Brexit Megathread - Part 1 because it's not over by a long shot

[vera99]

Started a new thread for all things Brexity as the last generic dumping ground reached its 1000 post limit. As this developing shitshow unfolds it's going to be important to share and unload. Clav of course will punt a contrarian view along with unrepentant 'taking back control' so-called Brexiteers. I look forward to seeing the benefits.

Project Yellowhammer in full force...

@prettybird

...or the last Labour Government, which was last in power 11 years ago

Yes! Brexit has its beginning in tbe Maastricht treaty in the early 90's.

From a Brexit Facebook group of EU citizens impacted by the practical realities of post-Brexit Britain.

"In December 2019 Prime Minister Johnson made an astonishingly bad comment. He said people from the rest of Europe had "treated Britain as their own" for too long.
What kind of a message is that, to people who fell in love with this country, who enjoyed its quirky humour, who built homes here, who raised children here, who came to feel that home is here?
To hear a remark like that, akin to the pain of "go home on the banana boat" from a yob in the street? That is one thing. To hear it from a supposedly educated person, at the top of the government, is another. It makes you feel unsafe.
"You're not wanted - unless we're desperate", is the message? "As soon as it's Christmas it's straight back to you're not wanted"?
Who wants to sit in customs delays? Who wants to sit in squalor in a driver's cab in the laybys on the A355 between Beaconsfield and the M40?"

@Almaisnormal - Major approved the Maastricht Treat - or is that the point that you're making

It could be argued that Brexit had its origins as far back as 1975 when the referendum to stay in was not won by enough (as some in the Common Market presciently predicted) and the anti-Europeans have been planning and agitating since then.

James Goldsmith and Murdoch for example.

Margaret Thatcher, ironically, was one of the architects of the Single Market which was supposedly so egregious but the benefits of which are now being demonstrated by the red tape being experienced by business who are trying and in many cases failing to to business with the EU

Labour was alsways traditionally anti-EU. Joining the EU (and staying in) was a conservatives project.

The conservatives are now a populist party so anything goes.

Personally, I think Gordon Brown should have - as he promised - given us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

Although having reneged on that, Camerons subsequent re-reneging on his promise (in opposition, I note) to give us a referendum in 2010 didn't help.

My recollection of the situation then is that while the more extreme Brexiteer nutters were calling for it, the calmer ones knew they'd lose it.

My recollection is that the percentage voting to stay in in 1975 was over 60%, and for a good number of years it did shut up the people who became Brexiters. It seemed to gather steam in 1992 after Maastrict (under John Major, Tory, don't forget.) After that they never stopped bellyaching about it.

Now we are told after a 52% vote to Leave that it was overwhelming that we must shut up and move on. This despite the TrueBelievers not able to point out any benefits, but reduced like Cut'n'paste -inova to tell us when Germany or France are having problems. Or on other threads people telling us we are better off than e.g. people in Afghanistan. So no, I don't intend to shut up and move on.

I was musing the other day - which sort of seat would the Tories really prefer to have an MP in - Chesham and Amersham or Hartlepool?

The vote was something like 67% in favour of staying in - but I read somewhere (iirc) that some had said that it needed to be over 70% to put the question fully to bed.

Certainly, it was a convincing vote in favour, unlike the 52:48 to leave and a Leave campaign built on lies in 2016

twitter.com/claraeuro/status/1442459875532021760?

OH MY GOD AHAHAHAHAH

I live in the Netherlands and there is this British woman in a local park trying to recruit lorry drivers for the UK, people laugh after hearing the visa last for 3 months only!

Hilarious, I never laughed so much in my life!!

@borntobequiet

They opened new routes from Ireland to France earlier this year, didn’t they?

Yes ferry companies have rerouted directly to France and the continent

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.politico.eu/article/ferry-firms-avoid-britain-with-brexit-buster-services-from-ireland-to-eu/amp/

Interesting to see the comments on that tweet, Elements - seems similar happening in Belgium too.
Can''t really see the EU lorry drivers swooping in to rescue us...

Barnier on Newsnight last night

Asked about the UK HGV driver shortage, Michel Barnier tells @maitlis on @BBCNewsnight that the EU's "main asset" is the single market & the key part of that is freedom of movement.

"The UK has to face the consequences of Brexit"

(Ben Chu on twitter)

This is my garage where I fill up - scary stuff. Whatever way you cut it whether leave or remain this is a consequence of bad government and planning period.

Even if Brexit was a good thing - wise heads don't smash up an interconnected complex business environment to fit their own self-imposed deadline on a wing and a prayer. But that's what they did. That's who Johnson is - he has smashed up everything he touches and strolls away with a shrug and a joke.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/16259937/shocking-moment-driver-knife-motorist-petrol/

David Allen Green is pointing to that in todays blog

davidallengreen.com/2021/09/regardless-of-brexit-why-bad-policy-making-is-a-more-serious-problem-than-brexit/

Also noticed that #whereisboris is trending again

Great article Duncin.

Unless the government fesses up and says they have made a mistake at least in hasty planning then we're doomed because ;

LIFE ISN'T A" THREE WORD SLOGAN" but apparently way back then - remember that what was sold.

Excellent article in today's FT about the pitfalls of the temporary visa scheme. TLDR: EU drivers unlikely to be seeking visas

As Tomasz Orynski, a Polish truck driver and journalist, told me: “Why would you want to go to Britain, jump all these hoops, face all this hostile environment, if you could go to Ireland or Holland and earn more, be respected, drive on nicer motorways with nice truck stops, and be a free European citizen, not a second-class citizen?”

Also discusses how temporary visa schemes tend to exacerbate bad pay and conditions for workers.

on.ft.com/39ITA2B

I've got a big stash of popcorn to watch the shitstorm that will be this winter unfold.

Unfortunately I will probably be eating it while reading a book by candlelight and dressed in several layers because the electricity has gone off.

Telegraph today

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/28/fuel-crisis-almighty-mess-making/

If better wages merely end up generating higher prices it would be a zero-sum game, the latter cancelling out the former. That kind of scenario, I fear, is already pre-baked.

But higher wages that are paid for with higher productivity are a different matter. The trick therefore is to persuade companies to replace cheap foreign labour with productivity-enhancing investment. Only then could the policy of depriving the market of unfettered access to overseas labour be deemed an economic success.

As it is, the Government has U-turned, settling on the short-term fix of temporary visas for 5,000 Continental lorry drivers.

Even if this were sufficient, the likelihood of attracting them, absent of megabucks by way of reward, is remote. Quite apart from anything else, Britain has one of the worst Covid infection rates in Europe right now.

Nobody is coming to our rescue. Yet it is not Brexit as such which is at the root of the problem. Rather it is the pretence that Brexit would be easy, and the consequent failure to anticipate its immediate dislocations, including labour shortages.

However purposeful the project, it will fail if mismanaged.

FanGirlX, save some popcorn for 'Galactic Britain` and see money go up into space

@vera99 - if I didn't know better, I'd have said that that was a spoof ad

I never saw it at the time - probably because I'd turn the TV off/switch channel any time a Conservative or Labour or LibDem or UKIP (whatever they were called at the time) Party Political Broadcast came on

@DuncinToffee

FanGirlX, save some popcorn for 'Galactic Britain` and see money go up into space

I'm going to have to google Galactic Britain (sounds like a good way to spend my lunch break 😀).

@DuncinToffee

Also noticed that #whereisboris is trending again

Apparently there's a gentlemans agreement that the government goes into radio silence in the conference season.

No - the Civil Contingencies expert on R4 this morning said it was a crock too.

The bottom line is people are looking to their own (a phrase redolent with the echoes of falling empires) and not trusting anything this government says or does.

Oh - and civil contingencies expert said that what scared the government rigid in 2000s fuel crisis was the fact that you need 3 weeks of normal motorist behaviour to allow the system to return to normal. Which isn't going to happen with this shower of lying Tories.