 2015 Labour has been a Brexit party, while 'the left' has been opposed to every version of the EU since the Treaty of Rome of 1957. My own argument, in case you missed it, is that while there are genuine arguments to engage with the fundamental concept of 'Ever Closer Union' that even pre-dates 1957, the pragmatic concern is with trade, for the obvious reason that the EU is the nearest and largest market we have. To support a reduction in 'food miles' for the food industry that has been based on them since 1066 and before, would be comical if it were not so destructive. Better focus on why there are Cherries in winter from Chile, King Prawns from Madagascar or Mange Tout from Kenya.

The result of the Referendum stands, I can't do much about that, and while I support it, I doubt enough UK citizens beieve in 'Ever Closer Union' to want it, just as I am not sure if an Independent Scotland can join the EU on that basis, as well as adopting the Euro as its currency. The bottom line remains, that so far, Brexit has been a damaging experience for trade, and probably shall remain so for this year, maybe more. And that the Leave supporters don't really care, because they never cared about trade anyway, as for them Brexit has always been a political, anti-immigrant, anti-Federalist project.

The only thing one can say about The Guardian -and also The Independent, assuming anyone reads it- is that they print more articles critical of Brexit than any other outlet. That's as good as it gets.

[obslam]

The Guardian is not a left-wing newsaper

Unfortunately you've lost a lot of credibility with that bizarre claim.

[Jericho]

Unfortunately you've lost a lot of credibility with that bizarre claim.

Whilst it's not quite as right-wing as most of the British press, the Guardian is in no way, shape, or form, left wing.

[obslam]

Whilst it's not quite as right-wing as most of the British press, the Guardian is in no way, shape, or form, left wing.

LOL! You can't be serious.

You Gov: ... the Guardian is seen as Britain’s most left-wing newspaper, closely followed by the Mirror...

Wiki: The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion, and its reputation as a platform for social liberal and left-wing editorial has led to the use of the "Guardian reader" and "Guardianista" as often-pejorative epithets for those of left-leaning or "politically correct" tendencies.

I recognise Wikipedia is not always a reliable indicator but I would say only the Morning Star has been more left wing than The Grauniad.

[Stavros]

Unfortunately you've lost a lot of credibility with that bizarre claim.


It all depends on how you define left-wing. Just as the awfully unfunny Mash Report has been axed by the BBC because it was deemed too 'left wing' without ever promoting left-wing policies (it was critical of the Conservative Govt, which is not the same thing), so the issue with The Guardian is not so much the views of its most well-known columnists -Polly Toynbee is the Aunt Sally for Telegraph readers, for example- but that being critical of the Conservative Party and Brexit makes it left wing. Simon Jenkins, William Keegan, Will Hutton, Jonathan Freedland are all Liberals rather than Socialists, and other than the occasional article by Tariq Ali, Trotskyists and Marxists are notable by their absence, though in the past Richard Gott was a regular commentator on Latin American affairs.

Brexit is a Nationalist project, but it means to be opposed to it does not by definition make such a person 'left wing' because Nationalism is thought of as a 'Right wing' position. Both major parties have been divided over the EEC/EU since 1970, and as I have stated above, for many Socialists in Britain, membership of the EU was not something they wanted, just as it was Labour policy in 1981 to leave the EU, a policy position that Jeremy Corbyn supported at the time and as far as I am aware, on most issues, until yesterday, the clinging to the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act and its commitment to 'Worker's Rights' being as much as he could give voice to.

The Guardian is not a Socialist, but a liberal humanist newspaper, critical of the Royal Family, but not decisively opposed to it; probably sceptical of rather than opposed to organized religion; critical of the armed forces, but not pacifist; supportive of the Judiciary when its rulings are favourable to humanist issues, critical when they are not; and reporting on Parliament rather than calling for its abolition or woolly on reform. Thus the pillars of the Establishment -Monarchy-Church-Military-Judiciary-Parliament are secure in the pages of the Guardian.

So I am not bothered about my reputation, if I even have one on HungAngels.

More interesting is the recent news on Tech Start-ups as a signal that Growth is possible even in Brexit Britain, indeed that it is and looks set to remain a world leader. The link below does present a positive profile of the Tech Sector, part of that 'Big Tech' beast slouching toward DC in the demonic language of the Trump Party in the US. Yes, it does look good, but

a) these trends were established before Brexit, and are probably best placed to function regardless of Brexit, unless the financials change, and with over £1 trillion having left the UK since 2016 -some of it shipped out by the most fanatical Brexiteers, such as Jacob Ress-Mogg and Somerset Capital- the investment profile could change.

And thus b) New Tech or whatever you call it, may supply thousands of jobs, but we need millions. It is a niche sector, and one that I doubt school-leavers can get into, indeed, if the past year has damaged education, a class of schooleavers may not get the College/University eduation they need to enter the tech sector, so over the next 5 years this growth sector could face a recruitment problem because we haven't prepared the generation capable of doing such jobs.

Given that Brexit has been all about the politics and not the trade and the economics -to paraphrase another movement, 'Jobs Don't Matter'- the same way that no impact assessment was ever made of either Brexit in general, or the EU-UK Trade Agreement in particular, means we have a Brexit Government that has not prepared for the very policy by which it wishes to be defined -hence the crisis of trade owing to the divergence from EU rules and regulations. Similarly, if one were to ask Gavin Williamson what his department is doing to ensure Technology is fundamental to the Curriculum and schoolchildren being given the opportunity to learn what it is, he might well look utterly confused and issue some platitude about 'doing all we can to maximise opportunities'. Whatever.

This is the positive review of the technology sector in the UK-
https://technation.io/report2021/#investment

[Jericho]

You Gov: ... the Guardian is seen as Britain’s most left-wing newspaper, closely followed by the Mirror...
.

LOL! You can't be serious.

YouGov?
The company formed by Ultra Right-wing conservative MP Nadim Zahawi (He who claimed back the expenses for heating his stables out of public funds, whilst happily ignoring the hungry and the homeless), that YouGov?

Well yes, by his lights, the Guardian would be considered 'left-wing'...But so would Genghis Khan!

Like I said, not as right-wing as most of the British press, but...

[obslam]

No problem, we can agree to disagree :D

[Stavros]

The problem is that 'left wing' has become a basket case term, in the sense that it is a basket into which people dump a lot of ideas and political positions they don't like which may or may not be 'left wing' if by that term reference is being made to various strands of Marxism, and secular or Christian Socialist ideas that owe no iineage to Karl and his disciples.

In the UK this ought to be a clearer lieage than it is, say, in the US, because the Socialist movemet had its roots either in the non-conformist Christian communities, many of them organized by artisans that emerged post-Cromwell with radical ideas about political representation and social justice; ori a similar cohort but one that owed less to Religious ideas but shared their ideas about liberty and representation, both of whom are discussed -at length- in EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class (1963)

Thus, these two main strands fed into the Union movement that created the Labour Party, and one notes that both the 1945 Labour Manifesto, and (of all people) Denis Healey's commitment in 1974 to raise taxes 'to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak' would be unthinkable in Keir Starmer's Labour Party. Even ex-Trotskyist (?) John McDonnell had to disguise his 'transformative Revolution' so as not to frighten the horses, committing his party to maintaining low income tax, and the nonsense of tax thresholds where millions don't pay income tax at all, and the even more bizarre cop out of 'in work benefits'. Whatever happened to the idea that the workers should get the wages that are paid by their employers, rather than the taxpayer?

Brexit, in this context, as I insist, is a mess because hostility to the EU in its various forms has always divided our parties, but with the odious concept Corbyn was accused of, via Tony Benn, of a Little England mentality that in effect would have created a different version of Socialism in One Country. And to think that in the 1980s the hostility to the EU that was registered by the Telegraph and the Mail and the Sun was due to it being a Socialist organization!

Hence the confusion over The Guardian, which for years was the mouthpiece of the Liberal Party, but a confusion that is derived from the fact that Liberal Humanist policies on poverty, education, and nuclear weapons can be shared by voters of different parties. We have seen how many Conservatives are no longer bothered by same-sex marriage, and not only select, but vote for Black candidates in their constituencies, with memories of Taylor and Cheltenham now a distant and bitter memory. A former commander of a nuclear submarine -nor Lefty he- wrote an article for The Naval Review a few years ago insisting Trident should be scrapped because it is a useless piece of kit, and plenty of Tories, as they might once have been before being expelled by Mr Brexit, were supporters of the EU and the Single Market.

What we are left with, is the mirage of a country lost in a desert of its own making, seeing things that are not there, while the reality gnaws at its toes. Were it not for Covid, one wonders what the public discourse would be.

[Jericho]

Taking back control in a new era!


Boris Johnson’s controversial curbs on protests would “make a dictator blush” and show his Government’s liking for “authoritarianism”, MPs have warned.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle after receiving a second reading by 359 votes to 263, majority 96, despite opposition to several measures contained within it.





https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/full-list-of-mps-who-voted-through-policing-bill-that-would-make-a-dictator-blush-258383/

[Stavros]

Taking back control in a new era!

/ (https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/full-list-of-mps-who-voted-through-policing-bill-that-would-make-a-dictator-blush-258383/)

The concern is with the man's contempt for truth and the law. His government declared it was going to break the law as if it didn't matter. He lied to Parliament last week and the censure from Mr Speaker was batted away like a fly, much as his disgraceful performance when Foreign Secretary helped send Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to prison in Tehran, as if he cared, which he doesn't. The indifference to the war in Yemen, where aid has been cut, while arms sales to Saudi Arabia continue, doesn't in my view make him any better than Putin with his alliance with Asad, or Erdogan's illegal occupations of Cyprus and Syria -we seem to be moving into an era of tough guys at the helm who respond to criticism of their illegality with 'what are you going to do about it?' with the general response -nothing. To turn this cynical use of power on the domestic population is the logical continuation of the control mentality -and let's face it, are plain clothes bobbies going to infiltrate the WayOut club to make sure Jericho isn't harassing a Brazilian in a tight dress? Or sit in parked cars outside to make sure some weirdo isn't stalking the girls? Waste of money, but on which this Govt has form.

[Jericho]

They've curtailed our freedom of movement externally.
GRT communities are having their freedom of movement curtailed internally...And where's that going to lead to, who and what's next on that list, Papers bitte?
And I think the security services are going to be too busy legally raping, torturing and murdering (all in the name of security, of course) civilians, to worry about me harassing a Brazilian in a tight dress!
No doubt a little war would come in handy round about now. Not something too dirty or unpopular or big enough to drag on too long. Just big enough to get the flag shaggers shagging flags and take everybody's mind off of the utter fucking catastrophe that's been serco's track and trace (37 billion so far? Lucky the person running it is married to the conservative MP in charge of Anti-corruption).
And in such a heightened state of national security, we'll have to tighten the screws down a bit on the homefront.
All brought to you lie and in living colour by Andrew Neil and his latest venture, Gammon Broadcasting News.
I simply can't wait for Nigel to implore us to "dig for victory" five times a night!
Do you know what we need, MORE nuclear missiles...Oh WAIT!

Still, look on the bright side, eh!

[Stavros]

From the Single Market to Royal Navy gunboats patrolling the waters beween the Channel Island and France -I doubt anyone is surprised that Boris Johnson's incompetent management of the UK and the Brexit process has led to this crisis, his tenure of Downing St will be recorded in the future as 'The Years of Crisis' as he bumbles along from day to day without a plan. Michel Barnier in his latest book registers his shock at the fact that neither Theresa May nor Boris Johnson had a clear idea of what Brexit means in practice, knew little of EU procedures and laws, and that this meant a lot of frustration in the negtiations with the EU, with the UK always in a weak position because of its mix of ignorance and indifference to the actua consequences of Brexit.

There was a time when fishing rights around the Islands were governed by the Granville Bay Treaty, first signed in 1839 and amended in 2000, but it appears that this Treaty is now irrelevant, as the Channel Islands have taken advantage of the EU-UK Trade Agreement of 2020 which included clauses relating to the Channel Islands, thugh the CI were never members of the EU. In effect, it has enabled the CI since May 1st to issue licenses to fish and they have both attempted to limit the number of vessels allowed in CI waters, as well as quotas on the catch, and have done so without negotiating with the French though one assumes the UK Government was aware of the new licensing policy.

France has more boats than the CI, a point so obvious it ought not to need making. That the CI is taking matters into its own hands suggests that it is following the UK in deciding that inetrnational agreements are just pieces of paper that can be ignored when they feel like it, so the French threat to cut the link from the electricity grid to the CI is tit-fo-tat nonsense of the kind that led to the War of Jenkins Ear in 1739, though we have yet to encouner the War of Johnsons Ego, which may yet happen if the parties to this confict do not sit around a table and negotiate an amicabe agreement to replace Granville Bay.

An outline of the Channel Islands for those not famiiar with it-
https://www.sturgeonventures.com/brexit-guernsey-and-jersey/

Some background on the conflict-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-55467386
https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2021-05-05/why-are-the-french-threatening-to-switch-off-the-electricity-in-the-channel-islands

[obslam]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57008220

Yet more evidence from the Bank of England that Brexit is no bad thing economically.

[Stavros]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57008220

Yet more evidence from the Bank of England that Brexit is no bad thing economically.

Superficial evidence that even your source admits- "Mr Bailey cautioned that the surge in output would only return the UK economy back its 2019 size" -which he then adds "is good news".

He makes no mention of the £1.7 trillion that has left the UK - along with over 7,000 jobs in the financial sector- to find a safe haven in EU banks because he doesn't want to admit that the men moving it out, men such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, in doing so are exiting the UK because they don't believe Brexit will be good for their business.

Where is the mention of the simple fact that UK firms are desperate for a re-negotiation of the EU-UK Trade Agreement because 'tariff-free' access to the EU has become, as a matter of fact, a forest of expensive bureaucratic regulation that is damagin business?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-trade-lse-report-problems-b1842645.html

And where is the long term analysis of the labour market for a country which has seen the promise of electric vehicle manufacture in Pen-y-Bont re-located to France, with other businesses re-locating to the EU such as the Netherlands? As the paper linked below points out, industry in Germany, Netherlands and Belgium survived the 1980s through a re-structuring that did not take place in the UK -there, jobs and communities surivived -here, they were sacrificed on the altar of 'Market Forces' -but as the paper points out, and as the conflict with Jersey and France also shows -for the one fact about fishing is that it is an industry where markets don't work- the Brexit Dream of liberated markets is already being replaced by the State, indeed, the author argues the State must command the economy-

"History never truly repeats itself, and the Covid response will take a different shape, no doubt, than the 1980s wave of restructuring. But if there is one thing to be learned from that decade, out of which Germany and its economic satellites emerged in pretty good shape and the UK with an ever-increasing trade deficit, a parasitic financial sector and a politically alienated, disenfranchised working class, it is that such large waves of restructuring are best not left to the market. It offers short-term solutions when you need long-term thinking and destroys viable livelihoods without alternatives as a result. Without supporting institutions in place, the market is simply too thin a framework for coordinating economic action.

The furlough schemes that many governments in Europe and beyond introduced at the start of the pandemic were therefore a step in the right direction. In countries where companies and social partners have dense arrangements for labour market governance, the private sector can be left more or less on its own to think about the labour markets of the future, perhaps helped by a little nudge from governments.
When these underlying conditions are absent, however, government’s role becomes all the more important, financially as well as organisationally. The UK government got the first act right; but sadly, in contrast to other countries, where governments are keeping the tap open until the worst of the crisis is behind us, it is on track to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s. Covid has already hit the left behind communities hard; it would be a folly to kick them economically now that they are down. We know now where that can lead."
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/10/08/big-shifts-lessons-from-the-1980s-for-the-labour-market-after-covid-19/

From the largest Single Market in the world, to State Power backed up by Military Force -this is what Brexit has given us. It is a failure of politics, diplomacy and economics.

[obslam]

He makes no mention of the £1.7 trillion that has left the UK - along with over 7,000 jobs in the financial sector- to find a safe haven in EU banks because he doesn't want to admit that the men moving it out, men such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, in doing so are exiting the UK because they don't believe Brexit will be good for their business.

Total fantasy, as far more funds and jobs have come into the UK financial sector than have gone out. I work in The City.

[Stavros]

I note that you offer no evidencee to support your claim. Saying you work in 'the City' means nothing if you can't expain what you mean.

This is not fantasy -a UK investor explaining why he won't invest in the UK -the Telegraph article is hidden behind a paywall which I won't pay but this is the headline and by-line, and in a way, says all we need to know about Brexit-

£1.2bn investor: ‘I’m bullish on Britain but won’t touch its shares’
With a ‘go-anywhere’ investment approach, Rathbones' David Coombs explains why the best opportunities are in America".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/funds/12bn-investor-bullish-britain-wont-touch-shares"

Here is another dose of reality-

"Because EU investors must trade European shares inside the bloc (unless they’re denominated in pounds), brokers and exchanges have been advising customers from the U.K. and the rest of the world to also buy and sell equities via EU hubs, where liquidity is now likely to be deeper.
The result? On Monday, the first trading day of 2021, public data on exchanges pointed to London having lost almost 45% of the volume of stock that would have gone through the City at the end of last year. About 6.3 billion euros ($7.7 billion) of shares that would have traded on London-based platforms changed hands in the EU, according to data compiled by Cboe Global Markets Inc., which now handles some of those exchanges from Amsterdam."
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-05/brexit-the-city-of-london-faces-a-new-big-bang

Even a cautiously optimistic view has a downside based on the reality that you are unable or unwilling to counter-
This is from a 'financial policy official'-

“We are realistic about losing access to the EU consumer. The U.K. is focusing on its strong wholesale markets,” he said, pointing to investment management, currency and debt trading, efforts to raise capital for infrastructure projects, as well as commodities, derivatives and, increasingly, digital asset trading.
The key to remaining successful will be for London to “stay more open and liberal to foreign trade in wholesale markets than the EU, U.S. and China,” he said.

But

"The total EU derivatives market was worth €681 trillion (https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/eu-derivative-clearing-showed-strong-growth-in-2019) in 2019, dwarfing other trading such as equities trading. And it’s a sector that’s likely to keep growing — albeit outside the U.K.
“Business areas like equity and derivatives trading have seen substantial shifts to EU financial centers,” Bundesbank board member Joachim Wuermeling told (https://www.bundesbank.de/en/press/interviews/joachim-wuermeling-frankfurt-has-potential-to-become-eu-s-anchor-financial-centre-858454) German media.
By the end of 2020, financial institutions moved holdings worth €675 billion from the U.K. to Germany. “According to banks’ current plans, asset relocations will rise to €1.2 trillion by the end of next year alone,” Wuermeling said.
Derivatives trading is set to spread across the Continent. “The location hinges on the underlying asset,” said Hubertus Vaeth, who heads the lobby group Frankfurt Main Finance. “Paris is leading in corporate bonds, Amsterdam is the first choice for shares and Frankfurt has good prospects for interest rate swaps.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/city-of-london-after-brexit/

You may call it swings and roundabouts, a game of poker, or just admit that Brexit has led to the situation which I still believe ought to be heading the national debate and is in the first quote above -why the richest investors in the UK are choosing to move their money out of the country and invest somewhere, it seems anywhere else but not the UK.

How can it be that Brexit Britain is being touted as an 'Investment Destination' for capital rich clients otutside the UK when capital rich Brits are running away from the place? It is rather like those Latin American or sub-Saharan countries in the 1970s and 1980s where the indigenous capitalists exported their wealth to foreign banks wihile their State Governmens relied on 'foreign direct investment' to fill the gap.

It used to be called the Third World. Maybe this is where Boris Johnson and Rees-Mogg want Britain to be. As for jobs, well the City can spend its nights and days moving our money around, making millions for traders who in reality make nothing -what about the workers in Hartlepool who have voted for a Brexit Party presumably because they think jobs are going to rain down on them and they will all be happy again? What jobs?

There is indeed a fantasy. It is called Brexit.

[obslam]

Whatever, I come here to look at babes - no idea why you think this is a suitable place for this drivel.

LOL, if a fund manager is tipping the US right now, he's out of step with most everyone else.

I don't need to prove anything to you, but employment and FUM/AUM are both up in the UK financial sector post-Brexit.

[Laphroaig]

Whatever, I come here to look at babes - no idea why you think this is a suitable place for this drivel.

LOL, if a fund manager is tipping the US right now, he's out of step with most everyone else.

I don't need to prove anything to you, but employment and FUM/AUM are both up in the UK financial sector post-Brexit.

If all you want to do is "look at babes" why are you reading the Politics and Religion section?

[obslam]

If all you want to do is "look at babes" why are you reading the Politics and Religion section?

Because, annoyingly, it comes up when you click New Posts.

Mostly can ignore it, but it grates that someone can continually talk the country down and post utter rubbish.

The UK economy is well placed right now and everyone who works in the sector knows it.

[Stavros]

So don't go to 'New Posts' but the General Discussion and work your way through the list which, if you visit every day, will look familiar.

[Stavros]

Because, annoyingly, it comes up when you click New Posts.

Mostly can ignore it, but it grates that someone can continually talk the country down and post utter rubbish.

The UK economy is well placed right now and everyone who works in the sector knows it.


Those working in that part of the UK economy in coastal areas where fishing is the main source of work and income, are not well placed at all, as the evidence shows them on the point of colllapse -just as I have documented the problems Brexit has created, all of which you have ignored, either because you don't care, which is Boris Johnson's position, or because you choose to ignore the evidence that does not support your argument.

I am not talking the country down- it is not my opinion but real evidence from real people concering real jobs-, and offer the evidence of failure you ignore, while you offer no evidence for your own claims of success. If you work in The City, then a trillion quid doesn't mean much to you, but it's our money, not yours. This cavalier indifference to where the money is and where it goes is based on, indeed shaped by, the international markets that have zero interest in the 'Sovereignty' that has been the precious jewel in the Brexit Crown. I can think of no more blatant disregard for Brexit exhibited by the most devoted supporters of it, than those owners of Capital who take their money and run -to the very EU they say they wanted to be 'liberated' from. Like the geezer in the East End once said, 'what a load of bollocks'.

So look again at my posts -that 'rubbish' is not mine, I am quoting other people, those affected by Brexit, and those who analyse it. And if you devote even more of your time to reading my posts, you will also know I have stated in various threads that Brexit might work in the long term, though I am at this age cynical enough to disbelieve it knowing I shall be dead before the streets are paved with Gold.

Your own knowledge of the financial industry should tell you that for decades now the Markets have been gorging on themselves, liberated from the burden of having to link their speculative trading to the manufacture of real things made by real people. I understand that the derivatives revolution with its credit default swaps and varous instruments was meant to improve Debt Management, but it became Debt Encouragement, as the fiasco over Greensill has shown - a topic I raised in a thread you have not responded to with your inside knowledge of the industry.

The expansion of the debt culture in Capitalism was fundamental to Blair's Cool Britannia, and I don't doubt with the colossal borrowing of Rishi Sunak and the re-opening of the high st economy there will be a boom in the UK economy, and I would not be surprised if the boom breaks all the records, confirming your predictions, for now. But as I say, it is all based on and driven by Debt, and the poltical consequences of a Centrally Planned Economy which even if temporarily, makes Boris Johnson the first Communist Prime Minister in British history, comparable to Brezhnev, though as yet the tanks have not rolled into Edinburgh or Glasgow to crush the Scottish Independence movement.

Read Will Hutton's explanation for the Conservative victory on Teesside under Mr Houchen and it sounds like he is Tony Blair rather than the now discredited Margaret Thatcher, making one wonder what identity her old party has these days. And maybe Dominic Cummngs is right that there is no 'centre ground' in British politics, what we have is a vacant space where anything goes, such as the lies that Boris Johnson is addicted to.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/08/houchenism-the-brand-of-can-do-tory-threatening-the-left-and-right-old-guard

You live in that bubble known as The City -when will it burst? When interest rates have to rise? Because they must. When income tax and most indirect taxes rise? Because they must. And with all that lovely jubbly sloshing around the UK economy, is inflation going to rise? Same old UK, boom and bust. Take the money and run, that's what your buddies do.

Or maybe replace your Happy Days Are Here Again refrain and Line of Duty style acronyms with some evidence?

[obslam]

So don't go to 'New Posts' but the General Discussion and work your way through the list which, if you visit every day, will look familiar.

Thanks for the tip, but I like new posts. I'll just try to resist looking at the inaccurate trash talk on here, like the utterly incorrect rubbish above - which is based on bottom-feeding journalism, not reality.

[peejaye]

Because, annoyingly, it comes up when you click New Posts.

The UK economy is well placed right now and everyone who works in the sector knows it.

Looks like a lot more than just those in the city who agree with you! "Bungling" Boris did rather well in the local elections, best since 2008 I read!:D

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c481drqqzv7t/england-local-elections-2021

[Stavros]

Thanks for the tip, but I like new posts. I'll just try to resist looking at the inaccurate trash talk on here, like the utterly incorrect rubbish above - which is based on bottom-feeding journalism, not reality.

How you navigate HA is your choice. As usual, you dismiss the evidence I offer of the mess Brexit is making of the UK economy, offering zero evidence of your own to prove your point is fact-based and not just opinion. It is not bottom-feeding journalism that reported the closure of the Ford factory in Bridgend some of whose workers were all but promised jobs when the plant was to be renovated to produce electric vehicles until the new owner decided, because of Brexit- to make the cars in France. Maybe you call LSE research 'bottom-feeding journalism' because you don't like what it says about the UK's Labour market, or the tendency of some employers to sack their workers, then re-hire them on less beneficial terms, just as the trillions of pounds of cash and trading that has abadoned the UK for the EU either means nothing to you, or you just can't be arsed to expain why or how the UK benefits from it.

As Brecht once put it, 'So many reports, so many questions' -none of which are addressed by you. And I am still waiting for you to justfy taking away my freedom when you voted to leave the EU.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=peejaye;1966844]Looks like a lot more than just those in the city who agree with you! "Bungling" Boris did rather well in the local elections, best since 2008 I read!:D
/QUOTE]

So, is Hartepool about to become the economic hub of the North-East?

[holzz]

Fishing is only a small part of the economy. UK since 2016 has done better than France and Germany in terms of GDP growth and unemployment. And this was in line with a big fall in the Cable/Euro FOREX rates and lower GDP growth than expected.
Brexit could be good or bad in the future, who knows? the issue imho wasn't just economics it was about what Britain should be. Indepedent in the world or not under the EU's thumb or part of the EU. Even the USA still is part of a changed-NAFTA despite Trump leaving the WTO. The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more - US just imports labour from Mexico but US firms must sell more shit to Mexico.
I wanted Britain to stay in the EU but such is life, we've left. We'll see how it pans out but nobody can say whether it's good or bad economically in the long-term.

[obslam]

When interest rates have to rise? Because they must.

No, not true at all.


When income tax and most indirect taxes rise? Because they must.

Not really that likely at all.


And with all that lovely jubbly sloshing around the UK economy, is inflation going to rise?

Unlikely to consistently be >2%.

I suspect you don't understand Government debt and the bond markets either.

[Stavros]

Fishing is only a small part of the economy. UK since 2016 has done better than France and Germany in terms of GDP growth and unemployment. And this was in line with a big fall in the Cable/Euro FOREX rates and lower GDP growth than expected.
Brexit could be good or bad in the future, who knows? the issue imho wasn't just economics it was about what Britain should be. Indepedent in the world or not under the EU's thumb or part of the EU. Even the USA still is part of a changed-NAFTA despite Trump leaving the WTO. The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more - US just imports labour from Mexico but US firms must sell more shit to Mexico.
I wanted Britain to stay in the EU but such is life, we've left. We'll see how it pans out but nobody can say whether it's good or bad economically in the long-term.

To the extent that the UK was free to act as an independent state as most are, the EU did not prevent it from doing so. To say the UK was 'under the EU's thumb' is so strange an idea I can't imagine where you get it from. The US did not leave NAFTA, it re-negotiated a new body the UMSCA, and it did not leave the WTO.

[Stavros]

No, not true at all.
Not really that likely at all.
Unlikely to consistently be >2%.
I suspect you don't understand Government debt and the bond markets either.

Rises in interest rates and taxes are not going to rise as an historical necessity, I agree, but I don't see how interest rates can remain so low as it makes a mockery of capitalism and the concept of saving; and you already know because he hinted it that Sunak is contemplating tax increases, so don't be suprised if and when they are raised. Your casual indifference to the impact a torrent of money charging through the UK economy is reminiscent of yesteryear, when your pals mis-managed the economy as they are doing now, but hey, your posts imply a lack of interest in real people and real jobs, so we could agree that thousands of people have lost their jobs in the finance sector, the hospitality sector and the fishing industry and then hear you say 'so what?'

Thus does Brexit make cowards of its chanpions, permanently dismissing failure as unimportant, praising a future that hasn't happened, ready to blame the EU and anyone ese for failure rather than its self-pepetuating fantasy.

[obslam]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.

[Stavros]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.


It was sarcasm, not an insult but if that is how you read it, then I apologize.

I find this extraordinary, if indeed this is how you see Brexit: "all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change".

The terms of trade with the EU have changed, and changed radically, that is so obvious -and not just to the citizens living in Northern Ireland- that I don't understand how you can make it.

I don't believe interest rates as low as this are sustainable in the long term, but how long is long? And I don't see the current rates of taxation being sustained for much longer either, but a lot may depend on whether or not Boris Johnson gets bored with a job he complains doesn't pay him enough, leaving the post open for Sunak to become PM, assuming the party prefers him to Gove.

The point of this thread was to chart the ways the UK may change as a consequence of Brexit -the idea it will not change anything is clearly wrong as our relationship with the EU has changed. Also, I see no future for the UK back in the EU as presently constiuted, though I could see the UK becoming part of either a new trading bloc to replace the EU should it falll apart, or some other bloc like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or European equivalent such as the EFTA which the UK helped to create in 1960.

The fact that Brexit was rejected by both Northern Ireland and Scotland has created a 'constitutional' crisis, even though we don't have a Constitution. In the case of Northern Ireland, the negative impact of Brexit aggravates the incompetence of the Northern Ireland Assembly led by the DUP, which itself is now having to choose a new leader for the first time in its history, and a party seen as 'out of touch' with the majority opinion in the Province, particularly on social issues. Whether or not the province can survive on its own is a serious question, and while it can only be answered by a Referendum there, 'Ulster' is closer to being re-united with Ireland than at any time in its miserable 100 year history. But, just as the Republic is reluctant to pay much attention to this Centenary, so too are many in the Province, suggesting that a United Ireland is not going to be a smooth manouevre if and when it happens.

Thus too, one can understand the Scots anger with the English. It is no surprise that having said 'wild horses' would not prevent him from campaigning in Scotland for the elections that took place last Thursday, Boris Johnson stayed away, either because he was prevented from doing so by wid horses, more likely because it was just another flippant remark of no value, given that Boris is a serial liar and says things he doesn't mean just for effect.

But the issues that were unresolved in the 2014 referendum remain unresolved, though the claim that that Referendum 'settled' the matter for a generation is clearly nonsense, as Brexit tore up the rule-book on that, and can be seen as a terrorist act by the English, but one which the so-called Conservatives manipulate with impunity. The end result is that while it may be harder for Scotland to both campaign for Independence in a new Referendum and win it, what Brexit has done is deepen the division between Scotland and England, and with the now almost permanent campaign of lies that is associated with Johnson personally and his corrupt Govt on a regular basis, the summation is that Brexit has not only divided the UK against itself, but poisoned the political debate.

It has also tranformed the Conservative Party, which now implements policies that were associated with the neo-Nazi National Front that the Conservative Party used to condemn. Brexit was for many English people an opportunity to make their racism respectable, something Boris Johnson personally has encouraged in his dirty journalism, it was not just Nigel Farage leading the attack on migrants and immigrants. But Thatcherism is dead now too, Johnson taking the party away from a belief in Markets to one based on Government, and Corporate Government at that, wedded to 'big business' with its reservoirs of cash, a lot of which has been handed over to friends and backers of Boris in the form of contracts for Covid services worth Billions, often with little or nothing delivered in return, a demolition of the idea that 'Markets know best' -no markets here, just one mate doing a favour for another in a manner as corrupt as anything you can find in the USSR and its satellites. Is it any wonder Johnson protested last year "I am not a Communist" when apart from empty rhetorical prayers for Marxism-Leninism, his Govt has all the attributes of the dying days of Brezhnev without the tanks?

Thus, and Crucially, as with the Trump Party of Lies in the US - let's not maintain the fantasy that it is the Republican Party- the scenario in which Truth is a Lie, and Lies are the Truth is now becoming the standard language of divisive politics, in which losers refuse to leave office, and use the law and other means to transform defeat into victory. Orwell would not be surprised, but in mature liberal democracies, we ought to be -not surprised- but angry, and while Biden may have restored some sanity to American politics, Trump's juniors in the UK and places like India are still in office, debasing the very meaning of democracy, which was at its core, one of the ams of Brexit, a movement opposed fundamentally to freedom and individual liberty.

[holzz]

No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.

[obslam]

It was sarcasm, not an insult but if that is how you read it, then I apologize.

I find this extraordinary, if indeed this is how you see Brexit: "all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change".

The terms of trade with the EU have changed, and changed radically, that is so obvious -and not just to the citizens living in Northern Ireland- that I don't understand how you can make it.

I don't believe interest rates as low as this are sustainable in the long term, but how long is long? And I don't see the current rates of taxation being sustained for much longer either, but a lot may depend on whether or not Boris Johnson gets bored with a job he complains doesn't pay him enough, leaving the post open for Sunak to become PM, assuming the party prefers him to Gove.

The point of this thread was to chart the ways the UK may change as a consequence of Brexit -the idea it will not change anything is clearly wrong as our relationship with the EU has changed. Also, I see no future for the UK back in the EU as presently constiuted, though I could see the UK becoming part of either a new trading bloc to replace the EU should it falll apart, or some other bloc like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or European equivalent such as the EFTA which the UK helped to create in 1960.

The fact that Brexit was rejected by both Northern Ireland and Scotland has created a 'constitutional' crisis, even though we don't have a Constitution. In the case of Northern Ireland, the negative impact of Brexit aggravates the incompetence of the Northern Ireland Assembly led by the DUP, which itself is now having to choose a new leader for the first time in its history, and a party seen as 'out of touch' with the majority opinion in the Province, particularly on social issues. Whether or not the province can survive on its own is a serious question, and while it can only be answered by a Referendum there, 'Ulster' is closer to being re-united with Ireland than at any time in its miserable 100 year history. But, just as the Republic is reluctant to pay much attention to this Centenary, so too are many in the Province, suggesting that a United Ireland is not going to be a smooth manouevre if and when it happens.

Thus too, one can understand the Scots anger with the English. It is no surprise that having said 'wild horses' would not prevent him from campaigning in Scotland for the elections that took place last Thursday, Boris Johnson stayed away, either because he was prevented from doing so by wid horses, more likely because it was just another flippant remark of no value, given that Boris is a serial liar and says things he doesn't mean just for effect.

But the issues that were unresolved in the 2014 referendum remain unresolved, though the claim that that Referendum 'settled' the matter for a generation is clearly nonsense, as Brexit tore up the rule-book on that, and can be seen as a terrorist act by the English, but one which the so-called Conservatives manipulate with impunity. The end result is that while it may be harder for Scotland to both campaign for Independence in a new Referendum and win it, what Brexit has done is deepen the division between Scotland and England, and with the now almost permanent campaign of lies that is associated with Johnson personally and his corrupt Govt on a regular basis, the summation is that Brexit has not only divided the UK against itself, but poisoned the political debate.

It has also tranformed the Conservative Party, which now implements policies that were associated with the neo-Nazi National Front that the Conservative Party used to condemn. Brexit was for many English people an opportunity to make their racism respectable, something Boris Johnson personally has encouraged in his dirty journalism, it was not just Nigel Farage leading the attack on migrants and immigrants. But Thatcherism is dead now too, Johnson taking the party away from a belief in Markets to one based on Government, and Corporate Government at that, wedded to 'big business' with its reservoirs of cash, a lot of which has been handed over to friends and backers of Boris in the form of contracts for Covid services worth Billions, often with little or nothing delivered in return, a demolition of the idea that 'Markets know best' -no markets here, just one mate doing a favour for another in a manner as corrupt as anything you can find in the USSR and its satellites. Is it any wonder Johnson protested last year "I am not a Communist" when apart from empty rhetorical prayers for Marxism-Leninism, his Govt has all the attributes of the dying days of Brezhnev without the tanks?

Thus, and Crucially, as with the Trump Party of Lies in the US - let's not maintain the fantasy that it is the Republican Party- the scenario in which Truth is a Lie, and Lies are the Truth is now becoming the standard language of divisive politics, in which losers refuse to leave office, and use the law and other means to transform defeat into victory. Orwell would not be surprised, but in mature liberal democracies, we ought to be -not surprised- but angry, and while Biden may have restored some sanity to American politics, Trump's juniors in the UK and places like India are still in office, debasing the very meaning of democracy, which was at its core, one of the ams of Brexit, a movement opposed fundamentally to freedom and individual liberty.

And does 2 + 2 +5,384?

You're overthinking this massively.

You're not alone though as the uncomprehending media encouraged that for several years, until Covid knocked it off the front page.

Very few credible people think Brexit will have any big economic impact, positive or negative. One of the reasons that politicians don't really talk about it any more. It's a non-issue.

[Laphroaig]

No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.

Still do if we want to sell those goods and services to the EU. Only change is that we now have zero say in what they will be.

[holzz]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.

The pandemic and its effects have skewed things, but who is to say how it will unfold?

[Stavros]

No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.

a) what you did say was "The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more" which is at least misleading.

b) The UK was free to sign as many trade deals with non-EU countries as it could, as Germany did- George Osborne returned from China with a Trade Delegation that signed contracs worth $80 bn, I assume these were not just pieces of paper. Trade Pacts are different and as the EU is itself a trade pact on one level, your use of the phrase is confusing.

c) You say "We had to accept EU standards on goods and services" -this is nonsense, as most of the UK's agreements on standards and regulations are international and thus include both the EU and non-EU country agreements. Those standards and reguations that were specific to the EU in the context of the Single Market were part of a harmonization process within the EU to ensure a level playing field across the Single Market. It means that while Boris Johnson's Govt may talk about 'de-regulation' it does not infact refer to those standards and regulations that are managed by the British Standards Institution [BSI] which are international in origin, but those specific to the EU, and thus the critical focus has been on the rights at work and other provisions in the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act. Bear in mnd that the Tories are manipulating concepts to convince people like you that we have left the 'straitjacket' of EU rules and regulations -some of which originated in the UK when we were full members- when the reality is that the majority of Standards and Regulations are globla rather than just European, as the link explains.
https://brexit-standards.ideasoneurope.eu/

Yes we have left the EU and there is nothing more we can do about it. But the extent to which the UK Government can make its own rules is limited by prior international agreements, though the Govt of Boris Johnson seems to regard such legal instruments as being laws they can break when they want to.

[Stavros]

Very few credible people think Brexit will have any big economic impact, positive or negative. One of the reasons that politicians don't really talk about it any more. It's a non-issue.

And who might these 'credible people' be? You don't offer much in the way of support for your views. There is no rule that says you must in this forum, but it would at least enable those reading your posts to know where you get your information from. As for the politicias, well let's be honest. Labour doesn't want to focus too much on Brexit because it doesn't have a coherent position on it, and has not since it took no official position on Leave or Remain yet supported the Tories from the 2015 Referendum Bill through the votes on Article 50, and the Repeal of the 1973 Euopean Communitied Act, and only opposed Theresa May's version of the EU WIthdrawal Act to score points in the division lobby. My guess is that the voters last week looked at the parties and decided if they wanted Brexit they might as well vote Tory rather than Labour. The Tories have gone quiet on the topic because they know that some of their most loyal voters who own businsesses regret voting to Leave the EU and the Single Market because it is damaging their business.

The day will come when Brext returns to the headlines and the men and women responsibe for it won't be able to run away and hide, though I suspect that when the going gets rough, Boris will be on his bike, unless more scandals of his own making force the party to get rid of him. If I told some of the people I know I wanted a Caribbean holiday and suggest they pay for it, the response would be two words, one beginning with the letter 'F', the other 'O'.

[holzz]

a) what you did say was "The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more" which is at least misleading.

b) The UK was free to sign as many trade deals with non-EU countries as it could, as Germany did- George Osborne returned from China with a Trade Delegation that signed contracs worth $80 bn, I assume these were not just pieces of paper. Trade Pacts are different and as the EU is itself a trade pact on one level, your use of the phrase is confusing.

c) You say "We had to accept EU standards on goods and services" -this is nonsense, as most of the UK's agreements on standards and regulations are international and thus include both the EU and non-EU country agreements. Those standards and reguations that were specific to the EU in the context of the Single Market were part of a harmonization process within the EU to ensure a level playing field across the Single Market. It means that while Boris Johnson's Govt may talk about 'de-regulation' it does not infact refer to those standards and regulations that are managed by the British Standards Institution [BSI] which are international in origin, but those specific to the EU, and thus the critical focus has been on the rights at work and other provisions in the Social Chapter of the Single Market Act. Bear in mnd that the Tories are manipulating concepts to convince people like you that we have left the 'straitjacket' of EU rules and regulations -some of which originated in the UK when we were full members- when the reality is that the majority of Standards and Regulations are globla rather than just European, as the link explains.
https://brexit-standards.ideasoneurope.eu/

Yes we have left the EU and there is nothing more we can do about it. But the extent to which the UK Government can make its own rules is limited by prior international agreements, though the Govt of Boris Johnson seems to regard such legal instruments as being laws they can break when they want to.

https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/policy-making/

I meant comprehensive deals covering free trade, movement of labour, quota, tariffs, etc. The EU does this for all member states, so the Brexiteers had a point.

My point about the USA was that despite Trump's BS he just changed NAFTA. His administration still saw the value in a local trading bloc, so we could have stayed in the EU.

I don't get why we left, but it happened. it's done, so we move on.

[holzz]

Since the UK left, and even before it in the dithering May period, it made lots of deals with other countries that came into force after the BoJo deal was passed and signed.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-trade-agreements-with-non-eu-countries

[Stavros]

Since the UK left, and even before it in the dithering May period, it made lots of deals with other countries that came into force after the BoJo deal was passed and signed.


'Lots of deals with other countries' -indeed. Now tell me what they are worth compared to the UK's membership of the largest free market in the world? And is the deal with Japan better than the EU's deal with Japan? Is a deal with Australia really worth more than the trade we had with the EU? I think you need to do some more 'digging' into the facts, though I accept your point that we have left the EU and must deal with that. Right now, we are not dealing well with it, as the convulsions in Northern Ireland show.

[holzz]

'Lots of deals with other countries' -indeed. Now tell me what they are worth compared to the UK's membership of the largest free market in the world? And is the deal with Japan better than the EU's deal with Japan? Is a deal with Australia really worth more than the trade we had with the EU? I think you need to do some more 'digging' into the facts, though I accept your point that we have left the EU and must deal with that. Right now, we are not dealing well with it, as the convulsions in Northern Ireland show.

Well the government says the terms of the new deals are the same as the EU's. They've just transferred the terms to make things easier. But it's not true to say the UK could sign trade deals as an EU member.

[Stavros]

The key point about trade was that the member states of the EU benefit from trade deals whether they are made between Germany and Japan or the UK and China, moreover, this meant that the EU as a trading bloc was more attractive to major investors such as China and Japan than the UK is on its own, hence the claims that the UK's volume of trade and its value will decline as the UK leaves the Single Market. And bear in mind some advocates of Brexit in 2016 said the UK would not sever its ties with the Single Market.
We don't yet know if the UK Govt is going to offer terms of trade to non-EU states that depart from the standards and regulations of the EU, that is, the so-called 'level playing field', and just as the Govt of Boris Johnson has said it will break international law whenever it wants to, so his Govt may renege on all and any agreement to secure a trade deal even if it means the UK lowering its on standards and regulations, for example, on health and safety laws, employment law, and so on.

Fundamentally, the Conservative Govt cannot be trusted, as it is still improvising its way through the regulatory mess that has been created by the EU-UK Trade Agreement.

[Stavros]

Another day, another crisis, this time in 'the supply chain' which means petrol stations are closing, as a lack of Carbon Dioxide theaten the security of supplies of Coca Cola, Mincemeat and Shepherd's Pie -but not in Northern Ireland because it is still in the EU Customs Union. As Jonathan Freedland points out, even before this crisis there was a 'dearth' of HGV drivers in the EU, but as the UK has broken away from the EU, the situation here is that much worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/24/food-petrol-shortages-brexit-goods-johnson-botched-deal

Surprise, surprise, while Grant Schapps, a Minister in his Govt expresses no desire to let 'foreigners' in to do work the Brits ought to be doing, Boris Johnson is prepared to renege on his own commitments to 'Global Britain' as an 'independent from the EU' economy, standing alone but proud and hugely successful-

"Ministers are poised to agree an extraordinary post-Brexit U-turn that would see foreign lorry drivers allowed back into the UK to stave off shortages threatening fuel and food supplies.

Boris Johnson ordered a rapid fix on Friday to prevent the crisis escalating. Ministers met in a bid to agree a short-term visa scheme permitting potentially thousands more lorry drivers from abroad to come to the UK.
The prime minister is understood to have weighed in to demand a compromise from his warring cabinet, which was split over the issue (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/uk-cabinet-split-over-solution-to-lorry-driver-shortage), following scenes of chaotic queues at some petrol stations and warnings from suppliers that the shortage of fuel on forecourts could worsen."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/supply-chain-crisis-tories-poised-turn-foreign-worker-visas

I doubt Johnson will keep turning until the logic of seeking a re-entry into the EU's Customs Union and Single Market for the whole of the UK presents itself, and Labour is incapable of even discussing Brexit as the mess that it is, largely because it helped to create it, and is terrified the voters will not like being told they made the wrong decision in 2016, even if many of those who voted Leave now regret it.

We are stuck with this wilderness of delusion, and it is breaking Britain. And the fact is, I don't think Boris Johnson or anyone in his Government cares. He has his eminence, his Cabinet colleagues squabble over who gets to stay in tax-payer funded and plush country mansions at the weekend, while Schapps is on tv in his home with a Union Jack behind him, telling us not to panic. And is anyone going to resign, or take responsibility for this? Nah, not these days. Not bovvered, mate.

[obslam]

You are stuck with this wilderness of delusion?

We seem to be stuck with your delusions as to life in the UK.

Brexit is over. It hasn't broken Britain, it isn't broken Britain and it won't break Britain - sorry to disappoint you and your silly claims.

[Stavros]

You are stuck with this wilderness of delusion?

We seem to be stuck with your delusions as to life in the UK.

Brexit is over. It hasn't broken Britain, it isn't broken Britain and it won't break Britain - sorry to disappoint you and your silly claims.


Who is deluded? How can Brexit be 'over' when it has only just got started and we will be living with the consequences of this bad decision for years?

The two main 'national' parties have but a slim and amost irrelevant representation in Scotland and Wales, and in case you hadn't noticed it, Brexit is causing chaos in the Northern Ireland Assembly as the DUP loses support and threatens to collapse the power sharing agreement, as its supporters daub violent graffiti on the walls of Belfast because of the Northern Ireland Protocol which has done what the majority of people in NI wanted anyway, to remain in the EU.

Yes, it is true that the pound hasn't collapsed in value as some, myself included, feared after Brexit, though it is worth less than it was before the result of the Referendum, indeed, that the FT can report that because of 'receding fears over Brexit', "Foreign investors bought a record-breaking volume of UK government debt over the past year, helping to fund the unprecedented levels of borrowing during the Covid-19 pandemic."
https://www.ft.com/content/8552ee27-0d56-4d9f-bc8d-7dd7d443ed10

Is this what Global Britain means- a reliance on foreign investment when the Brits you work with in the City can't be bothered to invest in their own country? I thought it was supposed to be about free enterprise and free markets, yet those foreign investors seem to have more confidence in the UK than your City chums with their Union Jack underpants, and just as most of our Train Operating Companies are owned by companies owned by foreign States, so the most recent boost to investment in the UK came from the Govt of the UAE, about as remote from free enterprise as you can get. With the State here having to bail out failing companes, I think even you will admit that your Global Britain campaign is made up mostly of State rather than Private Investment, but wasn't it Sir John Redwood who advised his clients to invest in the EU rather than the UK?

Broken dreams, though for some in the real world is much like the Chief Executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce who wrote to Boris Johnson

"...asking him to tackle problems caused by Brexit (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit) said he is yet to receive a reply.James Ramsbotham, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC), set out some of the issues which include a shortage of truck drivers, confusion over customs declarations and delays in transporting goods.
A survey of the NECC’s almost 2,500 members found three quarters of businesses had been negatively impacted by leaving the EU, he said.
The chamber said this was backed up by the Government’s own trade statistics which revealed a 37% drop in export and import trade."
https://www.independent.co.uk/business/business-leader-s-brexit-letter-to-pm-unanswered-b1899305.html

Oops, what happened there? Did we just stumble on the reality doorstep?

[obslam]

I'm glad I don't live in the weird world you seem to have invented. I really can't be arsed to even start to correct your misunderstanding of Government debt and bonds, what they actually mean and how they work in the real world.

[Stavros]

It also helps you to avoid debating -indeed as someone who voted for it, taking responsibility for Brexit's broken dreams.

So you have nothing to say about the Northern Ireland Protocol or anything else in the agreement Boris Johnson's Government signed with the EU that is proving in so many instances to contradict the Law -not least, in this case, the Anglo-Irish Agreement that ended the Troubles.

Nothing to say abuout the tsunamic of paperwork and the costs that have inundated small and medium sized businesses with no regard for Boris Johnson's claim that once out of the EU British business would not be burdened by regulations.

You can avoid dealing with the contradiction between free enterprise and the State that makes Brexit a Utopian fantasy, just as you can't be arsed to tell is why the British State exists, let alone why it is in debt, as Libertarians like Ms Truss and Mr Raab can pen any amount of pseudo-political drivel for Britannia Unchained they care to, then sit in Boris Johnson's Cabinet plucking 'Bonds' from the Magic Money Tree, spending other people's money to compensate for markets that have failed or watch the UK become a basket case economy like Zimbabwe under Robert Mugababy.

I have not invented the crisis in Norther Ireland, nor have I invented the statistics on the loss of trade that I cited in my previous post. I have not invented the lies that Johnson and Gove and the rest of them told, about the money the UK would save when it left the EU, about the return of a Sovereignty whose extent only exists in the airy heads of Brexit supporters, just as I did not invent the Racism which is integrated into the Brexit anti-foreigner narrative, even as today the same people beg for those foreigners to come and save their bacon and egg breakfasts, or Wetherspoon pubs.

What a strange world you have invented, where Brexit is done, and all is right with the world, or the UK, or the City of London, or maybe just your bedroom. Based on what little you have said on the subject, can anyone benefit from your insight into Brexit? I am sure many readers of these posts who don't comment on them, woud like to know.

[obslam]

You show the level of accuracy of your posts by assuming I voted for it.

I really have no idea why you want to post your drivel here. It adds nothing to anything.

I'm sure there's some other forum for people who want to do nothing but complain about how wrong everything is.

[rodinuk]

…
I'm sure there's some other forum for people who want to do nothing but complain about how wrong everything is.

Parliament :banana:

[holzz]

I'm glad I don't live in the weird world you seem to have invented. I really can't be arsed to even start to correct your misunderstanding of Government debt and bonds, what they actually mean and how they work in the real world.

The effects of Brexit will last for sometime. to suggest otherwise is naive.

[filghy2]

I voted leave, but I never thought or claimed it would make our lives better.


You show the level of accuracy of your posts by assuming I voted for it.

Let me refresh your memory.

[filghy2]

I'm glad I don't live in the weird world you seem to have invented. I really can't be arsed to even start to correct your misunderstanding of Government debt and bonds, what they actually mean and how they work in the real world.

Like this, you mean? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker

You don't seem to be a very good liar, so I guess you haven't made it to "big swinging dick" yet.

[obslam]

Let me refresh your memory.

The point was I didn't vote for "broken dreams." Apologies if that wasn't clear of me.

I just feel so sorry for the people who just can't get over the fact that the electorate voted a different way to the way they would have preferred. They want to prove everything is so awful due to that. Except it isn't. We are lucky to live in one of the wealthiest and most prosperous nations on earth.

[Stavros]

The point was I didn't vote for "broken dreams." Apologies if that wasn't clear of me.

I just feel so sorry for the people who just can't get over the fact that the electorate voted a different way to the way they would have preferred. They want to prove everything is so awful due to that. Except it isn't. We are lucky to live in one of the wealthiest and most prosperous nations on earth.


It is not about being unable to accept the vote to Leave, but the simple fact that the advocates of Leave had no real plan to implement the decision because they did not expect Leave to win the Referendum.

From that moment on, the UK Government was incapable of matching the experienced negtiators of the EU for whom the integrity of the Single Market and the Customs Union was, and remains too important to to be amended just to suit the UK, and because the UK either had no idea what it wanted, or wanted the impossible from the EU.

As a result the various trade agreements that were put to Parliament, by Theresa May and then Boris Johson, put the UK in a weak position, as evidenced by the Northern Ireland Protocol, on which you have nothing to say. But again, it also exposes to view the fact that there was always going to be a conflict between the UK leaving the Customs Union of the UK, and the Anglo-Irish Agreement which guarantees there will be no 'hard border' between the Republic and the UK. And here we are, five years later, and the problem has not been resolved, while the DUP which had such influence on the Govt of Theresa May, is now a party of marginal importance yet capable of ending the Power Sharing agreement crucial to the peace and prosperity of the provnce, yet aware of its vulnerability inside Northern Ireland, but where enough people who claim to be 'Unionists' may not yet be ready to accept what for many outside is the inevitable re-unification of Ireland.

So the basis of my complaint is not just the negative effects of Brexit provided by British businesses, many of whom supported the Leave campaign, but that the management of Brexit has been so poor. The internal divisions in the Conservative Party led to the most extraordinary scenes of failure by the Govt to pass its own laws, scuppered by its own MPs, who then chose a new leader whose first act was to purge that same party of any MP who did not share his vision, the only difference between Johnson and Stalin being the lack of a Gulag Archipelago in the UK.
On the other side of the House, the Labour Party then and now, has absolutely no idea what to do with Brexit, as it has ruled out the most logical solution which is to seek the UKs re-entry into the Single Market and the Customs Union.

The anger that I personally feel relates to the removal of my freedom, and the freedom of every other UK citizen that was part of the Single Market. We rarely, if ever have a debate on how our freedom has been eroded by Boris Johnson's vision, but then we have avoided the elephant in the room, which is the loathing of foreigners that was fundamental for those who voted Leave, who complained there were too many migrants/immigrants in the country, regardless of the jobs they were doing.

At a day-to-day level it has been responsible for the labour shortages in Care Homes, the long-short haul road haulage business, and the food processing/picking businesses, but at a longer-term or broader level, it has been an extension of a long-established campaign by the Neo-Nazi and New Wave Fascists who subscribe to forms of 'race replacement' ideas that claim immigration has, is, and will destroy the British in Britain, as currently exhibited by the TV programmes which 'must' contain references to being queer, slavery, exploitation, and so on, and thus feature actors, comedians and presenters who are non-White, Gay, probably Muslim and 'hate' the Tories.

Brexit is about so much more than Govt bonds, global markets, freedom from EU institutions and regulations, and is also about how 'we' view the UK now and in the years to come. And so far the tilt towards the New Wave Fascism that has infected the US, Hungary, Poland and Russia, that has been the main event in Turkey since 1923, and Israel since 1977, is trying to establish itself in the UK, with Nigel Farage its most obvious representative.

But consider too, how it is that when Edward Heath was Conservative PM in 1970-73, he expelled Enoch Powell from his party, yet under Boris Johnson, we have a Home Office whose 'send the Blacks Back' policy is almost a carbon copy of the policy of the neo-Nazi National Front that Heath was genuinely opposed to. And it is inconceivable that Heath would ever have referred to Black people as 'Picaninnies' with 'Watermeon smiles' as Boris Johnson has.

Brexit is not over, it has barely got started, and I am genuinely worried at the trends in politics that I never thought I would have to confront again. I suggest what strikes me as your complacency, or indifference is part of the permissive environment which allows the extremists to enter the building, and then tear it down because nobody is there to stop them.

[filghy2]

If you really wanted to ignore someone, wouldn't it be best to not continually respond to their posts?

[Stavros]

We are lucky to live in one of the wealthiest and most prosperous nations on earth.


I would agree that the UK is 'one of the wealthiest and most prosperous nations on earth' but the UK is not a nation, and the prosperity here is unevenly distributed. Indeed, one of the key challenges we have which existed before Brexit, was to tackle the increasing gap between rich and poor.

One of the tricks played by the Leave campaign was to imply or even state that the UK woud be financially better off outside the EU, because the costs would be saved, and the money 'repatriated' to the UK, spent on 'us' or the NHS if that slogan on the side of Boris Johnson's bus was to be believed.

That Labour has failed to articulate an agenda for a more equitable distribution of the wealth created in the UK is part of its broader failure to create any agenda with enough appeal to challenge the dominance of the Conservatives in England and the SNP in Scotland. In this sense, if Brexit is creating a new era in the UK, it appears to be one characterised by the retreat of UK-wide political affiliations into their national bunkers, with differences that could become irreconcilable. Thus Scotland may not succeed in becoming independent, yet the proportion of supporters of independence there create an enduring resentment of 'The English' that firms up the SNP grip on power thus denying Labour any hope of winning an election bar a collapse of Tory support in England.

In this sense, Brexit has aggravated existing political divisions in the UK, while the incompetent management of Brexit -by the people most passionate about it- fails to address real poverty and hardship in 'the Shires'. We may live in a prosperous country, but it has over 2,000 food banks, and 'in work benefits' exist because a substantial number of people are working on such low wages they cannot use them to pay the rent or buy groceries.

My proposal to begin narrowing the gap between rich and poor, would be a levy on the transactions agreed in the City of London, say 0.7% per day. Taxing the rich should always be fair, but income is only one part of wealth, assets and transactons are another. But it does also depend for its postive effects on the competence of the Govt to collect the levy and spend it wisely, in an age when wisdom in politics seems in short supply.

Rawls has had his critics, and often rightly too, but his basic ideas of justice and fairness seem to me to be congenial in a liberal market economy, but Democrats in the US, and Labour in the UK seem too scared of the men with money to be bold enough to initiate the changes our societies need.

I did not read obslam's deleted post so I don't know what was written there. Politics is about debate, or it is about nothing. I think I can take robust criticism, so I hope the debate continues.

[obslam]

LOL, I respond to someone writing drivel about how British people have had their "freedom" removed and my post is censored.

Anyway, I've worked out how to block him now, so he can stay in his unhappy world without inflicting it on me in the real world.

[obslam]

If you really wanted to ignore someone, wouldn't it be best to not continually respond to their posts?

I know you're right filghy2, but it annoys me that people can write such ridiculous exaggerations and untruths and feel unable to be challenged on it. They add nothing to our society.

[Stavros]

LOL, I respond to someone writing drivel about how British people have had their "freedom" removed and my post is censored.

Anyway, I've worked out how to block him now, so he can stay in his unhappy world without inflicting it on me in the real world.

Free movement of people -gone.
Free movement of capital - gone.
Free movement of goods -gone.
Free movement of services - gone.
The Northern Ireland Protocol and its negative impact on politics and the economy of the Province -drivel?
The xenophobic posters and statements of Farage from 2016 to the present -drivel?
The vocal criticism by British business of the management by the Government of Brexit -drivel?
Tim Martin of the Wetherspoon chain begging for migrant labour from the EU to be admitted to the UK -drivel?
Five years after the EU Referendum, the UK and the EU have not reached an agreement on Services -drivel?
By January 2021 the Pound Sterling was 15% weaker against the Euro than it was on Referendum day -drivel?
The Referendum result led to the largest fall in value of the Pound Sterling in 30 years -drivel?
Prosperity in the UK has not led to the closure of 2,000 Food Banks -drivel?
The independence movement in Scotland -which voted to remain in the EU- has been revived by Brexit -drivel?

I could go on, but that's my take on the most stupid decision made in this country in my lifetime, even more stupid than Eden's Suez adventure.

There is a genune debate to be had which concerns Brexit and its impact on the UK, indeed on the EU, but I cannot force anyone t engage in it, on their terms, mine, or anyone else's terms. AJ Polan wrote a book called Lenin and the End of Politics. You can see what happens when debate is shut down, be it in Syria, Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia or even inside what used to be called the 'Republican Party' in the US.

A permissive environment in which politics is shut down to maintain power for autocrats, or to empower those who seek to rule without the inconvenience of public opinon, indeed, the Rights of the Citizen, is an environment that destroys the ability of democratic government to function. If those New Wave Fascists fed up with the EU, the Constitution, Parliament or whatever is in their way, at least tell us why, and how they intend to govern, then we can at least take a last stand. Because it might be our last chance to rescue history from its liars, its thieves, and its murderers.

[mrtrebus]

LOL, I respond to someone writing drivel about how British people have had their "freedom" removed and my post is censored.

Anyway, I've worked out how to block him now, so he can stay in his unhappy world without inflicting it on me in the real world.
We have had our freedom removed.

[obslam]

LOL, go on then, what can't you do now that you could before the electorate voted by majority to leave the EU?

[mrtrebus]

LOL, go on then, what can't you do now that you could before the electorate voted by majority to leave the EU?
Before the electorate voted by majority to leave the EU I had an automatic right to live and work in the EU.

[obslam]

Thanks. Which EU countries couldn't you live and/or work in now if you wanted to?

[Jericho]

It was shit today.
It was shit yesterday.
And you can bet your arse it's going to be shit tomorrow!

[Jericho]

It was shit today.
It was shit yesterday.
And you can bet your arse it's going to be shit tomorrow!

Told you...


Boris Johnson on the BBC "I've given you the most important metric which is, never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes, look at wage growth."

[Stavros]

Thanks. Which EU countries couldn't you live and/or work in now if you wanted to?

Context is what matters here -when I worked in France in the 1970s I did not need a work permit because the work was temporary and exempt from the regulation. The Single Market opened up opportunities in all sectors without the need for regulation for citizens of member countries.

The supporters of Brexit who have trumpeted a country free of EU regulation now find that to work in the EU UK citizens need to conform to regulations because the UK is no longer a member of the Single Market -just as EU citizens need to meet certain requitements to work in the UK, unless there is a crisis like there is now which allows the very same Brexit Fanatics to relax the rules to cover their own arses.

UK citizens no longer have the freedom to even visit the EU for as long as they like, being obliged to leave after 90 days.
https://www.frenchentree.com/brexit/eu-90-180-day-rule-heres-how-it-works/

Meawhile, there is a shortage of labour because EU citizens don't want to work in the EU, or cannot be allowed in because the jobs they do does't pay up to or beyond a limit set by the UK Govt, so freedom is lost both ways.

“We had a lot of European chefs,” said Creely, who also runs the flagship Ezra & Gil on nearby Hilton Street, “but a lot of people left after Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum). Brexit is massively responsible for the problem, particularly when it comes to chef shortages.”
At Dimitri’s, which has a red “Vote Love” sign in the window – a play on the “Vote Leave” posters that appeared everywhere during the 2016 referendum – Benson agreed. “We need to let the Europeans back in to work. It never should have stopped.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/02/a-million-unfilled-jobs-and-no-one-to-serve-the-tories-in-manchester

The devil was always in the detail, and the devil is shrieking with laughter.

[Stavros]

Conference season means only one thing -waffling bollocks from politicians playing to their base. The days of real drama, when Kinnock rescued Labour from Militant are long gone, but in Manchester, the Conservatives are revealing that they don't want to talk about their Brexit even as they can't avoid it. With supply chains issues the 'critical' issue of the day, threatening Christmas dinner without Turkey (which I haven't eaten at Christmas since, I think, 1983), Boris Johnson and his Bo Selectas are blaming employers for preferring cheap labour to the business acument that innovates to survive, thus:

"What I think needs to happen there is a question about the types of jobs that are being done, the pay that is being offered, the levels of automation, the levels of investment in those jobs ... What we can’t do is in all these sectors simply go back to the tired, failed, old model, reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration, get people in [on] low wages." (But Johnson then says he is in favour of 'controlled immigration')...

Other Tories, in private/off-the-record statements are frank:


“Business was served notice in the referendum that all this [cheap labour] is ending,” says one minister. “They didn’t invest, so now they’re paying the price.”
And this is what’s so interesting: the number of Tories talking about business getting its just deserts, seeing the current chaos as a painful but necessary war of nerves. “Boris was quite right: f--- business,” one senior Tory says, referring to a now-notorious remark the prime minister made about corporate lobbyists. “They haven’t innovated, haven’t automated. Now they’ll have to – and pay up.” Striking language for the party that was, once, the party of business."

But what does business say?

Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, said it was “nonsense” to claim the problems in the sector were all down to low wages. He said:


"The idea that we have just been dependent on cheap labour, we haven’t been investing in infrastructure, is utter nonsense.
It is lot more complicated than that. Even though we have increased wages quite dramatically, we are still not getting people wanting to do that job.

He said pig farmers were facing a “nightmare scenario” (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/01/uk-pig-industry-warns-butcher-shortage-mass-cull), and he said the government should relax visa rules to all skilled workers from abroad to enter the country to fill vacancies."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/oct/03/boris-johnson-being-interviewed-by-andrew-marr-as-conservative-conference-opens-uk-politics-live

[filghy2]

And this is what’s so interesting: the number of Tories talking about business getting its just deserts, seeing the current chaos as a painful but necessary war of nerves. “Boris was quite right: f--- business,” one senior Tory says, referring to a now-notorious remark the prime minister made about corporate lobbyists. “They haven’t innovated, haven’t automated. Now they’ll have to – and pay up.” Striking language for the party that was, once, the party of business."

The political right is totally incoherent on the role of the market nowadays. The Thatcher-Reagan free market paradigm was over-simplistic in ignoring many important realities, but it has been replaced with a dog's breakfast. As I've said before, the right is not really about free markets or small government any more. It's mostly about cultural tribalism, and their attitude toward business depends on whether they serve that goal or not.

Maybe business should have invested more in workforce skills, technological innovation, etc, but isn't it the role of government to implement policies to ensure that happens? These quotes are an abrogation of responsibility.

[Stavros]

Maybe business should have invested more in workforce skills, technological innovation, etc, but isn't it the role of government to implement policies to ensure that happens? These quotes are an abrogation of responsibility.

You make an important point, because it seems to me that the allure of political power is too great for even the most hardened Libertarian to let it go -Johnson, Gove, Rees-Mogg can make as many statements as they like about markets, but they are not going to trade in their chauffeured limousines, their tax-payer funded country estates and the High Table mentality that goes with it, to hand over power to small and medium sized businesses, or even the Billionaire Hedge Funds and Sovereign Funds of oil-rich Sultans and Kings.

More pertinent is the view of Larry Elliot in the link below which discusses just-in-time wrorking methods and the global supply chains which work well until there is a crisis, when it ceases to work at all. The irony of those who pitch Globalists against Patriots, is that the reliance/dependency on JiTand Supply Chain productiona and distribution is what made them and their backers very rich indeed. Whether or not the UK can repatriate production from China/Asia to deal with Supply Chain issues is possibe, but as a country with low productivity ,poor training and stagnant wages (though HGV drivers might become the richest workers in the UK, if anyone can find them), the UK with its colossal debt does not look like it is going to get out of the moribund state is is now in.

And we have yet to even see a serious start to the negtiations on Services with the EU. Given that David Frost negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol which he (and the DUP) now says is unacceptable (Arlene Foster says it should be scrapped immedately), what hope is there that this Government will negotiate a good deal with the EU on what constitutes the greater part of the UK economy?

Brexit over? It has barely got started.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/03/fuel-crisis-and-supply-shortages-are-a-product-of-the-uks-economic-model

[mrtrebus]

Thanks. Which EU countries couldn't you live and/or work in now if you wanted to?
I don't have an automatic right to live and/or work in any EU country now.

[obslam]

I don't have an automatic right to live and/or work in any EU country now.

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

[Stavros]

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

A misleading post, thus-

“UK citizens do not need a visa or residency permit to live, work or study in Ireland. Under the Common Travel Area (CTA), UK and Irish citizens can live and work freely in each other’s countries and travel freely between them. Both the UK and Irish governments are committed to protecting the CTA. Read our guidance on the CTA.”
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/living-in-ireland

The CTA has been in force with amendments since the 1920s and is thus an agreement independent of the EU.

[obslam]

Yes, you do if you are a UK citizen.

For example, you have a right to live and/or work in the Republic of Ireland.

While your right to live/work in other EU countries might not be quite automatic, there are likely none that would actually decline people from the UK.

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

[Stavros]

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

In a liberal democracy, we extend rights and respect to minorities, and do not intend to limit the freedom of the individual, the freedom of expression, freedom of movement.

My freedom of movement into and out of the EU (but not the Republic of Ireland) has been taken away by Brexit, just as a new Bill before Parliament threatens to remove my right to engage in free expression on the Internet.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/06/how-the-uk-government-is-launching-an-attack-on-freedom-of-speech

[Jericho]

I could have pointed out that for the people who want to complain about the loss of "automatic" right to work outside of The British Isles, only about 0.1% of them would actually have the balls to do so.

You could have....But that would have been more obfuscation, too.

You can polish that turd until the world runs out of J-Cloth, but Brexit Britain is
Shit Today,
Shit yesterday.
And by golly, it's going to be shit tomorrow!

[obslam]

You could have....But that would have been more obfuscation, too.

You can polish that turd until the world runs out of J-Cloth, but Brexit Britain is
Shit Today,
Shit yesterday.
And by golly, it's going to be shit tomorrow!

Feel sorry for you then.

Britain, pre- or post-Brexit, is a country where anyone can achieve anything if they put the effort in. A lot of countries aren't like that.

It's certainly not shit. Of course, if you aren't willing to put the effort in maybe your life is shit. But that isn't the country's fault.

[Laphroaig]

Britain, pre- or post-Brexit, is a country where anyone can achieve anything, if they donate enough to the Tory party.

Fixed that for you.

[Jericho]

Feel sorry for you then.

Britain, pre- or post-Brexit, is a country where anyone can achieve anything if they put the effort in. A lot of countries aren't like that.

It's certainly not shit. Of course, if you aren't willing to put the effort in maybe your life is shit. But that isn't the country's fault.


Restriction of Movement in our own country
Loss of freedom of Movement in Europe
Increases in foodbank usage
Increase in homelessness
Fuel shortages (In certain areas).
Lack of variety and rising prices in stores
Energy prices about to go up (Just in time for Winter (You can heat or eat)).
The army being drafted in to drive ambulances
Do stop me if you're being overwhelmed by the greatness of it all!

Unless of course, you're sitting on a cushion.
Then it's "I'm alright, Jack", and a holiday in Marbella in a mates villa!

[filghy2]

Britain, pre- or post-Brexit, is a country where anyone can achieve anything if they put the effort in. A lot of countries aren't like that.

Dr Pangloss, I presume. These whingers just don't appreciate that they never had it so good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1mGoLDRbc?t=4

[obslam]

Why the fuck would I borrow a mates villa? What's wrong with mine?

[obslam]

Restriction of Movement in our own country
Loss of freedom of Movement in Europe
Increases in foodbank usage
Increase in homelessness
Fuel shortages (In certain areas).
Lack of variety and rising prices in stores
Energy prices about to go up (Just in time for Winter (You can heat or eat)).
The army being drafted in to drive ambulances


Apart from the incorrect, top two in the list, claims, I'm not sure there is any link between any of the others and Brexit.

[Jericho]

Apart from the incorrect, top two in the list, claims, I'm not sure there is any link between any of the others and Brexit.

We've already established you're wrong about FoM.
You're wrong about the rest, too.
YOU might not be sure, the rest of the world *is*!

[obslam]

We've already established you're wrong about FoM.
You're wrong about the rest, too.
YOU might not be sure, the rest of the world *is*!

LOL, we've established I'm right on FoM. It really isn't restricted.

I'm not wrong about the rest either.

Russian gas shortages due to the UK leaving the EU?

Fuel supply issues due to the UK leaving the EU (even though number of ADR holders unaffected)?

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. You seem delusional.

Goodbye.

[Jericho]

LOL, we've established I'm right on FoM. It really isn't restricted.

I'm not wrong about the rest either.

Russian gas shortages due to the UK leaving the EU?

Fuel supply issues due to the UK leaving the EU (even though number of ADR holders unaffected)?

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. You seem delusional.

Goodbye.


:banghead
Basking in the sunlit uplands of denial.

[Stavros]

Lord Frost, opposed to Brexit before the Referendum is now one of its most aggressive warriors, going into battle against- well, himself, and the Northern Ireland Protocol he negotiated on behalf of Boris Johnson to prove just how useless Theresa May was.

But we can’t escape something that has been poking politicians in the eye for 800 years- Ireland, and just as in the 19th century it split apart the Liberal and Conservative parties, and in the 20th was the scene of devastating violence, so here we are, in the second decade of the 21sr century, and Ireland- or rather the British position in Ireland remains an unrelenting mistress of despair. That there is no end in sight Rafael Behr attributes to Theresa May and Boris Johnson, but I fear it has deeper roots, it is a tree that can’t be felled, not yet anyway. Thus-

“The demand to end European court jurisdiction signals that Johnson is not serious about the protocol. He knows that the single market and the court are one package. Frost is asking to erase a fundamental basis of all Brexit negotiation, resetting the clock (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/19/uk-caves-in-to-eu-demand-to-agree-divorce-bill-before-trade-talks) to June 2017, expiating May’s original sin in accepting the primacy of the Irish border issue; retracting Britain’s concession that it is any kind of issue at all.”
I have spoken to ministers, diplomats and officials who have worked with Johnson and they say, with one voice, that he has no interest in the detail of his deals and does not consider his signature on them to be binding. As one former cabinet colleague puts it: “Boris doesn’t give a stuff about Northern Ireland.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/12/cult-boris-johnson-optimism-brexit-plan-northern-ireland-protocol

note also a comment from a reader made up of quotes from various sources-

“Marina Hyde in the Guardian:
"Lord Frost now spends most of his time castigating the EU for sticking to the terms of the deal struck by Lord Frost, and for doing so in a way that was predicted by seemingly everyone other than Lord Frost."
Nytimes Published Sept. 28, 2021
"Gas stations in Northern Ireland, which has an open border with the Irish Republic (a European Union member), are not reporting panic buying. Similarly, Northern Ireland was unaffected by the recent shortage in supplies of carbon dioxide because its soda bottling plants had access to shipments from continental Europe."
https://nyti.ms/3F18lfx
... the UK intends to opt back into EU programmes on research (Horizon), earth observation satellites (Copernicus), energy (Euratom research & training and Fusion for Energy). The UK will make a “proportionate contribution” to these programmes ...

A large non-EU state is threatening a small EU state, with whom it has a land boundary, with unspecified actions, because of the out working of an international Treaty, to which the larger state freely agreed, less than two years ago.
John Bruton
Irish Times July 7th”.

[Laphroaig]

LOL, we've established I'm right on FoM. It really isn't restricted.



if freedom of movement isn't restricted, why are the UK government announcing extra visa's for EU HGV drivers, butchers, etc?

[obslam]

if freedom of movement isn't restricted, why are the UK government announcing extra visa's for EU HGV drivers, butchers, etc?

He was talking about UK citizens freedoms supposedly being restricted in going to the EU.

You are talking about the opposite.

[Laphroaig]

He was talking about UK citizens freedoms supposedly being restricted in going to the EU.

You are talking about the opposite.

Doesn't answer the question.:rolleyes:

[Stavros]

One wonders what the word Freedom means. The whole point about the Free Movement of People in the Single Market was that there would be no conditions attached within the law, so the end of free movement through the exit from the EU removes that right -ie, that freedom- from UK citizens. It doesn't mean UK citizens cannot work in the EU, but it does remove the automatic right conferred by membership and the legal requirements under EU law. Now we have the UK Government allowing -begging?- EU citizens to work in the UK but without a reciprocal right of UK citizens to work in the EU.

Newly imposed restrictions also apply to those who have retired and want to live in Spainn-

"Brits or other Non-EU citizens wishing to retire to Spain will generally need to apply for a Golden Visa (https://www.expatnetwork.com/spains-golden-visa-an-option-to-gain-residence-in-spain/) or a Non-Lucrative Visa (https://www.expatnetwork.com/spains-non-lucrative-visa-a-good-option-for-those-retiring-to-spain/) if they wish to stay long term in Spain. This places more onerous requirements on those wishing to settle in Spain, particularly in terms of financial resources to demonstrate you will be able to support yourself. A single applicant for a Non-Lucrative Visa will need to demonstrate at least €27.115.20 through their account per annum ( €33,894 a year for a couple). The financial requirements for a Golden Visa are lower [?] but it requires a capital outlay of €500,000 on property. It is still possible that special arrangements will be agreed for Brits to enter Spain on more favourable terms but there has not been any indication that this will be the case yet."
https://www.expatnetwork.com/retiring-in-spain/


-which may be why more and more expats are leaving Spain...and not happy about it...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brit-expats-leaving-spain-droves-25126419

[obslam]

Doesn't answer the question.:rolleyes:

Nobody has claimed there isn't restriction of movement into the UK. Would be a bit silly as that was one of the cornerstones of the Brexit vote.

[Laphroaig]

Nobody has claimed there isn't restriction of movement into the UK. Would be a bit silly as that was one of the cornerstones of the Brexit vote.

Predictable xenophobic English exceptionalism answer.

[Stavros]

"We are going to end 40 years of this bad economic model" - Boris Johnson, quoted on today's BBC Radio 1 programme, The World This Weekend -quoted by an FT journalist who described Johnson as an anti-Thatcherite, Keynesian Prime Minister closer to Harold MacMillan, a man once derided by the Young Conservatives as a 'Socialist' (before the Young Conservatives was shut down for their views even more extreme than Maggie's...)

The 'bad economic model' has been analyses by a critic from the LSE who refers to the model as the difference between Lenin/Thatcher, Khrushchev/Cameron, and Brezhnev/Johnson, though it seems Brexit in operation is Johnson mounting a campaign to end the kind of ossified state economy Brezhnev (mis-)managed in pursuit of a pseudo Scandinavian Dream in all but name, though it did lead Boris to insist 'I am not a Communist!'

What strikes me about this 'new era', is the word 'control' -the core Brexit campaign slogan was 'Take Back Control', but who controls the UK and the UK economy? In the same Radio 1 programme today it was remarked as if it were a mark of success that Brexit Britain is the target of billion dollar investments -by the Sovereign Weath Funds of foreign States -not private capital, entrereprenuers, and certainly not the City of London- so as the LSE critic claims, it does appear that markets have failed, that the State is the lead in economic activity, something that is the opposite of what Margaret Thatcher claimed was both the recipe for success, and the definition of freedom. As in: more State = less freedom.

As Johnson pointed out in a speech in July 2021-
"It is an astonishing fact that 31 years after German unification, the per capita GDP of the North East of our country, Yorkshire, the East Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland is now lower than in what was formerly East Germany –"
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-prime-ministers-levelling-up-speech-15-july-2021

-And who is responsible for that, Mr Johnson?

Some new era this is, so far.

Link to The World This Weekend (begins with a news bulletin)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010wlh

LSE article-
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/boris-johnson-the-brezhnev-years/

[obslam]

Predictable xenophobic English exceptionalism answer.

Predictable numpty, losing remoaner reply.

[Jericho]

It was shit today.
It was shit yesterday
And tomorrow, even our rivers are going to be full of shit...Welcome to Plague Island!

Pick up your Fantasy Brexit tokens at customs, take a spin over the sunlit uplands and if you're religious...Pray you survive Winter!

[Laphroaig]

It was shit today.
It was shit yesterday
And tomorrow, even our rivers are going to be full of shit...Welcome to Plague Island!

Pick up your Fantasy Brexit tokens at customs, take a spin over the sunlit uplands and if you're religious...Pray you survive Winter!

And idiots like Obslam actually voted for and continue to support this shit show.

[Stavros]

The UK has an unusual dilemma, because the engineers of Brexit never expected to win the Referendum, and had no plan to implement the most profund change to the country's trading relations in 50 years, given that before entering the European Economic Community in 1973, the UK had been part of, indeed a founder member of the European Free Trade Area (1960).

So it is not so much 'Get Brexit Done', but 'How to Make Brexit work', and so far the dislocations to trade make it hard to justify separate trade deals with New Zealand, Australia and Japan when in terms of value they are nowhere near as beneficial as being part of the EU's Single Market.

Covid-19 may have distorted the processing of Brexit, but it seems to me that unless the EU breaks apart, the UK must, at some time in the next 5 years, find a way to gain access to the Single Market again. There may now be a critique of global supply chains -to be replaced with what cost-effective arrangement? -, and a diminution of trade with China, but the UK has been part of an interdependent global economy arguably since the formation of the Honorable East India Company in 1600. It has never been an independent state, in economic terms, and basically, we don' know how to be one, and the influx of foreign direct investment seems to me to prove this point.

Left to stand alone, the UK would fall over. Now, because of Brexit, we are on crutches. I see a wheelchair coming not so far into the future. Electric vehicles like vaccinations are not a magic bullet that will solve the problems of production and trade, we can't survive on solos. We are an ensemble.

[obslam]

And idiots like Obslam actually voted for and continue to support this shit show.

Actually I didn't. I just accepted the democratic majority. And the virtual irrelevancy of it.

The idiots are those who can't accept that Brexit is yesterday's news and just hasn't turned out to be anywhere near as important as they predicted. To anybody with knowledge, it was always going to be a sideshow.

Fortunately, the UK is a very successful country, with an incredibly solid economy, and great place to live. A country where anybody can achieve anything they want to - if they are willing to work for it. Of course, those who haven't done so well, having wanted everything handed to them on a plate to them instead of working for it, often disagree.

[Stavros]

-Brexit as Yesterday's news, that has been a permanent topic of the news bulletins since it started.

-An irrelevance? Since 2016: Three Prime Ministers, Two General Elections- in any other advanced democracy this would be classified as poitical instability.

-A sideshow that has seen the Conservative Party torn apart by Brexit, lifelong members expelled because they don't agree with the leader, even Thatcher did not expel her critics. And this is not a fringe party, but the party of Government.

-A successful country
--where Brexit devalued the Pound sterling by 17% in the first six months of Brexit;
--a successful country that has over 2,000 food banks;
--where the low-paid have their wages topped up by 'in-work benefits';
--where the social care system and the NHS both have staff shortages in part due to EU citizens leaving because of Brexit;
--where trillions of dollars of daily trade on the Stock Market has moved from London to Amsterdam and Paris;
--where inflation is rising, debt mounting, government spending is out of control -£37 billion spent on a useless 'test and trace' system to tackle Covid-19-
--where a shortage of HGV drivers has led to the Govt issuing visas to citizens of the EU so they can work in the UK;

-As for Northern Ireland and the contradictions of Brexit- Government policy is: 'fuck Northern Ireland, and fuck International Law'-as neat a summary of Brexit as you can get.

Is the UK a great place to live? Yes, in many of its aspects it is.

But has the quality of life declined since 2016? For me it has. Poly Toymbee, grand-daughter of Arnold, has defended the Blair Government, using this as the argument-

"By 2010, the Labour (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) government had lifted a million children and a million pensioners out of poverty. I once chronicled Labour’s social programmes and their effects from 1997 to 2010. Spending on the NHS rose by an average of 7% a year, more than since it was founded in 1948. Waiting lists, which had been the NHS rationing system, fluctuating with spending, were reduced to near zero by 2010 for the first time. Though social care was never resolved, local authorities had more money to cover its rising costs. After 2010, the NHS suffered the leanest years in its history. Delaying operations adds to risk – and the great rise in the waiting lists to more than 4 million people in England happened well before the pandemic.

Then there was the abrupt closure of most of Labour’s 3,500 Sure Start children’s centres – the greatest social vandalism of the decade. Here, right from the birth of a child, families could be helped early. Here were centres of support with midwives, health visitors and mental health teams – every service within pram-pushing distance. It was a network of help, a haven for victims of domestic abuse, an early warning for any delayed development in a child. Not only has most of that gone, but health visitors have been cut right back. There is fewer than one school nurse for every 10 schools in England, yet these are vital support for children seeking help. Schools have lost staff, their funding per pupil now below 2010 levels."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/15/tory-austerity-deaths-cut-human-cost-cruel-policy

It never needed to be like this, Brexit has been a one-way street to a dead end. Now ask, who has benefited most from Brexit?

[Jericho]

And idiots like Obslam actually voted for and continue to support this shit show.

Yeah, there's definitely a hamlet somewhere missing its fornicating imbecile.

[obslam]

It's strangely satisfying seeing, from the front page, that there have been replies but not being having to read them due to having placed the trolls on the ignore list!

[Jericho]

Well folks, it's astonishing, I stand corrected.
The sunlit uplands of Brexit have been revealed to me...Nah, I'm kidding, it's still shit...And now it stinks of rotting fish, too!

How dare those fucking French stick to our deal...That *we* brokered! :pissed:

[Laphroaig]

-Brexit as Yesterday's news, that has been a permanent topic of the news bulletins since it started.



Still ongoing.

https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2021-10-25/frost-sets-december-deadline-for-reaching-protocol-agreement-with-eu

Plus there's a number of other things that have yet to be fully implemented.

I think we all know who the real troll on this thread is...;)

[Stavros]

It's strangely satisfying seeing, from the front page, that there have been replies but not being having to read them due to having placed the trolls on the ignore list!

In an Open Democracy, free debate is essential to its survival, which is why there is a crisis in the US as politicians and broadcast media people who support Trump's lies seek to re-invent historical events we have all seen with our own eyes, and condemn anyone who disagrees with them. In the UK, Brexit now is simultaneously present in most Government policy, but neither the Government nor much of the media wants to openly debate it.

obslam has a right to ignore people whose posts he doeesn' agree with, but looking back, what did he ever contrbute to the Brexit debate other than references to Government bonds which are not even central to the management of Brexit? His right not to debate in someone else's hands would simply shut it down.

We are in danger of reproducing the characteristic of a one-party state without the bloodshed and violence that has often created them, though in the US at least some people are wondering if the time has come to re-do 1776 with killings attached, presumably so that their new United States will be White and Christian. The UK version of such people, 'Tommy Robinson' has few supporters, and is his own worst enemy, but he does exist (and is supported from the US by Paul Gosar, no surprises there) -but with a feeble opposition party in the UK, and the Governing party in the US in conflict with itself, the decisions made since 2016 may turn out to have long term consequences more destructive than was considered possible at the time.

How can Democracy survive if the people don't believe in it?

[Stavros]

Too late for me to add to the comment in the post about violence-

"In a January [2021] poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, researchers asked respondents whether “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Thirty-six percent of Americans, and an astounding 56 percent of Republicans, said yes."
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2021/americas-next-insurgency/

[obslam]

Yes, Stavros, hence I blocked him.

As I wrote before, Brexit makes very, very little difference to 99.9% of UK lives. The majority of people can see this, not surprisingly, at it's quite clear.

I just feel sorry who can't get over democracy not going the way they wanted.

[Stavros]

Yes, Stavros, hence I blocked him.

As I wrote before, Brexit makes very, very little difference to 99.9% of UK lives. The majority of people can see this, not surprisingly, at it's quite clear.

I just feel sorry who can't get over democracy not going the way they wanted.


If you are reading this obslam, then I have to say your indifference to the facts is breathtaking. Brexit is not just a matter of a democratic decision resulting in something I am opposed to. In the past, General Elections have brought Conservatives into power I was opposed to, whose policies I opposed, but who I could oppose in the political realm through active politics to throw them out of office in subsequent Council and General Elections.

The difference is that Brexit is the consequence of a Referendum whose result, in my opinion, was not sufficiently emphatic for it to be implemented -legally, in the UK a Referendum only has an 'advisory capacity' for the Government- Cameron could have noted the result, but refused to implement it, on the basis that the winning margin was too narrow, and that the absentions from the vote meant it was not meaningful for so important a topic.

In the past, conditions were attached in order to ensure that any result of a Referendum be emphatic, hence the failure of the first attempt to devolve power to Scotland in 1979-

"The Scottish referendum of 1979 was a post-legislative referendum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum) to decide whether there was a sufficient support for a Scottish Assembly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Assembly) proposed in the Scotland Act 1978 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Act_1978) among the Scottish electorate. This was an act to create a devolved (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution) deliberative assembly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Assembly) for Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland). An amendment to the Act stipulated that it would be repealed if less than 40% of the total electorate voted "Yes" in the referendum. The result was that 51.6% supported the proposal, but with a turnout of 64%, which represented only 32.9% of the registered electorate. The Act was subsequently repealed."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Scottish_devolution_referendum

Brexit ranks differently from other Referenda and General Elections for one stunning reason: it cannot be reversed.

Given the importance that the EU had on the UK since 1973, it is an astounding decision made all the more potent by the fact that even its most passionate advoctes, such as Boris Johnson, did not believe in it, and only took part to pursue a completely different political issue, in Johnson's case, a long-estabished contempt for David Cameron dating back to the days when they were pupils at Eton College. The structural changes that Brexit entails, not only concern the relationship the UK has built up with the EU since 1973, but threaten the very integrity of the UK, and these were all evident issues throughout the 2016 campaign and since.

It is undeniable the damage that Brexit has done to the UK (see link below), just as it is true the UK must adapt to the changes it has chosen for itself, even if this means the national wealth relative to EU membership declines over the next say, 10 years. Given the astronomical costs of Covid-19, some of which like the price tag for a failed Test and Trace system, at £37 bllion, could have been avoided, we appear to be in a position that Brexit has created a form of Government which is shaped, not by rational decision-making, but by hopes and prayers and whistling in the dark.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59070020

The repudiation of international law on Northern Ireland, and the current spat over fishing rights in UK waters for French fishermen are two cases of the reckless nature of Brexit, which may not affect 90% of the British public, but which is not irrelevant for having a terrible impact on the other 10% -or are we now to parcel up British opinion into percentages and decide which ones are worthy of support and which are not?

I have always understood the hostility to 'Ever Closer Union' but have also been aware that ever since Edward Heath's Tory Government took the UK into a Federalist project, it has lived in denial of that reality, the whole process from both Governing parties amounting to a staggering absence of open and honest debate about why we joined the EEC/EU in the first place. I would, nevertheless, argue that the UK made a better job of EU membership than is claimed, with all the menaingless waffle about Sovereignty being a token example.

It is a simple fact that the UK created the European Free Trade Area in 1960 because in it's post-Imperial world, the UK could not survive economically without being part of the Interdependent, Global Economy it had been part of since the formation of the Honourable East India Company in 1600. One reality was to be replaced by another. The reaity is that Boris Johnson's Global Britain is a fantasy, worthy only of a fantasist who has convinced himself, apparently since the age of 12, that he is a great man destined to do great things.

Brexit is so much more than a local issue about Gilts and Salmon.

[Jericho]

As I wrote before, Brexit makes very, very little difference to 99.9% of UK lives.


Stop lying.

[Stavros]

Imagine a situation in which the Government of the UK did not intervene in the economy, an economy left to market forces, thus, an economy that did not receive the £400 billion that in reality was pumped into the UK economy because of Covid....hence the mixed messages -

"On the face of it, 2021 was an absolutely corking year for the economy. Britain has had some boom years in the postwar period – 1973 and 1988, for example – but the 7.5% growth last year was the fastest of the lot.
However, 2021 can’t be seen in isolation. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are correct when they say the UK had the fastest growth in the G7 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-01/u-k-headed-for-best-growth-in-g-7-this-year-and-next-oecd-says)last year, yet what they normally omit to add is that it came after the UK had the biggest contraction of any G7 nation a year earlier.
The real story is that the economy collapsed by almost 10% in 2020 and then recovered most of the lost ground last year. Activity in the final three months of 2021 was 0.4% lower than in the final three months of 2019 – the period immediately before the pandemic struck. By way of comparison, the eurozone is back to where it was pre-Covid, while the US is operating more than 3% above its level in late 2019."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/11/lies-damn-lies-why-last-years-uk-economic-growth-cant-be-seen-in-isolation

As for Brexit, well....
"UK exports of goods to the EU have fallen by £20bn compared with the last period of stable trade with Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news), according to official figures marking the first full year since Brexit."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/11/uk-exports-to-eu-fell-by-20bn-last-year-new-ons-data-shows

Do read the details, as provided by the Devil.

[Jericho]

I'm sure The Sun readers will come up with many benefits of Brexit, as requested by Jacob Rees Mogg.

The tories are jut taking the fucking piss now! :pissed:

[Stavros]

I'm sure The Sun readers will come up with many benefits of Brexit, as requested by Jacob Rees Mogg.

The tories are jut taking the fucking piss now! :pissed:

Why bother the Sun readers when Jacob need only talk to Michael about his proposal to scrap VAT, which he proposed in 2019 and hasn't happened, or scrap VAT on energy bills, his latest election-winning ruse...?

Gove on scrapping VAT -
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/michael-gove-pledges-to-scrap-vat-in-bid-to-boost-postbrexit-economy

Why scrapping VAT and restoring the Sales Tax like the one the UK had before it joined the EEC in 1973, is a bad idea-
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/06/09/why-michael-goves-plan-to-abolish-vat-could-be-a-tax-increase-and-help-imports/

Useful overview of current tax, excise and duty regulations
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/tax-brexit


Or, why not scrap all but the most basic taxes? Isn't that what Steve Baker wants?

[Stavros]

Boris Johnson did really say that he signed the Eu-UK Trade Agreement with its Northern Ireland Protocol, but didn't believe the EU would actually implement its provisions...!...but this comment in an article by Simon Jenkins in yesterday's Guardian sums up a lot of what has been happening given that Brexit is being exposed for the catastrophic mess that it still is, unresolved in Northern Ireland, 'the graveyard of British politics'...

Posted by Hibernica, on the 16th May 2022

"Welcome to Brexit.Britain has turned its back on its most lucrative markets. It has decided to become a Third Country, thus ensuring it has more EU rules to obey than it did as a member. Control has been lost. Sovereignty has been reduced. Brexiteers have delivered the opposite of everything they claimed they wanted.
But Northern Ireland was always going to be the biggest problem. The Good Friday Agreement ensured that you can't be a Unionist and a Brexiteer. The two positions are incompatible. And yet the Democratic Unionist Party and the Conservative Unionist Party both backed Brexit. The Union is being destroyed by Unionists.
So Johnson, in order to keep up the pretence that he delivered Brexit, decided to smash the union while simultaneously claiming to be in favour of it. The DUP have gone mad. But that's just a typical example of post-Brexit British politics; Brexiteers keep whinging incessantly about the impact of Brexit.
Johnson's latest move is to suggest that there should be changes to the protocol rather than an end to the protocol. That means he has accepted that there has to be a border between NI and GB; he is taking the first step towards the break up of the United Kingdom.
He will claim that isn't the case. But that will be another lie."
Boris Johnson created this Brexit mess in Northern Ireland – and he should own it | Simon Jenkins | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/16/boris-johnson-brexit-mess-northern-ireland-dup#comment-156476856)

[Stavros]

And this from Rafael Behr, which also points out that Labour's position is weak thereby giving the people responsible for Brexit a free ride.

"The Conservative party was happy with Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum), but not for long. A deal that was great in 2019 is now not great. What could fix it? What change would bring enduring satisfaction? The answer is obvious to anyone familiar with the patterns of English Euroscepticism – nothing. There is no concession big enough, no deal good enough, just as no single fix can end the cravings of a drug addict. The long-term solution is to get sober. That is not on Liz Truss’s agenda. On Tuesday, the foreign secretary informed parliament (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/17/northern-ireland-brexit-protocol-liz-truss-bill-scrap) of a government plan to assert its own version of the Northern Ireland protocol. That is a threat designed to prod the EU into renegotiating the 2019 withdrawal agreement, which was itself the outcome of a renegotiation made necessary because Theresa May had done a deal that Conservative MPs also didn’t like.One reason continental leaders don’t want to talk about changes amounting to a new treaty is their certain knowledge that the Tories would be dissatisfied again soon enough. Another reason is that a revised deal would involve trusting Boris Johnson, which EU governments have done before and which no one does twice."

Ending
" The constitutional mess that Johnson has made of Northern Ireland is so far the gravest episode, but unlikely to be the last. The problem isn’t that the protocol cannot be made to work as written, but that it was written to enact a Brexit that doesn’t work."
Reality check: the Northern Ireland protocol isn’t the problem, Brexit is | Rafael Behr | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/17/northern-ireland-protocol-brexit-tories-eu)

[Stavros]

Carol Cawalladr's journalism has been vindicated in the Courts, and raises new questions about the extent of Russian involvement in the Brexit referendum campaign. Given what we know about the long term strategy Putin has had to re-establish Russia as one of the world's most powerful states, comparable to the position the USSR held before 1991 -we can see how he may have viewed the long-established hostility to European integration in parts of England as an opportunity to weaken Europe in general, and the EU and the UK in particular.

For Boris Johnson, the problem is that his personal links to Russia, in part through the Lebedev family, his affairs with at least one if not more Russian women since 2019, and the funding of the Conservative Party, raise questions about his refusal to be transparent on all these transactions, with his zealous support of Ukraine a side-show to deflect further investigation.

So, was Johnson aware that Banks and the rival Leave campaign was so indebted to the Russians? What was Farage's role in this, given the suspicion that it was he who handed Assange the Wikileaks documents on the US Democrats -is there a link between the Russians-Farage-Wikileaks-Trump?

Brexit was without doubt an English project, but its benefit to the Russians at least suggests that in addition to the lies that were told by both Leave campaigns in 2016, we were lied to about the extent of Russia's involvement. From the vantage point of 2022 with what we know from Litvinenko through eastern Ukraine, from Salisbury to today, Putin has played a blinder, even if he has so far failed in Russia and actually weakened his country.

Lots yet to play for.

"“The four meetings on 6 November 2015, 17 November 2015, 19 August 2016 and 18 November 2016 were probably not the full extent [of] Mr Banks’s meetings with Russian officials.” There were reasonable grounds to believe numerous other meetings occurred. She regards Banks’s words in an email on 19 January 2016 that he intended “to pop in and see the ambassador as well” were “suggestive of a relationship in which he could visit the Russian ambassador with ease”.She said the statement by Andy Wigmore, spokesman for the Leave.EU campaign and Banks’s business partner, about why he retracted his claim that Banks was in Moscow in early 2016 as “not credible”. Nor was Banks’s claim that he received a document entitled “Russian gold sector consolidation play” from a British associate, not a Russian oligarch.
Boris Johnson’s government came to power on the coat-tails of Brexit. It has refused to investigate Russia’s continuing attacks on western democracy and our information systems. Johnson personally intervened to delay publication (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/20/russia-report-uk-mps-condemn-utterly-reprehensible-delay) of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report. He continues to refuse its demand for an inquiry."
Arron Banks almost crushed me in court. Instead, my quest for the facts was vindicated | Carole Cadwalladr | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/commentisfree/2022/jun/19/arron-banks-set-out-to-crush-me-in-court-instead-my-quest-for-the-facts-was-vindicated)

[Stavros]

Six years of lies, incompetence, stupidity and arrogance, and for what?

‘What have we done?’: six years on, UK counts the cost of Brexit | Brexit | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/25/what-have-we-done-six-years-on-uk-counts-the-cost-of-brexit)

[Stavros]

Brexit has failed, ten times over. One is not surprised, nor by the commitment to poverty and failure made by Rishi Sunak and Mary Elizabeth Truss.

Spiralling inflation, crops left in the field and travel chaos: 10 reasons Brexit has been disastrous for Britain | Brexit | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/03/spiralling-inflation-crops-left-in-the-field-and-travel-chaos-10-reasons-brexit-has-been-disastrous-for-britain)

[Stavros]

Nevertheless, and in the interests of balance, here is a review of Robert Tombs positive view of Brexit. Tombs is a Cambridge Don who in his retirements tends to write for the Telegraph and Conservative Home.

Brexit Retrospective: Robert Tombs’s ‘This Sovereign Isle’ Situates Vote in History (city-journal.org) (https://www.city-journal.org/brexit-retrospective)

And as Fintan O'Toole is mentioned in the link above, here is his own review of Tombs-
The Sovereign Isle by Robert Tombs review – is this the best case for Brexit? | History books | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/30/the-sovereign-isle-by-robert-tombs-review-is-this-the-best-case-for-brexit)

[Stavros]

Another one bites the dust.

The Brexit dream of the UK out of the EU becoming a Global partner measured in trade deals has been knocked off course again, this time with Canada.

What puzzles me is that the UK and Canada have disagreed on the 'hormones in Beef' issue for years, so I don't see what it was that the two countries could agree on without changing their position. In addition, Canadian cheddar has been available in the UK for decades but if you want a strong cheddar, there are plenty in the UK to choose from.

I can understand the import of cheese from France, Spain and Italy that is not made in the UK, but what does Canada make that is so special?

The Conservatives negotiating these trade deals don't seem to me to have any bright ideas.

So there ain't a trade deal at all.

Hmmm...maybe we should not have left the EU?

UK halts trade negotiations with Canada over hormones in beef ban - BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68098177)

I am not an expert on 'Hormones in Beef' so offer these two links without any view on their content-

Beef hormone controversy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_hormone_controversy)

Hormone-free meat, what's the beef? (testicularcanceruk.com) (https://www.testicularcanceruk.com/post/hormone-free-meat-what-s-the-beef)