Westminstenders: Summer Season

[RedToothBrush]

No its not the weather making your brain rot and stop thinking.

Thats just Brexit.

Great country, the best, rule Brittania. Behoven to four or five mavericks in Parliament. Honestly the whole EU is laughing up their sleeves at our total incompetence and hubris.

But it will end in a deal. Which means we may as well have stayed.

That is IMV because giving UK a deal that is better than the existing members is just not on.

The backstop required for the WA is that there is no NI border.

The obvious solution is Norway+, i.e. the whole UK staying in the Single Market, plus a Customs Agreement
This is what Barnier has gently tried to recommend
and the whole UK could keep most of the advantages of the EU: trade, agencies, aviation etc

If the UK red lines - FOM, ECJ - rule this out, then the EU have said they would make a special case for NI alone
being in the Single Market under different terms to EU members

They could justify this to the WTO because:

NI has a small population, the GFA is an international treaty, the risk of the Troubles returning.
Plus no WTO member would be likely to object to just NI.

Scotland is a very different case legally & practically, because:

they had no recent civil war, no GFA registered at the UN, no land border with an E27 country, no likely majority in the next 30 years to unite with that E27 neighbour

Hurt feelings in Scotland don't change those 4 major difference to NI

NI and the GFA might just save the day.

You know, the forgotten territory and that International Agreement.

It seems a choice of the govt / HoC voting a backstop for NI - which could receive a bigger annual bung if need be to compensate
or trashing the whole Uk economy with no deal

Hopefully NI will unite with the RoI within a few decades anyway

Britain forced partition on Ireland under threat of continuing a brutal war.
Nearly a century later, the consequences may trash Britain
If only the British govt had accepted the Irish decision then and let the whole country have their independence, the WA now would be pretty doable.

After Brexit, I wonder what further relics of colonialism will bite the UK in its now very vulnerable arse

Mother The original partition was so wrong
That's why we are in this mess

Sorry to say it now, but ROI could not possibly afford to take on NI anytime soon.

NI economy is mostly based on Public Sector employment and farming (they export a lot to ROI like milk and such)

NHS equivalent will not happen in ROI either.

So....

.

The obvious solution is Norway+, ........... and the whole UK could keep most of the advantages of the EU: trade, agencies, aviation etc.

To which one group of Leavers could not object to - the ones who said we voted for a trade agreement back in 1975, not for closer union, or an EU army. The fly in the ointment is FoM, which undoes the xenophobes each time, however they try to spin it as not being the case.

A united Ireland would probably be supported financially by the EU, as they have supported EE countries to get up to speed
financially supported by Britain too, if the country has any sense of responsibility & morality left.
The US would likely help too

There needs to be discussion & planning for the eventuality of a united Ireland, or we could have irresistable public pressure for an NI referendum in a few years - and no plan for the "wrong" choice by voters.
The EU ref showed that the irresponsible Cameron strategy of refusing to plan can lead to chaos

Even Peter Robinson of the DUP has said unionists can't continue to ignore the prospect

Quick placemat/

Babooshka

Have you considered a DNA test?
It might tell you if there was a ballpark chance of Irish ancestry, maybe even turn up some second or third degree Irish relatives.

The backstop is only on offer for NI. It is up to the UK gov't to ask for an arrangement to avoid a border in the Irish Sea. If they wish there to be an orderly withdrawal.

It would be interesting to explore the things that are/were different in NI in comparison to the rest of the UK. Or the discrimination the British gov't allowed, thus giving tacit support to . Things people in Scotland, Wales and England weren't complaining about.

It seems MPs don't like Brexit red tape and the extra work it creates.

I don't know what will happen. The EU may keep things in place to prevent the disaster the UK seems to be insisting is their only acceptable option. The EU may as well pack up if the four pillars are not required obligations for the full privilege package wrt UK as a whole. Of course, this is exactly what the headbangers would like.

The stumbling block is the British gov't (or their string pullers) don't want the CS/SM scenario. Certainly if they have obligations for those privileges. Why would the EU27 adhere to obligations if the UK gets to cherry pick? And I don't think the EU wants to collapse, even to benefit the UK.

CU/SM....

I do think that if it wasn't for May's agreement with the DUP, the Govt would have pulled the plug on NI by now. On the other hand, which PM wants to be the one who is blamed for the break up of the United Kingdom? Even if they manage to pass the buck and blame the EU/RoI/Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.....

I've though for a while that as our EU friends are so taken with "having your cake and eating it" - which they seem to like saying with no hint of sarcasm - they should be introduced to "cutting off your nose to spite your face". I can just imagine it being said by M. Barnier with a long-suffering look on his face.

2. Hard brexit and a permanent border in Ireland - what that means for the future is anybody's guess.

Except - Parliament has already agreed that there can’t be any kind of border, and has voted it into UK law:

EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018, section 10:

(2)Nothing in section 8, 9 or 23(1) or (6) of this Act authorises regulations which—

(b) create or facilitate border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day and are not in accordance with an agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU.

Let’s hope - a Norway+ deal would be the least harmful option. Add in a controlled FOM (ie instigate the 3 month rule that had always been available) and I think most people could live with it.

Let’s hope - a Norway+ deal would be the least harmful option. Add in a controlled FOM (ie instigate the 3 month rule that had always been available) and I think most people could live with it.

Has no one been paying attention for the past 2 years ?

"They" aren't looking for a Brexit "most people can live with". If that was all that we needed, we'd be in our second year of being out of the EU.

"They" are looking for a Brexit which delivers what they want. No FOM. No ECJ. No ECHR. That's the starting point. And any form of Brexit which doesn't deliver that isn't "Brexit" for the JRMs of this world.