howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times.
Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question.” This Sellar and Yeatman classic from 1066 And All That is just what Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief negotiator, has done to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Today, Theresa May will speak and her task is to change the Irish question. Mrs May has arrived at the point at which the contradictions of her position are starting to bite. Ruling out membership of the single market meant a choice between a trade deal with Europe or a form of customs union. One was ruled out because it meant a hard border with Ireland; the other was ruled out because it would constrain Britain’s power to negotiate other trade deals. No cake and nothing to eat.
The European Union has hardened the vague wording of last December’s agreement into a proposition that Northern Ireland would remain a member of the customs union. In the absence of an actual counterproposal of their own, the Brexit moaners have whinged about the imperial ambitions of that lanky Napoleon, Monsieur Barnier. Muttering about conspiracies, the foreign secretary Boris Johnson has nothing substantive to say. The secretary of state for crashing out of the EU, David Davis, is reduced to threatening not to pay the bill. Nobody, not even the most ardent leavers in the cabinet, thinks this is going well. How complicated it turns out to be, and the Irish question is the most baffling of all.
There is no prospect, of course, of actually answering the question. Gladstone discovered that it is not answerable. Once you have settled on leaving the EU, the border should be filed alongside “why is the future unknowable?” and “is there life after Liam Fox?” as questions to which no answer is conceivable. The best Mrs May can hope for is to avoid the fate of Joseph Chamberlain who split the Liberal Party on the issue of Ireland and split the Conservatives on the issue of trade. She has ingeniously combined the two toxic issues and chosen to make a speech on them. A rhetorical question is usually one to which the speaker already knows the answer. Faced with the unpromising prospect that no answer exists, what can Mrs May say? There are three possible strategies. Be boring, be interesting or change the subject. Being boring is an option that comes naturally to Mrs May and this is the perfect subject. A strangulated exposition on regulatory alignment and managed divergence, leading to detailed sections on chemicals regulation, the mutual recognition of rules for environmental protection and substantive divergence — after the ruling of the committee on regulatory parity — on robot employment will soon have the press pack nodding off. Even those poor folk who analyse big speeches for the newspapers will find it hard to say much about that. It will be a non-event which, when you have nothing sensible to say, is better than an event.
The second option is to be interesting. Avoid the Irish question by committing news instead. It seems likely that, at some point, the government is going to have to concede that the City of London is not going to retain the system of passporting, which is the right for a firm registered in the European Economic Area to do business with any other member state without seeing specific authorisation. Mrs May could set out a new economic model for Britain after leaving the EU in which the power of financial capital would be tamed. An inevitable defeat could be dressed up as a desired victory, heralding a better and different future. It would be mostly guff but it would be interesting guff and London would be the focus rather than Northern Ireland.
Being boring and being interesting are, of course, two versions of wishing the intractable problem away. But once you have noticed the problem it is impossible to ignore it. Mrs May therefore has to change the way we look at the problem. Many years ago researchers stopped asking why some people contracted cancer and started asking why everyone didn’t get it. The change of focus yielded an insight whose medical benefits have been manifold. Mrs May needs to do something similar in Ireland. She should not use the words “hard” and “soft” with respect to the border. She should complicate the issue with detailed techno-talk about new solutions which make “hard” and “soft”caricature descriptions. Critics have grouped themselves under the banners of “soft” and “hard” — both for borders and for Brexit — and she needs to dismantle the distinctions. Insist on calling it a trade border to make it sound nicer. Then Mrs May has to confront the suggestion that a border of sorts will necessarily lead to a disruption of the peace process. A change in the institutions does not mean automatically that violence will return.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
more gutless woffle from the PM
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
A better speech than usual from the PM but still not much in the way of specifics, fairly mixed reaction from people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43250035Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
a gutless speech with a of if's and buts.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Couple of points here, Jeremy Hunt thinks there can be frictionless trade outside of the Single Market/Customs Union but the EU say differently. Secondly the PM wants a bespoke deal whilst Keir Starmer says that a Customs Union that Labour want would actually amount to the one we are in now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43266509Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,057
Well in that case I'm glad Mr Hunt is not in charge of diagnoses in the NHS; he reminds me of thrombosis - a bloody clot in the system.
(Not my real name.)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I see that the farmers are bleating about not getting enough people to pick their crops which is causing prices in the shops to rise and are asking for the Gumment to issue visas for potential workers. There was a visa system for farm labourers prior to freedom of movement but this was scrapped as the workers came from Eastern Europe and didn't and still don't need work visas.
The situation sounds to me like a case of low wages and poor conditions have discouraged people from coming so the farmers want desperate people from the third world to do the work. Personally I think they should go whistle or pay a decent wage.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
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"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#1604 Agreed. It's all 'doable'. Perhaps it could help out with Gibraltar and Spain, albeit Gibraltar has a different standing to the UK - currently.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
southern Ireland may wish to get out the EU soon.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Keith Bibby wrote:southern Ireland may wish to get out the EU soon.
Why? EU money has transformed the country. Ireland has the perfect immigration blocker too - it has a wall called Great Britain between it and continental Europe. The EU bureaucratic machinations are nothing compared to the failings of the church and, to a lesser extent, the state in mismanaging the country.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
a bit of Dennis.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
be afraid ,very afraid. we all doomed.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I thought this a bit far fetched when I first read it but I can envisage the UK trying for a semi-detached exit and then having to crawl back and then be stuffed with higher membership contributions than we pay now as a punishment.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/this-leading-eu-politician-explains-why-britain-will-logically-rejoin-after-brexit/ar-BBJYaKE?li=AAmiR2Z&ocid=spartanntpBrian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
stay away from negative people they have a problem for every solution.
coourtsy of albert Einstein.
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Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Mr McSweeney1, citing MSN as a source is akin to Ian Hislop calling himself a banana.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.