Brexit talks at the final but most important hurdle

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Johnson is a fool. I was embarrassed for him standing there for the photos. There is a man who was in intensive care due to Covid being treated like a school kid on how to be socially distant and when to wear a mask.

I agree, a no deal is bad to the EU and especially Ireland but the UK have been unrealistic in what they are looking for. Other countries have to meet standardards to trade with the EU and the UK shouldn't be any different. I'd say it is very difficult to even try to give them something when they insist on having a free trade agreement with no obligations on them. You can see with how unprepared they are, that they are being led by an entire cabinet of incompetents. I'd say it'll like trying to negotiate with a child.
 
Saw a rumour that topic of extending another year has been raised at civil service level with the EU. If true it really is amateur hour - they had that option earlier this year and it was obvious they needed to extend. Now it looks desperate and just putting off the tough domestic decisions they will eventually have to address
 
Maybe that could happen, but Johnson would be toast then, the brexiteers would descend on him like pirahna fish. Johnson yesterday was a very diminished figure though, I think the corona has really taken it out of him, the bumbling enthusiasm is gone. The UK stock market is unaffected and is up today so obviously they think some sort of fudge will be cobbled together. The corona virus had a much bigger effect than brexit, the vaccine is still more important than brexit
 
I heard an interesting perspective yesterday (can't remember where) saying that the Brexiteer's obsession with the UK's sovereignty would make ANY trade deal impossible. All trade deals involve surrendering some sovereignty.

In fairness tho, I do think there's room to maneuver on fish quota's in the UK's favour to allow the it to have a fig-leaf over the level paying field, which they absolutely will need to give way on.

I genuinely wonder if the UK perhaps needs to crash out, if there needs to be chaos in order for that infamous and elusive British 'pragmatism' to steal back the debate from the loony right-wing of Tories and Ukipers . This will hurt us but maybe it is a price worth paying to get the adults back into the room of UK governance.
 
horusd said:
I heard an interesting perspective yesterday (can't remember where) saying that the Brexiteer's obsession with the UK's sovereignty would make ANY trade deal impossible. All trade deals involve surrendering some sovereignty.
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They have signed post EU trade deals with Japan, Canada, Singapore, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and blocs of South American, Central American and Caribbean countries.
 
odyssey06 said:
They have signed post EU trade deals with Japan, Canada, Singapore, Israel, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and blocs of South American, Central American and Caribbean countries.
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So, they only have a problem pooling sovereignty with it's largest neighbour...
 
Most of those deals just replicate all the existing parameters of the equivalent EU deals. Aren't some placeholders to keep the status quo while they negotiate new deals. They did a lot of shouting about the predicted boost to the UK economy coming from the deal with Japan, but deliberately chose 2018 as the baseline, before the EU-Japan deal took effect.
 
horusd said:
So, they only have a problem pooling sovereignty with it's largest neighbour...
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Yup - they have this hang up with independence vs the EU yet will concede "sovereignty" in a flash if offered a US trade deal
 
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EmmDee said:
Yup - they have this hang up with independence vs the EU yet will concede "sovereignty" in a flash if offered a US trade deal
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They just won't call it sovereignty, they'll come up with some other term more appealing to the masses.
 
This wont work unless a trustworthy leader comes forward to lead the people back. I think acrimony will follow and blame trowing will be the order of the day.
 
horusd said:
This will hurt us but maybe it is a price worth paying to get the adults back into the room of UK governance.
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But there is also intransigence and bloody mindedness on the EU side, The EU position is really what Paris and Berlin decides what is and they are dictating what the EU script is which everyone else is just following verbatim. The talks were going well enough until Paris took a hard line and threatened to veto the then potential agreement.
 
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At this stage I'd let them off, and see how they cope its nonsensical and I know we will suffer from an economic perspective.

They really are so stuck in the past its laughable and I simply cannot see them having the same influence on any global issue if they leave without a deal.

The UK doesn't and never has in the last 100 years produced enough food to feed its own population. Thats not going to change either so what are they going to do, buy sprouts from the Jamaicans?
 
joe sod said:
The EU position is really what Paris and Berlin decides what is and they are dictating what the EU script is which everyone else is just following verbatim.
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Isn't that really just another fallacy along the lines of the banning of bendy bananas? If Paris and Berlin dictate direction, how did Poland and Hungary achieve compromises on the recovery fund deal?
 
@Leo yes fair points. With regard to Poland and Hungary yes the EU conceded some things because they needed to get the big budget and spending package through which they were threatening to vote against because the EU wanted to punish them for decisions they were making within their own countries. But that also goes to the heart of the Brexit arguments , should the EU have the power to sanction countries ( however distasteful in the eyes of the EU) that are outside the remit of the EU but are domestic political issues. In my opinion that is over reach and is actually damaging to the image of the EU and its long term future, it needs to keep the eastern european countries within the club and big bazukas of euros will no longer work as they get wealthier.
But hopefully that will also be the outcome of the withdrawal talks, that the EU has to concede some of the level playing stuff to the UK in exchange for access to the fishing grounds.
 

The point was really that from that public spat, it's quite clear that Paris and Berlin do not dictate and don't always get their way. The merits or otherwise of that deal are probably for another thread.

The narrative that the UK are sick of being dictated to by Europe isn't backed up by the facts. They voted against only 2% of the >2,500 laws passed over the last 20 years, with a reputation for successfully blocking or altering many more proposals they did not approve of before they ever got to the voting stage.
 
The fact that the EU agreed to put the Irish border question in their primary tranche of issues would point to the fact that Paris / Berlin don't dictate everything. Or at least they put greater importance on protecting interests of smaller member states over larger 3rd country interests.

Compare that to the UK Parliament and Govt treatment of it's smaller regions
 
The EU is generally beneficial for smaller countries. It's one of its selling points, Smaller countries can club together to resist domination by the bigger lads. As for Poland and Hungary, these countries are borderline autocracies where the rule of law is being undermined. The EU is a rules-based, liberal club. It should enforce minimum legal standards, and these should have been put in place years ago, just no one really thought that the EU could end up nurturing the likes of Urban in its mix. A bit like the EU's lack of preparation for the Euro. I think IRL or other western EU stats rightly baulk at funding right-wing reactionary autocrats as they undermine the legal systems and the free-press in their countries, that want EU cash but not EU burden sharing, as in the asylum issue. As an aside, the EU's law-based approach will also protect minorities, women, gay people, in places like Poland and Hungary.
 
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horusd said:
just no one really thought that the EU could end up nurturing the likes of Urban in its mix.
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"Orbán became a nationally known politician after giving an address at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy and other martyrs of the 1956 revolution, in which he openly demanded that Soviet troops withdraw from the country. "


just for some backround on Urban he was a key figure in the fall of the soviet union in Hungary and showed some personal bravery in speaking out against it, thats the backround of the eastern european countries that we don't fully get in Western Europe. Its 80 years since western europe experienced totalitarianism but its only 30 years since they did in Poland and Hungary and it lasted over 40 years aswell. While it is an exagerration to equivocate between the EU and the Soviet Union it is also a gross exagerration to equivocate between Orban today and Nazism which some people try to do.
 
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Did anyone see Question Time last night? They had a former Australian PM on who told a few home truths, spelling out exactly what an "Australian style" agreement really means. Given he's neutral in the EU/UK negotiations, it was hard for the politicians to argue against his points. He also called a spade a spade, stating the obvious that the EU is simply looking after its own rational self interests, just like the UK is trying to do. Refreshing.

He speaks at 5mins, 13mins & 22mins if you don't have the time to watch the whole piece (LINK).
 
Bertie, renowned in his time for his negotiation skills, has thrown his tuppence worth in. He reckons the decision that the trade negotiations must finish on the 31st Dec was a mistake. He reckons that it can still be extended.
That is where my money will be, a postponement of talks to facilitate a push-back of the deadline.
If, after all, a 'no-deal' emerges is it won't be long before a new round of talks will be required to resolve the pronlems emerging from no-deal.
 
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