Cont: Brexit: Now What? Magic 8 Ball's up

[GlennB]

Your surprise is puzzling, given the prejudices, bigotry, ignorance of reality and sheer incompetence of the current UKGov.

Problems... Especially given the process for regularising their situation doesn't exist, and won't until well after BoJo's deadline.

Yes.

Yes.

I can. She has to establish her hardline credentials to further her career. Having a name like "Patel" is a handicap when dealing with CP members.

Scroll up a bit to my post about today's #10 briefing. It's looking like the Independent report jumped the gun or was victim of one of those 'fishing' efforts where a policy is 'leaked' to gauge the response.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Only about 1 in 6 UK workers are union members, and a fair number of those are 'solo' union members. In about 2003 I fought a long battle with an employer just to get them to recognise that there was even such a thing as the working time directive, and they never did. If they had, and it was an item raised in a job interview, then suggesting you'd opt out would have killed any chance of employment in the first place or, if it was a choice made later, any advancement.

Theory and reality are very different.

Sorry, just re-read your post. Did you mean to say 'suggesting you wouldn't opt out'?

 

[lomiller]

The EU can absolutely make clear that they will not sign a deal that produces a hard border. But that should be part of the negotiation. The problem is that the EU is insisting on agreeing the outcome and that they define the outcome before the negotiations have begun. Even the negotiation on an arbitration process over the backstop cannot be entered into until the backstop is signed unto.

Why would they EU do that? From the EU perspective, the UK must be part of the customs union or there must be a hard border where trade and customs rules can be enforced.

The problem is that the EU is insisting on agreeing the outcome and that they define the outcome before the negotiations have begun.

Different rules with no enforcement mechanism at the border is a non-starter for somewhat obvious reasons. The problem is that the incompetents running Brexit that can’t figure out whether they want to go down the path of a border or the path of conforming to EU rules.

The UK has a choice to make. It can have a hard border and it’s own trade/customs rules or it can have no border and continue to follow EU trade/customs rules. Before you say it, no this is not a point subject to negotiations and never will be. If you really want to negotiate you have to stop asking for the impossible.

 

[catsmate]

As long as they guarantee to only produce weighbridges that measure in pounds and ounces.

Tower pounds, obviously.

 

[Mr Fied]

As we have seen before these things can be short-circuited. I'm sure one of Priti Patel's chums will own a company that supplies retail scales to greengrocers who can be employed to build a weighbridge on a contract with no get out clauses for 3 times the market rate.

Well, we give contracts to ferry companies with no ferries, so this looks like an improvement.

 

[GlennB]

Sorry, just re-read your post. Did you mean to say 'suggesting you wouldn't opt out'?

Yep. Well spotted

 

[lomiller]

But a Norway style deal would not meet the Backstop requirements. Whilst the exact shape of the post Brexit relationship was not defined by Brexiteers, there was a fairly consistent case made around borders, trade agreements with non EU countries, parliamentary sovereignty, escaping from EU regulations and the ECJ. The backstop puts a block on all of these intents.

If that’s what the UK wants, it needs to live with the consequences. This includes customs/travel enforcement at ports and borders and a decade or so worth of negotiations on trade deal suitable for non-EU nations.

Being subject to the whims of larger trade partners is reality for smaller nations who are no part of free trade zones. It’s part of what the UK voted for so there is nothing undemocratic about it, unless what you mean is voters were lied to by the leave campaign and are not getting the result they expected because of that.

The backstop was not needed when the UK was part of the EU

OF COURSE it wouldn’t be needed when the UK was part of the EU. The backstop means that in several key respects the UK remains functionally part of the EU until the two sides can come to an agreement on how to disentangle the two. It should be obvious that there are only two ways to end such a backstop, either come to an agreement or cancel the backstop and separate on no-deal term.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The back stop is an issue because it requires the UK to remain in a free travel area and free trade area with the EU and unable to enter into trade agreements with third countries and subject to EU regulations and the ECJ.

And yet many of those are exactly what it needs to do to honor the GFA. I know that the brexit vote did counter the GFA no matter what people were claiming at the time and taking back control of your land border was of course a fundamental part of the vote. Why not just admit this and lie about being committed to an open Irish border when a closed one is what the people voted for even if they didn't realize it?

 

[ponderingturtle]

The negotiation process was completed and not one alternative solution was proposed. Because none exists. You are talking as if the UK haven't had 3 years to come up with a clear proposal on what it wants.

There is a simple option, conquer Ireland and pull it out of the EU with you. That solves so many border issues right there.

 

[dudalb]

This is what it has come to, no serious effort to negotiate by Johnson, just a desperate attempt to pin the blame for the catastrophe to come on the EU. The point is that even if you accepted the argument that the EU is being obstructive and punitive that does not absolve the government of responsibility for pressing ahead with Brexit even when it has become clear that they can deliver on none of the promises made during the referendum. The most sensible plans are revoke Article 50 or hold a second referendum to bow out gracefully from the Brexit process. Pressing ahead at this point is just bloodymindedness or the product of a Europhobia so deeply rooted it is willing to sacrifice everyone else's future(because of course the most ardent Brexiteers tend to be those who are immune to the consequences) to see the back of the EU.

Once again, it is the idiocy on the part of UK politicians to admit the UK is a part of Europe. It's asinine beyond belief.

 

[dudalb]

It looks like the report about Patel's plan to immediately halt fredom of movement on Nov 1st might have been mistaken in some way. From a #10 briefing today:

Commenting on a report claiming that Priti Patel, the home secretary, wants to end free movement for EU nationals immediately after 31 October, instead of withdrawing the right gradually as Theresa May’s government intended, the Downing Street spokeswoman said “freedom of movement as it currently stands will end on October 31 when the UK leaves the EU.” The spokeswoman went on:

So for example we will introduce, immediately, much tougher criminality rules for people entering the UK.

Details of other changes immediately on October 31 for a new immigration system are currently being developed.

And ,of course, the EU nations will retaliate by oputting the same restrictions on British Citizens residing in the EU.
Boris is like Donnie in failing to see that it's a two way street and other nations are going to strike back.

 

[GlennB]

Of course they don realise this is a Two Way Street;that British Citizens in the EU will be treated the same way seems beyond him...

Indeed. 1.3M of us thrown under the bus in order to ... er, dunno.

 

[dudalb]

Indeed. 1.3M of us thrown under the bus in order to ... er, dunno.

And it's not like the UK has that economic muscle anyway. I think Boris and his crowd are still under the delusion that the UK is "The Workshop Of The World".
That might have been true in Queen Victoria's day, but not nowdays.

 

[a_unique_person]

This is what it has come to, no serious effort to negotiate by Johnson, just a desperate attempt to pin the blame for the catastrophe to come on the EU. The point is that even if you accepted the argument that the EU is being obstructive and punitive that does not absolve the government of responsibility for pressing ahead with Brexit even when it has become clear that they can deliver on none of the promises made during the referendum. The most sensible plans are revoke Article 50 or hold a second referendum to bow out gracefully from the Brexit process. Pressing ahead at this point is just bloodymindedness or the product of a Europhobia so deeply rooted it is willing to sacrifice everyone else's future(because of course the most ardent Brexiteers tend to be those who are immune to the consequences) to see the back of the EU.

From my monitoring of the right wing pundits, brexit is a necessary condition for a new golden age for the UK. It is only the commoner hating elites that want to stop Brexit. These elites are determined to stop Brexit because otherwise they wouldn't be elite, would they.

 

[dudalb]

Just read a Washtington Post story on that secret report predicting massive chaos if there is a no deal Brixit.
God, the Tories don't understand what they are dealing with, do they?

 

[dudalb]

I am now convinced Boris and Company want to go back to the good old pre 1832 Reform Bill days, when a wealthy elite pretty much controlled the UK. I am sure John Rees Mogg longs for the days when everybody removed their caps and got out of the way when the masters walked down the street....

 

[quadraginta]

in the event of no deal EU citizens will have no right to enter the UK as far as I can see. Unless the UK passes legislation to that effect. So Patel would only be doing her job in this case.

It is absurd. but it also would be the law. A German would be no different to an Angolan.

That shouldn't be a problem. They can just come in through Ireland, since there won't be any border control there.

 

[a_unique_person]

Just read a Washtington Post story on that secret report predicting massive chaos if there is a no deal Brixit.
God, the Tories don't understand what they are dealing with, do they?

I believe they know exactly what they are doing. The pain will be worth it.

 

[a_unique_person]

I am now convinced Boris and Company want to go back to the good old pre 1832 Reform Bill days, when a wealthy elite pretty much controlled the UK. I am sure John Rees Mogg longs for the days when everybody removed their caps and got out of the way when the masters walked down the street....

You could almost call them ..... an "elite".

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

The EU citizens thing also shows once again what an utterly unreliable negotiator the UK has been in this process.

For years the Tory government has been claiming that EU citizens that are legally working in the UK have nothing to worry about. And suddenly the Tory government recants this at the last moment.

So why would anyone believe BJ when he claims anything now?