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.

@EileenGC and here is the data on the dosing strategy that other countries are now considering following.

www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAttachment.aspx?Attachment_id=103741

@Floppywin actually I’ve worked as an international lawyer so I understand it well, and much better than most.

Perhaps you should explain what it is you think I don’t understand?

@barretbonden

Why did we think for one minute that the EU would give a shiny shit about the UK after the way we have treated them and what we have said about them?

How naive can one be? 'After the way we have treated the'? 'What we have said about them'? Such idiocy. And that's from a staunch Remain voter!

@IrmaFayLear I was being facetious

@ Cam77 no they won’t worry about imports in the short term but they won’t be investing heavily in the future with European base where they can behave in such an erratic manner and retrospectively look to change terms -(as they did at press conference yesterday ) no one will trust them. India are rolling out AZ vaccine (not for profit vaccine) and setting up infrastructure not demanding others supply lines.

No one will trust the EU except the die hard remainers who have a religious zeal for the project of removing direct democracy from people of Europe where commission over the next 50 years and no way of voting them out.
Our legal system is trusted around the world and the EU have just proved they cannot be trusted.

@OlympicProcrastinator
I voted Remain but can admit many negatives of the EU. What I can’t stomach is Brexiters being offended and shocked because the EU is now fighting for wellbeing of people in EU member states over that of British people outside of the EU.

The fact that the EU has now joined China, US, Russia in the “we will take nonEU Britain to the cleaners as long as we can gain from it” club isn’t a beneficial turn of events for the U.K. ffs!

@Cam77
On the same footing as China...😂😂😂

You are clueless arent you?

What's clear is you've never lived or worked in Asia. If you had you'd know how important frameworks, etiquette and "your word" are important there. Almost to a level we cant understand in the west. If you think the asian market isnt watching on in horror as the EU tries to block exports, bully companies beyond contracts, and create trade blockades/forced borders in countries then you dont understand how business works. The US might not worry too much but Asia will.

This has been a very good week for the UK. The EU has weakened its profile and reputation beyond Europe. The UK did well to stay quiet. Europe is a dying continent that cant even manage the basic task of having enough of the right needles to administer its vaccine and now shows it does not understand contract law, and will bend rules to get what it wants. The UK will do well out of this situation.

Macron pontificating with a very Napoleonesque photo shot... Hes a lame duck and will be out in 2022, probably to be replaced by Marion, Marine Lepens niece: same Frexit policy, but with a new and improved fluid style.

Why did we think for one minute that the EU would give a shiny shit about the UK after the way we have treated them and what we have said about them?

What did we say?
Why do we have to give a shit about them though?

Germany secured extra doses, will they be now sharing those?

@Hammonds yes! It’s brilliant news. But not one which @EileenGC acknowledges.

“The preliminary data indicate a vaccine effect from the first dose in both younger adults and in older adults over 80. The effect seems to increase over time,” he said. “It is possible that we may get stronger and better long-term protection by a delayed second dose.”

Initial vaccination focused on the over-80s and NHS and care staff and has since widened out to younger people and the clinically vulnerable.

Infection rates in the over-80s have fallen by 36 per cent this month. Other age groups have seen similar falls, while the biggest drop is in twenty-somethings whose rates have halved.

I agree with pp anyone who is hardline leave or remain will not change their minds.
You can vote for a goverment and not agree with everything they do, doesn't mean you still in general stand by them. Same as brexit you can vote brexit and not like every part of it , or voted remain yet still see flaws.

@marbellamarc -sorry!! Difficult to read tone of voice, and I should have paid closer attention to your other posts and who actually was advocating carrying (other people’s) doses over to Europe to vaccinate a poor, deserving celebrity...

I voted remain, and was disappointed in the outcome, but now if I had to vote again tomorrow I'd vote leave.

@Blessex as I understand it, article 16 was never triggered and it was just a proposal which was withdrawn after a few hours. I believe the member states have to agree to trigger that and they did not.

@Wildswim

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.

Brilliant post !

I voted leave.

So pleased we are out of it I can tell you

@Cam77 who is taking the uk to the cleaners ? What do you even mean by that ?

@CayrolBaaaskin it was triggered and then withdrawn after the Irish PM quite rightly said ‘what the actual fuck’. Whether technically done or not the damage is done.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@RandomLondoner - best reasonable efforts is broadly equivalent to best endeavours in English law. The contract is not English law though.

The contract between the EU and UK has the same best efforts in it I understand but they haven’t published it and we don’t know the details.

What’s alarming is the way the tabloids have stirred up nationalist jingoism and so many people have just gone along with it. It’s all a bit QAnon - the “EU are stealing our vaccines” they are criminal, etc. It’s really worrying that things have come to this.

The contract published showed the EU certainly have a point.[/quote]
Someone who wrote a comment for an FT has published the definition of "reasonable best effort" from another EU contract. In that contract the very lengthy definition acknowledges prior contractual obligations as one the factors that could legitimately inhibit delivery.

davidallengreen.com/2021/01/what-can-be-worked-out-about-the-best-efforts-clause-in-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-agreement/

That was obviously written before the actual contract was available. I don't recall the definition being that long in the AstraZeneca contract, and the copy I just managed to download appears not to be searchable text, so I couldn't quickly verify whether it explicitly says something similar.

Most commentary I've seen in respectable news source confirms my own impression from reading the contract, it doesn't really clarify anything. In fact I was surprised by how woolly and disjointed it seemed, but I'm not a lawyer.

Several news sources have said that the UK contract explicitly requires the UK to have preferential access to UK-manufactured supplies. (In fact I've just read a quote where the head of AstraZeneca told European media exactly that.)

I felt the sane yesterday thinking they were late ordering the vaccine and that’s fine to them. If we’d been party of the EU we’d be in the same boat. It’s not our fault they held off and now they are trying to take our stock. Erm we aren’t in your union so lay off!

What I can’t stomach is Brexiters being offended and shocked because the EU is now fighting for wellbeing of people in EU member states over that of British people outside of the EU.

I've not seen much of that. I find it odd that the UK is supposed to do the opposite & not fight for its own well-being. It's double standards. The EU want to fight for their interests over ours which is their right. But you can't then judge the other country for doing the same & moan that we are being mean?

[quote Blessex]**@Hammonds* yes! It’s brilliant news. But not one which @EileenGC* acknowledges.

“The preliminary data indicate a vaccine effect from the first dose in both younger adults and in older adults over 80. The effect seems to increase over time,” he said. “It is possible that we may get stronger and better long-term protection by a delayed second dose.”

Initial vaccination focused on the over-80s and NHS and care staff and has since widened out to younger people and the clinically vulnerable.

Infection rates in the over-80s have fallen by 36 per cent this month. Other age groups have seen similar falls, while the biggest drop is in twenty-somethings whose rates have halved.[/quote]
How could any one not see this is brilliant news I don’t know - I think some people are predisposed to always look for the negative in things

It’s because @EileenGC was being nationalistic and comparing the U.K. to Germany and slagging off the U.K. in the meantime. Without the actual facts.

We have not had the empty supermarkets and shortages as warned, and our nimbleness on the vaccine front has been spectacular.

Project Fear was always that - fear mongering pushed by elites who had vested interests in staying in the club. Many fell for it.

And also questioning the dosing approach without the actual facts.

www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAttachment.aspx?Attachment_id=103741

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

Well you're wrong. I was a staunch remainer, absolutely adamant that leaving was totally wrong but omg, I think I've also turned into a Brexiteer overnight. Honestly if you knew me in RL you'd be stunned!