Merged Now What?

[CapelDodger]

The document made reference to including Common Security and Defence Policy as part of the deal.

As requested by certain Ukrainian politicians. If you lived next-door to Russia and Belorus you might well fancy it yourself.

This is not sensible, Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in Crimea.

Which is why it was never sensible for Ukraine to insist on having the Crimea in the first place. All the staying-power of the Danzig Corridoor, and a similar duration.

All that needed to be done, was a deal with no tariffs.
As usual they had to go beyond all that.

As usual life is much more complicated than you appreciate.

They were incompetent, they didn't consider any consequences.

Of course they did. When Russia's involved European diplomats have been considering consequences very seriously since Peter the Great relocated his capital to the Baltic. Habits can get ingrained over three centuries.

Have you considered the consequences of rejecting Ukrainian overtures because the Russians might be peeved? There's a rock and a hard place in the scenario, as there are in so many.

 

[abaddon]

At the end of the day you can keep going off on tangents and pointing the finger, or answer the question the OP asked.

"What next" ?

We all know what next at this point.

I suggested the EEA agreement and have been attacked for suggesting it.

Nope. Your proposals were attacked, not you personally. And your notions that you will somehow get some fantasy deal is nonsense.

Popular opinion? Would happily see England crash and burn.

Political opinion? Would happily see England crash and burn.

You had no choice about BoJo being appointed Foreign Secretary. Talk about a "democracy deficit". And on foot of that appointment of a clueless, entitled fop, somehow, you are surprised the all of the rest of the EU regards England as clearly buffoonish.

I am not a Sun reader btw.

Yet you assume that position willingly. Why is that?

We're leaving the EU.

Sure. Go ahead and self destruct. Will anyone care? Nope. Are you trapped in the notion that you continue to have an empire? Yep.

The government and the opposition have both ruled out remaining, instead there will be an orderly departure.

It's advisory only. They can toss it on a whim.

So:

EEA agreement / Bilateral free trade deal South Korea style / WTO MFN rules and tariffs ?

Yup. Vote yourself into a corner and wait in the hope that that particular paint might dry. Good for you.

Whichever we pick, we need to guarantee the rights of people from other EU member countries living in the UK. They are legal immigrants, they shouldn't be punished.

Pick what you want. It matters not until the remaining 27 members pick what they want. You continue to think that what you want matters to the EU. This is an obviously a harking back to an imperial past where where the UK mattered on a world stage. This was once true. In the 21st century it isn't even vaguely significant Britannia rules the waves? No chance. Britannia cannot even field a single actual aircraft carrier. None.

If Argentina seized the Falklands tomorrow, Britain would have nothing to offer.

That may be offensive to the noble servicemen who I am aware are participants here, but the reality is that servicemen and women have been governmentally eviscerated to the extent that they cannot possibly fulfil the tasks assigned to them.

Those guys who, for example, went to Iraq had their pay cut due to some obscure rules. WTF? Why did that happen? According to CT cranks, those patriotic individuals altruistically took no money, but operated for "them". At the very same time, "them" paid obscene amounts of money to those very same people to pretend that they participated in those actions. WTF? It cannot be both as they claim.

I have no reason to harbour any love for the British military, and much reason to hate them, but the british military has been shafted right, left and centre.

Whatever my personal position might be, they got stuffed by successive lame UK governments, and I don't like that much.

 

[CapelDodger]

Sure. Go ahead and self destruct. Will anyone care? Nope. Are you trapped in the notion that you continue to have an empire? Yep.

Only some of those who remember the Empire still have that notion. (British Exceptionalism is a little more cross-generational, but not much.) Forget the Empire, it's gone.

This was all about the Germans. There, I've said it.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Only some of those who remember the Empire still have that notion. (British Exceptionalism is a little more cross-generational, but not much.) Forget the Empire, it's gone.

This was all about the Germans. There, I've said it.

Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.

 

[Klimax]

...
Pick what you want. It matters not until the remaining 27 members pick what they want. You continue to think that what you want matters to the EU. This is an obviously a harking back to an imperial past where where the UK mattered on a world stage. This was once true. In the 21st century it isn't even vaguely significant Britannia rules the waves? No chance. Britannia cannot even field a single actual aircraft carrier. None.
...

Funnily enough, France at least got one...

 

[McHrozni]

Funnily enough, France at least got one...

To be fair this is because the UK retired its light carriers before the two new carriers were finished. They're as much amphibious assault ships as carriers and will only be able to operate STOVL fighters and helicopters, but each of the two will be as large as the single French carrier.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

The ideal upshot is that negotiations are a fiasco, May blames it on the Brexiteers, the whole thing gets ditched and there's a huge sigh of relief across the country and, more particularly, Whitehall. And high dudgeon in Edinburgh, which will please some folk.

Yeah. Britain will suffer, but probably less by ditching one G20 summit than it would be Brexit.

September could be very revealing.

McHrozni

 

[The Don]

Whichever we pick, we need to guarantee the rights of people from other EU member countries living in the UK. They are legal immigrants, they shouldn't be punished.

That's your view, and one that I share. but not one which is universally supported by Leave voters many (most ?) of whom want to send those immigrants packing so that they no longer get new-build 4 bedroom houses from the council and so we can "get our jobs back" (or whatever other nonsense is being peddled by the right-wing press).

 

[The Don]

Heaven forfend. Daily Mail, surely?

I disagree, I believe that Airfix is one of those comparatively rare birds, a left-wing Brexiteer who (like Dennis Skinner the late Tony Benn) opposes the EU because it represents the corporatism which prevents "proper" free trade throughout the world and whose tentacles prevent the foundation of the workers' paradise which will follow once we leave the EU.

More cynical, less left-wing, people like myself OTOH consider the EU to be a bulwark against our baser instincts which would hand over everything to our corporate masters in exchange for a quick buck.

 

[Airfix]

I disagree, I believe that Airfix is one of those comparatively rare birds, a left-wing Brexiteer who (like Dennis Skinner the late Tony Benn) opposes the EU because it represents the corporatism which prevents "proper" free trade throughout the world and whose tentacles prevent the foundation of the workers' paradise which will follow once we leave the EU.

You're damn right I am.

More cynical, less left-wing, people like myself OTOH consider the EU to be a bulwark against our baser instincts which would hand over everything to our corporate masters in exchange for a quick buck.

I don't really see it as a bulwark at all, considering everything that has happened over the last 40 odd years.

The corporate lobby in Brussels is massive, the big corporations love it.
I saw what the EU did to Greece too. Greece should have been chucked out of the Euro into a devalued new Drachma and encouraged to sort out its tax system, and pensions system, not sell off state owned industries.

I also remember Black Wednesday. And in the aftermath of Black Wednesday, that fool Blair tried to create a movement to get us into the Euro, he sat beside the fools (Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine) who had in John Major's government egged on the PM and Norman Lamont into wasting billions of pounds to prop up the pound, to try and keep us in the ERM, arguing to go back into something our economy has already been proven not to be compatible with.

 

[McHrozni]

I saw what the EU did to Greece too. Greece should have been chucked out of the Euro into a devalued new Drachma and encouraged to sort out its tax system, and pensions system, not sell off state owned industries.

You think EU has been too lenient with Greece and see that as a reason to leave the EU?

That's definitely a first.

I also remember Black Wednesday. And in the aftermath of Black Wednesday, that fool Blair tried to create a movement to get us into the Euro, he sat beside the fools (Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine) who had in John Major's government egged on the PM and Norman Lamont into wasting billions of pounds to prop up the pound, to try and keep us in the ERM, arguing to go back into something our economy has already been proven not to be compatible with.

Tony Blair doing something not required of him by the EU is now the fault of the EU?

Interesting standards you use.

McHrozni

 

[The Don]

I found the UK comedy series "Ballot Monkeys" very entertaining. It followed four groups through the Brexit campaign and beyond, painting an unflattering picture of all:

- Leave
- Remain
- The Trump campaign
- Putin

One of the things I found interesting was the portrayal of the left-wing Brexiteer. I hadn't really thought of it beyond a few fossils like Dennis Skinner but there really is a minority view out there that, free of the shackles of the EU, the UK would be free to:

- stop being a capitalist state
- renationalise the means of production
- kill the banks

and a host of other ideas that I had wrongly assumed had died at some point in the 1980's. I guess it's a manifestation of the ideas expressed my the "occupy" movement.

 

[Aepervius]

You're damn right I am.

I don't really see it as a bulwark at all, considering everything that has happened over the last 40 odd years.

Most social advance lost by worker were by thatcher independently on EU. The only things which did not dare touch was NHS. Not so much in the last decade various Uk government have had their hands in the cookie jar trying to promote privatization of part of NHS or at least add competition. This is an UK politician things by the way there is no such mandate EU wide.

The corporate lobby in Brussels is massive, the big corporations love it.

I am betting that corporate lobby would prefer an UK separated, as it is much easier and cheaper to lobby to while on EU level it is less uniformized with different lobbies having different targets, and far more people to lobby to with different national objective. Instead of having to lobby 28 different country/set of EP/commisionar , they only have to lobby the locals...

I saw what the EU did to Greece too. Greece should have been chucked out of the Euro into a devalued new Drachma and encouraged to sort out its tax system, and pensions system, not sell off state owned industries.

Well you gotta have a point here , austerity don't work. But greece could have refused the bail out and get out of EU. Still they stayed. Even after UK's brexit, they still are not invoking art 50 and no public plan to do it. Even in their weakened state, at least the politician see an advantage to stay in EU.

I also remember Black Wednesday. And in the aftermath of Black Wednesday, that fool Blair tried to create a movement to get us into the Euro, he sat beside the fools (Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine) who had in John Major's government egged on the PM and Norman Lamont into wasting billions of pounds to prop up the pound, to try and keep us in the ERM, arguing to go back into something our economy has already been proven not to be compatible with.

 

[Aepervius]

Interesting standards you use.

But an easy standard to understand : EU is responsible for all evil, and the UK government was powerless to to do anything, getting rolled over by the laughing evil EP/EU/whatever.

Then you watch every single event using those tinted glasses.

 

[McHrozni]

But an easy standard to understand : EU is responsible for all evil, and the UK government was powerless to to do anything, getting rolled over by the laughing evil EP/EU/whatever.

Then you watch every single event using those tinted glasses.

It's true, their 'analysis' isn't what anyone would call complex .... or an analysis for that matter. As I said, it's interesting.

McHrozni

 

[The Don]

But an easy standard to understand : EU is responsible for all evil, and the UK government was powerless to to do anything, getting rolled over by the laughing evil EP/EU/whatever.

Then you watch every single event using those tinted glasses.

tbh every single politician in the UK seems to have done this for the last four decades.

If something comes from the EU and is popular then the government of the day will claim responsibility for the success.

If something is unpopular then the government of the day will blame it on the EU whether or not the EU had anything to do with it.

 

[McHrozni]

tbh every single politician in the UK seems to have done this for the last four decades.

If something comes from the EU and is popular then the government of the day will claim responsibility for the success.

If something is unpopular then the government of the day will blame it on the EU whether or not the EU had anything to do with it.

It's a horrible policy that Cameron (and the UK) is now paying for.

McHrozni

 

[Airfix]

Most social advance lost by worker were by thatcher independently on EU.

And the EU let her.

The only things which did not dare touch was NHS.

Correct, however as you say, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron touched the NHS with PFI, with no opposition

I am betting that corporate lobby would prefer an UK separated

No. Big corporations have nothing to fear from expensive convoluted rules across the EU including REACH regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_Restriction_of_Chemicals because such things are expensive they make it harder for the little companies make it easier for the bigger ones.

Well you gotta have a point here , austerity don't work. But Greece could have refused the bail out and get out of EU.

Was that a typo, do you mean the Euro, or the EU ?

Still they stayed. Even after UK's brexit, they still are not invoking art 50 and no public plan to do it. Even in their weakened state, at least the politician see an advantage to stay in EU.

Greece had a referendum on the EU's austerity package and voted no to it even though they were told it meant leaving the Euro.
Days later their vote was overturned and their government was forced to accept the EU's austerity package anyway. The EU is playing a dangerous game here, the Golden Dawn Party is gaining support in Greece and they are Nazis.
Greece should have been expelled from the Eurozone years ago. It after all, should never have been allowed to join the Euro.

 

[McHrozni]

Greece had a referendum on the EU's austerity package and voted no to it even though they were told it meant leaving the Euro.
Days later their vote was overturned and their government was forced to accept the EU's austerity package anyway. The EU is playing a dangerous game here, the Golden Dawn Party is gaining support in Greece and they are Nazis.
Greece should have been expelled from the Eurozone years ago. It after all, should never have been allowed to join the Euro.

There are no provisions to expel a nation from the Eurozone. The EU did the next best thing: give Greece an offer it couldn't possibly accept, with the only alternative being to leave the Eurozone and EU. The Greeks didn't cooperate, and bent the knee instead.

As I said, according to you the only fault of the EU here was that it was too lenient on Greece. An interesting and somewhat disturbing position.

Was that a typo, do you mean the Euro, or the EU ?

It was understood at the time this meant both. Didn't you know?

http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scplps/ecblwp10.pdf

Summary on page 8.

McHrozni

 

[Lothian]

No. Big corporations have nothing to fear from expensive convoluted rules across the EU including REACH regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_Restriction_of_Chemicals because such things are expensive they make it harder for the little companies make it easier for the bigger ones.

I for one look forward to the day where, free of the EU, businesses are again free to dump poisonous chemicals into the water table.