Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)

Peregrinus · 13-02-2019 11:01am

Leroy42 wrote: »

The Ford news will be waved away as simply another failing brand blaming Brexit for poor sales, diesel, battery cars moving to China etc.

And in part they have a point in that these companies are always reviewing things and looking for alternatives.

But, it is far easier to stay where you are and make improvements rather than setting everything up from scratch some place else. What Brexit has done, undoubtedly, is given these companies added negatives to the UK argument. Previously, they would be prepared to put up with some additional costs because of location, ease of access to the EU market, language, law etc etc. But Brexit is tearing that all up and in effect UK is removing a major bonus card they had in their hand.

What Brexit has done is guaranteed that these companies would move.

Decisions of this kind will always be multi-factorial.

But Brexit will always be one of the factors. And it will be a negative factor. Faced with the choice of closing, e.g., the Halewood transmission plant or the Bordeaux transmission plant, Brexit makes it likely that Ford will choose to claose the the Halewood transmission plant.

Akrasia · 13-02-2019 11:02am

Enzokk wrote: »

Here is an interesting article about how on Facebook there is still ads being bought by companies that has no history and their funding is not known at all. These ads are targeting no-deal or a hard Brexit.

Dark money is pushing for a no-deal Brexit. Who is behind it?

The author concludes you will not see action as the current system actually benefits those parties that have money or rich donors.

If you search for 'Britain's future' you get a registered charity number 1159291 which allows you to see it's board of trustees and it's income and expenditure. The interesting thing is that Britain's Future appears to be a pro-immigrant and anti racist organisation.

Is this organisation deliberately co-opting the name of a legitimate charity who is active in the debate on brexit in order to swim under the radar?

It's extremely suspicious

downcow · 13-02-2019 11:10am

Sam Russell wrote: »

It has all been sorted with quite a lot of cooperation. It is called the Withdrawal Agreement.

This was negotiated over the last two years, and agreed by both sides. Why should there be any further negotiations?

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

Peregrinus · 13-02-2019 11:11am

Akrasia wrote: »

If you search for 'Britain's future' you get a registered charity number 1159291 which allows you to see it's board of trustees and it's income and expenditure. The interesting thing is that Britain's Future appears to be a pro-immigrant and anti racist organisation . . .

That's British Future. Different bunch of lads.

VinLieger · 13-02-2019 11:15am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

Which is why weve been saying this whole time the UK doesnt know what it wants.

At the very start of this the EU met, agreed and the 27 signed off on what it wanted and the negotiation team have been working within these boundaries the entire time. Nothing has changed in the EUs stance in the past 2 and a half years thanks to this.

If the UK didnt know what it wanted or what the negotiation team should be agreeing to why the hell did they trigger article 50, start this process and walk into negotiations in the first place?

54and56 · 13-02-2019 11:17am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

In the hypothesis you have presented the first thing the UK Govt should do before agreeing to even discuss anything is to insist that the EU sack all of the representatives they had previously sent to negotiate on their behalf as that team agreed a deal without ensuring they had the people they were representing onside. Why waste time negotiating with the same incompetent representatives for a 2nd time?

Fool me once.........

seamus · 13-02-2019 11:21am

downcow wrote: »

Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely

They did.

It's called the backstop. It ties the EU and the UK together. For both our benefit.

downcow · 13-02-2019 11:23am

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

In the hypothesis you have presented the first thing the UK Govt should do before agreeing to even discuss anything is to insist that the EU sack all of the representatives they had previously sent to negotiate on their behalf as that team agreed a deal without ensuring they had the people they were representing onside. Why waste time negotiating with the same incompetent representatives for a 2nd time?

Fool me once.........

Yeah, I can agree with that

prawnsambo · 13-02-2019 11:24am

Peregrinus wrote: »

That's British Future. Different bunch of lads.

Yeah. 'Britain's Future' doesn't rank too high on searches. The domain britainsfuture.co.uk was registered last March and is using Cloudflare for its website and Office 365 for its email server. No expense spared there. No registrant information is available, so it's shrouded in secrecy.

CelticRambler · 13-02-2019 11:26am

downcow wrote: »

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

There you go again ... :rolleyes: Re-read what you've written, then think about it this way:
1. An EU negotiating team did go into negotiations knowing that a deal had to be brought back the the EU27 for ratification.
2. to be ratified by 27 different countries
3. each of those 27 different countries has their own internal politics to think about, including several anti-EU parties - some of whom are in government
4. The negotiators came back with a plan that leaves the EU beholden to the UK "indefinitely" - because the backstop works both ways - and guess what? There is unanimous agreement among 27 different countries, with all their differences of opinion, that this is the best possible deal under the circumstances.
5 And on the other side of the table, you have one country, with one parliament that can't even come up with one agreed position within the governing party.

So yeah, we'll accept you saying "tough, accept it". :P You voted to Leave, and you voted for the folks in Westminster; if you don't like what they're doing on your behalf, why is that our problem?

Peregrinus · 13-02-2019 11:31am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

Um, the agreement does leave the EU beholden to the UK indefinitely. This "no unilateral exit" thingy works both ways.

As for whether there's an agreement, the process at work here is standard for the negotiation of treaties. It goes like this:

1. Each side appoints negotiators to represent it, gives them their riding instructions. These may be public or private or a bit of both.

2. The negotiators meet, negotiate and hopefully strike an agreement. When they strike an agreement, it get signed and, once it's signed, it's generally regarded as final. But at this point it doesn't enter into force.

3. The negotiators go back home and say to their principals "Look! We got you this!" Back in the day, when communications were poorr and negotiators might be away for months, "this" might come as a bit of a surprise to those at home, but if the negotiators have been given adequate riding instructions before setting off, it shouldn't be something those at home can't live with, because the negotiators have been told how far they can go. In modern times, with excellent communications and easy transport, it shouldn't be that surprising.

4. Each side gears up to implement the agreement, passign any laws they need to pass or making any other arrangements. When they are ready, both sides formally ratify the agreement, and it enters into force.

5. It can happen that a signed agreement doesn't get ratified. In theory this can be because the negotiators have exceeded their brief, but 99 times out of 100 it's because the principals back home have changed their minds, or because political conditions have altered and the principals lack the clout to get approval for what they believed they could get approval, or something of the kind.

6. When this happens its a total pain, but there is an understandign that it can happen. Sometimes further negotiations follow, and a revised a agrement is signed and, in due course, ratified. (E.g. when Ireland voted against the Lisbon Treaty the first time.) Sometimes the process just stops. (E.g. when the US Senate refused to ratify the SALT II treaty.)

7. What happened here, though, is exceptional. The negotiators signed a deal but didn't try to get it ratified. In fact, when they brought it home, they opposed ratification in Parliament and urged others to do so also. And, predictably, it wasn't ratified.

In this circumstances, it's going to be very had to reopen negotiations and look for changes. Who would trust these negotiators. Will you make any concession, witll they take it and then go back and oppose the deal again? Trust in the judgement and even good faith of negotiators who would behave like this is, um, low.

So, this is the situation in whch the UK government has placed itself. It's going to be very hard for the EU to reopen anything, and that's because of choices made by the UK government, who knew the effect those choices would have.

KildareP · 13-02-2019 11:33am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

This picture demonstrates in ways words cannot how the UK got the negotiations started off (the UK is on the right hand side of the table):
david-davis.jpg?w968h681

If the EU negotiating team came back to the EU27 with a deal so bad that it caused widespread disgust, then the EU27 would swiftly sack the entire negotiating team and take a long swift hard collective look at themselves to figure out how they made such an embarrassing error. They would then re-select a negotiating team who were on no uncertain terms what the collective wishes of the EU27 were. And if the UK said "Well, if you want to get some further leeway from us, we need to see some leeway on your side" then we'd accept that as a cost of our mistake.

Whereas the UK negotiating team came back with a deal so bad it caused, not just widespread disgust, but widespread outrage, within the UK parliament. But rather than UK parliament saying, wow the UK side have really goofed up here, they all collectively and universally rounded on the EU and have since been blaming the EU entirely for the UK getting (what they deem to be) such a bad deal!!! And when the EU offered to give them some leeway in return for the UK giving some equal leeway back, the UK not only didn't offer any leeway, but they doubled down on their "red lines" instead!!!

And none of the above even takes account of the fact that it's the UK that is leaving.
You don't get the upper-hand when you decide to walk away from something.
You don't get to selectively pick what you can and can't take away with you.
You don't call the other side horrible names and somehow expect that it will convince them to give you what you want.

Leroy42 · 13-02-2019 11:37am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

TM, with sign off from her cabinet and backing from HMG, sent over a negotiating team. One assumes, as is usual, that this negotiating team where given terms of reference and guidelines as to the positions that the UK wanted to achieve.

As is normal, ideals going into negotiations meet with the realities and thus movement is required to achieve consensus. One must assume that the UK negotiation team kept the UK government in the loop during the negotiations. If they didn't, which Raab and Davis continually claim, then the fault lies solely with the minister responsible who lost control of their own team.

So the HoC passed the vote to trigger A50, thereby giving TM and her team the go ahead to start and conduct negotiations.

You now seem to be suggesting that this was all done by a shadowy off-piste team who had no authority to even be there and now that the HoC have finally copped this the EU needs to start all over again.

On a final point, nothing in the WA agreement makes the UK beholden to the EU indefinitely. There are plenty of ways to completely remove the UK from the EU, but as in the case of truck licences, it comes at a cost that many, including you, do not deem worth the price.

It is funny that you want to bring up the unfairness (as you see it) of the EU refusing to reopen talks. Many in the UK are asking for a second vote on Brexit but apparently this is undemocratic. In the same way, the UK, through their representatives they sent to negotiate, have arrived at a position, but you don't like the answer so you want another go.

funkey_monkey · 13-02-2019 11:39am

I heard a DUP member from Belfast on Good Morning Ulster this moring saying that DUP have given too much power to the Hard Brexit side whereas after the referendum they said they would be a broad church.
When put to him did he mean Sammy Wilson, he said yes.

Anyone got any further details on this?

EDIT: Just made the Belly Telly headline, but I can't link it.

demfad · 13-02-2019 11:40am

downcow wrote: »

You keep saying it has been agreed. Let me put it another way.

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely and the EU27 was disgusted with it and rejected it. Would you accept me saying,tough, this is the WA and the UK will not reopen it (as if it was now closed) and we won't talk about it??

The Commission must get the deal past the EU parliament who have said they will not ratify the deal without the Backstop.

demfad · 13-02-2019 11:47am

funkey_monkey wrote: »

I heard a DUP member from Belfast on Good Morning Ulster this moring saying that DUP have given too much power to the Hard Brexit side whereas after the referendum they said they would be a broad church.
When put to him did he mean Sammy Wilson, he said yes.

Anyone got any further details on this?

Sammy Wilson had many meetings with Farage in the run up to deciding their position.

They paid monies to Aggregate IQ whose property rights are the Mercers (Bannon) who were the plutocrat billionaires up to their proverbial in Trump/Russia.

Also, according to opendemocracy former UUP MP David Burnside who worked for Dmitri Firtash and other Ukrainian/Russian oligarchs may have been involved in the Half million of dark DUP money.

Some kind of a soft Brexit might have been an escape for the DUP but the devils they sold their soul to wont be having that.

Hurrache · 13-02-2019 11:49am

I had to dig in to see if this was a real account and not a piss take, and being honest, I'm still not 100% convinced either way.
https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/1095234163379261440

13-02-2019 11:50am

Sammy Wilson who wants to get rid of "the ethnics"?

ambro25 · 13-02-2019 11:51am

Meanwhile, down on the ground in Brexitannia, Brexit uncertainties and slowing growth have left UK households £1,500 worse off:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/02/brexit-uncertainties-and-slowing-growth-have-left-uk-households-1500-worse

For reference, the BoE estimate figure was £900 worse off back in May 2018.

It's interesting to put that revised estimate in another context:

https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/eu-referendum-and-fiscal-impact-low-income-households#.V1qr-4-cHIV

Reality (£1500 as estimated today), 45 days from Brexit day, is already getting close to the optimistic end (£1800) of 'Project Fear' predictions for 2020, made back in early June 2016.

Tell me how · 13-02-2019 11:58am

ambro25 wrote: »

Meanwhile, down on the ground in Brexitannia, Brexit uncertainties and slowing growth have left UK households £1,500 worse off:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/02/brexit-uncertainties-and-slowing-growth-have-left-uk-households-1500-worse

For reference, the BoE estimate figure was £900 worse off back in May 2018.

It's interesting to put that revised estimate in another context:

https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/eu-referendum-and-fiscal-impact-low-income-households#.V1qr-4-cHIV

Reality (£1500 as estimated today), 45 days from Brexit day, is already getting close to the optimistic end (£1800) of 'Project Fear' predictions for 2020, made back in early June 2016.

Andrew Neil posted yesterday that the UK is actually leading in terms of growth amongst major European economies and Japan. Canada and the US are ahead of all others at the moment.

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1095408652884893696

Is this accurate? How could this be given the economic climate within the UK?

fash · 13-02-2019 11:59am

downcow wrote: »

If an EU negotiating team had gone into negotiations with UK with everyone very aware that any negotiated position had to be brought back to the EU27 for ratification. Then if the negotiators had came back with a plan that left EU beholding to the UK indefinitely...

The EU is beholden to the UK indefinitely - neither party may leave the backstop without the agreement of the other.

ancapailldorcha · 13-02-2019 12:03pm

Tell me how wrote: »

Andrew Neil posted yesterday that the UK is actually leading in terms of growth amongst major European economies and Japan. Canada and the US are ahead of all others at the moment.

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1095408652884893696

Is this accurate? How could this be given the economic climate within the UK?

May not be true. From Chris Giles of the FT:

https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1095352820411363328?s=21

Hurrache · 13-02-2019 12:04pm

Mary Lou McDonald has been on a number of English media outlets today, and in fairness to her, she came across very well. I suppose a lot in the media there who interviewed her wouldn't have known what she was like outside of soundbites on news stories.

J Mysterio · 13-02-2019 12:05pm

I wonder should Ireland push to secure some of these car manufacturing jobs?

We have been doing well with banking and services but the manufacturing jobs seem to pass us by. They would be a great boon to, say the midlands.

Presume a country like Poland might get some of the action.

ancapailldorcha · 13-02-2019 12:06pm

J Mysterio wrote: »

I wonder should Ireland push to secure some of these car manufacturing jobs?

We have been doing well with banking and services but the manufacturing jobs seem to pass us by. They would be a great boon to, say the midlands.

Presume a country like Poland might get some of the action.

I'd say it's a bit late for that. I don't know if Ireland would have the infrastructure either.

Car companies are likely to consolidate existing bases where possible rather than building new ones from scratch.

Leroy42 · 13-02-2019 12:08pm

Tell me how wrote: »

Andrew Neil posted yesterday that the UK is actually leading in terms of growth amongst major European economies and Japan. Canada and the US are ahead of all others at the moment.

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1095408652884893696

Is this accurate? How could this be given the economic climate within the UK?

Of course the real story behind the UK figures is not what they are in relation to other countries but what they are in relation to what they should have been.

UK was one of the top performing economies in the world prior to Brexit. They have been given a substantial boost in the guise of a devaluation of their currency.

Brexit was supposed to deliver more to the UK not less. But that is where the Brexiteers now sit. They are arguing that things could be worse!

10000maniacs · 13-02-2019 12:09pm

Not a mention of todays Ford news on the BBC website yet four hours after everybody else had a story about it. The BBC are truly the good news bears of Brexit.

Folkstonian · 13-02-2019 12:12pm

KildareP wrote: »

This picture demonstrates in ways words cannot how the UK got the negotiations started off (the UK is on the right hand side of the table):

If the EU negotiating team came back to the EU27 with a deal so bad that it caused widespread disgust, then the EU27 would swiftly sack the entire negotiating team and take a long swift hard collective look at themselves to figure out how they made such an embarrassing error. They would then re-select a negotiating team who were on no uncertain terms what the collective wishes of the EU27 were. And if the UK said "Well, if you want to get some further leeway from us, we need to see some leeway on your side" then we'd accept that as a cost of our mistake.

Whereas the UK negotiating team came back with a deal so bad it caused, not just widespread disgust, but widespread outrage, within the UK parliament. But rather than UK parliament saying, wow the UK side have really goofed up here, they all collectively and universally rounded on the EU and have since been blaming the EU entirely for the UK getting (what they deem to be) such a bad deal!!! And when the EU offered to give them some leeway in return for the UK giving some equal leeway back, the UK not only didn't offer any leeway, but they doubled down on their "red lines" instead!!!

And none of the above even takes account of the fact that it's the UK that is leaving.
You don't get the upper-hand when you decide to walk away from something.
You don't get to selectively pick what you can and can't take away with you.
You don't call the other side horrible names and somehow expect that it will convince them to give you what you want.

This picture has already been explained as a bit of an ambush by the EU side.

It was not taken during a negotiation session. Davis and his team were asked to attend a room specifically for some photographs to be taken with Michel Barnier’s team. They didn’t take any binders, folders or random bits of paperwork because that’s not generally needed to have your photo taken.

It was a sly and churlish move from the EU, but I suppose it did it’s job because lots of people have recycled it without knowing the context.

Seth Brundle · 13-02-2019 12:13pm

Hurrache wrote: »

I had to dig in to see if this was a real account and not a piss take, and being honest, I'm still not 100% convinced either way.
https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/1095234163379261440

I saw that earlier.
Curious to know what the plan that they "did" have included.
It's nonsense anyhow. Nobody was bullied and the UK were happy to agree to the WA (up until they returned to the HoC from agreeing the negotiations).

As for the tweeter - he is a member of the HoL and, according to Wiki, "has served as Director General of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade and Investment"

Seth Brundle · 13-02-2019 12:16pm

Folkstonian wrote: »

This picture has already been explained as a bit of an ambush by the EU side.

It was not taken during a negotiation session. Davis and his team were asked to attend a room specifically for some photographs to be taken with Michel Barnier’s team. They didn’t take any binders, folders or random bits of paperwork because that’s not generally needed to have your photo taken.

It was a sly and churlish move from the EU, but I suppose it did it’s job because lots of people have recycled it without knowing the context.

Olly Robbins thought of bringing a notebook which isn't normally required for photographs.
Anyhow, if the UK team were unhappy with the photo they didn't have to have it taken like that.
Irrespective, the UK were not prepared in any way for the negotiations - how could they be when they didn't have a coherent plan?

Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)

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