That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
Lots of similar stories at the time, and talking heads on the TV saying the same.
I don't want to get to January and have people say, "It was never going to be ready in the first half of the year." And then on, and on, and on.
The timing is waiting for the completion of Phase III trials.
Phase III trials couldn't proceed in the UK because the prevalence of the virus was too low (ironic eh?) so were moved abroad. Phase III trials are underway already in Brazil and other countries and we are awaiting those results.
Yes. I know. That's what they said in June. With the results expected September/October (if it worked).
The obvious reason for the timescale to slip is that the vaccine doesn't work that well, and so it will take longer for the statistical evidence of how well it does work to emerge from the noise.
This is disappointing news, rather than "what we always knew" or "good news, it will be ready in four months".
No that isn't the reason the timescale slipped.
The reason the timescale changed was that the planned Phase III trial in the UK couldn't proceed because the UK brought the virus under control so the trial was moved overseas. Which meant setting up a trial, recruiting volunteers, getting the results etc overseas.
A Phase III trial in the UK couldn't answer if the vaccine works or not as there's not enough prevalence of virus in the UK to tell if it is working or not, hence the trials had to start in Brazil etc instead. Since the trials started in Brazil the timing has never been for Phase III results to be available by September. That says nothing about whether the vaccine works or not nor anything about statistical noise.
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
Absolutely great idea and it occurred to me only yesterday exactly the same thing.
If people are commuting less there's no real benefit if they have to pay eg. a yearly season ticket there is just an excess cost. Having as you suggest 2/3/4 days per week would make a huge difference.
Only problem is that, say, you were commuting 3 days a week, it's likely (haven't done the calcs) that you would pay more if you purchased those tickets separately than if you bought a full time season ticket and hence you are a captive audience for the full season ticket so why would the TOCs give a ****.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
And hence being in the EU did not relinquish our sovereignty as parliament indeed undid it.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
It’s not possible for the UK Government to agree to something Parliament cannot undo under our legal system, so it’s pointless even discussing it.
If Britain was always (and is) sovereign then why are you whinging about the fantastic oven-ready WA “impinging on our sovereignty”?
The issue is not sovereignty. The issue is agreeing to something and decrying it as a fantastic deal for Britain, and then 12 months later deciding it’s actually sh*t.
I'm not whinging about the WA impinging on our sovereignty, since the WA does not impinge on our sovereignty.
You really need to improve your reading comprehension, you keep saying I'm whinging when I'm not. Maybe you should drop your preconceived ideas about what I think and read what I have to say instead.
The WA isn't shit. I'm not saying it is. The WA is fine for what it was and has served its purpose. Now Parliament needs to determine what we are going to do going forwards and Parliament is supreme as it always has been and as it always should be.
Wow, the subject turns back to Brexit, and the debate careers onto 1066, France invading the UK, the Battle of Lincoln, William of Orange, Hitler, the battle of Britain and reminiscing of the time when Hugh Grant was PM.
This is Godwin's Law raised to the power of 10.
Hugh Grant was a great PM though.
He would probably be better than the current idiot
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
My proposal, that you haven't yet accepted, does exactly that. The UK could cancel the arrangment with notice and within the agreement, and it therefore doesn't bind successor governments.
I have no qualms with the third part of your proposal. The second part I do and I think its redundant, unnecessary and counterproductive. But there's no problems with the third part and it doesn't need the second part.
I have not been on of late (CHB will be pleased) because I find the political sphere at the moment so unutterably awful, that there is little to say apart from how awful it actually is.
The Prime Minister and the LOTO behave like fifth formers at Greyfriars School (Billy Bunter) for those who have not read about Bunter.
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
Absolutely great idea and it occurred to me only yesterday exactly the same thing.
If people are commuting less there's no real benefit if they have to pay eg. a yearly season ticket there is just an excess cost. Having as you suggest 2/3/4 days per week would make a huge difference.
Only problem is that, say, you were commuting 3 days a week, it's likely (haven't done the calcs) that you would pay more if you purchased those tickets separately than if you bought a full time season ticket and hence you are a captive audience for the full season ticket so why would the TOCs give a ****.
There is a 10 single ticket Flexipass, in Scotland at least, that I was using because I wasn't going into the office every day and at least one day a week I wouldn't take the return journey. Each single ticket works out at half the day return rate. It's quite flexible but it depends how you price it.
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
Absolutely great idea and it occurred to me only yesterday exactly the same thing.
If people are commuting less there's no real benefit if they have to pay eg. a yearly season ticket there is just an excess cost. Having as you suggest 2/3/4 days per week would make a huge difference.
Only problem is that, say, you were commuting 3 days a week, it's likely (haven't done the calcs) that you would pay more if you purchased those tickets separately than if you bought a full time season ticket and hence you are a captive audience for the full season ticket so why would the TOCs give a ****.
Yes, they wouldn't would they. Which is why it needs Ofrail or whatever the regulator is to force train companies to offer them. From my perspective it probably encourages people back onto trains who would otherwise just live with remote working to save the cash.
If Labour pushed this policy it works be very popular IMO, there's no downsides other than a lower potential maximum revenue for train companies and as I said, no one really cares about that.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
I have not been on of late (CHB will be pleased) because I find the political sphere at the moment so unutterably awful, that there is little to say apart from how awful it actually is.
The Prime Minister and the LOTO behave like fifth formers at Greyfriars School (Billy Bunter) for those who have not read about Bunter.
Lots of similar stories at the time, and talking heads on the TV saying the same.
I don't want to get to January and have people say, "It was never going to be ready in the first half of the year." And then on, and on, and on.
The timing is waiting for the completion of Phase III trials.
Phase III trials couldn't proceed in the UK because the prevalence of the virus was too low (ironic eh?) so were moved abroad. Phase III trials are underway already in Brazil and other countries and we are awaiting those results.
Yes. I know. That's what they said in June. With the results expected September/October (if it worked).
The obvious reason for the timescale to slip is that the vaccine doesn't work that well, and so it will take longer for the statistical evidence of how well it does work to emerge from the noise.
This is disappointing news, rather than "what we always knew" or "good news, it will be ready in four months".
No that isn't the reason the timescale slipped.
The reason the timescale changed was that the planned Phase III trial in the UK couldn't proceed because the UK brought the virus under control so the trial was moved overseas. Which meant setting up a trial, recruiting volunteers, getting the results etc overseas.
A Phase III trial in the UK couldn't answer if the vaccine works or not as there's not enough prevalence of virus in the UK to tell if it is working or not, hence the trials had to start in Brazil etc instead. Since the trials started in Brazil the timing has never been for Phase III results to be available by September. That says nothing about whether the vaccine works or not nor anything about statistical noise.
This isn't true. They already knew in June that the infection rate was not high enough in the UK for a phase 3 trial and went to Brazil and South Africa then. See
With the polls consistently bad for Trump, my view now on the POTUS election is that,
“TRUMP CAN’T WIN BIGLY BUT HE CAN SURE LOSE BIGLY”.
I know rcs1000 has been making this very point - though perhaps not quite as elegantly!
I’ve just bought BIDEN ECV votes at 285 for £10 a point with SPIN. (Voided if Biden doesn’t contest the election).
Now let’s go win it Joe!
Yes, this looks like a bet with very little downside (say about 20 points maximum) and a helluva lot of upside. (I don't really think Joe will turn Texas but if he did the bet would pay bigly!)
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
You sound like you are turning into a right leftie in your old age ;-)
To be fair, the thought the country is going to go back to 5 days a week in an office is for the birds. I saw an interview with the guy who owns Vanarama the other day, and he said he was initially very sceptical of remote working, but now it will be company policy for only part time in the office, regardless of COVID situation.
He was very positive about how his employees worked, and that for him as a business it would save him loads of money on office / car parking costs.
I wouldn't fancy owning a business that revolves around anything to do with servicing office work in a big city. When COVID is finished, those businesses aren't going to find the same demand will be there.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
And hence being in the EU did not relinquish our sovereignty as parliament indeed undid it.
So what was all the fuss about?
Because we couldn't exercise that sovereignty without leaving and we wanted to exercise it.
What you are saying is like saying if you have money in the bank that is yours and you want to spend it then why withdraw it from the bank? Of course as long as the money remains in the bank it remains yours but if you want to spend it then the money must leave the bank.
The fact of sovereignty was never at issue, the exercise of it was.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
It’s not possible for the UK Government to agree to something Parliament cannot undo under our legal system, so it’s pointless even discussing it.
If Britain was always (and is) sovereign then why are you whinging about the fantastic oven-ready WA “impinging on our sovereignty”?
The issue is not sovereignty. The issue is agreeing to something and decrying it as a fantastic deal for Britain, and then 12 months later deciding it’s actually sh*t.
I'm not whinging about the WA impinging on our sovereignty, since the WA does not impinge on our sovereignty.
You really need to improve your reading comprehension, you keep saying I'm whinging when I'm not. Maybe you should drop your preconceived ideas about what I think and read what I have to say instead.
The WA isn't shit. I'm not saying it is. The WA is fine for what it was and has served its purpose. Now Parliament needs to determine what we are going to do going forwards and Parliament is supreme as it always has been and as it always should be.
You deciding that the “WA has served its purpose” is exactly the laughable thing we’re discussing.
The WA is a long-term international agreement that you, and the Government and its fans described as a brilliant deal for Britain, and now you’re saying it isn’t.
You look stupid, and you’re making us all look stupid on the international stage.
You may not care if we look stupid, but our future international agreements depend on us being trustworthy and we look anything but.
You are whining. You’re whining about how the long-term deal we agreed, and described as brilliant, is no longer brilliant.
Your lack of self-awareness is really something to behold.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
You're making me nostalgic with that comment!
Personally I think the Government is doing Art of the Deal stuff - they reckon that saying we'll wreck everything unless you compromise, we don't care, enables them to make the best available deal with credibility intact and relief all round. It's a time-worn tactic which sometimes works, so long as the people doing it are focused, balanced, consistent and level-headed.
Lots of similar stories at the time, and talking heads on the TV saying the same.
I don't want to get to January and have people say, "It was never going to be ready in the first half of the year." And then on, and on, and on.
The timing is waiting for the completion of Phase III trials.
Phase III trials couldn't proceed in the UK because the prevalence of the virus was too low (ironic eh?) so were moved abroad. Phase III trials are underway already in Brazil and other countries and we are awaiting those results.
Yes. I know. That's what they said in June. With the results expected September/October (if it worked).
The obvious reason for the timescale to slip is that the vaccine doesn't work that well, and so it will take longer for the statistical evidence of how well it does work to emerge from the noise.
This is disappointing news, rather than "what we always knew" or "good news, it will be ready in four months".
No that isn't the reason the timescale slipped.
The reason the timescale changed was that the planned Phase III trial in the UK couldn't proceed because the UK brought the virus under control so the trial was moved overseas. Which meant setting up a trial, recruiting volunteers, getting the results etc overseas.
A Phase III trial in the UK couldn't answer if the vaccine works or not as there's not enough prevalence of virus in the UK to tell if it is working or not, hence the trials had to start in Brazil etc instead. Since the trials started in Brazil the timing has never been for Phase III results to be available by September. That says nothing about whether the vaccine works or not nor anything about statistical noise.
This isn't true. They already knew in June that the infection rate was not high enough in the UK for a phase 3 trial and went to Brazil and South Africa then. See
The timescale has changed. It's bad news. We should consider if our strategy needs to change as a result.
Instead I am told that this was always the timescale and that hints at a vaccine early next year are good news. This is self-delusion.
Your first link was dated 16 June, the second is dated 28 June. I don't see how that's contradictory or shows bad news, can you find any link contemporaneous with the Brazil trial saying its results would be known by now?
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies tax payers but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
Fixed that for you.
Of course, in this new world your idea might actually generate more business and save the tax payer money - but I'm doubtful to be honest.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Both.
Though if Spain decided they didn't want to abide by it then I wouldn't be going to a court in Madrid to enforce it.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
You're making me nostalgic with that comment!
Personally I think the Government is doing Art of the Deal stuff - they reckon that saying we'll wreck everything unless you compromise, we don't care, enables them to make the best available deal with credibility intact and relief all round. It's a time-worn tactic which sometimes works, so long as the people doing it are focused, balanced, consistent and level-headed.
Oh.
Not sure. I think this government, and Johnson in particular, genuinely believe in Brexit delivering independence and giving them control. He is frustrated that he can't get what he wants without making long term commitments that he wouldn't ordinarily make. I don't think he understands why there is a problem and he does think EU/Barnier etc are being unreasonable.
Biden really needs to come out with something a bit stronger than "all violence is wrong" when it comes to BLM. I'm sure it will be mentioned that he is ahead in the polls etc etc but, as @MaxPB pointed out, it is not a good look.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
It’s not possible for the UK Government to agree to something Parliament cannot undo under our legal system, so it’s pointless even discussing it.
If Britain was always (and is) sovereign then why are you whinging about the fantastic oven-ready WA “impinging on our sovereignty”?
The issue is not sovereignty. The issue is agreeing to something and decrying it as a fantastic deal for Britain, and then 12 months later deciding it’s actually sh*t.
I'm not whinging about the WA impinging on our sovereignty, since the WA does not impinge on our sovereignty.
You really need to improve your reading comprehension, you keep saying I'm whinging when I'm not. Maybe you should drop your preconceived ideas about what I think and read what I have to say instead.
The WA isn't shit. I'm not saying it is. The WA is fine for what it was and has served its purpose. Now Parliament needs to determine what we are going to do going forwards and Parliament is supreme as it always has been and as it always should be.
Yes. No-one has said Parliament is unable to cancel the WA. People have said we can't do so without breaching international law, trashing our reputation as a supporter of a rules-based world order and discouraging people from doing deals with us since they won't be able to trust we will stick to them.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
With the polls consistently bad for Trump, my view now on the POTUS election is that,
“TRUMP CAN’T WIN BIGLY BUT HE CAN SURE LOSE BIGLY”.
I know rcs1000 has been making this very point - though perhaps not quite as elegantly!
I’ve just bought BIDEN ECV votes at 285 for £10 a point with SPIN. (Voided if Biden doesn’t contest the election).
Now let’s go win it Joe!
Isn't it better to buy ECV supremacy at £5 a point (29.5 Biden over Trump) (I've done this btw) for a lower rake should one need to trade out ?
Pulpstar. I think you are right. Good point. Had I placed your bet and held it to the end I would be £12.50 better off - whatever the outcome. But the spread on your bet is half of mine. I think!
Too late now. Hopefully the £12.50 will be chlorinated chicken feed compared to overall winnings. 😀
Here's a free policy for Labour/Starmer - 2/3/4 day per week season tickets for the same pro-rated price as the weekly ticket. In my focus group of friends it's extremely popular. It speaks to the new age of working, it allows people to choose how many days they want to work in office and it gives part time workers (who tend to be on lower incomes) a much needed discount vs day returns.
The only losers are the train companies but who really gives a fuck about them anyway?
Absolutely great idea and it occurred to me only yesterday exactly the same thing.
If people are commuting less there's no real benefit if they have to pay eg. a yearly season ticket there is just an excess cost. Having as you suggest 2/3/4 days per week would make a huge difference.
Only problem is that, say, you were commuting 3 days a week, it's likely (haven't done the calcs) that you would pay more if you purchased those tickets separately than if you bought a full time season ticket and hence you are a captive audience for the full season ticket so why would the TOCs give a ****.
Yes, they wouldn't would they. Which is why it needs Ofrail or whatever the regulator is to force train companies to offer them. From my perspective it probably encourages people back onto trains who would otherwise just live with remote working to save the cash.
If Labour pushed this policy it works be very popular IMO, there's no downsides other than a lower potential maximum revenue for train companies and as I said, no one really cares about that.
Would it be legal to do this [perhaps not always a consideration with this govt ]?
I would have thought train companies would argue giving customers this significant discount contradicts the terms on which franchise agreements were made.
I believe the franchises are currently suspended, but presumably the govt plans to start them back up again post-pandemic.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
It’s not possible for the UK Government to agree to something Parliament cannot undo under our legal system, so it’s pointless even discussing it.
If Britain was always (and is) sovereign then why are you whinging about the fantastic oven-ready WA “impinging on our sovereignty”?
The issue is not sovereignty. The issue is agreeing to something and decrying it as a fantastic deal for Britain, and then 12 months later deciding it’s actually sh*t.
I'm not whinging about the WA impinging on our sovereignty, since the WA does not impinge on our sovereignty.
You really need to improve your reading comprehension, you keep saying I'm whinging when I'm not. Maybe you should drop your preconceived ideas about what I think and read what I have to say instead.
The WA isn't shit. I'm not saying it is. The WA is fine for what it was and has served its purpose. Now Parliament needs to determine what we are going to do going forwards and Parliament is supreme as it always has been and as it always should be.
Yes. No-one has said Parliament is unable to cancel the WA. People have said we can't do so without breaching international law, trashing our reputation as a supporter of a rules-based world order and discouraging people from doing deals with us since they won't be able to trust we will stick to them.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
With the polls consistently bad for Trump, my view now on the POTUS election is that,
“TRUMP CAN’T WIN BIGLY BUT HE CAN SURE LOSE BIGLY”.
I know rcs1000 has been making this very point - though perhaps not quite as elegantly!
I’ve just bought BIDEN ECV votes at 285 for £10 a point with SPIN. (Voided if Biden doesn’t contest the election).
Now let’s go win it Joe!
Yes, this looks like a bet with very little downside (say about 20 points maximum) and a helluva lot of upside. (I don't really think Joe will turn Texas but if he did the bet would pay bigly!)
Peter. Glad to have your approval! I’m guessing you have done something similar? But as Pulpstar points out the supremacy bet is the better play.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Both.
Though if Spain decided they didn't want to abide by it then I wouldn't be going to a court in Madrid to enforce it.
There is a semantic issue here. There is either a requirement for Spain to respect UK sovereignty over Gibraltar, or there isn't. It is nonsensical to make that requirement and then say it's up to the Spanish government to decide what it wants to do according to its domestic agenda.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
You look ridiculous.
I don't think I ever described it as a "brilliant" deal, I did describe is as a "better" deal.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
Actually if we crash out in chaos on the 1st January we won't have an 'Australian-type' deal. We'll have an even worse position, because there is a (limited) agreement between the EU and Australia on mutual recognition of standards and also a formal understanding on other measures to reduce barriers:
(And that's without even considering the fact that the EU accounts for a tiny proportion of Australia's trade).
And if that happens and by this time next year we look back and see the border is coping smoothly, the economy is growing and the sky didn't fall then what would you say?
I would say I was wrong. How about you in the converse scenario?
It will be the EU's fault.
They turned the oven off
Will suit Johnson, who prefers his plans half-baked.
Lots of similar stories at the time, and talking heads on the TV saying the same.
I don't want to get to January and have people say, "It was never going to be ready in the first half of the year." And then on, and on, and on.
The timing is waiting for the completion of Phase III trials.
Phase III trials couldn't proceed in the UK because the prevalence of the virus was too low (ironic eh?) so were moved abroad. Phase III trials are underway already in Brazil and other countries and we are awaiting those results.
Yes. I know. That's what they said in June. With the results expected September/October (if it worked).
The obvious reason for the timescale to slip is that the vaccine doesn't work that well, and so it will take longer for the statistical evidence of how well it does work to emerge from the noise.
This is disappointing news, rather than "what we always knew" or "good news, it will be ready in four months".
No that isn't the reason the timescale slipped.
The reason the timescale changed was that the planned Phase III trial in the UK couldn't proceed because the UK brought the virus under control so the trial was moved overseas. Which meant setting up a trial, recruiting volunteers, getting the results etc overseas.
A Phase III trial in the UK couldn't answer if the vaccine works or not as there's not enough prevalence of virus in the UK to tell if it is working or not, hence the trials had to start in Brazil etc instead. Since the trials started in Brazil the timing has never been for Phase III results to be available by September. That says nothing about whether the vaccine works or not nor anything about statistical noise.
This isn't true. They already knew in June that the infection rate was not high enough in the UK for a phase 3 trial and went to Brazil and South Africa then. See
The timescale has changed. It's bad news. We should consider if our strategy needs to change as a result.
Instead I am told that this was always the timescale and that hints at a vaccine early next year are good news. This is self-delusion.
Your first link was dated 16 June, the second is dated 28 June. I don't see how that's contradictory or shows bad news, can you find any link contemporaneous with the Brazil trial saying its results would be known by now?
The Brazil trial had already started on the 20th June, they would have known it was required when they provided the quotes earlier in the month. Stop being ridiculous.
If the toss up states really are Ohio, Florida and Georgia, it is looking really bad for Trump. He won GA by 5 percentage points and Ohio by 8 last time.
best you pile on Sleepy Joe at evens then. What a bargain!
On the other hand, a poll of Americans think Trump will beat Biden at the first debate 47 - 41.
That's closer to where we are, in my view.
Trafalgar's famed "How do you think your neighbour would vote" questions saw the result in Colorado of
Trump 46.4 Clinton 42.7
Actual result
Trump 43.3 Clinton 48.2
So what, I have already said Biden will hold the Clinton states including Colorado and pick up Arizona, however in Michigan and Pennsylvania Trafalgar group were correct in 2016 unlike other pollsters using their methods and may well be again.
In Wisconsin the poll average was 7% higher for Hillary than the result too
Not successful, the French Prince Louis' army was beaten at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217, the French invasion fleet commanded by his wife Blanche of Castile was then also defeated at the Battle of Sandwich.
At the Treaty of Lambeth Louis surrendered any castles he had captured and accepted he had never been a legitimate King of England and departed back to France with his tail between his legs
He invaded the country, landed successfully, took London, took Winchester, controlled more than half of England, and was proclaimed King of England. He was here for well over a year.
Most people wouldn't gloss over that with "No, no, we weren't successfully invaded." We were. We merely threw him out considerably later. It would be like saying that France wasn't successfully invaded in either World War, or Poland wasn't successfully invaded, because the invaders were eventually thrown out.
You didn't know about it because your knowledge of history was too perfunctory, you reached for a simplistic strapline that wasn't true, and you cannot admit to being mistaken. Just accept you were wrong and reset the date from 1066 to 1216; it's still ages ago, after all.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Both.
Though if Spain decided they didn't want to abide by it then I wouldn't be going to a court in Madrid to enforce it.
There is a semantic issue here. There is either a requirement for Spain to respect UK sovereignty over Gibraltar, or there isn't. It is nonsensical to make that requirement and then say it's up to the Spanish government to decide what it wants to do according to its domestic agenda.
The reason Spain respects UK sovereignty over Gibraltar is and always has been realpolitik not law.
The Argentinians tried to invade the Falkland Islands - did we fight them off with lawyers?
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
You look ridiculous.
I don't think I ever described it as a "brilliant" deal, I did describe is as a "better" deal.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
Yes - that’s how you justify it to yourself. But the Government is making us look like fools on the international stage, as well as making us look untrustworthy. We agreed a long-term deal in good faith and now you are happy to rip it up.
It was a long-term international agreement.
You are happy to set it aside because you don’t like it anymore, only 1 year later.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
You look ridiculous.
I don't think I ever described it as a "brilliant" deal, I did describe is as a "better" deal.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
Yes - that’s how you justify it to yourself. But the Government is making us look like fools on the international stage, as well as making us look untrustworthy. We agreed a long-term deal in good faith and now you are happy to rip it up.
It was a long-term international agreement.
You are happy to set it aside because you don’t like it anymore, only 1 year later.
We look like utter fools.
So what?
Agreements only last as long as both parties are interested in them. Twas always thus. If countries want an agreement with us it needs to be worth our while and vice-versa.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
My proposal, that you haven't yet accepted, does exactly that. The UK could cancel the arrangment with notice and within the agreement, and it therefore doesn't bind successor governments.
I have no qualms with the third part of your proposal. The second part I do and I think its redundant, unnecessary and counterproductive. But there's no problems with the third part and it doesn't need the second part.
OK Then you and I have a deal that preserves frictionless trade, respects UK (and EU) sovereignty, avoids a border in the Irish Sea and respects the WDA.
Here it is:
Both parties agree that if a change in regulations or standards is deemed to be unacceptable by the other party, that party will formally declare that to be the case and the Agreement on zero tariiffs and no inspections will cease [12] months after such a declaration. (This is to give adequate time to prepare for the end of the Agreement).
Now we need to sell it to Johnson and Barnier. How hard will that be? What could be their objections?
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
Mr. Gate, it's been quite a spectacle watching some nodding dog fools hail Boris' buckling as a triumph only to lament the fact it wasn't, er, scrutinised. Damned fools.
The Conservatives only have themselves to blame. They had the example of Jeremy Corbyn right in front of them and still voted for a buffoon unworthy of the office. May might've been lacklustre at best, but at least she was hardworking and dutiful. The clown doesn't even have those virtues.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
My proposal, that you haven't yet accepted, does exactly that. The UK could cancel the arrangment with notice and within the agreement, and it therefore doesn't bind successor governments.
I have no qualms with the third part of your proposal. The second part I do and I think its redundant, unnecessary and counterproductive. But there's no problems with the third part and it doesn't need the second part.
OK Then you and I have a deal that preserves frictionless trade, respects UK (and EU) sovereignty, avoids a border in the Irish Sea and respects the WDA.
Here it is:
Both parties agree that if a change in regulations or standards is deemed to be unacceptable by the other party, that party will formally declare that to be the case and the Agreement on zero tariiffs and no inspections will cease [12] months after such a declaration. (This is to give adequate time to prepare for the end of the Agreement).
Now we need to sell it to Johnson and Barnier. How hard will that be? What could be their objections?
That is an absolutely 100% perfectly reasonable arrangement to me.
I think Johnson would accept that but not Barnier.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
By your logic, there was no relinquishment of sovereignty by virtue of our membership of the EU because we could leave whenever we wanted.
It is true. All international agreements involve relinquishment of sovereignty, no matter how temporary. The WA involved a relinquishment of some degree of sovereignty, something we AGREED to voluntarily. Nothing is permanent, but going back on our agreement 1 year later is not a good look.
Your dross about Parliament binding successors is irrelevant.
Yes of course the UK was always sovereign because we could leave whenever we wanted. That is my logic yes.
You say that like you've scored a goal or made a great point. But I agree with you and have never said otherwise, of course the UK was always sovereign.
No international agreements do not involve relinquishments of sovereignty, unless we were to agree something Parliament couldn't undo.
And hence being in the EU did not relinquish our sovereignty as parliament indeed undid it.
So what was all the fuss about?
Because we couldn't exercise that sovereignty without leaving and we wanted to exercise it.
What you are saying is like saying if you have money in the bank that is yours and you want to spend it then why withdraw it from the bank? Of course as long as the money remains in the bank it remains yours but if you want to spend it then the money must leave the bank.
The fact of sovereignty was never at issue, the exercise of it was.
But that's the whole point. You are exhibiting classic cakeism. You wanted to leave the money in the bank and take it out. But you can't do both. You are sovereign over your money whatever you do, just that you can't do both.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
You look ridiculous.
I don't think I ever described it as a "brilliant" deal, I did describe is as a "better" deal.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
Yes - that’s how you justify it to yourself. But the Government is making us look like fools on the international stage, as well as making us look untrustworthy. We agreed a long-term deal in good faith and now you are happy to rip it up.
It was a long-term international agreement.
You are happy to set it aside because you don’t like it anymore, only 1 year later.
We look like utter fools.
So what?
Agreements only last as long as both parties are interested in them. Twas always thus. If countries want an agreement with us it needs to be worth our while and vice-versa.
Because becoming untrustworthy has consequences. How do you think we’re going to negotiate these “fantastic” “new” trade deals when nobody trusts us?
Why do you expect the EU to be reasonable, and then whine about it some more, when we are happy to simply rip up our good-faith agreements on a whim?
If you rip up a contract and refuse to pay a debt because it no longer is convenient, you get a county court judgement against you. That has consequences. This is the same, but on an international scale.
You, and the government, are acting like entitled spoilt children, and further ruining the image of Britain on the international stage.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
Don’t be silly. Only silly foreigners should abide by international agreements.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
I have said that international relations are a matter for international relations not domestic courts. I fail to see how that is unreasonable but lets take the Treaty of Utrecht as an example you agree with.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Deal with the Spaniards on an international relations level OR
Lodge a court case with a domestic Spanish court in Madrid
We agreed to the provisions. If that’s not how “international relations” should work then why did we agree to it, and why did you describe it as a brilliant deal?
You look ridiculous.
I don't think I ever described it as a "brilliant" deal, I did describe is as a "better" deal.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
Yes - that’s how you justify it to yourself. But the Government is making us look like fools on the international stage, as well as making us look untrustworthy. We agreed a long-term deal in good faith and now you are happy to rip it up.
It was a long-term international agreement.
You are happy to set it aside because you don’t like it anymore, only 1 year later.
We look like utter fools.
So what?
Agreements only last as long as both parties are interested in them. Twas always thus. If countries want an agreement with us it needs to be worth our while and vice-versa.
Because becoming untrustworthy has consequences. How do you think we’re going to negotiate these “fantastic” “new” trade deals when nobody trusts us?
Why do you expect the EU to be reasonable, and then whine about it some more, when we are happy to simply rip up our good-faith agreements on a whim?
If you rip up a contract and refuse to pay a debt because it no longer is convenient, you get a county court judgement against you. That has consequences. This is the same, but on an international scale.
You, and the government, are acting like entitled spoilt children, and further ruining the image of Britain on the international stage.
I think that we will negotiate new trade agreements if both parties consider it to be in their interests.
And I think we will go into them on the clear understanding that they will only last as long as both parties consider it to be in their interests and that if we cease to do then we may quit the arrangements.
But hadn't Brexit already made that clear in the first place anyway?
Mr. Gate, it's been quite a spectacle watching some nodding dog fools hail Boris' buckling as a triumph only to lament the fact it wasn't, er, scrutinised. Damned fools.
If they ever find out who signed the wretched WA, there will be hell to pay...
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
We don't have "a claim" on Gibraltar. We have Gibraltar and we have the military to back that up. If we didn't, then we wouldn't have Gibraltar anymore and your claim wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.
Realpolitik is what matters not the paper tiger that is international law.
Which is precisely why the UK must do whatever is in the UK's own interests. The EU will look after their own.
The Argentinians tried to invade the Falkland Islands - did we fight them off with lawyers?
You want a task force to retake Gibraltar from the Spaniards?
Take a break, man. Have a nice cup of tea and a little lie down...
Only if the Spanish invade and if they do then that will be their choice.
Oh no. This morning we were at war with the French and the Scots and now we have to take on the Spanish. We are clearly just up for a fight. Who else fancies their chances?
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
We don't have "a claim" on Gibraltar. We have Gibraltar and we have the military to back that up. If we didn't, then we wouldn't have Gibraltar anymore and your claim wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.
Realpolitik is what matters not the paper tiger that is international law.
Which is precisely why the UK must do whatever is in the UK's own interests. The EU will look after their own.
It is not in our interests to look like utter mugs to everyone else.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
Biden really needs to come out with something a bit stronger than "all violence is wrong" when it comes to BLM. I'm sure it will be mentioned that he is ahead in the polls etc etc but, as @MaxPB pointed out, it is not a good look.
But how many of those 12m views were you?
Just one. Unfortunately too many things to do to spend all day looking at protestors chase people out of restaurants and wreck someone's business.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
We don't have "a claim" on Gibraltar. We have Gibraltar and we have the military to back that up. If we didn't, then we wouldn't have Gibraltar anymore and your claim wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.
Realpolitik is what matters not the paper tiger that is international law.
Which is precisely why the UK must do whatever is in the UK's own interests. The EU will look after their own.
So nuking Madrid is back on the agenda now because no agreement or law is ever worth the paper it is written on?
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
The Argentinians tried to invade the Falkland Islands - did we fight them off with lawyers?
You want a task force to retake Gibraltar from the Spaniards?
Take a break, man. Have a nice cup of tea and a little lie down...
Only if the Spanish invade and if they do then that will be their choice.
Were you around when HYUFD suggested that 'we' would turn Gib into another Stalingrad if Johnny Spaniard got uppity? You seem to have found the page he was reading from..
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
This is incorrect on the facts. Future governments can't unilaterally cancel treaties unless treaties specifically allow for it - the WA doesn't. Those treaty obligations have legal effect under international law.
The WA isn't a trade deal.
Trade agreements almost invariably have exit clauses. If a trade agreement has an exit clause then it is not a restriction on sovereignty because the exit clause can be invoked.
Plus international law is subordinate to domestic law anyway. Parliament can override international law whenever it wants, which is precisely what people are complaining about here.
You are making distinctions between trade deals and non-trade deals that aren't distinctions under international law. International law is codified system and what you propose breaches that law.
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
"International law" is nice to have but less important than domestic law.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
Let's take the Treaty of Utrecht, which is the only legal reason why Gibraltar is British rather than Spanish. Would you say, if you were in the UK government that the Treaty of Utrecht is a nice to have or would you want Spain to abide by it?
You could argue that the Spanish already don't recognise the Treaty of Utrecht considering they fundamentally disagree with some of the provisions in it, it's just their ability to enforce that non-recognition is limited. However, the difference is that the Treaty of Utrecht is 300 years old, this agreement isn't even 12 months old and it's the same Prime Minister and same government reneging on their own word.
There are several other provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht that have been quietly forgotten about over the centuries. Point is, the UK government pushes a hard line on it because that's the basis for their claim on Gibraltar.
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
We don't have "a claim" on Gibraltar. We have Gibraltar and we have the military to back that up. If we didn't, then we wouldn't have Gibraltar anymore and your claim wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.
Realpolitik is what matters not the paper tiger that is international law.
Which is precisely why the UK must do whatever is in the UK's own interests. The EU will look after their own.
So nuking Madrid is back on the agenda now because no agreement or law is ever worth the paper it is written on?
Its only on the agenda if Spain decides to go to war with the UK.
So long as Spain doesn't, it won't be on the agenda. If Spain decides to do go to war with us though, it will be the military not the lawyers that fight our battles.
Only goes to prove how wrong they are, why is johnson dancing to their beat?
Do you really have to ask that question?
A few days ago Farage explicitly threatened to re-start the brexit party and destroy the tories pending a bad brexit.
He would have plenty of other issues to tap into apart from brexit. Immigration. Culture wars. Possibly COVID restrictions.
He would take ten points out of the tories overnight. Over the following six months a further ten.
That is what the tories fear. Labour? They know they can rely on the likes of Dawn Butler and Co to f8ck up when necessary.
@Philip_Thompson Philip - Can I ask you - would you say you are nearer the Brexit Party than the Tory Party? Nearer Bernard Jenkins and the ERG than Johnson and Dom Cummings?
I ask because you are a useful indicator of the challenges that Johnson faces as described by Contrarian and as demonstrated by your responses on Brexit.
You can ask. My answers are no and no.
My opinions are my own, I don't fit into what other people say. So I can agree on one subject with one person while completely disagreeing with them on another. I am far, far, far closer to the Tories and specifically what I consider to be liberal Tories like Johnson, Gove and Cameron, than authoritarian Tories like May.
On Brexit I may be taking a hard-line stance but that stems from my hard-line views on the importance of democracy. I was OK with us being EU members, I could have voted to Remain, we did elect MEPs. So I don't side with the likes of Jenkins and the ERG. But if we are going to leave we should leave properly. If we are going to remain we should remain properly. You can't be half pregnant.
OK thanks. You and I agree on many things I think as followers of JS Mill. But we don't agree on this.
I do agree you can't be half pregnant (obviously) but I also believe we can eat some cake and have it too with regard to the EU by keeping our independence and also maintaining frictionless trade with our biggest customer with a deal such as I have described. Nothing to do with pregnancy at all.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
Then we will sign no trade deals, as all trade deals involve some degree of relinquishment of sovereignty.
Sounds brilliant.
Your idealism is on the same level as a 16 year old communist.
That's not true. Trade deals don't involve relinquishment of sovereignty. They involve an agreed set of arrangements to proceed and if a future government decides they don't like the arrangements then they can cancel the treaty. That's not an impingement any more than any other law a government passes, just like any other law it can not bind successor governments who are free to change the law if they don't like it. No Parliament can bind its successors.
Only if there is no exit is it an impingement.
My proposal, that you haven't yet accepted, does exactly that. The UK could cancel the arrangment with notice and within the agreement, and it therefore doesn't bind successor governments.
I have no qualms with the third part of your proposal. The second part I do and I think its redundant, unnecessary and counterproductive. But there's no problems with the third part and it doesn't need the second part.
OK Then you and I have a deal that preserves frictionless trade, respects UK (and EU) sovereignty, avoids a border in the Irish Sea and respects the WDA.
Here it is:
Both parties agree that if a change in regulations or standards is deemed to be unacceptable by the other party, that party will formally declare that to be the case and the Agreement on zero tariiffs and no inspections will cease [12] months after such a declaration. (This is to give adequate time to prepare for the end of the Agreement).
Now we need to sell it to Johnson and Barnier. How hard will that be? What could be their objections?
That is an absolutely 100% perfectly reasonable arrangement to me.
I think Johnson would accept that but not Barnier.
I really don't know.
Johnson might object that it prevents him doing other trade deals in the short term (and also risks losing supporters to the Brexit party as they see it as yet another extension). On the other hand it gets him off the hook of a damaging and disruptive no deal and would be welcomed by most of his Cabinet including the Chancellor. He can present it as having our cake and eating it too.
Barnier might object that the UK is getting the benefits of frictionless trading without long-term commitment. On the other hand it avoids a damaging no deal and still preserves the standards and regulations of the SM.
I think there is a deal to be done. They each need to pick up the toys beside their prams and get talking.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
Absolutely and it served its purpose. Now we're looking at what replaces it going forwards.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
Absolutely and it served its purpose. Now we're looking at what replaces it going forwards.
Which part of “long-term international treaty” do you not understand?
The Argentinians tried to invade the Falkland Islands - did we fight them off with lawyers?
You want a task force to retake Gibraltar from the Spaniards?
Take a break, man. Have a nice cup of tea and a little lie down...
Only if the Spanish invade and if they do then that will be their choice.
Were you around when HYUFD suggested that 'we' would turn Gib into another Stalingrad if Johnny Spaniard got uppity? You seem to have found the page he was reading from..
I do not agree with HYUFD on these matters.
What I do think though is that the threat of our military will deter Spain from invading Gibraltar - not the threat of our lawyers lodging legal documents in a court in Madrid.
That is what people are overlooking, we're only talking about domestic courts for domestic law - not international courts or international law.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
Absolutely and it served its purpose. Now we're looking at what replaces it going forwards.
Which part of “long-term international treaty” do you not understand?
If the EU wanted it to be long term they could have put stuff that would interest us in the long term like a trade deal.
Instead they chose to insist upon sequencing and only put the bits we were interested in for 12 months.
C'est la vie. They made the bed. Its been 12 months, time to move on now.
You could just as fairly blame the die-hard Remainers who prevented any sort of "soft Brexit" in the first place. It was said at the time that it would lead to hard Brexit or worse, and so it has.
This was true right up until the last General Election, however the Tories have an 80 seat majority now so can pursue whatever Brexit they wish.
It was also this government and this parliament, with it’s 80 seat Conservative majority, that passed the long-term international treaty that is the Withdrawal Agreement and celebrated it as a massive success and as a fantastic deal for Britain.
Absolutely and it served its purpose. Now we're looking at what replaces it going forwards.
Which part of “long-term international treaty” do you not understand?
If the EU wanted it to be long term they could have put stuff that would interest us in the long term like a trade deal.
Instead they chose to insist upon sequencing and only put the bits we were interested in for 12 months.
C'est la vie. They made the bed. Its been 12 months, time to move on now.
I ask again, which part of “long-term international treaty” do you not understand?
Boris (and Cummings) are failing to think 2 or 3 steps ahead.
Quite aside from the ethics of reneging on aspects of a treaty they signed less than a year ago (and the consequences for our reputation) there are practical implications too.
Once Biden is elected (remember: he has Irish heritage) he will ally with the EU to make sure the UK respects the NI border, even in the eventuality of No Deal. This is pressure we can't resist.
We are going to have very serious political and economic fall-out next year, which will be reflected in our economic situation, international isolation, soaring incursions across the channel (no Dublin), a solid SNP majority at Holyrood and major Tory losses in the locals. I can see the planning and local authority reforms being a disaster too. All of which is why I can see Boris going sometime during June-October 2021 next year.
The solution is to agree a UK state aid regime, now, in areas that doesn't undercut the EU in its areas of interest (exempting digital) with a UK/EU panel to adjudicate and, allowing latitude for some subsidy, to the extent EU countries do the same, and an increase in the UK fishing quota plus a "phasing-in" period for the new systems.
Absolutely I would like frictionless trade so long as it doesn't impinge our democracy.
The way I view it is that frictionless trade is nice to have, democracy is essential.
You do realise you live in the UK? An oligarchy with near-permanent elective dictatorship, no regional democracy, no local democracy, no democratic accountability, no fair representation, an appointed/hereditary upper chamber, and a press that is on the last fumes of freedom?
Comments
If a national government chooses to ignore its obligations under international law the remedies are not especially powerful, as can be seen with Germany in the 1930s. But it doesn't change the principle.
The reason the timescale changed was that the planned Phase III trial in the UK couldn't proceed because the UK brought the virus under control so the trial was moved overseas. Which meant setting up a trial, recruiting volunteers, getting the results etc overseas.
A Phase III trial in the UK couldn't answer if the vaccine works or not as there's not enough prevalence of virus in the UK to tell if it is working or not, hence the trials had to start in Brazil etc instead. Since the trials started in Brazil the timing has never been for Phase III results to be available by September. That says nothing about whether the vaccine works or not nor anything about statistical noise.
If people are commuting less there's no real benefit if they have to pay eg. a yearly season ticket there is just an excess cost. Having as you suggest 2/3/4 days per week would make a huge difference.
Only problem is that, say, you were commuting 3 days a week, it's likely (haven't done the calcs) that you would pay more if you purchased those tickets separately than if you bought a full time season ticket and hence you are a captive audience for the full season ticket so why would the TOCs give a ****.
So what was all the fuss about?
You really need to improve your reading comprehension, you keep saying I'm whinging when I'm not. Maybe you should drop your preconceived ideas about what I think and read what I have to say instead.
The WA isn't shit. I'm not saying it is. The WA is fine for what it was and has served its purpose. Now Parliament needs to determine what we are going to do going forwards and Parliament is supreme as it always has been and as it always should be.
The Prime Minister and the LOTO behave like fifth formers at Greyfriars School (Billy Bunter) for those who have not read about Bunter.
If Labour pushed this policy it works be very popular IMO, there's no downsides other than a lower potential maximum revenue for train companies and as I said, no one really cares about that.
Many claim that "international law" prevented the Iraq War. It still went ahead. Why didn't the courts stop the Iraq War if it broke international law? Because of course Parliament is more important than international law.
Some countries constitutions say that domestic law must abide by international law. Ours does not. Good.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-06-28-trial-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-starts-brazil
The timescale has changed. It's bad news. We should consider if our strategy needs to change as a result.
Instead I am told that this was always the timescale and that hints at a vaccine early next year are good news. This is self-delusion.
To be fair, the thought the country is going to go back to 5 days a week in an office is for the birds. I saw an interview with the guy who owns Vanarama the other day, and he said he was initially very sceptical of remote working, but now it will be company policy for only part time in the office, regardless of COVID situation.
He was very positive about how his employees worked, and that for him as a business it would save him loads of money on office / car parking costs.
I wouldn't fancy owning a business that revolves around anything to do with servicing office work in a big city. When COVID is finished, those businesses aren't going to find the same demand will be there.
What you are saying is like saying if you have money in the bank that is yours and you want to spend it then why withdraw it from the bank? Of course as long as the money remains in the bank it remains yours but if you want to spend it then the money must leave the bank.
The fact of sovereignty was never at issue, the exercise of it was.
The WA is a long-term international agreement that you, and the Government and its fans described as a brilliant deal for Britain, and now you’re saying it isn’t.
You look stupid, and you’re making us all look stupid on the international stage.
You may not care if we look stupid, but our future international agreements depend on us being trustworthy and we look anything but.
You are whining. You’re whining about how the long-term deal we agreed, and described as brilliant, is no longer brilliant.
Your lack of self-awareness is really something to behold.
Personally I think the Government is doing Art of the Deal stuff - they reckon that saying we'll wreck everything unless you compromise, we don't care, enables them to make the best available deal with credibility intact and relief all round. It's a time-worn tactic which sometimes works, so long as the people doing it are focused, balanced, consistent and level-headed.
Oh.
Of course, in this new world your idea might actually generate more business and save the tax payer money - but I'm doubtful to be honest.
Though if Spain decided they didn't want to abide by it then I wouldn't be going to a court in Madrid to enforce it.
Bought Biden EC supremacy at 28.5 for unit stake £30.
That's big for me.
At least I think that’s the line our government is taking.
USC Dornsife: B 52, T 41.5
https://election.usc.edu/
(This is the "traditional voting question", they seem to be slower with the "probabilistic" one)
Lead back to where it was the day before yesterday.
If the Spaniards decide to violate the Treaty of Utrecht then do you think the UK should:
Too late now. Hopefully the £12.50 will be chlorinated chicken feed compared to overall winnings. 😀
I would have thought train companies would argue giving customers this significant discount contradicts the terms on which franchise agreements were made.
I believe the franchises are currently suspended, but presumably the govt plans to start them back up again post-pandemic.
You look ridiculous.
And I agreed with it understanding fully that if trade talks didn't go well that the UK could and should do what it is now doing. The transactional nature of the WA meant most of what we were interested in expires on 31/12/20 meaning that it is for Parliament to do what it must going forwards which is more important than the WA which has served its purpose.
In Wisconsin the poll average was 7% higher for Hillary than the result too
Most people wouldn't gloss over that with "No, no, we weren't successfully invaded." We were. We merely threw him out considerably later. It would be like saying that France wasn't successfully invaded in either World War, or Poland wasn't successfully invaded, because the invaders were eventually thrown out.
You didn't know about it because your knowledge of history was too perfunctory, you reached for a simplistic strapline that wasn't true, and you cannot admit to being mistaken. Just accept you were wrong and reset the date from 1066 to 1216; it's still ages ago, after all.
The Argentinians tried to invade the Falkland Islands - did we fight them off with lawyers?
It was a long-term international agreement.
You are happy to set it aside because you don’t like it anymore, only 1 year later.
We look like utter fools.
Take a break, man. Have a nice cup of tea and a little lie down...
Agreements only last as long as both parties are interested in them. Twas always thus. If countries want an agreement with us it needs to be worth our while and vice-versa.
Here it is:
Both parties agree that if a change in regulations or standards is deemed to be unacceptable by the other party, that party will formally declare that to be the case and the Agreement on zero tariiffs and no inspections will cease [12] months after such a declaration. (This is to give adequate time to prepare for the end of the Agreement).
Now we need to sell it to Johnson and Barnier. How hard will that be? What could be their objections?
The Conservatives only have themselves to blame. They had the example of Jeremy Corbyn right in front of them and still voted for a buffoon unworthy of the office. May might've been lacklustre at best, but at least she was hardworking and dutiful. The clown doesn't even have those virtues.
I think Johnson would accept that but not Barnier.
Why do you expect the EU to be reasonable, and then whine about it some more, when we are happy to simply rip up our good-faith agreements on a whim?
If you rip up a contract and refuse to pay a debt because it no longer is convenient, you get a county court judgement against you. That has consequences. This is the same, but on an international scale.
You, and the government, are acting like entitled spoilt children, and further ruining the image of Britain on the international stage.
Well done all you "soft Brexit" mugs.
And I think we will go into them on the clear understanding that they will only last as long as both parties consider it to be in their interests and that if we cease to do then we may quit the arrangements.
But hadn't Brexit already made that clear in the first place anyway?
Also I wouldn't say Spain outright rejects the treaty. At times it has hinted at such but generally the dispute is over the territory to which it applies. Spain argues (with justification it has to be said) that land from the airport to the border is out of scope, as is some of the claimed sea territory.
https://twitter.com/asabenn/status/1302865282478886912?s=20
Realpolitik is what matters not the paper tiger that is international law.
Which is precisely why the UK must do whatever is in the UK's own interests. The EU will look after their own.
So, if the British people can do the time, then Boris should do the crime.
That's a stonewall penalty, Trevor.
Glad to have cleared that one up.
You are on here 24/7
So long as Spain doesn't, it won't be on the agenda. If Spain decides to do go to war with us though, it will be the military not the lawyers that fight our battles.
Johnson might object that it prevents him doing other trade deals in the short term (and also risks losing supporters to the Brexit party as they see it as yet another extension). On the other hand it gets him off the hook of a damaging and disruptive no deal and would be welcomed by most of his Cabinet including the Chancellor. He can present it as having our cake and eating it too.
Barnier might object that the UK is getting the benefits of frictionless trading without long-term commitment. On the other hand it avoids a damaging no deal and still preserves the standards and regulations of the SM.
I think there is a deal to be done. They each need to pick up the toys beside their prams and get talking.
https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1302918929183117312
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-09-07/the-reason-why-boris-johnson-is-jeopardising-an-eu-free-trade-deal
So, peace in NI is being jeopardised so that Cummings can invest our taxes in AI companies.
Good point.
What I do think though is that the threat of our military will deter Spain from invading Gibraltar - not the threat of our lawyers lodging legal documents in a court in Madrid.
That is what people are overlooking, we're only talking about domestic courts for domestic law - not international courts or international law.
Instead they chose to insist upon sequencing and only put the bits we were interested in for 12 months.
C'est la vie. They made the bed. Its been 12 months, time to move on now.
Election really starts tomorrow as voters finally switch on properly.
I’m not interested in your childish whining.
Quite aside from the ethics of reneging on aspects of a treaty they signed less than a year ago (and the consequences for our reputation) there are practical implications too.
Once Biden is elected (remember: he has Irish heritage) he will ally with the EU to make sure the UK respects the NI border, even in the eventuality of No Deal. This is pressure we can't resist.
We are going to have very serious political and economic fall-out next year, which will be reflected in our economic situation, international isolation, soaring incursions across the channel (no Dublin), a solid SNP majority at Holyrood and major Tory losses in the locals. I can see the planning and local authority reforms being a disaster too. All of which is why I can see Boris going sometime during June-October 2021 next year.
The solution is to agree a UK state aid regime, now, in areas that doesn't undercut the EU in its areas of interest (exempting digital) with a UK/EU panel to adjudicate and, allowing latitude for some subsidy, to the extent EU countries do the same, and an increase in the UK fishing quota plus a "phasing-in" period for the new systems.
But, it's all probably too late.