1) 1700 pages of EU law disapplied, with most trade rules coming from the UK legal side (including food safety), so ECJ presence seems pretty limited
2) UK VAT and excise rates and calculations apply, not Irish or EU ones
3) Free GB-NI trade for medicines, medical products, agriculture, construction goods, steel. UK regulation, not EU, on food, jewellery, clothes and medicines applies
4) Data sharing based on existing data collection, so no additional bureaucratic burden for small businesses
5) Stormont break only applies to NEW EU laws - but can be used just by a minority at Stormont AND challenges to it will not be decided by ECJ, but an independent body.
6) Stormont break requires the block by Stormont AND a UK government veto
7) New legal commitment on both UK and EU to protect UK internal market
8) GB-NI trade will be based on UK commercial regulation, not international customs.
Overall I would say this is more like 3-0 for the UK position than 3-1. But both sides win from the deal.
It's just as advertised and, arguably, even better - a fundamental and radical rewrite of the whole NI protocol.
Also, I note that it effectively introduces a new digital border between NI and Eire to monitor north-south movement to compensate, which is a massive concession and something I'd jump on if I were the DUP.
It also sets the precedent of digital borders between the UK and EU, which could be used to reduce trade barriers elsewhere in future. AND the UK can still sign trade deals elsewhere and filter immigration.
Rishi has played a blinder.
Short of agreeing a bit of choreography where the whole EU Commission came into Whitehall and went down on both knees in front of the British government, crying and begging for mercy, whilst the national anthem was played on loudspeaker and a list of famous British military victories read aloud to them accompanied by the Life Guards shouting "Huzzah!" I don't see how how he could have done any better.
True, but the really sad thing is that we didn’t need to elect a tactical genius to achieve all this, but simply to stop electing childish tw*ts who only saw the EU as a straw person to be insulted whenever it suited for personal or political advantage.
The EU were being childish tw*ts as well.
Precisely this sort of deal was being proposed by several of us years ago and it was poo-poohed and lampooned by UTOA Remainers on here as cakeism and fantasy.
Report from the EU that Boris Johnson and Frost grated in the EU who welcome the new PM pragmatic attitude
No surprise there
The Johnson/Frost spin will no doubt be a deal was only possible because they scared the EU rigid with their hardball Protocol Cancellation bill. Nothing at all to do with us dropping the macho theatrics and behaving like mature adults.
But that will not wash. The current, grown-up UK government has made the legal advice clear: the bill was never going to work from a legal standpoint and would have exposed the UK to large compensation payments if enacted. And if the UK government knew that, the EU did too.
Course it won't. But they deal in fantasies. What this actually shows imo is the wasted opportunity to negotiate a better deal in the first place. All it needed was good faith, hard work, focus and professionalism. Instead we got all that 'No Deal is better than a Bad Deal' and 'holding all the cards' perpetual grandstanding nonsense. Then a mad rush to sign something - anything - so Johnson could win his election.
You can't go into a negotiation with the position that a bad deal is better than no deal, even if that's what you privately believe. And if the alternative is a Corbyn government, a deal held together with string and wishful thinking is better than whatever deal Corbyn would have cooked up. Imagine Corbyn trying to find a deal with the EU which could keep NI within the UK. It would be like all of his Christmasses had come at once (well, two of his Christmasses.)
Ok, I suppose a Marxist dystopia under Corbyn is about the only yardstick by which Johnson's tenure could be judged non-disastrous. Point of order though. If Labour had won GE19 there wouldn't have been a Brexit Deal. There'd have been no Brexit.
The famously enthusiastic Remainer Jeremy Corbyn would have called it off?
And a Marxist dystopia under Jeremy Corbyn is, unfortunately, the yardstick by which we must judge it. Because that was the alternative.
If I were making Johnson's case for posterity, it would be that I don't really see a credible scenario which didn't lead to a Marxist dystopia which didn't involve him and his rather half-baked deal. We can both prefer that a better deal had been in place from the start (or, for you, no deal at all), but the pathway which led to such a thing AND no Marxist dystopia was, in my view, so narrow in its likelihood as to be implausible. My view is that Johnson was the only broadly plausible way of getting from the failure of May's 2017 election to today which didn't go via Marxist dystopia.
I doubt Jeremy could have pulled off a Marxist dystopia with Labour largest party in a hung parliament. Which was the stretch target. But, yes, Ref2 with Remain as a binary choice against any specific Exit deal was a slam dunk. Brexit was a goner if GE19 had gone that way. This would have been pretty much the sole mandate of a short Corbyn 1st term - cancelling Brexit. Marxist dystopia to follow in his 2nd term after a landslide in 2021 perhaps. Then no more elections obviously.
Nope - because you are making the assumption that Bozo won the 2019 GE when it's far more plausible that Corbyn and co lost it and any Tory leader would have won that election (albeit it with fewer seats than Bozo got).
1) 1700 pages of EU law disapplied, with most trade rules coming from the UK legal side (including food safety), so ECJ presence seems pretty limited
2) UK VAT and excise rates and calculations apply, not Irish or EU ones
3) Free GB-NI trade for medicines, medical products, agriculture, construction goods, steel. UK regulation, not EU, on food, jewellery, clothes and medicines applies
4) Data sharing based on existing data collection, so no additional bureaucratic burden for small businesses
5) Stormont break only applies to NEW EU laws - but can be used just by a minority at Stormont AND challenges to it will not be decided by ECJ, but an independent body.
6) Stormont break requires the block by Stormont AND a UK government veto
7) New legal commitment on both UK and EU to protect UK internal market
8) GB-NI trade will be based on UK commercial regulation, not international customs.
Overall I would say this is more like 3-0 for the UK position than 3-1. But both sides win from the deal.
It's just as advertised and, arguably, even better - a fundamental and radical rewrite of the whole NI protocol.
Also, I note that it effectively introduces a new digital border between NI and Eire to monitor north-south movement to compensate, which is a massive concession and something I'd jump on if I were the DUP.
It also sets the precedent of digital borders between the UK and EU, which could be used to reduce trade barriers elsewhere in future. AND the UK can still sign trade deals elsewhere and filter immigration.
Rishi has played a blinder.
Short of agreeing a bit of choreography where the whole EU Commission came into Whitehall and went down on both knees in front of the British government, crying and begging for mercy, whilst the national anthem was played on loudspeaker and a list of famous British military victories read aloud to them accompanied by the Life Guards shouting "Huzzah!" I don't see how how he could have done any better.
What was the EU legal action about pets all about?
The EU had demanded full paperwork for pets in transit between the EU and the UK. Under Johnson's deal this applied to Northern Ireland but the British were refusing to enforce it. AIUI the legal action was to force them to actually do the fricking checks, and fine the UK for non-compliance.
Now, the checks have been scrapped for Northern Ireland. Unfortunately not for the rest of the EU, but it's definitely a big improvement.
Ah, thanks for explaining, cheers.
Very few pet owners were bothering with the paperwork when visiting NI, anyway, because the UK had announced the abolition of checks. So the difference in practice isn’t that great - indeed there’s a new online form that has to be completed before taking a pet to NI. The better news is that, it appears, the loophole where GB pet owners can get an EU PP in NI and then travel freely around the EU remains open.
Three big wins coming out so far. Things the EU previously said were impossible.
1) A green lane with no checks for anything going to Northern Ireland
2) Availability of all GB foods, agriculture and medicine to Northern Ireland
3) A break from Stormont on EU laws (this could get downgraded to half a win depending on whether it only applies to new laws)
Then one potential win for the EU, unclear its size until more comes out:
1) Some EU law applying in NI, with ECJ decision maker.
We need to find out more, but right now seems like a 3-1 win for the UK.
That depends on what you believe the EU is trying to do. If it can monitor use of the Green lanes to ensure that there is no subsequent movement into the Single Market and that goods stay in Northern Ireland - and it can through access to UK data records which the deal has made available - then it is protecting the integrity of the single market and so also winning.
All it took was grown-ups on both sides of the negotiating table.
Something we were told was an impossible unicorn during the Brexit debate.
We now have the unicorn solution. All it took was grown ups at the negotiating table ... and the UK to be clear in no unambiguous terms that we wouldn't be following EU rules and a compromise was necessary.
We have a solution that both sides are very happy with. One that has its roots in both sides accepting that they are not enemies and that they have common goals. The UK single market is preserved, the EU single market is preserved. It's a deal that has been done by grown-ups - and the make-up of the negotiating teams has only changed on one side of the table.
No this is utter bollocks
It was the EU - ursula herself - which unilaterally suspended the Brexit agreement to prevent fucking vaccines crossing the Uk border because the EU felt humiliated. By its vaccine failures of the time. It was macron who said astra zeneca was basically useless. It was the Germans who claimed astra zeneca was 10% effective for anyone older than 2 months etc etc
How many people actually DIED as a result of this childish petulance? Because the EU felt insulted or menaced by Brexit?
The EU is at fault as is the UK. Both sides acted like wankers. Enough already
That 'fucking vaccines' jars a bit. Swearing's fine but don't strain to swear.
Did Astra Zeneca not get retired as useless.
No. It was brilliant at the time it was needed and saved many, many lives. In the U.K. alone almost certainly 10s of thousands. However there are some issues (still not clear if it’s somehow related to mode of administration- clots linked to incorrectly pinching the muscle for injection?). And there are better and updated vaccines now available that are more appropriate to current variants (overwhelmingly still of the Omicron lineage). This does not change its record, and if anyone tries to suggest it’s useless they need to look at the data and themselves.
Comments
Precisely this sort of deal was being proposed by several of us years ago and it was poo-poohed and lampooned by UTOA Remainers on here as cakeism and fantasy.
They're not laughing now.
However there are some issues (still not clear if it’s somehow related to mode of administration- clots linked to incorrectly pinching the muscle for injection?). And there are better and updated vaccines now available that are more appropriate to current variants (overwhelmingly still of the Omicron lineage).
This does not change its record, and if anyone tries to suggest it’s useless they need to look at the data and themselves.