Brexit or Breaksit?

[classicdrogn]

I can't believe it took me this long to think of that obvious pun...

But so this isn't a total shitpost, all this flak May has been catching about it - is it just my memory being flaky, or was she not actually in favor of the idea back when the original referendum was happening, and working toward it since being a matter of doing her job to take the instructions presented by the people and Parliament and make the best she can of them? Because at l;east as far as I can see from the reporting I've read about it, she really has gone to the wall and kept on pushing and looking for weak spots to get the best deal the rest of the EU is willing to accept on the whole affair, given that it's going to happen in the first place. That much seems true whether she really believes in it being a good idea or not.

[hazard]

IIRC May was opposed to Brexit. AFAICT she's been trying to get the best deal Britain can get, it's just that all the brexiteers don't get that what they want is not what they are going to get if they go with their own 'drop everything EU' plan. Britain's too connected and dependent on the continent, and the Commonwealth is not going to bail them out.

And sure, a drop everything EU Brexit is also going to hurt the European Union, but not nearly as much.

[Dartz]

Tory MP suggests using food shortages in Ireland as leverage

Irish food self-sufficiency is nearly 700% for beef, around 300% for mutton, about 200% for pork, and probably perfectly fucking fine for everything else - I think the worst is cereal, at 70% due to last year's weather. As of 2017, Ireland is the most food-secure country in the world. It is theoretically impossible to starve in Ireland - the only reason anyone does is because it's government policy to starve a few to keep the rest working for little or nothing.

Getting everything to one hundred involves a lot less cows and sheep, and a little more wheat. Rock and roll.

Fucking hell. We could feed the population of Ireland - and more - without any modern agrochemicals, plant and machinery - it was done in the early nineteenth century. We fed Ireland, and most of the rest of the UK. Handtools and sheer bloody labour could do it. Even during the blackest years of the famine, sufficient food was being produced in Ireland to keep its people fed - it's just somebody decided to sell it on instead.

It's noted however, that that someone is only 60% self-sufficient. And that a large amount of irish agro-exports go towards bridging that gap.

It's not so much that we'll have a food surplus - quite the opposite in fact. And we - as part of the EU and with a minister on the negotiating team - have been negotiating trade deals (good deals, fantastic deals, your gonna love the trade deals) with places like Japan to sell all the stuff the UK might not be buying anymore.

I know! Why don't we buy up all their food supplies and drive the price up and make 'em watch at the ports while the great hand of the market takes all their food away. Then we'll just add it to the food mountains because we can and since the UK is in famine, surely the EU will need to prepare.

Just in case.



Or how about this:
https://streamable.com/3g8m8

Professor on constitutional and European law lays it out in plain and simple terms. It's Pointless

"All Brexit has done is vote to deprive the UK of its right to vote on the rules it follows. So that is pointless. But it's probably better than the economically catastrophic other option which is loosing access to the single market."

"A cherrypicking deal is much more of a threat to the EU than No Deal."

"The EU is less desperate for a deal than the UK is. The EU can afford a No Deal...." ".... But Britain can't afford a No Deal" ..... ".... Britain will talk and the EU will talk was replaced by nogiation on the EU's terms because, not because the EU's bad, because when something's six times the simes of something else go into discussions then the bigger party gets their way. That's the nature of negotiations, and Brexit was always going to be like that."


How does this still have to be explained to them Now and not three years ago.

[hazard]

Media link is borked Dartz.

[robkelk]

IIRC May was opposed to Brexit. AFAICT she's been trying to get the best deal Britain can get, it's just that all the brexiteers don't get that what they want is not what they are going to get if they go with their own 'drop everything EU' plan. Britain's too connected and dependent on the continent, and the Commonwealth is not going to bail them out.

And sure, a drop everything EU Brexit is also going to hurt the European Union, but not nearly as much.

Well... Canada's looking for more trading partners, and Canada and the UK are two of the biggest markets in the Commonwealth. Canada's barely a drop in the bucket compared to Europe, though, so any trade deal along those lines would benefit us more than it would the UK.

[Labster]

I still think Ireland should agree to a hard border in exchange for eight tributes annually to fight in the Irish Hunger Games.

[hazard]

IIRC May was opposed to Brexit. AFAICT she's been trying to get the best deal Britain can get, it's just that all the brexiteers don't get that what they want is not what they are going to get if they go with their own 'drop everything EU' plan. Britain's too connected and dependent on the continent, and the Commonwealth is not going to bail them out.

And sure, a drop everything EU Brexit is also going to hurt the European Union, but not nearly as much.

Well... Canada's looking for more trading partners, and Canada and the UK are two of the biggest markets in the Commonwealth. Canada's barely a drop in the bucket compared to Europe, though, so any trade deal along those lines would benefit us more than it would the UK.

And Europe would be happy to be a trade partner as well, and would likely make a better partner even if the EU's tariffs are higher than the UK's end up simply due to the sheer size of the market.

[robkelk]

Canada already has a free trade agreement with the EU: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Although we're still waiting for the EU to fully sign the treaty, most of its provisions are already in place.

We also have free trade with the European Free Trade Association (four European countries that aren't in the EU): the Canada–European Free Trade Association Free Trade Agreement.

We like free trade agreements - they raise our standard of living - but we don't have enough of them yet.

[Dartz]

I still think Ireland should agree to a hard border in exchange for eight tributes annually to fight in the Irish Hunger Games.

We'll have to construct a large wall.  And the UK will pay for it.

We like free trade agreements 

A well-negotiated trade agreement usually works out as a win-win for both parties - the best ones take years to negotiate precisely because there are so many caveats and carefule clauses to be added. Furhtermore, a well negotiated trade agreement pressuposes that both parties are adults. The care that needs to be taken is to not assume that's what's good for the businesses of the State is good for the people of the State.

[Rajvik]

Someone please correct me if i'm wrong, (and i very well could be since my knowledge of Brexit is decidedly biased because it comes from Breitbart News and Nigel Ferange (sp?)) But wasn't one of the great sticking points over whether or not to even have the Brexit vote over a matter of the "Middle-eastern refugee immigration" that has effectively cost Angela Merkel her position in Germany? I mean i'm sorry but the whole EU idea seems to me to look something like the former colonies under the "Articles of Confederation" which ruled what is now the US between Independence and 1887?

Also, i've heard that the EU is finally forming its own military, how is that supposed to work? The US could never seem to get anyone from the EU countries save Britain to send anything resembling combat troops for any "UN Peacekeeping Mission" or "NATO Operation", (and again, if I am wrong on that correct me please, i don't like making assumptions or statements based on faulty data.)

[Labster]

On NATO peacekeepers, in the words of George W. Bush, "You forgot Poland."

Merkel is still PM in Germany, she'll just be leaving at the end of this. The main reason she's going is that her party is weakening, and yes, immigration is one of the issues causing it.

You're pretty much correct that the EU is a confederation, but with a few federal structures that apply to all member nations -- European Court of Human Rights is the first one that comes to mind, but there are others. You're a century off on the U.S. federal government, though.

[hazard]

Also, while the Netherlands have not been great contributors to military forces for the UN and NATO, we've been engaged in peacekeeping missions for decades, including in Iraq and Afghanistan due to NATO obligations. The Yugoslavian civil war saw deployment of a battalion of troops in Serbia, feel free to look up Srebrenica, and the later Kosovo matter had Dutch combat aircraft participating in the bombardments while we still have a number of Marechaussee in Kosovo to help with law enforcement there.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia most of the UN peacekeeping forces come out developing countries, with the EU only providing 4.5% of the total personnel and the US less than 1%.

[Dartz]

The EU's big problem is that it's always been really bad at justifying itself or making people believe in it. It's not really something people wanted, it just sort of accreted the way planets do. So in many ways a lot of the conveniences are overlooked while the bureraucracy just sort of becomes to focal point of everything negative and controlling. There's no real founding myth - there's nothing really inspiring about it. It just sort of is. It's very artificial. It began as a free trade agreement.

Which means that usually, when the topic  of en EU treaty referendum comes up here, it's almost always defeated because the pro-EU's usual argument is always "It'll be great for the EU" while the No side actually digs in. Which usually results in a rejection because people don't really understand what they're voting for.

The second referendum normally involves the Pro side explaining exactly what the new treaty will do, how it amends the State's relationship with the EU, with added specificate clarifications to the treaty text that violations of Irish neutrality and the like will not be impinged. To which the No side then responds with "It's still terrible" and everyone votes Yes.

Which means I'm somewhat surprised that Britain hasn't had second referendum yet. They got the first part down to a tee.  Ireland is also somewhat unique in that treaties which amend international relations *have* to go to the people.

The only real way to stop a lot of the boat people would be to start sinking the boats in the water until they stop sending them - a hideously callous act that would not really be justified by the ends. Or to go after the traffickers sending the boats - which can be quite difficult. In many ways, the boat peoples are as much victims as anything - sold a bill, then left to drown or be rescued.

And, as a point of order, Ireland has sent troops to the UN. Quiiite a good many, having been almost continuously involved since the 60's. Some of this missions have been alongside NATO missions - where the backing and authorisation is from the UN. The major european powers have - shall we say - some prior history with large the rest of the world that means peacekeeping troops from them may not necessarily be welcome.

[classicdrogn]

So with the deal May negotiated rejected again it's looking very much like a Breaks-it is what's coming down the pike. Even from across the ocean, the prospect is making me cringe. As for May herself... the only reason I can see her not having already resigned is because she saw this coming as well, and that trying to install a new government with so little time to act would just be another brand of chaos added to the mix, so she's waiting until it happens and the new guy can come in without being tarred by being the one holding the bag when all the shit landed in it, and hence having more moral authority to lead the efforts to clean up in the aftermath. At least, I hope that's the kind of reasoning behind it and not just a blind refusal to release the reins, but I'll freely admit it's a highly optimistic interpretation.

[Dartz]

That they have managed to annoy the most benign and milktoast of world powers into saying 'like it or lump it' to the deal is telling. There was a time when countries which managed to dither, dribble and fuck up royally in the face of a 'larger' power would find themselves on the receiving end of a good, hard colonising.

One wonders if this isn't what the hard brexiteers truly fear about the EU's deal. somehow in their darkest hearts they know the evils the empire has inflicted on the world and now, knowing intimately the depths those evils and having reaped profit from them, fear they will be subject to the same. They fear the revenge of Empire...the strip-mining of their culture, heritage and very futures for the benefit of faceless others in a land far away who chide them with gentle pat-pats that it's for their own good and how very nice it will be to to be civilised like someone else....

And that the EU doesn't seem to be too interested in doing this must wreck their brains so - that they cannot comprehend a larger power ever doing anything in good faith because they know they never have. Anything a larger Power offers must be a step towards some unfathomable cruelty - even if it's not obvious on day one.

But the EU is just one power in the world.

It's almost guranteed to be a clusterfuck now.

It's the Deal, or it's the Extension. And you just know the gangster governments in poland Poland or Hungary will veto the extension in revenge for the slap the EU gave them for breaking the rules.

Which leaves the Deal.

Which is dead.

[classicdrogn]

(non-embedded)

Keh, at this point if I was running one of the EU member states I wouldn't allow an extension, with the way the UK Parliament has fiddly-fucked around on this. The fact that May managed to get a coherent agreement put together in just two years when far less inclusive trade treaties often take a decade or more was a minor miracle in the first place, and if the stupid blighters had some better ideas they bloody well should have contributed instead of sitting around repeating their talking points to make political hay while the sun shone. Well, now the rains are coming. Don't think it's going to end anywhere near as fun as the song suggests in a cozy little cabin away from the hustle and the bustle of the EU. Mr. and Mrs. Joke sounds all too plausible though...

[Labster]

Didn't the court already rule that Britain can unilaterally decide to cancel its Article 50 request? So cancel, then immediately reinvoke, get an automatic two year extension. I mean, this is an implausible outcome, but all of the outcomes in Brexit are implausible. So seriously, why not?

That they have managed to annoy the most benign and milktoast of world powers into saying 'like it or lump it' to the deal is telling.

Agreed. Fun fact: the word is spelled "milquetoast" because it's coined from a comic character's name.

[hazard]

Don't think it's unilaterally, if nothing else for that exact reason of countries permanently being in the process of exiting and wasting lots of time.

It's entirely possible to me that Britain tries, but the unanimous consent that's needed for the EU to grant that cancellation doesn't come through, resulting in Britain getting forced out, deal or no deal. They may then seek reentry.

[Epsilon]

Didn't the court already rule that Britain can unilaterally decide to cancel its Article 50 request?  So cancel, then immediately reinvoke, get an automatic two year extension.  I mean, this is an implausible outcome, but all of the outcomes in Brexit are implausible.  So seriously, why not?

That same court ruled they can't do that. If they cancel they retrigger the clock starts from the first cancellation. So basically they would hard exit immediately.

[classicdrogn]

Plus, no one likes a smart-ass rules lawyer, so trying such shenanigans would just burn even more of whatever remaining good will might exist even if it wasn't ruled out as such.

ETA: the bit that mystifies me is why all the reporting is "May is still clinging to her deal" when the EU representatives have repeatedly said that further changes are off the table. It's not up to her, and suggesting it is is as delusional as insisting on more changes in the first place.

[Dartz]

She's not just clinging onto the deal, she's clinging onto 10 Downing street like she'll burst into flames when she finally gets kicked out.

Far be it for me to quote a genocidal racist but she has sat far to long for what good she has been doing. Like, fucking ever. And while history may have been unduly cruel to Mister Chamberlain, there will be no sympathy from history for Theresa May. This is her fuckup - all the way from Bean to Cup.

They've asked for an extension to work their shit out. The EU will only let them get the extension they want, if they pass the deal to leave by the 29th. A longer extension may be possible - but that requires the UK hold EU electrions, and might give it an EU veto in parliament to noose everyone with and try extort better terms to get them to fuck off. The EU doesn't want that. The Brexitrons don't want it either because they think it means they'll stay in by default

Oh, and they can't pass the Deal anymore because the rules of Parliament - and the speaker - prevent them from voting on the same issue again without substantial changes. Or additional documentation. Unless someone tries to turn parliament off and on again but getting a new Session started inside a week is a tall order.

Anyway, it'll end in two ways. The Gammon will be squealing about how either the Evil EU twisted their arms the British into an Unequal Treaty, or the Evil EU wouldn't compromosie and they crashed out and now everythings bad. Ideal ground for the real hard reich to fester and grow....


And then there's this tweet, from Nicola Sturgeon, quoting another. 

https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/statu...9812170758

[Rajvik]

According to the New York Times Britain now has until May 22 to make its exit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/world...eu-uk.html

Now, according to what i heard this morning, (my time) the problem the majority of the MPs have is that the Brexit plan they voted on didn't actually change anything and only removed Britain in name only.

Again, my source is biased

[Labster]

'Cancel Brexit' petition passes 2m signatures on Parliament site

I read the same article this morning when it was only 1 million signatures. There are probably bots... but sign if you're a UK resident and agree. Not a UK/EU citizen, but I would prefer no one overthrows the global order next month, thanks.

That Nicola Sturgeon tweet is top kek, even with only one word. For those of you who don't know, she's the leader of the Scottish National Party, the independence-leaning party that currently controls the Scottish Parliament. I mention because this is something that would be completely lost on most of my U.S. friends.

[Dartz]

If BINO alone was the problem, the solution is obvious. The problem is that the UK can't even agree on what the problem is.... let alone what the solution might be. It's a clusterfuck.

May was told that she could she could have an extension if she came with a plan for what to do with the time. Apparently when it came to the summitt to discuss the extension, May brought her usual imagination, flair and political acumen and just sort of drooled when asked what her plan was. Therefore, the EU has offered the solution again. The plan is entirely the creation of the EU - woven around the sheer practicalities of the situation.

If the UK accepts The Deal in the next 7 days, they have until May 22nd to impliment it before going away. In practice this can probably run to April 12th.
If they reject the deal, they have until April 12th to either begin to prepare for EU elections, or automatically have a hard Brexit. This is governed by UK law
If they have EU elections, they can have a longer extension to work their shit out.

This is basically, at this point, what has to happen by consequence oif their indecision, existing laws and the simple practicalities of reality.

And This is Also Nicola Sturgeon, on a visit to Ireland. Reading the Proclamation of the Irish Repuclic.

[classicdrogn]

She does rather look as though she's about to tell the punch line. That, or ask "Seriously? Come on now."