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Brexit

Started by vandermolen, May 01, 2017, 10:14:35 PM

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steve ridgway

Two out of three cheers for Theresa May ;).

vandermolen

Quote from: Marc on December 12, 2018, 07:23:38 PM
Brexit is bad for the UK and for the EU.
Still, the soft Brexit that May and the EU have negociated is probably the least bad deal at the moment.

IMHO, there is no room for victory feelings of whatever kind for the opposition, at whatever moment. Labour is as divided as the Conservative Party. And Corbyn, like May, is just another opportunistic weather vane.

I agree that a soft Brexit is probably the best we can hope for now although Remain is my preferred option. The Daily Mirror headline today is 'Lame Duck for Christmas'.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

The new erato

Quote from: vandermolen on December 12, 2018, 10:03:58 PM
I agree that a soft Brexit is probably the best we can hope for now although Remain is my preferred option. The Daily Mirror headline today is 'Lame Duck for Christmas'.
Well, IMO the UK being the lame duck.....

steve ridgway

Quote from: vandermolen on December 12, 2018, 10:03:58 PM
I agree that a soft Brexit is probably the best we can hope for now although Remain is my preferred option. The Daily Mirror headline today is 'Lame Duck for Christmas'.

I don't know what conspiracies or hidden agendas might be in progress but I wonder if Labour took the stance that a General Election in which they promised in their manifesto to Remain if elected, then won, could they claim that had effectively been a second referendum?

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: 2dogs on December 13, 2018, 04:00:59 AM
I don't know what conspiracies or hidden agendas might be in progress but I wonder if Labour took the stance that a General Election in which they promised in their manifesto to Remain if elected, then won, could they claim that had effectively been a second referendum?

Possibly, but a general election still looks unlikely. After yesterday's farce, the only way I can see an election happening is if the ERG are willing to vote against May if/when Labour tables a motion of no confidence, which is most likely to happen when her deal is voted down in January. It's not impossible, as they can't launch another Tory leadership challenge for a year, so a no confidence vote in the Commons is their only way of getting rid of her, but I'd be surprised if enough of them would be willing to do that. It's also unlikely the DUP would vote against the government in such a vote.

If we don't get an election then the options are no deal, Canada, Norway or a referendum. There is a huge majority against no deal in the Commons, so most MPs will do everything they can to stop that happening. There's no majority for a Canada-type deal either. Whether a Norway-type deal could pass is doubtful, but even if it could, it's by no means certain that the EFTA countries would want us to join at all, and they certainly won't allow us to use EFTA as a temporary stop gap before we bugger off for something else.

Since there's no majority for no deal or Canada, and Norway looks unlikely, that just leaves a referendum as the most likely option once May's deal is rejected in the Commons. A remain win would be far from guaranteed, so it's very risky, but it may be the only option left.



steve ridgway

It does sound risky but your analysis makes sense so if that happens I just hope the actual facts can be properly presented this time.

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: 2dogs on December 13, 2018, 05:55:34 AM
It does sound risky but your analysis makes sense so if that happens I just hope the actual facts can be properly presented this time.

That's the bit that worries me.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Can someone explain to a yankee what the "backstop" is and why it is an issue.

Mr. Minnow

#788
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 13, 2018, 08:00:07 AM
Can someone explain to a yankee what the "backstop" is and why it is an issue.

It's complicated, but it boils down to this: it's essentially an insurance policy designed to ensure that under no circumstances will there be a return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. At present the UK and Ireland are both EU members so both operate under the same rules, i.e. the EU customs union and single market, so no checks between the two are required. That obviously changes when (if?) the UK leaves the EU: after Brexit, the UK and Ireland will no longer be part of the same customs jurisdiction, or the same system of rules and regulations on issues such as food standards, product specifications, etc.. There would therefore need to be border checks to ensure that goods moving from one jurisdiction to the other meet the other's standards. That would cause economic disruption and would also be hugely damaging to the Good Friday Agreement.

It's hoped that the border problem will be dealt with by a future EU-UK trade agreement. However, there is no guarantee that this will happen, especially as the Tory Brexiters want to diverge from EU rules significantly. If no such agreement is reached by the end of the transition period (31st December 2020) - and virtually no-one thinks an agreement can be reached by then - the backstop kicks in.

The backstop is controversial because it specifies that in order to solve the border problem in the absence of a trade agreement, the whole of the UK would stay in a "single customs territory" with the EU - the EU customs union in all but name. Northern Ireland would also stay aligned to some single market regulations in order to facilitate the maintenance of cross border trade. The Tory Brexiters want out of both the customs union and single market, so they hate the backstop. The DUP, which is propping up the Tories in the Commons, objects to anything which sees Northern Ireland treated differently to the rest of the UK, and since it's only Northern Ireland which would stay aligned to parts of the single market, they're not happy either: if NI is still part of elements of the single market while the rest of the UK is not, there would have to be checks on goods entering NI from the rest of the UK to check that they meet single market rules, which as far as the DUP and many Tories are concerned amounts to creating a border in the Irish sea (it's for that reason that the UK rejected the EU's original plan, that of keeping only NI in the customs union).

The Tory Brexiters and the DUP are demanding that the backstop is either time-limited, or is changed to allow the UK to leave it unilaterally. That is completely unacceptable to Ireland and the EU, since the backstop is supposed to prevent a hard border in all circumstances. Clearly, if it's time-limited or the UK could walk away from it whenever it liked, it would not cover all circumstances and would hence not really be a backstop at all.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

#789
Quote from: Mr. Minnow on December 13, 2018, 11:23:48 AM
It's complicated, ...

Oh lord, and you Brits were thinking about all that when you went to the referendum?

We had it easy. Make America Great Again, yes or no.

Fine print: when exactly was American "Great?" Are we rolling back to 1789?

Mr. Minnow

Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 13, 2018, 01:05:43 PM
Oh lord, and you Brits were thinking about all that when you went to the referendum?

Well, some of us knew the Irish border would cause all sorts of problems in the event of a vote to leave, but it was barely mentioned during the campaign, and on the rare occasions it did come up, the Brexiters dismissed any concerns expressed as scaremongering. A few pages back in this thread I posted a quote from an interview with Farage in which he admitted not having given the Irish border a moment's thought.

QuoteWe had it easy. Make America Great Again, yes or no.

Substitute "Take Back Control" for "Make America Great Again" and you pretty much have the level of debate during the referendum campaign. Both phrases worked because they meant sod all, and hence could be taken to mean whatever people wanted them to mean.


Marc

Quote from: Mr. Minnow on December 13, 2018, 03:27:37 PM
[...]
Substitute "Take Back Control" for "Make America Great Again" and you pretty much have the level of debate during the referendum campaign. Both phrases worked because they meant sod all, and hence could be taken to mean whatever people wanted them to mean.

Indeed.
Like NO STRAIGHT BANANAS!

Now that May keeps on returning with 'nothing' from Brussels, a second referendum, if it's gonna happen in 2019, will turn out to be an ever greater victory for the Brexiteers (I fear).
"Sod all!"

vandermolen

David 'I don't quit' Cameron is responsible for this shambles in my opinion.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Marc

Quote from: vandermolen on December 13, 2018, 11:21:44 PM
David 'I don't quit' Cameron is responsible for this shambles in my opinion.

Yep.

Quote from: Marc on November 15, 2018, 02:59:12 AM
[...]
The idiot Cameron caused some major maham, with his great referendum.
Gambling with other people's money and jobs, completely misjudging the odds, all of it leading to nothing but useless fights.

And his successor(s) just fighting for power... again without any idea about other people's money and jobs. Hurrah!

But I guess mr. Cameron doesn't feel sorry for anything, and still thinks that the referendum was a good idea.

vandermolen

Quote from: Marc on December 13, 2018, 11:49:27 PM
Yep.

I'm sure that his forthcoming memoirs will be a massive exercise in self-justification.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Marc

Quote from: vandermolen on December 14, 2018, 12:19:08 AM
I'm sure that his forthcoming memoirs will be a massive exercise in self-justification.

Yep! :laugh:

(Just like us, in a way. ;))

vandermolen

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

JBS

Another question from a Yank that is only partially relevant

What is the exact meaning of "backbencher".  I always understood it to mean an MP who was no a member of the government or party leadership. 
Am I wrong in that?
Jacob of the House of Reesmogg sparked my question, when I heard him on NPR demanding that May resign because one third of the Tory MPs voted against her.  He said that this third was a "majority of the backbenchers".   
If you do the math, that means that roughly a third of Tory MPs are not backbenchers (Frontbenchers, perhaps), which seems to be too many.  But I don't know enough to be sure.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

André

The definition of backbencher is correct. The number of MPs with some responsibilities may vary considerably. For example, most cabinet ministers have a right arm MP, variously called assistant, attaché or some other denomination. In the UK House of Commons, it's a Parliamentary Secretary. They are not members of the cabinet, but are considered junior ministers. Their number cannot exceed 36. They get paid more because of their additional duties in parliament. Backbencher's responsibilities are normally restricted to the riding they represent.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Quote from: André on December 14, 2018, 10:16:33 AM...Backbencher's responsibilities are normally restricted to the riding they represent.

"Riding," that's one of those "Britishisms" that sounds charming to a Yankee ear. My favourite is the fact that in Canada prosecutors "lay charges" while American prosecutors "press charges." American prosecutors are so much more obnoxious, judging by the sound of it. :)