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Brexit: give me a positive effect (2022 remastered edition) II

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PsB said:
While I agree with your second part, I would dispute the first: the EU was highly accommodating of successive British governments and parliamentary procedures.
- After Art. 50 was invoked, the EU waited and waited while HMG dithered over what form of Brexit it thought it wanted.
- It bent over backwards to keep the whole UK inside a de facto customs union to accommodate Theresa May's daft red lines, and negotiated an agreement on that basis.
- When she was defenestrated by Johnson, they went back to the drawing board, bent over backwards in another direction and negotiated the NIP, which Johnson proclaimed a "great deal".
- The EU agreed to multiple deadline extensions, suspended certain border checks for extended periods, all to give the UK time to get its act together
- Etc.
For an organization routinely derided by Brexiters as rule-bound and bureaucratic, the EU showed flexibility and creativity, including on core elements like the Single Market.
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Well, you've got me bang to rights there!

Or, as Churchill didn't say. 'diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions'.

I, and others of my lowly ilk, would contest that the EU bent over backwards to frustrate the UK's attempts to leave the organisation, or to hold it firmly within its regulatory and governance orbit in what is an increasingly typical act of EU neocolonialism -they are keen to do the same with Switzerland, and were falling over themselves to do it to Ukraine prior to 2014. To that end it set the agenda (sequencing) then skilfully exploited the splits within the UK government, its own cosy relationship with Whitehall, and of course the greatest gift of all, the Irish border issue. The greatest gift, that is, if you take out the appalling ineptitude of the May government negotiating gambit. They were delighted with the dithering, the time-wasting, two years and then the three years, because all the while the UK government was tearing itself to shreds. Tick-tock, tick-tock, mocked M.Barnier all the while. It was classic divide and conquer, slow and systematic attrition. Credit to them, we were complete amateurs, when we weren't actual fifth columnists.

'We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned them into a colony, and that was our plan from the first moment'.
 
"Michael Shellenberger has some interesting Ted Talks and uses Germany as an example. If Germany would have spent the $540b that they spent on wind and solar on nuclear instead, they could power the whole electrical grid with carbon free energy and had enough left over to power their transportation system."

Seems Germany's political classes are having a bit of a hard time at the moment. Decent football team though.
 
eternumviti said:
Well, you've got me bang to rights there!

Or, as Churchill didn't say. 'diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions'.

I, and others of my lowly ilk, would contest that the EU bent over backwards to frustrate the UK's attempts to leave the organisation, or to hold it firmly within its regulatory and governance orbit in what is an increasingly typical act of EU neocolonialism -they are keen to do the same with Switzerland, and were falling over themselves to do it to Ukraine prior to 2014. To that end it set the agenda (sequencing) then skilfully exploited the splits within the UK government, its own cosy relationship with Whitehall, and of course the greatest gift of all, the Irish border issue. The greatest gift, that is, if you take out the appalling ineptitude of the May government negotiating gambit. They were delighted with the dithering, the time-wasting, two years and then the three years, because all the while the UK government was tearing itself to shreds. Tick-tock, tick-tock, mocked M.Barnier all the while. It was classic divide and conquer, slow and systematic attrition. Credit to them, we were complete amateurs, when we weren't actual fifth columnists.

'We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned them into a colony, and that was our plan from the first moment'.
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From somewhere on the outskirts of paranoia.
 
SteveS1 said:
To read that little gem you'd think the UK had no part in the design and implementation of the process. Of course that was when we thought someone else would be involved.
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The supposition of intent without evidence and indeed evidence to the contrary, the attribution of an external locus of control for the behaviour of the British party to the negotiation, as exemplified in the language used- “it’s another punishment beating”, “they want to punish us for standing up to them”. It was as if Little Britain had no agency.

You saw the flip side of the same deluded coin prior to the referendum and negotiations “we hold all the cards”, “it’ll be the easiest deal in history”. SAS David Davis was going to kick their front door in. The same hyperbolic language but in reverse. There was an adult in the room but I’m afraid it wasn’t the British government.
 
Oh and there was the legendary “German Businessman” who was going to ride to the rescue and tell Mrs.Merkel to give us an extra special deal. Where did he bugger off to?
 
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eternumviti said:
Well, you've got me bang to rights there!

Or, as Churchill didn't say. 'diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions'.

I, and others of my lowly ilk, would contest that the EU bent over backwards to frustrate the UK's attempts to leave the organisation, or to hold it firmly within its regulatory and governance orbit in what is an increasingly typical act of EU neocolonialism -they are keen to do the same with Switzerland, and were falling over themselves to do it to Ukraine prior to 2014. To that end it set the agenda (sequencing) then skilfully exploited the splits within the UK government, its own cosy relationship with Whitehall, and of course the greatest gift of all, the Irish border issue. The greatest gift, that is, if you take out the appalling ineptitude of the May government negotiating gambit. They were delighted with the dithering, the time-wasting, two years and then the three years, because all the while the UK government was tearing itself to shreds. Tick-tock, tick-tock, mocked M.Barnier all the while. It was classic divide and conquer, slow and systematic attrition. Credit to them, we were complete amateurs, when we weren't actual fifth columnists.

'We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned them into a colony, and that was our plan from the first moment'.
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Gerritt dun!!! You you be a popular contender to lead the Tor-hees.
 
ff1d1l said:
Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
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"If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
 
eternumviti said:
Well, you've got me bang to rights there!

Or, as Churchill didn't say. 'diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions'.

I, and others of my lowly ilk, would contest that the EU bent over backwards to frustrate the UK's attempts to leave the organisation, or to hold it firmly within its regulatory and governance orbit in what is an increasingly typical act of EU neocolonialism -they are keen to do the same with Switzerland, and were falling over themselves to do it to Ukraine prior to 2014. To that end it set the agenda (sequencing) then skilfully exploited the splits within the UK government, its own cosy relationship with Whitehall, and of course the greatest gift of all, the Irish border issue. The greatest gift, that is, if you take out the appalling ineptitude of the May government negotiating gambit. They were delighted with the dithering, the time-wasting, two years and then the three years, because all the while the UK government was tearing itself to shreds. Tick-tock, tick-tock, mocked M.Barnier all the while. It was classic divide and conquer, slow and systematic attrition. Credit to them, we were complete amateurs, when we weren't actual fifth columnists.

'We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned them into a colony, and that was our plan from the first moment'.
Click to expand...


If you voted for it, does that mean that we can send you the bill? After all, it's several billions and rising.
 
TheDecameron said:
See Patten’s comments on what the Conservative Party actually represents now.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ster-says-chris-patten?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

it explains the voting pattern for both Brexit and for the Tory Party and it’s the platform Starmer now makes his pitch from.
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Not sure how you’re last sentence relates to the article but it was good and my favourite bit was:

Patten refused to say if he hoped the Conservatives would win the next election, but said: “I think for me the Conservatives, unless they change very radically, winning the next election would be a disaster for them and for the rest of us.

“Because I don’t think we have a Conservative party at the moment, we have an English nationalist government, with all the consequences and one which you can’t trust.”

Patten said of his preferred outcome at the next general election: “I would prefer to see probably a coalition which held the union together, because I think that’s really in threat. [If] you want to break up the union, you send Boris Johnson up to Scotland.”
 
eternumviti said:
I, and others of my lowly ilk, would contest that [.. snip.. ]

To that end it set the agenda (sequencing) then skilfully exploited the splits within the UK government, its own cosy relationship with Whitehall, and of course the greatest gift of all, the Irish border issue. The greatest gift, that is, if you take out the appalling ineptitude of the May government negotiating gambit. They were delighted with the dithering, the time-wasting, two years and then the three years, because all the while the UK [snip] was tearing itself to shreds. Tick-tock, tick-tock, [we] mocked M.Barnier all the while. It was classic divide and conquer, slow and systematic attrition. Credit to them, we were complete amateurs, when we weren't actual fifth columnists.

'We got rid of them. We kicked them out. We finally turned [snip] back into [something akin to a struggling colonial outpost] , and that was our plan from the first moment'.
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Interesting. Forgive the crude editing, but If you were to remove your original opening statement, and substitute something along the lines of..' The Johnson/Cummings cadre within the Conservative Party / their desire to leave the EU in whatever manner possible, and at whatever cost', then with one or two very minor changes, the rest of that would also read as perfectly logical and believable too :)
 
TheDecameron said:
See Patten’s comments on what the Conservative Party actually represents now.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ster-says-chris-patten?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

it explains the voting pattern for both Brexit and for the Tory Party and it’s the platform Starmer now makes his pitch from.
Click to expand...

Starmer is not a tory. If Labour replaces the tory govt the UK can start to move back toward the centre from the far right then hopefully centre left.

Anyway, from the article...
Patten condemned the “seediness and mendacity of this government”, adding that because Labour was still hindered by “fundamental weaknesses”, many people had been “left with an aspiration for a decent, competent, generous-spirited, sensible political force in the middle, which nobody at present is providing”.
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This is precisely why I’ve been asking the politically clued up here for names of people who are not right wingers who could form such a party. It’s not well received but if Patten is correct, I’m not alone with this aspiration despite being a minority here.
 
I've often felt (and voiced) the same thing. I could never bear Patten, though, a dyed-in-the-wool EU lackey to the core.

Centrist always sounds a bit Blairite, I suspect Blair and Patten are made of the same political substance.
 
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