I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
Your gullibility and blind loyalty is really quite quaint. And yet you mock those that have religious belief, and yet you treat Boris Johnson as those he he is a latter day Brian. If he told you to fuck off, you would ask "how should we fuck off oh master?"
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
No one except Farage was suggesting we had gone too far down the EU track until Cameron asked for our view on it. It was a question we didn't know needed answering until we were asked.
Northern Ireland angst post-Brexit, was to be expected by all except the Government's of Mrs May and Mr Johnson. Quite who was to kick off, loyalists or republicans depended upon how the cards landed.
I suppose the problem lies with Blair's GFA, and his witheringly stupid error in not anticipating Brexit.
Not my use of the apostrophe but my phone's interpretation. Can't edit on the mobile so apologies to the apostrophe police.
I wish I could say that I had never seen a grocer error...
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
No one except Farage was suggesting we had gone too far down the EU track until Cameron asked for our view on it. It was a question we didn't know needed answering until we were asked.
Northern Ireland angst post-Brexit, was to be expected by all except the Government's of Mrs May and Mr Johnson. Quite who was to kick off, loyalists or republicans depended upon how the cards landed.
I suppose the problem lies with Blair's GFA, and his witheringly stupid error in not anticipating Brexit.
Were you asleep through the 90s? And the 00s?
As a child of the 80s my earliest political memories are the famines in Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall (knocked down by Timmy Mallet on Wacaday) and the Maastricht rebellion and arguments over Europe.
Europe remained a gaping open wound within the Tory Party for all of my political lifetime. From the late 80s onwards it caused one crisis, one argument after another. A significant community felt we'd gone too far with Maastricht.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
Your gullibility and blind loyalty is really quite quaint. And yet you mock those that have religious belief, and yet you treat Boris Johnson as those he he is a latter day Brian. If he told you to fuck off, you would ask "how should we fuck off oh master?"
I've been saying on this site that a fudge was the only solution to NI since before Johnson quit the Cabinet. 🙄
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Why are Sky News showing so much of the George Floyd case, something which has nothing at all to do with this country?
Perhaps because its interesting?
The USA wasn't very interested in Sarah Everard
Why would they be? We're not very interested in 99.99% of killings in America either.
This, like the OJ Simpson trial, has caught the public's interest. It is the "trial of the century".
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, interest in matters across the pond is definitely a one way street though.
Not entirely.
Its definitely imbalanced but its not entirely one way. The USA has always had some interest in the UK too, hence the interest in a certain Oprah interview recently.
If you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire while its dominated of course by New York and American news stories there are a fair few British news stories that make the cut as to him the biggest stories of his lifetime until then. Even if it is things like "British politician sex".
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Those who pushed for Brexit, it makes peace in NI much more difficult to maintain. It's not a surprise, it was mentioned at the time. Brexiteers just weren't that concerned.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
Your gullibility and blind loyalty is really quite quaint. And yet you mock those that have religious belief, and yet you treat Boris Johnson as those he he is a latter day Brian. If he told you to fuck off, you would ask "how should we fuck off oh master?"
I've been saying on this site that a fudge was the only solution to NI since before Johnson quit the Cabinet. 🙄
I was right all along. You're just catching up.
So sorry, "All Knowing One". Your depth of experience of life is so clear for all of us on here to see (lol), and your pronouncements on all matters so comprehensive and inexhaustible I guess there is always a small possibility you might be right on something. But then again....
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
Are the PB Tories now pretending that the Irish Sea Border does not exist?
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
If we're still in dispute with the EU over the Protocol in the year 2038 that would be just like the Airbus dispute and who cares really? Who cared about the Airbus dispute? It happens, its diplomacy. The UK controlling its own laws matters more than dispute resolution.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
You can - and did. When presented with a hypothetical choice of doing proper Leave or honouring the spirit of the GFA you plumped for the former. When pressed on whether you'd say the same even if it truly did jeopardize the peace process you said "yes".
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Major supermarkets in Northern Ireland are now stocking alternate lines to their own brand stuff because they are having trouble getting them shipped.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
You can - and did. When presented with a hypothetical choice of doing proper Leave or honouring the spirit of the GFA you plumped for the former. When pressed on whether you'd say the same even if it truly did jeopardize the peace process you said "yes".
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
Of course I did. Because they were making wild threats for no reason and we don't give in to terrorists.
What comes around goes around and now we can say the same thing back to them. The threat of firebombs means the Protocol is void essentially. Poor old protocol, what a shame.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
I suspect that probably is the case - the EU getting their doses both cheaper and at a higher priority than the UK, cest la vie.
A shame Novovax production also seems to be so slow. We should have been having that vaccine stockpiled from the moment its Phase 3 results were published in January.
An early exit out of lockdown would have been worth billions to the economy but we seem to have lost all the early good work and are stuck in the slow lane.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
If we raise our standards then its no longer the same, is it?
People assume we only want control to lower standards, but we can also have control to raise them. Giving away control means having their lowest common denominator.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Reportage from the Florida Panhandle (aka Redneck Riviera) is interesting NOT for the statements of full-blown support for Gaetz, but rather for the highly-conditional, way less than 100% support by some of the folks quoted in this story:
"John Roberts, the chair of the Escambia County Republican Party, said he would never condone anyone having sex with someone who is underage. But he added that “so far I haven’t heard anything concrete.” Roberts bemoaned what he called “sinister speculation” aimed at Gaetz and added that "I don’t trust anonymous sources from The New York Times.”
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
You can see why Alistair Meeks gave up and left the site.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
Are the PB Tories now pretending that the Irish Sea Border does not exist?
Some of them seem to be, yes. They have embraced BorisWorld. It's Leavers Through The Looking Glass.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
We can still get 50,946,412 first doses done by the end of July on that schedule.
Edit: 2.7 million UK doses erroneous assumption.
By the end of July, yes, but at one stage it looked like we could have done all the first doses by the end of May - so that all adults would have had active first dose protection by the June 21st no restrictions date.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
The government have been very clear that they will not degrade the existing UK/EU food standards. Given the media storm over chlorinated chicken I expect them to actually do this one. We may choose to make our standards even higher, but that poses no issue to EU minimum standards rules.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
You can see why Alistair Meeks gave up and left the site.
Meeks left the site because he went mad, and people pointed it out, and that made him madder
I miss him. The old him. Pre-Strasbourg Syndrome. A highly articulate writer. amongst other things
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Apart from the fact that the slow down due to a combination of 2nd doses and constricted supply was stated to be happening weeks ago.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
I suspect that probably is the case - the EU getting their doses both cheaper and at a higher priority than the UK, cest la vie.
A shame Novovax production also seems to be so slow. We should have been having that vaccine stockpiled from the moment its Phase 3 results were published in January.
An early exit out of lockdown would have been worth billions to the economy but we seem to have lost all the early good work and are stuck in the slow lane.
That's a bit too pessimistic, for now. We don't really know yet, but there are ominous smoke signals
OTOH we hear anecdotal reports of people still getting invites for first doses next week.....
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
You can see why Alistair Meeks gave up and left the site.
Meeks left the site because he went mad, and people pointed it out, and that made him madder
I miss him. The old him. Pre-Strasbourg Syndrome. A highly articulate writer. amongst other things
Yes, its a shame, but he couldn't handle losing the argument. Its a shame, I wish him well. He's got a lot of internalised anger and that's not healthy, I feel sorry for him.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
If we raise our standards then its no longer the same, is it?
People assume we only want control to lower standards, but we can also have control to raise them. Giving away control means having their lowest common denominator.
The standard is a *minimum* standard. We can have an even higher standard and nobody bats an eyelid. As an example the legal definition of Gluten Free is 20 parts per million. Sainsburys have a 5 parts per million standard for their own brand. Which is legal under the existing EU laws because the law is minimum standards.
Unless you expect the UK to reduce our existing food safety laws, then nothing we do in future will bring us into conflict with EU standards. Yet we have chosen to declare that we have diverged despite not diverging, and made it difficult / expensive to "export" to part of our own country.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Apart from the fact that the slow down due to a combination of 2nd doses and constricted supply was stated to be happening weeks ago.
Nothing to do with "drift".
But WHY are official government predictions for vax supply being consistently lowered? This has now happened more than once
There is a glitch somewhere. The first one was explained by India and a bad AZ batch. This new one?
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
If we're still in dispute with the EU over the Protocol in the year 2038 that would be just like the Airbus dispute and who cares really? Who cared about the Airbus dispute? It happens, its diplomacy. The UK controlling its own laws matters more than dispute resolution.
We'll either be stuck with an Irish Sea border or we'll succeed in legging them over. The latter outcome will only be celebrated by those whose vision for Global Britain, post Brexit, is a rickety 3 wheeler van with "Trotters Independent Traders" on the side, Delboy at the wheel, eyes on the prize.
"This time next year, we'll have pivoted to the IndoPacific!"
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
The government have been very clear that they will not degrade the existing UK/EU food standards. Given the media storm over chlorinated chicken I expect them to actually do this one. We may choose to make our standards even higher, but that poses no issue to EU minimum standards rules.
So why haven't we signed a deal that allows us to export our food products? You have to ask what the reason behind that is
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
It's a shame our order from Pfizer wasn't 5-10 million bigger to plug the current gap.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Apart from the fact that the slow down due to a combination of 2nd doses and constricted supply was stated to be happening weeks ago.
Nothing to do with "drift".
Not sure about that. The recent numbers are well below where we need to be – even accounting for the factors you describe. There is little good in making excuses – the recent numbers are lousy.
We can still get 50,946,412 first doses done by the end of July on that schedule.
Edit: 2.7 million UK doses erroneous assumption.
By the end of July, yes, but at one stage it looked like we could have done all the first doses by the end of May - so that all adults would have had active first dose protection by the June 21st no restrictions date.
Up to around 31 million done in England by the end of May on the 2.7 million a week schedule. It's going to feel slow in terms of first doses for a couple of months. June can pick up though.
In terms of efficiency England is far far closer to optimal timing than the whole of the UK.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
I suspect that probably is the case - the EU getting their doses both cheaper and at a higher priority than the UK, cest la vie.
A shame Novovax production also seems to be so slow. We should have been having that vaccine stockpiled from the moment its Phase 3 results were published in January.
An early exit out of lockdown would have been worth billions to the economy but we seem to have lost all the early good work and are stuck in the slow lane.
That's a bit too pessimistic, for now. We don't really know yet, but there are ominous smoke signals
OTOH we hear anecdotal reports of people still getting invites for first doses next week.....
I'm considering hanging around outside a vax centre in the late afternoon, see if I can offer my arm!
If this is true and widespread, how long until the Spanish Foreign Minister is on the line to Raab?
As I understand it there was paperwork that needed to be done - similar to our own EU settlement scheme. Many residents haven't completed the paperwork, and now seem outraged that they aren't be allowed to live illegally in Spain as a non-documented non-resident immigrant.
Not quite the case. If you already have the old residence documents you are not required to change - although we have. I suspect that these exampkes are, as you see people who've been 'illegal' for years, probably dodging taxes, etc. The other, unlikeley possibility is they cannot afford to stay due to the way some pensions are taxed a, little less generously than before - although this change predates Brexit.
Could it be that these people have been avoiding finalising their none UK existence to retain those pensions? From memory one impact of officially leaving the UK is that your state pension no longer increases with inflation every year..
No - it does in Spain - before and after Brexit. I thin the issue for some may be Crown pensions which are taxed in the UK - and currently at a lower rate. Hacienda [tax office] is effectively charging them the difference between spanish and UK i/t rates. I for example pay about £300 more pa than before. They have backdated the change 4 years so it is annoying. Maybe for some if they are overstretched it means they can no longer afford Spain. Unlikely but theoretically possible.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
Why are Sky News showing so much of the George Floyd case, something which has nothing at all to do with this country?
Perhaps because its interesting?
The USA wasn't very interested in Sarah Everard
Why would they be? We're not very interested in 99.99% of killings in America either.
This, like the OJ Simpson trial, has caught the public's interest. It is the "trial of the century".
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, interest in matters across the pond is definitely a one way street though.
Not entirely.
Its definitely imbalanced but its not entirely one way. The USA has always had some interest in the UK too, hence the interest in a certain Oprah interview recently.
If you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire while its dominated of course by New York and American news stories there are a fair few British news stories that make the cut as to him the biggest stories of his lifetime until then. Even if it is things like "British politician sex".
That song is crying out for a remake, based on events of the past 32 years since it was written.
No, we can’t allow theatres, concert halls and nightclubs to reopen. They must remain CLOSED so that we can all be FREE
But they're imposing the social distancing rules making them uneconomic. It's a completelg circular argument. They're making it impossible for these venues to operate normally and then saying that the vaccine passport is the way out of it, not just junking the social distancing rules. It's the government regulations on social distancing that need to be binned forever.
It depends what the bug does, dunnit?
If by June we are down to near zero covid (we will never hit zero) with no pressure on the NHS, cases minimal, a few deaths a day, then of course we must open up. Everything. I will burn my masks in a fearsome ritual.
From what I can tell there is a big debate WITHIN govt as to what will happen in the summer. Some SAGE pessimists are predicting a 4th wave nearly as bad as January. To me that seems highly unlikely because vaccines. But these people are boffins so we can’t completely dismiss them
The confusion on vaxports probably stems from this fierce internal HMG debate between the vaccine optimists and the 4th wave pessimists
Those sage pessimists put efficacy of 32% for a single dose and 62% for two doses into their model. We know actual observed efficacy of a single dose of either Pfizer or AZ is 80% and for two doses it's over 99% for AZ and over 99.9% for Pfizer on the cumulative hospitalisations measure.
Who is the fourth wave going to present itself in?
If we're patient for another month, then probably not.
Chile is a totally misleading comparison, because they are using a lot of Chinese Sinovac, which has a comparatively poor efficacy, particularly against the Brazilian variant (which is probably the dominant strain in Chile).
It's only suddenly been wheeled out to justify more lockdown, vaccine passports etc. because those who want these things are increasingly struggling to justify them in a UK context, especially when the only other possible comparator is Israel which isn't all that far ahead of the UK and appears to have pretty much banished Covid whilst opening up pretty much fully.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
Delusional - the Biden dropped the US tariffs in an effort to reset his relationship with the EU. Brexit was an irrelevance.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
At the moment the EU's problem is not supply it's distribution. In the current febrile atmosphere any "seizure" would be impossible to keep quiet.
As for today's figures, they are actually yesterday's figures, and yesterday was a Bank Holiday.
I'm 47 and am getting faffed off with my school and college contemporaries boasting about getting their first shots on social media, even this weekend past..
Why are Sky News showing so much of the George Floyd case, something which has nothing at all to do with this country?
Perhaps because its interesting?
The USA wasn't very interested in Sarah Everard
Why would they be? We're not very interested in 99.99% of killings in America either.
This, like the OJ Simpson trial, has caught the public's interest. It is the "trial of the century".
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, interest in matters across the pond is definitely a one way street though.
Not entirely.
Its definitely imbalanced but its not entirely one way. The USA has always had some interest in the UK too, hence the interest in a certain Oprah interview recently.
If you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire while its dominated of course by New York and American news stories there are a fair few British news stories that make the cut as to him the biggest stories of his lifetime until then. Even if it is things like "British politician sex".
That song is crying out for a remake, based on events of the past 32 years since it was written.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
Yes, the vaccine numbers may be something of a distraction, if we have already jabbed enough to make the virus go away in terms of deaths/hospitalisations
I still want us to go back to 500,000 a day tho. That felt good. It felt like we were winning. It felt like Ben Stokes hitting sixes all over the park. Now we've got Geoff Boycott eking out one single every over
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
If we raise our standards then its no longer the same, is it?
People assume we only want control to lower standards, but we can also have control to raise them. Giving away control means having their lowest common denominator.
The standard is a *minimum* standard. We can have an even higher standard and nobody bats an eyelid. As an example the legal definition of Gluten Free is 20 parts per million. Sainsburys have a 5 parts per million standard for their own brand. Which is legal under the existing EU laws because the law is minimum standards.
Unless you expect the UK to reduce our existing food safety laws, then nothing we do in future will bring us into conflict with EU standards. Yet we have chosen to declare that we have diverged despite not diverging, and made it difficult / expensive to "export" to part of our own country.
Companies can do better than the minimum standard, that's the case regardless of law. But if its not Sainsbury's saying 5 parts per million, but Westminster saying all products sold in the UK as Gluten Free must be 5 parts per million thus excluding EU GF products from sale, then that's a different matter isn't it?
Or to take a topical example of foie gras - Blair's UK banned domestic production of foie gras but under EU laws we couldn't prevent it being imported to the UK if it was manufactured in France. Now its been suggested that it will be outlawed altogether, so it won't be able to be imported even from France.
That would be a higher standard and a divergence from Europe. QED.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
The government have been very clear that they will not degrade the existing UK/EU food standards. Given the media storm over chlorinated chicken I expect them to actually do this one. We may choose to make our standards even higher, but that poses no issue to EU minimum standards rules.
So why haven't we signed a deal that allows us to export our food products? You have to ask what the reason behind that is
Various possibilities, of which combinations of which are possible/likely 1 The government still don't know the mechanics of trade 2 We have declared Brexit to be done so can't be seen going back to negotiate (despite just having done so regarding our previous insistence of vet certificates for Chocolate Digestive exports) 3 Politically, the "we have completely left" makes it impossible to have any agreements with the EU 4 They simply don't care and can't understand why business keeps complaining
It's bizarre. Yesterday it was perfectly dry and sunny, today I'm staring out at a blizzard.
Hideous here in London. Cold, grey, bleak. Like January
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
That's a bad habit to get into. I get the temptation but you should make the effort. Shower, shave, proper chinos and top, then set about your day.
At least I have resisted drinking until now. 4.19pm.
I'm just hanging on too. I only do red wine but I'm needing it rather than choosing it these days.
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
The under-50s are going to be getting Moderna, almost certainly. There's not going to be much AZ or Pf to go around.
They're talking about a delivery of 500,000 Moderna doses. Precious few people, of whatever age, are going to receive it.
I know Moderna was the one vaccine where we signed a contract after the EU. Maybe that explains it.
The initial AZ delivery was 500k. We're due our whole 17m order in Q2 so that 500k will necessarily have to ramp up over April and May to hit the 17m target.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
WARNING
Beware the 'large' daily deaths number (maybe 80 to 100) which will appear tomorrow due to Easter backlog. This will push the 7 day number up from today's 212.
But yes heading towards 200 a week (this time next week will see the Easter effect no longer in the numbers). Then on to 100 a week but I think that will take till early May minimum.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
Yes, the vaccine numbers may be something of a distraction, if we have already jabbed enough to make the virus go away in terms of deaths/hospitalisations
I still want us to go back to 500,000 a day tho. That felt good. It felt like we were winning. It felt like Ben Stokes hitting sixes all over the park. Now we've got Geoff Boycott eking out one single every over
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
You can see why Alistair Meeks gave up and left the site.
Meeks left the site because he went mad, and people pointed it out, and that made him madder
I miss him. The old him. Pre-Strasbourg Syndrome. A highly articulate writer. amongst other things
I used to really like Meeks until he told me that I must be a racist and an imbecile for being pro-Brexit, and refused to accept that there could be any other grounds for my position, despite me explicitly stating that I was pro-immigration but believed in fast and nimble in a rapidly changing world. He became extremely abusive to anyone who challenged his interpretation of what Brexit-supporters are, but then cried foul each time anyone impugned the validity of his own crazed thinking.
I always found it hard to understand how someone as smart as he could become so deranged on an issue that, while important, is not the end of the world.
It's bizarre. Yesterday it was perfectly dry and sunny, today I'm staring out at a blizzard.
Hideous here in London. Cold, grey, bleak. Like January
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
That's a bad habit to get into. I get the temptation but you should make the effort. Shower, shave, proper chinos and top, then set about your day.
At least I have resisted drinking until now. 4.19pm.
I'm just hanging on too. I only do red wine but I'm needing it rather than choosing it these days.
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
Ooh. Good idea
How about this woman? Vile or not vile? I say vile
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
Delusional - the Biden dropped the US tariffs in an effort to reset his relationship with the EU. Brexit was an irrelevance.
Delusional - the UK broke the impasse and seventeen years of both parties refusing to be the first to blink. Of course the EU scampered along the next day once the impasse was broken, there was no reason not to do so.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
You can - and did. When presented with a hypothetical choice of doing proper Leave or honouring the spirit of the GFA you plumped for the former. When pressed on whether you'd say the same even if it truly did jeopardize the peace process you said "yes".
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
Of course I did. Because they were making wild threats for no reason and we don't give in to terrorists.
What comes around goes around and now we can say the same thing back to them. The threat of firebombs means the Protocol is void essentially. Poor old protocol, what a shame.
Well done for admitting it and thus the rank hypocrisy of your previous post.
And please stop saying things like "poor old Protocol, what a shame".
It makes you sound snide and shallow and unpleasant.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
No lies have been told. Johnson said all along he wasn't going to erect an Irish Sea border, he literally said it in the election campaign before the deal was signed off and ratified. There was always a get-out that peace comes first, that was agreed by both parties.
People assumed, wrongly it seems, that Johnson was lying in the election campaign. Instead he was being bluntly honest and those who signed the deal having been told no Irish Sea border will be built are acting with shock and indignation at the lack of building an Irish Sea border.
And there's a get out. Because peace comes first.
Poor old Protocol, what a shame. RIP, we barely knew you.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
Oh, come on. These are details that mere business people must deal with and are therefore unimportant to a Boris Johnson worshipping 24/7 keyboard warrior who genuinely believes (and I shit you not) that he is "right all along". People like Philip do make me question my lifelong belief in the principle of universal suffrage.
You can see why Alistair Meeks gave up and left the site.
Meeks left the site because he went mad, and people pointed it out, and that made him madder
I miss him. The old him. Pre-Strasbourg Syndrome. A highly articulate writer. amongst other things
I used to really like Meeks until he told me that I must be a racist and an imbecile for being pro-Brexit, and refused to accept that there could be any other grounds for my position, despite me explicitly stating that I was pro-immigration but believed in fast and nimble in a rapidly changing world. He became extremely abusive to anyone who challenged his interpretation of what Brexit-supporters are, but then cried foul each time anyone impugned the validity of his own crazed thinking.
I always found it hard to understand how someone as smart as he could become so deranged on an issue that, while important, is not the end of the world.
Yes, he's one of the people that convinced me Strasbourg Syndrome is an actual thing, and a kind of cognitive impairment. The total inability to see the other opinion, to believe it has validity, meanwhile possessing opinions of your own that really stretch credulity, and all of it rolled up in some dark emotional bitterness, emerging as personal abuse.
It was quite sad to witness. Hopefully he can recuperate on Twitter, such a smart guy
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
Delusional - the Biden dropped the US tariffs in an effort to reset his relationship with the EU. Brexit was an irrelevance.
Delusional - the UK broke the impasse and seventeen years of both parties refusing to be the first to blink. Of course the EU scampered along the next day once the impasse was broken, there was no reason not to do so.
The UK unilaterally dropped their tariffs on the US in December 2020 and were ignored. It was only in March when the US decided they needed to try and repair their relationship with the EU that the US dropped its tariffs.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
Delusional - the Biden dropped the US tariffs in an effort to reset his relationship with the EU. Brexit was an irrelevance.
Delusional - the UK broke the impasse and seventeen years of both parties refusing to be the first to blink. Of course the EU scampered along the next day once the impasse was broken, there was no reason not to do so.
Got any evidence to prove that
Actually don't bother as I know you won't have it's just more of your delusional love of Boris.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
You can - and did. When presented with a hypothetical choice of doing proper Leave or honouring the spirit of the GFA you plumped for the former. When pressed on whether you'd say the same even if it truly did jeopardize the peace process you said "yes".
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
Of course I did. Because they were making wild threats for no reason and we don't give in to terrorists.
What comes around goes around and now we can say the same thing back to them. The threat of firebombs means the Protocol is void essentially. Poor old protocol, what a shame.
Well done for admitting it and thus the rank hypocrisy of your previous post.
And please stop saying things like "poor old Protocol, what a shame".
It makes you sound snide and shallow and unpleasant.
Oh don't be so facetious.
Poor old [Gordon], what a shame (PO[G]WAS) has been a long running phrase on this site since I first joined it.
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Some fudge, yes. But the integrity of the Single Market - which requires the Irish Sea border - was the EU's one and only true red line. So this one has a way to run, I think.
So be it.
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
The US dropped their tariffs on the EU the day after - nothing to do with Brexit but rather the change in US president.
Nah, the EU followed on the path we led. We were first mover.
Delusional - the Biden dropped the US tariffs in an effort to reset his relationship with the EU. Brexit was an irrelevance.
Delusional - the UK broke the impasse and seventeen years of both parties refusing to be the first to blink. Of course the EU scampered along the next day once the impasse was broken, there was no reason not to do so.
The UK unilaterally dropped their tariffs on the US in December 2020 and were ignored. It was only in March when the US decided they needed to try and repair their relationship with the EU that the US dropped its tariffs.
Which is why the US responded to Britain first, got it.
And the Americans responded in January to say that the UK's first movement was helpful and they were looking into reciprocating. So much for saying it was ignored.
That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Apart from the fact that the slow down due to a combination of 2nd doses and constricted supply was stated to be happening weeks ago.
Nothing to do with "drift".
Not sure about that. The recent numbers are well below where we need to be – even accounting for the factors you describe. There is little good in making excuses – the recent numbers are lousy.
Our previous assumptions about supply were overly optimistic, as they didn't factor in interruptions to deliveries from either India or Europe.
According the the numbers from the SAGE report, quoted in the Guardian, supply after July looks even worse: ...The latest modelling paper, produced for the Sage scientific advisory committee, said that “the central rollout scenario” provided to academics by the Cabinet Office was “considerably slower” than previously used.
That, the document added, amounted to “an average of 2.7m doses per week in England until the end of July (2m thereafter)” which was compared with “3.2m per week in the previous iteration (3.9m thereafter)”....
From the SAGE paper itself the new assumptions are: Per Cabinet Office scenario: Fast: An average of 2.7m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter Slow: an average of 2.5m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter
It's bizarre. Yesterday it was perfectly dry and sunny, today I'm staring out at a blizzard.
Hideous here in London. Cold, grey, bleak. Like January
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
That's a bad habit to get into. I get the temptation but you should make the effort. Shower, shave, proper chinos and top, then set about your day.
At least I have resisted drinking until now. 4.19pm.
I'm just hanging on too. I only do red wine but I'm needing it rather than choosing it these days.
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
Ooh. Good idea
How about this woman? Vile or not vile? I say vile
Comments
As a child of the 80s my earliest political memories are the famines in Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall (knocked down by Timmy Mallet on Wacaday) and the Maastricht rebellion and arguments over Europe.
Europe remained a gaping open wound within the Tory Party for all of my political lifetime. From the late 80s onwards it caused one crisis, one argument after another. A significant community felt we'd gone too far with Maastricht.
It wasn't only Farage who made it an issue.
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/06/england-covid-vaccine-programme-could-slow-sharply-sage-warns
Apologies if already posted
I was right all along. You're just catching up.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Its definitely imbalanced but its not entirely one way. The USA has always had some interest in the UK too, hence the interest in a certain Oprah interview recently.
If you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire while its dominated of course by New York and American news stories there are a fair few British news stories that make the cut as to him the biggest stories of his lifetime until then. Even if it is things like "British politician sex".
Edit: 2.7 million UK doses erroneous assumption.
It's not a surprise, it was mentioned at the time. Brexiteers just weren't that concerned.
We have had to suspend some of the physical border in the form of customs inspections posts (locations of which are listed here https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/points-entry-poe) because of the security risk in them getting firebombed.
I know that you don't want there to be a customs border down the Irish Sea. But it is there - try filling a truck with foodstuffs and set off to Belfast and see what happens...
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
The EU has managed to undo nearly 5 years of gammon deaths.....
The America/EU dispute Airbus and Boeing dispute has been running since 2004, hence tariffs on Scotch. Brexit Britain got the tariffs dropped weeks after leaving the EU.
If we're still in dispute with the EU over the Protocol in the year 2038 that would be just like the Airbus dispute and who cares really? Who cared about the Airbus dispute? It happens, its diplomacy. The UK controlling its own laws matters more than dispute resolution.
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
What comes around goes around and now we can say the same thing back to them. The threat of firebombs means the Protocol is void essentially. Poor old protocol, what a shame.
A shame Novovax production also seems to be so slow. We should have been having that vaccine stockpiled from the moment its Phase 3 results were published in January.
An early exit out of lockdown would have been worth billions to the economy but we seem to have lost all the early good work and are stuck in the slow lane.
People assume we only want control to lower standards, but we can also have control to raise them. Giving away control means having their lowest common denominator.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
"John Roberts, the chair of the Escambia County Republican Party, said he would never condone anyone having sex with someone who is underage. But he added that “so far I haven’t heard anything concrete.” Roberts bemoaned what he called “sinister speculation” aimed at Gaetz and added that "I don’t trust anonymous sources from The New York Times.”
I know Moderna was the one vaccine where we signed a contract after the EU. Maybe that explains it.
We chose peace. Just as I always expected. Good!
I miss him. The old him. Pre-Strasbourg Syndrome. A highly articulate writer. amongst other things
Nothing to do with "drift".
OTOH we hear anecdotal reports of people still getting invites for first doses next week.....
I hope he gets better.
Unless you expect the UK to reduce our existing food safety laws, then nothing we do in future will bring us into conflict with EU standards. Yet we have chosen to declare that we have diverged despite not diverging, and made it difficult / expensive to "export" to part of our own country.
There is a glitch somewhere. The first one was explained by India and a bad AZ batch. This new one?
"This time next year, we'll have pivoted to the IndoPacific!"
In terms of efficiency England is far far closer to optimal timing than the whole of the UK.
I'm considering hanging around outside a vax centre in the late afternoon, see if I can offer my arm!
https://twitter.com/mrianleslie/status/1379096799709949952?s=20
Also, one of the best Wikipedia entries of any pop song - with an awful lot of lyric references.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire
It's only suddenly been wheeled out to justify more lockdown, vaccine passports etc. because those who want these things are increasingly struggling to justify them in a UK context, especially when the only other possible comparator is Israel which isn't all that far ahead of the UK and appears to have pretty much banished Covid whilst opening up pretty much fully.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1379452782827212804
As for today's figures, they are actually yesterday's figures, and yesterday was a Bank Holiday.
I'm 47 and am getting faffed off with my school and college contemporaries boasting about getting their first shots on social media, even this weekend past..
Bumble and Athers have done it already!
I still want us to go back to 500,000 a day tho. That felt good. It felt like we were winning. It felt like Ben Stokes hitting sixes all over the park. Now we've got Geoff Boycott eking out one single every over
Or to take a topical example of foie gras - Blair's UK banned domestic production of foie gras but under EU laws we couldn't prevent it being imported to the UK if it was manufactured in France. Now its been suggested that it will be outlawed altogether, so it won't be able to be imported even from France.
That would be a higher standard and a divergence from Europe. QED.
1 The government still don't know the mechanics of trade
2 We have declared Brexit to be done so can't be seen going back to negotiate (despite just having done so regarding our previous insistence of vet certificates for Chocolate Digestive exports)
3 Politically, the "we have completely left" makes it impossible to have any agreements with the EU
4 They simply don't care and can't understand why business keeps complaining
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
Democrat head explosion imminent
Beware the 'large' daily deaths number (maybe 80 to 100) which will appear tomorrow due to Easter backlog. This will push the 7 day number up from today's 212.
But yes heading towards 200 a week (this time next week will see the Easter effect no longer in the numbers). Then on to 100 a week but I think that will take till early May minimum.
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1379457494569869312
I always found it hard to understand how someone as smart as he could become so deranged on an issue that, while important, is not the end of the world.
How about this woman? Vile or not vile? I say vile
https://twitter.com/PriyamvadaGopal/status/1379083029763784707?s=20
And please stop saying things like "poor old Protocol, what a shame".
It makes you sound snide and shallow and unpleasant.
It was quite sad to witness. Hopefully he can recuperate on Twitter, such a smart guy
Actually don't bother as I know you won't have it's just more of your delusional love of Boris.
Poor old [Gordon], what a shame (PO[G]WAS) has been a long running phrase on this site since I first joined it.
And the Americans responded in January to say that the UK's first movement was helpful and they were looking into reciprocating. So much for saying it was ignored.
According the the numbers from the SAGE report, quoted in the Guardian, supply after July looks even worse:
...The latest modelling paper, produced for the Sage scientific advisory committee, said that “the central rollout scenario” provided to academics by the Cabinet Office was “considerably slower” than previously used.
That, the document added, amounted to “an average of 2.7m doses per week in England until the end of July (2m thereafter)” which was compared with “3.2m per week in the previous iteration (3.9m thereafter)”....
From the SAGE paper itself the new assumptions are:
Per Cabinet Office scenario:
Fast: An average of 2.7m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter
Slow: an average of 2.5m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter
Hardly vile, that resides exclusively on the other side, but "collaborators" is a word to avoid.