Brexit

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Brexit

indiana · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Goodness knows this makes me angry.

twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1630526088924233728

Rishi Sunak waxing lyrical about the 'unbelievably special position' that Northern Ireland will be in as it will have privileged access to both the UK market and the EU Single Market. This, from the very political party that has taken that 'unbelievably special position' away from the rest of the UK and told everyone how great that will be.

Oh my gawd !!

He certainly makes this EU single market thingee sound a great thing..

christ · Futures qualifying

"This political party" is executing the will of the country from a referendum. I think "this political party" expected the referendum to give a different answer.

Granted some of the personalities in this party were instrumental in persuading the populace, but if Labour were in power they would be mandated to execute Brexit too.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

christ wrote:
"This political party" is executing the will of the country from a referendum. I think "this political party" expected the referendum to give a different answer.

Granted some of the personalities in this party were instrumental in persuading the populace, but if Labour were in power they would be mandated to execute Brexit too.

For the record, I am not much more impressed with Labour's stance over Brexit as I am the Tory's stance, although I understand the political expediency that may be driving Labour's current position.

But with regard to the 'will of the people' argument, I have to disagree - specifically in relation to the point currently being made by Sunak. Yes. there was a referendum in 2016. Yes, the people voted to leave the EU. I will set aside my criticisms of the referendum process and accept the 'will of the people' premise that you put forward. But that related SOLELY to leaving the EU.

Once that decision had been taken, however, there were still a whole spectrum of options available to the government of the day ranging from CU/SM membership (Norway style deal) to No Deal/WTO rules. The decision to leave the CU/SM was a political choice made by parliament. Would a Labour government have made the same decision ? We will never know. But the Tory government DID make that decision and hence they are responsible for the consequences.

Technically ALL options were still open to Johnson when he was voted in at the 2019 GE. He and his party chose his deal. They chose to leave the CU/SM. They had an 80 seat majority and so could have chosen ANY option without the opposition being able to influence the outcome.

And so now, we have a Tory PM, who supported leaving the CU/SM, espousing the fortunes of NI because they can remain within the CU/SM. You really couldn't make this stuff up.

christ · Futures qualifying

Yes. I believe that this is a consequence of letting people that haven't got a clue run the country (regardless of "party"). We elect people because they have pretty faces and spout TV-friendly sound-bites: not because they are any good at anything. And then the lunatics that have been elected to run the asylum organise themselves into a disorderly mess. They can actually put a bumbling idiot in charge of the whole shooting match, an innumerate idiot in charge of finances, and a semi-literate thug in charge of law and order - and if that is seen to fail, reorganise the same incompetents in a slightly different order.

To make matters worse these people have been brought up in the modern world where you can be whatever you want to be (male, female, neither, brain surgeon, football hero, TV star, and so on) regardless of ability or education - because social media is the only currency required: this these bumbling idiots know that they don't have to rely on (and in fact are encouraged to ignore) career civil servants - the very people that are paid to know what is going on. this is a world where we nearly had someone in charge of the country because the electorate knew her - because she injured herself jumping off of a diving board on TV.

So these people almost certainly didn't realise that there were alternative ways of approaching Brexit (or the benefits of any differing options): they knew what they had heard from their "advisors" (who are mostly also "know-nothing but apparently clever" unelected versions of the same thing), and acted according to their (lack of) wits: just the same as the population did in the referendum. I don't really blame the politicians, I blame the people that elected them.

-- Edited by christ on Wednesday 1st of March 2023 05:58:30 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

It's called democracy. Its results are generally far from perfect ( apart maybe for a few ) - see the flippin Brexit referendum itself

There are alternatives.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 1st of March 2023 06:10:08 PM

christ · Futures qualifying

indiana wrote:
It's called democracy. It's results are generally far from perfect ( apart maybe for a few ). There are alternatives.

Yup. As I believe a certain Mr Churchill said once: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried". But regardless, what I said remains true. (... although there are other forms of democracy that are even worse - see the US of A)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

An excellent summary by Martin Samuel, a football writer at The Times, of the unholy mess that was/is Brexit. I'm still wading through the 1,000+ readers' comments, not all of them literate! A word of warning to those who read it: steel yourselves for photos in glorious Technicolor of the Wrecking Ball, Thick Lizzie & the oleaginous Farage & WRM! furious

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
An excellent summary by Martin Samuel, a football writer at The Times, of the unholy mess that was/is Brexit. I'm still wading through the 1,000+ readers' comments, not all of them literate! A word of warning to those who read it: steel yourselves for photos in glorious Technicolor of the Wrecking Ball, Thick Lizzie & the oleaginous Farage & WRM!

And in case anyone thinks that joining the CPTPP is the answer, have a read of this thread.

https://twitter.com/RobertCPalmer13/status/1636715727435575296

Shhh · Challenger level

Stircrazy wrote:
An excellent summary by Martin Samuel, a football writer at The Times, of the unholy mess that was/is Brexit. I'm still wading through the 1,000+ readers' comments, not all of them literate! A word of warning to those who read it: steel yourselves for photos in glorious Technicolor of the Wrecking Ball, Thick Lizzie & the oleaginous Farage & WRM!

A diatribe that starts off with "Give it a few years and we'll be living off turnips" is excellent in what way?

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Here is an interesting stat. In a poll by Omnisis, it says that 73% of Brits want 'mutual free movement' between the UK and the EU. This rises to 84% if you ignore the 'don't knows'.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/brexit/mutual-free-movement-for-uk-and-eu-citizens-supported-by-up-to-84-of-brits-in-stunning-new-poll/

Many Brexit hardliners in the government argue that we could not rejoin at least the SM/CU because it would mean the restoration of FoM and stopping FoM was one of the main reasons why people voted to leave the EU. This stat would suggest this is not the case.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I thought this was a very well-written article, Bob.

One thing that really gets my goat is the point that, under EU law, there is no right to live and claim benefits in another country. This was one of the main fear drivers. Other countries enforced the rules. Britain didn't. No idea why not....probably because our admin systems are so IT antiquated (my friend was project manager for the new IT system for a whole county four years back - she knows nothing about IT, the project needless to say has been shelved, after vast cost - it makes you cry.....)

But it the politicians had understood the rules/enforced the rules/explained the rules - done anything, in fact, apart from whipping up fear about unlimited Romanian immigration (or whatever) that was all 'because of Brussels' - then people at least would have voted from a more informed position.

And, yes, the rich still have unlimited freedom of movement. It's dead easy to get a long-term residents' visa in all the EU countries I know - as long as you have sizeable assets and income. The rich are fine, Jack. Which, I guess, comes as no surpised to anyone.

indiana · Tennis legend

Suella Braverman with a late April Fool attempt, insisting that the chaotic channel delays are nothing to do with Brexit

Sorry, I would think most folk can see through that one. Must try harder!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Global Britain is slowly isolating itself.

twitter.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1644581801451462656

twitter.com/Tim_Burgess/status/1644673581140377601

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Saturday 8th of April 2023 01:02:38 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

From The Independent

"The governments prediction that its Brexit trade deal with Asia-Pacific countries will grow the economy by 0.08 per cent may be an overestimate, it has emerged.

Officials working on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) deal changed their usual approach to calculating the GDP figure and instead used a new model that generates larger estimated GDP impacts, according to the governments own documentation.

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch last week responded to mockery of the low figure, which amounts to a £1.8bn economic boost, by saying her department's estimate was probably too low and ignored some benefits.

But her departments own small print suggests the number might have been even smaller had the previous model for calculations been used."