Brexit.

[Innula Zenovka]

For decades part of the british press and most of the british politicians blamed the EU, Bruxelles, the Eurocrats for the most problems of the UK.
What do the tell the british public today, who is responsible for the present chaos and the dangerous situation ?
How did Juncker ; Merkel and maybe Macron manage to create such a chaos In the UK?
Or was it the german car-industry, who didnt play the role the Brexiters had intended for BMW, Volkswagen etc?

Click the tweet to see the full graphic>

 

[Tigger]

Norway doesn't want the UK to have a "Norway+" deal, saying it would be like inviting an abusive relative to a party who spiked the all the drinks and that we would "mess it all up for them the way we've messed it all up for ourselves."

Nice to see some honesty from a politician. Shame she's not one of ours.

 

[Tigger]

And in contrast to that last politician, here's a british one: Priti Patel. Suggesting we could use the threat of food shortages in Ireland to force an end to the backstop. What a cool idea, I'm sure that'll work.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Luisa Land]

very clear words from Norway
"I think you would mess it all up for us, the way you have messed it all up for yourselves."
about the idea of a Norway-style deal of the UK with the EU

someone wrote as reaction to this statement from a norwegian politician:
"I’m afraid you ( Great Britain ) have a bit of a reputation....

see also:
"Senior Norwegian politicians and business figures have rejected Norway-plus, the increasingly touted British cross-party plan for the UK to leave the EU but join Norway in a free trade trade area inside the EU single market. "
Norwegian politicians reject UK's Norway-plus Brexit plan

 

[Govi]

Is it possible in the UK for the class of persons who voted for Leave to sue Farage, Johnson, and the rest of the Brexit fraud perpetrators for injury done to voters by means of the gross misrepresentations they made during the Referendum campaign?

.​

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Is it possible in the UK for the class of persons who voted for Leave to sue Farage, Johnson, and the rest of the Brexit fraud perpetrators for injury done to voters by means of the gross misrepresentations they made during the Referendum campaign?

Prosecution certainly would beat the historical alternative.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?

Spoiler

None.

 

[Sid]

And in contrast to that last politician, here's a british one: Priti Patel. Suggesting we could use the threat of food shortages in Ireland to force an end to the backstop. What a cool idea, I'm sure that'll work.

How long will it take until the first MP talks about going to war with the EU?

 

[Tigger]

How long will it take until the first MP talks about going to war with the EU?

The answer to that is a negative number. Why Britain just (briefly) threatened to go to war with Spain

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I've been invited to a Labour Party briefing on Brexit tomorrow (not as impressive as it might sound) which, if I'm well enough, I'll certainly attend. I hope to gain some more insights there into what people are thinking.

So I managed to make it to the meeting (Labour activists and party members, briefed by Members of Parliament). Overwhelmingly, almost everyone in the meeting was pro-Remain, but the MPs in particular were aware that a lot of Labour voters voted Leave in the referendum and that 60% of Labour MPs represent constituencies that voted Leave.

So the issue, as they see it, is how to get from where we are to where we want to be -- still in the EU.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that whatever route we take depends, at least at the moment, on what the Conservatives do. This is one reason, it seems, why Labour is not, at the moment, being at all specific about what they want -- they don't want to do anything that might rally support for Theresa May among her own rebellious MPs and they don't want to make any public commitments just yet that might deflect the pressure from the government.

At the moment, they're playing it day by day -- they just want to concentrate on inflicting a heavy defeat on the Government next Tuesday, and then see what happens as a result of that. They don't seem to expect their no-confidence motion will be carried -- the Conservatives won't want to support it and, at least at the moment, the DUP don't seem ready to, either.

The most likely outcome, it seems, is that we'll eventually get a second referendum, but "eventually" might not be until late February (that's the decision to hold the referendum, not the referendum itself). But, as several speakers stressed, things are changing day-to-day.

There was quite a lot of discussion about what the questions should be in any second referendum. To my mind, it's going to be "Ratify vs Remain" (i.e. ratify whatever is on offer after the EU have considered the implications of Parliament rejecting the Withdrawal Agreement, which might be the same agreement on different coloured paper and wider margins, of course). That's partly because any other option is likely simply to confuse matters even more, and partly because -- which wasn't really discussed -- the EU will have to agree to allow us to suspend A50 so we have time to hold a Referendum, and I can't see them wanting to risk a result that leads not to a result but simply to yet more negotiations.

A topic was raised that I hadn't really considered before -- any second referendum will presumably take place after the European Parliament elections in May. Colleagues in other European socialist and social democratic parties are apparently worried about the rise of nationalist and right-wing populist parties in mainland Europe, and it seems that after the elections both the European Parliament and national governments may very well be much more ready to address the sort of issues that are fuelling the rise of these movements and also motivated traditional Labour supporters who voted Leave.

Anyways, that's I came away with. We'll just have to see how things play out. There was certainly a lot of frustration expressed with the Labour front-bench's fence sitting, but I, at least, now better understand the reasons for it.

Essentially, there's certainly a good chance we will remain in the EU, but that will involve very careful maneuvering at each stage, and trying to take the Labour-supporting Leave voters with along with us, step by step. We're only going to get this one last shot at it, so we need to get it right.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

someone wrote as reaction to this statement from a norwegian politician:
"I’m afraid you ( Great Britain ) have a bit of a reputation....

Somebody said years ago - don't know if a politician or philosopher - that one of the main problems of Europe is that many British people still do believe that they are who they used to be during the times of the British empire and that the French exactly know who they were and mourn their loss of importance, while the Germans exactly do understand who they were in history and who they are now and that makes them unhappy.

This reaction fits perfect into that kind of saying.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

One other thing from the Labour Party briefing I attended that might be of interest.

This time round, if there is a second referendum, Labour Remain campaigners will make a much more positive case for the EU than they did last time round -- they've learned from their mistakes, when there was a tendency to dismiss the whole thing as a fight between two Tory factions that David Cameron and George Osborne would easily win, and no one on the left really wanted to make common cause with them (one reason, I am sure, that Leave did so well in Labour heartlands, where people would assume nothing those two supported could be much good).

Furthermore, the election of Individual 1 and his attempts to MAGA by putting America First have pretty much shot it for arguments that we can look forward to wonderful free trade agreements with the USA (a long-term ambition of Liam Fox). The way he ripped up NAFTA has pretty much demonstrated what trade agreements with the USA are worth, and an MP with a particular interest in the British motor industry explained that, while Aston Martin and Jaguar would love to expand their US markets, his unilateral imposition of tariffs on cars with less that 65% US content has convinced them it's not a safe market at all.

So if we do get a second referendum, expect Remain to be using Individual 1 as a key counter-argument to the Leave campaign.

 

[Luisa Land]

This time round, if there is a second referendum, Labour Remain campaigners will make a much more positive case for the EU than they did last time round -- they've learned from their mistakes, when there was a tendency to dismiss the whole thing as a fight between two Tory factions that David Cameron and George Osborne would easily win, and no one on the left really wanted to make common cause with them (one reason, I am sure, that Leave did so well in Labour heartlands, where people would assume nothing those two supported could be much good).

.

Yes that is something I did not understand, why Labour stayed so distant to Europe in the whole process over such a long time (and Corbyn still behaves like that)
Imho the EU offers a better frame for establishing social elements and social progress of the society than the UK, a country whereover the most time of the last 60 years or so the conservatives were elected. and as far as I know the attitude of the Tories towards workers rights for example is not very open, Conservative parties in many european countries are more worker-friendly.

I might be wrong: but as the Tories represent to a big part the attitude of Britain as the Great Nation (dreams supplied by the phantasy of the long lost Empire) so the radical left Labour Leaders doesnt find it worth to unite with other social movements/ groups within the EU., to improve the conditions for the broad masses of the population.. seems Corbyn considers this a s socialdemocratic bullshit., they want something bigger.. but all "socialistic/ communisitc systems failed untill now in reality. That doesnt mean , it will not be possible. But just to wait and think, if Labour will win elections and govern, it will work is dreaming. a left Unicorn...
so as it looks to me: both british parties are very much driven by dreams of the past, dreams of a society which disappaered long time ago (British Empire) or dreams of a radical socialistic society which till today - despite many attempts - failed.

So an important part of the british society/ nation refuses to accept that to develop a better society for the future maybe hard and often unspectacular work, it seems it gives them more comfort and it is easier to stay in unrealistic dreams.
This astonishes me very much: I have always heard, the Brits are so pragmmatic. But maybe some day in the past the british pragmatism disappeared in the floods of the atlantic as some decades ago the British Empire sunk.

 

[Tigger]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The only thing I do agree with the statement of Rod MacKenzie is that indeed leaving the EU does increase the paperwork for customs - on both side. The rest of his stuff seems greatly overexeggerated.

For example his company, 300 trucks per week with 8000 parcels/goods units: companies normally tend to drive bunches of the same good, because easier to handle, transport, better storage to goods ratio and so on. So while there might be trucks with many different goods in it - e.g. parcels B2C - this is not the typical freight of his members. So its more likely on a typical truck to have mostly the same goods on the pallets, which in the end leads to much less paperwork and that's it.

Second and most important they had over two years now to plan, prepare and adapt for the worst case; if a British company still hasn't done it, they are badly managed, and what the heck are/were they waiting for?

Most important for sure HMRC hasn't enough staff at disposal either to handle all this new paperwork, so what they are going to do is just monitoring mostly, checking some samples now and then and creating reputation lists for companies. The higher the build up reputation, the less hassle with HMRC and less custom's inspections to fear.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I thought it was us Brits who were supposed to be good at understatement.

 

[Ashiri]

Second and most important they had over two years now to plan, prepare and adapt for the worst case; if a British company still hasn't done it, they are badly managed, and what the heck are/were they waiting for?

Not as badly managed as Brexit which is the problem for the companies.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Second and most important they had over two years now to plan, prepare and adapt for the worst case; if a British company still hasn't done it, they are badly managed, and what the heck are/were they waiting for?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here -- no one (including HMRC) has known what customs regime they were supposed to be preparing for. Nor has anyone had any idea -- because the government has been so unwilling to prepare and publish impact assessments -- what "the worst case" might look like.

In the event of a "hard Brexit" what sort of delays at Dover should importers and exporters expect, and for how many days/weeks/months should they expect disruption to last? Leasing warehouse space and stockpiling costs money, after all.

What sort of plans should freight hauliers be making? Chaos at Dover and Calais is going to cost them money, as is the difficulty of knowing what sort of hold-ups they face with goods on the return run.

HMG, to my mind, have never seriously intended for there to be a "hard Brexit." If they had, they'd have started planning for it well before now. Quite possibly David Davies, at the Department for Exiting the EU, thought any of the inconveniences caused by "no deal" would be minor (his successor, Dominic Raab, caused great hilarity when he explained he'd only recently realised how much traffic the Port of Dover handles and crucial it is to the UK's supply chains) but I'm pretty sure that wiser heads in the government and (especially) the senior civil service didn't disillusion them too early precisely in order to make "no deal" unthinkable. It looks to me as if Theresa May, at least, never believed her mantra about "no deal is better than a bad deal," and kept on reciting it to keep her mutinous Brexit Taliban quiet until it was too late.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I was referring to the statement there on Twitter, where the man told it so like all the custom works will be of biblical proportions and undoable. It will be for sure a PITA, yes - but the economy had over two years by now to prepare for the worst, this includes all areas of the supply chain.