Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Politics For All

@PoliticsForAlI
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4h

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| NEW: Macron has been humiliated as EU countries have refused to join his fishing war against Britain

 

Ah so Johnson goes on holiday.. as a report comes out about a **** load of failings overseen by…. Him, to be fair it could be a coincidence

 

Whatever happened to Ellers?

 

Marbella i think with Carrie

 

Turns out the great deal is a **** deal. Who knew?

 

Give over, its a great deal is this **** deal, the guy who negotiated it said so.

 

Channel migrants: French politicians call on UK to overhaul 'lax' labour laws to deter crossings

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COMMENTS
By Alasdair Sandford with AFP • Updated: 12/10/2021 - 13:19

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Migrants stand aboard an RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat after being rescued crossing the English channel at Dungeness, England, September 7, 2021. - Copyright BEN

French politicians hit back at the UK and at their own government on Monday as a surge in the number of migrants trying to cross the English Channel in small boats heightened tensions between the two countries.

Politicians from the region have criticised the UK for "lax" labour laws they say attract illegal migration, also calling into question the 2003 accord between France and Britain aimed at tackling the migrant crisis along the coast.

"I think it's time for the British government to change its internal law, to make it harder and harder for illegal migrants to get a job in the UK, to get a house in the UK, to live in communities in the UK," Pierre-Henri Dumont, French MP for the Calais area, told Euronews.




"Why all these migrants are in Calais is not because they want to stay in Calais, it's because they want to go to the UK because it's easier to be illegal in the UK than anywhere else in Europe."

Describing the British as "cynical" and "sarcastic", the mayor of Calais called on President Macron to bring together various authorities to take a tougher approach and get to the root of the problem.

"The British are cynical, sarcastic, unable to reform their Labour Code because it is there, the problem, and it is they, in fact, who largely promote illegal work and therefore reinforce the pull factor," Natacha Bouchart told FranceInfo Radio.

"it is time to break the agreement of more than twenty years ago and put the ins and outs back on the table, since they are making no effort."

• France rescues more than 340 UK-bound migrants in English Channel

Damien Carême, an MEP from Europe Ecology - The Greens and a former mayor of Grande Synthe near Dunkirk, described the British prime minister as untrustworthy.

"(Brexit negotiator) Michel Barnier had the confidence of Europe, and of the United Kingdom, but it is clear that it was impossible to trust Boris Johnson," he told FranceInfo. "There is a populist withdrawal under Boris Johnson which suggests that discussion is impossible."

Watch the interview with French MP Pierre-Henri Dumont below:

Carême also called for the Le Touquet treaty to be ditched: "This Le Touquet treaty is no more glorious than the treaty between Europe and Turkey to keep refugees at home".

Such calls have long been made by Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region, who has now put his name forward as a candidate for the right-wing Les Républicains party in next year's presidential election.

The British government says more than 1,100 were intercepted by UK controls at sea on Friday and Saturday. According to the UK news agency the Press Association, 17,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in 2021, twice the number for 2020.

The UK has said that money promised to France to help prevent the crossings will be paid in the coming weeks.

• UK to pay France €62.7 million to curb Channel migration
• Britain's plan to send migrant boats back to France 'inhumane' and 'unworkable', critics say

In July, the two countries signed a deal, under which Britain would pay France €63 million, to increase patrols to clamp down on illegal migration across the Channel. But UK Home Secretary (interior minister) Priti Patel recently threatened to withhold the funding unless more people were stopped from reaching the British coast.

In September France said it would not tolerate "financial blackmail", following reports that British border gurads were to receive training on how to turn back migrant boats before they reached the English coast.

Even before the weekend's crossings, UK-French relations were further strained on Friday when Sky News broadcast images showing about twenty migrants taking to sea in broad daylight from the coastline south of Calais, in front of stationary police officers.

The French authorities say thousands of migrants are intercepted by French patrols as they try to cross to England. At the weekend, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called on the UK to pay up the money owed under the agreement.

"We haven't seen the financial colour of the €63 million," he said. "However, additional gendarmes have been hired and technological resources have been bought to guard this border."

The UK has far fewer asylum requests than France. It received 29,456 asylum applications in 2020, according to the House of Commons Library. Of EU countries, European Union figures say Germany had 102,500 applicants, Spain had 86,400, with France in third receiving 81,800.

 

sounds like the quota has been filled

UK is institutionally racist according to senior black scientists after Royal Society report

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The report found that 6.5 per cent of black people drop out of research, in comparison to only 3.8 per cent of white students.

Andrew Milligan
Dr Mark Richards, a researcher at Imperial College said a new Royal Society report shows 'there is an element of racism or structural bias'
George McMillanDIGITAL PRODUCER
PUBLISHED Tuesday 12 October 2021 - 10:41 LAST UPDATED Tuesday 12 October 2021 - 10:43
Research culture in the UK is “institutionally racist” according to senior black scientists who have claimed of all the professor posts, they hold only 3.5%.

Manchester University geoscience professor Christopher Jackson told the BBC he believes there is discrimination against black academics in publicly-funded research.

He explained how he believes white scientists think they're so "clever, liberal and progressive' that they don't recognise that 'racism and racists persist within those networks too."

"They are not engaging to give black people the support they need to navigate a system which is often quite alien to them and to tell you about some of the unspoken norms and hidden laws that are in there"

Dr Mark Richards, a researcher at Imperial College said a new Royal Society report shows "there is an element of racism or structural bias."

The report found that 6.5 per cent of black people drop out of research, in comparison to only 3.8 per cent of white students.

It also found that black people account for 1.7 per cent of research staff, in contrast to making up 3.4 per cent of the UK population.

Dr Addy Adelaine, who led an investigation into the UK Research and Innovation agency, called the findings a "kick in the teeth", warning of "closed doors" that leave "no way in to raise the issues that will affect you in your community."

The report found a majority of the £4.3million funding went to white and Asian scientists.

Professor Sir Adrian Smith, the President of the Royal Society who published the report, said "We have global challenges to meet. We need the very best talent and people to be involved.

He added that it was "completely unacceptable".

He also raised concerns over unconscious racism, suggesting professors may be choosing individuals similar to themselves.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Jazmin Scarlett, a student in volcanology said "I feel almost paranoia that it is because of the colour of my skin. Because the feedback I constantly get has been: 'Your CV is great, you are great in the interview, but there's someone that's got that little bit extra' - and those people have been white.'

"My credentials and my CV and experience for the position are great, but why is it that someone else has been hired instead of me?"

 

Not often I agree with the French, but...

 

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Old Holborn®

@Holbornlolz
·
Oct 11

Awkward. Ben and Jerry's co-founders interview on Israeli boycott https://youtu.be/7DoywTGsWfs via
@YouTube

 

So it turns out that the brilliant oven-ready deal was actually a **** deal and that Johnson and Frost knew this full well when they signed it. Still, it was good enough to win an 80-seat majority and no harm done because they had no intention of abiding by it anyway. This revelation should be a big help in negotiating trade deals around the world.

 

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Net Zero Watch

@NetZeroWatch
· 7h
Who would have thought? China’s plan to build more coal-fired plants deals blow to UK’s Cop26 ambitions
https://theguardian.com/environment...ants-uk-cop26-climate-summit-global-phase-out

China’s plan to build more coal-fired plants deals blow to UK’s Cop26 ambitions
Renewed commitment to coal could scupper Britain’s aim to secure global phase-out pact at climate summit

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Engineers operating at the coal dock in Tianjin port, China. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Rob Davies
@ByRobDavies
Tue 12 Oct 2021 19.32 BST




China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, in a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions for securing a global agreement on phasing out coal at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

In a statement after a meeting of Beijing’s National Energy Commission, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, stressed the importance of regular energy supply, after swathes of the country were plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts that hit factories and homes.



While China has published plans to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, the statement hinted that the energy crisis had led the Communist party to rethink the timing of this ambition, with a new “phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions”.

China has previously set out plans to be carbon neutral by 2060, with emissions peaking by 2030, a goal analysts say would involve shutting 600 coal-fired power plants. President Xi Jinping has also pledged to stop building coal plants abroad.

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What is Cop26 and why does it matter? The complete guide
Read more
“Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built and and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” the statement said.

“Given the predominant place of coal in the country’s energy and resource endowment, it is important to optimise the layout for the coal production capacity, build advanced coal-fired power plants as appropriate in line with development needs, and continue to phase out outdated coal plants in an orderly fashion. Domestic oil and gas exploration will be intensified.”

Q&A
What is Cop26?
Show
Beijing’s ambitions for carbon dioxide output are seen as critical in the push to achieve global net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and fulfil the 2015 Paris agreement to limit average temperature rises to 1.5C. But Li said Beijing wanted to gather new evidence on when its peak emissions would be reached.

The statement said he had commissioned “in-depth studies and calculations in light of the recent handling of electricity and coal supply strains, to put forward a phased timetable and roadmap for peaking carbon emissions”.

Li’s rhetoric follows reports that China has ordered its two top coal-producing regions, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, to combat the country’s power supply crisis.

Beijing’s renewed embrace of coal – apparently at odds with Xi’s state climate ambitions – are likely to cause alarm in the run-up to Cop26.

Alok Sharma, the UK’s president-designate of Cop26, has said an agreement to phase out coal power is a key aim of the summit.

George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre and the author ofRed Flags: Why Xi’s China Is in Jeopardy, said Beijing had been forced to revise its plans in the face of the reality of economic problems and power outages.

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“China has stumbled into an energy crisis in much the same way the rest of us have done but it is exacerbated by the fact that the grid and the electricity companies are subject to price controls and cannot pass the prices on,” he said. “Many have decided to shut down production and they have had a lot of power outages for households and companies. This has come at a very bad moment in China, on top of [collapsed property giant] Evergrande and the property bust.


“They have basically cycled back on their coal policy. With Cop26 coming up, there is a lot of talk about how committed the Chinese are to net zero goals by 2050 but this is another setback. It has happened before, when the economy was weaker during the pandemic, that they relaxed restrictions on coal capacity. Now they are doing it again.

“If the new relaxations last a few weeks, it might not matter so much. If it lasts into 2022 as China strives to avoid bad economic outcomes ahead of its key CCP 20th party congress in November 2022, climate policy optimists might have to rethink for sure.”

Concern about China’s coal ambitions come on the eve of the publication of the International Energy Agency’s annual world energy outlook, which says much greater action is required globally if the world is to reach net zero by 2050.

The IEA said its hopes of speeding up the clean energy transition to meet the target involved a “rapid” reduction in the amount of coal burned to produce electricity.

 

Brexit: Most NI checks on British goods to be scrapped
Published
8 minutes ago

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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,The protocol avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland
Most checks on food products being shipped to, and remaining in, Northern Ireland from Great Britain will be scrapped under new proposals from the EU.

That is according to Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who said it was a "major effort" to address the post-Brexit trade rules between GB and Northern Ireland.

The UK says the rules impose too many barriers.

The proposals will be published later.

Mr Coveney said this was a "major intervention" by Brussels to deal with the concerns raised about the Northern Ireland Protocol.

"Meats, whether they're chilled meats or other food stuffs, can come into Northern Ireland and if they're staying in Northern Ireland then the checks that are currently required will not be required," he said.


This would be dependent on proper sharing of data and proper labelling, he added.

At the start of the year, the new post-Brexit arrangement - known as the Northern Ireland Protocol - was introduced to help prevent checks along the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

It involves keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods - but this, in turn, creates a new trade border with Great Britain. Unionists say this undermines their place in the UK.


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Media caption,Watch the lorry journey from England to NI
Both sides seems to agree - though to differing degrees - that the protocol is posing some difficulties for people and businesses in Northern Ireland.

Some firms in Northern Ireland affected by the protocol say supply chains are being disrupted, and while there may be opportunities, there are also some problems.

Eamon McKey, of County Down-based sandwich maker Deli Lites, said more people were now shopping locally, and Deli Lites had won accounts previously serviced by competitors in Great Britain.


But the sandwich maker had also lost some of its British suppliers, he added.

Talks between the EU and UK on the new proposals, likely to go on for several weeks, are the first step in trying to reach a better arrangement.

'Major intervention'
Speaking on Irish broadcaster RTÉ, Mr Coveney said the EU will publish four papers focusing on the supply of medicines, trade in food products into Northern Ireland from Britain, customs, and governance and oversight.

"This is a major intervention by the European Commission and it is a very genuine and honest effort to try and resolve and provide answers for the concerns that many people in Northern Ireland had expressed as regards the protocol and its implementation," he said.

• Why is there a Brexit row over a European court?
• The Northern Ireland Protocol explained
• Katya Adler: Will talks lead to truce or trade war?
• 'We do see opportunities, but have had problems'

On medicines, Mr Coveney said the EU wanted to make it "crystal clear" that there would be no barriers to medicines coming into Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the UK.

"The EU is effectively willing to change EU law to solve this problem," the minister said.


European Commission Vice-President Maros Šefčovič has said the new proposals for the protocol would be "very far-reaching" and that he hoped they would be seen as such.

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The EU is offering tweaks to the existing protocol and a relaxation of how it's implemented.

That's too little for Lord Frost who has tabled an alternative version which would strip out references to the continued application of EU law in Northern Ireland and eliminate the role of the European Court of Justice.

The problem is that's too much for the EU to stomach.

The two sides will see if they can bridge the difference during a few weeks of intense negotiations. Which means the next crunch point is likely to be in mid-November.

If things go badly that could lead to the UK triggering a clause which allows each side to unilaterally suspend parts of it in an emergency.

That could lead to retaliation by the EU, potentially including new tariffs on British imports. Something you could describe as a trade war.

The protocol seems to be causing genuine problems for trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and within Northern Ireland but the UK government also knows that standing up for the union against the EU is good politics.

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On Tuesday, the UK's Brexit minister Lord Frost proposed plans for an entirely new protocol to replace the existing one.

As part of these plans, the UK government wants to reverse its previous agreement on the oversight role of the European Court of Justice, which is the EU's highest court.

The agreement states that the ECJ has jurisdiction to rule on matters of EU law in Northern Ireland - so for example, if there was a dispute around complying with applicable EU law, the EU could take the UK to the ECJ.

In a speech to diplomats in Portugal on Tuesday, Lord Frost described his new legal text as "a better way forward".

He said his proposed text would amend the Northern Ireland Protocol and support the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Coveney said very few people in Northern Ireland had raised the ECJ as being an issue.

"For whatever reason, the British government has decided to make the ECJ their central issue this week, in advance of Maros Šefčovič bringing forward these four papers," the minister said.

• Why is there a Brexit row over a European court?
• UK protocol demands could break relations - Coveney
• Remove court's oversight of NI Protocol - Frost

The EU has repeatedly said the ECJ must have the final say on any matters of EU law in the protocol.

It is expected that the two sides will engage in intense talks during November.

On Wednesday, Lord Frost said the protocol was harming the peace process in Northern Ireland and that it undermined the Good Friday Agreement.

Media caption,Lord Frost says the NI Protocol is “not being implemented with the necessary sensitivity" and it had to be "redone".
"The problem with the protocol at the moment is that EU law, with the European Court of Justice as the enforcer, is applied in Northern Ireland without any democratic process," Lord Frost said.

"That has to change if we are to find governance arrangements people can live with."

But Mr Coveney said he could not see how the ECJ could be removed as arbiter of the rules of the EU single market.

"All that's being proposed is that the rules of the EU single market, as they apply in the protocol arrangements, that those rules are adjudicated by the ECJ, as adjudicator of last resort," he said.

It comes as Ireland's deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, warned governments doing trade deals with the UK that it is a nation that "doesn't necessarily keep its word".

He made the comment after Dominic Cummings suggested the UK had always intended to tear up the Brexit deal it signed with the EU in 2019.

A government spokesperson said the UK had "gone to great lengths to implement the protocol".

"Despite this, severe disruption - economic, political and societal - has taken place," the spokesperson said and added that without significant change "these problems will worsen."

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IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,Some unionists in Northern Ireland have held street protests against the protocol
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party - Northern Ireland's largest unionist party - has warned that it may quit Stormont if its demands over the protocol are not met.

He has claimed pressure from unionists had led the EU to table its new proposals.

What are Northern Ireland politicians saying?
DUP MP Sammy Wilson said that central to any EU proposal was that "Northern Ireland is free from being part of the European single market" and that laws governing Northern Ireland should be made in the UK, rather than Brussels.

"The deal-breaker for us will be has sovereignty been fully restored? Are we fully part of the United Kingdom or are we half in the EU and half out of the United Kingdom when it comes to law making and the adjudication on those laws," he said.

"That's how we will judge this."

Declan Kearney, one of Sinn Féin's Northern Ireland assembly members, said the protocol must work and what was needed now was certainty and stability.

He said no local business leaders had raised issues about the ECJ during Mr Šefčovič's recent visit to Northern Ireland.

"This is a red herring. It's a distraction. What we need to do now is listen very carefully to the proposals coming forward from the European Commission," he said.

Claire Hanna, MP with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), said the EU intended to bring forward a "package of solutions that most people would be delighted" to see.

She said the EU had done what it had promised to do.

"They have listened to the concerns of businesses and people who were hurt by the symbolic dimension of borders and they have moved quite substantially," added Ms Hanna.

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister said the issue was about sovereignty, and accused the EU of a "land grab" over Northern Ireland.

"They have annexed Northern Ireland under their ambit and removed us as an integral part of the United Kingdom," he said.

 

Brexit: Irish deputy PM Leo Varadkar warns nations UK might not keep its word
Published
14 minutes ago
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IMAGE SOURCE,PA MEDIA
Image caption,Boris Johnson fought the 2019 election on a promise to get a deal with Brussels
Ireland's deputy PM has warned governments doing trade deals with the UK that it is a nation that "doesn't necessarily keep its word".

Leo Varadkar made the comment after Dominic Cummings suggested the UK had always intended to tear up the Brexit deal it signed with the EU in 2019.

Boris Johnson's ex-adviser said the plan had been to "ditch the bits we didn't like" after winning power.

The government said the deal had not worked as intended and must be changed.

And it accused the EU of failing to protect the Good Friday peace agreement in its implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

• EU to offer fewer NI border checks on British goods
• EU to table new proposals for NI Protocol
• Will NI protocol talks lead to truce or trade war?

Mr Johnson fought the 2019 election on a "Get Brexit done" platform.

During the campaign, he repeatedly claimed the withdrawal agreement he had negotiated with Brussels - including the Northern Ireland Protocol - was a "great" deal that was "oven ready".

The UK now wants to change the deal to allow goods to circulate more freely between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

EU officials are travelling to London later to present their proposals for the border - but they are unwilling to rewrite the protocol and their proposals are unlikely to satisfy Brexit minister Lord Frost, who laid out the UK's plans for an entirely new protocol on Tuesday.


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Mr Cummings - who has turned against Mr Johnson since being removed from Downing Street at the end of 2020 - claims the prime minister never understood what the withdrawal agreement really meant.

Media caption,Leo Varadkar casts doubt on the trustworthiness of the British government.
He tweeted: "What I've said does NOT mean 'the PM was lying in General Election 2019', he never had a scoobydoo [a clue] what the deal he signed meant.

"He never understood what leaving Customs Union meant until November 2020."


'Babbling'
When the prime minister did finally comprehend, said Mr Cummings, "he was babbling 'I'd never have signed it if I'd understood it' (but that WAS a lie)".

Asked if Mr Cummings was correct in his assessment, Lord Frost said: "We all understood extremely well what the deal meant, it delivered on democracy, took the UK out of the EU whole and entire, and it was a very good deal."

But he said it now had to be changed because it was "undermining the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, not supporting it".

"The problem with the protocol at the moment is that EU law, with the European Court of Justice as the enforcer, is applied in Northern Ireland without any democratic process. That has to change if we are to find governance arrangements people can live with," he said.

Media caption,Lord Frost says the NI Protocol is “not being implemented with the necessary sensitivity" and it has to be "redone".
In a statement, the UK government said the protocol needed "significant change" to avoid further severe "economic, political and societal" disruption in Northern Ireland and to make it "sustainable for the future".

Mr Cummings - the former Vote Leave campaign chief - said that when Boris Johnson entered Downing Street in 2019, the country was facing the "worst constitutional crisis in a century" with much of what he called the "deep state" angling for "Brino" [Brexit in name only] or a second referendum.


"So we wriggled through with best option we could and intended to get the trolley [his nickname for Boris Johnson] to ditch bits we didn't like after whacking [Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn. We prioritised," he said.

'Alarming'
In July this year, Mr Cummings told the BBC's Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg the Irish government had also wanted to "fudge things" and "it suited both sides to sign up to something that was not what either side had really wanted and which punted difficult questions into the future".

Media caption,The Brexit divorce deal was "inherently self-contradictory in various ways" says the PM's former chief adviser.
In his latest tweets, Mr Cummings dismissed suggestions that abandoning elements of the deal would mean breaking international law.

"Our priorities meant e.g. getting Brexit done is 10,000 times more important than lawyers yapping re international law in negotiations with people who break international law all the time," he said.

Mr Varadkar told RTE television: "I hope Dominic Cummings is speaking for himself and not for the British government.

"But those comments are very alarming because that would indicate that this is a government, an administration, that acted in bad faith and that message needs to be heard around the world.

"If the British government doesn't honour its agreements, it doesn't adhere to treaties it signs, that must apply to everyone else too.

"At the moment they're going around the world, they're trying to negotiate new trade agreements...

"Surely the message must go out to all countries around the world that this is a British government that doesn't necessarily keep its word and doesn't necessarily honour the agreements it makes.

"And you shouldn't make any agreements with them until such time as you're confident that they keep their promises, and honour things, for example, like the protocol."

The Taoiseach (Ireland's PM) Micheál Martin has given his backing to EU proposals for changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, but he urged both sides to work "in good faith" and focus on "addressing disruption in trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain".

Theresa May's former chief of staff, Lord Gavin Barwell, has, meanwhile, warned the UK's proposal for changing the Northern Ireland protocol has "no chance of success and is going to do even further damage to our relationship with our nearest neighbours".

"My problem is if you agree something and fight an election saying what a fantastic deal this is - and then almost immediately afterwards you start to try and unpick the thing - the danger is the people you negotiating with think you didn't agree it in good faith in first place, and that makes it much more challenging when you try to renegotiate it," he told an Institute for Government event.

He said he did not like the current Northern Ireland Protocol - but argued that the UK government had to meet the EU "half way".

 

Its the EU’s fault they should have known Johnson is full of **** and doesn’t uphold his commitments.. Bloody corrupt EU expecting contracts to be honoured.

 

Leave the bloke alone, hes busy painting a picture on his holidays ffs