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Should the UK remain a member of the EU


Anny Road
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317 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the UK remain a member of the EU

    • Yes
      259
    • No
      58


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21 minutes ago, M_B said:

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the just released proposal to the EU seems to be

 

1: Northern Ireland remains aligned to the EU for agriculture and industrial goods for four years. After that, Northern Ireland is free to leave should it wish to.

2: DUP and Northern Ireland get a sweetener to buy their support.

3: And then there is some stuff about physical custom checks away from the border, but its not that clear what those are for if Northern Ireland remains aligned.

 

If those are correct, then I really cant see Dublin handing over power of whether or not there is a border to Northern Ireland. Also I don't understand this from the DUP

 

A statement said: "The DUP has always indicated that the United Kingdom must leave the EU as one nation and in so doing that no barriers to trade are erected within the UK.

 

...because surely that is creating a barrier in the Irish Sea? Or is that what point 3 above is all about?

 

I'm confused.

 

I thought the same and then just followed the money to make sense of it. 
 

I thought the DUP said they wouldn’t accept any deal that treated NI differently from the rest of the UK? I wonder what, or how much changed their mind? 

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5 minutes ago, φαίνω said:

Prorogation of Parliament to take place next Tuesday, the 8th of October. (Sorry if someone's already announced it on here.) Prorogation ends on the 14th with the Queen's speech

 

That's deliberate, because he knows he won't get the queen's speech through parliament, which by default causes a no-confidence situation doesn't it? It allows him to go to the queen and resign. Thus saving him from asking for an extension, and I assume unless Corbyn can form a government, we crash out with a no deal by default. 

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7 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

That's deliberate, because he knows he won't get the queen's speech through parliament, which by default causes a no-confidence situation doesn't it? It allows him to go to the queen and resign. Thus saving him from asking for an extension, and I assume unless Corbyn can form a government, we crash out with a no deal by default. 

Why wouldn't it get through Parliament? Particularly if the opposition are aware of the consequences?

 

And yes, if it means crashing out then I suspect another government will be formed.

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Just to repeat. 

 

If we leave with a No Deal the country will be ten times worse than it is now. Unemployment will rise as will cost of living. The rich won't care but they will most certainly blame Corbyn, labour and the left. Those people who have protested and lobbied for at the very worst a deal that has benefits for the economy and the people will be cast as the bad guys. Brexit idiots will lap it up and the place will turn violent. 

 

"Bomb explodes in Belfast, Corbyn did it" 

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11 minutes ago, MegadriveMan said:

Won't Scotland and Gibraltar ask for the same veto to leave if they want to?

 

By all accounts, the place is full of egg and chips eating, Carling drinking, God Save The Queen gammons anyway.

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https://twitter.com/scottjunglist1/status/117f4339202171Here's Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone on the risks of no-deal Brexit:

 

"This report reveals just how damaging a no-deal Brexit would be for those who rely on regular medication coming from the EU.

 

"The vast majority of medicines in the UK rely on easy transportation across borders, something a no-deal Brexit would disrupt.

 

"It is frankly appalling that Boris Johnson and his advisers are willing to risk people’s lives and livelihoods and are expecting the most vulnerable in society to pay the price for their rash decisions.

 

"More than ever we need to go back to the people for the final say on the Brexit shambles. It is time for a people’s vote with the option to stay in the EU."

 

 

And here he is again on whether he'd prefer no-deal to Jeremy Corbyn in No. 10:

 

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9 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

https://twitter.com/scottjunglist1/status/117f4339202171Here's Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone on the risks of no-deal Brexit:

 

"This report reveals just how damaging a no-deal Brexit would be for those who rely on regular medication coming from the EU.

 

"The vast majority of medicines in the UK rely on easy transportation across borders, something a no-deal Brexit would disrupt.

 

"It is frankly appalling that Boris Johnson and his advisers are willing to risk people’s lives and livelihoods and are expecting the most vulnerable in society to pay the price for their rash decisions.

 

"More than ever we need to go back to the people for the final say on the Brexit shambles. It is time for a people’s vote with the option to stay in the EU."

 

 

And here he is again on whether he'd prefer no-deal to Jeremy Corbyn in No. 10:

 

Loads of them have been at it today. I wouldn't put it past Swinson to have sent out a memo to the party in the last few days saying back my anti-Corbyn no matter what stance or your place in the party isn't safe. Proof right there that many of them are in it for their own personal gain and no sense of decency to the people they aspire to govern. 

 

I can't believe after hearing her in parliament a few weeks ago hammer the Tories that I believed a tiny bit that maybe she means it when she said "stop no-deal no matter what". Fucking liars the lot of them. 

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Fucking unbelievable after what they've been going on about. Yeah let's allow no deal and a Trump/Boris US/UK trade deal that sells the country out just so Jezza can't sit on the couch at number 10 playing Skyrim for a few weeks until there's an election. Great stuff.

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2 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

Fucking unbelievable after what they've been going on about. Yeah let's allow no deal and a Trump/Boris US/UK trade deal that sells the country out just so Jezza can't sit on the couch at number 10 playing Skyrim for a few weeks until there's an election. Great stuff.

I presume the Johnson doesn't believe that Trump is going to give him a good trade deal?

 

Trump will dry bum him, and only do what's best for 'merica. 

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Pretty worried since as far as we know right now we’re dropping out at the end of the month with no deal, and the Lib Dem’s are more interested in posturing and trying to profit from the chaos to gain a few votes in the election while the rest of the opposition parties are trying to save some semblance of democracy 

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Johnson's Brexit plan: No viability, no decency, no hope

Ian Dunt

It was only moments into his speech that Boris Johnson started lying. "We will under no circumstances," he said, "have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland." It was false. Overnight, the details of his Brexit proposals to Brussels had leaked. They showed that there clearly would be checks. The British commitment to preventing any customs infrastructure in Ireland would be broken.

Once upon a time, Johnson could make these claims because he was engaged in the magical thinking of 'frictionless trade' and 'alternative arrangements'. There's no excuse for that now.

The Johnson offer to the EU will be published this afternoon, but last night's leak by the Telegraph's Peter Foster was largely corroborated by the details the prime minister offered in his speech. It works by separating out two elements of a future trading relationship: customs and regulations.

Customs involves the assessment of tariffs on goods. Regulations involve checks on whether the goods comply with the rules of the country they're being  sent to. In the EU, none of this matters - you have the same tariff regime and the same rules. Outside the EU, it all needs to be checked.

Johnson's plan sets up two timetables - one for customs and one for regulations.

The customs timetable kicks in first. His deal, like Theresa May's, would have a short transition until 2021. But after that, Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain would leave the customs union with no backstop. Johnson is taking no prisoners here. He is refusing any concessions. The lock keeping Northern Ireland attached to the Republic is gone. That means checks.

How would Johnson try to avoid them? He plans to have a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU. But that's extremely unlikely to be achieved by 2021. Free trade agreements between major partners take a long time. The one between the EU and Canada took seven years.

But even if he did manage it, there would still be checks. FTAs can hammer down tariffs between countries. But even when that's done, goods have to go through a laborious process of checks, called country of origin requirements, to ensure they're really from the state they're being sent from. This is so that other countries can't surreptitiously sneak their way in with no tariffs as part of a trade deal they didn't negotiate.

The government rubbished a previous leak this week which said there'd be customs posts on either side of the border to do these sorts of checks. But actually it seems inevitable that there will be. Their promises to the contrary are meaningless. They rely on the idea that new technology will magically be invented in the next two years to make them unnecessary. This will not happen. It is one of the great myths of the Brexit argument.

This plan is a complete rejection of the British government's commitment in the December 2017 joint report to avoid a hard border, or any physical infrastructure, or checks or controls. It goes against the promises made to the people of the island on both sides - the Republic, which had no say in all this, and Northern Ireland, which voted against it. There is no consent from these communities for these proposals. They have made clear they are against what they propose. Johnson wants to impose it on them regardless. It is a threat to the peace process. It is a betrayal of the promise of continued north-south cooperation. It is a complete and total abdication of moral responsibility.

The approach to regulations seemingly involves more concessions. Northern Ireland would remain aligned with the EU on agricultural and industrial goods regulations. This is dynamic, meaning that as the EU updated its rules, they would update theirs.

On the face of it, this seems significant. It would involve checks on the Irish sea between Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the kind of thing the DUP - whose votes Johnson would need to get a deal through - vociferously objects to.

But there's a catch. The alignment only lasts until 2025. At that point Northern Ireland gets a say on what happens. Does it want to stay aligned to the EU rules or join the rest of the UK? In practice, this gives the DUP a veto, which they will invariable use. The language is democratic, but in reality it simply serves to stagger the regulatory departure. 

It's quite a remarkably tone-deaf package. Basically the UK is taking a bullying position to the EU without having anything to bully them with.

Think about their incentives. This is the kind of thing which essential to successful negotiation but which the Johnson administration is seemingly incapable of.

If Brussels accepted the package, Ireland would be thrown under the bus. It would be a complete betrayal, something they have made clear they would never do. 

That's not just a moral point. It is a strategic one. If they go against Ireland, no other member state would trust them again. The offer the EU makes to countries - that they become stronger by working together - would be shown to be false.

So why do it? Johnson is presumably gambling on the fact that if they reject it they'd face no-deal, which would involve the border emerging immediately, without the lead-in to 2021 or 2025.

But this assessment is very weak, because the moral reality of that point is inverted. If the UK decides to leave without a deal, then the consequences are its responsibility. But if the EU signed up to this deal, then it shares that responsibility. And on the areas it cares about - checks on the border, north-south cooperation - those consequences would be equivalent to no-deal.

Such a move would also destroy the EU's credibility in negotiations around the world. It would be seen to buckle on all its key demands in the face of intransigence and threats. Why wouldn't other negotiating partners try the same trick?

But even aside from all that, the threat is empty because no-deal is not actually the consequence of the EU rejection of the deal. The Benn Act ensures that if there is no deal he must ask for an extension. He insists this is not true and that No.10 has found some kind of loophole in the legislation. Given his record, that is likely to be either false or a gross overstatement of some pitifully weak tactic. But even if it were true, parliament could work around it or see Johnson forced to retreat via the courts.

So the EU's incentives are not his deal or no-deal. They are his deal or extension. And extension opens up the possibility of a less insane negotiating team, or even another referendum with a result to Remain, making the whole border problem go away.

It's hard to come up with anything positive to say about this. It shows no understanding of the EU's red lines, no basic moral responsibility towards the problem in Ireland which the Brexit vote created, no consistency with the previous commitments of the British government, no viability, no practicality, no realism, and no concessions at all to the half of the population who voted Remain. It is almost impressive that after all this time they have come up with a proposal that has nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

Ian Dunt is editor of Politics.co.uk. His new book, How To Be A Liberal, is out in spring 2020 and can be pre-ordered here.

The opinions in Politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.

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42 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

The liars and trolls are out in force, must be worried now they've slipped to third in the polls.

 

 

 

 

He's either bullshitting or he's made a genuine mistake in the interview and doesn't want to admit it on twitter, but he definitely said there it's no deal every time instead of Corbyn. If he's made a mistake don't know why he didn't just clear that up in his tweet instead of blaming Labour.

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