The Positive Brexit Thread

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

6 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

No such thing in this debate. Its all opinion. There is no model. There is no history.

Lots of opinion, absolutely, but the opinion of a professor of law of 29 years standing at a world-renowned university should carry a lot of weight in any reasonable debate. Certainly a lot more weight than the anonymous people responding in the comments section. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Well b back 3,200]

40 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

it's not a fact, as articulated by Professor Damian Chalmers, professor of international law at LSE, in the article I posted that @Creative Midfielder is amused by for some reason. Maybe you should try reading it and doing a bit of thinking instead of regurgitating the same recycled rubbish over and over again to convince each other otherwise. The legal case for using article 16 holds up. 

And you called me naive for believing the same load of lying t****. Why is it ok for you to believe them and not me. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

22 minutes ago, Herman said:

I did read it, yes it was interesting, as were the replies as @keelansgrandad has mentioned. It is one person's opinion rather than a fact based article so I won't just base a whole complex situation on that one piece.

It's one professor of law's opinion at a world-renowned university. It has a lot more credibility and weight than the opinion of the EU commission's PR department which most of you parrot. 

You're starting to sound more and more like brexiteers, dismissing anything that doesn't suit your narrative. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

1 minute ago, Well b back said:

And you called me naive for believing the same load of lying t****. Why is it ok for you to believe them and not me. 

It's the opinion of a professor of law at a world-renowned university. How is that remotely comparable to you taking the word of your local MP to make your vote? I mean, who is your MP? What about them led you to have such unquestioning faith in their opinion over bothering to think it through for yourself?

[Well b back 3,200]

2 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Lots of opinion, absolutely, but the opinion of a professor of law of 29 years standing at a world-renowned university should carry a lot of weight in any reasonable debate. Certainly a lot more weight than the anonymous people responding in the comments section. 

I believed Johnson, Farage and many very high up politicians and professors who also expressed opinions and apparently I should have seen through them, you believe a professor who’s clearly talking boll** and that’s ok, please don’t call me naive again.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

5 minutes ago, Well b back said:

I believed Johnson, Farage and many very high up politicians and professors who also expressed opinions and apparently I should have seen through them, you believe a professor who’s clearly talking boll** and that’s ok, please don’t call me naive again.

You told me the other week you based your vote on what your MP told you. What professors did you listen to in making your decision and what did they say?

The professor makes the case clearly, demonstrating the clear diversion of trade that has resulted from the NI protocol. That is explicitly mentioned as an allowable trigger in article 16, there's no 'b0ll0cks' about his argument, or the fact that he's eminently qualified to give the opinion and be taken notice of. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Herman 9,754]

24 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's one professor of law's opinion at a world-renowned university. It has a lot more credibility and weight than the opinion of the EU commission's PR department which most of you parrot. 

You're starting to sound more and more like brexiteers, dismissing anything that doesn't suit your narrative. 

 

I'm not shooting the messenger. He's clearly a well respected man in his field. What I am suggesting is that it is his opinion, an opinion amongst many.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

4 minutes ago, Herman said:

 

I'm not shooting the messenger. He's clearly a well respected man in his field. What I am suggesting is that it is his opinion, an opinion amongst many.

Yeah, well it's an opinion that demonstrates very clearly that all of this talk of being 'international pariahs' if we invoke article 16 and it 'breaking international law' is utter rubbish. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

Good grief.

It almost Putinesque isn't it.

Agree a deal with EU  - sell it as the best thing since sliced bread to the people - 'Oven Ready' and then a year or so later conspire with the DUP (the only party that opposed the Good Friday Agreement) to call it unworkable and then then try to rewrite / rip it up blaming all other parties to the deal &  despite NI appearing to be the one part of the UK that has prospered most post Brexit being in both the UK and SM. 

Either the Tories (all of them in government & looking at you Truss) were either negotiating totally in bad faith or were totally incompetent. It seems most likely both. Either way they ALL should go.

Simply these people and their excusers / supporters (as per the Macron comment at the recent husting) simply besmirch the good name of the United Kingdom.  Yes very Putinesque indeed although they are too dumb to see it.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

14 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Good grief.

It almost Putinesque isn't it.

Agree a deal with EU  - sell it as the best thing since sliced bread to the people - 'Oven Ready' and then a year or so later conspire with the DUP (the only party that opposed the Good Friday Agreement) to call it unworkable and then then try to rewrite / rip it up blaming all other parties to the deal &  despite NI appearing to be the one part of the UK that has prospered most post Brexit being in both the UK and SM. 

Either the Tories (all of them in government & looking at you Truss) were either negotiating totally in bad faith or were totally incompetent. It seems most likely both. Either way they ALL should go.

Simply these people and their excusers / supporters (as per the Macron comment at the recent husting) simply besmirch the good name of the United Kingdom.  Yes very Putinesque indeed although they are too dumb to see it.

 

Yes, the parallels between Putin's illegal invasion, the gratuitous slaughter of thousands of civilians, using nuclear plants as military shields, disrupting grain supplies causing major food shortages globally in the process just strikes me as the perfect parallel to the threat of using a legal mechanism provided for in a treaty that we're within our rights to use. 🤦‍♂️

The EU used the sensitive NI situation as a lever in the most cynical way possible. Barnier was recorded laying out in so many words how it was to be exploited to maximum effect. If the UK agreed it in bad faith, the EU proposed it in bad faith, and the genuine demonstrable issues with it that have been acknowledged across parties in the UK and also by the republic of Ireland underline that it is not fit for purpose of keeping the Good Friday agreement in its current form. 

It's to be remembered that Macron was extremely quick to threaten to cut the power to Jersey over some issues over a handful of fishing licenses. I'd say that bears a lot more parallel to Putin's tendency to use energy as a political weapon in diplomatic disputes than our government resorting to legal mechanisms provided for in treaty. 

Beyond, that it's quite heartening to hear Macron saying something vaguely conciliatory and reproachful; signs that things may yet settle down. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

2 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Yeah, well it's an opinion that demonstrates very clearly that all of this talk of being 'international pariahs' if we invoke article 16 and it 'breaking international law' is utter rubbish. 

If we take it at its word, the UK government has two primary objectives in its latest confrontation with the EU. The first is to see greater change to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland than the EU is currently willing or able to give. The second is to change the Protocol (with or without the EU’s agreement) to satisfy the DUP enough to end its current veto on power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

What the government lacked before, it now has. It has proven itself a useful partner to the EU in the recent crisis over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has the attention of EU member-states concerned for the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, which the Protocol is designed to protect. It has convincingly raised both the stakes and the sense of urgency.

The EU, in contrast, sees such challenges as further proving the necessity of ‘upholding the rule of law and living up to international obligations’. It points to the ‘potential to be explored’ in its proposals on the Protocol, hinting that its red lines could have blurry edges. For the UK government, however, it is time for a decisive move. But what?

It could trigger Article 16 under the Protocol, which would mean limited measures of unilateral action. But it would be difficult to identify anything specific that would ‘fix’ the Protocol that can be done unilaterally. The more ambitious such measures are, the more they could entail an overhaul of trade to and from Northern Ireland

Two thirds of businesses have adjusted to the new post-Protocol trading arrangements (albeit under its partial implementation). To throw the whole regime up in the air for the benefit of the 8% who are still experiencing ‘significant’ difficulties would be hard to justify unless chaos was intended. As such, the greater the scope of the measures, the more they are likely to meet legal challenge or ‘rebalancing’ counter-measures by the EU.

Alternatively, the UK government could equip itself through an adjustment to the EU Withdrawal Act (2018) to allow itself to override all or part of the Protocol in due course. This would entail new primary legislation, and all that goes with it – including a bumpy and lengthy ride through Parliament. It would also put it directly at odds with the EU, given that such an Act would effectively breach their Withdrawal Agreement.

There are suggestions that it might set aside its obligations under the Protocol through emergency legislation, perhaps by arguing that there has been a fundamental change of circumstances. However, given that the Vienna Convention require these circumstances be unrelated to the rationale for the Agreement in the first place, this route seems tricky as well as unlikely.

One other course of action would be to keep the rules in place but to simply not apply them. The NI Minister for Agriculture, Edwin Poots, made such a move himself in February when he ordered officials in his department to cease performing checks and controls on goods entering NI from GB. The order was before the High Court in Belfast the next day, and found to be dubious. The checks have continued and so has the legal wrangling.

It is complicated, so, and the sovereign government’s options are limited. The first – as you might have gathered by now – is the risk of legal challenge. The government does not have a good track record when it comes to defending some of its more irregular Brexit-process plans in court. Being snarled up in court proceedings may add to the disrepute of the judiciary in some people’s minds, but it would bring little of use to the government.

The second constraint is time. It is hard to envisage immediate practical benefits to any action or announcement the government could make. Indeed, the most direct impact will be the opposite of the certainty and stability business in NI has been calling for.

The third constraint is the reaction. The response in Northern Ireland will be intense and divided. UK government action that goes against the expressed wishes of nationalist and other parties (holding 53 of the 90 seats in the Assembly) sits uncomfortably with the requirement that it exercise its sovereign power there with ‘rigorous impartiality’, according to the terms of the 1998 Agreement itself.

Further abroad, the US government is watching closely. It has made it clear that it sees the Protocol as fundamental to protecting the 1998 Agreement. Overriding the Protocol risks damaging prospects of a UK-US trade deal – which is why Conor Burns and Lord Frost took the trouble to visit Washington in person this past week.

And what might the EU’s reaction be? The first border problem raised by scrapping the Protocol would not be on Irish land but in English waters. There does not need to be a suspension or termination of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or a pile-on of tariffs to see rigorously-enforced border checks and controls have effects further inland and on shelves.

The EU response has to be proportionate. There may be deliberate, almost provocative, sangfroid. It could restart the infringement proceedings it began last time the UK breached the Protocol, or instigate the dispute resolution mechanisms of consultation or arbitration.

But the more the UK toys back and forth with the threat of non-implementation as a tool, the less it can be trusted. This is not cost-free. The end point (sooner or later) will have to be UK-EU agreement. Northern Ireland cannot survive a perpetual state of UK-EU conflict and legal uncertainty. It is not possible to crumple up, scrap or ignore international agreements and obligations without consequence.

There is a striking parallel between the tactics of the British government and those of the DUP: a willingness to break the law in order to prove the seriousness of your demands. But no fiery rhetoric or courageous/reckless action can change the fundamental realities. Your neighbours are not moving. You will have to learn to live with them. Setting fire to the fence may send a message, but little good can grow from scorched earth.

By Katy Hayward, Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

2 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Yes, the parallels between Putin's illegal invasion, the gratuitous slaughter of thousands of civilians, using nuclear plants as military shields, disrupting grain supplies causing major food shortages globally in the process just strikes me as the perfect parallel to the threat of using a legal mechanism provided for in a treaty that we're within our rights to use. 🤦‍♂️

The EU used the sensitive NI situation as a lever in the most cynical way possible. Barnier was recorded laying out in so many words how it was to be exploited to maximum effect. If the UK agreed it in bad faith, the EU proposed it in bad faith, and the genuine demonstrable issues with it that have been acknowledged across parties in the UK and also by the republic of Ireland underline that it is not fit for purpose of keeping the Good Friday agreement in its current form. 

It's to be remembered that Macron was extremely quick to threaten to cut the power to Jersey over some issues over a handful of fishing licenses. I'd say that bears a lot more parallel to Putin's tendency to use energy as a political weapon in diplomatic disputes than our government resorting to legal mechanisms provided for in treaty. 

Beyond, that it's quite heartening to hear Macron saying something vaguely conciliatory and reproachful; signs that things may yet settle down. 

Yup -  too dumb to see it. I guess you were also one of those cheering  the gormless friend or foe comments too............

Shame on you.

[A Load of Squit 5,161]

2 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's the opinion of a professor of law at a world-renowned university. How is that remotely comparable to you taking the word of your local MP to make your vote? I mean, who is your MP? What about them led you to have such unquestioning faith in their opinion over bothering to think it through for yourself?

Moy used to say the same thing about Minfotd.

[sonyc 5,510]

I think LYB that YF means you say something but then you don't follow up on your words. That's what 'almost' means too, rather than a direct comparison to aspects of the war. YF was drawing up a metaphor for bad faith. This government has a long list of things said and done in bad faith. It has relentlessly U turned over so much...because it's been forced to (very often). Johnson couldn't be much trusted on anything. That is fact not conjecture or some poster's opinion.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

5 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

If we take it at its word, the UK government has two primary objectives in its latest confrontation with the EU. The first is to see greater change to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland than the EU is currently willing or able to give. The second is to change the Protocol (with or without the EU’s agreement) to satisfy the DUP enough to end its current veto on power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

What the government lacked before, it now has. It has proven itself a useful partner to the EU in the recent crisis over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has the attention of EU member-states concerned for the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, which the Protocol is designed to protect. It has convincingly raised both the stakes and the sense of urgency.

The EU, in contrast, sees such challenges as further proving the necessity of ‘upholding the rule of law and living up to international obligations’. It points to the ‘potential to be explored’ in its proposals on the Protocol, hinting that its red lines could have blurry edges. For the UK government, however, it is time for a decisive move. But what?

It could trigger Article 16 under the Protocol, which would mean limited measures of unilateral action. But it would be difficult to identify anything specific that would ‘fix’ the Protocol that can be done unilaterally. The more ambitious such measures are, the more they could entail an overhaul of trade to and from Northern Ireland

Two thirds of businesses have adjusted to the new post-Protocol trading arrangements (albeit under its partial implementation). To throw the whole regime up in the air for the benefit of the 8% who are still experiencing ‘significant’ difficulties would be hard to justify unless chaos was intended. As such, the greater the scope of the measures, the more they are likely to meet legal challenge or ‘rebalancing’ counter-measures by the EU.

Alternatively, the UK government could equip itself through an adjustment to the EU Withdrawal Act (2018) to allow itself to override all or part of the Protocol in due course. This would entail new primary legislation, and all that goes with it – including a bumpy and lengthy ride through Parliament. It would also put it directly at odds with the EU, given that such an Act would effectively breach their Withdrawal Agreement.

There are suggestions that it might set aside its obligations under the Protocol through emergency legislation, perhaps by arguing that there has been a fundamental change of circumstances. However, given that the Vienna Convention require these circumstances be unrelated to the rationale for the Agreement in the first place, this route seems tricky as well as unlikely.

One other course of action would be to keep the rules in place but to simply not apply them. The NI Minister for Agriculture, Edwin Poots, made such a move himself in February when he ordered officials in his department to cease performing checks and controls on goods entering NI from GB. The order was before the High Court in Belfast the next day, and found to be dubious. The checks have continued and so has the legal wrangling.

It is complicated, so, and the sovereign government’s options are limited. The first – as you might have gathered by now – is the risk of legal challenge. The government does not have a good track record when it comes to defending some of its more irregular Brexit-process plans in court. Being snarled up in court proceedings may add to the disrepute of the judiciary in some people’s minds, but it would bring little of use to the government.

The second constraint is time. It is hard to envisage immediate practical benefits to any action or announcement the government could make. Indeed, the most direct impact will be the opposite of the certainty and stability business in NI has been calling for.

The third constraint is the reaction. The response in Northern Ireland will be intense and divided. UK government action that goes against the expressed wishes of nationalist and other parties (holding 53 of the 90 seats in the Assembly) sits uncomfortably with the requirement that it exercise its sovereign power there with ‘rigorous impartiality’, according to the terms of the 1998 Agreement itself.

Further abroad, the US government is watching closely. It has made it clear that it sees the Protocol as fundamental to protecting the 1998 Agreement. Overriding the Protocol risks damaging prospects of a UK-US trade deal – which is why Conor Burns and Lord Frost took the trouble to visit Washington in person this past week.

And what might the EU’s reaction be? The first border problem raised by scrapping the Protocol would not be on Irish land but in English waters. There does not need to be a suspension or termination of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or a pile-on of tariffs to see rigorously-enforced border checks and controls have effects further inland and on shelves.

The EU response has to be proportionate. There may be deliberate, almost provocative, sangfroid. It could restart the infringement proceedings it began last time the UK breached the Protocol, or instigate the dispute resolution mechanisms of consultation or arbitration.

But the more the UK toys back and forth with the threat of non-implementation as a tool, the less it can be trusted. This is not cost-free. The end point (sooner or later) will have to be UK-EU agreement. Northern Ireland cannot survive a perpetual state of UK-EU conflict and legal uncertainty. It is not possible to crumple up, scrap or ignore international agreements and obligations without consequence.

There is a striking parallel between the tactics of the British government and those of the DUP: a willingness to break the law in order to prove the seriousness of your demands. But no fiery rhetoric or courageous/reckless action can change the fundamental realities. Your neighbours are not moving. You will have to learn to live with them. Setting fire to the fence may send a message, but little good can grow from scorched earth.

By Katy Hayward, Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.

Until I got to the last line I was reading that in awe, thinking you'd written it yourself. 

This really does sum it up though. It's a high-stakes dance, but one we need to engage in nevertheless. Sinn Fein is very much sitting pretty with the EU's line very much suiting its goals. The DUP is also part of the process though, and if their position is not represented, argued for, and seen to be fairly considered in the further evolution of the protocol, then that's one way the GFA can finish up collapsing. 

There is absolutely no danger whatsoever of the UK government advocating any changes that will result in any sort of hard border arrangement on the island of Ireland. The whole point is to simply make the processes on the Irish sea as seamless as practically possible and for the unionists to finish up satisfied that the UK isn't just abandoning them. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

11 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Yup -  too dumb to see it. I guess you were also one of those cheering  the gormless friend or foe comments too............

Shame on you.

You really are being ridiculous. 

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

9 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I think LYB that YF means you say something but then you don't follow up on your words. That's what 'almost' means too, rather than a direct comparison to aspects of the war. YF was drawing up a metaphor for bad faith. This government has a long list of things said and done in bad faith. It has relentlessly U turned over so much...because it's been forced to (very often). Johnson couldn't be much trusted on anything. That is fact not conjecture or some poster's opinion.

Thanks SC - I actually thought the metaphor was pretty obvious too. Say one thing and do (and plan) another. 

If Truss had any sense whatsoever she would 'reset' our relationship with the EU now the clown has gone, sit down and work out how to fix the relatively minor issues. But no it seems - she plays to her deranged gallery. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Yellow Fever

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

4 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Thanks SC - I actually thought the metaphor was pretty obvious too. Say one thing and do (and plan) another. 

If Truss had any sense whatsoever she would 'reset' our relationship with the EU now the clown has gone, sit down and work out how to fix the relatively minor issues. But no it seems - she plays to her deranged gallery. 

It's let down by being absurdly hyperbolic. You may not like Johnson, he may have been flagrantly dishonest on occasion, but comparing him to Putin is disgusting and  comparing any of the UK's dance with the EU to Russia's actions against Ukraine is more so. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Surfer 1,547]

Conservatives should be tracking the Republican Party into electoral oblivion... except the system is rigged in their favor so they both keep getting elected anyway... expect Truss to play to the grievance gallery because its very obvious they have nothing else. For example : 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Surfer

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

15 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Until I got to the last line I was reading that in awe, thinking you'd written it yourself. 

This really does sum it up though. It's a high-stakes dance, but one we need to engage in nevertheless. Sinn Fein is very much sitting pretty with the EU's line very much suiting its goals. The DUP is also part of the process though, and if their position is not represented, argued for, and seen to be fairly considered in the further evolution of the protocol, then that's one way the GFA can finish up collapsing. 

There is absolutely no danger whatsoever of the UK government advocating any changes that will result in any sort of hard border arrangement on the island of Ireland. The whole point is to simply make the processes on the Irish sea as seamless as practically possible and for the unionists to finish up satisfied that the UK isn't just abandoning them. 

No way I could accurately predict what any action or outcome will be. That is one of the reasons for me to vote Remain. The Leave campaign was just guessing. Even the ballot paper itself was useless in terms of the future.

Now its opinion only. Article 16 is legal to invoke but is also ambiguous. If you support a certain view you can interpret it as it suits. While it is clear that NI must not be threatened economically, which is a joke as the DUP will not help to govern, it is also clear that the spirit of the whole agreement must not be jeopardised by one nations interests. So it will be months if not years before any Court would sit and then months of deliberation. And then more years to initiate the latest UK demand of Green and Red lanes.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

No way I could accurately predict what any action or outcome will be. That is one of the reasons for me to vote Remain. The Leave campaign was just guessing. Even the ballot paper itself was useless in terms of the future.

Now its opinion only. Article 16 is legal to invoke but is also ambiguous. If you support a certain view you can interpret it as it suits. While it is clear that NI must not be threatened economically, which is a joke as the DUP will not help to govern, it is also clear that the spirit of the whole agreement must not be jeopardised by one nations interests. So it will be months if not years before any Court would sit and then months of deliberation. And then more years to initiate the latest UK demand of Green and Red lanes.

Absolutely. Legal disputes are slow to settle. Those mechanisms exist exactly for the scenario where negotiated settlement can't be reached, but much as in out of court settlements are often reached in civil cases based on probable outcomes, negotiated settlements in the international plane tend to be influenced by the respective sides' expectations regarding the legal case.

The fact that the EU has started being less intransigent shows they believe there's validity to the argument. It's then a question of seeing how far the EU can be persuaded towards the UK position. Such is the nature of diplomacy.

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

18 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

If we take it at its word, the UK government has two primary objectives in its latest confrontation with the EU. The first is to see greater change to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland than the EU is currently willing or able to give. The second is to change the Protocol (with or without the EU’s agreement) to satisfy the DUP enough to end its current veto on power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

What the government lacked before, it now has. It has proven itself a useful partner to the EU in the recent crisis over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has the attention of EU member-states concerned for the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement, which the Protocol is designed to protect. It has convincingly raised both the stakes and the sense of urgency.

The EU, in contrast, sees such challenges as further proving the necessity of ‘upholding the rule of law and living up to international obligations’. It points to the ‘potential to be explored’ in its proposals on the Protocol, hinting that its red lines could have blurry edges. For the UK government, however, it is time for a decisive move. But what?

It could trigger Article 16 under the Protocol, which would mean limited measures of unilateral action. But it would be difficult to identify anything specific that would ‘fix’ the Protocol that can be done unilaterally. The more ambitious such measures are, the more they could entail an overhaul of trade to and from Northern Ireland

Two thirds of businesses have adjusted to the new post-Protocol trading arrangements (albeit under its partial implementation). To throw the whole regime up in the air for the benefit of the 8% who are still experiencing ‘significant’ difficulties would be hard to justify unless chaos was intended. As such, the greater the scope of the measures, the more they are likely to meet legal challenge or ‘rebalancing’ counter-measures by the EU.

Alternatively, the UK government could equip itself through an adjustment to the EU Withdrawal Act (2018) to allow itself to override all or part of the Protocol in due course. This would entail new primary legislation, and all that goes with it – including a bumpy and lengthy ride through Parliament. It would also put it directly at odds with the EU, given that such an Act would effectively breach their Withdrawal Agreement.

There are suggestions that it might set aside its obligations under the Protocol through emergency legislation, perhaps by arguing that there has been a fundamental change of circumstances. However, given that the Vienna Convention require these circumstances be unrelated to the rationale for the Agreement in the first place, this route seems tricky as well as unlikely.

One other course of action would be to keep the rules in place but to simply not apply them. The NI Minister for Agriculture, Edwin Poots, made such a move himself in February when he ordered officials in his department to cease performing checks and controls on goods entering NI from GB. The order was before the High Court in Belfast the next day, and found to be dubious. The checks have continued and so has the legal wrangling.

It is complicated, so, and the sovereign government’s options are limited. The first – as you might have gathered by now – is the risk of legal challenge. The government does not have a good track record when it comes to defending some of its more irregular Brexit-process plans in court. Being snarled up in court proceedings may add to the disrepute of the judiciary in some people’s minds, but it would bring little of use to the government.

The second constraint is time. It is hard to envisage immediate practical benefits to any action or announcement the government could make. Indeed, the most direct impact will be the opposite of the certainty and stability business in NI has been calling for.

The third constraint is the reaction. The response in Northern Ireland will be intense and divided. UK government action that goes against the expressed wishes of nationalist and other parties (holding 53 of the 90 seats in the Assembly) sits uncomfortably with the requirement that it exercise its sovereign power there with ‘rigorous impartiality’, according to the terms of the 1998 Agreement itself.

Further abroad, the US government is watching closely. It has made it clear that it sees the Protocol as fundamental to protecting the 1998 Agreement. Overriding the Protocol risks damaging prospects of a UK-US trade deal – which is why Conor Burns and Lord Frost took the trouble to visit Washington in person this past week.

And what might the EU’s reaction be? The first border problem raised by scrapping the Protocol would not be on Irish land but in English waters. There does not need to be a suspension or termination of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or a pile-on of tariffs to see rigorously-enforced border checks and controls have effects further inland and on shelves.

The EU response has to be proportionate. There may be deliberate, almost provocative, sangfroid. It could restart the infringement proceedings it began last time the UK breached the Protocol, or instigate the dispute resolution mechanisms of consultation or arbitration.

But the more the UK toys back and forth with the threat of non-implementation as a tool, the less it can be trusted. This is not cost-free. The end point (sooner or later) will have to be UK-EU agreement. Northern Ireland cannot survive a perpetual state of UK-EU conflict and legal uncertainty. It is not possible to crumple up, scrap or ignore international agreements and obligations without consequence.

There is a striking parallel between the tactics of the British government and those of the DUP: a willingness to break the law in order to prove the seriousness of your demands. But no fiery rhetoric or courageous/reckless action can change the fundamental realities. Your neighbours are not moving. You will have to learn to live with them. Setting fire to the fence may send a message, but little good can grow from scorched earth.

By Katy Hayward, Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.

And that is the problem. Whatever Truss et al may say about renegotiations, the reality is that Tory party policy is being driven by the hardliners of the ERG and the DUP. And the DUP in particular has not interest in renegotiating the protocol. It regards that as pointless since its stated objective is to scrap the border in the Irish Sea. If there is no border then there is no need for a protocol.

The obvious problem with that is that Northern Ireland would have to stop being a de facto member of the single market. The EU, and by the EU I do not mean some bureaucrats and Macron, but pretty much every country, large and small, simply cannot and will not allow open entry into the SM.

If the Irish Sea border goes then so does NI's membership of the SM. Which has helped the province's economy to prosper compared to the rest of the UK apart perhaps from London. The business community in NI would like some minor changes to the protocol (which the EU is likely to agree to) but is horrified by the prospect of the DUP and the ERG getting their way.

[A Load of Squit 5,161]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

The fact that the EU has started being less intransigent shows they believe there's validity to the argument. It's then a question of seeing how far the EU can be persuaded towards the UK position. Such is the nature of diplomacy.

In what way have the EU 'started being less intransigent'?

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

17 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

In what way have the EU 'started being less intransigent'?

To save time arguing a subjective perception, I'll roll with saying you're right and they're just as intransigent as originally: That strengthens the UK's legal defence for acting unilaterally under article 16 to mitigate the trade diversion that has been experienced since the protocol came into force, which was included for the contingency of problems arising from the protocol where bilateral agreement of changes isn't found. 

Edited August 28, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Well b back 3,200]

Has Paul Moy returned ? Some of the spellings, name calling and ‘ only he was right ‘ ring a few bells !!!

[Barbe bleu 822]

Time for everyone to have a few days off I think!

[Barbe bleu 822]

21 hours ago, sonyc said:

I think LYB that YF means you say something but then you don't follow up on your words. That's what 'almost' means too, rather than a direct comparison to aspects of the war. YF was drawing up a metaphor for bad faith. 

It was a stupid comparison; YF knows it was  a stupid conparison.  

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

It was a stupid comparison; YF knows it was  a stupid conparison.  

HI BB.

Actually there was nothing wrong with comment but LYB is just too shallow, too one dimensional, too 'literal'  to comprehend it (& probably because it uncomfortably hit home) and looks for pointless arguments. It was written in context having noticed the page of earlier comments on Article 16 - missing the 'spirit' of the agreement and what Article 16 is supposed to safeguard (unforeseen exceptional events) and exists for as opposed to be abused for (nothing unexpected or exceptional about its implementation - indeed the majority in NI support it).

Anyway - the comment below (reproduced in full) is not a comparison or belittlement of Putin's recent military exploits and crimes but clearly relates simply to Putin's way of false disingenuous negotiation - bad faith - and then stoking/using political tensions to undermine said agreements.   

If I was in error it was in thinking LYB (who seems to be 'disgusting' as usual) although not written in particular for him and his kind didn't have the wit to comprehend the point and the company you keep if you negotiate in bad faith. No doubt that can be misunderstood / misrepresented too 😉.  Anyway this isn't targeted at you - we can generally agree / disagree in many shades of grey (or blue). Have a good bank holiday!

 

Good grief.

It almost Putinesque isn't it.

Agree a deal with EU  - sell it as the best thing since sliced bread to the people - 'Oven Ready' and then a year or so later conspire with the DUP (the only party that opposed the Good Friday Agreement) to call it unworkable and then then try to rewrite / rip it up blaming all other parties to the deal &  despite NI appearing to be the one part of the UK that has prospered most post Brexit being in both the UK and SM. 

Either the Tories (all of them in government & looking at you Truss) were either negotiating totally in bad faith or were totally incompetent. It seems most likely both. Either way they ALL should go.

Simply these people and their excusers / supporters (as per the Macron comment at the recent husting) simply besmirch the good name of the United Kingdom.  Yes very Putinesque indeed although they are too dumb to see it.

[Herman 9,754]

Birdie is Dennis Wise and I claim my £5.😀

[littleyellowbirdie 2,542]

6 hours ago, Herman said:

Birdie is Dennis Wise and I claim my £5.😀

 

15 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

HI BB.

Actually there was nothing wrong with comment but LYB is just too shallow, too one dimensional, too 'literal'  to comprehend it (& probably because it uncomfortably hit home) and looks for pointless arguments. It was written in context having noticed the page of earlier comments on Article 16 - missing the 'spirit' of the agreement and what Article 16 is supposed to safeguard (unforeseen exceptional events) and exists for as opposed to be abused for (nothing unexpected or exceptional about its implementation - indeed the majority in NI support it).

Anyway - the comment below (reproduced in full) is not a comparison or belittlement of Putin's recent military exploits and crimes but clearly relates simply to Putin's way of false disingenuous negotiation - bad faith - and then stoking/using political tensions to undermine said agreements.   

If I was in error it was in thinking LYB (who seems to be 'disgusting' as usual) although not written in particular for him and his kind didn't have the wit to comprehend the point and the company you keep if you negotiate in bad faith. No doubt that can be misunderstood / misrepresented too 😉.  Anyway this isn't targeted at you - we can generally agree / disagree in many shades of grey (or blue). Have a good bank holiday!

 

Good grief.

It almost Putinesque isn't it.

Agree a deal with EU  - sell it as the best thing since sliced bread to the people - 'Oven Ready' and then a year or so later conspire with the DUP (the only party that opposed the Good Friday Agreement) to call it unworkable and then then try to rewrite / rip it up blaming all other parties to the deal &  despite NI appearing to be the one part of the UK that has prospered most post Brexit being in both the UK and SM. 

Either the Tories (all of them in government & looking at you Truss) were either negotiating totally in bad faith or were totally incompetent. It seems most likely both. Either way they ALL should go.

Simply these people and their excusers / supporters (as per the Macron comment at the recent husting) simply besmirch the good name of the United Kingdom.  Yes very Putinesque indeed although they are too dumb to see it.

There was everything wrong with your comment; the fact that you can't even see what's wrong with likening a British PM who has resigned over illegal parties with a war criminal dictator in all but name like Putin, along with various other hyperbole, is a trait shared by many others that makes you all look like a joke; presumably you'd also think drawing a comparison between someone getting a speeding ticket or convicted of mortgage fraud, and someone who walks into a school and mows down dozens of children with an assault rifle is rational and reasonable as well.  

And all your stupid sanctimony about 'breaking international law' and 'international pariahs', straight from the EU's spokespeople, but with no factual merit whatsoever, but you spout it like it's cast iron fact, then all dismiss the reasoned opinions of top legal academics as 'mere opinions'. Talk about double standards. 

And then you're all scratching your heads how the Conservatives can do such a bad job and people still aren't attracted by what you offer, and you all go to your little corners of the internet to console yourselves.

Edited August 29, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie