If everyone here knows that there are two sides to the process, it would be awesome if your language demonstrated this. I'm not psychic. I can only go on what I read... such as regular references to "her" deal.
We get it. The word "deal" by very definition implies more than one party. You don't need to be psychic any more than anyone else on this thread to understand that "May's deal" means "May's deal with the EU". Which other deal could we possibly be talking about? I really don't understand why you are making such a big deal about this and bogging the thread down with such minutiae. It is actually completely obvious to all of us except you.
@orfeo, I may be completely wrong on this - it happens often - but you deliberately left out the meat of my point and the comments of people who agreed with me. That kinda makes my point that you are missing the point.
One last time:
The EU has been totally consistent and transparent from their side.
The UK (in the person of the Prime Minister) has instituted specific Red Lines which have led (because of the EU's consistent, logical and legal position) inexorably to this draft deal. Thus, not only is it accurate to call it May's Deal, it is particularly informative. It's almost a physics experiment: If I have these starting conditions then this will be the outcomes. Mrs May (and her Government) is responsible for the starting conditions. The reason why the EU side get so little mention specifically is that we know how they will react to the moves of the UK government; why? Because it is guided by the treaties and EU law and has been in the public domain since at least March 2017, if not before.
Interesting counter point: if you read the tweets, articles, and FB comments of Leavers (as I still do), they constantly refer to EU politicians. As-in, the EU are bullying us or Junker and Barnier want to punish the UK. The irony here is that those of us who refer to May's Deal here are completely cognisant of the role and legitimate interests of the EU27 that the Brexiteers keep blithely ignoring.
Not only is is accurate to refer to May's Deal it is particularly informative.
AFZ
Fine I'll not only read you this time, I'll quote you.
You seem intensely interested in how the deal came about. I seem unable to convey to you that all I am discussing is the identity of the parties to the deal.
You're like one of those students who sees a question in an exam and thinks "this is my cue to repeat absolutely everything I learned in class about this subject", which kind of works in the earlier stages of education, but by the later stages the examiner wants to know if you can filter through the things you've learned and work out which few bits are actually germane to the question.
I raised one very, very specific thing. Your response, repeatedly, is to tell me as much of the context around that thing as you possibly can to justify why your inaccurate reference to only one party of a 2-party deal is understandable and justifiable. I never said it wasn't understandable. I said that it was inaccurate.
Australia has a free trade agreement with the United States (in fact we have a number of bilateral agreement of this type).
Around here it is usually called the US free trade agreement. This is completely understandable.
I suspect that if anyone talks about it in the US, they call it the Australia(n) free trade agreement. Again, totally understandable.
Neither term is accurate. The name of the agreement is the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
All I'm saying to you (and meeting quite amazing resistance to this proposition) is that it's not accurate to call it the Theresa May deal because a deal quite evidently needs at least 2 parties and it would be more accurate to describe it by reference to both parties involved. Not least because both Theresa May and the EU probably have quite a few other deals they've made with other people, that are different from the deal they've made with each other.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm quite done with this particular aspect of linguistic incompetence.
Australia has a free trade agreement with the United States (in fact we have a number of bilateral agreement of this type).
Around here it is usually called the US free trade agreement. This is completely understandable.
I suspect that if anyone talks about it in the US, they call it the Australia(n) free trade agreement. Again, totally understandable.
Neither term is accurate. The name of the agreement is the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
All I'm saying to you (and meeting quite amazing resistance to this proposition) is that it's not accurate to call it the Theresa May deal because a deal quite evidently needs at least 2 parties and it would be more accurate to describe it by reference to both parties involved. Not least because both Theresa May and the EU probably have quite a few other deals they've made with other people, that are different from the deal they've made with each other.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm quite done with this particular aspect of linguistic incompetence.
Nope, still missing the point.
To be strictly accurate it is a draft deal between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Union (and specifically here we mean the European Union as it will exist post 29th March 2019, as a 27-member body).
All of what I have just written is specifically accurate. It is not remotely informative.
The reason why people refer to it as May's Deal is because that tells you a lot about the contents of the Deal for the reasons I seem to have bored you with.
A deal, by definition is between two parties - you seem to be caught on the tautology. Conversely, whilst it would be true to say that the Deal is between May's Government and the EU27 (allowing for certain sematic quibbles there...) that doesn't add anything to just calling it May's Deal because we know (to a high degree of certainty) how the EU will react to UK moves. By contrast, A putative Corbyn Deal, involving the UK being in a UK-EU customs deal may be possible. We can only call it putative because as Corbyn is not the Prime Minister, he has no power to negotiate with the EU but we have some sense of what such a hypothetical deal might look like because, once again, the EU's position has been both transparent and consistent. The thing is, the means of how we got here are totally germane to the point.
You see, the reason I felt minded to bother to respond to you a page or so back, is because your ire is misplaced. The people you are attacking for using the phrase are the very ones who know and consciously acknowledge that there are two sides to this. It is beautifully ironic. And now boring.
I mean, you all say "yes we know the EU is involved in the deal with Theresa May", but if any of you actually mentioned the EU without prompting, rather than constantly discussing UK politicians, I wouldn't be feeling the need to point out that you're completely failing to acknowledge the EU's role in "her" deal.
Well, since the thread title refers to a specific UK politician it's not really that much of a surprise if that's what we keep going on about.
And, we all use short hand, especially when the meaning is clear. If it's OK to refer to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement as "US free trade agreement" in an Australian context because everyone knows what it is, why can't we use "May's Deal" when we all know what it means - and, it's informative as it isn't what was sought by other members of the UK government (including a succession of ministers appointed to produce a deal ... we don't have Davis' deal or Raab's deal).
How dare you have a point, Alan? It only impedes people's ability to vent frustration from their helplessness in electing representational leadership in the face of collective humanity's stupidity.
Now I have calmed down a little, it is slightly heartening that I think other UK shipmates feel some of the same anger at the behaviour of our "leaders".
I have been frustrated for 2 years. Now I am angry and scared. This might kill me. This WILL kill people. Just so some assholes can make more money. The lack of humanity in this government still astounds me.
I mean, you all say "yes we know the EU is involved in the deal with Theresa May", but if any of you actually mentioned the EU without prompting, rather than constantly discussing UK politicians, I wouldn't be feeling the need to point out that you're completely failing to acknowledge the EU's role in "her" deal.
Well, since the thread title refers to a specific UK politician it's not really that much of a surprise if that's what we keep going on about.
And, we all use short hand, especially when the meaning is clear. If it's OK to refer to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement as "US free trade agreement" in an Australian context because everyone knows what it is, why can't we use "May's Deal" when we all know what it means - and, it's informative as it isn't what was sought by other members of the UK government (including a succession of ministers appointed to produce a deal ... we don't have Davis' deal or Raab's deal).
If the relevant category is "deals with the EU" the adjective is superfluous. That's why.
It's not "May's Deal", it's the only deal. It's THE deal. And tacking an adjective onto it is a key part of the fairytale thinking that believes there is some other deal with a different adjective.
There isn't. Any other "deal" isn't one at all, it's a proposed negotiation position to take back to the EU in the hope that the EU will reject the deal.
If I believed in this context that you all actually knew what it is, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We're having this conversation precisely because time and again myself and Eutychus find ourselves wondering whether UK folk understand there is precisely one deal on the table, and everything else is no more than mutterings about whether to take the deal or not.
To put it another way, if you're going to use shorthand, the shorthand that actually makes any sense is "the deal with the EU".
I had vaguely wondered if any of you would notice that in the Australia-US example, the shorthand refers to the other party. But no. You think that "her deal" is equivalent. It's the exact opposite. It'd be like Australians calling the AUSFTA "our deal".
You're so insular and obsessed with your representative in the deal that you drop mention of who the deal is with.
It's not "May's Deal", it's the only deal. It's THE deal.
Ye gods, @orfeo, you really are labouring the most basic point that, from my reading of the thread, pretty much everyone here has grasped and then moved beyond in the conversation. You can keep insisting that no-one has ‘got’ it, but it really is you missing the point over and over.
It’s the UK politicians you need to aim your invective at. They’re the ones in la la land.
And you know what, that’s what folk here are doing. It’s a Hell thread about Theresa May, where we get to vent at the shit she and her Tory predecessors have dumped on our country. Stop reading the thread as if it’s a cerebral debate, and read it as if it’s something like the cancer Hell thread. People are saying ‘fuck you’ to Theresa May’s deal [proposed agreement with the EU etc. etc. etc.] in the same way that people say ‘fuck you’ to cancer. Not because they think they can negotiate a different outcome, but precisely because she’s been forcing us down a path that means that, as you say, that her deal is the only deal.
And I’m going to continue to call it her deal, not because I’ve forgotten that the EU exists (how the fuck could anyone in the UK?), or because I think that there’s a magical alternative option (other than no deal), but because she needs to own the shit decisions that she’s consistently made as prime minister, and, well because SHE’S the prime minister. If someone else was PM it’d be their deal, and it would probably look very different. And maybe they wouldn’t have made it all about them*, so we’d be less inclined to focus on it being their proposed deal per se. But I digress.
Anyway, as I tried to say earlier (before you just totally dismissed it), you’re missing the point. You’re not wrong, you’re just shooting wildly in the wrong direction.
* You know, by having a cross party negotiation team from the start.
Meanwhile it must be terrifying to be in RoI. I can't see any way that they're not totally fucked in the event of no-deal.
The NI-RoI is one thing and *any kind* of border will stuff up trade. But East-West trade must surely be even worse. I don't have the figures, but I believe a significant amount of goods travels to RoI overland via England and Wales. There is nothing in place to move this trade to (very long) ferries, is there?
So the RoI government (gawd bless them*) is doing all they can to retain the backstop - and protect the whole of Ireland from complete chaos. The British are doing all they can to undermine the backstop - because ultimately they don't want any form of regulatory alignment.
But the effect of RoI's policy is that no-deal becomes more likely.
And if there is no-deal, they're fucked.
* I mean that, they're heroically fighting something they have very little control over
Mmm, ok. Apparently some in RoI think that it is all going to be fine-and-dandy because they're a net exporter of food and because the EU will ramp up structural payments in the event of no-deal.
If the relevant category is "deals with the EU" the adjective is superfluous. That's why.
It's not "May's Deal", it's the only deal. It's THE deal. And tacking an adjective onto it is a key part of the fairytale thinking that believes there is some other deal with a different adjective.
Yes, of course at this moment in time it is the only deal between the UK and EU. It's not the only deal that we could have had, even if to get to any of those other potential deals we wouldn't start from where we are (ie: there's no obvious route by which getting another deal would appear to be even remotely possible). And, the point is that it's a fucking awful deal, the inevitable result of the red lines that Mrs May unilaterally picked out of her head - they're certainly not red lines defined by the 2016 vote result, nor defined by her own party, or a decision of Parliament, red lines that she couldn't even trust Brexit ministers to stick to so she forced her way through the negotiations sidelining the ministers she appointed to manage the process. And, because she set out without first finding out if her red lines would be acceptable to her own MPs and at least some opposition MPs she's now negotiated a deal that is unacceptable to the vast majority of MPs with no way out but to try and bully MPs into voting for something they dislike (by making an even more loathsome alternative the default if they don't).
And, several of us are angry that she's taken the course she has, that she never bothered to find an alternative that would be more acceptable, and that she's constantly shown this massive disrespect for British democracy and people while waving the "will of the people" and "respect the referendum" cards as though they somehow trump obstinate stupidity. I admit that as we get closer to the cliff what we've been saying for years shows increasing exasperation.
The deal is on the table but almost anyone with a braincell would have been able to get a different one - if they'd not been motivated by Mrs May's xenophobia.
Lord Ashcroft's election day poll of 12,369 voters also discovered that 'One third (33%) [of leave voters] said the main reason was that leaving "offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders."'
Immediately prior to the referendum, data from Ipsos-Mori showed that immigration/migration was the most cited issue when Britons were asked 'What do you see as the most/other important issue facing Britain today?', with 48% of respondents mentioning it when surveyed (...) According to The Economist, areas that saw increases of over 200% in foreign-born population between 2001 and 2014 saw a majority of voters back leave in 94% of cases
Yeah but, that is based on the belief that the 200% increase in those areas is due to the EU - and it isn't.
There were measures the UK government could have used in the context of the EU (and would still be able to in a customs union) that they didn't choose to, and there are measures they could have taken in regard to domestic legislation which they also didn't choose to.
Meanwhile, leaving the EU, will not necessarily reduce migration if the libertarian leavers opt for a deregulated version of leave - they'll just ship in folk from elsewhere and pay them less.
Or, perhaps people or over Europe need to realise that despite the actually quite small challenges it brings, overall it a of massive benefit.
One could even say it's vital in countries with an aging population...
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to immigration. But I think that one of the causes of the populist backlash in many Western countries is the absence of a reasoned immigration policy (what is the Democrat policy on immigration to the US again, please?), or a refusal to face the challenges posed by mass immigration due to climate change.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to immigration. But I think that one of the causes of the populist backlash in many Western countries is the absence of a reasoned immigration policy (what is the Democrat policy on immigration to the US again, please?), or a refusal to face the challenges posed by mass immigration due to climate change.
I didn't think you were. But the evidence thus far is that pandering has spectacularly failed.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to immigration. But I think that one of the causes of the populist backlash in many Western countries is the absence of a reasoned immigration policy (what is the Democrat policy on immigration to the US again, please?), or a refusal to face the challenges posed by mass immigration due to climate change.
I didn't think you were. But the evidence thus far is that pandering has spectacularly failed.
AFZ
On the contrary, pandering to populism has succeeded brilliantly in keeping successive goverments in power. It has succeeded in demonising minorities: people with different ethnicity, skin colour, religion and culture; the poor, the unemployed and sick and disabled. In doing so it has got the genuinely guilty parties off the hook, which includes those in Brussels who live off the fat of the land, but they are nothing as to those who have gained massively as a result of neo-liberalism and what is purported to be free trade.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to immigration. But I think that one of the causes of the populist backlash in many Western countries is the absence of a reasoned immigration policy (what is the Democrat policy on immigration to the US again, please?), or a refusal to face the challenges posed by mass immigration due to climate change.
I didn't think you were. But the evidence thus far is that pandering has spectacularly failed.
AFZ
On the contrary, pandering to populism has succeeded brilliantly in keeping successive goverments in power. It has succeeded in demonising minorities: people with different ethnicity, skin colour, religion and culture; the poor, the unemployed and sick and disabled. In doing so it has got the genuinely guilty parties off the hook, which includes those in Brussels who live off the fat of the land, but they are nothing as to those who have gained massively as a result of neo-liberalism and what is purported to be free trade.
All I'm saying here is that I don't think May should be turned into a scapegoat in such a way as to pretend that xenophobia and nasty nationalism aren't views shared by many of our compatriots on either side of the Channel.
All I'm saying here is that I don't think May should be turned into a scapegoat in such a way as to pretend that xenophobia and nasty nationalism aren't views shared by many of our compatriots on either side of the Channel.
She's the fucking PM and is forcing us into a position that the majority don't want.
It's not scapegoating, get your head out of your arse.
All I'm saying here is that I don't think May should be turned into a scapegoat in such a way as to pretend that xenophobia and nasty nationalism aren't views shared by many of our compatriots on either side of the Channel.
She's the fucking PM and is forcing us into a position that the majority don't want.
It's not scapegoating, get your head out of your arse.
Eutychus isn't being unreasonable, he's just pointing out that authoritarianism is very popular on bother sides of La Manche (and both sides of The Pond too).
All I'm saying here is that I don't think May should be turned into a scapegoat in such a way as to pretend that xenophobia and nasty nationalism aren't views shared by many of our compatriots on either side of the Channel.
She's the fucking PM and is forcing us into a position that the majority don't want.
It's not scapegoating, get your head out of your arse.
Eutychus isn't being unreasonable, he's just pointing out that authoritarianism is very popular on bother sides of La Manche (and both sides of The Pond too).
The majority are not xenophobes in this country - the PM is way out on a limb in believing the referendum result was all about EU migrants.
A significant proportion of leave voters didn't want to exit the CM or restrict FOM.
The majority are not xenophobes in this country - the PM is way out on a limb in believing the referendum result was all about EU migrants.
A significant proportion of leave voters didn't want to exit the CM or restrict FOM.
If that is the case why did leave voters vote leave? FWIW I reckon about 20% of the population are outright racists and another 30% casually so. FFS, it's the default setting for mankind as a whole to prefer those of the same kind or type. It isn't healthy or reasonable,
it just is.
The majority are not xenophobes in this country - the PM is way out on a limb in believing the referendum result was all about EU migrants.
A significant proportion of leave voters didn't want to exit the CM or restrict FOM.
If that is the case why did leave voters vote leave? FWIW I reckon about 20% of the population are outright racists and another 30% casually so. FFS, it's the default setting for mankind as a whole to prefer those of the same kind or type. It isn't healthy or reasonable,
it just is.
If that's the case, they're lying when there is a consistent number of Leave voters who say that they do not want to limit FOM.
Lord Ashcroft's election day poll of 12,369 voters also discovered that 'One third (33%) [of leave voters] said the main reason was that leaving "offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders."'
Just to make the point, one third of leave voters is one third of one third of the country. That's one ninth of the country who felt strongly enough about cutting immigration to turn out and vote for tighter borders in the referendum (as they perceived it). Theresa May's been acting as if they represented the other eight ninths of us, and it is only their voice that matters.*
She might have voted remain, but she's always been anti-immigration. And she's made Brexit into much more an anti-immigration issue than it ever was, when that's not what the referendum was primarily framed as at the time.
@goperryrevs The failure of the two-thirds not to turn out is also not Mrs May's fault. The populists have the advantage of conviction and mobilisation. As with Trump, hand-wringing after the event isn't enough: conviction for an alternative and mobilisation is needed.
@goperryrevs The failure of the two-thirds not to turn out is also not Mrs May's fault. The populists have the advantage of conviction and mobilisation. As with Trump, hand-wringing after the event isn't enough: conviction for an alternative and mobilisation is needed.
True, but as PM it's her duty not to just pander to a minority of populists, but to lead with wisdom and proportion. The problem is the alternatives can't make their minds up and unite either. And when you're against the power of the right wing press it's an uphill battle. I'd love to do more than hand-wring, though, yeah.
Right here and now, in February 2019, the thing that makes me most angry is that so many things are going to shit because everyone is chasing their tails, unicorns and imaginary referenda.
Nobody seems to accept that large numbers of EU citizens will leave (and are already leaving) because of the complexity of the bureaucracy of the immigration system. People are just going to say "fuck it" and leave. Even if they could have fought the system and won. Because they don't need that.
Then we'll have fucking huge holes in the fabric of our society with nobody to fill them. If/when doctors and nurses leave, where will others come from?
Where is the organisation of standards? Importers of electronics to the EU currently use a CE standard, in future they'll have to use a UK equivalent.
Is anyone seriously imagining that's going to be done before end of March?
Ok, yeah, maybe with time these are not insurmountable problems - but at present they're all going to come to a head on a day in March, and nobody has a fucking clue how to ride the chaos. And if they can't somehow get on top of it in the short-term, there is a good chance of it totally spiralling out of control in the longer term.
Has it occurred to Treeza that if the Government expects the fallout after Brexit to be so bad that they have to make plans to evacuate the Queen*, the whole thing might really not be a very good idea?
With the news that Nissan has pulled the plug on its proposed investment in Sutherland came the most wonderful example of confirmation bias from a particularly stupid woman on the news last night, who claimed that it was all the fault of Remainers as they had created the uncertainty that Nissan were complaining about.
Has it occurred to Treeza that if the Government expects the fallout after Brexit to be so bad that they have to make plans to evacuate the Queen*, the whole thing might really not be a very good idea?
* among other extraordinary emergency measures
The irony being, it's consistently been people on the Leave side who have threatened violent protests if they don't get their way (and, have form for violence including murder of MPs). Brexit will lead to millions on the streets in protest, but the most likely place for a breach of the peace would be the rush on the sandwich section of the local Waitrose.
Comments
We get it. The word "deal" by very definition implies more than one party. You don't need to be psychic any more than anyone else on this thread to understand that "May's deal" means "May's deal with the EU". Which other deal could we possibly be talking about? I really don't understand why you are making such a big deal about this and bogging the thread down with such minutiae. It is actually completely obvious to all of us except you.
Fine I'll not only read you this time, I'll quote you.
You seem intensely interested in how the deal came about. I seem unable to convey to you that all I am discussing is the identity of the parties to the deal.
You're like one of those students who sees a question in an exam and thinks "this is my cue to repeat absolutely everything I learned in class about this subject", which kind of works in the earlier stages of education, but by the later stages the examiner wants to know if you can filter through the things you've learned and work out which few bits are actually germane to the question.
I raised one very, very specific thing. Your response, repeatedly, is to tell me as much of the context around that thing as you possibly can to justify why your inaccurate reference to only one party of a 2-party deal is understandable and justifiable. I never said it wasn't understandable. I said that it was inaccurate.
Australia has a free trade agreement with the United States (in fact we have a number of bilateral agreement of this type).
Around here it is usually called the US free trade agreement. This is completely understandable.
I suspect that if anyone talks about it in the US, they call it the Australia(n) free trade agreement. Again, totally understandable.
Neither term is accurate. The name of the agreement is the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.
All I'm saying to you (and meeting quite amazing resistance to this proposition) is that it's not accurate to call it the Theresa May deal because a deal quite evidently needs at least 2 parties and it would be more accurate to describe it by reference to both parties involved. Not least because both Theresa May and the EU probably have quite a few other deals they've made with other people, that are different from the deal they've made with each other.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm quite done with this particular aspect of linguistic incompetence.
Gee, I don't know, how about all the ones happening in the House of Commons or the Conservative Party or the Cabinet? FFS.
Because the whole fucking point has been that people in the UK seem far more obsessed about those than about the ultimate goal.
Nope, still missing the point.
To be strictly accurate it is a draft deal between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the European Union (and specifically here we mean the European Union as it will exist post 29th March 2019, as a 27-member body).
All of what I have just written is specifically accurate. It is not remotely informative.
The reason why people refer to it as May's Deal is because that tells you a lot about the contents of the Deal for the reasons I seem to have bored you with.
A deal, by definition is between two parties - you seem to be caught on the tautology. Conversely, whilst it would be true to say that the Deal is between May's Government and the EU27 (allowing for certain sematic quibbles there...) that doesn't add anything to just calling it May's Deal because we know (to a high degree of certainty) how the EU will react to UK moves. By contrast, A putative Corbyn Deal, involving the UK being in a UK-EU customs deal may be possible. We can only call it putative because as Corbyn is not the Prime Minister, he has no power to negotiate with the EU but we have some sense of what such a hypothetical deal might look like because, once again, the EU's position has been both transparent and consistent. The thing is, the means of how we got here are totally germane to the point.
You see, the reason I felt minded to bother to respond to you a page or so back, is because your ire is misplaced. The people you are attacking for using the phrase are the very ones who know and consciously acknowledge that there are two sides to this. It is beautifully ironic. And now boring.
AFZ
So am I, but mostly because of Brexit.
AFZ
And in Wales we get to choose the name of our destination. Only the name though.
And, we all use short hand, especially when the meaning is clear. If it's OK to refer to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement as "US free trade agreement" in an Australian context because everyone knows what it is, why can't we use "May's Deal" when we all know what it means - and, it's informative as it isn't what was sought by other members of the UK government (including a succession of ministers appointed to produce a deal ... we don't have Davis' deal or Raab's deal).
I have been frustrated for 2 years. Now I am angry and scared. This might kill me. This WILL kill people. Just so some assholes can make more money. The lack of humanity in this government still astounds me.
If the relevant category is "deals with the EU" the adjective is superfluous. That's why.
It's not "May's Deal", it's the only deal. It's THE deal. And tacking an adjective onto it is a key part of the fairytale thinking that believes there is some other deal with a different adjective.
There isn't. Any other "deal" isn't one at all, it's a proposed negotiation position to take back to the EU in the hope that the EU will reject the deal.
If I believed in this context that you all actually knew what it is, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We're having this conversation precisely because time and again myself and Eutychus find ourselves wondering whether UK folk understand there is precisely one deal on the table, and everything else is no more than mutterings about whether to take the deal or not.
I had vaguely wondered if any of you would notice that in the Australia-US example, the shorthand refers to the other party. But no. You think that "her deal" is equivalent. It's the exact opposite. It'd be like Australians calling the AUSFTA "our deal".
You're so insular and obsessed with your representative in the deal that you drop mention of who the deal is with.
Ye gods, @orfeo, you really are labouring the most basic point that, from my reading of the thread, pretty much everyone here has grasped and then moved beyond in the conversation. You can keep insisting that no-one has ‘got’ it, but it really is you missing the point over and over.
It’s the UK politicians you need to aim your invective at. They’re the ones in la la land.
And you know what, that’s what folk here are doing. It’s a Hell thread about Theresa May, where we get to vent at the shit she and her Tory predecessors have dumped on our country. Stop reading the thread as if it’s a cerebral debate, and read it as if it’s something like the cancer Hell thread. People are saying ‘fuck you’ to Theresa May’s deal [proposed agreement with the EU etc. etc. etc.] in the same way that people say ‘fuck you’ to cancer. Not because they think they can negotiate a different outcome, but precisely because she’s been forcing us down a path that means that, as you say, that her deal is the only deal.
And I’m going to continue to call it her deal, not because I’ve forgotten that the EU exists (how the fuck could anyone in the UK?), or because I think that there’s a magical alternative option (other than no deal), but because she needs to own the shit decisions that she’s consistently made as prime minister, and, well because SHE’S the prime minister. If someone else was PM it’d be their deal, and it would probably look very different. And maybe they wouldn’t have made it all about them*, so we’d be less inclined to focus on it being their proposed deal per se. But I digress.
Anyway, as I tried to say earlier (before you just totally dismissed it), you’re missing the point. You’re not wrong, you’re just shooting wildly in the wrong direction.
* You know, by having a cross party negotiation team from the start.
The NI-RoI is one thing and *any kind* of border will stuff up trade. But East-West trade must surely be even worse. I don't have the figures, but I believe a significant amount of goods travels to RoI overland via England and Wales. There is nothing in place to move this trade to (very long) ferries, is there?
So the RoI government (gawd bless them*) is doing all they can to retain the backstop - and protect the whole of Ireland from complete chaos. The British are doing all they can to undermine the backstop - because ultimately they don't want any form of regulatory alignment.
But the effect of RoI's policy is that no-deal becomes more likely.
And if there is no-deal, they're fucked.
* I mean that, they're heroically fighting something they have very little control over
That seems pretty delusional to me.
I'm sure the Greeks feel the same. Oh wait.
Nailed it.
And, several of us are angry that she's taken the course she has, that she never bothered to find an alternative that would be more acceptable, and that she's constantly shown this massive disrespect for British democracy and people while waving the "will of the people" and "respect the referendum" cards as though they somehow trump obstinate stupidity. I admit that as we get closer to the cliff what we've been saying for years shows increasing exasperation.
The deal is on the table but almost anyone with a braincell would have been able to get a different one - if they'd not been motivated by Mrs May's xenophobia.
Source.
There were measures the UK government could have used in the context of the EU (and would still be able to in a customs union) that they didn't choose to, and there are measures they could have taken in regard to domestic legislation which they also didn't choose to.
Meanwhile, leaving the EU, will not necessarily reduce migration if the libertarian leavers opt for a deregulated version of leave - they'll just ship in folk from elsewhere and pay them less.
People all over Europe need to realise that immigration represents a huge challenge whatever our political persuasions.
Or, perhaps people or over Europe need to realise that despite the actually quite small challenges it brings, overall it a of massive benefit.
One could even say it's vital in countries with an aging population...
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to immigration. But I think that one of the causes of the populist backlash in many Western countries is the absence of a reasoned immigration policy (what is the Democrat policy on immigration to the US again, please?), or a refusal to face the challenges posed by mass immigration due to climate change.
Many areas with low rates of immigrants voted Leave.
People were frightened into believing a lie by Farage and his chums.
I didn't think you were. But the evidence thus far is that pandering has spectacularly failed.
AFZ
On the contrary, pandering to populism has succeeded brilliantly in keeping successive goverments in power. It has succeeded in demonising minorities: people with different ethnicity, skin colour, religion and culture; the poor, the unemployed and sick and disabled. In doing so it has got the genuinely guilty parties off the hook, which includes those in Brussels who live off the fat of the land, but they are nothing as to those who have gained massively as a result of neo-liberalism and what is purported to be free trade.
Fair point.
She's the fucking PM and is forcing us into a position that the majority don't want.
It's not scapegoating, get your head out of your arse.
Eutychus isn't being unreasonable, he's just pointing out that authoritarianism is very popular on bother sides of La Manche (and both sides of The Pond too).
The majority are not xenophobes in this country - the PM is way out on a limb in believing the referendum result was all about EU migrants.
A significant proportion of leave voters didn't want to exit the CM or restrict FOM.
If that is the case why did leave voters vote leave? FWIW I reckon about 20% of the population are outright racists and another 30% casually so. FFS, it's the default setting for mankind as a whole to prefer those of the same kind or type. It isn't healthy or reasonable,
it just is.
If that's the case, they're lying when there is a consistent number of Leave voters who say that they do not want to limit FOM.
Just to make the point, one third of leave voters is one third of one third of the country. That's one ninth of the country who felt strongly enough about cutting immigration to turn out and vote for tighter borders in the referendum (as they perceived it). Theresa May's been acting as if they represented the other eight ninths of us, and it is only their voice that matters.*
She might have voted remain, but she's always been anti-immigration. And she's made Brexit into much more an anti-immigration issue than it ever was, when that's not what the referendum was primarily framed as at the time.
This is what the Brexiteers were actually saying in the build up to the referendum.
* Obviously rounded broad brush figures to make the point.
True, but as PM it's her duty not to just pander to a minority of populists, but to lead with wisdom and proportion. The problem is the alternatives can't make their minds up and unite either. And when you're against the power of the right wing press it's an uphill battle. I'd love to do more than hand-wring, though, yeah.
Nobody seems to accept that large numbers of EU citizens will leave (and are already leaving) because of the complexity of the bureaucracy of the immigration system. People are just going to say "fuck it" and leave. Even if they could have fought the system and won. Because they don't need that.
Then we'll have fucking huge holes in the fabric of our society with nobody to fill them. If/when doctors and nurses leave, where will others come from?
Where is the organisation of standards? Importers of electronics to the EU currently use a CE standard, in future they'll have to use a UK equivalent.
Is anyone seriously imagining that's going to be done before end of March?
Ok, yeah, maybe with time these are not insurmountable problems - but at present they're all going to come to a head on a day in March, and nobody has a fucking clue how to ride the chaos. And if they can't somehow get on top of it in the short-term, there is a good chance of it totally spiralling out of control in the longer term.
* among other extraordinary emergency measures
Lord, my head hurts!