On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
My one response to that post - is can you provide any evidence that thinking was involved when this final plan was created.
The sole purpose of the plan was to different enough from T May's plan that the Tory Party would vote it through - most MPs have admitted to not even reading it let alone spending time trying to understand it
Not technically, the GFA only prevents security checkpoints.
It does not prevent customs posts at the Irish border if Boris decided to move the hard border from the Irish Sea to Ireland, albeit that also means the end of the EU trade deal and WTO terms for the UK
Are you sure you get the picture?
You might need to divert your tanks from Scotland to the Emerald Isle.
I support the Boris deal as it stands, the alternatives are worse, ie WTO terms and a hard border in Ireland or SM and CU alignment for GB which splits the Tory Party (though Starmer could do the latter).
By avoiding No Deal Scottish polls still show there is not over 50% support for independence and NI polls show most still want to stay in the UK so need for the military which might have been needed if WTO terms Brexit was imposed on Scotland and a hard border imposed in Ireland
According to the header at the top of that page, from today they will use mid 2020 population estimates insted of mid 2019 population estimates, for calculating the %
The numbers at the moment:
46,388,744 first doses which equates to 88.1% of all over 18s implying a population of 52,654,647 people over the age of 18 in the UK.
Now some have speculated with good reason, that many EU nationals who where formally living and working in the UK at the start of the pandemic, have left since then, partly as their jobs disappeared in the pandemic, partly because they wanted to be near there family's at a time of stress, and partly because of BREXIT. this may be overstated, but there are probably more who have left than arrived, we don't know haw many but will find out soon.
If its 2 million, which is probably far to high, but I'll do the calculation:
Then Population of 50,654,647 and 46,388,744 first jabs equates to 91.6% vaccinated adults.
if its 1,111,599 people than:
Then population of 51,543,049 and 46,388,744 first jabs equates to 90.00% vaccinated adults.
Even if its just half a million people then that will push us to 90% ish
Could be a lot less then half a million,
Anybody what to speculation as to what the new population estimate will be?
I'm going to guess just under a million, (based on absolutely nothing)
The percentage will go down, the ONS 2020 mid year figures are here:
On thread - Tony Blair is wearing a surprisingly horrible tie. And his jacket looks too big. Yet I remember him being described as style over substance. Clearly the 90s were a less stylish time than I remember.
Thankfully we now have a PM who is the picture of sartorial elegance.
We also have a PM who wouldn't have got the GFA as badly wrong for Brexit as Blair. If only Frosty had been around 23 years ago.
.. We can - justly - be very proud of the British vaccination programme, while I think also admitting that the gap between us and our European neighbours has narrowed somewhat. [snip]
Unfortunately we've thrown away the advantage we had. Boris didn't do anything to stop Delta getting widely seeded when it was obvious he should, he screwed up the re-opening that would have been possible if we'd concentrated on the protection given to the (double-) jabbed, we've been slow to get the youngsters jabbed, and because of the mixed messaging and confusion we've now got one of the highest infection rates in Europe, thus triggering the pingdemic and negating all the advantages of being early in the vaccination programme.
Tbh, the infection rates in Europe are about to or have already followed.
Quite possibly. I'm not saying we'll end up worse than them in this latest wave, but that we've* thrown away the advantage of the initially much faster vaccination roll-out.
* By 'we' I really mean 'he'.
I actually think that's unfair - if you go back two months to May there wasn't the vaccines and capacity to vaccinate people any quicker.
Just about the only thing to speed things up further would be to reduce the vaccination period below 8 weeks which is supposedly counter productive.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
Mrs May had by far the best solution to NI but it undoubtedly tied the hands of the rUK in respect of trade deals etc. Personally, I remain of the view that it was a perfectly sensible compromise reflecting the finely balanced views of the country. I supported it at the time and would have continued to do so. But its too late now. The second referendas shot it down. Pity.
Has anyone proposed giving Northern Ireland excluding counties Down and Antrim to the Republic of Ireland, with those two countries remaining part of the UK?
Heath did in I think 1973.
But I don’t think it would be feasible. Quite apart from the large minorities of Unionists in say, Londonderry, and the similar Nationalist communities in Belfast, where would the water and electricity supplies come from?
Thatcher proposed redrawing the boundaries but Fitzgerald rejected it preferring joint Irish and UK sovereignty over NI
Not technically, the GFA only prevents security checkpoints.
It does not prevent customs posts at the Irish border if Boris decided to move the hard border from the Irish Sea to Ireland, albeit that also means the end of the EU trade deal and WTO terms for the UK
Are you sure you get the picture?
You might need to divert your tanks from Scotland to the Emerald Isle.
At this rate we’re going to have more places to invade than we have tanks.
Not long now: DA reckoned the other day the MOD was working towards having just 60 tanks proper that were actually equipped to modern standards.
Do Tanks even have a use anymore? Genuine question.
According to the header at the top of that page, from today they will use mid 2020 population estimates insted of mid 2019 population estimates, for calculating the %
The numbers at the moment:
46,388,744 first doses which equates to 88.1% of all over 18s implying a population of 52,654,647 people over the age of 18 in the UK.
Now some have speculated with good reason, that many EU nationals who where formally living and working in the UK at the start of the pandemic, have left since then, partly as their jobs disappeared in the pandemic, partly because they wanted to be near there family's at a time of stress, and partly because of BREXIT. this may be overstated, but there are probably more who have left than arrived, we don't know haw many but will find out soon.
If its 2 million, which is probably far to high, but I'll do the calculation:
Then Population of 50,654,647 and 46,388,744 first jabs equates to 91.6% vaccinated adults.
if its 1,111,599 people than:
Then population of 51,543,049 and 46,388,744 first jabs equates to 90.00% vaccinated adults.
Even if its just half a million people then that will push us to 90% ish
Could be a lot less then half a million,
Anybody what to speculation as to what the new population estimate will be?
I'm going to guess just under a million, (based on absolutely nothing)
The percentage will go down, the ONS 2020 mid year figures are here:
As the UK government aren't (for some unknown reason) listening to either Philip or HYUFD, we will have to await developments.
What will make for entertaining reading is the reaction of allies and future trading relationship partners like America. They made very clear how they will react to us crapping over the GFA and not honouring treaties.
The UK government is edging to my position. Lord Frost all but confirmed this week that the conditions are right to invoke Article 16 if we choose to do so.
Just as the UK government edged to my position pre-Brexit away from May's.
If they'd just let me be in control of this whole thing, it would go so much smoother. Or not. 😉
Lol - yes lets have the world expert in charge!
The problem with "just invoke Article 16" is all the downstream consequences of doing so. Your position is blissfully naive - then again so was Frost's so yes maybe they should.
I know that you are the fountain of all knowledge and that everything is simple, but in the real world it isn't simple. We can't just either invoke A16 and problem solved, or not stay aligned and just do what we want no matter how many times you say it.
The classic fudge solution is coming. We are aligned now, so all barriers could be dropped now. We say that we reserve the right to diverge, and propose a 3rd party arbiter if either side raises a standards challenge in future. We all get along. So when our new trade deal gets signed with America and we protect food standards as we say we will, there are no problems.
To get there we need to drop our absolutes. I dropped mine, can you drop yours, or is every mistake or difference of opinion to be met with "liar"?
Your proposed solution misses the point of what this is all about, and the US trade deal is a complete red herring. It's about whether we accept the principle of EU regulatory hegemony beyond its borders. If we're going to do that, then Brexit would be completely pointless.
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
My one response to that post - is can you provide any evidence that thinking was involved when this final plan was created.
The sole purpose of the plan was to different enough from T May's plan that the Tory Party would vote it through - most MPs have admitted to not even reading it let alone spending time trying to understand it
Thinking was clearly involved but the priorities were completely different. They were concerned about the UK's ability to have its own trade deals around the world, to set its own regulatory framework and to change it as we think fit. NI was a long way down the list, somewhere behind fish.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
Mrs May had by far the best solution to NI but it undoubtedly tied the hands of the rUK in respect of trade deals etc. Personally, I remain of the view that it was a perfectly sensible compromise reflecting the finely balanced views of the country. I supported it at the time and would have continued to do so. But its too late now. The second referendas shot it down. Pity.
Hmm, looking at the current refusal to negotiate the May deal just replicates the issues of the NI protocol to the whole UK. The only way out would have been to abrogating the treaty under the Vienna convention. We'd be a conquered nation in every meaningful sense it was a capitulation.
Let's face it: Frosty is hopeless. Boris's admirers are keeping quiet for now but, as they did with Cummings, when he departs it will be: 'We always said the post-Brexit deal was a gigantic balls up, but don't blame Boris. It was all that idiot Frosty's fault!'
Two days in a row we've significantly undershot expectations for positives. Deaths is high, but over a quarter of that is Scotland (which seems to have some data issue with lumpy Thursdays?)
As the UK government aren't (for some unknown reason) listening to either Philip or HYUFD, we will have to await developments.
What will make for entertaining reading is the reaction of allies and future trading relationship partners like America. They made very clear how they will react to us crapping over the GFA and not honouring treaties.
The UK government is edging to my position. Lord Frost all but confirmed this week that the conditions are right to invoke Article 16 if we choose to do so.
Just as the UK government edged to my position pre-Brexit away from May's.
If they'd just let me be in control of this whole thing, it would go so much smoother. Or not. 😉
Lol - yes lets have the world expert in charge!
The problem with "just invoke Article 16" is all the downstream consequences of doing so. Your position is blissfully naive - then again so was Frost's so yes maybe they should.
I know that you are the fountain of all knowledge and that everything is simple, but in the real world it isn't simple. We can't just either invoke A16 and problem solved, or not stay aligned and just do what we want no matter how many times you say it.
The classic fudge solution is coming. We are aligned now, so all barriers could be dropped now. We say that we reserve the right to diverge, and propose a 3rd party arbiter if either side raises a standards challenge in future. We all get along. So when our new trade deal gets signed with America and we protect food standards as we say we will, there are no problems.
To get there we need to drop our absolutes. I dropped mine, can you drop yours, or is every mistake or difference of opinion to be met with "liar"?
Your proposed solution misses the point of what this is all about, and the US trade deal is a complete red herring. It's about whether we accept the principle of EU regulatory hegemony beyond its borders. If we're going to do that, then Brexit would be completely pointless.
No I get it entirely - principle. In practice our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. We have said we will only increase our standards, as have the EU. So we're both at the same point heading in the same direction.
The sensible compromise is to accept that. At some future point we may diverge in how quickly we increase our standards but that will be timing and not direction. So fudge it. The problem is we don't even want to recognise the status quo - we demand 3rd country status and checks for the GB zone despite being wholly aligned to the EEA.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
So that page says we will have the ability to sign our own trade deals - so that means out of the Customs Union and having a customs border between UK and EU.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
As the UK government aren't (for some unknown reason) listening to either Philip or HYUFD, we will have to await developments.
What will make for entertaining reading is the reaction of allies and future trading relationship partners like America. They made very clear how they will react to us crapping over the GFA and not honouring treaties.
The UK government is edging to my position. Lord Frost all but confirmed this week that the conditions are right to invoke Article 16 if we choose to do so.
Just as the UK government edged to my position pre-Brexit away from May's.
If they'd just let me be in control of this whole thing, it would go so much smoother. Or not. 😉
Lol - yes lets have the world expert in charge!
The problem with "just invoke Article 16" is all the downstream consequences of doing so. Your position is blissfully naive - then again so was Frost's so yes maybe they should.
I know that you are the fountain of all knowledge and that everything is simple, but in the real world it isn't simple. We can't just either invoke A16 and problem solved, or not stay aligned and just do what we want no matter how many times you say it.
The classic fudge solution is coming. We are aligned now, so all barriers could be dropped now. We say that we reserve the right to diverge, and propose a 3rd party arbiter if either side raises a standards challenge in future. We all get along. So when our new trade deal gets signed with America and we protect food standards as we say we will, there are no problems.
To get there we need to drop our absolutes. I dropped mine, can you drop yours, or is every mistake or difference of opinion to be met with "liar"?
Your proposed solution misses the point of what this is all about, and the US trade deal is a complete red herring. It's about whether we accept the principle of EU regulatory hegemony beyond its borders. If we're going to do that, then Brexit would be completely pointless.
No I get it entirely - principle. In practice our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. We have said we will only increase our standards, as have the EU. So we're both at the same point heading in the same direction.
The sensible compromise is to accept that. At some future point we may diverge in how quickly we increase our standards but that will be timing and not direction. So fudge it. The problem is we don't even want to recognise the status quo - we demand 3rd country status and checks for the GB zone despite being wholly aligned to the EEA.
Standards aren't simply a game of higher or lower. They are inherently political.
Two days in a row we've significantly undershot expectations for positives. Deaths is high, but over a quarter of that is Scotland (which seems to have some data issue with lumpy Thursdays?)
And deaths are going to lag anyway. And frankly isn’t really that high anyway if that’s as high as they go.
29 in my home office in the attic. 'Rain coming', says my computer. Which seems unlikely.
Convection has initiated over the southern Pennines (Peak District) and Snowdonia, and there's quite a lot of lightning. Can see the cloud tops from the Flatlands.
Rain is definitely coming to Ashbourne and Bakewell.
More likely elsewhere at the weekend though. Be glad to see the back of these temperatures (30C here, ugh).
Not technically, the GFA only prevents security checkpoints.
It does not prevent customs posts at the Irish border if Boris decided to move the hard border from the Irish Sea to Ireland, albeit that also means the end of the EU trade deal and WTO terms for the UK
Are you sure you get the picture?
You might need to divert your tanks from Scotland to the Emerald Isle.
At this rate we’re going to have more places to invade than we have tanks.
Not long now: DA reckoned the other day the MOD was working towards having just 60 tanks proper that were actually equipped to modern standards.
Do Tanks even have a use anymore? Genuine question.
Not much these days, 7th Armoured Brigade is just now 7th Infantry Brigade.
As the UK government aren't (for some unknown reason) listening to either Philip or HYUFD, we will have to await developments.
What will make for entertaining reading is the reaction of allies and future trading relationship partners like America. They made very clear how they will react to us crapping over the GFA and not honouring treaties.
The UK government is edging to my position. Lord Frost all but confirmed this week that the conditions are right to invoke Article 16 if we choose to do so.
Just as the UK government edged to my position pre-Brexit away from May's.
If they'd just let me be in control of this whole thing, it would go so much smoother. Or not. 😉
Lol - yes lets have the world expert in charge!
The problem with "just invoke Article 16" is all the downstream consequences of doing so. Your position is blissfully naive - then again so was Frost's so yes maybe they should.
I know that you are the fountain of all knowledge and that everything is simple, but in the real world it isn't simple. We can't just either invoke A16 and problem solved, or not stay aligned and just do what we want no matter how many times you say it.
The classic fudge solution is coming. We are aligned now, so all barriers could be dropped now. We say that we reserve the right to diverge, and propose a 3rd party arbiter if either side raises a standards challenge in future. We all get along. So when our new trade deal gets signed with America and we protect food standards as we say we will, there are no problems.
To get there we need to drop our absolutes. I dropped mine, can you drop yours, or is every mistake or difference of opinion to be met with "liar"?
Your proposed solution misses the point of what this is all about, and the US trade deal is a complete red herring. It's about whether we accept the principle of EU regulatory hegemony beyond its borders. If we're going to do that, then Brexit would be completely pointless.
No I get it entirely - principle. In practice our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. We have said we will only increase our standards, as have the EU. So we're both at the same point heading in the same direction.
The sensible compromise is to accept that. At some future point we may diverge in how quickly we increase our standards but that will be timing and not direction. So fudge it. The problem is we don't even want to recognise the status quo - we demand 3rd country status and checks for the GB zone despite being wholly aligned to the EEA.
The UK has proposed fudge though, the EU don't want to accept it. They want dynamic alignment or nothing.
I remember the tears that were shed on here when Obama made his 'back of the queue' speech. ('A foreigner telling me what to do in my own country' etc.) Now we know that Obama was right, right and right again! I hope the people who abused him at the time now have the grace to apologize.
Two days in a row we've significantly undershot expectations for positives. Deaths is high, but over a quarter of that is Scotland (which seems to have some data issue with lumpy Thursdays?)
And deaths are going to lag anyway
Yes, deaths will remain stubbornly high for ages - there's always an absolute shit tonne of backdating on them.
I was going to say that seems on the high side given for every child off at school due to a positive test an average of six had to isolate. But I suppose there is a material difference between being sat in one place all the time and moving about among lots of people.
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
So that page says we will have the ability to sign our own trade deals - so that means out of the Customs Union and having a customs border between UK and EU.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
It says other things. Point 2 on their list:
"Europe yes, EU no. We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
On the subject of vaccines, here's the World in Data figures on percentage of population:
We can - justly - be very proud of the British vaccination programme, while I think also admitting that the gap between us and our European neighbours has narrowed somewhat.
The figures I'm slightly surprised by in here are for France: because on the EU's own figures, it is only slightly behind Germany/Italy/Spain for proportion of adults. *Plus*, of course, France is vaccinating 12-17 year olds. Of course, there are more kids in France than in most other EU countries, but not that many more.
The EU vaccine programme got better once the EU was shunted aside and national governments took over the role of procurement. They stopped quibbling over price and went out and paid Pfizer to expand capacity in Belgium to meet the current and future requirements of the EU.
Our vaccine programme has, IMO, had a poor finish. We were too late ordering our second batch of Pfizer, we didn't order enough Moderna and aiui, we turned down a very early opportunity to work with Moderna on UK manufacturing in favour of procurement of Pfizer. That's why Moderna is in Switzerland for substance and Spain for fill and finish. That was a poor decision as having a very high grade domestically manufactured mRNA vaccine would have been a huge win for us. We still have other good deals done but that would have been the cherry on the cake. Our booster programme would have been a 60m order of variant busting Moderna.
I thought the EU put in a big Pfizer order at the end of March, which basically saved the EU's bacon? (Given the failure of CureVac.)
The interesting parallel universe is what would the EU have done had we been a part of their scheme all along.
I'm guessing the answer is that it would have been worse for Britain and worse for the EU simultaneously. Since they basically got embarrassed by Britain's success into acting and if we were a part of their scheme that embarrassment wouldn't have happened and they'd have not paid much attention to Israel, or the USA, or where they could have been.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
So that page says we will have the ability to sign our own trade deals - so that means out of the Customs Union and having a customs border between UK and EU.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
It says other things. Point 2 on their list:
"Europe yes, EU no. We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
They proposed EEA membership.
No they didn't. We're part of that free trade zone, we have a free trade agreement with them.
EEA is incompatible with ending the supremacy of EU law, spending our own money, controlling migration, etc
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
Judging by last night's efforts I don't think Biden's views need worry anyone for very long.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
So that page says we will have the ability to sign our own trade deals - so that means out of the Customs Union and having a customs border between UK and EU.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
Oh, only minor things like:
There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. The heart of what we all want is the continuation of tariff-free trade with minimal bureaucracy. Countries as far away as Australia have Mutual Recognition agreements with the EU that deal with complex customs (and other ‘non-tariff barrier’) issues. We will do the same. ... Overall, the negotiations will create a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way. In particular, we will negotiate a UK-EU Treaty that enables us 1) to continue cooperating in many areas just as now (e.g. maritime surveillance), 2) to deepen cooperation in some areas (e.g. scientific collaborations and counter-terrorism), and 3) to continue free trade with minimal bureaucracy.
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
Has anyone proposed giving Northern Ireland excluding counties Down and Antrim to the Republic of Ireland, with those two countries remaining part of the UK?
Heath did in I think 1973.
But I don’t think it would be feasible. Quite apart from the large minorities of Unionists in say, Londonderry, and the similar Nationalist communities in Belfast, where would the water and electricity supplies come from?
There'd have to be an agreement between the two countries that water and electricity supplies would continue as normal. I think a very high percentage of Unionists live in those two counties.
For the first time in ages the 7-day report day case rate is now trending down. We now all just need to hope that the additional activity from stage 4 doesn't send them up again and we've actually hit some level of herd immunity through vaccination and a lot of recent infections (ca. 1.5m additional infections in the third wave so far).
Just for centrist balance, encouraging case numbers, but I think I'd want to see a few days of trend, and it's all a phoney war right now until the effects of Monday's opening start to show up in next week's data.
(One place I looked at was Tunisia, where cases reached a peak and then came down from it with a low level of vaccination and with a curfew and restrictions that are pretty much unenforced, at least in the capital city.)
Great Britain Lewis and Harris Great Bernera Scalpay (the one off Harris) North Uist Grimsay Benbecula South Uist Skye Eilean Ban Bute Great Cumbrae Holy Island (the one with Lindisfarne) Arran St Michael's Mount Hayling Orkney Mainland Burray South Ronaldsay Sanday (Eday? can't remember) Stronsay Shetland Mainland Yell Unst (Bressay? can't remember) Sheppey CANVEY (home to Britain's greatest ever musical group!)
A former colleague used to red pen/yellow pen islands (appropriate pen colour debatable here).
To get an extra Scottish island in the book, he swam there and back!
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
A spirit of compromise and willingness to fudge things to make it work, as was done in the GFA itself, is what should have been mutually agreeable.
Unfortunately May was pissweak and NI was weaponised.
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
When you say "get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely" don't the people of NI have a say?
Either we are a democracy, and self-determination is a thing - or we are back to being an empire imposing decisions on people against their will. The majority there consider themselves to be British. We make a huge fuss about other places where the people consider themselves to be British - Falklands, Gibraltar - yet when it comes to NI seemingly not.
29 in my home office in the attic. 'Rain coming', says my computer. Which seems unlikely.
Convection has initiated over the southern Pennines (Peak District) and Snowdonia, and there's quite a lot of lightning. Can see the cloud tops from the Flatlands.
Rain is definitely coming to Ashbourne and Bakewell.
More likely elsewhere at the weekend though. Be glad to see the back of these temperatures (30C here, ugh).
Where are the Flatlands? I had assumed you were out on the Fens somewhere but clearly not if you can see the southern Pennines and Snowdonia.
Great Britain Lewis and Harris Great Bernera Scalpay (the one off Harris) North Uist Grimsay Benbecula South Uist Skye Eilean Ban Bute Great Cumbrae Holy Island (the one with Lindisfarne) Arran St Michael's Mount Hayling Orkney Mainland Burray South Ronaldsay Sanday (Eday? can't remember) Stronsay Shetland Mainland Yell Unst (Bressay? can't remember) Sheppey CANVEY (home to Britain's greatest ever musical group!)
A former colleague used to red pen/yellow pen islands (appropriate pen colour debatable here).
To get an extra Scottish island in the book, he swam there and back!
Just for centrist balance, encouraging case numbers, but I think I'd want to see a few days of trend, and it's all a phoney war right now until the effects of Monday's opening start to show up in next week's data.
The effect of Monday's opening, where as everyone can see behaviour in shops didn't change at all, and ravers moved from houseparties to commercial clubs. Having a really hard time to see any actual behavioural change which will show up. People either moved to the final unlock for themselves in May, or they won't want to do it until next spring, regardless of the official status.
On topic: I don't think that's quite right. Yes, the Northern Ireland Protocol is inconsistent with the particularly ideological, irrational and self-harming version of Brexit which Boris and Lord Frost have gone for, but that was entirely their choice. It's not inconsistent with the vision of Brexit touted by the Brexiteers during the referendum and still available for all to see on their website:
So that page says we will have the ability to sign our own trade deals - so that means out of the Customs Union and having a customs border between UK and EU.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
It says other things. Point 2 on their list:
"Europe yes, EU no. We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
They proposed EEA membership.
No they didn't. We're part of that free trade zone, we have a free trade agreement with them.
EEA is incompatible with ending the supremacy of EU law, spending our own money, controlling migration, etc
Give over. There is no "European Free Trade zone from Iceland to the Russian Border" other than the EEA. Nor do EEA members adhere to EU law or EU courts.
What that contradictory document demonstrates is that Vote Leave didn't know what they were talking about. I know that you don't want to be in the EEA or EFTA but not even you can sit there and claim they are one and the same.
Just for centrist balance, encouraging case numbers, but I think I'd want to see a few days of trend, and it's all a phoney war right now until the effects of Monday's opening start to show up in next week's data.
The effect of Monday's opening, where as everyone can see behaviour in shops didn't change at all, and ravers moved from houseparties to commercial clubs. Having a really hard time to see any actual behavioural change which will show up. People either moved to the final unlock for themselves in May, or they won't want to do it until next spring, regardless of the official status.
I really don’t think Monday changed much that won’t be at least partially offset by people spending a lot more time outdoors and schools breaking up.
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
The UK signed an agreement it never had any intention to honour . And yet the Bozo fan boys in here think this is acceptable behaviour and try to blame the EU for problems emanating from an agreement which no 10 and the useless Frost lauded as excellent .
More than acceptable. The new spin is that he marshalled his limitless reserves of bad faith and mendacity for Blighty and delivered a proper Brexit in the only way possible - by legging over the EU. Player!
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
Is this the most uninformed post ever in the history of PB?
Just for centrist balance, encouraging case numbers, but I think I'd want to see a few days of trend, and it's all a phoney war right now until the effects of Monday's opening start to show up in next week's data.
The effect of Monday's opening, where as everyone can see behaviour in shops didn't change at all, and ravers moved from houseparties to commercial clubs. Having a really hard time to see any actual behavioural change which will show up. People either moved to the final unlock for themselves in May, or they won't want to do it until next spring, regardless of the official status.
Hopefully you're correct but it's too early to really see the effect on known cases of Monday's reopening. Today's case numbers are very good though.
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
If you applied a maximalist view of Ireland's obligations under the GFA, perhaps it should leave the single market rather than insist on an E-W border.
As the UK government aren't (for some unknown reason) listening to either Philip or HYUFD, we will have to await developments.
What will make for entertaining reading is the reaction of allies and future trading relationship partners like America. They made very clear how they will react to us crapping over the GFA and not honouring treaties.
The UK government is edging to my position. Lord Frost all but confirmed this week that the conditions are right to invoke Article 16 if we choose to do so.
Just as the UK government edged to my position pre-Brexit away from May's.
If they'd just let me be in control of this whole thing, it would go so much smoother. Or not. 😉
Lol - yes lets have the world expert in charge!
The problem with "just invoke Article 16" is all the downstream consequences of doing so. Your position is blissfully naive - then again so was Frost's so yes maybe they should.
I know that you are the fountain of all knowledge and that everything is simple, but in the real world it isn't simple. We can't just either invoke A16 and problem solved, or not stay aligned and just do what we want no matter how many times you say it.
The classic fudge solution is coming. We are aligned now, so all barriers could be dropped now. We say that we reserve the right to diverge, and propose a 3rd party arbiter if either side raises a standards challenge in future. We all get along. So when our new trade deal gets signed with America and we protect food standards as we say we will, there are no problems.
To get there we need to drop our absolutes. I dropped mine, can you drop yours, or is every mistake or difference of opinion to be met with "liar"?
Your proposed solution misses the point of what this is all about, and the US trade deal is a complete red herring. It's about whether we accept the principle of EU regulatory hegemony beyond its borders. If we're going to do that, then Brexit would be completely pointless.
No I get it entirely - principle. In practice our standards are their standards because we wrote their standards. We have said we will only increase our standards, as have the EU. So we're both at the same point heading in the same direction.
The sensible compromise is to accept that. At some future point we may diverge in how quickly we increase our standards but that will be timing and not direction. So fudge it. The problem is we don't even want to recognise the status quo - we demand 3rd country status and checks for the GB zone despite being wholly aligned to the EEA.
Standards aren't simply a game of higher or lower. They are inherently political.
Indeed and the EU tries very hard to export it's uncompetitiveness to surrounding nations by trying to force alignment in trade deals. The UK is absolutely correct to resist any notion of alignment. Either we recognise each other's standards as being similar enough or we don't. There is no scenario where alignment works for us, the idea is ridiculous.
Reported cases for England, with day-of-week differences highlighted:
Cases by specimen date look to be following similar trajectories, even with incomplete data so far. Hospital admissions increasing quite rapidly, but this reflects a week ago when cases were still rising rapidly. Should ramp up to the mid-900s or so in a few days and then (IF this plateau is sustained) level off there. Should see the number in hospital in England climb to c. 5000 by the weekend and HOPEFULLY level off there.
All dependent on IF this levelling off is sustained, but it's a positive step to be talking about the realistic possibility.
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
A spirit of compromise and willingness to fudge things to make it work, as was done in the GFA itself, is what should have been mutually agreeable.
Unfortunately May was pissweak and NI was weaponised.
Wonder why Johnson bottled No Deal. Instead chose to sign a Bad Deal and then renege on it.
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
When you say "get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely" don't the people of NI have a say?
Either we are a democracy, and self-determination is a thing - or we are back to being an empire imposing decisions on people against their will. The majority there consider themselves to be British. We make a huge fuss about other places where the people consider themselves to be British - Falklands, Gibraltar - yet when it comes to NI seemingly not.
Plus of course without most Northern Irish MPs backing the Tories in the hung parliament of 2017, Corbyn could have become PM or certainly very close to it
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
If you applied a maximalist view of Ireland's obligations under the GFA, perhaps it should leave the single market rather than insist on an E-W border.
Well, that would certainly be a possible solution. In theory!
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
If you applied a maximalist view of Ireland's obligations under the GFA, perhaps it should leave the single market rather than insist on an E-W border.
Or perhaps put forward a serious proposal for reunification of Ireland.
That is where this all ends. The only questions are when and how.
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
A spirit of compromise and willingness to fudge things to make it work, as was done in the GFA itself, is what should have been mutually agreeable.
Unfortunately May was pissweak and NI was weaponised.
May lost an election and signed a pact with the devil (the DUP) to remain in power which resulted in the DUP weaponising NI without realising it, is probably a better response,
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
It does indeed and without being selfish about it the problems that are arising in respect of NI will be used in any subsequent discussions in Scotland about the consequences of independence.
We can't let the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog. If the democratic decision of the British people five yeras ago means the GFA doesn't work, we need to look again at the GFA, not the other way around.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
Is this the most uninformed post ever in the history of PB?
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
But it will also make Scottish Independence so much more entertaining to watch from the southern side of the border.
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
A spirit of compromise and willingness to fudge things to make it work, as was done in the GFA itself, is what should have been mutually agreeable.
Unfortunately May was pissweak and NI was weaponised.
Wonder why Johnson bottled No Deal. Instead chose to sign a Bad Deal and then renege on it.
As it would have been pure but led to a likely recession for GB and a clear majority in Scotland now for independence and a resumption of violence on the Nationalist side in NI once the hard border with Ireland was imposed
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
My local surgery has just out this on their website
"We are planning how we run our Flu and Covid booster vaccine clinic this Autumn, and will be making appointments in September onwards available to book from mid August."
My local surgery has just out this on their website
"We are planning how we run our Flu and Covid booster vaccine clinic this Autumn, and will be making appointments in September onwards available to book from mid August."
What's more, the problem isn't the Good Friday Agreement. It's much more fundamental than that: it was the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the EU, and therefore in the Single Market with free movement of people and near-zero bureaucracy for trading across the border, that made the whole concept of a peaceful resolution of the Troubles possible. There's no 'renegotiation' of the GFA (even if anyone wanted to renegotiate it) which would square that circle.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
If you applied a maximalist view of Ireland's obligations under the GFA, perhaps it should leave the single market rather than insist on an E-W border.
Or perhaps put forward a serious proposal for reunification of Ireland.
That is where this all ends. The only questions are when and how.
If the majority want it then we have to allow it. The problem is the hardcore unionists who would not accept a majority vote regardless of how democratic it was. This was the genius of the GFA - give both sides power, be British or Irish as you determined, and have no barriers.
29 in my home office in the attic. 'Rain coming', says my computer. Which seems unlikely.
Convection has initiated over the southern Pennines (Peak District) and Snowdonia, and there's quite a lot of lightning. Can see the cloud tops from the Flatlands.
Rain is definitely coming to Ashbourne and Bakewell.
More likely elsewhere at the weekend though. Be glad to see the back of these temperatures (30C here, ugh).
Where are the Flatlands? I had assumed you were out on the Fens somewhere but clearly not if you can see the southern Pennines and Snowdonia.
I can't see Snowdonia (I cheated there by looking at the radar) but I can see across to the Peaks from anywhere with open space.
I'm on the edge of the Flatlands of Glacial Lake Humber. Unfortunately, part of the bit labelled 'Doncaster'.
When climate change really hits I'll have a beachfront property.
And it really is flat. I can do a 70 mile circular bike ride from the end of my road without crossing a single contour except for the 0m line.
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
Might be a coincidence but it's interesting
I'd actually guess that this is the reduction in indoor activity due to the Euros ending, schools in England are still in until today/tomorrow.
My local surgery has just out this on their website
"We are planning how we run our Flu and Covid booster vaccine clinic this Autumn, and will be making appointments in September onwards available to book from mid August."
or go to Boots' website and book a flu one now.
It was the Covid Booster thing I found interesting
On topic I agree entirely with the thread header. Difficult but not impossible. An important prior agreement that was based on a mutual assumption that both countries would continue to operate within the EU framework. Not easy to square the circle of extremely close relations between the parts of Ireland and rather more distant ones between the UK and the EU.
It is a mystery to me how anyone thought that this would be easy and I say that as someone who was in favour of Brexit. The honest answer is that our political leaders just didn't care enough about NI to want to address the problem properly.
What kills me about Frost is how he claims no-one knew this would happen. Kwarteng tried the same line on Beth Rigby and she pointed out the three former PMs who all repeatedly said this would happen.
Its like Team Boris know they are the dumbest people in the room, but think that if they can normalise dumb that nobody will notice.
They are not dumb, they are dishonest. The reality was, as the thread header indicates, that the GFA needed to be seriously and earnestly renegotiated to reflect the new realities. In some ways this would have reduced the effect of the GFA in ways that Ireland would not have liked but the honest truth was that so long as they remained committed to the terms of EU membership that was inevitable. The only alternative would be a united Ireland. But no one was really up for this discussion either in London or in Dublin so lies were told about some oven ready deal or the like. Now the lies are exposed and we want to change the deal but the problem that the lies were intended to conceal is still there.
When we've had this discussion before it seems to play out with @Charles saying the GFA needs to be amended and a lot of other people going, but on what basis / core / foundations do you start amending / renegotiating it.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
The honest answer is that it depends how much freedom and flexibility the EU either gives or Ireland wants. So we have agreed a continuation of the CTA, for example. We can continue to have bodies that can seek to coordinate government activities and policies north and south of the border. We can continue to give each other the right to vote in local elections. But we are not in a Customs Union anymore. We are not in a SM anymore. We are not both bound by CJE rules anymore. These are just facts. If the parties are willing to turn a blind eye to these facts then fine. Who cares? But if they are not there cannot be an agreement on them.
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
Might be a coincidence but it's interesting
I'd actually guess that this is the reduction in indoor activity due to the Euros ending, schools in England are still in until today/tomorrow.
And perhaps people modifying their behaviour because they can see cases rising and are probably hearing about friends and relatives getting quite ill. Certainly that seems to be a factor in my circle.
Rising and falling cases in the UK do seem locked into whether or not the kids are in school regardless of any sort of vaccination program or otherwise...
Might be a coincidence but it's interesting
I'd actually guess that this is the reduction in indoor activity due to the Euros ending, schools in England are still in until today/tomorrow.
Comments
The sole purpose of the plan was to different enough from T May's plan that the Tory Party would vote it through - most MPs have admitted to not even reading it let alone spending time trying to understand it
By avoiding No Deal Scottish polls still show there is not over 50% support for independence and NI polls show most still want to stay in the UK so need for the military which might have been needed if WTO terms Brexit was imposed on Scotland and a hard border imposed in Ireland
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2020
We also have a PM who wouldn't have got the GFA as badly wrong for Brexit as Blair. If only Frosty had been around 23 years ago.
Just about the only thing to speed things up further would be to reduce the vaccination period below 8 weeks which is supposedly counter productive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30610096
I try not to be too rude on here, but in your case, I'll make an exception.
84 deaths...
Deaths is high, but over a quarter of that is Scotland (which seems to have some data issue with lumpy Thursdays?)
The sensible compromise is to accept that. At some future point we may diverge in how quickly we increase our standards but that will be timing and not direction. So fudge it. The problem is we don't even want to recognise the status quo - we demand 3rd country status and checks for the GB zone despite being wholly aligned to the EEA.
That page also says we'd end the supremacy of EU law and EU courts - so that means having our own laws and not having alignment or the Single Market.
So what exactly should be compromised on in your eyes?
Rain is definitely coming to Ashbourne and Bakewell.
More likely elsewhere at the weekend though. Be glad to see the back of these temperatures (30C here, ugh).
Wither the Desert Rats.
Better still, get shot of the embarassing and ruinously expensive anomaly that is Northern Ireland entirely.
But I imagine we'll find a way to fudge it eventually. Northern Ireland itself is a fudge, after all. And so is the GFA itself.
I don't think Biden will make a particularly big deal about it while he wants to reunite the west to confront China.
"Europe yes, EU no. We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals."
They proposed EEA membership.
EEA is incompatible with ending the supremacy of EU law, spending our own money, controlling migration, etc
There is a European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and we will be part of it. The heart of what we all want is the continuation of tariff-free trade with minimal bureaucracy. Countries as far away as Australia have Mutual Recognition agreements with the EU that deal with complex customs (and other ‘non-tariff barrier’) issues. We will do the same.
...
Overall, the negotiations will create a new European institutional architecture that enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in a friendly way. In particular, we will negotiate a UK-EU Treaty that enables us 1) to continue cooperating in many areas just as now (e.g. maritime surveillance), 2) to deepen cooperation in some areas (e.g. scientific collaborations and counter-terrorism), and 3) to continue free trade with minimal bureaucracy.
The whole point of the GFA was that with the EU sat above both the UK and Ireland there was a firm foundation upon which an agreement could be built. But with that foundation gone, what mutually agreeable things exist that allow a new agreement to be built from.
Seems weird. 😕
https://twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1418227067884171268?s=20
(One place I looked at was Tunisia, where cases reached a peak and then came down from it with a low level of vaccination and with a curfew and restrictions that are pretty much unenforced, at least in the capital city.)
To get an extra Scottish island in the book, he swam there and back!
Unfortunately May was pissweak and NI was weaponised.
Either we are a democracy, and self-determination is a thing - or we are back to being an empire imposing decisions on people against their will. The majority there consider themselves to be British. We make a huge fuss about other places where the people consider themselves to be British - Falklands, Gibraltar - yet when it comes to NI seemingly not.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/22/boris-johnson-supermarket-shelves-empty-isolation-exemption/
What that contradictory document demonstrates is that Vote Leave didn't know what they were talking about. I know that you don't want to be in the EEA or EFTA but not even you can sit there and claim they are one and the same.
For much the same reason, but thankfully without the violent history, Brexit makes Scottish independence extremely problematic.
CON: 41% (+1)
LAB: 34% (-1)
LDM: 8% (-1)
GRN: 5% (-1)
SNP: 4% (=)
Via @SavantaComRes, 16-18 Jul.
Changes from 9-11 Jul.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1418202548746559488?s=20
Look like "inevitable Tory slide" delayed yet again...
Today's case numbers are very good though.
It they had have opened in June the headlines would have screamed about rising cases, now it looks like there will be falling cases.
Reported cases for England, with day-of-week differences highlighted:
Cases by specimen date look to be following similar trajectories, even with incomplete data so far.
Hospital admissions increasing quite rapidly, but this reflects a week ago when cases were still rising rapidly. Should ramp up to the mid-900s or so in a few days and then (IF this plateau is sustained) level off there.
Should see the number in hospital in England climb to c. 5000 by the weekend and HOPEFULLY level off there.
All dependent on IF this levelling off is sustained, but it's a positive step to be talking about the realistic possibility.
That is where this all ends. The only questions are when and how.
Might be a coincidence but it's interesting
"We are planning how we run our Flu and Covid booster vaccine clinic this Autumn, and will be making appointments in September onwards available to book from mid August."
However, if you stand a dish of water right in front of the fan then evaporation will have a cooling effect.
I'm on the edge of the Flatlands of Glacial Lake Humber. Unfortunately, part of the bit labelled 'Doncaster'.
When climate change really hits I'll have a beachfront property.
And it really is flat. I can do a 70 mile circular bike ride from the end of my road without crossing a single contour except for the 0m line.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57927271
Insert joke here.....