British Politics Thread

I don't think that time is truly the issue regarding the negotiations. The problem is that the EU has laid out the options the UK has, but the UK is still trying to wheedle some sort of set-up in which they are access to the single market while not having free movement and more freedom regarding the rules than any other EU country out of the EU.

Pretty much. I thought it would be impossible to outdo the EU in terms of quantity of political fudge produced in a crisis but I stand well and truly corrected.

Probably going to get either Canada or No Deal. The former is actually OK in my book as long as the investor arbitral tribunal nonsense is taken out and we can still impose capital controls if we want to, the latter is AAAGH DOOM.

We'll never know at this point. Maybe it's due to wasting time. Maybe it's due to gross incompetence. Maybe it's due to deliberate sabotage in the hopes of Hard Brexit. Maybe it's due to the UK gov't's "have cake and eat it" mentality. It's probably all of those.

Getting the former would require the UK government to gain a sudden surge of competence and backbone in resisting Hard Brexit supporters.

Edited by M84 on Aug 12th 2018 at 6:21:54 PM

On any sane scale Canada-model is quite a hard Brexit, no Single Market, no Customs Union, extensive but otherwise standard free trade agreement. This is the "soft option" for the Brexiteers at present, since they appear to be imitating the Tea Party and their well-known compromising skills.

My impossible wishlist for Brexit negotiations is something like Canada deal sans investor protection clauses. EU citizens in Britain get offered UK citizenship and have right to stay if they refuse. Use that gesture to try to get some form of deal for Gibraltar and/or Open Skies. IIRC Gibraltar is not in the EU Customs Union or Schengen at present, which makes things simpler. You then have to pick one of many subpar options for the Irish border. Guess you could use the preexisting Ireland/UK passport union to make the border as thin as possible for Irish or UK citizens, but it's going to have to be there in some physical way in any deal that has any chance of passing at present.

Edited by DeathorCake on Aug 12th 2018 at 11:04:50 AM

Yeah I think I’ll pass on any option that doesn’t have a customs union, without a customs unions we have no free movement, no free movement means either an Irish Sea border (which may inspire a string of unionist terrorist attacks), or an Irish land border (which means a rearmed and very angry IRA).

I work at a likly terrorist target and use the tube every day, I’ve got enough shot to worry about with lone wolf ISIS stuff still hanging around.

Ireland has come a long way since the 90s. I would expect mass protesting, but definitely not IRA-style terrorism in case any of those options were to happen, like in most other European countries.

You appear to believe that the IRA has disbanded or actually fully disarmed itself.

Unlikely in both cases.

It's almost as if violent terrorists aren't the most trustworthy people.

You know Sinn Fein, the political party? They’re literally the political wing of the IRA.

Sinn Fein being the ones who never actually attend Parliament as a form of protest.

Scapegoating has been the language of British politics for generations. It's pretty much the only reason Brexit is happening at all, because the government has convinced everyone that the EU is the source of all our problems, not them.

The people in Northern Ireland seem to think that there is a danger of the troubles starting again, and if they are afraid of it, one should take the notion serious.

Yeah, the two largest political parties in Ireland are the parliamentary wing of a terrorist organization and the parliamentary wing of a terrorist organization that's currently propping up the British government.

There's no reason to think, between the phasing out of EU programs and a renewed Irish border, the two won't be back at each others' throats again.

I know that the Northern Irish don't want the Troubles back. However, I don't see any Hard Brexit option that doesn't just destroy the comprises their current truce is based upon. You need to put a hard border somewhere in a hard or no-deal Brexit, and wherever you put it, it will anger one side or the other.

Hopefully, we won't have the kind of explosive spark like Bloody Sunday that escalated the violence, but it's quite hard to anticipate what the old paramilitaries might do if an hard border slams down either in the Irish Sea (which is slightly more practical if nothing else) or on the land border (which would be completely unenforcable without literally building a wall, and good luck building that without the IRA blowing it up every weekend).

If the Majority of Northern Irish don't want the troubles back, I believe them.

It only needs a few dozen assholes with C4 and some A K47s to start them again, sadly.

Where the Hard Border comes down probably depends on which of the aforemented 2 parties gets more pissed. Land-Border probably sets off IRA, Sea Border the Unionists.

Edited by 3of4 on Aug 13th 2018 at 11:42:39 AM

I wonder if the DUP's current deal with the Government will be able to influence where that hard border lands... I mean, the Government have been making all the bad impractical decisions so far, so they might well follow suit and try to put a land border in NI.

The only solution I currently see is to put the damn border into the see, no matter what the DUP thinks. There simply isn't another option. And that is even than the only solution if the UK gets a trade deal.

I have to agree. The Unionists will not be happy, but a border on land is tantamount to an incitement to violence. Without even mentioning any practical issues.

Of course, Soft Brexit or (preferably) Remain would be the BEST option, but you know, with the current lot in charge of it all...

Well we keep being told that anything other than 100% hard as topaz Brexit is a tacit Remain. So we won't be getting that.

Well, realistically speaking a soft Brexit is the option in which nobody gets what he wants. The Remainers still lose every say the UK used to have in the EU, and the Leavers won't be able to get rid of freedom of movement.

I can live with us loosing our say in the EU, we wern’t using it for anything good anyway. We can ask for it back down the line when we’ve proven ourselves to be responsible adults again.

The sea border seems the most practice, but there is always the option of an unenforced land border. Free movement remains in practise but isn’t there officially.

So soft Brexit, but we pretend it’s hard Brexit.

lol, human trafficking would go through the roof

I don't see the Hard Brexiters going for a "border-in-name-only" solution. They'll probably want a wall and demand Ireland pay for it.

Not really, not if the UK wants to trade under WTO rules. They demand border controls, which is exactly why the EU will implement them immediately should there be a hard Brexit. They have to.

Edited by Swanpride on Aug 13th 2018 at 5:24:17 AM

The WTO has plenty of members with less than secure borders, the UK would just become one of them. Now the EU enforcing the border is certainly possible, but it will move the IRA’s focus from the north to the south.

Oh Farage and that lot would loose their shit, but they belive in Hard Brexit, as opposed to May who supports Hard Brexit out of political convenience.

X3 Trafficing in general, it’s be insane, stupid, penny pinching and short sighted, which is what makes me think it may happen.

Edited by Silasw on Aug 13th 2018 at 12:37:01 PM