Brexit: Now What? Part IV

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Craig B said:
Even in the event you postulate, there is no solution. What you have done isn't find a solution, but remove the need to find one - by removing the problem that requires it. That is a good idea, but perhaps it's no longer practicable, unfortunately.
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I genuinely don't see why not.

I think the desires of both the primary political parties are a million miles out of synch with the desires of an electorate that previously was ignorant of what being part of europe meant and is now so much less ignorant that the country as a whole has realised it was hoodwinked by Nigel, Boris, Aaron and Christopher the Maltese Kiwi.

I don't think there are sufficient numbers of the electorate that want to leave europe now. Only those that are blatant racists or who deny reality completely are actually in favour of it.

Unfortunately the sociopathic four have managed to convince everyone that a u-turn is political suicide. I really don't think it is, I just think our cabinet is stupid.
 
Craig B said:
Even in the event you postulate, there is no solution. What you have done isn't find a solution, but remove the need to find one - by removing the problem that requires it. That is a good idea, but perhaps it's no longer practicable, unfortunately.
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Well to be honest there are also various flavours or so-called BINO which would also fit the bill.

If we left the EU, but stayed in the EEA for example.

The government's insistence that we leave the customs union is causing this particular set of problems.
 
There's always room for fudge in political discussions. Barnier has said that border checks will be required but May has never ruled out border checks - only that the UK won't install a hard border. If the EU wants to build a hard border on its own side, I've said all along that the UK won't stop them. That would result in a similar situation to the Andorra borders with France and Spain. Of course, it will cost the EU a great deal more than the Andorra borders do, as there are very few roads in and out of Andorra. If the EU do build such borders they will be in violation of the Good Friday agreement - but I suppose they will work out some fudge for that if they ever decide to build such a hard border.

UK government has also talked about having security cameras stationed near the border - if it suits the EU to do so they will be able to interpret such cameras as providing "border checks."
 
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As the weeks pass, so the ideas get sillier. One circulating among certain Brexiters at the moment is that the UK could gain the upper hand over the Ireland issue by simply leaving the Irish border open after Brexit, charging no tariffs and making no inspections, and dare the EU to be the first to put up customs posts.

Would this actually work in the real world? No, for many reasons. At the most it is likely to be a crude blame-shifting exercise aimed at getting the British public to point the finger at the Irish when the border inevitably goes up.

For a post-Brexit UK to charge no tariffs on imports from the EU would be a massive breach of the rules of the World Trade Organization, which operates on a “most-favoured nation” (MFN) principle of equal treatment.
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It continues with an explanation of giving every other WTO nation zero tarrifs would would destroy a few UK industries, especially livestock and cars and would run the risk of NI being a backdoor into the EU.

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I have run the idea of a one-way UK-Ireland open frontier past some border and tax experts in Brussels. The answer was a resounding thumbs-down, for the reasons stated above.

If would be extraordinary if even this beleaguered government genuinely tried the crude and ignorant bluff of threatening to leave the border open. To the extent that anyone should take it seriously, it is as an exercise in pre-emptive blame-shifting with regard to British public opinion rather than a coherent plan.
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GlennB said:
Paywall. Can you summarise?
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Thanks to someone on this board for saying how to get around the paywall..

If you follow the link, you see the name of the article - in this case "More delusions on the Irish border".

Search for that in your favourite internet search engine.

Follow the link to the FT article and - Viola ! :v:

It seems that direct links don't work, but following one from a search engine does - go figga :confused:
 
Captain_Swoop said:
John Redwood saying

"Once out of the EU Customs Union the UK could unilaterally cut all tariffs on products we don't grow for ourselves or could offer to do so in return for some free trade response from those who would benefit. Inside, we can't do this as the others don't agree w/ this strategy."

So it seems he wants the UK outside of the WTO as well as the EU.
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Not sure I follow the logic here - as a WTO member outside the EU, the UK could set its own minimum tariffs by product? eg no tariffs on bananas?
 
The Don said:
Thanks to someone on this board for saying how to get around the paywall..

If you follow the link, you see the name of the article - in this case "More delusions on the Irish border".

Search for that in your favourite internet search engine.

Follow the link to the FT article and - Viola ! :v:

It seems that direct links don't work, but following one from a search engine does - go figga :confused:
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Pay walled hidden articles don't get high rankings...
 
GlennB said:
Well, this could get interesting:

"UK negotiators have been warned that the EU draft withdrawal agreement will stipulate that Northern Ireland will, in effect, remain in the customs union and single market after Brexit to avoid a hard border." The Guardian

I need more coffee before I can even begin to think about the consequences of that.
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The elegant solution is to kick the problem back to voters in NI, and hold a border poll.
 
Thanks, Wudang :)

Quoted from that, for posterity:

"If would be extraordinary if even this beleaguered government genuinely tried the crude and ignorant bluff of threatening to leave the border open. To the extent that anyone should take it seriously, it is as an exercise in pre-emptive blame-shifting with regard to British public opinion rather than a coherent plan. "

What a shambles.
 
It's exactly the sort of thing you can read almost every day in the Daily Remainer. Despite being a nominally British newspaper it has consistently supported the EU position at every turn.
 
I said it before (maybe not in this thread) but Miracle Mike would be a better PM
 
jimbob said:
I said it before (maybe not in this thread) but Miracle Mike would be a better PM
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I'd take Tony, John or even, may my tongue turn black for saying so, even Maggie* of this bunch of shambles.




*Well, maybe not
 
ceptimus said:
It's exactly the sort of thing you can read almost every day in the Daily Remainer. Despite being a nominally British newspaper it has consistently supported the EU position at every turn.
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Isn't it just possible that it's a reasonable analysis of one aspect of a process that virtually none of the voters, back at the referendum, were even aware might crop up?

The UK voted in the dark - uninformed - and will now have to pay.

Yet you feel OK about hand-waving it away by labelling the paper "The Daily Remainer"?
 
3point14 said:
I'd take Tony, John or even, may my tongue turn black for saying so, even Maggie* of this bunch of shambles.




*Well, maybe not
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I'd take Maggie, either as she was in 1990, or as she is now.

BTW:

Miracle Mike:

MikeTheHeadlessChicken.jpg
 
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Miles Jupp On the News Quiz

"I think it's going to be OK - we just need to break this country's dependence on drink, food, and shelter"
 
GlennB said:
Well, this could get interesting:

"UK negotiators have been warned that the EU draft withdrawal agreement will stipulate that Northern Ireland will, in effect, remain in the customs union and single market after Brexit to avoid a hard border." The Guardian

I need more coffee before I can even begin to think about the consequences of that.
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If the UK wants to keep all that EU riffraff out, doesn't that just kick the can down the road to somewhere else?

Sooner or later they're gonna need a hard border to protect them from all those undesirables wanting to sneak in and pick their crops for them.

(We're gonna have to build a wall, it seems. :()
 
ceptimus said:
There's always room for fudge in political discussions. Barnier has said that border checks will be required but May has never ruled out border checks - only that the UK won't install a hard border.

<snip>
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You ignored this the last time I asked you, but I'm gonna try again anyway.

If you want to prevent the free movement of EU members across UK borders, you are gonna have to establish a hard border to do customs checks somewhere.

If EU citizens can travel into Ireland without hindrance, and there is no hard border by the UK at the border to Northern Ireland, then what will stop all those EU undesirables from just deplaning at the nearest airport in Ireland and walking into Northern Ireland, where they will presumably be faced with exactly no impediment to continuing the rest of the way?

Isn't preventing the free travel of those EU lowlifes one of the main planks in the Brexit platform?
 
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