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Politics, politics, politics

Danishfurniturelover said:
It is laughable how you keep saying that, I dont and have never thought Brexit would happen from the time Cameron refused to send the letter despite saying he would.

But the referendum was done. You might not like it as I sometimes dont like the composition of our national governments, but just because opinion polls change slightly does not mean the result is not valid.

You have another referendum and remain wins, then a year later after another recession when the EU ask for more money maybe a bail out for one of their countries and opinion polls shift again in favour of leave, does that mean a second referendum is invalid. It is pathetic and rather childish. You will end up in the situation where no result in a referendum or general election stands.

Just because you don't like an outcome does not mean you can just moan and moan to have it changed. You see this in America with Trump, I hate the guy as much as the next guy he is unfit to run that country, but he won, so you have to wait till the next election to hopefully defeat him. The are some really sore losers who like to scream and shout when they don't get their own way.
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All I'm alluding to is that now, as things stand according to polls, a majority of British people don't want Brexit.

I don't think the core issue is about votes or what stands or what doesn't. It a question of can anyone make Brexit work? Right now it doesn't seem like it. People are not happy with what May is trying to serve up, yet no one can suggest viable alternatives that are better. Can you? It's not about a vote its about delivery - or lack there of - in the cold light of day.

It will be interesting to see what May's access to the customs union deal looks like. From there everyone can state whether they like the look of it or not. It will be the first time in 3 years that we've had something concrete. Yet we already know that it won't be welcomed by harder line Leavers, and Remainers only prefer it to a hard brexit. So what do you do? Cripple the UK with a no deal exit?
 
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BBC

Brexit talks hit 'real problem' over Northern Ireland border
  • 29 minutes ago
Brexit negotiations have hit a "real problem" over the issue of the Irish border, government sources have warned.

The EU is believed to be seeking further reassurances to prevent the return of a so-called hard border involving physical checks.

Hopes of a breakthrough were raised when the Brexit secretary made an unscheduled trip to Brussels on Sunday.

But talks faltered over the need for a back-up plan - known as the backstop - to avoid a hard border.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted any backstop arrangement should apply to the UK as a whole to avoid creating a new border in the Irish Sea.

But Sunday's talks had broken down after the EU had insisted on a second backstop arrangement - just involving Northern Ireland - if the UK's version wasn't ready in time, Downing Street sources indicated.

The Democratic Unionist Party has vowed to oppose any new checks on goods passing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And the party's Brexit spokesman has said the prospect of a no-deal Brexit is "probably inevitable".

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It would be a chronic miscalculation and an utter disgrace if the policy of the British government was to be set by the most extreme elements of the Brexiteers and the needs and desires and the idiosyncrasies of the Democratic Unionist Party."

This week's summit comes as domestic political pressure on Mrs May increases amid threats of potential cabinet resignations.

Labour has called on the government to publish its plan for the backstop.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said any proposal needed full scrutiny from MPs before an agreement could be struck with the rest of the EU at the Brussels summit.

A Number 10 source said the prime minister had made sure Parliament was regularly updated on the talks.

'Naked contempt'
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the backstop idea should be jettisoned altogether.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said that "in presuming to change the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, the EU is treating us with naked contempt".

Meanwhile, Ireland's ambassador to the UK, Adrian O'Neill, said Sunday's events in Brussels were a "setback" and could increase the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.

He told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour that time was "running out", adding: "Preparations for all eventualities are ramping up quite significantly."

The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which will become the UK's border with the EU, is one of the last remaining obstacles to achieving a divorce deal with Brussels.

In a letter to Mrs May, Scottish Secretary David Mundell and Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson said they would not accept Northern Ireland being treated differently than the rest of the UK in any Brexit deal.

It follows reports that other top ministers have been considering their positions over the weekend ahead of a meeting of the cabinet on Tuesday at which ministers could be asked to give their consent to any agreement.

Writing in the Sunday Times, former Brexit secretary David Davis urged ministers to "exert their collective authority" and reject the plans at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.





Brexit: If nobody's talking, how can a deal be reached?

Laura Kuenssberg
Dominic Raab didn't go to Brussels on Sunday sure of wrapping up every loose end of the Brexit process, tying a ribbon on it and carrying it home to give Theresa May the best ever present at work first thing Monday morning.

But officials who have been working away in Brussels all week, including until late on Saturday night, did feel the talks would benefit from a bit of political shoulder to shove them forward, and that decisive progress could have been possible.

All week, they have been grappling with one central issue - although there are others unresolved alongside, you guessed it, what to do about the Irish border.

The negotiators had made some steps forward, but on Sunday the required political progress didn't come.

The talks between the two men were not acrimonious, I'm told, but they got stuck - gummed up in the details of the backstop we discuss so often here.

The two sides can't agree over how, what is essentially an insurance policy, would apply to the whole of the UK, and its temporary nature.

And while there may have been a sense in Brussels that Mrs May was moving towards them, after she talked of doing a deal in the "national interest" during last week, if anything the politics at home have got more fraught.

Thursday's cabinet meeting ramped up concerns and gave Brexiteers another excuse to rattle their sabres.

The DUP continues its warnings that it'd sink the administration rather than see the deal it fears done. Several cabinet ministers are thinking about whether they can go on.

And, more to the point, different groups of Tory MPs with gripes about other policies are scenting opportunity as the government is so vulnerable.

Any move for the PM has become both harder, and more urgent.

Her party won't accept a proposal to keep the UK essentially in the customs union. Parliament is likely to block no deal. The EU won't accept her Chequers plan.

Even loyal ministers are deeply worried - "She is like a chess player who only has the king left - all she can do is move one square at a time until she is check-mated."

Talks among key officials in Brussels on Monday are cancelled for now.

There are no plans at the moment for the Brexit secretary to go back. There are only three days until the EU leaders' meeting where Mrs May has the chance to rescue herself and the talks too.

If, of course, the deal is done at the last minute, perhaps this will all be seen as the necessary theatrics.

With hindsight, Sunday's comings and goings might just become part of Brexit's messy history - but there is principle at stake here, as well as the practical challenge of getting an accord.

If no one's even talking, how can they expect to agree?
 
Boris in the Telegraph

The EU are treating us with naked contempt - we must abandon this surrender of our country
There comes a point when you have to stand up to bullies. After more than two years of being ruthlessly pushed around by the EU, it is time for the UK to resist.

With painful politeness, we have agreed to the EU’s timetable for discussions. We have consented to hand over huge quantities of taxpayers’ money – £39bn of it. We have quite properly volunteered to protect the rights of EU nationals in the UK. So far we have nothing to show for our generosity and understanding. We are now entering the moment of crisis. Matters cannot go on as they are.

In presuming to change the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, the EU is treating us with naked contempt. Like some chess player triumphantly forking our king and our queen, the EU Commission is offering the UK government what appears to be a binary choice.

It is a choice between the break-up of this country, or the subjugation of this country, between separation or submission. It is between treating Northern Ireland as an economic colony of the EU, or treating the whole of the UK as such a colony. It is a choice between protecting the Union or saving Brexit. It is a choice between two exquisitely embarrassing varieties of humiliation. It is an entirely false choice. It must be rejected, and it must be rejected now.


No Prime Minister, no government, no MP and no democrat could conceivably accept the first option – that unless North-south trade can be carried on in Ireland without any need for extra controls, Northern Ireland should remain forever a part of the EU customs union and single market.

That would mean a border down the Irish sea. It would mean customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In that sense it would mean violating the Act of Union of 1800, and the very basis on which this country is founded.

If we were to allow this economic annexation of Northern Ireland, by a foreign power, we would be treating Northern Irish MPs as somehow second class legislators, deprived now and forever of any say in many of the laws operational in their own constituencies. Even if the rest of the UK were able to do free trade deals, Northern Ireland would not be able to take part.

It was completely wrong of the government to agree this so-called Northern Irish “backstop”on December 8 last year, and those of us who had doubts at the time have been more than vindicated. We were told that it was just a form of words; we were told that it was merely temporary; we were told that these were redundant phrases that would never be invoked. As it is, that Irish backstop has been turned into the means of frustrating Brexit, because the alternative is even worse.


Under the proposals now being put forward by the UK government – the Chequers plan – the whole of the UK would effectively remain in the customs union and single market. This is a catastrophe for Brexit, and makes a mockery of the project.


It seems that in the last few days UK negotiators have agreed that we will remain in the “customs territory” of the EU, an even stronger commitment than remaining in the customs union. It means that for trading purposes the UK is simply conceived of as part of EU territory, as though it were a departement of France. We will be outside the EU but run by the EU, in the sense that from next year we will, of course, have no one in the Commission directorate of external trade, no influence over tariffs, and no ability to decide what trade and commercial policies will be pursued IN OUR OWN COUNTRY.

It is not just that we will be unable to do our own free trade deals. We will have them done for us, on terms that we may or may not like. The UK is a highly attractive trading partner, and a luscious potential market for goods and services. In the next ten years we can expect that there will be plenty of global negotiations about access to the UK’s market. It is one of the many disgraceful features of the Chequers proposals that if and when such deals are done, UK officials will not be involved.

Let us suppose that in the course of the next ten years – as seems likely – the EU enters into negotiations with China or America. It is our markets that will be treated as bargaining chips, by the EU, and one can easily imagine that – without any kind of political consent from this country – the EU might decide to open up, say, healthcare markets to American providers. Or they might agree any number of deals that damaged UK interests.

This is not the “pragmatic” solution; this is not minimising risk. Take this together with the “common rulebook” – exposing the entirety of UK business, including the vast majority that does not export to the EU – to the uncontrolled torrent of EU regulation, and you have a recipe for subordination that seriously threatens the economic health of this country.

Nor does this option even protect the Union, since it is clear that the Commission would still want extra controls down the Irish sea. And it is no use claiming that such membership of the EU customs union would be temporary. It is obvious that the proposed “Facilitated Customs Arrangement” is a non-starter; and once we have agreed to remain in for the time being, and paid up our £39bn, the EU will have no incentive to negotiate anything else.


We cannot accept either of these appalling options. It is time to scrap the backstop, and simply agree what is manifestly the case – that no one wants any new physical checks at the northern Irish border, and nor is there any need for them.

There is a better solution, and one that the Commission has long since expected. We still have ample time to make it work, not least since our partners would vastly prefer it to WTO terms. It is the Super Canada, zero tariff, zero quota, free trade deal at the heart of a deep and special partnership. It is right for both sides, and it is time to go for it.
 
Boris saying what he doesn't like, but not proposing anything. Yes Brexit is a mess. He advocated it. What does he suggest is done with the Irish border?

Who thinks the UK Government have an agreement lined up with the EU, but are holding off dotting the i's and crossing the t's while they pick their moment to unleash it into the festering UK political arena? Done wrong and it could bring down May. Are May and allies having quiet meetings to finess the deal before its announced?

...its all gonads of course. May et al deeply involved in trying to do the wrong thing better. When what they need is fresh thinking and to do the right thing: get the fuk out of this mess and actually deliver value to people. instead they are playing political games and walking tight ropes trying to the wrong thing righter.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Who thinks the UK Government have an agreement lined up with the EU, but are holding off dotting the i's and crossing the t's while they pick their moment to unleash it into the festering UK political arena? Done wrong and it could bring down May. Are May and allies having quiet meetings to finess the deal before its announced?
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That wouldn't surprise me.

The interesting one is Raab. He seemed to be the one who torpedoed it yesterday. Whether he's refound his Brexiteer backbone or will return to playing May's fool
 
Gutter Boy said:
That wouldn't surprise me.

The interesting one is Raab. He seemed to be the one who torpedoed it yesterday. Whether he's refound his Brexiteer backbone or will return to playing May's fool
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Most accounts have Raab being sent by May to nix the deal that Robbins and Weyand had cooked up, after it became clear that the government would otherwise fall. He wasn't acting independently.
 
Labour’s Yvette Cooper says MPs are worried the government will delay a deal until the last moment, to bounce MPs into agreeing. So will May agree that extending article 50 would be better than crashing out with no deal.

May says she is opposed to extending article 50. The government will not be doing that, she says.

---

What odds can you get on Article 50 being extended?
 
Danishfurniturelover said:
It is laughable how you keep saying that, I dont and have never thought Brexit would happen from the time Cameron refused to send the letter despite saying he would.

But the referendum was done. You might not like it as I sometimes dont like the composition of our national governments, but just because opinion polls change slightly does not mean the result is not valid.

You have another referendum and remain wins, then a year later after another recession when the EU ask for more money maybe a bail out for one of their countries and opinion polls shift again in favour of leave, does that mean a second referendum is invalid. It is pathetic and rather childish. You will end up in the situation where no result in a referendum or general election stands.

Just because you don't like an outcome does not mean you can just moan and moan to have it changed. You see this in America with Trump, I hate the guy as much as the next guy he is unfit to run that country, but he won, so you have to wait till the next election to hopefully defeat him. The are some really sore losers who like to scream and shout when they don't get their own way.
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Completely agree, a country gets the politics it deserves.
That is actually the reason I think we need another referendum if we continue on the path to a no-deal.
No deal clearly does not represent what was presented to the electorate so a referendum is needed. I know for some leavers for whom No Deal is fine, it's out no matter what, and some for whom that is not the case, they just want a half decent Brexit (no unicorns, just not a brick show).

The referendum, much like a GE, should have the message "look, you lot have fcuked this up. Go away and do it, properly this time, and then bring it to us so we decide if it's worth it".
So yes, potentially two referendums.

No 1. Do we accept Brexit as it is. Yes or No.
Then, after further negotiations (two years I guess?) another - Yes we still do Brexit Vs No, this actually doesn't work for us.
Heck, I might be totally wrong and people actually vote for No Deal - we get what we vote for afterall.


This is a country and, to a lesser degree, world changing set of events. It takes proper time and consideration.
 
I'm seeing 'expert' chatter on twitter that they are finally waking up to the fact that NI can be the best place in the EU to do business from if they are given unfettered access to the UK and EU. It would also strengthen the bond to the UK rather than weaken it as the DUP would have you believe.
 
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Rorschach said:
I'm seeing 'expert' chatter on twitter is that they are finally waking up to the fact that NI can be the best place in the EU to do business from if they are given unfettered access to the UK and EU. It would also strengthen the bond to the UK rather than weaken it as the DUP would have you believe.
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I'd be nervous about investing too much in NI to exploit that difference, though. An unlimited backstop would clearly be politically vulnerable to continuity Brexiteer assault, and the long-term demographic trend is for a majority in NI to favour reunification and a split with the UK. So, it's a good short-term strategy but not a long-term one.
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
I'd be nervous about investing too much in NI to exploit that difference, though. An unlimited backstop would clearly be politically vulnerable to continuity Brexiteer assault, and the long-term demographic trend is for a majority in NI to favour reunification and a split with the UK. So, it's a good short-term strategy but not a long-term one.
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It's also the most economically deprived place in the UK, with little infrastructure, and basically just pasture farms and some salt mines
 
ShipOfGoldblum said:
I'd be nervous about investing too much in NI to exploit that difference, though. An unlimited backstop would clearly be politically vulnerable to continuity Brexiteer assault, and the long-term demographic trend is for a majority in NI to favour reunification and a split with the UK. So, it's a good short-term strategy but not a long-term one.
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Long term Ireland will reunify. It is really just a matter of time and demographics as you say, but as of now the nationalist/unionist population of voting age does not track with the reunification polls by quite a margin. It certainly is not just a matter of tipping over the 50% mark, which is an argument I’ve see floated more than once.

Needless to say how the rest of this Brexit fiasco goes will change that opinion drastically. If a hard border is at all a possibility then the argument for reunification will strengthen IMO and vice versa. And say even if a border poll is triggered if the future, the process of uncoupling NI from the UK will be long and arduous. We’re looking at many, many years down the road and in business terms that is an age. The short to medium term outlook would look very good for business relative to the mainland, if NI stays in and the rest bombs out.
 
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