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Brexit

Westminstenders: Governing by U-Turn

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 07/09/2020 01:45

Johnson's determination to get brexit done and to have 'a clean break from Europe' on terms which involve other countries happily returning fishing rights they bought from us (without recompense for the said previous purchase) in addition to the EU accepting terms they don't feel create a level playingfield and risk their economic future make any deal impossible. Our demands simply aren't achievable.

The alternative is adherence to the Withdrawal Agreement in which we are unable to bail out businesses via state aid and to have no deal which creates huge trade barriers and tarriffs overnight and massive customs red tape which we simply are not yet prepared for because the systems for running this are running behind schedule. This would lead to massive food shortages and Brexit lorry parks throughout the country for the forseeable future.

Johnson's latest bright idea is that he seems to think he can avoid chaos by a strategy which would cause even more chaos by deliberately reneging on the withdrawal agreement which is an international agreement just months after throwing a hissy fit for China doing exactly the same thing. This wouldn't just be hypocritical but would make a mockery of our credibility internationally and potentially endanger every other international agreement we've currently in place because well, why should anyone else stick to an agreement with the UK.

We could face years of legal wrangles with god knows which countries and businesses suing the British government.

But y'know Johnson thinks this is a sensible strategy and a cracking plan to force Brussels to blink first rather than actually take the subject seriously and do something in the country's interest rather than prevent Johnson from damaging his internal reputation with leave voters and because he thinks this is the correct hill to die on to prove he doesn't govern by u-turn. Johnson's ego seems more important to him than feeding the nation and having an international reputation.

Or he could do another u-turn.

OP posts:
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QuestionMarkNow · 07/09/2020 11:36

@DGRossetti

Making people think it's normal to pay strangers to look after your children (like all the posh nobs do) is another stroke of genius by the elite.
What's the problem with using childcare?
BigChocFrenzy · 07/09/2020 11:37

Thanks, red Thanks

BJ is adrift, his boat is holed, he is sinking - and threatening to take everyone else down with him

Westminstenders: Governing by U-Turn
Darker · 07/09/2020 11:39

I think BJ is completely out of his depth and only listening to what he wants to hear/DC/whoever has a hold over him. Not interested in ordinary people at all, except when needed for our votes.

CactusForever · 07/09/2020 11:43

I'm really frightened by this move. It feels like the UK is sliding into authoritarianism. The front page of the news websites show this story, COVID-19 and highest ever house prices. WTF is going on in the UK - something is very wrong.

DGRossetti · 07/09/2020 11:48

I think it's quite telling that Barnier has refused to comment

Because that's what TeamBJ want. A dignified silence is so much more powerful as it's hard to use it to cover up the chaos being unveiled. It's also bluff-calling to an extent.

I'm still curious as to the implications of an MP deliberately and knowingly voting in favour of abandoning an internation treaty. Quite aside from the fact it exposes the fiction that the UK isn't sovereign.

I think any chance of detente over Hong Kong is dead in the water, were the UK to decide to go rogue. That's before you consider the FCO logjam that could be caused by countries around the world demanding to know whether the UK still intends to honour treaties with them.

DGRossetti · 07/09/2020 11:49

It feels like the UK is sliding into authoritarianism

That happened years ago. It's just taken a while to start biting.

OchonAgusOchonO · 07/09/2020 11:51

@FatCatThinCat

If this goes ahead and he does indeed renege on the withdrawal agreement, does that mean the EU/Ireland will have no choice but to impose a border on the island of Ireland?
Quite likely. That question has been fudged but the EU will not allow an extended period with no border.

Mind you, a border is the quickest route to a united Ireland.

OchonAgusOchonO · 07/09/2020 12:01

@mathanxiety

8/ In return, London has suggested it can make life easier for Irish trucks relying on the UK land bridge to bring exports from IE to the rest of the single market via Dover and other UK ports.

9/ The land bridge is an ongoing issue for Ireland as Irish trade flows from one part of the single market to another risk being entangled in long queues at Dover, esp if there is no deal...

10/ It's understood the UK has talked about "facilitations" for Irish trucks, although there are no details yet as to what they might look like...

Nooooo! Don't fall for it, Dublin. It is pure BS.

We're not dumb enough to fall for that. It's clear from this RTE article that Dublin don't trust the UK:

Senior sources have said that while the Irish Government is sympathetic to the need for a pragmatic approach to how stringently EU rules need to be applied at Northern ports, they have nonetheless taken a cautious approach to the British overtures.

They are also ruling out bilateral discussions with the UK:

One reason is that since the Brexit referendum Ireland has resisted adopting a bilateral negotiating track with Britain.

This is because the Irish issues raised by Brexit were handled during the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations by Mr Barnier, on behalf of the 27 remaining EU member states.

Secondly, the Irish Government is wary of getting into a quasi-negotiation with the UK on an issue that both Dublin and the EU believe was already negotiated and agreed.

In essence, says one official, Dublin is concerned that it was being asked to effectively trade its influence with the commission over legal obligations under the protocol to which the UK had signed up.

According to the official: "We won’t get in a position where we’re teaming up with the British on something and then going back with it to Brussels.

"That’s just not how it was done for four years and we’re not going to start doing it now."

"We will transparently discuss and explore with the commission and [Mr Barnier’s] Task Force whether they’d be prepared to negotiate or explore these ideas, but we won’t do it bilaterally, and that still stands."

OchonAgusOchonO · 07/09/2020 12:03

@mathanxiety

I don't think the UK ever had any intention of honouring the Agreement. There has been no good faith here.

I think BJ and his cronies always thought they could brazen their way out of it. He tossed responsible Tory MPs out of the party ahead of the (frankly) Hitleresque move so that he wouldn't have to deal with backbench uproar when he pulled the trigger.

The aim was always to create a Wild West meets Singapore-on-Thames, with the UK, in cahoots with Trump's US, in the vanguard of a rush to cast off the shackles of international law and respect for legality.

100% agree.
Emilyontmoor · 07/09/2020 12:21

It’s not just posh nobs who pay rope to look after their children, it is almost every working couple?

I would have thought that the Tories agenda would be to stop us paying others to look after our children, or elderly relatives. Stripping all the women out of the workforce to be full time unpaid carers would solve a lot of their problems.....

Emilyontmoor · 07/09/2020 12:22

Others not rope!

Emilyontmoor · 07/09/2020 12:41

Thank you as always for all the links on these threads. I have learnt so much over the last four years.

ICouldHaveCheckedFirst · 07/09/2020 12:46

So BJ says if the EU won't compromise, the UK will 'move on'. What on earth can he mean? Move on HOW?

mrslaughan · 07/09/2020 13:04

It's all so fucking depressing - I really despair.

Squid - it's interesting you are seeing lots of winter like illness. DS had a day in school on Friday for a workshop to catch up on some GSCE work. He's not due back until Wednesday full time. On Saturday he threw a fever - managed to get him Covid tested that afternoon- amazingly we got the results mid morning on Sunday - negative for Covid.
He still has a temperature- so unless that changes by tomorrow he won be going back yet - which is such a shame. Did he catch it at school on Friday? That seems fast....but we are hardly having any contact with anyone else...... anyway let alone the Covid cases increases, I think we will see a lot of other bugs rearing their ugly heads.

Songsofexperience · 07/09/2020 13:05

Stripping all the women out of the workforce to be full time unpaid carers would solve a lot of their problems.....

Absolutely. Covid + catastrophic brexit threatens working mums most of all. It's been a nightmare. It all fits into their us style reactionary agenda. It's cultural as much as it is political

yoikes · 07/09/2020 13:08

Ds2 full of snot too and only been back a week.

No temp though.

Emilyontmoor · 07/09/2020 13:27

When my DCs went back to school in Hong Kong after SARS just rigorous cleaning and hand washing routines and not accepting any child with a temperature over 37 was enough to ensure no bugs took hold in the school community (social distancing wasn’t part of SARS infection control) But obviously this is Britain, we’re different 🙄 —and we have to learn the hard way—

ListeningQuietly · 07/09/2020 13:28

At Universities Freshers Flu has been well known for decades.
Secondary schools are similar.

If teenagers can be persuaded to wash their hands and not pick their faces and not sneeze / cough on each other
then the whole load of winter infections will reduce
and that will reduce the number of their grandparents catching them which will make squids job less hard

BigChocFrenzy · 07/09/2020 13:30

This government often floats whacky ideas to see the reaction

So Barnier would be wise not to react at least before it comes to Parliament, or maybe until after / if it actually passes both houses.

BigChocFrenzy · 07/09/2020 13:32

I was wondering what the hell David Frost had done to get a shiny extra job and a fucking peerage

  • he's probably the only senior civil servant who agrees eagerly to BJ's Batshittery instead of trying not to laugh
DGRossetti · 07/09/2020 13:35

@BigChocFrenzy

I was wondering what the hell David Frost had done to get a shiny extra job and a fucking peerage - he's probably the only senior civil servant who agrees eagerly to BJ's Batshittery instead of trying not to laugh
There really will be people around the world that will confuse the comedic and satirical genius David Frost with the guy who died on a cruise in 2013.
BigChocFrenzy · 07/09/2020 13:38

re COVID:
washing hands has much less effect than SD, but it is very eagerly advocated because it has no detrimental effect on the economy or normal life

Transmission of COVID
** ⏺ Respiratory droplets - main method
⏺ Via aerosols
⏺ Direct hand-to-face contact
⏺ Fomite (surface) transmission - now thought to be much less common, maybe < 10% of cases
⏺ Vertical transmission mother to foetus - very rare
⏺ Fecal-oral transmission - theoretical, since this transmission occasionally occurred for SARS

ListeningQuietly · 07/09/2020 13:43

Bigchoc
Getting kids to wash their hands before eating etc would reduce ALL coughs and colds, not just COVID
that was my point

BigChocFrenzy · 07/09/2020 13:43

but it's "Fuck everyone except English Brexiters" - so opposition in NI won't matter
(it will to the US Congress)

Darran Marshall@DarranMarshall

The leaders of four Stormont parties - representing a majority in the NI Assembly
react to ‪*@pmdfoster*‬ ‪#brexit‬ story:

“Entirely unacceptable”... “a serious betrayal.”

“It would represent a shocking act of bad faith that would critically undermine the Good Friday Agreement.”

DGRossetti · 07/09/2020 13:47

The question arises - (based on Nuremberg Hmm) - what is the position of a subject in country that has abandoned international law ?

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