Is the eu starting to panic over uk leaving

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Political commentator India Willoughby took aim at the European Union for its desires to grow larger. While on TalkRadio, Ms Willoughby noted that like all great empires, the European Union will also crumble. She argued that the EU has shown that it wants to expand further but warns this may not be possible and the bloc may disintegrate after the UK leaves due to Brexit.

And exactly what knowledge or expertise does he/she or it bring to this argument?
 

Ashtree

Member
The EU is slowly herding Britain to satellite status

Boris Johnson will burble about escaping Brussels’ rules but there aren’t going to be any game-changing trade deals elsewhere
Matthew Parris

Friday July 24 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
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It was a familiar rural scene I saw last week: a farmer gathering up his sheep. Tailgate open, ramp and side-barriers in place, his lorry waited at the field’s gate, the only way out. His border collie did the work. It took a while. There were stragglers and breakaways and at one point they all ran off in the wrong direction. But this was a process with only one outcome possible. One herd, one field, one exit, one ramp, one lorry — and a sheepdog. The ending was already plain, inescapable, from the beginning.

Some four years ago on this page I wrote that Brexit would have only two possible outcomes: a clean and total break with the European Union and all its rules as we launched ourselves into a world of bilateral trade deals around the planet, or a new status as an economic satellite to the EU but excluded from its decision-making. I said that if you believed there was any point at all in Brexit, you must favour the clean break option. Satellite status was only a damage-limitation exercise.


We are now heading for damage-limitation. Do read yesterday’s Times Brexit Briefing, and the report from our Europe correspondent, Bruno Waterfield. The latest analysis suggests that a free trade agreement (FTA) with Europe is likely by the end of the year. I myself think it may be delayed a little longer, but at least there’s progress.
Such an FTA would leave us still able to enjoy relatively frictionless trade with our former EU partners, so long as we essentially copy the EU’s “level playing field” rules; but doing so “voluntarily” as a “sovereign” nation. Boris Johnson could burble more or less truthfully that we are no longer “bound” by Brussels’s rules because we could always walk away (or “diverge” or “regress”) and take the consequences. Destiny, that sheepdog of our doings, knows already that since we realise which side our bread is buttered on, we shall not in fact diverge. But, hey, we could.
Thus, almost without audible hiss, the air escapes in a four-year-long deflation of the Brexit dream; and in their hearts the Brexiteers know it. Talk about a slow puncture. Like old soldiers, dud dreams do not die, they simply fade away.

Four ideas sat at the core of the case for Brexit. The first was that EU red tape was strangling the British economy (indeed, according to some, the British way of life). Straight bananas, threats to the British sausage, lawnmower-noise directives . . . that sort of stuff.
The second idea was that Europe would be so desperate to keep British trade that we’d easily secure a frictionless trade agreement with the EU. We could deploy Project Fear against them. They would buckle.
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The third was that we could keep EU immigrants out. The fourth was that there existed a world out there beyond the EU, waiting to do more business with us British once we’d untangled ourselves from European regulation and struck new, bilateral trade deals with other countries. Brexiteers were confident of the potential for these, and so moved to pull the lever of Project Fear, confident they could scare Brussels into giving us a good post-Brexit deal, for fear of losing our business.
Our chief negotiator, David Frost, has not been wholly unsuccessful. Brussels, in the form of Michel Barnier, has backed down on the continued jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ): something Britain won’t accept. So where disagreements arise, other mechanisms will be devised to arbitrate, though of course the ECJ will be there in the background, essentially defining the EU’s own position and red lines. This victory for Britain may have more theoretical than practical value.
The UK has undoubtedly succeeded in gaining the power to keep European immigrants out. The EU has not brought this into negotiations, seeing it (as do I) as an act of self-harm. We either damage our economy, or we bring in more immigrants from countries outside Europe. I’m not sure that’s what the Brexit campaign’s message was meant to convey.
But it’s the failure of the “new global deals” idea that has brought the whole project down. The deals are simply not there. America was the great hope, the linchpin of this hoped-for opening-up. You can forget Australia and New Zealand: antipodean trade was falling as a share of the total even before we entered the EU; their share now is tiny. The US, though, is different: our second-biggest trading partner (15 per cent) after the EU (47 per cent). It has emerged this week that hopes of reaching any trade deal this year have all but vanished.
The sticking points (food standards being notorious) are well known, and have not unstuck. The Department for International Trade has started insisting that all’s well and there’s no deadline, but few outside Westminster see much hope that President Trump (even if he wanted to) is in any position to secure his friend, our PM, a special deal; and Trump may not be there for much longer. Even if or when we get this deal with Washington, leaked government forecasts, says one report, suggest a trade deal with the US could benefit UK economic output by about 0.2 per cent in the long term.
There had been hopes of a superior FTA with Japan, but the EU sealed a deal there last year and it would be eccentric to suppose we can get a better one. With India we’re stuck on the visa question. And as for earlier talk of a better deal with China, enough said.
The fading of these hopes means this: we stick for the foreseeable future with our level-playing-field-based FTA with Europe. We may manage a few deals that don’t undermine the European standards we’ll undertake to stick to but the last thing we’ll want is big new rows that threaten the trade deal with Brussels. Thus, slowly but with a horrible inevitability, and after four years of bleating and barking and running hither and thither, are the Brexit sheep herded through the only gate left: economic satellite status to the EU. It won’t be a disaster and we’ll remain free (as Mr Johnson will trumpet) to depart the playing field whenever we choose. And we won’t.
Sooner or later some bright spark will pipe up with the thought that we really ought to get ourselves a place at the European table where these matters are decided. But that’s another field, another gate, another lorry; and there’s no hurry. The sheep are safely gathered in.

Bullseye. Great article. Excellent analogy with the sheep truck.
Nevertheless, all ordinary decent sheep are outraged at being lumped into the same intellectual bracket as the leading Brexiteers.
A letter to the editor is called for forthwith, demanding a front page apology and withdrawal of such scurrilous commentary. I propose it should be signed by TFF’s own leading sheep men, as a gesture of solidarity with these beautiful intelligent creatures.
@Frank-the-Wool and @neilo step forward and do your duty!!
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
Bullseye. Great article. Excellent analogy with the sheep truck.
Nevertheless, all ordinary decent sheep are outraged at being lumped into the same intellectual bracket as the leading Brexiteers.
A letter to the editor is called for forthwith, demanding a front page apology and withdrawal of such scurrilous commentary. I propose it should be signed by TFF’s own leading sheep men, as a gesture of solidarity with these beautiful intelligent creatures.
@Frank-the-Wool and @neilo step forward and do your duty!!
Hmm... a Remain paper with a Remain editorial team... and they've written a Remainers' wish-piece...? :unsure:

I wonder if I can find an ROI-based article to suite my preferred narrative... turns out I can! :)

 
Again, what I do not understand is why so many here seem so keen to want to gouge the UK.

The UK populace voted to leave. That is that, tough. You might not agree with it but that it democracy. You think we were all ecstatic about having 10 years of Blair at the helm?

I see no reason why the EU are so bitter about it. In an era of international trade and diplomacy, what hurts your neighbour hurts you, too. The Irish do a great deal of business with the UK. Clearly, that matters to someone. You would think the Irish would be keen to preserve any ties they have with the UK given the economic significance of these links. We voted to leave the EU, not turn the rest of Europe to ash or something. You act as vindictive all you like: it only stiffens the minds of those who voted to leave anyway.
 

Ashtree

Member
Again, what I do not understand is why so many here seem so keen to want to gouge the UK.

The UK populace voted to leave. That is that, tough. You might not agree with it but that it democracy. You think we were all ecstatic about having 10 years of Blair at the helm?

I see no reason why the EU are so bitter about it. In an era of international trade and diplomacy, what hurts your neighbour hurts you, too. The Irish do a great deal of business with the UK. Clearly, that matters to someone. You would think the Irish would be keen to preserve any ties they have with the UK given the economic significance of these links. We voted to leave the EU, not turn the rest of Europe to ash or something. You act as vindictive all you like: it only stiffens the minds of those who voted to leave anyway.

You clearly misunderstand.
Nobody is keen to gouge the UK. Rather, to shine a light on the elite few who created the anti EU feeling in UK and cemented that by promising an undeliverable alternative.
Those few kings have no clothes now, and their feeble attempts to cover their modesty, are becoming more apparent.
As I recall, these past few years barely had JRM off the main news, blathering on about the sunny upland future!
Where is he now? Has reality dawned?
 

Ashtree

Member
Hmm... a Remain paper with a Remain editorial team... and they've written a Remainers' wish-piece...? :unsure:

I wonder if I can find an ROI-based article to suite my preferred narrative... turns out I can! :)


Congratulations. You eked out perhaps the country’s finest example of a “failure”, in the hard right, ultra conservative, John McGuirk.
A man so full of his own self importance and belief in his own standing in the community, that he stood for election, in the Cavan Monaghan constituency.
The people answered categorically. Eliminated in the first round of a proper proportional representation election. He received 2.8% of the first count. Nuf said.
I may be doting a little these days, but I seem to recall you mentioning you had similar notions of grandeur some years ago where your own little dalliance at the hustings, ended in tears also! If it wasn’t you, then I apologise in advance ....
 

linga

Member
Location
Ceredigion
Congratulations. You eked out perhaps the country’s finest example of a “failure”, in the hard right, ultra conservative, John McGuirk.
A man so full of his own self importance and belief in his own standing in the community, that he stood for election, in the Cavan Monaghan constituency.
The people answered categorically. Eliminated in the first round of a proper proportional representation election. He received 2.8% of the first count. Nuf said.
I may be doting a little these days, but I seem to recall you mentioning you had similar notions of grandeur some years ago where your own little dalliance at the hustings, ended in tears also! If it wasn’t you, then I apologise in advance ....

You may well be right about John McGuirk but can you tell us if the figures he uses are correct ?
 

Ashtree

Member
You may well be right about John McGuirk but can you tell us if the figures he uses are correct ?

I have already explained this situation on another thread.
The “cost” to us, is in fact a “capital investment”, as we are the biggest net exporter per capita in the EU!!! The recovery fund, invests in stabilising that market after the Covid effect. We leverage our investment more than any other nation, to drive exports and return on our capital.
Brexit type maths ( considering cost in isolation from return), cuts no ice in this country. That’s why the few who do dabble in such maths, get kicked out of that park at elections.
 
Again, what I do not understand is why so many here seem so keen to want to gouge the UK.

The UK populace voted to leave. That is that, tough. You might not agree with it but that it democracy. You think we were all ecstatic about having 10 years of Blair at the helm?

I see no reason why the EU are so bitter about it. In an era of international trade and diplomacy, what hurts your neighbour hurts you, too. The Irish do a great deal of business with the UK. Clearly, that matters to someone. You would think the Irish would be keen to preserve any ties they have with the UK given the economic significance of these links. We voted to leave the EU, not turn the rest of Europe to ash or something. You act as vindictive all you like: it only stiffens the minds of those who voted to leave anyway.


A lot of these people have an axe to grind.

It goes over their heads that none of the extra costs for importing matter .. because whatever increase in costs there are will ultimately mean more jobs in the UK .. IF they don't replace EU imports with imports from elsewhere.

The EU are bitter because they have always been bitter both in words & deeds .. it's just not been reported by our dear media for the past few decades.
 

Ncap

Member
A lot of these people have an axe to grind.

It goes over their heads that none of the extra costs for importing matter .. because whatever increase in costs there are will ultimately mean more jobs in the UK .. IF they don't replace EU imports with imports from elsewhere.

The EU are bitter because they have always been bitter both in words & deeds .. it's just not been reported by our dear media for the past few decades.
Bitter about what, pet? C'mon, let it out. You'll feel better afterwards.
 

Ashtree

Member
Bitter about what, pet? C'mon, let it out. You'll feel better afterwards.

Pssst: The coal industry! The steel industry! The redoubtable dwarf, is keen to see the youth of Britain down the mines, with their miners hats, Sheffield steel shovels and picks, ham sarnie in pocket, beavering 16 hours a day. The bitter barstewards in EU, stole the dream!!!
 

Farm buy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Again, what I do not understand is why so many here seem so keen to want to gouge the UK.

The UK populace voted to leave. That is that, tough. You might not agree with it but that it democracy. You think we were all ecstatic about having 10 years of Blair at the helm?

I see no reason why the EU are so bitter about it. In an era of international trade and diplomacy, what hurts your neighbour hurts you, too. The Irish do a great deal of business with the UK. Clearly, that matters to someone. You would think the Irish would be keen to preserve any ties they have with the UK given the economic significance of these links. We voted to leave the EU, not turn the rest of Europe to ash or something. You act as vindictive all you like: it only stiffens the minds of those who voted to leave anyway.
Where is the Eu bitterness, The eu is saying to Frost and UK if you do a free trade deal then here are our rules, the same as uk can say to the anyone else wanting to trade..I cant see the point in saying that we want a free trade with eu as uk has just left it to do better deals with eveyone else.The Uk gov knows the rules are there but for some insane reason it thinks because it left eu that now the rules are not there anymore.
 

Ashtree

Member
Where is the Eu bitterness, The eu is saying to Frost and UK if you do a free trade deal then here are our rules, the same as uk can say to the anyone else wanting to trade..I cant see the point in saying that we want a free trade with eu as uk has just left it to do better deals with eveyone else.The Uk gov knows the rules are there but for some insane reason it thinks because it left eu that now the rules are not there anymore.

Indeed. The promise (lie) was, that leaving the EU, would have two (not one) major and immediate benefits.
1. The EU would immediately panic, and give UK 100% of the benefits of membership, without any of the costs or responsibilities. The money saved was to be baled and squeezed into a big red bus, and handed over to the NHS!

2. With new found freedom to negotiate independence trade deals world wide, the UK would simply have to prioritise, pick and choose those countries from a long line, with which they would deal with.

3. There was of course another promise (lie), that migration would stop. Of course once again, it was propounded that the worlds best and brightest, would be damn glad to come to the new sunny climes!!! Of them only the very, very, very, best would be accepted.

Ash!!
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Indeed. The promise (lie) was, that leaving the EU, would have two (not one) major and immediate benefits.
1. The EU would immediately panic, and give UK 100% of the benefits of membership, without any of the costs or responsibilities. The money saved was to be baled and squeezed into a big red bus, and handed over to the NHS!

2. With new found freedom to negotiate independence trade deals world wide, the UK would simply have to prioritise, pick and choose those countries from a long line, with which they would deal with.

3. There was of course another promise (lie), that migration would stop. Of course once again, it was propounded that the worlds best and brightest, would be damn glad to come to the new sunny climes!!! Of them only the very, very, very, best would be accepted.

Ash!!
The problem is we cannot have discussions with our EU neighbours , instead we deal with their unelected agents , therein lies the issue.
 

Ashtree

Member
The problem is we cannot have discussions with our EU neighbours , instead we deal with their unelected agents , therein lies the issue.

Oh dear. Mr. Frost, your main man is elected????
Your negotiations thus far with USA are by whom on your side, and with whom on the other side?
I’ll tell you! Political appointees! That’s the way the world works baby!
The politicians lay out the strategy and the red lines. The technocrats do they talking and the dealing. The legal eagles get into the nitty gritty. The politicos make a two or three day all nighters at the end, to give the gullible general run of plebs, they did all the work.
 
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