Cont: Brexit: Now What? 7th heaven...

[The Don]

It didn't have to. Vote leave said, not surprisingly, that we would LEAVE. If the EU and the UK parliament are unable to agree a deal, then it follows inexorably that 'no deal' becomes the only option.

We voted to move house because the "Vote Move" campaign promised us a much nicer, much larger, house in a better part of town for lower monthly payments.

Unfortunately this was a complete lie and fabrication on the part of the "Vote Move" campaign so now it looks like we'll be sleeping rough instead.

It's obvious that we voted to sleep rough

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So you don't. I thought so.

Has anyone been able to find any cites of hard Brexit or soft Brexit from before the referendum using the terms in the same context they've been used since remain lost?

I hope someone can, but I haven't been able to. To give you the incentive to prove me wrong, I'll make the following claim.

I claim that the terms hard Brexit and soft Brexit were invented by remainers after they lost the referendum, and I cite the whole web as evidence.

I genuinely expect to be proved wrong in that claim, but I'm interested to discover who first coined the terms, and when.

I should perhaps say that I did notice that "Hard Brexit" searches seem to trend after the referendum. This was so astonishing to me that I felt I had to post it anyway.

The only reference I can easily find in my own pre-referendum discussion is this piece from the Adam Smith Institute, describing their preferred "soft" exit. https://www.adamsmith.org/evolution-not-revolution

Unfortunately the item is not dated, but is from somewhere between Cameron's failed PR stunt to attempt to secure some kind of nebulous EU reforms and the referendum itself.

 

[The Don]

There were always numerous options for Leave (staying in or leaving the Customs Union, giving up some or all of the four freedoms and so on); I'm not sure when those various options got grouped into 'soft Brexit' and 'hard Brexit' but the fact that there were many possibilities, and that the Leave campaigners mostly promised what are now categorised as 'soft' ones, was certainly clear to me before the referendum. I don't think the 'hard Brexit' options originally included No Deal, as even the most ardent Brexiteers insisted an acceptable deal could be negotiated up until quite recently, so the move to using 'hard Brexit' as a synonym for 'No Deal' is sneaky: it's basically recategorizing anything that isn't No Deal as a 'soft Brexit', including those variations which would have been regarded as 'hard Brexit' ones less than a year ago.

Indeed, by leaving the EEA, customs union and refusing to abide by EU laws, Theresa May's deal was a "Hard Brexit". Now it's considered a "Soft Brexit", an clear example of the Overton Window in effect IMO.

 

[Tolls]

Thanks. That article doesn't actually say who first used the term and when - only that it "emerged". Again, the report is dated after the referendum. Edit: your links to other reports in your next post are also dated post-referendum.

It looks like, to my surprise, that my claim so far hasn't been disproved. As to who invented it, I still claim it was a remainer. Remember, I include people such as Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt as remainers. They voted remain in the referendum, and campaigned for remain before it.

And?
Why is your claim in anyway relevant?

I stated in the first post that it was May's first conference speech as PM that brought the term out. And, assuming you have actually the slightest bit of knowledge of recent history, that was after the referendum.

My point was it was a term used across reporting on the subject, and used in reference to May clearly pushing for a Brexit that was more extreme than the one being proposed during the referendum by Leave, and not a term made up by "remainers". Hence "Hard".

So, again, in case you missed it, why is the origin of the term at all relevant? Except to highlight that it was only after the referendum that the idea of a more extreme Brexit was being put forward...

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It didn't have to. Vote leave said, not surprisingly, that we would LEAVE. If the EU and the UK parliament are unable to agree a deal, then it follows inexorably that 'no deal' becomes the only option.

Except the leave campaign dismissed all claims like this as project fear and insisted getting a deal would be easy and we would get better terms than we have now.

Had they said truthfully what would occur then its unlikely they would have broken the 50% mark to win the referendum.

 

[wobs]

Not good enough. The article is from 2017 - well after the referendum, and only says 'the term is thought to have originated...' That's not a cite. I want to see a non-faked actual cite where we can be sure of a date when the terms 'hard Brexit' or 'soft Brexit' were used. I'm not even pressing for the 'brexit' word as I'm not sure when that was coined - as long as the words 'hard / soft' are used they could be paired with 'departure' or some other similar word.

It's got to be in context though - something like 'leaving the EU will be hard', won't suffice. We need something like a newspaper report, a transcript of a speech, or similar, that uses the terms and has a date.

I still have to read the other posts in the thread, but so far it seems my claim has not been refuted...

Soft Brexit mentioned 9th June 2016:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/09/scenarios-of-a-new-uk-eu-relationship-soft-brexit/

Later (I assume autumn 2016), we have a full report:

A report in 2016, showing both "hard/soft" phrases, and use of forecasts showing a range of impacts as follows:

What will be the long-run economic effects of the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union—informally known as Brexit?
Compared with remaining in the European Union, there will inevitably be higher
trade costs with the rest of Europe, which accounts for about half of all U.K. trade.
This will mean lower trade and foreign investment, and thus lower average U.K.
incomes. These trade costs will arise from some combination of tariff and nontariff barriers, and will be larger if there is a “hard Brexit,” whereby the United
Kingdom would leave the Single Market and trade under World Trade Organization rules, rather than a “soft Brexit” option of staying in the Single Market
(like Norway). Calculations using a standard multicountry, multisector, computable general equilibrium model show welfare losses of 1.3 to 2.6 percent,
but dynamic models that incorporate productivity effects suggest that these
could rise to 6.3 to 9.5 percent. Brexit’s supposed benefits—such as lower
immigration, better regulations, and more trade deals with non-EU countries—
would do little or nothing to offset these losses. It seems unlikely that voters
were fully aware of the magnitude of these costs at the time of the vote.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/brexits-long-run-effects-john-van-reenen.pdf

 

[Delphic Oracle]

How much longer do we have to accept the burden of disproving a ridiculous assertion?

Also, even if the term (really the concept, but whatever) does not pre-date the referendum, "remainers invented it" is not the automatic implication.

Even though this has already been repeatedly demonstrated only to have the claim tweaked and qualified.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It didn't have to. Vote leave said, not surprisingly, that we would LEAVE. If the EU and the UK parliament are unable to agree a deal, then it follows inexorably that 'no deal' becomes the only option.

On the other hand, Vote Leave also reassured the voters that a new deal would be agreed before we even triggered article 50:

 

[Lothian]

It didn't have to. Vote leave said, not surprisingly, that we would LEAVE. If the EU and the UK parliament are unable to agree a deal, then it follows inexorably that 'no deal' becomes the only option.

We understand that now. It has become apparent. However I recall no mention of this scenario in the leave campaign
We were promised free trade with the EU, all our money back etc. The campaign was not purely about leaving or remaining. You have said leaving the EU but remaining in the single market and customs union would not be acceptable. it was about the benefits and downsides voting for each option would give. Where did vote leave say that we would be out of the free market with WTO tariffs and hard borders?

 

[The Don]

We understand that now. It has become apparent. However I recall no mention of this scenario in the leave campaign
We were promised free trade with the EU, all our money back etc. The campaign was not purely about leaving or remaining. You have said leaving the EU but remaining in the single market and customs union would not be acceptable. it was about the benefits and downsides voting for each option would give. Where did vote leave say that we would be out of the free market with WTO tariffs and hard borders?

Using an analogy that I think accurate - we had a vote whether to move from our three-bedroomed semi-detached house in a decent suburb with a good-sized garden.

Vote Move claimed that we could absolutely have a newly refurbished period six bedroom detached home in the best part of town with pool and tennis court for less money than we were currently paying for our current house - and that we wouldn't put our house on the market until the (very easy) negotiations for the new house were complete.

Vote Stay pointed out that this was impossible and that we'd either be renting a very similar house (Norway Plus) for the same money, a smaller house in a worse part of town (Theresa May's deal) for a little less money and that unless we were flexible, there was a very real risk that we might be sleeping rough (no-deal). All of this as pooh-poohed by Vote Move as Project Fear.

Vote Move won, Mum immediately put our house on the market and the exchange date is rapidly approaching again (thankfully the new vendor was happy to postpone once - but maybe never again). There was a lot of argument over Mum's choice of new house. Stayers said we could pull out of the sale any time and don't want to move to a damp two-bed flat across town. Dad has taken over the process and says that he'll definitely get us a better deal (but looking at the local estate agents, that isn't going to happen) but if he can't we'll be sleeping rough come November.

Apparently those who voted Move should have known that sleeping rough was always the likely outcome and that we should embrace the opportunity to get so much more fresh air

 

[Jack by the hedge]

… Where did vote leave say that we would be out of the free market with WTO tariffs and hard borders?

Was it when they said "There is a free trade zone from Iceland to Turkey and the Russian border and we will be part of it"?

I'm not sure that's quite the same thing as we're now going to get. But, oh well, I guess what we're getting instead must be what we voted for so there's no sense asking us if it's what we actually want.

 

[Tolls]

I see ceptimus has gone full in on the "let's rewrite history so that we really did vote for this ****".

I mean, he's tried so far with the "we had rules imposed on us", showing a clear lack of understanding of the workings of the EU, and our place in it. And now he's hoping we've all gone senile in the past 3 years and forgotten what was being put forward during the referendum by the Leave campaign.

**** knows what the purpose of the whole "hard Brexit origins" sideline is.

 

[Tolls]

<<Dupe>>

 

[Jack by the hedge]

By the way, and sorry if it's off-topic, I hope nobody is going to need the WTO to rule on anything in the near future. It seems to have become a second front in the Trump-China trade war and may be hors de combat for some time:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-wto/u-s-not-swayed-by-wto-reform-proposals-idUKKBN1OB1XG

 

[The Don]

**** knows what the purpose of the whole "hard Brexit origins" sideline is.

I believe that ceptimus is claiming that looking at the possible Brexit outcomes in terms of soft Brexit or hard Brexit is a Remoaner invention to attempt to split those in favour of Leave (who would otherwise be entirely harmonious and of one mind) into factions in an attempt to derail Brexit.

It's part of a wider attempt to claim that "everything that has gone wrong with Brexit is the fault of the Remoaners" so that when it all unravels badly post-Brexit, none of it will be pinned on the leaders of the Leave campaign.

If 52% of those who voted bought the Leave campaign's lies, they'll likely buy this as well

 

[Tolls]

Oh yes, I forgot that he was also pushing the "it's the remainers fault that the deal wasn't passed in Parliament".

Clearly taking a leaf from the Trump playbook.

 

[catsmate]

Evidence? No, there never is from you - only insults.

Feel free to support your claims sometime. It'll be a nice change.

I notice you never apologised when you wrongly claimed that my facts weren't facts. You continue to make these ridiculous assertions that just make you look stupid.

Oh, I think the person looking stupid in this thread is quite obvious...

 

[catsmate]

I'm by no means the first to say it, but your memory seems to be letting you down on this. Hard vs Soft Brexit was one of the main talking points of the referendum campaign.

Let me Google that for you:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=hard brexit,no deal brexit

It's increasingly obvious that rational discussion is impossible with ceptimus. His emotional investment in Brexit means that anything that doesn't support his prejudices is Trumpian "fake news" or "Project Fear".

 

[catsmate]

Dr Liam Fox as finally realised that the UK doesn't have enough trade negotiators to make the easiest trade deals in history.

The response is to set up a 2-year training course for people of all ages and experience levels. The salary is "up to £30k" so it's aimed at school leavers or people with similar salary aspirations.

Of course anyone with an ounce of sense would have set up this scheme the moment that Article 50 was triggered so we would have trained - albeit completely inexperienced - negotiators now and not two years into a post no-deal Brexit.

Up against highly experienced trade negotiation teams from China, India, Brazil, the US with decades of experience under their belts we'll have a couple of experienced negotiators supported by kids just out of school. You literally could not make it up

Oh sweet jeebus. Someone is stupid enough to think you can turn a just-adult with no tertiary education, no skills and no experience into a negotiator of major trade deals in two years.?
Oh it's the idiot Fox...

 

[catsmate]

How much longer do we have to accept the burden of disproving a ridiculous assertion?

For as long as people let ceptimus get away with this diversion. It distracts from his repeated failures to support his claims and assertions, so it's handy for him.