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UK Politics: Winter of Discontent


Werthead

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3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Well, we knew this was coming. The November agreement was simply kicking the ball of the NI border into the long grass and now it needs to be dealt with seriously. The problem is that this could break the government, as the only practical solution is also the one that will piss off the DUP the most, so they're still trying to kick the ball down the road and the EU won't let them.

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As far as I can tell there are 3 possible solutions to the Irish Boarder.

1. Rep Ireland effectively joins with NI and basically leaves the EU to join the UK.   - Nope Nope Nope Nope.

2. NI effectively stays fully in the EU and has a Hard Border with the Rest of the UK (Effectively leaving the UK - although they still use the £ and vote in General elections and Non Devovled laws would still apply.   U do wonder what would happen with the EU budget if this was the option,  would NI have to pay in ect?.     this is problematic for many reasons.

3.  the Whole of the UK stays in the Customs Union and accepts Free movement of people.    This is problematic as its Brexit in name only but with no say.

I suppose there is option 4    The Magical Boarder that will somehow work.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Pebble said:

As far as I can tell there are 3 possible solutions to the Irish Boarder.

1. Rep Ireland effectively joins with NI and basically leaves the EU to join the UK.   - Nope Nope Nope Nope.

2. NI effectively stays fully in the EU and has a Hard Border with the Rest of the UK (Effectively leaving the UK - although they still use the £ and vote in General elections and Non Devovled laws would still apply.   U do wonder what would happen with the EU budget if this was the option,  would NI have to pay in ect?.     this is problematic for many reasons.

3.  the Whole of the UK stays in the Customs Union and accepts Free movement of people.    This is problematic as its Brexit in name only but with no say.

I suppose there is option 4    The Magical Boarder that will somehow work.

Yes, this is why Boris Johnson is having some kind of weird slow-motion meltdown, Theresa May has even more of a rictus grin than normal stuck to her face and Jacob Rees-Mogg is wondering why those pesky Irish are being so unreasonable in not leaving the EU along with Britain despite 85% of the population being in favour of Remain (remember: votes and referendums do not count if they are Irish).

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7 hours ago, Pebble said:

2. NI effectively stays fully in the EU and has a Hard Border with the Rest of the UK (Effectively leaving the UK - although they still use the £ and vote in General elections and Non Devovled laws would still apply.   U do wonder what would happen with the EU budget if this was the option,  would NI have to pay in ect?.     this is problematic for many reasons.

That is the default position if the UK goverment doesn't come up with another viable/better solution. I doubt NI would have to pay in, my guess is, that it's rather the opposite, that it's a beneficiary (talking about net contributions) with all the farm subsidies. And I think budget concerns on part of the EU are the least of the problems. Besides the UK would still have to pay some money for any sort of access to the common market.

What happens in terms of non-EU alligned laws, that is an internal problem for UK to sort out. Again, none of this is particularly new, this has all been coming since the agreement from december 2017, which May signed up to. The only news is that the EU has essentially worked out a legal framework for the UK to ensure that the British goverment is actually legally bound to what they signed up, so Davis (or any other passenger from that clown car) can't actually just walked back on what they said. How may squares this with her promise to the DUP that there won't be a different laws for NI and the rest of the UK is again an internal affair for the UK. She essentially has three options.

1. The rest of the UK follows NI in terms of regulatory allignment - I can see JRM and the other Tories howl how the UK has become a rule taker or vassal state of the EU (or whatever they'd like to call it). Of course that shoots down any magical FTA with the US undercutting EU standards. So the most iikely outcome for this is Brexit in name only, as you said.

2. She tells the DUP to bugger off, and accepts a defacto seperation of NI from the rest of the UK (and something very close to Irish unification). I am sure DUP will be very pleased with this scenario.

3. She tells the EU to bugger off, which means any transitional arrangement she hopes for is off the table. Which means hard Brexit, with all the economic consequences. Which would probably lead to a revolt from Soubry and other moderate Tories, the SNP, parts of the Labour party, business leaders and so on and so forth.

Well, actually there's a fourth option, which is the most ambitious and far unlikeliest given how things have developed thus far.

4. The British goverment gets their act together, and comes up with a solution of its own, which is not based on some BoJo fantasy, but actually viable.

Have your pick.

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From what I can tell:

There's no political will for that.

Both major British parties are hellbent on seeing Brexit go through. So the question of whether article 50 can be rescinded is rather academic.

The language differs a bit.

Labour: will of the people. Jobs first Brexit

Tories: Brexit means Brexit. Brexit that works for everyone.

The tories are lead by a supposedly pro European PM May, who is being held hostage by the europhobes of her party.

Labour on the other hand, is lead by a lifelong eurosceptic while the party itself is supposedly rather pro European.

The difference between europhobes and eurosceptics is something that some other boarder might want to elaborate on a bit.

The bottom line is, public opinion in Britain is not clearly enough in favour of remaining (it's still 50-50 or 55%-45% I think, depending on which poll you read) for either party to do a complete u-turn on this. So both parties are busy playing politics on this issue atm.

Clear remain parties like the SNP are quite frustrated with Corbyn's Labour over this issue.

That's however just my 2 cents, so @mormont or @Werthead may arrive at different conclusions or voice a different opinion on what I just wrote. Those opinions probably hold more value since they are living in Britain.

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1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is Bremain still a viable scenario somehow? Because that sure seems like the easiest solution to me.

I think the only viable option is Brefucked. 

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On 01/03/2018 at 9:10 PM, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is Bremain still a viable scenario somehow? Because that sure seems like the easiest solution to me.

There would have to be some kind of major existential shift in the underlying groundwork of the argument for that to happen.

I think the only thing that would do it is if the EU turned round and offered controls on free movement to Britain to keep them on board, but that would be a very hard sell. In particular, some other countries would want that concession as well, and that endangers the principles of the EU.

By some metrics, somewhere around late 2019/early 2020, the number of older people who voted Brexit and have subsequently passed away will be supplanted by the number of younger people who would have voted Remain reaching voting age. At that point some kind of argument for a second referendum might gather pace, but with neither the Tories nor Labour in favour of it, it seems implausible.

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Russian State TV warns traitors to the Motherland not to live in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/russian-state-tv-warns-traitors-not-to-settle-in-england?CMP=fb_gu

That almost reads like a headline from a spoof news website doesn't it? :dunno:

In other news, I see we are tightening our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Nothing to criticise there at all...

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1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Russian State TV warns traitors to the Motherland not to live in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/russian-state-tv-warns-traitors-not-to-settle-in-england?CMP=fb_gu

That almost reads like a headline from a spoof news website doesn't it? :dunno:

In other news, I see we are tightening our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Nothing to criticise there at all...

Quote

  you just hate your country in your spare time, I repeat, no matter, don’t move to England,

TBH that does kind of sum up my current position.

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51 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

If evidence is found that Russia is linked to it (despite it already being blindingly obvious), what steps can we take? More sanctions?

I think the only real response will be a sternly worded ticking off to their ambassador.

 

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13 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

If evidence is found that Russia is linked to it (despite it already being blindingly obvious), what steps can we take? More sanctions?

Next to none I expect, despite what some people like to think, the U.K. isn’t nearly as important or influential as it likes to believe it is, and further souring relations with Russia wouldn’t be the greatest of moves.

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It is great isn't it that Russia can commit what would in other circumstances be considered a war crime on British soil and nothing can really be done about it.

I mean, I do seriously doubt that the plan was to poison members of the public and police or even the man's family, and someone on the Russian side is probably going to be in some serious shit for that part, but still.

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3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It is great isn't it that Russia can commit what would in other circumstances be considered a war crime on British soil and nothing can really be done about it.

I mean, I do seriously doubt that the plan was to poison members of the public and police or even the man's family, and someone on the Russian side is probably going to be in some serious shit for that part, but still.

What the US  and Europe  need to do is impose  real and punishing sanctions that will collapse Russia's Economy into the ground and bring down Putin's malevolent regime .

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55 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

What the US  and Europe  need to do is impose real and punishing sanctions that will collapse Russia's Economy into the ground and bring down Putin's malevolent regime .

And if Putin responds by cutting off the gas supply? Or annexing chunks of eastern europe?

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14 minutes ago, Slick Mongoose said:

And if Putin responds by cutting off the gas supply? Or annexing chunks of eastern europe?

Let him keep his gas.    If he sends troops into eastern Europe with the. intent to annex ,  then we need respond by sending in troop to counter him.  With sufficient incentive , Putin can be made to back down.

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1 hour ago, GAROVORKIN said:

What the US  and Europe  need to do is impose  real and punishing sanctions that will collapse Russia's Economy into the ground and bring down Putin's malevolent regime .

 

 

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Let him keep his gas.    If he sends troops into eastern Europe with the. intent to annex ,  then we need respond by sending in troop to counter him.  With sufficient incentive , Putin can be made to back down.

Spoken like someone who definitely has no ties to any nation in Russia's vague vicinity.

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