We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS* The UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy today denied the government had reconsidered its position on Galileo following weekend reports about it ditching plans for a homegrown alternative. As for whether it intends to spin up a UK-made satellite navigation system – one of the initiatives spewed out by …
What continues to amaze me is that Euope is still "negotiating" a settlement. The Brexit vote was over four years ago with a two year deadline and there's still no agreement. Why they don't just say "FU, you want out, yer out. That's a hard Brexit then," amazes me. It's well within their powers and authority to do so.
A surprise rake handle to the face for every man, woman and child in 'Great' Britain. Lord knows we asked for it through uneducated voters and bent politicians who will make a packet in the process.
They don't even need to do that. The EU, if you haven't noticed, has been 100% consistent throughout the negotiations, while the Tories have been changing from one set of absurd demands to another as fast as the seasons have changed each year. Only a day ago, this:
Britain hopes never to need to use proposed powers to break its Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, Northern Ireland Office minister Robin Walker said [Reuters]In other words, we'll risk destroying what remains of our negotiating position and the peace in Northern Ireland for the sake of something we hope we never need. These people are crazy, so it's no good expecting any sane replies about Galileo. (He was only an f***ing Eytie, after all.)
>>Britain hopes never to need to use proposed powers to break its Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, Northern Ireland Office minister Robin Walker said [Reuters]<<
The bloke is a twat of the highest order, a solid yes man. Lurched from remainer to hard leaver, chanes his views more than his socks.
Our last decent MP was his father. Mind you the assistant was not too bad, but the Blairite was also a bit of a yes man except it was Yes Tony, not Yes David/Theresa/Borrris/Dom.
This is because there are requirements in the withdrawal agreement for both parties to negotiate to reach an agreement in good faith.
Although I think it's fair to say that many (most?) European leaders are at the point now where they're resigned to the possibility of a No Deal in the face of all of our crazy negotiating 'tactics', they don't want to risk being the first to walk away.
But don't worry, the end is coming soon, one way or another.
It's not in the EU's best interest to toss the UK out on its ass. Although it's become apparent that a hard Brexit will hit the UK the most (by some margin), it will also hurt several member states. The EU is prepared to financially support those that will be hit the most by a hard Brexit, but it would be beneficial to the EU to prevent that situation from occurring altogether, so they're happy to give the UK more time.
That willingness is fast evaporating now though, with the UK threatening to breach the current agreement.
Agreed, but I think the EU actually has more to lose than the UK, if (bilateral) tariffs are imposed. Especially now that Japan/EU have a deal that will badly affect the EU car industry.
Instead of squirming, it looks like the UK is happy to run down the clock to a no-deal exit, then we'll see how it all pans out.
In fact, it seems like Barnier is the one who's squirming lately.
It's fine that you're pro Brexit. I disagree with you, butt you'll have your reasons, fair enough.
You have to admit that the UK government is making a massive pig's breakfast of it though, there's no consistency and there's zero good faith, two things the EU hás been showing. Being a Brexiteer is not an excuse to lose one's ability to think critically.
Yeah, I'm not just anti-Brexit, I'm actually European but I'm still amazed that after deciding to leave there wasn't some master plan on what to do next. From reading the UK press I can see what Brexit is against but I've still no idea what it's for.
I thought first it was a control issue and the UK would settle for being the big fish in the EFTA pond, then it was going to be a customs union and a US trade deal, now the US have been told to shut up about Ireland or you'll walk away and it's hoist the sails on HMS Crimson Permanent Assurance.
@AC
"I'm not just anti-Brexit, I'm actually European but I'm still amazed that after deciding to leave there wasn't some master plan on what to do next"
There was. Unfortunately the ones campaigning to leave and making all the effort were not in charge in the UK. Those in charge were die hard remainers who would do anything to literally threaten the population to vote the 'correct' way and then keep us in regardless of reality. Boris is the first PM for leave and he isnt the one behind brexit.
‘Yeah, I'm not just anti-Brexit, I'm actually European but I'm still amazed that after deciding to leave there wasn't some master plan on what to do next’
My goodness, the likes of Bernard Jenkin and Iain Duncan Smith have only had thirty years of railing against the EU - can you honestly expect them to come up with an alternative in so little time?
@Danny 5
"You have to admit that the UK government is making a massive pig's breakfast of it though"
My bemusement/disappointment started at the referendum campaigns and has continued since. I am hoping they are achieving stuff in the background because while I didnt expect much progress with the EU (until the last minute at best) they have had 4 years to get us ready for a complete break. Doesnt sound like they have done well over those 4 years.
"there's no consistency and there's zero good faith, two things the EU hás been showing"
Not convinced by this bit. The problem with making deals with remain leaders is the people didnt want it. The EU is basically demanding control over sovereign territory and attempting to insist any agreement as long as we are their poodle. This with the EU who have previously demonstrated to be very 'flexible' with their rules when it suits them and outright break agreements if it suits.
They have refused to negotiate as their rules state, instead refusing to negotiate anything unless they get everything they want first. Their certain idiots have explicitly refused to negotiate which they were exposed in front of the rest of the EU.
Outside of negotiating the EU has published various propaganda to make it look like our side were being gits, while it was just normal negotiation and even the EU being immovable gits. Their public announcements of what they want and the UK being mean and saying no. Its a negotiation, so no.
"Being a Brexiteer is not an excuse to lose one's ability to think critically."
I dont have any great love for our gov. Nor for the EU. I voted out because it made sense to me, and voting remain obviously made sense to you. I dont see real difference between our slimy leaders and the slime in the EU. As I regularly point out you dont fix an incompetent gov by adding another layer of incompetence.
I am taken aback by your responses, some of them are just plain untrue. Where on earth are you getting your information? Take the Irish border alone, it was both the UK, as well as the EU that insisted that there should never be a hard border on the Irish isle and it was the UK that negotiated the regulatory border along the Irish sea, how on earth do you translate that to "The EU is basically demanding control over sovereign territory and attempting to insist any agreement as long as we are their poodle"?
Oh and please show me which binding agreements the EU broke, I can't think of any.
Lastly, if there's one country that has media that is absolutely riddled with propaganda, it's the UK (I know, I check some of them on a fairly regular basis), there is far, far more media balance in the EU. the UK media is barely held to account, which will be even less so once Brexit has been completed, because EU media laws will no longer apply.
I'm afraid you've read the daily mail once too many times.
Footnote, like AC, I too am European, not English.
@Danny 5
"I am taken aback by your responses, some of them are just plain untrue. Where on earth are you getting your information?"
I just follow the goings on as best I can. If I am mistaken show me where, I have been known to be wrong and I do my best to find correct information.
"Take the Irish border alone, it was both the UK, as well as the EU that insisted that there should never be a hard border on the Irish isle"
Did they? I hear they had a passing mention but the agreement between the UK and ROI was for no border. Ireland joining the EU and the EU dictating a protectionist border (which is their right) means that a border there is an EU issue unless it was the UK demanding it. At no point do I know of the UK demanding a border in Ireland.
"it was the UK that negotiated the regulatory border along the Irish sea"
This is where a horrible grey area come in. We only recently got a PM willing to leave the EU. After 4 years of negotiations. Northern Ireland is part of UK territory and the EU is demanding control of UK territory. All of which can be resolved with a simple agreement with the EU if they wished to honour the no border agreement.
"Oh and please show me which binding agreements the EU broke, I can't think of any"
Cameron came back with a written guarantee that UK contributions would not be used to bail out Greece. This was broken at its earliest convenience.
"Lastly, if there's one country that has media that is absolutely riddled with propaganda, it's the UK"
Not just one country. Most media is leaning with its own biases. Thats why reading a mix helps.
"I'm afraid you've read the daily mail once too many times."
Please dont sink so intellectually low as to claim to know what I read, it only makes you look stupid. I am not doing that with you.
"Footnote, like AC, I too am European, not English."
Makes little difference to me. It of course gives you a different perspective than here. Facts stand and we should all try to reach them and form our own opinions from them. Even if we dont agree we can still discuss.
"At no point do I know of the UK demanding a border in Ireland."
I'm sorry, but that just tells me you don't understand international law. If the UK leaves the EU, there is a de facto border in Ireland, nobody is demanding it, nobody wants it, but that's how international law works. I would also like to point out that Boris Johnson called the agreement, including the one on the Irish border, "oven ready", he even used it as a selling point during his election campaign.
"Cameron came back with a written guarantee that UK contributions would not be used to bail out Greece. This was broken at its earliest convenience."
First, I highly doubt he actually had a signed piece of paper that said that and even if he did, it had absolutely zero legal validity. the UK can oppose a bailout, but it's the combined member states that decide in these matter. I am 100% sure mr Cameron did not have an agreement with 27 signatures on it. So although I can understand your anger in regards to that one, you cannot compare this to the current agreement between the UK and the EU.
Secondl, That's not how the EU works, mr Cameron knew that full well. If t really was an internationally binding agreement, the UK could've sued the EU, but for obvious reasons that didn't happen. You can say it was a bad idea to bail out Greece, but the UK had no legally binding options to block it.
"Not just one country. Most media is leaning with its own biases. Thats why reading a mix helps."
Fair enough, but that balance is extremely skewed in the UK, much more so than in most other EU countries. The vast majority of the UK's (written) media is severely right wing biased, certainly the most popular ones. Compare that to the German press for example and you see there's far more balance between left and right there.
"Please dont sink so intellectually low as to claim to know what I read, it only makes you look stupid. I am not doing that with you."
I apologize for that one, that was indeed uncalled for. Perhaps I had too many heated debates on this topic. I've had similar things thrown in my face and sometimes fall for the trap of using those tactics too.
@Danny 5
"I'm sorry, but that just tells me you don't understand international law. If the UK leaves the EU, there is a de facto border in Ireland, nobody is demanding it, nobody wants it, but that's how international law works"
The issue is a hard border not that there is a border. There has still been a border while in the EU. So if the UK does not apply a hard border on our side we are not breaking the agreement. If the EU mandate a hard border then that is for the EU which ROI chose to be in and by action will be ROI making and enforcing a hard border. Not the UK.
"First, I highly doubt he actually had a signed piece of paper that said that and even if he did, it had absolutely zero legal validity."
So the EU is unreliable-
https://www.ft.com/content/6d92bbe2-2b04-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33532485
https://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/07/bailout-fallout-juncker-lies-to-cameron.html
In writing and entirely ignored because it suited the EU to go back on its written word.
"So although I can understand your anger in regards to that one, you cannot compare this to the current agreement between the UK and the EU."
The EU cannot be trusted with its own to the letter word and GDPR was written with so much flexibility that it would take court cases to find out how invasive it is. Dotting the I's crossing the T's and throwing out EU cheek is entirely fair play. Sovereign UK and the EU likes it or lumps it.
"Fair enough, but that balance is extremely skewed in the UK"
If you read the daily mail you get one extreme and if you read the guardian you get the other. There is a serious polarisation in this country because it was such a polarised issue. I would imagine any other EU member leaving would probably face the same issues.
"I apologize for that one, that was indeed uncalled for. Perhaps I had too many heated debates on this topic. I've had similar things thrown in my face and sometimes fall for the trap of using those tactics too."
I get it. And your responses are good to read and make for enjoyable conversation. And sometimes I too just give up and sink to that level, but I am enjoying our thread :)
"The issue is a hard border not that there is a border. There has still been a border while in the EU. So if the UK does not apply a hard border on our side we are not breaking the agreement."
But the UK wants a hard border with the European mainland and since the EU is a customs union, a hard border with the European mainland is a hard border in Ireland, there's just no way around that.
Sure, a soft, or no border in Ireland was an option, but that would've meant the UK had to stay inside the customs union, which it was adamant it did not want, that is the root cause of the Irish border issues. It's not the EU enforcing a hard border, it really is the UK. If you want to leave the customs union, you are going to have border checks, that goes for every border the UK has with the EU, regardless of location. The border in Ireland is the same as the border in Calais in France, or Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands, there is no difference legally.
"So the EU is unreliable-
https://www.ft.com/content/6d92bbe2-2b04-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33532485
https://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/07/bailout-fallout-juncker-lies-to-cameron.html
In writing and entirely ignored because it suited the EU to go back on its written word."
That's really a matter of perspective, I can hardly argue against how you perceived the EU's unreliability. We weren't arguing reliability though, we were arguing about breaking an international agreement, this wasn't one, the current agreement on the Irish border is. Again, I understand why people are angry about the Greek matter, can't say I was all that happy about it myself, but the alternative was a bailout for several European banks, which would've cost substantially more. many EU banks have provided loans to countries (it's an assumption, but I'm fairly sure the UK has banks that are on that list), letting Greece fall would've meant letting those banks fall and nobody, not even the UK, was prepared to do that (you have a huge financial system, the repercussions would've been enormous).
Lastly, we're probably going to have to agree to disagree on the matter of media, as I think we're not going to reach any sort of consensus on that and it doesn't really matter either was in regards to this discussion.
@Danny 5
"But the UK wants a hard border with the European mainland"
The UK and EU want to have different standards and tariffs which hits the regulatory brick wall. But Ireland is a special case even in the EU since there is no physical border but there are 2 regulatory systems already. Before joining the EU we had the agreement of no hard border and 2 regulatory systems. So the only thing that has changed is that the EU dictates a border.
"We weren't arguing reliability though, we were arguing about breaking an international agreement, this wasn't one"
That isnt breaking an international agreement (all inside the EU but country wise is an agreement between the EU and the UK) but it is a written agreement which without the umbrella of the EU would be international and they broke their written word.
"but the alternative was a bailout for several European banks, which would've cost substantially more"
True. But this is where we quite seriously stated its not our problem, the sterling should only bail out the Euro where we agree to, and the EU broke their written guarantee. Considering the mess that was made of bailing out Greece it was absolutely right for us to not want our contribution being abused that way.
"letting Greece fall would've meant letting those banks fall and nobody, not even the UK, was prepared to do that"
We obviously were. The Euro has been a terrible idea and not wanting to prop it up is our right. The US and UK bounced out of the recession while the Eurozone nearly hit deflation due to their bad management. It would be as gutting as someone taking UK taxpayer money to prop up Venezuela.
"there's no consistency and there's zero good faith, two things the EU hás been showing."
Not quite. The EUs initial negotiating position was for the UK to get a trade deal we'd have to follow all the rules as if we were still a member. Not helped by the UK not seeming to have anyone capable or experienced at negotiating.
They have said it, but being polite / hypocritical / political, they don't use snark or abuse as our glorious leaders do. And, more importantly from their perspective, they have already made ALL necessary arrangements in ANY-case scenario (well, perhaps not for one when we DEMAND to be taken back). They have already closed that matter and look elsewhere, at their other, ongoing (and probably neverending) problems. As to brexit, well, there's this very small team of EU negotiators politely nodding at the accusations and other shit we toss their way, looking discreetly at that big clock ticking away. Come the d-day, they get up from the table, say their goodbyes and close the door behind them, quietly. Only then will we have our ultimate, true VICTORY!!!!!! Or (chopchop) more like.... FREEEEEDOM!
I'm sure Boris will have his yet another pointless televised address to the nation on this Glorious Occasion. Perhaps a coin or a stamp too.
“ Ahh, but England is 'special' and the whole world knows about it.”
Very “special” indeed. So much so that the rest of the passengers on the bus increasingly want off at the first stop because they can no longer tolerate the behaviour of the “special” passenger up front that seems to have taken control of the steering wheel and is heading straight into the sea.
Why they don't just say "FU, you want out, yer out. That's a hard Brexit then"
Because they are not stupid enough to allow the blame for the consequences of our leaving to be hung on them, as much as Brexiteers are hoping for that.
They aren't going to allow the UK to claim the EU wasn't open to negotiations, was punishing us, forcing us out, or forcing us into the position we choose to end with. They'll keep the door open until we walk away.
It's not over until the UK says it's over and it will be the UK who has to take responsibility for saying that. Luckily for Johnson he has coronavirus to blame when Brexit turns to shit.
@NoneSuch
To make it more interesting the EU have to vote (unanimously isnt it?) to extend the negotiation period which means it is down to members to decide if we still negotiate. That irrelevant backwater UK which is known to be a pain in the arse and can be ignored for being so tiny could be let go quite easily.
Even more strange is that after 2 years of negotiation by politicians determined to keep the UK in that it has come down to finally having a PM seemingly willing to leave to actually dictate a hard date for the negotiations to end.
It is hard to reconcile this from that perspective, but when you look at the UK being a net contributor (one of the few in the EU project), a country containing the European global financial centre, a place reputed to be business and trade friendly and a strong ballast against the more socialist members.
At a time of crisis upon crisis inflicting increasing damage on the Eurozone and causing others to make their voices heard (where the UK usually would) and losing a country with such a huge presence in the world is a lot to take on.
Its almost like they want us to remain.
>Even more strange is that after 2 years of negotiation by politicians determined to keep the UK in that it has come down to finally having a PM seemingly willing to leave to actually dictate a hard date for the negotiations to end.
The moment the UK initiated the Article 50 process, there was a "hard date"... All the clown of a PM has done is to set a hard date for the Brexiteers in his own party...
All the current stuff about the Internal Market Bill, is to enable Bobo to sign anything and thus be able to get the "I said we would leave with a deal" soundbite and then toss the deal in the bin on his way to the no deal Brexit party.
@John Brown (no body)
Certain inconsistency here-
"Maybe you missed it, but we already left."
And
"Possibly you are confused by the deal agreed to have a 12 month transition period whereby we'd keep the current trade and travel arrangements in place while some sort of deal is hammered out"
So we have left but are still in a transition period where things stay the same. So we are not out even if we are not signing up to new commitments in the EU.
Yes, the UK can do all those things right now. But they can't go into effect until the current legally agreed deal has timed out or been superceded. That's how trade deals and treaties work. The alternative would have been to not make a deal, ie the transition period, go straight to WTC rules last year and whatever other trade deals we could manage at short notice.
You're sounding rather like one of those hard Brexiteers who think the UK should have ripped up the EU membership agreement the morning after the referendum and boldly struck out on our own with no deals, no trade agreements and fuck all credibility after rescinding a legally binding treaty.
@John Brown (no body)
"Yes, the UK can do all those things right now. But they can't go into effect until the current legally agreed deal has timed out or been superceded"
Ok. So we are not on the hook for future plans but we are not out. We are still detaching from the EU but we are still not out.
"The alternative would have been to not make a deal, ie the transition period, go straight to WTC rules last year and whatever other trade deals we could manage at short notice."
Yup. What should have happened 2 years ago after the original transition period (I assume that was WTO?).
"You're sounding rather like one of those hard Brexiteers who think the UK should have ripped up the EU membership agreement the morning after the referendum and boldly struck out on our own with no deals, no trade agreements and fuck all credibility after rescinding a legally binding treaty."
Not at all. After the result the UK should have been preparing for hard brexit by the end of the transition period, accepted the offer for trade negotiators from New Zealand and racked up trade deals as needed.
@John Brown (no body)
"The FinCen documents attest to that. To the Extent that the US, privately, sees London as being as bad as Cyprus for money laundering!"
Thats an interesting reading/misinterpretation of what it means. This will hopefully help explain why counting SAR as a criminal act is wrong-
https://www.timworstall.com/2020/09/well-of-course-snippa-was-going-to-fall-for-this/
@Bonzo_red
I did laugh when I read the below article. Apparently the Shetland Islands have no love for the SNP and would want independence from them-
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1334240/Nicola-Sturgeon-latest-news-SNP-news-Shetland-Islands-independence-Scottish-referendum
"Shetland Islands could expose SNP for the one-trick con artists they are says..."
Ah yes, balanced "journalism" from this neutral "newspaper".
I'm surprised the don't have a headline saying that Nicola is secretly holding the body of Diana in a dungeon in Glasgow.
Doesn’t alter the fact that the Shetland Islands Council voted to investigate seceeding from Scotland and becoming a Crown Dependency of the U.K.. I can see positives, maybe weather maps won’t look so unintelligible any more as the TV companies will no longer be bound by law to show the entirety of the northern isles (yes, our parliament devoted time to making sure that the maps show hundreds of miles of empty sea).
So... the international consortium we pulled out of got it right, and we might well have to buy back into it, and there are few - if any - sensible alternatives that are as good as Galileo.
So, remind me... we're pulling out why? For "independence". That's like pulling out of your football career to play football "independently" of any team.
But our best idea that the entirety of our government could posit was to buy something with satellites in the name, even though they did not offer anything even remotely like the services we'd miss out on.
The GPS debacle pretty much is just a perfect mini-tableau of the entire Brexit saga.
“ Presumably the "tail" here is the corrupt scumbags in Brussels, and the "dog" is the honest, hard-working people of Britain.”
I took the tail to mean the 27 EU nation states and the dog being the EU.
I guess EU citizens would be the flees and ticks on the dogs tail.
Obviously looking at this from the EU governance viewpoint.
A Brexiteer, not many of them left that are willing to try and fight a lost cause.
The London School of economics recently said the UK economy has lost around 200 billion, more than the ISS (155 billion) and as much as all our grocery purchases in a year. (200 billion) we could eat free as a country for a year on the money lost by Brexit so far.
We still have sod all trade deals with our largest trading bloc. So any chance of actually having out own GPS is a pipe dream as we won't be able to afford petrol in the buses soon.
And Brexiteers still try and blame everyone but themselves for the fall out.
@Avatar of They
"A Brexiteer, not many of them left that are willing to try and fight a lost cause."
Your kidding? There are many, they are the normal people getting on while those screaming and looking to fight are the remoaners (the never independence nutters not normal people who voted remain). Oddly you say lost cause when it looks pretty solid that we are leaving the EU at the end of this year. The remain fight is the lost cause here,
"The London School of economics recently said the UK economy has lost around 200 billion"
Is that covid, brexit, global recession of 2008. What is the counting for that (you have the figures so if the source has that pls share)? But lets assume thats from voting leave. After voting to leave we have 2 years negotiation period and then we leave. 4 years later have we left? Nope? Then its not (all) the cost of brexit. It might be some costs of brexit and the costs of trying to force the population to remain against its will.
"We still have sod all trade deals with our largest trading bloc"
Do you mean the protectionist block which we must trade with (protectionist)? The one we are still negotiating with because the leave process was so badly subverted that we only recently got a PM who put a solid date on actually ending the negotiation?
"So any chance of actually having out own GPS is a pipe dream"
Also a pointless willy wagging exercise. GPS already exists as do varying other systems.
"as we won't be able to afford petrol in the buses soon."
Thats just stupid talk. I assume you are intentionally exaggerating otherwise you have been sucked into some serious hyperbole.
"And Brexiteers still try and blame everyone but themselves for the fall out."
We cannot be blamed for your imagination. The facts we can discuss
@AC
"I knew they would blame all the UK losses (best still to come!) on EU"
Did I? Think you may need to reread.
"and COVID"
Again you need to reread. I asked him to clarify what his number was accounting for. Its an honest question which matters.
"Probably implying that the first was responsible for the latter..."
Ahh your a fantasist. Keep taking the meds and its probably a good idea to keep posting as AC if your gonna write such stupidity.
@sabroni
"I think someone may have swapped your code with some proper heroin...."
Are you the AC who wrote the stupid comment? If not you might wanna use AC too.
I am literally asking for the facts behind the number. I am not accusing, not adjusting just asking for the person who put up the figure to answer the question if they are able to (with no issue if they cant). Why do you people get so upset by fact? Why does it scare you when factual information is asked for?
So at least one person (2 if your not the AC) are out of their mind because I asked for further information. And we are supposed to be the loons?
I thought the Satanists backed by George Soros were responsible for COVID so that Bill Gates could put a chip in our neck for the 5G towers to track? Unless Galileo can do that from space instead?
Personally I'm absolutely fine being tracked by version 1.0 of a Microsoft product, it'll have f-all chance of working.
"We want access to X"
"X isn't available to you any more, you're no longer part of it"
"But we need X"
"Then buy into X or make your own."
"Fine! Then... we'll buy... EGGS! That sounds like X!"
"Okay? (shrug)"
"EGGS don't do what we want! But we're not going to pay for X!"
I fail to see how that's not a) Brexit-related, b) stupidity personified, c) showing a complete lack of preparation for Brexit, including failing to source an alternative, or even KNOWING what an alternative would be.
This dog is stuck on the other side of the fence because it's too dumb to walk through the gap further up.
@BebopWeBop
"That is before we prepare to hold a gun to our head and demand 'give us what we want or we'll shoot ourselves'."
Apparently the EU has moved the gun a bit further away from its head as it has decided that EU banks will still be allowed to use UK financial services. Its nice the EU doesnt want to bankrupt itself.
as good as Galileo
- shouldn't that be as bad as Galileo?
Remember when Europe’s entire Galileo satellite system fell over last summer?
These things certainly exist. I've got a mobile phone that picks up GPS, Baidu, Galileo and Glonass satellites. Try the "GPS test" android app to find out which satellites your phone picks up.
For anyone interested in a phone with a good GPS that can work well without using assisted GPS via phone data, mine is an obscure chinese phone bought off Amazon... (Ulefone Armor X7 Pro). Whether you trust it to be clear of dodgy apps is up to you... I don't believe it has any, but I'm not an expert at these things...
"As of July 2019, there were more than 140 Galileo-enabled smartphones on the market of which 9 were dual-frequency enabled.[144][non-primary source needed] On 24 December 2018, the European Commission passed a mandate for all new smartphones to implement Galileo for E112 support.[145]
Effective 1 April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an accident".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)#Applications_and_impact
There are. My phone does.
However the full constellation was NOT in place and it wasn't operational when they had an outage.
And the service is NOT advertising itself as complete until "late 2020", and never planned to be by this stage.
It's only just got out of beta testing, basically. And some people think that means they should be able to use it 100% and never have an outage.
Assuming, of course, one is thinking rationally about such things.
Given the abilities & competence of the current cabinet - This'll never happen.
The problem is that anybody who is full possession of the facts about the EU (as opposed to the crap from the Daily Mail & other fellow travellers) who still supports Brexit is clearly incapable of thinking rationally, and under Johnson the only criteria for a cabinet post is an unwavering and blind belief in Brexit which has given us the current ship of fools in Westminster.
I'm not sure that anyone is actually in full possession of the facts about the EU, it is far too complicated for that.
The most sensible reason for leaving was the intention for "an ever closer union", meaning financial and political union of Europe is the end destination, and the UK's wanting only to be in a free trade area, maintaining its political and financial independence. I cannot help feeling that the Brexit campaign was mostly about 'foreigners' and 'money' purely as a scare tactic to achieve a result, rather than have a sensible, rational debate about membership. David Cameron's 'deal', to persuade us Brits that the EU was really OK was frankly far too little to persuade anyone.
Theresa May's 'deal' whereby the UK would be bound by EU rules but have no say in them was clearly a non-starter (three times, in fact). Most people asked 'in what way is that leaving the EU?'
The confusion over the UK's sovereign satellite geo-positioning system is just par for the course for this administration.
(FYI, I voted remain, as I didn't think the politicians in Westminster were capable of negotiating a sensible exit agreement, or indeed organising a piss up in a brewery ... I fervently hope to be proved wrong.)
The most sensible reason for leaving was the intention for "an ever closer union", meaning financial and political union of Europe is the end destination
For which there was no evidence except some scare stories in the Red Tops.
The most sensible reason for staying in was that we wouldn't get all the disadvantages of leaving.
And given that the UK was itself formed of an ever closer union of nations, which, recent governments aside, most would agree to have been reasonably successful, it beats me why the little ingerlanders would ever think that this is a bad thing.
The UK is now a quasi-federal state, everything is devolved to national parliaments except for those things which have been reserved (or delegated upwards, depending on how you want to look at it), well, except for the fact that ingerland can't be entrusted with its own parliament and has to make do with the shouty shysters in Westminster nannying (badly) for it instead.
The EU works in a similar way: every country is responsible for its own affairs apart from those areas where they have mutually agreed to work together at a European level. Shock, (no) horror!
“ it beats me why the little ingerlanders would ever think that this is a bad thing.”
Well the first referendum asked about joining the EU for trade and the nation agreed. The second referendum clearly was about ever closer integration to the point where this Parliament would no longer be the ruler of the land and the voters said no.
You may not understand, but the Lib Dem’s promised an in out referendum in 2008 and 2010
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15390884
And people voted in a Lib Dem / Conservatives government, who promised a referendum, wrestling control from labour.
@Ken 16
"Speaking as a non-UKian that ever closer union was the main selling point of the EU."
That can be a selling point if thats what your country is into. For example the ex-commie countries seem to like it for that reason. But more independent countries, especially trading ones with global roots have other ideas.
The version I got to vote on as part of ratifying the Maastricht Treat declared;
“the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen”
and I support those ideals but the original dates to 1957 and the Treaty of Rome;
"His Majesty The King of the Belgians, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, the President of the French Republic, the President of the Italian Republic, Her Royal Highness The Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Her Majesty The Queen of the Netherlands,
(all well known ex-Commies, as you say)
Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe,
Resolved to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe,
Affirming as the essential objective of their efforts the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples,
Recognising that the removal of existing obstacles calls for concerted action in order to guarantee steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition,
Anxious to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the differences existing between the various regions and the backwardness of the less favoured regions,
Desiring to contribute, by means of a common commercial policy, to the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade,
Intending to confirm the solidarity which binds Europe and the overseas countries and desiring to ensure the development of their prosperity, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Resolved by thus pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and calling upon the other peoples of Europe who share their ideal to join in their efforts,
Have decided to create a European Economic Community"
I get that not everyone believes in this but don't just run it down: propose a better alternative.
@Ken 16
Sorry to put it so bluntly but what the fuck are you talking about? No worries if you responded to the wrong comment but none of that seems to have anything to do with anything I said.
The only part that seems to be anyway related to my comment being about the ex-commies to which your either an idiot or taking the piss (again sorry if you responded to the wrong comment)-
https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/publication/elarg-factsheet_en.pdf
This isnt to knock the ex-communist countries it is just a comment on their willingness to join the EU project with federal desires vs countries that are more independent wanting a trading block.
I am pointing out that ever closer union has been an aspiration from the beginning of the European project long before the eastern enlargement in the 2000's and every country opted into it. Nowhere, aside from UK tabloid newspapers, is it described as being a political or federal union, it's always been a union of the people of Europe.
@Ken 16
"I am pointing out that ever closer union has been an aspiration from the beginning of the European project long before the eastern enlargement in the 2000's and every country opted into it."
Ahh, following now (sorry). I know its been the aspiration which was apparently mis-sold to the population (so I hear) when the UK decided to join. I didnt mean to suggest it became the plan after the ex-commies joined, I said it was a selling point to the ex-commies. They seem happy with that while the UK and others are resisting the federalisation.
"Nowhere, aside from UK tabloid newspapers, is it described as being a political or federal union, it's always been a union of the people of Europe."
It is a political union in the attempt to create a federal union. That is their intention. Union of the people of Europe sounds pretty bullshit as we interact already which is a consequence of the wars fading into history.
@DJO
"For which there was no evidence except some scare stories in the Red Tops."
And the damned purpose of the EU. The reason why the Eurozone doesnt work (it is intentionally designed that way) because it requires further integration to be viable. The recent debt being another roping in to that closer union (covid relief). The solution to every problem being 'ever closer union' even when the union causes the problem.
"The most sensible reason for staying in was that we wouldn't get all the disadvantages of leaving."
If you have a one sided view yes. Otherwise you would see a sensible reason for leaving is to get rid of the disadvantages of remaining.
@DJO
"Yes, along with every reputable economist on the planet, oh what fools we are."
You should say 'reputable economist... honest'. And when you said only disadvantages you reached the end of your list already? There are a few advantages of leaving- economic, trade, democratically, sovereignty.
There are a few advantages of leaving- economic, trade, democratically, sovereignty.
1) Economic - Not a fucking chance, there is no way we'll be better off out of the EU, the amount we contributed is peanuts compared to the costs we are going to be subjected to after leaving.
2) Trade - You're having a laugh, the WTO rules are catastrophic compared to the many deals we had as part of the EU trading bloc.
3) Democracy - Now you are just being silly. This government has done more to dismantle "democracy" all in the name of Brexit than anything before including 2 world wars.
4) Sovereignty - This cannot be said too many times: "Shared sovereignty is NOT sovereignty lost", anyway in order to make these wonderful trade deals we will lose far more control over our lives than the EU ever caused - hope you like hormones in beef and chlorine washed chicken.
So yet again every supposed advantage turns out to be a myth, misunderstanding or outright lies.
The only advantage of Brexit is if you are currently engaged in tax avoidance using off-shore banking you will not become a criminal which is what would have happened if we stayed in the EU when they bring in some new laws to criminalise some tax avoidance schemes. The remaining 99.99% of us will suffer one way or another.
@DJO
1) You have seen the EU's idea of economics? The Eurozone? Which we are tied to in a protectionist trade block and the GBP ends up bailing out the Euro.
2) Protectionism is a bad thing for consumers aka the people. Why do we want tariffs on Oranges when we import them? But Spain does.
3) A government further removed from the population reduces democracy.
4) It isnt sharing sovereignty to lose sovereignty. Your suggestion that we will lose control because of trade deals show how wrong you are. in the EU we must all comply to the same standards domestically to trade in the EU. Outside the EU the UK is sovereign to have its own standards while exports must meet the exported countries standards (the norm).
"hope you like hormones in beef and chlorine washed chicken."
Probably will thanks. The cost of foods falling considerably and increased choice for people, what fascist wants to dictate against peoples choice without good reason? I will point out that those foods are also considered safe (including by the European Foods Agency) just as your chlorine washed salad is also safe. That propaganda is pretty old now and has been shot down.
"So yet again every supposed advantage turns out to be a myth, misunderstanding or outright lies."
Then you will need to show where it is myth, misunderstanding or lies because so far you havnt. You have shown misunderstanding (I hope your not lying) but thats it so far.
"The only advantage of Brexit is if you are currently engaged in tax avoidance using off-shore banking you will not become a criminal"
Again you show yourself misunderstanding the situation. Tax avoidance is legal. Not only legal it is right, a right and intentional. It is the liberal position that the government does not own the person or their possessions and is only due what is legally defined in law. The gov has no right to that money unless written in law.
"bring in some new laws to criminalise some tax avoidance schemes."
2 well known tax avoidance countries are member countries- Ireland and Luxembourg. The Dutch also have such a reputation I believe. The land of purity is not.
"The remaining 99.99% of us will suffer one way or another."
Probably. That is how things tend to go when run by a central government regardless of it being in Westminster or bouncing between 2 member states in Europe. How much suffering? Th track record for the EU isnt stunning so far.
Try expanding your sources beyond the Daily Mail, Telegraph or Sun.
The concept that the Eurozone will fail in flames is just wishful thinking from the right wing loonies at the above mentioned "news" sources.
Yes there have been problems but exactly the same can be said for every currency when preyed upon by currency speculators and it has emerged from those problems quite well. Certainly better than the Dollar under Trump which is why increasingly international trade is conducted in Euros instead of US Dollars.
The "EU track record" when compared to the "Tory track record" is one I would opt for a million times - in every metric they are better than the idiots in Westminster now.
GBP ends up bailing out the Euro.
Lies and bullshit, we never paid anything to the Euro project but we will probably wish we had when the Euro becomes the primary global trading currency and the old GBP is sidelined as an irrelevance.
@DJO
"Try expanding your sources beyond the Daily Mail, Telegraph or Sun"
I am amused when an idiot runs out of answers they assume they know what I read. Should I assume by your comments that your source is Garfield?
"The concept that the Eurozone will fail in flames is just wishful thinking"
The concept that the Euro doesnt work is also the opinion of a designer of the Euro. It requires federalisation/fiscal transfer to work. As far as actual recorded performance it prolonged the recession and almost fell into deflation while Greece almost bankrupted the ECB. The Euro falling in flames isnt wishful thinking, it happened. To avoid ditching the new currency countries economies were sacrificed (instead of the currency taking the hit it was people).
The Euro can survive with changes. Intended changes to bring ever closer union.
"Yes there have been problems but exactly the same can be said for every currency"
UK and US bounce out of the worst recession since the great depression and the Eurozone almost gets lost in deflation. EU economic management being not to throw away the rule book but to do the exact opposite of what is known to work. Which is why they lagged years behind the recovery.
"preyed upon by currency speculators and it has emerged from those problems quite well."
Its in another crisis now (as we all are) while still suffering from the previous crises. Where the UK and US dropped unemployment to the lowest since the 70's (for the UK I believe) the Eurozone was damned screwed with figures we would never tolerate in this country.
"The "EU track record" when compared to the "Tory track record" is one I would opt for a million times - in every metric they are better than the idiots in Westminster now."
Cool, thats your opinion feel free to live under the EU (if you dont already). While those happy with the UK can live there.
"Lies and bullshit, we never paid anything to the Euro project"
Eh what, you serious? I think you just disqualified yourself there really badly.
"when the Euro becomes the primary global trading currency and the old GBP is sidelined as an irrelevance."
You know the primary global currency is the USD? You know that the EU was considering moving EUR clearing to only within EU walls which would by definition exclude it from being a global reserve currency (lucky the idiots changed their mind). That the EU has just decided it will kindly not bankrupt banks within the EU by allowing them to still access the London financial markets.
Now that is wishful thinking
No point arguing with you, you've been completely indoctrinated.
Brexit could work if we had a competent government who held the interests of the UK and its citizens paramount.
With the shower of self-serving traitors in Westminster now a generally beneficial Brexit is an impossibility.
Maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am but I'm certain I'm not - come back in 5 years and one of us can say "I told you so".
@DJO
"No point arguing with you, you've been completely indoctrinated."
You spout opinion as if it is fact, claimed to know what I read and followed up with nonsense which took little effort to dismantle as incorrect and now claim I am indoctrinated. Your extreme opinions of doom if we dont remain in the shining light of the EU with little reason to support it sounds like you are indoctrinated.
"Brexit could work if we had a competent government who held the interests of the UK and its citizens paramount."
And the first step would then be brexit. It has been a long fight just to get the right to choose if we participate in the EU project. Our first vote. And even after winning the vote every antidemocratic cretin has tried to overturn the vote and after every vote demands another until we get it right.
"Democratic vote"
More humour I suppose?
Democracy depends on a well informed electorate which in turn is reliant on an impartial press.
Oh dear. In the 2 years leading up to the announcement of the non-binding Brexit referendum 95% of EU stories in the Daily Mail were false ranging from misrepresentation to outright fabrication. Once the referendum was anounced it got worse. Most of the press have been the same keeping up the flow of lies and misinformation.
For the last forty years there has been a non-stop drip of stories about how evil the EU is and will cause the end of the world as we know it etc etc etc.
One journalist was repeatedly fired for fabricating stories such as EU banana regulations, his name, Boris something. Interestingly everybody who ever worked with him said the same thing, he's lazy, irresponsible and can't be trusted.
Finally, what people voted for and what they will finally get are 100% different things. I guarantee if once Boris has his deal if you put it to the nation, The Boris Deal or Returning to the EU, Boris would lose. Perhaps that's more democracy than you would like?
@DJO
"Democracy depends on a well informed electorate which in turn is reliant on an impartial press."
We can discuss the failings of both sides of the campaign but the vote itself of 1 person 1 vote majority wins was democratic. Granted the government threatening the population to vote remain or suffer the punishment budget was very naughty and such.
"95% of EU stories in the Daily Mail"
Dont read it so I will assume thats true. Just as the Guardian and such wanted to remain in the utopia or remain because they need us to fix it etc. Of course thats between fire and brimstone and the end of western civilisation.
"Most of the press have been the same keeping up the flow of lies and misinformation."
I agree.
"For the last forty years there has been a non-stop drip of stories about how evil the EU is and will cause the end of the world as we know it etc etc etc."
I doubt it. The EU hasnt existed for 40 years. But I know what you mean, the apocalypse stories against leaving are ridiculous too.
"One journalist was repeatedly fired for fabricating stories such as EU banana regulations,"
Did he get it wrong somehow? The EU having regulations concerning the curvature of a banana and making it criminal law.
"Finally, what people voted for and what they will finally get are 100% different things."
Remain or leave that was going to happen. Too many different versions of leave and too many different versions of remain.
"The Boris Deal or Returning to the EU, Boris would lose. Perhaps that's more democracy than you would like?"
I have heard this for the last god knows how many votes we are at now. All coming back to support leave.
Did he get it wrong somehow? The EU having regulations concerning the curvature of a banana and making it criminal law.
It was a complete fabrication, the EU has no rules about the curvature of bananas. It was crap, just like most of the stories he wrote and everything he's done since.
I doubt it. The EU hasnt existed for 40 years.
The EU and it's predecessors then, whatever we joined on 1 January 1973. Whatever you want to call it the popular press have been demonising it from the day we joined - with that foundation any democratic decision is tainted.
@DJO
"It was a complete fabrication, the EU has no rules about the curvature of bananas"
Unfortunately I have had this discussion too many times. Yes it is real, yes it exists, it has a fine and potential jail time. I had to go back to the 15th of january this year to find where I last quoted a link to correct someone on this-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/12/to-properly-explain-the-eus-bendy-bananas-rules-yes-theyre-real/
And from january the year before-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/26/brexit-will-free-the-bendy-banana-incandescent-light-bulbs-and-tomato-marmalade/#42dd8f187ca0
"The EU and it's predecessors then, whatever we joined on 1 January 1973."
Ok. So not the EU. The EU is a political union while before was a common trade area.
"UK's wanting only to be in a free trade area, maintaining its political and financial independence.".
Apparently you find it possible to be "in" something, and at the same time be fully independent too, and then you seem to claim there is no politics in trade.
I would claim you are a true believer.
I have a feeling Britain will become not more independent but a lot more dependent on the goodwill of other countries than ever before.
@anonymous boring coward
"This is a dead certainty. UK's clout is now severely diminished, for a start. We are about to be massive rule-takers."
Thats an interesting claim but I dont see how that stacks up. Remaining reduced our clout, that is how the EU works by taking the clout of countries who have it and sharing it with those with almost none. Germany's credit rating was used to prop up Greece. The GBP was used to prop up the EUR (after the EU guaranteed in writing it would not do so).
The global recession showed the sinking tanker of the EU vs the bounce of the US, UK and good portions of the world. The EU's clout has been seen, demonstrated and laughed at in general with the EU still trying to make itself heard. Mostly its irrelevant as the US, China and even Russia have more clout and influence.
The "ever closer union" was implied in the first bullet point in the government's 1975 referendum pamphlet, as well as explicitly stated in the Treaty of Rome, so we were obviously OK with it then:
http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm#5
"The aims of the Common Market are:
To bring together the peoples of Europe.
To raise living standards and improve working conditions.
To promote growth and boost world trade.
To help the poorest regions of Europe and the rest of the world.
To help maintain peace and freedom."
http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/Preamble.html
"Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe"
To bring together the peoples of Europe.
This is what is meant by a "closer union among the peoples of Europe". The Red Tops would have you believe it meant "Single Central Government" which was never the intention.
To help maintain peace and freedom.
And a really good way to do that is to get people of different nations to interact, free exchange of thought and ideas and all that stuff. This is the aim, closer social union, not closer political union.
Not necessarily a defence force. But because, as the relentless march of digitisation continues, more and more devices and processes (logistics, distribution, navigation) all start to depend on satellite navigation.
Having that under control of a third party which can switch it off (or when push comes to shove will always prioritise good service over their geographic area above good service over yours) means that you become very dependent on that third party.
Strategically it may make sense to ensure that such a vital service for your digital society is under your control.
So why do you need an encrypted global positioning system independent of NATO - unless you want your own defense force.
High accuracy encrypted GNSS isn't just of interest to the military. But as you raised the matter, NATO is Europe + USA/Canada + Turkey. But the USA is looking like a most unreliable ally under its current leader, isn't it, especially given his curious enthusiasm for the president of NATO's number one potential enemy, even to the extent of doing nothing when informed that Russia was paying people to kill American soldiers.
Europe will be on its own if he wins in November.
>So why do you need an encrypted global positioning system independent of NATO - unless you want your own defense force.
Suggest you read the history of Galileo. At the time GPS was for the US military, civilian usage was secondary. Yes, you could for a fee gain access to the high res.. signals, but these still came with the US military first caveat - ie. the US reserved the right to modify (as it has done over the years) signals to give false positional data. If you want to build reliable commercial applications and you are non-US you can't rely on GPS.
@anonymous boring coward
"This was in the original text when we joined..."
As remainers seem to have latched onto after we voted leave (every time we keep voting leave) is that people change their minds. Plus Thatcher kicked ass. What other PM had a spine since?
"Also, that could be over hundreds of years. What are we worrying about?"
Isnt this the think of the children (hence future) point where a slow boiling frog might be screwed so we get out now before we are screwed.
The most sensible reason for leaving was the intention for "an ever closer union", meaning financial and political union of Europe is the end destination, and the UK's wanting only to be in a free trade area, maintaining its political and financial independence.
Indeed. Which is why Brexiteers promised exactly that - "No one is talking about leaving the customs union", "Only an idiot would leave the single market", etc, etc.
They fooled enough gullible people to secure a small majority and only then revealed it was bait and switch.
A dumb question but where does NATO fit into this? If the US PNT report says GPS isn't good enough on its own for the US then presumably it isn't good enough for NATO either? And if Galileo is the answer - then won't the EU be asked/paid/persuaded to give access to NATO members?
GPS II (the current version) is being replaced with GPS III which should give similar accuracy to Galileo for those allowed to access the M code. The timescales between GPS II reaching EOL and GPS III being operational is tighter than is comfortable! The PNT report if I remember correctly was looking at the impact of what would happen if GPS was not available and Galileo is one viable option for that and like the public channels of GPS, free. What isn't free is the PRS code but it is unlikely that PRS will ever be accessible by a non-European nation because of the rules that the UK insisted on
Galileo is either a backup plan in case the USA was ever crazy enough to elect a president who would start a trade war with its closest neighbours and allies - and could threaten to cut off GPS access to the continent.
Or it's a dastardly French plot to form a great European army to take over the world - and so needs to block the military grade signal from any tea-drinking "allies" it doesn't exactly trust.
Or its a dastardly French plot to give backhanders to its space industry.
A dumb question but where does NATO fit into this? If the US PNT report says GPS isn't good enough on its own for the US then presumably it isn't good enough for NATO either? And if Galileo is the answer - then won't the EU be asked/paid/persuaded to give access to NATO members?
There's probably a growing realisation in military circles that a space based GNSS system is all very well and good, but we've had a lot of years of experience of its weaknesses now. Jamming is fairly rife. Space weather is known to be perfectly capable of zapping the satellites.
Galileo isn't the answer because it's a clone of GPS and vulnerable to the same issues, plus the EU recently demonstrated that it is incapable of having good governance of the system. They've got a number of satellites up at the moment, but it'll be interesting to see who has to dip their hands into their wallets to pay for the replacements. I don't think that the Galileo replenishment is set out in stone in EU budgets, ahead of needing the money...
To guarantee something that provides GPS like services from space sounds hard, when you consider all the things it might be up against (jamming, solar flares, shoot-downs, etc). OneWeb might do it purely through weight of numbers. Terrestrial technologies work well domestically - eLoran and radio clocks like MSF - but don't reach abroad very well.
@Roland6
"I got the impression that Trump was going to reduce US funding of NATO ie. pull the plug on NATO..."
The problem with US reducing funding = no more NATO is that Europe (UK included) exist under the protection of the US military. We may not like to admit it but weight in might goes to the US with our participation. The US wants Europe to at least make a contribution to its own defence which adds up to a significant contribution if we all did.
The UK funded above the expected and recently (Osborne) reduced the amount to meet the expected but the UK punches above its weight. France makes a solid effort too. Beyond that most of Europe puts their money into their economies instead of meeting expectations and so they exist on the philanthropic grace of the US and those who contribute.
Basically if the cheeky self absorbed fucks either contributed or left NATO then the US can reduce their military spending and we still have NATO. I know that sounds harsh but when the Germans say they wouldnt know how to spend so much on their military, while their gear doesnt work and military struggles to exist, it is fair. And that is an attitude not only of the Germans (not meaning to single them out, they just had the most public fluster cucks recently).
Why though? I'm not from a NATO country and I'm not a military expert. I can see that the economy of Russia is about the size of Spain's even though the population is the size of France and Germany combined.
Yes, they have nearly 10 times as many nuclear weapons as France and the UK combined but how many are really needed to turn anywhere into wasteland and why are Russia considered an existential threat now in the post Soviet era?
Given the recent assassination successes/attempts with Polonium and Novichok - our overt response has been... to eject diplomats. Oh no! I'm sure they are shaking in their boots!
We also sanctioned people close to Putin, but thanks to the weak link that is the UK financial system, that has not been as effective as we might have hoped (see recent FinCen leaks)
Russia can kill people in our countries with apparent impunity. They will keep doing it until there are consequences. That's without even mentioning Crimea... There is a reason a lot of the Baltic states were clamouring to join NATO.
Given the Brexit Politicians -> Aaron Banks -> Russia money trail, that the UKs *own investigators* were told *not* to investigate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see Russia as serious threat.
Like the man said:
“We have crushed the British to the ground, they are on their knees and they will not rise for a very long time.” - Aleksandr Yakovenko, summing up Russian achievements during his tenure as UK Ambassador, 2011-19.
>It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see Russia as serious threat.
Trouble is, NATO is still largely of the cold war mind set ie. a Russian attack is something that can be repellec with nuc's and conventional military forces, not a long-term guerilla war: a Polonium laced cup of tea here, a quick spray of Novichok perfume there, a carefully orchestrated Facebook/Twitter campaign...
It looks like when there is something for NATO to attack the battle will already have been lost; to the Chinese.
"Terrestrial technologies work well domestically - eLoran and radio clocks like MSF - but don't reach abroad very well."
Well, we used something called "Gee" a few years ago - transmitted from terrestrial antennas, and it worked well enough. And "H2S" for close-range homing in on the targets.
I'm sure as RF and radar technology has improved, it would work much better these days.
If iScotland rejoins the EU post Independence and is therefore able to join Galileo and our space sector able to bid for things will the rest of the UK freeload on our signals? Like the Non NHS English Test & Trace is clearly trying to freeload on Scotlands actual NHS Test & Trace system to the extent that we don’t know how many actual Scots residents have tested positive.
Such confusion is par for the course in Johnson’s UK which we need out of as soon as possible.
Reg readers who wish can of course come up here, help us vote Yes and enjoy EU residential rights, citizenship if you take out Scottish citizenship. Last time it was proposed to make everyone resident in Scotland on Independence Day citizens so come up here.
It's spelt AyeScotland, not iScotland.
Eclectic Man wrote he voted remain as he didn't think the politicians in Westminster were capable of negotiating a sensible exit agreement, or indeed organising a piss up in a brewery.
I voted leave for the same reason. I want an independent Scotland and Boris running Brexit seems certain to cause the breakup of the UK.
Which posting by Danny 2 helps to explain why I've never been any good at politics. I'd ask why you hate the English so much to inflict all this on us, but frankly I think I know the answer (basically 'history' of English oppression, theft, murder, perfidious Albion etc. of the brave Scots people).
Although legally British / English, I'm descended from Eastern German jewish heritage and lapsed Irish Catholics with some Welsh thrown in for good measure (and I'm gay too, so if you're prejudiced, basically you can take your pick) and not inclined to defend the English history of actions against the Scots.
Note to self - DO NOT POST AFTER 22:00 - you always regret it.
Sleep tight, everyone.
@Ken 16
"I'd just say, as a former Scots resident, though not national, it's not necessary to hate the English to prefer not having them making decisions for you."
True. Although its not like the list of demands looked anything like independence from Scotland. I still think if the Scots wanted independence they would have let the English vote. After the oil crash I do expect the English would probably have been gracious enough to take the Scots back too, especially when they found out about the EU membership rules and requirements.
I'm not sure having another country vote whether you are in union with it or not is entirely what is meant by self determination. By that logic, why not let the English vote on whether Switzerland* is part of the UK?
*I was going to name some other high wealth countries such as Singapore or UAE before remembering that the English did vote to take those over
@Ken 16
"I'm not sure having another country vote whether you are in union with it or not is entirely what is meant by self determination"
I am happy to agree. I was just thinking if the nationalists wanted to win the vote. Even with the entertaining ideas of surviving on oil revenues and telling people one thing (socialist utopia) and the required fact (cut public spending harshly) I didnt think they could hoodwink enough scots to vote to leave the UK even with their lies of staying in the EU.
"telling people one thing (socialist utopia) and the required fact (cut public spending harshly)"
Those things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. It would help if we stopped pissing money away on rich people. The Lords 'attendance allowance' is, per day about the same a job seeker gets in a month.
That's not to say I think the Lords shouldn't get anything, but we are currently nickel-and-dime-ing the poorest in society while spaffing - *picks at random* - £43m of public cash for a garden bridge that was never built - and even *that's* small potatoes compared to the current/impending clusterfucks.
I wonder what percentage of the recent "emergency contract" funding is now in the usual tax havens?
@Eclectic Man
I don't hate the English, you'll make great neighbours, just not landlords.
I'm not exactly to blame for Brexit since I didn't vote for a Brexit party. In fact since it was the English who overwhelmingly voted for Boris it seems more fair to ask why you hate us?
@ Danny 2
Please accept my apologies for misinterpreting your post.
If we ever get out of this Covid-19 pandemic, I'll buy you a drink.
We don't hate the Scots, BTW, we envy your sexy accents, single malt Whiskies and mountains. The only reason people voted for Boris was that the SNP for some unknown reason chose not to have any parliamentary candidates south of the border, otherwise the UK would now be run from Edinburgh.
I honestly thought foreigners were being sarcastic when they described the Scottish accent as sexy, I never have, but apparently lots of sex dolls are given Scottish accents.
"How de ye ken when a lass from Paisley has come? She drops her chips." Told to me by a lass from Paisley. "So...are you asking for chips?"
The SNP won't run in England but we donated some of your better MPs. Even our Tories are better than your Tories! Rory Stewart, he isn't awful. Malcolm Rifkind, well, he maybe awful but he's far more competent than the current cabinet. Tell you what, grant us another vote on independence and we'll deport Ruth Davidson to London.
[Anecdote: I once had to email Rifkind about something and I finished the email at 3am on a Saturday. I thought I shouldn't send this until Monday morning as he'll assume I am a weirdo, but I sent it anyway. I got a cogent reply five minutes later. He may be an android. ]
@Pascal Monett
"If the UK government were thinking rationally, it would never have pushed to leave the EU."
It didnt-
>Years of offering a vote if we elect them, then not doing because we all know the result.
>The official campaign being run by Tories instead of those who actually campaigned so long for us to get the vote.
>Tax payer money spent on propaganda in addition to the spending limits.
>The punishment budget.
>Cameron refusing to do any work or prep on leave while insisting he will remain to negotiate leave if it comes to that result.
I am sure there is more to add but at no point was the government on the side of leave. Its taken this long to get a PM who will seriously consider actually leaving instead of negotiating BINO.
Surely with the UK's compact size there's a wealth of old LORAN kit that could be repurposed for its navigation needs?
After all, given the insular nature of the Brexit mindset there really isn't anything much of interest beyond the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone -- there's a bunch of irritating wannabe foreigners on an island to the west and a load of foreigners to the south and east but England has stood tall without them in the past so doesn't really need to know much beyond the understanding that there's a (rail) tunnel that leads to Another Dimension.
The LF systems like eLoran, etc, have some advantages in terms of jamming resistance and lower set-up costs than £5B for a global satellite system if you only need UK-wide / UK-waters sort of coverage.
But the running costs are high in terms of power consumption (for several stations each pumping out tens or hundreds of kW RF power) and you get far, far poorer navigation or time-keeping accuracy. Simply because of the limited bandwidth of LF signals (few kHz) compared to the 1MHz/10MHz or so bandwidth of the L-band (1.5GHz-ish) GPS coarse/precision code.
£5Bn for a GNSS system? My arse. Galileo's budget is EUR20Bn.
IMO the £5Bn figure was just pulled out of somebody's arse in order to either bullshit to the voters about "we can go it alone" or as a negotiating tactic to get us access to Galileo.
If we do try to go it alone, this £5Bn figure will follow the same trajectory as the HS2 budget.
Actually, just thought, it may have been covered earlier in the government's extensive planning; but the Europeans will use Galileo, The American Client-States the current American device...
Which foreign states have presently signed up in advance to use our BS system ? No doubt at a handsome cost which will cover our Brexit losses.
Tricky since the British system won't actually be in orbit - they will be placed on top of large towers to be constructed at various northern seaside resorts.
It was all Boris's idea - he saw the tower the French had built for Galileo ....
If the enemy has a way to put GPS out of action, a second satellite location system is possibly not going to be a great back-up, doesn't matter whether it has an EU or GB sticker on. There are plenty of old-tech, non-sexy, land-based location systems that could work perfectly OK for our part of the world & immediate neighbours. If only we didn't have the habit of messing around that much in all the other parts.
There's an interesting article in a Russian journal, in which they discuss the replacement of their old terrestrial naviagation system "Chayka" with a new one called "Skorpion". In the article, there is a comment to the effect that "in the event of war, all GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, etc.) would be jammed worldwide" and that the Russian military would use their terrestrial systems.
I imagine it depends on what level of war you're talking about. If it's some little green men creeping over a border then I'm sure the satellites are fine and they would benefit from the increased accuracy, if it's some cold war era ragnarok then air to space missiles will probably fill LEO with debris and take out all communications below long wave.
The only practical use for Galileo anybody managed to come up with was a EU wide road pricing scheme, and we certainly don't want to be part of that.
The point of Galileo is to avoid the EU having to depend upon something provided by a foreign power. The Americans giveth and the Americans taketh away.
It's surprising that Trump hasn't already turned GPS accuracy down to hundreds of metres over Europe as leverage for his trade dispute with the EU, or threatened to turn its accuracy down over other countries unless they pay for it. I expect Galileo has something to do with that.
We may finally implement Russell's Teapot in the form of our sovereign positioning system. There's no proof it's not there already!
Oh, nearly forgot :
Russell was physically attacked for advocating peace in 1914. His pals asked the police to intervene, and they wouldn't. They said, "But he's a famous philosopher!" and the police shrugged. "He's a Cambridge maths professor!" and the police snorted. "He's the brother of a Lord!"
"Right lads, rescue him."
From the article:
Bowen told The Register: "If the UK can get user access to the PRS service of Galileo, it's good for British security and infrastructural resilience, good for European security, good for NATO, and good for the transatlantic alliance. This is a negotiation waiting to happen."
Well that's probably a load of bollocks, isn't it? If the US aren't guaranteeing GPS, presumably some of the effects they foresee are jamming, solar flares, things of that nature; things beyond their ability to have engineering control over. As Galileo is effectively a direct clone of GPS, what is it about it that magically makes it immune to jamming, solar flares, and everything else that impacts on GPS? I suspect, nothing. Therefore relying on Galileo for resilience is probably a fools approach to resiliency, because it's likely to fail under exactly the same circumstances that would take out GPS.
Plus, given the suspect unreliability of the clocks on board the Galileo satellites and the inability of the EU or the Galileo organisation to have a proper investigation and report into the week-long outage that occurred not so long ago, I'd have to say that the maintenance and governance of Galileo doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the system being run properly in the long run.
I'm not entirely sure what could or will be done with a modified OneWeb. It would at least have the advantage of numbers in that if every single (new) one of its satellites offered a GNSS service, if half of them got wiped out by bad space weather there'd still be thousands left. Plus it's LEO, so it'd be a different sort of space weather that could wipe it out. Maybe jamming thousands of nav signals from the satellites would be a lot harder. It has the benefit of being substantially different to GPS / Galileo, which may also restrict usage to those who really, really care about having a service and are prepared to have two receivers.
I think that, domestically at least, there's a lot of mileage in eLoran and Rugby MSF for position and time. Two old-ish ideas, but terrestrial and a whole lot more resistant to space weather effects and jamming.
GPS is great, but it’s clearly the wrong solution. The EU screwed up cloning it with Galileo because it’s not a good backup (or even good in any real way either). GLONASS is simply another, and the Chinese and Japanese systems are also not good backups.
The real answer is a pivot back to terrestrial technologies like eLoran and radio clock transmitters. The problem is persuading a bunch of politicians to agree to this and standardise on it when some of them have just spent billions on a GPS clone. Plus rolling these out to developing areas is not trivial; they’re just as dependent on GPS for comms nets, but are far less able to build their own chain of terrestrial transmitters for timing and position.
The real answer is a pivot back to terrestrial technologies like eLoran and radio clock transmitters. The problem is persuading a bunch of politicians to agree to this and standardise on it when some of them have just spent billions on a GPS clone. Plus rolling these out to developing areas is not trivial; they’re just as dependent on GPS for comms nets, but are far less able to build their own chain of terrestrial transmitters for timing and position.
With a +/-8 metre accuracy, it is certainly fine for locating your ship in the Bristol Channel, but I'm not sure it's much good for surveying.
But remind me - is it only iPhones that have Enhanced Loran receivers built into them, or do Android phones have it as well?
>The real answer is a pivot back to terrestrial technologies like eLoran and radio clock transmitters.
Trouble is that certain middle eastern countries get mighty suspicious when chaps with RAF moustaches start installing LORAN transmitters around their strategic targets.
"... cost of making phones capable of receiving an MSF time signal?"
Low I would think, lots of digital clocks in cheap weather stations, etc. receive the MSF time signal.
https://www.npl.co.uk/msf-signalhttps://www.npl.co.uk/msf-signal
Anyway, it would be sufficient if the GSM base stations could receive the MSF time signal and use it as a back-up to the GPS time signal. No need for the phones to receive it.
" eLoran? "
Would be more involved but is rather beyond my ken. Anyway, can it provide sufficient accuracy to be an alternative to GPS for terrestrial navigation? If not, dead reckoning + map following (as used by an earlier generation of automotive navigation systems) might be more accurate. That would also be relatively easy to implement given the sensors in most smartphones, etc.
In my I travels around Indochina, I have noticed a gradual increase in the number of GPS ground stations, used to error correct positioning data transmitted by the GPS systems floating around.
They are useful since the American system no longer positions the famous Ha Noi / SaiGon-Ho Chi Minh City Highway 1A between 10-15 kilometres under the East Sea as it did before the US built stations along the coastline in VietNam and several other countries in the region. Since then they have been sprouting up like mushrooms.
I have seen such stations that support GLONASS (Russia), BeiDou 2 (aka Compass} (China) as well as two limited systems QZSS (Japan) and IRNSS/NavIC (India). I saw a base stations on Chinese 'islands' on my way to both the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes in the past two years.
Perhaps some entrepreneur could lease land in VietNam and region and core some change from Whitehall.As the US has refused the Russians ground facilities, maybe Mexico has some territory you could buy?
We already have a system of accurate positioning. We just need to get a few more longs sticks and we're away.
"The government has set a clear ambition for a sovereign space programme". Like the one they cancelled in 1971 when they axed Black Arrow?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3388535.stm
"As of 2018, the United Kingdom is the only country to have successfully developed and then abandoned a satellite launch capability"
In this case it is rocket science, but sadly the people with this level of intelligence, never seem to go into politics.
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