By the end of 2020 Brexit will have cost the UK more than its total payments to the EU over the past 47 years.
Try putting that on the side of a bus.
This thread has been interesting to me as an outsider, and I’m disappointed it seems to have gone cold.
Residents of the U.K.: How are you faring? As much as is possible to separate economic effects of Brexit from those of Covid, which predictions are on track to come to pass, and which are not?
A few bit of news are popping up about negotiations for an EU deal - your take?
Dragging down to the wire. Come what may, all existing rules governing trade and both public and private business with EU countries have no legal effect as of 31 December. Without a huge and complex agreement to replace it (and the legislative timetables for installing one are increasingly tight, given that, as far as we know, there are still several areas of substantial disagreement), there would be tariffs and assorted bureaucratic/documentary impositions on exports to the EU. UK contingency plans allow for emergency parking zones for something like 7000 trucks near the Kent ports, plus a possible requirement for an access permit to the area, to add to the customs/trading “border” between Northern Ireland and the mainland that Johnson said he wouldn’t have then caved in and agreed to. Oh, and the bill they brought in to govern our internal markets as a replacement for existing EU-wide rules would give them the power, in the event of no deal, to disregard the (binding in international law) withdrawal/transitional treaty they got through parliament last winter. And there’s a very real possibility we would lose access to police and security co-operation (things like access to EU countries’ criminal records databases and automatic enforcement of arrest warrants).
That’s being as factual as I can. Comparing all this with the sequence of promises made during the referendum campaign and since, I’m so close to gibbering rage that it’s hard to find breath to say “We told you so”.
What the combined economic hit from Covid and all this will be, who knows? But it won’t be all bunting and frolic, that’s for sure
Any of the previous pro-Brexit posters here willing to give their reasoned view?
I started a different Brexit thread here recently in the wake of the Internal Markets Bill fiasco.
Despite the provocation of the UK saying we were prepared to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement and to hell with international law, talks have kept going. We are getting very close to the wire with respect to national parliaments having time to ratify a deal; latest reports are that both sides are failing to find common ground on a) state aid and b) fishing rights.
The two sides have been at odds over the issue of so-called “state aid” rules, which limit government help for industry in the name of ensuring fair economic competition.
The UK has rejected an EU demand made earlier in the year for it to continue following the bloc’s rules on such subsidies as part of a trade agreement.
Lord Frost has suggested the UK could instead agree “principles” for how subsidies are spent - something welcomed by Mr Barnier on Wednesday.
The two sides are also haggling over how much European fishing boats should be able to catch in British waters from next year.
The EU has so far resisted UK demands for annual talks to decide stock limits, as well as a reduction in access for its vessels to British fishing grounds.
Nonsense. We have been assured of the following:
And Boris has delivered all the accountability, democratic principles and sensitivity to public opinion that WS told he would. No, really he has.
The cost of letting racists and xenophobes run the nation.
As the USA has also found out.
They tend to be super stupid.
Yes - it has been a colossal fuck up by the various UK governments we have had since 2016, starting with Cameron’s resignation (I think he should have stayed on to deal with things), May’s various mis-steps, and culminating in the blond buffoon we have at present. “Failure of statecraft” indeed.
In the meantime, life goes on, and the eternal optimist in me still tends to think the short-term and long-term outcomes will be less bad than the worst of the predictions. I still don’t regret my vote or feel that I was misinformed or misled at the time (or at least, I don’t think the misinformation at the time significantly affected my decision). But I will admit that had I known how badly the whole process was going to be handled, I might have gritted my teeth and voted Remain. I don’t think that particular aspect was foreseeable or widely predicted in 2016.
But I will admit that had I known how badly the whole process was going to be handled, I might have gritted my teeth and voted Remain. I don’t think that particular aspect was foreseeable or widely predicted in 2016
I don’t want to re-fight the referendum, but it was inherent in the incompatibilities inherent in the “have cake and eat it” promises of the likes of Michael Gove - and between that and the clearly “no deal” approach of some of the unofficial Leave campaigners (not to mention the outright lies about Turkey and irrelevant/false claims about immigration in general). And I highly doubt that I was alone among the 48% to be well aware of it from the outset.
Speaking for myself, I never thought it was a have cake and eat it situation. But then I am probably not a typical Leave voter.
The main point of this is, May’s attempts to use Brexit as a stick for short-term political gain are now likely to result in long-term harm. But it is politically impossible, I think, to withdraw the withdrawal agreement, just as it would have been politically impossible to ignore the referendum result. Hopefully both sides will recognise the futility of the game of brinkmanship that has been played up to this point and either agree a further extension, or work something out to keep the lorries moving.
The EU has been entirely reasonable throughout. And I’m defining “reasonable” in the usual way, not in the Leaver “give us everything we want or we’ll call you a big meanyhead” way. But they can’t fix the absolute shambles the UK has been with regard to Brexit. The UK have never clearly articulated what it wanted, in part because there was no consensus about what it wanted; on the Leave side alone there were about a half dozen incompatible positions and Boris promised all of them what they wanted and broke every promise (and apparently a few laws as well).
It would be nice if the Government could hammer out some kind of agreement before the end of the year, but given that it’s the same corrupt and incompetent crew in charge, I see no reason to assume that it will happen.
That’s assuming that Johnson actually wants a deal, rather than an excuse for no-deal and a way to blame the EU for it. He certainly hasn’t been negotiating seriously at any stage.
Johnson promised the ERG last year that he would repudiate his ‘oven-ready’ deal. That was how he got their support. That’s according to Steve Baker, the former chair of the ERG. So the whole deal was a complete sham from the start.
The ERG is into disaster capitalism, and the bigger the disaster, the more they will profit.
I’m sure they have their investments and financial strategies already lined up to make huge profits as soon as everything goes tits up. They will also have strategies ready to change laws, dismantle and defund social welfare as much as possible, and privatise as much as possible, particularly by doing lucrative deals with large corporations.
They want a disastrous no-deal to shift the balance of society to their own advantage. Johnson is their patsy.
To what extent they will succeed in the face of a growing Tory rebellion is another question.
Apologies - my use of ‘both sides’ in my previous post could imply both sides are equally culpable, I don’t believe that is the case and I agree with the vast majority of your post. The one caveat is I personally find it hard to believe the EU has been entirely blameless but that could just be prejudice on my part and it’s not a position I feel strongly enough (or more importantly, have read enough about) to argue.
See, this is why I rarely watch the news these days - it makes one despair so. Then again, my primary news source is Private Eye, which is even worse from that perspective. The worst of it is, I don’t see there’s a great deal I can do about it, other than try to do the right thing (both in general and at elections).
It’s sometimes said that people tend to move to the right (politically) as they grow older. But with me I think it’s the opposite. I’m only 35 and I’m already thinking it might be some time before I vote Tory again (it’s been 5 years and 2 GEs so far). In 20 years’ time maybe I’ll be fomenting protest and trying to hawk copies of the Socialist Worker.
Wearing a cloth cap! Don’t forget the cloth cap.
Dead Cat, I’ve always found your Brexit posts interesting and good insights into the “Leave” position. Thanks!
I don’t understand this ‘I find it hard to believe’ the EU has been reasonable. They warned us before the vote what their position would be. And every objective viewer has known that their position was inevitable given the EU’s treaty obligations and obligations to its members. The EU has made its positions clear and tangible months in advance of the various deadlines the UK has agreed to or imposed upon itself.
If you can offer an example of something unreasonable the EU demanded, I’m interested to hear of it.
Why even have the referendum in the first place? Why let a bunch of racist xenophobes who think “economics” is a class to sleep thru run the damn country?
Thanks - I wouldn’t claim to speak for “the” Leave position though, I think my take on it is fairly unusual. It is nice that not everyone classes all Leave voters as irrational, idiotic racists, as that doesn’t really help anyone.
I can’t, and as I said this is not a hill I’m willing to die on. I have just never come across a divorce where one party was 100% blameless (OK, I do know of one which is pretty damn close, but still, not quite 100%). No doubt “EU intransigence” has been wildly overstated by certain sections of the media and various politicians and I’m not saying I buy that, nor that I expect them to roll over and give in to ridiculous demands. I’m just saying it seems unlikely they have gone out of their way to get things sorted. Then again, as many have already pointed out, why should they? Well, to the extent that a no deal harms them too, they might have to be a little more flexible. If they can’t be, that seems to me an example of a failing of the system. You might say they didn’t trigger it - well, not directly perhaps, but I’m not the only one to have voted Leave because I felt the EU as a whole had become a bloated, over-reaching, inefficient mess. As I’ve said before - good idea in theory, lots of good things have come out of it, things have now gone too far.
Sorry, that’s a bit of a stream of consciousness and there’s nothing new in it really. Bottom line is Britain has fucked up, but the EU probably needs to give over somehow to avoid more damage to itself too. Oh hell, this is probably Johnson’s only negotiating position (if indeed he has one at all).
Yes, I think most people now recognise this problem. Which is why it’s hard to determine whether Cameron or May was the bigger fuck up.
My point being, that it’s all well and good saying no deal harms the EU without recognising whether or not caving to ridiculous UK demands harms them more. The UK has made demands that basically require the EU giving the UK perks without obligations. Why should it? Every EU member has agreed they’d rather suffer a no-deal than give something away like that. They suffer, sure, but the UK suffers more. And eventually, the UK will cave to the EU’s side.
If France had been the one that had voted to leave the EU and the UK was one of the members on the Council discussing how to handle such an irresponsible departing Member State, you can bet the British government, Parliament, press and most of the public would be squarely on the side of not conceding such unreasonable demands.
My vote is Cameron: “Sod this, too complicated - I’m out!” He done-fucked-up and took no responsibility.
May at least took the poisoned chalice and tried, in a ham-fisted way, to deal with it.