Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A European Strategy?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A European Strategy?
It was Napoleon who famously described the English as “a nation of shopkeepers”, not meant as a compliment, one imagines. Still, a bit rich coming from someone who sold Louisiana to the US to enrich his Treasury and help create a rival to England. The English may have paid others to do their fighting for them, usually against the French, but they have yet to sell bits of their country off. (The easily offended should look away now: dare I suggest that selling the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone to Ireland might solve quite a few problems for today’s rulers?)
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/916219794185125888
Meanwhile... I seem Theresa May plans to go on and on...
This won't work out well...
I meant that you were a nation of merchants, and that all your great riches, and your grand resources arose from commerce, which is true. What else constitutes the riches of England? It is not extent of territory, or a numerous population. It is not mines of gold, silver, or diamonds. Moreover, no man of sense ought to be ashamed of being called a shopkeeper. But your prince and your ministers appear to wish to change altogether l'esprit of the English, and to render you another nation; to make you ashamed of your shops and your trade, which have made you what you are, and to sigh after nobility, titles and crosses; in fact to assimilate you with the French...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_shopkeepers
It will be a massively compromised Brexit where we pay more and get less and have less say over what happens to us, but if you can get over all that, it could work after a fashion. It's all about damage limitation. That's why I disagree with CycleFree.
How can the EU move?
Cabinet at War. Terrified of Corbyn.
How can we move?
WTO I reckon.
Plenty more where those came from post Brexit
Is the doom and gloom on a deal being done (substance notwithstanding) really justified though? We don't know what is happening behind the scenes... was it not inevitable that things would look pretty dire at some point during negotiations, and could that not be necessary to push both sides to make progress?
0% chance of a happy outcome seems very low...
https://thetradenews.com/Regions/Europe/Goldman-acquires-space-for-1,000-staff-in-Frankfurt-as-Brexit-looms/
https://twitter.com/ITVWales/status/916272937346457600
The progressive alliance.
But what happens if the other WTO countries do not agree with your WTO tariffs?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/92bb5636-a95b-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97
Unless we reverse Brexit and join the Euro sooner rather than later, we'll be choosing a long term path of decline.
Cyclefree for PM.
Labour: 42% (-1)
Conservative: 40% (+1)
Liberal Democrats: 7% (nc)
UKIP: 4% (nc)
Green: 2% (nc)
twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/916274242936852480
I would also expect at least some Labour MPs to support the government on a deal which avoided a calamity cliff-edge, especially if a few key concessions are made. The pressure on MPs at that point from business etc. would also presumably be significant.
Plus Greens continue to be subdued.
Grant Shapps; what a plonker!
Money is just haggling and the prospect of losing rather more money (and the possibility of agreeing a fee for 1 year subject to renegotiation next year atc.) should make that resolvable.
"As part of this, we and the EU have committed to protecting the Belfast Agreement and the Common Travel Area and, looking ahead, we have both stated explicitly that we will not accept any physical infrastructure at the border.
"We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland – and indeed to everyone on the island of Ireland - to see through these commitments."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010
After Jan 22 2008, the Tories led in every single poll, except for four Cleggasm polls, up to GE2010
Yes, we need serious and imaginative leaders, both here and in the EU. Sadly, on the European side, there seems a complete and perhaps willful inability to understand and accommodate the reality of Brexit, and on the British side, the very process of Brexit has left every meaningful actor in the play too weak to deliver on the flexibility an vision required (though that would only be possible if the EU engaged too).
I struggle to see how this doesn't end very badly and perhaps with a great deal of ill will.
Miss Cyclefree, nice post, but I fear appealing to the EU for a sense of flexibility is optimistic at best.
F1: for those who missed it, my pre-qualifying ramble on Japan is up here, with a pair of tips:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/japan-pre-qualifying-2017.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4955230/Man-tried-carry-explosive-plane-Sweden.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-41527461/theresa-may-on-providing-calm-leadership
And I should add, it ought to focus EU minds on working for their members than worrying about the UK
https://order-order.com/2017/10/06/corbyn-gave-tour-parliament-anti-semitic-conspiracy-theorist/
So what? Why should we care and what difference can we make if they do indeed hurt themselves.
It is the cake and eat it negotiating strategy - we want this and if you don't give it to us you will be the ones that suffer and we presume that you don't want that.
As the man said - que?
Brexit is a rupture to what everyone assumed would be an organisation getting larger as new members joined with no-one ever leaving. Why not take a deep breath, pause and look again?
It is a great pity IMO that we have not been able to find a way of developing a pan-European structure able to accommodate Britain and Continental Europe and that we are not using this opportunity to do so.
All these unedifying arguments are like a group of friends at the end of a bug dinner arguing about who had an extra vodka Martini, who ate more bread rolls etc ending up in acrimony and broken friendships.
But that would have been an insanely optimistic note on which to end......
That kind of accommodation?
How else would I get a Napoleonic and Churchillian reference into the first paragraph?!
i) Its a great opportunity to steal some of the industry that had based itself in the UK for exporting to the EU.
ii) As long as the ruling party is hopelessly divided between pragmatists and anti-EU fanatics who want it destroyed, there is no real possibility of coming to some sort of constructive partnership.
No - an accommodation which worked for other countries as well e.g Eastern European countries and smaller countries and countries with different legal systems, an accommodation which took into account the very different experiences of and attitudes to immigration and multi-culturalism arounf Europe, for a start.
After well over 60 years we need to look at the whole thing again and should be learning from the mistakes and events along the way. And we should be using this opportunity to think again, even if there was - as you think - a perfectly good missed opportunity we could have taken last year.
My personal view FWIW is that the “deal” was so-so, nowhere near as good as some claimed it to be, vulnerable to legall challenge and chipping away but could have been lived with. But it was fundamentally flawed in that it was - and appeared to be - far too technocratic and focused on matters of little concern to ordinary voters (who did not give a toss about protecting the banking sector) and did not really address their concerns at all.
The Prime Minister has the support of the majority of Conservative MPs and will continue to lead the Conservative Parliamentary Party and the country.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/dispute-resolution-after-brexit
Yes I think that is the nub, which of course ties in with your earlier comment about some home truths for the voters. The thing of course which D'sD failed all hands down on was immigration. That was probably as much a symbol of a perceived lack of sovereignty as an issue in itself, and one that the deal didn't address, or rather, that fell far short of what many ordinary voters probably wanted.
As to the whole redrawing of the EU? I'm not one for epochal predictions, but I feel that we are probably more at the beginning of the EU epoch than the end of it. Those Eastern European countries are only going to get richer and as they do, then they will find both a louder voice, and perhaps a more natural place within the EU, whatever it is by then. Of course they might think that they have outgrown it also, but my guess is that the EU in 20 years time will be more powerful, one way or another, than it is today or in April 2019.
Sky presenter just said Theresa May facing increased calls for her to stand down as Grant Shapps has upto 50 MP's supporting him
At the same time as saying this the strapline is saying 30 and she clearly has no idea of the significance in the different numbers.
We are quick to attack politicians but the broadcast media are at times just as bad, if not worse