Are we sleep-walking out of Europe ?

Innocent Bystander posted:

PeterJ posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Eloise posted:

MDS posted:

Still a step forward seems to have been achieved, within the Cabinet at least.

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Across a whole swathe of legislation, wherever the UK does not already have legislation mirroring the EU (e.g where it just references EU legislation, it is presently very active, with large chunks of the civil service doing nothing else, preparing new British laws  ... mirroring all those EU ones. And the primary reason? The EU won’t trade with countries that don’t have at least equivalent laws in place, across anything to do with trade, consumer protection, food safety, farming etc etc. So even out of the EU, the UK has to follow EU law, or adandon desire to trade in many fields.

So, by your ‘reasoning ‘ the EU won’t trade with China, US, Canada, India, Australia etc?

How do you conclude that from my statement?  (Which, by the way,  was a statement of fact as to what is happening, not reasoning of mine - again you seem to seek to distort what I have said.)

Of course UK will want to trade with other counrtries - but it also wants to trade with Eu, so has to comply with EU rules regardless. My point was that because of that UK will still have to emulate much of EU law (and knowing that is in the process of ensuring continuity after Brexit). So for those who thought Brexit meant freedom from EU legislative requirements, they were under a misapprehension - and worse, UK will be without any ability to seek to influence developing EU law, which it often has successfully modified or moderated in the past.

 

Sorry, I made the mistaken assumption that you were able to read your own post...

“The EU won’t trade with countries that don’t have at least equivalent laws in place, across anything to do with trade, consumer protection, food safety, farming etc etc”

PeterJ posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

PeterJ posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Eloise posted:

MDS posted:

Still a step forward seems to have been achieved, within the Cabinet at least.

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Across a whole swathe of legislation, wherever the UK does not already have legislation mirroring the EU (e.g where it just references EU legislation, it is presently very active, with large chunks of the civil service doing nothing else, preparing new British laws  ... mirroring all those EU ones. And the primary reason? The EU won’t trade with countries that don’t have at least equivalent laws in place, across anything to do with trade, consumer protection, food safety, farming etc etc. So even out of the EU, the UK has to follow EU law, or adandon desire to trade in many fields.

So, by your ‘reasoning ‘ the EU won’t trade with China, US, Canada, India, Australia etc?

How do you conclude that from my statement?  (Which, by the way,  was a statement of fact as to what is happening, not reasoning of mine - again you seem to seek to distort what I have said.)

Of course UK will want to trade with other counrtries - but it also wants to trade with Eu, so has to comply with EU rules regardless. My point was that because of that UK will still have to emulate much of EU law (and knowing that is in the process of ensuring continuity after Brexit). So for those who thought Brexit meant freedom from EU legislative requirements, they were under a misapprehension - and worse, UK will be without any ability to seek to influence developing EU law, which it often has successfully modified or moderated in the past.

 

Sorry, I made the mistaken assumption that you were able to read your own post...

“The EU won’t trade with countries that don’t have at least equivalent laws in place, across anything to do with trade, consumer protection, food safety, farming etc etc”

My apologies,  In my quick catch up  I had msired read EU as UK in your first response to mine.

I agree it is odd that EU trades with some of those countries, but apparently UK lawmakers interpret it that UK will still have to comply with the same laws in many areas - I was certainly taken aback when I became aware of the frantic moves to get missing bits of EU legislation in place before Brexit completes, and the indication that the civil service in Britain expect to have to implement maintain parity with a lot of EU law.

Duncan Mann posted:

PeterJ posted:

Eloise posted

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Maybe we can all agree that we have been completely failed by those whom we have entrusted to govern us: both remainer and leaver politicians; the civil service etc.

Agree with the former, emphatically not the latter - there is a very real danger of the very politicians responsible for the Brexit Fur cup seeking to scapegoat the civil service - indeed the Daily Telegraph Brexit documentary I flagged up in an earlier post attempts to do just this, deflecting the responsibility away from those responsible - the Tory Party, who called the ill conceived Referendum.

As other commentators have noted recently, the Civil Service were specifically told by Cameron they could not prepare for a Brexit vote; since then, they have not received a brief from politicians to prepare for a hard Brexit, apparently as Phil Hammond would not justify expenditure on such preparations. Of course, it is easy to see with hindsight, that this could only result in hard Brexit being an extremely high risk (and therefor unacceptable) strategy, but clearly a ploy on Hammond's part to frustrate a hard Brexit - and emphatically not an aspersion on the civil servants...

 

Spot on, Duncan.

PeterJ posted:

Duncan Mann posted:

PeterJ posted:

Eloise posted

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Maybe we can all agree that we have been completely failed by those whom we have entrusted to govern us: both remainer and leaver politicians; the civil service etc.

Agree with the former, emphatically not the latter - there is a very real danger of the very politicians responsible for the Brexit Fur cup seeking to scapegoat the civil service - indeed the Daily Telegraph Brexit documentary I flagged up in an earlier post attempts to do just this, deflecting the responsibility away from those responsible - the Tory Party, who called the ill conceived Referendum.

As other commentators have noted recently, the Civil Service were specifically told by Cameron they could not prepare for a Brexit vote; since then, they have not received a brief from politicians to prepare for a hard Brexit, apparently as Phil Hammond would not justify expenditure on such preparations. Of course, it is easy to see with hindsight, that this could only result in hard Brexit being an extremely high risk (and therefor unacceptable) strategy, but clearly a ploy on Hammond's part to frustrate a hard Brexit - and emphatically not an aspersion on the civil servants...

 

Mostly agree with you but hindsight would not have been needed by anybody with at least half a brain. However, the Foreign Office have always seemed to act against national interests. Ollie Robbins has damaged our negotiating position by undermining DD etc. Also, the Civil Service has always fought for status quo being change averse. All of these things could have been overcome by firm political leadership.

If that were true wouldn't he have been sacked and not elevated to supporting the Prime Minister on Brexit directly?

PeterJ posted:

Dave***t posted:

Eloise posted:

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Don’t fall into the hard brexiteers’ trap of believing that all leavers voted for such a hard Brexit.

Certainly some did, but the intentions of voters cannot be known when they are given a stark binary choice.

Right up until the day, even hard leave campaigners were explicitly saying that’d we’d remian in the single market, whatever happened.

When it comes to JRM and his ilk, please don’t play their game for them. 

Well, the Remain campaign stressed that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. Anybody who voted would have been bombarded with Remain material including the Government leaflet.

However, some passionate Brexiteers do advocate adopting the Norway or Switzerland model.

As part of what was labelled project fear by brexiteers. To which the response from Brexit campaigners was ‘oh of course nobody is suggesting leaving the CU and SM as well, don’t be ridiculous!’.

This was completely unequivocal and came from Farage & co’s mouths. In case anyone’s memory is rusty, there are videos of them saying this at the time.

If anyone seeks to convince you that leaving the CU and SM was always the intent, and was obviously what the majority of leavers were knowingly voting for, they are lying.

Dave***t posted:

PeterJ posted:

Dave***t posted:

Eloise posted:

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Don’t fall into the hard brexiteers’ trap of believing that all leavers voted for such a hard Brexit.

Certainly some did, but the intentions of voters cannot be known when they are given a stark binary choice.

Right up until the day, even hard leave campaigners were explicitly saying that’d we’d remian in the single market, whatever happened.

When it comes to JRM and his ilk, please don’t play their game for them. 

Well, the Remain campaign stressed that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. Anybody who voted would have been bombarded with Remain material including the Government leaflet.

However, some passionate Brexiteers do advocate adopting the Norway or Switzerland model.

As part of what was labelled project fear by brexiteers. To which the response from Brexit campaigners was ‘oh of course nobody is suggesting leaving the CU and SM as well, don’t be ridiculous!’.

This was completely unequivocal and came from Farage & co’s mouths. In case anyone’s memory is rusty, there are videos of them saying this at the time.

If anyone seeks to convince you that leaving the CU and SM was always the intent, and was obviously what the majority of leavers were knowingly voting for, they are lying.

Please have another go at reading my post. 

MDS posted:

PeterJ posted:

Duncan Mann posted:

PeterJ posted:

Eloise posted

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Maybe we can all agree that we have been completely failed by those whom we have entrusted to govern us: both remainer and leaver politicians; the civil service etc.

Agree with the former, emphatically not the latter - there is a very real danger of the very politicians responsible for the Brexit Fur cup seeking to scapegoat the civil service - indeed the Daily Telegraph Brexit documentary I flagged up in an earlier post attempts to do just this, deflecting the responsibility away from those responsible - the Tory Party, who called the ill conceived Referendum.

As other commentators have noted recently, the Civil Service were specifically told by Cameron they could not prepare for a Brexit vote; since then, they have not received a brief from politicians to prepare for a hard Brexit, apparently as Phil Hammond would not justify expenditure on such preparations. Of course, it is easy to see with hindsight, that this could only result in hard Brexit being an extremely high risk (and therefor unacceptable) strategy, but clearly a ploy on Hammond's part to frustrate a hard Brexit - and emphatically not an aspersion on the civil servants...

 

Mostly agree with you but hindsight would not have been needed by anybody with at least half a brain. However, the Foreign Office have always seemed to act against national interests. Ollie Robbins has damaged our negotiating position by undermining DD etc. Also, the Civil Service has always fought for status quo being change averse. All of these things could have been overcome by firm political leadership.

If that were true wouldn't he have been sacked and not elevated to supporting the Prime Minister on Brexit directly?

Agreed but please read the last sentence of my post. It is political leadership that has been sadly lacking.

I read it just fine, thanks. You sought to imply that leave voters knew they were voting for certain outcomes which in fact they were not.

It’s quite clear.

Edit, typos, ha!

PeterJ posted:

Duncan Mann posted:

PeterJ posted:

Eloise posted

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Maybe we can all agree that we have been completely failed by those whom we have entrusted to govern us: both remainer and leaver politicians; the civil service etc.

Agree with the former, emphatically not the latter - there is a very real danger of the very politicians responsible for the Brexit Fur cup seeking to scapegoat the civil service - indeed the Daily Telegraph Brexit documentary I flagged up in an earlier post attempts to do just this, deflecting the responsibility away from those responsible - the Tory Party, who called the ill conceived Referendum.

As other commentators have noted recently, the Civil Service were specifically told by Cameron they could not prepare for a Brexit vote; since then, they have not received a brief from politicians to prepare for a hard Brexit, apparently as Phil Hammond would not justify expenditure on such preparations. Of course, it is easy to see with hindsight, that this could only result in hard Brexit being an extremely high risk (and therefor unacceptable) strategy, but clearly a ploy on Hammond's part to frustrate a hard Brexit - and emphatically not an aspersion on the civil servants...

 

Mostly agree with you but hindsight would not have been needed by anybody with at least half a brain. However, the Foreign Office have always seemed to act against national interests. Ollie Robbins has damaged our negotiating position by undermining DD etc. Also, the Civil Service has always fought for status quo being change averse. All of these things could have been overcome by firm political leadership.

It’s always nice not to feel you are fighting the cause alone. ????

PeterJ posted:

Dave***t posted:

PeterJ posted:

Dave***t posted:

Eloise posted:

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Don’t fall into the hard brexiteers’ trap of believing that all leavers voted for such a hard Brexit.

Certainly some did, but the intentions of voters cannot be known when they are given a stark binary choice.

Right up until the day, even hard leave campaigners were explicitly saying that’d we’d remian in the single market, whatever happened.

When it comes to JRM and his ilk, please don’t play their game for them. 

Well, the Remain campaign stressed that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market. Anybody who voted would have been bombarded with Remain material including the Government leaflet.

However, some passionate Brexiteers do advocate adopting the Norway or Switzerland model.

As part of what was labelled project fear by brexiteers. To which the response from Brexit campaigners was ‘oh of course nobody is suggesting leaving the CU and SM as well, don’t be ridiculous!’.

This was completely unequivocal and came from Farage & co’s mouths. In case anyone’s memory is rusty, there are videos of them saying this at the time.

If anyone seeks to convince you that leaving the CU and SM was always the intent, and was obviously what the majority of leavers were knowingly voting for, they are lying.

Please have another go at reading my post. 

.....your point being ????

I refer the honourable gentlemen to my last sentence which I will repeat for clarity....

However, some passionate Brexiteers do advocate adopting the Norway or Switzerland model.

Personally, I am not sure that this is the best way to go but it does seem a workable model for at least an interim period whilst we try and find some political leaders with half a brain.

When i say "your point being ????" it would help if people could simply explain their point of view. If others misunderstand, then try re-explaining. It really is that simple.

Duncan Mann posted:

Eloise posted:

MDS posted:

Still a step forward seems to have been achieved, within the Cabinet at least.

Well they’ve achieved agreement on something the EU will almost certainly reject...

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

How indeed, Eloise! The EFTA/Norway/Canada options are a crap arrangement for the UK, compared to what we had as a full member of the EU. I suspect most Brexiteers bought the three Brexiters cakeism assurances, lock stock and barrel, and are only beginning to realise now that we'd have been much better off staying in the EU, and using our energies to fix its undoubted inadequacies. Trouble is, they voted Leave, so a tad difficult for them to to accept this mentally, and certainly to verbalise it. Don't expect any apologies from a Brexiter!

 

I’m so ‘umble I could not possibly challenge your so superior posting. And can only apologise for voting to Leave. 

I don’t want to fix the EU’s inadequacies because the EU has no intention of listening. 

So, you’re right, no apologies.

Posts crossed.

Much better, much more clear and, more importantly, much nicer.

Cheers

Don

PeterJ posted:

I refer the honourable gentlemen to my last sentence which I will repeat for clarity....

However, some passionate Brexiteers do advocate adopting the Norway or Switzerland model.

Personally, I am not sure that this is the best way to go but it does seem a workable model for at least an interim period whilst we try and find some political leaders with half a brain.

That response doesn’t do what you seem to think it does - there being some brexiteers who want something is perfectly compatible with the implication that most voted for something else.

Still, the incompetence of our political leaders is certainly something we can agree on - actually, there’s a striking degree of unanimity between otherwise opposed people about that as far as I can tell.

Your thoughts on the limited information about our plan for Brexit, following the PM's meeting at Chequers ?

Are we still sleepwalking or is this a clear, workable direction that will have the support of the EU, British business and the UK population (not just the 17.4m brexit voters) ?

Don Atkinson posted:

Your thoughts on the limited information about our plan for Brexit, following the PM's meeting at Chequers ?

Are we still sleepwalking or is this a clear, workable direction that will have the support of the EU, British business and the UK population (not just the 17.4m brexit voters) ?

Easy! Duplicitous double dealing by a bunch of Europhiliac Tories! Won’t work.

Don Atkinson posted:

Your thoughts on the limited information about our plan for Brexit, following the PM's meeting at Chequers ?

Are we still sleepwalking or is this a clear, workable direction that will have the support of the EU, British business and the UK population (not just the 17.4m brexit voters) ?

It seems as if we are going to take a chance on separating the four founding principles of the EU. I think a few EU countries may try and follow us out of the door if we succeed. 

jpr posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

Your thoughts on the limited information about our plan for Brexit, following the PM's meeting at Chequers ?

Are we still sleepwalking or is this a clear, workable direction that will have the support of the EU, British business and the UK population (not just the 17.4m brexit voters) ?

It seems as if we are going to take a chance on separating the four founding principles of the EU. I think a few EU countries may try and follow us out of the door if we succeed. 

And for that reason alone, EU won’t let UK do it

I hope that isn't the case - otherwise I feel  that would show the EU as being a regressive inward looking self interest oriented organisation and I am sure they don't want to be seen or act as that.  The EU needs healthy forward looking relationships with the UK pretty  much the same as the UK needs them with the EU. I am sure the politicians will find the right language and positioning to allow this to broadly happen but expect a lot of huffing and puffing and cliche metaphors about eating cakes etc.. it cant be seen to be easy just in case others less significant than the UK wish to follow

The UK stands to lose far more than the EU if the UK leaves without a deal. The EU holds all the cards, and has done from the beginning. 

With David Davis gone, and May’s latest unworkable plan set to unravel, it’s time for May to go and to have a general election with clearly defined Brexit choices. 

I agree the EU holds all the cards and always has simply because the UK has a lot more to lose than the EU.

May's plan is utter folly. What's the point of being outside the EU, having no power and influence, yet still have to abide by decisions made by the EU for the EU? Might as well stay in it and at least have your say and veto the decisions you may not like. Do we really believe France and Germany will make decisions that will be in the best interests of the UK? They will make decisions that are in the best interests of themselves and the UK will not be able to do a thing about it unless we are full members of the EU.

The UK should either be fully in or fully out with full control of its own devices. If we are fully out then say goodbye to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the UK, and say hello to little England.

To quote another politician, we are mad, literally mad.

Resurrection posted:

Dave***t posted:

Eloise posted:

I’m not sure though if I don’t agree with JR-M... it appears the proposal has U.K. accepting large portions of EU regulation, without any say over what that regulation will be.  How can this be a step forward or what many Leavers voted for?

Don’t fall into the hard brexiteers’ trap of believing that all leavers voted for such a hard Brexit.

Certainly some did, but the intentions of voters cannot be known when they are given a stark binary choice.

Right up until the day, even hard leave campaigners were explicitly saying that’d we’d remian in the single market, whatever happened.

When it comes to JRM and his ilk, please don’t play their game for them. 

Yes, when I voted for the Conservatives last year it certainly wasn’t for the Conservatives that are currently overstaying their welcome in Westminster. I really think we should have a rewind on 2017 with a thorough investigation into May’s leadership, decision making processes and her congenital need to appease everyone but the British people. If necessary, and the prevalent polls look positive, with a completely new leader and the removal of all Remainers, we should rerun the General Election. How’s about that then, as someone who is thankfully not around any more used to say. 

Followed immediately by a rewind of 2016 and a rerun of the brexit referendum of course!

Halloween Man posted:

I agree the EU holds all the cards and always has simply because the UK has a lot more to lose than the EU.

May's plan is utter folly. What's the point of being outside the EU, having no power and influence, yet still have to abide by decisions made by the EU for the EU? Might as well stay in it and at least have your say and veto the decisions you may not like. Do we really believe France and Germany will make decisions that will be in the best interests of the UK? They will make decisions that are in the best interests of themselves and the UK will not be able to do a thing about it unless we are full members of the EU.

The UK should either be fully in or fully out with full control of its own devices. If we are fully out then say goodbye to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the UK, and say hello to little England.

To quote another politician, we are mad, literally mad.

I don't think it's MAD, the EU can survive Brexit with very little loss.

The UK is likely to suffer quite a bit more economic, social and political damage than the EU (particularly in percentile terms); so the Destruction rather more one way than Mutually Assured.

hungryhalibut posted:

The UK stands to lose far more than the EU if the UK leaves without a deal. The EU holds all the cards, and has done from the beginning. 

With David Davis gone, and May’s latest unworkable plan set to unravel, it’s time for May to go and to have a general election with clearly defined Brexit choices. 

Blimey, I agree with what you are saying HH. As they say, our agreement may depend  on the fine detail of what is to be promised to the British electorate. However, one thing is certain May has to go, she is the worst thing inflicted on this country ever.