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UK Politics The Brexit thread (or All -not- quiet on the western front)

Highly unpleasant indeed.

If the treaty needs to be renegotiated then it gets renegotiated, that's what governments and politicians do. Circumstances change, if they didn't we'd all still be occupying Germany. It's an excuse to sit down and hash it out and to use political pressure to achieve some sort of workable set up which is apparently already happening.

It is not under any stretch an excuse to start blowing shit up and murdering people again.
Yes, having thought about renegotiating said treaty before throwing it to the garbage bin without consultation of the partners and with an attitude of which the arrogance was matched only by the disconnect to reality? That could indeed have helped things a bit.

Sadly, however, it seems that the entire political class in UK believed the Brexit question was nothing but an internal affair and that the rest of the EU would simply follow on whatever decision the mighty parliament took. Thus the current situation and the general "We fucking told you so." sighed. You people brought this on yourselves by not giving a fuck about the consequences of your actions.
 
Circumstances change and I don't think 650,000 people in NI should necessarily be placed above the 60 million on the mainland. Everyone got a vote, how that vote was used is more a matter of contension but it was at least by the book. Now I don't like this Brexit stuff and do consider it a clear lesson in making sure your leaders have actually being tested before they get power, but it is very much about sovereignty and it remains the right of people to do stuff like this. Even if its a bit stupid. Everyone else has a right to be annoyed at all the restructuring that will happen, but there's a pretty wide line between getting pissed at having to renegotiate treaties and murder.
 
Circumstances change and I don't think 650,000 people in NI should necessarily be placed above the 60 million on the mainland. Everyone got a vote, how that vote was used is more a matter of contension but it was at least by the book. Now I don't like this Brexit stuff and do consider it a clear lesson in making sure your leaders have actually being tested before they get power, but it is very much about sovereignty and it remains the right of people to do stuff like this. Even if its a bit stupid. Everyone else has a right to be annoyed at all the restructuring that will happen, but there's a pretty wide line between getting pissed at having to renegotiate treaties and murder.
Of course it was within your rights to throw the Good Friday Agreements to the garbage bin and to act as if the Republic of Ireland was just a British colony. It was within your rights to do it when everybody else told you what would most likely happen as a consequence. It was within your rights to keep being completely incompetent in managing the issue or even communicating about that issue.

And it is within your rights to face the consequences that were completely predictable. Is it nice? Is it moral? No and no. Violence ain't good. But you know what? The European fucking Union worked its ass to stop it from continuing, from mortar shells being fired at Downing Street, and, while being entirely within your sovereign rights to do it, your elected representative shat upon all this work and threw the soiled toilet paper at our face while calling us Nazis.

So... yeah. Next time, think before acting, people.
 
Nobody is throwing the agreement out, and it is far from certain it'll even need changing, overreacting about it is exactly why we have situations like this in the first place. You're looking at one possible outcome where other outcomes have a similar or better chance of occurring. If one part of it needs to be updated then that is what negotiations are for, and to be frank it's not a huge critical massive part of it either. If NI has a referendum and decides to leave that would also be a change of circumstances that would violate the foundation of the treaty, yet I doubt you'd see tanks on the streets and martial law.

Getting worked up and ranting about it helps nothing, finding ways to make it work in spite of everything is the only way to proceed. It happened, it's dumb, but there it is. So do we all point fingers and hold onto grudges like the people who created this situation or do we rise above and try to work with what we were given?
 
Nobody is throwing the agreement out, and it is far from certain it'll even need changing, overreacting about it is exactly why we have situations like this in the first place. You're looking at one possible outcome where other outcomes have a similar or better chance of occurring. If one part of it needs to be updated then that is what negotiations are for, and to be frank it's not a huge critical massive part of it either. If NI has a referendum and decides to leave that would also be a change of circumstances that would violate the foundation of the treaty, yet I doubt you'd see tanks on the streets and martial law.

Getting worked up and ranting about it helps nothing, finding ways to make it work in spite of everything is the only way to proceed. It happened, it's dumb, but there it is. So do we all point fingers and hold onto grudges like the people who created this situation or do we rise above and try to work with what we were given?
Of course the agreement is being thrown out. It is being shat upon, thrown out and burnt by UK, because that's exactly what Brexit means without full alignment of UK on EU norms and rules, as it requires the end of free travel through the NI/SI border. Which is why a massive part of the discussions about Brexit were about... the Northern Ireland situation. And guess what? Your parliament just confirmed what your politcians had been communicating for a year and a half, that they don't give a shit about that border and their responsibilities. So here we are.

You people want to rise above this shit? You have exactly three options and no other.
1) You say "Sorry." and accept to not leave the EU, referendum be fucking damned.
2) You leave the EU but follow every norm, rule and regulation that comes from Brussels so that the borders can remain nicely open.
3) You set up border checks for goods and people between NI and GB.

That's it. That's what we've been telling you people for months, because any other solution leads to the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement, and Downing Street passerbys needing armoured umbrellas.

You talk about sovereignty? Well, you are sovereign to face the consequences of your actions.
 
It's not being thrown out, there is a possibility, not even a certainty, one point of it may change. That isn't throwing out the entire treaty. If it was you'd be seeing mass arrests as amnesties are revoked and the streets would be put under curfew. Its a long, loooong way to go before anything like that happens, if it does then the treaty is over. So far though doesn't look like it.

The options you list are some of the options, perhaps the ones that will be applied, but clearly ignore the wishes of millions of people. It is what it is, you don't change reality you work with it. You find a solution that fits the current reality and work to change perceptions later. Right now though you deal with what exists and make the best of it. Otherwise you just make a bad situation worse
 
It's not being thrown out, there is a possibility, not even a certainty, one point of it may change. That isn't throwing out the entire treaty. If it was you'd be seeing mass arrests as amnesties are revoked and the streets would be put under curfew. Its a long, loooong way to go before anything like that happens, if it does then the treaty is over. So far though doesn't look like it.
It's no longer a "possibility", it's pretty much certain because unless you keep the border open in a mutually acceptable fashion, the agreement is out. You don't get to cherry-pich.
The options you list are some of the options, perhaps the ones that will be applied, but clearly ignore the wishes of millions of people. It is what it is, you don't change reality you work with it. You find a solution that fits the current reality and work to change perceptions later. Right now though you deal with what exists and make the best of it. Otherwise you just make a bad situation worse
There are no other options, period. The wishes of the millions of people led to this. So you don't get to avoid your responsibilities. Either you tell these millions of people to sod off or you start ordering armoured umbrellas, simple as that. This behaviour of yours, Muldoon, is the very reason why you guys are in the shitter now: because you think the only opinion that matters is yours and that you are entiltled to impose it to everyone else regardless of what they think. But you can't, and the EU didn't bend the knee to Britannia as your Parliament, BoJo and the rest thought it would. Nope. In this situation, you cannot impose your will, and you start seeing the consequences of it.

So what will it be? Option 1, Option 2, Option 3 or Option Armoured Umbrellas? You don't get any that simultaneously gives you hard borders with your neighbours AND a mortar-free sky over London. So you have two months to choose.

images
 
Feel less pain for Ireland than I do for Scotland.

Scotland: "Maybe we should leave. Nobody cares much what we think and say."
England: "No! Don't go! We are stronger as part of an alliance! We will do better, promise!"
Scotland: "Well, OK then. Since things will finally get bette-"
England: "Suckers! We're not changing shit! Hey, let's vote to see if we should leave a larger alliance!"
Scotland: "Fine. We are, after all, stronger as an alliance."
England: "Tough shit! Suicide pact! We're doing this thing, and now you are driving off the cliff with us!"

Because England had the raw numbers and the strongest Brexit strength. Ireland and Wales were confused, but they wavered towards leaving. Scotland was shoveled a pile of shit to bribe them to stay and then got told to fuck off. Poor wee bastards.
 
Feel less pain for Ireland than I do for Scotland.

Scotland: "Maybe we should leave. Nobody cares much what we think and say."
England: "No! Don't go! We are stronger as part of an alliance! We will do better, promise!"
Scotland: "Well, OK then. Since things will finally get bette-"
England: "Suckers! We're not changing shit! Hey, let's vote to see if we should leave a larger alliance!"
Scotland: "Fine. We are, after all, stronger as an alliance."
England: "Tough shit! Suicide pact! We're doing this thing, and now you are driving off the cliff with us!"

Because England had the raw numbers and the strongest Brexit strength. Ireland and Wales were confused, but they wavered towards leaving. Scotland was shoveled a pile of shit to bribe them to stay and then got told to fuck off. Poor wee bastards.
What do you wanna bet that if Scotland voted to leave UK after the shitshow in order to join the EU as its own nation, @Muldoon here would find so many reasons to explain why the Scottish vote must be ignored?
 
England: "Tough shit! Suicide pact! We're doing this thing, and now you are driving off the cliff with us!"
Not only are they driving off the cliff, but they stopped the work that was preventing the ocean to erode the cliff at its base.
 
Not only are they driving off the cliff, but they stopped the work that was preventing the ocean to erode the cliff at its base.
Can't even stunt-drive off the ramp because the ramp will collapse. Pitiful. :(
 
What do you wanna bet that if Scotland voted to leave UK after the shitshow in order to join the EU as its own nation, @Muldoon here would find so many reasons to explain why the Scottish vote must be ignored?


This is why you got banned from SB isn't it?

Any other words you want to put in my mouth to suit your argument instead of actually looking at what I am saying? This leap from Brexit to war in London? Come on, this is the sort of overreaction and extremes that drive people away from any reasonable point you might be making. Not just you of course, everyone with this similar argument that Brexit is only about all hailing Britannia. Simplify it to that degree and you will fail to correct the route problem which has existed for 40 years as the chart before shows.
This isn't a new thing, Farage and friends have their own agenda but there is clearly something beyond that regarding the UKs relation with Europe over the last few decades. This didn't come out of thin air a couple of years ago, there is a deeper pattern which needs to be examined and understood.
Knee jerk anger and ultimatums aren't going to sort it out, until the root is dealt with it'll just drive more people to extremes.
 
This is why you got banned from SB isn't it?

Any other words you want to put in my mouth to suit your argument instead of actually looking at what I am saying? This leap from Brexit to war in London? Come on, this is the sort of overreaction and extremes that drive people away from any reasonable point you might be making. Not just you of course, everyone with this similar argument that Brexit is only about all hailing Britannia. Simplify it to that degree and you will fail to correct the route problem which has existed for 40 years as the chart before shows.
This isn't a new thing, Farage and friends have their own agenda but there is clearly something beyond that regarding the UKs relation with Europe over the last few decades. This didn't come out of thin air a couple of years ago, there is a deeper pattern which needs to be examined and understood.
Knee jerk anger and ultimatums aren't going to sort it out, until the root is dealt with it'll just drive more people to extremes.
Le Yawn.

Nice ad hominem, but in the real world, the situation is pretty simple: we called what would happen, and it's exactly what is happening. You guys acted for 2 years as if the only relevant people in this debate were the Britons (which is a very nice continuity of the past few decades in the EU and the past few centuries before), and didn't give a fuck about what the Irish or the rest of the EU thought, because you were certain you would get whatever you demanded. Until reality happened and the EU said "No.", forcing May to negotiate an agreement with a backstop, which was very, very stupidly denied by your Parliament. At which point you guys are facing a No Deal Brexit, and noone is really willing to give UK a favourable trade deal.

All that because your politicians couldn't accept the simple fact that they are the junior partner in this negociation, that UK will not get any deal that doesn't satisfy the European Union's demands, among which stand the preservation of the Good Friday Agreement. And it seems that you cannot accept it either.

EDIT: here, take a bite of reality for your "opportunities" in a No-Deal scenario:
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-deal-with-trump-be-careful-what-you-wish-for
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/29/britain-us-trade-deal-gm-food-eu-rules
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...lks-australia-new-zealand-brexit-commonwealth

UK is a very minor player in the Great Game, and acting as the equal of the EU, US or China will just get you mocked by all. So maybe it is time for some humble pie?
 
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No one believes the UK is a superpower, not even the old folks. That tends to be the reason I've seen trotted out, that Brexit hinges on old people but that is unlikely, if it were you'd see a general trend down in anti-euro sentiment as old people died out but that isn't the case, it wavers at roughly the same level within 10% or so for the last few decades. So the whole Britannia uber alles thing is a smokescreen, likewise the generational split is also over emphasised so there has to be a more accurate answer for why people don't want to be in Europe.
I've said my piece on Brexit, I don't think its a good idea and yet you are treating me like I'm Farage himself :p If I was supporting Brexit fair enough but I'm not supporting it, I simply want to identify a solution and I'm getting nothing but doomsaying which is fairly useless, enough of that in other media. Now if you want to punish all of Britain for defying Europe then it's your choice, but it's a fast way to alienate any allies that wanted a different outcome and ensure this doesn't get fixed anytime this generation. I'd prefer that it did but you need to see what the true problem is before you can fix it and the things you are citing just aren't the true reasons. The Irish and other countries aren't even on the radar, so what is, what made it happen? Not Farage, not Russians, it's something that long predates all of them.
 
No one believes the UK is a superpower, not even the old folks. That tends to be the reason I've seen trotted out, that Brexit hinges on old people but that is unlikely, if it were you'd see a general trend down in anti-euro sentiment as old people died out but that isn't the case, it wavers at roughly the same level within 10% or so for the last few decades. So the whole Britannia uber alles thing is a smokescreen, likewise the generational split is also over emphasised so there has to be a more accurate answer for why people don't want to be in Europe.
I've said my piece on Brexit, I don't think its a good idea and yet you are treating me like I'm Farage himself :p If I was supporting Brexit fair enough but I'm not supporting it, I simply want to identify a solution and I'm getting nothing but doomsaying which is fairly useless, enough of that in other media. Now if you want to punish all of Britain for defying Europe then it's your choice, but it's a fast way to alienate any allies that wanted a different outcome and ensure this doesn't get fixed anytime this generation. I'd prefer that it did but you need to see what the true problem is before you can fix it and the things you are citing just aren't the true reasons. The Irish and other countries aren't even on the radar, so what is, what made it happen? Not Farage, not Russians, it's something that long predates all of them.
The true problem is that for you, the Irish and the other countries aren't even on the radar. This is the fucking issue. The national delusion that leaving the EU is only an internal question in which noone else has any word to say. It isn't, and the way your government is doing it leads you people to a repeat of the Troubles, in addition to the "wonders" of a No-Deal prepared with stunning incompetence on the British side (your government seriously recruited for logistics and cross-Channel transportation a company with less than half a dozen employees and exactly zero ferry).

We tried to help you, we gave you the options that would allow you to get out of this mess in one piece, but your PM and your MP have repeatedly shat on every single one of them. While calling us Nazis. The solutions are pretty simple, so choose between Option 1, Option 2, Option 3 and Option armoured umbrellas.
 
If thats your message fair enough, I guess thats all I'm getting so appreciate the time
 
On the bright side, we only have to wait another week to see Plan B also fail (which is Plan A but with some shambles of a backstop maybe). Then it will all be over for a couple of weeks until Plan C is unveiled. Which is hopefully turning the whole mess over to the Queen to figure out since parliament is far too busy working on an all-members reenactment of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
 
On the bright side, we only have to wait another week to see Plan B also fail (which is Plan A but with some shambles of a backstop maybe). Then it will all be over for a couple of weeks until Plan C is unveiled. Which is hopefully turning the whole mess over to the Queen to figure out since parliament is far too busy working on an all-members reenactment of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.
It feels like seeing a grad student with a fixed-duration doctoral grant who procrastinated for 98 % of the duration and is desperately scrambling to make up something when the jury is already gathered. I feel bad.
 
It feels like seeing a grad student with a fixed-duration doctoral grant who procrastinated for 98 % of the duration and is desperately scrambling to make up something when the jury is already gathered. I feel bad.
I was thinking of their grinning broadly and pulling the pin on the train cars, then watching in shock as the engine and rest of the train just leaves... while also now running downgrade towards a sharp turn without any air brakes.

Except then I though better of that illustration, because trains actually have safety systems to prevent those sorts of monumental fuckups.

Because for all the talk that it won't be easy, the government still thinks that all they have to do is decouple the economies and stop free border passing of EU citizens while keeping every other benefit. Which leaves even pygmies only now discovering an outside world scratching their heads as to how the fuck anyone could think that would ever work.
 
A pretty good summary from William Boyd:
Tribune. When I woke up on the 24th June 2016, the day after the Brexit referendum, my initial thought was that I had been dreaming – that it was a grim political nightmare. Alas, no. It was all too horribly real. And now when I contemplate the gamut of emotions I've gone through since that day – as the Brexit chaos has lurched on and on and on –, my emotional range has responded accordingly.

First shock, incredulity and despair that then gave way to fatigue, dumbfoundedness and anger as I saw the faltering, inept negotiations taking place led by incompetent, woefully unprepared negotiators. And now, two and a half years later, having arrived at the endgame fiasco, what I am currently experiencing is something closer to shame. Shame that this country, Great Britain, should find herself in this abject, needless mess; shame at the third-rate quality of our prime minister, Theresa May, our third-rate leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, our third-rate Conservative government and most politicians (there are some exceptions) and shame at the self-serving mendacity and reckless propaganda of the Brexit-ultras.

The Brexit problem, however, is an old one and goes back many decades. It's to do with a particular cast of mind, a pervasive fantasy of England and the English (rather than Britain and the British) that certain people, men and women, hold with a bizarre, iron certainty. The interesting aspect of this national delusion is that it transcends class and socio-economic barriers. Poor working-class Labour voters and extremely rich Conservative voters feel the same. Collectively they could be described as « Little-Englanders ».

They cohere – vaguely, emotionally – to a fantastical myth of England and her place in the world. Part nostalgia for the days of the British Empire when the globe was coloured half red; part built on militaristic legends of England's solitary heroism (the Armada, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz), part fuelled by personifications of nationhood – Boudicca, Britannia, Richard the Lionheart, Good Queen Bess, John Bull – this amorphous creed has all the ingredients of a cult or outlandish faith like Theosophy, Scientology or Zoroastrianism, let alone orthodox religions.

You can't engage meaningfully with people who possess these beliefs: they and their convictions are not subject to reason. It's a mind-set, not an argument. All your cogent, logical rationality melts in the face of these fantasies of shrill, fervent patriotism. We can do it alone; we don't need anyone else; we are the Bulldog Breed. You see the same effect across the Atlantic with Trump's fervent, mindless sloganizing – Make America Great Again. It is an appeal to the basest, most atavistic instincts and it can be very alluring to a certain type of person.

History will not be kind to David Cameron
And it is alluring because in some cases it is fuelled by genuine grievance. The bourgeois Conservatives of the « shires », as we term them, have always been complacent Little Englanders with patronising attitudes towards Johnny Foreigner that will never change. What is new is the Europhobia of the formerly socialist working class. There is, in working class Britain, a real sense of grievance. A deep feeling that they are being spurned, that no one cares for them and that their values are ignored.

The Brexit campaign craftily tapped into this resentment with its xenophobic exaggerations (« The Turks are coming! ») and its downright lies (£350 million a week for the National Health Service) – resentment against the South and London, against bankers, against industrialists – and offered the downtrodden and neglected the perfect scapegoat of the European Union (EU). The EU is the cause of everything you are complaining about, they said. Leave the EU and enjoy a future of bright British tomorrows.

The vote to leave became a form of protest against the injustices that were seen as being forced upon this segment of the population. Genuine injustices, as I say – lives are hard; the people least able to afford it are still paying for the financial crash of 2008. But it was now cast in a different light: everything wrong with their deprived lives, their shabby towns, their horrible jobs, their meagre services, was the fault of Europe -- and immigrants. Simply get out of Europe, the Brexit campaign lied to them, control immigration, and your life will be immeasurably better.

History will not be kind to David Cameron, the ex-prime-minister, now nowhere to be seen. In promising a simple in-out referendum as a way of pacifying the anti-Europe right wing of the Conservative party he made the biggest, most grotesque political blunder of his career and he will go down in the annals as the man who changed Britain irrevocably – for the worse. Brexit won a narrow victory – 52% leave to 48% remain –, but 28% of the population didn't bother to vote. It is hardly a sensational mandate for radical change. Only one third of the British population is getting what it wants. The « British People » did not speak.

A week before the referendum, my local butcher in London asked me how I was going to vote. « Are you "in" or "out"? » he questioned, in all candid seriousness. I'm « in », I told him, emphatically, and added that I believed it would be utter insanity to leave the EU. « I'm voting to leave, » he volunteered. I looked at him incredulously and I think he sensed my unspoken baffled judgement. He's a nice man and I didn't want the argument to go any further. « Don't worry, » he said, smiling reassuringly, secure in his faith. « We can do it. No problem. We'll be fine. » I asked him again last week if he was happy with the way Brexit was going. He wouldn't answer my question and changed the subject. Bitter Brexit reality is beginning to dawn on the dreamers. Only Europe can save the rest of us.
 
Sorry (not sorry), but the crash out will be hilarious for me. Like the Trump election, but without a possible correction in four years. Like Wile E. Coyote planning things everywhere.
 
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So, the Parliament has sent May back to Brussels to renegotiate the Irish backstop: Brexit: MPs back May's bid to change deal - BBC News
At the same time they have voted against extending article 50 but also against a no-deal Brexit. All this while the EC, Tusk and Juncker keep repeating that there won't be any re-negotiation of the current deal.
What does she have to offer in exchange? I mean really do they even understand they are asking for things with value and offering nothing in exchange, is begging what brexitiers are reduced to?
 
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