Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
Do you know what we don't read about much anymore?
People telling us that USA deaths are a tenth of their peak and that there is no more Coronavirus anymore.
Have they tried plotting a cumulative distribution?
I have a US friend in Florida who tells me the true number of deaths in the US from C-19 is 9,000.
Guess who he is voting for?
It's one of the talking point in the Right-wing social media bubble. It's based on a (deliberate) misunderstnading of how the CDC code deaths and very similar to the utterly inane broth based with/caused-by argument that was had on here a while ago.
In some ways the US, as a superpower, doesn't have any "closest ally". The UK might be one of the most important countries that the US has a close alliance with, but how much influence does the UK have on US foreign policy? Very little it seems to me.
The UK is currently foolishly doing its best to lose the influence it has with its European allies, although there is still some attempt at cooperation over things like Iran.
This was illustrated with painful clarity during the Blair years. He was supportive of the US to the point of obsequiousness and much lauded over there because of it. Yet when he tried to influence US foreign policy, notably over Iraq, he was treated with contempt.
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
I suppose it is to the credit of US foreign policy how many different countries think they are the USA's closest ally. France, Canada, Australia and the UK all entertain that delusion to differing extents. Canada probably has the best claim as they have a level of defence integration through NORAD that normal NATO members can only dream of.
Australia is the US' closest ally, only nation to fight with the US in all its wars, including Vietnam which we avoided and Iraq 2 which France and Canada avoided
All its wars ? Wasn't there one in 1812....
And another in 1861-1865.
Patriot War of the 1830s and Fenian Raids later - albeit not quite official on the US side.
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
I suppose it is to the credit of US foreign policy how many different countries think they are the USA's closest ally. France, Canada, Australia and the UK all entertain that delusion to differing extents. Canada probably has the best claim as they have a level of defence integration through NORAD that normal NATO members can only dream of.
Australia is the US' closest ally, only nation to fight with the US in all its wars, including Vietnam which we avoided and Iraq 2 which France and Canada avoided
All its wars ? Wasn't there one in 1812....
If my reading is accurate there wasn't a place called Australia then. You may be confused with New Holland.
Quite. They can't have been much of an ally if they didn't exist.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain against Britain
So you're saying Boris Johnson could be the new Lord North?
The most pro/linked English Americans so far as I can work out are err those from Utah. If there's some sort of pro-Brexit column in US politics, we'll likely hear it from Mitt Romney. Have we ?
Well Mitt Romney has been tipped to be Biden's Secretary of State...
I have a bet on Democrats winning Utah based on Romney coming out for Biden.
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
It's this kind of background that is so helpful in describing why concepts of the 'Anglosphere' beloved by Daniel Hannan and others are so self-deluding. Are there a group of nations who generally agree they share legal, constitutional, language and other features, and have no problem with accepting this ? Yes. Do they, beyond this, feel a great active and emotional loyalty to Britain, which will help us in the event of sailing free and trade negotiations on the great buccaneering adventure of Brexit, away from clutches of the european union ? Generally, no.
For Hannan the Anglosphere is a mythology that he sells himself to assuage his conscience for taking the blood money of the likes of the Koch brothers and other "free-market" institutes in their relentless attempts to undermine international approaches to industrial regulation and tax evasion/avoidance. He is bought and paid for, and is filth.
The English American lobby consists solely of Andrew Sullivan and John Oliver, and they cancel each other out. For whatever reason English American heritage isn't really a thing in the same way that Irish American is.
There is no such thing, as much as @HYUFD would like to pretend otherwise, as an "English American" voting bloc. Until the American Revolution most white Americans identified as "English" - in the leadup to the American Revolution they asserted their "natural rights of Englishmen". The majority of the Founding Fathers were of English extraction. By the time of the American Revolution, they decided not to identify as English anymore. England (the English/British state anyway) was the opressor.
The unified bloc that did continue to identify with England, the United Empire Loyalists, largely emigrated to what is now Ontario to create the nucleus of English-speaking Canada. Ontario residents will not be voting in the 2020 election. Back in the US, to identify as "English-American" could be, until well into the mid-19C, considered literally treasonous - the War of 1812 and a couple of close calls during the US Civil War proving that.
As a result English Americans form the bulk of those white respondents in census returns who identify as purely "American" even though they are not of Native American decent. English-Americans have never formed a cohesive voting bloc. The first four American Presidents were "English-Americans". When the 1812 War was declared, opposition to it was not determined on ethnic grounds. The president during the war of 1812, Madison, and its most enthusiastic proponent, Thomas Jefferson (a was a noted scholar and enthusiast of Old English and Anglo-Saxon history whose dad, Peter, named Jefferson's birthplace "Shadwell" after the East London district where he was christened) were "English Americans". By contrast, the US never fought an exestential war against Italy, Ireland or any country in Africa. Thus it is quite possible to be Italian-American, Irish-American and Afro-American and still be "American". It was hard to be Japanese or German-American after WW2, difficulties that still persist to this day. So there isn't really a "German-AMerican" bloc either.
I have some skin in this game. My wife's family strongly identifies Irish-American of Catholic decent (they converted to Congregationalism a generation or two ago due to witnessing some poor priestly behaviour but still consider themselves, as my Wife puts it, "culturally Irish Catholic") and I spend a lot of time there - pandemics permitting. My in-laws had generally been quite Anglophile, until Priti Patel's infamous comments. I have never, in all the many months I have spent in the States visiting family and friends, encountered an American Citizen that described themselves as English-American. Italian and Irish tricolours are commonplace on front lawns throughout the States. You will struggle, ever, to find a similarly placed Union Flag or Cross of St George. @HYUDF is simply wrong in his analysis here.
That's largely correct but it isn't true that Americans are ashamed of and disguise all of their English heritage.
They won't drink tea or fly a union flag but they will cheerfully trace back their ancestry to the Mayflower and their English ancestors where they have them.
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
In my experience, most Americans know next to nothing about us. Those of North-Western European extraction tend to think positively of "England", though - unless they identify as Irish, in which case they don't. Hispanics and others give us absolutely no thought at all.
I remember talking to some African American teenagers in our local swimming pool, they asked if my wife was "Spanish" (her family are Sri Lankan). I told them we were British, and they looked at me completely blankly. Desperate to think of something that might jog their memory, I said, you know, like the Queen? They literally had no idea what I was talking about. America is a big place (and has a poor education system) and the level of ignorance about the outside world, including us, is almost unfathomable.
Questions I have had on this theme: "Do they speak English in England?", "England: is that in or near France?" and "Where did you say you came from? New England?"
I expect that most people on PB, who have spent at least a few weeks in the USA will have had very similar questions.
My experience in the US is that they refer to the UK as England and do not understand, unless challenged, that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are constituent parts
To be fair that is the case in about 90% of the world. Brits do exactly the same by referring to the Netherlands as Holland.
I'm not sure it's *exactly* the same, as an alternative name of the country in English has always been Holland. Whereas (at least in English) using England for Britain or the UK has always been sloppy.
Indeed, I recently went to a tourist attraction *in Amsterdam* called "This is Holland":
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
I suppose it is to the credit of US foreign policy how many different countries think they are the USA's closest ally. France, Canada, Australia and the UK all entertain that delusion to differing extents. Canada probably has the best claim as they have a level of defence integration through NORAD that normal NATO members can only dream of.
Australia is the US' closest ally, only nation to fight with the US in all its wars, including Vietnam which we avoided and Iraq 2 which France and Canada avoided
It's a myth that we avoided the Vietnam War, though we didn't send ground troops. But we sent special forces and helped America massively with intelligence from Hong Kong.
At to which country is America's closest ally, the Americans themselves seem to think we are:
Macclesfield Town wound up. Won't be the last. This (well not Macc specifically), and testing needs to be sorted. Much simpler and close at hand than arcane trade negotiations to the average voter.
The English American lobby consists solely of Andrew Sullivan and John Oliver, and they cancel each other out. For whatever reason English American heritage isn't really a thing in the same way that Irish American is.
There is no such thing, as much as @HYUFD would like to pretend otherwise, as an "English American" voting bloc. Until the American Revolution most white Americans identified as "English" - in the leadup to the American Revolution they asserted their "natural rights of Englishmen". The majority of the Founding Fathers were of English extraction. By the time of the American Revolution, they decided not to identify as English anymore. England (the English/British state anyway) was the opressor.
The unified bloc that did continue to identify with England, the United Empire Loyalists, largely emigrated to what is now Ontario to create the nucleus of English-speaking Canada. Ontario residents will not be voting in the 2020 election. Back in the US, to identify as "English-American" could be, until well into the mid-19C, considered literally treasonous - the War of 1812 and a couple of close calls during the US Civil War proving that.
As a result English Americans form the bulk of those white respondents in census returns who identify as purely "American" even though they are not of Native American decent. English-Americans have never formed a cohesive voting bloc. The first four American Presidents were "English-Americans". When the 1812 War was declared, opposition to it was not determined on ethnic grounds. The president during the war of 1812, Madison, and its most enthusiastic proponent, Thomas Jefferson (a was a noted scholar and enthusiast of Old English and Anglo-Saxon history whose dad, Peter, named Jefferson's birthplace "Shadwell" after the East London district where he was christened) were "English Americans". By contrast, the US never fought an exestential war against Italy, Ireland or any country in Africa. Thus it is quite possible to be Italian-American, Irish-American and Afro-American and still be "American". It was hard to be Japanese or German-American after WW2, difficulties that still persist to this day. So there isn't really a "German-AMerican" bloc either.
I have some skin in this game. My wife's family strongly identifies Irish-American of Catholic decent (they converted to Congregationalism a generation or two ago due to witnessing some poor priestly behaviour but still consider themselves, as my Wife puts it, "culturally Irish Catholic") and I spend a lot of time there - pandemics permitting. My in-laws had generally been quite Anglophile, until Priti Patel's infamous comments. I have never, in all the many months I have spent in the States visiting family and friends, encountered an American Citizen that described themselves as English-American. Italian and Irish tricolours are commonplace on front lawns throughout the States. You will struggle, ever, to find a similarly placed Union Flag or Cross of St George. @HYUDF is simply wrong in his analysis here.
That's largely correct but it isn't true that Americans are ashamed of and disguise all of their English heritage.
They won't drink tea or fly a union flag but they will cheerfully trace back their ancestry to the Mayflower and their English ancestors where they have them.
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
In my experience, most Americans know next to nothing about us. Those of North-Western European extraction tend to think positively of "England", though - unless they identify as Irish, in which case they don't. Hispanics and others give us absolutely no thought at all.
I remember talking to some African American teenagers in our local swimming pool, they asked if my wife was "Spanish" (her family are Sri Lankan). I told them we were British, and they looked at me completely blankly. Desperate to think of something that might jog their memory, I said, you know, like the Queen? They literally had no idea what I was talking about. America is a big place (and has a poor education system) and the level of ignorance about the outside world, including us, is almost unfathomable.
Questions I have had on this theme: "Do they speak English in England?", "England: is that in or near France?" and "Where did you say you came from? New England?"
I expect that most people on PB, who have spent at least a few weeks in the USA will have had very similar questions.
Yes. Although I did carry a photo of me meeting the queen round the US last year, waiting for the expected question that never came.
TBF the Americans are hardly better informed about their own country. Heading for South Dakota I dined with a bunch of Americans from NYC, DC and Chicago. None of them had ever been there, and all they knew about it was mount rushmore. I was assured the population of the whole state was about 50000 and that I would drive for hours without seeing another car on the road
It's this kind of background that is so helpful in describing why concepts of the 'Anglosphere' beloved by Daniel Hannan and others are so self-deluding. Are there a group of nations who generally agree they share legal, constitutional, language and other features, and have no problem with accepting this ? Yes. Do they, beyond this, feel a great active and emotional loyalty to Britain, which will help us in the event of sailing free and trade negotiations on the great buccaneering adventure of Brexit, away from clutches of the european union ? Generally, no.
For Hannan the Anglosphere is a mythology that he sells himself to assuage his conscience for taking the blood money of the likes of the Koch brothers and other "free-market" institutes in their relentless attempts to undermine international approaches to industrial regulation and tax evasion/avoidance. He is bought and paid for, and is filth.
Lilico on the other hand is a mental.
Hannan is a fascinating case study in cognitive dissonance because you can often see the cogs working as his contradictions are exposed or he realises he is on the side of people he disagrees with.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain against Britain
So you're saying Boris Johnson could be the new Lord North?
And most Americans still have an affection for the UK and consider us their closest ally.
I suppose it is to the credit of US foreign policy how many different countries think they are the USA's closest ally. France, Canada, Australia and the UK all entertain that delusion to differing extents. Canada probably has the best claim as they have a level of defence integration through NORAD that normal NATO members can only dream of.
Australia is the US' closest ally, only nation to fight with the US in all its wars, including Vietnam which we avoided and Iraq 2 which France and Canada avoided
All its wars ? Wasn't there one in 1812....
Australia was not a nation until 1901, it has fought with the US in all its wars including Vietnam and Iraq 2 since then
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
So who do you think would be a good candidate to sign an FTA with?
Not the US according to you; not the EU according to other Brexiters? China? India?
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
Agreed. Though pissing off the next administration is a different matter.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
An echo of Suez, 1956.
We had France alongside us at Suez at least, not now
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
An echo of Suez, 1956.
Recall that (fairly) clearly. Didn't end well, and as a minor side effect, resulted in John Prescott entering politics.
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
So who do you think would be a good candidate to sign an FTA with?
Not the US according to you; not the EU according to other Brexiters? China? India?
Help me out here.
It depends entirely on the nature of the FTA and the circumstances existing with the individual countries.
So for me an FTA with the EU is sensible - indeed as you probably remember I go further than that because I am in favour of EEA or at least EFTA membership - but again will depend on the conditions attached. I would be concerned about an FTA with China as I am not sure it can ever be to our benefit given the Chinese domination of so much of international trade in goods and I am not a big fan of China anyway. Whilst most people may not worry about it I personally think there is a moral dimension to be taken into account in trade deals and China is not a country I either respect or trust. But that is a personal view.
Generally as I say it will depend entirely on the circumstances. The EU and the US are fairly easy ones to make a judgement on because we are pretty clear about what they would want and how they would want an FTA to work. I don't know enough about the rest of the world to pass judgement on the spot on a Wednesday lunchtime.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
It sounds like you think the end point of this could be a Labour government and the Tories eclipsed by Farage, and the only person with a slight chance of avoiding this is Boris.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
Penny finally dropping, eh? If only your clown-hero were so prescient
Although the polls and Betfair's odds have been fairly static, Sporting Index have adjusted their spreads to reflect more money going on Biden. The mismatch between Betfair and SI is now considerably reduced, so much so that I have now earned out the margin on both my bets. Other punters who followed the advice given on this Site a few weeks back will also be be feeling smug. Latecomers might still consider the downside of betting on Biden ECVs is still relatively low risk, but as the great Peter for Putney would say, Do Your Own Research.
Atb. The garden beckons and there's a good cricket match later.
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
So who do you think would be a good candidate to sign an FTA with?
Not the US according to you; not the EU according to other Brexiters? China? India?
Help me out here.
This whole "FTA" thing is grossly oversold. If we have the educated, creative, inventive workforce that makes the stuff the world wants to buy, then we will prosper, FTA or no. If we don't then we'll struggle.
Of course coming out of an FTA we've been in for decades will be bad - but perhaps it will make us face up to our longer term structural problems.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
It sounds like you think the end point of this could be a Labour government and the Tories eclipsed by Farage, and the only person with a slight chance of avoiding this is Boris.
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
It sounds like you think the end point of this could be a Labour government and the Tories eclipsed by Farage, and the only person with a slight chance of avoiding this is Boris.
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
Rather off topic but a friend on Facebook (he's pretty liberal in US terms and lives in Tennessee) posted this, this morning.
"Stolen from a friend-for those of us continually struggling to figure out how Trump could still have a solid 42% support despite 200,000 Covid19 deaths and the most corrupt and inept administration in our nations history, this explanation is as good as any:
“To answer the question-- Why do people continue supporting Trump no matter what he does?
A lady named Bev answered it this way:
“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don't give a shit what he does. He's just something to rally around and hate liberals, that's it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it. The fact that people act like it's anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.
"If you keep getting caught up in "why do they not realize this problem" and "how can they still back Trump after this scandal," then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it.
"Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they'll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they're not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it's irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing. Trust me; I know firsthand what I'm talking about.
"That's why they just laugh at it all because you all don't even realize they truly don't give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about. It's just a side mission story that doesn't matter anyway. That's all just trivial details - the economy, health care, whatever.
"Fuck liberals.
"Look at the issue with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that's about. It's about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.
"You've got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that's what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I'm not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that's what proves they're strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness. They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they're in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that's an obvious sign of weakness.
"They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it's that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.
"Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
It sounds like you think the end point of this could be a Labour government and the Tories eclipsed by Farage, and the only person with a slight chance of avoiding this is Boris.
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
TBF there was a time while they were trying to get a WA through parliament when it wasn't clear any PM could get it to pass anything. Implementing a concrete, specific Brexit is just a really hard thing to do without pissing most people off.
There are two different points covered in Mike's thread header and I think they need to be considered separately.
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
So who do you think would be a good candidate to sign an FTA with?
Not the US according to you; not the EU according to other Brexiters? China? India?
Help me out here.
It depends entirely on the nature of the FTA and the circumstances existing with the individual countries.
So for me an FTA with the EU is sensible - indeed as you probably remember I go further than that because I am in favour of EEA or at least EFTA membership - but again will depend on the conditions attached. I would be concerned about an FTA with China as I am not sure it can ever be to our benefit given the Chinese domination of so much of international trade in goods and I am not a big fan of China anyway. Whilst most people may not worry about it I personally think there is a moral dimension to be taken into account in trade deals and China is not a country I either respect or trust. But that is a personal view.
Generally as I say it will depend entirely on the circumstances. The EU and the US are fairly easy ones to make a judgement on because we are pretty clear about what they would want and how they would want an FTA to work. I don't know enough about the rest of the world to pass judgement on the spot on a Wednesday lunchtime.
I am aware of your views but do you see how this is the essence of Brexit. You say no to the US; others say no to the EU; China seems to be beyond the pale.
There appears to be no post-Brexit settlement that will please Brexiters en masse.
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
May steered a better course.
And BoZo crushed her.
The real problem is that both of them are backed by an army of voters almost immune to the adverse effects on the labour market, either because they are retired from it or sitting pretty on tons of assets. One of the most pitiful aspects of Brexit is those people immune from the downsides thrusting disruptive change upon everyone else.
Parents should not get their child tested even if a classmate has been sent home sick with Covid-19, Gavin Williamson said this morning.
As the government prepares to ration tests to deal with nationwide shortages, the education secretary told MPs that children should not be tested unless they displayed symptoms.
Headteachers say schools are being forced to close because so few tests are available and the system is chaotic and has ground to a halt. They warn of school “lockdown by default” as they are forced to keep pupils who cannot be tested at home, and have written to Boris Johnson begging him to resolve the situation.
Re your comments on US Trade Deal, I agree. Put simply, Biden doesn't like Brexit and would see no reason to help us out of the quagmire.
Brexit fans better hope Trump wins.
What's your take on the current state of polling? It seems to be going nowhere to me. Every now and again Trump gets a small string of decent results and you start to think something is happening, then you get a couple of good Biden ones (like Monmouth for Florida yesterday) and it's 'as you were'. There seem to be so few 'undecideds' that it's hard to see much movement over the remaining weeks which is disappointingly dull if nothing else.
"Brexit fans better hope Trump wins." Why, the House of Representatives will still be in Democrat hands and they're the ones that matter. Trump doesn't really care and he's pretty powerless over trade negotiations
Absolutely! Once again HYUFD showing his ignorance.
Best thing for a Brexit deal that can get through Congress is Biden winning.
You really need to get a clue on this, if Biden and Pelosi win there is zero chance of a US UK FTA, zero, nada, zilch.
Your only hope as a Brexiteer of getting a UK US FTA with the internal markets bill is Trump winning
You are very wrong.
If Biden can get the UK and EU/Ireland to resolve their differences then he will claim credit as a great Statesman like Clinton did with the GFA and then a deal will be able to get through Congress.
If Trump wins then the Democrats will control the House and will win the midterms too. Trump isn't getting anything like that through the House then.
The best chance of a deal is with Biden.
Biden is Irish American and will always put Ireland and the EU ahead of the UK, the UK and EU are not going to resolve their differences on the border in the Irish Sea and we are heading for No Deal.
If Trump wins there is a chance the GOP will retake the House too, in 2016 the GOP won the House when Trump won and if the GOP hold the Senate there is then a chance of a Deal.
If Biden wins and the Dems hold the House and Pelosi is Speaker there is literally zero chance of a US and UK FTA once the internal markets bill passes
Your problem is that you can't ever seem to think two steps ahead.
After the IM Bill passes and Biden wins then what happens next? The Irish will desperately want a solution, a deal that can make all this go away. They thought they had one with the Protocol but they will want one still even next year.
If Biden can help get Boris, von der Leyen and Micheál Martin in a room together and help reach a new permanent accord to replace the Protocol then he will be a success. After that then, a US/UK deal getting through Congress will be plausible in a way it isn't today.
If Biden wins then the US and UK FTA is dead, we are at No Deal and you are desperately hoping Ireland which is part of the EU is going to cave into the UK on everything, it won't, we go to No Deal and tariffs between GB and the Republic of Ireland and vice versa as well as the rest of the EU.
Von Der Leyen and Martin will not even go in the same room as Boris after that unless he restores the border in the Irish Sea or goes to EEA for the UK, he won't and Biden and Pelosi will then stand with the EU and Ireland against the UK
If we go to No Deal and Biden becomes US President and Pelosi stays House Speaker Britain will be more isolated from Europe and America than at any time since the US War of Independence when the American colonists allied with France and Spain and the Dutch against Britain
As you've put it so well and clearly, can I take it to mean and hope that in that eventuality you might finally stop supporting Boris Johnson ? ;.)
Given the risk of losses to the Brexit Party Boris will stay and I expect Leavers would just take the Millwall tone of 'no one likes us and we don't care.'
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
It sounds like you think the end point of this could be a Labour government and the Tories eclipsed by Farage, and the only person with a slight chance of avoiding this is Boris.
Isn't Boris part of (overwhelmingly I would suggest) the problem? Anyone with a bit of backbone, a pinch of intelligence, a smaller ego, a smidgen of work ethic and a smattering of morals should have been able to steer a route through this without resorting to proudly breaking the law and pissing of many of his own supporters.
Is it Boris or is it Cummings? Boris loves to be loved, can't be bothered which much hassle and has huge regard for the power of his own rhetoric. Left to his own devices, I think he would have agreed a fudge with the EU and attempted (probably successfully) to persuade his base that it was a stupendous victory for Old Blightly. He could then put his feet up for the rest of his time in office. Seems that all the mad stuff about No Deal, blockading, state aid and trillion-dollar tech is coming from Dom.
Strange stat from Angela Rayner - Average worker in social care earns just over £8 per hour.
Just not a credible claim, unless there is some statistical inexactitude involved - such as wrapping up all ages and apprentices in a single stat.
Well the “living” wage is £8.72 an hour isn’t it, and that only applies to those over 25.
I assume a majority of workers in social care are on the minimum wage, and probably a large amount of them under the age of 25? Probably not that ridiculous.
Comments
Should we be breaking our treaty obligations, flouting international law and putting at risk existing and future trade deals and other treaties? No absolutely not. It is a sad indictment of this Government and many of the MPs supporting it that this question even needs to be asked.
There is also no doubt that if we do follow this course we will put any trade deal with the US at serious risk for all the reasons both Mike and other contributors have set out.
But the second question that needs to be asked is, even if Johnson were to back down and such a deal was possible, would it really be in our interests to have one? According to the UK Government figures, in 2018 we had a trade surplus in goods and services of £45.4 billion with trade with the US growing consistently at around 5.5%. We know from the analysis by Robert Smithson that trade deals with the US generally involve surrendering dispute arbitration to a US dominated appeals system. We also know there are many areas including food quality, GM and the NHS where the UK public - if not the Government - are strongly opposed to relaxing rules in favour of the US.
So the question is what do we see the UK gaining from a US FTA?
Again this is an entirely separate question to that of breaching International Treaties. I just see the argument about a US trade deal as being pretty pointless when the benefits of such a deal are dubious at best.
Keir Starmer out of isolation
Will he do PMQs ?
the blood money of the likes of the Koch brothers and other "free-market" institutes in their relentless attempts to undermine international approaches to industrial regulation and tax evasion/avoidance. He is bought and paid for, and is filth.
Lilico on the other hand is a mental.
Indeed, I recently went to a tourist attraction *in Amsterdam* called "This is Holland":
https://www.thisisholland.com/nl/home/
https://twitter.com/Lorand_Bartels/status/1306149046718005249?s=20
At to which country is America's closest ally, the Americans themselves seem to think we are:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/16/americans-perceptions-of-their-countrys-allies-and-enemies-are-hard-to-change
What generally seems to be true is that wars in which we fight together boost our standing in the US, while long peaces undermine it.
This (well not Macc specifically), and testing needs to be sorted.
Much simpler and close at hand than arcane trade negotiations to the average voter.
TBF the Americans are hardly better informed about their own country. Heading for South Dakota I dined with a bunch of Americans from NYC, DC and Chicago. None of them had ever been there, and all they knew about it was mount rushmore. I was assured the population of the whole state was about 50000 and that I would drive for hours without seeing another car on the road
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#20th-century_wars
Not the US according to you; not the EU according to other Brexiters? China? India?
Help me out here.
Though pissing off the next administration is a different matter.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1306176441424449538
However the likelihood of a Starmer premiership and EEA post 2024 would be higher
So for me an FTA with the EU is sensible - indeed as you probably remember I go further than that because I am in favour of EEA or at least EFTA membership - but again will depend on the conditions attached. I would be concerned about an FTA with China as I am not sure it can ever be to our benefit given the Chinese domination of so much of international trade in goods and I am not a big fan of China anyway. Whilst most people may not worry about it I personally think there is a moral dimension to be taken into account in trade deals and China is not a country I either respect or trust. But that is a personal view.
Generally as I say it will depend entirely on the circumstances. The EU and the US are fairly easy ones to make a judgement on because we are pretty clear about what they would want and how they would want an FTA to work. I don't know enough about the rest of the world to pass judgement on the spot on a Wednesday lunchtime.
Atb. The garden beckons and there's a good cricket match later.
Of course coming out of an FTA we've been in for decades will be bad - but perhaps it will make us face up to our longer term structural problems.
"Stolen from a friend-for those of us continually struggling to figure out how Trump could still have a solid 42% support despite 200,000 Covid19 deaths and the most corrupt and inept administration in our nations history, this explanation is as good as any:
“To answer the question-- Why do people continue supporting Trump no matter what he does?
A lady named Bev answered it this way:
“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don't give a shit what he does. He's just something to rally around and hate liberals, that's it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it. The fact that people act like it's anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.
"If you keep getting caught up in "why do they not realize this problem" and "how can they still back Trump after this scandal," then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it.
"Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they'll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they're not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it's irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing. Trust me; I know firsthand what I'm talking about.
"That's why they just laugh at it all because you all don't even realize they truly don't give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about. It's just a side mission story that doesn't matter anyway. That's all just trivial details - the economy, health care, whatever.
"Fuck liberals.
"Look at the issue with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that's about. It's about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.
(Continued in separate post...)
"You've got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that's what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I'm not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that's what proves they're strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness. They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they're in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that's an obvious sign of weakness.
"Kindness = weakness. Honesty = weakness. Compromise = weakness.
"They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it's that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.
"Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”
And BoZo crushed her.
There appears to be no post-Brexit settlement that will please Brexiters en masse.
As the government prepares to ration tests to deal with nationwide shortages, the education secretary told MPs that children should not be tested unless they displayed symptoms.
Headteachers say schools are being forced to close because so few tests are available and the system is chaotic and has ground to a halt. They warn of school “lockdown by default” as they are forced to keep pupils who cannot be tested at home, and have written to Boris Johnson begging him to resolve the situation.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/no-coronavirus-tests-for-classmates-if-one-child-gets-covid-19-says-gavin-williamson-jbztvr6qz
He's actually above par today.
- To the best of my knowledge they should have them.
https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1306189075121082368
That'll make processing the stats easy won't it.
Where are these 250k/60k numbers coming from?
https://twitter.com/nick_gutteridge/status/1306187651037515776?s=20
Just not a credible claim, unless there is some statistical inexactitude involved - such as wrapping up all ages and apprentices in a single stat.
Even when repeated endlessly by Boris.
I assume a majority of workers in social care are on the minimum wage, and probably a large amount of them under the age of 25? Probably not that ridiculous.
Questions 2-4 very even handed.
Question 5 a very good question from Rayner (on mothers giving birth) and a very good answer from Boris to it, serious no politics here.
Very poor final question from Rayner giving Boris an open goal to say what his priorities are and get into his groove and finish on a high.
Something of an anticlimax.