Westministenders: Danger of "accidental" Brexit (whoops !) ?

[BigChocFrenzy]

i.e. Brexit without a deal - NOT intentionally so - due to UK govt incompetence and mutual UK/EU misunderstandings

The govt is proceeding from abysmal ignorance on a Brexit journey which may blunder into disaster.

Prominent Leave campaigner Richard North:

"The UK Government's narrative seems to rest on the belief that the EU will cave in under pressure, and is thus giving every sign that it is prepared to push negotiations to the wire.

If, on the other hand, the EU are determined not to budge, especially as, with their own White Paper on "The Future of Europe" triggering internal discussions unrelated to Brexit, they are not necessarily fully focused on the "British problem".

As a result, we could end up with an "accidental Brexit",
where the UK negotiators overplay their hand, ending up in the UK leaving without an agreement, forcing it to rely on WTO rules.

Most likely, it will take very little to convince the EU that Mrs May is bluffing – as the effect of the WTO option is likely to be disastrous for the UK economy.

We could thus have each side misreading each other, making the accidental Brexit all the more likely."

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86395

I am just so sad for tomorrow and bloody angry.

Just like wee Nippy knows the will of my Scottish mind implicitly Pretty. I may need to take to communing with the Pollock Park Highlanders in my mini skirt to see if she pays more attention to my legs. I am sure she like me is on first name terms with the real Kelpies and she still never gets the message.

I don't think you get it Prettybird. Scotland is still part of the UK and as part of the UK joined the EU and as part of the UK will leave the EU. All the treaties we signed with the EU were signed on behalf of the UK. The waters around the UK are British Waters and fishing rights will be negotiated as such.

Corcory, I don't think you get it either.

Nations are not fixed for all times. I wasn't around when India gained Independence, but split into two countries. I was around when East and West Pakistan split.

I was around when Yugoslavia fell apart. Some people did see that coming, but I certainly didn't.

Collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union? If you had told me in 1979 that the USSR would fall apart within 15 years, I would have found it hard to believe.

Ditto the splitting of Czechoslovakia. Again, people on the ground knew that there were tensions, and maybe did predict it, but most of us? I am pretty sure we didn't.

Or then - the reunification of Germany. I can remember a magazine cover - I think the New Statesman - celebrating "DDR 40", and thinking that the map was drawn for all time. The following year, the system collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down.

Apartheid in South Africa - thought that would never end, and even if it did so, would result in a blood bath. I know that South Africa still has its problems, but the bloodbath didn't happen.

As for our fishing rights - we are not like Iceland and Norway facing large areas of open sea, so we don't have the option of declaring 200 mile limits. But it will be interesting to see the Govt trying to get back the fishing rights that they sold to the Dutch, causing the collapse of small UK fleets in the process. I wonder if May will find the money to re-invest in a fishing fleet?

I do get that. I accept that these are currently UK waters etc. However, the EU if not the UK is not stupid whatever TM, the Three Stooges and UKIP think. There is currently doubt over the future of the Union of its constituent parts. An unwilling partner is not a stable way to go forward.

Howabout - whether you like it or not, more than 50% of the Scottish electorate did vote for parties that supported Independence. They didn't need to. You also don't need to vote for Independence - all that has been asked for is the right to ask people if they want it, given the change in circumstances.

Whereas TM cannot by any stretch of the imagination or manipulation of the facts claim that 65 million people are supporting what she is doing. Just because she wrote it down doesn't make it true.

You have to admit that 54% of Scottish MSPs voting for a 2nd IndyRef and 46% against is an 'overwhelming mandate'. If you don't admit that then you have to call into question the UK Referendum 52:48 split, which was described thus.

I look forward to the Scots holding an 'Advisory referendum' with the same sort of results and seeing May and Co attempt to wriggle out of it.

Sam Coates Times‏*@SamCoatesTimes*
Conservative MPs have apparently been discouraged from holding Article 50 parties.

Tom Newton Dunn‏ @tnewtondunn
I'm told May's 6 page-long Article 50 letter has just arrived in Brussels. Taken on the Eurostar by an FCO official, with heavy security.

Why not just send an email? Oh yeah Brexit and The Great Repeal of the Internet. Welcome back to the 1950s.

And indyref2 ads starting to appear...

The vultures are starting to circle to pick on the rotting carcass of the UK...

www.itv.com/news/2017-03-28/brexit-luxembourg-hoping-to-capitalise-on-potential-loss-of-financial-services-jobs-in-city-of-london/
Brexit: Luxembourg hoping to capitalise on potential loss of financial services jobs in City of London

www.ft.com/content/26e3f816-12c8-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76
Brexiters must lose if Brexit is to succeed

Summary: They need to learn that distance and trade are related and that harmonised regulation allows frictionless trade.

Brexiters will also learn that geography is political destiny. The UK can never be a non-European country. It will always be intimately affected by developments on the continent.

Brexit is like trying to defy the laws of physics.

And then there is this:

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/donald-trumps-lawyers-argue-woman-10117858
Donald Trump's lawyers argue woman who accuses him of groping her can't sue him - because he's President
Trump's attorneys say he should be immune from a sexual misconduct lawsuit brought by a former 'Apprentice' contestant while he is in office

Clinton tried this. He failed.

Pretty I actually have no objection to NS calling Indyref2 as soon as she likes. If Quebec is anything to go by it may be the very thing to settle the question once and for all. What I object to is her presuming that the 55% are in anyway persuaded by the 45% or that a vote to stay in the EU was a proxy vote to rerun the Indyref. Most Scottish Remain voters I know presumed the very opposite because that is what she and all the other Scottish politicians told them. If there is to be Indyref2 then I think if the answer is Yes there also needs to be EUref2 in Scotland as the Scottish EU campaign was completely clouded by the impact on the relationship with rUK.

Peregrina Scotland is not an independent country it is part of the UK so I really don't know what you are on about. The Scottish people don't want another referendum and it's quite likely they would vote no again if one were put to them. It's only the SNP that want this not the Scottish people.

May to Scotland....

Peregrina Scotland is not an independent country it is part of the UK so I really don't know what you are on about.

It is not independent at the moment, but it was once. Who is to say that the status quo will stay the same? When you were growing up did you know about Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan etc. etc.? I didn't consciously think about them - they were just part of the USSR. USSR? Phht - gone.

I have old atlases at home illustrating the French Mandate and the British Mandate in the Middle East. It wasn't until I was at secondary school that I realised that Israel hadn't existed since Biblical times but had only come into being since 1947.

I really don't know why you seem unable to see that. I suspect Scottish Independence or not will depend on the quality of the deal that is negotiated. At present I have zero confidence in any of the people in charge. It may be that the Tory party gets rid of the current idiots and finds someone sensible, but the talent in the party seems thin on the ground.

It's only the SNP that want this not the Scottish people.

Remind me how many MPs the SNP has in Westminster. Who voted them in? It wasn't me, because I don't live in Scotland, but someone must have put them in.

I must say I'd really miss the SNP's if they weren't in Westminster. They add a bit of life and decency to the place. Certainly now all the other opposition seem to have lost the will to be a force to be reckoned with.

Jo Maugham's posted that he expects to hear news on his Irish case on Friday.

Cory All Ireland used to be part of Great Britain (in the lifetime of my late parents)
If any of the constituent nations of the UK of GB and NI vote independence then I hope we have learned from the horrors of Irish Troubles to accept this decision.

Personally, I still think it would be economically very risky for Scotland, but I think that of Brexit too !

< I'm posting from Frankfurt airport, surrounded by sleeping bods. Day trip to the UK on business. God, I hadn't realised life began this early in the day. Still recovering from a 180 kph taxi ride through the dark >

Exactly, Peregrina - I would like to add as an example, three of my grandparents being born in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and four of my aunts and uncles born in the Indian Empire (one of whom ended up stateless thanks to not spending enough time in any given place as a child and young adult to qualify for citizenship and time limits for claiming citizenship or British subject status even as a former British Army officer, and was eventually taken in by South Africa for reasons to do with his MIL's nationality of birth).

Then there are my friends who were born in Leningrad, USSR, came very close to living in an outpost of the Third Reich (this period of their lives would have been very brief had it occurred) and left St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, to live in whatever place they could find that wasn't being run into the ground by Boris Yeltsin.

There are many places of birth that are anachronisms.

Scotland was an independent kingdom until 1707. It had almost a thousand years of political history under its belt at that point. Ireland's union with Britain happened in 1801. The island of Ireland itself was a unitary political entity until 1921.

As far as I know the Scottish Gov. has no powers over these [Brexit] negotiations so not relevant!

Corcory, how do you not see this as a really big issue as far as Scotland is concerned?

Corcory
Scotland is still part of the UK and as part of the UK joined the EU and as part of the UK will leave the EU.

Scotland voted in the previous referendum to stay in the UK based at least in part, if I recall correctly, on the assurance that Scotland would remain in the EU if it voted No.

David Cameron claimed that the only way to protect Scotland’s EU membership was to reject independence.

Clearly, much has changed since then, including the concept of English Votes For English Laws, which isn't exactly a friendly gesture to 'the provinces'.

Corcory
The Scottish people don't want another referendum and it's quite likely they would vote no again if one were put to them.

Remind me again what way Scotland voted in the Brexit referendum. Then please explain why the prospect of leaving the EU might be completely disregarded by Scottish voters as a factor in the upcoming Indyref2.

It now doesn't matter if you are a small country in a huge world, we have technology and travel, we have the ability, without question to run a country for ourselves

Quite. Also the attitude of international connectivity which Nicola has taken such great pains to stress to the outside world.

Of course, some more tax generating industry would be nice. Financial services HQ in London have an easy move up to Scotland versus the continent (from an HR international relocation POV). I think this is the only reason TM is trying to block Indyref2: to stop FS from migrating to Scotland which could happen incredibly quickly.

Anyway, everybody who voted Leave knew this would happen because they were told, so any surprise from those corners is disingenuous to say the least

Cory All Ireland used to be part of Great Britain (in the lifetime of my late parents)

Or it the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - As indeed in the lifetimes of my late parents and FIL. (Which is why BTW the RNLI covers Ireland - set up long, long before Irish Independence.)

So Corcory, who did vote the 56 SNP MPs into Westminster? It wasn't English, Welsh or N Irish voters, so it must have been the Scots themselves.

When you say that the Scots don't want Independence I would say that you are trying to use Theresa May's logic. She talks of 65 million people being behind Brexit. She is fooling herself. She might be convinced that because the BBC did its damnedest to avoid reporting a 100,000 plus march last Saturday, that it didn't happen. But it did. Or similarly, she might think that the 48% who voted to Remain are all turncoats like she is, but I can assure you and her that they are not.

I have no idea what will happen to Scotland, but I have been appalled by the disdain that May has shown to the devolved Governments. The issue of Independence won't go away just because she or you don't like it.

Will it happen? Key changes since Indyref1:

1. No campaign theme re staying EU no longer exists

2. Yes campaign pacifier from WM of more devolved power proven to be legally worthless

3. Yes and No sides have both seen first hand that WM considers Scotland (and NI) utterly unimportant wrt UK governance in the context of Brexit

4. Unequivocal expert opinion that leaving EU will damage Scotland, yet enormous new opportunity to invite the FS industry looking at London exodus due to Brexit.

Given the result of Indyref1 and the relatively small swing required 5% (or 5.1% for an "overwhelming" majority ), I'd assume all NS has to do is keep the messages coming (which are already coming) that Scotland will be welcomed back into EU. Done.