UK Politics: Oh Ambassador you are really spoiling us!

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

By the same logic though the SNP made the pro-Union argument for the Unionists.

Could you elaborate on this?

[Hereward]

57 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Any form of Brexit was insanity, EEA was just the least insane version, and answers your question.

As for Scotland, I think they want to be inside the EU, not outside-but-less-insanely-so

It doesn’t really. I agree Brexit was insanity, but Spockdog’s point appeared to be that, to the contrary, it wasn’t the idea of Brexit that was insane, but how the government handled it.

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Hereward said:

It doesn’t really. I agree Brexit was insanity, but Spockdog’s point appeared to be that, to the contrary, it wasn’t the idea of Brexit that was insane, but how the government handled it.

Not at all. Despite the insanity, after Johnson won last year, what I hoped for, along with many other Remainers, was an orderly exit from the EU with as little disruption as possible to the economy.

Frankly, we got the exact opposite of that.

And for what? So JRM could stand up and talk about happy fucking fish? 

So, no. That wasn't my point, which is basically that I'm sure there are a whole bunch of British politicians and civil servants who could have a) negotiated in better faith to ensure a fairer deal, and b) subsequently managed our exit minus all the horror stories that are now emerging. Do I really need to bother making a list of all the things, logistical and whatnot, that should have been done months and months ago?

He had an entire year. And look what he delivered. Utter fucking chaos.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Is this still true, in terms of the readership of the papers?

 

[kiko]

11 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

By the same logic though the SNP made the pro-Union argument for the Unionists.

I don't think that is a good argument if you consider that Scotland is now trying to decide to which union it wants to belong. Both options have their pros and cons. The English brexit has put that on the table.

[Chaircat Meow]

11 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Could you elaborate on this?

Yes. In 2014 the SNP said warnings breaking up a union would have bad economic consequences were 'bluff and buster' and 'project fear.' They've now spent the last 4 years saying attempts to leave a union would risk 100,000s of Scottish jobs and other dire consequences.

[Gorn]

8 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Yes. In 2014 the SNP said warnings breaking up a union would have bad economic consequences were 'bluff and buster' and 'project fear.' They've now spent the last 4 years saying attempts to leave a union would risk 100,000s of Scottish jobs and other dire consequences.

Except they're not the same union.

[Chaircat Meow]

1 minute ago, Gorn said:

Except they're not the same union.

Exactly, and the one the SNP now want to leave is one they do three times as much trade with as the other one, in addition to sharing a currency and an army. So if leaving the EU is a disaster warning about leaving the UK can't be bluff and bluster ... 

Really not rocket science this. 

[Gorn]

9 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Exactly, and the one the SNP now want to leave is one they do three times as much trade with as the other one, in addition to sharing a currency and an army. So if leaving the EU is a disaster warning about leaving the UK can't be bluff and bluster ... 

Really not rocket science this. 

One is a market of 450 million people, the other a market of 60 million (minus Scotland and NI, which is now de facto part of the EU).

[Chaircat Meow]

2 minutes ago, Gorn said:

One is a market of 450 million people, the other a market of 60 million (minus Scotland and NI, which is now de facto part of the EU).

That doesn't determine where the trade is . China is a market of 1.4 billion, for example, but it is obviously a less important market for Scotland than either the UK or the EU.

[Gorn]

3 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

That doesn't determine where the trade is . China is a market of 1.4 billion, for example, but it is obviously a less important market for Scotland than either the UK or the EU.

It's not exactly an unprecedented situation. The Baltic countries decided they would much rather be part of the EU than of USSR, despite the fact that they had much stronger trade ties with Russia in '91. And in the long run, the change was to their benefit. Same goes for Slovenia and Croatia, which picked EU over Yugoslavia.

I know that it's hard for you to accept that you're the USSR in this analogy

[Chaircat Meow]

5 minutes ago, Gorn said:

It's not exactly an unprecedented situation. The Baltic countries would much rather be part of the EU than of USSR, despite the fact that they had much stronger trade ties with Russia in '91. And in the long run, the change was to their benefit. Same goes for Slovenia and Croatia, which picked EU over Yugoslavia.

I know that it's hard for you to accept that you're the USSR in this analogy

The point isn't that you can't make an argument for Scottish separation but that the SNP have been making the case against their own arguments from 2014 during the whole course of the Brexit saga, namely that separation would be painless and unionist arguments were 'project fear.'

If you want to say 'leaving the UK will be bad in the short to medium team and the disruption will be considerably worse than Brexit and will take a long time to sort out but in the long term the UK is basically the USSR and we will escape,' then I guess you could say that. That kind of thinking does appeal to part of the Nationalist hardcore I'm sure but probably isn't referendum-winning.

[Heartofice]

So the EU is threatening to block supply of vaccines for countries outside the EU due to disagreements over supply

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/25/eu-threatens-to-block-covid-vaccine-exports-amid-astrazeneca-shortfall

Which is lovely of them. 
 

Pestons take on the situation:

Quote

The announcement was 13 June. BUT the EU insisted that the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance could not formalise the deal. The European Commission insisted it should take over the contract negotiations on behalf of the whole EU. So were another two months of talks and the contract was not signed till the end of August. What is frustrating for AZ is that the extra talks with the European Commission led to no material changes to the contract, but wasted time on making arrangements to make the vaccine with partner sites. 

Hilarious quote in there as well, EU source says “ I understand Brexit better now”

[A wilding]

Think of it like this: the vaccine is being manufactured in the EU, with the aid of indirect financial support from the EU. Now it appears that there is a production shortfall, and the EU is saying that the needs of their countries should be considered first, before exports to other countries. And this is an argument for Brexit how?

And I could not find that "understand Brexit better now" quote anywhere in the linked article.

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, A wilding said:

Think of it like this: the vaccine is being manufactured in the EU, with the aid of indirect financial support from the EU. Now it appears that there is a production shortfall, and the EU is saying that the needs of their countries should be considered first, before exports to other countries. And this is an argument for Brexit how?

And I could not find that "understand Brexit better now" quote anywhere in the linked article.

Did you read the Twitter thread?

[JoannaL]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

So the EU is threatening to block supply of vaccines for countries outside the EU due to disagreements over supply

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/25/eu-threatens-to-block-covid-vaccine-exports-amid-astrazeneca-shortfall

Which is lovely of them. 
 

 

This is not the EU view of things. While the approval process for vaccines was slow (which was critizesed a lot but which I thought was is fine because we got a more valuable regular not emergency use  approval) and while not enough of the Biontech vaccine was originally ordered (which was bad, definitly) in this case no one is blaming the EU. They made a contract with Astrazeneca in which Astrazeneca commited to producing 80 mio doses until the end of March. For this they got 336 Mio Euros in advance to start the production immediately (that was in October). Now the say they cannot deliver because of production problems, this is definitely a lie because the can deliver to the UK. So, the general view at least here in Germany is not that this is the EU fault but that  AstraZeneca is just an evil liar who lied.

[A wilding]

Just now, Heartofice said:

Did you read the Twitter thread?

Didn't see it their either. But frankly don't care what some random person tweeted.

[Heartofice]

Just now, A wilding said:

Didn't see it their either. But frankly don't care what some random person tweeted.

Robert Peston isn’t some random person. 
 

If you are going to comment on my post then at least bother to read it.

The point of Pestons post was that because the UK managed to get the AZ agreement early it was able to get ahead of potential supply problems early too. The EU, by taking over the talks and slowing everything down hasn’t helped supply issues. It’s all pretty illustrative of the way the EU tends to go about things.. hence understanding Brexit 

[mormont]

9 minutes ago, A wilding said:

Didn't see it their either. But frankly don't care what some random person tweeted.

It was Peston who tweeted it, but it was not his words: it's an anonymous quote from someone within AstraZeneca, presumably expressing frustration with the EU's handling of the situation. Make of that what you will.

[ljkeane]

18 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

Now the say they cannot deliver because of production problems, this is definitely a lie because the can deliver to the UK. So, the general view at least here in Germany is not that this is the EU fault but that  AstraZeneca is just an evil liar who lied.

I mean that's pretty clearly not true. The reason the UK supply of the Astrazeneca vaccine seems to be largely unaffected is because it is supposed to be largely met by UK based production. The issue with the supply to the EU seems to be with a Belgium based producer (Novasep apparently) that was intended to supply most of the vaccine to the EU.