Neverending Story 3: The Ongoing Brexit Thread

Go on...

 

What a muppet......

I think we can trust these people to secure a deal pic.twitter.com/ITwH2laanU

— Dion Fanning (@dionfanning) January 30, 2019

1090894502477344768 is not a valid tweet id

 

Of course, if I'm honest, I also have to admit that, (for perfectly valid reasons), we also voted for invoking A50 without making sure we were involved in the process.

But at that stage the tories had a majority and it wasn't until AFTER that that position would have been viable.

It's been like a perfect storm of cock-ups, bad decision and misjudgements

 

But I come back to the same point... NONE of this was inevitable after the referendum. That's why all this crap of 'cheese submarines'* and the like is totally misleading. There were, in fact, several versions of leaving the EU that were relatively decent, even if we accept that none of them were as good as what we'd already got.

The other thing is the majority of the other options had been offered, (sometimes, in terms), by the EU itself

The problem is that this silly cow just wouldn't entertain them because she was more concerned with keeping the right wing of her party on board than the interests of the country.

This is the sort of thing on which an agreement could have been done and probably without too many problems.

https://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Common-Market-2.0.pdf



* I'm not having a pop at you here @American Brummie ... I'm just saying.

 

It's a free country until May declares martial law in April, so have a pop at me all you like until then

 

Wasn't some movie made about this? I think this was in the pre-story and it ends with some masked dude bombing Parliament.

 

That reminds me of an old SNL (or is it S&L) skit where Will Farrell was W. Bush, and he had just returned from a summit, and he was going out of his way to correctly pronounce the most complicated names of all the world leaders. If you remember those times, and how he couldn't pronounce/remember anyone's name, it was pretty funny.

 

Interestingly the common travel area between north and south of Ireland predates our entry into the EU by several decades...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area#Freedom_of_movement

Of course, this is precisely why all this stuff about 'controlling our borders' is so much horsehshit, especially in relation to Ireland.

The only bloody time we had border controls in the way many people think of them, was when people were going around 'popping a cap in a dude's arse', (as the yanks say).

Unfortunately people today seem to think facts are very much an optional extra

 

It’s “poppin’” and we don’t say arse..

 

C'mon, you know for a fact that Ireland isn't sending their best. Some of those guys have calves the size of cantaloupes! And wasn't George Best already in Northern Ireland anyway?

 

Well, excuse me all over the place

 

Except this is not a fact. The Common Travel Area has only ever applied to people, not to goods. There was a Customs border on the island of Ireland between 1923 and 1993 when it was abolished by the Single European Act. Attacks on customs infrastructure were a common feature of IRA and other campaign and all paramilitaries benefited from smuggling and would if the border were to return. We may, for example, cite this incident as evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newry_Customs_Office_Bomb. We might note that this happened in Newry which is a slight bit away from the border, as some of the hard Brexiteers are suggesting.

 

Fair comment.

But people's understanding about how the border worked is wrong is the main point I was making. I didn't travel to NI, (or cross the border), until about 1974 when 'the troubles' had already started.

But according to an old mate of mine from Dublin, (born in the 1920's as it happens), it WAS possible to cross the border on back roads before then as the customs points were only on selected roads. According to him it was the troubles that created the need for ALL roads to have checks in place. Unfortunately people think of a border in a way that's not realistic... like it's an unbroken wall, similar to donny tiny hands version.

 

@Borruma

This reflects what I experienced when I drove back and forth between Switzerland and France back in the mid to late 90's...



Actually, where I used to cross, (just east of St. Evian), there wasn't even THAT level of interference in the journey.


Edit: Thinking about it the only time I ever got stopped was when myself and the other 4 occupants of the vehicle we recreating this scene from 'Wayne's World' when Bohemian Rhapsody' came on the radio...



On that occasion we were stopped by a police car that was travelling behind, unbeknownst to the driver who wasn't paying attention, (me! ). and two dudes got out, one of whom appeared to have what my brother thought was a Swiss made version of an M16.

But that was several miles inside Switzerland. I'm guessing they saw the GB sticker and thought, 'this lot look well dodgy'

 

Yeah, sure... I was mainly just making the point that borders sometimes don't work the way people think they do. Like they're the old 'Checkpoint Charlie' border crossing. That's simply NOT the case in many places.

Like you say, goods trucks are meant to drive along different roads where customs have a facility

As we've discussed before, all airfreight works on the basis of duties paid after a border is crossed because that was probably done at 30,000ft and, indeed, sales taxes, (like VAT), aren't paid WHEN the goods cross the border and that happens across the Schengen area and in the UK/Ireland.

The point is that these things happen by AGREEMENT. You can't just unilaterally decide to do it on your own. THAT'S why this WTO brexit fantasy is a total nonsense... it ignores the fact that it relies on the OTHER side to work with you and, why the hell WOULD they... bearing in mind they don't want us to leave in the first damned place.

Talking about fantasy, I've been reading about this...



Rees-Mogg, Farage AND Paterson, AKA 'The Full Dipshit' :

The other interesting about this is that it was the UK that was a prime mover to WRITE most of these rules, including brexiteers like Peter Lilley, and yet it seems it's still news to them

 

Oooo. I saw that this morning and was going to come here and ask everyone's opinion on it. It's certainly curious that the Brexiteers seem to think that they can unilaterally invoke article 24 following an NDB. I'm also not sure why the EU would agree to article 24 if there is no deal? Seems odd that there would be a deal following a no deal.

 

Well, you could do that but the thing is they WOULD 'change things' as would others who have negotiated a trade deal with the EU on the basis we were part of it.

That's the other part of the narrative that's being missed here, (including by some people who try and portray us as some form of supplicant TO the EU it has to be said). That the EXISTING trade deals the EU has in place can ALL be brought into question.

IOW that the pretence is made that others will do do trade deals with us just AFTER we've just stepped OUT of our part of the EU's trade deal which they'd already negotiated.

Some might quite like that to happen, (if our producers are competition for theirs), but a lot WON'T and they're unlikely to forget it when it comes time to negotiate a deal with us.

I mean, the whole THING is thrown up in the air, INCLUDING the EU's other deals. For some things we're a non-issue but in some things we're a large slice of the EU's available market.

I seem to remember we were something like 40% of the total EU market in a particular foodstuff... but now I say that I can't remember what it was