Brexit, aka, the UK Becomes a Clown Car of the Highest Order

Christ, a Twitter link to a Facebook post. It’s a social media turducken.

I don’t know what’s happening any more.

Whatever it is, it’s surely better than Brexit means Brexit.

This is, well, bizarre.

I guess the future is an Anglo-American racist economic bloc? Maybe with Russia added to make things whiter?

Looks like trading EU membership for quasi USA one…

Hannan is a disingenuous idiot and this paper lives up to those qualities. It’s not about a real free trade agreement. It’s about a unilateral race to the bottom of deregulation and the wholesale abandonment of national (or supranational) oversight of economic actors. Ironically, it actually makes the case for continued EU membership - zero tariffs, harmonised rules and mutual recognition of qualifications.

Incidentally, to give you an idea of how disingenuous he is, look at this piece he wrote promoting the plan. This bit, in particular, is egregious bullshit:

None of the countries he mentions do in fact have the same legal systems and accountancy methods, let alone business norms and wage levels. About the only thing they share is a broad common law system (also applicable to Ireland, but that’s an evil EU country so it doesn’t count). That really doesn’t get you very far in practice. UK and US insolvency law, for instance, is radically different. That’s presumably why you won’t find those justifications in the “official” report.

I thought, broadly speaking, that was the idea behind the EU? 😸😸😸😸😸😸

Not really, to be honest. It was more about trying to get countries with different legal systems, accountancy methods, business norms and wage levels to be more compatible, by harmonising those things to greater or lesser degrees, with the removal of trade barriers as an incentive. Legal systems are still pretty disparate, but you have things like the Brussels Regulation and the Insolvency Regulation to make sure that decisions in one country are enforceable in another.

I was taking a high overview.

Removal of barriers between compatible nations.

EU countries are surely the more compatible?

The idea of the EU was more basic, to get France and Germany to stop fighting wars every generation.

They are now (along certain axes, to a certain extent). They weren’t before. Even setting aside the original EEC countries, or as Scott aludes to, the European Coal and Steel Community that preceded it, there’s a whole process for accession countries to ensure they become compatible enough before joining, and then there’s an ongoing project to increase the compatibility of member states over time and across more fields (“ever closer union”. to use the treaty phrase).

And indeed one could argue that the recent additions weren’t/aren’t compatible enough.

Today the EU said: (via Tusk, Merkal, Macron, etc.):

  1. Chequers won’t work.
  2. Agreement needed by 15th October.
  3. Details, legalities and formalities in November if and only if agreement reached in October.

May said:

  1. Chequers will work.
  2. But we’ll walk away if the EU won’t agree.

Rest of world says:

1: Geez, May is an idiot.

Given, on top of all the other difficulties, that her own party seems to hate Chequers, it’s looking pretty grim.

It’s been looking grim for the last two years. Everybody seems to get caught by surprise which seems to be the reading of the EU meeting.

  • Cameron didn’t expect to win a majority at the election so could promise the referendum expecting it to be ruled out by the Lib Dems.
  • He was then surprised that giving the public a chance to give the establishment a black eye after 5 years of the establishment imposing austerity.
  • All the Brexiteers were surprised as they had no credible plan …unless you count some of the head in the sand, fantasist, ill-informed, back to the '50s rubbish they’ve come out with.
  • Boris was surprised as his ‘I’ll come out for Brexit to appeal to party members, lose and then be the leader in waiting’ blew up in his face.
  • The EU was surprised that Her Majesty’s government didn’t appear to understand negotiation and it’s taken this long to get a position like Chequers.

What isn’t surprising is that the ERG elements of the Tories would love to throw away any workers right, discard food quality standards, sell off the NHS and ignore environmental issues. Nor is them bending over clutching their ankles while dropping their trousers in preparation for being shafted by any passing Orange Clown, Media Baron or Russian Oligarch so they can do a trade deal or make some money

I’m hoping that the biggest surprise will be that we get a final say and we remain in the EU but then i’m a wide-eyed optimist.

Given May’s statement just now (“We aren’t bluffing!! Chequers or No Deal!”) I’m rapidly losing optimism.

I’m just hoping for a general election some time soon. I see no other way out of this.

I’m thinking:

No deal–. election based on brexit, to be bitterly fought, the main argument being “where is your fucking plan brexiteers?”—> brexiteers lose, no one wins, instead we get a patchwork coalition, that agrees on one thing (revert brexit)–> Brexit gets tossed, back to business as usual–>coalition splinters shortly afterwards.

There are people in the UK who think we have already left the EU by the way…