There was no other possible outcome. You can’t renegotiate a deal to keep what you like and get rid of what you don’t. But I guess a little over half your citizens didn’t think about that, unfortunately.
2019: “Hold my beer”
Heh, I think it’s perfectly valid to want to leave the EU, as long as the people who choose to leave the EU do so knowing what that means.
If politicians tell the voters we’re going to leave, and that means we’re not going to have the same access to the EU market, but that’ll allow us to stop EU immigrants from coming over here / make our own trade agreements / align closer with the USA / try and start a Just The Parts We Like Commonwealth / whatever, and voters still vote for it, it is what it is.
Not what happened though, but I doubt stopping the process now would lead to happiness and sunshine, it might stabilize stuff for a bit, but I very much doubt it would fix it.
Well to give you my straight answer. I think the Good Friday agreement trumps Brexit. By trumps I mean the Good Friday agreement is much more important to the short and long term interests of the UK and the Republic. So making sure it is not broken by Brexit is rightfully front and center.
That doesnt come from weakness by either side imho, just a recognition that unlike Brexit the Good Friday Agreement and the relationship between the UK & ROI enjoys wide spread support across both nations and every major political party.
Which is why Brexit campaigners lied their asses off as to what would happen. It never would have passed had people known the truth.
Well, back to news. The DUP abstained on budget votes today, which is pretty much against the Supply and Confidence Agreement.
Or to put it another way:
“The former chancellor described his party’s confidence-and-supply pact with the DUP as a “bit irregular”.”
Tomorrow is the key vote. Since Labour isn’t contesting it, nothing exciting will happen. But it’s interesting to watch the warning shots being fired.
A smart man. Interesting he notes the DUP have not seen the promised investment into NI yet either.
Yep. Basically this.
I still don’t get where all this “Perfidious EU” stuff comes from, but repeating it over and over ad nauseaum does not make it true.
As has already been said: Ireland is not going to accept a deal which abrogates the Good Friday agreement. Any deal must satisfy everyone in the EU - or no deal. So in short - satisfy the Irish - or no deal. The current proposal resolves the problem, until a better solution can be found.
If the UK is unhappy with that, it’s up to them to propose a deal with which the Irish are willing to agree. But so far, the only proposals have been either obviously unacceptable (i.e., effectively allowing the UK to unilaterally decide when to break the “no border security” proviso of the GFA), or based on non-existent technological solutions. Unsurprisingly, EU negotiators have been less than impressed.
We can stop the process…
It is not entirely clear to me that the government still commands three confidence of the House of Commons.
Indeed, and that’s the thing. Nowhere does the GFA mention a frictionless trade border, although cross border cooperation clearly does require some level of border arrangements.
People have concentrated on the “sovereignty” argument that the EU plan breaches the GFA, which I find persuasive but a bit of a reach. I think the human rights argument is much stronger.
Recall Consitutional issues, 1, v) from the GFA:
“v) affirm that whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the
people of Northern Ireland, the power of the sovereign government with
jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of
all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be
founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil,
political, social and cultural rights”
The “sovereign government with jurisdiction there” in this case is currently the UK government. That cannot be changed in any way without a plebiscite - it is clear that the UK cannot transfer any part of its sovereign power to the EU unilaterally.
The right to no taxation without representation is viewed as a political right under both UK and Irish law. It dates back to the 1689 Bill of Rights, in which context tariffs were clearly regarded as part of taxation.
The EU plan requires the UK to impose a tariff regime on NI which the people of NI would be unable to change through their representatives at Westminster or at Stormont. It therefore does not fully respect the political rights of the people of Northern Ireland.
Another thing the GFA doesn’t mention is air. It’s almost like it was written in some understood context or something…
Who cares? Ireland ask for something because they can, going It’s not fair won’t change squat, same as it always is when it comes to realpolitik.
UK: So, we propose the following agreement…
EU: WHO’S THE DADDY
UK: You’re the daddy
EU: Sign here
UK: ok
The Bill of Rights only applies to England and Wales.
and they voted for it in a referendum (and it wasn’t 52/48 it was 71/29) so it’s the will of the people and we all know how much Brexiteers loves the will of the people.
if you’re making that argument, why not just say Brexit itself doesn’t respect the people of Northern Ireland? They voted Remain by a goodly percentage, after all.
Blah blah blah, Ireland could have asked for all the potatoes in England, not like there are rules for what countries are allowed to ask in negotiations.
Racist ;-)
They need to have a second referendum. The Brexit vote was tainted beyond belief. It was a Russian propaganda win just like trump - which did not accurately reflect the true will of the people.