Johnson has been exposed to all as the charlatan he always was.
Meanwhile the worst of this storm has passed; I think it has tracked further south than it might have, putting the most dangerous winds out to sea, thankfully.
A sneak preview of that Shakespeare book he was writing...
One mystery remains about 2016. The EU exempted the UK from the Euro under Major. This was massive, and drove a coach and horses through the whole meaning of the plan. But in 2015/16 they wouldn't give situational derogations from FOM to the UK, which was by comparison trivial in constitutional terms. Remain would have won. What were they up to?
I mean, they did do the "emergency brake" thing, it wasn't nothing. But on why the EU wouldn't (and won't) compromise on freedom of movement as a core principle while they didn't mind if Britain didn't join the Euro:
1) Freedom of movement was part of the deal under which much of the EU had joined, and a quid quo pro for opening their markets.
2) Everyone has a populist party so if one country starts getting silly populist things to appease them then you'll be dealing with it anywhere, and if freedom of movement unravels and you lose labour mobility then the economic basis of the Euro also unravels.
3) Most countries didn't particularly want Britain to be in the Euro since it has weird housing markets and things that make it complicated.
4) Going from no-Euro to Euro was a negotiation where everyone had to agree or there would be no Euro, so if the British said no it was Euro-without-Britain or No Euro, whereas renegotiating freedom of movement would have needed a new treaty where everyone agreed, and the default position if any member state wanted to be difficult about it would have been No Change.
PS I don't think it's at all clear that Remain would have won if the EU had agreed to abolish FoM for Britain. The Leave side hung their campaign on pictures of refugees from Syria, who would never have been affected by anything Cameron was ever asking for.
I’ve got a new passport. Ironically the last one filled up after 5 years (despite its jumbo size) partly due to Brexit. I travel so much I got stamps eveywhere. I do have another passport but I always need two and so I got another one
It’s my first post Brexit passport
Here’s the weird thing. It is genuinely handsome. A much more attractive passport than the old EU one. Distinctive and sombre and kinda lovely in its dark dark blueness
So there you have it. There’s another Brexit benefit. I readily confess it is nanoscopic in size and essentially meaningless but it is the case. The brexiteers got what they wanted. Nicer passports with a definite Britishness
Kids will grow up with these just as they grow up with Brexit and it will feel totally normal that we’re not part of the EU
Brexit benefit my arse.
Do you really think that our young people, growing up in a poorer, isolated Britain cowering behind the trade barriers it has decided to erect around itself because Cameron was frit of his nutters, won’t look at their peers across the Channel, merrily traversing Europe with no impediments, enjoying the clean beaches and environmental and worker protections the EU brings, the economic benefits the huge market can strike in advantageous trade deals without selling industries out in favour of fleeting positive headlines in the client press, and will be mollified because, in your opinion, their passport is a better design than the old EU one?
Are there two EUs ? I never got to join the one you described. I was in the one where you closed factories because brits were easy to sack and moved all their jobs to France or Germany.
The problem is, factories are still being closed, and business move to the EU, even after Brexit. Perhaps membership of the EU was not the main problem; and instead it was our own business and economic environment?
You now have me thinking. Are factories closing and transferring to the EU post Brexit ? I admit its not something Ive been tracking of late due to other matters. However it might also be that there have been no big announcements.
There have been transfers of jobs in the financial sector but no great implosion to date. In manufacturing the only ones which stick in my mind are Honda (but the work went back to Japan) and the loss of the Astra Zeneca factory to Ireland but that was more related to a susbsidy auction. Have you any factory moves in mind ?
One mystery remains about 2016. The EU exempted the UK from the Euro under Major. This was massive, and drove a coach and horses through the whole meaning of the plan. But in 2015/16 they wouldn't give situational derogations from FOM to the UK, which was by comparison trivial in constitutional terms. Remain would have won. What were they up to?
I mean, they did do the "emergency brake" thing, it wasn't nothing. But on why the EU wouldn't (and won't) compromise on freedom of movement as a core principle while they didn't mind if Britain didn't join the Euro:
1) Freedom of movement was part of the deal under which much of the EU had joined, and a quid quo pro for opening their markets.
2) Everyone has a populist party so if one country starts getting silly populist things to appease them then you'll be dealing with it anywhere, and if freedom of movement unravels and you lose labour mobility then the economic basis of the Euro also unravels.
3) Most countries didn't particularly want Britain to be in the Euro since it has weird housing markets and things that make it complicated.
4) Going from no-Euro to Euro was a negotiation where everyone had to agree or there would be no Euro, so if the British said no it was Euro-without-Britain or No Euro, whereas renegotiating freedom of movement would have needed a new treaty where everyone agreed, and the default position if any member state wanted to be difficult about it would have been No Change.
PS I don't think it's at all clear that Remain would have won if the EU had agreed to abolish FoM for Britain. The Leave side hung their campaign on pictures of refugees from Syria, who would never have been affected by anything Cameron was ever asking for.
I’ve got a new passport. Ironically the last one filled up after 5 years (despite its jumbo size) partly due to Brexit. I travel so much I got stamps eveywhere. I do have another passport but I always need two and so I got another one
It’s my first post Brexit passport
Here’s the weird thing. It is genuinely handsome. A much more attractive passport than the old EU one. Distinctive and sombre and kinda lovely in its dark dark blueness
So there you have it. There’s another Brexit benefit. I readily confess it is nanoscopic in size and essentially meaningless but it is the case. The brexiteers got what they wanted. Nicer passports with a definite Britishness
Kids will grow up with these just as they grow up with Brexit and it will feel totally normal that we’re not part of the EU
Brexit benefit my arse.
Do you really think that our young people, growing up in a poorer, isolated Britain cowering behind the trade barriers it has decided to erect around itself because Cameron was frit of his nutters, won’t look at their peers across the Channel, merrily traversing Europe with no impediments, enjoying the clean beaches and environmental and worker protections the EU brings, the economic benefits the huge market can strike in advantageous trade deals without selling industries out in favour of fleeting positive headlines in the client press, and will be mollified because, in your opinion, their passport is a better design than the old EU one?
Are there two EUs ? I never got to join the one you described. I was in the one where you closed factories because brits were easy to sack and moved all their jobs to France or Germany.
The problem is, factories are still being closed, and business move to the EU, even after Brexit. Perhaps membership of the EU was not the main problem; and instead it was our own business and economic environment?
Well NM was in a different EU.
In my EU the UK tried to have an anglo capitalist economy in a social market economy. The result was great for big corporations but bad for UK workers. And both Labour and Conservatives were happy with the results.
The EU isn't monolithic like that I've done a fair amount of business in Brussels over the years. DG-MARKT and its successors and DG-COMP, which are actually pretty good, do indeed try to have a centrist market economy. But other parts of the EU, like DG-AGRI and DG-ENER and most of the European Parliament, basically want to drown Europe in interventionism and red tape. And there are divisions even within the different departments - you can get a very different answer from a pro-market Dutch official than from a protectionist socialist Romanian, whatever the policy of their organisation is.
So trying to paint a coherent ideology on the sprawling bureaucracy there is almost certainly a waste of time. The only thing that unites them is a desire to keep the show somehow on the road, which they interpret in the tired old bicycle analogy - go forward (i.e. get more power and status) or fall over.
I was thinking mostly of the issue of workers protection. In the UK this is weak so the brits are always first in line for sackings. There isnt the needfor a social plan and no bureaucracy like the Inspecteur du Travail in France of the Arbeitsamt in Germany to manage closures or redundancies. If the UK had had a similar protection regime less jobs would have gone.
One mystery remains about 2016. The EU exempted the UK from the Euro under Major. This was massive, and drove a coach and horses through the whole meaning of the plan. But in 2015/16 they wouldn't give situational derogations from FOM to the UK, which was by comparison trivial in constitutional terms. Remain would have won. What were they up to?
I mean, they did do the "emergency brake" thing, it wasn't nothing. But on why the EU wouldn't (and won't) compromise on freedom of movement as a core principle while they didn't mind if Britain didn't join the Euro:
1) Freedom of movement was part of the deal under which much of the EU had joined, and a quid quo pro for opening their markets.
2) Everyone has a populist party so if one country starts getting silly populist things to appease them then you'll be dealing with it anywhere, and if freedom of movement unravels and you lose labour mobility then the economic basis of the Euro also unravels.
3) Most countries didn't particularly want Britain to be in the Euro since it has weird housing markets and things that make it complicated.
4) Going from no-Euro to Euro was a negotiation where everyone had to agree or there would be no Euro, so if the British said no it was Euro-without-Britain or No Euro, whereas renegotiating freedom of movement would have needed a new treaty where everyone agreed, and the default position if any member state wanted to be difficult about it would have been No Change.
PS I don't think it's at all clear that Remain would have won if the EU had agreed to abolish FoM for Britain. The Leave side hung their campaign on pictures of refugees from Syria, who would never have been affected by anything Cameron was ever asking for.
I’ve got a new passport. Ironically the last one filled up after 5 years (despite its jumbo size) partly due to Brexit. I travel so much I got stamps eveywhere. I do have another passport but I always need two and so I got another one
It’s my first post Brexit passport
Here’s the weird thing. It is genuinely handsome. A much more attractive passport than the old EU one. Distinctive and sombre and kinda lovely in its dark dark blueness
So there you have it. There’s another Brexit benefit. I readily confess it is nanoscopic in size and essentially meaningless but it is the case. The brexiteers got what they wanted. Nicer passports with a definite Britishness
Kids will grow up with these just as they grow up with Brexit and it will feel totally normal that we’re not part of the EU
Brexit benefit my arse.
Do you really think that our young people, growing up in a poorer, isolated Britain cowering behind the trade barriers it has decided to erect around itself because Cameron was frit of his nutters, won’t look at their peers across the Channel, merrily traversing Europe with no impediments, enjoying the clean beaches and environmental and worker protections the EU brings, the economic benefits the huge market can strike in advantageous trade deals without selling industries out in favour of fleeting positive headlines in the client press, and will be mollified because, in your opinion, their passport is a better design than the old EU one?
Are there two EUs ? I never got to join the one you described. I was in the one where you closed factories because brits were easy to sack and moved all their jobs to France or Germany.
The problem is, factories are still being closed, and business move to the EU, even after Brexit. Perhaps membership of the EU was not the main problem; and instead it was our own business and economic environment?
You now have me thinking. Are factories closing and transferring to the EU post Brexit ? I admit its not something Ive been tracking of late due to other matters. However it might also be that there have been no big announcements.
There have been transfers of jobs in the financial sector but no great implosion to date. In manufacturing the only ones which stick in my mind are Honda (but the work went back to Japan) and the loss of the Astra Zeneca factory to Ireland but that was more related to a susbsidy auction. Have you any factory moves in mind ?
JLR to Slovakia in 2018 was one.. Phillips I think as well. Not something I follow closely.
One mystery remains about 2016. The EU exempted the UK from the Euro under Major. This was massive, and drove a coach and horses through the whole meaning of the plan. But in 2015/16 they wouldn't give situational derogations from FOM to the UK, which was by comparison trivial in constitutional terms. Remain would have won. What were they up to?
I mean, they did do the "emergency brake" thing, it wasn't nothing. But on why the EU wouldn't (and won't) compromise on freedom of movement as a core principle while they didn't mind if Britain didn't join the Euro:
1) Freedom of movement was part of the deal under which much of the EU had joined, and a quid quo pro for opening their markets.
2) Everyone has a populist party so if one country starts getting silly populist things to appease them then you'll be dealing with it anywhere, and if freedom of movement unravels and you lose labour mobility then the economic basis of the Euro also unravels.
3) Most countries didn't particularly want Britain to be in the Euro since it has weird housing markets and things that make it complicated.
4) Going from no-Euro to Euro was a negotiation where everyone had to agree or there would be no Euro, so if the British said no it was Euro-without-Britain or No Euro, whereas renegotiating freedom of movement would have needed a new treaty where everyone agreed, and the default position if any member state wanted to be difficult about it would have been No Change.
PS I don't think it's at all clear that Remain would have won if the EU had agreed to abolish FoM for Britain. The Leave side hung their campaign on pictures of refugees from Syria, who would never have been affected by anything Cameron was ever asking for.
I’ve got a new passport. Ironically the last one filled up after 5 years (despite its jumbo size) partly due to Brexit. I travel so much I got stamps eveywhere. I do have another passport but I always need two and so I got another one
It’s my first post Brexit passport
Here’s the weird thing. It is genuinely handsome. A much more attractive passport than the old EU one. Distinctive and sombre and kinda lovely in its dark dark blueness
So there you have it. There’s another Brexit benefit. I readily confess it is nanoscopic in size and essentially meaningless but it is the case. The brexiteers got what they wanted. Nicer passports with a definite Britishness
Kids will grow up with these just as they grow up with Brexit and it will feel totally normal that we’re not part of the EU
Brexit benefit my arse.
Do you really think that our young people, growing up in a poorer, isolated Britain cowering behind the trade barriers it has decided to erect around itself because Cameron was frit of his nutters, won’t look at their peers across the Channel, merrily traversing Europe with no impediments, enjoying the clean beaches and environmental and worker protections the EU brings, the economic benefits the huge market can strike in advantageous trade deals without selling industries out in favour of fleeting positive headlines in the client press, and will be mollified because, in your opinion, their passport is a better design than the old EU one?
Are there two EUs ? I never got to join the one you described. I was in the one where you closed factories because brits were easy to sack and moved all their jobs to France or Germany.
The problem is, factories are still being closed, and business move to the EU, even after Brexit. Perhaps membership of the EU was not the main problem; and instead it was our own business and economic environment?
You now have me thinking. Are factories closing and transferring to the EU post Brexit ? I admit its not something Ive been tracking of late due to other matters. However it might also be that there have been no big announcements.
There have been transfers of jobs in the financial sector but no great implosion to date. In manufacturing the only ones which stick in my mind are Honda (but the work went back to Japan) and the loss of the Astra Zeneca factory to Ireland but that was more related to a susbsidy auction. Have you any factory moves in mind ?
JLR to Slovakia in 2018 was one.. Phillips I think as well. Not something I follow closely.
One mystery remains about 2016. The EU exempted the UK from the Euro under Major. This was massive, and drove a coach and horses through the whole meaning of the plan. But in 2015/16 they wouldn't give situational derogations from FOM to the UK, which was by comparison trivial in constitutional terms. Remain would have won. What were they up to?
I mean, they did do the "emergency brake" thing, it wasn't nothing. But on why the EU wouldn't (and won't) compromise on freedom of movement as a core principle while they didn't mind if Britain didn't join the Euro:
1) Freedom of movement was part of the deal under which much of the EU had joined, and a quid quo pro for opening their markets.
2) Everyone has a populist party so if one country starts getting silly populist things to appease them then you'll be dealing with it anywhere, and if freedom of movement unravels and you lose labour mobility then the economic basis of the Euro also unravels.
3) Most countries didn't particularly want Britain to be in the Euro since it has weird housing markets and things that make it complicated.
4) Going from no-Euro to Euro was a negotiation where everyone had to agree or there would be no Euro, so if the British said no it was Euro-without-Britain or No Euro, whereas renegotiating freedom of movement would have needed a new treaty where everyone agreed, and the default position if any member state wanted to be difficult about it would have been No Change.
PS I don't think it's at all clear that Remain would have won if the EU had agreed to abolish FoM for Britain. The Leave side hung their campaign on pictures of refugees from Syria, who would never have been affected by anything Cameron was ever asking for.
I’ve got a new passport. Ironically the last one filled up after 5 years (despite its jumbo size) partly due to Brexit. I travel so much I got stamps eveywhere. I do have another passport but I always need two and so I got another one
It’s my first post Brexit passport
Here’s the weird thing. It is genuinely handsome. A much more attractive passport than the old EU one. Distinctive and sombre and kinda lovely in its dark dark blueness
So there you have it. There’s another Brexit benefit. I readily confess it is nanoscopic in size and essentially meaningless but it is the case. The brexiteers got what they wanted. Nicer passports with a definite Britishness
Kids will grow up with these just as they grow up with Brexit and it will feel totally normal that we’re not part of the EU
Brexit benefit my arse.
Do you really think that our young people, growing up in a poorer, isolated Britain cowering behind the trade barriers it has decided to erect around itself because Cameron was frit of his nutters, won’t look at their peers across the Channel, merrily traversing Europe with no impediments, enjoying the clean beaches and environmental and worker protections the EU brings, the economic benefits the huge market can strike in advantageous trade deals without selling industries out in favour of fleeting positive headlines in the client press, and will be mollified because, in your opinion, their passport is a better design than the old EU one?
Are there two EUs ? I never got to join the one you described. I was in the one where you closed factories because brits were easy to sack and moved all their jobs to France or Germany.
The problem is, factories are still being closed, and business move to the EU, even after Brexit. Perhaps membership of the EU was not the main problem; and instead it was our own business and economic environment?
You now have me thinking. Are factories closing and transferring to the EU post Brexit ? I admit its not something Ive been tracking of late due to other matters. However it might also be that there have been no big announcements.
There have been transfers of jobs in the financial sector but no great implosion to date. In manufacturing the only ones which stick in my mind are Honda (but the work went back to Japan) and the loss of the Astra Zeneca factory to Ireland but that was more related to a susbsidy auction. Have you any factory moves in mind ?
JLR to Slovakia in 2018 was one.. Phillips I think as well. Not something I follow closely.
Brexit has been a disaster. It didn't need to have been, but when your main voices were Farage and Boris... it was going to be.
Brexiteers dreamt of Singapore-on-Thames; they've ended up with Little Britain.
Personally I dont see that, Brexit has been more a case of business as usual. The points you refer to are less to do with closures and more to do with investment. Anything to do with the car industry is a subsidy auction and the UK is not playing the game very well. Though it has tried to shift with JLR battery factory and new Mini.
But the closures were going on in the EU regime too, what I havent seen is any mass migration.
I hope people have been following the Sam Bankman-Fried trial going on in New York, around the fraud going on at FTX - if he's not convicted it'll be a travesty, his whole defence consists of 'I remember nothing' 'I was the boss but had nothing to do with anything going on' 'Also, I am still a genius and there was nothing wrong with what was going on, but that nothing wrong was still other people's fault'.
You’re forgetting the redefinition of fraud. “Stealing the customers money was not fraud because I was going to do good with it. I just didn’t get round to putting it back.”
Courthouse News - Fight to trademark ‘Trump too small’ fizzles at Supreme Court The justices were leery of giving one individual a monopoly over a name that wasn’t his own.
The Supreme Court seemed uninterested Wednesday in altering decades of trademark law to allow a lawyer to have exclusive use of the slogan “Trump too small.”
“Some things you’re just not able to monopolize,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said.
Steve Elster wants the justices to overturn a government decision to block his trademark of “Trump too small,” which he planned to plaster on T-shirts and hats for a profit. The phrase harkens back to a viral moment during the 2016 Republican primary debate when Senator Marco Rubio made a joke about the size of Donald Trump’s hands. Trump took the insult personally, addressing the insult during a presidential debate.
The joke inspired Elster to use the double entendre as political commentary. Elster wanted to trademark the phrase, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied his application because marks with public officials’ names require consent.
An appeals board affirmed the office’s decision, but a federal circuit court reversed, finding Elster had a First Amendment claim. The government then turned to the Supreme Court to revive its policy.
The majority of justices appeared to be of the same mind as Gorsuch, favoring the government’s policy of not allowing trademarks on names without consent. Chief Justice John Roberts worried a ruling in favor of Elster would set off a trademark race.
“Presumably there will be a race for people to trademark Trump too this, Trump too that, whatever, and then particularly in the area of political expression, that really cuts off a lot of expressions other people might regard as important,” the George W. Bush appointee said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the government was not restricting Elster’s speech because he could sell as many shirts with “Trump too small” on them as he wanted — he just couldn’t prevent others from doing so.
“It’s almost as if we’re becoming strait-jacketed by labels instead of looking at this as I do from first principles,” the Obama appointee said. “The question is, is this an infringement on speech? And the answer is no.”
A rare case of the SC judges both uniting and making the right decision.
How did he think that the court would allow a trademark on someone else’s name? Imagine the activists all seeking to trademark anything memorable any politician said in a debate. As Justice Sotomayor said, no-one is preventing him from selling his T-shirts.
That’s one from the Joylon school of fox-bashing legal thinking, hopefully Mr Elster also has some silly benefactors to pay his costs.
The Supreme Court is often rather sensible, and the most interesting verdicts are those that cross the liberal-conservative divide.
Comments
https://twitter.com/mrhenrymorris/status/1719725844036239380?t=XARrvlMx4IN4UFVB6v9DFQ&s=19
I admit its not something Ive been tracking of late due to other matters. However it might also be that there have been no big announcements.
There have been transfers of jobs in the financial sector but no great implosion to date. In manufacturing the only ones which stick in my mind are Honda (but the work went back to Japan) and the loss of the Astra Zeneca factory to Ireland but that was more related to a susbsidy auction. Have you any factory moves in mind ?
Meanwhile the ferries are cancelled currently, so those of you on North Island over the Solent will be pleased to know that you are all cut off.
NEW THREAD
Not factories, but Panasonic and P&O both moved
Then you get stories like this:
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/another-manufacturer-bypasses-britain-because-of-brexit/
Brexit has been a disaster. It didn't need to have been, but when your main voices were Farage and Boris... it was going to be.
Brexiteers dreamt of Singapore-on-Thames; they've ended up with Little Britain.
But the closures were going on in the EU regime too, what I havent seen is any mass migration.
Not agendas perfectly aligned with the parties, but their own personal politics.
Though some of my apologies do need some work
‘I am sorry for calling you stupid, I thought you knew.’