I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
Indeed, Brexit was not about the economy but creating a vacancy as PM for a narcissistic journalist comic with a half funny schtick as a bumbling lovable fool. A strange trade, but there you go.
Good heavens, not only is Sunak driving a stake through the heart of the NI Protocol bill, he’s wreathing it in garlic and burying it at a cross roads.
I might suggest that, to continue your vampiric metaphors, the NIP bill has been exposed to the sunlight of reality and has simply crumbled to dust.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
The US deal has moved from “impossible” to “not going to happen”.
As for skilled immigration, the end of your paragraph is more accurate than the beginning.
The US deal will happen. Both are free trading nations, with the main blockers of food regulation and labour standards being surmountable. Certainly more surmountable than what Sunak achieved here.
As for immigration, the limit on work migration to being 26k+ is unarguable.
Nah. The US won’t sign a trade deal with anyone any time soon. If it does, it’ll be an evolution of the CPTPP and we’ll benefit by proxy.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
I think all of that - even if it happened tomorrow - is all too late to save Rishi's bacon at the next election.
Just discovered somewhere where they still have an old-fashioned ceefax/teletext service on TV. Barcelona. 888 gets subtitles as well, like it used to do in the UK.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No, we are not. We are not heading to be part of the EU customs union at all. Northern Ireland just got removed from it.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
The US deal has moved from “impossible” to “not going to happen”.
As for skilled immigration, the end of your paragraph is more accurate than the beginning.
The US deal will happen. Both are free trading nations, with the main blockers of food regulation and labour standards being surmountable. Certainly more surmountable than what Sunak achieved here.
As for immigration, the limit on work migration to being 26k+ is unarguable.
There are perhaps geopolitical factors (ie China, Russia) that have made a UK/US deal slightly more likely, and the Windsor Agreement certainly removes a blocker.
But it remains very difficult to imagine, as of today.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
And? Nothing wrong with the single market, as long as we are out of the political nonsense of the EU. It should be about trade, trade and more trade. That way lies prosperity.
Not sure I get or agree with the 'buried in the small print' comment, as if this was something hidden and to be ashamed of. Given that everything the NIP bill sought to address has been addressed by the adults, it is entirely sensible to drop it and the decision to do so is right there in the main text of the document (rather than being hidden away as if it was something Sunak is seeking to avoid comment on)
Where some had points of principle ECJ final arbitrator and border in Irish Sea, does this Agreement actually change that at all?
No but it’s really a small point in the grand scheme of things . The deal is good and should be embraced.
Not sure I get or agree with the 'buried in the small print' comment, as if this was something hidden and to be ashamed of. Given that everything the NIP bill sought to address has been addressed by the adults, it is entirely sensible to drop it and the decision to do so is right there in the main text of the document (rather than being hidden away as if it was something Sunak is seeking to avoid comment on)
Where some had points of principle ECJ final arbitrator and border in Irish Sea, does this Agreement actually change that at all?
Yes it removes both entirely. Whilst the ECJ can still be used in some limited instances, it is no longer the final arbiter. And the border in the Irish Sea is gone.
Just watching the NI statement in Parliament. Currently it is the SNP Leader, Flynn. What a complete moron. A contemptible contribution, following Sunak, Starmer and May. I really feel quite angry about it.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
“he's done well”
Not at the press conference he didn’t. He came across as cringeworthy and not good at selling something with eyes or body language, shifty in other words.
To be very fair, He’s not really in the right job, of front man and Head of State. And this really is quite important. A Salesman can sell you rubbish, someone who is not good at it just leaves you sceptical and unconvinced regardless you getting a better deal or not.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
Just watching the NI statement in Parliament. Currently it is the SNP Leader, Flynn. What a complete moron. A contemptible contribution, following Sunak, Starmer and May. I really feel quite angry about it.
We should remember that as well as BoZo, Frost, Francois and Mogg, today is also a very bad day for the SNP
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
That’s your assertion yes, but I think it unlikely we’ll end up there.
Not sure I get or agree with the 'buried in the small print' comment, as if this was something hidden and to be ashamed of. Given that everything the NIP bill sought to address has been addressed by the adults, it is entirely sensible to drop it and the decision to do so is right there in the main text of the document (rather than being hidden away as if it was something Sunak is seeking to avoid comment on)
Where some had points of principle ECJ final arbitrator and border in Irish Sea, does this Agreement actually change that at all?
Yes it removes both entirely. Whilst the ECJ can still be used in some limited instances, it is no longer the final arbiter. And the border in the Irish Sea is gone.
It's great news for Northern Ireland. In a few years they'll probably be subsidising us. At the very least we'll all be visiting their famous tomato markets.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No, we are not. We are not heading to be part of the EU customs union at all. Northern Ireland just got removed from it.
May’s deal envisaged the end of the customs union. While critics had a point that exiting the customs union wasn’t as simple as sucking on a lollipop, it wasn’t this demented condition of “vassalage” either.
That was all bollocks, promoted by a the corrupt clown and his enablers.
Sad that the procession of crap leaders has made 'prime minister achieves something you would reasonably expect a prime minister to be able to do'*, but here we are. Just waiting for the headbangers and Johnsonites to break cover and spoil it. Credit where it's due though - this does look like a sensible deal, and I struggle/shudder to imagine what Trussterfuck would've done here.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
The US deal has moved from “impossible” to “not going to happen”.
As for skilled immigration, the end of your paragraph is more accurate than the beginning.
The US deal will happen. Both are free trading nations, with the main blockers of food regulation and labour standards being surmountable. Certainly more surmountable than what Sunak achieved here.
As for immigration, the limit on work migration to being 26k+ is unarguable.
Nah. The US won’t sign a trade deal with anyone any time soon. If it does, it’ll be an evolution of the CPTPP and we’ll benefit by proxy.
That is the ideal. CPTPP membership will make the UK, along with Canada, Japan and Australia, the leaders in forming the future of global regulation, including decisions the US corporate lobby would have liked to avoid. The US then joining would get us a trade deal with them with the ugly bits already mitigated by CPTPP rules.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
The US deal has moved from “impossible” to “not going to happen”.
As for skilled immigration, the end of your paragraph is more accurate than the beginning.
The US deal will happen. Both are free trading nations, with the main blockers of food regulation and labour standards being surmountable. Certainly more surmountable than what Sunak achieved here.
As for immigration, the limit on work migration to being 26k+ is unarguable.
Nah. The US won’t sign a trade deal with anyone any time soon. If it does, it’ll be an evolution of the CPTPP and we’ll benefit by proxy.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No, we are not. We are not heading to be part of the EU customs union at all. Northern Ireland just got removed from it.
May’s deal envisaged the end of the customs union. While critics had a point that exiting the customs union wasn’t as simple as sucking on a lollipop, it wasn’t this demented condition of “vassalage” either.
That was all bollocks, promoted by a the corrupt clown and his enablers.
Do we reckon the DUP will accept and advocate a deal that gives them most of what they asked for, or are they looking for any pretext to keep Stormont closed?
A renewed spirit of diplomacy and international co-operation.
Very good to see.
Rejoining the EU is a distant dream (and might actually be a divisive nightmare for the UK), but re-entry to the Single Market is now imaginable.
There have been zero benefits to leaving it, and much trade lost or compromised, so there is now a clear path to returning, which I'm sure most people will be very happy with.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
I think most people accept that Brexit is a significant contributing factor.
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Just like to point out that I said about 3 years ago that the Brexit deal meant a booming ulster. They get membership of both single markets and citizenship of both. Duhhhhh
Everyone with eyes was saying that, the more interesting question is why NI's economy has substantially lagged behind the rest of the UK since then.
It hasn’t. After decades of perennial underperformance NI has begun to catch up. Still behind London etc in growth, but now besting wales and regions of England. It is hard to winnow out Covid from all this, but there are genuinely good signs
The restoration of stability through this agreement is the best medicine of all. Hopefully the entire UK will benefit, not just ulster
Sad that the procession of crap leaders has made 'prime minister achieves something you would reasonably expect a prime minister to be able to do'*, but here we are. Just waiting for the headbangers and Johnsonites to break cover and spoil it. Credit where it's due though - this does look like a sensible deal, and I struggle/shudder to imagine what Trussterfuck would've done here.
*albeit fixing a problem caused by his old gaffer
Thankfully I am not sure the headbangers can spoil it. Starmer is showing leadership for the good of the country by supporting this which means the maths is such that it must go through. Even if the headbangers then decide to try to bring down Sunak, it would really not be an issue as Starmer is bound to win the election and then he would enact this agreement.
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.
They're not laughing now.
FPT - we are, mind. This is just one step back towards the single market. Tick tock.
I was being genuine. It's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned. There has been no discernible benefit of Brexit and people are starting to wake up to that.
It's all damage limitation isn't it. Sunak's done great here but the deal is just a step towards the dream of 'best of a bad job' Brexit. Don't know how the public will see it over time. I hope we are ambitious enough to want better but we might just shrug and worry about other things.
Yes - while the immediate news story is grown-up Sunak achieving what childish Johnson could or would not - the bigger picture is that we are trying to limit the damage done by Brexit; there remains no sign of any significant upside.
Even Sunak can tell the Commons about the advantage NI gets from being at least partly inside the single market, without any sense of awareness or shame.
The upside is signing new trade deals, of which the two big prizes are the US and the CPTPP. The US one just got a hell of a lot closer.
The second upside is restricting lower skilled migration. We have already cut out the lowest skill work migration, as you now need to earn 26k to move here. Of course, that is not far enough as 26k is too low a limit, and family migration remains exploited by arranged marriages bringing over uneducated spouses from rural Asia and Africa.
I think all of that - even if it happened tomorrow - is all too late to save Rishi's bacon at the next election.
Probably true. But I think it will reduce the size of loss and make it difficult for Starmer to reverse.
Not sure I get or agree with the 'buried in the small print' comment, as if this was something hidden and to be ashamed of. Given that everything the NIP bill sought to address has been addressed by the adults, it is entirely sensible to drop it and the decision to do so is right there in the main text of the document (rather than being hidden away as if it was something Sunak is seeking to avoid comment on)
Where some had points of principle ECJ final arbitrator and border in Irish Sea, does this Agreement actually change that at all?
No but it’s really a small point in the grand scheme of things . The deal is good and should be embraced.
Others have replied both those things have completely gone by this change.
Firstly Are we not all agreeing GB-NI trade will no longer have any checks? So the border in Irish Sea is gone?
Certainly the break clause is not a break clause it’s being sold as, merely 30 votes needed to get courts to agree you have the “exceptional circumstances” justifying a break to the agreement - there’s definitely no change in that part, as the DUP will flag this up better than I can.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It might shift party support around a bit, with the Tories up a bit among Centre right moderates in the Blue Wall and down a bit among older voters who switched to the Tories because of "Boris" and Brexit in the Red Wall. Net net probably not much. Positive headlines for the government might help them but most people in GB don't care much about Northern Ireland as long as stuff's not getting blown up, and a few of the more clued up voters might be wondering how come the Northern Irish are getting a deal that's so much better than ours. If I was Labour that would be my line too.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
It does, in that when there is a general tomato shortage - nothing to do with Brexit, as you say - those suppliers of tomatoes within the EU (which produces a lot of tomatoes) prefer to sell within the EU rather than wrestle with the new administrative barriers to trade by selling to the UK. So when there’s a shortage, Brexit puts us last in the queue.
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It's great news for Northern Ireland. In a few years they'll probably be subsidising us. At the very least we'll all be visiting their famous tomato markets.
It's not quite pictures of empty shelves, is it? It's "expressed concern about a shortage", meaning a journalist saw an easy job from the UK headlines, rang up a wholesaler and asked about what might happen.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It was not the expectation of the UK government to just stay in the customs union.
The essential flavour of NI/Ireland trading flows post any customs union - ie, what Windsor delivers today - was already understood at high level. However the details were left pending.
May essentially did what Barty is always ranting about - ie leaving Northern Ireland until AFTER the deal to iron out. She just did it in a different way that avoided eroding the British economy.
I’m not really here to defend May who I think performed badly, but I fear that many. Brexiters are still high on their own supply.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It won't shift a single vote because 99.9% of the public don't have the faintest idea about any of it.
People vote on general feel and general impression. Not on details.
But if this starts to change the feel and general impression of Rishi, it will help him electorally.
I tend to agree. Even if people don't understand, a return to sound, pro-business trade policy is the sort of thing that will at the very least shore up a bit of blue wall vote and, if sustained, reassure a few waverers. It is broadly being reported as 'Rishi did a decent bit of business here', and is the first proper bit of good stuff he's done since elected (which in these accelerated times it's easy to forget was just a few months ago).
While he is still a crap speaker, he's right to move the political battle to a field where he is more comfortable. It'll certainly be a better platform than all the culture war bollocks.
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The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
It does, in that when there is a general tomato shortage - nothing to do with Brexit, as you say - those suppliers of tomatoes within the EU (which produces a lot of tomatoes) prefer to sell within the EU rather than wrestle with the new administrative barriers to trade by selling to the UK. So when there’s a shortage, Brexit puts us last in the queue.
When there is a shortage, tomatoes will go where the price is highest. That is why independent shops in the UK (and Ireland) buying on the open market have plenty of produce.
Just watching the NI statement in Parliament. Currently it is the SNP Leader, Flynn. What a complete moron. A contemptible contribution, following Sunak, Starmer and May. I really feel quite angry about it.
I was surprised and disappointed by that - he’s usually quite a bit better - an opportunity to “rise above it” sadly missed.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No, we are not. We are not heading to be part of the EU customs union at all. Northern Ireland just got removed from it.
May’s deal envisaged the end of the customs union. While critics had a point that exiting the customs union wasn’t as simple as sucking on a lollipop, it wasn’t this demented condition of “vassalage” either.
That was all bollocks, promoted by a the corrupt clown and his enablers.
No, it didn't. It locked us in the Customs Union.
That is indeed the myth, eagerly promoted by a pack of grifters.
I managed to get tomatoes at my local Tesco today.
Between that and @MarqueeMark celebrating a 0.5% swing from LD to Conservative while the Tories remain 27 points behind Labour, it reminds me it's time to go into the Redfield & Wilton sub samples.
Starting with the likely to vote numbers and the Labour lead is just 22 points (43-21) with Don't Knows on 14%. The 2019 Conservative vote splits 48% Conservative, 21% Labour, 17% Don't Know and 10% Reform.
Stripping out the Don't Knows and the 65+ age group splits Labour 44%, Conservative 30% which is out of line with other pollsters showing the Conservative VI in the upper 20s. That's about a 30% swing from Conservative to Labour and is landslide country.
The swing in England is 20.5% - unchanged from last week - and still suggests a post-election rump of fewer than 100 Conservative MPs.
The big change that I think this deal heralds is that we're now in a state where mutually beneficial agreements can be struck. The EU have lost some of the bitterness they felt at Britain leaving, and Britain currently has a government that doesn't prioritise grandstanding to the anti-EU press.
My hope would be that this experience, repeated over many such mutually beneficial agreements, would help create the sense that Britain and the EU are Better Together. A long way to go until that.
Not sure I get or agree with the 'buried in the small print' comment, as if this was something hidden and to be ashamed of. Given that everything the NIP bill sought to address has been addressed by the adults, it is entirely sensible to drop it and the decision to do so is right there in the main text of the document (rather than being hidden away as if it was something Sunak is seeking to avoid comment on)
Where some had points of principle ECJ final arbitrator and border in Irish Sea, does this Agreement actually change that at all?
Yes it removes both entirely. Whilst the ECJ can still be used in some limited instances, it is no longer the final arbiter. And the border in the Irish Sea is gone.
Sad that the procession of crap leaders has made 'prime minister achieves something you would reasonably expect a prime minister to be able to do'*, but here we are. Just waiting for the headbangers and Johnsonites to break cover and spoil it. Credit where it's due though - this does look like a sensible deal, and I struggle/shudder to imagine what Trussterfuck would've done here.
*albeit fixing a problem caused by his old gaffer
Thankfully I am not sure the headbangers can spoil it. Starmer is showing leadership for the good of the country by supporting this which means the maths is such that it must go through. Even if the headbangers then decide to try to bring down Sunak, it would really not be an issue as Starmer is bound to win the election and then he would enact this agreement.
True, though I meant it in the sense of spoiling a good news cycle for Sunak, which they are absolutely capable of doing.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
Just watching the NI statement in Parliament. Currently it is the SNP Leader, Flynn. What a complete moron. A contemptible contribution, following Sunak, Starmer and May. I really feel quite angry about it.
Just to say I had heard good reports on Flynn but had not actually seen him in action before. What a disappointment. I actually think Blackford would have had the sense to act differently. Never thought I would have given him much credit for anything, but there you are.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It won't shift a single vote because 99.9% of the public don't have the faintest idea about any of it.
People vote on general feel and general impression. Not on details.
But if this starts to change the feel and general impression of Rishi, it will help him electorally.
I tend to agree. Even if people don't understand, a return to sound, pro-business trade policy is the sort of thing that will at the very least shore up a bit of blue wall vote and, if sustained, reassure a few waverers. It is broadly being reported as 'Rishi did a decent bit of business here', and is the first proper bit of good stuff he's done since elected (which in these accelerated times it's easy to forget was just a few months ago).
While he is still a crap speaker, he's right to move the political battle to a field where he is more comfortable. It'll certainly be a better platform than all the culture war bollocks.
He's got a mastery of the details though. Starmer gets that so didn't quibble, and sensibly kept it short. We've actually got two competent leaders for the first time in ages. Was a good day for Sunak. Quite why some in the ERG (Dorries) are still saying they'll take their lead from the DUP. Which Party are they members of exactly?
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
That metaphor is nonsense. If 30 DUP members vote for it, then the UK government can apply the veto. The only reason it might be hard to apply is because the DUP refuse to return to Stormont. But it's impossible for any mechanism to exist as an NI veto without Stormmont being restored.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
Yes, don't underestimate the malign influence of David Frost. If I were an EU negotiator, I wouldn't want anything to do with him. I suspect him being out of the way has been more important than Boris being out of the way in smoothing the path to this deal.
I expect Sunak and the Tories to get a bounce from this deal . Not sure it will last but credit to Sunak for being pragmatic and willing to take a political gamble . When he says he cares about the people of NI I tend to believe him .
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It was not the expectation of the UK government to just stay in the customs union.
The essential flavour of NI/Ireland trading flows post any customs union - ie, what Windsor delivers today - was already understood at high level. However the details were left pending.
May essentially did what Barty is always ranting about - ie leaving Northern Ireland until AFTER the deal to iron out. She just did it in a different way that avoided eroding the British economy.
I’m not really here to defend May who I think performed badly, but I fear that many. Brexiters are still high on their own supply.
No, she didn't leave NI until after because the May deal had the whole UK in it, not just NI which is what Boris did, plus A16 which has forced the EU to the table after failing to implement what they agreed to in the WA.
It's absolute fantasy to suggest that the road not taken with May would end up with the any of UK out of all EU structures. There's simply no way to get there from where the envisaged deal started.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
One of the key aims of the deal was to win over the DUP and restore the Stormont Executive, that seems to have not been done
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No, we are not. We are not heading to be part of the EU customs union at all. Northern Ireland just got removed from it.
May’s deal envisaged the end of the customs union. While critics had a point that exiting the customs union wasn’t as simple as sucking on a lollipop, it wasn’t this demented condition of “vassalage” either.
That was all bollocks, promoted by a the corrupt clown and his enablers.
No, it didn't. It locked us in the Customs Union.
That is indeed the myth, eagerly promoted by a pack of grifters.
No doubt you also bought a monorail.
You talk in blanket statements and metaphors when you don't have any arguments. How would May's deal have got us out of the Customs Union?
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
I managed to get tomatoes at my local Tesco today.
Between that and @MarqueeMark celebrating a 0.5% swing from LD to Conservative while the Tories remain 27 points behind Labour, it reminds me it's time to go into the Redfield & Wilton sub samples.
Starting with the likely to vote numbers and the Labour lead is just 22 points (43-21) with Don't Knows on 14%. The 2019 Conservative vote splits 48% Conservative, 21% Labour, 17% Don't Know and 10% Reform.
Stripping out the Don't Knows and the 65+ age group splits Labour 44%, Conservative 30% which is out of line with other pollsters showing the Conservative VI in the upper 20s. That's about a 30% swing from Conservative to Labour and is landslide country.
The swing in England is 20.5% - unchanged from last week - and still suggests a post-election rump of fewer than 100 Conservative MPs.
Seems to be peppers in the shortest supply round me, though not as short as the Tory rump predicted here. My instinct is that they'll recover substantially by the GE and Labour will get a super-slim majority, courtesy of the Parcel Of Roasters In A Nation that are the SNP.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
One of the key aims of the deal was to win over the DUP and restore the Stormont Executive, that seems to have not been done
RefUK also join the DUP in opposition to the Deal, no surprise there. Just needs the ERG now for the hat trick!
'@LBC ‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
It does, in that when there is a general tomato shortage - nothing to do with Brexit, as you say - those suppliers of tomatoes within the EU (which produces a lot of tomatoes) prefer to sell within the EU rather than wrestle with the new administrative barriers to trade by selling to the UK. So when there’s a shortage, Brexit puts us last in the queue.
When there is a shortage, tomatoes will go where the price is highest. That is why independent shops in the UK (and Ireland) buying on the open market have plenty of produce.
Not quite- if the market is working, they'll go where the profit is highest, which is slightly different. If you add an extra slice of hassle (like the UK's new non-tariff barriers) then the costs go up and it might be more to sell at a lower price elsewhere.
Incidentally, supermarket experts... We hear terrible things about how UK supermarkets treat suppliers, yet they're still more expensive than the Aldis and Lidls of this nation. What gives?
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
“the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement? So you need to take along and win with evidence of ‘exceptional circumstances’.
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
RefUK also join the DUP in opposition to the Deal, no surprise there
'@LBC ‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
What a pack of wasters.
Dare we hope this starts to help the UUP recover?
Can't we just get rid of Northern Ireland? A bunch of recalcitrant bigots on one side and a bunch of terrorist sympathizers on the other. All of which cost us 180m a year in subsidies. Let the Republic have them. At least that will be one fewer way Ireland sponges off its neighbours.
RefUK also join the DUP in opposition to the Deal, no surprise there. Just needs the ERG now for the hat trick!
'@LBC ‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
This will give Sunak a day or so of good news but I’d be surprised if we see an immediate polling bounce for the Tories. I just don’t think anything Brexit related is going to have much salience.
However longer term I think it’s a very helpful moment for him, if as seems likely it restores his authority over the parliamentary party. Simply exuding confidence in the commons will have a polling impact.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
“the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement?
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
It doesn't go to EU courts. You are simply making shit up.
The DUP are a bunch of prize knobends. What purpose do they serve beyond perennially agitating for endless dispute and disruption? Let the Alliance self-designate as Unionist for constitutional convenience and Michelle O'Neill can lead NI as FM without the moronic Orange Brigade. Naomi Long as DFM.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
What a pack of wasters.
Dare we hope this starts to help the UUP recover?
Can't we just get rid of Northern Ireland? A bunch of recalcitrant bigots on one side and a bunch of terrorist sympathizers on the other. All of which cost us 180m a year in subsidies. Let the Republic have them. At least that will be one fewer way Ireland sponges off its neighbours.
Oh I agree. I was hoping to make the Scots take NI with them.
The sad thing is I don’t think this will shift a single vote.
A pity for Rishi.
It's a bit of a shame, because he's done well. But yes, the people who gain from this are in Ulster and they don't vote Conservative anyway.
But it's only a bit of a shame. For the rest of us, it doesn't do much about the discontents of this Brexit. It won't, for example, make it easier to get tomatoes on our supermarket shelves.
For all this is a good day, we still have a very hard Brexit which Rishi has gone along with all along.
It's good that the UK is no longer doing a damnfool thing in a damnfool way. But doing a damnfool thing in a sensible way is only a limited improvement.
Given that the lack of tomatoes on our shelves has precisely nothing to do with Brexit - and even most anti-Brexiteers have not even tried to pretend it does - I think your characterisation is false.
It does, in that when there is a general tomato shortage - nothing to do with Brexit, as you say - those suppliers of tomatoes within the EU (which produces a lot of tomatoes) prefer to sell within the EU rather than wrestle with the new administrative barriers to trade by selling to the UK. So when there’s a shortage, Brexit puts us last in the queue.
When there is a shortage, tomatoes will go where the price is highest. That is why independent shops in the UK (and Ireland) buying on the open market have plenty of produce.
Not quite- if the market is working, they'll go where the profit is highest, which is slightly different. If you add an extra slice of hassle (like the UK's new non-tariff barriers) then the costs go up and it might be more to sell at a lower price elsewhere.
Right, but if the market is working, the price in the UK will then go still higher, to compensate for those difficulties and even out the profit. Which might make an argument that Brexit causes food prices to increase, but that's different.
This will give Sunak a day or so of good news but I’d be surprised if we see an immediate polling bounce for the Tories. I just don’t think anything Brexit related is going to have much salience.
However longer term I think it’s a very helpful moment for him, if as seems likely it restores his authority over the parliamentary party. Simply exuding confidence in the commons will have a polling impact.
Sunak's team don't seem to be capable of securing momentum from small victories.
I suspect they'll somehow manage to sour this triumph within 48 hours.
The same people saying we shouldn't be overreacting to Labour poll leads currently overreacting to a Brexit deal after the Tories said Brexit was "done"
RefUK also join the DUP in opposition to the Deal, no surprise there. Just needs the ERG now for the hat trick!
'@LBC ‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
Err. In what way does this deal have anything to do with tax cutting or deregulation?
I would suggest that this deal actually enables both and for the country to move forwards with whatever regulatory changes we want to make without worrying about what it does to the NI situation.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It's your prerogative to disagree with reality if you want, but it doesn't make for a useful discussion.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
“the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement? So you need to take along and win with evidence of ‘exceptional circumstances’.
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
No. It goes to arbitration.
Edit - I think you're confusing two issues. Where EU law still applies, which is now in 3% of cases where it previously applied, the CJEU will still interpret that law and its interpretation will be accepted because that's where such laws are decided. But any new law can be objected to via a petition at Stormont and that will be decided not by the CJEU but by an arbitration panel.
I managed to get tomatoes at my local Tesco today.
Between that and @MarqueeMark celebrating a 0.5% swing from LD to Conservative while the Tories remain 27 points behind Labour, it reminds me it's time to go into the Redfield & Wilton sub samples.
Starting with the likely to vote numbers and the Labour lead is just 22 points (43-21) with Don't Knows on 14%. The 2019 Conservative vote splits 48% Conservative, 21% Labour, 17% Don't Know and 10% Reform.
Stripping out the Don't Knows and the 65+ age group splits Labour 44%, Conservative 30% which is out of line with other pollsters showing the Conservative VI in the upper 20s. That's about a 30% swing from Conservative to Labour and is landslide country.
The swing in England is 20.5% - unchanged from last week - and still suggests a post-election rump of fewer than 100 Conservative MPs.
Today's Deltapoll would lead to 181 Conservative MPs
The DUP are a bunch of prize knobends. What purpose do they serve beyond perennially agitating for endless dispute and disruption? Let the Alliance self-designate as Unionist for constitution convenience and Michelle O'Neill can lead NI as FM without the moronic Orange Brigade. Naomi Long as DFM.
No, the UUP could do that if they back the Deal, not the Alliance
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
“the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement? So you need to take along and win with evidence of ‘exceptional circumstances’.
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
Nope. If HMG decides to use the brake after a Stormont Petition then courts have nothing to do with it.
What happens next is will there or not be a vote, and on what exactly, do we know for sure yet? The government made clear over weekend there wouldn’t be.
That the EU have it written in the agreement that the Truss Bill, law to override some post-Brexit trade rules, gets binned. So as a DUP or ERG or Labour Sceptic you have to be really sure Windsor Deal does tidy up your issues with this, before binning that legislation taking you backwards on your approach?
So if there is a vote on binning the Truss Bill, 100+ Tory against or abstentions, up to 30 Labour against or abstentions?
Just watching the NI statement in Parliament. Currently it is the SNP Leader, Flynn. What a complete moron. A contemptible contribution, following Sunak, Starmer and May. I really feel quite angry about it.
We should remember that as well as BoZo, Frost, Francois and Mogg, today is also a very bad day for the SNP
There I disagree, and if the SNP take time to pause and reflect they will (if they're sensible) disagree too. It shows you can have in effect a minimalist border between the U.K. and the EU. Which is vital to any economic case made for independence and particularly any such case that involves Scotland rejoining the EU.
It would also weaken claims of a hard border at Gretna.
RefUK also join the DUP in opposition to the Deal, no surprise there. Just needs the ERG now for the hat trick!
'@LBC ‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
You seem to actively want the deal to fail but you are going to be disappointed notwithstanding comments from some DUP representatives
“the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement? So you need to take along and win with evidence of ‘exceptional circumstances’.
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
No. It goes to arbitration.
Edit - I think you're confusing two issues. Where EU law still applies, which is now in 3% of cases where it previously applied, the CJEU will still interpret that law and its interpretation will be accepted because that's where such laws are decided. But any new law can be objected to via a petition at Stormont and that will be decided not by the CJEU but by an arbitration panel.
And "exceptional circumstances" is a quote from a press conference, not the legal standard entailed.
Ian Paisley Jnr says the deal doesn't 'cut the mustard.'
'Break: Ian Paisley, the DUP MP, tells me: the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard”. It provides no basis for the DUP to go back into government + Rishi Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
What a pack of wasters.
Dare we hope this starts to help the UUP recover?
Can't we just get rid of Northern Ireland? A bunch of recalcitrant bigots on one side and a bunch of terrorist sympathizers on the other. All of which cost us 180m a year in subsidies. Let the Republic have them. At least that will be one fewer way Ireland sponges off its neighbours.
No they are as British as Finchley to quote Thatcher
What happens next is will there or not be a vote, and on what exactly, do we know for sure yet? The government made clear over weekend there wouldn’t be.
That the EU have it written in the agreement that the Truss Bill, law to override some post-Brexit trade rules, gets binned. So as a DUP or ERG or Labour Sceptic you have to be really sure Windsor Deal does tidy up your issues with this, before binning that legislation taking you backwards on your approach?
So if there is a vote on binning the Truss Bill, 100+ Tory against or abstentions, up to 30 Labour against or abstentions?
There doesn't need to be a vote on withdrawing the NIP Bill. The government just doesn't timetable its remaining stages and it automatically falls at the end of the session.
I have to say Sunak is demolitioning Johnson's ludicrous NIP
Indeed it is astonishing just how awful it was
It was an appalling “deal” that put huge pressure on trade between Northern Ireland and the Mainland, and which surrendered sovereignty in several key areas.
Johnson and Frost were utter charlatans.
But it surrendered partial sovereinty only for Northern Ireland. That was better than May's deal which surrendered partial sovereignty for the whole UK. And that in turn was better than EU membership which suffered a whole lot more sovereignty for the whole UK.
I don’t accept this characterisation.
May’s simply booted certain arrangements into the longer term to avoid pain in the short term.
In some ways, it was a “hard” version of “Norway for now”.
What, precisely, did the UK do with Boris’s supposed additional sovereignty? It cost billions and billions in lost growth.
This is another example of how people talk across each other in this debate. No one sensible thinks Brexit made us richer. It made us poorer than we otherwise might have been, but we left for other reasons.
That’s not the debate. Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
No we're nowhere near what May proposed. She proposed a no way out backstop for the whole of the UK. We'd still be there if that had been implemented as the inertia factor on the EU side would be huge and the inertia factor for Brexit 2 would be even bigger for the UK to pull out of the EU deal.
I don’t agree.
It's your prerogative to disagree with reality if you want, but it doesn't make for a useful discussion.
Mays deal envisaged a new and subsequent arrangement in 2020. Specific arrangements on Northern Ireland were supposed to be agreed with the EU and the UK was free to take specific proposals to a Joint Committee.
As I said in my original post, while the UK did not retain a unilateral right to just break off this agreement, it is stretching things beyond credibly to think the UK signed up to a for-ever customs union.
From a pure negotiating perspective, I can see why some want to claim that it was better to get to where we are today via the kind of hard break Boris “negotiated”, but I’m afraid that the vassalage idea around May’s deal was totally overblown, and Boris’s route cost the economy many many billions.
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Your contention is that Boris’s deal was better than May’s because it delivered more sovereignty.
What is happening is that we are heading toward a macro state that is similar to what May managed to agree in the first place.
We just have had to pay several years of a Boris tax.
Just discovered somewhere where they still have an old-fashioned ceefax/teletext service on TV. Barcelona. 888 gets subtitles as well, like it used to do in the UK.
But it remains very difficult to imagine, as of today.
People vote on general feel and general impression. Not on details.
But if this starts to change the feel and general impression of Rishi, it will help him electorally.
Not at the press conference he didn’t. He came across as cringeworthy and not good at selling something with eyes or body language, shifty in other words.
To be very fair, He’s not really in the right job, of front man and Head of State. And this really is quite important. A Salesman can sell you rubbish, someone who is not good at it just leaves you sceptical and unconvinced regardless you getting a better deal or not.
"These were compounded by ferry cancellations due to bad weather, hitting lorry deliveries."
That was all bollocks, promoted by a the corrupt clown and his enablers.
a prime minister to be able to do'*, but here we are. Just waiting for the headbangers and Johnsonites to break cover and spoil it. Credit where it's due though - this does look like a sensible deal, and I struggle/shudder to imagine what Trussterfuck would've done here.
*albeit fixing a problem caused by his old gaffer
Very good to see.
Rejoining the EU is a distant dream (and might actually be a divisive nightmare for the UK), but re-entry to the Single Market is now imaginable.
There have been zero benefits to leaving it, and much trade lost or compromised, so there is now a clear path to returning, which I'm sure most people will be very happy with.
@DeltapollUK
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead is fifteen points in latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 31% (+3)
Lab 46% (-4)
Lib Dem 8% (-1)
Other 15% (+3)
Fieldwork: 24th - 27th February
Sample: 1,060 GB adults
(Changes from 17th - 20th February 2023)
https://twitter.com/DeltapollUK/status/1630257181097353217?cxt=HHwWgoCzvZmR658tAAAA
The restoration of stability through this agreement is the best medicine of all. Hopefully the entire UK will benefit, not just ulster
Firstly Are we not all agreeing GB-NI trade will no longer have any checks? So the border in Irish Sea is gone?
Certainly the break clause is not a break clause it’s being sold as, merely 30 votes needed to get courts to agree you have the “exceptional circumstances” justifying a break to the agreement - there’s definitely no change in that part, as the DUP will flag this up better than I can.
It was not the expectation of the UK government to just stay in the customs union.
The essential flavour of NI/Ireland trading flows post any customs union - ie, what Windsor delivers today - was already understood at high level. However the details were left pending.
May essentially did what Barty is always ranting about - ie leaving Northern Ireland until AFTER the deal to iron out. She just did it in a different way that avoided eroding the British economy.
I’m not really here to defend May who I think performed badly, but I fear that many. Brexiters are still high on their own supply.
While he is still a crap speaker, he's right to move the political battle to a field where he is more comfortable. It'll certainly be a better platform than all the culture war bollocks.
No doubt you also bought a monorail.
Between that and @MarqueeMark celebrating a 0.5% swing from LD to Conservative while the Tories remain 27 points behind Labour, it reminds me it's time to go into the Redfield & Wilton sub samples.
Starting with the likely to vote numbers and the Labour lead is just 22 points (43-21) with Don't Knows on 14%. The 2019 Conservative vote splits 48% Conservative, 21% Labour, 17% Don't Know and 10% Reform.
Stripping out the Don't Knows and the 65+ age group splits Labour 44%, Conservative 30% which is out of line with other pollsters showing the Conservative VI in the upper 20s. That's about a 30% swing from Conservative to Labour and is landslide country.
The swing in England is 20.5% - unchanged from last week - and still suggests a post-election rump of fewer than 100 Conservative MPs.
My hope would be that this experience, repeated over many such mutually beneficial agreements, would help create the sense that Britain and the EU are Better Together. A long way to go until that.
Ian Paisley dismisses the Stormont Brake which allows the Northern Ireland assembly to block EU legislation if it has a big and lasting impact on NI. He says the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach.' https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1630270192029782017?s=20
So looks like the DUP will vote against the Deal, which means it would not meet its 1st key test of restoring the Stormont Executive
We've actually got two competent leaders for the first time in ages.
Was a good day for Sunak.
Quite why some in the ERG (Dorries) are still saying they'll take their lead from the DUP.
Which Party are they members of exactly?
https://twitter.com/ITVJoel/status/1630280579148029952?s=20
It's absolute fantasy to suggest that the road not taken with May would end up with the any of UK out of all EU structures. There's simply no way to get there from where the envisaged deal started.
'@LBC
‘We’re ending up with Brexit in name only - we’re not cutting taxes, we’re not deregulating and therefore we’re not taking advantage of the opportunities of Brexit.’
Leader of Reform UK @TiceRichard tells @AndrewMarr9 that the new Brexit deal is ‘an absolute tragedy’.@LBC
@reformparty_uk
·
16m
They won't cut taxes. They won't deregulate.
The great opportunities from Brexit look set to be lost.
Today's deal is a reinforcement of BRINO - Brexit in name only.
Hear today's statement from @TiceRichard
https://twitter.com/reformparty_uk/status/1630285606168285184?s=20
Incidentally, supermarket experts... We hear terrible things about how UK supermarkets treat suppliers, yet they're still more expensive than the Aldis and Lidls of this nation. What gives?
To be fair though, regardless how politicians are trying to spin the Stormount Break mechanism, 30 assembly members needed to trigger the clause - how easy is that part - which then doesn’t change a thing, merely goes first into UK courts and ultimately to EU to override UK courts to decide that you really do have ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying to have break from the agreement? So you need to take along and win with evidence of ‘exceptional circumstances’.
This is actually what is written there isn’t it?
To use the DUP analogy, a break leaver stops something when you pull it. Pull this one nothing happens for years with no guarantee anything will change.
However longer term I think it’s a very helpful moment for him, if as seems likely it restores his authority over the parliamentary party. Simply exuding confidence in the commons will have a polling impact.
I suspect they'll somehow manage to sour this triumph within 48 hours.
Edit - I think you're confusing two issues. Where EU law still applies, which is now in 3% of cases where it previously applied, the CJEU will still interpret that law and its interpretation will be accepted because that's where such laws are decided. But any new law can be objected to via a petition at Stormont and that will be decided not by the CJEU but by an arbitration panel.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=31&LAB=46&LIB=8&Reform=2&Green=3&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=18.5&SCOTLAB=29.5&SCOTLIB=6.5&SCOTReform=0&SCOTGreen=0&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
https://twitter.com/DeltapollUK/status/1630257181097353217?s=20
That the EU have it written in the agreement that the Truss Bill, law to override some post-Brexit trade rules, gets binned. So as a DUP or ERG or Labour Sceptic you have to be really sure Windsor Deal does tidy up your issues with this, before binning that legislation taking you backwards on your approach?
So if there is a vote on binning the Truss Bill, 100+ Tory against or abstentions, up to 30 Labour against or abstentions?
It would also weaken claims of a hard border at Gretna.
It’s also wot screwed the Tory party since 2016.
Leave only won because voters were promised an end to austerity.
“A new hospital every week” and other such bullshit.
An honest leave campaign promising deregulation and tax cuts would have lost 25% / 75%. Maybe even worse than that.
No Brexiteer joins the EU CU. It would be bonkers on sticks.
As I said in my original post, while the UK did not retain a unilateral right to just break off this agreement, it is stretching things beyond credibly to think the UK signed up to a for-ever customs union.
From a pure negotiating perspective, I can see why some want to claim that it was better to get to where we are today via the kind of hard break Boris “negotiated”, but I’m afraid that the vassalage idea around May’s deal was totally overblown, and Boris’s route cost the economy many many billions.