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Brexit - The UK leaves the EU
- Thread starter Touring Mars
- 6,870 comments
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- 140
- Melbourne, Australia
I'm still yet to hear how any of these 'No Deal' pursuers are planning on fixing the Irish border issue as well.
That goes for politicians and friends/family. It's very easy for Boris and JRM and the like to heckle May from the sidelines but none of them seem to be able to solve her problem.
That goes for politicians and friends/family. It's very easy for Boris and JRM and the like to heckle May from the sidelines but none of them seem to be able to solve her problem.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
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By building fences and checkpoints... it's fine, they've had it before, it'll be just like the good old days.
It'll be Fiiiinnnnnnneeeeeeeeeee......
Remember, it's because of everyone involved, all across the country, that we achieved this magnificent result.
AAAAAAAALLL across the country... #TheWillOfThePeople..
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Just to add...
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The problem for the EU is that the Irish border issue had already been fixed - the question now is who will unfix it?
I've said before that I believe that the threat of a hard border in Ireland is an illusion - it is a rare example where everyone in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and mainland UK unanimously agree... so how will a hard border be enforced and how will it be done? The short answer is that it won't.
The EU are insisting that Northern Ireland be granted 'special status' that will essentially take it out of UK control and leave it permanently inside the EU single market. But why not grant the Republic of Ireland 'special status' instead?
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- Melbourne, Australia
That's very easy to say and you're almost certainly correct, but for that to happen something has to give. This is exactly that discussion, what is the backtrack that will enable this?
How would that work? Surely that would involve taking Ireland out of the single market? Or am I missing something?
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Because like the Prime Minister of Luxemburg said, "The Brexit is [Britain's] choice, not ours."
Replace "Prime Minister of Luxemburg" with any of the other 26 heads of government.
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A truism, if a rather meaningless one.
Yes, Brexit is our choice - but the entire Article 50 process is predicated on the premise that it is in the interests of both the UK and the EU to ensure that our withdrawal from the EU is done in an orderely fashion, and that our future relationship is also a constructive one that delivers good outcomes (or at least avoids bad ones) for both parties (or at least that is what it ought to be, but I'm highly doubtful at this is really the case).
But to suggest that any single issue (for example, the Irish border issue) is entirely down to the UK to sort actually contradicts this 'you broke it, you fix it' sentiment totally. OK, if Brexit is our choice, and we need to sort out the Irish border issue, then why are the EU bothering to negotiate at all? The fact is, the UK can (though hopefully will not) simply walk away from the entire process unless the EU are willing to play a constructive role, rather than expecting the UK to swallow totally unacceptable outcomes. Brexit may be a UK choice, but the consequences (especially pertaining to the Irish border) are an EU problem as much as it is a UK problem. The UK has already proposed multiple solutions, including 'maximum facilitation' that could be made to work in practice, but the EU have bound that decision up in a legally binding arrangement that could (and by default would) end up very badly for the UK. They can't have it both ways - they cannot say 'it's your mess, you sort it' and in the same breath say 'No, we won't allow you to do that'.
A No Deal Brexit.
I don't know exactly how it would work, but even if it were a complex nightmare it would still be far, far easier than trying to build a hard border in Ireland, not least because absolutely nobody wants it.
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- PD_ApexPredator
It would work by the UK remaining a part of the customs union, not least because it's demonstrably in everyone's best interest to do so, but it's also the only way you can avoid the hard border; how else can you have different regulatory environments that aren't inherently compromised?
But being in the customs union without EU membership would mean having no power of veto, no say in any decisions or deals - literally all the things Brexiters say they voted to "regain" (not that we'd ever lost) - it's stupid.
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- Melbourne, Australia
It's a No Deal Brexit that is disabling that idea, not enabling!
So your solution is to somehow drag Ireland (an entirely sovereign nation) into the new UK customs laws whatever they may be, and out of the EU customs union?
There is literally zero chance of this happening.
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A No Deal Brexit means that there will need to be customs checks and tariffs levied on Irish goods in Northern Ireland and vice versa, but not necessarily a 'hard border'. The very fact that no-one is willing to build or enforce a hard border is pretty firm evidence that it is not going to happen, so 'maximum facilitation' (customs checks away from the border) it will have to be.
No... it would simply require the EU to countenance the idea that customs checks can be done away from the border. The fact is that a No Deal Brexit with no-one willing or able to enforce a hard border will make this option unavoidable, so it would probably be a good idea for both sides to start working towards it.
Also, strictly speaking, Ireland is not an 'entirely sovereign nation' - that's the problem. It's part of the EU and thus it must do what its membership of the EU requires of it. But the EU expect the UK to make NI a 'special case' that would keep part or all of a non-member sovereign state inside its own Customs Union (and thus subject to all of its laws) rather than considering the opposite approach which would be to accord the ROI with special status that would allow it to seek a borderless approach to trading with the UK.
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I'm not going to get drawn into a debate on sovereignty as I'm sure it's been done to death, but okay fair enough, your point makes more sense now. I mean, I disagree regarding your border proposal, it simply wouldn't work. The Norway-Sweden border has been described as a "haven for smugglers" and that's nowhere near as substantial, but we'll have to agree to disagree.
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Oh the EU must shoulder some of the responsibility here. It's a two-sided negotiation for a start, and any compromise is, by definition, an agreement that neither side is happy with, just with the minimum amount of unhappiness possible to get what you want.
The EU has two issues. First, its second largest economy and a net contributor is leaving the union. That will shrink its income and GDP instantly, and it will need to be secured against that, so it must make sure its losses are minimised in any withdrawal agreement. Secondly, other countries are making rumblings about leaving too - Italy particularly, but far from on its own. If a withdrawal of such a major nation is made to look so easy, the EU will set a precedent by which other disaffected nations can withdraw too, and that would be a catastrophe.
So for its part, the EU must get as much as it can for Brexit and make it as hard as possible. It's not by spite or malice, it's simply something it doesn't want to happen and must either prevent or make it look like an awful lot of very expensive red tape to discourage others.
The UK has an issue too. Nobody knows what leaving looks like because no-one's done it. Test cases are always colossal clusterbombs, and any agreement we're likely to come to won't make any kind of sense to anyone.
The ESM has four central tenets, which all member nations must abide by. They are the freedom of movement for goods, capital, services and labour within the ESM. It covers the EU. Other nations are part of the ESM but not the EU by agreement (EEA - Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) and Switzerland has a separate treaty. Most of these nations are also in the Schengen free travel area - Ireland being a notable exception. There's a number of other non-EU, non-Schengen, non-EEA nations with access to the ESM in some capacity or other, and then free-trade agreements with countries further afield.
As far as I can tell, the UK doesn't want freedom of movement for people, but then it's not in Schengen anyway, so that's ticked. It also doesn't want freedom of movement of labour, or to be covered by the European Court of Justice (and the awful ECHR)... like Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. These things don't seem to be that hard - after all, there are other nations already there.
It also wants to leave the Customs Union. That's a bit of a stumbling block if you want access to the single market and tariff-free trade within the single market. The idea is that taxes are applied at the CU's entry port and then not again at any other state in the CU. If the UK is in the CU, it can't apply its own taxes to imports if they come from outside the single market via another country within the single market - so it can't set its own trade rules. It would effectively mean if we wanted to put 10% more on steel from China (because we make it and it's humped our steel-making economy), China could ship to Portugal, pay the EU-China tax and then overland it to the UK without paying the UK's 10% extra. Still, guess who else isn't in the CU? Yep, Switzerland.
It really seems like, for some reason, the EU and UK don't want the UK to be Switzerland, even though Switzerland does what the UK wants and already exists.
A hard Brexit, with a clean break and no agreement isn't really in anyone's interests, but it's perhaps less in the EU's interests than the UK's. Hard Brexit gets all of what the UK wants except access to the single market. It gets none of what the EU wants. Furthermore, it damages both economies significantly - the UK's major trading partner is the EU27 and if the UK exits the EU it has to revert to trading on the WTO tariffs rather than freely. But sauce for the goose... the EU will have to trade with the UK on WTO tariffs, and the UK is the EU27's biggest single trading partner. Boris Johnson's "prosecco" quip is simplistic, but not far from the mark - the UK is a major consumer of a lot of EU27 goods that will attract huge tariffs under WTO rules. Probably the biggest example is the German luxury car market - 9.4% tax under WTO compared to free trade.
Worse, the UK is a major draw for other trading partners to the EU. Some nations have expressed concern that they will have to trade with the UK under WTO after Brexit and suggested it threatens the integrity of trade agreements with the EU to not have access to the UK market.
The Northern Ireland issue is insane. The UK doesn't want a hard border. The EU doesn't want a hard border either. The Republic of Ireland doesn't want a hard border. Northern Ireland doesn't want a hard border. It's nonsensical to have a hard border, and anyone over 25 years old from the UK, Ireland or Northern Ireland can tell you why from first-hand experience.
The only reason to have a hard border is that the Republic of Ireland is in the CU (but not Schengen) and the UK is not, thus Northern Ireland is not, so goods - not people - moving between Ireland and Northern Ireland (or Northern Ireland and Great Britain (the mainland)) must be checked in order to see if UK/WTO tariffs are applicable one way and EU/WTO tariffs the other. There is such a border between Norway and Sweden (and I presume Norway and Finland too, and Russia's not in the EU), and between Switzerland and everyone else - which allow free movement for passengers (because Schengen since 2008) but not goods. They're not rapid.
Acting like that's a UK problem or an EU problem, or a ROI problem or an NI problem, is daft. This is something the EU and UK politicians need to work out together, with the Irish and Northern Irish leading the line.
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- 29,371
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The only reason No Deal is still on the table at all is because it is practically the only way the UK can wrest back some negotiating power against the EU - but No Deal is also something of a misnomer. As alluded to above, No Deal is not a sustainable outcome - something will have to be worked out on a whole raft of issues (and formally agreed at a later date), but the question is not just what, but how...
Thus far, the EU have played hardball over the Irish backstop to the point where none of their proposals are acceptable to the UK - heck, the UK Parliament voted unanimously against the EU's original (and preferred) plan, even to the point of making it against the law for the UK to accept such a situation (the 'NI only' backstop). But, they have also succeeded in backing the UK Government into a corner that they can only get out of by either revoking Article 50 or by rejecting the entire Withdrawal Agreement and opting for 'No Deal'. But, deals will have to be done eventually - but the question is, why would the UK agree to permanently disadvantage itself and commit to a legally binding agreement that means, from the point of ratification, the UK is effectively powerless to negotiate? No Deal would, at the very least, hand back some proper negotiating muscle to the UK and level the playing field in terms of what the EU can demand from us and vice versa.
The EU will take a huge hit from No Deal, but all the more reason for the EU to commit to a more reasonable negotiating stance in the future. The EU will, ironically, get something from it insomuch as they can say 'See, if you want to leave the EU, then you cannot cherry pick - you either take what we offer or you get nothing'... this will appear to be true, but the truth of it will gradually change. The reverse argument is also true - a No Deal Brexit will also make Brexiteers very happy in the short term, but that too will probably not last very long as the UK is free to negotiate all manner of new ties with the EU.
It is important to stress what (I think) I am trying to say here, which is that it is not merely the outcomes that are important, but the mechanism by which these outcomes may (or may not) be delivered - and that is one reason why the EU's implementation of the Article 50 process has not helped, because MPs are (rightly) worried that the process itself leaves the UK vulnerable to having to make massive future concessions in order to secure a handful of 'desired' outcomes that might not even happen at all. Perhaps negotiating a future relationship will be easier outwith the Article 50 process where the EU holds most of the cards - and, ironically, the bitter reality of a de facto (and utterly unnecessary) trade war between the UK and the EU might focus minds on both sides and lead to a more pragmatic approach in future.
Thus far, the EU have played hardball over the Irish backstop to the point where none of their proposals are acceptable to the UK - heck, the UK Parliament voted unanimously against the EU's original (and preferred) plan, even to the point of making it against the law for the UK to accept such a situation (the 'NI only' backstop). But, they have also succeeded in backing the UK Government into a corner that they can only get out of by either revoking Article 50 or by rejecting the entire Withdrawal Agreement and opting for 'No Deal'. But, deals will have to be done eventually - but the question is, why would the UK agree to permanently disadvantage itself and commit to a legally binding agreement that means, from the point of ratification, the UK is effectively powerless to negotiate? No Deal would, at the very least, hand back some proper negotiating muscle to the UK and level the playing field in terms of what the EU can demand from us and vice versa.
The EU will take a huge hit from No Deal, but all the more reason for the EU to commit to a more reasonable negotiating stance in the future. The EU will, ironically, get something from it insomuch as they can say 'See, if you want to leave the EU, then you cannot cherry pick - you either take what we offer or you get nothing'... this will appear to be true, but the truth of it will gradually change. The reverse argument is also true - a No Deal Brexit will also make Brexiteers very happy in the short term, but that too will probably not last very long as the UK is free to negotiate all manner of new ties with the EU.
It is important to stress what (I think) I am trying to say here, which is that it is not merely the outcomes that are important, but the mechanism by which these outcomes may (or may not) be delivered - and that is one reason why the EU's implementation of the Article 50 process has not helped, because MPs are (rightly) worried that the process itself leaves the UK vulnerable to having to make massive future concessions in order to secure a handful of 'desired' outcomes that might not even happen at all. Perhaps negotiating a future relationship will be easier outwith the Article 50 process where the EU holds most of the cards - and, ironically, the bitter reality of a de facto (and utterly unnecessary) trade war between the UK and the EU might focus minds on both sides and lead to a more pragmatic approach in future.
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- PD_ApexPredator
So where's the part where any of this still seems even remotely like a good idea?
And why is the ECHR "awful"? Genuine question. The Abu Hamza farce was exaggerated from what I understand.
And why is the ECHR "awful"? Genuine question. The Abu Hamza farce was exaggerated from what I understand.
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To be clear, I'm not solely blaming the EU - clearly there are major faults on the behalf of UK players, namely some Leave campaigners, an incompetent UK government, and even more incompetent UK opposition (the Labour party), various anti-EU cretins (like Trump, Bannon etc.), so it is very far from the case that I believe the (likely) failure of the Article 50 process can be laid at the feet of the EU alone... but they have definitely made a significant contribution to the shambles that is Brexit. Ironically, I am crediting the EU with more skill than perhaps you appreciate when I suggest that the UK's failings are largely down to indecision, incompetence and unreasonable expectations, whereas the EU, by contrast, have been focussed, coherent and unswerving in their approach, which is a major reason why I don't believe that their stance can be described as anything other than entirely deliberate - and yet, the outcome is still a shambles...
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UKMikey
Premium
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- UKMikeyA
I fell for the clickbait...
HuffPost - Boris Johnson Has The Best Chance Of Delivering A Great Brexit
HuffPost - Boris Johnson Has The Best Chance Of Delivering A Great Brexit
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
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- Provence
You think?
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- Provence
I never mentioned a referendum.
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They probably could, but not without some blood being shed.
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- TenEightyOne
Yes you did, you said "when Scotland votes Yes to independence". A referendum is "a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision", precisely what you mentioned. With that in mind...
When exactly is the referendum scheduled for?
Have the legal provisions been made for said referendum?
Is a second indyref appropriate given the majority vote of the last?
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- Provence
It's interesting that you're so exercised. A Yes to independence can be achieved by a plebiscite. An election won by a majority vote of parties in favour of independence. Which we already have, btw, but we'll go that extra mile so it's indelibly etched in the minds of those who have been bleeding Scotland dry for decades.
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
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- mustafur
You probably don't want Scotland to leave the Kingdom, or Brexit will be even stronger supported as a percentage.
But it could also give those that want to stay in the EU an easy way out, would they allow English people to move there and claim citizenship?
But it could also give those that want to stay in the EU an easy way out, would they allow English people to move there and claim citizenship?
