The Brexit Arms

[BrandySours]

And so it is done....! 🙌

Finally!

🥳 🎉 🇬🇧 🍾 🥂

Merry Xmas!!

Bellini, I am starting to feel sorry for you. You must be bitter and unhappy.
Have a 🍷 on the house. I don't think the landlady will mind,she's a generous person

yellowspanner:
Why don't we Brexiteers just enjoy our drinks and talk between ourselves.

I agree. Mine's a Bailey's with ice please - last one before I head off to bed. Cheers all .

And you must have nothing better to do, Bellini, so sit at the bar and throw insults.
Help yourself to the nuts/popcorn etc. Drown your sorrows. Just mind your head on the Union shack flag pole as you leave. We've just had it repainted.

It might all turn out ok (ish) but that was a massive gamble
Importantly, as you say, it seems to be ok (ish). Are you saying you would never vote for change if it involved any risks?

Neither bitter nor unhappy. Just celebrating something other than what you're celebrating. I'm celebrating NI 's separation from GB. I think that's a good positive thing that you all did.
And the opportunity for Indyref 2.
These things might make you miserable but they make me happy.
So cheers 🥂 for giving me something I never thought I'd see.

Not even preserving the peace in NI?
When you read about the issues around the border in Ireland and the GFA, what did you think?

No
I read about it (was hard to find much on it to be fair though - remain campaign should have highlighted this aspect much more imo)
But I did not ever believe that a hard border was a possible outcome
I never did think that was likely even after all the amplification it suddenly got afterwards

It always seemed to me like NI & Ireland were being weaponised & used by the anti-Brexit contingent in Parliament
They didn't seem to really give an actual shit about it - just used it as a tool

There was a way that it could have been neutralised - an EFTA/EEA Brexit - and this was possible under TM
But during fallout immediately after the ref, and then during the indicative voting, the anti-Brexit MPs put the kaibosh on that pathway 🤷🏻‍♀️

As someone who wittered on and on about it on here prior to the referendum, And who is an Irish citizen , it was my priority in voting. To preserve GFA.
It got preserved and I got a bonus border in the sea.

So cheers 🥂 for giving me something I never thought I'd see

🤣 Think you've had too much of that. You're starting to see things that simply aren't there.

That border in the sea is there @Otellie . And you all agreed to it. Thanks!

Are you saying you would never vote for change if it involved any risks?
Not if it risked a return to violence, no. Apparently what we called 'the troubles' the rest of the world described as a civil war (perhaps a more accurate term) and we found a peace, imperfect, but peace none the less. I remember my dad used to say it was an impossible problem to solve, it was like Israel/Palestine but they found a peace, with a lot of compromises. The GFA is thought to have saved the lives of 2,000 people and almost as importantly imo enabled other to live without so much fear, it's a massive achievement and I thank God they put a border down the Irish sea and not anywhere else.

Anyway, I'd be interested to know what the OP thought when she read about the GFA.

The DUP voted against the deal because NI was not Brexiting like GB. They were played for fools and I genuinely feel for the Unionist community who supported them. Let's hope NI can make an economic success in their own. Or back with Ireland. Don't really care which as long as it stays peaceful.

That border in the sea is there @Otellie . And you all agreed to it. Thanks!

And you think that gives you independence do you? Okaaay. You enjoy that delusion then.

The DUP were always dead against the GFA though and campaigned against it at the time. I find it very hard to believe, given their actions, that they DIDN'T want a border on the island.

And the opportunity for Indyref 2. Brexit is bad but this is 100x worse.
Please stop

Not 'us' that mentioned it. But that's what Bellini is championing for 👍🏻

I think the DUP may have realised they backed the wrong horse by supporting Brexit. I saw a DUP MP (male, cant remember who) a while ago saying that his whole life hes been looking over his shoulder in fear of the Irish nationalists when the whole time it was the English nationalists that were the real danger to them.

I think the greatest achievement of the EU is peace in Europe after a history of almost constant war. They certainly contributed to helping the GFA come about and (ironically) I think this kept them at the Brexit negotiation table because they desperately wanted to preserve it. I remember one of the founding fathers of the EU said the main aim was to (and I know leavers aren't going to like the sound of this) bind France and Germany into an embrace so tight they could never let go ie never go to war again.

Just catching up with the thread and yes I thoroughly agree with previous posters saying some people never really understood why Leave won. And didn't care to find out.

Anyhoo, back to the party 🥂

Anyway, I'd be interested to know what the OP thought when she read about the GFA.

Not sure what you mean by this?

I knew what the GFA was, obviously
and I knew it was a delicate balance

As I said, I never ever believed that there would be a hard border on the island as a result of Brexit

There is no way that UK govt would have implemented a hard border

The anti-Brexit campaigners & MPs weaponised the Ireland/NI situation to serve their own ends (ie overturning the ref result), rather than any genuine attempts to address the issue of Brexit & the island of Ireland

If they had genuinely given a shit about it then they'd have pushed for a different Brexit outcome
Indeed, the indicative votes were supposed to be an indication of what sort of Brexit parliament would support - EFTA/EEA/CU were all there for the taking
Yet the anti-Brexit lot (who's numbers could have swayed the outcome) chose to play politics instead 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm glad the border is down the sea, because it's the least worst option - but there needs to be a LOT of effort put into keeping it as frictionless as is possible, and big effort also needs to be put into keeping the unionists NI from feeling like they're being thrown under the bus by UK

I did think yesterday that one benefit of Brexit may be reduced choice - read about a study the other day where when people were given a choice of 24 varieties of something, only 3% could choose, but given a choice of 6 varieties, over 25% could make the decision. So as Brexit is likely to lead to reduced consumer choice, we may be happier on the whole?

We've also given up a lot of soft power in the last four years. It will be interesting to see how the geo-political dynamics of that play out. If we conceive of ourselves as a much more ordinary country after the next 10 years that may possibly be beneficial in the long-run. Although, I also see that country as being the United Kingdom of England and Wales.

I got a bonus border in the sea.

For someone who professes to want peace above all else, this statement (made in various iterations by this poster) is confusing to me

Surely to goodness, you must realise that the sea border is stoking up the extremists on the unionist side?

So to be so gleeful about a 'bonus border' seems very, very odd

Downright weird, in fact

Almost as though they don't really give a fuck about peace at all, but rather are enjoying the opportunity to use NI/Ireland as a tool to troll Brexit supporters 🤔

Very strange

I would feel happier if we had a competent government in charge. This lot don't seem to realise anything is an issue until they've been slapped over the heads with it. Well over half my issue with Brexit is that it hasn't been done competently. If we had actually trained customs agents in the last four years, instead of allowing the grant funding to get used up in a mass exercise of salary inflating staff poaching between companies, we could also be imposing full customs checks today instead of waiving them for 6 months. It only needs one lorry load of dodgy horsemeat before there's a furore over that.

I also genuinely don't understand why we were caught on the hop last week with the lorries stacking on the M20 and at Manston. It's our permanent future, so why weren't the facilities in place, or at least, capable of being rolled out? That's now put a lot of EU hauliers off returning, and we're just /a tad/ reliant on them coming back.

A border /somewhere/ is inevitable the minute you say you're leaving the customs union and single market. You can Brexit without creating one, but you can't Brexit this way without needing one. It's certainly a very weird place, that the DUP have found themselves in.

We have actually managed to make our free trade zone smaller than the area enclosed by our own country.