The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The difference is that the US is the 400lb gorilla to Canada, but it’s the other way round for Britain to the EU.
And if you want to make trade deals with other countries and blocs, then shitting all over the most important one you already have may not be the very best of ideas.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
Plus: the Conservatives have generally been more tolerant of divergent views within their own party, and more disciplined.
Both parties are broad churches (necessarily so, under our electoral system), but Labour's extremities seem to hate each other more viscerally than the Tory's extremities. And many tend not to mind letting that show in public either.
It's no coincidence that Labour's most effect period as a political party in the last 50 years was also the time when the leadership seemed to be most focussed at ensuring everyone was 'on message'.
I can't see any of these three changing in the next 50 years -- at least, not on a permanent basis -- so my long-term predication would be for continuing Conservative dominance (with only occasional sporadic bursts of non-Conservative Government when the electorate get tired of them and they need some time in opposition to renew themselves).
To an extent. The divisions over Europe in the long years before the referendum were deep, bitter and often personal. Ditto some of the wet/dry divisions back in the day. That the Tories have patched themselves up (and culled many dissenters) since 2016 is testament to ruthless discipline, for sure, but then.
Don’t also underestimate the extent to which our crooked political system both gives the Tories a hand up and helps them hang together.
Why "crooked"? It's the political system we have. Blair had many years in which to change it. But it served him well, so he left it alone. That it buggered Brown probably amused him.
The LibDems tried change - but their proposals were thrown out by the unconvinced voters.
Throw in a word like "crooked" and you just lose the reader.
That argument is certainly crooked, M Mark. The AV referendum was a pathetic little compromise, between what the Lib Dems wanted, and what the Conservative leaders would let them have. I think, in the end, I voted for it. I didn't do any campaigning for it.
The blue team has been more willing to ditch past policies. Heath's Selsdon Man. Thatcher ran against Heath (and blamed Heath, not Labour, for high inflation). Major dropped the poll tax. Cameron dropped the social Conservatism. Boris ran against Cameron and May.
Cameron dropped social conservatism. Boris dropped economic conservatism.
So Labour loses the battle but wins the war.
We're through the looking glass here, people.
Ah, but societal change is inevitable. It's simply the case that the Conservative Party, ironically, is normally better trusted to manage it. And that, in turn, is because the Tories reinvent themselves and adapt their policies in response to the shifting attitudes of the electorate on contentious issues such as trans rights, rather than trying to lead the public and forcibly pull it in directions in which it is not yet ready to go.
It really comes down to this: the Tories, broadly speaking, give the impression of quite liking the country as it already is, whereas Labour activists don't. For the latter, everything is dreadful and radical change must come immediately. If you're part of the vast swathe of the electorate that doesn't agree, then Labour hates you and you deserve to be cancelled.
The one Labour leader in modern times who managed to convince the electorate that he actually liked Britain and would deliver change that didn't involve ripping everything down and starting again was Blair, and under him Labour won by a landslide. Here endeth the lesson that Labour's activists don't want to learn.
Some of our most cherished institutions don’t feel particularly safe from ‘ripping down’ right now.
Although this thread header looks demonstrative, you can play with statistics and indeed bar charts to make them look the more so. In fact, since January 1974 to the present day the number of outright wins by either party is:
Labour 4 Conservatives 6
In the last quarter of a century the Conservatives have only won two General Elections.
See? Not so conclusive after all.
I actually had that bar chart loaded up but it would have been followed by another one which pointed out that over the last 50 years we've only had 18 years of Labour governments compared to Conservative/Conservative led governments. Leaders matter.
But I stuck with two bar charts as any more and I might have stuck 'Only Labour leaders who sound like Tories can win here.'
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
Listen, tearing up treaty obligations is absolutely fine as long as you're not China. It's a five eyes Anglosphere thing. You guys wouldn't understand it.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way CJEU being part of the NIP is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.
Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.
The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.
Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
The problem is, if you abandon the HS2 eastern leg you also accept there can be no increase in services on the ECML, the MML or any of their feeder lines, because there simply won’t be the pathways or even the station platforms to accommodate them. As we found in Cannock when our train service to London had to be abandoned due to congestion south of Rugby which meant no train was getting to Hednesford in time to proceed to Rugeley.
And any way of increasing capacity other than HS2 will be twice as expensive yet half as effective.
(And that’s passenger services - freight will be even more constricted.)
The road haulage lobby will be happy though. Their clients at DafT came through for them when it mattered.
Yep they’ve cut the wrong half.
York and Leeds are already at capacity with zero chance of making improvements on north south routes.
I disagree about ‘the wrong half.’ It needs to be built in full. There are just as many capacity problems at Manchester.
What it does show is the power of the false narrative. The repetition of the lie that Oakervee said it would cost ‘not less than £106 billion’ when in fact he specifically said it ‘would not’ cost £106 billion, coupled with the claims about damage to woodland (inflated two hundredfold and hyperbolically compared to the loss of woodlands in the First World War) plus the mantra about ‘forty minutes faster to Birmingham’ has made it unpopular. The fact that all these claims are deliberate horseshit invented by people with axes to grind goes unnoticed.
I have to say, I’m particularly disappointed the FT has wilfully repeated so many lies. I thought until recently they were a rare surviving bastion of responsible journalism.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
Any schoolboy philatelist had heard of the Falklands. And in the 50's there were a lot of them.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
It's highly damaging to all of us who live in the UK as we will all suffer the consequences.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
1) The Federated States of Micronesia 2) Samoa 3) The Azores (I know part of Portugal but still) 4) Belize 5) Lichenstein
The Conservatives starting taking the lead in the polls before the war in The Falklands.
Alliance/SDP voters prefered Thatcher to Foot.
So to blame The Falklands and the Alliance/SDP for Labour's shellacking in 1983 is denialism by the left.
That's not true. Labour had whopping leads tail end of 1981 including one which was a 27% lead on 18th January 1982 (Gallup)! Britain was rioting and Thatcher's attempted reforms were deeply unpopular, including in her own party and even in her cabinet (the wets and all that).
Look at the incredible shift in the opinion polls from 10% Labour leads to 10% Tory ones through April 1992 (the Falklands)
Mr. Doethur, the more basic political perception is this: if London gets HS2, and Yorkshire doesn't (especially if Lancashire does) that will be an obvious contrast that will stick in the mind.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrano to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
Plus: the Conservatives have generally been more tolerant of divergent views within their own party, and more disciplined.
Both parties are broad churches (necessarily so, under our electoral system), but Labour's extremities seem to hate each other more viscerally than the Tory's extremities. And many tend not to mind letting that show in public either.
It's no coincidence that Labour's most effect period as a political party in the last 50 years was also the time when the leadership seemed to be most focussed at ensuring everyone was 'on message'.
I can't see any of these three changing in the next 50 years -- at least, not on a permanent basis -- so my long-term predication would be for continuing Conservative dominance (with only occasional sporadic bursts of non-Conservative Government when the electorate get tired of them and they need some time in opposition to renew themselves).
To an extent. The divisions over Europe in the long years before the referendum were deep, bitter and often personal. Ditto some of the wet/dry divisions back in the day. That the Tories have patched themselves up (and culled many dissenters) since 2016 is testament to ruthless discipline, for sure, but then.
Don’t also underestimate the extent to which our crooked political system both gives the Tories a hand up and helps them hang together.
Why "crooked"? It's the political system we have. Blair had many years in which to change it. But it served him well, so he left it alone. That it buggered Brown probably amused him.
The LibDems tried change - but their proposals were thrown out by the unconvinced voters.
Throw in a word like "crooked" and you just lose the reader.
That argument is certainly crooked, M Mark. The AV referendum was a pathetic little compromise, between what the Lib Dems wanted, and what the Conservative leaders would let them have. I think, in the end, I voted for it. I didn't do any campaigning for it.
LibDems asked the people the wrong question. They may well have got PR for local elections. Which would have served them far, far better.
There is also the crooked aspect of crooks making donations to political parties of funds they stolen from widows and orphans. *cough Michael Brown cough*
The view must look lovely today, from up there on the moral high ground.
The Conservatives starting taking the lead in the polls before the war in The Falklands.
Alliance/SDP voters prefered Thatcher to Foot.
So to blame The Falklands and the Alliance/SDP for Labour's shellacking in 1983 is denialism by the left.
That's not true. Labour had whopping leads tail end of 1991 including one which was a 27% lead!! Britain was rioting and Thatcher's attempted reforms were deeply unpopular, including in her own party and even in her cabinet (the wets and all that).
Look at the incredible shift in the opinion polls from 10% Labour leads to 10% Tory ones through April 1992 (the Falklands)
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
The Conservatives starting taking the lead in the polls before the war in The Falklands.
Alliance/SDP voters prefered Thatcher to Foot.
So to blame The Falklands and the Alliance/SDP for Labour's shellacking in 1983 is denialism by the left.
That's not true. Labour had whopping leads tail end of 1991 including one which was a 27% lead!! Britain was rioting and Thatcher's attempted reforms were deeply unpopular, including in her own party and even in her cabinet (the wets and all that).
Look at the incredible shift in the opinion polls from 10% Labour leads to 10% Tory ones through April 1992 (the Falklands)
Plus your figures are incorrect. There were no 10 point Labour leads immediately before the Falklands war. The final poll before it broke out on the 2nd April was Mori on the 31st March - Tory 35, Alliance 33, Labour 30. On the 5th February those figures for the same parties were even 41, 36, 21.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
You are someone else, aren't you? Not that there's any reason you shouldn't be, but there was a woman pre 2019 election who made exactly that kind of claim and also had your problem understanding "recency bias."
Eta Rose something?
I was wondering the same; a regeneration is overdue, after all. Only that it is breakfast time on a Sunday morning persuades me that it isn’t him.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
1. Suriname 2. Bosnia 3. Syria 4. Dominica 5. Kiribati.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
It's highly damaging to all of us who live in the UK as we will all suffer the consequences.
True, but the fact only 6% of people in Northern Ireland trust UKG to do the right thing on the Northern Ireland Protocol indicates the welfare of a supposedly integral part of the country is the last thing on the minds of these reprobates.
The EU and Irish government are trusted far more on the same question, albeit still by minorities, and it's not supposedly their responsibility.
SINGAPORE - A zero-Covid-19 strategy is no longer feasible given how infectious the Delta variant is, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he set out the country’s situation and what has changed.
With vaccinations, the virus has become a mild, treatable disease for most, he added, urging people to go about their daily activities, taking necessary precautions and complying with safe management measures.
TBH, it almost certainly was never feasible to start. If we can’t get rid of polio entirely despite the huge effort we’ve put into it over the last 30 years, we were not likely to get rid of Covid, certainly not in a timeframe of less than many decades.
Agree - "Zero COVID" is decades away, if we're lucky.
Singapore had been braver - but "new normal" is now 3-6 months away:
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
It's highly damaging to all of us who live in the UK as we will all suffer the consequences.
True, but the fact only 6% of people in Northern Ireland trust UKG to do the right thing on the Northern Ireland Protocol indicates the welfare of a supposedly integral part of the country is the last thing on the minds of these reprobates.
The EU and Irish government are trusted far more on the same question, albeit still by minorities, and it's not supposedly their responsibility.
I’m amazed by that figure. What are these 6% smoking and where do I get some?
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Yes - I have edited it to the Belgrano
Autocorrect fails - when you get that sinking feeling…
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
Agreed. The EU has been - to be very generous - extremely slow to implement the proposed trusted trader scheme.
Given the transition to a trusted trader scheme was the basis of the transitional agreements, the EU's failure to move forward, is a breach.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Yes - I have edited it to the Belgrano
Autocorrect fails - when you get that sinking feeling…
Serbs him right for not checking before posting...
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
Didn't you work for one of the world's largest oil companies? That practically ensures you'll be heading off to parts unknown.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Yes - I have edited it to the Belgrano
Autocorrect fails - when you get that sinking feeling…
Serbs him right for not checking before posting...
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
1) The Federated States of Micronesia 2) Samoa 3) The Azores (I know part of Portugal but still) 4) Belize 5) Lichenstein
1) Ethiopia 2) South Dakota 3) Broken Hill 4) Bucharest (when buildings still carried Ceaucescu portraits) 5) Barrow-in-Furness
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
1) The Federated States of Micronesia 2) Samoa 3) The Azores (I know part of Portugal but still) 4) Belize 5) Lichenstein
1. London 2. North London 3. West London 4. Bedford 5. Why would I leave London, again?
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
As we colour in the pb.com Map Of Places We Have Visited, I'll start us of with the pink crayon:
1. Somalia 2. Tristan da Cunha 3. Guinea Bissau 4. St. Helena 5. Turkmenistan
1) The Federated States of Micronesia 2) Samoa 3) The Azores (I know part of Portugal but still) 4) Belize 5) Lichenstein
1. London 2. North London 3. West London 4. Bedford 5. Why would I leave London, again?
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The difference is that the US is the 400lb gorilla to Canada, but it’s the other way round for Britain to the EU.
And if you want to make trade deals with other countries and blocs, then shitting all over the most important one you already have may not be the very best of ideas.
I fully accept it’s a very important negotiating point - and that it’s an objective the UK secured for GB in the main deal.
I just don’t understand why people are saying we should roll over and accept it in the renegotiation on NI.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
By the early 80's, there was still a massive tradition of people having collected stamps as kids. That gave an insight into both geography and political change.
So yeah, most of us roughly knew where the Falklands were. Certainly smarter than the US sense of geography back then:
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
If only there were some way that we could influence how the EU works.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
By the early 80's, there was still a massive tradition of people having collected stamps as kids. That gave an insight into both geography and political change.
So yeah, most of us roughly knew where the Falklands were. Certainly smarter than the US sense of geography back then:
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way CJEU being part of the NIP is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
The CJEU’s role in the protocol is permanent but the intention was that the protocol itself was temporary
The ECJ has always been an issue in the negotiations - sure July was when the formal submission was made but no one paying attention could have been surprised it was raised
I’ve been to Hartlepool. Can many PBers claim the same?
Me.
I've also been to Middlesbrough and survived.
Pah! I have been to Dundee, and survived what appeared to be an attempted mugging, although in the dialect turned out to be somebody wanting change to use the phonebox
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
Have you seen Clarkson’s Farm? As somebody from a farming background, what did you make of it?
I must admit, I enjoyed the brutal revelations of his ignorance and incompetence and the way he kept having to accept them. But then, I’m a vet’s son not a farmer’s son.
The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.
Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.
The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.
Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
The problem is, if you abandon the HS2 eastern leg you also accept there can be no increase in services on the ECML, the MML or any of their feeder lines, because there simply won’t be the pathways or even the station platforms to accommodate them. As we found in Cannock when our train service to London had to be abandoned due to congestion south of Rugby which meant no train was getting to Hednesford in time to proceed to Rugeley.
And any way of increasing capacity other than HS2 will be twice as expensive yet half as effective.
(And that’s passenger services - freight will be even more constricted.)
The road haulage lobby will be happy though. Their clients at DafT came through for them when it mattered.
Yep they’ve cut the wrong half.
York and Leeds are already at capacity with zero chance of making improvements on north south routes.
I disagree about ‘the wrong half.’ It needs to be built in full. There are just as many capacity problems at Manchester.
What it does show is the power of the false narrative. The repetition of the lie that Oakervee said it would cost ‘not less than £106 billion’ when in fact he specifically said it ‘would not’ cost £106 billion, coupled with the claims about damage to woodland (inflated two hundredfold and hyperbolically compared to the loss of woodlands in the First World War) plus the mantra about ‘forty minutes faster to Birmingham’ has made it unpopular. The fact that all these claims are deliberate horseshit invented by people with axes to grind goes unnoticed.
I have to say, I’m particularly disappointed the FT has wilfully repeated so many lies. I thought until recently they were a rare surviving bastion of responsible journalism.
I’ve been to Hartlepool. Can many PBers claim the same?
Me.
I've also been to Middlesbrough and survived.
Pah! I have been to Dundee, and survived what appeared to be an attempted mugging, although in the dialect turned out to be somebody wanting change to use the phonebox
I’ve been to Hartlepool. Can many PBers claim the same?
Me.
I've also been to Middlesbrough and survived.
Pah! I have been to Dundee, and survived what appeared to be an attempted mugging, although in the dialect turned out to be somebody wanting change to use the phonebox
I really like Dundee. The V&A in Dundee is unironically one of my favourite places.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The CJEU's remit is not straining the peace settlement. Triggering Article 16 on that basis would be a definitive demonstration of bad faith.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
David Frost pretends the CJEU is long-standing issue when he only raised it three months ago and which is integral to the treaty he negotiated just a year earlier. (And by the way is not time limited as you also claim). David Frost appears to have no intention of making the treaty he signed work. That's bad faith and also highly damaging to Northern Ireland.
It's highly damaging to all of us who live in the UK as we will all suffer the consequences.
True, but the fact only 6% of people in Northern Ireland trust UKG to do the right thing on the Northern Ireland Protocol indicates the welfare of a supposedly integral part of the country is the last thing on the minds of these reprobates.
The EU and Irish government are trusted far more on the same question, albeit still by minorities, and it's not supposedly their responsibility.
That’s just because the nationalists/proEU side don’t trust the Uk government while the unionists think they were stitched up (in fact it was their interests which became part of the overall compromise to get a deal done)
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
Your background is a fact of life, Charles. You do not have to live with the consequences of Brexit. You have an escape route.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Mr. Sandpit, thanks. Not sure it's great, but his performance throughout qualifying was impressive and Verstappen seemed further back than usual.
We'll see if the tyres are as crumbly as anticipated. Pirelli apparently fear they've gone too aggressive. If so, that will help Hamilton significantly.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
This is wrong on the facts. There is no termination clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the Consent Mechanism, if triggered after four years, only disapplies part of it. Trusted Trader scheme has nothing to do with the EUCJ and is not mentioned in the Protocol.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
The Conservatives starting taking the lead in the polls before the war in The Falklands.
Alliance/SDP voters prefered Thatcher to Foot.
So to blame The Falklands and the Alliance/SDP for Labour's shellacking in 1983 is denialism by the left.
Spot on. The Labour split was always going to deliver a Tory victory. The Falklands probably amplified it slightly, that is all.
If she had lost the war (and a few Argentine bombs with their fuses set properly might easily have done that) then she would have been out, probably defenestrated by her party.
I’ve been to Hartlepool. Can many PBers claim the same?
Me.
I've also been to Middlesbrough and survived.
Pah! I have been to Dundee, and survived what appeared to be an attempted mugging, although in the dialect turned out to be somebody wanting change to use the phonebox
I really like Dundee. The V&A in Dundee is unironically one of my favourite places.
Dundee is a great place. Love the V&A. Many happy memories of Fat Sam's too.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
If only there were some way that we could influence how the EU works.
We tried for 40 years and found we couldn’t (at least not enough). So we left.
Apparently some people have found that a controversial decision
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Yes - I have edited it to the Belgrano
Gotcha!
The Belgrano is the answer to so many pub quiz questions, my faves.
1) Which is the only ship to have ever been sunk by a nuclear powered submarine
2) The last American navy ship to have been sunk by the UK.
The government is to offer the north and Midlands a cut-price “bare minimum” of railway upgrades despite Boris Johnson’s promise this week to “level up” the country outside London, The Independent understands.
Local transport chiefs now expect to receive a severely pared-back version of the Northern Powerhouse Rail scheme, and for ministers to effectively shelve plans for a high-speed cross-country link through the east Midlands.
The government has been drawing up plans for new connections outside London in consultation with local leaders – but insiders familiar with discussions now expect virtually every major city across the north and Midlands to be left disappointed.
Close followers of the government’s "Levelling Up agenda" may find themselves unsurprised by this news.
The problem is, if you abandon the HS2 eastern leg you also accept there can be no increase in services on the ECML, the MML or any of their feeder lines, because there simply won’t be the pathways or even the station platforms to accommodate them. As we found in Cannock when our train service to London had to be abandoned due to congestion south of Rugby which meant no train was getting to Hednesford in time to proceed to Rugeley.
And any way of increasing capacity other than HS2 will be twice as expensive yet half as effective.
(And that’s passenger services - freight will be even more constricted.)
The road haulage lobby will be happy though. Their clients at DafT came through for them when it mattered.
Yep they’ve cut the wrong half.
York and Leeds are already at capacity with zero chance of making improvements on north south routes.
I disagree about ‘the wrong half.’ It needs to be built in full. There are just as many capacity problems at Manchester.
What it does show is the power of the false narrative. The repetition of the lie that Oakervee said it would cost ‘not less than £106 billion’ when in fact he specifically said it ‘would not’ cost £106 billion, coupled with the claims about damage to woodland (inflated two hundredfold and hyperbolically compared to the loss of woodlands in the First World War) plus the mantra about ‘forty minutes faster to Birmingham’ has made it unpopular. The fact that all these claims are deliberate horseshit invented by people with axes to grind goes unnoticed.
I have to say, I’m particularly disappointed the FT has wilfully repeated so many lies. I thought until recently they were a rare surviving bastion of responsible journalism.
I told everyone ten years ago that HS2 was for the benefit of London and the big clue would be at what end they started building from.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
If only there were some way that we could influence how the EU works.
We tried for 40 years and found we couldn’t (at least not enough). So we left.
Apparently some people have found that a controversial decision
Mr. Sandpit, thanks. Not sure it's great, but his performance throughout qualifying was impressive and Verstappen seemed further back than usual.
We'll see if the tyres are as crumbly as anticipated. Pirelli apparently fear they've gone too aggressive. If so, that will help Hamilton significantly.
I'm backing Verstappen for this race.
Bottas will cede the lead by the first lap and the Dutch shunt will disappear into the horizon.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The CJEU's remit is not straining the peace settlement. Triggering Article 16 on that basis would be a definitive demonstration of bad faith.
You seem to have a misunderstanding
The protocol is not working because of the failure to engage on a trusted trader scheme (which was a commitment made by the EU)
Therefore it needs to be renegotiated
Part of that renegotiation is a change in the role of the ECJ - what might be tolerable for a temporary arrangement is not acceptable in a permanent set up.
But the protocol is not being terminated *because* of the role of the ECJ
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
I don’t think the readership on this site is typical. Remember that in surveys of public knowledge of Geography you see far more shocking results than people not knowing where the Falklands are. Quite recently I remember a survey showing a small minority able to locate Ukraine on a map. And on Atlantic islands, during the debates on taxing multinationals a survey showed most people placing Bermuda in the middle of the Caribbean.
So on the obscure countries not already listed here’s my contribution:
Ukraine Armenia Algeria Saudi
Was due to go to Mauritania last November which would have been the obscurest yet but Covid put paid to that.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
Your background is a fact of life, Charles. You do not have to live with the consequences of Brexit. You have an escape route.
It is utterly irrelevant to the discussion
I suspect that you have more options than most following the sale of your business. But I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
Have you seen Clarkson’s Farm? As somebody from a farming background, what did you make of it?
I must admit, I enjoyed the brutal revelations of his ignorance and incompetence and the way he kept having to accept them. But then, I’m a vet’s son not a farmer’s son.
I have not, but it is on my must watch list as I keep getting recommendations for it.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
You lot keep like to moan about nonsense like "bad faith". There is no "faith" in international relations, there is only realpolitik.
Where was the good faith in Barnier and co weaponising Northern Ireland to further their own agenda?
What's done is done, what needs to be done will be.
"Faith" is for Sunday School not international relations.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
This is wrong on the facts. There is no termination clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the Consent Mechanism, if triggered after four years, only disapplies part of it. Trusted Trader scheme has nothing to do with the EUCJ and is not mentioned in the Protocol.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
Article 16 allows for unilateral termination based on “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist” (Wiki)
Is there an agreed TT scheme? I may have missed it over the summer but my understanding was the EU objected to the UK proposal because it covered too many companies
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
You lot keep like to moan about nonsense like "bad faith". There is no "faith" in international relations, there is only realpolitik.
Where was the good faith in Barnier and co weaponising Northern Ireland to further their own agenda?
What's done is done, what needs to be done will be.
"Faith" is for Sunday School not international relations.
Good luck with that, Philip. We are concerned precisely because we understand exactly what the realpolitik consequences will be of the UK having negotiated an international agreement in bad faith. Unlike you, we understand that we need them a whole lot more than they need us.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
If only there were some way that we could influence how the EU works.
We tried for 40 years and found we couldn’t (at least not enough). So we left.
Apparently some people have found that a controversial decision
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
Your background is a fact of life, Charles. You do not have to live with the consequences of Brexit. You have an escape route.
It is utterly irrelevant to the discussion
I suspect that you have more options than most following the sale of your business. But I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant.
Oops.
I do not have the ability to fly to the US tomorrow and live there. Neither do any of my children.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The CJEU's remit is not straining the peace settlement. Triggering Article 16 on that basis would be a definitive demonstration of bad faith.
You seem to have a misunderstanding
The protocol is not working because of the failure to engage on a trusted trader scheme (which was a commitment made by the EU)
Therefore it needs to be renegotiated
Part of that renegotiation is a change in the role of the ECJ - what might be tolerable for a temporary arrangement is not acceptable in a permanent set up.
But the protocol is not being terminated *because* of the role of the ECJ
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The CJEU's remit is not straining the peace settlement. Triggering Article 16 on that basis would be a definitive demonstration of bad faith.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
Your background is a fact of life, Charles. You do not have to live with the consequences of Brexit. You have an escape route.
It is utterly irrelevant to the discussion
I suspect that you have more options than most following the sale of your business. But I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant.
Oops.
I do not have the ability to fly to the US tomorrow and live there. Neither do any of my children.
Neither do I.
My daughter, however, is an American citizen. Not relevant to this discussion.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
Have you seen Clarkson’s Farm? As somebody from a farming background, what did you make of it?
I must admit, I enjoyed the brutal revelations of his ignorance and incompetence and the way he kept having to accept them. But then, I’m a vet’s son not a farmer’s son.
I have not, but it is on my must watch list as I keep getting recommendations for it.
A major chunk of Clarkson's "shtick" is him claiming X is trivial, then being shown to learn how hard X is to do properly. So you get to laugh at his idiocy, while being informed on what goes into to doing X properly.....
See the race to build a Caterham in kit form vs the Stig driving one etc etc
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
The ECJ's remit is so broad, it's a very unhelpful body. By number, the vast majority of cases are extremely technical (did SoAnSo Company's exports actually constitute wire wool, and was it therefore entitled to the appropriate export credit?) But it also has a small number of highly consequential cases that involve countries as parties, and which play directly in the role and powers of the EU and its member states.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
If only there were some way that we could influence how the EU works.
We tried for 40 years and found we couldn’t (at least not enough). So we left.
Apparently some people have found that a controversial decision
Totally false
I think there is plenty of evidence from this very website that people found the decision controversial.
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was twelve at the time and I knew where and what the Falklands were.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
Have you seen Clarkson’s Farm? As somebody from a farming background, what did you make of it?
I must admit, I enjoyed the brutal revelations of his ignorance and incompetence and the way he kept having to accept them. But then, I’m a vet’s son not a farmer’s son.
I have not, but it is on my must watch list as I keep getting recommendations for it.
It has exactly the narrative arc and ingredients of a Top Gear road trip. That’s why it works.
Clarkson has a crazy idea Surrounds himself with a small but entertaining supporting cast of interesting characters Buys lots of slightly inappropriate equipment People keep warning him he’s mad Things go wrong, in a comical way, with a building series of pratfalls and setback until success looks impossible Then suddenly the landscape opens out, the camera soars overhead, and Clarkson shifts to a tone of wonder and epiphany. It’s finally working, they’re on the home strait, and the views are nice. Next episode: rinse and repeat
And the red tops rallied to her cause. They loved the whole war thing: riding out like Britannia to beat up some errant natives on an island no-one had ever heard of before and never knew we 'owned'.
That's Boris Johnson's greatest card. He will almost certainly have the tabloids rallying to his triumphalist nationalist bullshit.
You shouldn't project your own woeful knowledge of geography onto others.
Especially not here. I suspect there isn't a country on the planet at least one of our contributors hasn't visited....
No one had ever heard of the Falklands. *
And I bet I've travelled more and lived more widely than the majority of posters on here, including Leon.
* Obviously this is hyperbole but most people ran for their atlases when the news broke, so there's no need for you to be personally obdurate.
I was six years old and knew where the Falklands were. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people didn't know where they were.
Good morning
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
You had to explain the sinking of the Belgrade? That sounds like a Sombor conversation.
Yes - I have edited it to the Belgrano
Gotcha!
The Belgrano is the answer to so many pub quiz questions, my faves.
1) Which is the only ship to have ever been sunk by a nuclear powered submarine
2) The last American navy ship to have been sunk by the UK.
The "Gotcha" headline brings us full circle to one of the key reasons why Labour are unelectable (unless the Party is led by Harold or Blair).
Labour's main problem is they are just not very good at politics and this is personified by Starmer. Another quite serious issue is (again except for Blair) Labour's inability to court the press, who hate them and everything they stand for. When the hand of friendship is offered the complaints rain down. Just last week Starmer was strung from the yard arm of the Belgrano (incoming factual correction from ....) for writing a piece in the super soaraway Sun.
Johnson by contrast owns the media, and were he to write in the Mirror that his brand of big state socialism is better than Labour's, no one would raise an eyebrow.
“You know you have fucked up on an epic scale when Sinn Féin, the DUP and the Archbishop of Canterbury are united in condemning you,” an EU source conceded of the extraordinary events that soon transpired.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
It was a red line for GB and tge EU accepted that
The UK reluctantly accepted it for NI based on certain assurances (which essentially meant tge ECj’s role would be of limited duration). The EU has not fulfilled its assurances and therefore the protocol has not worked.
The protocol is therefore being revisited. If we are looking for a permanent solution then the ECJ is a red line
There’s no bad faith
That is delicious, Charles. Good luck with it! The CJEU has played absolutely no role up to now in Northern Ireland. Not a single case has been referred to it. Your sophistry may play well in some well heated drawing rooms this winter, but those who actually have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith will perhaps be less forgiving.
The case numbers is the wrong metric to be looking at because it’s a new system.
When you are setting up long term institutional structures these things matter.
That’s why the US, for example, always insists on its courts having primacy eg in the recent US-Canadian ISDS case on GMO food
Yes, it's a new system and we did not do what the US does. We agreed something else. There are no provisions in the protocol for its renegotiation. We agreed that as well.
There is a provision for its termination if it is straining the peace settlement.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
The CJEU's remit is not straining the peace settlement. Triggering Article 16 on that basis would be a definitive demonstration of bad faith.
Get the Unionists to confirm that.
If they do, fair enough.
I am old enough to remember when you used to claim that the unionists should not have a veto over the protocol and that it should be for the majority of people in Northern Ireland to decide.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
This is wrong on the facts. There is no termination clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the Consent Mechanism, if triggered after four years, only disapplies part of it. Trusted Trader scheme has nothing to do with the EUCJ and is not mentioned in the Protocol.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
Article 16 allows for unilateral termination based on “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist” (Wiki)
Is there an agreed TT scheme? I may have missed it over the summer but my understanding was the EU objected to the UK proposal because it covered too many companies
Article 16 doesn't allow termination. It allows temporary and limited remedies in order to get the Protocol back on track.
There is trusted trader scheme covering supermarkets. Supermarkets seems to have been a UK priority. As I say, not part of the treaty.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
This is wrong on the facts. There is no termination clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the Consent Mechanism, if triggered after four years, only disapplies part of it. Trusted Trader scheme has nothing to do with the EUCJ and is not mentioned in the Protocol.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
Article 16 allows for unilateral termination based on “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist” (Wiki)
Is there an agreed TT scheme? I may have missed it over the summer but my understanding was the EU objected to the UK proposal because it covered too many companies
It does not exist.
AIUI, committees exist, and things have inched forward, but we are still a long way from even the 200 page document that describes *exactly* how things work. (To be fair, it is also possible that it is not only the EU that is to blame.) But I put the blame mostly on the EU, because it is in our interests to get it agreed.
What should happen is three fold:
(1) A detailed specification is released (2) A process for implementation is gone through (3) Technical implementation
and then... go live...
It is no shock that - just a few months from the end of the transition period - that we have not gone live. But it is a poor performance that we're not moving onto the second phase.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
No, the problem is that the UK government's insistence on removing the CJEU's remit in Northern Ireland demonstrates that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and never had any intention of honouring it. That essentially means we are back to the kind of No Deal scenario that will have consequences for all of us.
Time limited role for ECJ =/= permanent role for ECJ
It’s a negotiation. Get over it.
We don't all have your privilege, Charles. Some of us have to live with the consequences of the UK government's lies.
So just a restatement of your position plus a personal attack.
I’m guessing you don’t have any actually facts or arguments to back your statement up then?
The fact is the international treaty the UK signed. Another fact is that you do not have to live with the consequences of the UK government's bad faith. Pointing this out is not a personal attack.
You chose to highlight my background as if that was done kind of killer point
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
Your background is a fact of life, Charles. You do not have to live with the consequences of Brexit. You have an escape route.
It is utterly irrelevant to the discussion
I suspect that you have more options than most following the sale of your business. But I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant.
Oops.
I do not have the ability to fly to the US tomorrow and live there. Neither do any of my children.
Neither do I.
My daughter, however, is an American citizen. Not relevant to this discussion.
Apologies - I understood your wife is a US citizen.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The fact that the UK government has made the continuing remit of the CJEU in Northern Ireland a red line is definitive proof that it negotiated the protocol in bad faith and lied when it sold it as a triumph to the electorate. We will all end up paying a price for that.
You lot keep like to moan about nonsense like "bad faith". There is no "faith" in international relations, there is only realpolitik.
Where was the good faith in Barnier and co weaponising Northern Ireland to further their own agenda?
What's done is done, what needs to be done will be.
"Faith" is for Sunday School not international relations.
Good luck with that, Philip. We are concerned precisely because we understand exactly what the realpolitik consequences will be of the UK having negotiated an international agreement in bad faith. Unlike you, we understand that we need them a whole lot more than they need us.
That's the same lie you lot have been sharing for five years and like a vampire at sunrise its turned to dust now.
The USA doesn't care if the Protocol gets implemented in the way you want, they just don't want violence in Northern Ireland that's all they care about. Australia doesn't care if the Protocol gets implemented in the way you want, they have bigger fish to fry. Japan and the rest of the world don't care either. Its none of their business.
Brussels care but they're a party to the dispute and we hold all the cards. They can't force us to implement it the way they want, and we can implement Article 16, so they're desperate for a resolution.
“You know you have fucked up on an epic scale when Sinn Féin, the DUP and the Archbishop of Canterbury are united in condemning you,” an EU source conceded of the extraordinary events that soon transpired.
You know what, though.
The EU fucked up with vaccines. But then they got it together.
I think the heart of the problem is that the British voters are pretty conservative and not very labourish. You could easily tell a convincing story about Thatcher/Major/Cameron/Johnson being weak and/or ridiculous candidates if hadn't won their elections.
Mrs Thatcher in particular was exceedingly lucky. She became leader by mistake or deceit; she would have lost if Callaghan went before (or averted) the Winter of Discontent; she'd have been a one-term PM apart from the Falklands and Labour split; she depended on the magic money trees of privatisation and North Sea Oil to bail out her economic policies. Most of all though, she ruled during the 1980s when for reasons unconnected with government, life just got better. Computers appeared. Cars stopped rusting. And so on.
Tony Blair was even luckier, because of the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left him, which was mostly due to reforms he'd opposed throughout the 80s, together with leaving the ERM, which Labour had wanted to stay in.
Every successful leader is lucky, but they make their own luck to a large extent.
The golden legacy was the complete collapse of Conservative economic policy. A better argument might be that if the Major government had not imposed economic hardship and often ruin on its own supporters in pursuit of a high fixed exchange rate, Blair would be another best PM we never had contender.
It was the collapse of Conservative europhile MACROeconomic policy in 1992, and the triumph of small state MICROeconomic policy.
The EU never really cared that much about the Belfast Agreement - it was mainly leverage over the UK:
Good thread. It does raise the Q of why it takes this long for the EU to engage properly like this, given this is v similar to a UK idea dismissed as unworkable before Brexit. In my view Brussels has been appallingly complacent about the political consequence of strict E-W checks
The problem is that the UK hasn't and isn't engaging properly, or in good faith, to the big detriment of the people of Northern Ireland. You can also criticise the EU , but it's motes and beams frankly.
So David Frost in a Twitter argument with Simon Coveney. He doesn't seem to understand the purpose of a treaty is to get the other side to make commitments they ordinarily would not make. He is acting in bad faith now, as he did when he negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement.
. I prefer not to do negotiations by twitter, but since @simoncoveney has begun the process...
...the issue of governance & the CJEU is not new. We set out our concerns three months ago in our 21 July Command Paper.
The problem is that too few people seem to have listened.
Coveney claimed that Frost was creating a “new issue” in relation to the EU proposals.
Frost refuted that claim and said it had been clear in the July proposals from the UK
Please explain the bad faith.
The bad faith is renouncing a key and entirely unambiguous tenet of an international treaty that you signed and then presented to the electorate as a triumph. As with making it harder to vote, banning public protests, eroding Parliamentary scrutiny and putting the executive beyond judicial scrutiny, this is something that right-wing Brexiteers who used to deliver high falutin' lectures on the importance of democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law are now perfectly happy to countenance - because it's their side that is doing it.
The protocol was predicated on it being temporary and being replaced by a trusted trader scheme. In addition there was a provision that it could be cancelled if it was causing undue stress in the community
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
This is wrong on the facts. There is no termination clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the Consent Mechanism, if triggered after four years, only disapplies part of it. Trusted Trader scheme has nothing to do with the EUCJ and is not mentioned in the Protocol.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
Article 16 allows for unilateral termination based on “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist” (Wiki)
Is there an agreed TT scheme? I may have missed it over the summer but my understanding was the EU objected to the UK proposal because it covered too many companies
Article 16 doesn't allow termination. It allows temporary and limited remedies in order to get the Protocol back on track.
There is trusted trader scheme covering supermarkets. Supermarkets seems to have been a UK priority. As I say, not part of the treaty.
You’re right.
Article 16 allows the UK to suspend implementation until the EU agrees to a comprehensive TT scheme
On the subject of exotic places visited: my contributions would include Berlin before the wall came down Belgrade Delphi (seriously, if you haven’t been, go) The Forbidden City Ulaanbataar
Comments
And if you want to make trade deals with other countries and blocs, then shitting all over the most important one you already have may not be the very best of ideas.
But I stuck with two bar charts as any more and I might have stuck 'Only Labour leaders who sound like Tories can win here.'
1. Somalia
2. Tristan da Cunha
3. Guinea Bissau
4. St. Helena
5. Turkmenistan
What it does show is the power of the false narrative. The repetition of the lie that Oakervee said it would cost ‘not less than £106 billion’ when in fact he specifically said it ‘would not’ cost £106 billion, coupled with the claims about damage to woodland (inflated two hundredfold and hyperbolically compared to the loss of woodlands in the First World War) plus the mantra about ‘forty minutes faster to Birmingham’ has made it unpopular. The fact that all these claims are deliberate horseshit invented by people with axes to grind goes unnoticed.
I have to say, I’m particularly disappointed the FT has wilfully repeated so many lies. I thought until recently they were a rare surviving bastion of responsible journalism.
2) Samoa
3) The Azores (I know part of Portugal but still)
4) Belize
5) Lichenstein
Symptoms: 25% of the votes, 23 seats.
Diagnosis: First Past The Post.
Prognosis: Terminal
Look at the incredible shift in the opinion polls from 10% Labour leads to 10% Tory ones through April 1992 (the Falklands)
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-1979-1983
This graph shows the shift beautifully:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1983_United_Kingdom_general_election
https://www.history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-falklands-war
https://www.livescience.com/Falklands-War.html
I have known of the Falklands since I was in school in the 1950s, had to explain the sinking of the Belgrano to a constituent at a campaign meeting with the late Lord Wyn Roberts, and have visited the Falklands as part of our expedition cruise to the Antarctic and South Georgia
There is also the crooked aspect of crooks making donations to political parties of funds they stolen from widows and orphans. *cough Michael Brown cough*
The view must look lovely today, from up there on the moral high ground.
5th of February 1982 - MORI - Con lead 5%
31st of March 1982 - Gallup - Con lead 2%.
Both polls were before the Argentinian invasion.
The EU has not been willing to engage on the trusted trader scheme. So the UK has said “if we don’t solve this we will need to terminate it”
The UK is following the process set out in their agreement
Plus your figures are incorrect. There were no 10 point Labour leads immediately before the Falklands war. The final poll before it broke out on the 2nd April was Mori on the 31st March - Tory 35, Alliance 33, Labour 30. On the 5th February those figures for the same parties were even 41, 36, 21.
2. Bosnia
3. Syria
4. Dominica
5. Kiribati.
The EU and Irish government are trusted far more on the same question, albeit still by minorities, and it's not supposedly their responsibility.
Given the transition to a trusted trader scheme was the basis of the transitional agreements, the EU's failure to move forward, is a breach.
2) South Dakota
3) Broken Hill
4) Bucharest (when buildings still carried Ceaucescu portraits)
5) Barrow-in-Furness
2. North London
3. West London
4. Bedford
5. Why would I leave London, again?
But the government is exercising the rights set out in the protocol
I just don’t understand why people are saying we should roll over and accept it in the renegotiation on NI.
It would be helpful if the two could be disaggregated.
Edit to add: worth noting that the US essentially controls NAFTA tribunals, which have given some fairly iffy decisions in their time.
The UK is saying that it needs to be fixed or Article 16 will be triggered
I've also been to Middlesbrough and survived.
Jeremy Clarkson is not what I would call a reliable source; he is a living definition of hyperbole.
Just sayin'.
The ECJ has always been an issue in the negotiations - sure July was when the formal submission was made but no one paying attention could have been surprised it was raised
I must admit, I enjoyed the brutal revelations of his ignorance and incompetence and the way he kept having to accept them. But then, I’m a vet’s son not a farmer’s son.
But not being Marnock, I survived.
We'll see if the tyres are as crumbly as anticipated. Pirelli apparently fear they've gone too aggressive. If so, that will help Hamilton significantly.
In any case there is a Trusted Trader scheme in place and presumably Sefcovic's proposals go further.
Apparently some people have found that a controversial decision
1) Which is the only ship to have ever been sunk by a nuclear powered submarine
2) The last American navy ship to have been sunk by the UK.
Bottas will cede the lead by the first lap and the Dutch shunt will disappear into the horizon.
The protocol is not working because of the failure to engage on a trusted trader scheme (which was a commitment made by the EU)
Therefore it needs to be renegotiated
Part of that renegotiation is a change in the role of the ECJ - what might be tolerable for a temporary arrangement is not acceptable in a permanent set up.
But the protocol is not being terminated *because* of the role of the ECJ
So on the obscure countries not already listed here’s my contribution:
Ukraine
Armenia
Algeria
Saudi
Was due to go to Mauritania last November which would have been the obscurest yet but Covid put paid to that.
I suspect that you have more options than most following the sale of your business. But I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant.
Oops.
Where was the good faith in Barnier and co weaponising Northern Ireland to further their own agenda?
What's done is done, what needs to be done will be.
"Faith" is for Sunday School not international relations.
Is there an agreed TT scheme? I may have missed it over the summer but my understanding was the EU objected to the UK proposal because it covered too many companies
Emphasis on “not enough”
If they do, fair enough.
My daughter, however, is an American citizen. Not relevant to this discussion.
See the race to build a Caterham in kit form vs the Stig driving one etc etc
Clarkson has a crazy idea
Surrounds himself with a small but entertaining supporting cast of interesting characters
Buys lots of slightly inappropriate equipment
People keep warning him he’s mad
Things go wrong, in a comical way, with a building series of pratfalls and setback until success looks impossible
Then suddenly the landscape opens out, the camera soars overhead, and Clarkson shifts to a tone of wonder and epiphany. It’s finally working, they’re on the home strait, and the views are nice.
Next episode: rinse and repeat
Labour's main problem is they are just not very good at politics and this is personified by Starmer. Another quite serious issue is (again except for Blair) Labour's inability to court the press, who hate them and everything they stand for. When the hand of friendship is offered the complaints rain down. Just last week Starmer was strung from the yard arm of the Belgrano (incoming factual correction from ....) for writing a piece in the super soaraway Sun.
Johnson by contrast owns the media, and were he to write in the Mirror that his brand of big state socialism is better than Labour's, no one would raise an eyebrow.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/how-eus-floundering-vaccine-effort-hit-a-fresh-crisis-with-exports-row
“You know you have fucked up on an epic scale when Sinn Féin, the DUP and the Archbishop of Canterbury are united in condemning you,” an EU source conceded of the extraordinary events that soon transpired.
There is trusted trader scheme covering supermarkets. Supermarkets seems to have been a UK priority. As I say, not part of the treaty.
AIUI, committees exist, and things have inched forward, but we are still a long way from even the 200 page document that describes *exactly* how things work. (To be fair, it is also possible that it is not only the EU that is to blame.) But I put the blame mostly on the EU, because it is in our interests to get it agreed.
What should happen is three fold:
(1) A detailed specification is released
(2) A process for implementation is gone through
(3) Technical implementation
and then... go live...
It is no shock that - just a few months from the end of the transition period - that we have not gone live. But it is a poor performance that we're not moving onto the second phase.
The USA doesn't care if the Protocol gets implemented in the way you want, they just don't want violence in Northern Ireland that's all they care about.
Australia doesn't care if the Protocol gets implemented in the way you want, they have bigger fish to fry.
Japan and the rest of the world don't care either. Its none of their business.
Brussels care but they're a party to the dispute and we hold all the cards. They can't force us to implement it the way they want, and we can implement Article 16, so they're desperate for a resolution.
The EU fucked up with vaccines. But then they got it together.
Article 16 allows the UK to suspend implementation until the EU agrees to a comprehensive TT scheme
Distinction without a difference
Berlin before the wall came down
Belgrade
Delphi (seriously, if you haven’t been, go)
The Forbidden City
Ulaanbataar