Jump to content

UK Politics MCMXXXIX: Should I stay or should I go now?


Hereward

Recommended Posts

Quote

not sure threats are the best way to persuade voters

I'm not sure why it would be perceived as a threat, just a fairly obvious fact of life.

The United States has a whole bunch of political deals to make and run through, and if a newly-departed UK wants to make a new trade deal, that's great but they'll have to wait their turn. So to the back of the queue. This is also not new information at all: the United States (and other countries) have been saying for months that the UK will have to negotiate, from scratch and its new position as one small country, new deals with countries and those negotiations will take as long as they take. For some reason the Brexit campaign have completely ignored this. Today they were put in the position where they can't ignore it and their response has been blind panic as a key tenant of their argument has been swept away, despite Obama doing nothing more than reiterating the position that's been in place all along.

I don't see what the problem is. We're British, queuing is what we do, and if we have to queue for eight or ten years to get a trade deal whilst paying tariffs in the meantime, that'll be fine, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

Farage says Obama is the most anti-British president ever. I suspect George Washington would like a word.

I think Farage was probably just annoyed at all the people pointing out Boris saying stupid things and decided to make sure they were talking about him instead.

You are forgetting James K. Polk of "54:40 or Fight" fame.  To be fair, most people forget him.  I'm kind of fond of him actually.

I only know who he is because of the They Might Be Giants song.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After getting his ass handed to him by Putin in Syria, Obama is desperately trying to strongarm a softer target into doing what would benefit NATO and displease Putin. Britain leaving the EU is obviously a step closer to the EU disintegrating completely, which is Putin's most cherished desire.

Obama doesn't give two hoots about what is best for Britain. He just wants the NATO club to remain the biggest bully in the room,  so that he doesn't have to go up against Putin on more equal terms. Because even with a massive power imbalance in Obama's favor, Putin still dealt with him about as you'd expect a Machavellian realpolitik master would deal with a former community organizer from Chicago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

The United States has a whole bunch of political deals to make and run through, and if a newly-departed UK wants to make a new trade deal, that's great but they'll have to wait their turn. So to the back of the queue. This is also not new information at all: the United States (and other countries) have been saying for months that the UK will have to negotiate, from scratch and its new position as one small country, new deals with countries and those negotiations will take as long as they take.

When I think of a small country, what comes to mind is something like Vanuatu rather than, say, the 5th largest economy in the world. There will be a massive amount of paperwork, but it is disingenuous to suggest that it will go to the back of the queue -- when a country is that big, it gets dealt with in order of importance rather than in order of arrival.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Altherion said:

When I think of a small country, what comes to mind is something like Vanuatu rather than, say, the 5th largest economy in the world. There will be a massive amount of paperwork, but it is disingenuous to suggest that it will go to the back of the queue -- when a country is that big, it gets dealt with in order of importance rather than in order of arrival.

I think it was a figure of speech. Obama didn't literally mean that Britain would be behind, say Finland, but Britain would be at the back of the queue behind the EU (GDP of around $13-14tn) and all the TPP states. Those deals are going to take some time to finalise. The point was that Britain's not going to get a quick free trade deal for being Britain. It would take years before negotiations even started, then it would likely take years to negotiate. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

After getting his ass handed to him by Putin in Syria, Obama is desperately trying to strongarm a softer target into doing what would benefit NATO and displease Putin. Britain leaving the EU is obviously a step closer to the EU disintegrating completely, which is Putin's most cherished desire.

Obama doesn't give two hoots about what is best for Britain. He just wants the NATO club to remain the biggest bully in the room,  so that he doesn't have to go up against Putin on more equal terms. Because even with a massive power imbalance in Obama's favor, Putin still dealt with him about as you'd expect a Machavellian realpolitik master would deal with a former community organizer from Chicago.

Did you just call us a soft target?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's never a good idea to underestimate Boris, but I wonder if he's really backed himself into a corner now.

When he first backed Leave he indicated he wasn't going to lead the campaign. It was a sound strategic move because if Leave won he'd get a lot of the credit and prestige, and if it lost, he could say that he expressed his view but wasn't a major part of the campaign, and still come away without much political damage.

Over the past few months though he hasn't been able to help himself. He's dominated the campaign to such an extent that we barely hear Farage's name any more. If Leave loses now, I think his chances of succeeding Cameron might be just about done. Even the Brexit supporters would probably want to nominate one of their fellows who is less tarnished by defeat. And for the moment, it looks like he's going to lose, which might explain his increasingly Trump-esque comments and outbursts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, ab aeterno said:

It's never a good idea to underestimate Boris, but I wonder if he's really backed himself into a corner now.

When he first backed Leave he indicated he wasn't going to lead the campaign. It was a sound strategic move because if Leave won he'd get a lot of the credit and prestige, and if it lost, he could say that he expressed his view but wasn't a major part of the campaign, and still come away without much political damage.

Over the past few months though he hasn't been able to help himself. He's dominated the campaign to such an extent that we barely hear Farage's name any more. If Leave loses now, I think his chances of succeeding Cameron might be just about done. Even the Brexit supporters would probably want to nominate one of their fellows who is less tarnished by defeat. And for the moment, it looks like he's going to lose, which might explain his increasingly Trump-esque comments and outbursts. 

I'm sure he'll at least try to stand for leader when Cameron steps down. I don't really know what his prospects are because that depends on what the Tory Party membership think of him and I find it difficult to predict the decisions of a group who once thought Ian Duncan Smith would be the best choice to be the voice of their party.

One plus for Boris might be that it's not as if the last few months have been any better for most of his potential rivals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Quote

When I think of a small country, what comes to mind is something like Vanuatu rather than, say, the 5th largest economy in the world. There will be a massive amount of paperwork, but it is disingenuous to suggest that it will go to the back of the queue -- when a country is that big, it gets dealt with in order of importance rather than in order of arrival.

As said above, whilst Britain is indeed quite dominant in terms of raw GDP, it is only about one-eighth the size of the EU economy as a whole. The US will make that deal a priority over Britain.

One alternative the United States floated a couple of months back would be the idea of same-term deals. That, is the United States would negotiate a deal with the EU and then offer the exact same terms to an exited Britain. That would save the time and trouble of negotiating a separate deal, which would take a lot longer and may end up being less favourable to Britain, especially if our economic power is reduced in the meantime. The slight problem with that is that we would have zero say in the creation and formulation of that deal, and would have to rely on Germany and France negotiating that deal without our input, which rather defeats of the purpose of the exercise.

I get the impression from the Leave campaign that they really did not expect the economic argument to become so central to the debate (otherwise they probably wouldn't have led with "Yes, we'll be worse off for a while but it's worth it,") and were preparing to fight on immigration and patriotism, and now that the economic argument has become dominant, they're really floundering on how to come to grips with it.

Quote

It's never a good idea to underestimate Boris, but I wonder if he's really backed himself into a corner now.

Possibly. It's also possible that, even if we vote Remain, the passage of 3/4 years and the freedom to then focus on non-EU-related matters will allow Boris to bounce back. It is also possible that, assuming that Gove manages to avoid a major clash with Cameron in the next two months and Cameron enacts that "reconciliation" plan by making Gove Deputy PM after the referendum, then it is possible that Gove would emerge with a stronger likelihood of becoming leader in 2019/20.

As someone who has not historically had a high opinion of Gove, he seems to be playing this "making the opposing argument whilst staying on the same side" game rather more impressively than IDS or Boris.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

 

I get the impression from the Leave campaign that they really did not expect the economic argument to become so central to the debate (otherwise they probably wouldn't have led with "Yes, we'll be worse off for a while but it's worth it,") and were preparing to fight on immigration and patriotism, and now that the economic argument has become dominant, they're really floundering on how to come to grips with it.

 

I don't. They've know this all along, and even if they didn't (and they did) the Scottish referendum will have made them especially aware of it. How successful they are at countering the arguments of the remain campaign is obviously going to be a matter of opinion. But the economic argument was always going to be remain's strongest card, while immigration and 'democracy' were going to favour leave. Interestingly, I've heard economics has only become so prominent because remain discovered their emphasis on security was going down like a lead balloon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

immigration and 'democracy' were going to favour leave.

It'll probably come back with a vengeance, but it is interesting that the debate has moved away from immigration recently. That may be tied to the economic argument though: any economic deal with the EU post-Brexit will require us to accept the free movement of peoples principle (as Switzerland and Norway have had to do) and it's become increasingly clear that we will have to accept either a watered-down deal with tariffs remaining in place, or we will still not "have control of our borders" post-Brexit.

In fact, I was discussing this with some local councillors who I had assumed would be pro-Brexit from their fiercely independent streak, and yet they told me they were now leaning towards voting remain because of the "nightmare scenario" for Brexit: that we leave the EU but then have to still accept the free movement principle and pay a similar percentage to Norway (over 90%) of what we currently pay to the EU to get access to the free market, all without any ability to affect or influence policy at all. That was quite interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It'll probably come back with a vengeance, but it is interesting that the debate has moved away from immigration recently. That may be tied to the economic argument though: any economic deal with the EU post-Brexit will require us to accept the free movement of peoples principle (as Switzerland and Norway have had to do) and it's become increasingly clear that we will have to accept either a watered-down deal with tariffs remaining in place, or we will still not "have control of our borders" post-Brexit.

In fact, I was discussing this with some local councillors who I had assumed would be pro-Brexit from their fiercely independent streak, and yet they told me they were now leaning towards voting remain because of the "nightmare scenario" for Brexit: that we leave the EU but then have to still accept the free movement principle and pay a similar percentage to Norway (over 90%) of what we currently pay to the EU to get access to the free market, all without any ability to affect or influence policy at all. That was quite interesting.

I don't think remain have had much success in convincing people that immigration will go on as before post-brexit actually. I doubt anything they've said has caused leave to shy away from the immigration issue.

But I think Brexiteers have always been reluctant to talk about immigration too much for fear of toxifying their cause. Most people are worried about immigration but talking about it obsessively can spook the centre ground. People like Hannan and Carswell always wanted to emphasize trade/sovereignty a lot more than Farage did. If you have an issue that really motivates about 1/4 - 1/3 of the country, and those votes are largely already in the bag, you may play it down a bit at times in the campaign.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How do people see the Junior Doctors' Contract situation playing out? I'd be interested to see whether the strike they held yesterday actually puts pressure on the Hunt to move, or if it starts to erode public opinion of the Doctors. I must say I'm somewhat surprised at how little impetus there seems to be for the rest of the government to intervene and sort out the mess. All the vitriol is being directed at Hunt, so the backlash doesn't seem to have affected the Tory government at large. Is it likely that this will change, or will the government eventually shuffle Hunt out of the position and that'll be that?

ST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a little surprised that the government didn't accept the compromise suggested the other day of doing a pilot scheme for the new contract in certain areas only.

In other news, the Labour MP who unseated George Galloway appears to have some distressing similarities with him.

 

Quote

 

Labour has suspended MP Naz Shah over comments she made about Israel.

The Bradford West MP has been heavily criticised over the Facebook posts, including one suggesting Israel should be moved to America.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Maltaran said:

In other news, the Labour MP who unseated George Galloway appears to have some distressing similarities with him.



George Galloway is a prize wanker, but I really wish people wouldn't act as if being anti-Israel is the same as being anti-Semitic. You have to be able to criticise the actions of a nation without being written off as a racist. The Hitler analogy was poor form, but if you can't be critical of Israel in the Palestine situation then we're in bad shape.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...