Ignore that propaganda. It is not Irish nationalists, it is Irish Republicans. I am an Irish Nationalist but not an Irish Republican. There is a huge difference. Nobody from Britain is allowed on the island of Ireland for now irrespective of their nationality. That will change soon as they reckon the new strain is already here. I would expect the travel ban will be lifted on 31st December. What the propaganda doesn't say is that Irish people living in the UK are also not allowed to travel here. The only people who managed to travel in the past few days were Irish nationals who live here but were repatriated as they were either on business or temporarily visiting the UK. As regards the border down the Irish sea, the Irish government insisted on that in order that the peace process could continue and in order that the all-Ireland economy is not affected. As Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU and Arlene Foster and the DUP wanted NI to leave, the propaganda is saying they scored an own goal by achieving what so many years of the troubles couldn't. The fact remains, NI is still a part of the UK until such time as a majority of the people there vote to change. They remain part of the Customs Union and single market as we have a huge all-Ireland agri-food sector so standards have to be aligned. If the open border was closed again, the predictions were that this could restart the troubles - according to the Chief Constable of the PSNI. To summarise, ordinary Irish people are in no way triumphalist in what the agreement has achieved. I hope that helps some people understand. Good day for the whole continent but it is especially a good day for the UK and Ireland. Enjoy a peaceful, safe Christmas and Prosperous New Year.
Thanks Maggie. Boris truly is the son of God. Wait a minute, if No Deal would have been the EU's fault, then Barnier and Von Der Leyen must be the true Messiahs. Hallelujah!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-deal-details-what-was-agreed-in-full-7knwn6z8t Good and balanced summary of who wins in the different areas in the deal. Merry Christmas one and all.
The bad news seems to be we aren’t quite as independent as perhaps some people expected. The good news is the people who were never negatively impacted whatsoever by EU membership but craved ‘sovereignty’ for the sake of it and never grasped the most basic details over the last five years can just be told it’s a really amazing deal, wave a little Union Jack and won’t know any different anyway. Rejoice.
Here you go. I feel like Kiwi! --- Brexit deal details explained: what was agreed and what it means for the UK What will the agreement mean for the future with our largest neighbours and trading partner, ask Bruno Waterfield and Oliver Wright Running to around 2,000 pages, the deal agreed between Britain and the EU will form the bedrock of our future relationship for many years to come. But what exactly has been agreed across trade, fishing, security and other areas of cooperation? Who has given ground and in which areas? And what will the deal mean for millions of people whose lives and livelihoods are interconnected with that of our largest neighbours and trading partner? Level playing field One of the unique aspects of the agreement, reflecting Britain’s former EU membership, its economic size and close geographical proximity is the so-called level playing field mechanism. It commits both the UK and EU to maintain equivalent and common standards on social, labour and environment regulation. However, the deal does not force the UK to match every new EU regulation like-for-like and standards are not defined in reference to EU law, which was a key demand of the British. Instead the deal contains something called a “rebalancing clause” that is designed to resolve disputes between the two sides. This novel element has two parts and has not been used in free trade treaties before. The first is that if one side believes that the actions of the other have distorted fair competition then they can apply to a neutral arbitration committee to impose limited tariffs to redress the balance of unfair competition and “level the playing field”. The second element allows either side to trigger a review of the entire trade agreement, which could again allow tariffs to be imposed if either the UK or the EU has diverged in such a systemic way that the overall agreement is unbalanced. From the UK side this allows Boris Johnson to insist that the UK has retained full sovereign rights over UK law and cannot be bound into the EU. For Brussels it provides a guarantee that the UK cannot continue to have full market access to the EU unless it keeps up with future European rules and regulations. The treaty will be reviewed in 2024. please log in to view this image “State aid” or subsidy control The UK has agreed, in a concession, to abide by common principles on how subsidy control or state aid should work. The EU has also dropped its original demand for the “application of Union law” on “state aid” meaning there is no role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to arbitrate disputes. The UK accepted the principle of an independent competition agency that will oversee and interpret these common principles. But the government has won the right to have, if it chooses, a subsidy control regime based on tests that need evidence that state aid has caused an actual competitive distortion. The EU operates a test based on a subsidy’s likely effect and a political process of prior notification and negotiation. European companies will be able to seek redress in British courts. If either side believes subsidies are causing “significant” trade distortion and leading to job losses, then interim or unilateral measures such as tariffs are possible without going through the dispute mechanism. If arbitration then found that a party had taken remedial interim measures wrongly then compensation or remedies would be available to compensate the other side. please log in to view this image Non-regression “clause” Britain has agreed to non-regression to standards that exist on December 31, 2020. The government can move away from EU law as of January 1 as long as overall common standards are not undercut. This is important for the government as it avoids retaining EU law on the statute book. For a regression dispute to be triggered, regulatory divergence must be shown to have an impact on trade. A special “panel of experts” will assess disputes over divergence and if there is an impact on trade, the rebalancing mechanism can introduce remedies including tariffs. If there is a clear significant distortion in trade, either party can take interim measures pending arbitration. please log in to view this image Governance/enforcement The government initially refused to accept binding independent arbitration and dispute settlement but conceded when the EU dropped demands for the ECJ or “Union law” to play a role in policing the agreement. A partnership council will oversee the implementation of the agreement. It will be composed of representatives from both the EU and the UK and will be the first port of call for any disputes. Under the new rules, if the council cannot resolve the issue disputes will be settled by binding arbitration whose decision can empower either side to impose limited tariffs if the other violates the terms of the agreement in a way that distorts trade. The arbitration committee is likely to be made up of three people appointed by each side with those six individuals collectively choosing an independent chairperson. Importantly such “enforcement” can result in “cross suspension” which could lead to trade tariffs on British exports being imposed after a dispute over fishing rights or energy connections. This represents another concession by the government. The arbitration panels, and particularly the chairman or woman in charge, could become as well known or as notorious as European commissioners as the new face of bureaucrats and jurists who make rulings that touch on sovereignty and its consequences in terms of trade tariffs. please log in to view this image Mutual recognition of product safety standards This is an arrangement that lowers the costs of product safety testing by allowing each side to accept each other’s standards (and testing). This is particularly important for regulated products such as medicines, electrical equipment or chemicals. The UK had asked for broad recognition of conformity assessments that would allow UK-based notified bodies to certify products to EU standards. However, the EU rejected this and it is not in the final agreement. This will push up the costs for UK exporters who will have to get the products checked twice — once in the UK and once in the EU — if they want to sell their products in both markets. please log in to view this image Mutual recognition of qualifications At the moment if you are qualified as a doctor, lawyer or accountant in the UK you can work in any of the other 27 member states as your UK qualifications are automatically recognised. However, despite a British wish for this to continue the EU rejected it meaning it will be much harder for UK citizens to work in the EU. please log in to view this image Checks on food and agricultural products This is an issue of significant concern to farmers and the food industry who wanted to reduce the number of safety checks (known as SPS checks) on UK food exports to the EU. The UK side was looking for a regime in which the EU recognised UK standards as being equivalent to theirs. However, this has not been agreed. This is likely to impose higher costs for the transfer of animal products from the UK to the EU and vice versa. please log in to view this image Fishing: part one The fisheries agreement comes in two parts, a transition and then future arrangements. There are two elements to the fisheries agreement where the government made major last-minute concessions. The UK will allow the EU to keep 75 per cent of the value of the fish caught in British waters, with just a quarter returned to British fishermen over a five-and-a-half year period. The transition will cushion the cuts for European fishermen to reductions of 4.5 per cent a year, translating into tiny annual losses of less than 1.5 per cent for French fishermen. The stock returned to the UK will be worth an extra €163 million to the British fishing industry by the end of a transition period. After the transition in the summer of 2026, a new regime begins. please log in to view this image Fishing: part two After the transition, the UK becomes sovereign over access to its waters with annual fishing negotiations that could cut EU fish catches further. After June 2026, the UK can cut quotas or exclude boats to maintain control of territorial waters in the six to 12 nautical mile zone. A compensation or “rebalancing” mechanism built into the disputes procedure would allow French or other fishermen to be repaid for the loss of their fish via tariffs on fishing products or other goods or by locking British boats out of EU waters. The sum would be proportional to the size of the catch that was lost. Given that the value of all French fish caught in British waters is €171 million (£154 million), the cost to UK exports worth €294 billion a year would be tiny. This allows both the British and the French to declare victory. The government can say that it has sovereignty from 2025. France can say that fishing rights are linked to trade access. please log in to view this image Road transport British lorries and haulage firms will continue to be able to operate freely in the EU delivering goods across the Continent. However, the UK has agreed to follow detailed EU rules on things like the amount of hours that drivers are allowed to work in order to secure this access. please log in to view this image Trade in goods Both sides met their declared objective of zero tariffs, fees, charge or quotas for manufactured and agricultural goods. The deal includes regulatory co-operation and removing technical barriers to trade that go beyond existing WTO agreements on labelling, standardisation, suppliers declarations. The are five sectoral annexes on chemicals, motor vehicles, medicines, wine and organic aimed at cutting technical barriers to trade. Remedies within the free-trade agreement rather than overarching level playing field are WTO consistent and do not include the EU’s “green box” agricultural subsidies. please log in to view this image Rules of origin and “cumulation” Rules of origin will be largely based on the EU’s free trade agreements with Canada and Japan which set strict limits on the percentage of a product that can be made outside UK and still be called “British” in order to be exported tariff-free to the EU. However, there will be separate rules for batteries and electric vehicles, aluminium and chocolate. This was a last-minute EU concession to the UK, which was particularly worried about the effects of rules of origin on the British car manufacturing industry. As most electric batteries are not made in the UK, without this exception the future of plants such as Nissan in Sunderland would have been put into doubt. Such rules on origin will not affect parts made in other EU countries under an agreement known as “cumulation” of materials and processing. This will allow EU inputs and processing to be counted as UK input in UK products exported to the EU, and vice versa. please log in to view this image Customs simplification There will be mutual recognition of trusted traders schemes in place from January 1, so eligible businesses, mainly large companies with complex European supply chains, face fewer controls at the border. please log in to view this image Scientific cooperation The agreement paves the way for the UK to continue to participate in the Horizon programme of scientific co-operation — but also to contribute funds to secure this access. The UK will also continue to take part and benefit from the Copernicus satellite earth observation programme. please log in to view this image Education cooperation The UK will no longer take part in the EU-wide Erasmus university exchange programme. While the two sides did discuss participation the UK decided to opt out, claiming the costs were disproportionately high on the taxpayer. Instead it will create a new “Turing” scheme allowing UK students to apply to study at universities worldwide. please log in to view this image Healthcare The deal will allow a scheme similar to the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) programme. This means a UK national who is in an EU member state for a holiday will have their necessary healthcare needs met for the period of their stay. please log in to view this image Financial services There is little in the treaty covering financial services — despite a desire from the UK side for it to be included. Instead the EU is expected to make a series of “equivalence” rulings before the end of the year to allow the City of London some access to EU markets. However, this access will be greatly reduced compared to single-market membership. Indeed the agreement does not include the level of regulatory co-operation that exists in the EU’s free-trade agreement with Japan. please log in to view this image Extradition There will be a new extradition treaty along the lines of an existing one with Norway with judicial safeguards based on proportionality and guarantees that suspects will not face long periods of pretrial detention. There will be co-operation on asset freezing and confiscation. please log in to view this image Databases The UK will be able to exchange information from the EU’s criminal records database, ECRIS, without oversight of the ECJ. There will also be exchanges of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration data. The UK will have to follow EU rules on the exchange of air passenger name records. Both the EU and UK will share real-time alerts on missing or wanted people. The UK will take part in Europol and Eurojust based on thir- country precedent but with extra access and ability to second officers. please log in to view this image Governance and European Convention of Human Rights The enforcement structure is linked into the overarching arbitration structure with no automatic suspension of termination from one side unless serious concerns on data prediction or human rights. The ECJ is not involved. Co-operation is not contingent, as the EU first demanded, on Britain’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights. please log in to view this image Termination clauses There will not be automatic suspension or termination of the agreement apart from a reciprocal ability to suspend. [All the way towards the UK - had to delete image as not allowed more than 20 in a post]
Thanks for that - as a layman, it seems common sense finally came through, concessions from both sides, but trade will flow freely (for now, at least) with little to no tarriffs. Hope the more stubborm Brexiteers are happy - not so sure this is what the ERG and co were after...
Trade in goods will flow freely. Important distinction given our economy is much more dependent on services than goods. The loss on financial services, on our side, for example outweighs many of the wins. The balance is a matter of judgement of course.
For me I am just glad it's all over and we can concentrate on other things. Agree there will be some that call him a 'sell-out' and some will call him a 'hero'. However he delivered what was on the tin. Now is the time for healing. Too many arguments with friends and family over a political decision. It couldn't go on. At the end of the day our country has amazing people and we will always do okay. here's to 2021 .
Yep. Certainly feels like a closure on a big chapter. Questions like the one I pose on the impact on our financial services could decade decades to answer definitivey. Now time to focus on other things. I can't think of any major issues the Govt need to focus on now though? Oh yeah... Sigh.
The deal seems about right to me. In an ideal world I would have preferred a deal that meant even more independence from the EU. However, as I said after the vote, the referendum was close enough to try to get a deal that would take some remainers along with it. Hardliners won't go along with any kind of brexit obviously. We were so closely entwined with the EU that untangling from their tentacles was always going to be (purposely on their part) virtually impossible. Although we have obviously compromised on some things, as have the EU, imo we have enough independence and sovereignty from the deal to say that I got a lot of what I voted for. I hope we can all move on now, although I realise that some (one has already on here) will claim that nothing has changed except a worse deal. From a leave perspective, it's good enough for me.
Splendid isolation … or just a bit-part player? Europe reacts to British ‘victory’ As Brussels officials scrutinise the detail, political pundits from Berlin to Madrid see a poor outlook for the UK Emma Graham-Harrison Sun 27 Dec 2020 01.05 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Questions about how the full details of the Brexit deal would be received, and warnings of the negotiations that will continue after its implementation, tempered widespread relief in Europe that a last-ditch agreement had been reached. Many commentators also wondered how Britain would negotiate the reality of life outside the European Union after years of unsettled argument even within the pro-Brexit camp about the country’s strategic direction. Le Monde said the country was now facing a dilemma from over half a century ago. “The United Kingdom finds itself once again facing a question that was never resolved after 1945: its place in the world,” wrote Philippe Bernard. “Its like Back to the Future, from the 1950s. “While Germany and France launched themselves into building Europe, the British refused to join this project, too limited for their ambitions and initiated by two countries they considered, unlike themselves, losers of the war.” On the day after Christmas, officials in Brussels and the capitals of the EU states began scrutinising more than 1,000 pages that made up the deal, as did people whose livelihood may be on the line. “The only certainty today is that we need to find, during the transition period, more deals within the deal,” said Frédéric Cuvillier, mayor of the northern French city of Boulogne-sur-Mer, which has a large fishing industry. 1 radio. Despite challenges from him and others unhappy with the agreement, it is widely expected that the deal will be “provisionally applied” at the end of the year by the EU in order to avoid a no-deal outcome, with MEPs voting later in January. The House of Commons will be recalled and hold a vote on the new treaty on 30 December. But Britain and Europe should expect years of continued wrangling over trade, warned Björn Finke in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Those who think the Brexit drama comes to an end with this deal will be bitterly disappointed,” he wrote. “In the coming years and decades, there will be plenty of reasons to call on the arbitration bodies envisioned in the deal, likely under the threat of tariffs. The drama will carry on. Sadly.” The triumphalism that marked Boris Johnson’s presentation of the deal at home was largely absent in Europe, perhaps because many there felt that Britain had not emerged with the clear victory its leader claimed. That may be one of the few opinions they share with hardline Brexiters in Britain, who are now poring over the deal to decide if they will back it. please log in to view this image Pro-Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage speaks at a rally – hardline Brexiters in Britain may not back the deal. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer French Europe minister Clément Beaune said it was a “good agreement” and stressed that the EU had not accepted a deal “at all costs”. Irish PM Micheál Martin welcomed it as representing the “least bad version of Brexit possible”. Unbound by diplomatic niceties, France’s Libération newspaper was more blunt, describing the agreement as offering only “a facade of commercial freedom for the UK”, while committing London to maintaining standards on the environment, workers’ rights and climate change. From Spain to Germany, there was praise for the role European unity played in achieving what Süddeutsche Zeitung also considered a “relatively advantageous deal”. “It averts tariffs for the goods trade, which is especially important for the EU since its states export a lot more to Great Britain than they import. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, has a trade surplus in services. But here the deal barely lessens the complications that come with an end of EU membership.” For Spain’s El País, there was a particular historic significance in how Germany and France shrugged off last-minute attempts by Britain to fracture their solidarity, including refusing Johnson’s request for individual phone calls with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel at a critical point in negotiations. “Bells are tolling for the ‘divide and conquer’ tactics London used for centuries to block the emergence of a dominant European power,” the paper said. Der Spiegel’sMarkus Becker suggested that the realities of Brexit would deal a heavy blow to the British exceptionalism that helped drive the departure from the EU. “Many politicians and citizens in Great Britain do not perceive themselves to be Europeans among many other Europeans,” he said. “And Great Britain does not think of itself as one European country among many, but a very special or even chosen one. “Of course, not all Brits think like that. But sadly they are not the ones currently in charge. That is why their country’s departure from the EU is not an unreasonable development. “The EU will be freer to take the steps it needs to take in order to assert itself against the USA and China – because it is running out of time to do so. Great Britain, on the other hand, might need Brexit to realise how small the bit part it will play on the world stage will really be.” Some on the continent expressed hope that, with Brexit complete, the ideological impetus for anti-European Union sentiment would dissipate, and a rebuilding of close ties could commence. José Ignacio Torreblanca, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argued that Brexit marks not only Britain’s lowest ebb, but the “most damaging, and irreversible” outcome of the waves of populist sentiment that swept through many western democracies in 2016. Writing in El Mundo, he painted a picture of an out-of-touch Britain obsessed by past glories while the rest of the world got to grips with 5G and artificial intelligence: “While the US is shaking off Trump’s 2016 win, to restore their role, influence and image in the rest of the world, Britain is consumed by the eccentric plan of the conservative elite to return to exerting [global] influence from a position of splendid isolation.”
They’re just jealous of all our sovereignty. Anyway it’s time to move on and pretend it never happened and definitely not the time to compare what we now have to what we had before. We love a good gaslighting.
I was one of the millions opposed to Brexit. I’ve seen nothing here to change my mind Will Hutton please log in to view this image Once the scale of our loss sinks in, the UK might appreciate the European project Sun 27 Dec 2020 03.30 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email The dream is over. On New Year’s Day, the curtain comes down on Britain’s long engagement with Europe’s noblest and greatest effort at collaboration and liberty. Our freedoms are to be slashed and an immense bureaucracy imposed on us. Next Friday Britons will lose the freedom to live, work, and trade in goods and services as they choose throughout the EU. Once natural rights are to be torched. Our goods exporters, previously able to treat Europe as their home market, will have their goods painstakingly checked and controlled at EU borders, and VAT and excise duties paid immediately. More than 200m customs declarations will have to be filled in as lorries wait in new vast holding pens disfiguring our land. Erasmus programme. Britain is out of the European Investment Bank, which lent billions to the depressed parts of the UK; also out of Euratom, Europol and Eurojust. We are out of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, crucial in the fight against climate change and fundamental to the economics of wind farms and new nuclear power stations alike. We are to lose all automatic access to EU databases. The economic cost will be huge. To limit trade to this degree is to put a ball and chain around British business. Worse, the capacity of the British government to turn British regulations into EU regulations and, via the EU’s heft, then global regulations, as it has done so cleverly, for example, over specialist chemicals and mobile phone networks, has disappeared. No British company will be able to follow Vodafone to global pre-eminence. Inward investment, which boomed under EU membership, and which has already fallen by four fifths since the referendum, will remain depressed. On top, our horizons shrink, along with our influence. Cooperation with the EU over defence, foreign policy and external security is to cease at the request of the UK government. Thus, not only is Britain outside the forum where European states construct their alliances, thereby disabling itself from the great European game of balance of power politics it has played so well, it has chosen to make itself a Little Sir Echo in a world of mighty superpowers – “a nice little fellow… but always so far away”, as the song has it. The trade and cooperation agreement with the EU, hailed so triumphantly by our clownish booster-in-chief, Prince Boris Johnson of the English nationalist party, is thus an exercise in limiting the damage – and, as was inevitable, almost completely on the EU’s terms. The EU has kept the UK in its orbit with a newly established partnership council to govern the agreement, ensuring that it has the firepower to launch crucifying trade sanctions if the UK dares to undermine the single market and customs union or depart from its regulatory standards. We are to be a rule taker. In fairness, the booster-in-chief has rescued some scraps from the wreckage. As was certain, given the starting point of complete regulatory and trade alignment, this is a trade agreement with no quotas and no tariffs, winning the right for British exporters to self-certify that they comply with EU regulations; also there is no automatic obligation for the UK to follow any EU regulatory changes. All of which goes significantly beyond World Trade Organization terms. Even the EU concedes that this is unprecedented, if very much in its interests, enjoying a £97 billion annual surplus in its goods exports to the UK. What’s more, both sides have made pragmatic compromises to keep flowing the preponderance of EU goods exported to the UK. Customs formalities will be a little lighter, with both sides recognising that traders can win the right to be trusted to complete the required customs forms rather than everyone being stopped and checked. Road haulage schedules will be free within limits. But on services, where UK exporters earn a vital £18 billion surplus with the EU, the EU has made almost no compromises at all. Britain’s overall trading position will thus be further weakened. Brexit. Britain will not love becoming Europe’s “nice little fellow”, with a stagnating economy and a mendicant relationship with its EU “partner” – so the obvious future to become more European. The narrow majority in the working population who voted 51% to 49% to remain in the EU in 2016 will grow year by year over the 2020s – so that when the incoming Labour government of 2029, led by one of the MPs who saw the future and voted against the treaty this week, holds its promised referendum on EU membership, the elderly Europhobe voters will this time be outvoted. Nigel Farage was wrong when he said the war was over – and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, right when she said, quoting TS Eliot, that in every end there is a beginning. Brexit is to be a staging post in Britain’s eventually becoming a full-hearted member of the EU, so regaining our lost rights and freedoms – and ending, as Johnson rightly remarked, our hitherto vexed relationship with Europe. His historic mission will be to have finally settled the issue – but in a way wholly opposite to the one he now imagines.
Thanks for that, Raving. Personally, I'm pleased with the deal. I think it will work well for trade. I also think that the EU states are highly dependent on the UK (particularly London) for financial services and products. I don't see the EU being able to replicate this, probably at all, but certainly not in the short term. The UK must now focus on providing services to the real economic growth area, namely Asia, and with that in mind, the Turing scheme is ideal. We must look further than the borders of Europe. It's also good to see the UK is already putting its own high standards into law - eg on the transportation of livestock to avoid cruel practices that exist within the EU. We will be a positive influence, going forward
I think it's a better deal than most moderate brexit supporters could of hoped for. German press calling it a big UK victory. Not sure that's right, but it's clearly not a sell out either.
