Post Brexit (n/g)

[Therealwaldo]

The worst predictions of project fear have not come to pass. No armageddon, even though we have had Covid to contend with as well.

Nothing is ever perfect but it is fair to say that it is working, and we are only in the early stages.

Every time the EU tries to invoke something that they think will make us regret it, it has (or will have) some form of negative effect on either their own trade or tourism as well. So be it.

You’ve got a bloody nerve. We have the lowest inward investment on record. Of the G8 countries, we are the only one going into recession. Our balance of payments position is the worst it’s been since records began being kept in the modern form in 1955. On OBR reckoning our lost growth added to the costs of leaving means that every family in the country is, on average, £8,000 worse off and counting than if we’d remained in the EU. On top of all this we've lost our freedom to live, work and study in mainland Europe. If This is what you think of as “no armageddon”, I dread to think what Armageddon would have looked like.

And no I’m not arguing to rejoin, because the muppets in charge of the UK have so damaged relationships that rejoining is not a realistic short term aim. However, economic realities are going to continue to bite and the UK will limp on as the sick man of Europe. The very thing that led us to joining in the first place.

 

[SteveTreacle]

A 74% remain prediction?! WTF are you talking about?! That's not even close to what I was saying. I don't think you properly read my post.

You've made a bit of a fool of yourself here, Steve. It's happening quite frequently recently. Is everything ok?

Pot, kettle, black. I’d have a look at some of your own posts before accusing others of inaccuracies or misquoting or quite frankly making a fool of yourself.

Sorry for misconstruing your “74%” quote, but I’d argue that it might be something to do with the fact that it’s utter nonsense!

 

[Gilles Lingam]

A very interesting article (I think that Buddha would approve !)
"............. What we call border abolition is most concerned with expanding the freedom to move and to stay. This does not mean advocating for free movement in the world as it is now configured, but rather for transformation of the conditions to which borders are a response. Abolition is concerned with presence: the presence of life-sustaining goods, services and practices of care. And it is concerned with absence: of violent state practices such as detention and deportation. In a world like this, borders would become obsolete.
Even if we don’t know exactly what a borderless world would look like, there is a vast array of changes we can make in the here and now to reduce the reach and harm of immigration controls, opening the way to a borderless world in the future. As prison abolitionist and educator Mariame Kaba tells us, “Hope is a discipline.” We need not look far to see how the fractures in our present might open the way to radically different, flourishing futures.
Rather than simply trying to make more and more people eligible for citizenship, we should recoup the humanity of the non-citizen, and ensure universal access to essential services regardless of immigration status. We should scrap laws that criminalise undocumented migrants for working, renting and driving. We should keep up the fight to end immigration detention, raids and mass deportation flights, which would improve conditions for all non-citizens.
Of course, borders necessarily mediate relationships across countries, not simply within them, and so our agenda must be international too. We should agitate for all of the resources expended on border policing – the drones, surveillance watchtowers, armed guards, biometric recognition systems, data-mining tools – to be redirected in service of human flourishing. We should end the many development and aid programmes that enlist governments in the global south to prevent people from migrating in the first place.
We should defund Frontex, the EU’s coordinated border force, and instead invest in global solidarity funds to enable the people and states in the global south to better mitigate climate catastrophe. We should support ongoing demands for debt cancellation and an end to arms exports. We should encourage the expansion of bilateral or regional free movement agreements.
We do not have to accept the necessity of mass surveillance and mass death in the name of nation and territory. To paraphrase the scholar and activist Mike Davis, we have seen social miracles in our lifetimes, wins that seemed impossible until they weren’t. Many more are possible. Perhaps one of the great rallying cries of May 1968 sets out the task most succinctly: “Let’s be realistic, demand the impossible!”

Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha are the authors of Against Borders: The Case for Abolition

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ree-world-better-hostile-immigration-policies

 

[Buddha]

Pot, kettle, black. I’d have a look at some of your own posts before accusing others of inaccuracies or misquoting or quite frankly making a fool of yourself.

Sorry for misconstruing your “74%” quote, but I’d argue that it might be something to do with the fact that it’s utter nonsense!

It was speculative but not nonsense. I openly admitted that I had no idea what the exact proportion of Leave voters who are unhappy with the actual deal is. I made a rough and conservative estimate of half (this is where I got the 26% - which if you add to the 48% who voted Remain gives you a total of 74% - figure from) but was aware that it could well be a higher figure than that. Indeed, val speculated that nearly all Leave voters are unhappy with the deal...

I'm offering opinions and speculating about things. Of course, you can disagree with me and it's very possible that my speculation is inaccurate. But that doesn't make it nonsense. You're the only one who is literally making no sense.

And yes, I've made a fool of myself on here plenty of times. But I am aware of this when it is happening. In contrast, you seem blissfully unaware. And this in itself increases the fool factor.

You seem happy with the Brexit deal. You also appear to have some kind of pride in demonstrating your 'patriotism' by displaying jingoistic xenophobia.

 

[Buddha]

A very interesting article (I think that Buddha would approve !)
"............. What we call border abolition is most concerned with expanding the freedom to move and to stay. This does not mean advocating for free movement in the world as it is now configured, but rather for transformation of the conditions to which borders are a response. Abolition is concerned with presence: the presence of life-sustaining goods, services and practices of care. And it is concerned with absence: of violent state practices such as detention and deportation. In a world like this, borders would become obsolete.
Even if we don’t know exactly what a borderless world would look like, there is a vast array of changes we can make in the here and now to reduce the reach and harm of immigration controls, opening the way to a borderless world in the future. As prison abolitionist and educator Mariame Kaba tells us, “Hope is a discipline.” We need not look far to see how the fractures in our present might open the way to radically different, flourishing futures.
Rather than simply trying to make more and more people eligible for citizenship, we should recoup the humanity of the non-citizen, and ensure universal access to essential services regardless of immigration status. We should scrap laws that criminalise undocumented migrants for working, renting and driving. We should keep up the fight to end immigration detention, raids and mass deportation flights, which would improve conditions for all non-citizens.
Of course, borders necessarily mediate relationships across countries, not simply within them, and so our agenda must be international too. We should agitate for all of the resources expended on border policing – the drones, surveillance watchtowers, armed guards, biometric recognition systems, data-mining tools – to be redirected in service of human flourishing. We should end the many development and aid programmes that enlist governments in the global south to prevent people from migrating in the first place.
We should defund Frontex, the EU’s coordinated border force, and instead invest in global solidarity funds to enable the people and states in the global south to better mitigate climate catastrophe. We should support ongoing demands for debt cancellation and an end to arms exports. We should encourage the expansion of bilateral or regional free movement agreements.
We do not have to accept the necessity of mass surveillance and mass death in the name of nation and territory. To paraphrase the scholar and activist Mike Davis, we have seen social miracles in our lifetimes, wins that seemed impossible until they weren’t. Many more are possible. Perhaps one of the great rallying cries of May 1968 sets out the task most succinctly: “Let’s be realistic, demand the impossible!”

Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha are the authors of Against Borders: The Case for Abolition

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ree-world-better-hostile-immigration-policies

Absolutely!

 

[SteveTreacle]

You seem happy with the Brexit deal. You also appear to have some kind of pride in demonstrating your 'patriotism' by displaying jingoistic xenophobia.

What jingoistic xenophobia? The only jingoistic xenophobia I have seen on here is you making up quotes, which you presumably attribute to me and others with views like mine. I asked you to reference where you got those quotes from as I haven't seen anyone on here express them, but didn't hear back.

I have provided a number of examples of the aggressive and confrontational attitude of the French towards the UK over cross channel disputes (both pre and post Brexit) and challenged those who disagree with me on several occasions to provide counter-examples of where we have acted in a similar manner. This is the basis for my attitude towards the French on this issue. I also lived in northern France for almost a year about 25 years ago, so am very familiar with the attitude of many there towards the English (including being CS gassed in a phonebox whilst calling home combined with a tirade of anti-English abuse in broken English and French). I was studying there and there were a few Irish and German students in our group of overseas students and they were told by local students to take their passports with them everywhere to prove that they were not English.

I am not xenophobic or jingoistic. I don't go around hating say the Dutch, Swedes or Danes, for example. The only real negative expressions I can recall that I have expressed on here towards countries in recent times are towards the French and Russians and I have provided what I think is good reason and backing for that (many of you (and it seems an ever increasing number here) will, of course, disagree with me).

 

[Buddha]

What jingoistic xenophobia? The only jingoistic xenophobia I have seen on here is you making up quotes, which you presumably attribute to me and others with views like mine. I asked you to reference where you got those quotes from as I haven't seen anyone on here express them, but didn't hear back.

I have provided a number of examples of the aggressive and confrontational attitude of the French towards the UK over cross channel disputes (both pre and post Brexit) and challenged those who disagree with me on several occasions to provide counter-examples of where we have acted in a similar manner. This is the basis for my attitude towards the French on this issue. I also lived in northern France for almost a year about 25 years ago, so am very familiar with the attitude of many there towards the English (including being CS gassed in a phonebox whilst calling home combined with a tirade of anti-English abuse in broken English and French). I was studying there and there were a few Irish and German students in our group of overseas students and they were told by local students to take their passports with them everywhere to prove that they were not English.

I am not xenophobic or jingoistic. I don't go around hating say the Dutch, Swedes or Danes, for example. The only real negative expressions I can recall that I have expressed on here towards countries in recent times are towards the French and Russians and I have provided what I think is good reason and backing for that (many of you (and it seems an ever increasing number here) will, of course, disagree with me).

We're gonna have to leave it there and just agree to disagree. Not because I can't continue arguing with you but simply because I'm very bored now. Whether you believe me or not is completely irrelevant to me. Until the next time..

 

[GillsBluenose]

A very interesting article (I think that Buddha would approve !)
We do not have to accept the necessity of mass surveillance and mass death in the name of nation and territory. To paraphrase the scholar and activist Mike Davis, we have seen social miracles in our lifetimes, wins that seemed impossible until they weren’t. Many more are possible. Perhaps one of the great rallying cries of May 1968 sets out the task most succinctly: “Let’s be realistic, demand the impossible!”
Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha are the authors of Against Borders: The Case for Abolition
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ree-world-better-hostile-immigration-policies

The problem with that theory is around the fact that the birth rates will always be higher in certain countries and territories, as will displacement through war, religion and poverty, towards where there is more state assistance, forcing heavy migration from less attractive areas to others that are seen as being preferable.

Population and net migration figures will always show that the likes of the UK will consistently attract high net migration which, if we do not want to live in a concreted jungle with woefully inadequate infrastructure, which we seem to be heading towards anyway, you need to exert control and have powers of eviction.

 

[shotshy]

The problem with that theory is around the fact that the birth rates will always be higher in certain countries and territories, as will displacement through war, religion and poverty, towards where there is more state assistance, forcing heavy migration from less attractive areas to others that are seen as being preferable.

Population and net migration figures will always show that the likes of the UK will consistently attract high net migration which, if we do not want to live in a concreted jungle with woefully inadequate infrastructure, which we seem to be heading towards anyway, you need to exert control and have powers of eviction.

I couldn’t even engage with that rubbish.
It’s the politics of a twelve year old.
No borders would equal anarchy.

 

[Solent Knight]

The Brexit debate transcended party politics.
The Conservatives Party campaigned very hard to remain (many forget that)
The Labour Party campaigned quite weakly to remain.
Millions of traditional Tory voters voted to leave.
Millions of traditional Labour voters voted to leave.
The leave campaign was an eclectic mix of all Parties except Libdems.
Even a couple of traditional Communists joined in .
After the event, it was the Tories in government who had the very tricky job of accepting the result (that they didn’t want) and getting on with the job that they were given to do by the electorate.
Cameron resigned.
May was elected and tried a halfway approach that didn’t get support from either side (Labour and Libdems always voted against her proposal)
Then enough is enough.
She’s ousted and Johnson is elected for his version which is also a compromise but he managed to get it through by sacking everyone in his party who was blocking it.
Those are the facts of what happened as I see it.
So, basically people voted for change.
We’ve now got change.
That’s it.
No serious political party will stand on rejoining for a long long time.

You have summed it up very well there Shotshy, I'm sure either way remainers or leavers agree with this.

 

[GillsBluenose]

You’ve got a bloody nerve. We have the lowest inward investment on record. Of the G8 countries, we are the only one going into recession. Our balance of payments position is the worst it’s been since records began being kept in the modern form in 1955. On OBR reckoning our lost growth added to the costs of leaving means that every family in the country is, on average, £8,000 worse off and counting than if we’d remained in the EU. On top of all this we've lost our freedom to live, work and study in mainland Europe. If This is what you think of as “no armageddon”, I dread to think what Armageddon would have looked like.
.

From Andrew Neil's column on Saturday:
"The EU is about to go very badly wrong.
It is now on the brink of recession and another Eurozone currency crisis looms. It's a double whammy that will be all the more painful and prolonged because of Putin's mounting blackmail over Russian Energy supplies, which threatens to condemn Europe's major economies to a slump.
Of course, the EU has survived setbacks inthe past from the first Eurozone crisis of 2011-12 to the migrant crisis of 2015. But not without great economic pain (including mass unemployment among young folk) and much political disruption.
Now it faces the biggest crisis of all at a time when it is entirely bereft of leadership. Its much-vaunted unity in the face of adversity will be tested to the limit. It is already beginning to crack.
The European Central Bank belatedly increased interest rates this week for the first time in 11 years, way behind the BOE and the US Federal Reserve, both of which have been raising rates for some time now. It is too little, too late.
The euro has already slumped to parity with the dollar and Eurozone inflation averages 8.6% and rising.
Much of the EU is in the grip of stagflation. As inflation soars, growth in the three biggest economies - Germany, France and Italy - has slowed or stalled"

Clearly Shangri-La compared to our armageddon.

 

[jogills]

So what would you regard as not "working", at this early stage?

Very early in the piece, the EU made it clear that they would not allow us to "cherry pick" what we liked about membership. We could not stay in the single market and control migration as well. Everyone knew that. We could not stay in the Customs union without accepting EU legislation and tariff rates, that we would have no say in any more, and would affect our Trade Deals elsewhere. Would that really have been sensible?

The main grumble seems to have been about the protocol but our approach to that has been equitable - quite the opposite of the EU. We have suggested light touch and spot checks, we have suggested Green lanes and Red lanes. We have not called for the EU to set up a hard border for goods between the ROI and the rest of the EU, and yet they have insisted on setting up a hard border for goods between NI and the rest of the UK. In any other universe, who is being unreasonable there?

As for "most to lose", the statistics about balance of trade is very clear. The EU exports FAR more to the UK than vice versa. Spain, Italy and Greece really heavily on Tourism from the UK and the events at Dover tends to suggest that France needs it as well. They will obviously lose a lot through last week's action but they are clearly happy to shoot themselves in the foot. Plenty of beautiful places in the UK to take a break.

It is not too early to say that we shot ourselves in the foot with the deal we chose and signed. The most generous reading would be that we thought the other side would gradually allow us to have our cake and eat it.

Equitable is an interesting term and while I don't believe the EU has always been smart and reasonable we set out to be as unreasonable as possible. Read any comnservative newspaper, journal, or website and they have championed making demands with no compromise, preferably with a bit of gratuiitous criticism thrown in.

I don't think it's at all early to expect some form of ordered trade across borders internal and external. We appear to be getting further from that goal and the governing party is held hostage by its right wing ultras.

I don't think significant numbers of people will quietly abandon holidays with a ho hum. Far more likely they start asking pertinent qustions of their government, who are responsible for such things. You seem happy to live, holiday and think local but I wager you will find significant numbers of your fellow citizens will refuse to accept such restrictions. The other countries in the UK are gradually drifting and it would only take an everyday crisis to bring things to a head. A very clear majority think Brexit is not going well and a majority blame our government for that. We can and must do better.

 

[Therealwaldo]

From Andrew Neil's column on Saturday:
"The EU is about to go very badly wrong.
It is now on the brink of recession and another Eurozone currency crisis looms. It's a double whammy that will be all the more painful and prolonged because of Putin's mounting blackmail over Russian Energy supplies, which threatens to condemn Europe's major economies to a slump.
Of course, the EU has survived setbacks inthe past from the first Eurozone crisis of 2011-12 to the migrant crisis of 2015. But not without great economic pain (including mass unemployment among young folk) and much political disruption.
Now it faces the biggest crisis of all at a time when it is entirely bereft of leadership. Its much-vaunted unity in the face of adversity will be tested to the limit. It is already beginning to crack.
The European Central Bank belatedly increased interest rates this week for the first time in 11 years, way behind the BOE and the US Federal Reserve, both of which have been raising rates for some time now. It is too little, too late.
The euro has already slumped to parity with the dollar and Eurozone inflation averages 8.6% and rising.
Much of the EU is in the grip of stagflation. As inflation soars, growth in the three biggest economies - Germany, France and Italy - has slowed or stalled"

Clearly Shangri-La compared to our armageddon.

Please can you send me your bank details. You can then send me £5 for every time some right wing pundit (and yes that does include Neil) has predicted the imminent collapse of the EU. I’ll count the times. Then you can settle up, in let’s say, 5 years. If it’s collapsed, I’ll pay you. If not, you can pay me.

 

[GillsBluenose]

Please can you send me your bank details. You can then send me £5 for every time some right wing pundit (and yes that does include Neil) has predicted the imminent collapse of the EU. I’ll count the times. Then you can settle up, in let’s say, 5 years. If it’s collapsed, I’ll pay you. If not, you can pay me.

Doesn't matter whether you regard a pundit as right or left wing. When facts and statistics are quoted, you can only challenge them by proving they are wrong. I can not say that I have even heard anyone claim, let alone prove, that Andrew Neil is a consistent liar.

Nobody is suggesting that the EU will completely collapse any more than the UK will, so your imagined wager is pretty inane.

Meanwhile, Waldo claims "the costs of leaving means that every family in the country is, on average, £8,000 worse off and counting than if we’d remained in the EU". I can't remember the EU sending me or my family £8,000 in any year that we were a member so he can perhaps "settle up" with me for that patent untruth. We supposedly have the lowest growth in the G7 this year when it was previously reported last year that we had the highest growth in the G7 so "projected" growth figures are just that.

 

[GillsBluenose]

It is not too early bto say that bwe shot ourselves in the foot with the deal we chose and signed. The most generous reading would be that we thought the other side would gradually allopw us to have our cake and eat it.
.

You always make out there was a choice but the deal we "chose and signed" was the only one the EU would agree to without conditions that corresponded to the reasons we were leaving - free movement, contribution levels, endless restrictive laws and directives, ECJ having ultimate power, etc, etc.

We can not be independent and still singing to their chosen hymn sheet.

 

[shotshy]

You always make out there was a choice but the deal we "chose and signed" was the only one the EU would agree to without conditions that corresponded to the reasons we were leaving - free movement, contribution levels, endless restrictive laws and directives, ECJ having ultimate power, etc, etc.

We can not be independent and still singing to their chosen hymn sheet.

We could have always left without any agreement.
That would have got attention.
The Brexit negotiation was a farce mainly because of Teresa May and her team by agreeing to the timetable and reparation before negotiation.
Once that was conceded, it was much more difficult for her successors.
The ‘leaving bill’ has now set a precedent so Scotland beware.

 

[jogills]

You always make out there was a choice but the deal we "chose and signed" was the only one the EU would agree to without conditions that corresponded to the reasons we were leaving - free movement, contribution levels, endless restrictive laws and directives, ECJ having ultimate power, etc, etc.

We can not be independent and still singing to their chosen hymn sheet.

Ahem, other deals were on offer and the ERG and general Brexiters rejected them. We drove a determined path to this precise deal and only called foul when it turned out as problematic as forecast. The etc, etcs were never ending ,nothing would have and nothing ever will satisfy the ultras. The rest of us, way more than 52% Remainers and Brexiters alike, want practical arrangements not dogma.

I don't want to sing to any bloody hymn sheet and I want a country that works, from that position freedom and independence flow.

On the subject of Andrew Neil he does frequently predict doom and collapse for the EU and its institutions. Those aren't lies they are his opinoions, which may be borne out by events, or not. As always in the long run everything must pass so like the stopped clock he is certain to be right in the end. We can't wait that long for Brexit to work.

 

[shotshy]

Ahem, other deals were on offer and the ERG and general Brexiters rejected them. We drove a determined path to this precise deal and only called foul when it turned out as problematic as forecast. The etc, etcs were never ending ,nothing would have and nothing ever will satisfy the ultras. The rest of us, way more than 52% Remainers and Brexiters alike, want practical arrangements not dogma.

I don't want to sing to any bloody hymn sheet and I want a country that works, from that position freedom and independence flow.

On the subject of Andrew Neil he does frequently predict doom and collapse for the EU and its institutions. Those aren't lies they are his opinoions, which may be borne out by events, or not. As always in the long run everything must pass so like the stopped clock he is certain to be right in the end. We can't wait that long for Brexit to work.

Could I add that it wasn’t only the ERG who rejected every compromise deal.
Labour,Libdems and the Greens also rejected them.
Corbyn was between a rock and a hard place because he and his acolytes had always been very anti EU and saw it as a corrupt capitalist institution.
The conundrum clearly was that they couldn’t support any proposition put forward by Tory scum (their words)
Long Bailey said as much when asked.
So, May’s luke warm Brexit fell foul of both hardline leavers and most remainers.
All that remained was either a harder Brexit (Johnson) or a Brexit in name only while remaining in their institutions.
I feel that the latter was more undesirable by the majority.
After years of arguing, most had just got fed up with the whole thing.
That’s why Johnson scored a miraculous victory in 2019 with a huge majority.
Three simple words hit home.

 

[jokerman]

You fellows are arguing over yesterday's papers, except for Buddha and Gill de France who are basically saying people should be different -which is almost certainly true but also useless. Borders are not some capitalist divide and rule operation. Indeed, the entire nation state set up is a constraint on the operations of capital as a system, even if individual capitalists can do very well out of it. If the capitalist class could re-design the world from scratch, they would not have borders. Borders arise out of people being basically communitarian rather than cosmopolitan. Caring for each other is a damned strain, and we only manage it by some way of delineating those who we have to knock ourselves out for and those we do not. The form may change, bands, tribes, empires, states, syndicalist communes -whatever- but the principle persists. The EU is not some cosmopolitan project trying to beat the odds with new ways -it's simply another iteration -the clue is in the old title. I happen to think it's just another state building project -except on poor foundations, hence its ludicrous contortions on anything important like being an effective security community and its steady decline as a global economic actor, but I accept this can be contested.

The Russians are coming, or at least trying very hard to. Several European countries will be pushed into recession by their gas shenanigans, and the EU is struggling to maintain a common front on both standing up to them and paying the bill for doing so. Germany, at last, is in the hot seat on that. All sorts of pressures are building to ease up on Russia and let them have what they want. If I've got my EU right, then that is what is going to happen -is already happening -not our fight, Russia has a case, not playing America's games etc etc. Ukraine may go -Lavrov, who I used to respect and still take seriously- says they want Zelensky out and want more, if not all, of Ukraine- but then what next? Everything negotiable up to and including the Oder? Probably not, but the idea that once Ukraine is eaten, the rest of the EU herd can settle back down to grazing and bickering over its shrinking field seems a bit of a stretch. Europe (and I mean Europe) is facing a real challenge from Russia to everything it stands for and the EU is a useless and sapping distraction preventing its constituent parts from facing what they need to do.

I'm on to my second cup of tea, and then I'll go and have a lie down, so don't anyone ask me if I'm feeling ok.

 

[GillsBluenose]

Good summary, Jokerman.

I would add that I think Zelensky becoming chummy with Boris was down to the fact that we are less reliant on Russian energy than most of the EU, so we could more easily back Ukraine.

Ukraine have punched well above their weight during the war and I hope we continue to back them to the hilt. At some point, aggressive bullies like Putin need to be given a bloody nose, rather than being allowed to continue to threaten, provoke and taunt.

If the EU is foolish enough to try to oust Zelensky and persuade Ukraine that all they have fought for is in vain, it may present another conflict between the EU and the UK where we need to stand full behind Ukraine and against tyranny.

I say "foolish enough" because there is no way that Putin will stop there and the likes of Finland and Poland will be inviting similar aggression.

Most military experts agree that Putin has made many miscalculations, the war has not gone well for him and his troops are mostly drunk so that the best he can do is try to save face and "claim" some form of victory. The Russians are therefore hardly in a position of formidable strength apart from their natural resources.