For the Brits: When will BREXIT referendum happen ? [Archive] - Page 2 - HungAngels

Stavros

09-21-2017, 03:20 PM

We're leaving. Anyone out there living in the UK who doesn't accept democracy, please fuck off and go and live somewhere else!

The situation now is that the debate turns on what Brexit will mean and the terms that the UK agrees with the EU, if it does. It seems to me, as I have said before, that there is a division now between those who want a 'soft Brexit' which would be a transitional arrangement spread out over X years; and those who want a 'hard Brexit' which means severing formal relations with the EU on a date in March 2019.

Those who are opposed to the transitional arrangement believe that it would in effect retain the UK's membership of the EU and thus be Brexit in name only. One assumes that if, for the sake of the argument, the UK and the EU agree to a phased withdrawal whereby different sectors withdraw at different dates, for all of that period the UK would be obliged to pay its fees to the EU and be obliged to adhere to judgements of the European Court of Justice. The UK would thus not be significantly 'better off' financially, and Parliament would (as Brexiteers allege) not 'take back control' of our laws. Critically, the Hard Brexiteers are concerned that a transitional arrangement might cover only some aspects of the UK-EU relationship and that if others are left for future debate, the negotiations could drag on for years during which the UK would not be fully independent from the EU and I assume -unless a special agreement is reached on it- would not be free to negotiate and sign trade deals with countries outside the EU.

Theresa May's problem is that she began with one position in January:
“We will not have truly left the European Union if we are not in control of our own laws,” the prime minister said in the Lancaster House speech (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech) that set out her Brexit strategy in January.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/21/brexit-paper-backs-away-from-pms-promise-of-judicial-independence

But by August the government's briefing paper on law recognized that litigants in the UK would still be bound by legal judgements made in the EU, which would include judgements made by the ECJ as well as the courts in France, Germany, Italy and the rest. At the moment, the UK as part of the EU is integrated into EU law through the ECJ, which does not prevent each member state from passing any law it wants to, but does gives the citizens of those member states the right to appeal to the ECJ for a conclusive judgement on the case.

Historically, European states have tended to co-operate on legal matters, some would argue the ECJ even though an EU institution in effect consolidated an existing agreement in law among European states because it helps to resolves disputes be they related to commercial or family law.

If this sounds arcane, in practice it may simply mean that when the UK leaves the EU, the legal system will simply replicate the existing system to process litigation on commercial and family law, with the almost certain outcome that in cases brought by an EU citizen against a UK citizen that is decided in the ECJ, the UK citizen will have to abide by that judgement. And, in turn, an EU citizen bringing a case against a UK citizen would have to abide by the final court of appeal in the UK, namely the Supreme Court. The real point of difference would be if the UK government decided to change the law, particularly if it affected family law where one parent is a UK citizen and the other a citizen of the EU. Conceivably, the litigants could seek a judgement from the European Court of Human Rights, but the Tory government wants the UK to repeal the Human Rights Act and leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR.
Freedom has its price, and justice may be devalued as a result of the UK leaving the EU.

On other matters: how will the UK and the EU negotiation existing arrangements on Security, Policing and Intelligence? On academic co-operation, on nuclear affairs? Could we be in the position where the UK leaves an existing arrangement with 27 states only to then re-negotiate the same relationship but as an independent state? Would the 27 simply agree to the same terms as before or seek changes to acknowledge the UK's independence? And what would be the point of leaving the EU if we are then going to re-negotiate almost every pre-existing arrangement because it is to our benefit to do so?

The argument for leaving becomes more absurd the more you look at the details, but we are stuck with it and must spend a staggering amount of money just to make the absurd happen. The mere fact that even hard Brexiteers want to carry on trading with the EU underlines how poorly thought through their position is, at least UKIP were economic nationalists and have never cared one way or the other about the EU, but as UKIP declines into a neo-fascist irrelevance, all we are left with are hypocrites who are unfit to run a bath, never mind this country.

peejaye

09-21-2017, 03:59 PM

peejaye

09-21-2017, 04:07 PM

Maybe you bre-moaners should read this, this gentlemen was very highly thought of at one time;

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/26/mervyn-king-britain-should-be-more-upbeat-about-brexit

Jericho

09-21-2017, 08:25 PM

We're leaving. Anyone out there living in the UK who doesn't accept democracy, please fuck off and go and live somewhere else!

Sorry Peejaye, but democracy's got fuck all to do with it.
The electorate were lied to, plain and simple.

As for leaving, i wish I fucking could.
I've never been more ashamed of this country and it's morally bankrupt government.

Stavros

09-21-2017, 09:54 PM

You know; I watch the news on BBC, ITV or CH.4 daily & I haven't got a clue what's going on despite all these channels allowing Br-exit to headline & dominate each bulletin! :confused:
Maybe you should go there Stavros? You seem to have a rough idea of what is happening?

Advance notices of the speech Theresa May gives in Florence tomorrow suggests the UK is willing to agree a two-year transition period, which would push back the date of a full exit to 2021. What we don't know is how far the EU is willing to go to accommodate the UK. Article 50 has never been invoked before, and both sides want to maximise their advantage and minimise the disadvantages. If there is to be a transition period, then however realistic it may sound, the hard Brexiteers may make an issue of it, so a lot may turn on what happens at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in the first four days of October. This time next month we might have a new Prime Minister. Between Florence and Manchester, Labour steps into the spotlight to give us a clearer idea of what it wants, if that is not asking too much. Does Keir Starmer want the same as Jeremy Corbyn?

Aticus100

09-22-2017, 01:34 AM

We're leaving. Anyone out there living in the UK who doesn't accept democracy, please fuck off and go and live somewhere else!

God but I do despise fucking keyboard warriors.

peejaye

09-22-2017, 09:40 AM

Sorry Peejaye, but democracy's got fuck all to do with it.
The electorate were lied to, plain and simple.

As for leaving, i wish I fucking could.
I've never been more ashamed of this country and it's morally bankrupt government.

I attempted to leave this country in 2003 because of my shame of this place.
Good luck Jericho but it's bloody difficult. I lasted 3 years before coming back.
The Establishment blame everything and everyone bar themselves for what's happened re. Br-exit.

peejaye

09-22-2017, 09:55 AM

God but I do despise fucking keyboard warriors.

No; You just hate losing :fu:

Aticus100

09-22-2017, 03:35 PM

My point proven.

Stavros

09-22-2017, 05:53 PM

Theresa May has delivered her important speech on the terms of Brexit. She gave it in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, the same church in which Galileo was twice denounced as a heretic for declaring that the Earth orbits around the Sun. We know what subsequently happened to Galileo, we have yet to find out how Mrs May's speech affects her standing in the party, the forthcoming Tory Conference in Manchester will help.

And to be fair, we do now have a clearer idea of what the UK believes would be a fair and practicable arrangement:

1) There will be no 'clean break' with the EU, but after the formal declaration of an exit through Article 50 in March 2019, there will be a two year transitional period during which various agencies and businesses will have time to adjust to the forthcoming change in sovereignty.

2) During the two year transition, which will include the last year of the existing budget agreement, the UK will continue to pay into the EU budget, though the precise figure has not been agreed. It will also abide by the decisions of the European Court of Justice, and maintain the four fundamental freedoms of the Single Market, with the rider that new entrants into the UK from the EU will have to register as EU citizens. But Mrs May has agreed on the need to write guarantees of rights for EU citizens in the UK into the final agreement.

3) On security and policing, the UK will seek
a bold new strategic agreement that provides a comprehensive framework for future security, law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation: a treaty between the UK and the EU. This would complement the extensive and mature bi-lateral relationships that we already have with European friends to promote our common security.

4) On trade, there is no clear option but two present themselves: one is a “high-access, low-control” arrangement of the kind Norway has, which gives greater access to the Single Market but concedes a degree of sovereignty and requires annual payments into the EU budget. The other is low-access, high-control” which limits the degree of access to the Single Market the UK might have but costs less and gives the UK the sovereignty over legal and other issues such as the movement of people from the EU to the UK and vice versa.
These two models conform to most of the divided opinions in the party, though there are some who favour a more austere 'clean break' where the UK leaves the EU in its entirety and seeks new agreements on an issue by issue basis.

5) The border with Northern Ireland appears to remain a difficult issue to agree on. Mrs May said “We have both stated explicitly we will not accept physical infrastructure on the border.” but that does not offer any clarity on customs issues, and is one of the issues along with the UK's membership of EU agencies that has yet to be discussed, and may take place in the transition period.

The full text of the speech is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-florence-speech-in-full-read-brexit-plan-eu-talks-single-market-divorce-bill-a7961596.html

A Guardian summary is here:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/22/theresa-mays-florence-speech-key-points

filghy2

09-26-2017, 02:26 AM

so you want the right to re-vote on Brexit subject to final exit agreement? Why in god's name would EU sit down to negotiate in good faith under those terms?
Sorry, you can't buy a pair of new shoes, wear'em for a year and then return them for a refund because you decide they hurt your feet.

Actually, it's normal to negotiate trade agreements on the basis that the final agreement will be subject to parliamentary approval in the countries involved.

The real lesson from the present debacle is the idiocy of holding a referendum on a purely negative question when the implications are so fundamental and depend on the form that Brexit takes (ie what arrangements replace EU membership). The mess the UK has got itself into was entirely predictable.

Stavros

09-26-2017, 05:12 AM

And such a mess it is conceivable that the UK will crash out without an agreement. After Mrs May's speech, the leader of the EU Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt rejected the idea of a register for EU citizens, and there is speculation that chief negotiator Michel Barnier is not impressed with the proposal for a two-year transitional period after May 2019.

In addition, it looks like the wagons are circling around Mrs May as the Chancellor, Philip Hammond declined to say if he would support her in any leadership contest, though he is supposed to be one of her most reliable allies (this now appears to be Damian Green). Hard Brexiteers are furious with Mrs May for conceding on financial obligations and a transitional period, and with Boris Johnson renewing his attempt to become leader, the Conference may try to stifle dissent with stage-managed speeches, as is happening at the seaside love-in Labour is presently engaged in, but if May fails to impress conference and no clearer movement in the negotiations is evident, she could be out by December, much as Mrs Thatcher survived the 1990 conference before her comrades stabbed her in the back. May could in theory survive for much longer, but she doesn't seem to have many friends in the right places.

filghy2

09-28-2017, 07:04 AM

Never fear Brits, Tony Abbott is on his way to point you in the right direction. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/statesman-tony-abbotts-to-advise-new-british-brexit-free-trade-think-tank-20170927-gyq2xd.html

I'm not sure what they think he can contribute, given Abbott's sole skill seems to be negative campaigning. That would have been useful in the referendum campaign, but not now.

Stavros

09-28-2017, 02:51 PM

Never fear Brits, Tony Abbott is on his way to point you in the right direction.
I'm not sure what they think he can contribute, given Abbott's sole skill seems to be negative campaigning. That would have been useful in the referendum campaign, but not now.

I can't see what the new Institute for Free Trade is going to do that is not already being done by the Institute of Economic Affairs, funded in 1955 to promote free market economics (its zany pamphlets have been a gold-mine for critics of capitalism); the Centre for Policy Studies, founded in 1974 to promote free market economics, and the vehicle Keith Joseph used to relentlessly attack the policies of his own (Conservative) party before converting Margaret Thatcher to monetarism and associated policies, and, curiously enough at the same address on Tufton Street as the Institute for Free Trade. The there is the Resolution Foundation, set up in 2005 which officially aims to promote the well-being of middle-to-lower income families but does so in the framework provided by the benefits of a free market economy.

You will find Conservative MPs associated with all of these bodies, which suggests that the latest vehicle is a vanity project for Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament (obviously looking for a new revenue stream when his annual salary of 93,000 Euros dries up). Hannan became one of the most articulate intellectuals on the Leave side, even though most of what he said was lodged somewhere between the irreconcilable positions of being pragmatic or just plain rubbish, such as his claim that outside the EU the UK will be free to trade with 159 countries. As if the value of trade between the UK and Djibouti is going to make up for the loss of trade with the EU, and you can name 100 other poor countries whose value to trade would never match the value we have/had with even one EU country like Ireland, or the Netherlands. The classic moment came after the referendum result when Hannan, asked was asked on tv by Evan Davis about the end of free movement of people and its impact and Hannan blithely replied free movement could carry on because his distinction was between the free movement of labour -good- and the free movement of people -bad. Davis almost banged his head on the table in despair at this sudden, if pragmatic change of definition, yet this is how Hannan operates, offering a sophisticated argument on Monday that is further refined by Saturday, and begins the succeeding week in yet another form.

I think its called 'making it up as you go along'. So all we can expect from the Institute for Free Trade are junkets, and pamphlets and speeches about what might be, rather than the reality of what we are. As for their neighbours on Tufton Street, from the Heritage Foundation to climate-change deniers, it looks rather like Tufton St has replaced Fleet St as London's Street of Shame. At least one can expect quality prosecco at their gigs, even if it is Italian. Italy is in the EU.
https://www.desmog.uk/2017/09/27/introducing-institute-free-trade-new-pro-brexit-thinktank-tied-uk-climate-science-denier-network

Stavros

10-17-2017, 04:47 PM

When it was announced a few days ago that Theresa May would join David Davis in his visit to Brussels for the Brexit negotiations, it was seen by some as a desperate measure to rescue talks bogged down in mind-crunching details neither side can agree on. If reports of her dinner with senior EU officials are anything to go by, her presence merely served to underline the lack of progress. One wonders what would happen if Angela Merkel had got involved. Mrs May looks increasingly like a Prime Minister in office but without power.

As stated before, the three issues on the table are 1) citizens' rights; 2) financial obligations, and 3) the border with Ireland.

1) The rights of EU citizens in the UK and of UK citizens in the EU appeared to be fairly simple to resolve: recognise their rights of residency and permit them to stay, but impose regulations on any new arrivals as would happen with citizens of non-EU countries. The problem that has emerged is the possibility that while the City of London has become the 'passporting' hub for the EU, if the UK when it leaves the EU leaves all the associated economic arrangements, such as the Single Market, the Customs Union and the European Economic Area, passporting rights will no longer apply -at least I think that this is the case. What I am not sure is whether or not banks/financial institutions 'selling' this service must be EU based, or whether anyone can do it, for example, Wall Street. It means that the City of London could offer to maintain passporting even if the UK leaves the EU, or not as the case may be.
What this means, potentially, is that UK citizens living for example, in Spain, would not have an automatic right to have their pensions paid into a bank account in Spain, because the UK firm they used to work for would not have the legal right to transfer their pension outside passporting arrangements that existed when the UK was in the EU. In this instance it appears that passporting is the key to this conundrum, but I don't know how it is likely to be resolved.

2)The financial obligations that are under scrutiny not only include the budget that the UK has agreed to pay into, but after the UK's exit the country's commitment to the EU's pension obligations. Because the UK has been paying into the EU pension fund for more than 40 years, and because of its size, the UK has become an important source of funds for all those staff of the EU from admin staff to Members of the European Parliament. I assume the UK position is that the UK would take full responsibility to pay the pensions of UK citizens who are entitled to an EU pension, but I don't know what rights the UK outside the EU would have if there are any amendments to EU pensions, and as the UK insists it will not incorporate decisions of the European Court of Justice into English law (and by inference the law in Scotland and Northern Ireland), it appears that the EU could increase the value of the pensions it pays, or change some aspect of their entitlement, and the UK government would have to pay it and accept the changes, or explain to its citizens why it is not doing so. In the case of both the EU budget and Pensions, the EU is thus asking the UK to make precisely the kind of financial commitment into the future that the hard men, like Boris Johnson and Liam Fox are opposed to.

3) Ireland and the border question raises perhaps the most fascinating conundrum of all. At the moment, because Ireland and Northern Ireland are both full members of the EU in a single market, the 'border' exists as a geographical set of co-ordinates but in most other ways is invisible. Theresa May wants a 'frictionless' border to be maintained in order to prevent a return to the days when there were border posts and armed border patrols -mostly for security reasons during the Troubles- with the potential addition of customs arrangements in the form of customs officials checking vehicles, and so on.
The problem for Mrs May is that if the UK leaves the EU, so does Northern Ireland, but if an agreement is reached which does not re-impose an identifiable border and trade flows freely, this, in effect, means that the island of Ireland is a single market and is thus a form of 'United Ireland', the one issue on which the largest party in the province, the DUP is opposed to. And, as Theresa May cannot survive on key items of legislation without the DUP's support, she must find a way to resolve the border issue that does not create a 'United Ireland' but which also does not prejudice trade that is vital to both Ireland and the UK.
As I don't believe the UK can remain in the single market in any meaningful sense of the word, I can't see any alternative but a return to the hard border with cumbersome checks on vehicles by immigration and customs officials. Well, at least that means more jobs in Northern Ireland, and another extra £100 million a year for the government to find. And the leavers told us the UK will be saving money by leaving the EU!

peejaye

10-17-2017, 05:06 PM

More speculation, scaremongering & guess work as usual when on this topic!
Personally; I wouldn't give them a fucking penny, they've already had something like £358bn from the UK! Outrageous!

Stavros

10-17-2017, 07:53 PM

More speculation, scaremongering & guess work as usual when on this topic!
Personally; I wouldn't give them a fucking penny, they've already had something like £358bn from the UK! Outrageous!

Peejaye, I understand how frustrating it is not to know what the exit process is going to look like, but your comments are plain stupid. It is not scaremongering to ask what happens to pension rights or the passporting system, these are real issues that affect UK citizens living abroad -are you suggesting the UK government just leave British citizens to rot in Spain with no attempt to secure a fair deal for them?

The money paid into the EU by the UK since 1973 can not be judged on its own because it became part of a pool of money that was then re-distributed across the EU because we are a collective of nations. It means a proportion of the money used by the EU to subsidize fishing and agriculture originated in the UK but not all of it did, so while you complain about the money 'we' gave 'them' what about the money 'they' gave to 'us'? How do you break down the funding from various EU universities in research in neural networks that took place in the UK and European institutions, and are you suggesting 'we' give back 'their' share and vice versa? More than 50% of the fishing fleet was purchased with money from the EU, are those fishermen going to give it back?
This is nonsense.

And here is the real killer: the UK does not just have a moral obligation to abide by signed agreements, they are legally biding too -so if the UK walks away from the EU in 2019 without a comprehensive set of exit agreements, the next day the negotiations will start all over again and consume even more time and money than they have already, bearing in mind the projected cost of the government's Department for Exiting the European Union is already £100 million a year. And who knows if the EU decides to prosecute the UK for breaking international law? We are not Americans who sign a deal one year and walk away from it the next without caring what others think, and why after Brexit should the Germans want to sign a trade deal with a UK that has become untrustworthy?

There are 37 EU institutions ranging from European Medicines Agency, the European Environment Agency to safety agencies in food, maritime affairs, aviation; agencies related to security and intelligence, banking and so on. Do you not realise that the UK must either simply walk away from these agencies or re-negotiate a relationship with them? In some cases, such as the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control the UK will leave it only to re-negotiate a relationship with it, which is a good example of the rank stupidity that has engulfed this country in the cause of some fantastic independence that even liars like Boris Johnson don't believe is either possible or desirable.

Yes it is frustrating and looks like a mess, but we have no choice, we have to negotiate our way out of the EU, if not before 2019, then after it. And I can't believe you don't appreciate the practical and symbolic issues around the border with Ireland.

peejaye

10-18-2017, 10:11 AM

I have nothing to add to my previous post.
I think we live in different worlds my friend?

Stavros

10-18-2017, 02:20 PM

I have nothing to add to my previous post.
I think we live in different worlds my friend?

We live in the same world, indeed, the same country, Peejaye -where agreements are honoured for moral as well as legal reasons, and where lies should be exposed for what they are, as they should never be the basis on which to make policies that affect our lives. The House of Commons has had to delay the Article 50 Bill because of the objections to it, and on a raft of post-EU laws the government has nothing to say, for the simple reason that nobody expected us to be in this position, and a year after the referendum it appears preparations are not going well, yet you claim this is what you want?

Just take one policy that needs urgent clarification -Value Added Tax, or VAT was introduced into the UK when we joined in 1973, because we joined, so will the government abolish VAT when the UK leaves the EU? If anything, the desperate search for money will lead to an increase in taxes, indeed I can't see how the UK economy can function without increases in VAT and interest rates and direct taxation, and it is on those bases that I don't feel as confident about the UK outside the EU as some people do.

filghy2

10-19-2017, 04:01 AM

More speculation, scaremongering & guess work as usual when on this topic!

As opposed to generalised resentment and wishful thinking, which you seem to think is a sufficient basis for policy? I counted 36 posts from you on this topic, and still no indication of what you want as an alternative to EU membership, how that might be achieved or how it will make you and the rest of the country better off.

I'm always amazed at Stavros' patience and persistence in continuing to debate with people in a calm and gentlemanly fashion, even in cases where experience shows that it is futile.

peejaye

10-19-2017, 11:05 AM

Stavros

10-19-2017, 04:00 PM

Speculation, scaremongering and guess work is exactly what it all is. I'm not a Politician, I don't have to justify to you or anyone else the details of what I want.
I & 52% of the population want out, accept it and get over it!
I haven't responded to Stavros's last comment because I am not discussing speculation.

I think the point about speculating is that it is based on the scenarios of either a hard or soft Brexit, where the UK either leaves the EU in 2019 with no deal, or leaves the EU in stages with a deal over two or more years. What happens is based on the known arrangements, up to a point. For example, a hard Brexit without an agreement means that we do know that the UK in order to carry on trading with the EU and the rest of the world, would do so using World Trade Organization rules and we know what those rules are, but we do not know precisely the tariffs that would be imposed on UK goods entering the single market, where they change depending on the commodities -10% for motor vehicles, up to 40% for agricultural products, for example.

The issue of customs regulations would have to be dealt with because we know that the UK would no longer be part of the single market, and goods could not simply pass though borders unchecked, but we know that the UK does not have either the technology or the staff to establish customs posts in the key case of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border, and neither does Ireland. So yes it is speculation, but based on a very real scenario and one that automatically increases costs on both sides of the border which as I stated before runs counter to the claim that by leaving the EU the UK would be saving money.

And what we do know is that taking a large economy like the UK out of the EU will reduce the amount of money the EU has entering its budget and that budget amendments will have to be made in the EU to compensate for the loss of the UK's revenue. One area of speculation that is causing the greatest concern is with Ireland, owing to the long-established freedom of movement that has existed since 1923 and the close trading relations with the Republic -either the Common Travel Area will have to be scrapped, or re-negotiated = more time, more costs. Put simply, if the UK economy declines, Ireland's economy declines, and the assessments of a 'hard Brexit' all point to decline, at least in the short to medium term, but that could last 10-15 years, on top of the 10 years of stagnation we have had since 2008.

The speculations are not based on fantasy they are based on available data applied to realistic scenarios, thus:

The Centre for Economic Performance estimates that a “No Deal WTO rules only” scenario would reduce the UK’s trade with the EU by 40% over ten years. This reduced trade would mean a fall in income per head of 2.6% per year (net of the savings from no membership fees). There would also be longer-term negative effects from lower investment and slower productivity growth, which are estimated to be another 3.5% of GDP. Adopting a policy of unilateral free trade would mitigate part of these costs. But the savings from unilateral tariff cuts are estimated to be just 0.35% of GDP. The short-term disruption resulting from the sudden imposition of these WTO rules could exacerbate these negative effects.
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/no-deal-the-wto-option/

And that is without asking what happens to the UK's relations with over 30 agencies in the EU, listed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agencies_of_the_European_Union

filghy2

10-20-2017, 03:12 AM

Stavros

10-20-2017, 05:27 AM

In a way I understand Peejaye's frustration with people like me who take an interest in the details, insofar as we know them, but this is what leaving the EU is going to mean after 45 years. The irony is that those people who voted to Leave the EU voted against something which we know to exist, and voted for a condition outside the EU that is largely speculation, and where the speculations are mostly those of the leavers who know the UK will lose market share when it leaves the EU, yet insist it will be more than compensated for by new trade agreements elsewhere in the world. I doubt any of them could have predicted that the US Department of Commerce would slap a tariff on Bombardier of 219.63%. A rude awakening and pretty scary stuff.

filghy2

10-20-2017, 08:54 AM

The irony is that those people who voted to Leave the EU voted against something which we know to exist, and voted for a condition outside the EU that is largely speculation.

In other words, they were comparing the actual imperfect EU to some idealised (but unattainable) non-EU world. It's like a man deciding to leave his wife after more than 40 years of marriage because he imagines that he will now be able to have his choice of all the young and beautiful women.

peejaye

10-20-2017, 02:12 PM

The whole point of a discussion on issues like this is that people justify their position, otherwise how can there be a sensible discussion? If you want the right to express your view then you have to accept that others have the right to question and challenge what you say.

Are you seriously suggesting that because 52% voted against something at one point in time, even though the question did not specify what they were voting for, then there should be no debate on the pros and cons of different options from that point onward?

Your argument about not responding to speculation is just an evasion (ironically, it's a favourite evasion of politicians). If the impacts of different Brexit options are speculative, then that must apply equally to the benefits that (I assume) you expect from it.

I've actually just rated your post by mistake! :banghead
That's my frustration!
What don't you understand about people voting leave? What would you like to debate or discuss? I am at a loss?
Listen to Nigel Farage, I don't like him but everything he says about that "Tax office" in Brussels I agree with.
Hopefully you will stop bothering me now?
This debate is pointless, there WON'T be any deal, they won't give us anything because they are behaving like wounded bullies!

Stavros

10-20-2017, 06:43 PM

I've actually just rated your post by mistake! :banghead
That's my frustration!
What don't you understand about people voting leave? What would you like to debate or discuss? I am at a loss?
Listen to Nigel Farage, I don't like him but everything he says about that "Tax office" in Brussels I agree with.
Hopefully you will stop bothering me now?
This debate is pointless, there WON'T be any deal, they won't give us anything because they are behaving like wounded bullies!

What frustrates me Peejaye is the thought that you don't seem to accept that the UK has contributed to the EU budget as a member and in return become part of a single market of 500 million people worth over $200 billion to the UK economy. A few years ago George Osborne and a trade delegation came back from a trip to China with an extra $80 billion worth of contracts, business based on our membership of the EU. Or it could be that that you accept all but don't want it, and prefer to leave the EU knowing the volume and value of trade will decline but without knowing where the new trade will come from. It is like deciding to move out of your house without having a new one to move into. For someone fed up with speculation, and I agree it is frustrating, you seem more keen on it than those of us who wish it wasn't happening and on balance are more pessimistic than optimistic, at least in the short to medium term. As for taxes, I suspect over the next 5-10 years people will have to pay more and won't like it. I am still waiting for both Tory and Labour politicians to tell me if VAT will be abolished. The UK had a sales tax before we joined in 1973 but there is still no clarity on what that arrangement will be or what the rate will be.

peejaye

10-20-2017, 07:25 PM

I can assure you VAT will NOT be abolished Stavros! It just won't be, it's another form of tax on us all!
As for the issue on Trade, I've heard nothing else for the last 16 months! We should just wait & see!
Food prices will/are rising, it doesn't help when German firms like LIDL are buying British produce to sell in British stores in Euros, if they can't pay in Sterling then get out!
I was prepared to pay more to live with Br-exit but this Government & everything about them are NOT what I wanted.
I can only wait & see what happens but with these people in charge we're in for a rough ride for a while.
I am also of the opinion we don't need Brussels to sort out our border with Ireland & the fees talked about.

filghy2

10-21-2017, 03:34 AM

flabbybody

10-21-2017, 05:25 AM

Stavros

10-21-2017, 06:56 AM

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

This has become the central core of the debate at the moment: not so much regret at the decision as confusion and anxiety over what, in practical terms, it may actually mean when it happens, and a sense that the politicians in charge of the process -on both sides- are struggling to reconcile each side's demands. This paradox has come about because of the irony that the very thing which motivated the Leavers -an opposition to increased integration in the EU- can be seen in the fact that over 45 years the UK did not have a static relationship with the EU, but a dynamic and an intricate relationship that has in that time developed multiple layers of mutual responsibility. In some areas the UK wants a complete severance but in others it does not. The UK thus wants to be detached from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but does not really want to detach itself from the EU's intelligence and security agencies, but it cannot have both, as Angela Merkel has said, one is either in the EU or not in the EU.

In practical terms, it would not be difficult for the UK to leave the European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre, and and for the UK and the EU to then agree the terms of mutual co-operation, though it is not clear if this would involve any financial contribution to the organization, and if it did, the benefits of protection from potential terrorist acts would outweigh the costs, though I can foresee some hard liner arguing that the UK can achieve these cooperative exchanges in security and intelligence through NATO and not the EU, another example of how a simple solution can become a complex problem.

At the moment, money is a key to unlocking the exit process. The UK is a major source of funding in the EU, that loss will be felt over time as even in the cases of Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, to name just three, their continuing economic growth (somewhat inflated in Romania's case) is not going to compensate for the loss of the UK's contribution, and their economies are not as diverse and well grounded as the UK. Understandably from the EU's perspective, the more money it can extract from the UK as it leaves, the better, but they argue the sums they indicate they want are based on commitments the UK has made, and would apply in the transition period which is the preferred option of both the UK and the EU. May for her part is looking over her shoulder at a phalanx of Tory MPs already furious with her dismal election campaign, ready to throw her under the bus over some infantile quibble about 30 billion or 60 billion as if it mattered, when they could just admit they will pay any price to leave the EU.

The anxiety about what leaving the EU might actually mean, something that during the referendum campaign became known, and ridiculed by the leavers, as 'Project Fear' is now very real because some of those fears are based in reality even if, as I have suggested, they are temporary, but where temporary could mean 10-15 years. The US Department of Commerce tariff bombshell on Bombardier and Canada, a partner in NAFTA, has been a rude awakening for the Leavers and a sign that the independent UK's dreamland of free trade with the rest of the world may turn out to be a nightmare -these people adore the USA and see it as the saviour of a post-Brexit economy, oblivious to the current administration's almost permanent ridicule and abuse of the UK and its politicians, the latest being the President's tweet -taken from the One America conspiracy site- about rising crime in the UK and its links to 'radical Islamic terrorism' even though crime rates in general are falling not rising.

The frustration is with the process, what May would describe as the 'line by line' examination of the exit agreements, but it has to be done, and much tedious reporting will continue to fund reporters as they commute between London and Brussels with deadlines approaching. I think at the moment it looks like the UK and the EU will reach a provisional agreement on the three issues of citizen's rights, finances and the Irish border, but that these will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny where internal divisions in May's own party could crash this car at the same time as the trade talks are underway.

Do not underestimate the Tory party's ability to self-destruct over Brexit, the spectre of the Corn Laws in the 1840s and Tariff Reform in the 1900s haunts the Palace of Westminster.

peejaye

10-21-2017, 09:40 AM

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

peejaye

10-21-2017, 09:45 AM

I honestly can’t follow your line of thought. Do you regret the Leave decision or just the way your government is navigating a post-Brexit UK ?

The latter, people assuming another referendum would overturn the result is just "spin", a lot of this is about austerity. It's no coincidence the poorer areas of the UK voted leave compared to influential areas voting remain. You also have to look where large groups of immigrants have been located, this also had a big effect.

peejaye

10-21-2017, 09:49 AM

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

Sorry Flabbybody, this message was meant for that neo-liberal filghy2, not yourself.

filghy2

10-21-2017, 11:19 AM

& Neo-liberals like you beggar belief thinking people who voted Br-exit were just thick & ignorant!

Why do you assume I'm a neo-liberal? You complain about typecasting and in the same sentence do exactly the same thing. Fyi, I'm actually left of centre, though I know enough about economics to know that economic nationalism is generally a bad idea.

Why do you equate opposition to Brexit with neo-liberalism? I'm pretty sure the 'no' campaign argued that Brexit would result in a reduction in regulation and freer trade with the rest of the world. Does that sound like a rejection of neo-liberalism?

I'm also puzzled why you say in your response to flabbybody that the result had a lot to do with austerity. Austerity has nothing to do with the UK being a member of the EU. If the economy is adversely affected then Brexit will actually result in more austerity.

If you voted for Brexit because you thought it would lead to a rejection of neo-liberalism or an end to austerity then I'm afraid you are bound to be disappointed.

peejaye

10-21-2017, 12:36 PM

I was talking about the result of the referendum being linked to austerity, not being a member.
This country is divided into two halves, half of it living in poverty because of austerity, the other half giving them two fingers from their "Ivory Towers".
If you fall into the latter you won't know what the fuck I'm talking about, a bit like the Government!
Austerity is designed to dismantle the welfare state, drive down wages and marketise the economy, nothing else & it's only happening in the certain areas. These BASTARDS doing it know exactly what they're doing, good riddance David Cameron, take your frustrations out on that man, not the poorest in society!

Jericho

10-21-2017, 03:13 PM

Read this quote from some froggy on twitter today:

Maybe I am too cartesian but leaving the largest free trade area in the world and 53 free trade agreements on behalf of free trade is weird.

If i didn't laugh I'd fukkin cry!

Stavros

10-21-2017, 03:24 PM

The latter, people assuming another referendum would overturn the result is just "spin", a lot of this is about austerity. It's no coincidence the poorer areas of the UK voted leave compared to influential areas voting remain. You also have to look where large groups of immigrants have been located, this also had a big effect.

I agree with you that I don't think there will be a second referendum, the real dilemma is in the place where the UK's membership of the EU should have been decided in the first place and where the votes on Article 50 and any coherent 'final deal' could land the sitting government with an impossible position if MPs vote it down. The MPs will say they are not voting against Brexit but the terms of Brexit while Farage, Johnson and Fox cry 'betrayal' as if the supremacy of Parliament to which these people want to 'take back control' was the problem not the solution.

The referendum result shows that the leave vote scored highly in areas with low immigration as well as high immigration, so there is no direct correlation in the result on that score, but I think your point about links to austerity are at the root of the vote as a vote against David Cameron and the Tory and Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition, but it is hard to argue people have lost faith with politicians when Labour and the Tories scored such high votes in the last election, we have yet to see voter apathy on a scale that would undermine the parliamentary system.

I think you under-estimate the problem of borders, not just in Ireland, but with the EU in general. If the UK leaves the EU without an agreement, WTO rules will apply, but even with an agreement I don't see how the UK can avoid paying tariffs on imports as it will be one of the mechanisms the EU has to compensate for the loss of the UK's budget contribution. I assume that when Corbyn says Labour want tariff-free access to the Single Market he thinks the UK can reach an agreement not to impose tariffs which is unrealistic, but there may be options related to specific commodities, such as food, and there could be a phased transition that does not impose tariffs on car parts being assembled across the EU where the UK is part of the supply chain, but that if when the UK leaves the EU the companies decide to re-locate production from the UK to the EU then tariffs would apply to motor vehicles, raising their cost, and probably leading to a decline in sales of German cars in the UK which is already happening without an agreement.

The problem is once the UK leaves the EU, border officials, in theory, should have to check every vehicle and every passenger travelling through to ensure they are not smuggling goods on which they will be liable to pay customs duties. The UK has got so used to soft borders, it has neither the staff nor the technology to manage borders effectively. In reality, as you know from your own experience, we used to stuff our luggage with more tobacco and alcohol than was legally allowed because we knew we would not be stopped passing through the green channel in airports, and if customs officials decide to stop even half of passengers, chaos and delays will be the result. As I have stated before, this must mean more staff, more bureaucracy, and more costs for a process we are still being told will save the UK money.

Stavros

10-21-2017, 03:36 PM

Read this quote from some froggy on twitter today:
If i didn't laugh I'd fukkin cry!

The leavers would argue the Cartesian dualism is not between the mind and the body, but between the EU's 'free trade within the EU' and their 'free trade everywhere', which is why their long term ambition is to see the EU collapse. Just as Gilbert Ryle dismissed Cartesian dualism as a 'category mistake' (it is a mistake to describe the Mind as something distinct from the body) so we have a major problem with the concept of free trade which does not exist and even if the apostles had their 'second coming' would not exist as free trade in the literal sense of the word, which is the only meaning it should have. Ryle called the Cartesian problem 'the ghost in the machine'. We could just as easily say free trade is the ghost in the machine of global capitalism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/

holzz

10-21-2017, 11:30 PM

filghy2

10-22-2017, 02:31 AM

Stavros

10-22-2017, 02:46 AM

despite Cameron himself, and even evil ex-PMs called Anthony or some such, saying the economy will tank in the immediate months post-Brexit, this hasn't materialised. The Cable FOREX rate has got to pre-referendum levels, and GDP growth has been OK since then. Unemployment is the lowest since the late Heath and Wilson's governments. So hardly a shitty economy.
I think the EU and us will hash out some kind of deal. And maybe, if the economy doesn't tank and we get a good deal, May can keep this confidence deal with the DUP in check. I think she may resign after its done, and if the economy is good and the campaign is well run, the Tories will get back in. Corybnmania may have died down by then.

The Financial Times offers a more balanced view:

-Britain’s economy in the first year since the Brexit vote has been a tale of two halves. A strong performance towards the end of 2016 has been followed by weakness this year.

=In the first quarter, the huge services sector and the production industry both barely grew, with output rising only 0.1 per cent. This was a time when activity in the eurozone, Britain’s largest trading partner, accelerated, helping to push Britain from the top of the Group of Seven league table of economic growth rates to the bottom.

The proportion of income saved by households hit a 53-year low in the first quarter, highlighting that consumer spending has been propped up by people saving less and borrowing more to maintain their levels of consumption

After adjusting for inflation, earnings growth has fallen from 1.5 per cent in the three months before the EU referendum to negative in recent months. The latest data show real wages falling at an annual rate of 0.5 per cent. The cause of the decline in living standards is more closely linked to a rise in inflation rather than a fall in average wage growth, but both have played a part. And with social security benefits for non-pensioners frozen, real income growth is also likely to have fallen.

Every indicator of the number of people in the labour market has been positive since the EU referendum. The unemployment and underemployment rates are down, while participation in the labour market, the employment rate and vacancies are all up.
...With labour market quantities so strong, the puzzle is why employees are not able to translate high demand for their skills into increased wages and growth in living standards. The disconnect might suggest there is a hidden weakness in the jobs market, but it is pretty well buried because the data are comprehensive and strong.
(My view is that a large proportion of new jobs are low wage, part-time, zero-hours jobs which do not improve productivity and many earning less than £15,000 a year claim in-work benefits from the government).

The Brexit vote marked a sudden shift in the fortunes of sterling. The value of the pound had been falling against the euro before the referendum, but plunged to more than 10 per cent below its level at the start of 2016 against both the US dollar and the euro by the day after the EU vote. It has not recovered. Against the US dollar, sterling is 11 per cent down on the start of 2016 and 18 per cent down against the euro. In recent months the gap between the world’s two most important currencies diverged as the euro gained against a weakening dollar. Sterling has also gained, but not as much.

https://www.ft.com/content/cf51e840-7147-11e7-93ff-99f383b09ff9

filghy2

10-22-2017, 05:08 AM

Read this quote from some froggy on twitter today:
If i didn't laugh I'd fukkin cry!

It's also weird that the EU is regarded by the right around the world as a prime example of the evils of big government, yet we have people like peejaye who think that voting to leave was somehow striking a blow against neo-liberalism.

peejaye

10-22-2017, 10:15 AM

Jericho

10-22-2017, 10:34 AM

Sorry, Peejay, Fog in the channel, Europe cut off!

peejaye

10-22-2017, 11:06 AM

Sorry, Peejay, Fog in the channel, Europe cut off!

You'll go across the channel just like before Jericho, by boat, train or plane, just don't forget your passport. Fog or no fog?
Don't worry please! You're not going to be charged a small fortune like the "doom-mongers" are suggesting.
I used to travel to Switzerland a lot when I lived in Germany, it was only 75 minutes by train, sometimes Pass control came through the train, sometimes they didn't. If they did, it was a few questions, sometimes a check of my rucksack, then a thankyou. No border control at the station, just straight out onto the street, easy! Same applied for the Swiss going out :D

Stavros

10-22-2017, 02:41 PM

Mervyn King, ex Governor of the Bank of England, also spoke positively about the economy recently re. Br-exit. Other experts told us we wouldn't know the full impact of Br-exit until the summer of 2017. Now that time as come & gone & we're still in one piece, these remainers still won't accept it. It's almost like they're wishing the whole world to come crashing down around us just so they can say they were right!

Peejaye you are right, the UK has not collapsed because of the vote to leave the EU. But the pound has been devalued, economic growth is poor relative to the rest of the EU, productivity remains low, borrowing is increasing, and perhaps the key indicator is the lack of confidence among a wide group of people from consumers to industry. It also means holidays are more expensive, that the income of expats in Spain has declined even with the Euros problems -and that is all before the UK actually leaves.
As for Switzerland, it is part of the Schengen Area which is why there are no passport controls with Germany.

peejaye

10-22-2017, 03:26 PM

I'm sorry Stavros but a lot of that is down to Government policy? Since when as taking money out of peoples' pocket been good for the economy? Economies thrive when people are spending money. Nowhere in Western Europe is there anything like the poverty we have in the UK! It' shameful & embarrassing!

Stavros

10-22-2017, 04:59 PM

It is curious is it not, Peejaye how many people believed and still believe leaving the EU will be better for the UK as a whole, that it will benefit the economy, prevent the UK from being sucked into an 'ever larger Union' which in time will have one currency, one army, one government -that leaving the EU will reduce the number of immigrants coming to live in the UK and, crucially, people who voted leave for most of the reasons cited in your post even when they were, as you say, consequences of government policy rather than the EU. I don't know if the UK has levels of poverty not seen in Spain or Portugal, France or Italy as I am not sure how to calculate or measure it.

But, when talk about taking money out of people's pockets, people who are in work but earning less than £11,500 do not pay tax and they and others on low incomes are also entitled to in-work benefits. A survey has discovered that UK workers who do pay tax are subsidizing major chains (Next, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury) to the tune of at least £1 billion a year as these shops pay low wages forcing their workers to get a top up from the state or reductions in rent through housing benefit, and so on. But what this means is that the basic argument, low taxes are good for jobs, is a mirage -it encourages firms to hire people on low wages, but does not only not give the economy the stimulus you refer to, what is taken away in tax is then re-applied through benefits -somebody has to pay the difference, and it is the middle class who pay it as they pay the largest proportion of tax, which is where part or a lot of their grievance comes from.

JM Keynes argued that when an economy is in recession, when demand falls and supply with it, the state should employ one group of workers to dig a hole, and another to fill it up, both groups of workers having a wage to spend in the local economy and prevent local businesses from folding in the recession. I don't think Keynes would believe the magic realism of contemporary policy that boasts about tax cuts while increasing poverty and moreover, that by soaking the mddle class for the money they do earn drags that class into the penumbra of 'just about managing' when in the past being middle class was to be 'comfortable'.

I think we are not talking about the principles of taxation, which are sound: it is a contact which exists to provide the public with a range of services paid for by taxation; it is the management of the State's finances and the overall performance of the economy that has led us to this point. Politicians have chickened out of raising taxes and interest rates and proving they can use that money responsibly and for the benefit of all, none more so than Jeremy Corbyn who is either a coward or a liar when he says taxes will not go up under a Labour government. Look at the historical record, the UK, the US, France, Germany, Sweden all thrived when taxes were high. But it does require politicians with moral backbone as well as managerial competence, and that may be where the gap lies these days.

peejaye

10-22-2017, 05:34 PM

Stavros

10-23-2017, 12:50 AM

Oh, I thought Jeremy Corbyn was going to raise taxes for the rich & super rich? Or did you miss that?
It's no surprise by your tone; You are not a fan?
For the record; I am a big advocator of rising taxes, not under a Tory Government though as none of it would go on public services.

A good example of infantile politics, as there is no evidence raising taxes on the wealthy benefits the treasury more than any other social group, it is just a form of 'class revenge'. If Corbyn was not such a coward he would raise taxes for all of us, but yes, in the hope that the revenues would be better spent than they have been. He has succumbed to that PR fear that any party that says it is going to raise taxes will not win elections. The UK economy in the immediate aftermath of Brexit will impose some harsh decisions on whoever is in power.

filghy2

10-23-2017, 02:24 AM

I don't know if the UK has levels of poverty not seen in Spain or Portugal, France or Italy as I am not sure how to calculate or measure it.

In the age of the internet you don't have to, Stavros, because someone else has done it already. https://data.oecd.org/inequality/poverty-rate.htm#indicator-chart
The UK has a higher poverty rate than most of Europe, but is certainly not the highest (Italy, Spain and Portugal are all higher). There are different ways to measure poverty, but I don't find this result surprising given those countries have much higher unemployment rates.

What is true is that the UK has higher income inequality than any other European country, which you can see on the same webpage. That is probably due to a higher proportion of super-rich people.

There is actually a good case for higher taxation of the rich on distributional grounds, given they have been getting a disproportionate share of the income gains in recent decades. Of course, you have to consider the economic impacts in incentives to work and invest, but I see no reason why these should be greater for the rich than for others. They may well be lower, as a lot of the gains to the rich may have come from economic rents; ie monopoly profits, etc that are not set in a competitive market.

Of course, this has little to do with Brexit, which will do nothing to reduce poverty or inequality.

Stavros

10-23-2017, 08:08 AM

Thanks for the link filghy, I think the main problem is not so much justifying who should pay the highest rate of tax, but the trend that we have seen since globalization entered a new phase in the 1980s, whereby at the same time that corporations make staggering profits they pay less in tax, while governments use the 'low tax' mantra to win elections knowing that reducing their income base will also raise their levels of debt not least when, as in the US, governments ramp up spending on 'defence' (which in the US seems to be 'attack'). In aggregate terms, referring to both individuals in society and commercial enterprises, we are richer than we have ever been, but it is the gap between the richest and the poorest that is so stark, notably in the UK, with the additional phenomenon of the 'squeezed middle' who are no longer 'comfortable'. As Stiglitz has pointed out, if we had a more equitable approach to income and taxation that was fair and retained the bulk of revenue in the country for the benefit of its citizens, democracy might be stronger, economies more healthy and politics less open to confrontation rather than compromise.

filghy2

10-23-2017, 10:25 AM

Yes, I think a key source of current problems is that the rich have increasingly refused to accept any social obligations, and have focussed on advancing their own interest without much consideration of the longer-term consequences. That was not such a problem as long as most people felt that they were also gaining, but that hasn't been happening over the past decade. As a result we are seeing a breakdown in the social compact, whereby people were willing to accept relatively free and open capitalism as long as sufficient measures were taken to ameliorate its worse aspects and ensure the gains were spread around.

Unfortunately, peoples' anger about this situation has been directed mostly at the wrong targets (foreigners and minorities). So we have the bizarre outcome where anger about the above trends helped get Trump elected, even though his policies will only make things worse. I hope that people will see through the right-wing strategy of using 'culture wars' to distract them from what is really happening, but I'm not entirely confident. There seems to be something deeply-embedded in human psychology that leads people to be more mean-spirited toward those who are different during hard times. Much will depend on whether the centre-left parties can develop a new social compact that is more appealing, but that will be challenging.

peejaye

10-23-2017, 12:10 PM

A good example of infantile politics, as there is no evidence raising taxes on the wealthy benefits the treasury more than any other social group, it is just a form of 'class revenge'. If Corbyn was not such a coward he would raise taxes for all of us, but yes, in the hope that the revenues would be better spent than they have been. He has succumbed to that PR fear that any party that says it is going to raise taxes will not win elections. The UK economy in the immediate aftermath of Brexit will impose some harsh decisions on whoever is in power.

You're beginning to sound like a Liberal Democrat therefore I shan't bother taking you seriously anymore.

peejaye

10-23-2017, 12:35 PM

& please stop quoting history in your posts, Politics is about what's happening right now & in the future.

Stavros

10-23-2017, 01:58 PM

You're beginning to sound like a Liberal Democrat therefore I shan't bother taking you seriously anymore.

Whatever silly labels you attach to me are no substitute for the core issue: as the income of the UK declines in the first five years after leaving the EU, where will the money come from to continue funding the military, education and the NHS? Answer: taxes. You can of course put your head in the sand and say this will not happen, but direct and indirect taxes will rise, so why not say so? It is a pity more politicians choose lies to the truth, but that is how we got into this mess and I don't see much spadework from those responsible getting us out of it.

peejaye

10-23-2017, 02:34 PM

Stavros

10-23-2017, 05:18 PM

I'm NOT banging my head against a wall with you. STOP this obsession with Europe you people have. The money will come from some of the £350m per WEEK we are sending to that circus in Brussels! Yet again I have to repeat myself, Corbyn IS putting up taxes, where you claim this rubbish about taxing the rich having no effect is totally beyond me? YOU don't want to accept it because you don't agree with it, I clearly know where your coming from now.
Monday is my drinking day so I'm going out now to hopefully wind-up a few Lib Dems!

Peejaye, don't bang your head against walls of any kind, just acquaint yourself with some facts-

The £350m figure was also not what we sent to Brussels each week because the UK's rebate is deducted before the money is sent - the correct figure in 2014 for the amount sent was £276m a week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40860657

Yes, Jeremy Corbyn has said there will be tax increases on higher wage earners, but the reality is that neither he nor any other responsible politician is willing to admit that at some point in the next 5 years direct or indirect taxes will have to rise for everyone, which means on one level whatever you drink on a Monday will cost you more.

I am ex-Labour and sympathetic with some of Labour's policies, but I vote Green because of my deep disaffection with Labour after those tumultuous years of failure in the late 70s and 80s, and just as that might seem like ancient history to you I too am amazed to have seen at least three ancient Trotskyists from those years either on tv or on the web hailing Momentum as if it were the Second Coming -of Lenin, rather than Jesus, as if Lenin were a role model!

It is 2017 not 1917, the future you are so keen on should not be hi-jacked by people who don't want to live in it, or want only to recreate a failed past on the basis that there are no other ways to create jobs and economic growth, and who marched arm in arm with Farage and the Tories to vote this country out of the capitalist club they called the EU which their fellow leavers call the EUSSR -one day you lot will have to carry the can for this calamity, or not as I am sure you will blame the Liberal Democrats, whoever they are.

Bottoms Up!

filghy2

10-24-2017, 02:25 AM

The £350m figure was also not what we sent to Brussels each week because the UK's rebate is deducted before the money is sent - the correct figure in 2014 for the amount sent was £276m a week.

Actually the net figure for the past year, taking account of what the UK gets back, was £156m per week. That's £2.37 per person. Total public spending was £14,818m per week, according to the document mentioned in the BBC article. So we are talking about only 1 per cent of total spending, even before taking account of impacts on the economy and tax revenue. It's amazing how some people persist in believing myths regardless of the facts.

flabbybody

11-01-2017, 03:06 AM

Thanks Nigel. You've finally admitted what you were thinking the whole time

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/358062-nigel-farage-says-the-jewish-lobby-has-disproportionate-power-in-the?amp

Stavros

11-01-2017, 04:24 AM

Thanks Nigel. You've finally admitted what you were thinking the whole time

And when he says "There are about six million Jewish people living in America" you just know that is as loaded as it sounds. No need to wonder why this loathesome cowboy has tried to become an MP seven times and failed on each occasion. As he faces losing his lucrative salary as a Member of the European Parliament, he has turned his attention to that other great cause, the USA, and dividing California into two -or he was, as reported earlier this year, not sure of any recent developments.
I expect that once the UKIP presence has exited the EU Parliament, Farage will exit the UK for the USA, become a US citizen, and your equal. Give that some thought!

Extract from the article, full link follows:
Nigel Farage, the British politician known for his successful campaign to get the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, has teamed up with the backers of a campaign to split California into two separate states: a coastal state that would be dominated by liberal-dominated portion and an inland state that would be far more conservative.
https://www.salon.com/2017/03/27/brexit-engineer-nigel-farage-hired-to-promote-effort-to-break-california-in-two/

flabbybody

11-01-2017, 07:35 AM

filghy2

11-01-2017, 07:57 AM

As for slicing up California, the constitutional barriers are so formadable that no rational person would devote any effort pursuing it, foreign or American.

West Virginia was split off from the rest of Virginia during the Civil War, so there does not appear to be any absolute constitutional impediment if there was sufficient political support. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia#cite_note-12

Stavros

11-01-2017, 04:13 PM

The 6 million reference is vile even by NF standards. As for slicing up California, the constitutional barriers are so formadable that no rational person would devote any effort pursuing it, foreign or American. But if the lunatics need a famous face for their pursuit of fantasy then our loser cowboy gets the part.
Sorry for the diversion from the BREXIT numbers crunching.

Hmmm...Nigel Farage and standards? Surely a mutual contradiction?

If you do want to crunch numbers, the case of UKIP donor, Farage's best friend Arron Banks offers plenty for you, as his financial contributions to the Leave.EU campaign (and others, such as Grassroots Out) is now under official investigation by the Electoral Commission.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/01/electoral-commission-to-investigate-arron-banks-brexit-donations-eu-referendum

OpenDemocracy ran a series of articles on 'Dark Money' and this one on Banks is probably too detailed for most readers but is the familiar story with these 'self-made' millionaires of multiple companies, money moving from one to the other, shareholdings, official probes, suspicious accounting, false claims, resignations, fist-fights, and above all, claims about sums of money that just don't add up.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/adam-ramsay/how-did-arron-banks-afford-brexit

Arron Banks started out selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door; his Russian wife allegedly drives around in a car with the number plate XMI5 SPY, probably a joke although Banks claims that during the EU Referendum campaign he went to the Russian Embassy to give them the UKIP view on Brexit, and where he met someone called 'Oleg' whom he concludes was the Embassy 'KGB' agent (yes, the KGB, in 2016!) who offered him a swig from a rare bottle of vodka from a batch made exclusively for Stalin (he being dead for some years and no longer drinking).
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/major-ukip-donor-says-kgb-man-took-him-to-russian-embassy?utm_term=.uoqk5OvjRg#.hnyBQRKw1p

So much smoke, so many mirrors.

Stavros

11-25-2017, 05:15 PM

As the Brexit negotiations limp toward the end of the year it is hard to feel optimistic that a comprehensive deal will be agreed that can be presented to the House of Commons at the end of the process in 2019. David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, gave the House of Commons an update on the negotiations last week, but while he appeared to tell the House what has been agreed, it was also notable for being vague on the details, while the ominous quote from a Brussels official some time ago exposed the actual weakness of the British case: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

Thus, on Citizen's Rights, there is an agreement on the basic right of EU and UK citizens to remain when the UK leaves the EU, but no agreement on the date from which that right begins. There is an agreement of 'onward movement' which means UK citizens living in EU countries can legally move from one to another (eg, from France to Spain) but there is no clarity on whether or not any legal claims will be made by the European Court of Justice, as Davis says the UK will honour such judgements, at the same time saying the UK will not be bound by decisions of the ECJ. This suggests the ECJ will make a decision, a UK Court will then make the same decision, and the UK government claim they are different!

The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland in principle will not infringe the terms of the Good Friday Agreement which guarantees free movement between the two and dual nationality for those who want an Irish passport; but the argument that Northern Ireland may remain in the Customs Union is not guaranteed. On the one hand, it would make sense for the EU to compromise on Northern Ireland and Gibraltar -both of which voted to remain in the EU- and allow them by some special law to remain in the Customs Union -but on the other hand this would mean two British territories remaining in the EU at a practical level, and Michel Barnier has made it clear -Brexit means Brexit, everywhere (see Independent link below).

In principle, again, the UK government has said it remains committed to the financial obligations it has already signed up to, but the actual sum of money that this means is a matter of contention and a big smell inside the Tory Party. The statement to the House can be read here-
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-11-13/debates/5BDC985B-DAD3-45F6-B1E8-A28ADAB22561/EUExitNegotiations

In the meantime, the practical realities are emerging: Michel Barnier has said the UK by leaving the EU will lose the right to host financial 'passporting', one of the most important financial components of the UK's EU membership and a blow to the City of London.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/brexit-passporting-rights-eea-explained-what-does-it-mean-for-banks-economy-pound-euro-a8065131.html

Two EU agencies are leaving London.The European Medicines Agency will re-locate to Amsterdam, and the European Banking Agency will re-locate to Paris.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/20/london-loses-european-medicines-agency-amsterdam-brexit-relocation

In a week when the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented a bleak vision of the UK economy over the next five years, the doomsday book is being prepared for a new edition. On the cover there may be a reproduction of Ford Madox Brown's 1855 painting of a couple emigrating to Australia. It is called The Last of England...

1040752

flabbybody

11-26-2017, 03:43 AM

The everyday reality of Brexit is raising its ugly head. Sad to see UK losing her best and brightest.
Stavros, are you thinking of emigrating to Australia?

Stavros

11-26-2017, 09:46 AM

The everyday reality of Brexit is raising its ugly head. Sad to see UK losing her best and brightest.
Stavros, are you thinking of emigrating to Australia?

Blimey, Guv'nor, why Australia? But who knows, Remainers may yet be rounded up and expelled to the colonies, but not Gibraltar as it will be part of Spain by then. But we shall always have the Falklands, and if that isn't cold enough, Tristan da Cunha. Anywhere but the Isle of Man.

It isn't just that the 'Project Fear' the Remain argument is coming true, it is that the Conservative government is now so weak that Theresa May is dependent on both the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland to vote with them on crucial legislation (such as the Budget being debated now), and the hostile Brexiteers in her own party who could make a move to remove her from office if she 'compromises' on 'the deal'. The latest problem concerns a two-year transitional phase -May, Hammond, Green and Labour are in favour of a transitional phase of say two years to enable the UK to leave the EU in a softer and gradual manner. The Brexiteers are not only opposed because they want 'out' to be 'out' on the 19 March 2019, they now are being told that not only must the UK continue to pay its share of EU financial obligations, but that any new rules or laws in the transitional phase will be passed without the involvement of the UK.
A further complication has arisen with the riddle of the border in Ireland, and the prospect of a snap general election in the Republic of Ireland owing to a scandal there which won't go away.

Thus: negotiations on Brexit being conducted by politicians who want what is not possible, in a European environment that is unpredictable.
Once upon a time hysterical Daily Mail headlines defended British sausages from the evil men in Brussels, and campaigned for bent, rather than straight cucumbers. Sometimes boring is best.

peejaye

11-26-2017, 10:18 AM

The everyday reality of Brexit is raising its ugly head. Sad to see UK losing her best and brightest.
Stavros, are you thinking of emigrating to Australia?

Who, exactly, are our best & brightest? To whom do you refer please?

flabbybody

11-26-2017, 04:51 PM

Who, exactly, are our best & brightest? To whom do you refer please?
Health professionals specifically nurses
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nurses-midwives-leaving-uk-nhs-brexit-vote

Stavros

11-30-2017, 10:58 AM

The strange game that is the Brexit Negotiations continues. In a week that appeared to confirm an agreement on financial obligations, one of the three issues the EU wants confirmed before moving on to negotiations about trade, the government faces the prospect of being defeated by its own party on the agreement, while the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is a problem that cannot go away yet also seems to represent precisely the difficulties of separating the UK from the EU that the Leave campaign claimed would not be a problem at all.

Hard Brexiteers were expected to reject the figure of 45-50 billion -pounds or euros- spread out over many years, yet many did not, the most notorious being Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who, months ago agreeing with a back bencher that the EU could 'go whistle' with its demands for long-term financial payments, now says it is acceptable. But there are enough 'rebels' who do not think the deal is good and want a contingency added to it- the payment must be contingent on the EU agreeing to favourable trade terms or we won't pay, something the EU is certain to reject, but they could undermine the survival of their own government-

Theresa May has been put on notice by hardline Conservative Eurosceptics that they could be prepared to vote against her final Brexit deal if the UK continues to pay the £50bn divorce bill for years to come or does not get good trade terms.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/29/tory-brexiters-to-protest-to-no-10-about-deal-on-60bn-divorce-bill

If the party thought it had taken one step further, it may yet be forced to take two back. If the financial obligations have been secured, the Irish Border now looms as the most difficult. In part, this is because the Good Friday Agreement on which we are told peace in Northern Ireland is based, obliges the UK and the Republican to maintain an open border with free movement of people, dual citizenship rights, and so on. Superficially, this is not a problem because free movement existed in some form before as a Common Travel Area has existed between the two countries since 1923 with subsequent amendments. In addition, when there was a power sharing executive in Northern Ireland the two main parties, Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party, did not fall out over border or trade issues.

However, the Democratic Unionist Party, on which the Tories now rely to survive in the House of Commons, has made their core issue not so much the border, as what deputy leader Nigel Dodds put it, the 'integrity' of the UK-
"Make no mistake - for us the integrity of the United Kingdom is non-negotiable. "If the EU wants to insist on border check points on the island of Ireland that is a matter for them. There will be no internal UK border in the Irish Sea."

DUP leader Arlene Foster made it clearer:
speaking to the DUP annual conference in Belfast, Ms Foster made clear that Northern Ireland would leave the customs union.

She said: “We will not support any arrangements that create barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom or any suggestion that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will have to mirror European regulations.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/arlene-foster-brexit-customs-union-northern-ireland-dup-conference-a8075576.html

Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU, but the DUP voted to Leave, which suggests that Northern Ireland is itself divided. Gerry Adams has argued that there should be a referendum on a United Ireland, but earlier this week on Channel 4 News an Irish Senator rejected the idea that a United Ireland would be the organic solution as it cannot happen without the approval of the Protestant communities of Northern Ireland, a position the Irish have held for years.

The problem is that most of the trade between the UK and Ireland passes through Northern Ireland, so that the question of the border is not just a geographical headache it cuts to the core of the UK leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union. Given he dependency of Ireland on trade with the UK, Brexit is threatening to damage the economy in the Republic, but they can do little to make it easier to live with.

The suggestion that there could be a 'special status' for Northern Ireland' to remain in either the Single Market or the Customs Union has not clarified the situation, in fact could make it worse as it is argued Scotland -which voted to Remain in the EU- would also want 'special status', and because the DUP has rejected it, and would almost certainly be prepared to engineer the collapse of Theresa May's government on such a hard core issue.

But it isn't possible anyway. As the Financial Times has pointed out, if Northern Ireland were to remain in the Customs Union when the UK leaves, it would mean one segment of an ex-EU member violating WTO rules on the tariff free movement of goods into an EU member. When the UK becomes subject to WTO rules, all of it does, and the EU could not negotiate special status for Northern Ireland without violating its basic rules. But that is just the start. While both Ireland and the UK say they do not want a 'hard border' between North and South -which would violate the Good Friday Agreement- if the UK leaves the EU it has to find a way to monitor trade between the two because at some point, if regulations in the EU change on, say food standards, there would have to be some form of inspection of goods passing from North to South to ensure the regulations are being adhered to. This, then is the FT's bleak assessment:

Even if the UK promised to comply with EU product and hygiene regulations in perpetuity, border controls also function as an enforcement agency for a wide variety of laws including restricting counterfeits, ensuring environmental safety, deterring human smuggling, protecting industrial and commercial property and safeguarding national treasures. Some of these are obligations directly on the UK as a signatory to United Nations charters. Leaving the border open would thus expose the UK as an eccentric, irresponsible global citizen, not a terrific way to launch boldly into the world as an independent trading nation.
https://www.ft.com/content/1ce27838-d370-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d5c9

Would it help if trade were to flow directly from Ireland to Europe by-passing the UK? The answer is no, even though it can be done. The problem is that the shortest, quickest and thus cheapest way for Irish goods to reach continental Europe is through the UK, and vice versa. 10 hours from Dublin to France via the UK, 38 hours by sea. Direct trade, though more expensive, would deal with most of the Northern Ireland problem, but still leave open the prospect of smuggling if there is an 'open border' between North and South.
https://www.politico.eu/article/cargo-food-production-producers-brexit-burns-irelands-british-bridge-to-eu-markets/

Or we could sit down and think it through and come to the conclusion that the best option available to the British Government is for Parliament to vote to withdraw Article 50 and remain in the EU.

peejaye

11-30-2017, 11:17 AM

Or we could sit down and think it through and come to the conclusion that the best option available to the British Government is for Parliament to vote to withdraw Article 50 and remain in the EU.

I don't think so. You & your wealthy, neo-liberal, right of centre friends need to accept you've had a big slap in the face with a dirty wet fish & learn to accept the referendum result :yayo:

Stavros

11-30-2017, 12:26 PM

I don't think so. You & your wealthy, neo-liberal, right of centre friends need to accept you've had a big slap in the face with a dirty wet fish & learn to accept the referendum result :yayo:

That is a waste of fish, and as you know the referendum was never a 'left-right' or any other political pigeon-hole referred to above exercise.

Meanwhile, what suggestions do you have to resolve the question -should there be a 'hard border' between North and South in Ireland when -or is it if?- the UK leaves the EU?

peejaye

11-30-2017, 02:39 PM

I don't subscribe to this hard/soft nonsense, I'd just have a border! I'd also like every other EU member state to have it's own referendum & see the whole lot "wound up" like it used to be! I suspect only the Germans, the French & the Scandinavian countries would vote to remain? Hopefully then billions of pounds will stop being thrown onto fires subsidising privatisation programmes such as the railways! PKP in Poland being the latest victim!

peejaye

11-30-2017, 02:40 PM

Probably the "Benelux" countries too would remain?

Stavros

11-30-2017, 03:45 PM

The dilemma is simple to explain: if the UK leaves the EU including the Single Market and the Customs Union, trade flowing between the UK and EU countries will have to be subject to customs inspections, but any attempt to create a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will violate the Good Friday Agreement.
For this reason, it has been suggested that the border could be moved to the Irish Sea and computing software used to monitor the traffic of goods by road and sea. But it would not be able to prevent the smuggling from South to North of people and goods, and would thus continue to present both governments with the problem of monitoring the land border between north and south.

It is conceivable that a revised treaty could be drawn up between Ireland and the UK that would amend the terms of the Good Friday Agreement as well as the existing version of the Common Travel Area, but Ireland as an EU member cannot negotiate a separate trade deal with the UK, so which ever way you approach this, the only solution that deals with issues of the border and trade, is a United Ireland, but that can only be realised if there is agreement among all the communities that live on the island of Ireland and it would appear that the DUP is never going to agree to it.
(Edited comment-Since writing the above it occurs to me trade talks could address the 'Irish question'.)

Could the EU fall to pieces when the UK leaves? In theory it is possible, though it may be more likely to be challenged to its limits by extremists currently in power in Poland and Hungary. But if it were to happen, most of the existing EU members would create a replacement version of the EU, for the simple reason that it works, is beneficial to its members, and represents a market of 500 million -minus the UK and any others that leave.

The Leave fantasy for some, like Liam Fox, Michael Gove, Daniel Hannan and their 'guru' Patrick Minford, is the creation of new world of free markets released from state control. Not only do they believe the EU is an obstacle to economic freedom, they believe government is too, and thus are opposed to inter-state trade deals that in reality should be deals made by companies and entrepreneurs.

The idea that half to two-thirds of governments in the world are suddenly going to hand over their lucrative national resources to individuals and companies is beyond belief. For like Trotsky and Lenin's definition of 'permanent revolution', the free market heaven on earth the libertarians yearn for, can only work if everyone participates in it. Saudi Arabia is not about to sell off all its oil to a free market, ditto the Gulf states and Iran. China is not about to relinquish control of its economy to 'the people', and so on.

The reality is that the EU represents a thriving and irreplaceable market for the UK, but it seems we are now going to spend £50 billion over the next 30 years not to be a member of it with all the benefits that has, while the national wealth declines because we lose the benefits we did have. Brexit is a colossal act of self-harm whose wounds the country will struggle to repair.

peejaye

11-30-2017, 05:17 PM

All above is just your opinion, I find it so sad some of you people seem to be reduced to virtual tears over it, I accept very little of what you say above, to simply say all the countries within the EU are in it because "it works" means nothing. That's just my opinion.
If you are not a Politician, I am not convinced, then you should be. Of course, the thing with Politicians is they don't listen to others and understand virtually nothing about real life!

Stavros

11-30-2017, 08:01 PM

peejaye

11-30-2017, 08:15 PM

You will put it back, Good Friday agreement or not! Life moves on, things change, new agreements are made. Didn't the UK take Northern Ireland off of the Irish in the first place? Or have I got my wires crossed? If not; Give it back to them. Problem solved! :claps

Stavros

12-01-2017, 02:13 AM

Peejaye, the reason why the border issue is proving difficult to solve is precisely because the Irish do not want the border back, the Northern Irish don't want the border back but thanks to you there has to be some way of monitoring the traffic in goods between an EU and a non-EU country and the Good Friday Agreement underlines the existing situation in the EU with the free movement of people, goods, capital and services that you voted against. You made the decision knowing this dilemma would arise yet you cannot face the responsibility for sorting it out but resort to solutions you know the Protestants will not accept. Carson led the Protestants out of Ireland with the help of the British government and the desperate need that Michael Collins had for a solution to a situation in which violence was taking over daily life in Ireland. Historians continue to debate who played the leading role, but we know Collins paid for the Treaty with his life, Ireland was plunged into civil war, and the outcome was in some quarters a bitterness that barely went away before being stirred up again in 'the Troubles'. Yeats put it well:

Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.”

peejaye

12-01-2017, 10:52 AM

Stop beating yourself up & blaming people who don't agree with you & let the Politicians sort it out! It's what we actually pay those reptiles to do!

Stavros

12-01-2017, 11:40 AM

Stop beating yourself up & blaming people who don't agree with you & let the Politicians sort it out! It's what we actually pay those reptiles to do!

How are you going to make an informed decision on the most important vote in living memory, one that will affect you and your family for the rest of your life, not to mention the fate of people across Ireland as well as the EU? I am not blaming others, just calling their judgement into question. It appears people in responsible positions have made decisions without thinking through what the consequences might be, which is after all one of the key functions of a politician. And when faced with these consequences they still cannot agree. In time I expect there may be a solution, and that any trade negotiations will have to deal with ancillary issues such as the Border in Ireland, but as indicated above, the people involved for various reasons -some of them the legacy of history- could be immune to the compromises necessary to reach a practical agreement. If it is not dealt with satisfactorily, it has the potential to lead the UK to 'crash out' of the EU without a comprehensive agreement, but that would still leave the Border issue live, and frustrating for all concerned.

peejaye

12-01-2017, 05:41 PM

Stavros

12-01-2017, 06:48 PM

I'd like to say I understand your frustrations but I don't? I've got more important things to worry about than a border crossing between two countries!
It's a great shame you & the Politicians didn't show the same compassion for the coal miners, steel workers & shipyard workers & the hundreds and thousands of other multi-skilled workers who had their lives destroyed by mindless Government Policy!

I guess it is my own fault for being too analytical, it is not that I don't care about the fate of the workers but that in the cases you cite the reasons why their jobs went has more to do with the way capitalism has functioned and whatever compassion has is futile when confronting forces far greater than feelings can control. British shipyards failed because they could not compete with the growth of foreign yards, and on crucial parts of a contract like price and delivery. When the famous Palmer's Yard closed in the 1930s it was due to over-capacity in the industry and the slump, the even more famous march from Jarrow to London failed to re-open it. Customers who could buy ships from Finland or Japan went there because the British architects developed a reputation for wasting time querying the specs or trying to change them, while time was often lost as management sought to reduce cost overruns by cutting hours and creating confrontation with the Unions which also led to delays and cost overruns. Compare that to the Japanese -if they said they were going to deliver a 250,000 tonne ship at Noon on April 10th, it could be seen on the horizon at 11 and dock at Noon, on time and on budget.
I have already explained to you that the Coal industry went through various phases, mostly related to over-capacity and that once oil and gas became more abundant and cheaper, the days when coal was King were doomed. The working class culture that the Miners created varied enormously throughout the UK, from the pit villages with their own libraries in Wales to the Brass Band movement in the North -politics and culture being a proud legacy of this once almighty industry. When Scargill led the miners off a cliff in 1983-84, he took their jobs with him, but not the history. Without coal, you, as a consumer, got cheap North Sea gas and a cleaner environment.

And you should care about the border in Ireland, because the issue is not going to go away, and you voted for a situation in which thousands of people could lose their jobs, their businesses, maybe even their homes -all for some vague promise that things will be better when we leave the EU, made by the same politicians for whom you appear to show a disdain bordering on contempt.

Jericho

12-01-2017, 07:13 PM

peejaye

12-01-2017, 08:23 PM

And you should care about the border in Ireland, because the issue is not going to go away, and you voted for a situation in which thousands of people could lose their jobs, their businesses, maybe even their homes -all for some vague promise that things will be better when we leave the EU, made by the same politicians for whom you appear to show a disdain bordering on contempt.

Ha ha! I have nothing to add to my previous posting! Losing their jobs & homes? Just like the Miners, Steelworkers.......:violin

peejaye

12-01-2017, 08:32 PM

I don't know if you've spent any time in N.I. (i'm guessing not), but that is *not* a solution!

That's correct Jericho, I haven't been to N.I. but have been to Eire. Just making a point to the Politician it's not my job to find a solution. I was given a vote & used it.
My priorities are to find a job so I can put food on the table! The politicians can find a solution & I hope they loose shitloads of sleep over it! Though I doubt that very much.

Jericho

12-01-2017, 10:18 PM

That's correct Jericho, I haven't been to N.I. but have been to Eire. Just making a point to the Politician it's not my job to find a solution. I was given a vote & used it.
My priorities are to find a job so I can put food on the table! The politicians can find a solution & I hope they loose shitloads of sleep over it! Though I doubt that very much.

This is the thing that fucks me up, dawg.
I'm not stavros (tho I gree with him), I don't know the deep history of shit.
What do you want, that you don't have now?
What will bringing us out of Europe get you, that you don't have now?
Don't give me rhetoric, explain it to me!
Tell me what you want?
(And not the bullshit that was written on the side of a bus)

peejaye

12-02-2017, 09:41 AM

I'll be blunt; I want the £161m, not the £350m on the side of the bus, per week we will not be sending there to be spent on rebuilding the public services which are on the brink of collapse due to 30 year of neglect & under funding! I also wanted Cameron out. I hope that's clear enough for anyone losing sleep over the result!
I just wish you people would accept it! I'm no longer debating it, 52% of people felt the same way.
You, I assume, are not a Politician so I expect you to respect my opinion like I respect yours?
I'm intrigued to know what you people are so petrified of? So far, all I have heard is speculation?

peejaye

12-02-2017, 09:52 AM

PS; I'd do away with the lot of it, the Union? I've already said that only to be told "it works"? Very informative. If it WAS done away with, what would you want to be part of?

Ts RedVeX

12-02-2017, 03:19 PM

The problem would not have even emerged had government kept out of economy.

Stavros

12-03-2017, 09:32 AM

PS; I'd do away with the lot of it, the Union? I've already said that only to be told "it works"? Very informative. If it WAS done away with, what would you want to be part of?

Look at it this way, Peejaye. When has the UK stood alone in the world? We could get into complex issues, for example the Honourable East India Company was formed in 1600 before the UK came into existence as we know it today, and was formed to take advantage of the opportunities to trade that were opening up in the East, just as the 'discovery' -by Europeans -of the Americas would re-orient so much British trade across the Atlantic, between 1815 and 1914 the most lucrative source of trade, regardless of the Revolution and the 'hiccup' of the Civil War. But one could argue that for much of the period from 1600 to 1973, the British had their own version of the European Union, and it was called the British Empire.

Some of the mechanisms which the EU have adopted over the years were mechanisms that kept the Empire going. For example, free movement of people was enshrined in the Nationality Act of 1948 which gave every British Empire citizen (approx. 500-800 million) the right to enter the UK, which is how most of the Caribbean workers who came after that year entered the country -and you may have read recently that at least two who have lived here for 50 years have now been told they are illegal immigrants! One woman was even arrested and held in a detention centre from which she has since been released.
But there was free movement, and 'tariff free' trade with the Empire.

And when the British Empire was in the process of being dismantled in the 1960s, the UK became (in 1960) a founder member of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) a small common market style 'Union' which was economically beneficial to the UK at a time when the country was losing its cheap food and raw materials, and heavy industry entering a phase of decline.

So the UK's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 was an extension of EFTA which was an extension of Empire -and economically beneficial.
So now tell me how leaving that Union can benefit the UK when it literally means walking out of a market of 500 million with all the economic advantages membership has, when the alternative is an 'independence' the UK has not known in reality since 1600. And that is before you question the existence of that other Union, namely between England and Scotland.

We are better off together -remember that?

Ts RedVeX

12-04-2017, 01:43 PM

Leaving the EU means the UK will (most likely) be ran by local communists rather than external ones. In that sense, leaving the EU is good. The only question is what sort of communists are we going to have to put up with. Will it be communists like Stavros, who promotes more regulation to make our lives more difficult, more bureaucracy, more officials who do not actually produce anything and only constrain free trade and competition and do not contribute to technological advancement? Will it be communists like peejaye, who say that trade unions are good because they artificially sustain companies that would have normally gone bankrupt providing their employees with an unjustified economically minimal wage? I am really looking forward to see if coming to the UK was a good idea. It seemed like a good one shortly after "brexit", but now, seeing that UK's prime minister plans to charge taxpayers over 600 quid per capita (or more if you have kids) for voting "leave" I am not so sure.

I am wondering why you two don't establish a company: Stavros would take care of all the "handy" regulations that is in power, as well as advertising via the means of propaganda, and Peejaye you get your fellow union members to chip-in, get some land and build a coal mine. Sounds like a gold mine of a plan to me! xd

Stavros

12-04-2017, 04:00 PM

The news this lunchtime is that there has been a 'breakthrough' in the Brexit (or is it 'Brexit'?) Negotiations, and that the two parties have agreed a solution to the problem of a 'hard border' between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The term being used is 'Continued Regulatory Alignment' -CRA- which appears to mean that in order to retain an open border and thus comply with the Good Friday Agreement, and the demand by Ireland that Brexit not adversely affect the conduit of trade between the UK and the Republic Northern Ireland will remain in the Customs Union, possibly the Single Market -thus

“in the absence of agreed solutions the UK will ensure that there continues to be continued regulatory alignment” with the internal market and customs union.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/04/meps-say-uk-has-conceded-on-ireland-border-in-brexit-talks

In other words, the whole of the UK will not be leaving the EU, only part of it. It is possible, as the article above argues, that if the UK reaches a trade agreement with the EU, the Irish border issue will thus become absorbed into the new agreement, but that is hypothetical, because on its own CRA is a bombshell waiting to go off and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Will the DUP and the Brexit Buccaneers accept it? Early signs that Theresa May's harshest critics might can only be true because they don't want to see her government collapse and a new election take place as Labour is ahead in the polls. I can imagine Nicola Sturgeon now insisting that as Scotland voted to Remain in the EU, so Scotland should have what Northern Ireland has got, ditto Wales and, of course, ditto Gibraltar, though the Spanish might veto another form of CRA or not, as the case may be. Spain may even support it knowing it undermines the position of the UK government that claims it is leaving the EU.

That this arrangement may have made it easier for the UK to move on to the all-important trade talks suggests it might even be just a trick, as the comment from Downing Street really just makes this whole CRA thing look like another part of the snakes and ladders game the Brexit negotiations are turning into:

At the regular morning No 10 lobby briefing Theresa May’s official spokesman insisted there would be no difference in the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/northernireland) and the rest of the UK.

“The PM has been clear that the UK is leaving the EU as a whole, and the territorial and economic integrity of the UK will be protected,” he said, refusing to elaborate further on what that meant.

Stavros

12-04-2017, 07:03 PM

Since writing the above, the leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster forced Theresa May out of her meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, and it looks like the CRA has bitten the dust. Another day, another douleur.

Mrs May is understood to have broken off from talks with European Commission President Jean Claude Junker to speak to Arlene Foster, after the DUP leader had held a press conference saying her party "will not accept any form of regulatory divergence" that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

"During the call it was made plain to the PM that the DUP, whose support is vital to the government being able to pass their Brexit legislation, had significant concerns about the deal being discussed that gave concessions to the Dublin government," the BBC's political editor said.

"I understand Foster told Theresa May that she would not be able to support such a deal. It's been suggested too that there are 20 or so Conservative MPs who had serious misgivings about the compromises that were understood to be on the table."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42217735

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42217735)

peejaye

12-05-2017, 03:28 PM

peejaye

12-05-2017, 03:40 PM

Stavros

12-05-2017, 06:57 PM

Ha ha ha! Don't you just have to laugh your little cock off at this fucking lot! Even a billion pounds can't buy those corrupt cunts, the DUP! Now we've got a dozen or so MP's holding the country to ransom again! What next.....another fucking billion? It's only money eh!
& I bet my bollocks you thought it was a good idea at the time? Anything to keep Jeremy out of office eh Stavros!

I voted Remain, it was you and the DUP who voted to Leave, so you are the one with the responsibility for the farce we are currently witnessing. And you said before you only really voted to spite Cameron as if the EU was a separate issue even though it was the only question on the ballot paper. As for Corbyn who right now could be Prime Minister sometime before Easter, I have told you enough times it is a personal issue re him and Momentum, and thus I vote Green which is as good as it gets for me. I would prefer it if you made some attempt to follow up your decision to vote Leave to tell me why we should leave the EU where we have access to a free market of 500 million, only to re-negotiate entry on different terms. Where is the sense in that?
And then have a stab at the Irish border question, the details surrounding the status of EU/UK citizens after Brexit, who is going to work on our farms -where food has been rotting in the field with not enough migrants to pick it- and staff the NHS and our care homes. Tedious as they are, these are the day by day, bread and butter items that will be affected when we leave the EU. I never asked for any of this, you did. So its your call.

peejaye

12-05-2017, 07:51 PM

Stavros

12-06-2017, 02:22 AM

Do you fucking sing as well? If I were a Mod you'd be having a couple of weeks in the stands for your OTT outbursts on this subject! I used my vote, I'm guilty of nothing so "Man-Up" & stop squealing like a wounded sow! It's pathetic! I'm not giving you the pleasure of consistently telling me I'm wrong whatever I say on this subject although I do have an insight into some of it! If you Anti Left wing brigade weren't starving the country with your Austerity, or difficult fucking decisions as you lot call them, this wouldn't of happened either?
As usual with your selfish lot; It's always some fucker else's fault!

This is bizarre, but a fair reflection of how Brexit is dividing the UK. I do sing, because I used to be in a choir, though these days I sing alone, and not just in the bathroom, as my voice is not what it once was.
That said, I am opposed to austerity, I don't vote Tory and I never have. I was a member of the Labour Party in the anti-Thatcher drama and yet again I have personal reasons for no longer supporting the party, which began when they dropped Clause 4 and has since continued because of Momentum. I was also a Shop Steward in Bick's outfit so there ought to be some common ground between us. On a range of issues I may be more left than you, I just tend to take a more pragmatic line on things these days.
What I don't think I will ever understand is why someone with your experience voted to leave the EU.

We are at a critical point in this process, either the UK government is going to give the EU something they can mould into an agreement, or we crash out of the EU with chaos in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and no friends to help us. And we are in this situation for the devastating reason that nobody ever expected Leave to win, not even the Leave brigade. None of them thought the process through to consider the practical issues around Ireland or Citizenship. It is as if someone said to the Generals, 'let's have a war' and the Generals found a cause, a battlefield, and then lost the plot when the war for 2 weeks lasted four years, decimating millions of lives, trashing the world economy and being remembered for one thing only: destruction. Here we are, 100 years later, as if mistakes never happen.
You voted for it, and now you want someone else to clean up the mess. But if you think this is a mess, wait for chapter two. You ain't seen nothing' yet.

peejaye

12-06-2017, 11:24 AM

What I don't think I will ever understand is why someone with your experience voted to leave the EU.

& you will never understand because you don't listen to ordinary people, same as the Politicians! Do you think all the people who voted leave are racists & Sun readers? I'm neither I'm happy to say! My brother-in-law voted leave, he as a very successful business, one of his clients are Coca-Cola, the guy who owns my local home brew shop(of almost 30 years)voted leave, most of my family and friends voted leave. We are not stupid despite what YOU think. I actually saw this coming.
I don't think it's a mess, I think the cunts who are running the country & negotiating it all are a mess & anyone who can't see that must be blind!

Stavros

12-06-2017, 05:39 PM

I am not sure if you really think I am not an 'ordinary' person, and I hope we can debate this without rancour.
I did - and I do- talk to people about it, 'ordinary' ones as far as I know, but the problem was always in the reasons they gave for Leaving that we could not agree on. I do understand those reasons, whether it is immigration, 'ever closer union', or so-called sovereignty' but I don't agree that immigration is a threat -badly handled perhaps but that is not the same thing-, I don't have a problem with 'ever closer union', and also believe sovereignty is a slippery concept that means different things depending on the context in which it is being used.

A big difference is that when I point out the benefits of being in a single market of 500 million, Leavers just shrug their shoulders and pretend we can still have access to it when we leave, which may be true, but can only be true with a diminished presence that will impact the economy in a negative way. Leavers then say the difference will be made up with new trade deals with non-EU countries but cannot guarantee a single deal or that any deal will be better than what we have now. For all I know, your relatives in business will be better off, but when? Five years, ten years after we leave the EU? Are you willing to tell a 20 year old they are about to lose ten of the best years of their life on a bet little different from putting the house on Bugger Off in the 3.30 at Ascot?

Worse, I don't want to make a claim about you that is not true, but I sometimes feel you voted Leave out of resentment, without thinking if leaving was good or bad for the economy over the short or long term. Resentment with Cameron, Blair or whoever you blame for the difficulties we have got into that were exposed by the crash in 2008. I have always been aware the UK was not there at the beginning and thus never really felt part of the EU project as Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman envisioned it, yet the UK has had a profound effect on the development of the EU since 1973 but few UK politicians who trade on a strong or weakly stated 'Eurosceptic' line have been willing to admit this.

So we are leaving something we know, for something we do not, the opposite of Conservatism, which is maybe why the party is divided, incompetent and facing the prospect of losing power soon. You may indeed rail against the politicians you despise, but how different from the Conservative Party's position on Brexit is the Labour party position?

There was always more than one side to the argument- suppose Remain were right? Have you even considered that?

Stavros

12-06-2017, 05:43 PM

The current state of negotiations in a single image, courtesy of the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/12/06/TELEMMGLPICT000148543649_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqxb0IT6E 1DcyM7EooECcgIF-sy-rf-D3pNFfTR5HE7HY.jpeg?imwidth=1240

Ts RedVeX

12-06-2017, 09:08 PM

Stavros

12-07-2017, 03:08 AM

Oh yeah.. The EU has definitely had influence on development in Europe - it totally stopped it to say the least.
I cannot see any reasons why there should be any trade deal between two countries at all. If government allowed people of its country to do their international business freely, then everything would be working much better.

a) this thread is about Brexit, to be specific, the process whereby the UK exits the European Union.

b) Compare the situation of Spain in 1957 when the Treaty of Rome was signed, with Spain in 2017, and you may be able to comprehend the meaning of the word 'development'. Compare the situation of Poland in 1957 when the Treaty of Rome was signed, with Poland in 2017 and you may be able to comprehend the meaning of the word 'underdevelopment'.

c) how many entrepreneurs in Poland signed lucrative trade deals outside the country between 1988 and 2004, when Poland became a member of the EU?

d) What happened in the UK as a consequence of Poland joining the EU and the Single Market? -
last year [I]Poles formed more business entities—14,475—than any other migrant group, ahead of the Irish, Chinese and Indians. According to the Centre for Entrepreneurs, a lobby group, by 2014 Poles had founded nearly 22,000 limited companies, the third-biggest number among EU citizens after Germans and Irish. This is remarkable given that most Poles arrived only after 2004, when Poland joined the EU.
https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21706188-prospect-brexit-not-putting-britains-polish-entrepreneurs-staying-put

e) How does this compare to the anti-EU, Nationalist govt of Poland in power today?
Now the Polish government is working diligently to secure power for the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/world/europe/poland-courts-andrzej-duda-law-and-justice.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2 Feurope) party, an increasingly nationalist and religiously-minded political group that appeals to the Poles born during Communism and who remember the “good old days” of food shortages, rationing, and martial law. This party is anathema to the entrepreneurial class.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/23/the-dream-of-polish-tech-entrepreneurship-is-almost-over/

Ts RedVex -The EU has definitely had influence on development in Europe - it totally stopped it to say the least
-to say the least, verifiable rubbish.

filghy2

12-07-2017, 09:45 AM

I am not sure if you really think I am not an 'ordinary' person, and I hope we can debate this without rancour.

You know it is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different?

Stavros

12-07-2017, 01:54 PM

You know it is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different?

Let us just hope that if there is a second referendum the result will not be a repeat of the first one!

trish

12-07-2017, 05:15 PM

One also argues for the ears that listen or the eyes that read silently, think and bring your ideas into their own discourses.

Jericho

12-07-2017, 07:46 PM

Let us just hope that if there is a second referendum the result will not be a repeat of the first one!

That would be insanity!

peejaye

12-07-2017, 08:07 PM

If it was you lot would only demand a third referendum! :banghead

filghy2

12-08-2017, 02:05 AM

One also argues for the ears that listen or the eyes that read silently, think and bring your ideas into their own discourses.

Another incurable optimist :) Call me cynic, but I think people take part in these discussions primarily because they enjoy arguing as an end in itself. I doubt that many members other than the participants read the posts in this section and I've never seen any evidence of anyone changing their mind on any significant matter.

fred41

12-08-2017, 02:33 AM

I've changed my mind lots of times, over the years, thanks to some of these very same posts. Seriously.
You have to really open your mind, not just say it.

Stavros

12-08-2017, 01:46 PM

In the nick of time, and after night flights to Brussels, phone calls, extended meetings and dead-lines, the UK has concluded the first phase of its negotiations with the EU and can now move to phase two, which begin in the New Year, to open talks on security and trade.

On the three outstanding issues, there is a basic agreement that EU/UK Citizens have right to remain in their current places of abode, that the decisions of the European Court of Justice will be the arbiters of justice in a two-year transition period and that more generally,

“the [ECJ] is the ultimate arbiter of the interpretation of union law” and “UK courts shall therefore have due regard to relevant decisions of the [ECJ] after the specified date [of departure]” as well as consulting with it if the law is unclear. In the last few days, as compromise became inevitable, the British government had attempted to limit this ongoing role to less than five years. The final text includes a sunset clause of eight years instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/08/not-much-remain-theresa-may-red-lines-brexit-deal

The agreement to maintain payments to the EU on the basis of existing commitments has been made, but where the headline figure has been between 45-50 billion Euros, an ongoing commitment may in fact increase the sum and the number of years the UK will remain liable for EU expenses, thus:

In her Florence speech, May first conceded that the UK would honour all the ongoing spending commitments of the current EU budget round, even after Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum). But the divorce agreement makes clear this extends to future spending many years beyond that too. These so-called reste à liquider (RAL) payments will be made when they fall due, rather than upfront, but this only lengthens the extent of British financial obligations.
The UK has also agreed that various contingent liabilities, such as foreign loans and staff pensions, will similarly be offset by some assets it has identified in the EU books. But this means it will take more than a decade, for example, for the UK to be reimbursed for the money it has paid into the European Investment Bank.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/08/not-much-remain-theresa-may-red-lines-brexit-deal

The vexing problem of the border in Ireland between North and South is a fine example of diplomatic linguistic fog -on the one hand the Prime Minister insists the UK is leaving the EU/Single Market/Customs Union, and Northern Ireland will in every sense remain in the UK, while the specific issue of the border itself has been kicked down the road to be discussed in the context of trade. But for Norther Ireland it appears to both give the DUP some vestige of decision-making power, while exposing the contradiction of the current position of the UK government, because it is claimed Northern Ireland will even its own powers-

though the agreement pledges “unfettered access” to UK markets for Northern Ireland whatever happens, it places responsibility on the Northern Ireland executive - which doesn’t currently function – to agree any new rules to stop Northern Ireland from diverging from the Republic and thus stop a hard border from forming. This basically means that if the other points fail, the executive – in which the DUP also has a veto because of powersharing rules – would have to pass the laws to keep Northern Ireland in the single market and customs union, which they say they don’t want
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-deal-latest-ireland-border-theresa-may-eu-dup-talks-juncker-barnier-a8098566.html

For some, this is a triumph for Theresa May, because it secures her position as an effective negotiator. It appears to suggest the EU is not taking as rigid a position as some believed and that it is prepared to compromise -for now at least- to keep the talks going, to prevent the UK crashing out of the EU. At the moment it appears Boris Johnson and Michael Gove approve, if only because it means their jobs, salaries and perks are safe. But note the angry reaction of the Night King, writing in the Telegraph-

Every day that the Prime Minister remains in office brings us closer to a Corbyn government and a betrayal of Brexit
And so Theresa May has got her deal. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/08/brexit-deal-theresa-may-expected-meet-donald-tusk-two-sides/) But at what cost? To the 17.4 million Britons who voted to leave the EU, I would argue a heavy one. For the plain fact is that the UK remains a member of the EU in all but name. This is a fudge, as anyone who cares to be honest with themselves will acknowledge.
According to the terms as they appear this morning, vast sums of public money will continue to flow from the UK to Brussels. Britain will continue to be in the grip of the European Court of Justice. And no trade deals can be struck yet because of the transition zone in which the UK will be stuck.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/07/sake-country-tories-must-ditch-theresa-may-late/

Jericho

12-08-2017, 02:12 PM

Anal lube, anyone?

peejaye

12-08-2017, 02:26 PM

So Teresa May as got her deal as she? It's a shame she hasn't explained to anyone exactly what it is? :ignore: :whistle: :?:

Stavros

12-08-2017, 06:01 PM

Anal lube, anyone?

Not yet not yet not not not yet, wait, wait...wait...oh bugger! Looks like we have to wait for phase two.

slave2u

12-09-2017, 06:44 AM

So Teresa May as got her deal as she? It's a shame she hasn't explained to anyone exactly what it is? :ignore: :whistle: :?:

the deal seems to be - we have dicked around for a few months with double d and bojo saying how tough we are - only to say to the eu - oh here have all you asked for - now let's see what crumbs we can have from the table.
(ironically this pretty much happens at the moment where they are talking about a united europe and countries that didn't ratify the new treaty would be excluded. shit we could have been bought out rather than this clusterfuck that farage and co has gotten us into.)

Stavros

12-09-2017, 04:52 PM

The full impact of the deal agreed so far is beginning to sink in. Hard Brexiteers like Jacob Rees-Mogg do not yet appear to have jumped out of the trenches yet, whereas Michael Gove has in his own gnomic way registered his scepticism by arguing that

"nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" at the end of the process.After a two-year transition period, the UK would be able to pass laws with "full freedom to diverge from EU law on the single market and customs union," he added.
And the British people would "be in control" to make the government change direction if they were unhappy, he said.
"By the time of the next election, EU law and any new treaty with the EU will cease to have primacy or direct effect in UK law," said Mr Gove.
"If the British people dislike the arrangement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge."
The next general election is currently due to be held in 2022, three years after the UK leaves the EU.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42291191

As always the devil is in the detail. On Citizenship rights, the 'transition' period not only gives the European Court of Justice the control that Theresa May had previously declared to mark a 'red line' beyond which the UK could not go, it does not in fact guarantee that over the long term UK citizens living in the EU will be free to move from one EU country to another, although it does appear to make it impossible for EU citizens in the UK to bring their relatives to live with them in the UK. As we already have situations where EU citizens who have been absent from the UK (often looking after dying relatives in their country of origin) for a certain length of time are not permitted to remain in the UK and the legal cases could mount up.

But there is this little gem which John Rentoul has found which is sure to raise a protest from the hard men-
“Social security coordination rules set out in Regulations (EC) No 883/2004 and (EC) No 987/2009 will apply.”
In other words, EU citizens here will be entitled to tax credits or universal credit on the same terms as UK citizens: the restrictions negotiated by David Cameron have been dropped.

There is also the case of the European Atomic Agency which neatly summarizes the rank stupidity of leaving the EU-
“On Euratom-related (nuclear specific) issues both Parties have agreed principles for addressing the key separation issues relating to the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom. This includes agreement that the UK will be responsible for international nuclear safeguards in the UK and is committed to a future regime that provides coverage and effectiveness equivalent to existing Euratom arrangements.”
We shall not be members of Euratom but we will have “equivalent” arrangements – in other words, we carry on as we are, but have no say in future EU nuclear policy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-deal-theresa-may-dup-juncker-eu-ireland-border-things-to-know-meaning-document-a8098821.html

Stavros

12-11-2017, 12:10 PM

Yesterday David Davis may have thrown a bone to the dogs in his own party, claiming on tv

that the joint agreement between London and Brussels published on Friday might not be enacted if no free trade agreement was reached between the two sides, casting into doubt important reassurances over the border between Northern Ireland and the republic.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ireland-david-davis-brexit-warning-a8102766.html

The Irish have responded to claim the deal is 'bullet-proof'. Either way, it still makes one wonder if the British have any idea as to what they are doing. As someone pointed out on the The World at One on Radio 4 yesterday, those Brexiteers who want to 'take back control' and 'control immigration' may find when they open trade talks with, say, India, that the Indian government wants free movement of workers -even if specified as chemists and engineers- as part of the deal, another, say, the USA, may want to influence the law on investment to the advantage of the US -for example, opening the NHS to US investment firms. Those glorious free trade deals with countries outside the EU may just be another version of what the UK wants to walk away from, even if in a less controlled relationship.

Stavros

12-11-2017, 02:31 PM

And since writing the above Davis has had to claim he was 'misquoted' and did not mean what he he said yesterday...
What I actually said yesterday, in terms, was we want to protect the peace process, we want to protect Ireland from the impact of Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) for them. And I said this was a statement of intent which was much more than just legally enforceable. In other words, of course it is legally enforceable under the withdrawal agreement. But even if that did not happen for some reason, [if] something went wrong, we would still be seeking to provide a frictionless, invisible border with Ireland. They’ve completely twisted my words, I’m afraid.

What we’re saying is, this bit of it, the bit about full alignment argument, on the issues which affect the peace process and the Belfast agreement, we would look to that anyway because one of our absolute underpinning aims is to ensure that Ireland, and particularly the Northern Ireland (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/northernireland) peace process, is not harmed. And what is most symbolic in that is the absence of a hard border, the absence of border posts, and that sort of thing. And we are quite certain we can do that by technical and other means, even if we end up without a deal with the European Union.

When Nick Ferrari, the presenter, challenged Davis by quoting his actual words from the Marr interview at him, Davis said that he had said “much more than legally enforceable” (although that was not the exact phrase he used on Marr). He said there had been “a slight misquote”, although it was not clear if by that he meant that he had slightly misspoken when he was on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday or if he was accusing Ferrari of misquoting him.

(Reading the Marr transcript, it is fairly clear to me that, if Davis did intend to make the point he is making this morning, then he expressed himself very poorly, because he appeared to say the opposite of what he intended.)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/dec/11/theresa-may-statement-brexit-mps-commons-davis-seeks-to-heal-rift-with-ireland-over-brexit-deal-politics-live

I think Mr Davis has been eating too many mince pies. Curious that someone claimed that of the MPs on that strange list that was circulated last month, that the MP identified as being 'permanently drunk' was none other than DD -but what do I know?

Jericho

12-11-2017, 03:51 PM

So, that's perfectly clear, then!

Stavros

12-14-2017, 10:00 AM

The Government was defeated in the Commons yesterday, the Conservative Party appearing to be a Christmas panto as a small clutch of MPs turned on each other with 'softies' crying 'rubbish' at the attempt by a 'hardy' to defend the govt, though the word 'hard' seems inappropriate to a squashed lemon like Bernard Jenkin (son of Patrick).

The issue was an Amendment -no 7- to the Repeal Bill which concerns the way in which the government can implement any withdrawal agreement from the EU, which the government said it could do without parliamentary consent (under the so-called Henry VIII provisions)- and where the original amendment gave the govt the right to act as it wanted to, the new addition-

added the clause that it should be "subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/amendment-7-what-is-it-brexit-meaning-changes-vote-theresa-may-latest-a8108986.html
Because 11 MPs voted against their own party -others abstained- there is now a belief that the govt may also lose its attempt to have the precise date of Brexit included in the Repeal Bill. These two, the vote last night and the vote next week, to the hard Brexiteers smacks of backsliding, yet Theresa May made the astonishing remark ahead of the vote that it was an unnecessary amendment because Parliament had already given the govt the right to negotiate withdrawal without a further vote in Parliament when it followed up the Referendum result with a vote to implement Article 50. She now has to concede that Parliament will vote on the final deal, which yet again puts pressure on her to get a good one.

But what does that mean? To half of Labour and the softies in the Tory party it means an agreement on a transitional period during which the UK will remain, in effect, a member of the EU with all that implies with regard to the 4 Freedoms; with the longer term hope that the EU will agree to a 'bespoke' arrangement that leaves the UK in the Single Market and/or the Customs Union which to some just looks like the UK retaining EU membership under another name.

But this begs the question -will the EU agree to such an arrangement? The irony of all this bloodletting in the Tory Party (one MP, Nadine Dorries has said the 11 rebels should all be de-selected as Parliamentary candidates for the party) is that the EU may argue that just as 'Brexit means Brexit, everywhere' they will not agree to anything other than a transitional arrangement after which the UK is no longer a member of the EU in any shape or form, but free to negotiate some access to its markets if it wants to. The logic of Brexit is that it must mean what it says, or it is not Brexit, which in turn means that Parliament must either find a way to vote to remain in the EU or accept that all this internal conflict over the wordings of amendments is just delaying the inevitable.

Ts RedVeX

12-15-2017, 04:37 AM

Stavros

12-15-2017, 05:34 AM

Hey Stav. I am vanilla to this "democratic monarchy" you have here... Perhaps you could enlighten me a bit on how the government can be defeated by some bunch of commons... In a normal country, government implements the laws made by parliament. It cannot be defeated, technically, can it? Unless maybe we are already living in a Marxist utopia lol

The United Kingdom is a Constitutional Monarchy.
A Bill presented to Parliament becomes Law after it has been through several stages -First Reading, Second Reading, Committee Stage, House of Lords, Report Stage, and Third Reading. It becomes Law when the House of Lords declares the Royal Assent- 'La reine le veult'- and is sent to Her Majesty to be signed on vellum parchment, usually made from calf or goatskin.

I present here Bills introduced by the governing party rather than by individual MPs, known as 'Private Member's Bills'.

In the First Reading, the Bill is presented to the House of Commons and normally consists of a title and maybe a short introduction or description of the Bill's intention. The convention is to pass the Bill nem com, whereupon it proceeds to the next stage.

The Second Reading gives the governing party the opportunity to present and justify its Bill and for the opposition to respond, which might be a new piece of legislation, a major overhaul of existing law, or, as is the case with the EU (Withdrawal) Bill in question today, the intention is to repeal historic law and replace it with something else. Hence its popular title the 'Great Repeal Bill', which will repeal the European Communities Act of 1972 which is the legal basis on which the UK joined the EU in January 1973.
Second Readings normally allow the Government to proceed but it is technically possible for the government to lose the vote and thus be forced to drop the bill, a rare event.

The Committee Stage is the crucial sequence of debates in which the Commons has the opportunity to vote on every clause of and amendment to the Bill as presented to the House. In some cases where the Bill is of a specialist nature, say in computing technology, the House will rely on one of the Select Committees to analyse the bill and propose amendments before being voted in on the House. Because the EU (Withdrawal) Bill is a major piece of law, the whole House convenes as a Committee to debate clauses and amendments. Note that in practice MPs do not force a division on every clause and amendment, most are passed through a vocal declaration in the Chamber, but the more controversial ones will lead to a division where every MP's vote is counted.

As a guide, MPs have tabled 378 amendments and 75 new clauses to the the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. One MP, Dominic Grieve has tabled 19 amendments and one new clause.

It is at this stage that MPs can change the text of the Bill, which is what happened with Amendment 7 the other night. Because the government did not want the amendment to pass, it opposed it, but as 11 Tory MPs voted against their own party, it is in this sense that the government was defeated -on an amendment, not on the whole of the Bill, which has some way to go yet.

Once the Committee Stage has been completed the draft goes to the House of Lords where it can be further amended, before returning to the Commons for the Report Stage and is the last opportunity the House has to table amendments before the final
Third Reading which completes the formal process and proceed to the Royal Assent as described above.

A guide to Parliamentary procedure can be found here-
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/legislative-process-taking-a-bill-through-parliament

The text of the EU Withdrawal Bill, and amendments, can be found here-
https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwithdrawal/documents.html

Stavros

01-16-2018, 06:47 AM

Two articles and one report offer an insight into the problems that the UK is facing with its negotiations over Brexit, the immediate problem of a labour shortage in agriculture, and the broader context in which the UK has managed its 'open economy' since Mrs Thatcher was elected in 1979.

In the first, there is evidence from an EU report that the EU negotiating team takes a different view from the UK on what the transitional arrangement will contain, and how they believe the UK will be able to trade with the EU when it leaves. It reveals that the interim agreement on citizen's rights has yet to reach a more comprehensive agreement on those rights -the UK wants to date them from the invocation of Article 50 in 2017 where the EU wants to maintain free movement through to 2020. Of critical importance, the aim of the UK to negotiate a trade deal which will give it access to the single market and/or the customs union is being challenged by Norway which has said that if the UK gets a special 'bespoke' trade deal, it will demand changes to its own trading arrangements.
The UK wants an arrangement whereby passporting rights currently based in the City of London, would be re-located to the EU through 'shell companies' which would mean that the City would, in effect, retain the rights but using those vehicles, a proposal that is not going very far in the UK. Restrictions on the right of airlines to fly passengers and freight from the UK to destination in the EU suggest the budget airline industry will be forced to change, and probably contract, and thus lead to higher fares, with the options of a £40 flight to Spain disappearing, or graduating to £100.

The classic position, with the UK saying one thing and the EU another is captured here:
Downing Street’s Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins, suggested in a recent cabinet meeting that the UK would operate on three levels post-Brexit with the EU, with some sectors being entirely free from Brussels regulation while others were fully converged to allow frictionless trade. In a third “basket” of sectors, the two sides could share the same goals but “achieve them through different means”.
One senior EU official said: “It’s what we always thought the UK would be going for and that’s why we have been quite clear that we don’t think that it is on.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/15/norway-may-rip-up-eu-deal-over-uk-brexit-demands

Meanwhile farmers are desperate for labour as the harvesting of Jersey Royals is in crisis-

The largest producer of Jersey Royal potatoes has warned crops may be left to rot in the fields because foreign workers have left ahead of Brexit.
Polish workers – who had previously provided the majority of seasonal labour – have abandoned Jersey following the EU referendum, according to Charlie Gallichan of Woodside Farms, which grows and exports Jersey Royals, vegetables and flowers.
Growers are “trying to keep their heads above water until they get reinforcements” from Africa and elsewhere, he said, warning that the current shortage of staff could result in crops being left in the fields.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-jersey-royal-potato-eu-workers-workforce-citizens-farming-woodside-farms-immigration-a8160206.html

The second article is a fascinating essay on the extent to which Mrs Thatcher, by creating an 'open economy' free of regulations limiting foreign ownership of business in the UK has weakened the ability of the UK to make demands in trade deals that would benefit the country.

From the early 1980s, the UK progressively relaxed restrictions on foreign ownership of business and property. This had far-reaching implications for the City of London, starting with the “big bang” reforms of 1986. Britain encouraged foreign ownership through takeovers and mergers of financial institutions, and deregulated financial markets, opening the City to greater competition (and unwittingly leading Britain to be heavily exposed to the 2008 financial crisis).

The article notes the shift from manufacturing to services in the UK economy, but notes too that while the UK has benefited from being in the Single Market, this would not apply to free trade deals outside the EU, while the impact of more liberalization of the UK economy as promised by Brexiteers like Daniel Hannan and Michael Gove would have a negative impact on the economy-

By eliminating all tariffs and deregulating its economy even further, the UK would offset some of the productivity losses from hard Brexit. Cheaper imports would lead to many of Britain’s manufacturing companies to go under, and capital and labour would flow to companies that could compete internationally, or which did not face much import competition in the first place. But the result would be higher unemployment, at least in the short term, greater job insecurity and even higher regional inequality.
London could cope with another radical bout of liberalisation; Sheffield for example, could not.

The concluding remark sums up the problem generated by Brexit-

Now that the Brexit talks will move on to trade, Britain will have to choose. It can maintain EU rules and stay in the customs union, minimising economic costs. It is true that it would then not be able to influence new EU rules. But the alternative is worse: ministers can go to Washington and Beijing, but they’ll be told: “sign here”. What good is achieving sovereignty, only to immediately give it away?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-trade-deal-thatcher-impact-european-union-single-market-deregulation-a8160026.html

Stavros

01-31-2018, 02:47 PM

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome, and of course, Witamy to the latest update on the longest botched suicide in British political history, also known as 'Brexit'

1) This week the House of Lords began its review of the EU Withdrawal Bill. They cannot change the fundamental terms, but it is expected they will propose as many amendments as they can to 'soften the blow'. The Lords will spent most of February tugging this way and that, before the Bill goes back to the Commons for its Third Reading, with the expectation that the Bill will be passed, as amended, probably after Easter in April.

2) In the meantime the EU has presented its view of the 'transitional' arrangements it is proposing to structure the UK's orderly exit from the EU, welcomed by Theresa May and her United Government, sneered at by the Wolves (or are they Jackals?) who sense a betrayal as the UK remains in the EU on EU terms long after Farage Day in March 2019. This is how the EU has presented it:

There will be no "cherry picking": The United Kingdom will continue to participate in the Customs Union and the Single Market (with all four freedoms). The Union acquis will continue to apply in full to and in the United Kingdom as if it were a Member State. As a result, the United Kingdom should remain bound by the obligations stemming from agreements with third countries. Any changes made to the acquis during this time should automatically apply to the United Kingdom.

All existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures will apply, including the competence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The United Kingdom will be a third country as of 30 March 2019. It will, therefore, no longer be represented in Union institutions, agencies, bodies and offices.

The transition period needs to be clearly defined and precisely limited in time. It should not last beyond 31 December 2020. Consequently, the provisions on citizens' rights in the Withdrawal Agreement should apply as of the end of the transition period.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-463_en.htm

However, there is talk of the UK adopting a 'gradual divergence' strategy that would mean instead of a 'clean break' with the EU in 2021 the UK would maintain the same rules it has used as an EU member in areas such as technology, robotics and artificial intelligence and data sharing although this may to some appear to be the 'cherry picking' the EU wants to avoid.
https://www.ft.com/content/464586b4-f14f-11e7-b220-857e26d1aca4

3) Theresa May is expected to give another 'Important Speech' in February. Can't wait.

4) The rumblings in the Tory Party, with evidence from the letters page of the Telegraph are that Mrs May is doing all she can to prevent the UK from leaving the EU on the 30th March 2019 and must go. I thought she might not survive the winter and we would be having an election next month, but she has survived. The view is that if the Tories do badly in the Local Elections in May she will face a leadership challenge later in the year -before or after the Party conference in October- with the assumption by her enemies she will not stand, whereas she has said today she is not quitting, and so we don't really know as the question, who will replace her? is not that clear given the weird behaviour of Boris Johnson in the last month.

A week is a long time in politics. This time next week who knows where we will be?

Stavros

02-28-2018, 02:03 PM

I am not sure if the comedy of errors that is Brexit will indeed end well, certainly nobody at the moment is laughing. Last August I pointed out that the interim agreement on Northern Ireland and its border with the Republic of Ireland, in which the UK and EU believed there would be 'regulatory alignment' and thus no need for a 'hard border' was in fact diplomacy kicking this can down the road.

Today, according to The Guardian
The EU has published its plan to effectively keep Northern Ireland in the single market and customs union after Brexit (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum), in a 120-page draft withdrawal agreement that will throw the negotiations into crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/28/eu-publishes-plan-to-keep-northern-ireland-in-customs-union

It comes in a frenetic week which was sparked off by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn arguing that the UK must seek to form 'a' customs union with the EU when it leaves 'the' customs union in 2019-22. Though welcomed by many in the business community, this was Corbyn needling the Tory Party in his attempt to undermine Mrs May's leadership and lead through a contentious vote on the issue in the Commons to the collapse of the government and a General Election. That Corbyn's position is just another fantasy was underlined by Vernon Bogdanor, the ex-Oxford Professor of Government (he now works in London) in this article in The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/27/customs-union-brexit-european-union-eu-turkey

There is a similar problem looming with Gibraltar as Spain claims sovereignty over the airport which is on land claimed by both Spain and the UK, while 'regulatory alignment' suggests that as with Northern Ireland the EU may propose maintaining Gibraltrar's status in the Single Market and Customs Union even though this too would violate 'the integrity' of the UK.

Give their presence of their warships in the South Atlantic, one wonders if China is planning to invade the Falkland Islands. I throw in this daft, crazy idea given that on Brexit most of our politicians are just as crazy and daft and haven't got a clue what they are doing.

peejaye

02-28-2018, 02:55 PM

In fact; everyone is laughing at the incompetence of the current leader of the UK except you. What cunt can't see that?
I know the thought for you horrible Liberals of a left wing Government will cause you more sleepless nights but it's actually a master stroke by Corbyn getting Labour closer to No.10 Downing Street, that's why you're really annoyed.
YOU & your lot are everything that's wrong with this country.
Mr's Mays' Government doesn't need any help undermining itself. It's the worst Government in living memory! You should be more concerned about what's happening on your own doorstep like 16 young lives being lost in London alone this year because of knife crime, education & the teachers crisis & the NHS instead of worrying about big business & fucking millionaires. People like you have too much money & time on your hands, telling everyone else without money and much time due to working how we should be living ours!

Stavros

02-28-2018, 06:39 PM

Peejaye, as you know I am not a Liberal, and am opposed to Labour and Corbyn for many reasons other than their fantasy policy framework. Corbyn as I said in the post you have responded to has tried to stir things up in the Tory Party with its customs union gimmick, but Labour policy on Brexit is the same as the Tories but I note your post actually says nothing about Brexit because you are in denial about the partnership on the EU that Corbyn has formed with Theresa May.

As for domestic policy, you don't know what I think about it because I have not discussed it in a thread on the EU, and I have not even implied I know better than you how to spend your money. At the core of this is your refusal to engage with the reality of Brexit, which may make it harder, not easier to resolve critical issues in housing, education, NHS funding and corporate greed. As the ex-civil servant pointed out yesterday, the UK leaving the EU is equivalent to swapping a three course meal for a packet of crisps. In a few years time, that may be all we can afford to eat. Better focus on the matter at hand than make personal statements about me that are of little interest to anyone and wildly off the mark.

peejaye

02-28-2018, 08:14 PM

Stavros

03-01-2018, 10:05 AM

All you big PRO-Establishment fuckers can do is speculate. We may as well all listen to a clairvoyant. And as for the ex-civil servant; You mean the millionaire ex- civil servant, probably another cunt crying over the gravy train(for the privileged few, not the many) as all of you remaining moaners are; I'll take the packet of crisps, thanks!
Go and find some gullible cunt who doesn't see right through you lot, your wasting my time.... & oh,
What are you bastard lot going to accuse Jeremy Corbyn of next week? We've had a terrorist & a spy amongst others so far!
I'll go paedophile next?

How odd -RedVex calls me a Communist when I don't share her views, and when I don't share yours it is because I am 'Pro-Establishment'. Had you asked I would have agreed with you that the campaign against Corbyn is plain daft, not least because when I went to a meeting in London in 1981 after the Brixton riots with someone who later sat on the Labour's Front Bench and was a Secretary of State under Blair, on the way home she asked me did I notice the guy from Special Branch? The Mail and Murdoch's dirty rags are desperate, Corbyn at the time was under surveillance owing to his 'dialogue' with Provisional Sinn Fein, so the idea he was a Soviet Spy who had access to British intelligence of any kind is bizarre. And who cares what Margret Thatcher had for breakfast?

I don't oppose the state or public ownership of utilities, I just wonder if the UK can make it work given that our track record is so poor. It is worth asking how it is possible for that Bastion of Capitalism, Switzerland to prefer state to private ownership of its utilities, its train services, and so on. If it was a magic formula then we could adopt it without tears, but after Brexit, I don't see where the money is going to come from to pay for it all, though the irony is that if the foreign owners of our utilities and train companies decide the business is no longer profitable for them, the Labour Govt may have to taken them into public ownership anyway, and still nobody wants to concede Brexit will mean rises in income tax, interest rates, VAT or its replacement, customs and excise duties on alcohol and tobacco etc etc.

More to the point: the economy of the Republic of Ireland is deeply connected to the UK; Northern Ireland costs the UK taxpayer around £11 billion a year in subsidies, so when are you going to offer us a solution to the fact that, thanks to you, the UK will be leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, and that this creates a problem owing to the clause in the Good Friday Agreement that guarantees an open border between North and South? You can speculate as much as you like about what life will be like outside the EU, but right now we need practical solutions, which you seem unwilling to even discuss.

And unless I am mistaken, you are on the same side as that pompous Liar, Boris Johnson, and his menagerie of liars, frauds and fantasists ranging from Jacob Rees-Mogg to Liam Fox, Dominic Raab and Danniel Hannan, not to mention that proven racist Nigel Farage, the man who wants to break up California. A bit more focus on policy might serve you better.

peejaye

03-01-2018, 11:46 AM

peejaye

03-01-2018, 12:06 PM

I forgot to add to your latest tantrum;

I am actually on the side of the 52% of the UK population.

Jericho

03-01-2018, 12:32 PM

You're not with 52% of the population.
You're with 17 million adult voters.

A small thing, but worth pointing out. :shrug

Stavros

03-01-2018, 02:59 PM

Ha ha ha, brilliant. You really are very ill with it aren't you. :D
You Politicians have been told by "The great un-washed" what we really think of you lot, with your fucking duck-houses & your £40 breakfasts your claiming everyday & you can't handle it. GET OVER IT! I don't debate Politics with Politicians who hide behind a mask.
Firstly; I'm not on anyones' side. I'd stick all those cunts above on top of a bonfire on November 5th....apart from Farage. WE have him to thank for this wonderful moment. :Bowdown:
Secondly; RedVex calls everyone a communist!
& Thirdly; The Railways of Switzerland(SBB) are actually ran by a group of private franchisees over a very lengthy period of time(20+ years).
Go & see your GP for some more medication, the last lot clearly didn't work? Oh & good luck. If it's anything like my surgery, be prepared to wait 4/5 week!

I was a political activist, I admit to that, but have never been a politician, and as a result of what I saw in the CLP I was mostly active in (there were two both in London) I did not want to be associated with corruption even at that level. I could give you the details but I suspect you would find a reason to dismiss them, and I have no doubt that the corrupt practices in Labour councils are replicated by Tory ones too, there are some goodies the most diehard comrade cannot resist, when offered.

The Swiss rail network is mostly owed by the State, with some branch networks jointly owned by the State, the Canton and local communities. Many are small alpine railway lines that are used for ski resorts in the winter.

As for the NHS, without going into the details I have had extensive treatment these past 18 months and have no complaints other than with hospital food, but that is because I don't like porridge, which is basically vomit and unfit for human consumption; but even if I could, I would not spend £40 on breakfast.

As usual, you are keen to defend Brexit, and I even understand why, yet you cannot think through it to offer us your solution to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic if and when the UK leaves the Customs Union, or if the EU insists that NI remain in the Customs Union provoking, potentially, a constitutional crisis in the UK.

peejaye

03-01-2018, 03:41 PM

Stavros

03-01-2018, 05:57 PM

Don't correct me on Swiss Railways. I've travelled every line in the country since the mid 90's & worked as a correspondent for a magazine on the subject. I also have a good friend who's a driver in Luzern. The SBB is ran by private franchisees'.
Just accept; You DON'T know everything!

I also don't debate with you because you don't accept ANYTHING you don't agree with. You're absolutely obsessed and furious about the subject. :banghead
Get the picture?

I will let you spend your own time finding out what a franchise is, in the meantime I am open to change my mind on any issue if I am persuaded that I am wrong or don't know enough about it-you are unable to persuade me that Brexit is a good idea because so far you have not given me any reason to think so, and when asked about the consequences you shut down debate by claiming it is all speculation.

What is not speculation is what we have now, a single market of 500 million producers and consumers, a customs union with tariff free movement of goods, trade worth over $200 billion a year. If I knew what was so wrong with that the UK should leave the EU altogether for something better you need to be more specific about what better means. In fact, it is the Leave campaign that have based everything on speculation, as if reality were too much to bear.

Here is an interesting contrast: Gibraltar with Northern Ireland. Because of its different history and connections to both the UK and Spain, Gibraltar appears to present a conundrum every bit as fraught as Northern Ireland. In fact I think now that the situation of Gibraltar, which voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, as it has voted to remain part of the UK, can be solved through a bespoke Customs Union arrangement similar to the ones which affect the French Caribbean, and protectorates like Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and the Vatican. It would require agreement with Spain, which has a veto on Gibraltarian affairs, but in practical terms, the fact that Gibraltar has a border with Spain not the UK, means in it is in the interests of both to find a common agreement. It would mean a part of the UK was still in the Customs Union and subject to both the Single Market and the jurisdiction of the ECJ, but I think this is a compromise that would be accepted even by leave lunatics like Rees-Mogg.
A useful article on the Gibraltar issue is here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gibraltar-brexit-northern-ireland-border-spain-theresa-may-a8234516.html

Whether a similar bespoke agreement could be reached with Northern Ireland would depend on the Democratic Unionist Party, currently ignoring the fact that most of Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU. Theresa May before the Referendum in 2016 argued it would not be possible for the UK to leave the EU without re-imposing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, that she now has to oppose just that highlights the dilemma of a Conservative Prime Minister who, in reality doesn't believe in the Brexit project she is supposed to be leading.

peejaye

03-01-2018, 06:13 PM

Your fucking arrogance defies belief? :fu:

Stavros

03-01-2018, 08:37 PM

Your fucking arrogance defies belief? :fu:

The alternative position is to engage in the debate, be it the Customs Union, Northern Ireland, free trade, and so on.

What is it that you want? Forget about me, focus on the policies. That way you might not be so upset.

Jericho

03-01-2018, 09:32 PM

What is it that you want? Forget about me, focus on the policies. That way you might not be so upset.

You are Jacob Rees Mogg...I claim my five gold sovereigns! :hide-1:

Stavros

03-02-2018, 10:15 AM

You are Jacob Rees Mogg...I claim my five gold sovereigns! :hide-1:

I don't have a double-breasted suit, and definitely don't have seven children! As for those gold sovereigns...

peejaye

03-02-2018, 02:47 PM

The alternative position is to engage in the debate, be it the Customs Union, Northern Ireland, free trade, and so on.

What is it that you want? Forget about me, focus on the policies. That way you might not be so upset.

I personally think you should be sectioned under the mental health act ! I really do ! I'd like to say I feel sorry if you've lost your job, your house & your life savings, as your erratic unstable behaviour suggests on this topic but I'm not sorry. In fact I hope Sir Nigel Farage & David Cameron give you fucking nightmares for the rest of your miserable life.

Jericho

03-02-2018, 08:12 PM

And there you have it, the insanity of the Brexit.

We're going to bribe, er, i mean, give the EU £35 billion.
And they're going to let us become an offshoot of the Cayman Islands.
Great Britain PLC...Tax haven to the rich and shameless.

With what he's set to make, I'm sure Jacob Rees Mogg thinks it's cheap at twice the price!

peejaye

03-02-2018, 08:20 PM

Looks like that "Magic money tree" as reared its ugly head again!
The UK already is a fucking tax haven for those bastards, we pay more than that lot ever will ! Ask Mr's Mays husband all about that!

peejaye

03-02-2018, 08:23 PM

I thought this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen under Brexit?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-43245227

Jericho

03-02-2018, 08:58 PM

Work is expected to start later in the year provided the company secures "major future orders".

Siemens did not say what would happen to the plans if those orders were not forthcoming.

Definitely maybe! :shrug

Stavros

03-02-2018, 10:57 PM

I personally think you should be sectioned under the mental health act ! I really do ! I'd like to say I feel sorry if you've lost your job, your house & your life savings, as your erratic unstable behaviour suggests on this topic but I'm not sorry. In fact I hope Sir Nigel Farage & David Cameron give you fucking nightmares for the rest of your miserable life.

Rather than respond to this incoherent post, may I ask you to respond to Theresa May's 'important speech' in which she says that the UK is leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union...but will be negotiating compromises to allow the UK to remain in EU agencies, with access to the Single Market...

Then there is the rubbish she spoke about the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic-

80% of North-South trade is carried out by micro, small and medium sized businesses. So for smaller traders - who as members of the community are most affected but whose economic role is not systemically significant for the EU market - we would allow them to continue to operate as they do currently, with no new restrictions.
And for larger traders we would introduce streamlined processes, including a trusted trader scheme that would be consistent with our commitments.
Both of these options for our future customs arrangement would leave the UK free to determine its own tariffs with third countries - which would simply not be possible in a customs union.
I recognise that some of these ideas depend on technology, robust systems to ensure trust and confidence, as well as goodwill - but they are serious and merit consideration by all sides.
So to conclude on goods, a fundamental principle in our negotiating strategy is that trade at the UK-EU border should be as frictionless as possible with no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Goodwill? Trust? 80% trade but what the hell they are just small traders, as in, what about the law??? What about WTO rules on cross-border trade?

And, as a champion of the working class, what about this garbage---?

The UK will need to make a strong commitment that its regulatory standards will remain as high as the EU's. That commitment, in practice, will mean that UK and EU regulatory standards will remain substantially similar in the future.

So we are leaving but everything will be the same? And isn't it your Leave Buddies Liam Fox, Daniel Hannan and Bill Cash who actually want to de-regulate in the name of free markets not 'remain substantially similar in the future'--? Even Corby is against this.

The text of the speech is here, the truth lies elsewhere...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43256183

peejaye

03-03-2018, 12:07 PM

Definitely maybe! :shrug

Hurts me to say it but the smart money is on this lot in Westminster placing no orders and derailing it (no pun intended)
Then a certain individual on this forum, who will remain nameless, will blame me personally for it because of Br-exit!

Stavros

03-03-2018, 05:38 PM

Hurts me to say it but the smart money is on this lot in Westminster placing no orders and derailing it (no pun intended)
Then a certain individual on this forum, who will remain nameless, will blame me personally for it because of Br-exit!

You might want to look more closely at the Siemens offer. Yes, it is good news for the skilled workers in Goole, but Siemens has not been the most innocent of companies given the confrontation with Bombardier over the ThamesLink contract in 2011.

Crucially, this:

Jürgen Maier, UK chief executive of Siemens, told the BBC’s Today programme on Friday that the group was counting on “frictionless trade”. “It is going to very difficult to not have friction without some sort of a customs union.” Speaking ahead of Theresa May’s key speech on future trade with the bloc, Mr Maier said he hoped the prime minister was “moving us towards a very good free trade deal, no tariffs and therefore easy movement of parts between the European continent and the UK.”
https://www.ft.com/content/272446b4-1dfd-11e8-aaca-4574d7dabfb6

So we are back at stage one: how to solve the customs union conundrum. As the advocate of leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, I invite you to explain how the Siemens contract in Yorkshire will work if the UK is not inside the Customs Union, or 'a' customs union, given that Liam Fox regards any customs union membership as a 'betrayal' of the Referendum vote.

Erika1487

03-04-2018, 01:42 AM

Brexit maybe the most nationalistic idea to hit The British Isles since the formation of The British National Party (BNP)!

peejaye

03-04-2018, 04:05 PM

So we are back at stage one: how to solve the customs union conundrum. As the advocate of leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, I invite you to explain how the Siemens contract in Yorkshire will work if the UK is not inside the Customs Union, or 'a' customs union, given that Liam Fox regards any customs union membership as a 'betrayal' of the Referendum vote.

I'm afraid you'll have to speak to my agent about that; :D

1062100

Stavros

03-04-2018, 10:43 PM

I'm afraid you'll have to speak to my agent about that; :D

a) when not trying to break up California he is too busy augmenting his €95,000 a year salary as an MP with LBS shock-jockery and whatever short change he gets from the Russians for appearing on RT; and
B) I really would prefer your views on the Customs Union given its importance to a wide range of issues with regard to production contracts and the management of the international border between the UK and the EU.

Enlighten us, Peejaye.

Stavros

03-19-2018, 03:44 PM

Today the EU and the UK have produced a draft Transition Agreement that confirms the transition will end on the 30th of December 2020.

Note that these are provisional agreements pending a final agreement which, if it is not reached, will render null and void all pre-existing ones, as Michel Barnier has said 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'.

Note that there is no final agreement on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and that the Transition Agreement does not state if the European Court of Justice will adjudicate on legal disputes during the transition period.

Note also that while the UK will be free to negotiate trade agreements in the transition phase, they cannot be implemented until after the transition has ended. And this assumes that there is no extension of the transition date which is possible.

From the Guardian-

The UK has compromised on some of the EU’s key demands for the transition. It will end on 31 December 2020 (the EU’s preferred date), not around March 2021 (the UK’s preferred date). And EU nationals arriving in the UK during the transition will get the same rights as EU nationals here before. Theresa May originally said she would resist this.

The UK has accepted that EU fishermen will still get the same access to UK waters during the transition as they do now. The UK’s share of fishing quotas will remain the same. But it will only have the right to be consulted about any changes to the total catch; it will not have a veto.

The UK will have the right to negotiate its own trade deals during the transition, the EU has confirmed. But it will not be able to implement those deals until after the transition is over.

The UK and the EU have published a new version of the draft withdrawal treaty (pdf). (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_agreement_coloured.pdf) It is colour-coded, showing where the two sides have reached agreement (in green), where they are halfway towards an agreement (in yellow) and where matters are unresolved (in white).

The EU has retained the provisions in the draft treaty proposing regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and Ireland as a “backstop” solution to the border issue, even though Theresa May described this wording as unacceptable. Both sides are committed to a solution, but today’s document shows that they are not closer to deciding what this could be.

The EU has retained a version of the proposed “punishment clause” that could be used to penalise the UK during the transition if it were seen to break single market rules. (See 12.10pm.) (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/mar/19/bexit-davis-barnier-press-conference-russia-salisbury-srkipal-denials-over-spy-poisoning-growing-increasingly-absurd-says-boris-johnson-politics-live?page=with:block-5aafa872e4b06194ea77dbac#block-5aafa872e4b06194ea77dbac) The UK has not accepted this. When an earlier version of the proposal was first floated, Davis accused the EU of acting in bad faith. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/08/david-davis-eu-bad-faith-punish-brexit)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/mar/19/bexit-davis-barnier-press-conference-russia-salisbury-srkipal-denials-over-spy-poisoning-growing-increasingly-absurd-says-boris-johnson-politics-live

Here are the main points:

Stavros

03-19-2018, 04:07 PM

Correction: that should of course be the 31st December 2020.

Stavros

04-06-2018, 04:26 PM

With less than a year left before the UK leaves the EU or rather, begins its transition out of the EU, two interesting articles offer a perspective on a) fishing policy; and b) potential trade with the USA.

The article on fishing offers a different and more balanced perspective than the hysterical drivel one associates with the former leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, and the 'low level people' he says he left behind when he abandoned the party to earn some money as a Radio talk show host in addition to his fabulous salary as a Member of the European Parliament, where he sat on the Fisheries Committee for two and half years, attending at least two or maybe three meetings. Presumably to claim his expenses, as he appears to have no real interest in fishing policy. Also interesting in explaining who fishes for what species, who owns the companies that dominate the market, and why ports like Hull went into decline after the 'Cod War's with Iceland.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/06/ukip-british-fishing-westminster-brussels-brexit

The second is the annual report from the US Trade Representative which offers a guide to any future trade deal which the US says will only be possible with the EU if it gets rid of most of its health and safety regulations on food and other commodities which the USA claims are not based on scientific fact, and present a financial burden to competing firms in terms of administration costs. It seems almost laughable that the USA -one of the pioneers of science for over two hundred years- now has an administration that ridicules science at almost every level and yet wants the EU to lower its standards to meet its own low grade food products and who knows what else? I can't see the UK agreeing to trade with the US on such terms, it would be a return to the 1950s or worse, the 1940s when -grateful as the British were- Spam in cans made its way from the US to the UK to compensate for the lack of fresh meat. Enough to make an entire country go vegan.

You can read about the USA's war on standards here-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-ustrade-deal-uk-wish-list-representative-negotiations-chlorine-washed-chicken-tariffs-a8292006.html

Stavros

04-07-2018, 11:05 PM

I forgot to add that in the last two weeks it has been claimed that the Vote Leave campaign in the EU Referendum in 2016 broke the law, which raises the question: should the result be declared null and void? In this case, it is not the basket case twits in UKIP that are in the frame but the 'respectable' Tory liars like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and their salamander Dominic Cummings who are in the frame. Unfortunately some of the people involved are now too close to Mrs May so we may not see any real action on this, but it does confirm just how dirty this referendum was, and how our democratic system has been hi-jacked by hypocritical careerists who will do anything and say anything to get what they want. It would be enough to make one vote Labour, if that rancid party was not so keen on the same result as the venal Tories.

https://www.ft.com/content/13ec834c-2f99-11e8-b5bf-23cb17fd1498

Jericho

04-08-2018, 12:17 AM

I believe it was about one thing, and one thing only.
Cunts!
https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077

peejaye

04-08-2018, 10:30 AM

peejaye

04-08-2018, 11:07 AM

I believe it was about one thing, and one thing only.
Cunts!
https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077

STOP encouraging that full weight cunt will you....PLEASE. You know it makes him fucking ill ! :grin:

Stavros

04-08-2018, 04:17 PM

Exactly the same as the Tories did in a certain south coast by-election a couple of years ago with no action taken. Get over it you stupid fucking hypocrite!
Nice to see you finally declared your true color at last.

A by-election is not the same as a UK-wide Referendum, and as far as I can tell, you were on the same side as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Gisela Stuart -and Jeremy Corbyn and many Labour people too numerous and too tedious to mention.

It is also the case that some time ago I did say I think a re-run of the Referendum would be a waste of time, and probably not change the result to anyone's satisfaction, I am not in favour of it.

An interesting, if disturbing thing about politics in the UK since 1979 is the extent to which Ministers of the Crown who commit offences that would have meant instant dismissal or resignation in the past now stay put as if it didn't matter -and because it doesn't matter to them; just as Comrade Corbyn judges people on their solidarity to him in a Trumpy kinda way, and thus supports those Trotskyist nutters whom he recruited in Target '82 all those years ago who now claim to be the 'left-opposition' in the suspiciously bourgeois Momentum, at least one of whom is married to a woman whose views on Israel would transform a slice of bread into toast long before it gets near the machine most normally used to make it.

But let's not dwell on the intellectually defunct Labour Party, perhaps you can tell is what you think Brexit will do for the fishing industry, and whether or not you want the UK to sign a trade deal with the USA regardless of issues some of us think are important, like the regulations that control the standard of food we are sold, and the safety regulations on other commodities. When the time comes, these are real issues that will affect us for some time to come, and I welcome your contribution to the debate on them.

peejaye

04-08-2018, 04:40 PM

Jericho

04-08-2018, 05:52 PM

It's like watching a bad porn film, the suspense is killing me...When are you two going to fuck! :hide-1:

Stavros

04-08-2018, 05:57 PM

Your sort are a type of fucking cancer, the sort of rubbish that should be propping up flyovers somewhere. This country is on the brink of ruin because of scum like you, 21,000 police officers took off our streets, 55 people murdered in London alone in 3 months & you perverted scum moan about Brexit. I can't afford to eat fish & I do my shopping at Aldi who don't sell products from the US so I don't fucking care!
I'd rather drink fucking vomit than discuss anything with rubbish like you. Tories to me are like pedophiles, get it!
Oh; & I don't care whose fucking side I'm on as I don't care what lunatics follow the same football team as me! I can't do Jack shit about either.

Another strange post. I am not sure how I can be blamed for the UK being 'on the brink of ruin' as I have never voted Conservative and indeed, at one time was actively opposed to their government through the 'old' Labour Party and that old warrior union NUPE. I haven't voted Labour since Blair because he sold the movement out by ditching Clause 4 and yet again, it is because I had the misfortune to actually deal with some of the people now in Momentum or the LRC who were in Target '82 that I cannot offer either practical or rhetorical support to Corbyn.

There is in fact a lot of policy that I agree with, but I have no confidence at all in Corbyn as a party manager or John McDonnell for reasons I have outlined before. You might not have emerged from those febrile times in the late 70s and early 80s in the same way I did, but let's face it, if after nearly 40 years you are dealing with people who act as if nothing has changed you have to wonder if they are fit to run the country, not least with the challenges thrown up by Brexit.

After the revolution, comrade, doesn't work anymore. And it never did, which is why Trotsky himself having dismissed the upper echelons of the Russian military in 1917 re-hired them in 1918 because without them the Bolsheviks would have lost the civil war. And what did this fake internationalist say to them? Do it for Mother Russia! After the revolution my arse, the revolution has already happened and they are still selling newspapers outside meeting halls where hours are spent fine-tuning resolutions that have no relevance to the dispossessed of Grenfell Tower or anyone else in need in this country.

And I am not moaning about Brexit, but asking pertinent questions about what it will mean in hard policy terms, which you avoid at all times as if it didn't matter when thousands of jobs are at threat and we stand to become poorer as a country.

As for crime in London, where I do not live, the absence of the police due to falling numbers is a factor, as is the remaining cohort to prefer confrontational over community policing -community policing has been a signal part of the reduction of crime in Boston in the USA, which is why the Russian-backed President never mentions it. I don't know what role social media plays in gang violence, as this is as far as my social media goes, but when youth unemployment in some parts of London is 50% you have to ask, will Corbyn give them all jobs?

Stavros

04-08-2018, 06:02 PM

It's like watching a bad porn film, the suspense is killing me...When are you two going to fuck! :hide-1:

Not going to happen, I am pleased to say. When he finds out I used to work for the BBC it will just get worse, though if I told him what my job title was (like something out of W1), he would probably die laughing, which I genuinely would not wish on anyone. Just as when I stepped into a lift in Broadcasting House with Derek Jacobi, who looked like he might pass out from fear, either from just looking at me, or that very odd thing I was holding at the time. But I don't always have that effect on people, and he is useless without a script anyway.

peejaye

04-09-2018, 05:22 PM

Not going to happen, I am pleased to say. When he finds out I used to work for the BBC it will just get worse, though if I told him what my job title was (like something out of W1), he would probably die laughing, which I genuinely would not wish on anyone. Just as when I stepped into a lift in Broadcasting House with Derek Jacobi, who looked like he might pass out from fear, either from just looking at me, or that very odd thing I was holding at the time. But I don't always have that effect on people, and he is useless without a script anyway.

More like "WC" than "W1" ....well someone as to sweep up & clean the shithouses after them, I can't think of a more suitable candidate!

filghy2

04-10-2018, 02:38 AM

It's like watching a bad porn film, the suspense is killing me...When are you two going to fuck!

I think it's more like an uncensored, hammily over-acted version of The Odd Couple

Stavros

04-10-2018, 08:07 AM

I think it's more like an uncensored, hammily over-acted version of The Odd Couple

And doesn't address any of the serious issues around Brexit, and I don't suppose a real debate on it will take place here.

Jericho

04-10-2018, 03:38 PM

When he finds out I used to work for the BBC it will just get worse, though if I told him what my job title was (like something out of W1), .

The Generals moustache warmer?

Stavros

04-10-2018, 04:13 PM

The Generals moustache warmer?

Not so rational, and anyway I worked there for less than a year the pay was so bad.

Stavros

04-27-2018, 07:54 PM

An update on Brexit:

The House of Lords is coming to the end of its reading of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which is expected to return to the House of Common next month for its Third and final reading, the assumption being that the House will complete the passage of the Bill before the Summer recess. The Lords have amended the Bill, but while their amendments cannot change the Bill, it does mean the Commons must debate them, the Customs Union being the hot topic of the day.

However, as the BBC's John Pienaar has pointed out:

Search for the government's detailed blueprint for Brexit, a future trade deal and, more urgently, the customs union, and it becomes clear there isn't one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43925282

It is not clear if the next EU Summit in May will shed any light on this aspect of the talks, and while some are saying that without mentioning 'Customs Union' by name an arrangement could be made with the EU that is 'a customs union' in all but name begs the question if the UK will both get it, and be free to enter into trade deals with countries outside the EU. The Government insists the UK is leaving the Customs Union, though it cannot explain how this affects the border in Northern Ireland, so we are still going round and round in circles, and ultimately, it is for the EU to decide.

Meanwhile, we are told the President of the USA will visit the UK after the NATO summit in July, which means he may meet the Queen at her summer residence in Scotland (Balmoral) (if she is still alive) and possibly Downing Street in London. Protests are planned, but may not have the desired effect.

More pertinent, there is a claim that Theresa May is desperate to negotiate a trade deal with the USA when the UK leaves the EU, yet there is no meat in this sandwich that should attract investors. We are still not sure if the USA will be shutting the door to foreign trade through tariff barriers, or open its economy to UK investors in the way that Mrs Thatcher created the 'Open Britain' that has enabled foreign companies (and, indeed, foreign governments) to purchase large swathes of our economy -the USA does not normally give foreigners the same opportunity and there is no sign it will in future. Moreover, the value of trade with the USA will not be as attractive to investors as trade in Asia, which should take precedence over the USA if the UK does indeed leave the EU with a free hand to negotiate -always assuming that the UK outside the EU is an appealing prospect to trading partners whom, I suspect, want more from us than we get from them.

And of course, this all rests on the President still being in office in July, and Theresa May still being Prime Minister too, given that on the Customs Union she is watching her back and if Amber Rudd is forced to resign over the lies she has told about Windrush and Home Office targets, Theresa May would lose an important ally in Cabinet and be even weaker than she is now.

peejaye

04-27-2018, 08:01 PM

An update on speculation over Brexit, take it all with a "pinch of salt" especially its source!

10716631071662

Stavros

04-30-2018, 01:30 AM

The resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd weakens Theresa May's authority in Cabinet, and comes at a time when David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is reported to be so fed up with May's EU adviser he is also close to resigning. On top of that, Rudd has had to resign because of a long-established policy on immigration that was started by none other than May herself when she was Home Secretary.

The Militant Tendency -Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom must decide in the next few weeks if now is the time to move against May, waiting for the outcome of the local elections in the UK next Thursday (every council in London is up for grabs), or wait for the Commons Third Reading on the EU Withdrawal Bill with specific reference to the Customs Union, or move against her in September in advance of the Party Conference at the start of October. What I don't know is how close the Militants are to the Democratic Unionist Party who may be the key to May's survival.

Windrush is an example of a policy problem the government did not expect to even be exposed in public, let alone take on a life of its own and threaten to hi-jack an agenda dominated by Brexit. It is even conceivable it could bring the government down.

The sooner the better, and one hopes, before Friday the 13th of July, so we can spared a visit from the pompous windbag from the White House who thinks Nine Elms is a 'lousy location' for the US Embassy, as if anyone here cared.

peejaye

04-30-2018, 01:59 PM

He's coming, get over it. I'll watch out for you with your little placard demanding he "go home".
As for Brexit, get Nigel around the table & let's get it over & done with to stop your fucking whining! Armageddon hasn't happened as you clowns predicted. It must be so frustrating :-P

peejaye

04-30-2018, 05:16 PM

Doctor Liam Fox a militant :D
You really are in a class of your own :hide-1:

Ts RedVeX

05-01-2018, 12:26 AM

Brexit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmS_VDvMY

filghy2

05-01-2018, 02:22 AM

Brexit?

Where have you been Redvex? It's not the same with only the Two Amigos.

Stavros

05-01-2018, 08:33 AM

The House of Lords has defeated the government again-

Peers voted by 335 votes to 244 to ensure parliament – rather than the government – decides the next steps if the prime minister’s exit deal is rejected in the autumn.

Unless the defeat is overturned in the Commons, it increases the chances of softening the deal and sending the government back to the negotiating table if the agreement is rejected.

As is the case with Amendments from the Lords, it now requires the House of Commons to debate it, though a vote should go the same way as most votes so far given that the Labour Party leadership is as committed to leaving the EU as the Tories -unless a growing number of MPs on both sides of the House now see the opportunity to delay leaving the EU owing to the governments inability to make any coherent statement on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with regard to 'the' or 'a' Customs Union with the EU which is only one of a number of unresolved issues.

That confusion exists across the House was further illustrated by the bizarre remarks of Green Party MP (and co-leader of the party) Caroline Lucas. Thus Viscount Hailsham defended the amendment on the basis that it would ensure

“that the future of our country is determined by parliament and not by ministers”.

Whereas Caroline Lucas went further to argue the decision should in fact be taken out of Parliament altogether-she said the amendment

raised the prospects of a fresh referendum on the exit deal. “MPs should respond by ensuring the public are also able to express their view on the final Brexit deal, which will affect generations for generations to come,”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-withdrawal-bill-theresa-may-no-deal-brexit-lords-vote-a8329761.html

So there you are: so far no exit deal has been agreed because negotiations with the EU are still in process; nobody knows how to resolve the problem in Northern Ireland; the Commons will have to decide if it will vote on the exit deal that has not yet been agreed (presumably in October or November this year); there may be a referendum on the exit deal, there may not be a referendum on the exit deal.

Which is rather like saying we still don't know if the UK will in fact leave the EU, after all, the date of exit on the 29th of March 2019 is a date that marks the transition out of the EU which begins on the 30th of March 2019 and will last -so far - for another year during which the UK will abide by the rules and decisions of the EU, its Single Market and Customs Union...
...someone once wrote an critique of Trotsky's 'Transitional programme' in the context of the Bolshevik Revolution, calling the article 'Transition to the transition'.

Add in the prospect of the UK failing to agree an exit deal with the EU and I guess we could have a 'Transition to the Crash'.

peejaye

05-01-2018, 01:24 PM

Brexit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmS_VDvMY

I'd stay off this section if I were you Vex ; for your own sanity, that other cunt is close to coming under lock & key by the Sanity Police. Maybe then we could all have a bit of light hearted fun without it turning in to War & fucking Peace! Nice to see you back too.

Stavros

05-01-2018, 03:03 PM

The alternative position, and the most sane position for you to take, Peejaye, is to inform yourself on the most important decision this country has made since declaring war on Nazi Germany in September 1939.

And ask questions like: will the UK economy, and its society be better off outside the EU? How? In what way?

You can take an interest in compelling issues such as the rights of EU/British citizens in the EU and UK after Brexit; you can try to unravel the issue of Northern Ireland and the Customs Union, and you can ask if the UK should be looking west after Brexit to negotiate a trade deal with the USA, or look east to the prospects of trade with India, China and Japan.

And in case you are not aware of it, the conflict over these issues in Cabinet and the wider ranks of the Conservative Party could result in Theresa May losing her position as Prime Minister, or the Government losing a key vote in the Commons -or both- forcing a General Election which I believe you want to deal with domestic rather than 'foreign' issues which you -and others like myself- identify as being of critical importance for the well-being of citizens -housing being but one obvious issue.

Can you really just wish it all away as if it were not important? I trust you will bring your life-experience and acumen to bear upon the matter of most importance to us all.

peejaye

05-01-2018, 05:55 PM

To be quite honest with you; I haven't got a clue? If I'd got a degree in Politics & Economics I would probably try & help you as you've asked me a few times. I know you enjoy discussing it but even if I had a clue I don't suppose it would solve anything as the people elected to sort it don't listen to anyone anyway, not even the so-called experts. Very depressing isn't it? :neutral:

Stavros

05-02-2018, 12:45 PM

Peejaye, when David Cameron decided to honour the pledge made in the 2015 Election Manifesto do hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the UK, the 'establishment' as you would call them, did not expect to lose the vote.

What is 'depressing' to some, but no surprise to many is the realization that even the militants arguing for the UK's exit from the EU did not think through the details, or they had a different agenda anyway. Farage, Fox, Gove and Hannan took the view that exit means exit, and during the referendum debate wished away all the post-Exit details as merely something an independent UK would deal with at the time, just as Farage said he wasn't bothered by tariffs because they would not be high and the UK would be able to afford them. This is before his buddy in the US threatened to impose tariffs on UK products that could increase unemployment here.

Now they are holding a gun to Mrs May's head (Jacob Rees-Mogg denies this and says his European Research Group proposals are 'Duelling Pistols' -!! I think you know what they are, something to do with the 17th century...) over the Customs Union because none of the people involved on either side of the argument stopped to think through the implications of the exit on something like the Customs Union, or as I say just waved their hands and said 'we will deal with that when it happens' -and it is about to happen, and they can't deal with it.

I am not an expert in EU affairs, but at the time of the Referendum debate even I could see that Hannan's argument -also used by Liam Fox- that outside the EU the UK would be able to freely negotiate trade deals with 150 countries (I forget the precise figure which is higher) was rubbish not least because it includes micro-states with populations smaller than Birmingham -so how can such deals with micro-states compensate for any losses in revenue from trade with our most important partner the EU?

And, it now emerges that India may not be as keen to trade with us as people like Hannan think, or worse for the militants obsessing over immigrants and migrants, that if it does want a trade deal it must give Indian citizens better access to jobs in the UK. If all this sounds suspiciously like 'free movement' in all but name, welcome to the wold of international trade where trade includes the movement of people as well as things. And none of this is a mystery, it has been part of trade deals for decades.

I suggest that the Brexiteers actually want to destroy the EU as it exists and that the UK's exit is one blow to undermine it. The Nationalist agenda of Hungary is threatening to smash the EU from the other side, while Americans who helped to elect a tax cheat and daft-dodging coward as President did so because he is also opposed to the EU and indeed, the North America Free Trade Agreement and every other form of international trading bloc.

Because in reality what these 'free marketeers' want is an end to globalization as the co-ordinated production, distribution and sale of goods. They believe that 'too many' states are using trade deals within trading blocs like the EU to get a 'free ride' to the market on somebody else's ticket and thus relying on the USA and the UK for their capital and their benefits from trade when they raise little capital of their own and produce even less, yet insert themselves into the system to obtain grants to fund employment schemes that would otherwise not be viable, or fund food production that rests on rigged pricing systems that by definition buck the market.

Convinced they would be the winners in a truly 'free market' these people are prepared to destroy what we have, flawed though it is but working, for something which in reality they do not know will work at all. Just as Milton Friedman described 'Thatcherism' as an 'economic experiment' in which the UK was the laboratory 'guinea pigs' so these prophets of a new economic order are using the world as their lab.

Who do you want in control of the lab -a scientist or a prophet?

peejaye

05-02-2018, 03:46 PM

Stavros

05-02-2018, 05:11 PM

I don't know who you are in real life; or what "cloak & dagger" outfit you may represent but it's one of the biggest mysteries in life to me why you & one or two others(Gina Miller & Cancer Blair) seem absolutely devastated over Brexit & petrified beyond belief what the future holds?
I am truly lost for words! We've got through two World wars for fucks sake!
They tell me fishing is a relaxing hobby.... or golf maybe? For me it's a 5% cask IPA full of American Citra & Mosaic hops.

You might want to put that comment about two wars into context. Both left the UK bankrupt -in 1932 Neville Chamberlain introduced the War Loan Bonds in order to raise funds to re-finance the debts run up during the First World War. The last payment on the debt, £1.9 billion was paid off by Chancellor George Osborne in 2015. However, the UK borrowed heavily from the USA during the War and owed around $4.4 billion when Chamberlain's domestic War Bond Loans were up and running. There is some dispute as to whether or not the UK has ever paid the US back or if the US has asked for it back, with interest and adjusted to contemporary prices, the current debt is around $40 billion.
Ps, Don't tell the Americans.

As for World War II, again the UK could not have fought the War without American money, debts run up during the War and Lend-Lease to help Britain revive after it were around $586 million with a line of credit worth $3.7 billion. The last payment on loans from the USA was paid off by Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2006.

In both cases, Britain could rely on its extensive Empire for raw materials under the 'Imperial Preference' schemes, and it could rely on men and women across the Empire to put on a uniform and fight for the Empire, though it seems that sacrifice is not worth much today if the soldiers in question were from the Caribbean or the Indian sub-continent. Just as Britain had Imperial Preference and helped to form the European Free Trade Area in 1960, so it benefited from being in the European Economic Community when it joined in 1973.

Thus, the Militant Brexiteers who announce the imminent freedom of the UK in a global free market that does not exist, would do well to acknowledge that the UK has not had to compete on its own on terms dictated by the market since the formation of the Honourable East India Company in 1600. But don't worry, we will be independent, and we will succeed, and we will all be rich.

And if that doesn't work, we can always ask the Americans to bail us out. What else is the Special Relationship for?

And I haven't even started on why Europe is embedded in the history and culture of this country and why we would be insane to detach ourselves from it in this manner.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30306579
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_national_debt#World_War_II
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/episodes/episode_77.shtml

peejaye

05-02-2018, 05:22 PM

I don't read links, ESPECIALLY BBC links. Don't worry, we won't starve to death, Nigel will make sure. Go & buy yourself a nice fishing rod or some golf clubs.

Stavros

05-03-2018, 09:28 AM

I don't read links, ESPECIALLY BBC links. Don't worry, we won't starve to death, Nigel will make sure. Go & buy yourself a nice fishing rod or some golf clubs.

This has to be sarcasm as even you must know what a useless turd Farage is, a man who could not control his own party with its history of resignations, suspensions, sackings and defections; a law suit that has all but bankrupted the party, and other than the 2014 elections to the European Parliament a long list of election failures, not least the 7 failed attempts he made to get into Parliament, followed by a resignation, a return to leadership and another resignation describing UKIP with contempt as a party with 'low grade people' which under its new leader Gerard Batten is simply a rump of the clapped out English Neo-Nazi/Fascist movement obsessed with Muslims and the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation. Wherever he goes Farage leaves a trail of dubious political and financial connections, some of them Russian, some connected to extremists in the USA, and all amounting to nothing.

If you insist on avoiding the BBC, which sounds like you avoid reading anything, let alone articles you don't agree with, this one in today's Independent considers the UK's trade options outside the EU, and it doesn't look good. You may want to invest in a fishing rod yourself, as the weenies in the Ouse may be the cheapest source of nutrition you can find in years to come.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-trade-deals-customs-partnership-eu-impact-theresa-may-plan-a8332411.html

peejaye

05-03-2018, 10:06 AM

Other views are available other than "Extreme Liberalism"

1072603

peejaye

05-03-2018, 10:08 AM

If you insist on avoiding the BBC, which sounds like you avoid reading anything, let alone articles you don't agree with, this one in today's Independent considers the UK's trade options outside the EU, and it doesn't look good. You may want to invest in a fishing rod yourself, as the weenies in the Ouse may be the cheapest source of nutrition you can find in years to come.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-trade-deals-customs-partnership-eu-impact-theresa-may-plan-a8332411.html

Don't worry about me brother.... I'm laughing all way to the bank :banana:

peejaye

05-03-2018, 12:47 PM

You may want to invest in a fishing rod yourself, as the weenies in the Ouse may be the cheapest source of nutrition you can find in years to come.
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It don't get any better than this, you're a fucking Legend Stavros :p :dancing:

filghy2

05-04-2018, 02:38 AM

Other views are available other than "Extreme Liberalism"

What exactly is this "Extreme Liberalism"? According to Wikipedia "Liberalism is a political view based on liberty and equality. Liberals generally support civil rights, democracy, secularism, gender equality, internationalism and the freedoms of speech, the press, religion and markets." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

filghy2

05-04-2018, 04:22 AM

Other views are available other than "Extreme Liberalism"

Are you aware that you own party wants to maintain the single market and customs union with the EU? https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/
That must make them "extreme liberals", assuming that means anyone opposed to Farage's hard Brexit view.

peejaye

05-16-2018, 01:03 PM

It's only fucking money....

www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-15/five-star-and-lega-ask-ecb-cancel-eu250-billion-debt

Stavros

05-16-2018, 03:41 PM

It's only fucking money....

It is also about the governance of Italy and whether or not Italy can challenge the EU at a level currently being experienced with Hungary. Even if there is a new government in Italy comprised of the Five Star Movement and the League, it has more potential to fall apart from internal dispute than from its incoherent policy on the Euro. As both have made hostility to immigration a major part of the platform their focus ought to be not on the EU, but on the UN and the Law of the Sea. The key point about the 'boat people' being manipulated by criminals in North Africa and risking their lives on small craft in the Mediterranean, is the same as it is for the 'Boat people' off the coast of Australia -they are protected by the Law of the Sea and specifically this:

the normal international law is that if you are rescued in a country’s search and rescue zone, that country has an obligation to take you. You can go to the nearest port. And the nearest port is normally in the country whose search and rescue zone you’ve been picked up in.
http://theconversation.com/explainer-the-law-of-the-sea-and-asylum-seekers-20125

There is no hope of changing the law of the sea on this, not least because rescue at sea has been a norm of maritime life as well as international law for centuries, though combating criminal activity in North Africa would be more effective.

rodinuk

05-17-2018, 06:04 PM

Hypocrisy:

I don't read links, ESPECIALLY BBC links...

It's only fucking money....

www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-15/five-star-and-lega-ask-ecb-cancel-eu250-billion-debt (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-15/five-star-and-lega-ask-ecb-cancel-eu250-billion-debt)

Stavros

05-26-2018, 05:58 PM

In an earlier post I said I expected the Third and final Reading of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill to take place in May, whereas it is now clear it will not happen until June.

Meanwhile, as the Conservatives and Labour continue to tie themselves up in knots over the question of the/a Customs Union and the border in Northern Ireland, Jacob Rees-Mogg has complained that he thinks Theresa May is losing trust, and has clarified his view thus:

"Fine words are well known for not buttering parsnips, and we are not getting our parsnips buttered at the moment.”
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/95416/jacob-rees-mogg-blasts-weak-theresa-may-and-suggests-she

Not long ago I came across this hilarious exchange in the Telegraph, and laughed with relish.

mike saul 26 May 2018 3:41PM
Love the way Trump plays people.
We should hire him to do the brexit negotiations.

mike saul 26 May 2018 3:49PM
If we did the EU would end paying us money to leave
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/26/south-korean-president-meets-north-koreas-kim-jong-un-surprise/

Stavros

06-16-2018, 07:47 PM

As the House of Commons debates the Third Reading of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, the Brexit process appears to become more and more bizarre. Most people who don't really understand how Parliament works have been confused by fierce debates on amendments to the Bill that either seek to 'derail' Brexit or intend to give Parliament a 'final say' on the Brexit negotiations. On the sidelines, a row about British firms being excluded from contributing to the Galileo space programme confirms that, as Michel Barnier put it 'Brexit means Brexit, everywhere'. The UK, as Theresa May keeps telling us, is leaving the EU, so there is really only the terms of exit to negotiate, everything else must be negotiated after the UK has left.

Vernon Bogdanor, who for many years as an expert in the Administrative law (not Constitutional as the UK has no Constitution), these days based in London, has provided a useful article that explains why the House of Commons can scrutinize foreign policy but cannot actually negotiate its terms,suggesting that MPs are trying to get too directly involved in matters that are really the preserve of government-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/10/vernon-bogdanor-brexit-amendment-government-survival-risk

But if you think the debates have been tedious, consider the actions of arch Libertarian, pro-Brexit MPs John Redwood and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Redwood, who earns £180,000 a year in his 'other job' as Global Strategist for merchant bankers Charles Stanley,
recently wrote a column of financial advice in which he recommended investors “look further afield” because of the state of the UK economy...

As Frances Coppola for Forbes put it:
“To protect his job as an investment manager, he warned his wealthy clients to get their money out before the disaster hits. To me, this smacks of disaster capitalism. Engineer a crash while ensuring your own interests are protected, then clean up when it hits. This is despicable behaviour by a lawmaker.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/13/labour-accuses-john-redwood-of-talking-britain-down

As for Rees-Mogg, he helped create Someset Capital Management which recently opened a new account in the Republic of Ireland-
A prospectus for the new business, which was registered in March and will be governed by EU and Irish rules, listed Brexit as one of the risks, as it could cause “considerable uncertainty”.
And
Referring to Brexit, the fund’s prospectus said: “During, and possibly after, this period there is likely to be considerable uncertainty as to the position of the UK and the arrangements which will apply to its relationships with the EU and other countries following its withdrawal.
“This uncertainty may affect other countries in the EU, or elsewhere, if they are considered to be impacted by these events.
“As [the firm is] based in the UK and a fund’s investments may be located in the UK or the EU, a fund may as a result be affected by the events described above.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jacob-rees-mogg-scm-ireland-city-move-eu-withdrawal-dublin-a8398041.html

So, if even the most passionate advocates of Brexit have no faith in it, why are we even debating leaving the EU?

Maybe it is just the UK in 2018: incompetent government, public service funding slashed to the bone, railway timetables in chaos, racist violence increasing, low productivity, declining wages....not the best conditions by which to leave the largest single market in the world...

Stavros

06-27-2018, 03:20 PM

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill was given its Royal Assent on the 26th June 2018 and is now an Act of Parliament, there is less than a year to go before phase one of the Exit begins in March 2019.

The notice can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-eu-withdrawal-bill-receives-royal-assent

Stavros

07-20-2018, 05:31 PM

The Government met at the Prime Minister's country house, Cheqeurs, to hammer out another final deal on Brexit to present to the EU. The BBC has put together a condensed version of it, and it can be seen here-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44749993

Today, 20th July, the chief negotiator for the EU on Brexit, Michael Barnier, said the Chequers paper had workable elements but that it would not be the basis of negotiations -
"We are not going to negotiate on the basis of the White Paper because that's the British paper but we could use many elements of the White Paper," said Mr Barnier.

"There's not an awful lot of justification for the EU running the risk of weakening the single market.
"That is our main asset. There's no justification for us to create additional burdens on business just because the UK wants to leave."
Mr Barnier questioned the UK's plans for a "common rulebook" for EU-UK trade as it only referred to goods checked at the border, not areas like pesticide use, adding: "How can we protect consumers in Europe?"
He also questioned whether the plans were workable without additional bureaucracy and said there were "practical problems" about how tariffs would be determined and collected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44903652

The Chequers agreement turned out not to be an agreement -what David Davis and Boris Johnson agreed to over the weekend they decided not to agree to days later, mimicking the President of the USA who says one thing on Monday which turns out to be false by Tuesday-, which is in its own way the perfect summary of the whole of the Brexit process: the UK is leaving the EU, but does not know how, and most of the proposals made so far assume the UK will continue to operate together with the EU. Thus: as Theresa May keeps saying, but as her own Chequers agreement makes clear:
-We are leaving the Single Market, after which we will seek access to the Single Market.
-We are leaving the Customs Union, after which we will seek a Customs Union arrangement.
-We are not going to pay substantial sums of money to the EU every year, but we will honour the commitments made to the EU budget beyond the deadline for Article 50, and if they ask us to pay into the Pension Fund for MEPS and UK Eurocrats, yani, maybe...
-There will no longer be free movement of people between the EU and the UK, but EU and UK citizens resident in the EU and UK on a defined date, will continue to have the right to move freely in the EU and the UK.
-Decisions of the European Court of Justice will not be applicable to the UK, except for those cases where the UK agrees it makes sense for decisions of the European Court of Justice to judge cases that relate to issues a UK court (ie in England or Scotland or Northern Ireland) cannot make.
-We will have taken back control of the UK's law-making powers, even though the UK never lost its law making powers, and was legally entitled to veto all or any EU law and regulation.

The hardline Brexiteers, prompted by the angel of death, America's John Bolton, declared the Chequers agreement a betrayal. Last night on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Tony Blair said it was unrealistic because it was not acceptable to the EU.

And so it goes on, a Brexit process that offers everything and produces nothing. The Americans have urged the European Research Group to get rid of Theresa May, but the cold reality is that the men in dark suits who organize assassinations in the Conservative Party are still trying to find someone to replace her, while the numbers for a coup still don't add up. In other words, the professional political class looks at Brexit, and sees a burden not an opportunity -they don't want to touch it because whoever touches it, like handling the crust of an Egyptian Mummy, dies in mysterious circumstances unknown even to the Russians.

Or Theresa May could propose delaying the implementation of Article 50 for 5 years while someone, somewhere, works out how to extricate the UK from the EU.

Stavros

07-23-2018, 02:33 AM

Although the Government wants to reach a deal with the EU on the terms of Brexit and lay the basis for negotiations on post-Brexit trade, the prospect of a 'hard Brexit' crashing out without a deal remains possible. To hard Brexit fanatics the glib response is that the UK will carry on trading with the EU on World Trade Organization [WTO] rules, but what does this means and how easy would that be?

The article below offers a grim prospect of the medium to long term prospects for independent trade deals outside the EU -
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n18/swati-dhingra/how-not-to-do-trade-deals

While the WTO is currently in a slow-burning crisis as the USA has begun sabotaging its operations and may even decide to operate outside the WTO rendering the organization useless, but having serious implications for the UK if it crashes out of the EU, thus:

In a little-noticed policy change (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/01/trump-may-ignore-wto-in-major-shift-of-u-s-trade-policy/?utm_term=.e8e9020de582) issued in March, the administration announced that it might seek to deal with trade disputes outside the WTO system, and possibly defy WTO rulings that it does not like. More ominously, the U.S. recently has refused to approve the start of the selection process for new AB members. It is threatening to hollow out the AB unless the U.S. gets its way on changes to the WTO dispute settlement system that it has yet to specify. This is like what would happen if half the U.S. federal appellate judge positions were empty, and the senators from a single big state such as Texas blocked all new appointments until the Senate passed rule changes ensuring that Texas had an edge in future disputes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/09/27/trump-is-fighting-an-open-war-on-trade-his-stealth-war-on-trade-may-be-even-more-important/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f67319162614

A pro-Remain article explains the perils of trading under WTO rules, unusual as only one country -Mauritania- operates under WTO.
https://infacts.org/trading-wto-rules-really-mean/
https://medium.com/@MrWeeble/who-actually-trades-solely-under-wto-rules-1b6127ce33c6

Stavros

08-18-2018, 02:58 PM

This is hilarious, from Boris baby Johnson to Corbyn playing the violin as the ship sinks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=99&v=svwslRDTyzU

Stavros

09-03-2018, 10:06 AM

As the Parliament of the UK prepares to start a new session, Boris Johnson has delivered another hysterical burst of rhetoric aimed at convincing the Conservative Party that Theresa May must go, and be replaced by, well, er...Boris Johnson. Writing behind a paywall in the Telegraph, Johnson has accused the Prime Minister of 'surrender', or 'waving a white flag' in the government's negotiations with the EU that will amount to the UK being the loser -

We will remain in the EU taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination. We won’t have taken back control – we will have lost control.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-boris-johnson-attack-theresa-may-chequers-plan-a8519961.html

This is the same Boris Johnson who was at the Cheqeurs meeting which endorsed the very same strategy he now says he opposes, having waited to see who would jump first -it was David Davis, who also endorsed the document at the meeting. Just as Davis was too much of a coward at the time to tell Theresa May and his colleagues he could not support the proposals and waited until he was out of sight to resign, so Boris Johnson followed suit.

But what Boris Johnson has not done, is give us his alternative. He attacks Mrs May with the tone of voice and the desperate rhetoric we now associate with the same man of whom Johnson declared, 'he is unfit to be President of the United States'. Indeed, if Boris Johnson has an alternative plan, it is the American Plan, which is: There is No Plan. Johnson and his chums will cheerfully tell you it doesn't matter because the UK can leave the EU without a deal and operate on WTO terms, at the same time their President is threatening to withdraw from the WTO if it does not obey the demands of the White House with the likely result that the WTO will be a useless body nobody listens to.

The practical reality that thrives in the details is lost to Johnson because he doesn't do detail, being too busy polishing his ego in the mirror. But here is the reality:

Britain’s leading role in evaluating new medicines for sale to patients across the EU has collapsed with no more work coming from Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) because of Brexit, it has emerged.
The decision by the European Medicines Agency (http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/about_us/document_listing/document_listing_000426.jsp&mid=) to cut Britain out of its contracts seven months ahead of Brexit is a devastating blow to British pharmaceutical companies already reeling from the loss of the EMA’s HQ in London and with it 900 jobs.

A key point here being the extent to which the UK played a leading role in the EU to the benefit of both:

It is understood the MHRA bid for 36 EMA contracts this year but were only awarded two, and these were for drugs for which evaluation had already begun. The situation is a stark contrast to 2016 when the UK was the lead assessor, known as the rapporteur, on 22 applications, and was joint lead or co-rapporteur on 19 multinational applications. This made it the number one in Europe, with Germany’s regulator behind with 22 lead contracts but only 12 co-contracts.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/02/britain-loses-medicines-contracts-as-eu-body-anticipates-brexit

It is hard to see how the UK benefits from leaving the EU, and what that empty phrase 'taking back control' even means. All this is lost on a vain, pompous man who was elected to Parliament to represent the constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip but when the debate on a third runway at Heathrow was held in the Commons, he had buggered off to Kabul for an urgent meeting with the Foreign Secretary who had no idea he was coming and wasn't even there, Johnson meeting the Deputy Foreign Secretary for a meeting he could have had via SKype on a smart phone in the back of a London cab.

And this from a man who may have been told during the campaign to leave the EU that the Leave campaign was illegal in its operation, and partly funded by the Russian Government, which like the government of its toy boy in the White House believes it will benefit from the break-up of the EU. But if he did know about the illegality, he has kept quiet about it, although that in itself is a wondrous feat of self-censorship that would be out of character.

So the battle lines are drawn and it is now only a matter of time time before Theresa May faces a leadership challenge, possibly in a matter of weeks, but that is if Johnson is serious in his bid to follow John Bolton's advice or is just drawing attention to himself because he loves it so much. With the broken-backed Labour party eating its own shit on a daily basis and incapable and unwilling to defend the UK, we appear to be headed into another year of indecision and chaos that makes you wonder if the word 'Government' has any meaning at all.

Stavros

09-20-2018, 04:27 PM

With less than 200 days to go before the UK leaves the European Union, the current state of negotiations between the two can be summed up in this headline in today's Guardian:

Brexit: May says Chequers 'only plan' on table after EU calls it unacceptable
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/sep/20/salzburg-eu-summit-brexit-theresa-may-polite-doing-her-job-eu-chiefs-non-committal-verdict-on-mays-brexit-appeal-at-salzburg-politics-live

As the Labour Party gathers in Liverpool tis weekend for its Annual Conference, one that will exhibit what a divided party it is, we see that it is led by people drafted in from the Ministry of Truth to re-write the English language in such a way as to produce this drivel:

Labour accepts the referendum result and a Labour government will put the national interest first.

We will prioritise jobs and living standards, build a close new relationship with the EU, protect workers’ rights and environmental standards, provide certainty to EU nationals and give a meaningful role to Parliament throughout negotiations.
We will end Theresa May’s reckless approach to Brexit, and seek to unite the country around a Brexit deal that works for every community in Britain.
https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/#first

They could have said: we don't accept the results of a Referendum in which the Leave campaig broke election law and received funding from the Russian government; and we think the UK should remain in the UK, which is what our statement says without saying so. But the Labour Party is a party of spineless cowards, so don't expect a week of inflated bullshit masquerading as 'policy' to make anyone any clearer at the end what the party is going to do.

Stavros has an alternative to Chequers and Labour's we are leaving the EU front door to see if we can sneak in at the back: and this is it:

Put simply, if we accept the UK is leaving the EU, the only way in which it can be done without causing the disruption a sudden departure would do, is
1) to phase the withdrawal over a period of 5-7 years.
2) During this time, the UK will continue to pay its share of the EU budget.
3) The UK will continue to adhere to the four fundamental freedoms of movement of capital, services, people and goods.
4) The UK will continue to participate in the European Parliament.
5) The UK will continue to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
6) In years 1-2, negotiations will focus on the withdrawal of the UK from the agencies of the EU it is a member of.
7) in years 1-3 negotiations will focus on access to the single market and the customs union and the status of EU/UK nationals in each other's jurisdicton, with the ancillary negotiations of
8) years 1-7 putting together a comprehensive agreement on trade.

I recommend these proposals to the government, and am willing to help at any time.

Stavros

11-15-2018, 02:36 AM

The UK has agreed a Draft Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union which must now be agreed by the Parliament of the UK and the European Parliament. The text of the Agreement (585 pages) is here-
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement_0.pdf

The Withdrawal Agreement was presented to the Cabinet this afternoon and according to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet has accepted it. The Prime Minister will address the House of Commons on Thursday 15th November 2018, and the Commons will debate the Agreement begining in early December and either give its approval, or reject it. In the interim, the leaders of the remaining 27 EU members will meet at an Emergency Summit on the 25th of November to give their approval, which they are expected to do. In theory, this means that the European Parliament will accept the deal, so the only obstacle remains the Parliament of the UK.

So far, the reaction to the Withdrawal Agreement has been hostile, Conservative Brexiteers fuming about capitulation, betrayal, unacceptable compromises, while Labour has claimed it is a bad deal that will not solve any of the problems inherent in Brexit.

Accordinging to one MP the (Conservative) Chairman of the 1922 Committee that runs the party in Parliament has aleady received the 48 letters needed to call a vote of No Confidence in the leader of the Party, though they have yet to confirm this is what they want, and may wait for the outcome of the vote in the Commons in December. So far, the ultras in the party have been exposed as cowards, so we wait to see what happens. If in the interim cabinet members resign, this could create a more toxic situation in the party.

Jeremy Corbyn has said it is a bad deal, but met privately with Theresa May around 10.30-11pm for around 20 minutes apparently to insist that Parliament be given adequate time to scrutinize the deal.

Theresa May has succeeded in negotiating a Withdrawal Agreement that means the UK wil not crash out of the EU without any agreements -so far. The terms of the agreement provide for a transition period from the formal exit in March 2019 to last until December 2020 during which the UK will remain in the Customs Union, and open talks on the future trading relationship with the EU. The agreement allows for an extension to this transitional period.
To hard core Brexiteers, this means the Withdrawal Agreement is 'Brexit in Name Only'- the UK will pay £39 Billion into the EU budget; free movement of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU will remain for the transition period; the UK will remain in the Customs Union, and legal disputes will be made by the European Court of Justice.

There is not a shred of evidence that any other MP could have negotiated a better deal, and it remains to be seen if the Commons does in fact back the deal, even as commentators on tv this evening said it would fail. But if it fails, what is the alternative to a No Deal crashing out of the EU in March 2019 with all that implies with regard to the value of sterling, and chaos at the key border crossings of Dover and Calais? Some say a second referendum, others a General Election. Too early to say.

This is either a triumph for Theresa May, or the last act of her leadership of the Conservative Party. She has taken on the job nobody else wanted, and delivered as good a deal as anyone could get. It would be tragic if the cowards in the Conservative Party and the Saboteurs in the Labour Party were, in a pincer movement to force her out of office, when the two leading contenders to replace her are Sajid Javid and Boris Johnson, and when the General Election Labour yearns for might not give them the victory they assume it will.

We are again on the edge of a cliff. It is just possible that when the time comes next month, Parliament will approve the deal, knowing that once the Withdrawal Agreement facilitates the UK's exit from the EU, we can begin the even more painful process of negotiating the longer term relationship with the EU. There is a long way to go before the UK leaves the EU in its entirety.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/14/theresa-mays-brexit-deal-everything-you-need-to-know
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/13/countdown-to-brexit-what-happens-next-in-ukeu-talks

filghy2

11-16-2018, 04:03 AM

This is either a triumph for Theresa May, or the last act of her leadership of the Conservative Party.

It's not looking good for her. The problem is that the deal is the classic compromise that pleases nobody and too many people are likely to think it is in their political interests to oppose it. The hard-line Brexiters would rather blow up the government than accept a compromise on their Brexit pipedream. The DUP won't accept anything that treats Northern Island differently to the rest of the UK. Corbyn and his advisers seem to care about the issue only as political opportunity, so they won't do anything that lets the PM off the hook.

This would be poetic justice in a sense, given the PM spent most of the past two years trying to appease the Brexiters by making impossible promises and also made serious blunders like rushing to invoke Article 50 without having a plan. It would also be poetic justice if Boris Johnson finally had to take responsibility for resolving the mess he helped create rather than just spouting rhetoric from the sidelines.

To be fair, it may be an impossible task for anybody to come up with a solution. That's the paradox of Brexit. The majority knew what they were against, but there was no common view on the alternative. There may be no feasible Brexit solution that can attract majority support, which means that you Brits may be stuck in this mess for some time.

Stavros

11-27-2018, 09:05 AM

As expected, and despite a last minute threat from Spain, the EU has endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement that it secured with the UK.

The next stage will begin on Tuesday 4th of December when the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration is put before Parliament for a 'meaningful vote', expected on Tuesday 11 December.

Early signs are that Conservative MPs who do not approve of the Agreement and the Declaration will join with Labour to sabotage the smooth transition of the UK out of the EU, without offering anything meaningful in its place. There could be a leadership challenge to Mrs May mounted from within her own party, while Labour has abandoned any pretence that it even cares about the EU having decided May will fall, and that there will be General Election which they are going to win. But a new Conservative leader is not going to change the EU's mind on Brexit, and Labour is living in a fantasy world, as there is no guarantee Mrs May will be defeated in a leadershp election and no reason for her successor to ask Parliament to call for a new General Election.

So the most stupid decision Parliament has made in the last 100 years has been matched by the rank stupidity of Conservative and Labour MPs who appear to believe that we have not harmed ourselves enough, and that more self-inflicted punishment must take place. Stupid is, as stupid does.

As for the President, is it not enough that UK taxpayers service the US debt but must pay even more? Why can't Americans pay off their own insane debt? The UK is in a weak and vulnerable position and will be desperate to sign a trade deal with anyone anywhere, but surely the US should follow its leader and focus on America First, not least as thousands of people lose their jobs in the auto sector because tariffs have raised the costs of making cars consumers don't want to buy.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/withdrawal-agreement-and-political-declaration

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/uk-parliament-vote-brexit-deal-december-11-181126184658937.html

bluesoul

11-30-2018, 11:13 PM

i wish i was stupid. because then i'd pretend i care what is written above.

buttslinger

12-13-2018, 12:56 AM

Looks like Theresa "MAYDAY" May survived to die another day? Maybe we can send you some of our WALL to keep all problems out.

1115029

Jericho

12-13-2018, 06:46 AM

Yeah, she survived...by the skin of her knickers!
40% of her government, have no confidence in her.

She'll come back next week, with the 'new and improved' deal from the EU (the one that was supposedly 'non-negotiable').
The house will reject it, and Corbyn will call for a vote of 'No Confidence' in the Government.
The 'Ayes' will have it...Next stop, General Election.

Along the way, Article 50 will be revoked, or, there'll be a (so called 'Peoples Vote') 2nd referendum.
Either way, we'll stay in Europe....Fucking Hallelujah!

peejaye

12-13-2018, 01:20 PM

Either way, we'll stay in Europe....Fucking Hallelujah!

I'm afraid this is the horrible truth, no end to the red tape, endless bureaucracy & utter fucking chaos facing industry throughout this already fucked up country!
After 193 years of railway operations in the UK, our friends in Brussels have decided we should all be issued with a train driving licence & have threatened to withdraw it from any driver involved in a minor incident! All incidents to be handled by Brussels instead of our own Rail & Safety Standards Board. Welcome to the real world Mr Hallelujah!

Jericho

12-13-2018, 08:46 PM

Threatened eh? as in not actually happened.
Meanwhile, where do they stand on having a guard on the train?

Stavros

12-14-2018, 12:33 PM

"The Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2010/uksi_20100724_en_1) (TDLCR) set out the legal requirements of the licensing and certification system for train drivers in Great Britain. The TDLCR bring into force the requirements of European Commission Directive 2007/59/EC (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:315:0051:0078:EN:PDF) on the certification of train drivers. Minor changes were made by the Train Driving Licences and Certificates (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1798/contents/made) which brings into force European Commission Directive 2014/82/EU (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32014L0082).

A guide to TDLCR (http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/4998/train-driving-licences-regulations-guidance.pdf) was published in November 2015.
The Directives form part of the European Commission's plan to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of Europe's railways. The key objectives of both the Directives and TDLCR are to:

make it easier for cross-border rail services to operate;
create a more flexible labour market for train drivers;
introduce common standards of driver across Europe; and
increase public confidence in the rail system through the requirement for certain groups of train drivers to hold a licence.

We are enforcing authority for the TDLCR and we will use the principles established in our HSWA enforcement policy statement to ensure compliance with these statutory requirements."
http://orr.gov.uk/rail/licensing/train-driving-licences-and-certificates

A policy endorsed by the train driver's union ASLEF-
https://www.aslef.org.uk/article.php?group_id=5072

Why are trains still using drivers? Driverless trains exist on the DLR, why not the rest of the network?
And when we leave the EU train drivers in the UK wil not be able to drive in an EU country.

peejaye

12-15-2018, 12:17 PM

Threatened eh? as in not actually happened.
Meanwhile, where do they stand on having a guard on the train?

I suspect but I don't know; policy is probably to have nobody on board inc. the driver?
Honestly, if we don't get away from this fucking madness I'm going to live in Colombia.

peejaye

12-15-2018, 12:22 PM

And when we leave the EU train drivers in the UK wil not be able to drive in an EU country.

Train drivers from the UK can't go to other countries to drive anyway, keep out of things you know absolutely zero about.

Stavros

12-15-2018, 09:15 PM

Train drivers from the UK can't go to other countries to drive anyway, keep out of things you know absolutely zero about.

The whole point of the TDLCR is to standarize requirements across the EU, the assumption being that a qualified driver from England will, if he moves to Ireland, re-train to become familiar with signalling systems, and so forth, just as train drivers from Ireland -a member state of the EU- have moved to a part of the UK and re-trained. Indeed, even an English driver moving to Scotland needs to be re-trained to be familiar with signalling systems there, if what I have read is correct.

Choosing not to go is not the same as not being able to, while the scarcity of train driving jobs on the continent makes this a remote possibility anyway -but it is now part of the EU system, though obviously not for much longer.

How does a driver trained in England manage to get a Eurostar service from London to Paris? Or Brussels?

Tom1964

12-17-2018, 03:26 PM

Doe's our friends in Brussels have a bet on who can think of the most silliest rule proposals. Here's one for funeral directors. EU recommends a purple flashing beacon on hearses for safety purposes. Not very dignified for the family with that flashing.

peejaye

12-18-2018, 02:07 PM

How does a driver trained in England manage to get a Eurostar service from London to Paris? Or Brussels?

Eurostar is a different entity; Their drivers have to speak fluently the language(French or Flemish)then spend 6 months in that country where the 2nd language applies, 3 months with a family from outside the industry & 3 months with a railway family in that country, going to work with that driver observing and speaking only that language. Then comes their rule book etc....

This is the only time UK drivers can work overseas, you'll just after take my word. It's something the EU will try & interfere with but will get absolutely nowhere! It's safety critical & that's that.

peejaye

12-18-2018, 05:04 PM

Then we've got this fucking lunacy to contend with, at a cost of Zillions!
A United States of Europe! How the fuck you Eurocrats sleep at night is a mystery? Meanwhile we hear today; 1 in 59 people currently living in London, one of the richest cities in the World, are homeless!

http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/8375825f-ddbf-4dc5-b208-8bdd1bf0321f.0005.02/DOC_2

peejaye

12-18-2018, 06:20 PM

Jericho

12-19-2018, 08:02 AM

Billions set aside for a No-deal brexit, troops on standby...Get fucking ready!

1116683

peejaye

12-19-2018, 03:14 PM

Billions... where's that lot come from?
Troops? Have we still got any? Bring it on brother!

Jericho

12-19-2018, 05:44 PM

That fucking magic money tree again, init!

Stavros

01-17-2019, 05:41 PM

Nothing sums up the situation better than the fact that after two momentous votes, one day after the other in the Hoise of Commons, nothing has changed.

The same people -Tory and Labour- who voted to repeal the act that took the UK into the EU in 1972, and who voted in favour of the Government informing the EU of its intention to leave under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, waited for two years while the UK and the EU negotiated the terms of withdrawal, then voted against it.

The Tories who voted against their own government claimed the Withdrawal Agreement was a sell-out to the EU and tied the UK to the EU through the 'backstop' arrangement over the border in Ireland, but if it was removed from the Agreement they would find something else to object to, though apart from leaving with No Deal, as a Hard Brexit is now called, they have no practical alternative of their own.

Labour, in spite of its claim to honour the referendum result, doesn't care about the EU and wants a General Election they are convinced they will win, to focus on domestic issues such as the NHS, transport, poverty and so on. They voted against the WA out of spite, to wreck the Brexit process, or to chortle like parrots 'People's Vote! People's Vote!' in the vain hope there will be one.

As a result our political system is paralysed. Theresa May has offered and indeed held talks with party leaders in an effort to break the impasse -but not Corbyn who refuses to meet her unless and until she confirms she will not take the UK out of then EU without a deal. Having stabbed Britain in the back over Brexit, Labour now walks the plank like a spoiled child, unaware of the dark grey ocean beneath waiting to claim another victim.

So Theresa May mus return to the Commons next Monday with the rabbit she has pulled from the Brexit hat, like magic. It is called Plan B, but nobody knows what it is, neither Theresa nor the Rabbit even though the Commons will vote on it on the 29th of January.

Practical terms there are options-
a) Theresa May could seek an extension of Article 50 but as the Withdrawal Act specifies the 29th of March as 'Exit Day' I assume the act must be amended and the date removed, though this will offend the Brexit Apostles who see treachery in every move Mrs May makes. But with Tory rebels and Labour support this motion could pass in the House.

b) if the EU is unwilling to amend then WA, May could re-write parts of the Political Declaration that accompanied it, but to say what? She committed the UK to leaving the Single Market, the Customs Union, the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and ending financial contributions to the EU. Her own 'red lines' have boxed her into a non-negotiable negotiating position. I can't see how anything she proposes will work in such a divided House where she relies on the swindlers of Northerm Ireland to remain in office.

c) similarly anything the EU offers will be designed to protect its interests, much as the backstop protects Ireland's position in the Customs Union, and will be opposed by the House.

d) if there is no agreement then technically the UK leaves without a deal, but while Parliament has sort of said it doesn't like the idea, it has not either amended the Withdrawal Act or stated in a separate piece of legislation that the UK must secure a deal before leaving, so in theory the UK could remain in the EU and it would fall to someone in Parliament to prosecute the Governmemt for breaking the law, or the EU could pretend the UK has not left the EU because there is no agreement, and do so to keep the flow of trade going while some new deal is worked out.

e) or we could all agree that as we cannot agree on how to do it, the Withdrawal Act is a dead letter, Exit Day comes and goes and nothing changes, because Brexit is Dead.

To confirm the paradox Theresa May is loathed by her own party and blamed for the catastrophic election campaign of 2017 that robbed them of their Comons majority, and have in effect ridiculed and abused her as a traitor to the Referendum cause, yet she won the leadership contest in December and they all voted in favour of her just two days ago. It is rare in politics to encounter so many critics unwilling to put themselves forward as alternative leaders with an alternative vision, other than Jeremy Corbyn who day by day looks like the Ghost of Christmas Past who thinks it is 1974 all over again.

And if you are still reading this, you must be wondering why. #metoo.

rodinuk

01-17-2019, 08:40 PM

Corbyn’s stunningly puerile behaviour in walking away just beggars belief. The EU must be having hysterics.

Jericho

01-18-2019, 05:20 AM

Jeremy Corbyn won't talk to May unless she guarantees a 'no deal' brexit is taken off the table. The other three party leaders, snp, libdems, and greens, agreed to talk and try to 'work things out'.

What did they report back?
Nothing.
May wouldn't compromise a thing...As Jeremy Corbyn *knew* she wouldn't.
Now, the only one left still willing to work with her is Vince Iscariot...No fucking surprise there!

And you call it 'puerile', I call it having a spine.

They voted against the WA out of spite, to wreck the Brexit process, or to chortle like parrots 'People's Vote! People's Vote!' in the vain hope there will be one.

Rubbish.
They voted against it because it was a shit deal (as did the other parties, and half her own)

And as for the vote of confidence...What a bunch of hypocrites, party before country EVERY time.
And even then, they only won because they paid a billion pound bribe for ten votes. Let that sink in.

The fault for this sorry mess lies with one party and one party alone...The conservative party. They had two and half years to talk to other parties, and refused to do so....And now apparently, it's all Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
I don't fucking think so!

peejaye

01-18-2019, 11:30 AM

Corbyn’s stunningly puerile behaviour in walking away just beggars belief. The EU must be having hysterics.

CLASSIC! Just like the Establishment; Country is being FUCKED in every direction by these arseholes and this guy moans about the Leader of the opposition! HIS party didn't call the referendum....

mrtrebus

01-18-2019, 04:31 PM

Jeremy Corbyn won't talk to May unless she guarantees a 'no deal' brexit is taken off the table. The other three party leaders, snp, libdems, and greens, agreed to talk and try to 'work things out'.

What did they report back?
Nothing.
May wouldn't compromise a thing...As Jeremy Corbyn *knew* she wouldn't.
Now, the only one left still willing to work with her is Vince Iscariot...No fucking surprise there!

And you call it 'puerile', I call it having a spine.

Rubbish.
They voted against it because it was a shit deal (as did the other parties, and half her own)

And as for the vote of confidence...What a bunch of hypocrites, party before country EVERY time.
And even then, they only won because they paid a billion pound bribe for ten votes. Let that sink in.

The fault for this sorry mess lies with one party and one party alone...The conservative party. They had two and half years to talk to other parties, and refused to do so....And now apparently, it's all Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
I don't fucking think so!

True. Corbyn is useless & a terrible leader but it is not his fault. The stinking scum Tories are to blame.

Stavros

01-18-2019, 07:06 PM

The fault for this sorry mess lies with one party and one party alone...The conservative party. They had two and half years to talk to other parties, and refused to do so....And now apparently, it's all Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
I don't fucking think so!

Jericho, I am not suggesting Theresa May is not responsible, but that Corbyn has failed miserably to offer this country a genuine opposition to Brexit, regarding the entire process as a sideshow to his campaign to win the next election. He claims to have voted Remain but was keen to endorse the result of the referendum even though Leave won by less than 5% and he himself along with left-wing Labour MPs, Councillors and activists ignored completely the result of the 1975 referendum as if it had never happened. Why then and not now, when the key fault-line now is with those who believe compromise is the only way to leave the EU with some form of agreement on the terms of withdrawal, and those who believe any compromise is a betrayal of the referendum and thus of 'democracy' as they put it, even though we live in a Parliamentary Democracy not a Direct or Popular one?

Thus Theresa May has produced what you call a 'shit deal' because it accepts that Ireland must have frictionless trade with the EU, with that trade passing through the UK to the EU and vice versa, and because it also meets the obligations the UK signed in the Anglo-Irish or 'Good Friday' Agreemen that ended the Troubles. I doubt you are in fact opposed to either of those arrangements, so I don't know why you call it a 'shit deal'. It is also the case that it is a contingency that only comes into effect if talks on trade fail, or take longer than expected. It is also the only deal on offer, and meets the objective to leave the EU with the minimum of disruption to trade.

The argument from the Brexiteers that the Withdrawal Agreement tranforms a relationship based on equal rights to one of 'vassalage' would in any other context be comical if it were not such an insult to the intelligence. Even when it leaves the UK will negotiate an arrangement with the EU on the Customs Union and the Single Market, what on earth do they think the EU will expect from such a negotiation that does not benefit them? The logical position of the Brexiteers would be to have no relations with the EU at all if they are remotely close to the relations Norway and Switzerland have, but they have always wanted it all, to have all the benefits of being a member of the EU with none of the costs and obligations.

Labour claims it wants some sort of arrangement with the Customs Union, but voted with the Tories twice to repeal the 1972 Act and to invoke Article 50, in effect endorsing the very 'red lines' that Theresa May made clear meant leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union, the ECJ and ending financial contributions. Corbyn failed to challenge her effectively on these and produced its own 'six tests' which so few people can identify they might as well not exist. Yet the 'red lines' are the prison into which May has checked into and which she cannot get out of unless the EU gives her the key, and there appears to be no sign they will, though the Press are reporting she is or will talk to Juncker this afternoon (Friday).

Again, Labour has been 50% of this mess, they endorsed every stage of Brexit except the WA, but Corbyn refuses to meet her to discuss what Labour can do to meet its own commitment to leave the EU, a pathetic response to a national crisis. Perhaps he is too ashamed to admit his views on Brexit are actually close to hers, which he won't do because he needs to mantain his image as a left wing radical who doesn't talk to Tories or share platforms with them. If you want to know who wasted two years, point your finger at Corbyn, a hypocrite who has betrayed the people of this country and has not a single idea how to govern it, and probably doesn't care either.
Other than Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, who is really opposed to the stupidity of Brexit?

And who knows where we shall be this time next week, with claims that significant Tories are preparing for a General Election in February?

Stavros

01-18-2019, 07:17 PM

CLASSIC! Just like the Establishment; Country is being FUCKED in every direction by these arseholes and this guy moans about the Leader of the opposition! HIS party didn't call the referendum....

In fact, Peejaye they did. The 2016 Referendum was authorized by an act of Parliament -the European Union Referendum Act 2015- and passed with 544 votes in favour, 53 against, mostly the SNP. Labour endorsed rather than opposed the Referendum, it has endorsed the result of the Referendum, and is committed to taking the UK out of the EU.

filghy2

01-19-2019, 05:03 AM

The fault for this sorry mess lies with one party and one party alone...The conservative party. They had two and half years to talk to other parties, and refused to do so....And now apparently, it's all Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
I don't fucking think so!

I agree that the Tory government made a mess of it, but you seem to be forgetting that Corbyn running dead during the referendum campaign was a big part of the reason why Brexit got up. He seems to be pursuing a classic small target strategy of avoiding any firm position and trying to be all things to all people. That might be smart politics in the short run, but it hardly provides any basis to resolve the mess if he becomes PM.

Even if Theresa May had played a smarter game I suspect it was always going to be an impossible mission. There is probably no deal that the EU could agree to that could attract majority support because the 52% who voted for Brexit had very different ideas about what that would involve. I know there's an argument that if one side can't find a solution than the other should get a chance, but if Corbyn became PM tomorrow he would be in the same predicament.

Laphroaig

01-19-2019, 08:05 PM

filghy2

01-20-2019, 04:59 AM

No, he voted for the fairy tale Brexit - the one where you could get rid of all the things you didn't like about the EU without any cost, and all you had to do was bang your fist on the table and the EU would have to accept it. Surely it must be somebody else's fault that the fairy tale is not coming true?

rodinuk

01-20-2019, 11:53 PM

CLASSIC! Just like the Establishment; Country is being FUCKED in every direction by these arseholes and this guy moans about the Leader of the opposition! HIS party didn't call the referendum....

It’s a reasonable expectation to think that the person in that role at that particular moment (in what could well be regarded as a time of crisis) should at least have attended the meeting but I guess it didn’t suit him or his followers to be seen doing so.

rodinuk

01-21-2019, 12:04 AM

...
And you call it 'puerile', I call it having a spine.

Ah so not present and not involved trumps present but not involved

Jericho

01-21-2019, 08:52 PM

Well, well, well.

It would appear Corbyn was right (Yet again) not to take up the invitation to talk.
It being nothing other than a cynical PR stunt.

So, Plan B - Tinker around with the Good Friday Agreement?

Oh, and just for the brainwashed, in the last couple of weeks...

Inflicts biggest ever defeat on a Govt
Wins first vote ever finding a Govt in contempt of parliament.
Forces first defeat on a Finance Bill in 40 yrs

But Corbyn isn't very good at opposition...

peejaye

01-21-2019, 09:09 PM

I don't know why you waste your precious time on them Jericho! :banghead
I just laugh my cock off at them & I've just figured out how to block them.

Stavros

01-21-2019, 09:29 PM

I don't know why you waste your precious time on them Jericho! :banghead
I just laugh my cock off at them & I've just figured out how to block them.

Why would you block anyone if you believe in open and honest debate?

Stavros

01-21-2019, 09:45 PM

It would appear Corbyn was right (Yet again) not to take up the invitation to talk.
It being nothing other than a cynical PR stunt.
So, Plan B - Tinker around with the Good Friday Agreement?
Oh, and just for the brainwashed, in the last couple of weeks...Inflicts biggest ever defeat on a Govt
Wins first vote ever finding a Govt in contempt of parliament.
Forces first defeat on a Finance Bill in 40 yrs
But Corbyn isn't very good at opposition...

I did not say Corbyn was not good at opposition, rather one wonders why, having supported the Tories on Brexit since the Referendum in 2016 Labour has so cynically refused to continue supporting Theresa May. Because they want a General Election they have convinced themselves they will win.

-There is no basis to a re-negotiation of the GFA, a claim that appeared in the Telegraph this morning and was rubbished by lunchtime.

-the Govt was defeated on the Withdrawal Agreement because its own party and its 'partners' in govt, the DUP voted against it, and not because they supported Corbyn on the matter.
-the contempt vote again was passed in December and again, the DUP voted against the Government, not because they wanted to support Corbyn.
-the Finance Bill was defeated when 20 Tories voted against where 3 Labour MPs voted with the Govt, hardly an endorsement of Corbyn's leadership.

The point is that he would have lost nothing by going to a meeting with her, even if it was clear from the start that Theresa May is sticking rigidly to the WA she has negotiated with the EU. As it is Corbyn has been weakened, while it may sound silly for those who do to claim he is willing to meet members of HAMAS, Sinn Fein and any other demon of your choice, it might have some effect on less committed voters.

As it is, Plan B is Plan A with yet another attempt to persuade the EU to either drop the 'Backstop' from the terms of the WA or put a time limit on it, though there is no sign from either the EU or the Govt of Ireland that this is acceptable to them. According to the Guardian, May now sees three changes that are needed for Brexit to happen, she said-

My sense so far is that three key changes are needed.
First, we will be more flexible, open and inclusive in the future in how we engage parliament in our approach to negotiating our future partnership with the European Union (https://www.theguardian.com/world/eu).
Second, we will embed the strongest possible protections on workers’ rights and the environment.
And third, we will work to identify how we can ensure that our commitment to no hard border in Northern Ireland and Ireland can be delivered in a way that commands the support of this House, and the European Union.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2019/jan/21/brexit-latest-news-mays-statement-mps-commons-deal-will-be-absolute-disaster-says-business-minister-as-may-prepares-to-address-mps-politics-live?page=with:block-5c45edf4e4b058cfe6d94553#block-5c45edf4e4b058cfe6d94553

But of those three, the first and second are really issues to be discussed after the terms of withdrawal have been agreed, while the third remains the issue the EU believes it has settled.

It is hard to know today what it is that MPs will vote on next week, but as the Wilson quote states, a week is a long time in politics.