It may date back to 1994 but there's no end in sight for the UK's Chief customs system as Brexit rules beckon A top civil servant has said UK tax collector HMRC has not set a date to end use of a vital 26-year-old customs system, even though plans to migrate began seven years ago. Speaking to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Jim Harra, first permanent secretary and chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs, …
"I assume the "Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border" system was named by Leonard of Quirm?"
Nah, if it was Leonard, it would be more like "Check A Long And Wide Platform With Undercarriage Wheels Used To Transport Goods To Another Location Across An Non Arbitrary Line In The Sand".
Although it probably would've started out as a device for straining spilt orange juice out of underwear.
"this is what you voted for"
Not quite true. The majority who voted, voted to leave a business club and join another.
We expected that exercise to be handled with a reasonable degree of care. Given the way this story about HMRC and IT follows the same usual pattern of failure, we should have known that parliament would perform just as well.
That was our only mistake - but don't for a minute think that remaining would have changed the way Parliament seems to fail at most things these days.
The majority who voted for it let their own bigotry get in the way of the facts.
Dress it up however you want, make any excuses you want, the fact remains you were conned by a bus and didn't give two shits about the rest of the country.
Regardless of which side of the discussion you are on, the pommie negotiators have been a bit useless; they seem to have seen themselves as a combination of James Bond and Hercules Hurricane, but in reality they been more like Derek Trotter and George Mainwaring.
And I don't mean that in a bad way either - both Del Boy and Captain Mainwaring are sympathetic characters, just a bit out of their depth.
How about we dress it up as 'People were asked a question and those that answered gave their preference.'
In the same way you could title this article 'It may date back to 1994 but there's no end in sight for the UK's Chief customs system as Brexit rules beckon' or you could go with 'System from 1994 is still capable and so will be maintained'
How about we dress it up as 'People were asked a question and those that answered gave their preference.'
How about we describe it how it was; where the options people had were to stay in the EU or to believe the Brexiteers when they lied about what the consequences of voting to leave would mean, lied about what they actually wanted, and never admitted they were playing a bait and switch game until after the votes were cast.
I will never accept the referendum as legitimate because of that.
One thing is very clear; the majority did not vote to leave the EU without a deal.
How about we dress it up as 'People were asked a question and those that answered gave their preference.'More like "People were asked a question and even though they had zero understanding of the consequences of said question, answered it anyway."
It's like they were asked "Should we press this red button, it'll then glow with a pretty red light" and answering "oohhh, I like red, Yes!" without understanding that the red button, as well as glowing a pretty shade of red when pressed, will also open the overflow bypass for the raw sewage incoming pond, which they are standing directly in front of.
@eldakka
The thing I like about a comment like this is how it is applicable to both sides. It really was an important vote which supporters of either side had wildly different ideas of what the EU is and where it is heading while having wildly incompatible views of how things should be going forward.
However as different and incompatible their views are could still agree on their opinion to remain or leave.
Dress it up however you want, make any excuses you want, the fact remains you were conned by a bus and didn't give two shits about the rest of the country.
And you thus demonstrate perfectly why so many remainers haven't a clue about the real problem. You just don't want to listen to any of the reasons that have been given why the EU is a political and financial disaster, even if you disagree with them.
If you actually even pretended a little bit to have read the opposing reasons, and could come up with concrete, factual, reasons why they were incorrect, people might take you seriously. Instead you just bang on and on about "you don't agree with me, so you must be stupid and bigoted". Not a particularly convincing argument.
"If you actually even pretended a little bit to have read the opposing reasons, and could come up with concrete, factual, reasons why they were incorrect, people might take you seriously. Instead you just bang on and on about "you don't agree with me, so you must be stupid and bigoted". Not a particularly convincing argument."
If anyone could actually articulate some that would be good.
Actually, it seems that the fake news (where have I heard that phrase before?) article about the EU mandating straight bananas was made up by a Daily Telegraph journalist called Boris Johnson, and was a complete lie. (He has a somewhat fleeting acquaintance with reality and women, if one can believe what one reads in the papers.)
The actual sensible argument for leaving was that the EU was moving to become a United States of Europe with centralised political and financial controls over its member states. This would have meant significant loss of sovereign ability by the more powerful states to do their own things on foreign policy and fiscal policy. It was nothing to do with the money we send to the EU every week - if it had been then Boris would have delighted in describing in detail what that money was spent on, but in fact a lot came back to the UK in grants and subsidies, and a lot of the rest was spent on things we approve of, oh and the £350million per week was before Mrs Thatcher's rebate is taken into account.
@John Robson
"If anyone could actually articulate some that would be good."
That would require reading comprehension from those who dont think reasons have been articulated, particularly as this is addressed so often it would require someone brand new to not know this.
We are easily past the point where articulating reasons work for the deluded, any capable of reading and understanding them already know they exist even if they disagree.
So many million believed Farage and sided with Trump.
That’s why I despair. I’ve tried to find a good reason for leaving the EU for years since the whole referendum thing came about. There is none, apart from this latest “oh you wouldn’t understand”. This totally condemns the whole leave ideaology .
@staringatclouds
"So you're not going to try because you say your audience is too thick & too bigoted"
Your words not mine. What I said is that unless someone is very new to this site they will have read good reason and may even have participated in discussion over the reasons. And those still deaf to any good reason after that will still claim never to have heard one.
"Not because you haven't got any reasons"
Which brings the question of are you new or *pick your words or mine*?
"And people wonder why these debates get heated"
You might but when you claim I dont have any reasons I can see clearly why these debates get heated.
But as per usual there are plenty good reasons but my favourites are- economic, democratic, trade, borders, sovereignty. Which would you like to discuss?
"That would require reading comprehension from those who dont think reasons have been articulated, particularly as this is addressed so often it would require someone brand new to not know this"
Your words not mine, you say your audience is too thick or too bigoted
There's a very simple way to deal with "Not because you haven't got any reasons" and that's to give one
But you won't, you'll bang on about how it's all been explained, without providing one single reason or link to one or saying no matter what you say we'll dismiss it
Go on prove me wrong, show one reason that no one can knock down
@staringatclouds
"Your words not mine, you say your audience is too thick or too bigoted"
Or new. And not my audience, just those who refuse to accept reason.
"There's a very simple way to deal with "Not because you haven't got any reasons" and that's to give one"
Sorry to make you look stupid but I did offer to provide reasons on a number of fronts- 'But as per usual there are plenty good reasons but my favourites are- economic, democratic, trade, borders, sovereignty. Which would you like to discuss?'
"But you won't, you'll bang on about how it's all been explained, without providing one single reason or link to one or saying no matter what you say we'll dismiss it"
Read the comment you are replying to or the section of my comment I quote above.
"Go on prove me wrong, show one reason that no one can knock down"
When I reminded you about this thread in my last post to you I did at least point out leaving an experimental project that has lurched from crisis to crisis and often self inflicted. But again look up to my comment or the bit I quote above where I offer to discuss the various advantages of leaving the EU. There is a lot to unpack in each of those so I dont want to just write a massive comment when you need just 1 reason.
"But as per usual there are plenty good reasons but my favourites are- economic, democratic, trade, borders, sovereignty. Which would you like to discuss?"
Any of them, but you need to give a reason, not just a title:
- Economic reasons
There is no doubt that the move out of the EU will be a short, medium and long term detriment to the UK economy. So you want to screw the economy... must be a tory.
- Democratic reasons
Nope, not with you. Presumably you're going to mutter about unelected EU bureaucrats, conveniently ignore that bureaucrats the wold over (including the UK) are unelected.
- Trade reasons
You don't think we should trade with the world?
There is no way to conceive of a mechanism by which we would have an improved trade relationship with any other trading body.
- Borders
The only change likely to our borders is that Ireland might reunify and Scotland might head for independence. What I presume you mean is immigration, which is a net benefit to the UK.
- Sovereignty
We were already a sovereign nation.
We will lose input into the standards to which our products are still held - hardly a "win".
@John Robson
"Any of them, but you need to give a reason, not just a title:"
I ask which one to discuss first because I have been having this conversation on the reg for years now. I am sick of typing it all out every time and this way the pro-EU can choose the topic they are most comfortable with.
"There is no doubt that the move out of the EU will be a short, medium and long term detriment to the UK economy"
Interesting assumptions but there is doubt. The EU has demonstrated itself to be economically terrible as the Eurozone (EU proper) would never be tolerated in the UK. The EU requires a 'level playing field' which is basically removing any advantages a member country has over other members. Domestic economic activity is stifled by the same bureaucratic regulation as trade with the EU.
"Presumably you're going to mutter about unelected EU bureaucrats"
Who are the current presidents of the EU and dont look it up. I am not gonna nitpick for a full name, most people have no idea who they are and further more none of us voted for them either. The design of the EU is to remove the political leaders and the populations further away. That way they should be able to make technocratic decisions even if they are unpopular. In theory.
"You don't think we should trade with the world?"
Yes I do that is why I voted leave. Trade does not equal political union. At all. plus all the crying about how hard it will be to trade with the EU (as an excuse not to leave) can only mean the EU is not so good for trade outside of its borders.
"The only change likely to our borders is that Ireland might reunify and Scotland might head for independence. What I presume you mean is immigration, which is a net benefit to the UK."
NI who chooses to remain in the UK being annexed by the EU is a good thing? If so does that opinion hold for Russia and the Crimea? You say Scotland voting for independence but the oil price crash stymied that plan, also the EU wouldnt accept Scotland for a number of reasons which was a prime reason for Scotland wanting to leave the UK (independence from Whitehall to be ruled by Brussels. It is funny). And yes immigration can be a net benefit to the UK, and border controls a benefit to a sovereign country too.
"We were already a sovereign nation."
When we leave. Are you disputing that we hand over amounts of decision making to the EU (sovereignty) to be a member?
"We will lose input into the standards to which our products are still held - hardly a "win"."
This actually counters your own points. If we are sovereign then we set our standards, not someone else. The importer sets their standards for what they accept, but they do not get to dictate standards of the supplying countries domestic economy. And if you think we need the importing country to dictate our standards to sell them then you cant want world trade as each country has its own standards.
Economics:
Not heard of any respected economists who think that brexit is a good idea - Is this doubt the same sort of doubt that there is over anthropogenic climate change?
Bureaucrats:
So which prime minister did you last have the opportunity to elect.
We elect MEPs, or at least we can - turnout tends to be terrible, those MEPs are then our representatives, voting on our behalf for the rest of the power structure. That's better than the FTTP UK system, where a 43% vote share gave the clown-in-chief what they consider to be a "commanding majority".
In what world do you think that a small island nation can possibly negotiate a trade deal better than the second largest trading block on the planet?
Take the Japan deal - can you find one thing in it that is better than the deal we currently have (i.e. not comparing it with a deal from several years ago, or with no deal)?
We already had border controls - the fact that we choose not to use them is entirely the fault of the lazy fuckers in Westminster.
And we wont be perfectly sovereign after we leave either - we will still be subject to international regulations... But we will have a much smaller voice in setting them. What proportion of EU regulations have we had forced on us?
No - we will need to export/import goods, so manufacturing will need to remain aligned with the EU anyway (since they are a very significant trading partner). The only reason to diverge from the EU standards is to lower them, and allow processes which then require chlorination of chicken for example
(the chlorination isn't the issue, it's the practices which require it as a last step.)
Whilst each country has its own standards any item we trade needs to cover as many as possible (its simply not cost effective to make 47 different models of an item for different countries). The EU is a sufficiently large block that it's worth making an EU and a US version... Which will we be importing?
If, as I suspect, we lower our standards then we can accept either, but we won't be able to export "domestic" product to either.
So anyone with any international trade will need to comply with the higher standards of their trading partners, which makes the lowering of standards completely pointless.
Is there an EU standard which you think is particularly bad for this country?
@John Robson
"Not heard of any respected economists who think that brexit is a good idea - Is this doubt the same sort of doubt that there is over anthropogenic climate change?"
Interesting approach. You completely avoided responding to my economic comment. The economic situation of the EU particularly the Eurozone being terrible in practice and outcome.
"So which prime minister did you last have the opportunity to elect."
The labour party, who would certainly have fronted Corbyn. The Tories who would have certainly fronted Boris. Again avoiding the question. You should at least know one, maybe the controversial appointee (hint German war minister). Or even the controversial appointee (IMF head).
"those MEPs are then our representatives"
Not allowed to propose but only to rubber stamp. Wonderful.
"In what world do you think that a small island nation can possibly negotiate a trade deal better than the second largest trading block on the planet?"
History. Current events. Even just a bit of pondering over the demands of 27 competing countries to be squeezed into 1 trade deal. Against of course a country negotiating only for its own considerations making it much simpler and better oriented to our needs.
"Take the Japan deal - can you find one thing in it that is better than the deal we currently have"
Is it worse? Is the small island nation deal worse than the second largest trading block on the planet?
"We already had border controls - the fact that we choose not to use them is entirely the fault of the lazy fuckers in Westminster."
Ok. Apparently we have a million more applications for 'right to remain' than expected as the estimate was almost a million less EU people in the country. Good reason for the gov to sort out the border controls instead of blaming freedom of movement.
"And we wont be perfectly sovereign after we leave either"
So you move away from we are sovereign to we wont be completely isolated from the world when we leave the EU. That is a large leap away from responding to my point.
"No - we will need to export/import goods, so manufacturing will need to remain aligned with the EU anyway"
No, wrong, and so damned wrong it is the problem. We are not aligned with China but we trade with them. India, US, the freaking world. The importer sets the standard of what they accept into the country. The problem with the EU is dictating domestic standards of member countries. So no we dont need to be aligned with the EU anymore than the US or China or anywhere else in the world.
"The only reason to diverge from the EU standards is to lower them,"
And is that a bad thing? If something is over-regulated to the point of being used to block access to what people want then isnt that a problem?
"and allow processes which then require chlorination of chicken for example"
And this was one of the best examples of a poor argument to defend the EU. Originally the complaint was the chlorine except EU salad is chlorinated. So the goalposts move, and move and move. Basically first world food isnt up to the standards of the EU as a reason to remain in the EU and protect French farms.
"The EU is a sufficiently large block that it's worth making an EU and a US version... Which will we be importing?"
I dont understand the question? If its what we want to import surely its the one we want. The one that does what we want. For example you worry about chicken but it seems you think we would prefer US chicken which is why you want the standards to stop us buying it over EU chicken.
"If, as I suspect, we lower our standards then we can accept either, but we won't be able to export "domestic" product to either."
If its something we are importing why do we want to export it?
"So anyone with any international trade will need to comply with the higher standards of their trading partners, which makes the lowering of standards completely pointless."
No. This again goes back to the insanely wrong mistake. Domestically the exporter does not need to comply with the importers demands. Only stuff to be traded must meet the requirement.
"Is there an EU standard which you think is particularly bad for this country?"
On the point of your chicken standard for example, the European Food Safety Agency deem it safe. The EU blocks it to protect EU farms. If it was that bad a product they wouldnt need to block it because people wouldnt buy it if they didnt want it. Thats just your example.
Stupid wall-o-text approach
"Not heard of any respected economists who think that brexit is a good idea - Is this doubt the same sort of doubt that there is over anthropogenic climate change?"
Interesting approach. You completely avoided responding to my economic comment. The economic situation of the EU particularly the Eurozone being terrible in practice and outcome.
# No - I didn't comment on the EU economy, because that's not relevant to the question of whether we are better off in it or of it. We are, as far as economists are concerned, better off in it.
"So which prime minister did you last have the opportunity to elect."
The labour party, who would certainly have fronted Corbyn. The Tories who would have certainly fronted Boris. Again avoiding the question. You should at least know one, maybe the controversial appointee (hint German war minister). Or even the controversial appointee (IMF head).
# Wrong - you had the opportunity to elect a local representative to parliament. Parliament then elects a PM. You don't have any more say in the bureaucracy of the UK than you do in the EU. You could easily argue that you have less, since the purely FPTP system is fundamentally broken.
"those MEPs are then our representatives"
Not allowed to propose but only to rubber stamp. Wonderful.
#Only in as far as your MP can't unilaterally stop someone being elected to PM by parliament.
"In what world do you think that a small island nation can possibly negotiate a trade deal better than the second largest trading block on the planet?"
History. Current events. Even just a bit of pondering over the demands of 27 competing countries to be squeezed into 1 trade deal. Against of course a country negotiating only for its own considerations making it much simpler and better oriented to our needs.
# History... Ah, so slavery and empire are your aims.
"Take the Japan deal - can you find one thing in it that is better than the deal we currently have"
Is it worse? Is the small island nation deal worse than the second largest trading block on the planet?
# Yes - in basically every way. The trade secretary was asked in the house to name one thing that would be better with this deal than the one we currently have and failed to name any. It's hard to check, since the deal hasn't been published.
"We already had border controls - the fact that we choose not to use them is entirely the fault of the lazy fuckers in Westminster."
Ok. Apparently we have a million more applications for 'right to remain' than expected as the estimate was almost a million less EU people in the country. Good reason for the gov to sort out the border controls instead of blaming freedom of movement.
# So basically we were even more dependant on immigrants than the government thought.
"And we wont be perfectly sovereign after we leave either"
So you move away from we are sovereign to we wont be completely isolated from the world when we leave the EU. That is a large leap away from responding to my point.
# You seemed to try to argue that sovereignty was a binary choice - its not. That was the point I was rebutting.
# In what way do we become *more* sovereign? I mean in a way that actually matters. What regulations have been forced on us against our will?
"No - we will need to export/import goods, so manufacturing will need to remain aligned with the EU anyway"
No, wrong, and so damned wrong it is the problem. We are not aligned with China but we trade with them. India, US, the freaking world. The importer sets the standard of what they accept into the country. The problem with the EU is dictating domestic standards of member countries. So no we dont need to be aligned with the EU anymore than the US or China or anywhere else in the world.
# Except that the EU makes up a *massive* proportion of our trade (as opposed to us making a tiny proportion of theirs). The point isn't that we *cant* it's that it is an additional barrier, since it's yet another set of bloody standards to try to appease. It's hard enough getting manufacturers to make a RHD car, and that's not a UK exclusive.
"The only reason to diverge from the EU standards is to lower them,"
And is that a bad thing? If something is over-regulated to the point of being used to block access to what people want then isnt that a problem?
# It's a bad thing.
# Any particular standard you think is protectionist (rather than consumer protectionist)?
"and allow processes which then require chlorination of chicken for example"
And this was one of the best examples of a poor argument to defend the EU. Originally the complaint was the chlorine except EU salad is chlorinated. So the goalposts move, and move and move. Basically first world food isnt up to the standards of the EU as a reason to remain in the EU and protect French farms.
# No - the issue has never been the chlorine, it's just that that's the easiest way to describe it. No doubt most brexiteers cling onto the first soundbite they can squeeze into their skulls and stop there. The fact that UK agriculture hasn't been well represented is the fault of MEPs, not the EU.
# Additionally - this is what you expect when you join a club... Some of the rules (like the bar openning until 1 am) don't benefit some members (those with kids who therefore have to go home earlier). On balance the benefits of being in the club outweigh the cost of keeping the bar open for an extra few hours for those people who can use it.
"The EU is a sufficiently large block that it's worth making an EU and a US version... Which will we be importing?"
I dont understand the question? If its what we want to import surely its the one we want. The one that does what we want. For example you worry about chicken but it seems you think we would prefer US chicken which is why you want the standards to stop us buying it over EU chicken.
# No we won't be importing what we want, we'll be importing whatever crap is cheapest, and sod the health implications. Chicken I buy as chicken is going to be responsibly sourced - but chicken in anything that is prepackaged or prepprepared in any way is going to be the cheapest shit they can get away with. At the moment that's force fed month old chicks, but it will be force fed, month old chicks raised in squalor with poor handling of the carcasses which are then washed with chlorine in an attempt to kill off the bacteria..
Given that the CDC reckon 16% of americans get food poisoning each year as opposed to the FSA estimate of 1% (not quite equivalent numbers) I'm fairly happy suggesting that we continue to eliminate the bacteria through other mechanisms.
"If, as I suspect, we lower our standards then we can accept either, but we won't be able to export "domestic" product to either."
If its something we are importing why do we want to export it?
# Because we import and export the same thing all the time.
# 55% of our exports were to the EU... That's a massive amount of exports to go from "free trade" to "WTO rules". Which of course wasnt was ever suggested, until very recently, when rather than an easy trade deal we'd be better off without one at all (not like India and China haven't already started legal proceedings to ensure that we follow the rules)
"So anyone with any international trade will need to comply with the higher standards of their trading partners, which makes the lowering of standards completely pointless."
No. This again goes back to the insanely wrong mistake. Domestically the exporter does not need to comply with the importers demands. Only stuff to be traded must meet the requirement.
# So you make two sets of tooling, two sets of products... the costs are twice as high and the company folds.
"Is there an EU standard which you think is particularly bad for this country?"
On the point of your chicken standard for example, the European Food Safety Agency deem it safe. The EU blocks it to protect EU farms. If it was that bad a product they wouldnt need to block it because people wouldnt buy it if they didnt want it. Thats just your example.
# You're assuming it will be well labelled, including in all products derived from it.
# You're missing the disparity between UK and US food poisoning rates
# Find a standard that you think is bad for the UK....
@John Robson
"Stupid wall-o-text approach"
The EU issue covers so much ground, sorry I dont like the wall of text either. Wanna pick one of the topics?
"No - I didn't comment on the EU economy, because that's not relevant to the question of whether we are better off in it or of it. We are, as far as economists are concerned, better off in it."
So the economy of the political union which cries ever closer union and we would be tied to for trade doesnt matter? We have the theoretical 'brexit might be bad for the UK economy' vs the real and actual damage being demonstrated in front of us in the EU. How do you think the EU economy doesnt matter to the UK (even outside the EU it matters to us).
"Wrong - you had the opportunity to elect a local representative to parliament. Parliament then elects a PM. You don't have any more say in the bureaucracy of the UK than you do in the EU."
As I said you vote for a party (ok local rep of that party). They tend to be pretty up front over who will be leading even though that is not something they have to do.
"Only in as far as your MP can't unilaterally stop someone being elected to PM by parliament."
I dont get why an MP could unilaterally stop an election. Sorry if I was unclear I mean their role as rubber stampers for regs,
"History... Ah, so slavery and empire are your aims."
This is so far off topic I assume you are either high or responding to someone else on an entirely different conversation.
"The trade secretary was asked in the house to name one thing that would be better with this deal than the one we currently have and failed to name any."
So you say it is worse, but then say there is nothing better than the current deal. Equal is not worse. If the EU has no better deal than the UK that answers your question of how the UK can get as good a deal.
"You seemed to try to argue that sovereignty was a binary choice - its not. That was the point I was rebutting."
I didnt argue it as a binary choice. We surrender sovereignty to be part of the EU and regain it by leaving the EU. Thats not in question.
"In what way do we become *more* sovereign? I mean in a way that actually matters. What regulations have been forced on us against our will?"
Goalpost picked up and run with. So we do regain sovereignty even if you dont believe it matters. You also seem to want me to answer your questions while avoiding answering mine and running with goalposts.
"Except that the EU makes up a *massive* proportion of our trade"
Colour me shocked. We are in a protectionist trade block which causes us to trade more in the block.
"Any particular standard you think is protectionist (rather than consumer protectionist)?"
You already stated (and I stated) chicken. It was your example I thought I had beat you over the head with pretty seriously in the last comment. Unmissable I thought.
"No - the issue has never been the chlorine, it's just that that's the easiest way to describe it."
Not in the eyes of the crying. I actually had to point people to the European Food Safety information about how safe the chlorine was was (look at my comment history). As I said first world food isnt good enough for the EU.
"Additionally - this is what you expect when you join a club"
And if the club doesnt suit the member anymore (us) we leave.
"No we won't be importing what we want, we'll be importing whatever crap is cheapest, and sod the health implications."
Because we have a gun to our head? Or because its what people want to buy? Which is what we want.
"Chicken I buy as chicken is going to be responsibly sourced - but chicken in anything that is prepackaged or prepprepared in any way is going to be the cheapest shit they can get away with"
So because you buy one thing everyone must be forced to buy only the same?
"So you make two sets of tooling, two sets of products... the costs are twice as high and the company folds."
Eh? No and again misses the point. What is exported has to be to the importers specification. Domestic standards for domestic trade. If you trade domestically you should not need to follow the importing rules of another country because your not sending it to them.
"You're assuming it will be well labelled, including in all products derived from it."
Your assuming poor labelling and people if people choose the poor labelled first world food over the well labelled first world food who are you to dictate that is wrong?
"You're missing the disparity between UK and US food poisoning rates"
Which are tough to compare. Also both typically suffering a different issue from the other.
"Wanna pick one of the topics?"
That's what I've been asking you to do... You've still not managed to make a single reasonably expectation of net benefit.
The EU economy doesn't matter in the sense that we will be doing worse out of it than in it... Whether you think that we should become the 51st state of the US or a precinct of China... Or whether you still harbour over the old empire days... We will be worse off outside the EU than we would have been in it.
So you haven't voted for a PM, in exactly the same way that you haven't voted for some of the elected officials in the EU. You haven't voted for anyone in the house of lords either by the way.
If a deal has NO better parts, and is a "new" deal then it is by definition worse. And it is, although the exact details are still hidden by the government who doesn't want to admit how much they've thrown away. If it *was* the same, then that in itself would be a major achievement, and yet at the same time have achieved precisely fuck all.
"So we do regain sovereignty even if you dont believe it matters. You also seem to want me to answer your questions while avoiding answering mine and running with goalposts."
Well, we gain some and lose elsewhere. Because we will suddenly have no influence on the trading block with which we carry out more than half of our trade. The rules they make will need to be followed by a very large proportion of our industry anyway, and now we can't actually influence them. That's not moving the goal posts, that's seeing an open goal kicking the ball in, and then realising that you're at your end of the pitch.
One can only have lost sovereignty if there is something that you want to do that you can't. My promising to obey my wife doesn't reduce my decision making capability at all, but working to the common good is actually better for me than working only in my short term interests.
Chicken - 16% food poisoning vs 1%.
What did you say was unmissable (other than salmonella?)
You then start jumping around so hard I need to get my flea spray.
@John Robson
"That's what I've been asking you to do"
I offered a selection of topics for you to choose from. You complain a wall of text because you decide to tackle all of them and now complain I didnt pick one for you. Didums, I let you choose so you are most comfortable with the topic. All of them are good reasons to leave.
"The EU economy doesn't matter in the sense that we will be doing worse out of it than in it"
That doesnt work at all. You are telling me of this theoretical bad economy we will have for leaving the EU, while the EU has a highly visible bad economy getting worse. Lets assume the UK economy does go bad for a moment. If the EU continues and gets worse then it really does matter. The last example was the 2008 recession where the US and UK bounced out and the EU propper nearly ended up in deflation.
"Whether you think that we should become the 51st state of the US or a precinct of China... Or whether you still harbour over the old empire days"
Or none of the above. Being in the EU seems to make some people believe we must be under another country or hark back to empire days. Its almost as though the idea of being a country has left them.
"If a deal has NO better parts, and is a "new" deal then it is by definition worse."
Really? So if little UK gets the same deal as big ol EU its worse? No its the same. And you are the one saying we would get worse than the EU.
"If it *was* the same, then that in itself would be a major achievement, and yet at the same time have achieved precisely fuck all."
Be out of the EU and have the same deal. For those wanting to leave the EU that surely is an achievement?
"Well, we gain some and lose elsewhere. Because we will suddenly have no influence on the trading block with which we carry out more than half of our trade"
How is influencing a trade block sovereignty? Sovereignty over our own country. And of course we trade with them when we are stuck in the same protectionist block. Exist that and the protectionism of 27 countries goes away.
"The rules they make will need to be followed by a very large proportion of our industry anyway, and now we can't actually influence them."
You missed a word- our export industry. And thats if they are exporters to the EU. Which isnt a bad thing. Its not a problem. Just as exporters to the US must follow their rules (for the exports) but domestic business (and business exporting elsewhere) doesnt have to follow EU restrictions.
"One can only have lost sovereignty if there is something that you want to do that you can't"
Such as reducing tariffs and regulations designed to protect 26 countries that are not the UK. Removing regulations we dont need or want (e.g fine a tradesman for not littering).
"Chicken - 16% food poisoning vs 1%."
Not so easy to compare that-
https://fullfact.org/health/food-poisoning-US-UK/
If you want to see how difficult it is have a look at this- https://briefingsforbritain.co.uk/fact-checking-the-bbc-fact-checkers/
"What did you say was unmissable (other than salmonella?)"
You repeated a request for a standard that is protectionist and I had already used your chicken standard. I know you intended this as a dig at me, but this was your ignorance at the time.
"You then start jumping around so hard I need to get my flea spray."
Just trying to address some of your moving points.
"I offered a selection of topics for you to choose from."
When asked for one reason you gave a list of topics and no reasons.
"That doesnt work at all."
It really does
"Really? So if little UK gets the same deal as big ol EU its worse? No its the same."
Yes it would be the same - but it's one deal, and only one deal. However it won't be the same as the EU deal and there is nothing about it which is better (as confirmed by government in parliament, the only place where they are vaguely held accountable for lying).
"You missed a word- our export industry."
Yes I did, except that you claimed that industry wouldn't need yet another set of tooling for things in a different regulatory environment. You can't have it both ways.
"Such as reducing tariffs and regulations designed to protect 26 countries that are not the UK."
That's not what we want to do - we want to reduce regulations so that the 1% can drive people into workhouses, and ban trade unions.
Food poisoning:
https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/2/e00540-18.full
Points are only trying to keep up with your gymnastics and deliberate misreading.
@John Robson
"When asked for one reason you gave a list of topics and no reasons."
And you still struggle with the simple concept of choosing one. I see why this discussion is so difficult.
"It really does"
Yet again incapable of actually addressing the issue. If the EU economy tanks it affects the UK. Even more-so if we are in the EU. The latest issue being Italy wanting debt forgiveness- https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/italy-is-about-to-hijack-the-eurozone
You are trying to claim theoretical damage to the UK is terrible but the EU in dire economic crisis doesnt. Just because its inconvenient doesnt mean it isnt important.
"Yes it would be the same - but it's one deal, and only one deal."
So from what you tell me its one deal that the UK wouldnt get as good as the EU because little UK will do worse than the big EU, except its the same deal, so the little UK got as good a deal as the EU. Which you then say is somehow worse. And you accuse me of mental gymnastics.
"Yes I did, except that you claimed that industry wouldn't need yet another set of tooling for things in a different regulatory environment. You can't have it both ways."
You need to read my comments because you missed everything I wrote. Consistently I have stated that we dont need a political union to trade. That our domestic standards do not need to match the export countries as it never has been the case. We dont do that for the rest of the world and so dont need to for the EU.
"That's not what we want to do - we want to reduce regulations so that the 1% can drive people into workhouses, and ban trade unions."
Thats your aim? Damn thats dark. Reducing stupid regulation would be a boost to the economy and so generate more money (that would be real growth to support public services). Reduce tariffs is a real pay rise for everyone including the poor (especially as food is expected to be cheaper) as well as boost economic growth.
"https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/2/e00540-18.full"
That is interesting. At a quick glance it seems to be discussing the potential 'hibernating' effect of the chlorine wash on bacteria which might then come back to life. I notice it says that about the spinach leaves as its example. Salad is chlorine washed in the EU so if this is a concern for you I suggest you cook it well. As you should with meat anyway.
"Points are only trying to keep up with your gymnastics and deliberate misreading."
Your kidding! You cant even pick a single topic and on all of them your are contradictory or tangential. I am wondering if you are reading my comments or reading what you want my comments to be.
*Afterthought- is english your first language? If not that might explain where we are not communicating very well
"And you still struggle with the simple concept of choosing one"
Not at all, but that's what you were asked to do, and have singularly failed.
"So from what you tell me its one deal that the UK wouldnt get as good as the EU because little UK will do worse than the big EU, except its the same deal, so the little UK got as good a deal as the EU. Which you then say is somehow worse."
It's not the same deal, and it is worse since it has zero things that are better than the current deal we have. I can't think of another way to explain that different without an improvement must be worse.
"Your kidding! You cant even pick a single topic and on all of them your are contradictory or tangential. I am wondering if you are reading my comments or reading what you want my comments to be.
*Afterthought- is english your first language? If not that might explain where we are not communicating very well"
Classic - of course you use the wrong 'your' multiple times and then ask if I speak English.
The choice of a single reason was what I asked you to come up with (my first post said some, you failed to provide any, so I offered you free choice to actually give a reason from any of the headings). The fact that you still haven't managed to provide anything even resembling a good reason is evidence enough for probably anyone still reading this long and now completely pointless thread.
@John Robson
Ok so how about we stick with trade as that seems to be where we have ended up. The purpose of the EU is a protectionist block, which some people consider a benefit btw depending on your view. It has high tariffs and non-tariff barriers to protect its members industries. To make a trade deal it can either impose it on the member countries, or as with trying to placate members when we voted brexit can try and get all members to agree.
An interesting issue cropped up with the EU wanting the Euro to be a global reserve currency. Which during the brexit negotiations considered insisting the Euro can only be cleared in the EU. It is a petulant and ill thought through proposal (like the EU TLD mess) which makes the EU look immature in global trade.
We have already discussed chlorinated chicken and the amusement that first world food deemed safe is not good enough for the EU (protectionism). And of course that the UK is getting the same trade deals (transferred over) as the large trade block.
"Classic - of course you use the wrong 'your' multiple times and then ask if I speak English."
Honestly wasnt trying to insult. This is a European topic and I am sure a few people in Europe with English as a second language probably use this site. I am dyslexic. Just wondered since you kept avoiding answering.
"The fact that you still haven't managed to provide anything even resembling a good reason is evidence enough for probably anyone still reading this long and now completely pointless thread."
You have ignored good reasons yes. As the EU economy bit showed serious delusion at best on your part. We can stop if you like, I think you have done enough damage to your opinions on here a few comments ago.
You think the TLD thing was a fiasco?
It was always their policy that EU domains were for EU based entities only... if you leave the club you lose access to everything that club provides.
The Euro already is a GRC, with 4-5 times the presence of sterling, despite it's relative youth.
The EU have maintained a sensible, and open, policy with regard to negotiations, they have put forward proposals and what has the UK done? Said "We don't like that", and not suggested anything in return.
If you want to look at who is looking globally immature then I suggest you look at the UK, not the EU.
We've rolled over nearly 1/6th of our old EU trade agreements (by value), which represent less than 10% of our total trade. We will have WTO only trade with >40% of our trade in four weeks time, and since there now isn't really time to ratify an agreement, no real prospect of getting one with most of that.
The lack of understanding around NI means that a US deal isn't exactly forthcoming either
That's not a success story - it's a colossal failure. The EU offered an extension to the transition period to allow governments to focus on the pandemic, but no - our oven ready deal was too important. Just a shame that "oven ready" meant "I assume someone else will do the work", not "I've got a deal prepared".
EU trade deals are complex beasts, as are *all* international trade deals - but most of them require unanimous approval - so they don't "force" many trade deals on any member state, they don't have the power to do so.
I'm quite happy to stop - no-one else is listening and it looks like neither of us is going to say anything that the other considers relevant.
@John Robson
"You think the TLD thing was a fiasco?You think the TLD thing was a fiasco?"
You dont? The politicians suddenly decide publicly and the very people to implement it didnt get told? In fact they ended up publicly stating they had no idea and had just found out (from the news wasnt it?). Then it might not happen, then it will. It looked like a petulant strop even if it was just incompetence. Neither being desirable.
"The Euro already is a GRC, with 4-5 times the presence of sterling, despite it's relative youth."
Which is why it was funny to see the EU argue for it to not be a global reserve (must be cleared in the EU).
"The EU have maintained a sensible, and open, policy with regard to negotiations, they have put forward proposals and what has the UK done? Said "We don't like that", and not suggested anything in return."
Thats one way to look at it. Another is their lack of will to negotiate and assume we will take anything. Then when it looks like we are gonna leave with no deal to suddenly be able to be flexible. They even did it again recently in October when suddenly they could be more flexible.
"We will have WTO only trade with >40% of our trade in four weeks time"
Which in itself is an international trade agreement. And entirely for the UK to decide how protectionist it wants to be. The damning scenarios assuming we keep EU protectionism as our policy.
"The lack of understanding around NI means that a US deal isn't exactly forthcoming either"
That would have been easier if the UK had left when it should have instead of messing around so long, but will see. As for NI, that was pretty mishandled when our politicians didnt just tell the EU to shove off and build a wall if thats what they want. It wasnt UK policy nor problem.
"The EU offered an extension to the transition period to allow governments to focus on the pandemic"
Interesting how insignificant and unimportant we are but please dont leave. In my opinion about time the gov said no more extensions, should have been done 2 years ago.
"EU trade deals are complex beasts"
Very true. And one of the good reasons to leave.
"so they don't "force" many trade deals on any member state, they don't have the power to do so."
I might be misunderstanding this bit but I think they can. To keep members on side it allowed a vote over the Canada deal and got held up by not even a country. For Brexit they agreed it must be unanimous too. but it doesnt seem to be necessary:
'3. Application of the consent procedure'- https://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/vh7bi4zutqzf
"I'm quite happy to stop - no-one else is listening and it looks like neither of us is going to say anything that the other considers relevant."
Ok. It is possible someone is still reading so I like to try and provide the facts they could look at to find the truth.
"You dont?
It was a communications screwup, but EU domains for EU entities has been written in the policy from very early on, the fact that they hadn't explicitly planned on idiocy like the current UK gov is hardly a clusterfuck. Assuming people are rational used to be so simple.
"An interesting issue cropped up with the EU wanting the Euro to be a global reserve currency"
"Which is why it was funny to see the EU argue for it to not be a global reserve"
Make your mind up (I know, dyslexic, but still)
"Thats one way to look at it. Another is their lack of will to negotiate"
How do you negotiate with a toddler sitting on some of the playing cards under the table and refusing to say which game they want to play.
" As for NI, that was pretty mishandled when our politicians didn't just tell the EU to shove off and build a wall if thats what they want. It wasn't UK policy nor problem."
Really? Were you alive in the eighties?
It's *very much* a UK problem.
" WTO is a trade agreement
Now we see how the brexiteers expect to announce hundreds of new trade deals. WTO is the lowest possible denominator, it is literally the definition of the worst possible trading conditions with a country.
" Interesting how insignificant and unimportant we are but please dont leave.
We are a relatively insignificant third country... but the EU, and UK, had more pressing matters that needed attending to. We have managed to a fucking shit job at both.
" Ok. It is possible someone is still reading so I like to try and provide the facts they could look at to find the truth.
Facts?
You're really cooking on gas now.
Since Boris couldn't even bring himself to admit that his oven ready deal is actually worth less than Chamberlain's famous paper last night. We are heading into a no deal in January. Tell me. When did any referendum offer no-deal as an option?
@John Robson
"It was a communications screwup, but EU domains for EU entities has been written in the policy from very early on"
Well and truly a communications screw up. If its written in so early why dont the very people who need to know not know? They distanced themselves from the EU public announcement very clearly.
"Make your mind up"
Not for me to make my mind up, it was the EU screwing up. Thats not dyslexia, thats the EU wanting the Euro as a global reserve currency stating they desired policy that would stop it being such. Its your nonsensical responses like this that made me think English was your second language (and would be excusable). Are you purposefully being thick?
"How do you negotiate with a toddler sitting on some of the playing cards under the table and refusing to say which game they want to play."
Exactly. And yet the EU does that and then screams they dont want us to go when we get up to leave. Every time insisting they can be more flexible or can suddenly negotiate what was not negotiable before.
"It's *very much* a UK problem."
You state that. With no reason or fact. The UK isnt interested in putting up a wall in Ireland, the EU is.
"WTO is the lowest possible denominator"
And allows the UK to set its own minimum tariffs (something got wrong by remain and Nick Clegg). Basically the UK sets its own tariffs and no longer has to be protectionist of 27 countries.
"We are a relatively insignificant third country"
That the EU desperately doesnt want to lose.
"Facts?"
Get a dictionary if your stuck.
"Since Boris couldn't even bring himself to admit that his oven ready deal"
Feel free to rip into Boris all you like. He is the best hope at the moment for getting out of the EU and I still dont trust him to do that.
"Tell me. When did any referendum offer no-deal as an option?"
It was right there on the paper to vote to remain or leave. Remain capturing the varying opinions of what remain means, leave capturing the varying opinions of what leave means. One stunning observation is how stupid we leave voters are assumed to be while staunch remain voters dont seem to understand what the options were on the referendum.
"And yet the EU does that and then screams they dont want us to go when we get up to leave"
Erm, at what point has the EU walked away and threatened to stop playing? The EU has been fairly open, and has kept the promises they made. The current bunch of halfwits (and I apologise to any halfwait I've just insulted) in westminster have taken the old EU offer, claimed it was a great negotiation, signed it into law, and then decided they didn't like it and tried to tear it up.
The issue of a border on the island of ireland is very much a UK problem. Do you remember the 1980s?
""WTO is the lowest possible denominator"
And allows the UK to set its own minimum tariffs (something got wrong by remain and Nick Clegg). Basically the UK sets its own tariffs and no longer has to be protectionist of 27 countries."
Yes, we set our own tarrifs, but cannot set them per country, and cannot operate under anything other than WTO rules in terms of exports - that's why they are they *lowest* common denominator. They are the worst possible arrangment. If they were good then no-one would need any trade agreements.
Even UK Giov recognise this with their bending over to get shafted by the Japanese...
>Just 10 of 9,444 products will enjoy lower taxes, experts say, a list of obscure items such as birds’ eggs, raw hides, fur skins, handbags and ultra-strong spirits of at least 90 per cent alcohol.
>Crucially, none of the 10 have been sold to Japan for at least three years – which means the gain to British exporters is “zero”, the study has found.
In fact the negotiators (the UK ones) estimate that the deal is 83% in favour of Japan, and only 17% of the benefits will come our way. There is nothing about the deal that is better than the deal we already had as members of EU.
"Tell me. When did any referendum offer no-deal as an option?"
It was right there on the paper to vote to remain or leave. Remain capturing the varying opinions of what remain means, leave capturing the varying opinions of what leave means. One stunning observation is how stupid we leave voters are assumed to be while staunch remain voters dont seem to understand what the options were on the referendum.
How many variations do you think there are on "Remain".
If you're so confident it's a good idea why didn't we actually hold a referendum when it was clear that that was the will of parliament.
At literally every stage the proponents of brexit have been saying that a free trade deal is important... and then doing everything they can to avoid one.
The referendum result was overturned in court, but since it wasn't binding it couldn't be declared null, since there was nothing to nullify.
It's rather easy to assume that leave voters are stupid when they claim that this Japanese deal has any benefits to the UK, or that we need blue passports, or that the Good Friday agreement isn't a UK problem, or that WTO terms are a trade agreement, or that we don't need a deal, or that a deal is oven ready, or that we'll get £350m/week for the NHS. When they get surprised that they can't now spend six months in Spain without a visa, need I go on?
Bloomberg estimate the cost of brexit at substantially more *this year* than we have paid over forty seven years of membership (£200b vs ~£175b)
Over the five years 2014-1028 we paid an average of just under £8bn/year to the EU, compared with our overall spend in excess of £850b/year, so substantially less than 1% of our government spending went to the EU - and that doesn't count any money which comes from the EU to the private sector in the UK.
The IFS suggests that our economy will be 2.1% down by the end of next year, going up to 2.6-3.1% down if we end up with no deal at all. That's at least a £16b/year cost to the economy, possibly £24b, twice to three times the cost of being a member.
Other estimates suggest that brexit will drop 5-8% off our economy...
Oh and that ignores the benefits in terms of trade which we have enjoyed, and the freedom of movement we have enjoyed.
And the cost of being a member has been?
@Dr_N
"Just RTFA and try to understand it. The EU has no control over state borders."
So the remainer argument and the EU argument all this time over the Irish border has nothing to do with them. They cant break the agreement by mandating a border? Awesome.
"Here are the bullet points:
o Recommendation
o Use of the word "Should"
o Talking about trade flow"
You are welcome.
"There is no edict. There is no law passed."
Why would they pass a law for that. I know they like to pass laws but telling them to open the borders in this situation doesnt need a law.
"And now the Germans are airlifting food into Sheffield things don't look so bleak."
Amazing how trade goes on. Almost like its not the end of the world
@John Robson
"The hard border existed - we moved outside it, and in doing so put peace in NI at risk."
The UK didnt move anywhere. Its still here.
"Because we moved the edge of the EU (where the border already existed) to a line across the island of Ireland."
Ah political movement, yes. Which allows politicians the ability to think about organising the boundaries of their influence.
"Therefore it is entirely our responsibility that the border now lies in that location, unless we do something about it."
And the UK decides it doesnt want to do anything with it, even looking to the complaints sue to the GFA as reason not to hard border. Which means a hard border would be the EU's responsibility as its the only one who wanted one.
"We did, we bifurcated the country, so that we don't even have a common customs market across the UK any more, it's only Britain."
I too dont like this. We shouldnt have given over NI to the EU and again I still think we should change our minds about that since the EU is in such a bad place already.
"You seem to think that because you left the gym they should now take down the fence so you can still use the swimming pool."
Again you talk nonsense. That isnt even close to anything I have said. Come back to the discussion you were finally making progress.
" I can't make sense of your "which vote" question otherwise."..."56% of the votes in the referendum in NI were to remain in the EU. That is undeniable."
I tried to make it clear but I will try again- NI did not have a vote on their membership of the EU. The UK had a vote. So its the UK vote which was for leave. It is not a vote by country nor region nor city.
"All NI based MPs (all of them) voted against the deal - hardly a resounding anti-eu stance (and again, not really making a dent in the process)"
Eh? May kept pushing remain deals which were rejected. Sounds anti-EU to me.
"Except that the EU position has not changed at all. There is, and must be, a border enclosing the single market."
Thats fine. So the EU would place a hard border which they claim violates the GFA because that is EU policy. Agreed. So they would be responsible.
"it is therefore entirely our responsibility to make sure that the GFA can be maintained"
By the UK not creating a hard border. And that was our stance. Done. We can not dictate the other side (ROI hence EU) keep to the agreement so it is for them to not make a hard border too. Unless you believe the UK should invade ROI to enforce they dont make a border (how else do we stop them violating the agreement?).
"And we did, eventually, do what had been suggested for over a year as the most reasonable option"
For this we will have to disagree.
I"you realise you've not stated that the EU got it wrong. You've praised them for rescinding article 16, but never stated they got it wrong. It's like you can't admit they can do anything wrong."
I've said it was a bad decision, that they corrected by themselves.
When a decision is bad and needs correcting, that implicitly says that it was wrong - of course they can make mistakes, the organisation is made up of people after all.
@John Robson
"We can - be we deliberately broke the one regarding our customs union. So you need to move anything from an area with one set of rules to an area with another set of rules... Where do you think the check is made that the appropriate rules have been followed?"
You are getting there. So the EU have their side and the UK have their side. NI and ROI which choose to be part of those separate unions. And the UK decides it doesnt want to do anything about the border, so doesnt. So who does that leave? Who is left to decide? EU and to a lesser extent ROI. So which one wants the hard border? And that resolves this entire discussion we have had taking us back to the EU being the one wanting the hard border.
"The public sector at the highest level has failed massively... They have resisted any attempt to suppress the virus until it's far too late."
Thats what I said.
"And you think they've done too much to control it - that's why I think you're drinking kool-aid."
Eh?
"Is that why the UK national debt (as measured against GDP) stayed static for the duration of the last Labour government, right up to the 2008 global financial crisis."
You forget the extensive use of PFI contracts, the raid on pensions and selling off assets including gold. After the largest boom in history Labour was vastly unprepared for the recession and was still spending heavily.
"The NHS has received less money each year (again measured against GDP) consistently throughout the tories current regime."
Good. Because the NHS is getting more money than in Browns spending spree and year on year typically requires a 4% increase of a developed country which means actual growth of around 2% annually. Aka the NHS gets more expensive and eats into the budgets of other public spending.
"No - because you aren't supporting the wearing of masks, and the reduction in close contact which is required to reduce the spread of this virus."
I am not against masks I am just not authoritarian in their use. Also I have no problem with the reduction of close contact, keeping a distance and washing frequently being very effective. I am against imposing the excessive lockdowns which you say- 'That's why we have the highest COVID death rate in the world at the moment.'. If ours is so bad then why didnt we follow the Swedish approach then?
"The government is starting to think about quarantine for people coming into the country... that should have been implemented eleven months ago."
Why? Looking at the haphazard muddling through of various countries (which we all have to do with this unexpected pandemic) there is uproar if we allow flights and uproar when people are stranded because we dont. All the while the lockdown kills people and destroys livelihoods.
"We spend less on healthcare in this country per capita than france, germany, sweden, canada. japan, the usa."
Not sure if all of them but most of those use private healthcare. Is that what you are promoting?
"The NHS isn't a black hole of finances"
Thats one you might want to defend. It requires more every year as a proportion of the spending budget to keep it alive in mismanagement and middle management. Even after the Blair/Brown splurge where money was pissed up the wall the NHS is a poor performer in healthcare rankings except for free at the point of use (aka equally poor service for everyone). Procurement and constant IT failures at great expense and needing the army to fix its poor logistical ability in time of crisis. Focusing on sugar and salt and dictating what we can eat but failing in basic shutting doors to the covid ward.
"organisation which provides world class healthcare free at point of delivery"
I have a bridge to sell you. It is so world beating that nobody models their healthcare system on ours. And while you claim it is world beating you complain it is chronically underfunded and you say 'That's why we have the highest COVID death rate in the world at the moment.' even though we have strict lockdowns.
@John Robson
"Let's look at where the EU can place it's border... It can either be around the EU, or... well that's it"
Finally! Now stop trying to flit about with excuses for your beloved EU and reread that. EU places its border. Just as the UK places its border. So the UK states it isnt interested in placing a hard border in Ireland. The EU as you just clearly stated is the one to choose to place its border.
Amusingly the arrangement that was made (Irish sea border) is causing problems as the UK and NI like to trade. So due to threats the EU customs have been recalled for safety. Only shows the gov shouldnt have surrendered NI and the EU's weakened position makes it prime for renegotiation.
As an aside for remainers who claimed brexit was a gift to Russia, the EU has gone begging for the Russian vaccine which is pretty limp when trying to impose sanctions for imprisoning political opposition.
"Do you think the UK needs a border (anywhere)?"
Yes. The UK does have a border. That would be the defining edge where the UK has its sovereign rights.
And why do we have a defined edge to our sovereign rights?
"Except it wasn't a capacity issue it was public sector failure."
Ok - now you've really been at the kool-aid.
How many beds do you think the NHS has lying around all the time, how many nurses are just sat around twiddling their thumbs on a daily basis.
The NHS has been chronically underfunded by the tory party - who have also managed to leave us tens of thousands of nurses short as a result of the hard tory brexit you seem so keen on (even if you're only keen on the slogans, not the facts).
"As has been noted in public, we must protect the NHS although surely it should have been the NHS to protect us?"
How can the NHS protect us if they are all infected with Covid because you and your ilk couldn't be bothered to wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay a little way away from other people?
The NHS isn't some magical fairy land, it's a massive institution that does more for the UK than you can possibly imagine, and yet governments keep trying to starve it...
@AC
"You're just repeating the same things in spite of credible sources proving otherwise. Time to stop here, I think."
Unless I misunderstand the articles you post they measure different things. The BBC one looking at Europe and the Business Insider at the Nordics. Which is why I said my opinion is based on Europe and not just the Nordic countries.
@John Robson
"Erm - only in that we are the ones to have moved where the edge of the EU is"
We agreed on that bit many times. Its your insistence that the UK was placing a hard border which was the problem. But now you seem to agree the EU places its border and so we are finally in agreement. Until your next insistence-
"So the fact that there is now a border there is entirely our fault, not that of the EU."
Except the UK has no interest in a hard border there and as you agreed the EU places its border so the EU is the one desiring a hard border. This of course only being a (fleeting) issue because of the GFA excuse. So if the EU chooses to make a hard border then it is the EU's responsibility or as you say fault.
"They haven't changed anything, the border still encloses the single market, as it did before, and the rules didn't change either."
Perfect! Agreed. So if the GFA is violated due to a hard border then its the EU that violates it even if its because the EU did nothing about it. If it was the UK making a hard border there then the UK would be at fault for it. But its the EU.
"How can the EU both have the border around the customs union and simultaneously not have a border around the customs union?"
Not our problem. The EU is in charge of EU policy which affects the EU members. The UK is not in charge of EU policy and so it is up to the EU to either find a way to comply with existing treaties or to violate them on the principal of their own policy. Either way is fine but its the EU's issue.
"The EU isn't going to split the single market - you accepted that a moment earlier, and then suggested that they do exactly that."
You told me there were no alternatives. I gave you 3. Doesnt mean the EU has to do it but the alternatives are there.
"Option 2: We did make a (weak) trade agreement - that requires a border, and checks to be made for good passing across the border. Which is exactly what the question is trying to avoid."
Which the EU promptly withdrew customs because of threats, and then violated that sacred border. It was a weak trade agreement. The UK territory should not be handed over to the EU.
"The NI that voted to remain in the EU, that one"
In which vote? What vote did NI take to remain in the EU? Was it the UK wide vote? The one where NI does not get to dictate to the rest of the union but instead gets to contribute to the vote fairly?
"They returned precisely zero conservative MPs."
I pointed out that NI voted for an anti-EU leadership and your best response is that none of them are from the tory party?
"The seats they return don't make a dent in westminster, and you know it."
I took this one out of order because its the funniest. Didnt may enter an agreement with the NI leadership in Westminster because that would make the difference in majority support?
"the current bunch of clowns gained an 80 seat majority"
They gained 43% of the votes... there is something clearly broken when that results in a "landslide" majority.
16 of their seats had majorities of less than 1000, that's an average of 1% (i.e. a 0.5% voter swing), 14 more had less than 2000 (1.75% swing). Is it any wonder that nearly a third of people didn't bother voting - half of those who did vote didn't have their voice heard in any significant way.
"We desperately need more & better choices for political parties than the current main choice of 2."
Yep - but a FPTT system as we have is predisposed to being rigged by setting boundaries, and inevitably collapses into a two party system with the vast majority of the electorate unable to do anything other than vote for whom they hate least.
We need some proper electoral reform, the AV proposal would have gone a long way to reducing the FPTT tactical voting madness, potentially revealing a much more representative indication of the electorate's opinion.
@John Robson
"So the UK leaves the EU, which somehow means it's the EU's fault for not making ROI a third country?"
If your looking for someone to blame for the border then the last in line is the UK and NI. Somehow you seem unable to get it. Even when you yourself point out its the EU's border.
"Except it is *exactly* what you are saying. To *not* have a border means that there would be no border."
So you think you know what I am saying which is in contradiction to what I say I am saying and I am the one saying it. The EU decides what it does with its border, the UK decides what it does with its border. The UK does not tell the EU what to do with its border and the EU does not tell the UK what to do with its border. I cant make it much simpler. The UK cannot unilaterally remove the EU's border and I never claimed it could.
"Because exports are how we get the money to afford to buy things"
And people do buy things from us. The things they want. What we care about (people) is what we can get. The things we want. Which we either import or make depending on cheaper/better.
"the article says nothing of a failed french vaccine"
It is a long read so you are forgiven for missing it. Search the word 'france' (second match) under the heading 'Storm of Outrage'. Also the word 'french' (second match) for why not enough working vaccine has been ordered.
"It does say that various suppliers have slipped their approvals dates, that's why you have diverse supply chains."
Is that the excuse for the EU failing hard and other countries ordering working vaccine?
"You don't seem to be able to work out whether the virus is real or not either"
You seem to be making things up here. Where did I say it isnt real?
"you say we shouldn't ever lock down"
I disagree with the lockdown policy used which has shown the problems already identified by such a lockdown back in march before the policy was used. Disagreeing with the reaction to the virus doesnt mean I deny the virus exists.
"and yet complain that the vaccine isn't universally available"
Did I? It seems you are making this up as you go along. Pointing out the EU failed hard and how bad an idea is was to let them run this procurement is just pointing out facts. Sorry if you dont like it.
"Either we need to prevent the spread of the virus or we don't, which is it?"
We have to be practical. Vaccinating the vulnerable is now an option while before shielding them would have been a good idea (even that wasnt done very well). That way the rest of us low risk people can get on with life, which is required to have an economy which is required for almost everything in our lives.
Except their death rate is still better than locked down countries and much heavier locked down countries and economically they didnt trash as hard as others in Europe.
You're just repeating the same things in spite of credible sources proving otherwise. Time to stop here, I think.
@codejunky
Your clearly not going to get John Robson to see any wrong doing here from Europe
The majority of us can see wrong for right regardless of which side is doing the actions. John is clearly in the belief the European institution can do no wrong and every bad action they take is the fault of the other side.
Triggering a16 and creating a hard border without even notifying the Republic, in John’s narrative, is the UK governments fault despite the spat allegedly being between the EU and AZ. Apparently the location and specifics of the EU’s border is again not the EU’s decision.
You will never ever overcome busted logic like that.
Full props for your continuing rebuttals though, horses and water etc.
“ The fact that we have chosen to move outside that border does not, and can not, force the EU to just have no border there, which is what you seem to think is reasonable.”
So you comprehend that it’s the EU that are wanting the border. The EU can decide to not have a border.
@John Robson
"Yes, we do - if your neighbour puts a fence up, then the view from your side will now be of a fence. They therefore have considerable input to "your side" of the "border"."
So we should just demand they dont put up a border (in Ireland)? How does this work? We voted to leave the EU so as far as I see it we either agree not to put up a border there (the EU refuse to agree) or we militarily roll in on ROI to enforce no border. Other than that they can do what they like their side and we dont have a say as far as I am aware.
Just because they are a neighbour doesnt seem to work for Mexico and the US, and for all the stick Trump got for his wall it would be interesting to see even half the criticism against the EU demanding a hard border.
"So ~37% of the electorate voted to leave - Mr Fuckwit himself said that 52/48 wouldn't be sufficient."
One of the highest turn outs, of the voters the result is not in dispute, the rules were an absolute 50/50 set by the remainer government ffs stop crying.
"In the GE the slender majority of the voting public went to ~46% (from memory). That isn't a majority, no matter what the buffoon says about maths."
By the rules of elections every vote has been for a brexit promising party for both GE and MEP since the referendum.
"The FPTP system is broken - but the majority did not vote for parties that wanted to push ahead with a fucking stupid plan irrespective of the cost."
Yet there was a referendum for brexit.
"we will be less relevant in world trade since we won't be part of an economy on a par with the US and China, we'll be 10% of that size"
The UK does not change size because it left the EU. The EU has shrunk. The EU is not on par with the US or China on the world stage and as part of the EU we suffer the embarrassment of EU irrelevance. By leaving the EU which is a shrinking portion of the worlds wealth we rejoin the rest of the world, which has an increasing portion of the worlds wealth.
"No - the only plan that was ever expressed is the above. Remain in the EU, engage with it, shape it."
Cameron tried and was laughed out. Then arrived to us lot laughing because we knew he had no chance anyway.
"Or you could just sit in the corner, dream of an empire built on slavery and rock yourself to sleep."
Running out of arguments? Where did you get slavery from? Is that keeping you up at night?
"The status quo doesn't mean that nothing will ever change, it means that the current system continues"
The one we voted to leave as it isnt doing very well.
"Actually I still can't work out why you don't like the EU"
Damn you can only be thick if we can discuss for this long and you have no clue still. You may not agree but you must have at least some clue.
"Because I can't find any of your arguments that don't apply to the UK as well, and yet you seem keen to keep that particular union intact."
The amount of crap you make up is staggering. Reread the conversation. Reread the bit I wrote about the Scots.
"- EU members do have control over their own borders"
The EU told them to reopen and was done.
"- The UK spend at least half a billion pounds more on the vaccine than our European neighbours"
Would like to see the source on that but you mean the vaccine we are getting and the EU population is waiting for?
"- Boris couldn't organise his way out of a wet paper bag"
Agreed
"- Even the UK negotiating team don't really rate this deal*"
Not read it yet but not looking forward to seeing the 'deal'. As with your previous point I dont hold much hope if there is a deal but hope to be pleasantly surprised.
"The expectation was we would have to wait years to see the benefits"
"And we are not disappointed! We have immediate benefits and the many doom predictions failed."
And this is why I say you are engaging in the highest order of doublethink.
You still haven't actually named a single tangible benefit that we couldn't have had as members of the EU.
Violence is bubbling up in NI, multiple industries are realising that there is no way they can survive outside the EU... but don't worry, there's a unicorn stable just round the corner.
@John Robson
Thanks for the explanation of how you dont understand the Irish border issue. Since I have explained it many times I dont think there is a hope you will ever be able to understand it. Maybe see if someone else is willing to try.
"Of course they can impose tariffs on imports from the UK"
Thanks for pointing out that the EU can only apply tariffs on their own members and cannot impose tariffs in the UK. So you do understand and this isnt an issue.
"And they will - the moment the extreme brexiteers reduce standards over here (because there was no need to leave to *improve* standards, so the only changes they can want is reduction)."
It is a mistake to think more restrictive standards is better. While it can be, too restrictive is actually bad. Reducing such restrictions is an improvement.
"since financial institutions can see that, they will be migrating away from London."
As we were told they would, and then they put up a brass plate in the EU which brassed off the EU.
"So you reckon the cost of brexit was just the cost of the crayon that de Pfeffel used to sign the document?"
Nope. But to think the cost of trying to remain is part of the cost of brexit is either moronic or reasoning that said remainers need to be billed. Either way works for me.
"No - the cost includes all the costs associated over the last four years, and the costs over future years as well - including the costs involved in the quite probable dissolution of the United Kingdom."
Then thankfully we are not being charged for the EU covid bailout fund which means we have saved through brexit. And I assume you will be counting the costs of the EU as time goes on too. For example blowing money on the French vaccine which didnt work then making Germans complain they are at the back of the line for the German made vaccine?
How about the costs of dissolution of the EU? I hope you wrote off the Greek bailouts as lost money, and Italy could be seeking debt forgiveness next, then maybe France.
codejunky> The EU has dictated the opening of those borders-
Perhaps try another (non-paywalled?) source. Not one with documented evidence of employing liars as journalists.
The EU cannot tell member states how to control their borders. They have requested that member states allow EU & UK citizens to return home and to minimise impact on trade & flow of goods.
Brexit is finally here in a few days. You can stop the lying/mis-representation/mis-quoting/mis-translating * now.
You know there are non European countries that banned travel to/from the UK, right?
I know it's difficult after all these years. But it's over. You won. You don't have to do this any more.
*Circle as applicable.
@John Robson
"In fact borders was one of the specific "benefits" you listed."
Control of our borders doesnt mean making a hard border in Ireland. In fact it means doing what we like with our borders. Which the UK gov had already said many times it didnt want to make a hard border in Ireland.
"This border however is particularly problematic for various historical reasons, the other borders are fairly easy - being an island nation ourselves."
Very true. There are no actual physical features to mark the border geographically. So even with a border it is porous.
"and more to do with the UK government wanting to have free access to a market"
Cool. So they can shut up about fishing and the level playing field and just offer a trade deal? I accept the gov had hopes for extra's, but then the govs have hoped to remain and do a BINO. But a straight up trade deal shouldnt be too difficult should it?
"WHO recognizes that at certain points, some countries have had no choice but to issue stay-at-home orders and other measures, to buy time."
You missed the bit about not using lockdowns as the primary means of controlling the virus. We have been locked down for how long now? And that lockdown has negative effects. I link to a pro lockdown article-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/10/13/who-warning-about-covid-19-coronavirus-lockdowns-is-taken-out-of-context/?sh=549d4bb5158c
"We have repeatedly failed to act until *far* too late"
Maybe we should have stuck with the Swedish approach then.
"Noone has ever presented a plan for brexit"
Really? In what way? Granted the tories have weird ideas with remain and leave in some schrodingers cat reality. I have never seen anyone presenting a plan for remain though.
"you've simply spouted some headlines you overheard somewhere assuming that unicorns would come galloping over the hills"
Actually so far I have pointed out why I want to leave the EU and the benefits to the UK in doing so. If you dont like that its your problem but so far your responses havnt stood up very well.
"Boris still has no plan"
I dont think he plans for much to be honest. He is an opportunist who seems to do what he can to grab the votes. I can well believe the rumour that he took up brexit to boost his popularity after such advice over dinner. I dont trust him to deliver until it is done.
"We're fucked, and it was easily preventable."
Very preventable. We had a 2 year transition period to get out of the EU after the vote and then we should have left. Instead its still under negotiation after Boris's own deadlines.
"We've already dropped from the 5th largest world economy to the 6th, and we're going to be 7th soon"
Depends on measurements as to where we are. Yet 5th or 7th is still beyond most of the EU member countries.
"That's not a good trajectory"
Dont look at where the Eurozone is heading then. The UK is a good portion of the EU GDP and the Eurozone is a shrinking portion of the worlds wealth.
@John Robson
"Erm - they reversed that within hours, after *internal* pressure (in other words someone got excited and the group of adults around them calmed them down moments later)."
You're changing the subject now!! The EC/EU unilaterally announced restrictions on their border without even notifying Republic of Ireland or UK in advance, notice how the UK never mentioned activating article 16 or any other restrictions. The fact they are prepared to take harsh action without thinking is scary in its own right. They should think before invoking such powers, actually the EC should not have the power to do things like that. They can act quick to prevent vaccines leaving the EU but are slow to approve vaccines for own their citizens use. It is their border though & they can do what they want & in this case disproved your point. They can do a hard border & they can change their mind and not do a hard border.
"As opposed to the UK which took months of external pressure to U turn after they announced plans to invoke the very same clause."
I read that bojo said he would have no hesitation invoking Article 16 if needed but that was on Jan 13th 2021, so he's not had months to U turn on that.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/watch-we-will-have-no-hesitation-in-triggering-article-16-if-necessary-says-boris-johnson-39964412.html
The EU/EC are still going to be restricting exports of vaccines specifically to the UK
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55860540
"So you are claiming we have told the EU, absolutely dictated to them through threat of force, that they must put up a border there? Otherwise you are talking crap."
No I'm not. The requirement for a border is entirely our own. The EU border exists, we have *chosen* to move outside it, and now you're shocked that it exists?
That really just shows how well the EU works, that you hadn't realised that the border was there to start with.
You again seem to get very confused over the difference between the contributions of imports and exports, and which are economically valuable to a country.
""diverge from standards and therefore have tariffs and quotas imposed"
How can we have tariffs and quotas imposed? They cant."
Yes they can - clearly laid out in the deal just signed. If we diverge, then they will take corrective action and impose tariffs/quotas on our exports to the EU. We can trade freely *or* we can diverge, we cannot do both, and since you are so insistent that we diverge then we can't trade freely.
You also seem to completely miss the point that the UK has no guarantees of continued equivalence in EU financial markets, and thus financial institutions (which are a far greater contributor to our economy than trade in goods) are liable at any time to be cut off from the EU. They will be, the moment that UK.gov decides that they can make more personal profit by "reducing regulation" i.e. letting crooks be crooks. And financial institutions will, in the mean time, be working to move more and more of their business to the EU financial centres, where they have a much more stable platform going forwards.
The best golfer in a club leaves, that doesn't mean that there isn't a best golfer, and if that person can't play golf any more (since they are no longer a club member) then they won't even be as good as the new best in short order.
"Oddly geographic neighbours doesnt necessarily mean more trade."
I don't know anyone who lives in Scotland and does their weekly shop in Cornwall...
Geographical proximity is not *required*, but it does make trade significantly easier, and cheaper, in several respects - it's a significant factor in economic distance.
I have at no point said that Covid has had no affect on our economy over the last year, but it is absolutely not the only factor in play. The extreme tory brexit is a significant factor, it's already cost us more than we have ever paid into the EU.
The monumental incompetence demonstrated by the dithering delinquent in Downing street has resulted in a far more serious national health crisis than the one we should have been facing. It took 6 weeks to implement the SAGE recommendation last autumn, and they implemented advice that was no longer current and then exited the lockdown whilst still at a higher infection rate than we had before the lockdown was called for. And since economic activity relies on a healthy population... the economic damage has been higher than it should have been as well.
To those with any epidemiological understanding it's no surprise that we are now at a point where we have more people in hospital with this disease than at any point so far.
They have also managed to brilliant accomplishment of building a lorry park, waiting long enough that construction on a flood plain was scheduled as we entered winter in a country not well known for dry weather.
It is this level of incompetence that you are relying on for your unicorn farms.
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"Ok. So we decide to leave. As a result the EU decide there must be a border."
It's not a "decision" that the EU have taken it is the direct result of the decision made by the UK. It's not like you "deciding" to knock a house down, it's like the house "deciding" to collapse when hit by a wrecking ball.
"So by your very logic NI is part of the UK and hasnt left the UK so it is pointless to put the border between NI and the rest of the UK."
There are three possible locations for the border.
The Irish Sea
Across the island of Ireland
The Channel/Atlantic (which I have never heard anyone but you suggest).
The Channel is obviously not a realistic option - Ireland is not going to follow UK tariffs and trade laws when it is in the EU. That's why, to my knowledge, no-one else has suggested it.
Across the island of Ireland is the "most obvious" option, since it is the natural consequence of the UK leaving the EU, however it violates the Good Friday agreement, and therefore threatens peace in NI and the rest of the UK.
The Irish Sea is a compromise - the country of NI remains in the EU customs union, peace is preserved. Of course the risk is that the people of NI (who voted to remain in the EU) will take the opportunity to vote to leave the union, and we all know that unions are important... or is it just this one?
You then go on to avoid the question of a deal by talking about the border again. Typical tory brexiteer bluster in the face of an actual issue caused by the stupidity of the event.
The stretch wasn't whether or not vessels got to UK waters, it was your arrogant red top fuelled desire to label everyone as an illegal immigrant. That is a pretty strong indicator of your background. HH
"But since expert advice was against lockdown"
Nope, nope, and nope. Unless of course you think that Cummings is an expert.
"Amusingly there is now the antivax vs 'experts' which would put you on the anti-vax side in this (personally I can see both sides)."
You what?
There is no sane way you can tar me as anti-vax.
That kind of sums up this whole conversation though - you don't seem to be able to understand the simplest items of international agreement, admit you have no interest in the matter yet profess a deep desire for a vague course of action which you haven't detailed or understood.
"You can't claim to want control of borders and simultaneously claim that there shouldn't be a border between the UK and the EU."
Why? I have heard this a few times and I expect you to be using the same mistaken assumption, but why cant we want control to do what we choose (on our side of the border)?
We can control what we do - but your complaint is that the EU are treating us as the third country which we now are.
"Now accept responsibility for the consequences of that decision."
I do. I am quite happy so far. Still happy with my choice.
So you think that the fishing industry, in particular the shellfish industry, is doing fine? It's undergoing complete collapse because trading with the EU as a third party isn't something anyone considered.
You think that the lack of tailbacks is due to anything other than a lack of lorries?
I have questioned your sanity before - but the level of doublethink required to even vaguely consider that we have yet seen a single benefit from leaving the EU is beyond comprehension by anyone with any contact with the ground.
@John Robson
"Tampon tax, is that the best you can come up with"
You asked for something now and we aint been out long (as I pointed out). So yeah.
"http://infacts.org/we-dont-need-to-leave-the-eu-to-scrap-the-tampon-tax/"
And I quote- "In 2016 the UK won a promise from the EU". That is because the lowest you can reduce VAT to is 5% under the EU rules which allow you to add VAT or increase it but not remove it from products. That we had to 'win' permission to do so is not impressive.
"Oh, and Ireland already had a zero rate."
Which would be why it wouldnt affect them if they already (pre-EU) had 0% VAT.
@AC
"Leaving aside your EU comments which we will ignore because why bother."
So not at all on topic then. Ok.
"The one the Swedish king just slated?"
Yup. The one which caused them less of an economic hit and better covid results than we have. Sweden doing better than some of its locked down neighbours.
Just because he is a king doesnt mean he is right.
"The UK said it had no intention of erecting a hard border."
Whilst it stood digging foundations with a pile of bricks and mortar behind it. That's not a statement that was ever even remotely believable.
You can't claim to want control of borders and simultaneously claim that there shouldn't be a border between the UK and the EU.
"Waaaaa. Yeah you lost, get over it."
Waaaa - you won, get over it. Now accept responsibility for the consequences of that decision.
Shame that none of the brexidiots know what responsibility means.
""Nope - the Countries in the EU have far more control over their own borders than we have ever tried to apply."
Now you move the goalpost. So members dont have control of their border, just more than we applied while a member?"
No - I merely illustrated the contradiction in your own position...
EU countries did close their borders - that is what has happened, despite you saying they can't.
An upper cap on earnings at $100/hour does matter at all to anyone who isn't earning anywhere near that rate - similarly tightened border controls aren't actually of interest to any country who isn't trying to tighten them beyond what is already allowed.
"By leaving the EU protectionist block the EU mandates a hard border. Not the UK"
Erm - no, the UK demands a hard border... The UK is the only party here forcing a change. The EU didn't kick the UK out. The only "demand" being made is by the UK, not the EU.
Or do you really think that you can leave the local gym and still use their swimming pool? It's not that the gym is locking you out, it's that you are locking yourself out.
"Given the contraction is due to covid the answer being to open up the economy."
Stop conflating the issues - and stop being such a stupid idiot.
nearly a hundred thousand people have been killed in one year by the virus, and many times more than that will have been left with long term medical complications. The aborted and idiotic attempts to "open up the economy" triggered a second wave which have been singularly badly controlled since the government doesn't have the nouse to organise its way out of a wet paper bag.
Sydney went back into lockdown due to a cluster of 28 cases - but overall Australia has done markedly better than any other "western" country, and have done better economically as a result of dealing with the pandemic. You don't choose between health and the economy, the economy is utterly dependant on health.
"We have literally just left and you ask what we have done?"
Yes - because there are various things that are being touted as "immediate benefits" - most of which of course are nothing of the sort. I was just wondering which of this batch of lies you were swallowing hook line and sinker.
@John Robson
"Because we're saying we want out of the club but want them to keep the back door open so we can still drink at the bar."
Nope. The Ireland have an agreement with the UK that there wont be a hard border. Ireland under the EU dictated to that there will be a hard border. The UK aint done anything but leave a voluntary club. Hence not our problem. It is for the EU to force Ireland to break the agreement or resolve it with their protectionist border.
"If we had a border between NI and the rest of the UK, such that the UK operated in two different customs zones - then we don't need one on the Irish mainland."
Put a border in the water? Sounds a good idea. But it can go on the other side. Put the border between Ireland and the EU and the custom zone issue is solved. Awesome!
"That is *our* choice - we are the ones saying we don't want to be in the same customs zone, and the ones dictating where that line is drawn."
The line is already drawn and agreed on. Ireland is being told to break that agreement. EU's problem not ours.
"You cannot only import. a) you'll run out of space, b) you'll run out of money."
I aint saying only import but put that aside. What? Run out of space?
Back to only importing, that would suggest the UK has nothing of any value to any other country for exports. I cant even contemplate that you would believe that.
"Trade requires both import and export - I don't trade with Tesco, I am a customer."
Eh? You dont trade but you are a customer at Tesco? Dont you pay for the product/service? Which they pay for the product from the supplier. Who buys from ... and so on aka trade? Just because you in your daily transaction are insignificant (even if your bill is huge) in the grand scheme of things you are trading. Just as if you traded your eggs for a turnip at a peasant market.
"Why - to ask why they are supporting all this legislation you think is so harmful. Sounds like you don't have enough interest in EU politics to understand much about it"
I am not interested in EU politics, I want out! I dont give a rats who the insignificant seat warmer is elected to the EU, I want out. Thats why I vote for those intending to be seat warmers and argue to leave.
"And various medical experts are not convinced that sufficient diligence has been applied to the certification process."
Ok. And yet some people have choice (UK, US) and some dont (EU).
"Nope - Various of them are basically open for business with only international travellers affected."
Sweden is open for business. Lets do it.
"NZ are at level1 out of their three level system."
Great. As long as they keep those pesky hosts out (people) good luck to them.
"They are open for business, and are not getting hit because they have effective border control. That thing we didn't bother with for six months, and still don't do effectively."
Very true. I agree our borders suck. Doesnt help when the French help illegal immigrants from crossing into our waters, even when they are sinking.
"You really don't get what a border is, and why it is needed do you?"
Yes. Thats why I am confused at why you seem to have an issue with the UK not being fussed and the EU absolutely being the ones who want and therefore its their problem. No matter how much toy throwing and screaming is done, its their problem.
No - it's ours. We are the ones demanding a border by leaving the customs union.
That means that the consequences of the border (i.e. the collapse of the good friday agreement and the return to 1980s violence) is *our* problem.
"Trade deals are to make up for deficiencies in a countries trade stance."
You wha...
Trade deals are inevitably an improvement on the WTO terms that exist... we could allow anyone to export *to* us, but that doesn't give us any capacity to export. Import isn't trade, trade required both. For that we *can* function on WTO terms, but that is *by definition* the worst possible trade deal with everyone.
There is no policy we can put in place that will improve our ability to trade with anyone else, since that would require a unilateral agreement *from them*, which must therefore be open to all countries. That is why trade deals exist, to allow for countries who see a benefit to closer trade, maybe because of geography or specific industries, to trade better.
"We get to choose our elected representatives in westmister and europe. That they don't do what you want is not relevant"
Awesome!
You completely missed the question I asked... How many times have you written to your MEP?
If they never hear from you then you cannot complain that they haven't heard you - that was the point I was making.
"Oddly enough no amount of lockdown getting rid of a persistent virus"
You'd better tell New Zealand, Taiwan, Iceland, Singapore... need I go on?
The UK ranks amongst the worst responses... we didn't even bother restricting international travellers until June!
As someone on the clinically extremely vulnerable list I am well aware of the sequencing of the vaccination programme. The EU programme is defined, it just isn't set in stone since they will make changes right up until a vaccine is available (i.e. authorised) based on the available evidence - which will likely include data from the countries currently acting as a reasonable scale trial.
The various countries that make up the EU have their own vaccine programmes, so the fact that the EU is reporting multiple versions is simply a reflection that the nations are free do do as they please - I'm sorry if that doesn't line up with your "EU mandates everything" viewpoint, but reality stays put.
@John Robson
"It's not a new border that they have created. We have moved outside an existing border.
Why should they treat us differently from the rest of the world?"
Ok thats fine. Which comes back to the UK isnt breaking the GFA by not trying to put up a border. As you say its the EU's border and how they choose to treat us.
"The border across the island of Ireland is therefore new"
It already existed with different rules applied even while in the EU.
"And that border is between the UK and the UK, and is the fault of the UK."
Only for agreeing to such a shabby deal. We should have insisted the border between ROI and EU or we aint interested in a border (on our side). ROI are currently noticing a big problem that they cant get working vaccine from the UK because the EU dictates they cant (havnt approved it yet).
"The border has in no way been created by the EU"
No matter how many times you repeat this lie you disprove it with your own description of events. I dont think you can get past this because while you seem able to do the step by step process to reach the answer you deny the answer at the end. 2+2=4. You are fine with the 2+2 bit but insisting the result is 25 against everything even you agree with is ridiculous.
"Considering you seem to find it difficult to decide if a hard border has to be put in place or EU members having control over their own borders you seem to be wildly confused."
Nope - the Countries in the EU have far more control over their own borders than we have ever tried to apply. That much is, and always has been, clear to those people who are vaguely interested. That there was such an obvious demonstration just days before the end of the transition period is merely a coincidence, but well worth pointing out that control to people who still think that we'll have a one way mirror between us and the EU.
If we diverge from the customs union then a border is required - or have you still not worked that out?
""Except that the borders aren't open"..."They are still closed to the vast majority of traffic. It is only certain people, with certain reasons *and* a recent negative test. "
They are not open, but only closed to some traffic. Or not closed but only open to some traffic. No matter how I read that it seems open."
Sorry - what are you even talking about.. "limiting traffic" is exactly the sort of "control" you wanted, or is it just that you don't actually know what you wanted - so when other countries apply the control the red tops have told you that we don't have it gets a bit confusing?
Yes, I know what a majority means - which is why the tories shouldn't be in power at the moment - 43% of the UK voted for brexit supporting parties, so it should have been cancelled - not rushed through as if there was nothing else of importance happening.
"So long NHS, it was nice knowing you. So long pensions, welfare state, a currency with value, freedom."
Really?
Yes - it is a logical extension of the tories desires. They have been dismantling the NHS for decades, and are intent on running the country into the ground for short term personal profit.
Given the expected contraction of the economy we won't have the money to continue with the basic rights we currently enjoy, and they will be stripped away to make even more profit for the few who make those decisions.
The best hope I can see is that they actually try to diverge, and the effect on the economy is faster than they expected, leading to a significant rejoin movement before the 2024 election cycle. It'll take another few years to convince the EU that we're even worth listening to, and we'll never get as good a deal as we had before, but it would still be better than being outside the EU.
Given that we have now left, and are no longer subject to EU laws (assuming we want to retain trade with them of course) what have we done that we couldn't have done previously?
@John Robson
"The level playing field is one of those things that underpins the concept of frictionless trade"
Within the EU. Trade outside the EU does not require a level playing field.
"You can't leave the golf club and then complain that you aren't allowed in the bar any more."
Agreed. We get out of the EU and trade with them. Easy enough.
"Tax/Welfare/Legislation are not tariffs. Wales and Scotland diverge in both welfare and legislation from the UK, yet we have no tariffs, and therefore no border is required."
No tariffs with each other. Which is what such an agreement could be, or some sort of customs arrangement without a hard border. This is where Ireland and the rest of the UK/EU would have to be treated differently if the EU doesnt want to make a hard border. But thats their problem to work out not ours.
"If you have divergence in standards and/or tariffs applied then you need a border on which to check that these are being correctly applied."
And in the case of Ireland thats for the EU to work out then. Their problem as it has been all the way. If we dont care and they do then its obviously their issue.
"The whole point of brexit was to get better trade deals"
Was it? Glad you told me because thats the first I have heard about it. I hear about better trade but that doesnt mean deals, that can be achieved by not being protectionist of 27 countries. We dont need tariffs protecting our orange growing industry, we dont really have one. We just want the oranges.
"What percentage of EU regulations do you think we have opposed? Because regulations we supported are not in any way reducing our ability to rule."
Again mistaking the people for the government. Blair gold plating EU regulations wasnt because the people desired it. Hell labour promised a referendum at one point to get the votes so the detachment of government (pro-EU) and the population was clear. That we voted leave when we finally had a say and consistently support leaving throughout the many votes so far shows our opposition to the regulations.
"There is no way to refute an opinion which has no basis in reality - I await my unicorn delivery."
As do many in the EU.
"Our reaction been woefully inadequate, as evidenced by the relatively high number of deaths, and the insanely slow reaction of UK.gov to any advice"
No disagreement there. Had the gov stuck to its initial reaction we probably would be much better off but then Boris panicked and we have a country in lockdown.
"The T&T system was to be the benchmark of success"
Well said. PHE failed miserably. Our central approach to testing and too much control from government has inflicted a lot of harm on top of the virus itself.
Interestingly the UK has now got the vaccine and is administering it while the EU try to work out a 'common approach' and their people dont even have a choice to get it. A member of my family has already had it while my friends in the EU are still waiting for the politicians to get a move on.
""The very simple fact is that *we* have created a border, and you seem very surprised that a border exists."
This is the huge mistake I keep tearing apart"
Except that you don't keep tearing it apart - you just reiterate utter tosh.
We have chosen to move outside an existing border, such that it now exists between the UK and the EU - that is entirely our decision... nothing to do with the EU at all.
From their perspective they are merely implementing the border which has already existed, but now in the new position which we have created.
From our perspective it's a new border, because the single market rules negate the need for significant checks etc., so we basically didn't have one before.
There is no way to have a purely technological border, there are plenty of technological approaches to paperwork that can help smooth the border, but physical checks are still needed...
@John Robson
"You really don't get the concept of borders, no wonder you didn't think we had any control over them."
Considering you seem to find it difficult to decide if a hard border has to be put in place or EU members having control over their own borders you seem to be wildly confused.
"My maths skills are rusty, but I'd be fairly happy sitting an A level paper tomorrow. Amazingly you can't even use the British contraction for mathematics..."
So you know that the majority means more. And you should then understand that more voted for leave and your stupid comment of 'only counting those who vote for you' was idiotic. All the votes were counted and the result was leave.
"illegally fought, non binding vote"
And yet the remain campaign has yet to be prosecuted.
"excluding groups which would have overwhelmingly voted to remain (like EU residents of the UK, and UK residents of the EU)."
"Erm - yes, the per dose cost... That's a pretty clear cut number to go on. You know... facts really are inconvenient aren't they."
They might be but we dont know, that is why I said I would wait for the facts. By cost per dose is it literally just the cost of the drug or additional costs involved?
"Except that the borders aren't open"..."They are still closed to the vast majority of traffic. It is only certain people, with certain reasons *and* a recent negative test. "
They are not open, but only closed to some traffic. Or not closed but only open to some traffic. No matter how I read that it seems open.
"Do you actually know what the EU is?"
A protectionist trade block designed around the old world model of high tariffs and protectionism. Pulled between US envy and old socialistic ideals with few net contributor countries to fund the entire exercise while the poorer countries are drained of their populations. It is high regulation and struggling to make its presence felt on the global stage with the big hitters. It has moved from self inflicted crisis to self inflicted crisis with a flair for not really solving the problem. Its overall aim is ever closer union but with members who dont want such but is unwilling to eject them because the EU cant afford the public embarrassment. Its shameful attempt of engineering ever closer union with a currency so badly thought out or cleverly designed not to work caused a lot of damage and will continue to do so.
"It's a group of countries working together, being better together"
Unless the country votes politicians who dont share the same values as the EU. A few members currently.
"We punch well above our weight... (that's the symptom of artificially high) except that we won't soon."
So you say. Except you want us to be under the EU. Why would we want to chain to a sinking ship? Drop the dead weight and get back to trade.
"So long NHS, it was nice knowing you. So long pensions, welfare state, a currency with value, freedom."
Really? I hope you dont believe that or you really are a victim of the stupid propaganda.
"We don't need to make something legal, we need to make it illegal."
Such as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which extended to the colonies the Slave Trade Act 1807?
"we can at least expect that we should still get some food into this country, although the country itself will be running out of money pretty fast."
Where do you get this rubbish? Seriously.
"Mind you the deal is still far better than no deal"
I like how you say that right before trashing it. I have yet to look at the deal. I expect it is defeat from the jaws of victory. We were so close to no deal, it would be hard to see what they could have achieved better than that last minute.
""Erm - the EU border has always existed, and is a legal requirement between customs areas."
And we are back to this point in the cycle again. Where its the EU's border, the EU places the border, but its somehow not the EU's fault it places a border, somehow the UK is at fault for the EU insisting on a hard border, which makes it the EU's border.
Entirely missing the point that its the EU's border and they choose how to implement it on their side which makes them responsible for it. The legal requirement is entirely of their making."
Borders exist between customs areas, we have put a border across Ireland (well, we moved it to Irish sea) because we created a new customs area that didn't exists before.
Yes, it's entirely our fault there is a border there.
Borders exist and both parties are obliged to carry out the required checks at those borders - that means the EU is obliged to carry out checks, as it should - since we will be lowering standards (that being the entire point of the idiotic exercise as far as those in westminster are concerned, since there was never a barrier to raising standards) they need to ensure that goods moved into the EU are made, and labelled, according to the appropriate standards.
That is just what a border between customs areas is - you can't just say "don't bother", and you particularly can't say that to *someone else*. The EU haven't changed their border policies at all, they were clear for anyone to read before this fiasco.
The UK government seemed to think that the UK was special, and wouldn't be a third country under EU rules (which we fucking wrote). Of course we're a third country, that's the point of leaving.
That means that *we* placed a border, we have decided to split the UK into two customs areas, so there is now bureaucracy required to export things within the UK.
How this has come as a surprise to anyone is beyond me.
"You spent a large chunk of this exchange claiming the EU didnt place its border. That was a major problem with your replies."
Erm - only in that we are the ones to have moved where the edge of the EU is (or more importantly the edge of the single customs market). The border existed around the customs union, we were part of that and then moved outside it - redefining where the edge was, and moving the border with it. So the fact that there is now a border there is entirely our fault, not that of the EU. They haven't changed anything, the border still encloses the single market, as it did before, and the rules didn't change either.
The tory british exceptionalist promises have been brought into the light as flat out lies, but those paying attention always knew they were.
"There is no way they are going to split the common market to pander to a temper tantrum by an ex member."
And thats fine. I have no problem with that. As you say they place their border. Through Ireland. Which they kept claiming was a problem due to the GFA. And the UK said we wouldnt bother with a hard border.
And this is where you are engaging in deep doublethink. How can the EU both have the border around the customs union and simultaneously not have a border around the customs union?
"The only way to stop a border across the island of ireland is for NI to remain in the customs union."
Not true. ROI could leave the EU. The EU could make a trade agreement with the UK (even specific just for Ireland). Instead of the Irish sea border between NI and UK put it between ROI and EU. There are options.
Option 1 (and 3, given that they are the same): Yeah right, that's an obvious thing to happen because a bunch of entitled twats in westminster want to gut the economy for personal profit. The EU isn't going to split the single market - you accepted that a moment earlier, and then suggested that they do exactly that.
Option 2: We did make a (weak) trade agreement - that requires a border, and checks to be made for good passing across the border. Which is exactly what the question is trying to avoid.
So no, none of those options are actually options.
The NI that voted to remain in the EU, that one. The seats they return don't make a dent in westminster, and you know it. They returned precisely zero conservative MPs.
"They refuse to walk away"
Yes, because as responsible adults they realise that a trade deal benefits both parties. They are willing to come to an agreement, but it will not be at the cost of the basis of the EU. That much has always been clear, and has never changed.
"Again not our problem. If the EU/ROI impose a border it isnt the UK doing it. No point going after the UK when we dont want the border either."
There is an easy solution to not having a border - don't fucking leave the EU.
That's the only reason a border is required, so it is absolutely our problem, the fact that it is also an EU problem is our fault, not theirs.
We can't both diverge and have our own tariffs *and* not have a border.
This is the kind of double think that makes me doubt your sanity.
Find one thing about the UK/Japan deal which is better for the UK than the EU/Japan deal we had - because those responsible for it can't.
""And the cost of being a member has been?"
Bloody huge. Contributions, regulations, trade barriers and a loss of democracy, sovereignty, trade, economic and border."
Contributions have been tiny, or do you look at numbers and ignore the actual size of the UK budget overall.
How many EU regulations have there been that we haven't actively supported?
And the rest as well, you're just spouting Farage's stale opinions... he's moved on now to anti-mask anti-vaccine idiocy. I would suggest that you join him, but your group stupidity has already cost lives and I don't want it to cost more.
The EU covid fund is a far better plan than "do fuck all" which seems to be ours, or worse, spend half a billion pounds to increase the spread of Covid. Not only that, but it required unanimous approval... so there was no luck involved. If we actually didn't want to have some form of economic recovery then we could have simply said no.
@John Robson
"NI didn't choose to be dragged out of the single market, they voted to remain in the EU - but their national sovereignty doesn't matter to you."
NI are part of the UK and the UK voted to leave. That you seem to think that means they were dragged out shows the UK sovereignty doesnt matter to you.
"The ROI hasn't changed it's position at all - the UK has"
By saying we dont want a hard border and offering various options not to have one that the EU rejected. Which is their choice and they are free to choose. As I keep saying.
"Since peace on the island of Ireland is predicated on *not* having a border there we have now a situation where there isn't even a single customs market in the country of the UK."
Which shows what a bad sell out the government has been in leaving NI partially under the EU. If peace is predicated on no hard border and our side isnt interested in one anyway then it wouldnt be our problem nor would we be worth targeting for any trouble. And its not up to us what the EU choose to do.
"We are currently failing to check goods from the EU"
And did we before? And do we want to? Do we care? If we are performing the same checks as before that is our freedom to do so. As I keep pointing out.
"There will be checks on goods inbound when we can be bothered to actually make that plan"
When. If. And whatever checks we are willing to perform.
"If you are in a walled garden and then leave it, you don't get to complain that you can't see the garden now because it has a wall."
Your complaining not me.
"Given that you can't understand this simple concept I have no interest in continuing to listen to your ignorance with respect to covid."
After having pretty much every mistaken point you have made burned down I am not surprised.
"That is what you say. Yet NI, ROI and UK dont seem to want one. Just the EU."
You really don't get the concept of borders, no wonder you didn't think we had any control over them.
No, we are the ones choosing to put a border in place. Looks like de-pfeffel has finally agreed to put one in the least bad available location - the Irish Sea.
" Are you now going to claim the number of votes for remain was higher than the number for leave? Otherwise you have the answer."
My maths skills are rusty, but I'd be fairly happy sitting an A level paper tomorrow. Amazingly you can't even use the British contraction for mathematics...
No - I'm not happy that the government took the marginal result in an illegally fought, non binding vote, and ran with it. note the illegally fought part there. It was also a discriminatory referendum, excluding groups which would have overwhelmingly voted to remain (like EU residents of the UK, and UK residents of the EU).
I'm not happy that government ministers are entitled to blatantly lie to the public.
I'm also not happy that we have a system where a minority government can claim a "landslide" victory.
"So you just came up with the cost based on numbers"
Erm - yes, the per dose cost... That's a pretty clear cut number to go on. You know... facts really are inconvenient aren't they.
"So the EU decides borders open, the borders open. but the members have control even though they do what they are told by the EU. "
Except that the borders aren't open... and won't be for another week and a bit. The EU hasn't forced France to open it's borders in the way you claim. They are still closed to the vast majority of traffic. It is only certain people, with certain reasons *and* a recent negative test. But according to you they have no control over their borders....
Do you actually know what the EU is? It's a group of countries working together, being better together. If the EU decide something then that's not separate from the member states - it *is* the member states.
We punch well above our weight... (that's the symptom of artificially high) except that we won't soon. This deal will see to that fairly swiftly.
So long NHS, it was nice knowing you. So long pensions, welfare state, a currency with value, freedom.
As for slavery: https://qz.com/1301918/researchers-discovered-hundreds-of-ads-for-runaway-slaves-in-18th-century-britain We don't need to make something legal, we need to make it illegal.
Mind you the deal is still far better than no deal...we can at least expect that we should still get some food into this country, although the country itself will be running out of money pretty fast. de pfeffel has just shafted the entire financial services industry, and simultaneously managed to grant EU citizens more rights in the UK than UK citizens. He's only ended *our* freedom of movement, not theirs, he has capitulated entirely on the fishing distraction, and basically every other red line his crayon left on the walls as he wandered around Downing Street.
@John Robson
"So If I cut off your leg it's your fault you bleed to death?"
Eh what? Again that has no relation to what I said.
"The existence of a customs border across the island of Ireland is entirely of the UK's making"
The UK made the custom border? But its the EU's custom border to protect the EU as you have explicitly stated. So the UK didnt make it.
"the GFA agreement was based on that state of affairs continuing"
Ahh so when the world moved on, things changed, as inevitably happens the UK was willing to adapt to the change but the EU wasnt. Is that to do with the EU being spiteful or just to slow to adapt to the real world?
"At no point has the EU been culpable for the creation of a border across Ireland, that's all on the UK."
Hang on. I thought we were talking about the EU customs border. Which would be the EU's border by the EU for the EU. As you have already stated. Again are you saying we should invade ROI as our only means to enforce they comply with not having a border?
"Then when BoJo pushes basically the same deal it's suddenly a leave deal?"
It isnt. Hence as we have been discussing the abandoning of NI to the EU. A situation the EU is struggling with and appears to be for no good reason as the EU instantiated a hard border for fun. ROI then realising how worthless they are to the EU because they found out through the media!!!
"Again, the doublethink is strong"
"We replaced the backstop with an ongoing bifurcation of the UK market, and suddenly it's a leave deal when it was a remain deal?"
Did I say that? Or are you again making stuff up?
"Finally! Now stop trying to flit about with excuses for your beloved EU and reread that. EU places its border. Just as the UK places its border. So the UK states it isnt interested in placing a hard border in Ireland. The EU as you just clearly stated is the one to choose to place its border."
Oh for fucks sake - where do you propose the EU places it's border other that around the edge of of the EU.
There is no way they are going to split the common market to pander to a temper tantrum by an ex member.
The only way to stop a border across the island of ireland is for NI to remain in the customs union.
You know that thing that literally every major brexit campaign promised we would remain in, and then decided that leaving it was the whole point *after* a farce of a referendum.
So in a misguided attempt to claim some mythical lost sovereignty (when the EU made rules, that was *us* making them) the union of the UK has been split, and we now need a customer border within the UK.
But that's fine - you think all unions should be disbanded, so bring on NI independence (and probably reunification), scottish independence, and welsh independence. No doubt Kernow will be next on the list.
After all the NI sovereignty was impinged by being ripped out of the EU against it's declared wishes...
""And why do we have a defined edge to our sovereign rights?"
Because different 'tribes' have their own set of rules. Scaled up to the country level where we have our own laws and regulations and others have their own. E.g. UK doesnt tell EU what to do and EU dont tell UK what to do. But we can make agreements."
We can - be we deliberately broke the one regarding our customs union. So you need to move anything from an area with one set of rules to an area with another set of rules... Where do you think the check is made that the appropriate rules have been followed?
"Ok - now you've really been at the kool-aid."
Which bit did you miss? If you are questioning the public sector failure handling the Covid crisis then you are sucking down the kool-aid.
The public sector at the highest level has failed massively... They have resisted any attempt to suppress the virus until it's far too late.
That's why we have the highest COVID death rate in the world at the moment.
And you think they've done too much to control it - that's why I think you're drinking kool-aid.
"The NHS has been chronically underfunded by the tory party"
Labour spent 13 years and more money than the country could sustain to fund the NHS and the Tories currently give it more than Brown did at his peak. If thats your excuse.
Is that why the UK national debt (as measured against GDP) stayed static for the duration of the last Labour government, right up to the 2008 global financial crisis. And why it has grown consistently since then with the Tories in charge.
The NHS has received less money each year (again measured against GDP) consistently throughout the tories current regime.
"How can the NHS protect us if they are all infected with Covid because you and your ilk couldn't be bothered to wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay a little way away from other people?"
Interesting. So the very actions which I am all for (the mask being somewhat in question) you support as the answer. Awesome we can agree on something.
No - because you aren't supporting the wearing of masks, and the reduction in close contact which is required to reduce the spread of this virus. The government is starting to think about quarantine for people coming into the country... that should have been implemented eleven months ago.
We spend less on healthcare in this country per capita than france, germany, sweden, canada. japan, the usa. The NHS isn't a black hole of finances, it is a large organisation which provides world class healthcare free at point of delivery. The failure has been in the political inability to listen to people who know more than they do.
@John Robson
"As for the Pfizer vaccine:"
Not good news-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/04/angela-merkel-blocked-bid-secure-coronavirus-vaccine/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Angela Merkel came under fire on Monday after it emerged she intervened personally to block a bid by European health ministers to secure larger orders of coronavirus vaccine over the summer.
According to the newspaper, the letter was written under pressure from Mrs Merkel, who wanted to send a signal of solidarity at the start of Germany’s six-month EU presidency.
Feel free to tell me how bad our gov is, but I would need a lot of convincing it is made better by adding this bad government on top.
@codejunky
>>"The seats they return don't make a dent in westminster, and you know it."
I took this one out of order because its the funniest. Didnt may enter an agreement with the NI leadership in Westminster because that would make the difference in majority support?
yes that was funny.
@John Robson
>> Except that the EU position has not changed at all. There is, and must be, a border enclosing the single market.
The only thing that has changed is that the UK has decided that that demarcation is across the island of Ireland - it is therefore entirely our responsibility to make sure that the GFA can be maintained. And we did, eventually, do what had been suggested for over a year as the most reasonable option (and we repeatedly said would never happen, oh what a surprise, we hold all the cards, but the game is chess)
The UK didn't decide to put the demarcation across Ireland, the demarcation was always across Ireland as there was 2 separate sovereign states within Ireland. The UK has said they don't want a hard border and are willing to do things away from the border which was rejected by the EU so the UK agreed to put a border between NI & the rest of the UK in order to protect the GFA.
We can't stop the EC unilaterally invoking article 16 as they did the other week without even bothering to notify RoI or the UK before putting out a public statement announcing they've invoked article 16.
It's not reasonable for the UK to do border checks between 2 parts of the nation, once people work that out there will be significant problems especially as the EC don't have any respect for GFA as demonstrated by their invoking a16 with no thought as to the repurcussions.
Any way you've moved the conversation on from discussing where the EU decide to place their border which, as they've recently demonstrated, is their choice.
Well now.
Let's look at where the EU can place it's border... It can either be around the EU, or... well that's it. The EU border hasn't moved so much as we have moved outside it.
At no point has the EU forced any of this - As part of the EU we were included in the border, we moved outside the EU and suddenly get surprised by a border which already existed.
That's brexit doublethink for you made all the more impressive by the hard tory brexit we have had forced upon a population who overwhelmingly voted for parties backing a second referendum.
@John Robson
"Do you think the UK needs a border (anywhere)?"
Yes. The UK does have a border. That would be the defining edge where the UK has its sovereign rights.
"As for finances... EY reckons that more than 7,500 jobs and at least £1.2tn of assets have been moved from Britain to the EU since the referendum in 2016..."
Ok. Assuming that is correct how does that balance with assets moved normally and assets moved into the UK?
"Given that we haven't go ongoing stability, they're not coming back - and more will join them."
Thats assumption. If the problem is ongoing stability then they must be fleeing the EU, at least the EU proper (Eurozone). While I would expect some to leave and not come back where the EU is the only reason they exist, that leaves everyone else including those moving to the UK.
"That's not a failed vaccine, it's a vaccine which has seen a setback. That's what happens in research."
Ok so the vaccine doesnt work and so has a setback. Vs working vaccines that have been delivered in the UK and US and elsewhere but the EU failed in its ordering process badly. But seems it wasnt allowed to order more than the French 'setback' by the French.
The project is worth more than lives.
"If you carried on "as normal" then covid would have hospitalised so many that the NHS would have collapsed"
Except it wasnt a capacity issue it was public sector failure. At one point the gov panicked due to numbers in London but until the new strains of faster spreading it was a total failure of the health service. The failure of testing took too long for the public sector to sort out.
"It is absolutely vital to prevent total collapse of the NHS that the rest of society does its part."
As has been noted in public, we must protect the NHS although surely it should have been the NHS to protect us?
@codejunky.
Just RTFA and try to understand it. The EU has no control over state borders.
From the Indy article you have linked to:
"But in a recommendation issued on Tuesday afternoon, Brussels said travel restrictions to prevent the spread of any new strain should have exemptions to prevent border disruption, which is wreaking havoc on trade flows."
Here are the bullet points:
o Recommendation
o Use of the word "Should"
o Talking about trade flow
There is no edict. There is no law passed. There is no power being exerted. They are making a request is all. To help hapless England and its inept politicians in its time of crisis.
Just another false EU-narrative story from the Telegraph. Like the ones Boris used to invent during his tenure. (Although admittedly he was not fired for those specific lies.)
And now the Germans are airlifting food into Sheffield things don't look so bleak.
Toddle-Pip.
@John Robson
"Erm - I never said it was right - I said that they managed to reverse that decision internally, and rapidly."
You've never said it was wrong. It was clearly wrong. Even Ursula regrets it.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/05/ursula-von-der-leyen-uk-covid-vaccine-speedboat-eu-tanker
“We shouldn’t even have thought about article 16,” she said. “I regret it."
“"Whatever the Commission does or decides, I have full responsibility,” she said a week after her spokesman attempted to pin the blame for the controversy on her trade commissioner. "
>The current bunch of barely elected clowns in downing street have no capacity to recognise that basically every decision they take is bad - much less the ability to reverse said decisions when they sit around a table and throw crayons at each other.
the current bunch of clowns gained an 80 seat majority over all the other clowns that bothered to try and form a government. That is not barely elected.
Its clear and obvious mistakes & bad decisions have been made, but they've clearly and obviously made some great decisions too. Investing and incubating institutions and companies to develop vaccines, going alone to get them approved, determining that the vaccine be produced at zero profit so the rest of the world can benefit. They are all GOOD decisions.
If this is your idea of bad government then I'd love to know how you would have described a Corbyn government.
We desperately need more & better choices for political parties than the current main choice of 2.
“ The fact that we have chosen to move outside that border does not, and can not, force the EU to just have no border there, which is what you seem to think is reasonable.”
So you comprehend that it’s the EU that are wanting the border. The EU can decide to not have a border.
The EU *already* had a border... and of course it has a border, otherwise it isn't a union, it's a seive.
Anyone would think that decades of living with an excellent working relationship with our neighbours has made you lot forget what borders are.
"You seem to have missed my previous comment naming benefits."
No - I have missed any tangible benefit being named, all I have seen are repeated soundbites of things that might once have been proclaimed as things that would benefit.
The poster child industry of brexit is crippled, and will not recover.
The violence in NI is ramping up beyond what we've seen in decades.
The volume of traded goods moving through our ports has been decimated.
"Because no matter how wrong you are nor how your own comments contradict your position you are certain the answer is the opposite of the result."
Yes, that's a good description of doublethink, which is exactly what you are skilled in.
@John Robson
"You still haven't come up with any explanation as to how or why the EU should remove the section of border"
I have explained how, they can actually agree not to with the UK. Just for ROI and if they want even make it another version of an EU member. As to why they should, I dont care and dont argue they should. I do point out that the EU putting a border there is the EU doing so and not the UK so all that crying over the GFA isnt the UK's issue. We have nothing to do with what the EU does on its border.
"force the EU to just have no border there"
As I keep saying, we dont force them to do anything unless we are talking about military action and taking over the territory which I dont know anyone who is saying that. Its not about us forcing the EU to do anything, they have options just as we do. Which is why a hard border would be the EU's choice. Their decision.
"so explain - why should we be able to unilaterally remove the border between the EU and the world?"
This is why you are struggling. I am not saying that at all. Not even close. Not at all near. Miles off. Nothing to do with anything I am saying.
This is why I dont think I can explain it to you, because you seem to have an entirely different idea of what I am saying than what I am writing.
"Tariffs being imposed on good being exported from the UK is absolutely an issue."
Why? Imports are things we want, exports are work we do that other people want. We dont buy stuff so we have a reason to go to work, we go to work so we can buy stuff. The EU could wall itself off from us with its tariffs and bureaucratic nonsense yet unilaterally they decided they wont cut off their members access to London. The EU needs financial services of London and so gets what it wants.
"Those tariffs make trade across borders more expensive than trade within those borders."
Yes. For example China having an excess of steel from a massive construction boom dumped it on the world market. Those who bought what they wanted prospered. Those who put tariffs against it (US) inflicted significant harm on their economies and lost jobs because of protectionism.
"This really shows how little you understand the concept of research"
Sorry to burst your bubble. Its a long read but hopefully you will and be somewhat enlightened and probably disgusted at how badly the EU managed to screw this up-
https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-planning-disaster-germany-and-europe-could-fall-short-on-vaccine-supplies-a-3db4702d-ae23-4e85-85b7-20145a898abd-amp?__twitter_impression=true
@AC
When you say it slumped more than its neighbours, it isnt quite right to measure it only against those doing better. Their economy relies heavily on exports and everyone else is locked down so its gonna hit hard. Yet still not as bad as other European countries.
"So, no economic advantage and more people per head died compared to Sweden's neighbours."
Except their death rate is still better than locked down countries and much heavier locked down countries and economically they didnt trash as hard as others in Europe.
@John Robson
"To suggest that the vaccine rollout is an EU issue is rather missing the point - they didn't have to club together, they decided to do so"
Which is causing friction because Germany and Austria have decided to go order some on their own which the EU disapproves of. Ireland suggesting just hopping the border and grabbing some from the UK was shot down by the EU breaking the GFA without thinking and while they may have 'decided' to show solidarity they are clearly regretting it. Because the EU failed hard at the vaccine procurement (not even rollout!!!).
"I'm sorry - the advertised benefits were immediate"
And we are not disappointed! We have immediate benefits and the many doom predictions failed.
"We decided to have that border as part of the EU - that's *our* decision, not one imposed on us\"
Ireland in the EU's vaccine panic.
"Not sure if you are just trolling now. You now seem to accept its the EU border hence its the EU's border. Not UK making it."
Here is a farmer's wall.
Here is an apple tree. Pick an apple, they're tasty.
Now move to the other side of the wall.
Now you can't pick an apple, and it's not because the farmer has put up a wall.
"The EU cannot impose tariffs on the UK because we have left "
Of course they can impose tariffs on imports from the UK - which is universally referred to as applying tariffs...
And they will - the moment the extreme brexiteers reduce standards over here (because there was no need to leave to *improve* standards, so the only changes they can want is reduction).
The UK government completely failed to put in any practical protection for the the services industry instead concentrating on not putting in any practical protection for our trade in goods.
The EU is observing the current equivalence, since an instant change at zero notice would be bad for both parties, but as and when we derestrict the gamblers then they will not continue to grant unfettered access - and since financial institutions can see that, they will be migrating away from London.
So you reckon the cost of brexit was just the cost of the crayon that de Pfeffel used to sign the document?
No - the cost includes all the costs associated over the last four years, and the costs over future years as well - including the costs involved in the quite probable dissolution of the United Kingdom.
"The UK has no say over the border on the ROI side. "
Yes, we do - if your neighbour puts a fence up, then the view from your side will now be of a fence. They therefore have considerable input to "your side" of the "border".
"You say there isnt a majority for leave yet every vote so far from referendum, MEP and general election has pushed leave promoting parties to victory."
So ~37% of the electorate voted to leave - Mr Fuckwit himself said that 52/48 wouldn't be sufficient.
In the GE the slender majority of the voting public went to ~46% (from memory). That isn't a majority, no matter what the buffoon says about maths.
The FPTP system is broken - but the majority did not vote for parties that wanted to push ahead with a fucking stupid plan irrespective of the cost.
"So if that happens the UK would be far ahead of almost all of the EU members still? That being the next doom prediction I assume?"
No - the doom prediction is merely that we will be significantly smaller than we would have been within the EU, and we will be less relevant in world trade since we won't be part of an economy on a par with the US and China, we'll be 10% of that size, and our clout will match that vastly reduced status.
"The plan for remain is quite simple, and very well described. It's what was the status quo."
So a lie"
No - the only plan that was ever expressed is the above. Remain in the EU, engage with it, shape it.
Or you could just sit in the corner, dream of an empire built on slavery and rock yourself to sleep.
The status quo doesn't mean that nothing will ever change, it means that the current system continues. That includes the regular elections, and the ability to engage with politics in a manner that you refuse to do because.... Actually I still can't work out why you don't like the EU. Because I can't find any of your arguments that don't apply to the UK as well, and yet you seem keen to keep that particular union intact.
As has been demonstrated in the last week
- EU members do have control over their own borders
- The UK spend at least half a billion pounds more on the vaccine than our European neighbours
- Boris couldn't organise his way out of a wet paper bag
- Even the UK negotiating team don't really rate this deal*
As it is I have no doubt that the "deal" will be passed by the crowd in Westminster despite only a handful of them having had any opportunity to see it, let alone scrutinise it.
It's as much of a feast as the cardboard from a McDonalds takeaway.
* I should explain. Their document lists UK win when the UK wanted something and the EU didn't have a stated preference, but when the roles are reversed then it's a "mutual compromise".
@John Robson
"You know what - borders got closed last night... because.. well because they *can* be closed, even within the EU for various reasons"
The EU has dictated the opening of those borders-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/22/travel-ban-uk-countries-news-restrictions-border-tier-4/
"You say that but how? The UK doesnt want to make a border
Yes we do...
In fact borders was one of the specific "benefits" you listed.
This border however is particularly problematic for various historical reasons, the other borders are fairly easy - being an island nation ourselves.
The issue with a trade deal isn't the EU not wanting to give us a competitive advantage (although why would they, we are a relatively small part of their international trade, they are a very large part of ours), and more to do with the UK government wanting to have free access to a market without following the rules of that market. The same thing they have always said they would stand firm on... the only people surprised by this are delusional tory brexiteers.
"Cummings doesnt work for the WHO. Look up lockdown fatigue.
Since you didn't bother to suggest that the experts were the WHO, who still recommend lockdown where needed, and it was needed, as presented by SAGE and ignored by the giovernment.
WHO:
WHO recognizes that at certain points, some countries have had no choice but to issue stay-at-home orders and other measures, to buy time.
Governments must make the most of the extra time granted by ‘lockdown’ measures by doing all they can to build their capacities to detect, isolate, test and care for all cases; trace and quarantine all contacts; engage, empower and enable populations to drive the societal response and more.
We have repeatedly failed to act until *far* too late, resulting in far longer lockdowns being required.
Noone has ever presented a plan for brexit - you certainly haven't, you've simply spouted some headlines you overheard somewhere assuming that unicorns would come galloping over the hills. Boris still has no plan, he has declared that we don't need a plan for an extreme tory brexit because it won't happen, and then driven us into it... He has less than two weeks to agree an extension to the transition period (because a deal simply cannot be ratified in the remaining time. We are heading for a disaster.
We're fucked, and it was easily preventable.
We've already dropped from the 5th largest world economy to the 6th, and we're going to be 7th soon... That's not a good trajectory - I might seriously consider emigrating to somewhere with a more honest government, PRC maybe.
@John Robson
"We can control what we do"
Now yes. But as the members are finding out not them.
"but your complaint is that the EU are treating us as the third country which we now are."
When did I complain about that? I aint complaining.
"but the level of doublethink required to even vaguely consider that we have yet seen a single benefit from leaving the EU is beyond comprehension by anyone with any contact with the ground."
The expectation was we would have to wait years to see the benefits. However we have already seen huge benefits before the end of the transition period-
> The covid bailout fund which was slow to deploy and is just another expensive chain to tie the members to the club. Easily justifying the 'costs' of brexit to make this saving.
> The covid vaccine ordering cockup of the EU where they didnt just make a crisis worse, but then piled on further to make it even worse.
> As tip pc is kicking your ass about here, the lack of organisation or thought that goes into the wild and flailing actions of the EU. That all important GFA was forgotten quickly and required a loud reminder from the UK and Ireland.
> The actions being considered that the EU might seize the intellectual property and production of vaccine in the EU. An act in response to the vaccine producers fulfilling contracts by rule of law.
As per your complaints of lorry tailbacks and difficulty trading with the EU. Thats what we leavers have been telling remainers for years and being told it wasnt the case. The EU forced us to impose that border on the rest of the world as with every member. Now we need to work on reducing such impositions for our imports from the world.
"The lock was already there, we are choosing to move outside it."
Yes which is what I said. The EU locking their door (border) not us doing it.
"We are moving the wall, including the locked door, between us and the EU."
So you are claiming we have told the EU, absolutely dictated to them through threat of force, that they must put up a border there? Otherwise you are talking crap.
"I did, and any suggestion that that is purely related to our massive under-response to the current global pandemic is patently absurd"
Thats an amusing claim. So shutting down the economy pretty much for what is expected to be about a year is not the reason for our economic performance? You born yesterday?
"I don't think multinationals pulling out the UK before Covid19 had been identified were citing Brexit as a bluff to cover for Covid related issues."
Nor would you count the investment coming in nor fine performance of our economy before covid because it doesnt suit your narrative. Yet the UK was still doing fine while the EZ was still mulling how to get out of crisis.
"The contraction I was referring to was the one we are about to experience as a result of no longer having a close trading relationship with one of the top three economies in the world"
The one we were waiting for when we voted leave, then when handing in art50 and then suspended to some time in the future but gonna blame brexit?
"and more importantly the top three economy that makes up virtually all of of our geographic neighbours for more than a thousand miles in every direction."
Oddly geographic neighbours doesnt necessarily mean more trade. It economic distance which makes the difference. If it was just geographic distance then we would do more business with the EU than we do and less with the rest of the world.
"diverge from standards and therefore have tariffs and quotas imposed"
How can we have tariffs and quotas imposed? They cant. The UK can import as much as the UK wants and using UK tariffs. If you mean our exports then its up to them if their govs dont want what we provide better or cheaper (or both) than their people can already get. Such imposition being a thing we had under the EU we should be well rid of.
"simultaneously lose access to the financial services markets"
Who will? The EU? The EU have already been warned by their own banks that if they get cut off from London they will have a new banking crisis. That being why the EU unilaterally decided in the event of no deal they would not stop their banks from accessing London.
If you mean the UK not accessing financial services then you are drinking some seriously strong stuff and might fall into a coma soon. Its the global financial markets which London has lead Europe (and the world for some time) for a long time.
@John Robson
"No - we have decided that we shall leave the EU customs union."
Yes
"Without a customs union a border is required - so it is *our* decision that has generated the border."
Ok. So we decide to leave. As a result the EU decide there must be a border. You are really going to struggle to put the blame of the EU demanding Ireland has a border as our problem. The EU is voluntary, we (UK) are free to leave. Northern Ireland is in the UK.
"RoI is *in* the customs union and hasn't voted to leave" & "so a border between the island of Ireland and mainland Europe is completely pointless"
Great. So by your very logic NI is part of the UK and hasnt left the UK so it is pointless to put the border between NI and the rest of the UK.
"That line hasn't actually been agreed by anyone"
Except you already accept they have different policies. So are you wrong now or then? And if there is no border then where is ROI and NI?
"Of course I have an oven ready deal that you will pay me a million pounds a year for the next twenty years, so that's all good. Is your unwillingness to pay me *your* problem?"
Spot on! The EU says the UK will make a border and all is good. The UK unwillingness to do so doesnt make it our problem.
"We have limited production of value"
So the UK is of so little value that the EU should be happy to be rid of us and not want to give more extensions. Excellent. Except they wont. And they are determined we must agree to the 'level playing field' because otherwise we will have an unfair advantage.
"However if we had trade deals then those tariffs would be significantly reduced"
So your saying we produce better or cheaper and are blocked because of tariffs. Otherwise they wouldnt buy from us in the first place. So we do export things people want.
"So you freely admit to having no understanding of what it is you want out of"
Nope. But I am sure you thought you had some sort of victory finally until now.
"Now you're really stretching."
Actually news. I even posted up about it a while ago on a reg topic. They shadowed a sinking illegal migrant boat until it entered UK water for us to deal with.
"Irrespective of the status of asylum seekers - it is not difficult to implement a quarantine system on an island with no international borders"
Even the ones I mentioned sneaking into the country illegally? So people not coming in through any form of checks and entering the country can be quarantined in your system? How?
"The fact that this bunch of clowns wants to start a third wave by "just relaxing the restrictions for Christmas""
I laughed this morning. Apparently the gov fear riots if they dont relax restrictions for xmas. The gov have lost control as was the advice back in march. People will only lock down for so long.
"Very few people in the UK have a choice about the vaccine"
My grandparents have already had it. No special wrangling, they are old and in the vulnerable category so had the option.
"The fact remains that it has been rushed through"
I agree. But since expert advice was against lockdown and experts have produced the vaccine and exports will stop people going about their business but protests are fine it really depends on the expert for which opinion to have. Amusingly there is now the antivax vs 'experts' which would put you on the anti-vax side in this (personally I can see both sides).
"The current general advice looks like it's lining up as a risk worth taking, but given the lack of evidence of efficacy... can I really start socialising?"
Hell knows and good luck to you. But as an early adopter of the vaccine in a country that is providing the option can you see why the proles of the EU might prefer to have choice instead of a 'unified approach' of the elites sitting on their hands and deciding for them?
@John Robson
Looks like the EU have just hardened THEIR border to the uk.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55864442
“As part of its plot to block vaccine exports to the UK, the EU has invoked Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. This has effectively removed Northern Ireland from the EU’s customs. In plain English, Article 16, the so-called safeguard clause, allows both the EU and the UK to unilaterally suspend part of the Northern Ireland Protocol (which keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs territory) in specific circumstances.”
The EU have decided to do this all by themselves.
They make all the decisions about what they do and how they control THEIR border as it’s their decisions that control THEIR border.
I don’t agree with many other cj posts, but he’s not wrong on this.
@John Robson
"No - I merely illustrated the contradiction in your own position..."
Which is to answer your contradictions by replying to them separately as they entirely contradict each other and both firmly removing your complaint that its the UK's fault.
"EU countries did close their borders - that is what has happened, despite you saying they can't."
Did I? This is a long thread with you jumping all over the place so what did I say? (quote please)
"Erm - no, the UK demands a hard border..."
So even though the UK says they dont want a hard border and have no intention of making one its the UK demanding one? Yet the EU isnt demanding one although the EU demands a hard border outside its protectionist block. You what?
"The UK is the only party here forcing a change."
Ahhh! So you think the UK is bound to remain in the voluntary EU because otherwise the EU border is in Ireland! Except its voluntary so we choose to leave and sovereignty would mean we get to choose so the UK is free to leave. That would mean the ROI must choose to remain or leave then. And if the ROI remain and the EU demands a border (they do) then ROI break the agreement. Ok if thats how you prefer it.
"Or do you really think that you can leave the local gym and still use their swimming pool? It's not that the gym is locking you out, it's that you are locking yourself out."
The EU is a chlorinated pool of piss water? As you wish. So who locks the door? Who has the lock on the door? Who has the door? The gym. So even in your own metaphor the EU is locking the door because we leave, aka the UK is not the one making the hard border. And yes we are free to leave and they are free to lock the door. They cant cry that we must lock ourselves out by building a door in front of theirs and locking it, thats just moronic.
"Stop conflating the issues - and stop being such a stupid idiot."
You said contraction in the economy. Which is of course due to covid. So whats wrong?
"The aborted and idiotic attempts to "open up the economy" triggered a second wave which have been singularly badly controlled since the government doesn't have the nouse to organise its way out of a wet paper bag."
So covid caused the economic contraction. The economy being the thing you were complaining about when you said- "Given the expected contraction of the economy we won't have the money to continue with the basic rights we currently enjoy"
"Yes - because there are various things that are being touted as "immediate benefits" - most of which of course are nothing of the sort."
What things? Not disagreeing someone has touted it I just havnt heard it. Are you saying whoever touted such benefits had the credibility of those predicting the recession when we vote leave, then when we hand in art50?
"Control of our borders doesnt mean making a hard border in Ireland. In fact it means doing what we like with our borders. Which the UK gov had already said many times it didnt want to make a hard border in Ireland."
And yet they also did something which made that border inevitable, between their words and actions you have to believe their actions. And their actions are pushing very hard for a hard border across the island of Ireland. This has been clear for ~four years now.
""and more to do with the UK government wanting to have free access to a market"
Cool. So they can shut up about fishing and the level playing field and just offer a trade deal?"
Yes they could, but then you'd complain about the fact that completely free access requires three other freedoms (movement of goods, capital, services and labour are the four freedoms, and are taken together).
Fishing is worth naff all to the UK economy, and is clearly a desperate attempt to secure something that could be portrayed as a victory.
You know what - borders got closed last night... because.. well because they *can* be closed, even within the EU for various reasons. We have always had far more ability to deal with some forms of economic migration than we have ever done - but rather than enforce the rules we have you think making more draconian rules is a better idea?
"You missed the bit about not using lockdowns as the primary means of controlling the virus."
No I didn't - but we have waited too long to introduce lockdowns at every stage, and when we have waited we haven't then extended them. The autumn lockdown was lifted when rates were substantially higher than they had been when the lockdown was called for - that's madness.
The problem with viral spread is that is (to a close approximation) exponential - even a small delay causes a significant increase in the required response - and UK.gov waited weeks before acting on the advice they were given.
""Noone has ever presented a plan for brexit"
Really? In what way? Granted the tories have weird ideas with remain and leave in some schrodingers cat reality. I have never seen anyone presenting a plan for remain though."
The plan for remain is quite simple, and very well described. It's what was the status quo.
The plan for leave encompassed everything from commit national self harm, to "of course we'll remain in the customs union". We appear to be targeting the hardest of tory brexit. i.e. national self harm on an unprecedented scale).
Boris has repeatedly claimed that we don't need a plan for no deal, and pursued a course of action that will inevitably lead to that lack of plan being needed.
"We're fucked, and it was easily preventable."
Very preventable. We had a 2 year transition period to get out of the EU after the vote and then we should have left. Instead its still under negotiation after Boris's own deadlines.
Even easier - we could have not left. There isn't a majority in the country for leaving, not by a long shot. There never has been.
France is about to overtake us in terms of economy, and we'll be running towards Italy pretty soon. Yes the next two economies to overtake us will both be EU members.
"Ok this is new. So we leave a voluntary group. We have an agreement between the UK and Ireland that no hard border will be made. We (the UK) agree to stick to that, the EU cries and says no and as the EU is in charge of Ireland dictate a border must exist. So how is that the UK demanding a border? That doesnt work at all."
Because we're saying we want out of the club but want them to keep the back door open so we can still drink at the bar.
This has been clear since the outset - the only way to avoid a border on the island of Ireland is to have both NI and RoI in the same customers zone. If we had a border between NI and the rest of the UK, such that the UK operated in two different customs zones - then we don't need one on the Irish mainland.
That remains an option, but since we want the delimiter between customs zones to be on a line across the island of Ireland we need a border there.
That is *our* choice - we are the ones saying we don't want to be in the same customs zone, and the ones dictating where that line is drawn.
You cannot only import. a) you'll run out of space, b) you'll run out of money.
Trade requires both import and export - I don't trade with Tesco, I am a customer.
"You completely missed the question I asked... How many times have you written to your MEP?"
Zero. Why would I write to my MEP (whoever that is).
Why - to ask why they are supporting all this legislation you think is so harmful. Sounds like you don't have enough interest in EU politics to understand much about it.
" And it is available in the UK already.
And various medical experts are not convinced that sufficient diligence has been applied to the certification process.
Everything follows from the measures of diligence being applied.
"You'd better tell New Zealand, Taiwan, Iceland, Singapore... need I go on?"
Please do. Once you get to most of the world you might have a minor hope of being somewhere with a point. Otherwise nope. As soon as one of them open up they get hit again,
Nope - Various of them are basically open for business with only international travellers affected.
NZ are at level1 out of their three level system.
Face masks are in use on public transit and "it’s still worthwhile to keep a safe distance from people you don’t know while out and about".
They are open for business, and are not getting hit because they have effective border control. That thing we didn't bother with for six months, and still don't do effectively.
@John Robson
"No, a border has two sides... We have moved outside and so the border is between the EU and the UK"
How can you say that and yet still not understand that means the EU does what it wants with its side and the UK does what it wants with its side? You keep explaining why blaming the UK is wrong and then blame the UK.
"we are the only party to have erected it."
This is entirely wrong. The UK said it had no intention of erecting a hard border. So that is entire bull.
"The erection of a border across the island of Ireland is entirely and solely the responsibility of the UK."
Entirely against what you wrote before about there being 2 sides. Entirely against the fact that the UK clearly said they had no intention of making a hard border. Again you seem able to do the working out but entirely deny the answer it provides.
"Would there be a discussion about a border if the UK hadn't exited the EU? No"
So you think the UK should be forced to remain in the EU against the wishes of the population who consistently voted to leave just because the EU finds it difficult to talk about borders? I thought the purpose of the EU was this fantastic trade union to take on the world? If it cant wrap its head around a border negotiation then what use is it? Sounds as dumb as not reading the contract for Covid vaccine and crying that they wont get as much as they hoped.
"Did the EU force the UK to leave? No"
And so we can leave no problem and if the GFA is as big an issue as is pretended then the EU can negotiate over the border for Ireland exclusively. Not the UK's fault if we leave a voluntary group and the EU choose to break a prior agreement unrelated to our membership.
"Did the UK's broken electoral system allow a few wealthy maniacs to fuck us up completely? Yes"
Waaaaa. Yeah you lost, get over it.
@John Robson
"Given that we have now left, and are no longer subject to EU laws (assuming we want to retain trade with them of course) what have we done that we couldn't have done previously?"
Great news-
https://www.continentaltelegraph.com/2021/01/the-tampon-tax-is-gone-huzzah-now-wait-for-the-squealing/
@John Robson
"You really don't get what a border is, and why it is needed do you?"
Yes. Thats why I am confused at why you seem to have an issue with the UK not being fussed and the EU absolutely being the ones who want and therefore its their problem. No matter how much toy throwing and screaming is done, its their problem.
"I don't know why politicians and brexiteers seem so confused by this."
Are we? Your the one saying that.
"Better trade *does* mean deals, and it means better deals."
At least we can see where you are getting it wrong, no. Trade deals are to make up for deficiencies in a countries trade stance. It could be custom agreements for preference but that preference is different to the countries trade stance. E.g. the EU is a protectionist trade block with high barriers which requires and relies on trade deals to exist.
"Erm - so you think that the literal worst available trade terms are going to improve our ability to trade internationally?"
Worst with who? Leaving could be seen as better trade terms since we can reduce the barriers we are forced to implement.
"We get to choose our elected representatives in westmister and europe. That they don't do what you want is not relevant"
Awesome! You have just shut down every argument of the remoaners. Shut up it doesnt matter the gov dont do what you want, shove off. Of course this is a situation leavers had to tolerate since we joined the EU, and now remainers must tolerate. On the other hand why elect people if they dont do what you want? Hence I voted for leave politicians.
"No - you see the doing fuck all was why we need lockdown"
This short lockdown is apparently going to be about a year long. Oddly enough no amount of lockdown getting rid of a persistent virus. Amazing that the experts were right to begin with and lockdown not gonna get rid of it. Sweden doing better than the UK yet not locking down. Sweden doing better than some of its heavily locked down neighbours.
Every time economies open up the virus spreads faster. In lockdown the virus spreads. With a vaccine it will still spread. How could it have been stopped? China getting its thumb out of its arse when it knew about it.
"We have 40 million doses on order, that's enough for ~30% of the population, not really mass vaccination."
Which is going to the vulnerable first. The ones who may actually be in danger. And the EU is still trying to figure out who and how.
"The EU are fractionally more cautious than the UK/US - that's not in itself a bad thing... what do we do if we find a 1 in 50k serious side effect?"
So state dictatorship that the population should shut up and die is ok but having the choice to have the vaccination is not? The EU can be cautious but make it available like the UK/US where people can choose for themselves. They dont need benevolent overlords telling people to shut up.
"And we agree on that to a point. I entirely make that my point, you seem to be claiming that its the UK who is making that border, but as you say and I agree its the EU's border."
It's not a new border that they have created. We have moved outside an existing border.
Why should they treat us differently from the rest of the world?
The border across the island of Ireland is therefore new (because it wasn't there when the UK was part of the EU) and the fault of the people who changed things to put it there.
Yes, we've agreed to try to break the UK into it's constituent countries, because having a border across the island of Ireland is untenable. So we now have a border between the constituent countries of the UK. And that border is between the UK and the UK, and is the fault of the UK.
The border has in no way been created by the EU - we have moved an existing border, and many people have forgotten what borders are like... in part because no other country has ever signed such a massive trade reduction treaty as we just did...
@Dr_N
"You know the borders remain open for freight, right? You know the not-so subtle difference in discussing people crossing and cargo, yes?"
A difference we have been trying to explain for years now. We dont need free movement to do trade.
The level playing field is one of those things that underpins the concept of frictionless trade. This has always been the case, and you don't get to claim that anyone other than the Farage followers have said anything else at any point.
You can't leave the golf club and then complain that you aren't allowed in the bar any more.
Tax/Welfare/Legislation are not tariffs. Wales and Scotland diverge in both welfare and legislation from the UK, yet we have no tariffs, and therefore no border is required.
If you have divergence in standards and/or tariffs applied then you need a border on which to check that these are being correctly applied.
The whole point of brexit was to get better trade deals - what we have with Japan is not better in any way, and according the negotiating team is worse. Your inability to find a single thing in it which is beneficial is telling.
Well since the current UK.gov catchphrase is "don't wanna", similar to a hangry toddler, I'm not surprised at recent events. Let's look at a more representative sample - the duration of our membership. Most of the times when something has been pointed out as an EU rule someone didn't like I find that it was proposed by the UK. Other times it was strongly supported by the UK.
What percentage of EU regulations do you think we have opposed? Because regulations we supported are not in any way reducing our ability to rule.
There is no way to refute an opinion which has no basis in reality - I await my unicorn delivery.
"The UK is in a bad position with our covid overreaction"
Erm, I'm sorry, did I miss something? Our reaction been woefully inadequate, as evidenced by the relatively high number of deaths, and the insanely slow reaction of UK.gov to any advice. The T&T system was to be the benchmark of success, and was quietly taken behind the shed and shot after six or seven months of nothing and the current one is woefully inadequate still. We even paid half a billion pounds to encourage the spread of covid.
As an island nation we should have one of the easiest quarantine opportunities on the planet, and yet we have never managed to get infections under control - I've lost track of what week of lockdown we are in (without defining tier0 as no restrictions and putting everyone in tiers 7/8/9 it's clear that this is still lockdown).
@John Robson
"So national sovereignty only matters when it agrees with you... There are four countries that make up the country of the UK..."
Did I say national sovereignty only matters when it agrees with me, or are you making shit up again? They are part of the UK, by choice.
"We didn't make any vaguely plausible offers of anything resembling a border across Ireland."
We did. Even technological options the EU is considering rolling out themselves, but the options were rejected by the EU.
"No quite - if we don't check or limit imports without a specific trade treaty then it is illegal to check or limit imports from any country in the world... Your oh so special WTO rules apply to us as well."
Yes quite. And I am not suggesting we treat the EU any different than the rest of the world. Catching up yet?
"You're the one complaining that we have a border."
Nope. Try again.
"The very simple fact is that *we* have created a border, and you seem very surprised that a border exists."
This is the huge mistake I keep tearing apart, that *we* havnt created the border. The border already existed and the UK had no interest in making a hard border, only the EU wanted to. So its the EU's choice if they wished to make one.
That you can go step by step and still deny the fact at the end is now boring. I was amused when you used your mental gymnastics and contradictory claims to try and claim something resembling reason. That is why I continued responding so long after the topic died off. But your just claiming black is white because you refuse the result is boring. Cmon amuse me.
@AC
"Sweden's "model" has been exposed to be an utter failure which they have abandoned."
Thanks for those links, it looks very interesting even if the two articles cant agree on the economic situation. The one praising authoritarian suppression seems to think its bad while the other the opposite.
I will wait before judging it a failure. Since the idea of a vaccine and of recovering from it is to hope for a form of immunity against it in future, the idea that immunity doesnt seem to work shouldnt be seen as a good thing. But if it doesnt work then economic suicide also doesnt sound a good thing either.
"So now there is no country in the world that Lockdown sceptics can point to as a success."
The ones praised as a success seem to have lost a lot to consider it a win. And they are still not safe from outbreaks.
@John Robson
"Erm - the EU border has always existed, and is a legal requirement between customs areas."
And we are back to this point in the cycle again. Where its the EU's border, the EU places the border, but its somehow not the EU's fault it places a border, somehow the UK is at fault for the EU insisting on a hard border, which makes it the EU's border.
Entirely missing the point that its the EU's border and they choose how to implement it on their side which makes them responsible for it. The legal requirement is entirely of their making.
"Or should we simply let anyone and anything into the country without checks"
Like Ireland has been doing? That whole no hard border thing.
"you (brexiteers) seem to want closed borders for the UK"
Not me. And while I have seen few advocate that it certainly doesnt seem to be the norm as a reason to leave was to improve our trade outside the EU. To ditch EU protectionism. To stop protecting 27 countries interests and instead look to our own.
"but fail to recognise that borders legally require both sides to implement checks."
And yet the UK had no intention of a hard border in Ireland and the EU did. So you are saying the border wouldnt work? All the more reason for us to move it back to where it should be.
"That's kind of the definition of a border"
And an amount of checks were being done while in the EU. Since there was already a border. Just no hard border
@John Robson
"Oh for fucks sake - where do you propose the EU places it's border other that around the edge of of the EU."
You spent a large chunk of this exchange claiming the EU didnt place its border. That was a major problem with your replies.
"There is no way they are going to split the common market to pander to a temper tantrum by an ex member."
And thats fine. I have no problem with that. As you say they place their border. Through Ireland. Which they kept claiming was a problem due to the GFA. And the UK said we wouldnt bother with a hard border.
"The only way to stop a border across the island of ireland is for NI to remain in the customs union."
Not true. ROI could leave the EU. The EU could make a trade agreement with the UK (even specific just for Ireland). Instead of the Irish sea border between NI and UK put it between ROI and EU. There are options.
"So in a misguided attempt to claim some mythical lost sovereignty"
Which has been shown to be entirely factual and very visible publicly. Especially when ROI got cut off because the EU dictated the Irish border be enforced. Screwing their poor argument about the GFA.
"But that's fine - you think all unions should be disbanded"
Do I? So far you dont seem to know what you think so why do you believe you know what I think?
"After all the NI sovereignty was impinged by being ripped out of the EU against it's declared wishes..."
NI who chooses to be part of the UK and elected an anti EU leadership. That one?
@John Robson
"Erm, at what point has the EU walked away and threatened to stop playing?"
Thats the opposite of what I said. They refuse to walk away and refuse to reach an end. Every time the time limit is hit they want more negotiations. They could end this at any point for the last 2 years and still mess around. Yet they absolutely must be in control of the UK if it leaves.
"The current bunch of halfwits"
I too think thats insulting to halfwits. For 4 years this has been a farce on our side. The withdrawal bill being part of that farce.
"The issue of a border on the island of ireland is very much a UK problem. Do you remember the 1980s?"
Again not our problem. If the EU/ROI impose a border it isnt the UK doing it. No point going after the UK when we dont want the border either.
"If they were good then no-one would need any trade agreements."
Kind of. Trade agreements are a good thing I dont deny, but reducing the barriers of trade in the first place removes a lot of the need for agreements. The EU by design is protectionist with a huge barriers against trade, and relies on trade deals to perform trade. Reduce a lot of the barriers and agreements are nice but need to contain much less.
"Even UK Giov recognise this with their bending over to get shafted by the Japanese"
Ah? As we discussed they got a deal carried over from the EU (you consider worse because its the same). So the EU got shafted? Even I wont go that far.
"In fact the negotiators (the UK ones) estimate that the deal is 83% in favour of Japan, and only 17% of the benefits will come our way."
How is it in favour? We work harder to export them more, or we work less and buy what we like from them?
"How many variations do you think there are on "Remain"."
Loads. I entirely agree that leave was made up of varying opinions vastly opposing each other but coalescing around leave. However the exact same situation exists for remain. It is a socialist/neoliberal, protectionist/globalisation, trade block/political union, of like minded/competing member countries, loosely/tightly coupled aiming to be the EUSSR/USoE with the referendum being for the status quo/ever closer union.
The arguments to remain ranging between an ideal toward utopia or a crap shoot that we can only fix from the inside. As I said, many varied opinions.
"If you're so confident it's a good idea why didn't we actually hold a referendum when it was clear that that was the will of parliament."
Why didnt we have the referendum to join the EU? Why didnt we have a referendum every time one was offered? Why did it require a tooth and nail fight leading to a small party thrashing the main parties so hard that it was offered by a main party and it won to hold a referendum? Why did we have a referendum, MEP and general elections repeatedly electing leave parties and still not have left yet?
"At literally every stage the proponents of brexit have been saying that a free trade deal is important... and then doing everything they can to avoid one."
Important does not mean inevitable. A free trade deal is not selling the country to the damn bastards we are trying to leave. The EU doesnt want a free trade deal, they want to dictate our domestic standards and run how we do things still. Aka overstepping sovereign boundaries we would never accept from any other country so why would we do so for them?
"It's rather easy to assume that leave voters are stupid when they claim that this"-
"Japanese deal has any benefits to the UK" - You stated it does. 17% you claimed (your figures in this very comment!)
"or that we need blue passports" - I hear from remainers. Maybe you hear some leavers about it???
"or that the Good Friday agreement isn't a UK problem" - Which isnt as I keep explaining vs your lack of explanation otherwise.
"or that WTO terms are a trade agreement" - Actually factually they are. Not even a grey area.
"or that we don't need a deal" - Which isnt necessary although we agree nice to have if its a trade deal.
"or that a deal is oven ready" - I agree thats stupid. We should have walked away ages ago. Years.
"or that we'll get £350m/week for the NHS" - Which on a technicality is both correct and incorrect. Definitely misleading.
"When they get surprised that they can't now spend six months in Spain without a visa" - I am sure someone might be surprised but mostly remainers complaining from what I hear.
"need I go on?" - Up to you. We seem to agree the gov is naff, you needed some correcting and we have differing opinions on other things.
"Bloomberg estimate the cost of brexit at substantially more *this year* than we have paid over forty seven years of membership (£200b vs ~£175b)"
2 points- Be interesting to know how they calculated it and if it includes remain attempts/problems and how does it compare to if we had to join the EU covid bailout which we luckily avoided?
"Other estimates suggest that brexit will drop 5-8% off our economy..."
Lots of guesses how it will go. The good news about that IFS one you mention is it only looks to the very short term as an adjustment will occur as we no longer rely on the EU. Also a lot depends on how open to business and trade we will be, which leaving the EU was about being more open.
"And the cost of being a member has been?"
Bloody huge. Contributions, regulations, trade barriers and a loss of democracy, sovereignty, trade, economic and border.
Not an EU specific book but if you fancy an interesting read (mostly bashing our govs) this book is interesting and does show some of the heavy costs from government regulation and often over-regulation-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scared-Death-Global-Warming-Costing-ebook/dp/B08F7LD1TK/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1F9AOVNFV57DT&dchild=1&keywords=scared+to+death&qid=1607519427&sprefix=scared+to+d%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-2
"We can - be we deliberately broke the one regarding our customs union. So you need to move anything from an area with one set of rules to an area with another set of rules... Where do you think the check is made that the appropriate rules have been followed?"
You are getting there. So the EU have their side and the UK have their side. NI and ROI which choose to be part of those separate unions. And the UK decides it doesnt want to do anything about the border, so doesnt. So who does that leave? Who is left to decide? EU and to a lesser extent ROI. So which one wants the hard border? And that resolves this entire discussion we have had taking us back to the EU being the one wanting the hard border.
NI didn't choose to be dragged out of the single market, they voted to remain in the EU - but their national sovereignty doesn't matter to you. The ROI hasn't changed it's position at all - the UK has. Since peace on the island of Ireland is predicated on *not* having a border there we have now a situation where there isn't even a single customs market in the country of the UK.
We are currently failing to check goods from the EU - that's not because we don't want to, but because the hard tory brexit has meant that we didn't plan for moving outside the border that already existed. There will be checks on goods inbound when we can be bothered to actually make that plan (this government hopes for July).
If you are in a walled garden and then leave it, you don't get to complain that you can't see the garden now because it has a wall.
Given that you can't understand this simple concept I have no interest in continuing to listen to your ignorance with respect to covid.
Sweden's "model" has been exposed to be an utter failure which they have abandoned.
Neil O'Brien MP @NeilDotObrien
My piece below looks at Sweden. Recent days have seen Sweden’s Nordic neighbours Finland and Norway offer emergency medical assistance as Stockholm’s hospitals overflow & the King make an unprecedented criticism of the failed strategy. What went wrong?
Sweden’s Covid-19 failures have exposed the myths of the lockdown-sceptics
The “herd immunity” strategy that led to a disastrous Swedish death rate would have been even more dangerous in the UK.
That was the opinion piece, here is the report:
How Sweden is being forced to abandon its failing Covid-19 strategy
The country hailed by lockdown sceptics has suffered one of the worst second waves in Europe.
So now there is no country in the world that Lockdown sceptics can point to as a success.
"And the UK decides it doesnt want to do anything with it, even looking to the complaints sue to the GFA as reason not to hard border. Which means a hard border would be the EU's responsibility as its the only one who wanted one."
So If I cut off your leg it's your fault you bleed to death?
The existence of a customs border across the island of Ireland is entirely of the UK's making - for the last forty years we have enjoyed the freedoms of being part of the single market - the GFA agreement was based on that state of affairs continuing (because no sane person would sing a massive trade reduction treaty).
At no point has the EU been culpable for the creation of a border across Ireland, that's all on the UK.
"May kept pushing remain deals which were rejected"
Then when BoJo pushes basically the same deal it's suddenly a leave deal?
Again, the doublethink is strong. We replaced the backstop with an ongoing bifurcation of the UK market, and suddenly it's a leave deal when it was a remain deal? Both had us leaving the EU...
@John Robson
"And why do we have a defined edge to our sovereign rights?"
Because different 'tribes' have their own set of rules. Scaled up to the country level where we have our own laws and regulations and others have their own. E.g. UK doesnt tell EU what to do and EU dont tell UK what to do. But we can make agreements.
"Ok - now you've really been at the kool-aid."
Which bit did you miss? If you are questioning the public sector failure handling the Covid crisis then you are sucking down the kool-aid.
"How many beds do you think the NHS has lying around all the time, how many nurses are just sat around twiddling their thumbs on a daily basis."
A lot of beds since they are using private too. Also they built extra capacity to show off their quick reaction time. As for nurses, again misallocation of resources means that qualified people have to pass on information via phone instead of tending patients. Usual healthcare particularly preventative healthcare is on hold. Yet from personal experience they cant even close covid ward doors (that are signed to be secured!!!) or figure out what protective gear is needed. Letting people into covid wards without PPE sometimes while others requiring full garb (to enter the same ward).
"The NHS has been chronically underfunded by the tory party"
Then it must have been shit. Labour spent 13 years and more money than the country could sustain to fund the NHS and the Tories currently give it more than Brown did at his peak. If thats your excuse.
"who have also managed to leave us tens of thousands of nurses short as a result of the hard tory brexit you seem so keen on"
I can only assume you mean from the EU if your talking brexit. The place short of vaccine and probably desperate for such workers then.
"How can the NHS protect us if they are all infected with Covid because you and your ilk couldn't be bothered to wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay a little way away from other people?"
Interesting. So the very actions which I am all for (the mask being somewhat in question) you support as the answer. Awesome we can agree on something.
"The NHS isn't some magical fairy land, it's a massive institution that does more for the UK than you can possibly imagine, and yet governments keep trying to starve it..."
The black hole that gets more money than can be sustained and fails us (and the doctors and nurses) in time of crisis. The ever growing maw of (mis)management which attacked people for living and was totally unprepared and implemented policies which actively went against defending against the virus? Also you know the gov is part of the public sector? So your comment before about attacking its failure as drinking kool-aid is wrong?
@John Robson
"We are the ones demanding a border - get it into your head."
That is what you say. Yet NI, ROI and UK dont seem to want one. Just the EU.
"The border is the direct and unavoidable consequence of leaving the customs union - that is entirely our decision."
Hang on! So your saying a sovereign country making a decision to leave a voluntary club (EU) is not allowed? So you are saying we are not a sovereign country and that the EU membership is not voluntary?
"You can no more insist that they don't have a border than you can insist that the bank over the street doesn't use any locks."
Which is exactly my point. That is what I said. We cannot dictate to them what they choose to do. So if they put a hard border that is them doing it, their choice, not us, not our problem.
"So you'd be happy, since it was written as advisory, for the government to go "OK, thanks" and have remained."
The gov then accepted the result as binding. They took the advice and voted to follow it. So your happy for us to leave?
"The result is absolutely in dispute"
To the delusional yes. For the rest of us it was counted, result is in, as per the rules the result is known and accepted by the gov to be done. More-so every election afterwards has been for leave. Even when a party offered to nullify the vote entirely they got almost totally wiped out!
"You won a clear majority if you only count the votes that were cast for you?"
Are you incapable of math? Are you now going to claim the number of votes for remain was higher than the number for leave? Otherwise you have the answer.
Also since it is our first and only vote over our EU membership and we have been in their loving arms all this time, there is absolutely no majority (not even clear majority just no majority) for remain. Only for leave.
"You haven't managed to come up with anything that you don't like about the EU other than that it is the EU."
So you cant read? It makes the country poorer and removes the government further from the people.
"They did better than the US as well."
Interesting. So you just came up with the cost based on numbers but nothing to tally them by? No reasons just overall numbers? It could be we paid more but if that doesnt tell us what is being paid for then it may not be correct.
"The fact that the bloc decided to open up is irrelevant to the point that the countries still have control over their borders."
Wow the disconnect. So the EU decides borders open, the borders open. but the members have control even though they do what they are told by the EU. Thats gonna need explaining.
Also if the members have control over their own borders the Irish problem goes away because ROI doesnt need to make a hard border. Because you claim they can abide by the agreement because they have control of their border and so can leave it as is.
"so they haven't opened up, they've just put in place protocols to mitigate the risks."
Odd how thats what the EU told them to do.
"Apparently you still think we're a global colonial superpower"
Where did you get that? I didnt say it. You claimed we could tell ROI what to do with its border in the last comment and I had to explain no. Just as the EU doesnt get to dictate we put up a hard border.
"Your overt xenophobia and dislike of anything that might be foreign"
Thats seriously bad reaching there, when have I said that? Considering I am pro trade and pro globalisation and anti-EU government you need to explain that one too.
"without presenting a single coherent argument"
You obviously think are incoherent which says more about your lack of comprehension. Even if you disagree.
"is what brought me to *our* history"
Brought you to 'our' history. Your version of such.
"a slave driven empire is part of our history"
As most were, and yet we never legalised slavery and spent vast sums to stop the slave trade before most (all?) others. If you are ashamed of that then its your problem.
"seriously contributed to our global presence, which is still artificially high."
How is it artificial? In what way? That a small country punches well above its weight? Are you one of these self haters in the UK or envious outside the UK? Sounds like you might have xenophobic issues.
The hard border existed - we moved outside it, and in doing so put peace in NI at risk. Because we moved the edge of the EU (where the border already existed) to a line across the island of Ireland.
Therefore it is entirely our responsibility that the border now lies in that location, unless we do something about it.
We did, we bifurcated the country, so that we don't even have a common customs market across the UK any more, it's only Britain.
Your three options weren't actually options... any more than "Have the UK take over sole governance of the entire EU" is an option. For an option to be an option it does actually have to have some chance of working in practise, and has to at least attempt to solve the problem listed.
You seem to think that because you left the gym they should now take down the fence so you can still use the swimming pool. That barrier was already there, we chose to move it into a position where it risks the GFA.
You are aware that different areas of the country have their votes counted and reported separately, thus allowing us to look at regional variations in attitude. I can't make sense of your "which vote" question otherwise.
56% of the votes in the referendum in NI were to remain in the EU. That is undeniable.
May did indeed enter into a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP - however she was unable, even with their support, to get any sort of deal through - i.e. they didn't actually make a dent in the process.
All NI based MPs (all of them) voted against the deal - hardly a resounding anti-eu stance (and again, not really making a dent in the process)
SinnFein, who must get a mention since they don't show up in Westminster, are anti an EU superstate,
To take one of yours out of sequence:
""How can the EU both have the border around the customs union and simultaneously not have a border around the customs union?"
Not our problem. The EU is in charge of EU policy which affects the EU members. The UK is not in charge of EU policy and so it is up to the EU to either find a way to comply with existing treaties or to violate them on the principal of their own policy. Either way is fine but its the EU's issue."
Except that the EU position has not changed at all. There is, and must be, a border enclosing the single market.
The only thing that has changed is that the UK has decided that that demarcation is across the island of Ireland - it is therefore entirely our responsibility to make sure that the GFA can be maintained. And we did, eventually, do what had been suggested for over a year as the most reasonable option (and we repeatedly said would never happen, oh what a surprise, we hold all the cards, but the game is chess)
"So you think you know what I am saying which is in contradiction to what I say I am saying and I am the one saying it."
OK - let's go back to first principles:
Do you think the UK needs a border (anywhere)?
As for finances... EY reckons that more than 7,500 jobs and at least £1.2tn of assets have been moved from Britain to the EU since the referendum in 2016...
Given that we haven't go ongoing stability, they're not coming back - and more will join them.
"It is a long read so you are forgiven for missing it. Search the word 'france' (second match) under the heading 'Storm of Outrage'. Also the word 'french' (second match) for why not enough working vaccine has been ordered."
That's not a failed vaccine, it's a vaccine which has seen a setback. That's what happens in research.
""Either we need to prevent the spread of the virus or we don't, which is it?"
We have to be practical. Vaccinating the vulnerable is now an option while before shielding them would have been a good idea (even that wasnt done very well). That way the rest of us low risk people can get on with life, which is required to have an economy which is required for almost everything in our lives."
The practical nature of virus transmission means that the "low risk" (which I disagree with your description of by the way) *must* work very hard to reduce transmission in order that the vulnerable members of society have a reasonable chance of avoiding the virus. If you carried on "as normal" then covid would have hospitalised so many that the NHS would have collapsed - indeed, it's pretty close at the moment with various hospitals running out of oxygen.
Additionally if you "carried on as normal" then transmission would cover basally 100% of the population in very short order, which would include the vulnerable members of society - since even shielding you need to have some contact with the world, you can't leave all the shopping outside for three days, some of it won't be fit for consumption after that.
It is absolutely vital for the benefit of those who are particularly vulnerable that the rest of society does its part.
It is absolutely vital to prevent total collapse of the NHS that the rest of society does its part.
Many of the vulnerable will also not be well covered by the vaccine - people who have suppressed immune systems have no idea how well they will respond to the vaccine. There is no data on the efficacy for those people... so they are getting vaccinated *and* continuing to shield.
We are the ones demanding a border - get it into your head.
The border is the direct and unavoidable consequence of leaving the customs union - that is entirely our decision.
You can no more insist that they don't have a border than you can insist that the bank over the street doesn't use any locks.
"One of the highest turn outs, of the voters the result is not in dispute, the rules were an absolute 50/50 set by the remainer government ffs stop crying."
The referendum was also illegally contested, and had it not been merely advisory it would have been nulled. So you'd be happy, since it was written as advisory, for the government to go "OK, thanks" and have remained.
The result is absolutely in dispute. And then a couple of years later a minority government has done their best to profit off the chaos they are able to create.
"By the rules of elections every vote has been for a brexit promising party for both GE and MEP since the referendum."
Ah - You must really like Trump... You won a clear majority if you only count the votes that were cast for you? A clear majority voted against the conservative party, and the brexit party. The populace did not want the outcome that is happening.
You haven't managed to come up with anything that you don't like about the EU other than that it is the EU.
As for the Pfizer vaccine costs:
EU - £11.02 (leaked by a Belgian minister and not denied)
UK - £14.71 (calculated from the declared total cost for 40m doses)
Taking the doses needed for the country at 140m - that's more than half a billion pounds more than if we'd entered into the purchasing agreement with the EU (and we could still have started giving doses now). That's what an actual negotiating team does. They did better than the US as well.
"- EU members do have control over their own borders"
The EU told them to reopen and was done.
Erm, not all of them actually, and you know what - knowing the Boris was trying to bluff his way out of making yet another public U turn on policy (he must be getting dizzy) is what triggered the border closures. The fact that the bloc decided to open up is irrelevant to the point that the countries still have control over their borders.
In particular France are now only allowing people with a negative test no older than 72 hours old to cross the border (and even then there are further restrictions) - and that's going to be the case until at least Jan 6th - so they haven't opened up, they've just put in place protocols to mitigate the risks.
""Or you could just sit in the corner, dream of an empire built on slavery and rock yourself to sleep."
Running out of arguments? Where did you get slavery from? Is that keeping you up at night?
Apparently you still think we're a global colonial superpower, we're not. Your overt xenophobia and dislike of anything that might be foreign, without presenting a single coherent argument (as opposed to a clutch of half baked headlines), is what brought me to *our* history. Yes, a slave driven empire is part of our history, and is one thing that seriously contributed to our global presence, which is still artificially high.
