Brexit thread [Poll added]

[Northern_Brewer]

They th didrow a strop when we said they needed a license to fish in our waters

Clarify what you mean by "strop".

It's a negotiation. We ask for access for our fishermen in their waters, they ask for access for their fishermen in our waters, we talk, and a deal is done specifying quotas etc. Neither side gets everything they want, but both sides get more than they had before the deal. Win-win.

It doesn't have to be a direct tit for tat, maybe we want access for our whisky in return for letting in their wine.

Or the two sectors are completely unrelated, like access for our banks in return for tariff-free access for their carmakers.

It's a negotiation, you ask for more than you think you can get, and there's a bit of posturing on both sides to pretend that getting anything less than all you have asked will be unacceptable.

The trouble is that the UK was in a far weaker position to ask for stuff than the EU, didn't really know what it wanted, and faced with the EU's crack team of negotiators who have been doing trade deals for decades - we had Liz Truss. It was never going to go well.

 

[Brew_DD2]

we had Liz Truss

And "Lord" Frost. Give me strength.

 

[jof]

It's the gift that keeps giving.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

And "Lord" Frost.

Well the whole point of Brexit was to stop unelected bureaucrats having control over our lives...

 

[Rodcx500z]

No they were up in arms because a lot of their boats did not meet the regulations equipment wise, and had fished our waters for years and when told they had to bring their boats up to scratch ie ais equipment so they were visible to other shipping they had a stropp

 

[Bosch]

No they were up in arms because a lot of their boats did not meet the regulations equipment wise, and had fished our waters for years and when told they had to bring their boats up to scratch ie ais equipment so they were visible to other shipping they had a stropp

Who were 'they.'
Were they Irish, French, Dutch, Spanish?

 

[samale]

Don't be such a victim, there's no evidence of the EU wanting to punish the UK, quite the reverse, they've been incredibly patient.

Brexiteers wanted to become a third country for trading with the EU and they got it. All Brussels has done is enforce the existing, well-known rules for dealing with 3rd countries, or acted in their own interests during the negotiation. I would expect nothing less.

In what ways, specifically, have the EU gone beyond the existing rules or their own interests, to "punish" the UK?

I would say the EU would welcome them back with open arm's. With everything going on at the moment, the world is very unstable.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Who were 'they.'
Were they Irish, French, Dutch, Spanish?

French

 

[Northern_Brewer]

No they were up in arms because a lot of their boats did not meet the regulations equipment wise, and had fished our waters for years and when told they had to bring their boats up to scratch ie ais equipment so they were visible to other shipping they had a stropp

That's a perfect example of how international negotiation works. The EU negotiators have to be seen to stand up for their lads - just as vice versa for the UK negotiators - but the financial benefits of getting access are far greater than a few hundred quid of AIS gear, so it would be stupid to make it a red line.

So there's a demand ("we want access without AIS"), some posturing("we can't possibly agree to anything less than access without AIS") and then a deal is done in which say they have to have AIS by 2027 rather than immediately, and they can't fish within 20 miles of a container port. Or something like that.

This isn't punishment, it's just normal negotiation.

 

[Rodcx500z]

So fishing at night with no ais or nav lights is ok if your French, down right dangerouse if you ask me if your on your way to Spain in your yacht at night

 

[Stu]

Clarify what you mean by "strop".

It's a negotiation. We ask for access for our fishermen in their waters, they ask for access for their fishermen in our waters, we talk, and a deal is done specifying quotas etc. Neither side gets everything they want, but both sides get more than they had before the deal. Win-win.

It doesn't have to be a direct tit for tat, maybe we want access for our whisky in return for letting in their wine.

Currently, the EU are taking legal action about the UK's refusal to allow anyone to fish for sand eels.

Anyhow, it's rather irrelevant. Denmark own 90% of the fishing rights around the UK.

 

[dad_of_jon]

And how were they going to implement that given that they only had 57 seats?

They went into coalition government and they ditched that manifesto commitment to get their grubby little hands on a share of power. The following GE they were hammered for hanging students out to dry.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Where did all the leavers go? this forum use to be full of them.
Incidentally, remember the cabinet minister who was signing off The great deal? "I didn't read it all because I was going to my daughters nativity play"

Anyway, why the Torys are ended.

David Cameron, coward, scared of Nigel.
Theresa May, on a hiding to nothing due to the far right of the party and Brexit.
Boris, total buffoon, sadly though he was quite funny.
Liz Truss, tory answer to Jeremy Corbin, nutter.
Rishi Sunak, sadly the best of a bad bunch and inherited 14years of madness.
Its a pity he didn't change colours I would vote for him if he was a little more to the centre left.

Finally Nigel. Nigel knows the average voter in the UK is stupid. He also knows he will never have to implement any of his "Contract". This means he can promise anything. The voters just lap it up. I wonder when he will be the head of the Torys.

I voted brexit - I'll vote for less layers of government when I get the chance. If I get a vote on the welsh assembly I'll vote to abolish that. I could try and force a vote on abolishing the community council, and some areas have voted to do so, but they take £17.22 a year off our household which isn't that much and all they really do is plant flowers or pay the local council to put flowers on lamppost planters.
community council, local council, welsh assembly, UK , EU - every layer has to be paid for. A local / regional council and a national parliament should be enough (or it used to be).

 

[dad_of_jon]

The trouble is that the UK was in a far weaker position to ask for stuff than the EU, didn't really know what it wanted, and faced with the EU's crack team of negotiators who have been doing trade deals for decades - we had Liz Truss. It was never going to go well.

I have to agree with you there.

 

[foxy]

Don't be such a victim, there's no evidence of the EU wanting to punish the UK, quite the reverse, they've been incredibly patient.

Brexiteers wanted to become a third country for trading with the EU and they got it. All Brussels has done is enforce the existing, well-known rules for dealing with 3rd countries, or acted in their own interests during the negotiation. I would expect nothing less.

In what ways, specifically, have the EU gone beyond the existing rules or their own interests, to "punish" the UK?

No victim here doesn't affect me in the least. There is also no evidence they didn't set out to punish the UK. Logic says they did. How else to prevent any other EU members having thoughts about leaving.
The biggest problem is the Poms have lost a lot over the years, mettle being one of them. The famous stiff upper lip is now loose and flabby.

 

[Brew_DD2]

I voted brexit - I'll vote for less layers of government when I get the chance. If I get a vote on the welsh assembly I'll vote to abolish that. I could try and force a vote on abolishing the community council, and some areas have voted to do so, but they take £17.22 a year off our household which isn't that much and all they really do is plant flowers or pay the local council to put flowers on lamppost planters.
community council, local council, welsh assembly, UK , EU - every layer has to be paid for. A local / regional council and a national parliament should be enough (or it used to be).

Why not vote for Welsh independence? That removes a rather large, wasteful later of government? Surely the goal is closer and closer accountability?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So fishing at night with no ais or nav lights is ok if your French, down right dangerouse if you ask me if your on your way to Spain in your yacht at night

I didn't have you down as a member of the yacht-owning classes Rod!

But the prior situation doesn't seem to have been notably dangerous. It's a classic negotiating tactic though, to deprive the opposition of access by insisting on something "for safety reasons" regardless of the reality. In any case - even yachts have navigation radar, the requirement for AIS is less about safety and more about Big Brother being able to track individual boats.

And in this case - what situation are you actually describing? Because international maritime law requires every vessel over 300t to have AIS, and Brussels in its usual way has gone further. Council Regulation1224/2009 has required all fishing vessels over 15m to have AIS for the last 10 years. So can you give links to what the actual problem is?

 

[Rodcx500z]

Ok you win

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I voted brexit - I'll vote for less layers of government when I get the chance. If I get a vote on the welsh assembly I'll vote to abolish that. I could try and force a vote on abolishing the community council, and some areas have voted to do so, but they take £17.22 a year off our household which isn't that much and all they really do is plant flowers or pay the local council to put flowers on lamppost planters.
community council, local council, welsh assembly, UK , EU - every layer has to be paid for. A local / regional council and a national parliament should be enough (or it used to be).

Thing is the cost of the layers are relatively small, whereas the benefits of bringing decision-making closer to the people can be much greater, there's various examples of this but in general Germany is the poster child for devolved, federal government and France and Spain have been heading the same way, shifting from a very centralised government to a more federal/regional structure. We are unusual in just how concentrated things are in London - and Whitehall is the problem, there are things that are better done with maximum economies of scale in Brussels, and some things done better at regional level, there's not much that's best done at the Whitehall level.

And Whitehall screws a lot of things up - for instance shifting the funding for desperately needed transport projects in the provinces to bale out London's Crossrail, or taking the money for hooking up Manchester to HS2 and putting it into a new thing called Network North, which was promised for other transport projects up north but somehow found itself putting £235m into fixing potholes in London (just before an election).

There's many other examples, but just in general the UK is overcentralised and needs decision making to happen at lower levels. Sometimes the politicians at those lower levels may not be very good, but at least they're "your" useless politicians...

 

[Northern_Brewer]

No victim here doesn't affect me in the least. There is also no evidence they didn't set out to punish the UK. Logic says they did. How else to prevent any other EU members having thoughts about leaving.

But they didn't need to prevent EU members leaving, they're all too busy laughing at us for how badly it's going without any "punishment" from Brussels.

I'll ask again - in what ways did the EU "punish" the UK, beyond enforcing existing rules on 3rd countries, and sticking up for their own population in the negotiations?