Brexit: Now What? The Perfect 10.
 

Negotiations are stalled. The UK is happy with a no deal so aren't really trying. There are rumours in the right wing media that the UK's hard line is just about to trigger a raft of unilateral concessions from the EU. Then again, they've been saying the same thing all along.

The only definitive statement from the UK government is that the transition period will not be extended under any circumstances.

As I recall one of the first things this government did when it was returned with a decent majority was remove the requirement to report progress regularly to Parliament.

Great approach by the UK. Treat our future trading partners as adversaries, be stubborn and arrogant, time limit the negotiations in the middle of a pandemic. I just wonder at what point soon Barnier will say just do one.

That's exactly what the UK government wants. That way they can have the no-deal the architects of Brexit want but can blame all negative consequences on Barnier's intransigence. :mad:

Isn't that exactly what people were being called paranoid or scaremongers for predicting over the last three years? Project Fear indeed.

As planned.

Unfortunately.

sleepwalking to disaster. to coin a phrase.

Plus COVID-19?

I think “planned” is giving them way too much credit.

Yeah more like “as they wanted”.

I find it amazing some people will simultaneously believe a new deal is easy, that all UK has to do is play hardball and EU will surely yield and then blame the EU for not yielding to UK.

That's like saying "yeah, we lost the war, but it's not our fault, the enemy wasn't supposed to fight". Sure you can say that, but it does make you look Stupid^TM.

McHrozni

If the EU would only "play by the rules" then they would yield to the UK. Instead they are "sneaky foreigners" who break the rules and hence don't yield. :boggled:

Part of it is that there are two distinct groups involved in Brexit.

The architects of Brexit (Cummings, Dyson, Putin et al) are aware that the UK won't prevail simply by being obstructive and are actively using this to engineer a no-deal Brexit.

The foot-soldiers of Brexit (the UKIPpers, rank and file of the Conservative Party and Labour voters of the industrial wastelands) think that the EU will yield, simply because the UK cannot be denied. :rolleyes:

Yeah. I can understand architects of Brexit, they're either motivated by personal greed and wish the UK to become a disaster zone they can loot, or else scheming politicians that wish to see UK become disaster zone so it's less of a threat. This later group also wishes to see EU damaged, so Brexit serves two purposes. I don't support them, in fact I think Azkaban is too good for them, but I understand their goals and motivations.

But the grunts, those I'll never understand. Look, the architects told you a plethora of lies, not one of their major Brexit claims has turned out to be factual. Why do you still believe them?

Cognitive dissonance and sunk costs suck :(

McHrozni

Don’t underestimate the role of xenophobia and stupidity.

Also exceptionalism and ignorance. If you have all those things it's easy to believe that the UK is in a strong position, because the UK is great. Eng-ger-land!

But the UK has far less power than the EU here. Simply because losing a single country as a trading partner may be harmful to the EU, but nowhere near as harmful as losing the entire trade infrastructure will be to the UK.

I think this time next year when there are food shortages* and medicine shortages that a portion of Brexiteers will finally start to understand what it is that they've wreaked upon this country.

*By which I don't mean that there will be nothing to eat, but that people won't be able to just eat whatever they want whenever they want. For example, we can currently eat pasta because when people panic-bought it Italy stepped up exports to the UK. If trading with Italy is borked and there are no imports to replace them, then people are going to have to get used to not having pasta every night and will have to seek out alternatives instead.

Yup :(

The grunts don't believe that the Brexit claims have turned out not to be factually accurate. Indeed, they were told that things would go badly wrong post-Brexit and instead, basically nothing has changed. Of course this is because we're still in the transition period and so, in effect, are still in the EU but they choose not to acknowledge that.

Other things, like the fact that an extra £350m a week hasn't suddenly turned up in NHS coffers, can be blamed on the previous government which apparently has nothing to do with the current one, and that money will soon be made available.

From their perspective Project Fear is a busted flush and none of the bad things have happened and the benefits are yet to come....

You can’t keep a bad man down - but we can try.
Sacked for being a Little Englander Racist he goes on to form year another Blackshirts Lite Party AKA The Reform Party.

Now he's planning to reform the Brexit Party because he thinks Boris is losing control of Brexit.

Nothing to do with LBC dropping his radio show of course.

Context?

Yeah, but that was just one aspect of what was promised.

The other was that UK would retain all the benefits of membership, including frictionless trade with EU.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ntil-july-2021
Nope.

That's not really a minor issue, it was a promise by architects of Brexit that was broken for all to see.

How will the Irish border work, by the way?

McHrozni

Yes, yes, definitely. Those all played a major role :o

Germany needed two world wars to get those out of their system. UK will need Brexit, followed perhaps by Scotxit and maybe Breentryasajuniortradepartner (tacky abbervision pending) to do the same.

What will USA and China need, I wonder? Dread, even.

McHrozni

The thing is, at the moment we are post-Brexit and we still have frictionless trade with the EU and the UK/Irish border is exactly as it was before, therefore Project Fear was completely wrong.

Of course we likely will not have those two things in place on 1 January 2021 but that's in the future and although all "experts" are suggesting that it'll be a complete ****-show, they can be safely ignored. :rolleyes:

Will not happen. Our trade deal with the US will prohibit it. :(

Well, I can modify Breentryasajuniortradepartner to Brentryasajuniortradepartner. That means it's British entry and not reentry, the rest is the same anyway.

That assumes, of course, there is a trade deal with the US in the meantime. Between the mandatory summer break in July and August and the election campaign that follows that leaves what? Six weeks to strike one? During a pandemic and the resulting economic crash?

Fun fact, Joules Verne wrote a book that takes place in 2600 where UK is a colony of the USA. I love that author you know?

McHrozni

The grunts were in it for the fight, they wanted to stick it to foreigners, the EU, politicians and 'the Establishment Elite', to use Boris' own metaphor they were throwing rocks at their neighbour's greenhouse to hear the crash because it gave them a feeling of power, they never thought beyond that as they expected to lose and go back to complaining about the other side cheating (you can always tell, when one side is angrier after winning than before, this). And between the architects and the grunts was a layer of populists who were actually the elite but pretending to be grunts while betraying both sides.

I suppose you can shorten that to "room temperature IQ".

In Celsius.

McHrozni

They could at least be honest to themselves and admit the miserable failure of Brexit is there by design and like Brexit for the failure that it is. Instead they pretend they like the result they're given because it's different from the result they were given. Somehow.

McHrozni

"It's easier to con someone than persuade them they've been conned"

This goes double when you've dragged everyone around you into it.

Context is Farage having one of his rants.
LBC dropped his radio show so he needs some other way of staying in the limelight.

Brexit is all he has, he can't get elected as an MP, his US dreams are in ashes.

How else will he get publicity?

The US trade deal will not only prohibit UK membership of the EU, it will prohibit the UK having a free trade deal with the EU. If the UK signs up to the US trade deal then EU membership is out of the window for at least a generation. :mad:

The UK will get a trade deal with the US, if the US wants one, because the UK will simply accept any and all terms that the US wants. There will be no need for protracted trade talks because the UK will simply say "Yes" to whatever the US wants. AIUI there is already a draft set of terms issued by the US (including the points on food standards and prohibiting place of origin labelling, sore points here in the UK) so as I see it, the only possible cause of delay is if the US wants to "double-dip" and see whether they can get even more favourable terms and/or even greater access to the NHS.

That's what I called Brentryasajuniortradepartner, once UK is very well shafted by the US maybe then the Bexit grunts will realize they were conned through and through.

Of course there's the issue of the American elections, which paralyze the already crippled administration even more. Between that, the pandemic and the riots I find it doubtful the USA can secure the deal - even if the UK says "yes" to everything there may not even be a partner in USA with the ability to sign one.

We'll see. Trade talks began in mid-May, chlorinated chicked and hormone-fed beef seem to be major points where USA wants absolute capitulation by the UK. BJ has tried to resist a little thus far.

McHrozni

I've heard it said that the meat standards are being opposed by Carrie Symonds. Which, if true, means that the shape of future trade of our county is being decided by two unelected people with the PM's ear.

I'd expect Cummings to win, though. Johnson relies on him for more, and is too much of a misogynist to take his missus' side on something like that.

The UK government has already clearly signalled that the UK is now perfectly happy to capitulate on food standards - and on anything else for that matter - for example, the NHS is also back on the table.:mad:

For Boris Johnson, significant others are consumable items.

I don’t think I have the energy to read him.

Well, when you have divorce papers on Subscribe and Save...

:D

I don't know watt you're on about.

I have to say this is by far the most complex annexation of a new state to the union so far. Still, where to put the 51st star on the flag might be the biggest hurdle.

:boxedin:

I don't think that there'd be any desire for a 51st state - too many voters used to "socialised" medicine - much better just to have a tame client state willing to take substandard goods.....

We will be more like Puerto Rico

...without citizenship, the right to vote or congressional representation.