Are we sleep-walking out of Europe ?

Then stop being an insulting flow of electrons!  

By the way, I'm not a nuclear free zone; I have neutrons and protons as well as electrons!  

Huge posted:

Then stop being an insulting flow of electrons!  

By the way, I'm not a nuclear free zone; I have neutrons and protons as well as electrons!  

Was talking about your means  of communication! ????

Hopefully HMG will sort their pathetic Windrush immigration scandal    

If not, I rather suspect that the EU will have to spend time getting proper guarantees about the status of their existing residents in the U.K.

Any text drafted by May & Co will need to be picked over with a fine tooth Combe. Can she really be trusted to be straight and honest ?

Lack of forethought and lack of pre-decision assessment still seems to dominate our Brexit scenario.

(That is why I titled this thread "are we sleepwalking.....")

I haven't heard too much serious debate about the benefits of staying within the Customs Union v Leaving.

I don't recall it being at or near the top of the agenda in the run-up to the referendum.

Why is it that a few Erosceptic MPs are able to drive TM to a vote of confidence on this issue rather  than having a rational, open debate with MPs voting in the National Interest ?

The question of remaining within the Customs Union or not has been linked by Brussels to the UK's proposals for a "frictionless border" between the north and south of Ireland.

Their viewpoint is that this "will never work" and are insisting the the UK remain in the Customs Union.

I'm paraphrasing from an article in yesterday's Sunday Times, but the fact is that "no nation, with the exception of Turkey has tolerated being outside the European single market, yet being bound to the EU Customs Union".

The reality is that the concept of a "frictionless border" works perfectly well in the case of Switzerland, which is not a member of the single market, Customs Union, or even the European Economic Area, and has massively more cross border trade than would ever be the case in Ireland. Their chief EU negotiator doesn't see any obstacles to our being able to sort things out on a similar basis, other than, naturally, political ones.

That, it seems to me, is the real issue, in that "the EU does not want Brexit to be straightforward or painless, even when it could be, as that might only encourage other nations to secede also".

The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that the EU are determined to make these negotiations as difficult as possible, regardless of the solutions staring them in the face, which exist elsewhere.

Don Atkinson posted:

Lack of forethought and lack of pre-decision assessment still seems to dominate our Brexit scenario.

(That is why I titled this thread "are we sleepwalking.....")

I haven't heard too much serious debate about the benefits of staying within the Customs Union v Leaving.

I don't recall it being at or near the top of the agenda in the run-up to the referendum.

Why is it that a few Erosceptic MPs are able to drive TM to a vote of confidence on this issue rather  than having a rational, open debate with MPs voting in the National Interest ?

Ah, you started this never ending saga! Anything that ties into the EU restrctive practices will not constitute leaving as far as I am concerned, nor am I desperately in further discussions about the consequences of my own decision making processes. Me personally, I had a very good idea of what we were escaping and je ne regrette rien! 

dave marshall posted:

The question of remaining within the Customs Union or not has been linked by Brussels to the UK's proposals for a "frictionless border" between the north and south of Ireland.

Their viewpoint is that this "will never work" and are insisting the the UK remain in the Customs Union.

I'm paraphrasing from an article in yesterday's Sunday Times, but the fact is that "no nation, with the exception of Turkey has tolerated being outside the European single market, yet being bound to the EU Customs Union".

The reality is that the concept of a "frictionless border" works perfectly well in the case of Switzerland, which is not a member of the single market, Customs Union, or even the European Economic Area, and has massively more cross border trade than would ever be the case in Ireland. Their chief EU negotiator doesn't see any obstacles to our being able to sort things out on a similar basis, other than, naturally, political ones.

That, it seems to me, is the real issue, in that "the EU does not want Brexit to be straightforward or painless, even when it could be, as that might only encourage other nations to secede also".

The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that the EU are determined to make these negotiations as difficult as possible, regardless of the solutions staring them in the face, which exist elsewhere.

Hear! Hear!

Another welfare dependent born in the UK this week.

Resurrection posted:

dave marshall posted:

 

The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is that the EU are determined to make these negotiations as difficult as possible, regardless of the solutions staring them in the face, which exist elsewhere.

Hear! Hear!

And sadly, it is the British public who will pay dearly for the pleasure, and for many years to come.

dave marshall posted:

 

The reality is that the concept of a "frictionless border" works perfectly well in the case of Switzerland, which is not a member of the single market, Customs Union, or even the European Economic Area, and has massively more cross border trade than would ever be the case in Ireland.

That's a lovely way of looking at things for those with a pro-Brexit attitude (see Resurrection's endorsement).

Unfortunately it's completely inaccurate.  The Swiss border isn't frictionless.  

Yes, you can enter Switzerland without passport checks.  That's because Switzerland is part of the Schengen area - not something Brexit ultras will accept.  Switzerland also has some of its rules essentially dictated by the EU because it maintains 'full alignment' with EU rules on goods.  That means it is effectively in the EU customs union regardless of its nominal status - not something Brexit ultras will accept.  And there's a hard border for some things because of differing tax arrangements - unclear how that would work with the UK, but potentially it'd imperil the GFA.

There's a FT article from December which explains this.  I can't post a link to it, but it's really easy to find.  Just google 'Switzerland customs EU' and it should be near the top of the results.  It's entitled Brexit: Watch the Swiss border for a warning on trade.

I think I've read somewhere that the British government have assembled a commission of mathematicians which is going to devise a border between EU and UK which at the same time does not separate NI from Ireland. I think the head of the commission is a certain Professor Moebius and the solution is based on non orientable surfaces.

The irony is that the U.K. don’t want to be part of the Customs Union because they see it as seeding control to the EU.  However the two proposals essentially suggest the EU seed Customs Control to U.K. “on trust” ... seeding control to a third country who don’t want to be bound to the ECJ who rule in such things.  Cloud cuckoo land!

Another story which shows the arrogance of the U.K.’s negotiation position came about last week.  The U.K. want the EU to continue to protect the U.K.’s PGI and PDO (protected food designations) in the EU, yet won’t promise to do the same for the EU27’s PGI, PDO and TSG foods.  So (for example) under the proposal the U.K. want EU to protect Scotch Whisky (to stop Japan, Slovakia and India selling spirits branded Scotch) but refuse to prevent USA and Australia selling Champagne.  Double cloud cuckoo land!

jfritzen posted:

I think I've read somewhere that the British government have assembled a commission of mathematicians which is going to devise a border between EU and UK which at the same time does not separate NI from Ireland. I think the head of the commission is a certain Professor Moebius and the solution is based on non orientable surfaces.

The Möbius Proposal.  It's got a nice ring to it, like The Odessa File or The Stanford Prison Experiment.  Or The Lucifer Effect.

Eloise posted:

The irony is that the U.K. don’t want to be part of the Customs Union because they see it as seeding control to the EU.  However the two proposals essentially suggest the EU seed Customs Control to U.K. “on trust” ... seeding control to a third country who don’t want to be bound to the ECJ who rule in such things.  Cloud cuckoo land!!

BTW, and this not meaning to be critical, nor to divert the thread, but the word is cede not seed.

Innocent Bystander posted:

BTW, and this not meaning to be critical, nor to divert the thread, but the word is cede not seed.

You’re right... I blame comprehensive education under a Tory government!

Hard-line Brexiteers clearly getting worried. Rees-Mogg describing the PM's idea of a Customs Partnership  as "completely cretinous".  Nice example of party loyalty there.  Does he think that May will now lurch further right on hearing such constructive comments from a prominent Tory back-bencher ?! My take is Rees-Mogg is aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and fears May will be pragmatic.  Thing is, Rees-Mogg's position doesn't change that arithmetic.  

MDS posted:

Hard-line Brexiteers clearly getting worried. Rees-Mogg describing the PM's idea of a Customs Partnership  as "completely cretinous".  Nice example of party loyalty there.  Does he think that May will now lurch further right on hearing such constructive comments from a prominent Tory back-bencher ?! My take is Rees-Mogg is aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and fears May will be pragmatic.  Thing is, Rees-Mogg's position doesn't change that arithmetic.  

At some point with people continually sticking their heads over parapets to hurrel insults, make gross accusations and threats, someone, no matter how innocent they may perceive themselves to be, is going to get their head blown off. The intransigence of Remainers to recognise and accept the validity of a Referendum and 17.4 million people is shaping up to end very badly.

We all know that Parliament is stuffed with  Remainers who have blithely convinced themselves that their entitlement trumps the will of the electorate. With Corbyn and May as leaders of the main parties our whole Parliamentary system is in disarray with neither of them representing anything like the needs or wishes of the majority of the population of the UK. While May appeases, Corbyn makes mischief and the irony is that May is an arch-Remainer and Corbyn is an arch-Leaver. 

You might call it Parliamentary arithmetic, I call it blatant treachery by arrogant political pygmies. 

MDS posted:

Hard-line Brexiteers clearly getting worried. Rees-Mogg describing the PM's idea of a Customs Partnership  as "completely cretinous".  Nice example of party loyalty there.  Does he think that May will now lurch further right on hearing such constructive comments from a prominent Tory back-bencher ?! My take is Rees-Mogg is aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and fears May will be pragmatic.  Thing is, Rees-Mogg's position doesn't change that arithmetic.  

In my experience, if hard-line Brexiters feel in the ascendant, their language becomes bombastic and patronising - "we won, suck it up" being their most common leitmotif in the period immediately after the referendum. Indeed, the very term "Remoaner" is a good example. However, if the wheels come of the Brexit bus, as they are threatening to in fairly short order now, their language is likely to become much more aggressive - Rees-Mogg's terminology as quoted by MDS being slightly musty but unmistakably pugnacious.

I can't put a weblink here but there's a good article in the Indy on JMR quoting  him as saying, in reference to the Lords rejection of the Brexit legislation, "I think their lordships are playing with fire and it would be a shame to burn down a historic house.” Very thinly veiled threat there. 

The problem for Brexiters is that their adventure makes no sense whatsoever intellectually unless the UK burns its boats lock stock and barrel, to mix metaphors. Being out of the EU but in a customs union makes extremely good sense pragmatically, IF we are to be "out" of Europe. To hard-line Brexiters, however, being out of the EU but in a customs union and therefore bound by the ECJ (and not being able to agree trade pacts independently in perpetuity) is having all of the disadvantages of being out of the EU, with few of the advantages. Brexiters are waking up to the realisation that they will struggle to justify their xenophobic vanity project when the UK public wake up and realise they've been sold a pup... 

Duncan Mann posted:

MDS posted:

Hard-line Brexiteers clearly getting worried. Rees-Mogg describing the PM's idea of a Customs Partnership  as "completely cretinous".  Nice example of party loyalty there.  Does he think that May will now lurch further right on hearing such constructive comments from a prominent Tory back-bencher ?! My take is Rees-Mogg is aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and fears May will be pragmatic.  Thing is, Rees-Mogg's position doesn't change that arithmetic.  

In my experience, if hard-line Brexiters feel in the ascendant, their language becomes bombastic and patronising - "we won, suck it up" being their most common leitmotif in the period immediately after the referendum. Indeed, the very term "Remoaner" is a good example. However, if the wheels come of the Brexit bus, as they are threatening to in fairly short order now, their language is likely to become much more aggressive - Rees-Mogg's terminology as quoted by MDS being slightly musty but unmistakably pugnacious.

I can't put a weblink here but there's a good article in the Indy on JMR quoting  him as saying, in reference to the Lords rejection of the Brexit legislation, "I think their lordships are playing with fire and it would be a shame to burn down a historic house.” Very thinly veiled threat there. 

The problem for Brexiters is that their adventure makes no sense whatsoever intellectually unless the UK burns its boats lock stock and barrel, to mix metaphors. Being out of the EU but in a customs union makes extremely good sense pragmatically, IF we are to be "out" of Europe. To hard-line Brexiters, however, being out of the EU but in a customs union and therefore bound by the ECJ (and not being able to agree trade pacts independently in perpetuity) is having all of the disadvantages of being out of the EU, with few of the advantages. Brexiters are waking up to the realisation that they will struggle to justify their xenophobic vanity project when the UK public wake up and realise they've been sold a pup... 

As a hard line Brexiter, I was and still am fully aware of all the so called 'disadvantages' you Remainers continually lecture us with. We knew that we did not want to be tied to the ECJ; we knew we did notwant a customs union, no matter how much you Remainers keep telling us we did; we have not the slightest interest in the complications of the border with Northern Ireland - that will resolve itself with surprising ease. Stop using the xenophobic card, you just disgrace yourself and stop trying to make out that two very undemocratic institutions, the Lords and the EU, with their very undemocratic practices are some forms of paragons of virtue saving us from ourselves.

As you hate me and others saying, we won, you lost, now implement our Brexit and try again some time in the future to get yourself democratically back in the EU if you think the country will have an appetite for it. I can also assure you that there is nothing transient or partial about the 'adventure' we voted for. I certainly believe the country will never have the appetite for rejoining such a malignant institution. Oh, and I see that the call for an abolition of The House of Lords got over 100,000 signatures in no time at all, although I did not personally sign.

The position “we won, you lost”, displaying a curious and simplistic state of mind that aapears to consider it to have been a competition or war as opposed to consideration of a country’s future, is a meaningless dogma that focuses on a referendum based on highly flawed and misleading information from both sides of the argument, and is trotted out again and again by those afraid of having a confirmatory referendum now much more is known.

As I have said many times before, you have nothing to fear about the result of a confirmatory referendum if it is true, as you suggest, that the majority want Brexit: Stop living in the past, repeatedly citing a referendum nearly three years ago, and instead join the call for confirmation of what the people want, which, if contrary to what the politicians you criticise want, will be powerful in silencing them - while shutting up once and for all those that Brexiteers often delight in branding ‘remoaners’. 

As for re-joining the EU once out of it, that would be a very different question, not least because Britain’s position if it were to happen would be far less influential in the EU than ever before (as indeed Britain’s position is likely to be in the world after leaving the EU).

Resurrection posted:

MDS posted:

Hard-line Brexiteers clearly getting worried. Rees-Mogg describing the PM's idea of a Customs Partnership  as "completely cretinous".  Nice example of party loyalty there.  Does he think that May will now lurch further right on hearing such constructive comments from a prominent Tory back-bencher ?! My take is Rees-Mogg is aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and fears May will be pragmatic.  Thing is, Rees-Mogg's position doesn't change that arithmetic.  

At some point with people continually sticking their heads over parapets to hurrel insults, make gross accusations and threats, someone, no matter how innocent they may perceive themselves to be, is going to get their head blown off. The intransigence of Remainers to recognise and accept the validity of a Referendum and 17.4 million people is shaping up to end very badly.

We all know that Parliament is stuffed with  Remainers who have blithely convinced themselves that their entitlement trumps the will of the electorate. With Corbyn and May as leaders of the main parties our whole Parliamentary system is in disarray with neither of them representing anything like the needs or wishes of the majority of the population of the UK. While May appeases, Corbyn makes mischief and the irony is that May is an arch-Remainer and Corbyn is an arch-Leaver. 

You might call it Parliamentary arithmetic, I call it blatant treachery by arrogant political pygmies. 

Resurrection - while I acknowledge that you voted exit in the light of a pretty good understanding of the issues and are clear on what you mean by 'exit', I strongly suspect that very many who voted exit didn't had anything like that understanding. I'd hazard a guess that more than half wouldn't have had any idea what a 'customs union' was, let alone an understanding of it's benefits and downsides.  If we do exit the EU while still remaining in the/a customs union, the politicians will present it as a victory.  While there will be some e.g. hard Brexiteers, who with say it is treachery, most won't because (a) they didn't have a defined idea of what exit meant and (b) don't understand or want to understand the pros & cons of the issues involved.    

The Campaign for Real Ale recently asked its members to decide whether it should expand its remit to cover lager and cider. In order to make such a momentous change, at least 75% of members would have had to vote for it. Very sensibly, they didn’t. Yet we can totally change the UK’s direction on a simple majority. Weird. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Yet we can totally change the UK’s direction on a simple majority. Weird. 

If only Messrs Cameron, Dacre, Murdoch, the Barclays, and Rothermere were forum members...

MDS posted:

Resurrection - while I acknowledge that you voted exit in the light of a pretty good understanding of the issues and are clear on what you mean by 'exit', I strongly suspect that very many who voted exit didn't had anything like that understanding. I'd hazard a guess that more than half wouldn't have had any idea what a 'customs union' was, let alone an understanding of it's benefits and downsides.  If we do exit the EU while still remaining in the/a customs union, the politicians will present it as a victory.  While there will be some e.g. hard Brexiteers, who with say it is treachery, most won't because (a) they didn't have a defined idea of what exit meant and (b) don't understand or want to understand the pros & cons of the issues involved.    

I would add to that MDS ... that even if Leave thinking voters knew what the customs union was, they were told by several of the leading campaigners that even if the UK voted to leave the EU, that the Customs Union and even the Single Market were good things and that the UK could remain part of them.

Resurrection posted:

At some point with people continually sticking their heads over parapets to hurrel insults, make gross accusations and threats, someone, no matter how innocent they may perceive themselves to be, is going to get their head blown off. The intransigence of Remainers to recognise and accept the validity of a Referendum and 17.4 million people is shaping up to end very badly.

We all know that Parliament is stuffed with  Remainers who have blithely convinced themselves that their entitlement trumps the will of the electorate. With Corbyn and May as leaders of the main parties our whole Parliamentary system is in disarray with neither of them representing anything like the needs or wishes of the majority of the population of the UK. While May appeases, Corbyn makes mischief and the irony is that May is an arch-Remainer and Corbyn is an arch-Leaver. 

You might call it Parliamentary arithmetic, I call it blatant treachery by arrogant political pygmies. 

 
Leaving completely to one side the basis of people’s votes in the referendum and whether the outcome would have been the same if everyone had gone into with full and accurate knowledge, it is very curious that you seem argue that the will of 17.4 million people expressed in 2015 should be followed, and indeed followed blindly, regardless of any realities that may come to light, seemingly considering the referendum to have been a sufficiently sound democratic process to have created a path from which nothing must be allowed to cause any diversion or deviation - yet you seem to reject the democratic process that the same British public used nearly a year later to elect a parliament with the power to decide what is right for the country to do, the members of which will all have in their heads the knowledge of the referendum and its outcome.

You might argue that parliamentary democracy is flawed - but that would beg the question as to whether the referendum was unflawed, and in what way the views of 17.4 million people at a moment in time may be more valid than the views any particular proportion of people three years later.