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Brexit matters

birchesgreen

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The architects of this mess will get away free with their ill-gained wealth and privilege, the innocent will be left to suffer, some paying the ultimate price. I'm sure it will be "world beating" whatever it is.
 
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REVUpminster

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Cameron and Osborne were staunch remainers. The tories got a majority in 2015 because the referendum was in the manifesto. Governments are criticised for the slightest failure to implement any manifesto promises whatever the circumstances. Johnson was elected on a manifesto of getting Brexit done. The people voted.
 

jon0844

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Cameron and Osborne were staunch remainers. The tories got a majority in 2015 because the referendum was in the manifesto. Governments are criticised for the slightest failure to implement any manifesto promises whatever the circumstances. Johnson was elected on a manifesto of getting Brexit done. The people voted.

You think that was the reason people voted that way? Given surveys showed nobody gave a stuff about the EU (beyond the odd snarky joke about bendy bananas or something) until 2016. It was never high up on the list of important issues, which were the usual things like policing, education, health etc.

What is funny is that since 2016 and nothing being talked about besides Brexit, nobody now seems to care about policing, education or health. Maybe Brexit has been a fantastic distraction to all the other issues that impact our daily lives (of course, Brexit has also been a good deterrent, but that didn't come until 2019).

The pandemic is ending (some may consider it already over, especially some sections of the media) so that will push Brexit back into the news for good or bad. Going by the claims that the wonderful deal wasn't actually a good deal at all, and somehow the fault of the EU, I suspect mostly bad.
 

class ep-09

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Frost wants to renegotiate the deal.
It is worse than that .
He wants to scrap the deal he negotiated , his boss approved and MP voted for ( Tories did not even bother to read it ) but somehow they all now claim is horrible deal .

what a bunch of morons .
 

XAM2175

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He wants to scrap the deal he negotiated , his boss approved and MP voted for ( Tories did not even bother to read it ) but somehow they all now claim is horrible deal .

I saw it described thusly:
Lord Frost now spends most of his time castigating the EU for sticking to the terms of the deal struck by Lord Frost, and for doing so in a way that was predicted by seemingly everyone other than Lord Frost.
 

birchesgreen

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It is worse than that .
He wants to scrap the deal he negotiated , his boss approved and MP voted for ( Tories did not even bother to read it ) but somehow they all now claim is horrible deal .

what a bunch of morons .
Yes i was being polite.

The gall of the the lot of them is astounding. I suspect they want the EU to refuse or for this to become a massivbe failure so they can continue to play the victim and blame everything going wrong on the evil EU and not their own ineptitude. This lot need a bogeyman.
 

Snow1964

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It is worse than that .
He wants to scrap the deal he negotiated , his boss approved and MP voted for ( Tories did not even bother to read it ) but somehow they all now claim is horrible deal .

what a bunch of morons .

Not that they ever fully implemented the Northern Ireland protocol. They just keep extending the pre Brexit rules, calling them transition arrangements.

And these temporary job visas are another admission that Brexit doesn’t work, as need to go back to having EU workers (and stealing other countries health workers), because as a country we don’t train our own workforce in some sectors.

Its fairly obvious the downsides of Brexit seem to outnumber the upsides if Government ministers and MPs don’t want to keep what they agreed to.
 

py_megapixel

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And these temporary job visas are another admission that Brexit doesn’t work, as need to go back to having EU workers (and stealing other countries health workers), because as a country we don’t train our own workforce in some sectors.
I think if we do that, it needs to come with massively tightened laws on how much haulage companies are allowed to exploit their workers.
 

RT4038

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Yes i was being polite.

The gall of the the lot of them is astounding. I suspect they want the EU to refuse or for this to become a massivbe failure so they can continue to play the victim and blame everything going wrong on the evil EU and not their own ineptitude. This lot need a bogeyman.

I think this talk of 'gall' and 'ineptitude' is a little wide of the mark.

1. The only 'real' Brexit was one of leaving the Single Market and Customs Union. (i.e. which freed the UK of EU rules/laws and Jurisdiction as much as ever can be). Following the referendum there was only going to be a small window of opportunity to get this done, before changing public opinion would close the window.
2. On the island of Ireland there was always going to be an issue - with both the USA and the EU bringing pressure to bear on preserving the Good Friday agreement and free movement of goods between Eire and Northern Ireland - a concept which is incompatible with one part being out and one part in of the SM/CU.
3. A negotiated settlement acceptable to both factions in Northern Ireland, and to the EU and the UK would have taken 300 years, particularly as the EU has no reason to conclude it, so the small window would have been lost. The effect would be that the Irish situation would have sabotaged the referendum result; the tail wagging the dog.
4. In order to proceed with (1) the only available course of action was to come to some kind of plausible trade agreement with the EU and all of the UK, and an agreement over the Irish border situation. The UK did not have a strong negotiating hand, particularly over Northern Ireland.
5. Once Brexit was done, the time has come to agitate to change the agreement to better suit the UK. Surely it was pretty obvious to all that this would happen? If one side is backed into a corner and obviously is agreeing to things which it is not happy about, there will be consequences. Of course the UK wants as much of its cake and eat it as possible.

On the assumption that (1) ['real' Brexit'] was the goal, and the window of that possibility was short, what other possible course could have been taken?
 

edwin_m

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1. Following the referendum there was only going to be a small window of opportunity to get this done, before changing public opinion would close the window.
So in you're agreeing with me that this was railroaded through. In fact by the time it happened majority opinion was against it.
 

XAM2175

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On the assumption that (1) ['real' Brexit'] was the goal, and the window of that possibility was short, what other possible course could have been taken?

Leaving aside the vast set of red flags attached to the notion of "quick, ram it through before people realise it's a bad idea", the options present themselves to me as saying that "pure" Brexit is incompatible with the UK's existing commitments in Northern Ireland. Full stop. It's not a case of the "tail wagging the dog" - it's nothing more than actions undertaken by the UK in the past limiting the UK's options now.

I'd note further that the referendum campaign was not one of "pure" Brexit but of "Norway style" distancing, which would have avoided the NI problem entirely. Perhaps you approached it in the knowledge that Norway-style was never going to last, and I'm quite sure a certain number of other people did too, but I completely reject the revisionist view that that understanding was widespread in the electorate at the time of referendum.

On the point of revising the Withdrawal Agreement later, I'd argue that it's immaterial that Britain might have been expected to behave this way. The agreement is the agreement and that's that. Of course there can be re-negotiation if both parties are agreeable, but what does it say of Britain's trustworthy and reliability if its standard manner in negotiations is seen to be something like "agree to whatever's expedient in the moment, then abrogate and renege when it suits us later"?

... Eire and Northern Ireland ...
Please note for correctness: the country's proper name in English is Ireland (or the Republic of Ireland where disambiguation is necessary), or Éire in Irish, but not Eire.
 

Meole

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Frost is confident that playing hardball will result in the EU backing down, they need us is the truth.
 

davetheguard

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This lot need a bogeyman.

They need an enemy.

It goes like this:
1. Johnson pulls out of the agreement his team negotiated;
2. Waits for the EU to hit us with perfectly legal trade tariffs because we've broken our side of the agreement;
3. Blame the "nasty" EU for all the resulting problems our decision causes;
4. Wrap themselves in the Union Flag;
5. Call a "national solidarity" early general election (vote for us - our country is under attack from nasty foreigners!)
6. Form the next government.
 

brad465

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They need an enemy.

It goes like this:
1. Johnson pulls out of the agreement his team negotiated;
2. Waits for the EU to hit us with perfectly legal trade tariffs because we've broken our side of the agreement;
3. Blame the "nasty" EU for all the resulting problems our decision causes;
4. Wrap themselves in the Union Flag;
5. Call a "national solidarity" early general election (vote for us - our country is under attack from nasty foreigners!)
6. Form the next government.
Nail on the head here.
 

RT4038

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So in you're agreeing with me that this was railroaded through. In fact by the time it happened majority opinion was against it.
I suspect that the proponents of 'real' Brexit knew that they only had a small window of opportunity. It does not take a genius to realise that a 52/48 vote is going to be susceptible to shifting public opinion back to the status quo.

Leaving aside the vast set of red flags attached to the notion of "quick, ram it through before people realise it's a bad idea", the options present themselves to me as saying that "pure" Brexit is incompatible with the UK's existing commitments in Northern Ireland. Full stop. It's not a case of the "tail wagging the dog" - it's nothing more than actions undertaken by the UK in the past limiting the UK's options now.
Red flags or not - if you want something the small window of opportunity had to be seized. This is politics. Pure Brexit is incompatible with the UK's existing commitments in Northern Ireland without some pretty major concessions. However, one persons 'actions undertaken by the UK in the past limiting the UK's options now' is someone else's 'tail wagging the dog'. I don't think free movement of Eastern Europeans to the UK, or probably more poignantly, increasing EU regulatory control over the financial services industry, was considered in the Good Friday agreement. Commitments are one thing; the shifting surrounding sands are another. UK Government attempts to minimise the effects of these did not meet with favour with the EU.

I'd note further that the referendum campaign was not one of "pure" Brexit but of "Norway style" distancing, which would have avoided the NI problem entirely. Perhaps you approached it in the knowledge that Norway-style was never going to last, and I'm quite sure a certain number of other people did too, but I completely reject the revisionist view that that understanding was widespread in the electorate at the time of referendum.

Personally I realised very early that 'real' Brexit was the only likely final outcome of a Leave vote (anything else not releasing the UK sufficiently from EU rules/laws and Jurisdiction to be worthwhile), but I would concur that understanding the consequences of this was not widespread in the electorate at the time of the referendum.
On the point of revising the Withdrawal Agreement later, I'd argue that it's immaterial that Britain might have been expected to behave this way. The agreement is the agreement and that's that. Of course there can be re-negotiation if both parties are agreeable, but what does it say of Britain's trustworthy and reliability if its standard manner in negotiations is seen to be something like "agree to whatever's expedient in the moment, then abrogate and renege when it suits us later"?
I don't think both parties were agreeable at the time of making the agreement, but the UK signatures were an expedient in view of a looming deadline. The EU are not stupid - they will have been well aware of this and will have taken maximum advantage (As the UK would if the boot was on the other foot) and will have known the likely consequences. I don't think it is Britain's 'standard' way of doing things, but the circumstances of the whole Brexit negotiations were not 'standard'.

I ask again - if you wanted 'real' or 'pure' Brexit, what would you have done?
 

edwin_m

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I ask again - if you wanted 'real' or 'pure' Brexit, what would you have done?
Probably what they did - lied and deceived to get a small majority of those who voted onside, then claim a democratic mandate and refuse to take it back to the people despite plenty of evidence the majority was gone.
 

RT4038

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Probably what they did - lied and deceived to get a small majority of those who voted onside, then claim a democratic mandate and refuse to take it back to the people despite plenty of evidence the majority was gone.
Sounds pretty much like the politics of much of the world....
 

REVUpminster

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If a Brexit agreement was put to the people in a referendum; why would they reject it to remain in the EU? 52% probably wouldn't.
 

RT4038

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Does that make it ok then?
Merely an observation.
Probably what they did - lied and deceived to get a small majority of those who voted onside, then claim a democratic mandate and refuse to take it back to the people despite plenty of evidence the majority was gone.
As I recall, two years after the referendum there was a General Election, which I don't think was marked by a majority (or anywhere close) voting for parties that were anti-Brexit. This 'plenty of evidence' was where exactly?
 

XAM2175

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This is politics. Pure Brexit is incompatible with the UK's existing commitments in Northern Ireland without some pretty major concessions. However, one persons 'actions undertaken by the UK in the past limiting the UK's options now' is someone else's 'tail wagging the dog'. I don't think free movement of Eastern Europeans to the UK, or probably more poignantly, increasing EU regulatory control over the financial services industry, was considered in the Good Friday agreement. Commitments are one thing; the shifting surrounding sands are another. UK Government attempts to minimise the effects of these did not meet with favour with the EU.
By this logic all of Britain's international treaties and agreements are each individual tails all ceaselessly wagging one the same confused dog. Let's not forget that it was a British government that partitioned Ireland in the first place, and a whole string of successor British governments have maintained the outcome of that partition and supported the continued existence of Northern Ireland, and at no small cost either - so I don't accept the argument that the framers of the GFA should have had to consider even one of Britain's potential future complaints about its relationship with the EU. The British government committed to the agreement and to the peace process - just as Ireland also committed in good faith - and if the existence of that prior commitment complicates or even precludes Brexit, as it indeed does, than that is Brexit's problem and Brexit's problem alone.

I don't think both parties were agreeable at the time of making the agreement, but the UK signatures were an expedient in view of a looming deadline. The EU are not stupid - they will have been well aware of this and will have taken maximum advantage (As the UK would if the boot was on the other foot) and will have known the likely consequences. I don't think it is Britain's 'standard' way of doing things, but the circumstances of the whole Brexit negotiations were not 'standard'.
The looming deadline that Britain could have extended, had it wished? That one?

I any case I can't see how the circumstances of the negotiation excuse negotiating in bad faith. You're saying, if I understand correctly, that Britain just agreed to whatever set of conditions seemed vaguely somewhat acceptable with the full and certain intention of reneging on them later because the alternative in the moment was no agreement, yes?

I ask again - if you wanted 'real' or 'pure' Brexit, what would you have done?
Accepted the Irish Sea border. That or I would have dumped a breathtakingly immense mountain of cash out the front of Leinster House
in Dublin, promised the same again every year for the next ten years, guaranteed the availability of British citizenship by descent to any child born to at least one British citizen parent in the six counties for the next twenty years, and sanctioned a border poll in which my government and I campaigned ceaselessly for a yes vote.

As I recall, two years after the referendum there was a General Election, which I don't think was marked by a majority (or anywhere close) voting for parties that were anti-Brexit. This 'plenty of evidence' was where exactly?
The trouble with treating any General Election as a single-issue plebiscite is that you can't actually separate voting intent for that one single issue from all the other combined intents.

My recollection is also that the post-referendum GEs were respectively one and three-and-a-half years subsequent, not two, and further I would suggest that if there was any one issue that could perhaps have been a plebiscite topic at either of those General Elections it's much more likely to have been Jeremy Corbyn, rather than the European Union.
 

RT4038

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By this logic all of Britain's international treaties and agreements are each individual tails all ceaselessly wagging one the same confused dog. Let's not forget that it was a British government that partitioned Ireland in the first place, and a whole string of successor British governments have maintained the outcome of that partition and supported the continued existence of Northern Ireland, and at no small cost either - so I don't accept the argument that the framers of the GFA should have had to consider even one of Britain's potential future complaints about its relationship with the EU. The British government committed to the agreement and to the peace process - just as Ireland also committed in good faith - and if the existence of that prior commitment complicates or even precludes Brexit, as it indeed does, than that is Brexit's problem and Brexit's problem alone.
It clearly didn't preclude Brexit, because Brexit is done. Partition was an expedient at the time. I did not say that the framers of the GFA should have had to consider even one of Britain's potential future complaints about its relationship with the EU .... I was merely pointing out that they didn't and things have moved on since then.
 

ainsworth74

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As I recall, two years after the referendum there was a General Election, which I don't think was marked by a majority (or anywhere close) voting for parties that were anti-Brexit. This 'plenty of evidence' was where exactly?
If you tally seats sure. If you tally votes though its considerably less rosy for the pro-Brexit camp. However we are where we are and an un-democratic electoral system is what we're stuck with.
 

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