The end of the UK(?)

[-alan-]

Sadly, I can't think of one. The cynic in me says that, as England has been making a howling mess of Ireland for the last 800-odd years, why should it stop now? Partition was a desperate compromise, trying to please simultaneously two diametrically-opposed sides and failing ultimately to please either. Common membership of the EU went part-way towards a solution, basically creating a completely porous border, and the volume of cross-border trade disappeared into the stratosphere. But Brexit rudely yanked the rug out from under their feet, and now poor Northern Ireland inhabits this unfortunate limbo, with the threat of violence back again (Norn Iron port workers being threatened). I can see the whole enterprise crashing and burning. I desperately hope not.

I agree - I always felt when the tribes were given the ability to view life in a broader European context it was a practical approach to sidestepping much of the divisiveness around the We're British/No we're Irish legacy issues. Sadly it's all come back with a bang - and one I don't believe those who subscribe (or subscribed) to the Gerrit-Dun mindset worried about in the least.

 

[eternumviti]

The will appears to involve some non existent technology, magic unicorns or the EU stepping away from some of the basic rules that it's founded on. After 4 years it appears that many still think the outcomes we are now seeing are still "project fear." Reveillez-vous et sentir le café.

Of course the technology exists, it needs to be applied, much as it is applied to anything else in the 21st century. This constant claim that it's all non-existent or 'magic unicorns' is a bizarre form of denialism which equates to denying that IT exists at all. Taxable goods have been crossing the Irish border between two completely different excise, duty and VAT regimes for years without any physical borders at all, apart from ANPR cameras. I simply do not swallow this bullshit about sanitary checks on animal carcasses, it is a complete fabrication. For a start UK standards are usually already higher that the EU's, and never lower, and every animal carcase is already traceable, via the abbatoir and all the way back to the farm on which it was raised. As for the soil on seed potatoes, its the same British soil as has been on seed potatoes for the past x hundred years, it hasn't taken on some magical toxin since December the 31st ffs. It just goes on and on, this massive and almost completely unnecessary paper chase in multiples of triplicate and black (EU sourced) ink.

It is simply exposing the EU as little more than a protectionist racket which is built on sand and a sea of pretence wrapped up tightly in rules, and an eminently nasty one too. Be assured that this ridiculous theatre has woken a good many remain voters up to exactly what the EU really is. It isn't simply destructive of the UK, it is destructive of the EU member countries too, but of course the Brussels gnomes couldn't give a flyer, as long as the project is on course.

Erroneous e. Underneath your style of writing* there’s a fundament of nutty beliefs about national identity best illustrated in your utter obsession with Germany and more generally, the constant whiff of xenophobia.

*it reads like this looks-

From 2:58 onwards

You do come out with some nonsense. I'm not 'obsessed' with Germany at all, but it is not possible to talk about the EU without acknowledging Germany's dominant role and place in the thing. Well, it might be for you, but then you exist in some sort of alternative reality in which the EU project is entirely benign, and all the member countries want to do is to 'reach out' to their colleagues.

I suspect you get the whiff of xenophobia everywhere you look. I always wonder with people like you whether there isn't perhaps a corpse or two in the cupboard, or perhaps it's just something caught on your top lip.

Forgive me if I pass on the Kate Bush. I appreciate that you probably went to some trouble.

 

[Enfield boy]

At present we've had no time to deviate from EU standards but the govt has already started making noises about getting rid of the 48hr week. I don't suppose it'll be long before they start trying to use neonics (oh, silly me they already are) and move away from other, previously harmonised standards. I'm sure the EU feel happy trusting our leaders after all it's not as though they go around breaking agreements and international law, is it?

 

[eternumviti]

Who, the EU?

Of course they do.

 

[Enfield boy]

As you well know "our leaders" was the object of that sentence. In any event we're back to the club analogy, we've left it, they make the rules, they're bigger than us and our side has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Now where is your magic unicorn tech, what is the evidence for it's existence and efficacy?

 

[davidsrsb]

.....move away from other, previously harmonised standards

I write technical requirements documents. Ten years ago I would have reference BSI standards. These days I reference EN standards ( even China follows them)
If the UK dares to go off on a tangent, its industry will be blocked from exporting to Asia.

 

[SteveS1]

As you well know "our leaders" was the object of that sentence. In any event we're back to the club analogy, we've left it, they make the rules, they're bigger than us and our side has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Now where is your magic unicorn tech, what is the evidence for it's existence and efficacy?

Good luck waiting for that, it's a generalisation that ET likes to throw around - it's part of his "if only they would be reasonable and just leave us with the things that we liked" modus. I'm still waiting for his example of an EU border operating like he describes where there is no Customs Agreement of membership of the SM involved.

Regarding the use of tech - 4 years and £100 millions wasted with time sheet hungry bungling Brexit IT suppliers. Our trading partners started implementing UNCEFACT single submission portals for paperless/digital cross border formalities in 2017. With the UK signing up to join in under the WCO in 2019. The UK Government is still spending; with Gove taking the lead, to dump us taxpayers in a paper and clerical digital ice age.

When this IT procurement fiasco started 5 years ago there was a case for a pdf emailing temporary fix. Gove still holds the purse strings and is supposed to be leading. He has overseen a five year IT, accounting and legal consulting army of 100’s. On top of this continuing open ended feeding frenzy and he is now promising to recruit 50,000 more civil servants to entrench the UK as the e-Business luddites of international trade formalities. Johnson is clueless about anything technical and certainly not interested unless there’s a headline in it for him.

Que outrage and worries about waste and cronyism - not.

 

[eternumviti]

As you well know "our leaders" was the object of that sentence. In any event we're back to the club analogy, we've left it, they make the rules, they're bigger than us and our side has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Now where is your magic unicorn tech, what is the evidence for it's existence and efficacy?

Well, the EU folk know a great deal about being untrustworthy. They have a 60 year track record of being as slippery as eels. They're not even ashamed of it, they're so arrogant that they think its OK.

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie."

The tech, don't be silly. We all use it every day, industry uses it. Think of all those just in time supply chains, they use IT. Financial transactions fly around the globe every day using IT. You and I are communicating using IT. Goods pass across borders every day using IT. Until the UK left the EU, that is, then suddenly there's no such thing as IT, it's turned to angel dust.

 

[Enfield boy]

Nigerian princes use IT too!

 

[eternumviti]

At present we've had no time to deviate from EU standards but the govt has already started making noises about getting rid of the 48hr week. I don't suppose it'll be long before they start trying to use neonics (oh, silly me they already are) and move away from other, previously harmonised standards. I'm sure the EU feel happy trusting our leaders after all it's not as though they go around breaking agreements and international law, is it?

In a report that was reported in both Politico and the Telegraph last July, since the EU instigated a ban in 2018 there have been at least 67 'emergency authorisations' for the use of neocotinoids in EU member countries, with such emergency measures being 'common practice' in many instances. In many cases these authorisations 'were granted without any evidence of an unusual or ‘emergency’ situation as justification.'

 

[SteveS1]

Well, the EU folk know a great deal about being untrustworthy. They have a 60 year track record of being as slippery as eels. They're not even ashamed of it, they're so arrogant that they think its OK.

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie."

Ah this one again, a Telegraph fav. Sounds like a moral high compared to their employee Johnson, where it doesn't even have to be serious.

 

[eternumviti]

Nigerian princes use IT too!

Funnily enough I had an email from one this morning. In the past few weeks I've also been contacted by Colonel Gaddafi's daughter and an ex-wife of 'King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz The King of the Kingdom Of new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 11th son of the founder of the Saudi kingdom, king Ibn Saud.'

 

[eternumviti]

Ah this one again, a Telegraph fav. Sounds like a moral high compared to their employee Johnson, where it doesn't even have to be serious.

I think that Juncker quote related to the evisceration of Greece, so it doesn't really matter, admittedly.

 

[SteveS1]

I think that Juncker quote related to the evisceration of Greece, so it doesn't really matter, admittedly.

Are you sure about that? Johnson's one of many was only to the Monarch - that doesn't matter either presumably.

 

[eternumviti]

Remainer whataboutism has certainly reached epic proportions since the mask-slipping episode at the European Commission last week.

Steve, we all know that Johnson fibs, but we are repeatedly expected to believe the EU is pure. I'm sorry, but it really, really isn't.

 

[SteveS1]

Remainer whataboutism has certainly reached epic proportions since the mask-slipping episode at the European Commission last week.

Steve, we all know that Johnson fibs, but we are repeatedly expected to believe the EU is pure. I'm sorry, but it really, really isn't.

I'm not saying it is, never have, never will.

It's not whataboutism at all. Perhaps you need to check the meaning. I'm pointing out that you persist with holding the EU to a different standard given similar scenarios.

One episode, which was quickly reversed and admitted to be a crass error, suddenly it's never mind the countless similar episodes from Johnson and crew prior to then. Was the equally crass "limited and specific" threat to break his own negotiated WA similarly reversed? That will be "not likely."

Would you be blithely saying "we all know Juncker fibs" in a similar way to your relaxed acceptance of it from Johnson? Of course you wouldn't.

 

[eternumviti]

It is absolute whataboutism.

There is some irony in that the 'crass error' was only reversed after two people phoned Von der Leyen. One of them was no less that BJ himself.

The issue at the foot of all of this is that, as an elected MP, Johnson will be sanctioned by the electorate at the next GE. The European Commission could not only not be sacked by the electorate, they doubled down on Greek evisceration over the heads of both the Greek electorate and the elected Greek government. They then went on to install their own not so superMario in place of the elected Italian government.

I see incidentally that superMario Mk 2 has just been inveigled into place as Italian PM. I don't suppose that was anything to do with the EC either.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Remainer whataboutism has certainly reached epic proportions since the mask-slipping episode at the European Commission last week.

Steve, we all know that Johnson fibs, but we are repeatedly expected to believe the EU is pure. I'm sorry, but it really, really isn't.

I have to say, the EU quickly backtracked when this blew up. That doesn’t seem quite as damning as I think you think it is. And it’s in stark contrast to what tends to happen in the UK, when ministers quite often dig in and double down on things rather than admit an error.

Even when the government does a U-turn (which has become quite a feature) it’s always spun as. either not a U-turn at all, or simply a revised decision in light of changed circumstances. The changed circumstances usually being that they got found out, of course.

 

[ff1d1l]

It is absolute whataboutism.

There is some irony in that the 'crass error' was only reversed after two people phoned Von der Leyen. One of them was no less that BJ himself.

The issue at the foot of all of this is that, as an elected MP, Johnson will be sanctioned by the electorate at the next GE. The European Commission could not only not be sacked by the electorate, they doubled down on Greek evisceration over the heads of both the Greek electorate and the elected Greek government. They then went on to install their own not so superMario in place of the elected Italian government.

I see incidentally that superMario Mk 2 has just been inveigled into place as Italian PM. I don't suppose that was anything to do with the EC either.

If we ask them nicely could they do us a new PM?
This one's killing us.

 

[Cav]

It is absolute whataboutism.

There is some irony in that the 'crass error' was only reversed after two people phoned Von der Leyen. One of them was no less that BJ himself.

The issue at the foot of all of this is that, as an elected MP, Johnson will be sanctioned by the electorate at the next GE. The European Commission could not only not be sacked by the electorate, they doubled down on Greek evisceration over the heads of both the Greek electorate and the elected Greek government. They then went on to install their own not so superMario in place of the elected Italian government.

I see incidentally that superMario Mk 2 has just been inveigled into place as Italian PM. I don't suppose that was anything to do with the EC either.

I think your whole attitude to Brexit is classic winner's remorse. You have exactly what you voted for and you hate it.