Off Topic Politics Thread

From Hansard, Boris Johnson: "I do not think we can seriously contemplate delaying article 50, because after two and a half years of procrastination, the public would accuse us in this place of deliberately setting out to frustrate their wishes. They would conclude that there was some plot by the deep state to kill Brexit." (my emphasis)

Spending a bit too much time with Steve Bannon, I think, Boris.

Vin

 

No SM and no CU. In what way does that differ from No Deal? You've said you don't support No Deal yet you're straying awful close to the edge.

Please give a short crude answer.

Vin

 

Isn't it odd that Remainers complain that the QT audience is picked as pro-Brexit at the same time that Leavers complain that the audience is hand-picked to be Anti-Brexit?

Ditto regarding the whole slant of the BBC. Both sides complaining.

Take your Leave or Remain glasses off and look impartially. Maybe, just maybe, if you take a step back, there's a conclusion to be drawn there.

Vin

 

Because "no deal" implies no FTA. It is possible to have a FTA without SM and CU. I would've preferred to leave the EU but have a FTA and thus be free to do other deals around the world.

And yes I know people will go on about years and year for deals with the EU however we are already aligned so we are much closer than non EU countries already. It takes years for any country to do FTAs with the EU because of the EU and its 27(8) voices. Saying it takes that long for the EU to do trade deals with others (US, Canada etc) doesn't mean it would take us as long because we are one voice not 27(8) and thus we only ask ourselves if we are happy with it and not our 26(7) partners.

 

Actually thats reversed. The EU has to take into account all of the second countries trade partners/deals, as that create millions of possible loop holes and methods of bypassing EU law which multinationals can exploit. Then they have to align their trade policies on the various goods and services. Thats the main reason EU doesn't allow individual trade deals in the first place. Might be quicker for us as we already follow EU law so can just keep following it.

 

We'll still have checks on pretty much everything coming in and going out of the country. Food exports will be hammered thanks to those checks.

Yes those tedious experts telling us it takes years. Perhaps they know better than the ERG "it'll all work out, don't worry your pretty little head" crowd. And, unlike in an intra-EU negotiation, there will not be the willingness to concede where required to sort out a deal quickly. By the time negotiations start we'll be an external entity with an economy in distress, so the EU will do its best to get the best deal for themselves (cue an attack on the evil EU for negotiating with a third party to get the best possible deal with them. That's all we'll be, a third party. We've benefited hugely from the heft of the EU in the past, now's the time to see it from the other side). Time and financial pressure is on their side (8% of EU exports come to the UK, 44% of UK exports go to the EU). I'm looking forward to the Tory party disappearing up its own ****hole when the Spanish ask for Gibraltar back as a condition of agreeing to the trade deal. Still, didn't Michael Howard suggest sending out some gunboats if they mentioned it?

By the way, can I assume that you're aware that, if we leave, then Canada (for example) can't sign a free trade deal with the UK without the EU's say-so? Or Japan? Or anyone with whom the EU already has a trade deal?

What a ****ing triumph!

Vin

 

I thought the exact opposite - like, “where did they get that mob of baying idiots cheering such an asinine statement?”

 

I’m still waiting for those, that voted leave to stop freedom of movement, to realise that immigrants from outside the EU is always greater.
Perhaps we should divorce the whole world.

 

And that, in a nutshell, is why this whole sorry farce is doomed to failure; it's the modern world many Brexiters want to detach from, in the hope of returning to an imaginary Britain of "cricket on the village green and old ladies cycling to communion in the mist".

An idyll that never existed in the first place, of course.

 

Theresa to call a snap election?

 

Exactly. Last year net immigration from the EU was 74,000, the lowest on record, while net immigration from the rest of the world was 248,000, the highest since 2004. Please could somebody explain how leaving the EU reduces immigration?

 

Heavens above. UKIP think Farage is a fifth columnist. Soon they'll be accusing him of taking money from Soros.



Vin

 

No, it takes years. Here's the thing about free trade agreements: none of them are wholly free. They involve a whole lot of minutae concerning quotas and exceptions and subsidies and protections, none of which have existed between the EU and the UK for decades. It would actually be easier, in many respects, to transform a preexisting trade deal with a country into a free trade pact than to begin with whole cloth, which is essentially what the UK is doing.

You also are not one voice. You are a country of often-competing interests, as any nation-state is, which will need to be balanced in any negotiation. Winning the concession of protection for one industry will come at the cost for another; negotiation isn't merely with the opposed number, in this case the EU, but also with domestic trade organizations and interest groups. This is why it takes so long to hammer out agreements, and as Vin says, the UK will have zero leverage in such given that any delay will be crippling to the UK and a mild inconvenience to the EU. You will not get a good deal. You will get the deal the EU gives you.

 

Trade deals is dead easy.





To be fair he did say "up to". My prediction? Zero. That's "up to forty". Also, note the unironic use of "believe me".

Vin

 

Surely even this blind, incompetent government have to realise that revoking Article 50 is now the only option left to them?

 

Yeah, it turns out that the EU trade deals also were predicated on a whole bunch of trade-offs that don't apply to just the UK, and thus cannot just be "rolled over". It's staggering that people in positions of power actually believed these things.

 

On this day two years ago:




Vin

 

Just watching London Tonight; £65 per adult, £35 per child to apply for settled status. From people who have been paying tax for years, and who were told by this government that nothing has changed regarding their status.

**** off, Theresa. Just **** off now, please.

 

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Think the Dutch have it right .....