Brexit - whats the difference.....

[mack341]

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Meanwhile accession to the Pacific trade agreement (CPTPP) is taking longer than expected. The predicted January signing has now been delayed to March,despite

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. The CPTPP is a potential rival to the EU, without Europe’s regulatory burdens and political commitments to ever-closer union. As Europe’s share of global trade declines, Rejoiners are conscious that their economic case only grows weaker over time – though the anti-Brexit propaganda campaign remains in full force.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

There's been a lot of 'it's too soon to pass judgement yet, give it time', including in this very thread. As Rawnsley points out here, we're coming up to three years now, give it another year? Another couple of years? Five years maybe?

It doesn't make any difference, like a square wheel, it's never going to work, and giving it time won't change that. The only solution is to start to change the shape of wheel.

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Some of the advocates for the project now recognise that it has failed and have begun to admit as much. Alex Hickman, a business adviser at Number 10 during the Johnson premiership, recently wrote: “Those of us who backed Leave must acknowledge that Brexit isn’t working… It is not clear to most people what Brexit is actually for.”

Some of the champions of Brexit can see it has been a disaster, but can’t publicly admit it – a category that includes members of the cabinet. The Brexit-supporting Tory peer and boss of Next, Simon Wolfson, is among the many who grizzle that this is “

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”. Even Brexiters know it looks ridiculous to point the finger at recalcitrant “Remoaners” when Brexiters have been running the government for nearly four years.

So now they turn the accusation of sabotage on their own gang by blaming the Tories for messing it up by not doing it “properly”, whatever properly is supposed to be. They sound like those ultra-leftists who claim that Marxism only became discredited as a method of government because none of the various experiments with that creed applied it correctly.

 

[mack341]

There's been a lot of 'it's too soon to pass judgement yet, give it time', including in this very thread. As Rawnsley points out here, we're coming up to three years now, give it another year? Another couple of years? Five years maybe?

It doesn't make any difference, like a square wheel, it's never going to work, and giving it time won't change that. The only solution is to start to change the shape of wheel.

-----------------------------

Some of the advocates for the project now recognise that it has failed and have begun to admit as much. Alex Hickman, a business adviser at Number 10 during the Johnson premiership, recently wrote: “Those of us who backed Leave must acknowledge that Brexit isn’t working… It is not clear to most people what Brexit is actually for.”

Some of the champions of Brexit can see it has been a disaster, but can’t publicly admit it – a category that includes members of the cabinet. The Brexit-supporting Tory peer and boss of Next, Simon Wolfson, is among the many who grizzle that this is “

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”. Even Brexiters know it looks ridiculous to point the finger at recalcitrant “Remoaners” when Brexiters have been running the government for nearly four years.

So now they turn the accusation of sabotage on their own gang by blaming the Tories for messing it up by not doing it “properly”, whatever properly is supposed to be. They sound like those ultra-leftists who claim that Marxism only became discredited as a method of government because none of the various experiments with that creed applied it correctly.

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These articles would make more sense if we'd left without a free trade deal in place, that was always the main selling point of being in the EU and we still have it. Wolfson's moaning because he has to pay staff slightly more in order to recruit afaik.

It's predictable that any macro economic issues the uk has faced would be seized by remainers to cast as the effects of brexit. Rawnsley is firmly in the blairite camp, does he provide any concrete reasons why brexit is so terrible?

Edit: Because that is actually how you convince people, with reasons that make sense. Some staffer saying x,y,z without their reasoning for that opinion provided is not a reason.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

These articles would make more sense if we'd left without a free trade deal in place, that was always the main selling point of being in the EU and we still have it. Wolfson's moaning because he has to pay staff slightly more in order to recruit afaik.

Apart from the bit where we left the EU Single Market and also the Customs Union, which incidentally is also why there's now a border down the Irish Sea.

All Johnson's (and Frost's) amazing 'FREE TRADE DEAL' really did was give the EU access to sell us all their stuff tariff free, which is of course entirely in their interests because we had a massive trade deficit with the EU (and we now have an even bigger one), whilst nobbling UK producers of anything trying to sell into the EU, because of all the extra red tape and costs.

And also, make no mistake, you're paying the costs in around 5% of extra inflation on top of everything else (Covid/Ukraine) that's entirely down to Brexit, Tesco just don't put that on their price stickers to help explain to folks why everything has got so expensive - instead they quietly passed the Brexit costs onto you.

 

[mack341]

All Johnson's (and Frost's) amazing 'FREE TRADE DEAL' really did was give the EU access to sell us all their stuff tariff free, which is of course entirely in their interests because we had a massive trade deficit with the EU (and we now have an even bigger one), whilst nobbling UK producers of anything trying to sell into the EU, because of all the extra red tape and costs.

I'd be amazed if Rawnsley stated this as a reason, because red tape can be improved/removed, whereas his like never had any time for being outside of the EU, they never want it to work.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Not even Farage is arguing with Brexit costing the UK around 4% of its GDP now, and openly conceding that for small and medium sized businesses in the UK, the Brexit 'benefits' are in fact, 'nothing'.

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It's not a great article TBH, repeating the absolute falsehood that the UK couldn't have done its vaccine rollout whilst an EU member (which it was when it came to the rules anyway, as we were still in transition, and could have done as a full EU member regardless), along with the usual bland platitudes about the 'opportunities' we're still missing.

But still, direct quotations and stats are always informative.

So we have the numbers here, but the reasoning is bollocks, the biggest thing that's hurt us on the small boats is losing the Dublin Regulation which we had as an EU member, the ECHR is a red herring and the latest European bogeyman.



Farage has crawled out from under his rock to blame the EU for the consequences of the UK choosing to leave the EU (LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!), but he is correct that you can't argue with the figures on the hit to GDP and the fact that for UK businesses Brexit has just been a big kick in the face.



So yeah it's not a great article, as you'd expect from The Torygraph (one of the major champions of Brexit) they can't possibly accept that the whole thing was a terrible mistake, so they simply dance around it by saying it hasn't been done properly. (Which amusingly, is what right-wingers always accuse lefties of doing when they say Socialism never works and lefties respond by saying it's never been done properly.)

Anyway, it looks like the public have increasingly made up their mind.

Brexit has destroyed multiple Tory Prime Ministers, and now it's going to be part of the reason they lose a general election. Foot, blown off.

It'll be interesting to see what Reform UK does here, they only need to be taking around 10% of the vote, which they will almost exclusively cannibalise off the Tories, to further sink them. Last time Farage started properly snapping at the Tories' heels Cameron shit himself and ultimately gave us Brexit (cheers, Dave), but there is nowhere left for them to go on the right now, we can't leave the EU again and we're already trying to launch refugees at Rwanda in big cannons, so short of declaring a Fourth Reich, I'm not really sure what they can do to head him off.

(This isn't even the worst I've seen recently, one had Labour on 50% and the Tories at 23%.)

 

[mack341]

Not even Farage is arguing with Brexit costing the UK around 4% of its GDP now, and openly conceding that for small and medium sized businesses in the UK, the Brexit 'benefits' are in fact, 'nothing'.

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It's not a great article TBH, repeating the absolute falsehood that the UK couldn't have done its vaccine rollout whilst an EU member (which it was when it came to the rules anyway, as we were still in transition, and could have done as a full EU member regardless), along with the usual bland platitudes about the 'opportunities' we're still missing.

But still, direct quotations and stats are always informative.

So we have the numbers here, but the reasoning is bollocks, the biggest thing that's hurt us on the small boats is losing the Dublin Regulation which we had as an EU member, the ECHR is a red herring and the latest European bogeyman.

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Farage has crawled out from under his rock to blame the EU for the consequences of the UK choosing to leave the EU (LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!), but he is correct that you can't argue with the figures on the hit to GDP and the fact that for UK businesses Brexit has just been a big kick in the face.

View attachment 179163

So yeah it's not a great article, as you'd expect from The Torygraph (one of the major champions of Brexit) they can't possibly accept that the whole thing was a terrible mistake, so they simply dance around it by saying it hasn't been done properly. (Which amusingly, is what right-wingers always accuse lefties of doing when they say Socialism never works and lefties respond by saying it's never been done properly.)

Anyway, it looks like the public have increasingly made up their mind.

Brexit has destroyed multiple Tory Prime Ministers, and now it's going to be part of the reason they lose a general election. Foot, blown off.

It'll be interesting to see what Reform UK does here, they only need to be taking around 10% of the vote, which they will almost exclusively cannibalise off the Tories, to further sink them. Last time Farage started properly snapping at the Tories' heels Cameron shit himself and ultimately gave us Brexit (cheers, Dave), but there is nowhere left for them to go on the right now, we can't leave the EU again and we're already trying to launch refugees at Rwanda in big cannons, so short of declaring a Fourth Reich, I'm not really sure what they can do to head him off.

(This isn't even the worst I've seen recently, one had Labour on 50% and the Tories at 23%.)

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In that quote Farage calls the claims about GDP and brexit ludicrous, it is difficult to fight back on just because of the nature of the topic, macro economics, appointing blame to one specific event; but take, for instance, Flybe going bust is that most likely down to brexit or the lockdowns?

Many shops closing in the high street, that affects GDP, but its cause is high rents and having to compete with online traders who have less overheads and tax levels. [plus the general downturn due to inflation/cost of living]

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Tory billionaire Guy Hands not mincing his words.

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Hands, the founder, chair and chief investment officer of the private equity firm Terra Firma, said: “It’s been a complete disaster. The reality is it’s been a lose-lose situation for us and Europe. Europe has lost more [in financial services] but we’ve lost as well. And the reality of

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was, it was just was a bunch of complete and total lies.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Torygraph not finding much to be happy about either, on this the third anniversary of the UK leaving transition and therefore the EU. Fortunately it's turned out to be the towering success we were told it would be.

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[ChopleyIOM]

An excellent, if rather depressing article from Ian Dunt.

On some level there's not much left to debate when it comes to Brexit, three years down the line it's delivered nothing but decline for the UK, there are no upsides, no positives, no wins, it hasn't made anything better.

And it's not going to get any better either, because it can't, because Brexit is inherently damaging, you can't fix something that is broken by design. (Shame on Labour for perpetuating the lie that we can 'Make Brexit Work', I mean, I understand why they're doing it, but sooner or later their spinelessness on this issue is going to bite them on the arse.)

Anyway, it's a decent read, and it's almost impossible to disagree with any of it, because fundamentally we're just dealing in facts at this point.

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This is why the polling on Brexit has travelled in one direction and one direction only. There is no mystery to it. It is quite simple: the project has achieved nothing. Someday soon, probably not more than a few years from now, it will be hard to even find people who admit to ever having supported it in the first place. It will join Suez and Iraq in the great pantheon of catastrophic British errors. But as its support ebbs away, we’ll still be left with the scars. Those who inflicted them on us should hang their heads in shame.

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[Webzcas]

So food price rises, high levels of inflation, energy bills and overall rise in cost of living etc are all to do with Brexit? Funny how the IMF keep publishing grim and dire forecasts, yet the actuality more than often continues to contradict them.

Spending Billions upon Billions on Furlough and shutting down the entire country months on end, plus a small fact Josef Stalin mark II in the Kremlin is committing genocide on a sovereign country in Europe whilst weaponising energy, has of course nothing to do with the situation we now find ourselves in

Don't get me wrong this govt has long run its course and like all political parties, the Tory Party in the main is out for their own. But, I buy the Brexit has destroyed this and that mantra, as much as I buy Nicola Sturgeon's views on Trans prisoners.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

In today's episode of 'Not my fault guv'nor, honest', professional cretin David Davis has decided that it's Whitehall's fault Brexit has turned out to be a big steaming turd, because they did a very bad job of negotiating it. (He appears to have forgotten he was the UK's actual Brexit negotiator at one point, and of course David Frost told us all what a great deal he'd negotiated and signed, and dunover was convinced by this because he told us all here at CM it was a great deal for the UK and Remoaners like me would be eating our hats because it had all turned out splendidly after all.)

As ever, it's interesting to see how the dial has shifted on Brexit, it's impossible to even pretend it's not an absolute disaster for the UK on every conceivable level at this point, so all that's left to do is try and apportion blame.

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[mack341]

In today's episode of 'Not my fault guv'nor, honest', professional cretin David Davis has decided that it's Whitehall's fault Brexit has turned out to be a big steaming turd, because they did a very bad job of negotiating it. (He appears to have forgotten he was the UK's actual Brexit negotiator at one point, and of course David Frost told us all what a great deal he'd negotiated and signed, and dunover was convinced by this because he told us all here at CM it was a great deal for the UK and Remoaners like me would be eating our hats because it had all turned out splendidly after all.)

As ever, it's interesting to see how the dial has shifted on Brexit, it's impossible to even pretend it's not an absolute disaster for the UK on every conceivable level at this point, so all that's left to do is try and apportion blame.

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View attachment 179341

Ministers rely on the civil servants to go through the texts, it's literally the machine of govt, davis and frost going off to negotiate on their own with a pro EU team in the background is obviously going to achieve a less than perfect outcome. Imagine a union that was negotiating on behalf of staff but was pro the board of directors?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Ministers rely on the civil servants to go through the texts, it's literally the machine of govt, davis and frost going off to negotiate on their own with a pro EU team in the background is obviously going to achieve a less than perfect outcome. Imagine a union that was negotiating on behalf of staff but was pro the board of directors?

Yeah but Davis didn't even remotely make an effort. We all remember this iconic image, right?

He brought a shit-eating grin to a gunfight.

(Davis is a notoriously lazy politician, doesn't do detail, doesn't commit himself to the task at hand, doesn't get his head around his brief, and we sent him off to negotiate with Barnier, lols.)

 

[bamberfishcake]

Nicola Sturgeon's views on Trans prisoners

I missed that, just googled it; what an imbecile that woman is for such a stupid and inconsiderate suggestion.

 

[mack341]

Yeah but Davis didn't even remotely make an effort. We all remember this iconic image, right?

He brought a shit-eating grin to a gunfight.

(Davis is a notoriously lazy politician, doesn't do detail, doesn't commit himself to the task at hand, doesn't get his head around his brief, and we sent him off to negotiate with Barnier, lols.)

The other bloke has got the same grin too; where are you getting this notoriously lazy bit from, I've never read or heard of that anywhere, bojo yes and it fits his flitting personality, unlikely to be able to sit at a desk for hrs poring over reports and analysis.

Davis is okay, slightly uninspiring but steady.

I think I said before that Barnier was an impressive politician, committed to his role and professional and determined to get the result he sought, we don't seem to do that kind of politician anymore, everything has to be smiles to the camera and fake bonhomie.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

The other bloke has got the same grin too; where are you getting this notoriously lazy bit from, I've never read or heard of that anywhere, bojo yes and it fits his flitting personality, unlikely to be able to sit at a desk for hrs poring over reports and analysis.

Davis is okay, slightly uninspiring but steady.

I think I said before that Barnier was an impressive politician, committed to his role and professional and determined to get the result he sought, we don't seem to do that kind of politician anymore, everything has to be smiles to the camera and fake bonhomie.

There have been reports about him for as long as he's been a reasonably prominent politician, and Dominic Cummings famously called him 'as thick as mince and lazy as a toad'. (I'm no big fan of Cummings but he was right at the heart of government and saw all of this stuff first hand.)

Either way, Barnier handed him his arse on a platter.

 

[dunover]

Yeah but Davis didn't even remotely make an effort. We all remember this iconic image, right?

He brought a shit-eating grin to a gunfight.

(Davis is a notoriously lazy politician, doesn't do detail, doesn't commit himself to the task at hand, doesn't get his head around his brief, and we sent him off to negotiate with Barnier, lols.)

Who is the bloke on Davis's right? Talking of grins, he looks like like he's just dropped a big wet fart that will imminently assail the nostrils of the whole room and knows Davis will get blamed.

 

[mack341]

There have been reports about him for as long as he's been a reasonably prominent politician, and Dominic Cummings famously called him 'as thick as mince and lazy as a toad'. (I'm no big fan of Cummings but he was right at the heart of government and saw all of this stuff first hand.)

Either way, Barnier handed him his arse on a platter.

"Cummings said in a tweet that “DD [Davis] is manufactured exactly to specification as the perfect stooge for [Cabinet Secretary Jeremy] Heywood: thick as mince, lazy as a toad, & vain as Narcissus.” Heywood is the head of the U.K. civil service and has been chief fixer to four successive British prime ministers."

Cummings was of the opinion the civil service needed reform, without this we're going to underachieve, Davis was certainly not the kind to go in and disrupt the established setup, I've got mixed feelings about Cummings [being a big pal of Gove is a downside] but he's quite astute.

 

[mack341]

I seem to recall the othe guy might be called Ollie or something!

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Last August, Joe Biden signed the 'Inflation Reduction Act' into law, this gave some $370bn worth of tax breaks and subsidies to new green technologies and endeavours, electric car production, green energy technology and so on. The hook was that the companies have to do their stuff in the USA, bolstering the US economy, to get the tax breaks and subsidies. It's basically a massive state aid programme, designed to see the USA be a world leader in that space, and keeping China at bay.

The EU were a bit miffed as this isn't particularly 'free trade'-esque. but the USA had made it clear it was going to look after its own shit.

The UK, no longer being a member of the EU, and having got fuck all in terms of a trade deal with the USA, basically asked them not to hurt us too much. When Hunt said he had 'some concerns' he meant they were absolutely going to eat us for breakfast.



Well now the EU has come up with its response, and it's basically fighting fire with fire, including state aid, which isn't supposed to be allowed under the EU free trade rules, but they can't let the USA eat their lunch, so they're just saying fuck it.

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You can see the problem here, the US economy is mahoosive, the EU is the largest single trading bloc in the world, and they've both just said they're going to throw hundreds of billions at new green tech, which was about the only thing the UK had to pin its hopes on.

They've both got loads more money than us, they've both got far more clout on the world stage, and part of the EU plan is quicker and nimbler regulation, and whoever's going to be making all this new stuff is going to want to be doing it all where the regulations are being made and the trade is frictionless as possible - and of course where the subsidies and tax breaks are. (Which won't be the UK, because we're not in the EU any longer.)

The UK will be nowhere in this fight, this is what happens when you deliberately choose to be a small fish in a large pond, that also has several much larger fish in it.

The UK's economy is already in the shitter, we don't have the cash or the presence to take on the USA and the EU, we're trapped in the middle, with no influence and no say in what either the USA or the EU do.

We've lost this fight already, we didn't even get into the ring, we were never on the scorecard.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Just one more Brexit mate, that'll sort it. Predictable from the Torygraph, but still rather depressing. The UK was instrumental in setting up the ECHR, Winston Churchill was a powerful advocate for it, and British lawyers drafted much of the texts on which it's based.

Ahhh, who remembers the good old days when we were told we couldn't protect our borders whilst in the EU.

 

[mack341]

Just one more Brexit mate, that'll sort it. Predictable from the Torygraph, but still rather depressing. The UK was instrumental in setting up the ECHR, Winston Churchill was a powerful advocate for it, and British lawyers drafted much of the texts on which it's based.

Ahhh, who remembers the good old days when we were told we couldn't protect our borders whilst in the EU.

The answer is in the summary, original remit, once a lot of willing legal folk and politicians on the far end of the political scale used it for their own 'utopian' ends, it became desirable to leave.

Similar, in an early way, to the situation arising in Hungary, EU liberals are being thwarted from getting their kind of judges in, so kick up a stink and withhold important levels of funding as a blackmail tactic.

 

[pinnit2014]

Sexit:

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Unfortunately, the Party has a few fruit and nuts to go around. The likes of Yousaf gets promoted with each blunder, so will have seen stranger things if he goes for it. Heaven help us all. Though, with the likes of Swinney and Forbes in the ring as well, it doesn't get any more uninspiring.

Apparently, she's 'Had Enough'. -now she knows what we all feel like.

The bungling of the Transgender row certainly didn't help her - a rare dropping of the ball by her and a misgauging of opinion imo.

 

[paul7388]

Sexit:

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Unfortunately, the Party has a few fruit and nuts to go around. The likes of Yousaf gets promoted with each blunder, so will have seen stranger things if he goes for it. Heaven help us all. Though, with the likes of Swinney and Forbes in the ring as well, it doesn't get any more uninspiring.

Apparently, she's 'Had Enough'. -now she knows what we all feel like.

The bungling of the Transgender row certainly didn't help her - a rare dropping of the ball by her and a misgauging of opinion imo.

Yousaf gets my vote for First Minister. Put him in charge and the party will be finished for good.