Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 5

[ponderingturtle]

Yes. That is the UK government policy. I've explained it in these threads many times before. The EU is still saying that it will install a hard border, so perhaps there will be one anyway.

Yep they can just put up signs saying don't cross the border if you are not Irish and don't smuggle EU goods. That is sure to work.

You want a hard border with the EU you have to accept that Ireland is part of the EU. So all your EU boarders will apply to Ireland too.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, if neither side will close the NI border, on the upside it'll be a new golden age for cross-border smuggling. Ill winds and all that.

So that is how the Uk will prevent a food shortage, by having it all smuggled through Ireland. Genius!

 

[catsmate]

Back in the 1970s, various pro-EC politicians quite openly made statements that with the EC, people would be voting on an ever more tighter union. That was no secret at all.

And back then, people voted in favour of staying.

I remember my school textbooks, back in the early 80s, describing the probable path to a United States of Europe. Certainty a more comprehensive union was taken for granted, even in those EEC days.

 

[catsmate]

It's weak to ask for a rematch when you've lost the game.

So why not go back to the 1975 referendum?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So that is how the Uk will prevent a food shortage, by having it all smuggled through Ireland. Genius!

Exactly. And then after a few years the flow will reverse, as cheap imports from some of the UKs exciting new trading partners undercut EU prices by not bothering with all those tiresome bureaucratic EU food hygiene and animal welfare rules.

We can make a bonfire of red tape. You wouldn't believe how many nannyish rules there are on things as simple as, say, fireproof cladding for the outside of tower blocks. Sweep it away; it's the will of the people.

 

[catsmate]

These are very old arguments. Access to the single market is not the same thing as membership of the single market. Every country, for example Brazil, has access to the single market.

The statements about Ireland still apply today. The EU is threatening to erect hard borders around Ireland. That is a matter for them.

The offer by Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Priti Patel and Gisela Stuart was very generous. Note that the EU did not reciprocate with such a generous offer for UK citizens living in the EU. The UK offer is now official UK government policy. EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK need have no fear about their right to remain here.

Not even remotely true.

 

[catsmate]

I am not a lawyer but this official government website seems to indicate that EU citizens already living lawfully in the UK need not worry.

That website exposes your lies.

 

[GlennB]

That website exposes your lies.

Yes, and he's been shown the relevant quotes. Maybe the word 'lawfully' is his fallback? Though becoming illegal while currently legal would make that a hell of a stretch.

Meanwhile, yet another complication:

"No-deal Brexit poses serious risk to public safety, say police leaders "

Our cops use, and need, access to EU-based information. This is not remoaner whining, but from 'the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) cross-party Brexit working group ... after consultation with the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chiefs’ Council.'

 

[ceptimus]

So why not go back to the 1975 referendum?

I already said that forty years was a reasonable interval between EU referendums - and even that something as low as ten years would be acceptable to me. What is not acceptable is calling for a rematch before the prize for the previous match has been handed over.

 

[ceptimus]

Not even remotely true.

That website exposes your lies.

Nice cogent well explained arguments there. A fine example of critical thinking to other posters.

 

[GlennB]

I already said that forty years was a reasonable interval between EU referendums - and even that something as low as ten years would be acceptable to me. What is not acceptable is calling for a rematch before the prize for the previous match has been handed over.

A point which has been answered already. Nobody knew at the time what the stakes were; the risk/reward ratio. Now it's becoming clearer on a daily basis.

 

[fagin]

I already said that forty years was a reasonable interval between EU referendums - and even that something as low as ten years would be acceptable to me. What is not acceptable is calling for a rematch before the prize for the previous match has been handed over.

Prize? FFS.

 

[GlennB]

Nice cogent well explained arguments there. A fine example of critical thinking to other posters.

I extracted and discussed some relevant sections from your own source the other evening. It rather looks like you didn't read your own source.

 

[Spanx]

I am not a lawyer but this official government website seems to indicate that EU citizens already living lawfully in the UK need not worry.

I'm curious as to how this will work if we have the No deal Brexit that leave voters voted for?

I was under the impression that nothing was agreed until everything is agreed.

Perhaps you could explain how a No deal Brexit works.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I'm curious as to how this will work if we have the No deal Brexit that leave voters voted for?

I was under the impression that nothing was agreed until everything is agreed.

Perhaps you could explain how a No deal Brexit works.

One of the very few aspects of Brexit which were made clear before the vote was that Brexit would not be a no-deal event. As I quoted above "We will negotiate the terms of a new deal before we begin any legal process to leave".

No-deal is explicitly not what Vote Leave invited us to vote for.

On the other hand, if there were a take-it-or-leave-it second vote on whatever deal May puts together, the current opinion polls suggest leavers would vote for No Deal.

So we're in a curious position where Vote Leave reassured us we would sensibly negotiate getting safely off the Airbus, then May respected that vote by jumping without a parachute. Now she's trying to cobble together a parachute while we plummet and if we get a vote on whether to use it or not, Leavers will say no, believing in I know not what. Sunlit uplands covered in fluffy pillows or something.

Of course if there were a 3-way second vote, it would split the Leave vote and be a pushover for get-back-on-the-plane.

 

[The Don]

Of course if there were a 3-way second vote, it would split the Leave vote and be a pushover for get-back-on-the-plane.

There will be no second referendum.

We are destined for a Hard Brexit because that's what the xenophobes (for whom no price is too high to keep foreigners out) and optimists (who are sure that the UK will do fine even if it takes a generation or three to come about) wanted and that's what the people who largely funded the Brexit campaign wanted. The 48% who voted remain are completely out of the picture and so the Hard Brexiteers only need to spoil any attempt to negotiate a deal (as they did with their amendments to the Chequers deal) and then voila, a No Deal Brexit

 

[Jack by the hedge]

There will be no second referendum.

We are destined for a Hard Brexit because that's what the xenophobes (for whom no price is too high to keep foreigners out) and optimists (who are sure that the UK will do fine even if it takes a generation or three to come about) wanted and that's what the people who largely funded the Brexit campaign wanted. The 48% who voted remain are completely out of the picture and so the Hard Brexiteers only need to spoil any attempt to negotiate a deal (as they did with their amendments to the Chequers deal) and then voila, a No Deal Brexit

Indeed. I can't foresee a "people's vote" happening at all. In the unlikely even that it did, I certainly can't see how a Remain option would get onto the ballot paper.

Still, blue ration books, eh?

 

[Mr Fied]

Yes, and he's been shown the relevant quotes. Maybe the word 'lawfully' is his fallback? Though becoming illegal while currently legal would make that a hell of a stretch.

Meanwhile, yet another complication:

"No-deal Brexit poses serious risk to public safety, say police leaders "

Our cops use, and need, access to EU-based information. This is not remoaner whining, but from 'the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) cross-party Brexit working group ... after consultation with the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chiefs’ Council.'

We don't want to leave the European Arrest Warrant. It's the EU in the shape of Michael Barnier that is threatening to kick us out and make everyone less safe. Understandable that he thinks threats to the UK are more important right now than the safety of EU citizens.

I think ceptimus is saying that the UK announces that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, it won't be erecting a hard border between NI and Ireland and neither will there be one between NI and the rest of the UK.

It will therefore be entirely the EU's fault if there's a hard border.

Of course that completely ignores the problem of how we stop people flooding into the UK over that open border and how we stop contraband coming in but I suppose like everything else, Brexiteers will insist that it's the other party's responsibility to address that issue - the UK has don its part by ensuring that it hasn't implemented a hard border (and that it's Ireland's job to ensure that Romanians don't get into the UK).

Yes. That is the UK government policy. I've explained it in these threads many times before. The EU is still saying that it will install a hard border, so perhaps there will be one anyway.

The confusion is engendered by remain supporters arguing that 'leave' doesn't really mean leave - it only means 'partly leave'. They apparently have no problem understanding what 'remain' meant, so they might get a clearer picture of what the public voted for by thinking of the two options offered as 'remain' and 'not remain'.

So do we want to leave or only partly leave?

 

[Spanx]

Indeed. I can't foresee a "people's vote" happening at all. In the unlikely even that it did, I certainly can't see how a Remain option would get onto the ballot paper.

Still, blue ration books, eh?

In my opinion if there were to be another referendum there would need to be two options.

1. Leave, knowing what Brexit fudge cake is.

2. Remain.

If the options were to be Deal or No Deal it would only apply to two 52% that voted to leave in the last referendum. I can't really see that a referendum that applied to 17million of this country would be legal.

I guess that is democracy to some?

Meanwhile apparently David Davis is telling the EU that we are clever enough to leave without a deal and that the EU really would be stupid to let us implement the will of the people.

It gets more confusing by the day.

 

[The Don]

So do we want to leave or only partly leave?

It's quite simple apparently.

We want to leave completely - so we're not subject to any of the four freedoms, the primacy of the ECJ or the intolerable burden of the ECHR.

We do however wish to retain certain aspects of EU membership that we found tolerable, useful even. Use of European Arrest Warrants, the ability to have frictionless trade (whilst simultaneously not having to be bound by any European standards we don't wish to adhere to), an open border with Ireland and so on*. We'd also like the ability to holiday, live and work in the EU without any red tape without reciprocating. It's only the intransigence of the EU which is preventing the UK having all the benefits of EU membership it wants without having to do anything it doesn't want to do.

In effect we want to continue to be able to play golf, use the showers and bar at the club without having to pay a membership, adhere to the dress code or take our turn acting as starter on Captains' Day.


* - another difficulty is that there is no consensus about what these are. Some Brexiteers will wish to keep the EAW, others will want not to. Some will want to retain membership of European scientific programmes, others will want to align with the US - but if we don't get what we want, it'll be the EU's fault