The Positive Brexit Thread

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

35 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

I have been reading the account of May’s premiership, dominated of course by Brexit, by Gavin Barwell, who was her chief of staff. And in looking back, musing on why May failed to get a deal, he poses several rhetorical questions. In part about the internal politics in the Tory party, but also inevitably:

“What if the EU had compromised a bit more?”

Which speaks directly to one of the main accusations levelled at the EU, that it cared more about punishing the UK for daring to leave than arriving at a fair deal.

Now the wording of Barwell question is significant, since “…a bit more…” correctly implies that the EU had compromised, and it also suggest Barwell knew it could not go much further.

And in the body of the book Barwell in effect answers that question. The EU had gone pretty much as far as it could.

He instances two major compromises, and by compromises he means fundamental issues on which the EU abandoned its strongly-held positions to try to give May a deal.

At the start of negotiations the EU offered one of two off the peg trade options – staying in the single market and the customs’ union, or just a free trade deal. May preferred a bespoke new model, and in the end the EU agreed to such a unique arrangement.

The EU also reversed its position over the crucial the question of the Irish border, which it wanted in the Irish Sea. However May was in electoral hock to the DUP, for whom that was a total non-starter.

So the EU agreed to having it between the two parts of Ireland, provided the UK could solve the technical problems of checking goods as frictionlessly as possible.

It couldn’t, of course, but the question became moot when BoJo the Lying Charlatan, who had no need of the DUP, took over and – in a diplomatic “triumph” – moved it where the EU had always wanted it to be.

But Barwell highlights two particular problems with the EU giving ground too often. At one point May asked why a legal (stress on “legal”) commitment by the UK government over the backstop part of the Irish border deal was not enough, to which Michel Barnier replied:

“We trust you, Theresa, but we are not sure how long you will be prime minister and we don’t trust what we think is coming next.”

And as Barwell ruefully admits, that mistrust, that even legal commitments might not be honoured by whoever came after, was all too well-founded. Enter BoJo the Lying Charlatan (and of course the contrast with now, when the EU is prepared again to give ground to sensible proposals from a British PM it believes it can trust to keep their word.)

The other problem was exemplified by this incident: “At the end of a lunch Macron told a somewhat startled May that Brexit could not be a success…when he ran against Marine Le Pen he would need to be able to demonstrate that leaving the EU was a mistake.”

Quite why May should have been surprised, or indeed why this factor was, as Barwell admits, underestimated by her negotiating team, is a question. As someone said, all politics is local, and Macron plainly had to defuse the threat of a Frexit. But the broader point is that even if there had not been that threat in France or any of the 27 countries, the EU still had to ensure a deal left the UK not just worse off outside the EU but obviously worse off.

Otherwise member countries might have started to think about leaving, if they could get a cake-and-eat-it deal, and those asking to join might similarly have wondered what was the point of membership.

As Barwell says in his overall judgment: “The EU couldn’t allow Brexit to be SEEN [my emphasis] as a success. It was a question of self-preservation, not malice.”

He admits May failed, but the EU is hardly at the top of his list of culprits. To no surprise he points the finger closer to home, and inside his own party, not just for May’s failure but for BoJo the Lying Charlatan’s economically catastrophic hard Brexit, backed up (as Barnier envisaged) by threats to break his own agreements.

But Barwell also misses a key point. Like so many he says the problem with the Leave vote was that it wasn’t for a specific Brexit. Except it was.

All surveys show the vast majority – often more than 90 per cent – voted Leave on the basis of sovereignty, exemplified by the issues of taking control of borders and getting out from under EU rules and regulations. That had to mean no single market and no customs’ union. May tried to fudge a bit of a compromise on trade that would have reduced the economic damage a bit.

But once she was replaced by BoJo, backed by the headbangers of the ERG, that vote for sovereignty was taken to its logical conclusion. The truth is the EU actually did its best to save the UK from an ultra hard Brexit. But it was powerless to stop a group of extremists gleefully taking more than 17m people at their word and giving them what they voted for.

To summarise:

This includes much supporting evidence that the EU was not itself negotiating in good faith and seeking to punish the UK rather than reach a fair deal; in fact you've even quoted Macron stating this as the case:

• “At the end of a lunch Macron told a somewhat startled May that Brexit could not be a success…when he ran against Marine Le Pen he would need to be able to demonstrate that leaving the EU was a mistake.”
• In addition to the President of a major EU nation stating plainly to the UK PM they were negotiating from a position of wanting the UK to fail post-Brexit, Michel Barnier was recorded outlining his strategy of exploiting the Northern Ireland problem to the maximum and aiming to leave the issue open as long as possible.
• It should be remembered that the EU was the first to demonstrate bad faith over NI post-Brexit with the rapidity with which the commission sought to invoke article 16 over vaccine movement, which was massively disproportionate and unneccessary. Once the EU received the protests of the Republic of Ireland and wider outrage at the move, it backed down; nevertheless, it clearly shows the enthusiasm with which the EU was prepared to weaponise the agreements against the UK after the negotiation process.
• The entire negotiation process was stacked by the EU to favour itself and disadvantage the UK. This included: Refusing to negotiate on citizens rights before other issues in spite of Theresa May's request; insisting on a schedule where the FTA would only be negotiated after the UK had agreed to all of the EU's withdrawal demands; insisting on a fully public negotiation process in a completely unprecedented move regarding bilateral international negotiations, underlining the desire to make the process as political as possible.

All of these points underline that there's absolutely no truth in the notion that the EU was trying to 'save' the UK in any way. It was doing everything in its power to ensure the integrity of the EU, up to and including doing everything in its power to make sure the UK would fail.

Any claims of bad faith from the UK side regarding NI have to be considered in the context of the fact the EU was clearly using the issue in bad faith as outlined. The new agreement underlines this agreement could have been reached far faster.

As a further point, we note that the UK economy is playing catch up, but it should be considered that we have had over 6 years of uncertainty regarding Brexit that could have been much shorter had the UK not had its own internal argument trying to fight the outcome of the referendum and allowing the EU every opportunity to exploit that division to its advantage. How much sooner could the UK resolved things? Without the internal fighting, could we have reached this point over NI far faster? Would Boris Johnson ever have been PM if Theresa May hadn't been undermined from all directions? We'll never know, but what's clear is that the EU's motivation to engineer a Brexit for the UK to fail was more than clear; this could have been mitigated if a large section of the UK political class hadn't in part been lobbying for the EU's interests over the UK's interests.

This final point you make that everybody knows that it was for a specific sort of Brexit really underlines the dishonesty of much of the remain campaign over the argument that 'we don't know what sort of Brexit people wanted'.

This is by no means an argument to 'blame the EU' for acting in its own interests, nor to lessen the welcoming of our strengthening relationship with the EU in terms of good will, but it would be good to get past the nonsense pretending that the EU was acting in good faith or with any concern for the UK's welfare over the withdrawal process.

 

[A Load of Squit 5,170]

The EU simply listened to what was being said during Brexit and knew they would have an easy job beating the idiots that were sent to do the negotiation. We sent boys  they had a grown up, we got a ****e deal. There was no plan just some b0ll0x like "they need us more than we need them". Barnier had the easiest job in the world.

[Herman 9,777]

The EU was doing what was best to protect the EU from a belligerent partner. Not bad faith but a normal response. 

[benchwarmer 625]

52 minutes ago, Herman said:

The EU was doing what was best to protect the EU from a belligerent partner. Not bad faith but a normal response. 

Agreed.  And the suggestion that the EU was punishing the UK to deter other member states from leaving simply plays into Farage's fantasy of Britannia leading a charge that would eventually destroy it. It was never going to happen.  He knew Brexit would be of no benefit to the UK unless others followed.  Unfortunately many Leave voters did not.

Edited March 23, 2023 by benchwarmer

[A Load of Squit 5,170]

It's not just the Brexit negotiations, nearly all of the trade negotiation since 2016 have seen the UK worse off as the other side has been negotiating with idiots who have desperation written all over their faces.

Brexit was an act of self harm, the rest of the world know it is and they're profitting from it.

[Yellow Fever 3,792]

2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

But Barwell also misses a key point. Like so many he says the problem with the Leave vote was that it wasn’t for a specific Brexit. Except it was.

Agree with pretty much all you (or Barwell) say's but this point needs some clarity.

There was no 'agreed' plan as to what 'Leave' meant - hard, soft, EFTA, SM, CU - indeed many of a leave persuasion would pick and choose what leave meant (with often irreconcilable views amongst themselves) in order to appeal to all divergent 'leave' views. It was simply a catchall negative result. I would agree that taken together it implied the hardest of hard Brexit's and full UK isolationism but that was not as sold. I wish, indeed demanded, that a confirmatory or second referendum on an actual actionable 'plan' which could be analysed complete with consequences should of followed. Instead we had 'jam' tomorrow and the crap that has since followed.

As to EU negotiating - it was we that 'wanted' something from them (not them of us) - the mythical cake and eat it - but they had a duty to negotiate for their members interests only - not ours. The fact that many failed to realize who had the 'whip' hand or believed the nonsense they needed us more than we needed them only have themselves to blame. 

  

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

The EU was doing what was best to protect the EU from a belligerent partner. Not bad faith but a normal response. 

Herman, as I said, the summing up by Barwell, who was right there at the heart of May's Brexit, is quite clear:

“The EU couldn’t allow Brexit to be SEEN [my emphasis] as a success. It was a question of self-preservation, not malice.”

The only point is that one needs to separate out the May premiership and the BoJo the Lying Charlatan premiership. The EU did not regard May as belligerent, which was why it was willing to compromise with her.

I didn't include this in my OP for reasons of length but Barwell goes out of his way to praise Juncker and Martin Selmayr, both attacked in the UK press as anti-British, for being especially helpful.

But of course once BoJo and the headbangers from the ERG held sway then the EU had to treat them not just as belligerent but totally untrustworthy.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

Agreed.  And the suggestion that the EU was punishing the UK to deter other member states from leaving simply plays into Farage's fantasy of Britannia leading a charge that would eventually destroy it. It was never going to happen.  He knew Brexit would be of no benefit to the UK unless others followed.  Unfortunately many Leave voters did not.

This notion of a punishment is a fallacy. They still had to work with us, trade with us, have holidays with us, be in NATO with us. Of course they would miss our contribution. Of course they would miss our involvement. But they certainly weren't going to cut off their nez to spite their face.

Punishing has been bandied about to convince those that voted Leave because they believed the EU was the bogeyman that the only thing that mattered was to be free of the EU no matter the cost. And that hid the real truth that Brexit was the idea of a few interested parties who were part the UK's failure to grasp the fact that the world was changing and that it was becoming benevolent to others because it mattered.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

8 hours ago, Herman said:

The EU was doing what was best to protect the EU from a belligerent partner. Not bad faith but a normal re

What was belligerent about it under May? Specifics, please.

I think the EU's refusal to talk about anything prior to article 50 invocation, even including reciprocal citizen's rights, was belligerent at the outset.

Edited March 23, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Herman 9,777]

See Purple's response above. Although I will add there was a lot of belligerence coming from the side acts, like Davis, Fox and the kippers in the EU parliament.

[A Load of Squit 5,170]

47 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

What was belligerent about it under May? Specifics, please.

I think the EU's refusal to talk about anything prior to article 50 invocation, even including reciprocal citizen's rights, was belligerent at the outset.

This why you are stupid.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

20 minutes ago, Herman said:

See Purple's response above. Although I will add there was a lot of belligerence coming from the side acts, like Davis, Fox and the kippers in the EU parliament.

I have, and wrote an extensive response.

Side acts is a far cry from 'the UK'

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

What was belligerent about it under May? Specifics, please.

I think the EU's refusal to talk about anything prior to article 50 invocation, even including reciprocal citizen's rights, was belligerent at the outset.

Why would the EU want to negotiate before the triggering of Article 50? It was in no way belligerent at all. What you are suggesting is like Ukraine negotiating with Russia while the Russians are still invading Ukraine.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

41 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

This why you are stupid.

And this is why you're boring.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

10 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Why would the EU want to negotiate before the triggering of Article 50? It was in no way belligerent at all. What you are suggesting is like Ukraine negotiating with Russia while the Russians are still invading Ukraine.

Hold on a moment. I'm not answering any questions until I've had some concrete examples of UK belligerence under May, in contrast to the EU's belligerent response of dismissing May's attempts to build reassurance for UK and EU citizens threatened by the outcome of the referendum before anything else happened.

Edited March 23, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

10 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

Agreed.  And the suggestion that the EU was punishing the UK to deter other member states from leaving simply plays into Farage's fantasy of Britannia leading a charge that would eventually destroy it. It was never going to happen.  He knew Brexit would be of no benefit to the UK unless others followed.  Unfortunately many Leave voters did not.

Macron told May that the EU would be doing all of could to make sure the UK couldn't succeed outside the EU. It's there clear as day in purple canary's comment.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

8 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

Herman, as I said, the summing up by Barwell, who was right there at the heart of May's Brexit, is quite clear:

“The EU couldn’t allow Brexit to be SEEN [my emphasis] as a success. It was a question of self-preservation, not malice.”

The only point is that one needs to separate out the May premiership and the BoJo the Lying Charlatan premiership. The EU did not regard May as belligerent, which was why it was willing to compromise with her.

I didn't include this in my OP for reasons of length but Barwell goes out of his way to praise Juncker and Martin Selmayr, both attacked in the UK press as anti-British, for being especially helpful.

But of course once BoJo and the headbangers from the ERG held sway then the EU had to treat them not just as belligerent but totally untrustworthy.

The headbangers would likely never have held sway if the EU had given May any leeway whatsoever.

As I said, reciprocal citizen's rights being negotiated separately and early had no long term economic implications. Dismissing May's request was an unscrupulous move by the EU to make sure everyone taking advantage of freedom of movement was a bargaining chip as part of 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'.

Edited March 23, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Van wink 2,994]

On 22/03/2023 at 09:58, Yellow Fever said:

Another Tory rebellion due for today on NI. 

That's on top of the public Johnson disembowelling just to remind people as to what an unrepentant  s h i t  he (and his Tory government and groupies/floozies such as Truss ) was.

SKS just needs to sit back and watch from a safe distance until the dust settles to see what's left.

Didnt happen, hopefully we will see improved relationships with EU ongoiong, in fairness to Sunak he is playing this well atm.

[Herman 9,777]

I thought you didn't vote for brexit?

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

I thought you didn't vote for brexit?

I didn't. I did have several years waiting with baited breath to find out what my rights in France were going to be post-Brexit though.

Edited March 23, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Van wink 2,994]

!

Edited March 23, 2023 by Van wink
mistaken identity

[Herman 9,777]

Just now, Van wink said:

who me?

Sorry mate, t'other fellow. You posted just a second ahead of me.👍

[Herman 9,777]

44 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I have, and wrote an extensive response.

Side acts is a far cry from 'the UK'

How about a massive chunk of the UK then, the loudest part, is that ok?

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

How about a massive chunk of the UK then, the loudest part, is that ok?

No, I wouldn't say that was accurate either; the section of the UK really hostile to the EU is a small minority; the proportion of benevolent Eurosceptics like myself are a much larger group.

[benchwarmer 625]

14 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Macron told May that the EU would be doing all of could to make sure the UK couldn't succeed outside the EU. It's there clear as day in purple canary's comment.

Purple quotes Barwell as saying that at the start of negotiations the EU offered the UK two options - staying in the CU/SM or a free trade deal - but May rejected both and requested a bespoke deal which she assured the EU would pass.  The EU agreed but it was scuppered by extremists who forced her out. It was a political misjudgement on her part, not 'bad faith'.  The EU then had to negotiate with someone for whom 'good faith' is for losers.

Clearly the CU/SM option would have been better for the UK than what we ended up with, but the UK government rejected it for ideological reasons.  We were punished all right, but it was self-inflicted.

Edited March 24, 2023 by benchwarmer

[A Load of Squit 5,170]

It's lovely when stupid people get told they are stupid.

Today, John Redwood.

 

[Yellow Fever 3,792]

13 hours ago, Van wink said:

Didnt happen, hopefully we will see improved relationships with EU ongoiong, in fairness to Sunak he is playing this well atm.

Well it did but Sunak saw them off. As per the Telegraph article Boris and Brexit now imploding.

Sadly on Brexit though - Nothing has really changed vs NI (yes we have an easier deal but no DUP buy-in which was after all the whole point). It's clearly unfinished business. 

As to the EU. Yes now Johnson, Truss and all their rag-tag rubbish are in the rear mirror we can mend a few more fences!

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, A Load of Squit said:

It's lovely when stupid people get told they are stupid.

Today, John Redwood.

 

I saw that exchange on the news and it was great viewing.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

18 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Well it did but Sunak saw them off. As per the Telegraph article Boris and Brexit now imploding.

Sadly on Brexit though - Nothing has really changed vs NI (yes we have an easier deal but no DUP buy-in which was after all the whole point). It's clearly unfinished business. 

As to the EU. Yes now Johnson, Truss and all their rag-tag rubbish are in the rear mirror we can mend a few more fences!

Its time to get serious with the DUP. Sunak doesn't need them. Tessie did. I would wager if we had a referendum about NI independence, the rest of the UK would tell them to unite with the south.

Sunak needs to tell them to get back into Stormont or they will be at the back of the queue. It might risk starting the troubles again but it wouldn't be from the Republican side so the real obstacle would become evident.

Forget about the past troubles. The future is what counts or we wouldn't buy BMWs or Hondas.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

2 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

Purple quotes Barwell as saying that at the start of negotiations the EU offered the UK two options - staying in the CU/SM or a free trade deal - but May rejected both and requested a bespoke deal which she assured the EU would pass.  The EU agreed but it was scuppered by extremists who forced her out. It was a political misjudgement on her part, not 'bad faith'.  The EU then had to negotiate with someone for whom 'good faith' is for losers.

Clearly the CU/SM option would have been better for the UK than what we ended up with, but the UK government rejected it for ideological reasons.  We were punished all right, but it was self-inflicted.

A bespoke deal and a bilateral FTA are the same thing. That's what we have.

There's no such thing as an off the shelf FTA.

Good choice of phrase in 'extremist forces'; it embraces the parliamentary remain brigade as much as the ERG who combined to scupper her agreement.

Edited March 24, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie