Brexit slowly becoming a Farce.

[Granny Danger]

6 minutes ago, HTG said:

The Irish border has been the elephant in the room since June 2016. It's been unsolvable for almost 2 and a half years of constant negotiations. It remains an unsolvable problem because unless the UK is in the customs union,there needs to be a border somewhere. It's like saying that we'll just leave the situation at the channel ports exactly as it is. And that's not going to happen because we're not going to adopt EU rules - particularly on freedom of movement. 

You can either be in the customs union with all its conditions or you can have a border. You can't have neither. If there needs to be a special deal for the island of Ireland then the border is the mainland. This will cause a riot so it's not going to happen. 

Either the GFA is fucked or EU exit is fucked. Should have thought about it before offering a referendum.

Extended transition is only kicking the choice down the road. The EU are not going to move their red lines on freedom of movement. 

This is it in a nutshell.  There are borders all over Europe between EU/EEA members and non members.  The idea that we can avoid that on Ireland without a border elsewhere and NI being treated differently is fanciful.

 

 

 

[Bandstand]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

The DUP will never allow NI to be treated any differently from the rest of the UK. You'll have to vote them out.

They already do with their refusal to join the rest of the UK in legalising same sex marriage and abortion

[ICTJohnboy]

45 minutes ago, HTG said:

Either the GFA is fucked or EU exit is fucked. Should have thought about it before offering a referendum.

Extended transition is only kicking the choice down the road. The EU are not going to move their red lines on freedom of movement. 

 

An awful lot of things should have been thought about before the referendum was offered.

The suggestion of extending the transition period by an unspecified number of months, is, as you say merely kicking the problem down the road. 

By not specifying how many months would be required to finalize matters is akin to saying we'll just leave everything open-ended for the time being.

[HTG]

1 minute ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

An awful lot of things should have been thought about before the referendum was offered.

The suggestion of extending the transition period by an unspecified number of months, is, as you say merely kicking the problem down the road. 

By not specifying how many months would be required to finalize matters is akin to saying we'll just leave everything open-ended for the time being.

Which is what they've done since 2016. Every step of the way has seen the UK  look like it's still on track apart from needing a wee bit longer to deal with drafting and implementing legislation. But every step of the way the difficult stuff was set aside and anyone with any sense knew this was coming. Only the "out means out" crew couldn't give a f**k. All 17.4m of them apparently ...

[HTG]

Oh aye "red, white and blue Brexit". 

How's that going Teresa ya fuckin muppet?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

National Audit Office warn about  the potential impact of Brexit.
BBC report it.
Morons accuse BBC of scaremongering.
No you fucking arseholes they are reporting the views of a government department whose job it is to monitor and report on such things.
 

There are some posters on HYS that do talk sense. Best post I saw was this one:

"Brexit is a bit like a middle-aged man who in a perfectly working marriage, divorces his wife, in favour of the prospect that he can have better relationships with other more beautiful women. After several false starts & gold-diggers he slowly realises that this is pure fantasy, and tries to patch things up with his wife. It doesn't go well, and he wonders why his wife deals with him differently!"

[RedRob72]

 
An awful lot of things should have been thought about before the referendum was offered.
The suggestion of extending the transition period by an unspecified number of months, is, as you say merely kicking the problem down the road. 
By not specifying how many months would be required to finalize matters is akin to saying we'll just leave everything open-ended for the time being.

It isn’t kicking the can down the road, it’s temporarily leaving it where it is. Unless every other component of a Brexit ‘deal’ is wholly dependent on the outcome of the NI/ROI border issue, why not attempt to get as close to completion on everything else before the 29th March.
It seems as though both sides are floundering on the border contention, maybe a step away might offer a fresh perspective, once other key issues have been resolved.
Unless, (as Detournement mentioned back up the board) the EU are determined to stall and use the border as a means of enforcing continued membership of the single market.

[Fullerene]

59 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

This is it in a nutshell.  There are borders all over Europe between EU/EEA members and non members.  The idea that we can avoid that on Ireland without a border elsewhere and NI being treated differently is fanciful.

Of course they realise there needs to be a border but they like to pretend otherwise.

Ideally, they would like the EU to impose a border on the EU side and then say
"Look, we were quite happy with an open border but they insist on all their rules and regulations and red tape.  This is precisely why we decided to leave."

[Granny Danger]

19 minutes ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

An awful lot of things should have been thought about before the referendum was offered.

The suggestion of extending the transition period by an unspecified number of months, is, as you say merely kicking the problem down the road. 

By not specifying how many months would be required to finalize matters is akin to saying we'll just leave everything open-ended for the time being.

The only thing that can be said in defence of the lack of preparation is that no one thought people would vote Leave.

1 minute ago, RedRob72 said:

It isn’t kicking the can down the road, it’s temporarily leaving it where it is. Unless every other component of a Brexit ‘deal’ is wholly dependent on the outcome of the NI/ROI border issue, why not attempt to get as close to completion on everything else before the 29th March.
It seems as though both sides are floundering on the border contention, maybe a step away might offer a fresh perspective, once other key issues have been resolved.
Unless, (as Detournement mentioned back up the board) the EU are determined to stall and use the border as a means of enforcing continued membership of the single market.

You are determined to ignore reality aren’t you.  Some things are opinions, some things are facts.

Some agreement must be reached on the border issue before the U.K. leaves.  That is a fact.

One thing that is being ignored is that if there is no agreement and there is a Hard Brexit then there WILL be a border; that will be unavoidable.

 

[Jacksgranda]

2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

The only thing that can be said in defence of the lack of preparation is that no one thought people would vote Leave.

You are determined to ignore reality aren’t you.  Some things are opinions, some things are facts.

Some agreement must be reached on the border issue before the U.K. leaves.  That is a fact.

One thing that is being ignored is that if there is no agreement and there is a Hard Brexit then there WILL be a border; that will be unavoidable.

 

I disagree - they certainly didn't think we would vote leave but that is no excuse for lack of preparation. 

[Granny Danger]

4 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Of course they realise there needs to be a border but they like to pretend otherwise.

Ideally, they would like the EU to impose a border on the EU side and then say
"Look, we were quite happy with an open border but they insist on all their rules and regulations and red tape.  This is precisely why we decided to leave."

Quite possibly but if the U.K. doesn’t want free movement then they will need to impose border restrictions too.

I really hope that there would never be the return to the previous problems in NI but I am not naive enough to think that those who would resort to violence have disappeared.  Maybe 20years is too long for some folk to remember.

 

[Granny Danger]

1 minute ago, Jacksgranda said:

I disagree - they certainly didn't think we would vote leave but that is no excuse for lack of preparation. 

Fair enough, maybe badly worded.  Nonetheless most folk saw it as an exercise in appeasement.  Cameron gambled the future of the country in an attempt to deal with issues in his own party and it backfired spectacularly.

 

[Jacksgranda]

Just now, Granny Danger said:

Fair enough, maybe badly worded.  Nonetheless most folk saw it as an exercise in appeasement.  Cameron gambled the future of the country in an attempt to deal with issues in his own party and it backfired spectacularly.

 

There's nobody arguing with that. And, as far as Cameron was concerned, it wasn't a gamble - there was no way the result would be "Leave" as far as those in their ivory towers were concerned.

It'll be a long time before we proles are trusted with another referendum...

[RedRob72]

Some agreement must be reached on the border issue before the U.K. leaves.

Think we’re just going round in circles here. The agreement being that there is an extended transition period to resolve the border issue, if that needs to include the fixed time-line of an extension beyond March 2019 then fine. We can continue to work on that with our EU counterparts whilst we attempt to get everything else in place.
It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to say that because one issue appears to be insurmountable at present that we just drop everything else.
Like you, I didn’t want this, but without offering some space and flexibility, both sides are only going to exacerbate the frustrations and discomfort of this untidy break up.

[BawWatchin]

34 minutes ago, RedRob72 said:

It isn’t kicking the can down the road, it’s temporarily leaving it where it is.

[Granny Danger]

3 minutes ago, RedRob72 said:

 

Think we’re just going round in circles here. The agreement being that there is an extended transition period to resolve the border issue, if that needs to include the fixed time-line of an extension beyond March 2019 then fine. We can continue to work on that with our EU counterparts whilst we attempt to get everything else in place.
It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to say that because one issue appears to be insurmountable at present that we just drop everything else.
Like you, I didn’t want this, but without offering some space and flexibility, both sides are only going to exacerbate the frustrations and discomfort of this untidy break up.

 

Earlier in the process it was stated that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ today an EU spokesman has said (I paraphrase) ‘it doesn’t matter if if 90%, 95% or99% has been agreed, until the Irish border situation is resolved then 0% has been agreed’.

The only way it can be pushed back or ‘parked’ is if Artcle 50 doesn’t come into effect on 31 March and I don’t see that happening.

 

[RedRob72]

Do I take it you’ve just re-read your post about symbolism then noticed your own avatar? [emoji849] Hmmmm

[RedRob72]

Earlier in the process it was stated that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ today an EU spokesman has said (I paraphrase) ‘it doesn’t matter if if 90%, 95% or99% has been agreed, until the Irish border situation is resolved then 0% has been agreed’.
The only way it can be pushed back or ‘parked’ is if Artcle 50 doesn’t come into effect on 31 March and I don’t see that happening.
 

Guy Verhofstadt; it would be hard to find a more committed European Federalist?

[Bandstand]

Quote

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/19/brexiters-theresa-may-northern-ireland

 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

2 hours ago, RedRob72 said:

 

The traditions and heritage of others, summarily dismissed as boneheaded symbolism won’t help much either.

 

As someone whose paternal Grandfather was a former member of the Black Lodge in Northern Ireland and whose upbringing was staunchly staunch, I don't summarily dismiss anything or anyone lightly; at one point in time I was one of those 'others'. 

Age however sometimes brings maturity and wisdom, and I've (very) long since  abandoned any association with the Unionist cause - quite the polar opposite in fact.  As a result I tend to have a dim view of those on every side who cling, religiously in too many cases, to the dismal practices and beliefs of the past, sugar-coating them in weasel words like 'heritage' and 'tradition'.  Aye, right.