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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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mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:07

I really hope you are right but listening to Sammy Wilson over the last week and knowing that he represents a sizable opinion worries me.
@OchonAgusOchonO
Time to cut Sammy Wilson and his ilk down to size. The problem in the past is that the Sammy Wilsons have always been taken seriously, often egged on and used for their own ends by individuals in mainland British political scene, notably but not by any means exclusively Lord Randolph Churchill. There have always been factions within the Tory party willing to play the Union card.

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:14

Never underestimate the strength of feeling among Unionists in NI. It's in their DNA

I would describe it as a bad habit that has been encouraged when it should have been stamped out. People absolutely can change, and given responsible political leadership and no encouragement from Westminster, the wisdom of following blind alleys may yet be questioned.

The context of Sammy Wilson's remarks is the sight of the writing on the wall.

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:19

What idiot thought up the name "Operation Moonshot"?

@borntobequiet
The moonshot was the American plan to put a man on the moon, the Apollo programme, with the phrase featuring in a speech by JFK.

A huge amount of the Brexit imaginary originates in America. American points of reference crop up again and again.

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:33

@prettybird

So the government's "legal" word deliberately in quotes wink argument is that parliamentary sovereignty trumps international treaties/law

Then the parliamentarians shouldn't have fucking agreed to the Withdrawal Bill then

Effectively they're arguing that parliaments can always decide that they no longer want to abide by an international treaty that they don't like.

How incompetent can they be?

That's not incompetence. It's cold-blooded ruthlessness.

It goes further than asserting the right to refuse to abide by any international agreements previously entered into, but also the right to refuse to honour declarations of human rights and all the other layers of civilised participation in the international system.

It's the assertion of the right of the state to govern without regard for any sort of law. It's a thumbing of the nose at all legal norms. Essentially, what Hitler did. (Yes, yes, Godwin's Law, etc).

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:34

Agree 100% @IHeartSusanDey.

borntobequiet · 11/09/2020 05:48

Ha ha I know what Moonshot was. I’m just intrigued as to what convoluted thinking produces a parallel between the Apollo programme (a technological triumph but essentially a vanity project designed to stick one to the Russians) and a programme of vaccination designed to protect people from a pandemic, albeit poorly thought out and very probably undeliverable as designed as well as ineffective (there’s a very good thread on this atm).

It probably just sounded like a suitably grandiose word.

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:54

@ListeningQuietly
Peregrina
Unionists voted leave, Reublicans voted remain.
And then Arlene sold them down the river

No - the result was 56% Remain. This means that a significant number of people who would normally identify as Unionist and vote Unionist voted to Remain. UUP voters made the difference.

Some breakdowns of attotudes and iden tities here:
www.qub.ac.uk/brexit/Brexitfilestore/Filetoupload,728121,en.pdf

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 05:57

I did wonder if it was the young Unionists who voted Remain because otherwise it should have been slightly more for Leave.

The divide wasn't necessarily young vs old. More agricultural constituencies with a history of UUP voting leaned to Remain.

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 06:09

...really the UK is one of the least racist countries in the world - compared to Germany, France and Italy at the very least.
@HateIsNotGood
Is it really true that the sun always shines in LaLa Land?

mathanxiety · 11/09/2020 06:23

borntobequiet, yes, but imo the fact that they often choose the American cultural reference is significant.

It's also funny, as you point out, because it was a catching up exercise, designed to dazzle without much scientific purpose in and of itself.

Somewhere in the mid Atlantic I suspect there is a windless trough in which thousands of lost nuances lie forever enmeshed in the seaweed.

pussycatinboots · 11/09/2020 06:39

Is it really true that the sun always shines in LaLa Land?
🤣🤣

pussycatinboots · 11/09/2020 06:41

Now if we could only harness the origins of Moonshot and glue Boris onto a rocket...3...2...1...🚀🤡

wherearemychickens · 11/09/2020 07:40

We are a more tolerant and less racist country than some. That's what makes Brexit enabling the racists to get louder and feel emboldened /worse/. It feels like we are going backwards as a country.

FatCatThinCat · 11/09/2020 07:47

This individual made no secret of the fact he had voted Leave. My answer to your question: Do posters here really believe that people who voted to leave the EU are racist, anti-immigrant, pro-Empire-building xenophobes? is Yes. They probably don't want to think of themselves as racist, anti-immigrant, Imperial xenophobes, but that is what they are.

I completely agree. Every individual I know in real life who voted to leave is a racist, and they'd all be furious at being told that as they're the most tolerant person around. My own mother exploded at the suggestion that she may be a biggot as she's a lot of things, but she most definitely isn't that. She conveniently forgets telling me she was voting leave because there were too many black people in London.

QueenOfThorns · 11/09/2020 07:57

@pussycatinboots

Now if we could only harness the origins of Moonshot and glue Boris onto a rocket...3...2...1...🚀🤡
You might want to attach him with something a bit stronger than glue. Just to make sure.
DrBlackbird · 11/09/2020 08:01

Interesting thought Math that American bots are also making their presence felt. With DC at the helm and his friends such as BW we can look forward to the seeding of similar British English bots with similar objectives.

More disheartening is how the idea of being proud of a UK government breaking an international treaty is a theme believed to be acceptable by the typical Brexiteer. Just as long as something is happening, hey?

The Canada-EU FTA took 7 years to negotiate but in 4 years everyone in the UK is fed up with the difficulties found in disentangling nearly 50 years of close trade so let's take a hammer to the negotiations. What we're witnessing, at all levels, is the triumph of childish emotion over shrewd adult pragmatism. Any adult Tory MPs were kicked out last year.

HoneysuckIejasmine · 11/09/2020 08:06

Just like Trump likes to call himself the least racist person ever, or the person who has done the most for black Americans ever. Deluded and narcissistic.

prettybird · 11/09/2020 08:17

From the Peter Foster Twitter thread:

To recap, leaving the EU means that the UK 'internal market' is not longer undergirded by EU rules/directives/law.... that power is transferred to Westminster...and that means friction.

Just as Brexiters hate Brussels, so Scottish/Welsn nationalists will chafe at W'minster rule/3
....
The bill itself confirmed the Scottish and Welsh worst fears on 'mutual recognition' -
they'll have to accept whatever UK Govt accepts in trade deals on food standards. They fear a'race to the bottom' - not surprisingly they don't trust assurances on standards /5

As I've often explained on these threads: that's exactly why I (and now, by all accounts, most of Scotland Wink) would be happy to be part of one Union - the EU - and not another - the UK Grin

In one, we would be listened to, have a say - and in particular would have a veto - over important matters like trade deals Smile We would retain our sovereignty Wink

In the other, we are ignored, overridden and told to suck it up Angry

borntobequiet · 11/09/2020 08:19

They were trying to draw the parallels between the Apollo programme and the testing on the Today prog this am. Basically both projects were/are big, technically challenging and not thought through beforehand, as well as politically useful. What they were grasping for was "big success". But success is judged in hindsight, and not always by the initial criteria.
The first Moon landing was 2 days before my 16th birthday. I was interested in the science/technology but sceptical about the politics and motives, so I actively avoided watching the TV footage.

Sostenueto · 11/09/2020 09:27

So we are set for the future with signing a trade deal with Japan. Well yes if your a pig farmer I suppose!
So now rhetoric will be breaking International Treaty doesn't matter ' look we got a deal!'

Clavinova · 11/09/2020 09:56

I seem to remember a thread about 'stupid' pig farmers - they obviously knew something we didn't. Grin

ListeningQuietly · 11/09/2020 10:28

Why is Hateisnotgood trying to pretend that Brexit has not happened?

You got what you wanted.
We have left.
Are you enjoying the victory ?

DGRossetti · 11/09/2020 10:44

From Scottish friends ...

Westminstenders: Governing by U-Turn
HesterThrale · 11/09/2020 10:49

It seems like some folk are so desperate for Brexit that they’re fearful it won’t happen, and the ‘prize’ will be ripped away from them at the last minute. Like they’re longing for it to be Jan 1st and the transition period over. And don’t care how we get there. For fear we somehow end up back in the EU...

Brexit hasn't happened yet - it's down to the next few weeks how Brexit happens - or doesn't if someone can pull a blinder.
Hate No, it’s done, we’re out, regardless of how.

The problem with rushing something through in desperation, though, is you can end up with an omnishambles.

I hope they’re ready to accept the mess. And deal with it.

DGRossetti · 11/09/2020 10:58

It seems like some folk are so desperate for Brexit that they’re fearful it won’t happen

but it's happened. If Brexiteers don't want to be called stupid idiotic thick morons they really need to stop acting it.

If they are upset they haven't got the Brexit they wanted then they should do some thinking and .... oh no, I can see the problem now.