Northern Ireland deal

[BillyStubbsTears]

https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1630517445369688065?s=20

I get that politicians have to have a bit of cheek, but God up above!

This fantastic position that NI has. The whole UK had it before Sunak and the Brexiteers got to work. And we were told by them how awful and stifling it was.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The Govt has just released a briefing saying this is a fantastic deal for NI, because before it, food deliveries going over the Irish Sea had "burdensome" paperwork "requiring up to 500 certificates, costing up to £150 each and taking hours to prepare for a single lorry journey"

Wow. Who wouldn't want to avoid that kind of burden to trade?

I wonder if anyone has told the Govt about what happens when any food is moved between the rest of the UK and the EU...

[tommy toes]

Unbelievable stupitidy by him to celebrate the deal like this.
The dozy bugger must realise what he is saying is pro EU in spades

[drfchound]

Credit is due to Starmer for backing the deal and agreeing to vote in favour.
Presumably he thinks it is ok for the country.

[ravenrover]

So can the rest of UK have the same fantastic opportunities and deal? Or is too much like being back in the Single Market for the Tory Brexiteers?
So it's taken several years to put right this part of the Oven Ready Deal, wonder how long it will take to actually implement it, Sunak cracking on about this deal as though it's wonderful but all he has done is correct something terrible they put in place originally

[wilts rover]

Aye, old Stabber Sunak really knifed Johnson in the back with this one.

Rubbishing and scrapping his NI Protocol, scrapping the NI Protocol Bill (which would allow the UK to act independently to the EU in NI - as called for by the Brexiteers) going thro Parliament at the moment - annoucing we will stay in the ECHR (which makes the Rwanda refugee re-settlement plan unworkable) and almost definately having to scrap the EU Retained Laws Bill (which means we will be following EU Law - forever).

First step on the road back to re-joining. Good old Stabber.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Saw a good segment on it last night (think it was sky news) where they talked about the various bits of negotiation and how it was almost inevitable this would happen and almost inevitable that there had to be a failure of a first deal to get to this point.

But I do think there's a sense of grown ups around the table on both sides actually trying to achieve what politicians should with much less of the point scoring we saw in the past.

Rejoining is not on the agenda of either main party. It may reappear in 10+ years but not in the short term.

[Branton Red]

All sides deserve credit for this deal which on the face of it is a pragmatic, sensible solution and an agreement negotiated and agreed in good faith.

Let's wait and see how it works in practice - I suspect there may at the very least be some teething problems.

But praise to Sunak and his team, the European Union and I suspect the US as interested and influential broker.

It breaks the myth that Brexit was ever a danger to either the Good Friday Agreement or NI's place in the UK by default. Only the intransigence and pig-headedness of the initial negotiations on both sides caused such a danger.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Let's wait and see what the Unionists say.

Some of them are spitting fire about the fact that the ECJ will still have jurisdiction in NI.

And as I've noted previously, the ongoing presence of NI in the SM makes a mockery of the insistence from Brexiteers that the 2016 vote was an unequivocal mandate to take the UK out of the SM.

[SydneyRover]

Fintan O'Toole suggests the far right didn't want agreement before so they could continue using  Brussels as a pinata.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/28/deal-2021-brexiteers-get-brexit-done-eurosceptic-boris-johnson

[SydneyRover]

If the erg and johnson agree to this they are effectively neutered I would think.

[Glyn_Wigley]

All I've heard is about how T2 goods will be treated differently and nothing about how T1 goods will be treated differently. That will be the true test of the renegotiation.

[River Don]

This is the end of a hard Brexit.

Sunak has admitted single market membership is better economically.

Scotland overwhelmingly wants the same economic benefit of single market membership

A hard border in Britain is impossible.

Therefore there is now immense pressure for the UK to remain in the single market. What a massive f**k up.

I'm now convinced any hard Brexit won't last long  UK sovereignty is done. We are now just Ken Clarke's county council subject to a European authority.

It's inevitable but it makes me sad

[BillyStubbsTears]

RD

I agree with your main points. The only question is WHEN we get over this spasm and rejoin.

I don't understand why this makes people sad. I've still heard nothing concrete that the EU forced us  to do or prevented us from doing that was so fundamental as to justify the damage that we are doing to ourselves.

Life is full of comprises. The basic intellectual Brexit argument was that there is a concept of sovereignty that is so fundamental as to justify any damage to retain it. That seems a very immature way of dealing with the world.

As you imply, one step forward today is that we no longer have a Govt claiming we could have this supreme sovereignty AND not be damaged economically. That is a massive step forward compared to Johnson or Truss and sets Sunak as a more serious and realistic leader than those two.

[River Don]

Sovereignty is not such a big deal whilst times are good. Most of the time things are good.

When things get difficult then sovereignty is a very different matter.

In 2008:things in the UK would have been very, very different in the UK had we  been subject to the European bank  Gordon Brown knew this.

[River Don]

There is something else. Germany, Italy, they are relatively new countries. It's not so difficult to accept change. The UK is so ancient giving up traditions is hard. Giving up control asks a lot

[SydneyRover]

That is true RD but it didn't stop johnson trashing parliamentary traditions and conventions and they are not called conservative for nothing.

[River Don]

I do my best to try and ignore political alliances and try to focus on what is best for the country

And that might not mean what is best for the country is necessarily what is best economically

[BillyStubbsTears]

I agree absolutely with the 2008 point RD. Like I say, compromises. There would have been a number of benefits to being in the Euro. And a number of drawbacks. There were those on both sides who wanted in or out of the Euro as a matter of principle. What Brown did was to weigh up the pros and cons and decide that the latter outweighed the former in the early 2000s.

2008 proved him right in that judgement. But it was a judgement not a matter of quasi-religious belief. The arguments in favour of divorcing ourselves from the SM and CU are much less based on a rational judgement. But at least after today, we don't have a Government telling us we can be outside them AND better off economically. That opens the door to a more rational discussion on the pros and cons in future.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Agreed again that "best" doesn't always mean "economically best". But the economic condition of a country does have a huge influence on its overall success and well-being. It's hard to be as well educated or healthy, if you are poorer.

My issue always was with people who had only ever lived in an economically successful country insisting that they were prepared to be a lot poorer to have absolute sovereignty. I think they were unknowingly kidding themselves, because they had never experienced what it meant to be living in a significantly poorer country.

[River Don]

I think that is true and I never felt that Brexit would be economically beneficial.

It was always a trade off between sovereignty and economic gain.

Micheal Caine said would you rather be a rich servant or a poor master. There is a truth in that

[SydneyRover]

I can't type fast enough but yes, yes and yes

[River Don]

Sovereignty may not seem so much to us now. To a Ukrainian sovereignty is absolutely everything.

[SydneyRover]

I would think that the erg would abstain on any vote to try and save face, johson will be in Tierra del Fuego or other remote place.

[SydneyRover]

Sovereignty may not seem so much to us now. To a Ukrainian sovereignty is absolutely everything.

Again true but if NATO and the EU wasn't there it would be a different ball game.

[River Don]

Sovereignty may not seem so much to us now. To a Ukrainian sovereignty is absolutely everything.

Again true but if NATO and the EU wasn't there it would be a different ball game.

Not that Ukrainians would be happy about it. They we ould be f**ked.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I think that is true and I never felt that Brexit would be economically beneficial.

It was always a trade off between sovereignty and economic gain.

Micheal Caine said would you rather be a rich servant or a poor master. There is a truth in that

Michael Caine is neither poor norca servant so I'm not really sure how he knows that.

[BillyStubbsTears]

RD

I agree with the Ukraine argument. I think it's a bit of a stretch to apply that to our relationship with the EU though.

As I've said times many, what was the EU doing to us that was so bad that demanded we had to leave? I've never heard any serious concrete example.

[River Don]

RD

I agree with the Ukraine argument. I think it's a bit of a stretch to apply that to our relationship with the EU though.

As I've said times many, what was the EU doing to us that was so bad that demanded we had to leave? I've never heard any serious concrete example.

I don't think the EU has ever done anything so bad to the UK... But go back to 2008. What did the EU do to Greece?

Those financial constraints were a thing. Had it been the UK it would have been much more extreme... Putting London and  Brussels/Germany into a hard disagreement.

The UK economy is not like the European economy. It's more like the US. That is difficult

[SydneyRover]

Greece was an exception, it was extremely badly governed with hardly any tax being paid, what else could have happened? They are not out of the woods yet but at least they are paying off debt.