The Brexit Thread

[C4Cat]

Well it was always going to be difficult. We voted to Leave, Cameron resigned, May took over and turned it into a proper shitshow because she was Remain-bias, and Boris came in and picked up the pieces and had to run with it after May resigned.

Would probably have been a very different story if he had the entire 4 years to work with instead of just a year and a bit (the majority of which has been spent trying to deal with a pandemic).

I doubt that. The uk government have proven over generations that they can't be trusted, they want it all and are unwilling to compromise or meet from a place of respect and support. It was always going to be a no deal. Many of the leave advocates are counting on it and have been from the very beginning.

 

[Vorastra]

I doubt that. The uk government have proven over generations that they can't be trusted, they want it all and are unwilling to compromise or meet from a place of respect and support. It was always going to be a no deal. Many of the leave advocates are counting on it and have been from the very beginning.

What is the UK asking for that's unreasonable?

 

[buka001]

What's this I hear about the EU wanting 60% of the UK's fishing waters? lmao.

It is such an arbitrary point, driven by nationalism.

The UK pc and console games market has more turnover per year than the UK fish industry.

 

[Dave]

It is such an arbitrary point, driven by nationalism.

The UK pc and console games market has more turnover per year than the UK fish industry.

Gaming industry also has double the jobs of fishing.

Forget Fishing, Britain’s Digital Sector Is Now 9,000% Bigger

Fishing as an industry may only be worth a meagre £1.4 billion to Britain's economy, but it swallows a huge amount of political airtime, while the country's thriving £130 billion digital sector is largely absent from political life.

www.forbes.com

 

[Dave]

Yes, Theresa May, the anti-brexit remainer prime minister that campaigned to remain in the EU before refurendum. The Florence speech when she said "No deal is better than bad deal" and then went on to deliver the worst deal possible, and then went back on that statement.

Lets be frank here, she couldn't even negotiate a deal with her own party, mind about the EU. Probably best we try forget about Theresa May like it never happened, she was just an embarrassment of a prime minister, and her dancing didn't win her any fans

Let's not pretend Boris hasn't lied, changed his mind and u-turned many times.

Just a few examples:

"We could construct a relationship with the EU that more closely resembled that of Norway or Switzerland - except that we would be inside the single market council, and able to shape legislation" Johnson said.

“British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down. As the German equivalent of the CBI – the BDI – has very sensibly reminded us, there will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Johnson said: "There is no plan for no deal, because we’re going to get a great deal and I would, just for the sake of example and illustration, I would remind the honourable lady that there was a time when Britain was not in what we then called the Common Market."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337391925633167360

I don't see what her dancing has to do with anything though...

 

[OrbitalDawn]

It is such an arbitrary point, driven by nationalism.

The UK pc and console games market has more turnover per year than the UK fish industry.

A single company, Games Workshop, is bigger than the UK fishing industry.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Well it was always going to be difficult. We voted to Leave, Cameron resigned, May took over and turned it into a proper shitshow because she was Remain-bias, and Boris came in and picked up the pieces and had to run with it after May resigned.

Would probably have been a very different story if he had the entire 4 years to work with instead of just a year and a bit (the majority of which has been spent trying to deal with a pandemic).

This is nonsense revisionism. May's 'bias' has nothing to do with why Brexit is such a clusterfsck. Boris has had more than a year and a half to articulate a version that isn't a clusterfsck and it hasn't happened.

You know why? Because a square peg won't fit a round hole no matter how chipper you are about it, or how much you want to blame the people who accurately told you it would be a disastrous, backwards clusterfsck.

This constant whinging that people should just want Brexit to be a stirling success enough, and that because some people (who realised it was a stupid thing to do) just don't want it enough, it's now somehow their fault... is the height of absurdity.

To wit:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337347935391113216

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Let's recall the Irony Lady's words about the single market.

Speech opening Single Market Campaign | Margaret Thatcher Foundation

www.margaretthatcher.org

Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers—visible or invisible—giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world's wealthiest and most prosperous people.

Bigger than Japan. Bigger than the United States. On your doorstep. And with the Channel Tunnel to give you direct access to it.

It's not a dream. It's not a vision. It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Good clip showing why dimwits like Liz Truss aren't up the task, and why Brexit can't deliver what Brexiteers want it to.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1338052426516082688

 

[AdrianH]

It is such an arbitrary point, driven by nationalism.

The UK pc and console games market has more turnover per year than the UK fish industry.

Gaming industry also has double the jobs of fishing.

Forget Fishing, Britain’s Digital Sector Is Now 9,000% Bigger

Fishing as an industry may only be worth a meagre £1.4 billion to Britain's economy, but it swallows a huge amount of political airtime, while the country's thriving £130 billion digital sector is largely absent from political life.

www.forbes.com

A single company, Games Workshop, is bigger than the UK fishing industry.

It's not about money, it's about political clout. The EU have explicitly tied the fishing grounds access to a trade deal granting the UK access to the EU single market. The EU wants "fair" access to UK fishing grounds, fair being the contentious word, while not offering much of a reasonable trade deal in return.

Annually the EU discusses quotas of species and which EU nations can catch how much and of which speci of fish, but they don't want to negotiate with UK annually like they do with other countries like Norway, and how they did with the UK previously did.

In fact, the EU has proposed that the EU can get almost unlimited access to UK fishing grounds, that any changes to the access and quotas would be gradual (10 years or more), no annual negotiations regarding access or quotas, and that the UK can't change this agreement without the EU agreeing to the change.

In a nutshell, the EU wants to keep their current access to UK waters and not wanting to change the current fishing quotas. The UK keeps telling the EU that they want to be treated like any other non-EU country (like Norway), but the EU doesn't want to agree to this.

 

[Dave]

The UK keeps telling the EU that they want to be treated like any other non-EU country (like Norway), but the EU doesn't want to agree to this.

But the UK is not Norway and apparently doesn't want to be like Norway anyway.

 

[AdrianH]

Good clip showing why dimwits like Liz Truss aren't up the task, and why Brexit can't deliver what Brexiteers want it to.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1338052426516082688

The EU has been out to punish UK from the beginning, as Barnier said in 2016:

“J’aurais réussi ma mission si, à la fin, le deal est tellement dur pour les Britanniques qu’ils préféront rester dans l’Union.”

“I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”.

Fortunately, all the fear mongering spewed by the EU was just noise as they seem to be more concerned about no-deal than UK is.

This is why the negotiations have failed from day 1, the EU main negotiator isn't willing to negotiate.

 

[AdrianH]

But the UK is not Norway and apparently doesn't want to be like Norway anyway.

UK wants to be treated the same as any other non-EU country, for example, Norway.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

It's not about money, it's about political clout. The EU have explicitly tied the fishing grounds access to a trade deal granting the UK access to the EU single market. The EU wants "fair" access to UK fishing grounds, fair being the contentious word, while not offering much of a reasonable trade deal in return.

Annually the EU discusses quotas of species and which EU nations can catch how much and of which speci of fish, but they don't want to negotiate with UK annually like they do with other countries like Norway, and how they did with the UK previously did.

In fact, the EU has proposed that the EU can get almost unlimited access to UK fishing grounds, that any changes to the access and quotas would be gradual (10 years or more), no annual negotiations regarding access or quotas, and that the UK can't change this agreement without the EU agreeing to the change.

In a nutshell, the EU wants to keep their current access to UK waters and not wanting to change the current fishing quotas. The UK keeps telling the EU that they want to be treated like any other non-EU country (like Norway), but the EU doesn't want to agree to this.

The UK wants access to the EU's market, but don't want to give access to EU fisheries in return for that access. They export 75% of their fish production to the EU, so UK fisheries could collapse without that market access. At the same time, the EU don't want their fisheries to collapse because they can't access the waters they're dependent on. So the UK want to have their cake and eat it and you think it's strange that the EU don't just roll over and say yes?

That's the whole point of managing it as a common resource - you avoid these counter-productive wranglings and you manage the actual limited natural resource carefully.

The EU has been out to punish UK from the beginning, as Barnier said in 2016:

“J’aurais réussi ma mission si, à la fin, le deal est tellement dur pour les Britanniques qu’ils préféront rester dans l’Union.”

“I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”.

Fortunately, all the fear mongering spewed by the EU was just noise as they seem to be more concerned about no-deal than UK is.

This is why the negotiations have failed from day 1, the EU main negotiator isn't willing to negotiate.

This is patent nonsense, of course. You want the EU to be "fair" and negotiate on the UK's terms, while the UK doesn't want to be fair or compromise in any way. The UK put itself in this position and being the weaker party in the match-up is now experiencing what it's like when you can't just dictate thing and have it happen.

Brexiteers orchestrated this situation, not the EU.

To quote Hugo Rifkind:

"Fracture a union, and you have two rival, self-interested parties. Avoiding that is the whole point of a union in the first place. This is what the Brexiters wanted, and what Remainers didn't. Our interests are now opposed to the EU's interests."

This was written more than 4 years ago on the topic and it's still very much true.

 

[Dave]

UK wants to be treated the same as any other non-EU country, for example, Norway.

Norway is a member of EFTA, and as the UK has so far refused to consider joining the EFTA it isn't possible for the UK to be treated like Norway.

Simplisticly, Norway is an apple and the UK a banana.

 

[AdrianH]

The UK wants access to the EU's market, but don't want to give access to EU fisheries in return for that access. They export 75% of their fish production to the EU, so UK fisheries could collapse without that market access. At the same time, the EU don't want their fisheries to collapse because they can't access the waters they're dependent on. So the UK want to have their cake and eat it and you think it's strange that the EU don't just roll over and say yes?
.

It's not that UK won't give access to the fisheries, it's that they won't give access on the EUs terms which are totally unreasonable demands, and the control they keep pushing for is ridiculous. It's actually the EU that wants their cake and wants to eat it, except it's all fallen on the floor and they are crying about it.

Also remember, it was one of the Belgium ministers that stated the EU locked the fishing grounds access to a trade deal right in the beginning only to strengthen the negotiation power of the EU and try force the UK's hand in negotiations. Guess that backfired for them.

Unfortunately just like May was the wrong person fit the UK to negotiate a deal, so is Barnier for the EU. Barnier has even admitted the level playing field he keeps going on about and that all negotiations hinge on isn't about fairness afterall, it's about stopping Britain under cutting the 27 (EU members) which is a direct contradiction to free and fair trade and what Brexit is about. LPF is just a facade to protect the EU from the UK competing with EU globally. Fortunately the UK government has seen this ploy and rejected it, and the EU still can't understand why the UK isn't rolling over and giving into their ridiculous demands.

I think it's really tough on the EU where a nation doesn't give in to bullying or threats (looking at you France and Germany) they are used to throwing. Barnier pretty much lost all credibility when he lost his temper back on February, Must be hard on him knowing he failed the entire EU 27.

Viva Brexit, Viva UK.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

It's not that UK won't give access to the fisheries, it's that they won't give access on the EUs terms which are totally unreasonable demands, and the control they keep pushing for is ridiculous. It's actually the EU that wants their cake and wants to eat it, except it's all fallen on the floor and they are crying about it.

Also remember, it was one of the Belgium ministers that stated the EU locked the fishing grounds access to a trade deal right in the beginning only to strengthen the negotiation power of the EU and try force the UK's hand in negotiations. Guess that backfired for them.

Nope. The UK wanting to separate the two issues is them wanting to have their cake and eat it. They want the benefit (access to the EU market for the 75% of their fisheries production that gets exported), but don't want to pay anything to get it.

And again, it's the UK that decided it prefers a hostile relationship with the EU based on self-interest, not the EU. Why should the EU roll over for the UK?

 

[AdrianH]

Nope. The UK wanting to separate the two issues is them wanting to have their cake and eat it. They want the benefit (access to the EU market for the 75% of their fisheries production that gets exported), but don't want to pay anything to get it.

And again, it's the UK that decided it prefers a hostile relationship with the EU based on self-interest, not the EU. Why should the EU roll over for the UK?

Nah dude, the Belgium minister stated the EU decided to lock the two together up front for negotiating power. The fact the UK didn't want them locked together is acceptable, just as much as the EU believes it's acceptable to lock them together. Depending on which side you pick, only one of them is acceptable to you though.

The EU wants to dictate terms to the single market access of the EU to the UK, but also want to dictate terms to the UK fishing grounds to the UK. Why should the UK roll over for the EU unreasonable demands on their own fishing grounds. The EU wants their cake and to eat as as well.

The EU had been hostile through Barnier since day one trying to push demands and restrictions into the UK. Just recently Barnier said the UK must comprise on their demands otherwise there won't be any more negotiations. Of course, he is indirectly saying the EU isn't willing to compromise but the UK must compromise before negotiations will taken place. As I keep saying, the EU are so used to getting their own way, they don't know how to deal with a nation when they say NO. They honestly seem incapable of dealing with this in a fair and constructive manner.

Anyway, no deal is likely to happen, I'll be surprised if a deal is reached before 1 January. Time for everyone to accept it and move forward. You can blame UK, I'll blame the EU, but ultimately it's shows politicians are useless *****

 

[C4Cat]

it's about stopping Britain under cutting the 27 (EU members)

Why would the EU agree to deals that favour the UK over the interests of it's members? That makes no sense. What you call 'punishment' by the EU turns out to just be the EU negotiating in the best interests of the EU.

 

[AdrianH]

Why would the EU agree to deals that favour the UK over the interests of it's members? That makes no sense. What you call 'punishment' by the EU turns out to just be the EU negotiating in the best interests of the EU.

Who said they must favour the UK over the EU?

The EU were the ones that kept on and on and on about the level playing field when it wasn't a level playing field at all. It was the EU who kept saying it must be a fair agreement for both parties, but Barnier messed that up when he let this slip during one on his meltdowns because he couldn't deal with the fact the UK weren't submitting to their ludicrous demands.

Guess being dishonest and deceitful is ok for the EU, just like how they ignored and turned a blind eye to Poland's ( one of their own member state) to the racism and homophobia in that country, and ended up taking the soft approach to dealing with it when pressured to? Of course, it's easy to see why they ignore it, they only care about money and power, and not the rights of EU citizens, even though they pushed for the UK to adhere to EU human rights laws. What hypocrites the EU are!