Brexit now = CETA +/-?

[Dave Rice]

I remember this too Ed. Found this article

“As Peter Wright confirmed in his book Spycatcher, Wilson was the victim of a protracted, illegal campaign of destabilisation by a rogue element in the security services. Prompted by CIA fears that Wilson was a Soviet agent – put in place after the KGB had, the spooks believed, poisoned Hugh Gaitskell, the previous Labour leader – these MI5 men burgled the homes of the prime minister’s aides, bugged their phones and spread black, anti-Wilson propaganda throughout the media. They tried to pin all kinds of nonsense on him: that his devoted political secretary, Marcia Williams, posed a threat to national security; that he was a closet IRA sympathiser.

Such talk stoked up an establishment already trembling at what it saw as Britain’s inexorable slide towards anarchy, if not communist rule. Institutions were collapsing, inflation was rising, tax was at a near-mythic top rate of 98%, and Britain was losing the last outposts of empire. Above all, the trade unions, riddled with leftists and Soviet sympathisers, seemed to have the nation under their thumb. “It was no longer a green and pleasant land, England,” recalls retired Major Alexander Greenwood, Colonel Blimp made flesh.

The great and the good feared that the country was out of control, and that Wilson lacked either the will or the desire to stand firm. Retired intelligence officers gathered with military brass and plotted a coup d’etat. They would seize Heathrow airport, the BBC and Buckingham Palace. Lord Mountbatten would be the strongman, acting as interim prime minister. The Queen would read a statement urging the public to support the armed forces, because the government was no longer able to keep order.

It sounds fantastic, almost comic. But watch Greenwood talk of setting up his own private army in 1974-75. Listen to the former intelligence officer Brian Crozier admit his lobbying of the army, how they “seriously considered the possibility of a military takeover”. Watch the archive footage of troop manoeuvres at Heathrow, billed as a routine exercise but about which Wilson was never informed – and which he interpreted as a show of strength, a warning, even a rehearsal for a coup. Listen to the voice of Wilson, who five weeks after resigning summoned two BBC journalists to tell them, secretly, of the plot.”

[Dave Rice]

Well one of our major customers has gone into administration just after we did £thousands of work.

I cannot in all honestly blame it directly on Brexit  but this year has been awful. No one is investing any money worth spit and the banks are being real barstewards (that’s what did for them) as if they can’t make money the easy way they’ll just screw where they can. Ridiculous, if they had let them finish their project it would have brought in extra revenue (that being what “investment” is all about). The business plan is sound it’s just a cash flow thing (now affecting us and their other suppliers too).

Our politicians must now just fecking well get on with it, especially as Lord Snooty and his self interest group have been shown to be firing blanks. The DUP won’t even govern their own jurisdiction, what a shower, they are firing blanks too when it comes to it and they know it.

We need some certainty, even if that is the certainty of hard times to come, so we can all start planning how to deal with the coming years. But of course this is a politicians dream, the ball is coming out of the back of the scrum and they all want it to head towards their particular goal line and two figs if that is best for the country they purport to govern. No matter that they don’t have the team to deal with it, try and grab the ball anyway and work out what to do with it later. You can always just pass it about or kick it into the long grass again.

What I hope comes out of this, and absolutely won’t, is a change in the way we govern this country into a more consensual one. That will involve politicians giving up power as even if we keep having hung parliaments, with only 2 major players it won’t happen naturally. May be the next generation will do things differently, after this debacle my kids are certainly fired up in a way my generation weren’t at their age.

I just feel a backlash coming and it isn’t going to be pretty.

[Ed P]

Unless we get another referendum this is just the start of two plus years of negotiations. All May has achieved with her vaunted divorce bill is an ‘agreement to agree’ reached by a majority EU vote. Now we will get each individual country holding us and the rest of the EU to ransom as Trade Agreements require 100% sign-in by ALL EU states..

The French will want fish, the Spanish Gibralter, the Germans will want to gut the City of London and maybe even the Danes will want to tie our hands over bacon. Each will be totally self interested. Why on earth the Conservative idiots thought we could cut better trade deals outside the EU I’ll never know – they must be Russian or CIA Agents Provocateur in disguise.

Certainty is the last damn thing we will get.

Like you, I can hear the faint rumble of tumbrils heading in the direction of Mogg, May and the liar in chief.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I wonder if Mrs May is related to Neville Chamberlain in any way ? That statement of political intent she brought back from the EC is worth less than the piece of paper Chamberlain brought back from Germany. At least Hitler changed his mind AFTER he had signed. The EU has no INTENTION of negotiating in good faith if this dumb deal gets through a vote.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/political-declaration-setting-out-framework-future-relationship-between-european-union-and-united-kingdom_en

[Ed P]

Articles 4 and 116 are impossible with an open Irish/Ulster border!

Nice to start any statement of principle with a circle that cannot be squared. No wonder Macron referred to it in his threats to break the agreement if there isn’t a fish deal.

[edit] wof I think you have to separate the EU Commission from National Governments. Although the Commission may well have negotiated in good faith, the agreement in no way binds the national governments, who can now veto what they dislike.

Brexit is just plain impractical, as well as a recipe for economic disaster and a break up of the UK.

 

[Bob Williams]

We are doomed. It’s the kids I feel sorry for. They are going to have to deal with the aftermath for a long time. The present crop of ministers should make sure they have a foreign bolthole to escape to, because this next generation are boiling mad and will only get more hostile as the situation develops.

There is a complete failure to create a policy that would deal properly with the EU, by facing up to them and to the reactionaries at home. An ugly compromise that suits no one and solves nothing. A government whose right hand has never been in contact with its left. A PM who adopted the Maggie Policy of loudly declaring hers was the only way, whilst she must know that she is wrong. Too weak to change, to incompetent to find a better way.

Doomed. There will be financial collapse, shortages and price rises.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Dave Rice]

History mangled again, you must stop believing the propaganda sound bites coming out of Moggland.

Hitler didn’t change his mind as he had no intentions of doing anything other than he did, we sold the Sudetenland down the river and that’s what Hitler wanted. Also Chamberlains actions were very popular with the public at the time and he remained well regarded after his resignation and served in the war cabinet. All the capitulation stuff came later.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I got that idea out of a BBC documentery Dave. Hitler was quoted as saying he had been conned out of his war by the politicians AFTER he read back what he had signed. I wish Mrs would try the same thing.

[The VFM Addict]

Anyone read the deal?   I’ve read most of it.   So we have back control of our laws do we?

• Art 101 – UK agree never to prosecute EU employees who may be criminals now or in the future.
• Art 104 – EU bankers and EU officials in London to be exempt from British law.

Theresa May is I believe utterly insane.

 

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Bob Williams]

If TM PM is insane, it’s because she has been driven mad by the contrary, dissenting voices in her own Party and the constant drain of resignations from her Cabinet.

Her decision – making and her pathetic inability to take a strong line with both the EU and her own Party, have been inconsistent and incompetent. However, comparing the present situation with 1938, Hitler and Chamberlain, is facile and incorrect on many counts, including the mangling of history that Dave points out.

There is complete failure of politicians on all sides of the House to understand that they should have reached an agreement to find a solution and negotiate a better deal with the EU, as the Parliamentary representatives of those they serve, and not as a bunch of children arguing over whose ball it is, before the game begins.

We are still doomed. There are going to be some tough decades ahead.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I had to look up facile Bob and guess what ? its French !

Compairing Mrs May’s surrender deal to Chamberlain’s appeasment paper is facile but there are other similarities too. We gave Hitler what he wanted but it made no difference to his ambition and we gave him the impression that there was no way we would carry out our threats under Chamberlain either.

Chamberlain was a respected and dutifull politicion but he was not the man for the hour and I don’t think Mrs May is either.

[Ed P]

Actually Latin.

Most of the romance languages have Latin roots, that is why you find so many common words between the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

English is a dogs-breakfast taking words from everywhere. Anglo-Saxon being Germanic/Scandawegian

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Er from 15th centuary French that was derived from the Latin Facilis according to the OED.

[The VFM Addict]

I think May fell into the trap warned of by Kipling (and I don’t mean cherry cakes).   In Kipling’s words: “if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane”.   She thought each concession would be enough and of course it wasn’t; until all was gone.

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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Dave Rice]

This isn’t even the leaving deal. With all this fuss over the transition what chance is there of the real leaving deal getting anywhere?

[The VFM Addict]

Zilch minus 5.    Frankly although not intending to she’s selling “No deal” really well.     I’ll bet she’s converting more MP’s to “No deal” than to her deal at present.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Bob Williams]

No Deal = No Trade = No money = Bankrupt Britain.

Hello IMF, can you put a little something in our hat please? Pretty please?

No, we don’t care what you take in return. Did we ever?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Oh ye of little faith Bob ?

We really are the fith largest economy in the whole wide world all on our little lonesome. The EU is only a tiny part of the planet and without our cash it will be a skint one at that. Cut off their trade with us as well and they really will be knackered. If we leave with no deal it will a sneeze at most for us but a large dose of plague for them.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Why has stockholm syndrome not been mentioned before now ? It more or less sums up our relationship with the EU.

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