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Brexit Deal agreed ( updated )


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There's absolutely no winners at all in this sorry mess. Well China, Russia and the USA maybe a little. 

 

Crazy times. Oh and I'd stock up on supplies for January too. 

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43 minutes ago, The Real Maroonblood said:

Britannia rules the waves.

:rofl:

 

Would make a change from Britannia waiving the rules...

 

 

Excellent input from Ulysses, by the way.

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Francis Albert
11 hours ago, Enzo Chiefo said:

Exactly, markets will determine whether products sell or not. If European consumers want fish then they will buy it, regardless of what political bureaucrats say. The Common Market was and is a good idea, the political, bureaucratic,  corrupt, nest-feathering political union isn't. The EU need to treat us as a potential trade partner rather than trying to punish a departing ex-member. Britain will not be the only member state to leave, just the first, and that's why the EU are panicking. The one aspect that is rarely mentioned is the billions we will save in contributions and the black hole it will leave in the EU budget.

Interestingly Norway has now threatened to block both EU and UK fishing in Norwegian waters from 1st January, wanting a trilateral arrangement for establishing quotas between the EU, UK and Norway. A trilateral deal like the current EU/Norway arrangements would mean a yearly process for agreeing quotas for the shared fishing resources not a right to fish in others' waters as the EU demands. Such an arrangement is eminently sensible and would be in the interest of all parties . those like the UK and the Norway with an excess of fish and the UK and Norway with a deficit of fishing capacity to land the fish. 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Francis Albert said:

Interestingly Norway has now threatened to block both EU and UK fishing in Norwegian waters from 1st January, wanting a trilateral arrangement for establishing quotas between the EU, UK and Norway. A trilateral deal like the current EU/Norway arrangements would mean a yearly process for agreeing quotas for the shared fishing resources not a right to fish in others' waters as the EU demands. Such an arrangement is eminently sensible and would be in the interest of all parties . those like the UK and the Norway with an excess of fish and the UK and Norway with a deficit of fishing capacity to land the fish. 

 

 

 

An example of a lot more issues to resolve.

 

More to come in January.

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The Real Maroonblood
33 minutes ago, Boof said:

 

Would make a change from Britannia waiving the rules...

 

 

Excellent input from Ulysses, by the way.

This.

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Francis Albert
3 hours ago, RobboM said:

 

image.png.b42ed5e1625e4663a7bcc4477bb9f0d4.pngMarina Hyde in the Guardian didn't miss this week

"I will not unsee in a hurry the arresting photo in which Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost, are grinning like a pair of competition winners next to European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and her negotiator, Michel Barnier. Trussed up in some other guy’s suit, Johnson suddenly appeared to have the precise physique of Danny DeVito’s Penguin from Batman Returns. Though sadly not the brains."

Our team are the shambles on the left. The EU has the grown ups on the right. Put me in mind of the Europa League match a few seasons back. They've got Gareth Bale, we've got Jamie Hamill. We're ****ed!


 

I am not seeing a huge contrast between the facial expressions of both sides TBH.

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Francis Albert
10 hours ago, Ulysses said:

 

Who knows?  It would help if the quality of contributions from the anti-EU side were a bit more thoughtful.  It's not pro-Brexit, by the way, it's anti-EU.  You've already left, and what's going on now is about a future trading relationship.  Those of you speaking pejoratively (and, let's face it, immaturely) about the EU would be doing so regardless of what was being discussed, said or done in the negotiations.  You're not really fooling anyone.

 

Despite Enzo's view to the contrary, those who are anti-EU never stop going on about the British contribution to the EU Budget.  It's tiny, and irrelevant.  It really, really is.  It's not as tiny as the fish business, but it's really small.  And here's the point the poor blighters keep missing while they're thrashing about fighting old wars - you've already left, we've already noticed and we've had to put up with it.  But now we need to deal with trade in the future, not budgets and structures in the past.  We have, pardon the pun, bigger fish to fry.

 

The UK has repeatedly shown itself to be an unreliable partner and a dishonest negotiator, and none of us trust you.  The UK's unreliability has been a problem for several years.  Instead of treating the EU as an existing and potential trading partner, the UK has persistently tried to put one over on the EU, and to gain the same access to EU markets as it previously had while looking for negotiated scams that would allow it to undermine the Single Market and undercut and undersell our businesses and our people.  And the UK has repeatedly backtracked on or tried to weasel out of agreements it has reached and commitments it has given.  Faced with that, the EU has to stand its ground as best it can, and someone has to act like an adult - and because the UK refuses to do so that task falls to people on our side.

 

The EU doesn't really care about the overall fish market, because we'll easily replace the UK stocks.  But that won't help local politics in about eight member states, hence the hassle over fish.  However, the EU's approach to fish isn't really any different to the UK which also cares more about local politics than the actual trading and economics issues involved.

 

The UK wants to keep a hold of as much of the EU market as it can, while being free to undermine and undercut that market whenever it likes.  Our member states don't do that to each other.  We don't do it to those countries with which we have trade agreements, we don't let any of them do it to us, and we're not looking to do it to the UK.  We want to protect the trade we have with the UK, in both directions, but not at the price of ruining the Single Market that contributes so much to our trade and our prosperity.  We stand to lose 700,000 jobs in the event of no deal.  Therefore, if we are prepared to face down the UK and risk no deal, it stands to reason that we must have a very good reason for doing so.  The very good reason is that many multiples of 700,000 jobs are at risk if we damage our own SIngle Market to suit the British.

 

It is that simple.  The EU is not out to punish the UK - that's the language of comic books and primary school playgrounds.  The EU cannot risk its Single Market, and there is no point in asking us to do so.  You gambled that it would matter less to us than it does.  You were wrong, as the former chair of Vote Leave had to acknowledge earlier this week.

 

And despite the Daily Express-style tabloid nonsense, the EU isn't panicking over this.  It's unfortunate to lose 700,000 jobs, but we lost more in the last financial crisis and we muddled through, and losing millions of jobs by doing a bad deal would be far, far worse. 

 

And finally, the UK used to have one of the cleverest and most thorough diplomatic services on the planet.  But judging from the terribly inept analysis of the European landscape on display, and the woefully poor negotiation strategy adopted by the UK as a result of that, the rest of us have to wonder what on Earth has gone wrong.

 

This will be a difficult adjustment for us all, and it will be particularly awkward In Ireland (temporarily at least).  But we need to move on.  Brexit is becoming a smaller and smaller issue for us, and we need to leave it behind and concentrate on some very pressing issues.  We have a Covid-19 recovery agenda to be getting on with, climate change hasn't gone away, and we have serious issues with our relationships with third-party countries to our east and south east that we need to manage - and those are just for starters.

Despite my undeserved reputation as a Hard Tory Brexiteer I think that is a fair summary of the EU position and the reasons for it.

Just a couple of points, suspecting you might find the uncritically effusive response to your post a tad embarrassing.

 I think in the past you have praised the UK as one on the members who has complied most with EU regulations and decisions once made, however difficult it may at times have been in reaching agreements.

And while I agree with your comments about  many of the anti-EU comments on here, similar strictures could apply to many of the anti-Leave or pro-EU posts.

And a genuine question - do all the EU trade agreements contain the "level playing field" conditions being proposed by the EU here? And how did/does Ireland get away with its race to the bottom on Corporation/business taxes? (Sorry two genuine questions).

Edited by Francis Albert
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29 minutes ago, Francis Albert said:

Despite my undeserved reputation as a Hard Tory Brexiteer I think that is a fair summary of the EU position and the reasons for it.

Just a couple of points, suspecting you might find the uncritically effusive response to your post a tad embarrassing.

 I think in the past you have praised the UK as one on the members who has complied most with EU regulations and decisions once made, however difficult it may at times have been in reaching agreements.

And while I agree with your comments about  many of the anti-EU comments on here, similar strictures could apply to many of the anti-Leave or pro-EU posts.

And a genuine question - do all the EU trade agreements contain the "level playing field" conditions being proposed by the EU here? And how did/does Ireland get away with its race to the bottom on Corporation/business taxes? (Sorry two genuine questions).

I think the main reason for the "level playing field" is down to two things. Geographical proximity and the sheer volume of trade between the two. They don't need such guarantees with the likes of Ukraine or Canada as they're not as big a threat to the single market. The UK is. 

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Look at it from the EU's perspective.
You cannot have a neighbouring nation that accounts for a decent amount of your total trade undercutting all your own member states without slapping tariffs on their goods.

All they are asking is that the UK doesn't start undercutting EU producers, because they'd rather not have to slap tariffs on imports and drive prices up.

Driving prices up will reduce demand, which would lead to falling factory orders in the UK.

Undercutting your export market is suicidal.

 

In fact the EU could just whack whatever tariffs it wanted on UK produce, simply to make it more expensive and boost internal production.

But trade wars are a bad thing and everybody ends up losing.

 

But the tory maniacs are hell bent on creating Singapore-On-Thames so that's where we'll end up.

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The Mighty Thor
6 hours ago, Ainsley Harriott said:

I hope we sink the ****ers 

If we do we'll do it in a very British way. When they're leaving British waters going away from the action, just like the Belgrano. 

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1 hour ago, Francis Albert said:

Despite my undeserved reputation as a Hard Tory Brexiteer I think that is a fair summary of the EU position and the reasons for it.

Just a couple of points, suspecting you might find the uncritically effusive response to your post a tad embarrassing.

 I think in the past you have praised the UK as one on the members who has complied most with EU regulations and decisions once made, however difficult it may at times have been in reaching agreements.

And while I agree with your comments about  many of the anti-EU comments on here, similar strictures could apply to many of the anti-Leave or pro-EU posts.

And a genuine question - do all the EU trade agreements contain the "level playing field" conditions being proposed by the EU here? And how did/does Ireland get away with its race to the bottom on Corporation/business taxes? (Sorry two genuine questions).

 

 

I don't understand (or maybe I don't acknowledge) your point about anti-Leave or pro-EU posts.  The UK has left the EU, and where we are now is about what happens to trade in the future.  The "anti-Brexit" posters on this thread seem to be aware of that in what they're saying, but the "pro-Brexit" posters do not.  The debate about principles and theories is over, and repeating the slogans of the referendum campaign doesn't add anything to the discussion.  It's all about the practicalities now.  A narrative about the mean and nasty EU might help swing some voters to a Leave vote, but it doesn't help resolve the negotiation issues.

 

The UK has generally been one of the better member states at complying with EU regulations.  But the UK has also shown itself to be disingenuous and dishonest in its dealings with the EU over Brexit, the Withdrawal Agreement, and the NI Protocol.  The EU has to deal with the UK as it finds it now, not as is found it in 2016 or 2010 or any other time in the past.  The Single Market was as much a British creation as anyone else's, and it contributed hugely to British economic prosperity.  There's a generation of politicians, officials and negotiators in the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments to thank for that - but where on Earth are their likes now?

 

All trade agreements contain some element of level playing field conditions, but they vary according to what you'd call the "depth" of the agreement.  If we're just agreeing a couple of tariff and paperwork breaks, we don't need a lot of rules and governance.  If we're agreeing widespread common market access, we need a lot more.  The tax question is interesting, for three reasons.  One is that Ireland isn't actually at the bottom of the corporate tax class, and a couple of the fiscally hawkish Norther European countries whose rates are nominally higher could teach us several lessons in how to let corporations off the hook (yes, Netherlands, we're looking at you for starters).  Another is that Ireland found a niche that nobody else could exploit as effectively (though the Maltese are making a good go of it), which is to have a low corporate tax base to start with and to have English as a native language.  A third is that the EU has always stood back from intervening directly in personal and corporate taxation.  I'd prefer if the EU did flex its muscles in that area, but it has held back from doing so - to avoid interfering in matters that are considered to be sovereign to the member states.  Ireland tended to resist any moves in this direction, aided and abetted enthusiastically by some other countries, most notably the UK.  If the EU had pursued a role in tax policy more vigorously, would the UK have exited the EU earlier?

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The Real Maroonblood
19 minutes ago, The Mighty Thor said:

If we do we'll do it in a very British way. When they're leaving British waters going away from the action, just like the Belgrano. 

I remember that.

Who was the PM at the time?😉

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The Belgrano was a threat and rightly sunk. 

 

French fishermen are our friends and we should be supporting their communities. Which will end up worse - French fishing communities or Scottish ones? 

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1 hour ago, Norm said:

I think the main reason for the "level playing field" is down to two things. Geographical proximity and the sheer volume of trade between the two. They don't need such guarantees with the likes of Ukraine or Canada as they're not as big a threat to the single market. The UK is. 

The word "threat" is an emotive and ambiguous term when it comes to a protectionist trading bloc like the EU.    There is only such a thing as a "level playing field" because of the EU created it as one of it's protections.   Some aspects of normal business competition get skewed to give preference to EU member states to the disadvantage of non-members - such as tendering.        

 

Given the enormous size of the EU's single market, it seems highly unlikely that the UK (outside the EU) could ever be a business "threat" to it.     Perhaps the risk of smuggling across the Ireland border as a result of the political fudge is what worries them most ?

 

Your point about geography being a limiting factor in Canada's case sounds right.   But Ukraine ?   The EU has been keen to incorporate  small and emerging countries - Ukraine is on its border - but perhaps  the controversial nature of the country's Russian history  worried them. Same with the Balkan countries ?

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4 hours ago, Norm said:

I think the main reason for the "level playing field" is down to two things. Geographical proximity and the sheer volume of trade between the two. They don't need such guarantees with the likes of Ukraine or Canada as they're not as big a threat to the single market. The UK is. 

 

Though as it happens the EU and Canada do have level playing field requirements of each other, and both are entitled to take action against the other if they, for example, give companies unfair State subsidies, allow their companies to dump products on the market at below production costs, or fail to prevent businesses from engaging in unfair trade practices such as cartels or anti-competitive mergers.

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2 hours ago, Lone Striker said:

The word "threat" is an emotive and ambiguous term when it comes to a protectionist trading bloc like the EU.    There is only such a thing as a "level playing field" because of the EU created it as one of it's protections.   Some aspects of normal business competition get skewed to give preference to EU member states to the disadvantage of non-members - such as tendering.        

 

Given the enormous size of the EU's single market, it seems highly unlikely that the UK (outside the EU) could ever be a business "threat" to it.     Perhaps the risk of smuggling across the Ireland border as a result of the political fudge is what worries them most ?

 

Your point about geography being a limiting factor in Canada's case sounds right.   But Ukraine ?   The EU has been keen to incorporate  small and emerging countries - Ukraine is on its border - but perhaps  the controversial nature of the country's Russian history  worried them. Same with the Balkan countries ?

 

I think words like "threat" and "risk" can be used to suit the ends of the user, to be honest.

 

The point of the Single Market is to create a situation in which all our national markets appear to be a single supranational market, so as to make it easier for us to do business with each other.  We extend access to that market to others outside the boundaries of the market, and we impose conditions for doing so - and they do the same with us.  The rules created aren't necessarily identical, because different trade agreements might have different specifications and conditions, but the fundamental principle is always the same.  Britain was in the market and covered by it.  Now it isn't (or it won't be in 20 days from now).  Therefore the starting point has to be that the UK is no different to Ukraine, Australia, Mercosur members or anywhere else as far as access to our market is concerned (and likewise, as far as our access to the UK market is concerned).    We have to apply the same logic and the same principles to the UK as we do with anyone else - just as the UK has to do to us.  If we don't apply that logic, then we create the "risk" or "threat" to our own Single Market.  Why?  Because for the market to serve its purpose there have to be clear advantages to being inside, and clear disadvantages to being outside.  If we let outsiders off the hook for rules we apply to our insiders, where's the benefit for our insiders?  And worse, if we leave room for outsiders to undercut and undermine our insiders, we actually create disadvantages to being an insider - we make it more profitable to be outside our Union than in it.  That makes no sense - for us, for the UK, or for anyone else negotiating a trade agreement.

 

Vote Leave's analysis (which Gisela Stuart finally started to abandon this week) was that the EU would treat Britain as a special case because it was a "departing insider" with a long-standing trading relationship within the Union.  The EU consistently said it would not, and never once has the EU given the slightest hint or impression that it might.  We also said that any trade deal would have to include protections for each other's markets and the "level playing field" principles that ensure fair and equal standing in the markets covered by the deal.  One of the most bizarre failures of British foreign policy and diplomacy in recent years has been the woefully inadequate and inaccurate analysis of the EU's motivations.  You have people in every embassy in every member state with immediate access to their political and administrative leadership, their media, and their public opinion channels.  You also have a large team of people embedded in the institutions of the EU who are uniquely placed to take an hour-by-hour reading of the thinking of those institutions.  You have history of being good at this - you're a member of the UN Security Council, for crying out loud; you're meant to know your stuff.  Yet somehow your Government has repeatedly read the EU and its member states the wrong way, in a way that can only be described as Anglocentric, and naive to the point of being rose-tinted.  They could have seen the way the wind was blowing 4, nearly 5 years ago, been upfront with the British people about what they would have to do to get a relatively "shallow" or "thin" deal, and then gone into negotiations with the EU on that honest basis right from the start.  The fact that they didn't is stunningly amateurish, it really is.

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52 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

I think words like "threat" and "risk" can be used to suit the ends of the user, to be honest.

 

The point of the Single Market is to create a situation in which all our national markets appear to be a single supranational market, so as to make it easier for us to do business with each other.  We extend access to that market to others outside the boundaries of the market, and we impose conditions for doing so - and they do the same with us.  The rules created aren't necessarily identical, because different trade agreements might have different specifications and conditions, but the fundamental principle is always the same.  Britain was in the market and covered by it.  Now it isn't (or it won't be in 20 days from now).  Therefore the starting point has to be that the UK is no different to Ukraine, Australia, Mercosur members or anywhere else as far as access to our market is concerned (and likewise, as far as our access to the UK market is concerned).    We have to apply the same logic and the same principles to the UK as we do with anyone else - just as the UK has to do to us.  If we don't apply that logic, then we create the "risk" or "threat" to our own Single Market.  Why?  Because for the market to serve its purpose there have to be clear advantages to being inside, and clear disadvantages to being outside.  If we let outsiders off the hook for rules we apply to our insiders, where's the benefit for our insiders?  And worse, if we leave room for outsiders to undercut and undermine our insiders, we actually create disadvantages to being an insider - we make it more profitable to be outside our Union than in it.  That makes no sense - for us, for the UK, or for anyone else negotiating a trade agreement.

 

Vote Leave's analysis (which Gisela Stuart finally started to abandon this week) was that the EU would treat Britain as a special case because it was a "departing insider" with a long-standing trading relationship within the Union.  The EU consistently said it would not, and never once has the EU given the slightest hint or impression that it might.  We also said that any trade deal would have to include protections for each other's markets and the "level playing field" principles that ensure fair and equal standing in the markets covered by the deal.  One of the most bizarre failures of British foreign policy and diplomacy in recent years has been the woefully inadequate and inaccurate analysis of the EU's motivations.  You have people in every embassy in every member state with immediate access to their political and administrative leadership, their media, and their public opinion channels.  You also have a large team of people embedded in the institutions of the EU who are uniquely placed to take an hour-by-hour reading of the thinking of those institutions.  You have history of being good at this - you're a member of the UN Security Council, for crying out loud; you're meant to know your stuff.  Yet somehow your Government has repeatedly read the EU and its member states the wrong way, in a way that can only be described as Anglocentric, and naive to the point of being rose-tinted.  They could have seen the way the wind was blowing 4, nearly 5 years ago, been upfront with the British people about what they would have to do to get a relatively "shallow" or "thin" deal, and then gone into negotiations with the EU on that honest basis right from the start.  The fact that they didn't is stunningly amateurish, it really is.

I agree with most of  your analysis, Ulysses.  My post wasn't intended as a  moan at what the EU have built for themselves - which is  basically the grandchild of the post-WW2 project to dangle  a big economic carrot in front of those European nations who have spent centuries fighting wars with each other.   Honourable and understandable. 

 

The last section (highlighted in bold) is a curious one though.   Some UK ambassadors and senior Foreign Office staff  have become a target for a nasty group of elected politicians since the start of this century and has got worse since 2010.  These senior mandarins do know their stuff, without doubt.   Maybe there's a  lingering distrust over their inability to correct the false narrative which led to the  Iraq war debacle and tragedy .... and almost certainly  fuelled by the rise of Trumpian disrupters being employed as "advisors" by government ministers in recent years.    So I think the blame for mis-reading how the EU works, and how it would respond to Brexit negotiations, lies fairly and squarely with a long list of (mainly) Conservative politicians - and not the UK senior civil service staff.      Whether this failure was a result of  amateurish naivety or deliberate/reckless brinksmanship  is open to debate.  

 

I think we can agree that if professional trade and economics experts had been in charge of negotiating on behalf of the UK, then things would have probably turned out differently - although the usual suspects in the ERG wing of the Conservative party would be furious that Brexit was being betrayed !!

 

 

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Malinga the Swinga
6 hours ago, Mikey1874 said:

The Belgrano was a threat and rightly sunk. 

 

French fishermen are our friends and we should be supporting their communities. Which will end up worse - French fishing communities or Scottish ones? 

No point in letting facts get in the way of anti UK sentiment on here. So many people hate their own country without any understanding of the reality involved. 

 

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1 hour ago, Lone Striker said:

I agree with most of  your analysis, Ulysses.  My post wasn't intended as a  moan at what the EU have built for themselves - which is  basically the grandchild of the post-WW2 project to dangle  a big economic carrot in front of those European nations who have spent centuries fighting wars with each other.   Honourable and understandable. 

 

The last section (highlighted in bold) is a curious one though.   Some UK ambassadors and senior Foreign Office staff  have become a target for a nasty group of elected politicians since the start of this century and has got worse since 2010.  These senior mandarins do know their stuff, without doubt.   Maybe there's a  lingering distrust over their inability to correct the false narrative which led to the  Iraq war debacle and tragedy .... and almost certainly  fuelled by the rise of Trumpian disrupters being employed as "advisors" by government ministers in recent years.    So I think the blame for mis-reading how the EU works, and how it would respond to Brexit negotiations, lies fairly and squarely with a long list of (mainly) Conservative politicians - and not the UK senior civil service staff.      Whether this failure was a result of  amateurish naivety or deliberate/reckless brinksmanship  is open to debate.  

 

I think we can agree that if professional trade and economics experts had been in charge of negotiating on behalf of the UK, then things would have probably turned out differently - although the usual suspects in the ERG wing of the Conservative party would be furious that Brexit was being betrayed !!

 

 

 

Has your Government read it the wrong way, or not?  If it has, then there's nothing inaccurate in that part of my analysis.

 

Does the UK have the experts it needs, with the extent of access I described?  If it has, then there's nothing inaccurate in that part of my analysis either.

 

If those parts of my analysis are accurate, then my contention that the British Government made a complete mess of the analysis is pretty much unanswerable.  And if you read my comment again, you won't see as much as a comma blaming the diplomats or the administrators.  Let's face it there are only two possibilities.  Either the UK lost all its analytical capability more or less instantaneously, or you got a cohort of politicians all at once who stopped listening to the people who knew what was going on.  I think we both know which happened.  You have to hope that history will be very unkind indeed to the people who've been to the fore of British politics in recent years - especially the Tories, but not them alone.  There really should be a special place in hell for politicians who act in direct opposition to the best interests of the people who elect them, and the people of Britain, and of England in particular, surely deserve better than the devastatingly poor leaders they have at the moment.

 

 

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The Real Maroonblood
22 minutes ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

No point in letting facts get in the way of anti UK sentiment on here. So many people hate their own country without any understanding of the reality involved. 

 

Your second sentence is evident with some posters in any threads relating to Scotland. 

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manaliveits105
42 minutes ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

No point in letting facts get in the way of anti UK sentiment on here. So many people hate their own country without any understanding of the reality involved. 

 

Exactly they seem to want brexit to be as bad as possible so their Scottish countrymen and families suffer delays shortages and financial hardships just so they can say it’s all the toaries fault 

Bizarre behaviour by strange people and their hangers on 

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28 minutes ago, Ulysses said:

 

Has your Government read it the wrong way, or not?    Yes....... but maybe deliberately, just  to  chance their arm &  see how much they can get away with.  If it has, then there's nothing inaccurate in that part of my analysis.

 

Does the UK have the experts it needs, with the extent of access I described?  Yes.... but the Brexit politicians have sidelined them.  If it has, then there's nothing inaccurate in that part of my analysis either.

 

If those parts of my analysis are accurate, then my contention that the British Government made a complete mess of the analysis is pretty much unanswerable.  And if you read my comment again, you won't see as much as a comma blaming the diplomats or the administrators.  Let's face it there are only two possibilities.  Either the UK lost all its analytical capability more or less instantaneously, or you got a cohort of politicians all at once who stopped listening to the people who knew what was going on.  I think we both know which happened.  Yes - the latter

 

You have to hope that history will be very unkind indeed to the people who've been to the fore of British politics in recent years - especially the Tories, but not them alone.  Agreed 

 

There really should be a special place in hell for politicians who act in direct opposition to the best interests of the people who elect them, and the people of Britain, and of England in particular, surely deserve better than the devastatingly poor leaders they have at the moment.  Too simplistic a view - the current government was elected with a big majority in 2019  by folk  who basically wanted the Leave result to be carried out (as per democracy).  "Get Brexit done" was the slogan - fair enough.  Boris then told the voters he had an "oven ready" deal - and alarmingly large numbers of voters fell for that nonsense.   It was all  hollow soundbites just to achieve an election victory.   Anyone who voted for his party on the basis that they thought this meant  the UK would  definitely get  a successful outcome  can have no grounds for complaint - they  enabled this.  As did Corbyn's Labour Party and the LibDems who could have supported Theresa May in the face of the Tory hard Brexiteers to get her Withdrawal Agreement passed .....but they didn't for all sorts of ridiculous reasons.

 

 

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It's interesting that a lot of the proponents of a hard / no deal Brexit are also vociferously anti lockdown when it comes to the pandemic.

Usually citing the severe and "unnecessary" harm to businesses that require additional government borrowing to prop up.

Anyway...

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lone Striker said:

Too simplistic a view

 

 

With all due respect, any analysis of the 2019 election result that ignores the incompetent leadership and poor campaign of the Labour party is itself open to a charge of being too simplistic.

 

Since the referendum result, it has been the job of the British government to implement Brexit, and implement it properly.  They've failed utterly in doing that, and the primary reason they failed was that they ignored all of the information and analysis about the EU that they had at their disposal.   It was not beyond their wit to tell people that it was game over for the relationship that the UK had with the EU, and that the negotiation was about pivoting away from trade with Europe while at the same time salvaging as much as possible of Britain's access to the EU marketplace.  Instead, they fed the voters complete bilge about oven-ready easy deals, like some kind of frozen food advertising slogan.

 

It wasn't the public's fault that their politicians didn't given them information honestly.  The UK's political leaders haven't failed the disaster capitalists and the Eton and Harrow old pals' brigade, but they have failed the British people - Leave and Remain voters alike.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

No point in letting facts get in the way of anti UK sentiment on here. So many people hate their own country without any understanding of the reality involved. 

 

Scotland is my country, the UK can do whatever it pleases when Scotland is independent. Anyone voting no, using accusations of hating ones country, is pretty rich. 

 

On Brexit. I'm happy the GFA is not in an danger. But why should Scotland be disqualified from the best of both worlds, when guarantees of EU membership were used to win the independence ref. 

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Raab blaming the EU for Brexit and a no deal. Aye they should not have voted you out of the EU and they should have the good grace to give the UK everything for free.

 

:Aye:

 

Edited by ri Alban
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SectionDJambo

The Mail on Sunday has the headline which just typifies the propaganda that is going to spew forth from the ERG and it's chums in the media. If all else fails, blame the bloody Germans. Everyone will believe it's them and not us.

A completely anonymous comment from " a minister", saying that Merkel "wants Britain to crawl over broken glass". So the UK government's cabinet has a direct line to Merkel's office and she told them this? Or just another piece of made up lies to stir up the worst of the UK population, and justify the complete mess that this whole affair has been.

Rather like the unsubstantiated, ludicrous claims of Johnson's buddy in the US.

The EU is far from perfect, but the Rule Britannia mob make you wonder why the Europeans would want the UK in their club.

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manaliveits105

Mike Russell thought he was retiring should go now

Toaries bad Toaries bad 

Indy - Indy - Indy 

No answers no policies 

GTF ya bumbling auld fool 

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manaliveits105

Russell - no deal will be a disaster

interviewer - if UK gov sit on Boxing Day to approve a deal would you support a deal

Russell - NO 

and there we have the snp in a nutshell - the Scottish No Point party 

of little use 

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38 minutes ago, manaliveits105 said:

Mike Russell thought he was retiring should go now

Toaries bad Toaries bad 

Indy - Indy - Indy 

No answers no policies 

GTF ya bumbling auld fool 

 

Nice to see you back on this thread, but I notice you've not answered the question I asked you the other day. IE, having achieved your aim of Brexit,why you're still so angry at the EU?

If you can't answer that simple question fair enough, maybe self reflection isn't your thing, but it might be helpful for you to understand where that anger stems from.

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The Real Maroonblood
Just now, fancy a brew said:

 

Nice to see you back on this thread, but I notice you've not answered the question I asked you the other day. IE, having achieved your aim of Brexit,why you're still so angry at the EU?

If you can't answer that simple question fair enough, maybe self reflection isn't your thing, but it might be helpful for you to understand where that anger stems from.

:laugh2:

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It is true that a lot of the No Deal Brexiteers are also pro freedom on Covid (without telling us the number of deaths they are happy to accept). 

 

The James O'Brien video above has him reflecting on who they'll go after next. 

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manaliveits105
25 minutes ago, fancy a brew said:

 

Nice to see you back on this thread, but I notice you've not answered the question I asked you the other day. IE, having achieved your aim of Brexit,why you're still so angry at the EU?

If you can't answer that simple question fair enough, maybe self reflection isn't your thing, but it might be helpful for you to understand where that anger stems from.

I voted remain but we are where we are and some strange people are now happy to roll over and accept a shafting from the EU because the Tories are in charge yet it was the Labour voters in the North of England who swung the Leave vote. 
 

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manaliveits105
1 hour ago, Justin Z said:

What ever would we do without this incisive political analysis and rapier wit

I never pay any attention to your drivel anyway so stop posting whenever you like 

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2 minutes ago, manaliveits105 said:

I voted remain but we are where we are and some strange people are now happy to roll over and accept a shafting from the EU because the Tories are in charge yet it was the Labour voters in the North of England who swung the Leave vote. 
 

 

A lot of people will be shafted by No Deal. 

 

 

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The Mighty Thor
26 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said:

EU statement - "talks will continue". 

 

 

They have to say that. Doris needs to string it out to 1st Jan to maximise the returns for his sponsors when the market tanks. If it goes now then they'll lose out. 

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6 minutes ago, manaliveits105 said:

I voted remain but we are where we are and some strange people are now happy to roll over and accept a shafting from the EU because the Tories are in charge yet it was the Labour voters in the North of England who swung the Leave vote. 
 

How are the EU shafting us? 

 

The UK is the equivalent of those folk who call Sky to cancel, when all they want is a better deal and a few quid chopped off the bill.

 

What has happened here, is we've completely overestimated how important our custom is.  Instead of giving us a special deal, the sales agent has called our bluff, told us there are no special offers and cancelled our contract as we requested.  

 

So now we're left scratching our heads, pondering why our master plan hasn't worked, wondering how the **** are we going to watch the Ryder Cup and cursing the sales agent for not throwing in 12 months at half price. 

 

When really, it's our fault for thinking our custom was more important than it was and cancelling in the first place. So now we're stuck, with no telly at all or having to put up with the more expensive and inferior NowTV, all because we took a gamble and it's not worked out as we expected. 

 

This isn't Sky's fault. It's ours. 

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If the requirement that 'nothing's agreed until everything is agreed' is relaxed, then the 97%-98% of the trade deal which is reported to have been agreed, could then be implimented on the 1st January and that they agree to continue talking on the remaining outstanding issues.

 

Both sides avoid the disruption of a no deal and politically both sides can claim a win, of sorts.

 

Or is this too much like common sense?

 

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5 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

If the requirement that 'nothing's agreed until everything is agreed' is relaxed, then the 97%-98% of the trade deal which is reported to have been agreed, could then be implimented on the 1st January and that they agree to continue talking on the remaining outstanding issues.

 

Both sides avoid the disruption of a no deal and politically both sides can claim a win, of sorts.

 

Or is this too much like common sense?

 

 

That's what they will do.

 

Not really sure why an agreement hasn't been made. Maybe politics within the Brexit Party. 

 

The level playing field can surely be fudged. Given these things are a fudge. 

 

I think the Tories are taking a risk letting there be big problems in January. They risk looking like they are panicked into a deal because of queues, food shortages, holidays being wrecked etc.

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4 hours ago, Mikey1874 said:

It is true that a lot of the No Deal Brexiteers are also pro freedom on Covid (without telling us the number of deaths they are happy to accept). 

 

*The James O'Brien video above has him reflecting on who they'll go after next. 

Scotland is my guess. 

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5 hours ago, manaliveits105 said:

Russell - no deal will be a disaster

interviewer - if UK gov sit on Boxing Day to approve a deal would you support a deal

Russell - NO 

and there we have the snp in a nutshell - the Scottish No Point party 

of little use 

That's not what he said. He said any deal would be a disaster. They should have been able to sort out a proper deal in 4 years. A d however much you shout about Labour or the SNP. This is down to the Tories, end of. And luckily enough for Scotland, we have a way out of this shit. Independence. 

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  • davemclaren changed the title to Brexit Deal agreed ( updated )

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