Brexit - merged threads

[Cornish lad]

Done

[Dave-G]

The deal that we have reached with the EU is the right one for the United Kingdom. Leaving without a deal would risk uncertainty for the economy, for business and for citizens.

►Read the response in full

EU leaders have endorsed the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU. This agreement secures the rights of more than three million EU citizens living in the UK and around one million UK nationals living in the EU; and sets out the terms of the time-limited implementation period which will provide our businesses and citizens with certainty.

The financial settlement represents a fair settlement of our obligations as a departing member state and was agreed in the context of the implementation period and our future relationship. This agreement confirms that the days of sending vast payments to the EU are coming to an end.

It also means we will be able to spend more of taxpayers’ money on our priorities, such as the extra investment we are putting into our NHS.

On Northern Ireland, the agreed Protocol guarantees that even in the unlikely event that the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not in place by the end of the implementation period, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and no customs border down the Irish Sea.

The agreement preserves the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, upholds the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, and ensures people and businesses that rely on an open border between the Northern Ireland and Ireland can continue living their lives and operating as they do now.

As set out in the Political Declaration, once we have left the EU and for the first time in more than four decades, the UK will have an independent trade policy. The UK will be free to negotiate, sign, and ratify trade deals during the implementation period and bring them into force after the period has finished.

The deal we have reached is the right deal for the UK. It takes back control of our borders, our laws and our money while protecting jobs, security and the integrity of the UK. Anything other than straightforward approval of the deal will bring with it uncertainty for the economy, for business, and for citizens.

Neither Parliament nor the Government want a ‘no deal’ scenario. However, as a responsible Government, we will continue to prepare for all eventualities.

Department for Exiting the European Union

At 100,000 signatures...

At 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

[old man]

Well I have just watched 3 minutes of excruciating news, disMay again begging for crumbs to the great amusement of the euro burghers. She really must have lost the plot and wasted the transport costs?

[hambone]

done

[ordnance]

Quote

On Northern Ireland, the agreed Protocol guarantees that even in the unlikely event that the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not in place by the end of the implementation period, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and no customs border down the Irish Sea.

It does the opposite as far as i can see, it would grantee a border down the Irish sea.  And there would be no hard border unless the EU forced the ROI to put one in place.

Edited December 14, 2018 by ordnance

[pinfireman]

21 hours ago, Vince Green said:

The single market does not benefit Britain, true it definitely does benefit some British exporters, but as a nation our trade with the EU is around £70-100 Billion ADVERSE. The single market only benefits the seller, by exactly the same amount it disadvantages the buyer -us!

What point is there in tariff free trading when we are buying more than we sell???? You have to be really thick (or Nick Clegg)  not to see that.

When we joined the (then) EEC we were selling a lot more than we bought but that has been eroded year on year. We give away about £40 billion worth of our fish to French Spanish, Dutch and Irish trawlers who are perfectly entitled to just come in and help themselves. Do they stick to their quotas? Do me a favour, don't even ask. And that fish is invisible on the trade figures because they just come in and take it, and almost certainly a lot more besides. So the true figure adverse is maybe double the official figure.

German steel is illegally subsidised and our steel industry has gone down the pan, funny that!  Can we stop the Germans selling their steel in the UK? No we cant

Spanish farmers massively over claim agricultural subsidies then grow food like tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, that they cant sell so they dump it in uk. France and Germany won't let them do it, we do, silly us! but hundreds of small Cornish farmers who grew salad crops under glass went bankrupt in the process. How can a Spanish farmer grow a cucumber, sell it to a shipping company who drives it Britain, sells it to a supermarket chain who then distributes it through their branches and sell it for 50p?

You have to realise that can't happen in the real world, that's not a real world price for a cucumber. OK Mrs Jones gets a cheap cucumber to slice into her husband's sandwiches but down in Cornwall several hundred farmers are living on the dole and their kids are getting free school dinners. Is that cheap cucumber worth the human tragedy?    

Absolutely correct!

21 hours ago, yod dropper said:

BBC Question Time

6th December. Main topic: Brexit. 

1 Leaver. 4 Remainers.

13th December. Main topic. Brexit. 

1 Leaver. 4 Remainers.

Make of that what you will.

And it,s been like that for 2 YEARS! They have never had a pro-Brexit panel.  We no longer take Radio Times, and I have eradicated all BBC and Channel 4 from my TV,s. It,s time the licence fee was scrapped, and the BBC jhad to live in the real world, on a subscription basis!

[pinfireman]

13 hours ago, Retsdon said:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/brexit/brexit-preparedness/preparedness-notices_en

There's access and there's access. Take any of the businesses listed in the EUs 'Notice to Stakeholders' in the link above, read the differences between being a member of the single market and a 'third country' under EU law, then come back and say it will be perfectly fine to assume the status of India.

ALL the expanding economies are OUTSIDE of the EU............the EU is grinding to a halt!  And after we are gone, that process will speed up! They will miss our "membership subs"...and the Germans and the French public will not wanrt to pick up the pieces! Merkel will be gone soon, and the Right is on the rise in those countries.  Italy already rebelling, Greece a basket case, Portugal heavily in debt, Spain not far behind..........all the more reason for us to abandon the slowly sinking ship!

13 hours ago, Retsdon said:

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/full-speech-sir-ivan-rogers-on-brexit/

Should be printed verbatim in every newspaper in the country. He fully accepts the referendum result, but is in despair over the fog of ignorance - a lot if it wilful -surrounding both the Remainder and Brexiter wings of the political and media 'debate'.

And while Rogers speech on the reality of Brexit negotiation is an enlightening, if depressing, read, the other thread on here about the homeless got me thinking. And it's interesting how a country's national life can be similar to an individuals. I've known more that a couple of people born into comfortable middle-class life for whom the notion of being poor or without means or without friends and family would have been unthinkable in former years. And yet they've gone on to finish their days basically in the gutter. And it's surprising how often what might previously have been a  slow descent was catastrophically accelerated into unthinkably bad circumstances by a single bad decision, either personal or financial, that was predicated on wishful thinking and a refusal to acknowledge unpalatable reality.

I have a depressing premonition that when the history books get to be written a hundred years from now, that Brexit will rank alongside a decision like selling the house and moving to Thailand to marry the girl and run a hotel on the beach. A beautiful idea which leads to a decision made for all the right reasons, but sadly....

On the horizon I can see nothing but shattered illusions. I hope I'm wrong.

What makes Ivan Rogers the man with all the right answers? As for your premonition, I also have had a premonition.....the EU will not last another 20 years in it,s current form!

9 hours ago, bostonmick said:

I believe that we are witnessing the demise of democracy in this country. The people voted the Parliament stated they would deliver the peoples wish. Yet up to now everything points to us being landed with a situation that nobody voted for. As for the Irish so called problem if the UK had never joined the EU would Southern Ireland have been refused membership because of no hard border to the north. All this farce that is there now is just a smoke screen until the non exit of the EU happens. 

Correct Mick

[pinfireman]

9 hours ago, Retsdon said:

Well, yes and no. I can only plead that you read Sir Ivan's speech in its entirety. He makes a number of very specific points. Perhaps it's possible to refute them -I don't know, - but to just airily dismiss his concerns as a lot of scaremongering rubbish as so many do isn't helpful in the least. What would you think of someone who took their family to sea in a boat that a qualified marine surveyor had declared to be fundamentally un-seaworthy? Would it be OK because  the kids had been clamouring to get afloat?

"Qualified"  by who?

8 hours ago, Danger-Mouse said:

Isn't that BBC policy?

On a side note I see Angela Raynor was taught maths by Diane Abbot. Last night she (Angela Raynor) stated that we do 60% of our trade with the rest of the world, and 44% with the EU.

Two  dumbos together!

[pinfireman]

6 hours ago, Retsdon said:

His words ' .....Which, as I have said before, is where David Cameron sought to entrench the U.K. – outside political, monetary, banking, fiscal Union, outside Schengen, and with a pick and choose approach to what used to be the third pillar of justice and home affairs. His was the last attempt to amplify and entrench British exceptionalism WITHIN the EU legal order.

It failed. A majority voted to leave altogether.

And when they did, they were not told that, at the end of the withdrawal phase of the negotiation, there would be another vote on whether they meant it, now that they saw the terms. We can’t rewrite the history of what happened...."

Nothing there mentioning  a second referendum. Quite the opposite in fact.

Yes he is. So what? Perhaps he is 'biased' because he fully appreciates the gravity of the situation facing the country. And perhaps he has what he considers to be the best interests of the country at heart?  As I said, he raises a number of very specific points. Do you think they're worthy of consideration, or is he just a frontman for Project Fear? It's basically either or...

Right , he is just another member of Project Fear! Remember all those dire threats (which you no doubt areed with,) all turned out to be utter garbage!  Have the Remoaners apologised for threatening the electorate? No, they have not! Lies then, and lies now! Why should we believe them now? Their track record stinks!

5 hours ago, Retsdon said:

For example?

"Both fervent leavers and fervent remainers as well as No 10 seem to me now to seek to delegitimise a priori every version of the world they don’t support." 

 You're proving his point.

I have plenty of faults, but dishonesty isn't among them. Anyway, never mind. Whatever happens is going to happen and I"m not on this site to fight with people. I just worry that the country is sleep-walking into catastrophe.

Perhaps if you spent 12 months of the year here, you would have a different take on things? 

5 hours ago, Retsdon said:

No, it doesn't. In massive bold letters, above my initial quote  - First Lesson: It has of course to be that “Brexit means Brexit”. He's directing this at the people pushing for a second referendum.

I would suggest that it's the other way around. The reality of the situation (what you call his opinions) influences his opinion (what you call his bias).Anyway, how about some specifics. What about this one?

"Well, just wait till the trade negotiations. The solidarity of the remaining Member States will be with the major fishing Member States, not with the U.K. The solidarity will be with Spain, not the U.K., when Madrid makes Gibraltar-related demands in the trade negotiation endgame. The solidarity will be with Cyprus when it says it wants to avoid precedents which might be applied to Turkey.

I could go on. And on… The Free Trade Agreement talks will be tougher than anything we have seen to date."

Is he wrong?

Or this one?

" Brexit is a process not an event. And the EU, while strategically myopic, is formidably good at process against negotiating opponents. We have to be equally so, or we will get hammered. Repeatedly. One cannot seriously simultaneously advance the arguments that the EU has morphed away from the common market we joined, and got into virtually every nook and cranny of U.K. life, eroding sovereignty across whole tracts of the economy, internal and external security, AND that we can extricate ourselves from all that in a trice, recapture our sovereignty and rebuild the capability of the U.K. state to govern and regulate itself in vast areas where it had surrendered sovereignty over the previous 45 years."

Or this?

"It is, in the end, the total absence of a serious realistic plan for the process of Brexit as well as a serious coherent conception of a post Brexit destination, which has delivered this denouement to stage 1 of what will be, whether Brexit proponents like it or not, a much longer process.

For the next stage, we need much less self-absorption, a vastly clearer, less self-deceiving understanding of the incentives on the other side of the table, and a less passive approach to the construction of the process. We need serious substance not plausible ********."

Personally I can't see grounds for objection to what he's saying. This isn't bias, it's someone telling our politicians and media to shape up.

 

What has been his career path? What makes him so special that he knows everything, and the rest of us know nothing?

[pinfireman]

5 hours ago, Retsdon said:

No, it doesn't. In massive bold letters, above my initial quote  - First Lesson: It has of course to be that “Brexit means Brexit”. He's directing this at the people pushing for a second referendum.

I would suggest that it's the other way around. The reality of the situation (what you call his opinions) influences his opinion (what you call his bias).Anyway, how about some specifics. What about this one?

"Well, just wait till the trade negotiations. The solidarity of the remaining Member States will be with the major fishing Member States, not with the U.K. The solidarity will be with Spain, not the U.K., when Madrid makes Gibraltar-related demands in the trade negotiation endgame. The solidarity will be with Cyprus when it says it wants to avoid precedents which might be applied to Turkey.

I could go on. And on… The Free Trade Agreement talks will be tougher than anything we have seen to date."

Is he wrong?

Or this one?

" Brexit is a process not an event. And the EU, while strategically myopic, is formidably good at process against negotiating opponents. We have to be equally so, or we will get hammered. Repeatedly. One cannot seriously simultaneously advance the arguments that the EU has morphed away from the common market we joined, and got into virtually every nook and cranny of U.K. life, eroding sovereignty across whole tracts of the economy, internal and external security, AND that we can extricate ourselves from all that in a trice, recapture our sovereignty and rebuild the capability of the U.K. state to govern and regulate itself in vast areas where it had surrendered sovereignty over the previous 45 years."

Or this?

"It is, in the end, the total absence of a serious realistic plan for the process of Brexit as well as a serious coherent conception of a post Brexit destination, which has delivered this denouement to stage 1 of what will be, whether Brexit proponents like it or not, a much longer process.

For the next stage, we need much less self-absorption, a vastly clearer, less self-deceiving understanding of the incentives on the other side of the table, and a less passive approach to the construction of the process. We need serious substance not plausible ********."

Personally I can't see grounds for objection to what he's saying. This isn't bias, it's someone telling our politicians and media to shape up.

 

He was our Ambassador to the EU...A Senior Civil Servant, another man with his nose deep in the trough! No wonder he sides with Remain?

4 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Yes he SAYS that, then spends most of the rest of the speech telling us what a mistake weve made and how terrible its going to be.
Im not being funny , but Ive been hearing that tired old line for 2 years now , and its getting boring.

 

What trade negotiations ! ?
Hes assuming , again, we take Mays deal, remember , that deal she darent even put before the house, because everyone says they wont pass it, thats not even proper Brexit, and costs £40 bn.
So , is he jumping the gun, or does he know something the government doesnt ?

 

All sounds very self indulgent to me .
'I know better than all you lot, so do it like I say' He assumes (wrongly) that the government really wants to leave, when, if they thought they could get away with it, they would cancel the whole thing in an instant.
Or is he really that naive ?
Is he just stating the obvious ?
He keeps talking about how difficult its going to be, but I dont think anyone thought different.
What makes it more difficult is when our negotiators went in on their knees offering everything bar the kitchen sink !

Have £39 bn , you want to keep out fishing grounds, no problem, you want Northern Ireland , Ahh , slight problem we cant govern without its MPs , we ll see what we can do, 2 year transition period, maybe we can get the public to change their minds by making such a pigging mess of it by then !
I could go on, but you need to take those blue starry specs off see it all for what it is.
Remain via stealth.

Excellent!

[pinfireman]

Done !

[Retsdon]

49 minutes ago, pinfireman said:

He was our Ambassador to the EU...A Senior Civil Servant, another man with his nose deep in the trough! No wonder he sides with Remain?

https://www.politico.eu/article/camerons-sherpa/ An old article that discusses Roger's original appointment to Brussels.

He was also head of cabinet when Leon Brittan was European commissioner for trade, and was adviser to Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The doubters would be surprised to learn that both Cunliffe and Rogers are the most ‘Eurosceptical’ permanent representatives in the UK’s 40-year membership. Both understand not just the benefits but also the costs of EU membership, the interests of the eurozone and those member states outside it, and the importance of big-power politics in achieving their government’s interests.

It's quite clear that he's nobody's fool, and he obviously  knows a great deal about international trade and how the EU works. Why would you want to dismiss his opinions out of hand?

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by Retsdon

[Newbie to this]

48 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

Why would you want to dismiss his opinions out of hand?

Because 'no one knows!'

[sako 243]

Done 

[old man]

10 hours ago, pinfireman said:

Absolutely correct!

And it,s been like that for 2 YEARS! They have never had a pro-Brexit panel.  We no longer take Radio Times, and I have eradicated all BBC and Channel 4 from my TV,s. It,s time the licence fee was scrapped, and the BBC jhad to live in the real world, on a subscription basis!

It wouldn't survive and that's why it continues to receive state sponsorship, as an organ of the state to peddle their views and misinformation..

[Retsdon]

9 hours ago, Newbie to this said:

Because 'no one knows!'

Ah, but they do know. Of course, nobody even 'knows' that the sun will come up tomorrow - but you wouldn't bet against it. Everything in life is a matter of probabilities, so, like it or not, we are forced to decisions based on the balance of probabilities.

And people who know their fields are, in general, better judges of probable outcomes than those who don't. So when someone like Ivan Rogers, who at age 35 headed up Leon Brittan's team when Brittan was Europe's Trade Commissioner, who has negotiated at the highest level both on behalf of and in opposition to the EU, who  has been hand-picked to advise four different Prime Ministers (2 Labour and 2 Tory), who, between his spells in public service was chosen to run a large  US banking consortium's, European practice...when someone like that gives their opinion on the probable outcome of trade negotiations with Europe and other Trade Blocs I accord his views more weight than I would someone like Minford's whose only job outside of the ivory towers of university adademia was as advisor to the Ministry of Finance of Malawi. Of course, Minford might be right and Roger's with his vast experience  might be wrong. But i wouldn't like to bet my future livelihood on it.

As the song says, ' a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest', and it's true, and we're all guilty of it. But as I tell my students when they grizzle they haven't got time to do assignments or whatever - lie to me if you want to, because it doesn't matter. But don't lie to yourself because that's how you end up failing out of the university. 

I don't doubt that they firmly believe what they say, but I can't help worry that too many hardline Brexit supporters, including some on these boards, are falling into the trap of self-deceit. People like Ivan Rogers should be listened to, even if what he says is not what you want to hear.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Retsdon

[12gauge82]

16 hours ago, Paul223 said:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229963

Done

[panoma1]

We can do no more than hear what everyone is saying, most of the time you can identify bias, other times you can't, but most individuals try to impress their personal opinion on you, for various reasons, usually self interest! Rather than for the greater good! How do you know the truth? The answer is.......you don't!.........You can only go by your instincts.....mine say, for the good of UK inc, leave the EU by any means......including a clean break Brexit!........despite the incessant threats, doom mongering, lies, propaganda, project fear, et al of the remainers, my instinct that we should leave, has not changed.

[12gauge82]

The point is, we had a peoples vote, the result was leave, it really is that simple, the waters are being muddied by remoaners intent on preventing the referendum result. WTO exit now!

[12gauge82]

I believe the next step the remaniacs will take is to force a second referendum, I'll laugh my socks of if a "hard" brexit wins, failing that they'll try and push a Norway style deal and failing that they'll extend article 50, whatever happens, we'll never be allowed to leave.

[Stonepark]

A second Brexit referendum, will immediately open the door to the SNP to keep holding referendums until they get the answer they want.....

[Rewulf]

2 hours ago, Retsdon said:

Ah, but they do know.

They know that the end game is a united states of Europe.
They know that the EU army, one tax system and one government is the 'final solution' to the European problem.
They are a corrupt bullying mob in Brussels now, imagine them being left to do as they will for another 20 years.
The future is a totalitarian nationless Europe, and after that a one world government .
Some people might like the sound of all that, I dont.
You might think it sounds extreme, a little paranoid, but look how far the project has come in 40 years.
Look at how they behave NOW , with their threats when a country steps out of line.
Look at how difficult it is to leave.
If youre OK with this , crack on, but Im going to fight it any way I can.

 

2 hours ago, Retsdon said:

we are forced to decisions based on the balance of probabilities.

What is the probability that our own government is working with the EU to make the Brexit vote null and void ? This is sometimes known as treason or treachery.
Probability that the EU has no intention of honouring our democratic vote, and will keep us in its grasp, any way it can ?
Probability that certain rabid remain MPs , who seem vociferously vocal about 'their conscience' and cannot possibly support leaving , despite their constituents wishes, actually have vested financial interests in the EU ?

Probability that most of our media is heavily biased toward remain , despite claiming to be unbiased and fair in its reporting ?
Probability that government departments, including the electoral commission are biased toward remain, and have actively sought to blacken and torment leave campaign groups and sponsors ?

3 hours ago, Retsdon said:

As the song says, ' a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest', and it's true, and we're all guilty of it.

Very true, and despite all good analysis provided by 'trusted' sources like the BOE  we still voted to leave.

Because people arent that stupid, we have our own minds, and its OUR destiny.
The government of this country was elected to serve, to carry out the wishes of the people who vote and pay for it.
What was the EU elected to do ? To serve, or to bully and threaten, whilst paying billions of wages and pensions out each year, and grab more and more power ?
Ooops ! I forgot , it wasnt elected was it ?
 

[panoma1]

43 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

The point is, we had a peoples vote, the result was leave, it really is that simple, the waters are being muddied by remoaners intent on preventing the referendum result. WTO exit now!

I agree, I was referring to the propaganda spouted on the run up to original referendum decision..............not the project fear carp we are now suffering! With remainers whining that it was a mistake and we didn't know what we were doing!....in an attempt to justify pushing for a second referendum!

[JohnfromUK]

45 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

I'll laugh my socks of if a "hard" brexit wins

I rather doubt that hard brexit will even be one of the choices.  IF there is another referendum, the questions will be "Mrs May's Deal" or Remain.

If hard brexit (as in "no deal") is one of the choices - it will be as one of three; "No deal", "Mrs May's Deal" or Remain.  Thus splitting the leave vote. 

Not my choices, but that is what they will do (in my humble opinion).

[Stonepark]

What everyone forgets is that contrary to modern media beliefs the the ideology driving the NAZI's was left wing socialism, totalitarianism and natonalism.