The Brexit Thread

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's a good point about the EU needing to agree to us changing our minds and staying. One danger with this is that it could encourage nationalists in other countries to do what we've done, if it's basically a freebie and they can stay after they've had their fun.

But I think the UK would probably look stupid enough, and staying would save everybody a lot of trouble.

[Satchmo Distel]

I recently spent a day in Slovenia and all the Brits entering had to show my passports, unlike other EU citizens. We perceived it as a rather petty gesture (and possibly in contravention of our legal rights) but you can see which way this is headed.

Many Croatians are nostalgic for Tito in preference to welcoming EU membership. OTOH Tito was Croatian and they turn a blind eye to any atrocities his partisans committed, for example.

[ursus arctos]

Were you entering from another Schengen country?

Croatia isn't in Schengen, so passport checks on that border aren't unusual.

[Satchmo Distel]

We were coming off a cruise ship and other EU passengers were funneled into a different line while the Brits had join the passport line with the Americans and other non-EU groups

[Lang Spoon]

Unless it's a Schengen/non Schengen thing (which would also have Irish cruisers (fnarr) treated the same) that's a violation of your rights.

[ursus arctos]

Hmmm

That does sound a bit dodgy, especially as Koper is trying to build that business.

[Fussbudget]

Every time I've flown back from France since the Brexit vote, the UK Border Force staff checking my passport at the airport have asked me if I was just visiting the UK or if I was planning to stay (something that I'd never been asked before the vote, so clearly a new Home Office policy.)

It's taken all my restraint each time to just answer the question politely and not point out that
1/ the passport they're holding clearly shows my (UK) address on the very page they're looking at, and that
2/ it's none of their fucking business anyway, what with the UK still being in the EU and all.

[Satchmo Distel]

Hmmm

That does sound a bit dodgy, especially as Koper is trying to build that business.

Koper was gorgeous visually but easily the most badly organized in terms of tours.

[Satchmo Distel]

Schengen would be the most likely explanation if the ship knew that the UK was the only EU non-Schengen country with passengers aboard; but even if that is the case, it was bad PR because Slovenia could easily have found a way to make an exception for cruise ships, given that we had already shown proof of ID when embarking. By all means, advise passengers to have ID if they plan to walk around town unaccompanied.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Every time I've flown back from France since the Brexit vote, the UK Border Force staff checking my passport at the airport have asked me if I was just visiting the UK or if I was planning to stay (something that I'd never been asked before the vote, so clearly a new Home Office policy.)

It's taken all my restraint each time to just answer the question politely and not point out that
1/ the passport they're holding clearly shows my (UK) address on the very page they're looking at, and that
2/ it's none of their fucking business anyway, what with the UK still being in the EU and all.

You'll no doubt appreciate that I have never been asked that question when presenting my Swiss passport.....

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is right, as ever, by the man.

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2...deception.html

For Labour party members and MPs I would put it this way. Imagine winning the next election but having to accept continuing austerity. Winning an election after leaving the Single Market will probably be much worse, and of course the media and voters will blame it all not on Brexit but on Labour’s ‘far left’ policies. Winning an election after Brexit is a poisoned chalice.

I don't underestimate the difficulty in changing position, but it has to happen.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I see Davis is now saying we won't accept "direct jurisdiction of the ECJ".

You see what he did there?

[johnr]

This is right, as ever, by the man.

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2...deception.html


I don't underestimate the difficulty in changing position, but it has to happen.

As per Maugham etc, I'm not sure what he's suggesting Labour should do. Is he saying they should change to 'we should retain access to SM', or is it more than that?

[Satchmo Distel]

Tubs, are you advocating that Labour policy should be a second referendum or simply ignore the first? Electorally I think either policy would lose more votes, mainly working class Brexiters, than it would gain.

[Lang Spoon]

Meanwhile, in Scotlandshire...

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1...me___says_MSP/

Ruth Davidson, possibly for the first time in her career, isn't taking interviews (she's been awol since last week apart from a Torygraph article sneering at all Nationalisms. Cos of course British Nationalism doesn't exist.* And sitting on a tank with a Butcher's apron on it in no way has nationalistic connotations). New caring, sharing, different Tories. Aye right. Some vague liberal platitudes against Trump or Total Batshit Brexit (which she will still back if that's what the Big House wants), folk talking about the changed, Fighting For Scotland Proud Unionists.

Sweet fa sign of her mitigating Brexit, or using her 12 mps to counterbalance the antediluvian attitudes of the Duppers.

*Seemingly the honest belief of spoofers like McTernan and Tom Holland. Cos like Britain (usually a corollary of SE England) is inclusive, and and... if you want to read absolute tin-eared oh those silly celts bollocks today, plug into respected (well, he's on telly and is mates with JK Rowling) historian Tom Holland's timeline on statues. Seems to be getting a real kick out of the Richard I and Cromwell statues in front of Parliament, as a cheeky fu to ISIS, and the IRA.. He's tying himself in knots that he's not conflating the 'RA with grievance indulging Micks in general. cunt will be a Tory Trevor Roper type hack before he's even old.

The Cromwell who in between killing 600000 Irish, also banned religious dissent, secular music, having fun, or dressing up. And abolished Parliament. Fucker would have seen a lot in ISIS he liked.

[Lang Spoon]

I always thought the 30 Years War and the maybe third of "German" males who died (let alone Bohemians, Swedes, Poles, French, countless Scots and Russian mercenaries etc etc), and a shitload of (mostly) uncounted women and children, was the worst bit of pointless heinousness till modern times, but between outright murder and famine and disease in the wake of his armies in Ireland, it seems good old Ollie played a blinder, ran up a hell of an innings (did I get that right Tubbs?).

[Lang Spoon]

Tubs, are you advocating that Labour policy should be a second referendum or simply ignore the first? Electorally I think either policy would lose more votes, mainly working class Brexiters, than it would gain.

How is going for SM and FoM ignoring the result? The sophist bastards Gove, Hannan et al were at pains to tell us before the vote we could stay in the Single Market and Customs Union post Brexit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As per Maugham etc, I'm not sure what he's suggesting Labour should do. Is he saying they should change to 'we should retain access to SM', or is it more than that?

Membership of the Single Market, or at least of the EEA, which I think is technically different but very close in practice. It will take a lot of political skill to get even that far, but it's much better than Hard Brexit.

I think you'd probably have to have a referendum to establish that position though. One that accepted the decision to leave the EU, but asked about the Single Market or not.

I'd ideally like the whole thing called off, but that might be a stretch.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How is going for SM and FoM ignoring the result? The sophist bastards Gove, Hannan et al were at pains to tell us before the vote we could stay in the Single Market and Customs Union post Brexit.

They did, though the fool Cameron told everybody we'd be leaving the Single Market if Leave won. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister is hard to explain away by reference to the Justice Secretary, as Gove was then.

[Tubby Isaacs]

By the way, have you seen this great interesting new politician? The name is familiar, George Osborne. But don't be fooled- this guy believes in big league Keynsian stimulus via public transport spending in run down parts of the country. Admittedly, he does look a bit like his namesake, the bloke who cut investment because it would make us like Greece, and directed as much money to Tory shires as he could get away with. But it must be a different bloke.

The two Osbornes are also very different on EU policy. Don't confuse them.

[Lang Spoon]

but but.. Northern Powerhouse!*

*Greater Manchester and mibees Leeds only. Tyne and Wear, Randy Scouse Gits, flatcap Lancs whippet worrying types need not apply. Never even heard of Cumbria.

[johnr]

Membership of the Single Market, or at least of the EEA, which I think is technically different but very close in practice. It will take a lot of political skill to get even that far, but it's much better than Hard Brexit.

I think you'd probably have to have a referendum to establish that position though. One that accepted the decision to leave the EU, but asked about the Single Market or not.

I'd ideally like the whole thing called off, but that might be a stretch.

So not very far from Corbyn's position then.

[sw2borshch]

Nor Teesside either, LS, it seems.

[Ginger Yellow]

So, another day, another position paper, this time on dispute resolution and rights enforcement. People seem to be overstating the "climbdown" or "flip-flop" involved in this one, if you ask me. The basic position is unchanged, even if the rhetoric has shifted. While the wording, as ever, is weaselly, they seem to be saying that the only way future ECJ decisions would have effect in the UK would be if both parties to a dispute involving an aspect of the agreement identical to EU law agreed to refer a question of interpretation to it. A possible non-ECJ dispute resolution body (such as the EFTA court) might take account of the judgments, but they wouldn't be binding. .

[Snake Plissken]

According to David Allen Green, it isn't even a position paper, but a paper on what comes after.