Brexit Arms - Out with the old and in with the new

[time4chocolate]

It’s time again for another Brexit Arms thread to see us into Christmas and beyond.

Well what a week it’s been!!

Boris has now completed his first week and he’s been busy. New conservatives have been sworn in, the Queens Speech yesterday shows promise (aware that the proof of the (Xmas) pudding is in the eating) and Boris’ Deal is going to be voted on today with the results being around 3pm I believe.

Meanwhile, on the other side all four wheels have definitely fallen off the red bus and were very nearly joined by a garden gate and a car door. Oh dear!!

Anyway, I have added a few more Christmas decs to the pub and popped the fairy back on the tree (it took a nasty tumble)

We are now good to go.
Cheers all 🍷🍷

Ps. If anyone wants to volunteer for outside catering that would be👍🏻

It's really dangerous to assume that everyone else feels exactly the same way as you from the moment you start a conversation, and then to continue to speak in a way that doesn't allow for healthy discourse of different views.

So true, Twattage, I too experienced this from friends and work colleagues. On the day after thw referendum, conversations opened with 'can you believe how stupid people were to vote Leave?'

It is very sad that there is no place for polite, respectful and measured exchange of views these days.

Autumn From the Daily Fail

Daisy Scalchi, a BBC commissioning editor, said: 'Stormzy has consistently celebrated his faith and spirituality through his music and we are hugely excited that he is bringing Christmas day to a close on BBC One with his reading from St Luke's Gospel.'

Wonder if he will be reiterating his words to 7 year olds at the South London primary school he visited last week, about Boris being a very bad man, comparing him to the big bad wolf?

the stream of academic bullshit around identity politics has completely screwed my brain

Oh god yes!!
So much Autumn!!

Most people I know are very straightforward about it - has dick, is man

It's only the ones that would always have been the attention seekers at any point in time who are throwing glitter & #StunningAndBrave everywhere 🙄

Ditto ethnicity & feminism & class stuff

It's all too dense & over-convoluted

People mostly just want to be free to live & work without prejudice - they don't want special treatment & they definitely don't want people walking on eggshells all the time

I was often the only woman in my former work, in a squadron of about 100+ people typically - sometimes I was lucky to have another 2 or 3 women alongside me!!

I really, really resented being the token for things - and every single time I got promoted there was always, without fail, a few blokes who grumbled that I only got it through box ticking & tokenism
Never, ever crossed their pretty little minds that they were just shit & I out performed them in numerous respects 🤷🏻‍♀️

Prejudice is shit, obvs, but over-egging to the other extreme is just as shit imo

hospitality I didn’t know he had done that.

I only heard about the waste man 😂

I might not agree with everything they say but I enjoy listening to them. I think it is much better to have reasoned friendly debate as both sides of an argument benefit.

🙌🙌

Yep!

Dusty “ Ditto ethnicity & feminism & class stuff

It's all too dense & over-convoluted“

Yes. There was a time, not that long ago, where we just used to “be”.

I raised my concerns about diversity ages ago though, because I hate that feeling of “they needed a non white woman so here I am”.

Mama yes before and after - I had some friends on social (loose friends in real life) that said they couldn't be friends with anyone who voted leave because leavers are intolerant (whilst failing to see the irony in that comment).

YY Autumn

At one point about 10 yrs ago now, there was one gay guy, one black guy & one female (me) on the shift & we were always stiffed for parades etc

Doing our bit for the optics of diversity 🙄

Obvs the gay guy wasn't optics for parades! 😂

That was for stuff like meeting visiting high-ranking people etc

dusty and autumn the gender situation is so over-complicated now. I recently started work at a new client and had some compliments about the rucksack I was using.

I mentioned it was actually from the men's section of a well-known website and was told that I can't say 'men's section' any more as it's not acceptable. I went back and double-checked online and it's still in the men's section. There isn't a gender-neutral section of bags - are bags supposed to be gender-fluid or neutral now?

I'm so confused...I'm a bright person, I have a degree, a post-grad and I run my own business...I can't get my head around this - I must be missing something! Can someone explain please?

Hi de Hi Campers [Brew]

You have excelled yourself this morning with the breakfast Singing 🥚🥓☕️😊

💐 for you Twattage

'Stormzy has consistently celebrated his faith and spirituality through his music and we are hugely excited that he is bringing Christmas day to a close on BBC One with his reading from St Luke's Gospel.'

Maybe he sees himself as the UK’s answer to Kanye West - good grief!

You're missing fuck all Twattage 😂
It's not you, it's them...!!

It's so bloody infuriating 😩😩😩

Morning all.
I'll have one of those breakfasts please. Just complaining to my DH this morning that I used to be able to lounge in bed at my Grannie's till I could smell my cooked breakfast - it was my Uncle did the cooking.

That Irish Times article is an absolute classic in the genre of "fact" based journalism - thank you for posting.

Art 50 is the process for leaving the EU under the Lisbon Treaty and contains and presumes 2 years for negotiating after triggering. Telling that the original 2 years was put in on the presumption this would be enough time to Leave with a Trade Deal. The original "Transition period" was styled an "Implementation period" because the assumption was that the Trade Deal would already be done. All the extensions so far have been to this 2 years.

No start to Trade negotiations till now only because the EU wouldn't agree to parallel talks. If the Trade Deal had been done in parallel the Backstop would be irrelevant.

The "implementation period" which morphed into the "transition period" is dependent on the separate International Treaty between the UK and the EU Membership which is the Withdrawal Agreement. It is not part of Art 50 or any other existing EU Law. As such the EU and UK are free to amend it in any way and at any time subject to mutual agreement. It is a hard date. This is why the deadline for it doesn't extend in parallel with Art 50 extensions.

(the Irish Times doesn't actually deny this but uses "practicalities" and "political realities" and obfuscation around Art 50, WA as UK Law and WA as an International Treaty and EU internal procedures to imply something very different. If it were accurate then it would have been equally "impossible" for the EU to have granted numerous extensions to Art 50 for a start).

This is why the December 2020 "cliff edge" is a complete red herring imho. If no comprehensive agreement is in place by then the EU and UK will simply agree a stand still and call it a Deal while continuing to finesse details. A lot of this work has in fact already been done in preparation for what could have been No Deal in March - what Andrea L referred to as "managed" No Deal.

Ruth Lea writes quite convincingly about the politicking around this if anyone wants a more scathing verdict.

Howabout - not disagreeing just trying to understand. So is your view:

• there will be attempts in the next year to agreed some sort of a deal
• if it gets to the end of the year and there are areas that they can't agree on they won't revert to the no deal position (as Lesson described as managed no deal) they will just continue trying to get to some compromise
• and the the tinkering can go on for months or years

Or does it depend on what they don't agree on?

Ms Engel says a great deal more of course but the subtext is "if you want your voters to come back, talk to them, don't talk down to them".

Or even better, listen to them.

Extinction rebellion's antics didn't go down well either and IMO cemented a resolve in some voters that enough is enough of this preachy wokeness

As demonstrated by those commuters at Canary Wharf who sorted out those protestors who were preventing them from getting to work. And pretty much everyone I know was cheering them on.

It was totally illogical anyway, as the DLR is about the greenest form of public transport.

Twattage you’re not missing anything, except more stress.

time4 so did you set the toast on fire as well? 😂

Extinction Rebellion was what made me decide to speak out. I have people from work and hobby group who took time to join them in their efforts to just...disrupt.

time4 so did you set the toast on fire as well? 😂

Yes, I did Autumn and it activated the dining room fire alarm just for extra embarrassment points (fortunately they weren't on a sprinkler system😮) - you can't take your eyes off one of those babies for even a second 😂

Time oh no! Mine didn’t activate anything, the staff just said happens all the time and laughed at me.

jewel I doubt they will choose to extend in December 2020, although I don't accept it would be impossible to do so. The most likely outcome, imho, is that they will agree a Heads of Agreement, at the very least, and then either through later renegotiations or via subsidiary clauses which can be agreed mutually as sidebars work on details later.

Given the UK and EU are currently 100% aligned this is the most likely starting point. Negotiations on divergence / future co-operation will likely be permanently ongoing.

It is the norm for trade deals to be living documents rather than one-off lines in the sand as is being suggested. Once the EU accept the UK actually Leaving it makes equal sense for them to allow flexibility for future divergence from the status quo.

I am crossing toaster off #ExcitableEdgar's Christmas list right now.

Good job it is too much of a faff for me to get to John Lewis these days. He has already got me sold on a Dyson hairdryer and a fancy coffee machine and the gadget which tells you how to flame your Christmas pudding. Just finished my piano practise and I also need a Junior Ipad to tell me to give myself a big well done.

My toaster sets the smoke alarm off after 2 rounds. Cannot boil and fry at the same time or the hob does it too. DD2 and DH actually set the oven on fire without setting off the smoke alarm. It's a wonder we can concentrate long enough to avoid calling the fire brigade with the smoke alarm deafening us all.

We haven't even left the EU yet. It's a worry.

Howabout - I think I understand what you describe as a possible way forward. Would you say what you describe is a best most likely scenario and if so what do you fear is the worst possible scenario?

Neither best nor worst Jewel. I'm describing a process not an outcome.

OK. Thanks Howabout. I guess we will see soon enough. The year will fly by.

Does anyone think we will be able to buy bendy toasters when we leave the EU? I could really do with one to toast my bendy bananas!

Twattage

I've had exactly the same thing, people literally starting conversations with...

'' isn't it hideous all these stupid leavers, what have they done to us, as a country ''.

It's awful.

My patience is growing very thin, but I keep reminding myself... We won, we won, we won... It doesn't matter... Take a deep breath...

It's painful.