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UK politics: The tale of an old (Ber)crow who flew down from the cuckoo's nest...


A Horse Named Stranger

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You are not locked into the backstop though. There is an easy way out: Hold a  referendum on Irish reunification, make sure yes wins (given the economic prospects of post-Brexit Britain, that should be easy) and the need  for the backstop disappears. Alas, I fear the DUP won't let May get away with that. But a future government would not be beholden to them.

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28 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Ah, the Brexiter outrage. But you have not answered the question.

The backstop as is, is a direct result of Brexit, the GFA and May's red lines. Suck it up.

Shall I just constantly refer to you as remoaner? Is that the level you are trying to sink to? ( again I’m not a brexiter, but I’m also not a whinging remoaner either)

From my side, a legal position to fall back on and allow exit , should the EU act in bad faith and constantly dismiss all future solutions with the aim of holding the Uk in a perpetual customs union , seems only sensible, and is clearly the major sticking point for many. 

But it seems you would be more than happy for that to happen, or don’t  believe the EU are capable of such underhand tactics. If so I’d suggest you’be been drinking the Junker juice.

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36 minutes ago, The guy from the Vale said:

You are not locked into the backstop though. There is an easy way out: Hold a  referendum on Irish reunification, make sure yes wins (given the economic prospects of post-Brexit Britain, that should be easy) and the need  for the backstop disappears. Alas, I fear the DUP won't let May get away with that. But a future government would not be beholden to them.

Yeah great idea.:rolleyes:

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2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

But it seems you would be more than happy for that to happen, or don’t  believe the EU are capable of such underhand tactics. If so I’d suggest you’be been drinking the Junker juice.

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Sorry, but this is rich.

Just now, Heartofice said:

From my side, a legal position to fall back on and allow exit , should the EU act in bad faith and constantly dismiss all future solutions with the aim of holding the Uk in a perpetual customs union , seems only sensible, and is clearly the major sticking point for many.  

But it seems you would be more than happy for that to happen, or don’t  believe the EU are capable of such underhand tactics. If so I’d suggest you’be been drinking the Junker juice. 

As in, yeah the EU was the one that has negotiated in bad faith for the past two years. The level of denial is off the charts here.

Again, the EU will protect the interest of its member (the Republic of Ireland) over any interest from a third state. Ireland's interest is an open border, so the backstop as is will stay. To quote somebody very blond, the UK can just go and whistle, if it thinks it can just pick and choose the bits of the WA it likes.

And you still have not come to terms with the mere fact, that the Irish Border issue won't just disappear in a few years, so why should the backstop?

 

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Corbyn and Milne have just been to see May and there are some positive noises being emitted. Rumour is that, like many other people, Corbyn has taken the defeat of the Cooper/Grieve amendments to mean the HoC has no appetite for reversing Brexit. So, they're now offering some semi-serious olive branches to May to the effect that they will shepherd her deal through with a permanent customs union, changes to state aid and employment rules (in the backstop agreements and PD). This will at least give them the option of voting the WA through, or, if they don't want to do this, something they can use to prove they tried their best and so aren't responsible for no-deal.

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3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

The backstop is merely an insurance policy to keep the Good Friday Agreement alive, and make sure there's no border on the Irish Island. You are aware of that?

I think Brexit's a terrible idea but you keep stating this as if it's a fact when it really isn't and it's kind of irritating.

The Good Friday Agreement doesn't say anything about customs checks on the Northern Irish border. You might argue that it violates the spirit of the agreement with it's promotion of closer cooperation between Ireland and the UK but that's not quite the same thing. On top of that I suspect the sudden overwhelming concern for the Good Friday Agreement might be slightly overblown given probably it's most significant institutional legacy, the power sharing Executive in Stormont, has been broken down for over 2 years with hardly a mention on this board. 

 

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33 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I think Brexit's a terrible idea but you keep stating this as if it's a fact when it really isn't and it's kind of irritating.

The Good Friday Agreement doesn't say anything about customs checks on the Northern Irish border. You might argue that it violates the spirit of the agreement with it's promotion of closer cooperation between Ireland and the UK but that's not quite the same thing. On top of that I suspect the sudden overwhelming concern for the Good Friday Agreement might be slightly overblown given probably it's most significant institutional legacy, the power sharing Executive in Stormont, has been broken down for over 2 years with hardly a mention on this board. 

 

That one has been brought up I think, when the Tories went to bed with the DUP. As that spelt conflict with regards to the British goverment's role and impartiality in the power sharing process in Stormont.

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1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

On top of that I suspect the sudden overwhelming concern for the Good Friday Agreement might be slightly overblown given probably it's most significant institutional legacy, the power sharing Executive in Stormont, has been broken down for over 2 years with hardly a mention on this board.

The idea that because something hasn't been discussed on this board, boarders are not very concerned about it, is a fallacy. Believe me, IRL you do not want to get me started on that topic.

2 hours ago, Nothing Has Changed said:

Rumour is that, like many other people, Corbyn has taken the defeat of the Cooper/Grieve amendments to mean the HoC has no appetite for reversing Brexit. 

Cobyn and Milne have no appetite for reversing Brexit, so that tracks. As far as I can see, what Corbyn desires most at the moment is for the whole business to be done with so he can get on with what he regards as more important issues.

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

As in, yeah the EU was the one that has negotiated in bad faith for the past two years.

Quite. The problem here is one of good faith and trust. Allowing a unilateral exit from the backstop is simply handing the Eurosceptics a loaded gun that they will inevitably use. Because if you think Tory MPs' favourite pastime of blaming the EU for everything is going to ebb once we leave the EU, you have another think coming.

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I can sort of understand the issue some MPs have with the backstop: that the EU unilaterally can decide (please correct me if I'm wrong) when the UK has solved the border issue to a sufficient degree that the backstop can be dropped. If you don't trust the EU, then this is a huge problem. Even if the UK comes up with a super unicorn invisible wall which allows for customs checks without a physical border, the EU can simply say "nah, not good enough" and keep the UK in the backstop indefinitely. 

My proposed solution would be for both sides to agree on the requirements for such a solution, and then bind themselves to accept that the issue will be settled by a neutral arbitration court. That way the EU cannot refuse the UK to leave the backstop as long as the border solution is objectively acceptable.

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6 hours ago, The guy from the Vale said:

You are not locked into the backstop though. There is an easy way out: Hold a  referendum on Irish reunification, make sure yes wins (given the economic prospects of post-Brexit Britain, that should be easy) and the need  for the backstop disappears. Alas, I fear the DUP won't let May get away with that. But a future government would not be beholden to them.

Except that the people voting on unification would be doing so on cultural grounds, not economic ones. A referendum on the subject would fail*.

*Catholics are now estimated to slightly outnumber Protestants in the wider population, but it will take a good twenty years for that to feed through into voters. 

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8 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I can sort of understand the issue some MPs have with the backstop: that the EU unilaterally can decide (please correct me if I'm wrong) when the UK has solved the border issue to a sufficient degree that the backstop can be dropped. If you don't trust the EU, then this is a huge problem. Even if the UK comes up with a super unicorn invisible wall which allows for customs checks without a physical border, the EU can simply say "nah, not good enough" and keep the UK in the backstop indefinitely. 

My proposed solution would be for both sides to agree on the requirements for such a solution, and then bind themselves to accept that the issue will be settled by a neutral arbitration court. That way the EU cannot refuse the UK to leave the backstop as long as the border solution is objectively acceptable.

Yep. I think you basically nailed it.

Of course your view on this issue probably comes down to how you view the EU. If you see it as some sort of benevolent force for peace and prosperity and all things nice , then you probably assume that it deeply cares about the Ireland issue and will happily let the UK out of the backstop as soon as it meets some reasonable standards and solutions.

However if your view of the EU is a self serving, self interested entity whose main interest in in preserving it's own existence by making sure that the UK does not prosper outside on it's own, ideally managing to keep it in some sort of holding pen that eliminates the chance of the UK acting independently, then you probably don't trust them to act in good faith in this situation. 

 

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10 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I can sort of understand the issue some MPs have with the backstop: that the EU unilaterally can decide (please correct me if I'm wrong) when the UK has solved the border issue to a sufficient degree that the backstop can be dropped.

You're wrong. The two parties must agree when the border issue has been solved. Both have a veto. That's what a bilateral agreement is.

To ask for an independent arbitrating court shows that you don't trust the other party, in which case why are you negotiating with them? And who would be that court, anyway? Who is 'independent' on this, and accepted as an authority by both sides? I await your suggestions. 

Meanwhile, the entire reason for the existence of the backstop is that objectively, none of the 'alternative solutions' that the UK government suggested during negotiations are remotely likely to be viable, let alone 'objectively acceptable', by the end of the transition period. Most of them are frankly unlikely even to exist by then. But rather than simply reject these solutions out of hand, the EU said 'OK, we'll let you have time to try to get these working, but we would like to have an insurance policy just in case you can't do it'. The backstop is, by its nature, a goodwill concession by the EU (and its exact form, covering the whole UK instead of just NI, was the UK's idea, as has been pointed out repeatedly).

If the EU really wanted to force the UK to remain, they would never have agreed to the backstop in the first place. So there is no rational reason to be suspicious that the EU will refuse to end it if those alternative solutions do, in fact, work. But the problem here is that 'rational' left town long ago for the Brexiteers.  

 

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4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It also means that no side can leave the agreement unilaterally. That is the point. 

Yes, it is. Both sides are equally committed. It's a bilateral agreement. 

The complaint here is nonsensical. If you have an agreement that one side can unilaterally back out of whenever it feels like it, it's not an agreement. It's hardly even a promise. It's worthless. If you want a unilateral exit from the backstop, what you are actually saying is, you don't want a backstop.

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This idea that the EU wants to trap the UK in the backstop is foolish, the backstop will make future trading negotiations between the EU and other parties very difficult for them as the UK will hang around like a bad smell linked to the Customs Union and make those negotiations very complex. The EU doesn't want the UK in the backstop, that's why they were so reluctant to give it an all UK customs arrangement and not just NI. 

nobody wants the damn Backstop, but the grown-ups in the room see it's a necessary insurance because violence and border checkpoints are unthinkable! 

My family will be line to help tear down the first camera and the first sign and the first barrier, it's unthinkable that communities should have to suffer divisions after years and years of violence, everything, everything that goes up on the border is a symbol. In some parts you can't even put up a 'Welcome to NI' sign for decades now without someone tearing it down or painting over the Northern part and just reading 'welcome to Ireland'. People forget how deep the history and divisions flow in veins. 

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14 minutes ago, mormont said:

Yes, it is. Both sides are equally committed. It's a bilateral agreement. 

The complaint here is nonsensical. If you have an agreement that one side can unilaterally back out of whenever it feels like it, it's not an agreement. It's hardly even a promise. It's worthless. If you want a unilateral exit from the backstop, what you are actually saying is, you don't want a backstop.

There needs to be an agreed form of exit, not just based on the whims of what the EU finds acceptable, because why would the EU actually agree to find any solution acceptable? It isn't in their best interests to let the UK leave the backstop, ever. 

Unfortunately the complaint isn't nonsensical at all, its a very real fear and a likely outcome. 

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9 minutes ago, Nevarfeather said:

My family will be line to help tear down the first camera and the first sign and the first barrier, it's unthinkable that communities should have to suffer divisions after years and years of violence, everything, everything that goes up on the border is a symbol. In some parts you can't even put up a 'Welcome to NI' sign for decades now without someone tearing it down or painting over the Northern part and just reading 'welcome to Ireland'. People forget how deep the history and divisions flow in veins. 

When there is a No Deal and the EU constructs a border will you also be there tearing it down?

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