Just everything will go wrong if Brexit happens:
The British government will need to introduce legislation to impose direct rule on Northern Ireland in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, incoming Johnson administration ministers are being warned.
The highly politically toxic move would pit the Johnson administration squarely against the Irish government and effectively suspend the Good Friday Agreement, with Belfast ruled from London.
However, without the imposition of direct rule, officials and experts warn that Northern Ireland, whose devolved government collapsed in January 2017, would become essentially ungoverned as it faced its biggest crisis since the signing of the 1998 peace deal.
Err, why?
Stormont is suspended without Brexit. Therefore Stormont’s suspension is nothing to do with Brexit or not, is it?
It’s, rather, Remoaners becoming increasingly untethered from reality. Brexit will make your big toe turn blue! Your hamster will rape the cat!
I’m sure the northern, and indeed the southern, Irish are perfectly capable of making a mess of their affairs without the intervention of Westminster. They should be left alone to get on with it.
“effectively suspend the Good Friday Agreement”
Find me the part of the GFA that says this.
Ungoverned, or ungovernable?
Belgium is often ungoverned.
Surely, as this is an internal UK matter, that should read “..will pit the Irish government squarely against the Johnson administration…” As far as I’m aware, the UK has no involvement whatsoever in the affairs of the Republic of Ireland
What do people think about this article:
https://www.economicvoice.com/is-it-too-late-for-a-brexit-general-election/
Do the dates stack up – if there is no confidence motion passed immediately on the return of Parliament on the 3rd September then there can be no election before the Brexit deadline of 31st Oct?
“the Johnson administration” makes it sound like he’s going to invade Vietnam or something……………..we need a montage of Boris getting in and out of helicopters over a soundtrack of Fortunate Son by CCR and Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire.
When I heard that members and staff of the NI assembly are still being paid, a way of getting them to assemble again occurred to me…
@rhoda
+1
Rhoda
worth a try.
Do the dates stack up – if there is no confidence motion passed immediately on the return of Parliament on the 3rd September then there can be no election before the Brexit deadline of 31st Oct?
Seems plausible but as Corbyn seems to be more afraid of a GE than the Tories that NC vote looks unlikely anyway. I suspect Corbyn’s ideal outcome, as he’s always been anti-EU, would be a chaotic no deal Brexit that he could label a “Tory Brexit” whilst having the benefit of being out.
Which got me thinking. If Boris could somehow arrange a no confidence vote in himself so that the GE happens in the 1st or 2nd Thurs in November Parliament would be suspended during October and would be unable to block the default position of Brexit on 31st October.
If that could be arranged it would be a Machiavellian* manoeuvre of the highest order and worthy of him being labelled the greatest PM ever.
*Yes, I know people who haven’t read The Prince misunderstand Machiavelli so I use the term in its commonly understood meaning.
Jim – Anyone who runs is a Remainer.
Anyone who stands still… is a well-disciplined Remainer!
*Cue WOOLY BULLY by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs*
If Boris wants to get out all he needs to do is order govt lawyers not to defend the Tilbrook case.
As I understand it a NC vote could force a pre-Brexit GE, but only if the GE was not on the conventional Thursday. So a BE could be in time to stop Brexit if that convention was abandoned. Six more days of delay would make it impossible.
Also should Boris want a pre Brexit GE he has a couple of weeks into the next session before that becomes impossible.
And then there’s the problem of winning the GE. Does Cornyn feel lucky? Do the remainers?
I dunno if it’s just me, has anyone else gotten bored with Project Fear?
Not Brexit – the Remain establishment has turned what could’ve been another classic British compromise into an absolute democratic necessity – but all the boring gloommongering and Tales Of The Tiresomely Expected.
Nearly 4 years of this shit now. It’s as if the entire nation has been stuck in a lift with Philip Hammond.
Remainiac cockrot–and high time for a treason tax on all remainiacs –99% of capital and income with an extra sliding scale for the very richest. Designed to put all of them in the gutter.
“I suspect Corbyn’s ideal outcome, as he’s always been anti-EU, would be a chaotic no deal Brexit that he could label a “Tory Brexit” whilst having the benefit of being out”
Thats always been my contention, he wants out, and hopes that getting out will cause chaos, which he can then blame on the Tories and win a GE as a result. And be free from EU control to do what he likes once in power.
The flaw in his plan as I see it is that a No Deal Brexit won’t be a catastrophe at all. Indeed if done right could result in demonstrable improvements in people’s lives – cheaper goods in the shops for example, tax cuts using the EU geld etc etc.
“If Boris wants to get out all he needs to do is order govt lawyers not to defend the Tilbrook case.”
The judges would still throw it out. Remainers to the core the lot of them.
Incidentally this bit of Project Fear on the BBC site today is great:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49133625
The picture should be used as the dictionary definition of ‘hag faced old bitch’
Jim – Yarp.
“… the whole basis of the Maastricht treaty is the establishment of a European central bank which is staffed by bankers, independent of national Governments and national economic policies, and whose sole policy is the maintenance of price stability[.] That will undermine any social objective that any Labour Government in the United Kingdom—or any other Government—would wish to carry out. … The Maastricht treaty does not take us in the direction of the checks and balances contained in the American federal constitution[.] It takes us in the opposite direction of an unelected legislative body—the [European] Commission—and, in the case of foreign policy, a policy Commission that will be, in effect, imposing foreign policy on nation states that have fought for their own democratic accountability” -Jez in 1993
We have a European bureaucracy totally unaccountable to anybody, powers have gone from national parliaments – they haven’t gone to the European Parliament, they’ve gone to the Commission and to some extent the Council of Ministers. These are quite serious matters. – Jez in 1996
“Under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, Europe will become subservient to the wishes of the NATO and the aims of NATO.
“We are creating for ourselves here one massive great Frankenstein machine… this military machine, this military Frankenstein, that’ll be so damaging to all of us.” – Jez in 2009
Jeremy Corbyn has been Eurosceptic for a lot longer than has Boris Johnson.
Slightly OT.
Appointing JRM as Leader of the House of Commons is a brilliant move. He’s a great debater and has encyclopaedic knowledge of the arcane rules of Parliament. I look forward to him putting the poisoned dwarf in his place.
The fuss about his style guide is also rather amusing.
Jesus Jim–“hag-faced old bitch” doesn’t begin to cover it.
If there was a religious figure of “Mother of Satan” …
Jim,
She’s also a lying cvnt. Much of the UK’s scientific collaboration with Europe is not EU mediated. CERN for example.
@rlj
Dunno about that. Would need to go away and add some numbers up to be sure, but in terms of the number of university-based projects that get funded, including by someone beloved of this site (since this agenda goes beyond purely scientific research), there is a lot that gets funded from the EU pot, with strings attached to encourage collaboration between universities in different member states.
Presumably the Boris plan is that we stop paying into the EU pot and just pay our universities to do the research themselves, but they don’t seem to have much time to stick such a system together.
It would be interesting to know how much intra-EU scientific collaboration happens because it’s objectively better for that particular project (compared to collaboration with a US or Commonwealth or Chinese partner or just doing things in-house) and how much happens simply because them’s the strings attached to the funding.
“Leaving the EU without a deal is a threat to that. I am afraid that some damage has already been done, with loss of researchers, and influence,”
Influence? What fucking influence? Are these people real?
The fuss about his style guide is also rather amusing.
Reminds me of reading about a medieval / renaissance king who imposed increasingly complex dance routines upon his courtiers, simply to keep them too busy to plot against him.
“I am afraid that some damage has already been done, with loss of researchers, and influence”
This is a common complaint by Remainers- the UK will be isolated and diminished as a result of Brexit. Which is highly ironic as they with the same breath accuse Brexit voters of being in thrall to dreams of Empire. More projection methinks…………
” just pay our universities to do the research themselves, but they don’t seem to have much time to stick such a system together. ”
You know, when presented with a pot of money they have never in recorded history had trouble in sticking a system together to spend it. This also applies to all other parts of the swamp.
Look, grow up the lot of you! Brexit will make your breasts sag, madam; and you, sir, your cock will shrink. Both of you will find your hair thinning. Plus you’ll be impoverished and your children sold into modern slavery. Moreover the EU won’t defend you from a Russian invasion, oh no!
Worst of all, you will be denied access to German motorcars, French wine and cheese, and cheap Spanish holidays. You won’t be allowed to listen to Beethoven, look at a Rembrandt, or put mayo on your chips.
See how you like that, you offshore oafs!
MBE: I think the freedom to choose partners would be a plus, as long as the funding was broadly the same. Of course the EU would probably attempt to freeze our research unis etc out, but there are plenty of other potential partners, probably of higher quality too.
PJF: the Sun King indulged in complex protocol for his courtiers to keep them ‘happy’.
I am afraid that some damage has already been done, with loss of researchers, and influence
Sound bad to you? Then try this:
I am afraid that some damage has already been done, with loss of tax researchers, and influence.
When the sage of Ely replaces donors with doners and gets a clapped out kebab van it will be another small victory for private sector initiative whatever the old MI5 boss says.
@BiND,
It thought the same about JRM, and he was off to a flying start…
https://youtu.be/8YwOb0GGK1Y?t=617
I don’t know about the science funding in particular, but certainly in other areas EU funding is frequently part-funding. In a way that’s often worse than full funding.
That means that other Governmental, quango and private funding gets sucked into the projects which the EU wants to happen.
Projects without the blessing of the EU which might otherwise have benefited from the non-EU funding have a much harder time raising finance or don’t happen at all.
“Leaving the EU without a deal is a threat to that. I am afraid that some damage has already been done, with loss of researchers, and influence,”
Those making these claims never go on to explain why their particular example needs us to be in a political union or to have a deal, by which they mean being in a de facto political union.
One of the more bizarre ones was someone who claimed to be in the electricity transmission business saying the French won’t sell us electricity if we have a hard Brexit. Again, he didn’t explain why this was the case. Given that the interconnect agreement goes back to 1961 you do have to wonder what goes through their minds and, more importantly, why journalists don’t ask these questions.
Its almost like they think the EU are a bunch of small minded, vindictive, bureaucrats who will cut off their noses to spite their faces if they don’t get their own way.
Thanks Noel,
I’d heard clips and will make time to listen to it all.
MBE As someone who has participated in this merry-go-round, let me tell you how wacky it all is. In EU research grant parlance, ‘fully funded’ means that you get half the costs of the project as bid for (that is, if you get it) and the other half comes by costing the time of staff at the University on a semi-commercial basis. My Uni (at the time) refused to let me submit on the rounds that it was dodgy. The funds coming back are a fraction of what the UK put in, so the UK post Brexit could fund research, like the Swiss do, which means in their case if the pan-European project gets funded, the Swiss will pay for the participation of the Swiss element.
The UK does have research funding bodies, but the funds there are limited because of what goes to the EU, and they are pretty well sewn up for the Russell Group Unis.
Bloke in North Dorset
One factor is that so many fervent Remainers don’t know, or chose to forget, how much co-operation there was with then Common Market countries before we were joined.
They also attribute every change in society they like since 1973 to our membership of the EU. I can only assume that they think that non-EU countries like Canada, Norway, Australia and Switzerland must be backward hell-holes.
Thanks all for the replies. Enlightening.
Off topic but an old canard that occasionally gets ripped apart on here is that Ford paid his workers so much because this meant they could buy his cars and the move therefore improved his profits. You don’t need more than a smidgeon of business sense to realise this is nonsensical (just to claw the money back, Ford would have needed his workers to spend every extra dollar of their pay rise buying his cars…) but it appears in the media and school textbooks again and again. The rather more plausible idea of “efficiency wages” to prevent eg massive employee turnover rarely gets a look in.
Anyway, I’ve just had inflicted upon me the most ridiculous version of this trope I have ever seen, quite possibly the daftest ever written. On the matter of why firms started giving staff a two-day weekend, BBC Bitesize – their school exam revision brand – informs us that:
“Henry Ford, the legendary car maker, made Saturday and Sunday days off for his staff as early as 1926 and he was also keen to set down a 40-hour working week. An altruistic move in part, it also gave his workers the opportunity to spend their down time buying the products they made and keeping the cash circulating through the Ford system.”
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/articles/zf22kmn
Because giving workers an extra day off means they spend every weekend shopping for cars??? I’d at least understand where the writer was coming from if they were talking about a brewery’s employees spending their newfound downtime buying up their employer’s output, but what must have been passing through their brain to say that about an automobile manufacturer for goodness sake?
Filed and we’ll see what they say:
You tell us that Ford’s 40 hour working week “gave his workers the opportunity to spend their down time buying the products they made and keeping the cash circulating through the Ford system.” An insane contention. No one, ever, has got rich by getting their own workers to buy their own products. It simply doesn’t work. Think on it, to make a car you need steel, rubber, seats and so on. If Ford raises wages, he pays all the costs of that wage raise. But when the workers come to spend the money on cars then he’s also got to buy the steel, the seats, the rubber, for his cars. As well as pay the extra wages to make them. He loses on this deal. He cannot possibly win on it. I did the numbers here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fords-5-a-day-wages-its-not-what-you-think/ Further, no one actually does believe that the workers then spent their higher wages on buying only cars. All of the same is true with greater leisure and spending time. It simply doesn’t work. It’s a nonsense. What does make sense is “efficiency wages”. It takes time to find and train up a new worker. People who are worked too hard for what they think is too little will quit. Meaning you’ve got to go find and train someone else. Ford was getting through 50,000 workers a year to keep 13,000 working. That’s a lot of training costs. It was cheaper to pay more, give more leisure time, and keep the skilled workers. Cheaper than keeping wages to a minimum and having to train all the time. Which is what efficiency wages means. So, if you’re trying to teach people about working hours, pay, conditions, would be helpful if you actually told them what we know about them. Instead of foisting myths upon them. No one has ever raised wages, nor time off, so as to get the workers spending more of their money on the products they make. Because doing so doesn’t make sense. They have improved working conditions so as to keep trained workers. So, why not say that?
” what must have been passing through their brain to say that about an automobile manufacturer for goodness sake?”
They want it to be true, because it supports their ideological stance, ergo it must be true.
Its becoming increasingly obvious that the Left are pathological liars. A fact is whatever they want it to be, and it can be different from one argument to the next, with no care for principles, hypocrisy or shame.
The Left do not accept objective reality and truth. Of course they lie–the concept is meaningless to them. They say whatever they calculate serves their evil cause.
All the more reason to work for their destruction.
Sundays off only arrived in 1926???? How did my great-great-grandmother get to church?
Re universities and EU research collaboration, a google of the world’s top 100 universities reveals that 29 are in the US, 18 in the UK and only 12 in the continental EU (the best of which is ranked 50th).
On this basis, being unable to collaborate with EU universities post-Brexit will boost the intellectual productivity of British universities.
“On this basis, being unable to collaborate with EU universities post-Brexit will boost the intellectual productivity of British universities.”
But of course reduce the availability of boondoggles in nice European cities for UK university staff, which would never do…………..
“The Left do not accept objective reality and truth.”
Exactly. The Left thinks the Right invented truth and reality to confuse people.
The Ford wages myth is like the gender wage gap, or the recently fashionable idea that medieval peasants spent most of their time kicking back and chillaxing in their eco-friendly huts because capitalism hadn’t been invented yet to oppress them.
They believe this stuff because they want to believe it. The Left doesn’t even do Hegelian dialectic anymore, because thinking is hard and not very inclusive. Their new model is Storybook International.
Project Fear turning into Project Hysteria
More likely would be direct rule of Scotland as Sturgeon & SNP go full loony and are sectioned.
Perhaps direct rule of RoI would be worth considering.
@rhoda
Good idea
Tillbrook Case
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/06/14/2-court-cases-arguing-the-uk-has-already-left-the-eu/
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1152309/brexit-news-article-50-extension-robin-tilbrook-theresa-may-court-case-appeal
@BiND
Yep JRM’s banned words and phrases is excellent – it’s “say what you mean, don’t obfuscate or be woke”.
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-07-26/itv-news-exclusive-jacob-rees-mogg-issues-style-guide-to-staff/
.
@Jim
The Wellcome Trust – hijacked by Left PC SJWs. Proves Tim’s rule of don’t create Trusts/Foundations, the bureaucrats will take them over.
.
@jgh July 27, 2019 at 6:29 pm
Maybe she was a Jew?
Imagine how many cars the modern employee could buy without the State taking 40% of those extra wages!! Volkswagen, be gone!
@Tim Worstall July 27, 2019 at 5:27 pm
Good work.
Following Ofcom fining RT for not being impartial; you may wish to report this BBC article to Ofcom.
@Tim and others
Cheers. It was so barmy it made me laugh but the fact it’s on what was a well-reputed education website (formerly at least – it’s gone massively downhill recently, for some reason it’s become infested with woke dating articles – it looks like it’s been handed over to the journalist interns rather than the education professionals who used to run it) did make me shudder…
Many years ago I had a chat with the then 16 year old son of my neighbour who couldn’t see the point of University as his dad hadn’t gone but had done just fine (in film and advertising). I pointed out that (thanks to Blair) if 50% were now going to ‘Uni’, not having a degree would probably be more of a problem than it was in his Dad’s day. He took my advice and 20 years or so later he basically still hasn’t left. He is an ‘academic’ working in the field of , you guessed it, Climate change. He is a nice guy, but basically he has never done a proper job. He lives off government, and particularly EU, grants to go and look at the arctic a lot and write reports arguing for further research to be done. His champagne socialist mum was fretting about Brexit as he might lose ‘his funding for all the marvellous work he does” and seemed rather non plussed when I pointed out that the EU were simply recycling British taxpayers money and that the UK could simply “cut out the middle man”, especially when I added, “assuming the UK government agrees with its value”.
Notice how they had a big piece about the arctic being on fire in Siberia , ignoring that in order for the tree line to be above the arctic circle you need higher than typical temperatures due to some underlying geographic issues in the first place.
@ Mark T – You’ve a lot to answer for 🙂
I’m married to a SJW who’s a senior manager at a top ranking University.
Obviously she’s totally against Brexit because Britain is too small to stand on our own without being part of the EU and we’ll always be the junior partner in any trade deal taking whatever we get offered.
I told her how I’d start a trade agreement with the Americans. Free trade in cars (cheaper Range Rovers, Jags, Minis and Nissans for them, cheaper Teslas, Mustangs and Corvettes for us), alcohol (cheaper JD, Californian wine & Brooklyn Lager for us, cheaper whisky, gin and ale for the yanks) and steel. Then build up gradually from there.
She started screaming in my face that the Americans wouldn’t negotiate for anything as trivial as that and the numbers employed in those sectors was very small so it wouldn’t make a difference to the economy.
But the more I about it the more I wonder what else we do trade across the pond that needs a reduction in tariffs? Financial products and pharmaceuticals?
She is convinced that a UK/US trade deal would mean selling out the NHS and taking chlorinated chicken. Her view of why Donald Trump said everything was on the table then said that the NHS didn’t have to be? Because he’d been told to say that. The Donald saying what he’d been told to say sounds very un-Trumpish to me. I did offer to make her a tin foil hat.
If Boris can agree an outline trade deal with the Americans before October it will put the shits up the EC, which is what we need.
Needless to say the Mrs despises Boris, hated St Maggie and doesn’t seem to get JRM. It’s lefties (the Leftwaffe in current Twitter parlance) who were wrong about Thatcher, the Euro, Tony Blair etc who are so against Brexit that are convincing me it’s the right course.
Battery Chicken
That seems a sad, desperate, isolated life for you.
Our condolences.
@Battery Chicken
Why did you marry Mrs Chicken; why are you still married to her?
Don’t your neighbours complain about all the screaming & plate throwing?
I echo BlokeInTejasInNormandy
Mrs Battery Chicken has many positives and by and large isn’t a mentalist
@BC
Good to hear, may it long continue.
Tim,
Ignoring all the other sound points about retention of staff etc, doubling a wage sure might enable someone to buy the product.
It’s precisely because of all the extra materials etc that the incremental cost of the car is relatively small compared to the increased purchasing ability of those staff producing the cars.
Of course, they won’t be buying one every year. It’s more a case of: if a member of staff can make say 50 cars in 10 years (the life of a car – the actual numbers don’t matter here, it’s for illustration), then does doubling their wage (a relatively small increase in the price of each car) better enable them to do purchase one of those 50 at some stage? Of course it does – and it’s because of all the additional costs of production.that that’s true.
No. Sure, you want everyone else to double the wages of their workers so they can buy your product. But that’s exactly why it can never work if you’re going to double your own wages in the hope of getting that money back again.
I get the macro argument against (everyone does exactly the same, inflation / currency devaluation etc) . And if the employer’s reason is simply to “get that money back again”, then sure I agree, that’s nonsense.
But, to help give his workers the opportunity to buy the products they made, of course that works, in itself (as a single event) – the arithmetic is straightforward. That was the point I was trying to make (and yes I accept it’ll be at the expense of what others can buy).
@Tim Worstall
Any reply from BBC?
.
@PF
Yep, the arithmetic is straightforward – costs higher than profits
5% Workers buy a Ford, 95% say meh we will buy better food at Walmart & a Disney holiday.
Perhaps you think employers should pay staff with vouchers only redeemable in employer shop?
Pcar
Good point.
I only said “the opportunity” to buy the products they made, I didn’t insist that they turned down the wonders of Walmart, heaven forbid!
But, to keep the oiks honest (and so that the arithmetic could be guaranteed) I like your voucher system… “Work for Ford, you gotta run a Ford”. Hey, there are worse things (back at the time)!
@PF
Not my idea. Some employers really did the “voucher pay” pre C20
Wouldn’t be surprised if still happening in some places/employers