I sent that to my brother.
His response was to threaten violence on me!
rho21
7841
“The great masses of the people will more easily fall for a big lie than for a small one.”
What I’ve learnt from the past 4 years is that once people have fallen for the big lie, you can make as many small lies as you like and they will swallow them up as they’re so invested in believing you now.
As for today, I see that Johnson is outraged by the EU’s “betrayal” of the trade deal. By which we mean they are continuing to say the same things they’ve been saying without change for years. Is he angling for a hard Brexit or is he just trying to look tough and will eventually accept some irrelevant “concessions” from the EU to avoid it?
And now the UK is no longer a member state, the gloves are off:
Timex
7843
Britain is ultimately just going to get weaker and weaker over time, as that’s the natural result of isolationist policies.
Menzo
7844
I think the word you’re looking for is “freedom”.
I’m sure they will paint their faces blue too.
Timex
7846
That’s the Scots.
They’re gonna ditch the UK for the EU.
I shouldn’t be surprised, because jokes are anathema to nationalists but come on…
Scotland leaves, Gibraltar gets stabbed in the back, Wales also leaves.
Worst case scenario for sure, and would leave us a horrible rump.
Good job Brexiteers.
draxen
7849
Yeah, it’s not gonna happen. Here’s a more likely scenario…
Boris wins a second term. The Tories refuse a 2nd Scottish referendum for the duration (10 years) and just absorb/deflect any political pressure from the SNP. Basic FTA agreed with EU before no deal deadline. UK diverges from EU regulations. UK-USA trade deal agreed, others countries follow. Economy grows moderately. Rejoin EU political movement remains stagnant (20% or less).
I’m not sure about NI though.
These two are incompatible. Any deal somewhat close to a FTA is going to involve alignment in several areas.
Yeah, that’s basically an impossible scenario. I keep wondering whether fans of Brexit will ever grasp the basic ground rules of trade agreements with the EU, and what that means about the outcome of any negotiation. Apparently not.
magnet
7852
You don’t need regulatory alignment to have a FTA. For instance, neither NAFTA nor the EU-Japan FTA have regulatory alignment.
Naturally, the EU would still regulate whatever it imports from the UK. But regulatory alignment currently governs UK products than are not exported to the EU, and those are now free to diverge.
draxen
7853
I should also clarify that I’m not suggesting the UK wins a “have our cake and eat it too” trade agreement. No doubt we’ll be heavily penalized by the EU for divergence. I’m just suggesting that I can see which way the wind is blowing and it’s not toward regulatory alignment with the EU.
Aceris
7854
True, but the EU seem to be planning on insisting upon it. I think it’s pretty clear why.
I’m not against some reasonable level playing field terms, as long as the enforcement mechanism cuts in both directions (bear in mind that a long term eurosceptic beef has been that the UK obeys EU regulations better than most other EU countries). Hard to see how these two sides can manage to negotiate that though.
In all fairness I don’t understand the rules very much either, except enough to see that any negotiation was always going to be long and complicated and the pressure for a “real brexit” means pressure to diverge, and that way lies direct competition.
And I don’t see us competing very well with the EU, if they get their act together.
Ofcourse if they don’t, then, eventually we could be a Singapore type area, nimble and quick.
I would have thought that being at the helm of the EU would have been better.
Which, as I think I mentioned far far upthread, is really much more down to the UK than the EU.
magnet
7857
The more regulatory alignment, the more frictionless trade. And the EU wants as much frictionless trade as possible.
But the UK is prepared to sacrifice some frictionless trade for the sake of regulatory divergence. That doesn’t mean that an FTA is doomed, it just means that it will be less all-encompassing than the EU might wish.
Yeah… that’s not happening. This would literally be the best case scenario for the SNP - it would bolster the support for the Scottish nationalists, and by the time of Boris’s second term, they’d likely have all the public support they require to just outright secede. Scotland is not Catalonia and we’re not living in the 19th century anymore.
I suspect the worst case scenario for the SNP would be permission for a fast election, before the new trade treaties with the EU are in place. That would have public opinion still tipping around the 50% mark, while there’d still be uncertainty about whether the UK will screw over Scottish interests with Europe (which they absolutely will). And that is not an election the SNP are guaranteed to win.
The current situation is absolutely ideal from SNP’s point of view. They can point at the big bad Boris denying Scotland it’s democratic right, while preparing to move at the opportune time. Most likely, the SNP wait for the Scots Parliament election in 2021 while building up the political pressure, and when they wipe the floor with the opposition in that election, they force the issue.
