Taking the Brexit

Kern · **Posted:** Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:37

The SNP led a pretty daming debate on DExEU's affairs yesterday. The Tories didn't really bother to reply.

Tommy Shepperd gave a riveting speech. I wonder if this part is accurate:

Quote:

This must be the only Department in history that underspends its budget not by a couple of percentage points, but by 50% in its first year, and it has had to go to the Treasury to scale down its estimates of spending in the next financial year.

Kern · **Posted:** Tue Feb 27, 2018 15:31

Guardian (and everyone else):

Quote:

Foreign secretary compares crossing Irish border to travelling from Westminster to Camden

Did he just watch 'Passport to Pimlico'? It's been on my list for ages, but then 'the Napoleon of Notting Hill' is as close to a personal political manifesto that I've come.

If we ignore Mr Johnson, will he go away?

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Jesus shitting Christ

https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnso ... t-11270041

Quote:

Boris Johnson appears to have told the Prime Minister "it is wrong to see the task as maintaining 'no border'" on the island of Ireland after Brexit - and that the Government's task will be to "stop this border becoming significantly harder".

The major leak from the Cabinet's Brexit deliberations on the highly contentious Irish border is included in a letter passed to Sky News.

Its revelation has prompted calls for Theresa May to consider the position of her Foreign Secretary.

Writing to the Prime Minister, Mr Johnson also seeks to play down the "exaggerated impression" of "how important checks are" at EU external borders.

He also goes as far as contemplating a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, writing: "Even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95% + of goods pass the border [without] checks."

It suggests a significant downgrading of expectations about the change to the Irish border as a result of the Government's Brexit strategy and Mrs May's plan to leave the EU's single market and customs union.

As recently as November last year, the Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons: "There can be no return to a hard border. There can be no hard border.

"That would be unthinkable, and it would be economic and political madness".

In February 2016, ahead of the EU referendum, Mr Johnson promised the Irish border would be "absolutely unchanged".

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Boris Johnson is like a shady used car dealer who has somehow managed to ascend to a position of actual power and influence.

It's shocking that May is so weak she can't sack him.

Kern · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:19

He's always putting these things out just before a major announcement, presumably to show to the true hardcore believers that he's still on their side, isn't selling out, and waiting to become PM. I think he's started to privately panic that not only is he being found out but becoming more unpopular to non-Brexity types every day. Like Mr Trump, not being liked is even worse than not being talked about.

Kern · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:50

In other Brexit news, their Lordships debated the Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill , essentially an emergency piece of legislation to ensure that trucks can still enter and leave the UK after the Glorious Day*. Or, in other words, yet another piece of complex stuff nobody thought would be an issue until we started trying to untangle ourselves. Happily, or as happily as is possible under the circumstances, British and Irish trucks moving between the two countries will be exempt to avoid a border. It can be real pain otherwise, as the people of Camden know.

*Gloriousness subject to change.

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:02

Kern wrote:

It can be real pain otherwise, as the people of Camden know.

Hello!

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38464

Grim... wrote:

Kern wrote:

It can be real pain otherwise, as the people of Camden know.

Hello! Wotcha, me old china!

FTFY

Zardoz · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:37

Simply travel across the rooftops with the Chumminoiy Shweeps.

Kern · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:41

I'm now picturing Boris Johnson and Liam Fox demonstrating their vision for Ireland's future by dressing as leprechauns and hopping backwards and forwards across the border.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38464

Kern wrote:

I'm now picturing Boris Johnson and Liam Fox demonstrating their vision for Ireland's future by dressing as leprechauns and hopping backwards and forwards across the border.

"I'm catholic! Now I'm a protestant! Now Catholic! Now Protestant!"

BELLY LAUGH!

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:09

Big snows in Camden right now.

Attachment:

IMG_20180228_110158.jpg

Kern · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 19:54

What is it about Tories that once they leave office they become reasonable people, even, in the case of Michael Portillo, candidates for national treasurehood?

Anyway, Sir John Major's speech today is well-worth reading in full.

Quote:

I fear we will be weaker and less prosperous – as a country and as individuals. And – although it grieves me to admit it – our divorce from Europe will diminish our international stature. Indeed, it already has.

myp · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2018 19:56

Because they're no longer beholden to the right wing of their party, or the Murdoch/Dacre press.

Kern · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 15:50

Couldn't be bothered to listen to the Prime Minister's speech today. Ian Dunt has summarised it for us:

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/969584554599157761

Basically we're all going to get quite badly twatted.
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) March 2, 2018

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38464

Twitter is the worst medium for long text posts. It's like texting a novel.

Bamba · **Joined:** 25th Jul, 2010 **Posts:** 11128

DavPaz wrote:

Twitter is the worst medium

Feex.

Grim... · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 16:49

Vine wants a chat.

GazChap · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 16:58

Bamba wrote:

DavPaz wrote:

Medium is the worst medium

Feex.

Double-Feex.

Bamba · **Joined:** 25th Jul, 2010 **Posts:** 11128

Grim... wrote:

Vine wants a chat.

Perhaps there's a reason it doesn't exist any more? Also, it's not like anyone ever tried to have a serious discussion on Vine.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38464

Allow me to hedge my bet...

Twitter is a pretty bad way of presenting a long text post

myp · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 18:40

Grim... wrote:

Vine wants a chat.

There was some amazing Vine content, mainly from people of colour.

Grim... · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 18:58

Why were they making long text posts on Vine?

Kern · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 19:30

GazChap wrote:

Bamba wrote:

DavPaz wrote:

Doris Stokes is the worst medium

Feex.

Double-Feex.

Triple-Feex

Kern · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2018 19:32

Here's Mr Dunt's article on it all.

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 14:11

Beautiful

https://twitter.com/supermathskid/statu ... 1432475650

When Theresa got stuck in the chimney
She began to shout
You girls and boys won't get any toys
Because we voted out

We don't want friends
Or dividends
We just want passports blue

When Theresa got stuck up the chimney
Achoo achoo achoo pic.twitter.com/Fmx4H7ES7k
— Katie (@supermathskid) March 5, 2018

Grim... · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 14:14

Wait, why didn't that expand?

[edit] Oh, because Mali

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 14:15

Superb!

That's an appalling piece of set design.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6515

It looks like my first attempts at designing Doom levels.

Squirt · **Joined:** 31st Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 6515

Democracy is broken. Parliament is an insane point-scoring shouting house populated by idiots and lunatics. That this statement from IDS raised cheers and laughs is conclusive evidence that we should just burn the whole rotten edifice to the ground and just put MaliA in charge, like we should have from the start.

https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/970693424381751296

On trade negotiations, Ian Duncan Smith asks the PM to "remind" the EU that "cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked"https://t.co/2SS2S5cW0u pic.twitter.com/1neZiYEMkm
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 5, 2018

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Hey, do you like the fact you don’t pay for roaming charges in Europe? Tough. They’re coming back.

https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/ ... 0384606209

Bad news: May confirms EU Digital Single Market exit, meaning the return of mobile roaming charges, etc.
Good news: Soon you won't be able to get any cheap flights to Europe anyway, so probably won't affect you.https://t.co/KA6cYF9PHj pic.twitter.com/rFp0NNj0wk
— Alan Ferrier (@alanferrier) March 5, 2018

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 20:52

I sometimes kid myself that this all part of Mrs May's secret plan, and that her aim is to crash the country so badly by Brexit that we come begging for her to lead us back in, like pulling back the joystick just as the plane is about to hit the ground in the films. Then I realise that that would show a degree of political imagination and statecraft that she's never demonstrated, and we're just blundering into disaster.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Did you see the stuff about the US airline deal? Another little taster of how we’re going to get pantsed by all the bigger boys in the schoolyard.

https://www.ft.com/content/9461157c-1f9 ... d3483b8b80

Quote:

The US is offering Britain a worse “Open Skies” deal after Brexit than it had as an EU member, in a negotiating stance that would badly hit the transatlantic operating rights of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

British and American negotiators secretly met in January for the first formal talks on a new air services deal, aiming to fill the gap created when Britain falls out of the EU-US open skies treaty after Brexit, according to people familiar with talks.

In a sign of the battle Britain faces to replicate its existing rights, the talks were cut short after US negotiators offered standard bilateral conditions that would reduce access and in effect exclude all main UK-based carriers because they would not meet the criteria for ownership and control.

One person attending the London meetings to “put Humpty Dumpty back together” said: “You can’t just scratch out ‘EU’ and put in ‘UK’.” A British official said it showed “the squeeze” London will face as it tries to reconstruct its international agreements after Brexit, even with close allies such as Washington.

Negotiators are confident of an eventual agreement to keep open the busy UK-US routes, which account for more than a third of current transatlantic flight traffic. But there are legal and political obstacles that could impede the two sides from reaching a deal in time to give legal certainty to airlines booking flights a year in advance.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Maybe that’s just biased bluster, though, from the swivel-eyed lefty loons at the Finacial Times (subs please check.)

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 21:43

I don't get the pink 'un so missed that. Utterly unsurprising, given the really weak position we're in. And to think the Tories criticise Jeremy Corbyn for wanting to sacrifice the country's wellbeing at the altar of ideology. But hey, the Open Skies agreement was good while it lasted, eh?

I'd write another letter to my MP but I've just managed to stop myself from doing one about the Irish border and I fear I was placed in her staff's angry crank list a long time ago.

ApplePieOfDestiny · **Joined:** 17th Dec, 2008 **Posts:** 8293

It’s a rare FT story that lies outside the paywall too.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 21:44

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Did you see the stuff about the US airline deal? Another little taster of how we’re going to get pantsed by all the bigger boys in the schoolyard.

Going through Schipol or Dublin is often cheaper, and the latter has the benefit of US immigration before you leave, but I hate changing planes so have never done that.

Still, just the time for Mr Trump to start a trade war when we're begging for a good deal from them.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 21:57

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

Another little taster of how we’re going to get pantsed by all the bigger boys in the schoolyard.

If only those screaming at remainers for lacking patriotism would stop and notice how diminished our country's becoming because of all this.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

It’s a rare FT story that lies outside the paywall too.

It doesn’t. You can defeat it by googling the headline and using the Amp link.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 22:20

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

It’s a rare FT story that lies outside the paywall too.

It doesn’t. You can defeat it by googling the headline and using the Amp link.

The Maginot Paywall.

ApplePieOfDestiny · **Joined:** 17th Dec, 2008 **Posts:** 8293

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

It’s a rare FT story that lies outside the paywall too.

It doesn’t. You can defeat it by googling the headline and using the Amp link.

I read it earlier off Flipboard. I hadn’t realised it was Ft otherwise I wouldn’t have clicked (flipboard ft articles have never previously been through amp and hit the paywall, maybe that’s changed)

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

It's almost like when you set a defined date when all your existing treaties become null and void, you're not exactly negotiating from a position of strength when trying to beg for anything even remotely approaching the status quo.

Hearthly · **Joined:** 11th May, 2008 **Posts:** 13382

Kern wrote:

The Maginot Paywall.

I actually got that, I feel so intellectual.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Mar 05, 2018 23:01

Cras wrote:

It's almost like when you set a defined date when all your existing treaties become null and void, you're not exactly negotiating from a position of strength when trying to beg for anything even remotely approaching the status quo.

As Dr Renwick from the UCl's Consitution Unit put it back in the halcyon days of January 2016:

Quote:

Put simply, Article 50 gives the 27 continuing member states predominant power. That comes partly from the fact that, according to Paragraph 4 of Article 50, the withdrawing state no longer counts as a member of the European Council for the purpose of the negotiations. But mainly it comes from the guillotine imposed by the two-year deadline and the requirement for unanimity to extend that deadline. The negotiations will be long and contentious. An extension beyond two years might well be needed – but any one of the 27 could block that if it didn’t get its way on its own priorities.

JBR · **Joined:** 2nd Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 3214

It is bizarre, sitting on the other side of the world, listening to right wingers arguing total nonsense (just today, JCB head whipped by Ed Balls; latter arguing that businesses generally weren't keen on the uncertainty, and more trade restrictions would add friction, former arguing that it wouldn't be the end of the world - total straw man, up there with Davis talking about the UK not being a mad max world post EU; then fishermen talking about expecting a backroom deal, and how well the Dutch have done from our fishing grounds, when apparently no one has told them that it was our government, not the EU, that sold 90% of our fishing rights to overseas companies, and other EU companies haven't done that; and a farmer saying the UK produced the best in the world and he was fed up of 'everyone' knocking us. Oh, and scientists talking about already finding it harder to attract talent and wanting to stay in the 'best in the world' EU consortium.) and straw manning to justify their ludicrous over compensations (Mad Max - though I let Davis off, because he looks less well every time I see him, and I don't want Brexit to kill him).

It feels from here that, a bit like Kern was saying, the best hope is that May has joined the other cabinet members in being a liar. More specifically, that she has deliberately aimed for, and pretended is inevitable, a too-tough Brexit that can't be delivered, so that ultimately there will have to be compromise and she can work on something gentler that would never have been accepted by the nutters had it been suggested up front.

Bamba · **Joined:** 25th Jul, 2010 **Posts:** 11128

Doctor Glyndwr wrote:

ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:

It’s a rare FT story that lies outside the paywall too.

It doesn’t. You can defeat it by googling the headline and using the Amp link.

I can't see it at all at work because the FT apparently once got busted nicking our financial research and republishing it, so my company responded by blocking the FT entirely for all of us, because we're dead mature like.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32619

Hard to disagree:

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/ ... 3170149376

Theresa May says Britain's handling of Brexit negotiations will "set an example for the world."
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) March 5, 2018

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

Yo, JBR, where are you man?

JBR · **Joined:** 2nd Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 3214

New Zealand! Actually, now you ask, I'm back in Singapore for a few days (haven't planned leaving yet) from the 23rd April. If you'll be there...

Kern · **Posted:** Thu Mar 08, 2018 10:14

I genuinely can't believe it's only now the House of Commons has debated our rights to travel, live, and work abroad, and that's on an opposition day motion introduced by Plaid Cymru.

The government gives a typically dismissive response, and, as is now common and, frankly, cowardly, doesn't bother voting against so the motion has technically been approved by the House but nothing will change.

Be Excellent To Each Other

Taking the Brexit

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