I’ve discovered the main problem apart from Boris for the Tories - they’ve just been interviewing two chairs of conservative constituency associations - they were absolutely thick as mince.
I’m sure both ladies have put in the hard yards making jam and cakes and doing the flowers at the village hall hustings to get to these positions but if they are representative then we are doomed.
Actually it is ladies like them who will do a lot of work in the local community, often being involved in the rotary club, the church, the Mother's Union etc as well as being grandmothers. They are the ones who organise the party fundraisers, deliver the leaflets rain or shine, do the canvassing and telling and put up posters and are the backbone of the party and always have been. Without them we wouldn't get all the councillors and MPs elected in the first place we do
It's just not such a good idea to put them up for interview on national radio, eh?
Why not? They represent the voluntary party and the membership who get the final say on any new leader
Clearly you didn't hear the incisive political analysis and insight they were able to offer.
Tory rebels circulating this article today, written by two former chairmen of 1922, who set out in 2019 how rules could be changed to allow another confidence vote in Theresa May within a year.
“If it was good enough to move Mrs May on…” one says to me.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
Jesus wept, “it’s all down to Brexit Part 7,412”
The reason why we are seeing the chaos in the airports is that the travel industry slashed back its workforce in the wake of Covid (and despite Government support schemes) and then exacerbated the issue by using the crisis to permanently shift the dial in their favour with employees by using Covid as an excuse to push through contracts that favoured the airlines. Guess what? Many airline employees then decided working in an airline didn’t make much sense.
Then they got caught out by the bounce back in travel. As did airlines around the world. The problems we are seeing now mirror what happened in the US at the end of last year but on a smaller scale (relatively as well as absolutely). So, it’s not just a Brexit issue.
In a classic situation, what should happen is that the airlines improve their wages / contracts to help alleviate the situation. That is happening in the US as the airlines realise people are willing to absorb the extra costs. But the airlines here - working on the low cost model - don’t want to do that. They want their cake and to eat it - to have the extra traffic but not pay the extra costs. Which is why they are clamouring for the security check rules to be eased - and if / when there is a breach of airport security, they will be the first to hide and let the Government take the blame.
Your blaming of the situation on Brexit implicitly suggests that you see the problem as a supply of cheap labour that the airlines can throw into the situation ie it undercuts workers wages so nice, middle class people like yourself can go on holiday without too much disruption.
I don't think RP mentioned airports - he is thinking more about care workers and shop / bar work where the anti-social hours combined with poor pay but people off.
Airports are part of it, but not exclusively. We lost 600k+ people from the workforce during Covid. Which means acute labour shortages in some sectors and some places. The whole purpose in the managed migration policy was to allow migration when we needed workers. So why aren't we doing so?
Most of whom were Brits who approaching the end of their careers stopped working. The ONLY year we saw a net outflow of EU citizens was 2020 which the ONS reckon was around 90,000 - of course rest of world immigration had remained strongly positive over that same period. The issue with the travel industry is low wages and poor treatment if staff - BA are desperately trying to rehire cabin crew they laid off on “new terms” - to which the crew are telling them to Foxtrot Oscar. Given the acute labour shortages being experienced in the travel industry across Europe, where do they expect these “temporary workers” to come from?
I'm not really talking about the airlines - that is entirely their doing. I'm more focused on the airports where the situation is much worse and has been for much longer. Places like Gatwick and Manchester can't get ground staff. The ones they can get don't get security screenings to be able to work.
On holidays we came back from a week in the Lake District last night. It was a pleasant holiday although it rained far too much. My wife looked at the chaos at the airports and decided that it just wasn't worth it this year. She was right (as usual). I suppose that saved the UK about £3k off the balance of trade. I suspect that many more will do the same. It was also noticeable in the hotel and restaurants we visited that far more local people were now working in these establishments than we would have seen in previous years.
Too many in the travel business are seeking to blame Brexit, when the true cause is their own short-termism in canning people in their industry. And a realisation by those doing the jobs at the sharp end that it has bugger all glamour really.
The country faces huge problems and for me the worst consequence of last night is that we will continue to deal with those problems with a government of pigmies whose sole criteria for preferment is loyalty to Big Dog.
Anyone who has displayed at the slightest hint of disloyalty to the Dear Leader will be out and replaced by the likes of Dorries, Braverman and Rees-Mogg.
One airline I know, is discovering that A380 captains don’t grow on trees, especially when offering them 25% less money than they were making in 2019.
That airline has its own specific set of problems. There are very good reasons why the How To Quit Emirates thread is the one of the largest and longest running on pprune...
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But this is politics. Not project management. That's my point
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
Jesus wept, “it’s all down to Brexit Part 7,412”
The reason why we are seeing the chaos in the airports is that the travel industry slashed back its workforce in the wake of Covid (and despite Government support schemes) and then exacerbated the issue by using the crisis to permanently shift the dial in their favour with employees by using Covid as an excuse to push through contracts that favoured the airlines. Guess what? Many airline employees then decided working in an airline didn’t make much sense.
Then they got caught out by the bounce back in travel. As did airlines around the world. The problems we are seeing now mirror what happened in the US at the end of last year but on a smaller scale (relatively as well as absolutely). So, it’s not just a Brexit issue.
In a classic situation, what should happen is that the airlines improve their wages / contracts to help alleviate the situation. That is happening in the US as the airlines realise people are willing to absorb the extra costs. But the airlines here - working on the low cost model - don’t want to do that. They want their cake and to eat it - to have the extra traffic but not pay the extra costs. Which is why they are clamouring for the security check rules to be eased - and if / when there is a breach of airport security, they will be the first to hide and let the Government take the blame.
Your blaming of the situation on Brexit implicitly suggests that you see the problem as a supply of cheap labour that the airlines can throw into the situation ie it undercuts workers wages so nice, middle class people like yourself can go on holiday without too much disruption.
Why the absolutism? I agree that its not just a Brexit issue - that's my point. Brexit is uniquely to the UK a contributing factor. So that after the loss of staff during Covid and the sudden bounce back in passengers, airports and airlines cannot cope.
The reason why this chaos is the exception outside the UK - Dublin and Schiphol are struggling but not being widely reported beyond that - and is endemic here is Brexit. They have a vast labour pool to choose from, we do not.
So we're back to making our new border strategy work. If it did, then Brexit or no Brexit we would not have a problem. The whole point about a managed immigration policy is that we can bring in workers when they are needed. Except that as with trucking we don't actually do so until very late in the day.
It's simply not true that wider problems are not being reported:
Pockets of it. Have they been almost impossible to use like Manchester and now Gatwick and Birmingham for weeks or months?
Our airports simply cannot recruit staff. A combination of the staff not being available to hire, and/or the people they can hire can't get security screened. Neither of those things are good for the government.
They can't hire staff because they treated all their old staff like shit and want to pay peanuts but pretend to be shocked that they can't find monkeys - and you want to play their game.
They need to fix that, or they need to go out of business. They don't deserve staff, if that is how they want
Why aren't you calling for them to treat their staff better and to pay a decent wage? I think I know the answer.
As an employer recruiting new staff is far harder than keeping on existing staff, which is why its a good idea to respect your staff and not treat them like disposable cogs.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
Jesus wept, “it’s all down to Brexit Part 7,412”
The reason why we are seeing the chaos in the airports is that the travel industry slashed back its workforce in the wake of Covid (and despite Government support schemes) and then exacerbated the issue by using the crisis to permanently shift the dial in their favour with employees by using Covid as an excuse to push through contracts that favoured the airlines. Guess what? Many airline employees then decided working in an airline didn’t make much sense.
Then they got caught out by the bounce back in travel. As did airlines around the world. The problems we are seeing now mirror what happened in the US at the end of last year but on a smaller scale (relatively as well as absolutely). So, it’s not just a Brexit issue.
In a classic situation, what should happen is that the airlines improve their wages / contracts to help alleviate the situation. That is happening in the US as the airlines realise people are willing to absorb the extra costs. But the airlines here - working on the low cost model - don’t want to do that. They want their cake and to eat it - to have the extra traffic but not pay the extra costs. Which is why they are clamouring for the security check rules to be eased - and if / when there is a breach of airport security, they will be the first to hide and let the Government take the blame.
Your blaming of the situation on Brexit implicitly suggests that you see the problem as a supply of cheap labour that the airlines can throw into the situation ie it undercuts workers wages so nice, middle class people like yourself can go on holiday without too much disruption.
Why the absolutism? I agree that its not just a Brexit issue - that's my point. Brexit is uniquely to the UK a contributing factor. So that after the loss of staff during Covid and the sudden bounce back in passengers, airports and airlines cannot cope.
The reason why this chaos is the exception outside the UK - Dublin and Schiphol are struggling but not being widely reported beyond that - and is endemic here is Brexit. They have a vast labour pool to choose from, we do not.
So we're back to making our new border strategy work. If it did, then Brexit or no Brexit we would not have a problem. The whole point about a managed immigration policy is that we can bring in workers when they are needed. Except that as with trucking we don't actually do so until very late in the day.
It's simply not true that wider problems are not being reported:
It’s a worldwide problem. The industry laid off too many staff during the pandemic, and now can’t get them back as the market returns to normal. One airline I know, is discovering that A380 captains don’t grow on trees, especially when offering them 25% less money than they were making in 2019.
A friend works for BA - her husband is a pilot. Her descriptions of the shock with which various people in the industry react, when he says that no, he won't go and work for X again are hilarious.
At one airline, he was told to be reasonable, since reductions in pay bands for pilots was *policy* from the board. That is, they were telling someone with a job, that he should be *reasonable* and come work for them. For less money.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
Jesus wept, “it’s all down to Brexit Part 7,412”
The reason why we are seeing the chaos in the airports is that the travel industry slashed back its workforce in the wake of Covid (and despite Government support schemes) and then exacerbated the issue by using the crisis to permanently shift the dial in their favour with employees by using Covid as an excuse to push through contracts that favoured the airlines. Guess what? Many airline employees then decided working in an airline didn’t make much sense.
Then they got caught out by the bounce back in travel. As did airlines around the world. The problems we are seeing now mirror what happened in the US at the end of last year but on a smaller scale (relatively as well as absolutely). So, it’s not just a Brexit issue.
In a classic situation, what should happen is that the airlines improve their wages / contracts to help alleviate the situation. That is happening in the US as the airlines realise people are willing to absorb the extra costs. But the airlines here - working on the low cost model - don’t want to do that. They want their cake and to eat it - to have the extra traffic but not pay the extra costs. Which is why they are clamouring for the security check rules to be eased - and if / when there is a breach of airport security, they will be the first to hide and let the Government take the blame.
Your blaming of the situation on Brexit implicitly suggests that you see the problem as a supply of cheap labour that the airlines can throw into the situation ie it undercuts workers wages so nice, middle class people like yourself can go on holiday without too much disruption.
Why the absolutism? I agree that its not just a Brexit issue - that's my point. Brexit is uniquely to the UK a contributing factor. So that after the loss of staff during Covid and the sudden bounce back in passengers, airports and airlines cannot cope.
The reason why this chaos is the exception outside the UK - Dublin and Schiphol are struggling but not being widely reported beyond that - and is endemic here is Brexit. They have a vast labour pool to choose from, we do not.
So we're back to making our new border strategy work. If it did, then Brexit or no Brexit we would not have a problem. The whole point about a managed immigration policy is that we can bring in workers when they are needed. Except that as with trucking we don't actually do so until very late in the day.
It's simply not true that wider problems are not being reported:
It’s a worldwide problem. The industry laid off too many staff during the pandemic, and now can’t get them back as the market returns to normal. One airline I know, is discovering that A380 captains don’t grow on trees, especially when offering them 25% less money than they were making in 2019.
I expect A380 pilots will be a particularly difficult problem as 1)many of the experienced pilots, being senior will have given up flying permanently and 2) given the type is not (very) long for the air difficult to get younger pilots to train for them.
Pity, best plane for passengers by a country mile. Even Qatar have brought them back.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
Yep - I do. I understand that while the UK needs the EU more than they need us, EU member states would still like better access to the UK market than they get currently and that, generally, the EU is made stronger by having a smooth, trust-based relationship with the UK.
You do this stuff for a living, and you’re not prone to lying fantasies, so I am happy to take it on trust. I sincerely hope you are right
If Starmer can fix some of this shit it would be great. I have long thought it would be a Remainer that might make Brexit work, as so many Brexiteers are ideologically wedded to a Platonic ideal of Brexit, and the more pragmatic Leavers - eg Hannan - have generally left the scene
And we agree that none of this can happen until Boris goes. He REALLY needs to go.
A rare moment of concord on PB
But you are wrong about remoaner ultras. They exist in numbers. @Scott_xP is far from alone in his dogmatism
I do not come across them except on here and on Twitter. I agree with them that leaving the EU was a mistake, but we have to move on from that. If they can't do it, they are going to be permanently disappointed. It is no way to lead a life.
You don't read the Guardian, then. The Labour Party's very own newspaper
From Polly Toynbee to Nick Cohen to Martin Kettle to dozens of others, they are all Rejoiners, they are merely staying reasonably quiet for now, so as not to scare the horses.
That will change as Starmer gets nearer to power. I expect the first Guardian editorial or lead columnist to suggest rejoining the SM within the year
We will rejoin at some point unless the EU blows up. Staying out will make us poorer, and people don't like being poor. And anti-EU sentiment is far stronger in the generation that will die in the next 20 years than among those who will still be alive and voting. Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
In the end the Free Market and individual countries might solve this issue. If it becomes a persistent pain for UK travellers at EU passport checks - with 3 hour waits - then the British will drift elsewhere. Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, the USA, etc
Any country that makes it easier for Brits will get a lot of business, So eventually an EU country will twig this and provide dedicated lanes for British tourists to get their passports stamped quickly. Probably poorer countries like Portugal, Malta and Greece will do it, to poach custom off France and Spain
The cost of hiring 200 passport stampers will be peanuts compared to the profit from another 1m UK visitors
Honestly I love the simple solution you come up with without any concept of reality. Portugal already offer the electronic recording to get through without stamping the passport, but we Brits then queue up anyway to get the stamp afterwards because we are scared stiff of falling foul of the 90 day limit unintentionally. And this applies to all over Europe. So a trip to Portugal may then stop you going to Germany 3 months later through no fault of your own and getting band from entering the EU.
So a trip to Paris for a long weekend could prevent you going to Portugal 3 months later if stuff goes pearshaped. This has already happened.
Well if this is because pathetic Brits can do maths then that is their problem
Besides, all it needs is an app. Type in your EU travel dates, It will tell you how long you have left within the 90 days. Would take 2 minutes to design. No need for stamps. Problem solved
And, over the long term, countries like Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Portugal - and parts of Spain - are intensely dependant on British tourists. It is in their interest to sort this out, before Brits get used to going elsewhere. They will seize the opportunity
"Javier Gandara, President of the Airlines Association in Spain, called the airport queues at Spanish holiday destinations “undesirable” and said he feared they would leave visitors with a “bad image” of the country unless the situation improved."
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
And how might that apply to a practiced writer of entertaining fictions ?
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But this is politics. Not project management. That's my point
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
That definitely is something you suffer badly from. Hard to overcome.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. They had a point on the first bit (as per the post you replied to), and have been proven utterly deluded on the second (which had nothing to do with the post you replied to).
lol
How can you say that it's been proven utterly deluded when we've only been out for 5 minutes?
You could argue that it's been proven that the process of unpicking membership is harder than some advocates of Brexit said it would be, but that doesn't say anything about whether it was right or wrong to do it. It does however make a mockery of the idea that there is no loss of sovereignty from being part of a project of progressive federation.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
Potential brain drain here, given we've a number of battery engineers and no domestic production of any real significance ?
https://insideevs.com/news/590307/tesla-battles-for-top-engineers/ ...With median battery engineer salaries increasing to anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 depending on an engineer’s experience and role, onlookers are left wondering if the growing industry might be worth a career change.
Qichao Hu, CEO of Ford- and General Motors-backed SES Artificial Intelligence, explains that the high demand for EV battery talent is going to require a change, saying that the industry isn’t sustainable with the bottleneck created by increasing prices — whether spent on employees or raw materials.
“A senior battery engineer in the U.S. sometimes can cost as much as a CFO,” said Hu. “This whole industry now, it’s not sustainable, from people to raw materials.”
The statements came just after SES faced a bidding war with Tesla, Rivian, GM and QuantumScape over a recently hired engineer. In the end, Tesla managed to garner the highest price for the candidate.
Another battery engineer working at a worldwide automaker told Bloomberg they were seeing requests on LinkedIn from recruiters at Rivian, Ford, Tesla, Amazon and Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL). And while engineering degrees may go a long way in getting one’s foot in the door, the competition is largely left to those with tangible EV engineering experience — in everything from R&D to raw materials and scaled production...
There is no point in the 22 changing the rules until there is a guarantee of a different result.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
It can, but it probably won't.
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
On holidays we came back from a week in the Lake District last night. It was a pleasant holiday although it rained far too much. My wife looked at the chaos at the airports and decided that it just wasn't worth it this year. She was right (as usual). I suppose that saved the UK about £3k off the balance of trade. I suspect that many more will do the same. It was also noticeable in the hotel and restaurants we visited that far more local people were now working in these establishments than we would have seen in previous years.
Try one of the less well known resorts in Turkey (the lira is collapsing), or somewhere like Georgia
And unless you have kids in tow (did you?) travelling at half term is cray cray
It was our first holiday without kids for 30 years. We had a fine time, relaxing and walking. If it had been a tad dryer and warmer it would have been perfect.
We did Turkey a couple of times with the kids before Covid. I wouldn't be in a rush to go back. I was more interested in your trips to northern Greece. Keep up the travelogue though. Who knows what might catch our fancy.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
Yep - I do. I understand that while the UK needs the EU more than they need us, EU member states would still like better access to the UK market than they get currently and that, generally, the EU is made stronger by having a smooth, trust-based relationship with the UK.
You do this stuff for a living, and you’re not prone to lying fantasies, so I am happy to take it on trust. I sincerely hope you are right
If Starmer can fix some of this shit it would be great. I have long thought it would be a Remainer that might make Brexit work, as so many Brexiteers are ideologically wedded to a Platonic ideal of Brexit, and the more pragmatic Leavers - eg Hannan - have generally left the scene
And we agree that none of this can happen until Boris goes. He REALLY needs to go.
A rare moment of concord on PB
But you are wrong about remoaner ultras. They exist in numbers. @Scott_xP is far from alone in his dogmatism
I do not come across them except on here and on Twitter. I agree with them that leaving the EU was a mistake, but we have to move on from that. If they can't do it, they are going to be permanently disappointed. It is no way to lead a life.
You don't read the Guardian, then. The Labour Party's very own newspaper
From Polly Toynbee to Nick Cohen to Martin Kettle to dozens of others, they are all Rejoiners, they are merely staying reasonably quiet for now, so as not to scare the horses.
That will change as Starmer gets nearer to power. I expect the first Guardian editorial or lead columnist to suggest rejoining the SM within the year
We will rejoin at some point unless the EU blows up. Staying out will make us poorer, and people don't like being poor. And anti-EU sentiment is far stronger in the generation that will die in the next 20 years than among those who will still be alive and voting. Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Nah. The EU is heading in a direction we can never accept and the longer we are out the more those differences will become apparent.
What I do think will happen at some point is we will join EFTA and probably the EEA. But I would say that as it has always been the best result in my view.
On holidays we came back from a week in the Lake District last night. It was a pleasant holiday although it rained far too much. My wife looked at the chaos at the airports and decided that it just wasn't worth it this year. She was right (as usual). I suppose that saved the UK about £3k off the balance of trade. I suspect that many more will do the same. It was also noticeable in the hotel and restaurants we visited that far more local people were now working in these establishments than we would have seen in previous years.
Try one of the less well known resorts in Turkey (the lira is collapsing), or somewhere like Georgia
And unless you have kids in tow (did you?) travelling at half term is cray cray
It was our first holiday without kids for 30 years. We had a fine time, relaxing and walking. If it had been a tad dryer and warmer it would have been perfect.
We did Turkey a couple of times with the kids before Covid. I wouldn't be in a rush to go back. I was more interested in your trips to northern Greece. Keep up the travelogue though. Who knows what might catch our fancy.
I can't recommend Epirus highly enough. It's got everything - spectacular mountains, beautiful beaches, lovely towns, historic villages, glorious monasteries and castles and battlefields and ruins, and outside August it is pretty empty. But avoid August. It is too hot then, anyway
Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Probably. The political tradition of hardcore leave is bleeding out at our feet.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
In the end the Free Market and individual countries might solve this issue. If it becomes a persistent pain for UK travellers at EU passport checks - with 3 hour waits - then the British will drift elsewhere. Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, the USA, etc
Any country that makes it easier for Brits will get a lot of business, So eventually an EU country will twig this and provide dedicated lanes for British tourists to get their passports stamped quickly. Probably poorer countries like Portugal, Malta and Greece will do it, to poach custom off France and Spain
The cost of hiring 200 passport stampers will be peanuts compared to the profit from another 1m UK visitors
Honestly I love the simple solution you come up with without any concept of reality. Portugal already offer the electronic recording to get through without stamping the passport, but we Brits then queue up anyway to get the stamp afterwards because we are scared stiff of falling foul of the 90 day limit unintentionally. And this applies to all over Europe. So a trip to Portugal may then stop you going to Germany 3 months later through no fault of your own and getting band from entering the EU.
So a trip to Paris for a long weekend could prevent you going to Portugal 3 months later if stuff goes pearshaped. This has already happened.
One of the things you don't do is refer people to Zoe WIlliams, who floats somewhere in outer space in her commentary - perhaps near 'Beetle Juice'. She's pretty much a guarantee of getting the wrong end of the wrong shtick.
One airline I know, is discovering that A380 captains don’t grow on trees, especially when offering them 25% less money than they were making in 2019.
That airline has its own specific set of problems. There are very good reasons why the How To Quit Emirates thread is the one of the largest and longest running on pprune...
Off topic
While your are on DA I have realised why I am more European than British. I am fastidious in my tyre purchasing.
Over here in Sicily I have seen a 1997 Twingo shod in brand new Uniroyals and a 40 year old beaten up Panda in a Pirelli version of "town and country" tyres. All modern stuff (post 2005) sits on matching OEM rubber. Yet back home a 2020 Carrera S rides on a combination of Linglong, Windforce, Jinju and Landsail.
If we can't choose our tyres appropriately how can we be expected to choose a Prime Minister?
I see that the confidence result is BoJo semi-kneecapped.
With a majority possibly smaller than a swing of cabinet votes.
Hmmm. Happy Christmas 2022.
Do we have precedent of continuing government with semi-supported leaders? Nothing comes to mind for me, except the last but of Thatcher, or maybe something from the 1970s, which was before my time.
There is no point in the 22 changing the rules until there is a guarantee of a different result.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
It can, but it probably won't.
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
Trying to figure out what will scare the shit out of them....probably some truly horrific polls, opinion and real.
Basically, a voter strike until "good old Boris" is actually shown to be no longer politically tenable to these pillocks - and is going to rob them of their jobs. Why they didn't see it yesterday does make you question the quality of said MPs - and whether them getting another crack at being MPs is even appropriate.
The parallels between Johnsonites and Corbynites are just impossible to ignore. Not least, the desperately low calibre of those prepared to go into bat for them. For every Richard Burgon there is an Adam Holloway. For every Jacob Rees Mogg an Ian Lavery. For every Dianne Abbott a Nadine Dorries. For every Liz Truss a Rebecca Long Bailey. And so on. It's uncanny.
BREAKING
Quite A Lot Of Politicians Are Mediocre
Yes, that’s a headline for the ages. Hold the front page
Mediocre is very kind to all those named. When only the likes of Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees Mogg, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery will go out to bat for you in public, you have a serious credibility problem.
I don’t buy your thesis that Boris = Corbyn
Corbyn was a non-entity calamitously promoted to entity by idiot Labour MPs then party members, who thereby allowed Corbz to parasitise the party and almost turn it into a vile crypto-Marxist “movement” to suit his own horrible opinions
Boris J was a highly successful journalist (as editor of the Speccie) who was twice elected mayor of London, who then became a Cabinet Minister, won the Brexit referendum - and so, in time, he became British prime minister, with an unexpectedly huge majority. It’s quite a list of significant achievements
The ONLY parallel is that Boris is leading the Tories to a grievous, tarnishing defeat, if he stays on, just as Corbyn did to Labour.
Both are surrounded by mediocrities yes, but that’s true of every party leader in the country, most of the time. I don’t see dazzling talent around Starmer, and Starmer himself is fairly mediocre
Boris has to go, tho. I suspect he will go soon
I don't think that's true at all. The Thatcher, Blair, Major, Cameron and Brown cabinets always contained a number of impressive politicians. This cabinet doesn't. You may be right that the shadow cabinet currently doesn't either but we haven't really seen enough of them yet to judge.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
It's always been an option from the EU side. But you're right that it does mean accepting the ECJ as court of arbitration if we insist on trying to export something to them that they don't want. But is that the end of the world, if in reality we want to have the same standards? After all, if the EU introduces some weird and unacceptable requirement that fish fingers must be wrapped in linen or something, we can just refrain from trying to export that particular product to them - in that event, they wouldn't import it anyway. Essentially the deal would be that the default is free movement of goods and services meeting EU standards, unless the item is labelled "not for export to the EU". Free movement of goods in what's happening in NI right now, and I've not heard of a single case of a NI producer finding it problematic, have you?
I believe this is basically the EEA position too, no?
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
You refer to goods, but isn't the problem with this solution to do with services?
On holidays we came back from a week in the Lake District last night. It was a pleasant holiday although it rained far too much. My wife looked at the chaos at the airports and decided that it just wasn't worth it this year. She was right (as usual). I suppose that saved the UK about £3k off the balance of trade. I suspect that many more will do the same. It was also noticeable in the hotel and restaurants we visited that far more local people were now working in these establishments than we would have seen in previous years.
I hope that the mess we are in will sink in to normals as they go on holiday this summer. Chaos at the airports with no labour pool to recruit from and a government incapable of doing security screenings. Lengthy border queues into and out from sunshine countries. Likely followed by lengthy inbound queues at our own border due to lack of staff and egates not working properly then hours to wait for bags.
None of this was needed. But our government either actively chose it (3rd country), didn't consider it (the reduced labour pool), or is utterly incompetent (security screenings, Border Force).
The airports fiasco demonstrates that the "managed border" that so many leavers wanted was a closed border. In theory we can allow migrant labour in to fill gaps. Its just that we only do so when absolutely forced and long after the pain of the shortage has become acute.
Covid has changed the recruitment market significantly. The plucky patriotic Brits who didn't want to do these jobs before and even less willing to do them now. Our choice is migrant labour or non-function. Perhaps this summer will make some people understand this.
In the end the Free Market and individual countries might solve this issue. If it becomes a persistent pain for UK travellers at EU passport checks - with 3 hour waits - then the British will drift elsewhere. Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, the USA, etc
Any country that makes it easier for Brits will get a lot of business, So eventually an EU country will twig this and provide dedicated lanes for British tourists to get their passports stamped quickly. Probably poorer countries like Portugal, Malta and Greece will do it, to poach custom off France and Spain
The cost of hiring 200 passport stampers will be peanuts compared to the profit from another 1m UK visitors
Honestly I love the simple solution you come up with without any concept of reality. Portugal already offer the electronic recording to get through without stamping the passport, but we Brits then queue up anyway to get the stamp afterwards because we are scared stiff of falling foul of the 90 day limit unintentionally. And this applies to all over Europe. So a trip to Portugal may then stop you going to Germany 3 months later through no fault of your own and getting band from entering the EU.
So a trip to Paris for a long weekend could prevent you going to Portugal 3 months later if stuff goes pearshaped. This has already happened.
Well if this is because pathetic Brits can do maths then that is their problem
Besides, all it needs is an app. Type in your EU travel dates, It will tell you how long you have left within the 90 days. Would take 2 minutes to design. No need for stamps. Problem solved
And, over the long term, countries like Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Portugal - and parts of Spain - are intensely dependant on British tourists. It is in their interest to sort this out, before Brits get used to going elsewhere. They will seize the opportunity
"Javier Gandara, President of the Airlines Association in Spain, called the airport queues at Spanish holiday destinations “undesirable” and said he feared they would leave visitors with a “bad image” of the country unless the situation improved."
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
Yep - I do. I understand that while the UK needs the EU more than they need us, EU member states would still like better access to the UK market than they get currently and that, generally, the EU is made stronger by having a smooth, trust-based relationship with the UK.
You do this stuff for a living, and you’re not prone to lying fantasies, so I am happy to take it on trust. I sincerely hope you are right
If Starmer can fix some of this shit it would be great. I have long thought it would be a Remainer that might make Brexit work, as so many Brexiteers are ideologically wedded to a Platonic ideal of Brexit, and the more pragmatic Leavers - eg Hannan - have generally left the scene
And we agree that none of this can happen until Boris goes. He REALLY needs to go.
A rare moment of concord on PB
But you are wrong about remoaner ultras. They exist in numbers. @Scott_xP is far from alone in his dogmatism
I do not come across them except on here and on Twitter. I agree with them that leaving the EU was a mistake, but we have to move on from that. If they can't do it, they are going to be permanently disappointed. It is no way to lead a life.
You don't read the Guardian, then. The Labour Party's very own newspaper
From Polly Toynbee to Nick Cohen to Martin Kettle to dozens of others, they are all Rejoiners, they are merely staying reasonably quiet for now, so as not to scare the horses.
That will change as Starmer gets nearer to power. I expect the first Guardian editorial or lead columnist to suggest rejoining the SM within the year
We will rejoin at some point unless the EU blows up. Staying out will make us poorer, and people don't like being poor. And anti-EU sentiment is far stronger in the generation that will die in the next 20 years than among those who will still be alive and voting. Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Nah. The EU is heading in a direction we can never accept and the longer we are out the more those differences will become apparent.
What I do think will happen at some point is we will join EFTA and probably the EEA. But I would say that as it has always been the best result in my view.
I see that the confidence result is BoJo semi-kneecapped.
With a majority possibly smaller than a swing of cabinet votes.
Hmmm. Happy Christmas 2022.
Do we have precedent of continuing government with semi-supported leaders? Nothing comes to mind for me, except the last but of Thatcher, or maybe something from the 1970s, which was before my time.
Major 1995 when Labour had a far bigger poll lead than now. There was also a failed backbench coup against Brown in 2009
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
It's always been an option from the EU side. But you're right that it does mean accepting the ECJ as court of arbitration if we insist on trying to export something to them that they don't want. But is that the end of the world, if in reality we want to have the same standards? After all, if the EU introduces some weird and unacceptable requirement that fish fingers must be wrapped in linen or something, we can just refrain from trying to export that particular product to them - in that event, they wouldn't import it anyway. Essentially the deal would be that the default is free movement of goods and services meeting EU standards, unless the item is labelled "not for export to the EU". Free movement of goods in what's happening in NI right now, and I've not heard of a single case of a NI producer finding it problematic, have you?
I believe this is basically the EEA position too, no?
You're ignoring the main point (deliberately?)
Can we have Single Market access without offering Free Movement of People??
Surely this is impossible. It's the whole crux of Brexit. But if we can have SM access without FoM then let's do it tonight
There is no point in the 22 changing the rules until there is a guarantee of a different result.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
It can, but it probably won't.
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
Yes. Remember also that when Thatcher was forced out it was ultimately because of the unpopularity of the poll tax and her unwillingness to abandon it. Since Johnson does not have the same attachment to policy, he will be prepared to act expediently to protect his position.
Perhaps the standards and privileges committee is another potential trigger. It does seem as though some Tory MPs were genuine when they said they would wait for the Grey report, and not merely procrastinating. There may be others who will choose to act at that point.
Looks to me as though the Tory party has decided to stick with Johnson. No way around that for the minority who disagree.
I was surprised at myself how triggered and angry I was this morning listening to a clip of Boris. Just the usual absolute crap about “drawing a line under things” and coming together.
Firstly it doesn’t draw a line under partygate, wallpaper, Owen Paterson etc - these issues still anger the voters and can destroy the Tories. All these things are because of Boris and the way he thinks, acts and doesn’t act. To think that the public will also think “ok, fair do’s, let’s look at the sunny future only” is nuts. It’s insulting to the electorate but fully what you expect from Boris - he frankly just does not give a shit about people only himself. He might want a line drawn under it for selfish interest but it’s not going to happen.
For him to say the party should come together when we know he’s a vindictive bastard and his “loyalists” are briefing about revenge again shows they just don’t get it.
Listening to the boorish cheering at the announcement of the result made me just envisage a group of twats treating the future of the country like the rugby club end of season awards where their captain gets player of the year award from the sponsors who also happen to be owned by his father in law.
I’m a socially Liberal and fiscally conservative Tory. I appreciate that some traditional Tory ideas of tax and spend have been blown apart by necessity from Covid and Ukraine but that wouldn’t be a problem if the man at the top had a plan, a route through this and an end goal but he doesn’t - he just throws out some buzz ideas and hopes they somehow happen - he’s too lazy and arrogant to do the hard dirty work.
I honestly admit that when Boris took over I really hoped he would be a PM who whilst being shallow and “populist” in a loose sense would surround himself by active bright people who would do all the heavy lifting and he would be chairman of the board and walk away with the big bonuses on others work but he’s the worst combination - lazy, arrogant, insecure, vindictive and so he cannot let good people do the work in case it shows up his lack of depth and poses a threat to him as world king.
Maybe that’s why I was so angry they didn’t dump him - a guy who fooled me into thinking he was socially liberal and fiscally conservative is just nothing, just a blob of nothing whose sole function is to live and procreate without improving anything.
I am absolutely certain that within a couple of months after he’s tried all the boosterism bullshit and made stupid decisions purely from an eye on politics something else will happen that shows him to be totally unsuitable as a person to be PM and we will go through this dance again and will hear the same lines “it’s not the time”, “it’s people trying to derail Brexit”, “I’m a winner” and it’s on all the Tories who didn’t eject him last night.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
Listening to BBC Breakfast TV programme from the start.
Why is one of their repeated news items one extra stop in a commuter ferry in Barking?
Are they just making sure we know that they are now a London TV station? Would there be repeated reporting of an extra stop on a suburban rail line in Bristol?
Quite amazing to me there are so many Tory MPs too thick to realise the obvious. Namely, that excluding the weirdos, everyone wants to move on from the Brexit wars and no one wants to be reminded about covid for the rest of their lives.
It’s not fully his fault but Boris is the living embodiment of Brexit and Covid. Every time you see his face, your brain instinctively goes back to those two things. Ugh.
They are not the only politicians too thick to realise this of course. Ed Davey and Kier Starmer suffer from the same brain malfunction, with their campaign literature and public statements still variously dominated by “we opposed Brexit” and partygate.
Sod off the whole miserable lot of you. We all need to move on.
Thats already happened. The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Unfortunately for all of us, the only solutions anyone has come up with are either a further Brexit atop the Brexit, or to dilute the Brexit we have. Perhaps they are the only solutions that exist.
And as I just posted in response to Scott, those are the only solutions in town - a classic Euro fudge. The Good News is that the big part of that is already in place. We have ceded control of standards to the EU. We have unilaterally demolished customs checks on our side.
When you are both absolutely aligned and will remain so by default, it makes an agreement recognising this reality much easier than if both sides were sabre rattling beforehand. This government have given up their positions on customs and divergence. The only thing that matters is free movement and a fudge can be found there as well in exchange for "spiteful" EU nations like Spain abandoning the 3rd country restrictions on British economic migrants which we demanded.
I just heard Tobias Elwood saying that Brexit was costing us 4% of GDP a year and this was unsustainable. If this is now accepted then isn't it time one of the parties started facing the reality that either rejoining or joining one of the allied organisations is not just an option anymore its compulsory. It was said yesterday that the French and German growth figures are dwarfing ours. Is anyone adding 2+2 and making 4 yet?.
I don't think pointing at individual growth points is really valid. You'd need to look at manufacturing vs services, and also look at exports Vs trade within the EU-27.
There is a much larger discussion to be had about the UK's future economic direction.
But we have now wasted more than 6 years with all this Brexit nonsense when there were more pressing things to focus on.
History will not judge this period kindly
People continue to insist that Brexit is costing ever more absurd levels of GDP. It is plainly nonsense on several levels. Firstly, there are always far more significant effects on our economic performance. In the last couple of years we have had Covid, Ukraine, Russian sanctions and international disruption on trade from China. Identifying any underlying effect from something as trivial as Brexit in the face of all that noise is just impossible. Secondly, the noise is repeated in many other countries as well. So, any minor reduction in trade with the UK is dwarfed by the effect of economic sanctions with Russia for most EU countries. Demand in these countries has been significantly impacted, reducing the market for exports. Thirdly, as others have already pointed out, the UK is performing at least as well as the EU's major economies in highly distorted times. If the Brexit effects were anything like 4% GPD what they are saying is that we would be outgrowing these countries by absurd numbers.
But there is something in the distraction point. We are not addressing our underlying problems in productivity, investment, training and infrastructure. The potential wins in these areas again exceed any Brexit effect by an order of magnitude or more but they are rarely discussed. One of my many disappointments with this government is that levelling up, which could have started to address these problems, especially the last of them, has proved more of a soundbite than a policy.
This government has no clear purpose. It has no clear agenda. It has no focus on what can be done at the margins as we are buffeted by inflation, sanctions, Chinese disruption and many other factors. It is all about surviving the week. Not since the latter days of Gordon Brown have we had such chaos.
David L. Failure to improve productivity is always cited by economists as one of the main, if not the main reason why economies don't do better than they should. And it's said to be a problem affecting many/most Europen country's economies and the US. So why don't we just "improve productivity". Maybe because no-one knows how to? Or because it's not so easy to do without someone/something hurting badly in the system or it negating its benefits in eg increased unemployment due to increased automation?
There is no point in the 22 changing the rules until there is a guarantee of a different result.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
It can, but it probably won't.
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
Trying to figure out what will scare the shit out of them....probably some truly horrific polls, opinion and real.
Basically, a voter strike until "good old Boris" is actually shown to be no longer politically tenable to these pillocks - and is going to rob them of their jobs. Why they didn't see it yesterday does make you question the quality of said MPs - and whether them getting another crack at being MPs is even appropriate.
It certainly does, but they had the information yesterday on what the polls were saying already, and they still chose to sit on their hands anyway.
Though to be fair, if all you want to base it upon is midterm polls, then Boris isn't performing any worse than Cameron was at a comparable stage of the Parliament, so plenty of MPs might be looking at the midterm polls and still feeling pretty confident they'll keep their own job.
2019 had "events" that May couldn't overcome and a change was needed to break the paralysis in Parliament. 2019-2022 has certainly had plenty of "events" but looking at what's upcoming, its not clear how a change in leader is going to improve things - it doesn't seem likely a new leader will be able to resolve the CoL issue, or Ukraine, much easier.
The reason why he should be changed was because of what's happened in the past, we all knew it, MPs knew it, and it was all already there and priced in. But they were frit and putting off to tomorrow what could be done today, is just an excuse to never do what needed to be done.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
Yep - I do. I understand that while the UK needs the EU more than they need us, EU member states would still like better access to the UK market than they get currently and that, generally, the EU is made stronger by having a smooth, trust-based relationship with the UK.
You do this stuff for a living, and you’re not prone to lying fantasies, so I am happy to take it on trust. I sincerely hope you are right
If Starmer can fix some of this shit it would be great. I have long thought it would be a Remainer that might make Brexit work, as so many Brexiteers are ideologically wedded to a Platonic ideal of Brexit, and the more pragmatic Leavers - eg Hannan - have generally left the scene
And we agree that none of this can happen until Boris goes. He REALLY needs to go.
A rare moment of concord on PB
But you are wrong about remoaner ultras. They exist in numbers. @Scott_xP is far from alone in his dogmatism
I do not come across them except on here and on Twitter. I agree with them that leaving the EU was a mistake, but we have to move on from that. If they can't do it, they are going to be permanently disappointed. It is no way to lead a life.
You don't read the Guardian, then. The Labour Party's very own newspaper
From Polly Toynbee to Nick Cohen to Martin Kettle to dozens of others, they are all Rejoiners, they are merely staying reasonably quiet for now, so as not to scare the horses.
That will change as Starmer gets nearer to power. I expect the first Guardian editorial or lead columnist to suggest rejoining the SM within the year
We will rejoin at some point unless the EU blows up. Staying out will make us poorer, and people don't like being poor. And anti-EU sentiment is far stronger in the generation that will die in the next 20 years than among those who will still be alive and voting. Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Nah. The EU is heading in a direction we can never accept and the longer we are out the more those differences will become apparent.
What I do think will happen at some point is we will join EFTA and probably the EEA. But I would say that as it has always been the best result in my view.
The EU is not heading very clearly in any direction at all. It is as likely to blow up as to become a coherent single federal state in my opinion, and more likely to continue to muddle along as a collection of sovereign states who make some decisions collectively. It will probably see an increasing division between an inner, more integrated, core and the rest. The UK could easily find a berth in that outer ring in ten or twenty years - a wasteful and damaging journey back to where we would have been anyway.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But your error is to deny that there were real problems with the EU. There were and even its supporters recognised that. Indeed the whole point of Cameron's renegotiation was to try and address some of those problems. And given no solutions could be found that could satisfy British concerns, we left.
I don't think I make that error. I am not someone who thinks the EU is perfect. I have to say I don't believe Cameron and the EU tried. I believe that both Cameron and the EU thought remain would win so we're both complacent.
I’ve discovered the main problem apart from Boris for the Tories - they’ve just been interviewing two chairs of conservative constituency associations - they were absolutely thick as mince.
I’m sure both ladies have put in the hard yards making jam and cakes and doing the flowers at the village hall hustings to get to these positions but if they are representative then we are doomed.
I was listening too. The main takeaway was that they both still support Johnson because he has been comprehensively voted in at the GE and term should be honoured. This was as far as their thinking needed to go. A mistake, of course, because we vote for a party (or more specifically the local candidate of a party) rather than for a particular PM.
The parallels between Johnsonites and Corbynites are just impossible to ignore. Not least, the desperately low calibre of those prepared to go into bat for them. For every Richard Burgon there is an Adam Holloway. For every Jacob Rees Mogg an Ian Lavery. For every Dianne Abbott a Nadine Dorries. For every Liz Truss a Rebecca Long Bailey. And so on. It's uncanny.
BREAKING
Quite A Lot Of Politicians Are Mediocre
Yes, that’s a headline for the ages. Hold the front page
Mediocre is very kind to all those named. When only the likes of Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees Mogg, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery will go out to bat for you in public, you have a serious credibility problem.
I don’t buy your thesis that Boris = Corbyn
Corbyn was a non-entity calamitously promoted to entity by idiot Labour MPs then party members, who thereby allowed Corbz to parasitise the party and almost turn it into a vile crypto-Marxist “movement” to suit his own horrible opinions
Boris J was a highly successful journalist (as editor of the Speccie) who was twice elected mayor of London, who then became a Cabinet Minister, won the Brexit referendum - and so, in time, he became British prime minister, with an unexpectedly huge majority. It’s quite a list of significant achievements
The ONLY parallel is that Boris is leading the Tories to a grievous, tarnishing defeat, if he stays on, just as Corbyn did to Labour.
Both are surrounded by mediocrities yes, but that’s true of every party leader in the country, most of the time. I don’t see dazzling talent around Starmer, and Starmer himself is fairly mediocre
Boris has to go, tho. I suspect he will go soon
I don't think that's true at all. The Thatcher, Blair, Major, Cameron and Brown cabinets always contained a number of impressive politicians. This cabinet doesn't. You may be right that the shadow cabinet currently doesn't either but we haven't really seen enough of them yet to judge.
I believe that notion is a derivative of " the old songs are the best". There was some utter dross in Blair Cabinets. As a Blairite, I couldn't bear Geoff Hoon. And Charles Clark was particularly mediocre. Estelle Morris was smart enough to realise herself she wasn't up to the job. There were loads more too. I have high hopes for some of Starmer's (or Streeting/ Nandy's) team.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
We don't have very many, though. Only 42 of the platforms. So I think 4 will be sent. And it is a system in wide use across Europe, in the older version (tracked) that we have.
It also needs at least one more step, since grain exports in quantity will not come back until the Black Sea Fleet is u/s. They need the long range missile.
The latest Perun video is about the Polish contribution relative to all the others, and is very informative on what they have done and the strategic benefits for Poland over many decades.
For example if Ukr survives with a Western focus, Poland will be less out-on-a-limb wrt Russia, plus an economy driven further by rebuilding programmes.
Quite amazing to me there are so many Tory MPs too thick to realise the obvious. Namely, that excluding the weirdos, everyone wants to move on from the Brexit wars and no one wants to be reminded about covid for the rest of their lives.
It’s not fully his fault but Boris is the living embodiment of Brexit and Covid. Every time you see his face, your brain instinctively goes back to those two things. Ugh.
They are not the only politicians too thick to realise this of course. Ed Davey and Kier Starmer suffer from the same brain malfunction, with their campaign literature and public statements still variously dominated by “we opposed Brexit” and partygate.
Sod off the whole miserable lot of you. We all need to move on.
Thats already happened. The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Unfortunately for all of us, the only solutions anyone has come up with are either a further Brexit atop the Brexit, or to dilute the Brexit we have. Perhaps they are the only solutions that exist.
And as I just posted in response to Scott, those are the only solutions in town - a classic Euro fudge. The Good News is that the big part of that is already in place. We have ceded control of standards to the EU. We have unilaterally demolished customs checks on our side.
When you are both absolutely aligned and will remain so by default, it makes an agreement recognising this reality much easier than if both sides were sabre rattling beforehand. This government have given up their positions on customs and divergence. The only thing that matters is free movement and a fudge can be found there as well in exchange for "spiteful" EU nations like Spain abandoning the 3rd country restrictions on British economic migrants which we demanded.
I just heard Tobias Elwood saying that Brexit was costing us 4% of GDP a year and this was unsustainable. If this is now accepted then isn't it time one of the parties started facing the reality that either rejoining or joining one of the allied organisations is not just an option anymore its compulsory. It was said yesterday that the French and German growth figures are dwarfing ours. Is anyone adding 2+2 and making 4 yet?.
I don't think pointing at individual growth points is really valid. You'd need to look at manufacturing vs services, and also look at exports Vs trade within the EU-27.
There is a much larger discussion to be had about the UK's future economic direction.
But we have now wasted more than 6 years with all this Brexit nonsense when there were more pressing things to focus on.
History will not judge this period kindly
People continue to insist that Brexit is costing ever more absurd levels of GDP. It is plainly nonsense on several levels. Firstly, there are always far more significant effects on our economic performance. In the last couple of years we have had Covid, Ukraine, Russian sanctions and international disruption on trade from China. Identifying any underlying effect from something as trivial as Brexit in the face of all that noise is just impossible. Secondly, the noise is repeated in many other countries as well. So, any minor reduction in trade with the UK is dwarfed by the effect of economic sanctions with Russia for most EU countries. Demand in these countries has been significantly impacted, reducing the market for exports. Thirdly, as others have already pointed out, the UK is performing at least as well as the EU's major economies in highly distorted times. If the Brexit effects were anything like 4% GPD what they are saying is that we would be outgrowing these countries by absurd numbers.
But there is something in the distraction point. We are not addressing our underlying problems in productivity, investment, training and infrastructure. The potential wins in these areas again exceed any Brexit effect by an order of magnitude or more but they are rarely discussed. One of my many disappointments with this government is that levelling up, which could have started to address these problems, especially the last of them, has proved more of a soundbite than a policy.
This government has no clear purpose. It has no clear agenda. It has no focus on what can be done at the margins as we are buffeted by inflation, sanctions, Chinese disruption and many other factors. It is all about surviving the week. Not since the latter days of Gordon Brown have we had such chaos.
David L. Failure to improve productivity is always cited by economists as one of the main, if not the main reason why economies don't do better than they should. And it's said to be a problem affecting many/most Europen country's economies and the US. So why don't we just "improve productivity". Maybe because no-one knows how to? Or because it's not so easy to do without someone/something hurting badly in the system or it negating its benefits in eg increased unemployment due to increased automation?
Improving automation is the answer, we all know it, and where its economic companies do it, see eg self-checkouts at supermarkets as a recent example.
Yes it may result in increased unemployment, but that is just Luddism.
Companies won't invest in automation if the automation is more expensive than the staff, as they'll be undercut by competitors just using cheap labour instead. Increasing staff demands makes automation more affordable relatively, plus if unemployment is going to increase then doing so at a time of labour shortages is better than at a time of mass unemployment.
The invisible hand of free market is creaking at the bits trying to say that automation is needed, that's why we have labour shortages. We need to leave the market to do its thing, either firms pay higher wages, or don't get staff, or get automation going, either way the solution works.
Everyone who bemoans they "can't get staff" needs to be told to piss off and either automate or offer better terms and conditions so that they can, that can ripple through the economy so that those who are able to, are able to automate and be competitive by doing so.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
Over here in Sicily I have seen a 1997 Twingo shod in brand new Uniroyals and a 40 year old beaten up Panda in a Pirelli version of "town and country" tyres. All modern stuff (post 2005) sits on matching OEM rubber. Yet back home a 2020 Carrera S rides on a combination of Linglong, Windforce, Jinju and Landsail.
I once bought a Mk.7 Golf R to flip and it was on 18 month old Belshina tyres that had already cracked and dry rotted. Made in Belarus! Even the minicab drivers won't touch them.
Normally Nitto NT01 or Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 for me. Although I have recently had to buy a set of ADVAN Sport v105s due to Brexit fuelled supply chain chaos.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
The problem I see with this very expensive kit is that the battle for the Donbas is being decided now. It is going to arrive too late. Also the provision of such expensive systems without adequate air defence will make them the highest priority targets for the Russian airforce.
It was obvious to a complete amateur like me over a month ago that the current battles were going to be won by Russian artillary unless something was done to counterbalance that. This is what has happened and I fear that Ukranian casualties in May and early June will have been horrendous. We really need to move faster, welcome though this is.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
On holidays we came back from a week in the Lake District last night. It was a pleasant holiday although it rained far too much. My wife looked at the chaos at the airports and decided that it just wasn't worth it this year. She was right (as usual). I suppose that saved the UK about £3k off the balance of trade. I suspect that many more will do the same. It was also noticeable in the hotel and restaurants we visited that far more local people were now working in these establishments than we would have seen in previous years.
Try one of the less well known resorts in Turkey (the lira is collapsing), or somewhere like Georgia
And unless you have kids in tow (did you?) travelling at half term is cray cray
Which particular less well known resorts in Turkey would you suggest?
Cannakale is a rather pleasant Turkish Med town. It's not on the Turqouise coast so it gets ignored, but it is lovely. And there are other smaller coastal towns around there which are equally desirable
If you base yourself there then you are near to Troy and Gallipoli. Both fascinating
Or try Izmir. Yes it's a big scruffy city with a lot of traffic, but it has a compelling old town, and a fine cuisine, and a spectacular Aegean setting, and almost ZERO tourists (meaning good hotels are pretty cheap even in high season). Stay there and there are multiple day trips available - Ephesus, and so on
The Turkish coast is enormously long, it rewards detailed exploration
The parallels between Johnsonites and Corbynites are just impossible to ignore. Not least, the desperately low calibre of those prepared to go into bat for them. For every Richard Burgon there is an Adam Holloway. For every Jacob Rees Mogg an Ian Lavery. For every Dianne Abbott a Nadine Dorries. For every Liz Truss a Rebecca Long Bailey. And so on. It's uncanny.
BREAKING
Quite A Lot Of Politicians Are Mediocre
Yes, that’s a headline for the ages. Hold the front page
Mediocre is very kind to all those named. When only the likes of Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees Mogg, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery will go out to bat for you in public, you have a serious credibility problem.
I don’t buy your thesis that Boris = Corbyn
Corbyn was a non-entity calamitously promoted to entity by idiot Labour MPs then party members, who thereby allowed Corbz to parasitise the party and almost turn it into a vile crypto-Marxist “movement” to suit his own horrible opinions
Boris J was a highly successful journalist (as editor of the Speccie) who was twice elected mayor of London, who then became a Cabinet Minister, won the Brexit referendum - and so, in time, he became British prime minister, with an unexpectedly huge majority. It’s quite a list of significant achievements
The ONLY parallel is that Boris is leading the Tories to a grievous, tarnishing defeat, if he stays on, just as Corbyn did to Labour.
Both are surrounded by mediocrities yes, but that’s true of every party leader in the country, most of the time. I don’t see dazzling talent around Starmer, and Starmer himself is fairly mediocre
Boris has to go, tho. I suspect he will go soon
I don't think that's true at all. The Thatcher, Blair, Major, Cameron and Brown cabinets always contained a number of impressive politicians. This cabinet doesn't. You may be right that the shadow cabinet currently doesn't either but we haven't really seen enough of them yet to judge.
I believe that notion is a derivative of " the old songs are the best". There was some utter dross in Blair Cabinets. As a Blairite, I couldn't bear Geoff Hoon. And Charles Clark was particularly mediocre. Estelle Morris was smart enough to realise herself she wasn't up to the job. There were loads more too. I have high hopes for some of Starmer's (or Streeting/ Nandy's) team.
Of course there were duds in previous cabinets but I was disagreeing with Leon's view that previous PMs were "surrounded by mediocrities". I cannot think of any previous cabinet that comes close to being as lightweight (putting in politely) as this one.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
That was Theresa May’s backstop, essentially.
No it wasn't, it was Single Market minus FoM but still with the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us.
We would be have been bound to EU Single Market legislation, without having any democratic input into that legislation, and bound to its court rulings too.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
Yes, sure, no doubt, perhaps, who knows, but I am more interested in the proximate question
NPXMP seems to be suggesting we can be in the SM without FoM. Is that true? I presume not, or maybe I have misunderstood this for years. I am pretty sure I am right
Russian TV suggests that Boris Johnson arranged the confidence vote yesterday so that he will be safe in his job when they execute British mercenaries.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But this is politics. Not project management. That's my point
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
Basic project management applies across the board and actually I posted from my experience and training, but thought my wife's example was better than any I could give, but my simple point was that it is wrong to assume that you have to have a solution when identifying a problem. You do obviously then need a solution so any team made up of representatives from one project management skill is useless. In our house we are both evaluator types which leads to not making mistakes, but nothing getting done. There is nothing wrong with occasionally making mistakes. On the other side there are people like yourself which is just to say let's do it without any consideration of the how or the disasters you get yourself into because nobody is standing there going 'just hang on a minute' eg inventing a plane without wheels to land on, or a car without brakes.
"If, with all the power of the party, the years with MPs, the knowledge they have of your abilities and plans, you still cannot crush a vote of no confidence by a commanding margin, not only is the writing on the wall but it is chiselled in stone." ~AA
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But this is politics. Not project management. That's my point
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
Basic project management applies across the board and actually I posted from my experience and training, but thought my wife's example was better than any I could give, but my simple point was that it is wrong to assume that you have to have a solution when identifying a problem. You do obviously then need a solution so any team made up of representatives from one project management skill is useless. In our house we are both evaluator types which leads to not making mistakes, but nothing getting done. There is nothing wrong with occasionally making mistakes. On the other side there are people like yourself which is just to say let's do it without any consideration of the how or the disasters you get yourself into because nobody is standing there going 'just hang on a minute' eg inventing a plane without wheels to land on, or a car without brakes.
But this isn't so. Retract
I am one of the few Leavers on here who was explicit from the start that Leaving would bring significant problems and economic pain, for quite a while. I was scathing about the Leavers who promised "the best deal ever in 3 minutes"; Laaving was obviously going to HURT
Quite amazing to me there are so many Tory MPs too thick to realise the obvious. Namely, that excluding the weirdos, everyone wants to move on from the Brexit wars and no one wants to be reminded about covid for the rest of their lives.
It’s not fully his fault but Boris is the living embodiment of Brexit and Covid. Every time you see his face, your brain instinctively goes back to those two things. Ugh.
They are not the only politicians too thick to realise this of course. Ed Davey and Kier Starmer suffer from the same brain malfunction, with their campaign literature and public statements still variously dominated by “we opposed Brexit” and partygate.
Sod off the whole miserable lot of you. We all need to move on.
Thats already happened. The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Unfortunately for all of us, the only solutions anyone has come up with are either a further Brexit atop the Brexit, or to dilute the Brexit we have. Perhaps they are the only solutions that exist.
And as I just posted in response to Scott, those are the only solutions in town - a classic Euro fudge. The Good News is that the big part of that is already in place. We have ceded control of standards to the EU. We have unilaterally demolished customs checks on our side.
When you are both absolutely aligned and will remain so by default, it makes an agreement recognising this reality much easier than if both sides were sabre rattling beforehand. This government have given up their positions on customs and divergence. The only thing that matters is free movement and a fudge can be found there as well in exchange for "spiteful" EU nations like Spain abandoning the 3rd country restrictions on British economic migrants which we demanded.
I just heard Tobias Elwood saying that Brexit was costing us 4% of GDP a year and this was unsustainable. If this is now accepted then isn't it time one of the parties started facing the reality that either rejoining or joining one of the allied organisations is not just an option anymore its compulsory. It was said yesterday that the French and German growth figures are dwarfing ours. Is anyone adding 2+2 and making 4 yet?.
I don't think pointing at individual growth points is really valid. You'd need to look at manufacturing vs services, and also look at exports Vs trade within the EU-27.
There is a much larger discussion to be had about the UK's future economic direction.
But we have now wasted more than 6 years with all this Brexit nonsense when there were more pressing things to focus on.
History will not judge this period kindly
People continue to insist that Brexit is costing ever more absurd levels of GDP. It is plainly nonsense on several levels. Firstly, there are always far more significant effects on our economic performance. In the last couple of years we have had Covid, Ukraine, Russian sanctions and international disruption on trade from China. Identifying any underlying effect from something as trivial as Brexit in the face of all that noise is just impossible. Secondly, the noise is repeated in many other countries as well. So, any minor reduction in trade with the UK is dwarfed by the effect of economic sanctions with Russia for most EU countries. Demand in these countries has been significantly impacted, reducing the market for exports. Thirdly, as others have already pointed out, the UK is performing at least as well as the EU's major economies in highly distorted times. If the Brexit effects were anything like 4% GPD what they are saying is that we would be outgrowing these countries by absurd numbers.
But there is something in the distraction point. We are not addressing our underlying problems in productivity, investment, training and infrastructure. The potential wins in these areas again exceed any Brexit effect by an order of magnitude or more but they are rarely discussed. One of my many disappointments with this government is that levelling up, which could have started to address these problems, especially the last of them, has proved more of a soundbite than a policy.
This government has no clear purpose. It has no clear agenda. It has no focus on what can be done at the margins as we are buffeted by inflation, sanctions, Chinese disruption and many other factors. It is all about surviving the week. Not since the latter days of Gordon Brown have we had such chaos.
David L. Failure to improve productivity is always cited by economists as one of the main, if not the main reason why economies don't do better than they should. And it's said to be a problem affecting many/most Europen country's economies and the US. So why don't we just "improve productivity". Maybe because no-one knows how to? Or because it's not so easy to do without someone/something hurting badly in the system or it negating its benefits in eg increased unemployment due to increased automation?
Improving productivity is hard. It requires a number of different problems to be addressed in a coordinated way. Training, new kit, available markets, the balance between the cost of labour and capital, these are issues in the main for the individual economic unit.
What can governments do? They can improve infrastructure so that goods and services can move about more easily. They can address housing where that is an issue. They can focus on education and make it more relevant to the jobs that are hopefully going to be produced in a particular area. They can use tax policy to encourage both investment and training (in fairness there were small elements of that in the budget). They can work to produce stability and steady demand, reducing the risk of investment.
There is no magic bullet or quick fix. There are long term gains from steady application. And that does not seem to interest our politicians of any stripe.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
The problem I see with this very expensive kit is that the battle for the Donbas is being decided now. It is going to arrive too late. Also the provision of such expensive systems without adequate air defence will make them the highest priority targets for the Russian airforce.
It was obvious to a complete amateur like me over a month ago that the current battles were going to be won by Russian artillary unless something was done to counterbalance that. This is what has happened and I fear that Ukranian casualties in May and early June will have been horrendous. We really need to move faster, welcome though this is.
It looks to me that we're firmly in the Breakthrough Defeated quadrant - Russian military is unable to co-ordinate an integrated attack in time and space leading to piecemeal attacks unsupported by combat enablers. Any gains come at a high price in troops and material. Success is tactical at best; campaign ends in numerous operational setbacks and strategic defeat.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
Sorry but no, Hannan has always supported the Norway/Swiss model. The fact that he still supports what he has always supported doesn't say anything of any significance, or mean that anything "needs to be done". He's always been a believer in that, so nothing has changed.
What it does say is that now we are able to do things. Within the EU we were locked into a single model, the EU. Outside of the EU we can choose to take whatever path we want to take, we can choose to stick with what we have, we can choose to move further apart, we could choose to move closer.
That is a free, democratic debate for us to have now that we couldn't have if we hadn't left, that's why people like Hannan who backed the EEA model pre-Referendum were willing to campaign for Vote Leave despite Vote Leave ruling out the EEA model in its campaigning, because the only possibility we'd ever get that, was if we did leave.
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
The problem I see with this very expensive kit is that the battle for the Donbas is being decided now. It is going to arrive too late. Also the provision of such expensive systems without adequate air defence will make them the highest priority targets for the Russian airforce.
It was obvious to a complete amateur like me over a month ago that the current battles were going to be won by Russian artillary unless something was done to counterbalance that. This is what has happened and I fear that Ukranian casualties in May and early June will have been horrendous. We really need to move faster, welcome though this is.
Ukraine have said as much. They're now conducting a tactical retreat from Sievierodonetsk, as they are locally outgunned by about 10/1.
The war is not going to be decided in the next month - but the supply of heavy weapons is pretty slow. As noted above, the MRLS being sent consist of 3 pieces by us, and 4 from the US. We'll see what follows.
Meantime, some Europeans continue to play games. https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1534062621997301760 Greece wants 100 Marder IFV first before passing their ancient East German BMP-1 on to Ukraine. It would defeat entire purpose or at least GER narrative, that useful capability would arrive quickly. Might just as well then deliver them straight to Kyiv...
One of the things you don't do is refer people to Zoe WIlliams, who floats somewhere in outer space in her commentary - perhaps near 'Beetle Juice'. She's pretty much a guarantee of getting the wrong end of the wrong shtick.
The "make them stand in a queue" doesn't even make sense - when people come back, they'll see (if they haven't noticed already) that we let EU travellers (and those of several other countries) through the same e-gates as UK passport holders, giving a decent chance that they'll conclude that the EU is just being vindictive. Again.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
I think you are perhaps undervaluing potential internal reform in the EU. "Ever closer union" EU establishment enthusiasts are fighting an internal war to keep their obsession on track, rather than have a less centralised EU.
Questions have been asked over the future of UVDL over her being a little lenient on Poland wrt 'rule of law'. Despite past EU law violaters like Germany and France walking away Scot-free.
If Macron ends up with cohabitation after the French Parliament Elections, it could get tasty. No idea on the prospects of that, but talk has been of a loss of 50 seats.
Good morning all, from somewhat more (personally) positive OKC. Been waiting for am MRI scan 4pm yesterday phone call from the hospital; we've had a cancellation 7.40am Tuesday, do you want it. Yes please! Much more pleasant experience that early MRI's. Nice pictures to look at in the mini headset; take one's somewhat claustrophobic mind of the nearby roof!
Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Probably. The political tradition of hardcore leave is bleeding out at our feet.
Funnily enough most of the MPs happy to stand infront of the cameras yesterday to say how disgusted they were by Boris's behaviour were Leaver Ultras. I wonder whether the truth that they sold the country a pup has dawned on them and they've decided Johnson's the perfect patsy
Morning all. Grumpiness impressively undiminished by a long sleep. Turds. Should be a comres today just in case we need some clarity on where we stand, lol
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
Sorry but no, Hannan has always supported the Norway/Swiss model. The fact that he still supports what he has always supported doesn't say anything of any significance, or mean that anything "needs to be done". He's always been a believer in that, so nothing has changed.
What it does say is that now we are able to do things. Within the EU we were locked into a single model, the EU. Outside of the EU we can choose to take whatever path we want to take, we can choose to stick with what we have, we can choose to move further apart, we could choose to move closer.
That is a free, democratic debate for us to have now that we couldn't have if we hadn't left, that's why people like Hannan who backed the EEA model pre-Referendum were willing to campaign for Vote Leave despite Vote Leave ruling out the EEA model in its campaigning, because the only possibility we'd ever get that, was if we did leave.
Yes, I agree that this has been Hannan's position all along (something that seems to have been lost) - but it is, for want of a better word, "re-surfacing" and been presented as a new position.
I also respect your view that this renegotiation couldn't have taken place while in the EU - I think you're probably right (ETA: in part, because of a lack of capability and leverage on the UK side). The question for historians is whether the balance of pains is worth it, but present day politicians need to move on from that argument, as it is not productive. This feels like the first step in that process from what was the "leave" side.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
Apart from the NI special case, is anyone in the SM for goods and services without both FoM and the jurisdiction of the ECJ + giving the power to the EU of legislating for us?
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
It's always been an option from the EU side. But you're right that it does mean accepting the ECJ as court of arbitration if we insist on trying to export something to them that they don't want. But is that the end of the world, if in reality we want to have the same standards? After all, if the EU introduces some weird and unacceptable requirement that fish fingers must be wrapped in linen or something, we can just refrain from trying to export that particular product to them - in that event, they wouldn't import it anyway. Essentially the deal would be that the default is free movement of goods and services meeting EU standards, unless the item is labelled "not for export to the EU". Free movement of goods in what's happening in NI right now, and I've not heard of a single case of a NI producer finding it problematic, have you?
I believe this is basically the EEA position too, no?
You're ignoring the main point (deliberately?)
Can we have Single Market access without offering Free Movement of People??
Surely this is impossible. It's the whole crux of Brexit. But if we can have SM access without FoM then let's do it tonight
Of course we can in the sense that there's no law of physics preventing it.
But it does require the EU to realise that it's not the end of the world to allow it.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
Sorry but no, Hannan has always supported the Norway/Swiss model. The fact that he still supports what he has always supported doesn't say anything of any significance, or mean that anything "needs to be done". He's always been a believer in that, so nothing has changed.
What it does say is that now we are able to do things. Within the EU we were locked into a single model, the EU. Outside of the EU we can choose to take whatever path we want to take, we can choose to stick with what we have, we can choose to move further apart, we could choose to move closer.
That is a free, democratic debate for us to have now that we couldn't have if we hadn't left, that's why people like Hannan who backed the EEA model pre-Referendum were willing to campaign for Vote Leave despite Vote Leave ruling out the EEA model in its campaigning, because the only possibility we'd ever get that, was if we did leave.
Yes, I agree that this has been Hannan's position all along (something that seems to have been lost) - but it is, for want of a better word, "re-surfacing" and been presented as a new position.
I also respect your view that this renegotiation couldn't have taken place while in the EU - I think you're probably right (ETA: in part, because of a lack of capability and leverage on the UK side). The question for historians is whether the balance of pains is worth it, but present day politicians need to move on from that argument, as it is not productive. This feels like the first step in that process from what was the "leave" side.
I agree with you there, we need to move on from arguments of the past and look to the future. That applies not just to the Leave side of course.
Never understood why Brexit folk never went for EFTA/EEA, would have avoided the political integration they feared, but retained economic benefits and avoid NI problems. Also would have been a classic British conservative compromise.
The romantic theological Brexiteers, inspired by folk like Farage and Cumming won the day and steered us on to this rock.
FoM is the answer. What should have happened , and still should, is this answer (EFTA/EEA) combined with a negotiated derogation from FoM. This requires both EU and UK acting as grown ups. The political cover required to make it uniquely possible is the fact that it resolves most of the island of Ireland issues.
While lots of people wanted to leave the EU there would never have been a majority without the promise of FoM.
No, we could solve the Northern Ireland protocol issue instantly by agreeing to be in the single market for goods and services (just as Northern Ireland is). Nothing to do with freedom of movement for people. The ONLY downside is that it means accepting EU standards. But they are currently EXACTLY the same as our standards, and we have only the vaguest ideas on what we might like to change (some gene editing, maybe, some unspecified resitrictions that we might drop). We could probably negotiate a side-agreement that if we make goods that don't meet EU standards, they must have a label "not for exports to the EU", so if we really want to create a gene-edited strain of pig or something we could still do it.
I genuinely don't see the problem, except frankly unrealistic petty nationalism ("We won't accept foreign standards for what they import from us!").
I am pretty sure the EU will not allow SM access without FoM. Wasn't that the entire problem with the Cameron negotiations? The four freedoms. They are interlinked and indivisible
That's exactly what will happen. The fact that senior Brexit-supporting people are back to talking about Norway/Switzerland model *already*, and they are in Schengen, is significant. For two reasons.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
Yes, sure, no doubt, perhaps, who knows, but I am more interested in the proximate question
NPXMP seems to be suggesting we can be in the SM without FoM. Is that true? I presume not, or maybe I have misunderstood this for years. I am pretty sure I am right
"Four Freedoms" The "Four Freedoms" of the single market are:
Free movement of goods Free movement of capital Freedom to establish and provide services Free movement of persons
I think you are right to all practical purposes. Not least because those things are broadly established as necessary conditions for a free market (along with regulatory alignment).
For those interested in Ukraine, here's the announcement on UK multiple-launch rockets. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK. We are definitely invested in this.
The problem I see with this very expensive kit is that the battle for the Donbas is being decided now. It is going to arrive too late. Also the provision of such expensive systems without adequate air defence will make them the highest priority targets for the Russian airforce.
It was obvious to a complete amateur like me over a month ago that the current battles were going to be won by Russian artillary unless something was done to counterbalance that. This is what has happened and I fear that Ukranian casualties in May and early June will have been horrendous. We really need to move faster, welcome though this is.
I presume we couldn't send it due to American objections? I seriously hope that we were already training them on it in the meantime. If not that is a real failure.
I wouldn't feel too disheartened about the battle for Donbass though. The Russians have not gained much territory and the Ukrainians are fighting back in Severodonetsk. They would then have to cross the river and take the next town to get full control of Lukansk. As for Donetsk they still only control about half of it. Still our fears of poking the deranged bear are leading Ukrainians to suffer more than they would otherwise need to.
There is no point in the 22 changing the rules until there is a guarantee of a different result.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
It can, but it probably won't.
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
Trying to figure out what will scare the shit out of them....probably some truly horrific polls, opinion and real.
Basically, a voter strike until "good old Boris" is actually shown to be no longer politically tenable to these pillocks - and is going to rob them of their jobs. Why they didn't see it yesterday does make you question the quality of said MPs - and whether them getting another crack at being MPs is even appropriate.
It certainly does, but they had the information yesterday on what the polls were saying already, and they still chose to sit on their hands anyway.
Though to be fair, if all you want to base it upon is midterm polls, then Boris isn't performing any worse than Cameron was at a comparable stage of the Parliament, so plenty of MPs might be looking at the midterm polls and still feeling pretty confident they'll keep their own job.
2019 had "events" that May couldn't overcome and a change was needed to break the paralysis in Parliament. 2019-2022 has certainly had plenty of "events" but looking at what's upcoming, its not clear how a change in leader is going to improve things - it doesn't seem likely a new leader will be able to resolve the CoL issue, or Ukraine, much easier.
The reason why he should be changed was because of what's happened in the past, we all knew it, MPs knew it, and it was all already there and priced in. But they were frit and putting off to tomorrow what could be done today, is just an excuse to never do what needed to be done.
I don't buy the "frit" argument, I'm afraid. I think they've looked at it rationally and concluded that Boris still has the highest electoral ceiling of any possible leader (which I think is fair) and that this is more important than him having the lowest electoral floor (which is a judgement call and the proof of this particular pudding will be in the eating).
I'd have decided differently. But then, I'll never be an MP - and it's not my job on the line.
The only mention we get of Brexit now is the need to make it work. Hard to ignore the thing when it is directly impacting people via its role in the CoL crisis. So its about solutions, not trying to replay the war.
Brexit can never work. That is why the misery continues
People like are the reason Brexit will continue to vex us. You cannot and will not accept Brexit. You are emotionally incapable of accepting it, that’s like expecting a 16th century Catholic to accept the Reformation. You would rejoin tomorrow, and rejoin is your aim
There are a lot of people like you in politics, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left. As and when Labour gain power they will make their move. Starmer will come under pressure to yield to their desires, in some form (Single Market access to start with). Brexit will therefore vex us for many years to come
If Starmer does make it to Downing Street, the current government's absolutely abysmal handling of Brexit means that there are likely to be a number of quick wins he can secure that will probably make a lot of the day to day stuff vexing people, such as long passport queues and long customs delays, go away.
How can Starmer secure wins on passport queues? We still let EU citizens use e-gates when they arrive in the UK - something the EU does not allow “Third Country” citizens do - so we don’t have any “concessions” to offer them - unless we withdraw EU citizens access.
Look at how countries secure wins inside the EU. They do not do it by trading on a like for like basis. They do it by trading what they can offer in return for what they want.
What do you suggest Starmer trade to improve EU tourism business?
Who knows? But the idea that the UK has nothing to offer seems a little far-fetched to me.
So you think Starmer can get easy wins….. but you actually have no clue what they are and how he will get them. Er, OK
There is a saying about not criticizing unless you have a better idea and guess what that is bollocks. Any decent team has what is known as an evaluator type person. They look for problems not solutions. It is a different skill. My wife who was in drug safety did just that role. Others with different skills would loo for the solutions.
It is entirely rational to point out what you are doing is not working and a different approach would be better.
So, the Leavers were right to say "the EU is shit and we will do better if we Leave", without going into detail?
lol
No. Try reading the post. An evaluator points out the problems. They don't just make them up. You clearly have no concept of project management. It is a proper role to identify real problems without having to identify solutions. It is not a proper role to say something doesn't work without evidence.
I can't believe you can't see that.
So if my wife spotted that a drug might kill, she didn't have to have a solution. However she didn't randomly say a drug might kill, she provided evidence.
Really it is depressing you can't see this.
But this is politics. Not project management. That's my point
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
Basic project management applies across the board and actually I posted from my experience and training, but thought my wife's example was better than any I could give, but my simple point was that it is wrong to assume that you have to have a solution when identifying a problem. You do obviously then need a solution so any team made up of representatives from one project management skill is useless. In our house we are both evaluator types which leads to not making mistakes, but nothing getting done. There is nothing wrong with occasionally making mistakes. On the other side there are people like yourself which is just to say let's do it without any consideration of the how or the disasters you get yourself into because nobody is standing there going 'just hang on a minute' eg inventing a plane without wheels to land on, or a car without brakes.
But this isn't so. Retract
I am one of the few Leavers on here who was explicit from the start that Leaving would bring significant problems and economic pain, for quite a while. I was scathing about the Leavers who promised "the best deal ever in 3 minutes"; Laaving was obviously going to HURT
I didn't mean about the leaving the EU in general. I agree you said it would cause pain in the short term. I mean your outlook in general.
Just look at all your posts this morning. Everything thing is easy, just get over it, not a problem. Well for most people it isn't.
You have two passports (how?), you are single, you don't have an existing property abroad, you don't have a pet to travel with, you haven't been caught out accidently by the 90 day rule because your return trip wasn't recorded.
Lots of this stuff can't be solved by the average person here. For all of them they are stuffed by these changes. Lots of people worry more than you do about travel. They don't have your experience of travel.
Boris: "What are they talking about over on PB.com this morning?". Aide: "Brexit - as usual". Boris: "Excellent - let's hope they keep banging on about Brexit until my little problem yesterday is forgotten".
Comments
*Private Eye (years ago)
Anyone who has displayed at the slightest hint of disloyalty to the Dear Leader will be out and replaced by the likes of Dorries, Braverman and Rees-Mogg.
Solving the mess in the Tory party would go a long way to sorting out our Post Brexit arrangements.
The Leavers were allowed to get away with scant attention to detail of how Brexit would work and what it would look like - and people rightly criticized it. But in the same vein, @SouthamObserver can't airily say Oh Keir Starmer could solve this, this and this problem with Brexit, not without giving us hard practical examples of how and when Starmer would fix these glitches
You see every problem through the lens of your job (or your wife's job?). You have a deformation professionelle, as the French say
"Déformation professionnelle (French: [defɔʁmasjɔ̃ pʁɔfɛsjɔnɛl], professional deformation or job conditioning) is a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one's own profession or special expertise, rather than from a broader perspective."
They need to fix that, or they need to go out of business. They don't deserve staff, if that is how they want
Why aren't you calling for them to treat their staff better and to pay a decent wage? I think I know the answer.
As an employer recruiting new staff is far harder than keeping on existing staff, which is why its a good idea to respect your staff and not treat them like disposable cogs.
At one airline, he was told to be reasonable, since reductions in pay bands for pilots was *policy* from the board. That is, they were telling someone with a job, that he should be *reasonable* and come work for them. For less money.
Pity, best plane for passengers by a country mile. Even Qatar have brought them back.
That can happen by a slow drip of backbenchers saying "Oops, sorry, ballsed up - should have voted to can the man."
Or it can be expedited by a steady stream of people leaving the Government, citing the lack of trust in that government by their fellow backbenchers.
That route can be super-boosted by Cabinet members resigning. Which is the route to least damage to party and country.
Aligning ourselves with the SM is an intelligent first step in that process. Of course we will have people advocating that - a Tory MP no less already has. None of this will happen quickly though. Perhaps you will have exited to the great free holiday in the sky by the time it happens. Perhaps I will have, too.
Just rejoice at that news.
You could argue that it's been proven that the process of unpicking membership is harder than some advocates of Brexit said it would be, but that doesn't say anything about whether it was right or wrong to do it. It does however make a mockery of the idea that there is no loss of sovereignty from being part of a project of progressive federation.
https://insideevs.com/news/590307/tesla-battles-for-top-engineers/
...With median battery engineer salaries increasing to anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 depending on an engineer’s experience and role, onlookers are left wondering if the growing industry might be worth a career change.
Qichao Hu, CEO of Ford- and General Motors-backed SES Artificial Intelligence, explains that the high demand for EV battery talent is going to require a change, saying that the industry isn’t sustainable with the bottleneck created by increasing prices — whether spent on employees or raw materials.
“A senior battery engineer in the U.S. sometimes can cost as much as a CFO,” said Hu. “This whole industry now, it’s not sustainable, from people to raw materials.”
The statements came just after SES faced a bidding war with Tesla, Rivian, GM and QuantumScape over a recently hired engineer. In the end, Tesla managed to garner the highest price for the candidate.
Another battery engineer working at a worldwide automaker told Bloomberg they were seeing requests on LinkedIn from recruiters at Rivian, Ford, Tesla, Amazon and Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL). And while engineering degrees may go a long way in getting one’s foot in the door, the competition is largely left to those with tangible EV engineering experience — in everything from R&D to raw materials and scaled production...
Between May's resignation in 2019 and her confidence victory in 2018 we had the drawn out agony "Meaningful Votes", a completely paralysed Parliament, the European election campaign etc, that made it clear that the situation had changed for enough MPs to know that May had to go.
What's going to be the trigger for MPs now? Boris's character? That's priced in already. Partygate, Patterson etc? Priced in already, and going to fade from the conversation - and Patterson is unlikely to be repeated now.
If MPs weren't prepared to act yesterday, despite the fact they know everything we know, then just what is it that's going to kick them off the fence, that wasn't there already yesterday?
We did Turkey a couple of times with the kids before Covid. I wouldn't be in a rush to go back. I was more interested in your trips to northern Greece. Keep up the travelogue though. Who knows what might catch our fancy.
Or maybe the first question is just whether there is a major figure in the Cabinet.
What makes you think this is an option? If it were there would have been a majority in parliament for it.
What I do think will happen at some point is we will join EFTA and probably the EEA. But I would say that as it has always been the best result in my view.
There is endless supply of dreamers who would crawl over broken glass for an A380 type rating.
The question was whether there was a major figure in the Cabinet with the courage to resign yesterday and say that Johnson has to go.
There wasn't.
As I pointed out the other day, this was highlighted at airports across Europe as a "recovery from Covid" and "resourcing" issue on France24, no less. Here is a report on Schipol:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220429-klm-cancels-flights-as-crowds-jam-amsterdam-s-schiphol
I'm a little bemused to see this framed as a Brexit issue. That5's mainly just the usual furious gubbing imo.
If countries want tourists then they need to make sure that borders are processed efficiently. Another issue that mainly needs time.
There is also the small matter that the EU Electronic Border system is not finished yet, and not due to be live until later this year. It may soon be as easy as getting into those states which are up to date with the electronic revolution, and will help with the maths.
https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/eborder/entry-exit-system
One of the things you don't do is refer people to Zoe WIlliams, who floats somewhere in outer space in her commentary - perhaps near 'Beetle Juice'. She's pretty much a guarantee of getting the wrong end of the wrong shtick.
While your are on DA I have realised why I am more European than British. I am fastidious in my tyre purchasing.
Over here in Sicily I have seen a 1997 Twingo shod in brand new Uniroyals and a 40 year old beaten up Panda in a Pirelli version of "town and country" tyres. All modern stuff (post 2005) sits on matching OEM rubber. Yet back home a 2020 Carrera S rides on a combination of Linglong, Windforce, Jinju and Landsail.
If we can't choose our tyres appropriately how can we be expected to choose a Prime Minister?
With a majority possibly smaller than a swing of cabinet votes.
Hmmm. Happy Christmas 2022.
Do we have precedent of continuing government with semi-supported leaders? Nothing comes to mind for me, except the last but of Thatcher, or maybe something from the 1970s, which was before my time.
Basically, a voter strike until "good old Boris" is actually shown to be no longer politically tenable to these pillocks - and is going to rob them of their jobs. Why they didn't see it yesterday does make you question the quality of said MPs - and whether them getting another crack at being MPs is even appropriate.
I believe this is basically the EEA position too, no?
Women left Spain, leaving not recorded. Went back to Spain several months later. Was refused entry and deported.
My cousin who has a property in Portugal. Plans his trips carefully, flight delayed and tipped him over the limit.
Your world is so simple.
On the plus side - good news for imperial measurements eh!
Can we have Single Market access without offering Free Movement of People??
Surely this is impossible. It's the whole crux of Brexit. But if we can have SM access without FoM then let's do it tonight
Perhaps the standards and privileges committee is another potential trigger. It does seem as though some Tory MPs were genuine when they said they would wait for the Grey report, and not merely procrastinating. There may be others who will choose to act at that point.
Looks to me as though the Tory party has decided to stick with Johnson. No way around that for the minority who disagree.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-gift-multiple-launch-rocket-systems-to-ukraine
Why is one of their repeated news items one extra stop in a commuter ferry in Barking?
Are they just making sure we know that they are now a London TV station? Would there be repeated reporting of an extra stop on a suburban rail line in Bristol?
Though to be fair, if all you want to base it upon is midterm polls, then Boris isn't performing any worse than Cameron was at a comparable stage of the Parliament, so plenty of MPs might be looking at the midterm polls and still feeling pretty confident they'll keep their own job.
2019 had "events" that May couldn't overcome and a change was needed to break the paralysis in Parliament. 2019-2022 has certainly had plenty of "events" but looking at what's upcoming, its not clear how a change in leader is going to improve things - it doesn't seem likely a new leader will be able to resolve the CoL issue, or Ukraine, much easier.
The reason why he should be changed was because of what's happened in the past, we all knew it, MPs knew it, and it was all already there and priced in. But they were frit and putting off to tomorrow what could be done today, is just an excuse to never do what needed to be done.
It also needs at least one more step, since grain exports in quantity will not come back until the Black Sea Fleet is u/s. They need the long range missile.
The latest Perun video is about the Polish contribution relative to all the others, and is very informative on what they have done and the strategic benefits for Poland over many decades.
For example if Ukr survives with a Western focus, Poland will be less out-on-a-limb wrt Russia, plus an economy driven further by rebuilding programmes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSPhOWDkcPk
Time to invest in Warsaw? Or exposure to Poland?
Yes it may result in increased unemployment, but that is just Luddism.
Companies won't invest in automation if the automation is more expensive than the staff, as they'll be undercut by competitors just using cheap labour instead. Increasing staff demands makes automation more affordable relatively, plus if unemployment is going to increase then doing so at a time of labour shortages is better than at a time of mass unemployment.
The invisible hand of free market is creaking at the bits trying to say that automation is needed, that's why we have labour shortages. We need to leave the market to do its thing, either firms pay higher wages, or don't get staff, or get automation going, either way the solution works.
Everyone who bemoans they "can't get staff" needs to be told to piss off and either automate or offer better terms and conditions so that they can, that can ripple through the economy so that those who are able to, are able to automate and be competitive by doing so.
For context, Poland has just ordered 500 of the more modern version from the US.
Normally Nitto NT01 or Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 for me. Although I have recently had to buy a set of ADVAN Sport v105s due to Brexit fuelled supply chain chaos.
First, people are starting to recognize that we really have blown our economic feet off with the shotgun we were using to threaten the trespassers, and something needs to be done.
And secondly, the other global economic factors mean that something has to be done with a degree of urgency that probably wasn't quite there pre-Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
We'll never re-join the EU; Brexit is, after all, Brexit.
We will just end up with a range of treaty obligations and benefits that are functionally equivalent, but without the hard-to-reconcile-for-many "ever closer union".
What of freedom of movement? Immigration will remain a hot topic whose importance waxes with economic hardship, and wanes in the better times.
But before long, enough people will fudge stats showing that losing the relationship with the EU to help manage undesirable immigration is a net disadvantage, and enough people will look for equally fudgy treaty arrangements to deal with that.
Not the current Government. But Hannan is floating this change in the articles of faith for the true blue believers, and we should not ignore it.
It was obvious to a complete amateur like me over a month ago that the current battles were going to be won by Russian artillary unless something was done to counterbalance that. This is what has happened and I fear that Ukranian casualties in May and early June will have been horrendous. We really need to move faster, welcome though this is.
If you base yourself there then you are near to Troy and Gallipoli. Both fascinating
Or try Izmir. Yes it's a big scruffy city with a lot of traffic, but it has a compelling old town, and a fine cuisine, and a spectacular Aegean setting, and almost ZERO tourists (meaning good hotels are pretty cheap even in high season). Stay there and there are multiple day trips available - Ephesus, and so on
The Turkish coast is enormously long, it rewards detailed exploration
We would be have been bound to EU Single Market legislation, without having any democratic input into that legislation, and bound to its court rulings too.
I'm not sure what to make of that, but it can't be good.
Meanwhile, out in the real world...
NPXMP seems to be suggesting we can be in the SM without FoM. Is that true? I presume not, or maybe I have misunderstood this for years. I am pretty sure I am right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market
"Four Freedoms"
The "Four Freedoms" of the single market are:
Free movement of goods
Free movement of capital
Freedom to establish and provide services
Free movement of persons
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1534092847535865857
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-should-look-for-an-honourable-exit-7fkgkl2rq
I am one of the few Leavers on here who was explicit from the start that Leaving would bring significant problems and economic pain, for quite a while. I was scathing about the Leavers who promised "the best deal ever in 3 minutes"; Laaving was obviously going to HURT
What can governments do? They can improve infrastructure so that goods and services can move about more easily. They can address housing where that is an issue. They can focus on education and make it more relevant to the jobs that are hopefully going to be produced in a particular area. They can use tax policy to encourage both investment and training (in fairness there were small elements of that in the budget). They can work to produce stability and steady demand, reducing the risk of investment.
There is no magic bullet or quick fix. There are long term gains from steady application. And that does not seem to interest our politicians of any stripe.
Crawling forward over a few miles of devastation:
https://twitter.com/mr_gh0stly/status/1529099871826894848/photo/1
Compare what Russia has achieved with what this respected twitter strategist thinks they were aiming at:
https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1521700053215334400/photo/1
It looks to me that we're firmly in the Breakthrough Defeated quadrant - Russian military is unable to co-ordinate an integrated attack in time and space leading to piecemeal attacks unsupported by combat enablers. Any gains come at a high price in troops and material. Success is tactical at best; campaign ends in numerous operational setbacks and strategic defeat.
What it does say is that now we are able to do things. Within the EU we were locked into a single model, the EU. Outside of the EU we can choose to take whatever path we want to take, we can choose to stick with what we have, we can choose to move further apart, we could choose to move closer.
That is a free, democratic debate for us to have now that we couldn't have if we hadn't left, that's why people like Hannan who backed the EEA model pre-Referendum were willing to campaign for Vote Leave despite Vote Leave ruling out the EEA model in its campaigning, because the only possibility we'd ever get that, was if we did leave.
They're now conducting a tactical retreat from Sievierodonetsk, as they are locally outgunned by about 10/1.
The war is not going to be decided in the next month - but the supply of heavy weapons is pretty slow.
As noted above, the MRLS being sent consist of 3 pieces by us, and 4 from the US. We'll see what follows.
Meantime, some Europeans continue to play games.
https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1534062621997301760
Greece wants 100 Marder IFV first before passing their ancient East German BMP-1 on to Ukraine. It would defeat entire purpose or at least GER narrative, that useful capability would arrive quickly. Might just as well then deliver them straight to Kyiv...
The article considers both an optimistic and pessimistic outcome to the next few months in weighing up the arguments. Worth a read:
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2022/06/the-cabinet-should-act-though-doubtless-it-wont.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tuesday 7 June 2022&utm_content=Tuesday 7 June 2022+CID_f7a1faadbadc3f345c2fe7cbf57bb2e7&utm_source=Daily Email&utm_term=The Cabinet should act Though doubtless it wont
Questions have been asked over the future of UVDL over her being a little lenient on Poland wrt 'rule of law'. Despite past EU law violaters like Germany and France walking away Scot-free.
If Macron ends up with cohabitation after the French Parliament Elections, it could get tasty. No idea on the prospects of that, but talk has been of a loss of 50 seats.
Much more pleasant experience that early MRI's. Nice pictures to look at in the mini headset; take one's somewhat claustrophobic mind of the nearby roof!
On way home by 8.45!
Grumpiness impressively undiminished by a long sleep. Turds.
Should be a comres today just in case we need some clarity on where we stand, lol
I also respect your view that this renegotiation couldn't have taken place while in the EU - I think you're probably right (ETA: in part, because of a lack of capability and leverage on the UK side). The question for historians is whether the balance of pains is worth it, but present day politicians need to move on from that argument, as it is not productive. This feels like the first step in that process from what was the "leave" side.
But it does require the EU to realise that it's not the end of the world to allow it.
I wouldn't feel too disheartened about the battle for Donbass though. The Russians have not gained much territory and the Ukrainians are fighting back in Severodonetsk. They would then have to cross the river and take the next town to get full control of Lukansk. As for Donetsk they still only control about half of it. Still our fears of poking the deranged bear are leading Ukrainians to suffer more than they would otherwise need to.
I'd have decided differently. But then, I'll never be an MP - and it's not my job on the line.
Just look at all your posts this morning. Everything thing is easy, just get over it, not a problem. Well for most people it isn't.
You have two passports (how?), you are single, you don't have an existing property abroad, you don't have a pet to travel with, you haven't been caught out accidently by the 90 day rule because your return trip wasn't recorded.
Lots of this stuff can't be solved by the average person here. For all of them they are stuffed by these changes. Lots of people worry more than you do about travel. They don't have your experience of travel.
Aide: "Brexit - as usual".
Boris: "Excellent - let's hope they keep banging on about Brexit until my little problem yesterday is forgotten".