Ignore the blustering brinkmanship: there will be a deal between Britain and the EU. This week, next week or in the final second before the clock strikes 12, this Brexit-crazed government will sign on the line.
It needs no crystal ball to foresee a deal. Though this government is disgraceful and dishonest, it is not certifiably insane. It will not kill off the car industry, manufacturing, farming, finance and fishing. It will not cut off security and police relations with Europe. Nor will it want a hard border in Ireland, breaking the Good Friday agreement. And nor will it freeze friendship with the new US president, nor leave relations with our nearest neighbours and traders irreparably rancorous.
Agreeing to go to WTO terms is a deal so clearly, yes, there will be a deal. For the default is a deal.
Polly doesn;t mean that of course – and we’re about to find out whether she’s right too.
“Though this government is disgraceful and dishonest, it is not certifiably insane”.
Polly, on the other hand……….
A British union with European characteristics?
Unfortunately, I’d be inclined to agree with Pol’s predictions if not her reasoning. I’ve a nasty suspicion what we’ve seen over the past year has been largely theatre. You’ve just been watching a country being brought to its economic knees by a government listening to its “experts”. What makes you think it’s been ignoring its other “ëxperts”?
‘What makes you think it’s been ignoring its other “ëxperts”?’
I’m afraid I think you’re right, BIS.
Sigh!!!
this Brexit-crazed government
Talk about fighting the last war. The stupid old hag has failed to notice that Bozza has bankrupted the nation and introduced a police state. Brexit, good deal, bad deal or no deal, will be a rounding error.
There is no date this year or ever beyond which the UK cannot negotiate with the EU. This ‘deal’ is proposed as a once in a lifetime irrevocable step when it really isn’t. The UK stands to benefit from letting the EU know we WILL be in charge of our own destiny before we reach a long-term relationship where they treat us with the same respect as other countries.
And this idea Polly has of worrying what the US president wants, did she have it before November?
I was listening (well, hearing) Nicola Sturgeon on the wireless yesterday, and with barely a breath in between she said:
Boris is evil for not extending uncertainty by postponing Brexit.
Boris is evil for not hurrying up and getting rid of the uncertainty over Brexit.
I sometimes wonder if she can hear what she’s saying.
I wonder what Boris’s girlyfriend thinks?
That’ll be the decider.
I’m not hopeful by the way.
This sort of stuff is why I, and others, didn’t respect your claims that you had left the EU.
American presidents is interesting. Trump was happy to arrange for trade with GB. Biden et al might actually side with the Continent against GB.
the truth of it is that business survives and thrives IN SPITE of government. Not BECAUSE of it!
“Biden et al might actually side with the Continent against GB.”
I agree with the ‘et al’ part of that but Biden has another 7 weeks to live/avoid full on dementia before he is inaugurated and that’s not a given.
“Biden has another 7 weeks to live/avoid full on dementia before he is inaugurated ”
What’s the betting after. Anyone making a price in days?
C, bis, valid questions.
I can’t get over the Dems cheating to elect HIM. They live in the present.
but Biden has another 7 weeks to live/avoid full on dementia before he is inaugurated and that’s not a given.
Doesn’t matter. Biden is just a drooling placeholder for the permanent establishment, he’ll sign whatever his handlers tell him to.
There’s always the outside chance the massive vote fraud that put him ahead of Trump will end up biting him in the wrinklies, but I assume that’s a slim chance based on the American authorities’ complete lack of interest in doing anything about it and the MSM’s sudden 180 degree pivot from “Russia secretly controls US elections” to “how dare you impugn the divine integrity of US elections”.
Re: Brexit, it only makes a difference to the extent Downing Street wants it to be. If they’re looking for reasons to pull off a fake Brexit, Biden is as good as most (but Covid is better). The special relationship – really more of a common understanding between cosmopolitan Anglo-American elites – is pure cancer and we would be better off without it. Biden will be back to bombing brown people in poor countries within 18 months, and the sooner we get out of that business, the better.
“It will not kill off the car industry, manufacturing, farming, finance and fishing.”
The car industry is mostly irrelevant. Assembly is leaving Western Europe in the long-term. And JLR are recruiting for more engineers. And that’s where most of the value is – designing cars, not putting them together. Farming exports fuck all, the fishing industry similar. We export more whisky around the world than both combined. Manufacturing? Pol probably thinks of low-value production line stuff that went years ago. Most of our manufacturing is specialist and global. The daft bint didn’t seem to notice that Dyson and JCB both wanted out.
“It will not cut off security and police relations with Europe. Nor will it want a hard border in Ireland, breaking the Good Friday agreement.”
Oh yeah, show us that bit of the GFA, Polly. Doesn’t exist, does it? And even if it did, it would Ireland breaking it, you muppet.
Shirley the point about the “negotiations” now is that they are about settling a precedent for future trade negotiations with other countries.
The EC is used to bullying small European countries like Switzerland and Norway into believing that to trade with the EU they have to sacrifice some sovereignty. The EU countries are also used to hoovering up fish leaving a small percentage for the locals.
If they allow the UK to dictate how much fish can be caught and how much sovereignty to give up then other countries will have the same (reasonable) expectations and the EC won’t get its way.
On the other hand the UK side have to be seen to be firm or other countries like the USA will expect to walk all over us from the outset.
One of the biggest mistakes the Leavers made was assuming that the EC would act in the interests of the people of Europe instead of in the interests of the EC.
“EC would act in the interests of the people of Europe”
Has anybody actually ever believed that?
Mark
It’s an article of Remainiac faith…
The Tory shitshow is already insane. It depends how much more fire WoKo OhNo’s boyfriend wants landing on his trench. He has effectively lost his majority and even a few ZaNu dead fish defied Stumour’s “plan”???(to do what?) and voted against. A Brexit sell out as well –after so many months of Frost doing well and with the EU still showing nothing but arrogance- may be a bridge too far even for Blowjob.
The other things happening tonight is that the ill-informed have suddenly discovered that the Dial-111 A&E shitshow is also on. One bloke already recounts going into A&E in a state and being told he’d have to phone 111. He kicked off and was treated on the spot. That is the way to do it as Mr Punch might say.
Johnson –globo elite henchman or not–really is a stupid SOB.
My argument was always that if it did the former there was no particular risk in leaving, as Remainer forecasts of punishment would be proved spurious, but if it did the latter, proving those forecasts right, it would demonstrate the EU was not a club we should want to be a part of.
@TomJ
I suspect we believe the same thing. If the Leave camp had told the truth; the EC would weaponise the Irish border and make leaving as hard as possible to discourage others, then this would have played into Project Fear.
Whether it would have opened any eyes to how malevolent the EC is is another matter.