Singapore off the coast of Europe, close trading partner but not politically part of the EU, or closer alignment with the USA.
With the election of Joe Biden, that last option is no longer really on the table. Washington will be looking for a closer relationship with the EU and will probably do what the Stennaline ferries have done and bypass the UK completely.
We won't even be on the radar of the new US administration, apart from the odd bit of 'special relationship' (which never really existed) lip service. I also suspect that the US administration will take a pretty dim view of the Singapore off the coast of Europe model.
The Brexiteers have been doing a bit of rowing back. I see the 'review' of workers rights that Kwasi Kwarteng announced, to the delight of the headbangers, has been quietly shelved
Interesting about Stena line and Irish freight in general, Cork is building a huge new terminal for shipping direct to the continent.
The special relationship between the US and the Uk is a lot deeper than who is in the current administration. It goes back decades and is formed mainly on the intelligence community not trade. With the current surge of the Chinese and the Russians that relationship will only get stronger. The European Parliament has spat its dummy out, because it has poorly handled the procurement of the vaccines. It looks like it is trying to blame the Uk. The agreement with Astra Zeneca was on a best effort basis only and because they are 3-4 months behind ordering the vaccine production issues have hit, they realise to increase production they have to shut the production lines down and carry out some engineering upgrades that will pay dividends down the line. Unfortunate for the EU but it should mean better delivery down the line. I am really surprised the EU have acted in this way.
It goes back decades and is formed mainly on the intelligence community not trade.
This is very true. Mostly because intelligence is at the federal level. Trade, standards, taxation etc is much more at the state level. This is why a USA trade deal was expected to offer very little to the UK, even if it came good.
and unbelievably are making Johnson look like a statesman.
They really aren't.
I am down in West Wales a lot, Fishguard Pembroke Dock, in January can’t remember when I saw a foreign truck. They seem to of vanished overnight
I wonder if manufacturers who can't get parts to make their things (or get stuff to customers) are just furloughing their staff under the COVID scheme, because they can..?
UK has applied to join the Pacific Trade Pact.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55871373
It fits without saying the UK has one thing not in common with the other counties.
Poops, you couldn't make it up if you tried; beyond parody.
We wilfully leave the 2nd largest trading bloc in the world and now go chasing membership of something much smaller.
It's like Jurgen Klopp saying...we loved being one of the big boys in the premiership but what we now really want is to be in the Manders Paints southern alliance.
Talk about varnishing turds...
Very true Frank.
Still, gives something for Farage to campaign against in the future.😁 He might be able to get another cushy job from it somewhere too. He's burnt his bridges in Europe and the US so needs somewhere warm to retire after all.
Trying to find a glimmer of positivity here (I really am)... it'll be more useful if/ when the US join. We might also be the useful idiots a lot of those Pacific countries could exploit too. Actually, not so sure that's a positive for us.lol
In not going to bother with all the utter stupidness of it all though as life is too short.😕
Poops, as I see it, johnson is not quite persona non grata with biden -but near to it.
GCHQ and the five eyes programme have some value to the US; other than that the UK is an irrelevance.
UK armed forces are not required in US military incursions but the optics are helpful.
Can someone - anyone, anywhere - give me a reason, just one, to believe that brexit will benefit the UK.
I cannot paste any of the text, but the conclusion is that the UK's economy will be significantly smaller as a result of Brexit.
A question on the weekends events. Just asking for explanation BTW.
Is it within the powers of the EU commission to invoke article 16 without prior consultation with member states?
As Michael Martin wasn't actually given prior notice about an issue which would affect his country.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was given no advance notice of the intention by the EU to trigger Article 16 of the NI Protocol.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55877649
Is it within the powers of the EU commission to invoke article 16 without prior consultation with member states?
Yes... but to do so without talking to the Irish government first is well out of order. Doing so without consulting with the Maltese or Czechia governments if need be is a different matter.
EDIT: actually, doing so without talking to both the Irish and UK governments is well out of order.
Pacific trade pact, members include Canada, Australia and New Zealand... wonder what Dan Hannan is thinking.
I am really surprised the EU have acted in this way.
Only because you believe the spin/propaganda in the British media. The lawyers will sort it out and until they have it would be unwise to take what the British papers publish at face value.
Investigations at the factory haven't been completed yet.
Not respecting contracts for either political or financial reasons, or both is likely to blow up in the faces of both AZ and the UK. Short term gain for long term pain.
Not respecting contracts for either political or financial reasons, or both is likely to blow up in the faces of both AZ and the UK. Short term gain for long term pain
The general view I've seen is that neither party would be publishing contacts if either of them (EU/AZ) thought they had a clear cut case?
6 of one and half a dozen of the other?
It seems like the cobbled together bodge that was supposed to be the solution to the Northern Ireland problem is all being exposed as the nonsense it is.
Businesses there have been well and truly thrown under the bus and are incurring huge additional costs and additional paperwork to ship things between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
They've now got the worst of both worlds as they will have to meet all the requirements of still being in the customs union, while simultaneously being outside the single market, so having to also comply with the 'third country' requirements from the EU.
It's utter madness. It was never going to work. Boris and co have put a hard border within the UK and the realities of what that means are now becoming clear. It's an absolute mess.
And these aren't 'teething problems'. This is for good
It’s utter madness. It was never going to work. Boris and co have put a hard border within the UK and the realities of what that means are now becoming clear. It’s an absolute mess.
There is a very easy solution... might not be appreciated by about half NI's population though. But what's another group being thrown under a bus.
I'd say that is now looking increasingly inevitable (along with Scottish independence), no matter what the bowler-hatted marching squad want. Surely even the DUP can't still be under any remaining illusions about where they now stand in the grand scheme of things
I don't thing this Brexitty, English nationalist government could care less if they ended up with a united Ireland really. Or an independent Scotland. They're so insular, inward-gazing and parochial, nowhere outside the South East even registers with them
Obviously it#s going well.
They’ve now got the worst of both worlds as they will have to meet all the requirements of still being in the customs union, while simultaneously being outside the single market, so having to also comply with the ‘third country’ requirements from the EU.
The rest of the UK also has to meet all the requirements of being in the customs union, doesn't it? I haven't seen that bonfire of red tape I've heard so much about.
What these imbecilles have created truly is the worst of all worlds. Its almost as if nobody had actually thought of putting any planning in place other than some catchy 3 word slogans
As someone that married into a family from Northern Ireland I think most people over simplify how the voting in a border poll would go and the issues it raises. The biggest being moving from a free at the point of use health service to a paid one (although with subsidises and exceptions for different groups).
As someone that married into a family from Northern Ireland I think most people over simplify how the voting in a border poll would go and the issues it raises. The biggest being moving from a free at the point of use health service to a paid one (although with subsidises and exceptions for different groups).
The last thing anyone (sensible) wants is a purely sectarian outcome. The offer needs to be something most unionists support, going from republicans being treated as third class citizens to unionists being treated as such, really isn't the way forward.
Maybe one outcome will be how Ireland treats healthcare, less money for the church etc.
As someone that married into a family from Northern Ireland I think most people over simplify how the voting in a border poll would go and the issues it raises. The biggest being moving from a free at the point of use health service to a paid one (although with subsidises and exceptions for different groups).
Very much, I've commented about this on this thread myself. Its 50 euro for a doctors appointment for example. Would all the national insurance contributions be honoured by Westminster, the dail?
The offer needs to be something most unionists support, going from republicans being treated as third class citizens to unionists being treated as such, really isn’t the way forward
Sorry but I don't think the third class bit is really relevant at this stage, its not the 60s. It is true though that all people in N.I are disadvantaged compared to the rest of the UK, our politics being partially to blame for this.
Our healthcare systems have been travelling in opposite directions for the last 20 years... they might meet in the middle by the time there is a vote on NI leaving the UK... which isn't going to be anytime soon.
I didn't want to derail the thread into NI stuff but thought it worth mentioning that it's not a purely sectarian thing and it'll be regular people weighing up the pros and cons on all sorts if issues that will swing any border poll one way or the other.
Scotland on the other hand, unless the EU's vaccine cock-up and subsequent miss-handling of the situation has changed people's views looks ripe to leave.
unless the EU’s vaccine cock-up and subsequent miss-handling of the situation has changed people’s views looks ripe to leave.
The jury is still out on that, there is an alternative view. Be patient, it'll all come out in the wash.
EDIT: actually, doing so without talking to both the Irish and UK governments is well out of order.
1m18s
Just had a painful conversation with a friend of mine. He's somehow got to break the news to his small team of staff that he's moving the business to Ireland. The extra costs of importing and exporting his materials and products means he has no option, the price he would have to charge means he would be 30% more expensive than the competition which is a lot when the cheapest item he sells is just under £1k (specialist electronics to industry). His wife is Irish so can move there that way but it means having to uproot his kids and leave his family behind. He was hoping to be able to make it work with cutting his profit margin down and persuading the customers to pay a little bit more than they so now but his 3 main customers who provide 90% of his work have just left to go to his main competitor based in Italy. His team is only of 5 people but they've all been there since he set it up back in 2009 and have very specialist knowledge, he's hoping that he can persuade at least one of them to move with him so he has a way of training new staff up. It's either that or he just shuts up completely. A small business of highly skilled and well-paid jobs gone from an area of quite high unemployment and deprivation. He says they've got work to continue to April but nothing after that with work booked on a 3 month lead so even if he manages to sort something out in the next month he'll have the whole of May doing nothing.
He's been working on finding a way to make it work since last summer so it's not a flash decision, absolutely heartbroken for him.
1m18s
That would also be well out of order... if done without consultation with Ireland and the EU.
@reluctantjumper - he must be gutted. Its all just so unnecessary.
The scariest thing about that story is that those very same decisions will presently being agonised over in small businesses all around this country, with most of them reaching the same somewhat inevitable conclusion
Imagine how let down you must be to have been held up as some paragon of Brexit and then when it comes down to it, you are under the bus in an instant and it screeches to a halt on top of you.
And no one cares. Not the politicians, not the media, just a few lonely voices. The people that got you here are being made peers, or making jokes about fish in parliament, all while the polls show continued support for their actions.
They’re so insular, inward-gazing and parochial, nowhere outside the South East even registers with them
There were insular, inward-gazing, parochial types that voted a tory in for your constituency wasn't there Binners? I know you like to blame Corbyn for a lot of stuff, and you are right in a lot of regards, but you need to look at those living around you as well.
This constant blame of London and the south east, where admittedly you can place a blue rosette on a lump of sh*t and it and its stink heads off to parliament, can also be said of the south-west, the midlands, large parts of the North(I'm looking at you Yorkshire) Wales, parts of Scotland...
This constant blame of London and the south east,
London is mostly Labour, isn't it?
Physical checks at ports suspended by department due to safety fears for the workers there.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55895276
I can't see anyway this is not going to get nasty in NI.
I agree with Binners, this government couldn't give a damn if NI/ Scotland go their own way. In fact I think some see that as a positive, seeing them as "hangers on". I suspect a good percentage of the English populous think the same unfortunately.
So no hard border between N and S to avoid inflaming the situation. Replace with a border in the sea to inflame the situation instead. Long time since I left but sad to see threats returning to my home town. Perhaps rather than visit Scotland, the PM could try some essential travel to Larne and try and staff a border post for a bit, demonstrating the quality of jobs in the new red tape sector the government has been so keen on developing.
Unionist politicians are throwing fuel on this fire, they need to reign themselves in. The issues at the borders are being sorted according to the news, with a solution around groupage being found. A bit of patience is needed I think. There are too many unionist factions in N.I at the moment which is also driving tensions.
Unionist politicians are throwing fuel on this fire, they need to reign themselves in
There's a first time for everything.
Stating the obvious of course 😀
https://mobile.twitter.com/StephenFarryMP/status/1356531493481439232
actual surprised just how quickly things are starting to go downhill.
History will decide. I think I said at the beginning of this interview that the terrible thing here is that I am pretty sure that, in the end, the one thing I can guarantee is that, whether we have a no deal Brexit or a hard Brexit with a deal, the price, the cost that that imposes on the economy, will be pretty much 100% absorbed by exactly the demographic profile that voted Leave and then voted Boris Johnson, having never voted Tory before, in December 2019. I’m pretty sure that is almost exactly the definition of the people who are going to bear the costs of Brexit.
- Phillip Hammond, Nov 2020
In an extraordinarily interesting interview here