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Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.

She was a crap PM and towards the end torally desperate. However the "lets ignore the referendum" crew just wanted to play the vote till we get the right answer game and in doing so shot themselves in the foot.

Imagine - outwitted by Boris.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

Oh, and all of the post-Brexit trade agreements, including with the US and the CP-TPP, will need to be torn up in order to rejoin anything EU-based.

I do rather enjoy the way Remainers studiously ignore the politics of the EU since we left.

Currently we are missing the fight on Mercosur, the perennial budget dispute and the death of the AI industry. Not forgetting of course the reverse gear on car emissions.

Male lead (well, after Christ) gets £14,000 more than the female lead – sounds about right.

Perhaps the great problem that Christianity has is that Christ is always played by a plastic doll.

A remarkably tasteless nativity scene came up on my Facebook page, depicting Baby Hitler, in place of Baby Jesus. The wise men and shepherds had swastika armbands, and there was a Nazi flag on the stable wall.

You need to stop following the Republican Party on Facebook.

Honestly, I’m getting bombarded with Holocaust denial, Russian trolls, rants by Lozza Fox, and Rupert Lowe, and assorted idiocies, despite blocking these sites.

There are some sites where Nativity denial is rampant.

Well one gospel doesn't mention shepherds, one gospel doesn't mention wise men, and the earliest doesn't mention either. Our nativity story is the equivalent of an AI amalgamation of several documents to come up with a whole that none of them says.

Accepting that Jesus was a historical figure, he had to be born somewhere, but very unlikely that any biblical accounts represent the reality of it.

He was clearly born near Glastonbury. Drawn there, magnetically, by King Arthur. Who was also born there. Or died there. I think. Anyway - it's in the Bible. At least the bits of the bible the "Special secrets they don't want you to know" FB/Insta/WhatsApp group tells me.

Did you know the bible is also strongly against wind turbines and pro-Russian fossil fuels? It's an amazing book. Not sure there's much more to it than that. But it lays it out quite clearly in a post about BA pilots back in 2021.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

Softly softly catchee monkey

Mr. W, bullshitting the electorate (see also a refusal to hold the promised referendum on Lisbon) is a good way to antagonise them again.

There's a case to be made for joining the EU, a case that's much easier thanks to America going crazy. Tying us into obeying EU diktats without a say then using that to try and force us back in is dishonest and dishonourable. Even worse, it's dumb.

The electorate has showed itself previously and currently willing to vote for a Faragian political vehicle if the political 'mainstream' decides to go full steam ahead with pro-EU stuff against the wishes of the electorate. I do not want an imbecile who's soft on Russia to end up in Number 10 because the left decide to throw away our decision-making power to a political body the voters chose to leave.

Are we seriously back talking about what “A” customs union, rather than “THE” customs union, looks like in practice?

Ask the Turks what “A” CU looks like, it’s terribly one-sided.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, easier (and less honest) to try and get us closer and closer to the EU then say "We may as well join seeing as we're already bound by their decisions but currently have no say" than it is to actually make a case for rejoining.

That approach has consistently failed to win over public opinion in Norway, however. But Norway was never foolish enough to volunteer for a damaging separation, and we would have been less foolish to have copied the Norwegian approach from the beginning.

Certainly. But then wankers like Ed Davey and Keir Starmer refused to map anything like that through Parliament when May would have agreed to it and now they are desperately trying to magic up what they could have had if they hadnt been prats.

What makes you think May would have agreed it, since it clearly breached her red lines?

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

If she was prepared to agree to a Norwegian approach why the feck didn't she herself propose it? She was after all the Prime Minister.

The only two logical positions in the long term are full fat Rejoin and and full Juche Brexit.

The salami treatment on Brexit of Customs Union, then Single Market are just steps on the way.

In truth, the only two coherent positions during our entire period of trying to join, joining, trying to leave and then leaving the EEC and the EU all the way from Messina to Brexit were, to quote the old song "put your whole self in, your whole self out".

We should EITHER have had nothing to do with the EEC/EU but wished it well and worked from the outside to obtain advantageous trading terms for the UK OR we should have gone in as enthusiastic members, taking on the Euro (renaming it the Crown or Florin perhaps), Schengen and pushing for full political and economic union (welcome to EuroFed).

We wasted more than 60 years on a half-hearted, mean-spirited, rebate obsessed, banana fixated notion of membership because the shadow of WW2 hung over us and we couldn't work out what our relationship with Europe was or should be. We thought we were an Imperial power and Europe needed us more than we needed them. That view was re-enforced by the nostalgia-obsessed media and cultural mores.