Brexit negotiations thread

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Destruction huh? Again, jingoistic rhetoric. This isn't WW3 you know.

I'd like to see the whole thing collapse. That's not the same. All I'd like to see each individual independent sovereign nation free from it's political, judicial and financial influence.

Destruction, collapse.............semantics. You don't just wish the UK out, you want to see the whole EU break up. You're entitled to your view, there are many who agree with you (Putin, Trump) but just let's be clear about where you stand. There are many, probably the majority of Brexiters, who want to see the UK leave but wish for a good continuing trade arrangement with a successful Europe................you're not one of them. With all it's problems I don't know how it's going to work out over the coming years but one thing is sure, if the EU fails, the US, Russia and China certainly won't. Individual small countries like the UK will be easy pickings for the giants which remain.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

And that post of course reveals the real reason for such irrational Europhobia.

You can't really trash the EU as the British media has done ever since Maastricht,blaming it for all of the UK's problems,whether imagined or otherwise and expect a result other than what happened in June 2016.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

I have never needed persuasion, I understand basic mathematics.

850,000 German cars is a huge market and 2 million German jobs rely on it. If they put 60% on British lamb, We can do the same to their cars.

If we did, rather than burning their own capital as you know the Germans prefer burning other peoples cities...….The Belgians must be getting nervous. This time they wont get away with giving them a nice lunch and saying "Paris is that way".

That's why the smug boys in Brussels are now hinting at compromise, they will offer a delay because operation 'Foot drag' has gone badly wrong. Rather than the expected lets just remain. It turns out us Brexit boys and girls are made of stronger stuff......Leave means LEAVE If they don't want a deal we can all live with that.

Even the Labour party are acknowledging that. Which is why they are now suddenly pushing for a crap deal to pressure Mrs May because they will never put the country before their own greed, politically and more importantly to them, financially......Whos the only people in the world who will employ the Labour shadow cabinet after they lose the next GE........That's right the EU, a Tax payer funded savings corrupt club for Europe's failed politicians. Not just pay and the best pension of all but your palm gets greased with even bigger amounts because EU projects are massive, have no scrutiny and when they fail or the money runs out, its the tax payers in the same few countries who foot the bill. If we stayed the bills will only get bigger and the enevatable divorce would be more costly and more painful.

Maybe the difference between us is that I prefer to learn from the past whereas you prefer to live in the past

 

[blues exile]

You can't really trash the EU as the British media had done ever since Maastricht,blaming it for all of the UK's problems,whether imagined or otherwise and expect a reult other than what happened in June 2016.

I wonder who the Little Englanders will blame when things fall apart after Brexit and they no longer have their scapegoat for all the UK's ills.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

Try re-reading my post and have a good think. You ought to find that you don't need to post the above question, because my answer is clear.

with 2 months till leave day I am very surprised that anyone would be willing to back a deal that had already lost by 230 votes based on an unspecified 'alternative arrangement'. Why go back to the EU yet again with vague ideas of wanting something other than what had already been agreed but not specifying what that something is.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

Maybe the difference between us is that I prefer to learn from the past whereas you prefer to live in the past

Stick that on the side of a bus!

 

[blues exile]

with 2 months till leave day I am very surprised that anyone would be willing to back a deal that had already lost by 230 votes based on an unspecified 'alternative arrangement'. Why go back to the EU yet again with vague ideas or wanting something other than what had already been agreed but not specifying what that something is.

Just another ploy to run down the clock. May always maintained no deal was better than a bad deal and looks set to be doing her best to achieve that.

 

[Bielzibubz]

Destruction, collapse.............semantics. You don't just wish the UK out, you want to see the whole EU break up. You're entitled to your view, there are many who agree with you (Putin, Trump) but just let's be clear about where you stand. There are many, probably the majority of Brexiters, who want to see the UK leave but wish for a good continuing trade arrangement with a successful Europe................you're not one of them. With all it's problems I don't know how it's going to work out over the coming years but one thing is sure, if the EU fails, the US, Russia and China certainly won't. Individual small countries like the UK will be easy pickings for the giants which remain.

Try reading what I write for a change, not what you think I've written. I want Europe as a trading block to carry on and prosper and I want the UK to be a major player in that trading block.

What I also want, I want the EU as a political and financial one size fits all corrupt and dictatorial institution to fail. As I've said before I don't want to see the UK as a satellite state of a much larger federalist empire.

And it's not semantics at all. Destruction implies ruin by an outside force. Collapse implies under it's own influence and force. Understanding the difference, as in all things, is key.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

The Horseshoe Theory is superficially plausible but on examination to scrutiny falls apart. Its appeal is to self styled centrists or moderates who sound very reasonable but who basically have accepted the neo Lib consensus and don't want to rock the boat. It obviously suits them to ignore the fundamental differences between the aims of the left and the right. The attempt to portray the Nazi regime as in some way having anything in common with the socialist agenda is of course utterly disengenuous, equally so as Hitler incorporating the word 'socialist' into his party's name. You can fool some of the people some of the time etc.

True but political scientists have for some time put totalitarian regimes such as Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia,Mao's China etc at opposite ends of the same political spectrum,pointing out that these regimes have more features in common than they do which separate them.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Hmm... amendment requiring the existing backstop to be replaced by alternative arrangements (following which the UK Parliament would explicitly back the Withdrawal Agreement) which would require negotiation with Brussels as to what those arrangements would ultimately look like but the very fact of the amendment being passed would show Brussels that this is what is needed to gain UK Parliamentary approval and thereby strengthen the PM's hand in those negotiations (because Brussels has been constantly saying 'we dont know what the UK wants', meaning parliament not the PM or negotiators, and this amendment would blow that position out of the water at last as I've been saying all along)..... ....is discussed at a meeting of government MPs and the PM asks them to back this amendment. The harder Brexiteers want to know whether the 'alternative arrangements' will be sufficient to gain their support for the WA, as the amendment commits them to, and the PM responds that she cant be clear on that point until she has discussed and agreed (negotiated) them with Brussels but she is clear what people need to see - a time limit or mechanism for the UK to decide to exit the backstop.

I'm not sure how you make that out to be incompetence in this situation, other than because you're not quite as good at this political analysis lark as you like to think you are - and compensate for your lack of understanding with large doses of confirmation bias.

This amendment will almost certainly be voted down today and in case (as you say) doesn't tell the EU what the UK really wants.However if the Cooper amendment is also voted down then there is really no alternative between Mrs May's Brexit deal and a no-deal Brexit.Unless of course May herself decides to extend Article 50.

 

[rigsby]

True but political scientists have for some time put totalitarian regimes such as Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia,Mao's China etc at opposite ends of the same political spectrum,pointing out that these regimes have more features in common than they do which separate them.

That's correct Tangled. I have had a few trips to South America and like to read up on their history. I have visited the island where the Brazilian right wing dictators used to send their political opponents at the same time as the Russians and the other Eastern Block countries where sending the same like minded people to the gulag.

Secrete police, torture, murder of journalists and kidnap its all the same. No matter what badge is on your uniform.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

This amendment will almost certainly be voted down today and in case (as you say) doesn't tell the EU what the UK really wants.However if the Cooper amendment is also voted down then there is really no alternative between Mrs May's Brexit deal and a no-deal Brexit.Unless of course May herself decides to extend Article 50.

The Brady amendment may be voted down that's true (although it may not of course). In general terms though an amendment in parliament to another motion is not usually designed to spell out a full solution or end point but rather authorise the government to proceed in a particular way, as a particular initiative progresses, or require the government to take a specific action at a particular point in time, as we work towards a solution to whatever is being debated, unless of course the motion is a Bill and approval will deliver an Act of parliament.

In this case, the wording of the amendment has been carefully chosen so that if it is passed it will be clear about:

1. What the UK Parliament believes is wrong with the WA - the backstop as currently constituted
2. That if this is changed to a form that incorporates one of a number of characteristics the WA would gain UK parliamentary support

Until various proposals for amending the backstop are discussed with Brussels and a political decision is made in Brussels about whether and how they may wish to accede to any particular change, we cant know what that final agreement on the backstop will be. This amendment therefore does tell the EU what the UK really wants while allowing flexibility for the negotiation around that point to come to agreement that can be acceptable to all.

 

[GBJ]

Horseshoe Theory is the title of a 2017 romantic comedy short film by Jonathan Daniel Brown in which an Islamic State jihadist and a white supremacist meet following a weapons deal over the internet and fall in love after discovering how much they have in common.

Can’t be any worse than the ‘Rise Of The Footsoldier’ sequels they keep trotting out.

 

[rigsby]

I got as far as this and then decided it really wasn't worth reading any more.

And that post of course reveals the real reason for such irrational Europhobia.

Maybe the difference between us is that I prefer to learn from the past whereas you prefer to live in the past

Come on boys even the Germans have a sense of humour. Perhaps you have been exiled to long or maybe you never had one which is why you don't like Britain and half its population.

My money would be on the fact you have no answer to the second half of my post, which is why you latched onto that sentence.

 

[GBJ]

Come on boys even the Germans have a sense of humour. Perhaps you have been exiled to long or maybe you never had one which is why you don't like Britain and half its population.

My money would be on the fact you have no answer to the second half of my post, which is why you latched onto that sentence.

Personally I love the irony of how Mr. Exile manages to uncover different kinds of phobia - Europhobia, Xenophobia - but actively covered up racism, when it stemmed from his side. Classic

 

[blues exile]

Personally I love the irony of how Mr. Exile manages to uncover different kinds of phobia - Europhobia, Xenophobia - but actively covered up racism, when it stemmed from his side. Classic

Would you mind explaining that?

 

[rigsby]

Oh, that wonderful pre EU era that saw all the major and some minor European nations incessantly fighting over everything from plundering Africa to engaging in two world wars just to see who was the biggest and most powerful. Yes, let's bring back that golden age, what a wonderful idea.

You have claimed on several occasions that the EU are responsible for peace. 50 million dead was the price of peace and the threat of nuclear destruction by NATO has been the moral and financial price ever since.

Once again the good old Brit puts their hands in the pockets whilst many Europeans have avoided paying their NATO bill but enjoy the protection. Germany owe £300billion......Imagen the engineering apprenticeships we could have with that......That's £12,000 for every tax payer in Britain. If you, your wife and just 2 grown up kids are paying tax that is £48,000 for your household.....By the way £300 billion is what we spend in the EU every year so if they don't want to trade and we have to spend it all on British lamb who is going to be the winners of any trade war over the next 10 years.?

Have you forgotten the Balkans war in the 90's. The reason that happened was precisely because of the EU and its utter failure to do anything about it whilst it was in full swing.

 

[blues exile]

True but political scientists have for some time put totalitarian regimes such as Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia,Mao's China etc at opposite ends of the same political spectrum,pointing out that these regimes have more features in common than they do which separate them.

I think it's important that we draw a distinction between discussing the philosophies and aims of the so called far left and the fascists, which have nothing in common. The question of regimes such as Stalin's or Mao's having a certain practical congruence with the far right obviously cannot be denied, but that is more to do with the assumption of power by dictators rather than political philosophy.

 

[blues exile]

You have claimed on several occasions that the EU are responsible for peace. 50 million dead was the price of peace and the threat of nuclear destruction by NATO has been the moral and financial price ever since.

Once again the good old Brit puts their hands in the pockets whilst many Europeans have avoided paying their NATO bill but enjoy the protection. Germany owe £300billion......Imagen the engineering apprenticeships we could have with that......That's £12,000 for every tax payer in Britain. If you, your wife and just 2 grown up kids are paying tax that is £48,000 for your household.....By the way £300 billion is what we spend in the EU every year so if they don't want to trade and we have to spend it all on British lamb who is going to be the winners of any trade war over the next 10 years.?

Have you forgotten the Balkans war in the 90's. The reason that happened was precisely because of the EU and its utter failure to do anything about it whilst it was in full swing.

Glad you mentioned the Balkans because it is difficult to imagine wars in that region with the constituent nations being part of the EU. What do you suggest the EU, without an army, was supposed to about those wars of the90s anyway, what was NATO's role?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I think it's important that we draw a distinction between discussing the philosophies and aims of the so called far left and the fascists, which have nothing in common. The question of regimes such as Stalin's or Mao's having a certain practical congruence with the far right obviously cannot be denied, but that is more to do with the assumption of power by dictators rather than political philosophy.

Agreed, we should keep in mind the differences between philosophy and practical reality.

The difficulty though is that to implement and maintain hard left (widely associated with communism) or hard right (widely associated with fascism) philosophy, everyone who has ever tried them has had to force people into philosophical alignment and not allow any criticism. In other words be authoritarian.

Is it because it is necessary to be authoritarian to implement a different system to freedom of choice (the so-called 'market' approach) that leaders who have tried to do so are seen as authoritarian or is it because only authoritarian types are prepared to behave in the manner required that they are the only ones who have ever tried? Either way, there is some similarity, n'est-ce pas?