Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
Reginald Barrington wrote:opportunities coming from our imminent departure
Well, it would be nice to hear that someone is considering in what areas the UK could/should become self-sufficient, I grant you!
(Not my real name.)
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
So the EU is now proposing to block an agreement with us on tracking terrorists and sharing relevant security information? How petty and pathetic is that, put all European lives at risk just to make a point and to carry out yet another “punishment” move.
Just about sums that bunch of t*##*rs up and I wouldn’t be too sorry if further down the line the terrorists next target was the the EU parliament building!
Jan Higgins and howard mcsweeney1 like this
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,657
John, it just shows how petty and if they go ahead with this dangerous some of these bureaucrats can be.
John Buckley likes this
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
Quite right Jan, but should come as no surprise I guess as this behaviour is the norm for that beloved institution in Brussels, bugger the people as long as our project and lifestyles stay in tact.
Yes, without doubt, they are dangerous, very dangerous in fact. We have our own share of nutters of course in both sides of the house in parliament, but at least they are our nutters and if necessary can be got rid of and voted out!
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
Weird Granny Slater- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 2,844
I don't see what all the fuss is about, JB. The Prüm convention (data exchange of, e.g. DNA) is open to all EU members; that's the treaty the UK (eventually, after initially opting-out) signed up to. The Schengen Information System is open to participants of the Schengen Agreement; the UK, like Ireland, is not a signatory, but co-operates under the terms of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Likewise the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS, sharing information on past convictions). The UK has been shy of fully buying into these agreements in any case, so shouldn't really be complaining. But aside from that, the important point is that countries participate in these agreements by virtue of their EU membership. Ergo, when the UK ceases to be an EU member country its right to be a participant in the agreements ceases also. Presumably any policing and security protocols will need to be re-negotiated, with the UK as a third country, just like all the UK's other arrangements with the EU. Nothing new there.
Button and ray hutstone like this
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
dont worry jb, captain crusty and his band of home guard are on patrol 24/7.
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
At least in Granny we have someone in command of the facts. The other sanctimonious, self-righteous bull on here is indicative of why we find ourselves in this mess. If you support the decision to leave, then you have to accept its consequences. As the clock ticks, then project reality will continue to dawn.
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
That’s a fair point granny, but when you read that “ The UK says agreement on vital security co-operation after Brexit is being blocked by EU negotiators “ it makes you actually wonder what the real situation is. The sensible thing is of course to renegotiate, but it doesn’t come across as being quite as easy as that so I hope you are correct in your assumptions.
Thanks Brian, I feel a lot more secure now!
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
ray hutstone wrote:At least in Granny we have someone in command of the facts. The other sanctimonious, self-righteous bull on here is indicative of why we find ourselves in this mess. If you support the decision to leave, then you have to accept its consequences. As the clock ticks, then project reality will continue to dawn.
Your chill pill not clicked in yet today Ray?
Actually we find ourselves in this mess largely down to people like yourself that have attempted to frustrate our hand in the “negotiations”, weakening our bargaining position at every opportunity along with the civil service mandarins and some cabinet ministers.
If the remainers could have found it within themselves to actually accept the decision of the electorate we could have showed a united front to the EU and a better deal would probably already be on the table.
I don’t particularly see what is “sanctimonious and self-righteous bull” about my comments ( apart from disagreeing with your own personal expert view of course )
Jan Higgins likes this
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
My sympathies here lie with the EU negotiating team as they don't what our demands are, in fact I don't know what our demands either as our betters in cabinet are more interested in how their careers will pan out after we leave - not a true statesperson amongst any of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44655080ray hutstone likes this
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#2005 - John - I have absolutely nothing against you personally and apologise sincerely if my posts have ever indicated otherwise (indeed, as you once remarked, I suspect we share a lot of 60s musical influences in common). That said, I am in no need of chill pills as you describe them.
Equally, my conscience doesn't disturb me on such matters. I could rationally argue that the decision of the electorate was taken in 1975 to join the EU. Despite all the propaganda and guff, it has benefited this country enormously. Even Thatcher was aware of that. If you're so keen to defend democracy then why not support a people's vote in a second referendum? At least that would be on the basis on fact rather than the spin and lies of those hell bent on their own self aggrandisement. Nobody knew the end result of our quitting the EU. Not even the politicians who have access to so much information than we do. Those that say "I knew what I was voting for" are talking blatant crap.
Why are you so afraid of a second decision of the electorate once the facts are fully known?
We're not in this mess because of people like me. We're in it because Cameron decided to take on John Major's "bastards" in a ridiculously unprepared way because he though it would shore up his leadership.
My thoughts and concerns are with the young people of this country who will need to carry on after the likes of you and me are gone.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
We voted to join the EEC(common Market) in 1975 Ray, this then became the EC then in 1999 the EU without anyone across Europe being consulted. With the EEC a "T" form made goods free of duties and taxes between Member States but everything still had to clear Customs. I remember clearly being told that 40% of our exports went to the 6 member states prior to joining. This rose slightly afterwards unsurprisingly as Denmark and Ireland had joined and continues to rise as more countries join to enjoy the free money.
The bureaucrats in Brussels have long been berating us as bad Europeans but every Member State that has been offered a Referendum on a new treaty or further integration gives the thumbs down and new lot from the East love the money but refuse to follow the rules.
Bob Whysman, Jan Higgins and John Buckley like this
Weird Granny Slater- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 2,844
John Buckley wrote:That’s a fair point granny, but when you read that “ The UK says agreement on vital security co-operation after Brexit is being blocked by EU negotiators “ it makes you actually wonder what the real situation is. The sensible thing is of course to renegotiate, but it doesn’t come across as being quite as easy as that so I hope you are correct in your assumptions.
That quote ('The UK says...') is from a piece on the BBC News website. The opinion isn't ascribed to anyone in particular, but later in the piece there's the usual 'according to UK officials'. It seems typical blarney for home consumption. I do know someone who, shall we say, has an interest in the policing and security aspects; he was aware immediately after the referendum result that there would be problems. There shouldn't be any surprises for the UK government. The victim status they appear to have adopted for the UK plays well in some quarters, but only masks their special mixture of half-heartedness and incompetence.
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
don't know what you lot are moaning about, the uk government is in aelf destruct with eu pressure to bring a sencable white paper. mrs may is between a rock and a hard place. it also looks like the referredum vote was a waste of time and money.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Simon Heffer ranting in the Telegraph.
Perhaps the most sparkling insight of Enver Hoxha, the late and unlamented dictator of plucky little Albania, came in the 1960s when, having made an alliance with Chairman Mao, he boasted of his nation’s international clout. “Remember,” Comrade Enver exhorted his fellow Albanians, “together with the Chinese we comprise a quarter of the world’s population.”
A similar delusion about their extraordinary power grips the increasingly rattled obsessives who run the European Union. It is a delusion that the British Cabinet, which is to meet next Friday at Chequers to decide the nature of Brexit and to agree a White Paper on it, should avoid. An impression lingers among many in our political class that the EU is a powerful, affluent and stable organisation. It maintains that if the United Kingdom is divorced entirely from it – what the 17.4 million who voted to leave in the 2016 referendum thought they were doing – then we shall be headed irrevocably for ruin and isolation.
In its Hoxha-esque grip on reality this conceit, which says we should appease and obey the European Union rather than determine to make our way in the world, should have no place in any rational political discourse. It is the fag-end of Project Fear, whose smoker strives for one last drag before finally having to rub it out with his foot.Mrs May has no need to appease the EU next Friday, and her cabinet should be intelligent enough, and observant enough of the principles of democracy, to see she does not. That the EU’s £80bn annual trade surplus with Britain will mean it suffers more than we do for any failure to do a deal has long been apparent. Likewise its need to punish us in order to encourage the others.
But it is also simply an institution so flawed and incapable that it is in no position to throw its weight around with us or with anyone else. It may have spent 10 hours last week fudging its policy on migration, to save Mrs Merkel’s skin; yet how long will the unrealistic arrangement to which it came hold? It is all very well advocating processing centres in Libya, but what will the Libyans think of that? And when the would-be migrants are “processed”, what happens to them? As with so many other EU ideals, this has already proved entirely unpractical; but like so many other EU ideals (take the one-size-fits-all single currency, for example), its flaws and failures cannot be admitted for fear of destabilising the entire project.
There are also rogue nations emerging in Europe who begin profoundly to question that project. The Italian government, which has upset the anti-democratic consensus on migration and has the power and mandate to do so on other even more significant questions such as the future of the eurozone, is the most obvious. But so too are Austria and Hungary; Greece remains unstable; Spain’s new, opportunist Leftist government expects a loosening of monetary policy to help with that country’s endemic unemployment problem, but it will not get it. The attempt by President Macron to find a route to ever-closer union is not only not supported my most of his fellow French, it is meat too strong even for Mrs Merkel. And she, after the migration furore, gives every impression of living on borrowed time.
Remembering the mandate the referendum gave to Mrs May – and it was unequivocal for a clean withdrawal from the EU – she should not even think of compromising. But, as in her approach to domestic politics, she must be aggressively more political. The body she is mandated to leave is weakened and getting weaker. There is no political sense in her caving in to their demands in the hope we might scoop up some crumbs from their increasingly frugal table. It is said she cannot avoid a compromise because she must manage her party and her cabinet. Anyone who goes to speak to a Conservative constituency dinner or meeting – and I do my share – knows that at the grass roots the party is massively behind fulfilling the people’s mandate. So is the vast majority of her MPs. Even some cabinet ministers who, for reasons of ambition (whatever they said at the time), backed Remain now see that Project Fear was absurd; and that the UK has nothing to fear from leaving the EU and trading more freely with the rest of the world.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
and besides gove having a hissy fit tearing up the customs paper. childish I say.
Neil Moors- Registered: 3 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,225
Can't go on like this, can it? The Government, as currently constituted, is surely finished?
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
constipated more likely.
Bob Whysman- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,918
With over 2000 postings on this thread, mostly berating the Brexit progress so far, perhaps maybe, just maybe, there is emerging a negotiating tactic which could be pre-planned!
Taking the DUP onboard ‘to prop up the Conservative government’ could have a dual purpose. The Republic of Ireland PM is getting more vociferous regarding the border , which was always on the cards, so the DUP’s support may help stop any rash decisions being taken.
The lack of progress as the EU see it could be a means to get them to change tack and throw in a few more foreseen spanner’s, (Gibraltar)?
Negotiations, as in buying and selling can be in Arthur Daly’s ‘wham bang thank you ma’am style,’ or a controlled plan to achieve a desired conclusion. Failing this there is always the option of just walking away.
I’m inclined to agree with Ross that the government couldn’t fail to miss all the problems which Brexit involved so perhaps taking a more optimistic view should prevail regarding the outcome.
Companies threatening to move out and more UK citizens applying for EU passports only illustrates further the ‘white flag mentality’ of some who only consider themselves and are not prepared to work for this countries future.
Whether they voted remain or leave we are all in it together and should not foul up the negotiations by not supporting a democratically made decision and providing the EU dictatorship with yet more ammunition.
Border problems, operation stack and many other problems that we may have to surmount in the future might not be too much different from what we experience now. The French fishermen or farmers always become militant and blockade roads and ports when they have a grievance.
So nothing new there!
Negotiations should be a structured process with the aim of producing a mutually agreed outcome:
.........let’s hope that this will eventually be achieved!
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
Do nothing and nothing happens.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
bob,how you justify that when cabinet is throwing hissy fits because they don't a particular wording. conclusion mrs may has no chance of a decent Brexit.
ray hutstone likes this