Brexit

[Mechelle]

Brexit has taken something of a back seat, particularly as the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has come down with Covid-19. Boris Johnson has denied there is any need for an extension to the negotiations, however, presumably because he has already "got Brexit done." i think there might well be, though.

On a lighter note, I received my renewed passport today, not that I am going to be using it soon. To the distress of any Brexiter, it was still EU burgundy! A small victory, but it feels like one.

For anyone who isn't aware, the colour of passports seems to be very important in Brexit, but the colours of any new or reissued ones are pot  luck.

[Orval Wintermute]

For anyone who isn't aware, the colour of passports seems to be very important in Brexit, but the colours of any new or reissued ones are pot  luck.

You mean the old burgundy EUSSR ones produced in the UK vs. the new blue\black independent UK ones produced in France.

[Mechelle]

I do indeed; although my new burgundy one doesn't mention European Union on the cover, it looks identical otherwise from the outside. I assume these are still being produced in the UK but are being phased out.

[gaggedLouise]

Brexit has been completely eclipsed in the news (and in diplomatic realities) by the Corona wave, but Nick Cohen does a great job in the Guardian of slashing the bumbling "charlatan style" of British politics and electioneering, and the muddy concepts that helped drive the idea of an almost painless, jangly hard Brexit and "becoming strong again" as in old Empire days. And how this same mentality has bungled the response to the Corona virus and led to a government of amateurs.

We are runners-up in the race to have the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe and may soon leapfrog the Italians and claim the title outright. In short, we are a country that has been put to the test – and seen its leaders fail.

As they were bound to fail. From the moment Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove won the Brexit referendum in 2016 by promising we could inflict a shuddering change to our country without feeling pain, failure has been inevitable. The only wonder is that it has taken so long for the British charlatan style to die.

It’s dying now as surely as the lost souls in care homes disappearing out of sight and out of mind. I say British rather than English because Alex Salmond’s promises of Scottish independence without tears anticipated Johnson’s promises of a painless Brexit and because British dishonesty takes a distinctive form.

Since 2016, Johnson has been a postmodern populist. His myths have been cheerful, a world away from the menace behind Trump’s snarls. He claimed the impossible was possible with a wink to the camera and a smirk on his face. He believed, or seemed to believe, you could never be sure, that all difficulties could be overcome with a dose of British pluck.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/the-british-charlatan-style-has-been-sent-packing-by-too-much-reality (take a look at the readers' comments too!)

I'm not sure, and neither is Cohen actually, that the pandemic will really end this style of cheerful nonsense politics, in the UK or in the US, but he does bring out the way the rollicking "oh but were English!" style has worsened the response.

[Thufir Hawat]

I strongly dislike posting in this sub-forum...but can I just say that I was sorry to see the UK go ?

Yeah, that seems like a good first and last post in the "politics" sub-forum!

[Markus]

I strongly dislike posting in this sub-forum...but can I just say that I was sorry to see the UK go ?

Yeah, that seems like a good first and last post in the "politics" sub-forum!

aww we're sorry to see you go too

Brexit has been completely eclipsed in the news (and in diplomatic realities) by the Corona wave, but Nick Cohen does a great job in the Guardian of slashing the bumbling "charlatan style" of British politics and electioneering, and the muddy concepts that helped drive the idea of an almost painless, jangly hard Brexit and "becoming strong again" as in old Empire days. And how this same mentality has bungled the response to the Corona virus and led to a government of amateurs.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/02/the-british-charlatan-style-has-been-sent-packing-by-too-much-reality (take a look at the readers' comments too!)

I'm not sure, and neither is Cohen actually, that the pandemic will really end this style of cheerful nonsense politics, in the UK or in the US, but he does bring out the way the rollicking "oh but were English!" style has worsened the response.

I wonder if Boris Johnson and Donald Trump share the same hair stylist?

[gaggedLouise]

aww we're sorry to see you go too

I wonder if Boris Johnson and Donald Trump share the same hair stylist?

There is an affinity - but I noticed the other week, rewatching The Last Waltz (filmed almost half a century ago) how much Van Morrison's face in this clip is akin to Donald Trump's.  That's the *only* similarity though, and I love Van's performance here, his sheer passion, it's one of my favourites in the entire film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44wDwMQVqCc

[Humble Scribe]

What a difference 6 months can make.
Boris, October 18th 2019: "There is no better outcome than my deal."
'A Downing Street Source', June 7th 2020: "We must fix this broken deal."



https://i.imgur.com/b5HmPSc.jpg

As Boris's favourite writer once said:
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same..."

Or in this case pretend the same thing is both a triumph and a disaster at different times.

(Edited 2nd image to a link due to safe-for-work child in the picture, - Staff)

[Orval Wintermute]

Schrodinger's Brexit, something that is simultaniously a magnificent success and a terrible failure.

Much like Schrodinger's Immigrants who come to the UK to steal jobs and live off the welfare state at the same time.

[Orval Wintermute]

So yesterday Liz Truss the International Trade Secretary wrote to Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak about her concerns over the plans for UK customs & borders from the end of the year, saying that the plans would leave the UK exposed to WTO legal challenges for breaking favored nation trading rules.

If only someone could have seen this problem coming four years ago. Oh, that's right anyone who was paying attention did see it coming.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/08/liz-truss-warns-boris-johnson-over-brexit-border-plans

[Mechelle]

There was an unfortunate, though accurate, typo, when Nigel Farage was appointed as a political "analyst" by Fox News.

[Missy]

Hard to say they're going to get quality analycysts from the guy who destroyed the UK with nationalism

[gaggedLouise]

A hard no-deal Brexit will carry with it a harsh double whammy shock to the British economy, says a team from the London School of Economics. Effectively they're declaring that trying to rsuh through a hard Brexit (which looks more and more likely with Boris and Cummings at the helm) is even more madness when it comes on top of the fallout of Corona and lockdown.

You didn't have to be an economist to see this; it's what I've been saying myself for months.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/28/brexit-will-deliver-double-shock-to-uk-economy-study-finds-coronavirus

[Missy]

I guess the hanging question is will the average person confuse the effects of the effects of the coronavirus with the effects of Brexit?

[gaggedLouise]

I guess the hanging question is will the average person confuse the effects of the effects of the coronavirus with the effects of Brexit?

Is Boris really counting on blaming the debilitating effects of a hard Brexit across all fields of the economy on the virus - and on those evil bureaucrats and politicians of the EU, who didn't give in to everything the Brexiteers wanted, and didn't budge to their threats and obstruction? 

[Mechelle]

Is Boris really counting on blaming the debilitating effects of a hard Brexit across all fields of the economy on the virus - and on those evil bureaucrats and politicians of the EU, who didn't give in to everything the Brexiteers wanted, and didn't budge to their threats and obstruction? 

He hasn't quite done that yet, but it's on the cards, as the Brexiters have blamed the EU for failing to come up with a satisfactory agreement, even though one was supposed to have been arranged in January. Boris Johnson will be furious when he finds out about that earlier agreement was agreed by, er, Boris Johnson.
In other news, the largely forgotten right winger and hater of migration Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (or "Tommy Robinson") is apparently moving to Spain, ironically enough. There are some disputes about covid-19 quarantine arrangements between the two countries, which have already caught out British government minister Grant Shapps, who was taken by surprise when he suddenly found he could not get back from holiday there without a period in quarantine. As far as I know, Robinson and anyone else can travel in the other direction freely.

[Orval Wintermute]

In other news, the largely forgotten right winger and hater of migration Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (or "Tommy Robinson") is apparently moving to Spain, ironically enough. There are some disputes about covid-19 quarantine arrangements between the two countries, which have already caught out British government minister Grant Shapps, who was taken by surprise when he suddenly found he could not get back from holiday there without a period in quarantine. As far as I know, Robinson and anyone else can travel in the other direction freely.

When the 14 day quarantine was put back in place the Government said people shouldn't travel to Spain for non-essential reasons, invalidating virtually all travel\medical insurance policies.

[Missy]

Is Boris really counting on blaming the debilitating effects of a hard Brexit across all fields of the economy on the virus - and on those evil bureaucrats and politicians of the EU, who didn't give in to everything the Brexiteers wanted, and didn't budge to their threats and obstruction? 

I"m more curious if the average brit will buy into it and eat the turd sandwich that's being spoonfed to them. I mean Britian is at this point an object lesson in why nationalism is a bad idea.

[Orval Wintermute]

I"m more curious if the average brit will buy into it and eat the turd sandwich that's being spoonfed to them. I mean Britian is at this point an object lesson in why nationalism is a bad idea.

Of course they'll buy it. For the past 40 years the right wing press and Governments of both left and right have been blaming the EU for virtually every unpopular decision they make. So why wouldn't they believe that everything is still the EU's fault?

[Mechelle]

When the 14 day quarantine was put back in place the Government said people shouldn't travel to Spain for non-essential reasons, invalidating virtually all travel\medical insurance policies.

You are quite right. I had written clumsily earlier, but I meant was that Spain had placed no obstacles to Tommy Robinson and others from arriving.

[gaggedLouise]

I"m more curious if the average brit will buy into it and eat the turd sandwich that's being spoonfed to them. I mean Britian is at this point an object lesson in why nationalism is a bad idea.

Yep. It's depressing to see a great country like Britain getting stuck head first in this political, mental and economic mud and drifting towards collapse. Boris clearly thinks he is the Churchill of our time, born to lead England to new triumphs and out of the bondage to Brussels - he couldn't be further away from the truth! :(

And in part this *is* Britain's past coming back as a destructive legacy - at least there are many millions of people who can't handle that the age when Britain was a superpower, the Mistress of the Seas and "strongest when she goes alone" are long since over.

[Mechelle]

In the House of Commons today, Boris Johnson was verbally savaged by Ed Miliband, who was the Labour leader before Jeremy Corbyn, as Keir Starmer had to self-isolate and was unable to attend, over his plan to break international law and renege on his own "oven-ready" withdrawal agreement.  All five living former Prime Ministers have also criticised him, as has Michael Howard, a right wing Brexit supporting former Conservative leader, and some other senior Conservatives. His majority is big enough to get through, although it might get delayed in the House of Lords, and get sent back for reconsideration.

I can only think that the notoriously lazy Johnson hadn't bothered to read his own agreement before signing it, and would rather drag Britain's reputation through the mud.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54153302

[Haibane]

Johnson has however made it clear why he feels this legislation is necessary. He said additional "protective powers" were now necessary to guard against the EU's "proven willingness" to interpret aspects of the agreement in "absurd" ways, "simply to exert leverage" in the trade talks.

Quotes are from the BBC report.

[gaggedLouise]

In the House of Commons today, Boris Johnson was verbally savaged by Ed Miliband, who was the Labour leader before Jeremy Corbyn, as Keir Starmer had to self-isolate and was unable to attend, over his plan to break international law and renege on his own "oven-ready" withdrawal agreement.  All five living former Prime Ministers have also criticised him, as has Michael Howard, a right wing Brexit supporting former Conservative leader, and some other senior Conservatives. His majority is big enough to get through, although it might get delayed in the House of Lords, and get sent back for reconsideration.

I can only think that the notoriously lazy Johnson hadn't bothered to read his own agreement before signing it, and would rather drag Britain's reputation through the mud.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54153302

Yes, Boris looked quite tired and displeased during Miliband's speech - he reminded me of Theresa May on similar occasions when she was trying to push her deal through in March 2019.

I watched a bit of the debate live on Youtube and I really agree with your feeling that Boris hasn't properly read the WAB from a legal angle - or tried to see some of it from the EU's side. At one point I commented in the chat to that stream that "Boris is like Trump: he can't be bothered to read a legal text in depth, unless it's in order to look for loopholes". Within half a minute someone replied "Louise, you nailed it!".

[gaggedLouise]

These guys never learn, do they? This is Cummings' trip to Scotland all over again, but at an even more critical point in time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/21/no-10-denies-reports-boris-johnson-went-on-secret-italy-trip