The Poverty of Brexit

Brexit with NI constantly around the table
mobile.twitter.com/BorderIrish/status/961582201363148801/photo/1

It is going to be the 27 countries' turn to have their say when they see the legal interpretation today. This hasn't really started yet has it.

Brexiters are behaving ridiculously.

They can come up with no idea about the Irish border, because it is insolvable, as they were always warned it was.
In the absence, Brussels - who really doesn’t have to responsibility - have come up with a solution.
The reaction from ridiculous Brexiters??

It is all Brussels fault. The level of debate is pathetic.

John Major to make a speech today

He'll probably make more sense than May.

Toys are us in administration now.
It saves them worrying about CE marks because of Brexit.

I am sure I just heard Boris say that goods will just go through borders as they do now. What an idiot.
Europe can't just accept any goods that don't pass EU standards.

Whoever suggested that Johnson is bright must be seriously questioning their own judgement now.

Read somewhere yesterday which is so apt for the current shower.

“Eton educates people far beyond their ability”

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-26/credit-suisse-said-to-plan-250-relocations-in-first-brexit-shift

Credit Suisse starting to relocate.
Deutsche Bank have already started.

Liam Fox is around the world not so much trying to craft new deals as trying to salvage the deals which the EU currently has

Dominic Grieve

I worry about the lack of representation in Westminster for the majority of the Northern Irish.

How can anything be decided with just one very vocal side?

If we approach this negotiation of who gives way first I think we are going to end up with the wrong sort of outcome. I am very conscious that there are many of my colleagues in parliament who see the EU in some way as "the enemy" and that if you just sit there and insist that you are going to get what we want they will eventually blink because motor manufacturers in Stuttgart will say we have got to have a system of free trade access. I'm not sure the EU is in a position to give us what we are asking for ... because we are not dealing with a sovereign entity. We are dealing with an International Treaty Organisation. It may be a lawyers point but I keep on making it because I worry that people don't understand how the EU functions. It's much easier for the EU to make adjustments to its structure to accommodate countries that are in it; it's going to be a totally different thing when dealing with a country that's outside of it and our future trade agreement is when we have left the EU. The only real things that are being negotiated between now and March next year are the withdrawal terms and transition. Bluntly speaking, the rest will be up for grabs when the UK is an external party seeking a trade agreement. For that reason, I personally, think it is unlikely, on some of these core issues, that we are going to get the EU to budge. Now of course this is a difficult thing for me to say because I don't want to be seen to be undermining the Prime Minister but equally we've got to be very careful about not misleading our public in this country, because at the end of day we may have to make some fairly stark choices and I note that some of my colleagues on the Conservative benches are convincing themselves we may actually leave with no agreement at all. That may be the end. But then we have to actually ask ourselves the question - what is the cost going to be for this, to our country, it's unity, and indeed our GDP and the quality of life of every person living here.

I want to support the government in getting the best possible deal but that's not to say I'm going to support my judgement over what I see to be in the national interest. This is why there is the potential in the next six months for this to roll into the most dreadful political crisis which I would quite like to see avoided. This is why we need ot have a rational debate about the choices. The difficulty has always been that we voted two years ago for an aspiration and the aspiration and the reality where always going to be different and the longer the period of time elapses the clearer that, I'm afraid, is going to become.

Demonic Grieve

www.theweek.co.uk/91960/will-sinn-fein-take-up-its-commons-seats

No, GracesGran, he's not Demonic!

Johnson disrespects parliament by refusing to turn up to answer questions on NI border issue.

A little bit of Majors speech today

pbs.twimg.com/media/DXIU2BtX4AA62bS?format=jpg

Majors speech was astonishing on its attack in Mays government and its utter incompetence. He said that nothing can be agreed because there was out and out war in the Tory part.
Brexit is a total dogs breakfast and in the national interest should be stopped before we all go down the pan.

Or words to that effect
.

I see Mogg wants to dismantle the social protections EU.

He said that nothing can be agreed because there was out and out war in the Tory part

Which perfectly illustrates the point made in this blog:

"Why can't we just get on with it..."

Perhaps the key point to make is that the 2016 Referendum did not mark an end to anything but rather was the beginning of a process which, however it plays out, is going to shape and dominate British political and economic life for years, perhaps for decades.

That is in itself ironic since the immediate political rationale for holding the Referendum was to try to put an end to an issue which had dominated and divided the Tory Party for decades. That was, indeed, a party matter - Britain’s membership of the EU never registered as a pressing concern amongst the electorate – and for David Cameron it was meant to deal with those divisions (which it probably would not have done, whatever the outcome), and to head off the electoral threat of UKIP (which was probably far smaller than he thought). At all events, the result, which few expected, far from uniting the Tory Party has exposed ever more clearly the divisions within it.

vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com/2018/02/27/brexit-why-cant-we-just-get-on-with-it/

PMQs I couldn’t understand Mays statement when talking about the draft agreement which she had agreed in December.

“No Prime minister can ever agree with it”

Perhaps her statement was just for public consumption and she’ll simply quietly carry on agreeing with it.

Odd though

Wonder what she’ll say on Friday?

She’ll either annoy the hard Brexiters
Or annoy the soft Brexiters
Or the DUP

That is all the options she has.

She keeps going back to statements she has made before, but then talks about still negotiating. Which means the statements she has made before are still open to change, so why bother mentioning them?

The one positive in this whole Brexit debacle would be that cross party groups and alliances are forming within the House of Commons. In the foregoing the single point that has become clear is that there is no majority in parliament for a hard Brexit what ever Johnson and co say.

There would also seem to be a growing group of MPs of all party's becoming convinced of the need to remain in the customs union and as the Irish border problem has looked ever more intractable the pro remaining in the customs union group must surely grow further.

Jeremy Corbyn has changed his position I believe in acknowledgement of the above and in that he may bring greater consensus within the wider Labour party in the country. However, the situation in the House of Commons could be one where both party leadership's struggle to exert their authority and any Brexit agreement may be decided by groupings going across party lines.

No Jen, he isn't. I'm so sorry - poor Dominic. He really is so measured in his explanation and I felt (during the rest of the interview) that him saying we are not negotiating with a state or a country but a Trade Organisation was so important and that limits what the EU can actually do.

I think it is a point that is often lost.

Exactly. However, because it is a trade association, it is all the more obvious why they need to stand together.
It's weird watching the UK government slowly realising that we are just a small cog, not the most important country in the world after the US, but not wanting to admit it.

I think the major symbol of the poverty of brexit is that not one of those in charge knows anything about the law.