the EU & the UK

[MyNameIsTerry]

Do you back the PM thinking if you don't it will only mean No Deal? Do you oppose the PM thinking the EU will grant an extension and assuming the PM will even ask for one? Do you put your head firmly in the sand, or up your backside, and keep harping on about a new GE to restart the whole process again despite declaring we are still leaving hence hardly encouraging to the EU?

Tough call. Is that partly why though? Is the PM pushing them all into a corner to make them back her because the only alternative is the nuclear option they are worried about?

One things for sure, all that Labour push at the beginning has quickly fizzled out. Starmer who?

---------- Post added at 23:35 ---------- Previous post was at 21:52 ----------

I was watching the local news earlier and they were reporting from outside Westminster. Funnily enough an open top bus went past with "stop the Brexit betrayal" written on the side

It was confusing when they did a report on a minister visiting ceramics manufacturers in Stoke-on-Trent to assume them they were being thought about. What ceramic industry? It was killed off decades ago. All we have now are small companies. The area is more call centres, warehousing distribution, etc. The steel and coal went the same way.

[KK77]

Some astute and clever observations, Pain.

'Brexit' has caused a polarisation of opinion in society and that can be dangerous if there are malevolent powers/forces able to manipulate or control both sides of the political game.

The Realpolitik outcome, however, will not benefit the 'people' (as promised by both sides of Brexit argument).

[mezzaninedoor]

Terry…. I don’t know if you’ve sensed it, but there seems to have been a miserable change in mood recently concerning Brexit. I can’t quite work out what it is – futility, most likely. No option is acceptable to Westminster now (never was, if the truth be told) and the sham of a negotiated agreement has become fully exposed. There’s no possibility of dealing with an antipathetic EU when our own parliament is so glaringly ambivalent. What we’re witnessing at the moment is the disturbing reality of a weak government paired with a weak opposition; neither being much concerned with running the nation while they try to find a way of preserving their own political existence in the face of the electorate’s increasing dismay and anger.

Mrs May’s waiting for something to happen – no leadership, no planning, just reacting.

The state of British industry is depressingly woeful. Real productivity (actually producing goods and commodities) is on the way to becoming extinct. Service industries (a misnomer if ever there was one - the catch-all term for just about every business that doesn’t make anything) and tatting builders (for your house extension) are now the backbone of the UK economy, apparently… for goodness sake!

Pain, I think there are some real truths in what you mention above.
Weak Government.
Weak Opposition.
Politicians are seen as uselss by the Electorate.
Though I think the EU were always in a stronger position than what we gace them credit for, hence David Davies being the lazzez faire Brexit Sec then saying the EU to blame. He didnt push them on anything in his time. At least Raab tried to push but was too late & he should have stayed in cabinet.
Vultures in the Tory Party still all circling May.
Industry has dive bombed in Productivity since the 2016 vote. Industry Leaders have also not rattled sabres around our ability to compete post Brexit whatever form Brexit takes.
Now we have no Deal that is acceptable to Westminster and 'No Deal ' is
not acceptable to Westminster

Hey Ho!

---------- Post added at 16:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:03 ----------

The Realpolitik outcome, however, will not benefit the 'people' (as promised by both sides of Brexit argument).

Yup.
Its a no Win Scenario now it seems for the UK.
Its the Kobyashi Maru from Star Trek. We've no Captain Kirk though.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Pain, they say Brexit has split people. The odd thing is how it has also created some strange bedfellows. Normally we have two parties opposing each other, in the main, but now we have fractures with people crossing the floor over this single issue.

It's a great distraction from other issues. Corbyn should be destroying the government over so many issues yet it's all pushed aside for Brexit. Not that Corbyn would be strong enough anyway, he's good on a mic to the crowds but he's otherwise firmly backbench. The PM would be getting a daily hammering off previous leaders.

I can only think the deal has to be backed and then we spend years tweaking it as governments come & go. I would imagine even the EU are open to amendments as new issues come to light.

I agree, some are getting despondent. Perhaps they are looking at the options and realising they either back it or take a massive gamble? I do wonder how both sides of the vote will view MP's taking that gamble?

Services will continue to prosper. Despite France carping on about stealing they don't have the infrastructure anyway, employers are already put off by their unions which will be getting nicely highlighted by the current yellow jacket affair and services are bigger than the EU anyway. I laughed when the media were banging on about the EU stopping us clearing their currency since they would also be pulling every other exchange in the process and the US would punish them in return. It will be interesting to see how it's affected in a deal over equivalence though.

Manufacturing was killed off long ago. It may have declined since the vote but it's been a casualty of the shift to services and not taking on the issue of driving cheap imports. Great for manufacturers though, ship off to the cheapest least regulated least worker friendly nations all under globalisation. Then there is the EU version, of course. Local jobs may suffer but Mr Big Cheese can head off to the cheap zones of the EU. Germany can shift it's car making to cheaper Eastern European countries and sack all those Germans as one business leader said he would do.

It only highlights who wins in the EU set up.

I wonder if we are finally heading to that point where we realise we can't have it so cheap and get paid as much?

Anyway, I'm off to stock up on cans of spam

[mezzaninedoor]

I think we are getting to the point where the Deal has to be backed even though its the arse end of everything in many ways, there is the FOM concession though that doesnt seem to even please Brexiteers now.

I think you have to tweak things going forward but then this Deal is only an agreement on how to proceed, theres still plenty of work to do.

Im beyond cross with Corbyn as he should have been so much more effective.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Is the FOM concession the one about so many years with reduced immigration? If so, we already can access that option (known as the "emergency brake") which Cameron was offered before the referendum and Germany themselves have used in the past.

And a temporary immigration reduction isn't going to address anything. It kicks the can down the road. If it all starts again after those years (7 is normally the limit on the brake) then it just delaying all the same problems again. Unless we made massive changes to our own country with investment to cut down the impact of it how would it benefit us?

If that's all the concession is, they've just rephrased something we can already have and tried to tell us it's an offering.

I wonder how much education will help with immigration? At the other end you have criminals telling the public it's all paved with gold over here. The reality can be an unpleasant death just getting here. But to be fair, our standard of living will always be a draw to people with much less. We do it within our own country, why wouldn't they come here or go anywhere to make a better life? That's why it's more about where they already are than where they are coming to.

And then we have all the manipulation of countries by larger powers wanting their resources...

Would I be on a boat or the back of a lorry? Yep.

The issue within the EU though is easier to solve. Unfortunately it won't do it. Those options Juncker presented were a brainstorm of things that were possible but wouldn't ever be considered as they only want it as close to one big power as possible. I wonder what Khan would do if 10m of us packed up and shipped off to sign on in London next week because we know it's better down there?

Who makes the definitions? Why does a single market have to be x and a custom's union y? Did these come down on a template from a holy mountain? Why stick with a model if it's hurting you? And who will create the next one? Maybe we will have a single cornflakes market? It's all a bunch of suits round a big table (that cost more than we make in a year) deciding what to define things as.

[mezzaninedoor]

The FOM concession is that we end FOM during the transition period but can stay in the Customs Union without that FOM.

This is vaguely funny:-
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/polit...20190110181192

[mezzaninedoor]

Mrs Thatcher infamously said there was no such thing as society – She was wrong but might she have said There will be no such thing as society she might have been right. Cameron started to strip away the social contract between Government and its people where he touted his Big Society which basically meant he wanted people to support people but not Government, he wanted volunteers and the charitable sector to take all the burden.

Universal Credit is another phase of this, though it can make sense when talked of as simplification but its also wiping out some support that vulnerable people have relyied on up until now.

Now we have parties that are not split between party politics but parties that are split by Brexit and hence we have no majority in the house for any form of Brexit soft or hard which will likely see us fall into a disastrous No Deal Brexit. The symptoms of which are already in play with inward investment dropping away, planned job losses, planned shutdowns etc etc

[MyNameIsTerry]

The FOM concession is that we end FOM during the transition period but can stay in the Customs Union without that FOM.

This is vaguely funny:-
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/polit...20190110181192

But a Customs Union isn't tied to FOM anyway. FOM is tied to the Single Market. Therefore it's about being able to stay in the SM during transition with no FOM. And any EU country can apply for the Emergency Brake with a standard up to 7 years anyway.

So, is it a concession? Or is it just offering what you already have under a different name? Why not just call it an Emergency Brake? Perhaps it's not legally allowed if we are fudged into the SM? But in spirit that's all it is.

They offered Cameron that and we turned it down in favour of the referendum so it's not much of a vote grabber now.

To a hard Leaver they can end FOM via A50 anyway. Some hard Leavers may be willing to entertain a transition period which akes it attractive in a short term way but it's really only making a reduction a few years early and if you end up staying tied to the SM you will have to accept FOM back anyway.

If you are a hard Remainer saying you can continue to x, y or z during transition is worthless since they already have that right. Some hard remainers may be willing to accept the rights in the same spirit as the hard Leavers with FOM but it's only another temporary extension/reduction issue.

So, it's a pretty easy "ask". And I thought the EU were bound by international law on SM & FOM? The legal definition of a SM is the 4 pillars. So, it does sound more like a fudge to be in the SM, during transition, with an EB by another name...fudges by both the UK & the EU.

All that CU is going to do is avoid the hard border. ROI citizens still can't settle here under a CU, that's the SM. That's why the Turkey poster was used as Turkey would join the SM, they are already in a limited CU, giving them the right to work & live in EU countries under FOM.

The CU is more than just for the hard border though as it removes tax levies, smooths import/export, aligns regulatory standards do products to import/export and allows removal of most border checks. If it wasn't for the Irish issue it wouldn't be getting anywhere near as much press as the SM issue I would imagine.

We could remain in the EU and slam on a potentially longer EB than this concession.

And if they can argue this can be achieved as needed in transition then why can't an "EB by any other name" remain in place anyway if it's not violating international law on SM's? Political gymnastics?

---------- Post added at 17:41 ---------- Previous post was at 17:34 ----------

KK… perhaps that change of mood is not futility but, as you mention, a polarisation of public opinion leading to dark thoughts. This may tie in with Terry’s observation of the situation creating “strange bedfellows”. Folks are feeling betrayed by a political system which they thought was once fairly unambiguous and easy to understand – Labour favoured the working man with its socialist policies (supporting a fair-do for all) while Conservatives favoured free-market capitalism (wealth will create money for all), and Liberals were somewhere in between (socialist in principle but seeing the necessity of capitalism). This has changed remarkably since the EU referendum but was already significantly underway from the inception of Blair/Brown/Campbell ‘New Labour’. The ref revealed just how much solid ground, on which ordinary folks felt society would be safe, has been cut away. Mrs Thatcher infamously said there was no such thing as society – she was wrong at the time (unless she could see from the ‘inside’ what we on the ‘outside’ couldn’t) but she may well be proved right now. This is a serious situation. Extremism from both sides of the political divide feeds on its own self-propagated mischief in such times and can become powerful enough to be truly dangerous.

Mezz… those ‘useless politicians’ are seen as such because they’re no longer bothering very much to hide their sole ambition of remaining in well-paid positions (not ‘jobs’, because that implies doing the work for which we pay them their money). As I mentioned in a previous post, the same democracy which decided the ref vote is exactly the same democracy which MPs rely on to keep them where they are – and now they’ve seen what it can do, they’re scared (in a similar way in which Churchill was scared by the tidalwave of populism unbelievably against him after WW2). The fundamental truth of the matter is that you can’t decide which version of democracy you want – it’s either democracy or not. As all of us who've had our eyes open have seen recently, parliament (that’s the whole thing from PM down to the humblest civil servant) is quite prepared to use every deception available to protect itself – no matter which flag of political convenience it’s sailing under.

Terry… notwithstanding either what I’ve written above or the general tone of your comments, it’s come to a very weird state of affairs when a PM as weak as Mrs May remains in power (dubious terminology) but faces a demise instigated not from the opposition but within her own party, especially when she has wilfully wrong-footed herself so often.

The actual, crucial details of BREXIT are rapidly becoming irrelevant. There’s so much extraneous interference that, rather than the impending ‘B Day’ focussing minds, the threats, cajoling, insults, snide remarks and utterly pointless chatter has obscured all constructive preparation. How does the saying go: ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail…”? That’s how democracy will be thwarted!

Honda announces a six day post-Brexit shutdown, Jaguar Land Rover begins laying-off 4500 workers, Shinzo Abe offers his ‘helpful’ advice. This feels to me as if other countries are using threatening behaviour to protect their own financial interests. God protect us from our friends!

Sorry – no jokes or punnery here – it’s all a bit grim.

Didn't Labour push that aside when it started chasing the ethnic minority vote? And now the gender diversity one?

There seems to be a big disconnect between traditional Labour oop North and Metropolitan Labour. In some ways you could argue it's obvious given the diversity of ethnicity in London but does that explain the West Midlands?

"When I were a lad" Labour was always described to me as for we working class plebs. You voted how your dad & granddad voted. I saw this view change as Labour started pumping more money into ethnic minority vote chasing and this was often raised along with the PC culture stuff.

I think this is part of the issue with Corbyn and his MP's, some of which are the champagne socialists which are so loathed by the working class.

And why is Labour so interested in Israel? Obviously this is a Tory whipping stick against them but it seems Labour are more bothered about Israel than the UK sometimes. They seem less interested in many other places where people are being treated terribly, even Syria which we have more direct contact with.

[mezzaninedoor]

I just think the slogan now is ............

Brexit ?!? WTF !