Brexited | the worst threads live the longest

Do you think there will be a Deal or No Deal?

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  • Poll closed .
Maticmaker said:
All of which explains why Thatcher was considering leaving the EU. She no doubt considered that the trade element might have worked, but with every increasing integration on the horizon, then from her point of view, the 'politics' wouldn't. Also there is no doubting this aspect spilled over into the Brexit vote as well. Historically the UK may, (or may not) have a 'special relationship' with the US, but it has never even imagined that kind of relationship with the EU as such. The UK didn't join the Euro-zone, it negotiated various opt outs and demanded rebates, and was generally seen as being the 'awkward squad' by many in the EU.

Ironically had Thatcher followed her impulse and gone for a referendum on leaving the EU, with her recommending that based on either Maastricht and/or Lisbon Treaties we should leave, then she would probably have lost it; because the general level of interest in leaving in the UK at that time was not much above 20-30%, much the same as when the original vote was taken in the mid seventies. Two of the foremost Europhiles in the cabinet, Heseltine and Clarke won their battle (as they saw it to stay in the EU) by managing to oust Thatcher, hence preventing a referendum that finally came some twenty years or so later. Unfortunately the remainers thought they were facing the same situation... and well, the rest is history!
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I'll be honest I don't have a clue about what you are talking about. In the late 70s-early 80s, the time where France sold exocets to Argentina, the EU wasn't a thing and the UK were at the heart of the creation of the Single European Act which was signed in 1986. You seem to have your own version of history.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
I’ve never fully understood the left wing argument for Brexit, other than the desire for massive industrial subsidies, but then that would inevitably attract tariffs. I can just about understand the Brexit argument from a right wing perspective, but I think the crusty old 1970s leftists are just stuck in the past.
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They certainly are. And in many respects.
 
JPRouve said:
France is one of the largest arms dealer on the planet and Argentina weren't an enemy of France, they were selling weapons including Super Etendard and exocets to Argentina before the war.
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They are and they manufacture some excellent products, especially the Dassault Rafale. And they did that on their own, unlike the Eurofighter Typhoon which is a competitor.
Interestingly, when David Cameron was PM (boo), he was extremely keen on a defence partnership with France. And for good reasons. Similar defence capabilities, geography and similar defence policies. Nothing to do with brexit. More to do with collaboration within NATO. But that seems to have cooled which is a shame.
 
Buster15 said:
They are and they manufacture some excellent products, especially the Dassault Rafale. And they did that on their own, unlike the Eurofighter Typhoon which is a competitor.
Interestingly, when David Cameron was PM (boo), he was extremely keen on a defence partnership with France. And for good reasons. Similar defence capabilities, geography and similar defence policies. Nothing to do with brexit. More to do with collaboration within NATO. But that seems to have cooled which is a shame.
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I wanted to talk about it a few weeks ago because the british press mentioned several times that the UK were waiting for the US to approve the financing of new generation SLBMs and from a french standpoint it's a weird idea particularly when this year France tested its own new missiles without having to wait for anyone else to approve it and started the developments of their successors.
At the time my thinking was why the UK can't do the same thing, why do they want to rely that much on the US and wouldn't it be a better idea to partner with France, now the later is complicated because France is notoriously difficult as a partner when it comes to engineering with a "my way or the highway" type of mentality so the UK aren't the problem in a potential partnership.
 
JPRouve said:
I'll be honest I don't have a clue about what you are talking about. In the late 70s-early 80s, the time where France sold exocets to Argentina, the EU wasn't a thing and the UK were at the heart of the creation of the Single European Act which was signed in 1986. You seem to have your own version of history.
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Ever since the start of the Battle of Trafalgar, Thatcher was considering leaving the EU since France was an untrustworthy partner!
 
JPRouve said:
I wanted to talk about it a few weeks ago because the british press mentioned several times that the UK were waiting for the US to approve the financing of new generation SLBMs and from a french standpoint it's a weird idea particularly when this year France tested its own new missiles without having to wait for anyone else to approve it and started the developments of their successors.
At the time my thinking was why the UK can't do the same thing, why do they want to rely that much on the US and wouldn't it be a better idea to partner with France, now the later is complicated because France is notoriously difficult as a partner when it comes to engineering with a "my way or the highway" type of mentality so the UK aren't the problem in a potential partnership.
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And that is what I respect about the French. When they decide to do something, they go for it whatever the difficulty.
There was much discussion regarding the 2 new UK Aircraft Carriers. The talk was about interoperability with France.
But. The UK changed its mind and went for the Lockheed Martin F35B which has short/vertical take off. The Navy Rafale uses catapult take off.
I was fortunate enough to have worked on the Olympus 593 engines for Concorde with engineers from SNECMA. That aircraft was outstandingly brilliant and an incredible technical achievement between Britain and France. And they were built in my home city of Bristol as well of course as Toulouse which had the pleasure of visiting.
As previously mentioned, I have worked very closely with aerospace engineers from Germany, Italy and Spain as well as France. So I appreciate what Europe at its best can achieve.
 
Buster15 said:
And that is what I respect about the French. When they decide to do something, they go for it whatever the difficulty.
There was much discussion regarding the 2 new UK Aircraft Carriers. The talk was about interoperability with France.
But. The UK changed its mind and went for the Lockheed Martin F35B which has short/vertical take off. The Navy Rafale uses catapult take off.
I was fortunate enough to have worked on the Olympus 593 engines for Concorde with engineers from SNECMA. That aircraft was outstandingly brilliant and an incredible technical achievement between Britain and France. And they were built in my home city of Bristol as well of course as Toulouse which had the pleasure of visiting.
As previously mentioned, I have worked very closely with aerospace engineers from Germany, Italy and Spain as well as France. So I appreciate what Europe at its best can achieve.
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The Concorde is truly a marvelous achievement of cooperation which sadly I can't see being repeated in such a scale anytime soon. But its awesome that you have taken part in it!
 
The Firestarter said:
The Concorde is truly a marvelous achievement of cooperation which sadly I can't see being repeated in such a scale anytime soon. But its awesome that you have taken part in it!
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Thank you.
The most incredible thing was that it had never been done before, or after but that it was achieved with almost no computers. All drawn by hand with pencils and slide rules by some seriously clever people.
 
JPRouve said:
I'll be honest I don't have a clue about what you are talking about. In the late 70s-early 80s, the time where France sold exocets to Argentina, the EU wasn't a thing and the UK were at the heart of the creation of the Single European Act which was signed in 1986. You seem to have your own version of history.
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Yes I have gathered that!
 
Farewell UK, hope you come back soon. Without tories though

I am sure you will be better off than what remainers say and worse off than what brexiteers say.
 
God another reason why tonight sucks, well done UK, you’ve solved the problem the EU was creating which was.. errm.. but well at least we can now errrm.
 
Happy Independence Day neighbours!
 
I've absolutely no sympathy for anyone who voted leave and then wants to create Little England abroad. They'll need to get used to Spanish Sky, which will be very different. We spend a lot of time watching American crime dramas, as they're one of the things that Sky Italia shows.

Here's another example of a new "Brexit benefit" - I don't know how many of these people voted for leave, but Kent was about 60% in favour. Quite honestly, it would have been better for these people to have their homes put under a compulsory purchase order, as they'll never sell them now.
It was all quiet on the Dover front in the hours after the UK left the EU, as lorries continued to avoid the port.

But just minutes away, beyond the famous white cliffs, the sense of fury over Brexit was palpable as local residents came to terms with a government letter they received on New Year’s Eve telling them that from summer, their rural idyll of farmland and ancient Roman ways would be transformed into a customs clearance lorry park for 1,200 trucks.

The site is in addition to the the Ashford lorry park 22 miles away that barricades fields behind 4-metre fences.

Locals say they feel “betrayed” and “trapped” by the “lies” of the government over Brexit. Just as they were looking forward to a new year, the letter from the transport minister Rachel Maclean arrived advising them that the white cliffs site had been purchased and would be used as an “Inland Border Facility” from July.
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Full schadenfreude here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/01/residents-furious-brexit-lorry-park-kent-village
 
tombombadil said:
This is brilliant. She is on point on this one. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Theresa May's deal was a treaty that kept us too closely aligned to the EU, which meant it would be a brexit in name only. Boris's treaty removes some of that alignment but with some compromising.
Boris did actually vote for Theresa May's deal with other hardline brexiteers like Rees Mogg, when it looked as though things were heading in the direction of having to either accept this deal, remain, or hold a second referendum.
Boris's landslide election victory gave him more weight to negotiate harder with the EU.

May a good leader?
 
Penna said:
May would have been much better than Johnson. She's a hard worker and detail-orientated.
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I disagree there. She was terrible. No one ever really knew what her intentions were.
Her Lancaster house speech in January 2017 was a tough message to the EU about the government's intentions in the upcoming brexit negotiations, but a month later she soften her approach considerably with her mansion house speech. No one really knew what was going on. She found she couldn't appease brexiteers with so many opposition remainers in parliament, so she sought to strengthen her hand by winning a larger majority to get her bills through. It backfired disastrously because her campaign was pitiful. She changed her mind so often, no one knew what form brexit would take. Because of this, it allowed Corbyn to sneak in and a claim he would get brexit done, and he gave all kinds of future faking promises as well.
With a weakened government she ebbed to and fro making concession after concession, and watching her cabinet members walk away one after the other. In the end she came up with a deal with the EU that was a treaty keeping us completely tied to the EU without the benefits of being a member. Pointless from a leave perspective, and a remain perspective.
Boris's deal is much much better, but not perfect with regards to services, Northern Ireland, and fishing. Obviously many aspects of the arrangement will be tweaked over time.
 
Penna said:
May would have been much better than Johnson. She's a hard worker and detail-orientated.
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I thought May was a terrible PM but compared to Johnson she actually looks good. Johnson is hopeless - he's given away NI, got no deal on services, got British people needing a permit to go into Kent , has nothing prepared for Brexit, he has actually negotiated nothing for the UK , even the fish which he made into a major issue he has gained virtually nothing.

You can tell by what he says he doesn't even understand Brexit himself, he is clueless and the fact he went to Eton wasn't because he was clever, it was because his parents paid for him,

At present the Covid crisis has saved him from immediate censor as the borders are virtually closed.

If he's still PM in a year's time I'd be surprised.
 
vidic blood & sand said:
I disagree there. She was terrible. No one ever really knew what her intentions were.
Her Lancaster house speech in January 2017 was a tough message to the EU about the government's intentions in the upcoming brexit negotiations, but a month later she soften her approach considerably with her mansion house speech. No one really knew what was going on. She found she couldn't appease brexiteers with so many opposition remainers in parliament, so she sought to strengthen her hand by winning a larger majority to get her bills through. It backfired disastrously because her campaign was pitiful. She changed her mind so often, no one knew what form brexit would take. Because of this, it allowed Corbyn to sneak in and a claim he would get brexit done, and he gave all kinds of future faking promises as well.
With a weakened government she ebbed to and fro making concession after concession, and watching her cabinet members walk away one after the other. In the end she came up with a deal with the EU that was a treaty keeping us completely tied to the EU without the benefits of being a member. Pointless from a leave perspective, and a remain perspective.
Boris's deal is much much better, but not perfect with regards to services, Northern Ireland, and fishing. Obviously many aspects of the arrangement will be tweaked over time.
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May, for all her failings, does actually have integrity and took her job of being PM seriously. She fell on the horns of the irreconcilable dilemmas of Brexit - how to protect the economy, preserve the GFA and the Union and, at the same time, achieve some meaningful change from Brexit by taking the UK outside of EU jurisdiction. Boris “feck business” Johnson has “resolved” the dilemma by focusing on maximum sovereignty to the extent even Bill Cash was happy, at the expense of the economy (you mention services like it’s a teething problem rather than 80% of the economy), while, as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, putting a border down the Irish Sea.

As an aside, May with her attention to detail and strong work ethic would no doubt have managed Covid better as well.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
I thought May was a terrible PM but compared to Johnson she actually looks good. Johnson is hopeless - he's given away NI, got no deal on services, got British people needing a permit to go into Kent , has nothing prepared for Brexit, he has actually negotiated nothing for the UK , even the fish which he made into a major issue he has gained virtually nothing.

You can tell by what he says he doesn't even understand Brexit himself, he is clueless and the fact he went to Eton wasn't because he was clever, it was because his parents paid for him,

At present the Covid crisis has saved him from immediate censor as the borders are virtually closed.

If he's still PM in a year's time I'd be surprised.
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I think you'll see a year or more of grace period to phase in full border checks. For example, the FT reported yesterday on one of the side deals: UK and EU attempt to ease Brexit paperwork burden
Companies exporting goods between the UK and the EU will be given a year to produce the supporting paperwork proving their goods are eligible for zero-tariff access to the EU, offering industries temporary relief from some of the new red tape they face after Brexit.
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I'm actually not that worried about the border flow, primarily because Ireland is so reliant on it too. It's in both the UK and EU's interest to keep freight flowing relatively smoothly. I'm sure there will be flare ups and disputes every so often, but in the main I expect the trusted-trader schemes in the deal and lenient application of checks will help keep it from all going completely off the rails, unless the UK starts dramatically changing its product regulations.
 
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MikeUpNorth said:
I think you'll see a year or more of grace period to phase in border checks. For example, the FT reported yesterday on one of the side deals: UK and EU attempt to ease Brexit paperwork burden


I'm actually not that worried about the border flow, primarily because Ireland is so reliant on it too. It's in both the UK and EU's interest to keep freight flowing relatively smoothly. I'm sure there will be flare ups and disputes every so often, but in the main I expect the trusted-trader schemes in the deal and lenient application of checks will help keep it from all going completely off the rails, unless the UK starts dramatically changing its product regulations.
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Yes certain aspects will be eased in, but it doesn't prevent the additional paperwork , delays and checks. Rules of origin will be fairly lenient on to get the paperwork ready but it will still be done at some point which means if it isn't done now, there will be a lot of catching up to do. There will still be checks and delays, especially regarding foodstuffs.
Trusted trader schemes will last until the UK start flouting the laws. Getting through the customs at Dover doesn't mean they've got away with it. There are two customs stations within 25kms of where I live and the nearest border is Spain which is over 300km away. Regular spot checks for HGVs.


You have the added problem of Kermit - will European truck drivers be able or want to bother with arranging a permit that lasts 24 hours.

We won't see the full effects until the borders go back to normal, ie. normal passenger and freight traffic.
 
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