To have become a Brexiteer yesterday?

[Mentum]

I was so Remain, I was devastated when we left. But the EU trying to steal our vac and casually invoking Article 16 has really left me aghast. I can't believe they are lashing out this way, I don't understand why.

It just all seems horribly overblown (on all sides) and is creating a terrible atmosphere. New vaccines are being produced and getting approved. Ultimately there will be enough to go around. And for those of us that aren’t over 70, overweight or clinically vulnerable - the vast majority - there’s no mad rush anyway. Governments / the commission / the press should be trying to calm things down, not stoking the fires. Surely the message should be ‘have a few glitches with supply, but it’ll all get sorted’ not this finger-pointing and hostility (again, from both/all sides).

@EileenGC

1. Yes but it was here first. But yes it has got to Germany later and you are not out of the woods yet.

1. I said per 100 people not absolute numbers. Portugal have a smaller population than the U.K. Their death rates are currently higher than the U.K.

1. Our numbers are coming down extremely fast. It starts with number of cases and death rates then follow. Which they are. Vaccines take two weeks to come into effect. Watch as our cases and deaths come down massively over the next month when we will have given 25% of our population (the most vulnerable) their first dose.

1. It really is. Go read the data.

It’s about bringing its member states mutual benefit through mutual standards in business, trade, travel and security cooperation etc Of course it doesn’t want to shit on nonEU nations, but if that’s the only way it can look out for it’s member states that is what it will try to do

I know they retracted it after well deserve criticism, do you think revoking article 16 wouldn't have affected one of their member states then?

@PickAChew
Better on the inside peeing out etc etc.
I love it - a bit like camping and too cold to leave the tent!

@EileenGC stop writing posts making it a nationalistic competition then, if you don’t believe it is.

The EUs behaviour doesn't surprise me - the fact that's they've done it so publicly and so badly suggests they are under sustained pressure from many of their members.

I was surprised by the fuck up, the deflection & then the exposure of it all.

But what I don’t understand is why a contract dispute between AZ and the EU is somehow the fault/responsibility of the British government. It maybe that the EU sees no diplomatic or economic future with the UK. I was on the fence about the contract dispute because I do not know contract law but by willing to invoke article 16 and also threatening Pfizer a US company. It’s a desperate attempt by the EU elite trying to salvage their comfy positions in power. Whilst the government of European nations will have to face the wrath of the voters at the ballot box.

The UK are being made the villains because we made the right choices regarding vaccine procurement.

And the EU have achieved something that I didn’t think possible and that’s to make Boris seem electable again. That man must have about 9 political lives, which is a shame and I can see we’re going to be stuck with him for a while.

@Cam77 it isn't the uk throwing its toys out the pram though is it.
And none of what they have done so far gets them the vaccines any quicker.
Also the rest of the world is watching , uk has been slammed for brexit including countries out of the eu , the eu also need to trade with the rest of the world also so every move is important .

It's not their job to heal rifts, it's their job to protect the interest of it's members which obviously doesn't include us. It was like when teaching unions were getting lambasted for sticking up for their members - that's their very function. That's what a trading bloc is.

What did you expect it to do? Made me laugh that Johnson was so irritated by them invoking and article which they were legally entitled to do when he shat over all legality and it didn't matter to him.

OF course it will be spun as the evil EU, that's why we are better off out of it, what else are they going to do?

Your call, but it's highlighted for me what a dangerous position we are in being outside out it.

Yes carol you don’t understand at all - it is clear you don’t, which is why everyone is saying you’re talking rubbish.
Maybe read some of the other threads from yesterday as you are so behind the curve and don’t seem to have any understanding or respect for how a vaccine is actually produced and developed. Have you read the article from AZ earlier this week?

@Cam77

We voted to protect our interests, they are simply following suit

Exactly. It’s like one day kicking a loyal partner out the house after decades if marriage and filing for divorce, all the while making up exaggerated shit about how terrible they were. Then being taken aback when they lawyer up and try to get everything they can off you.

The friendship is dead. Britain killed it, not the EU. So don’t now whine when they treat you as awkward clients/competitors rather than partners/ buddies.

You make it clear that the organization is a trade/tariff bloc. This is true.

I'm not sure about your divorce example. If a woman kicks someone out of a house, it would presumably be because she felt he wasn't 'loyal'. How do you know that such a claim is always untrue, and she needs her ass whipped by lawyers?

I voted Leave for many reasons that have been highlighted, and will continue to be highlighted, by this sad and sorry episode.

The EU is a huge, inefficient, slow-moving bureaucracy staffed by well-paid, unelected eurocrats with the best public sector pensions in Europe. It is good at applying red tape, but little else. It is far too big and too remote to govern individual and diverse countries but it is determinedly set on 'ever closer union'. It refuses to, and perhaps cannot, reform (remembering that embarrassing scene when David Cameron came back from Brussels having been clearly told where to go by Merkel when he asked for reform).

It is dominated by Germany and France. That was always obvious, but no one ever liked to say so. It's now been shown loud and clear. Britain was wanted for its money, but not as an equal political partner.

The EU parliament is a rubber-stamping body with no real powers, full of MEPs enjoying the gravy train but with no real voice or representative role. It's the EU commission that makes the real decisions (such as unilaterally invoking Article 16!!) and the commission is unelected and unaccountable.

Don't even get me started on the court which travels between Brussels and Strasbourg, costing millions in taxpayers' money just to keep the French happy.

The EU is fundamentally undemocratic.

How will the disgruntled citizens hold the EU to account for botching up its vaccine process? They can't. This gets to the heart of the fundamental problem of the EU.

Plus, it's a bully (ask Greece and now the UK), and it's a hypocrite. Despite pontificating for 5 years about how there could never, under any circumstances, be a hard border in Ireland (in order to thwart Brexit and try to maintain the single market), it recklessly decides to create one weeks into Brexit. The EU never cared about peace in NI and couldn't give a fig about the peace process, and they have now clearly shown.

So, as I just said, before we altruistically give up vaccine doses, surely some posters would back a Europe-wide consensus on the priority list, otherwise we are removing the vaccine from the vulnerable here to give to a working-from-home bureaucrat in Düsseldorf.

I would

@MadCatLady71 uk goverment have actually been very quiet on the whole issue tbf.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas
The EU represents a monster economic block of EU countries, which outs it on the same footing as the US and China. You think the rest of the world gives a shit about a little local vaccine spat? “Oh no, they’re bullying little Britain, let’s cut all our German and Dutch imports”.

But what I don’t understand is why a contract dispute between AZ and the EU is somehow the fault/responsibility of the British government.

I think because we are meant to show solidarity? 🤷‍♀️

@OlympicProcrastinator

However well Brexit turns out, hardline remainers will never concede one single good thing came from it, even when some positives are glaringly obvious.

However shite it is, hardline Brexiteers will never admit all the negatives, no matter how fucked up things get.

The vast majority of others, who weighed up a difficult argument and made a decision based on what they thought was best, didn’t disown our family and friends who thought differently and then got on with our lives, can see both positives and negatives but have learned to stay the hell away from any sort of reasoned discussion on here.

You won’t get what your looking for on here OP.

Probably the most sensible post I've ever read!

@EileenGC www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-vaccines-are-slowing-spread-of-virus-already-early-study-shows-lbwwgsvrh?shareToken=07f836edcb2e938915699a665f270804

Wildswim Sat 30-Jan-21 11:52:36

Excellent post and pretty much sums things up for me.

Your call, but it's highlighted for me what a dangerous position we are in being outside out it

What has their increased 'power' in this scenario achieved then? Except making them look unprofessional and pathetic? The law will back up the contracts, any concessions or changes made will be on goodwill, their storming in and having a tantrum has done nothing but cause more division within itself.

@Cam77 its not about bullying britain , its about threats of export bans etc, if your a company investing somewhere you want one that isn't going to interfere in your manufacturing.
Even if you think brexit is wrong how can people not say they have messed up here , they soon retracted on triggering the article , if it was the right thing to do why do that ?
Even the printing if the contract they made errors , if that had been uk people would of been jumping on here all over it.
Can you honestly say you think the eu acted great the last couple days ?

I said this yesterday but acknowledging the EU have fecked this up doesn't mean
a) you love Boris
b) the UK haven't made mistakes
c) you don't care about Europeans dying.

@marbellamarc - but I was being ironic cos that ain’t gonna happen. It would take five years for the EU to discuss, vote on and legislate for a priority programme. If we pass on our vaccines, they will be distributed as individual member states see fit, and if they want to prioritise the famous and bureaucrats, then they can.

So what I’m saying is you would therefore have to be content for the vulnerable here to be bumped down the list whilst seeing very much not vulnerable from EU countries given priority.

[quote Blessex]@EileenGC www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-vaccines-are-slowing-spread-of-virus-already-early-study-shows-lbwwgsvrh?shareToken=07f836edcb2e938915699a665f270804[/quote]
This is brilliant news!

@IrmaFayLear I agree with you. It's can't work in the real world.