UK in/out referendum on the EU (Brexit vs Bremain)

{{{ Just to give an update on how Brexit is going.

Fishing is still screwed, deliveries require a ton of paperwork and are often held up or sent back for not having the right paperwork. And when it does get through it may face blockades and delays (not good for fresh sea food) at French ports from angry French fishermen. The EU has outright banned the sale of UK shellfish in the EU effectively ending the shellfish industry here.

Boris and co are in the middle of signing a trade deal with Australia and NZ which will see lamb and beef prodcers from there getting full access to our market. As they produice vastly more of this than we ever could they will inevitably flood the market and destroy the UK beef and lamb industry.
Boris govt response to this inevitablitiy is that under the guise of needing more new, younger blood to take up farming, they are offering large sums of money to farmers to retire and give up farming. And no Im not making that up.

And then there is the Northern Ireland protocol- in short the border and all its rules between UK and EU has yet to come into force, we have been in a grace period designed to prepare and be ready for full implementation of the border, and its caused enough trouble in NI among angry Unionists already in this period and with trade between NI and the UK mainland, when it comes fully into force its going to be much worse.
Knowing this Boris decided that it was best to extend the grace period, and did so by several years. Problem is he didnt consult the EU and its in breach of the agreed treaty Boris signed on Brexit with the EU. With the result the EU is taking the UK to the International Court fo breach of an international treaty.
Big problem for Boris is yes we did just unilaterally alter the treaty in violation of the law, and there is no alternative to the Protocol as putting the border rigth across Ireland would be worse, and when it comes into full force it will make things much harder in NI and enfuriate Unionists whislt making a joining of NI and southern into one country far more likely. But as this is Ireland almost certainly not without a lot of violence and blood shed on the way.

So yeah, its going well.....}}

"that under the guise of needing more new, younger blood to take up farming, they are offering large sums of money to farmers to retire and give up farming. And no Im not making that up."

So bribes to pension age farmers to keep them sweet then. But what if they want to pass down the farm to their kids? I think most farms are family run businesses which are handed down through generations, there is no way they will just close up shop. Farming is more than just a job, its also a way of life and a vocation, its history and culture and the Tories think chucking money at them will make the 'problem' go away. It ain't going to work. On the other hand, a lot of these farmers voted for Brexit, thinking about sunny uplands, and knowing they would lose EU subsidies, but they didn't vote to lose their businesses.

Its f-ing Absurd, but this is par for the course.

It's good to hear most farms are still family owned over there, not so true here. But bribing farmers to retire is the surest way I can think of to hasten the onslaught of corporate farming. Well done indeed.

'The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has warned that freeing up the UK-Australian trade in meat will lead to hundreds of British cow and sheep breeders going out of business.
NFU president Minette Batters said removing tariffs on these products would "have a massive impact" on British farms, which would be unable to compete, in terms of scale, with Australia's vast cattle and sheep stations.
She added: "We continue to maintain that a tariff-free trade deal with Australia will jeopardise our own farming industry and will cause the demise of many, many beef and sheep farms throughout the UK."
The Scottish and Welsh governments have both urged Mr Johnson to ensure UK farmers are not left exposed.
And Northern Ireland's agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, said he was "strongly opposed" to ending tariffs and quotas.'- BBC

{{ The response from the Tories, not just the bribes but what they suggest farmers do is beyond belief-

Conservative MP Neil Parish, chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said UK farmers could succeed in the beef market by exporting more "higher-end" cuts, such as sirloin, to Australia.

Its the same insulting response as to the demise of fishing exports, that we should all just eat more fish. }}

The UK is being run by incompetent fools. Like trying to sell cheese to the Chinese/Japanese, who are lactose intolerant. It beggars belief. People need to wake up before its too late.

{{ I thought a Brexit update may be due, especially as its got more interesting again, worse, but interesting. Also probably not short, there's a lot that's happened since last update.

First the stuff effecting lots of countries- shortage of haulage, backing up of goods at ports, skyrocketing gas prices , shortages and growing inflation.

We have all of these, but slightly worse than they would have been under Brexit. Especially haulage. When we left the EU we kicked out or they choose to leave 20,000 drivers. The covid hit and 30,000 HGV license tests were postponed so there were no new drivers to replace retiring drivers compounded by the average age of drivers being at or close to retirement age. That left a final total of 100,000 drivers short overall.
So without Brexit we'd still be in trouble, but we'd also only be 80,000 drivers short. So like many other things Brexit has not yet hit hard enough to cause real damage but in many little ways its made situations like this that little bit worse than they had to be without Brexit.
The result for the consumer so far is mild inconvenience, my local supermarkets have empty gaps on the shelves and a lot of little signs saying 'temporarily out of stock', but its not at the point where you cant get a loaf of bread or a litre of milk.
Inflation, the fuel costs and the other global issues are hitting the cost of living, the recent Tory budget did some things to try to address this, whilst also missing out huge swathes of the population such as those who cant work due to disability, or having to care for a relative. And many of the changes which were made, nor wage rises, are not predicted by many analysts to outstrip inflation or the average cost of living.

On the ever worrying Northern Ireland front things are at a dangerous showdown stalemate.
Its best to be clear here on the background. The two sides we are dealing with are the Unionists, most notably the DUP, they are backed by the Tories in Westminster on this, during the Troubles the DUP under Ian Paisley could be seen as the political voice of the UDA, the Unionist terror organisation.
And on the other side the Nationalists, most notably Sinn Féin who were the political wing of the IRA during the Troubles, the nationalist terrorist organisation. In this debate they are not directly supported by anyone at Westminster, but the Tory handling of it is a good political open goal for opposition parties there.
Its worth noting however polling shows a majority of NI people support the current situation with the EU in NI, backing the Sinn Féin political position.

During the Brexit negotiations Boris with the full and vocal support of the DUP urged the people of NI to vote for Brexit and the deal they had struck which prevented the need for a physical border on the island of Ireland between north and south, UK and EU territory. As such a border would break the NI Good Friday Peace Agreement which had stopped the violence and terrorism of the Troubles and moved the fight solely to the political arena. And fears of inflaming Nationalists and that a border would become a target for terrorist attacks- as it had been when one existed before- meant the border would have to go down the sea between the mainland UK and Northern Island, and goods could still move freely between north and south of Ireland without need for further checks.

Boris and the DUP however reassured the people of NI, especially the Unionists, that this wouldn't in any way make NI any less a part of the UK trade area, it was still just a part of the UK with free movement of people and goods between the two. With no checks.
NI in the end voted to remain in the EU but the UK as a whole to Leave. Having left the implementation of the deal had to now begin,and rumours began to emerge in the press that the deal in fact did include checks and extra paperwork on goods moving between mainland UK and NI.
Boris' response to the rumours however was unequivocal-

"The deal we've done with the EU is a brilliant deal and it allows us to do all the things that Brexit was about so it's about taking back control of our borders, money, laws - but unlike the previous arrangements it allows the whole of the UK to come out of the EU including Northern Ireland.
There's no question of there being checks on goods going NI/GB or GB/NI because they are part of - if you look at what the deal is, we're part of the same customs territory and it's very clear that there should be unfettered access between Northern Ireland and the rest of GB."

This however was not true. The Deal did indeed include checks. And as it began to set in there were delays, shortages in goods moving back and forth and of course increases in cost and time.
The response of the Tories and DUP was to U-turn entirely. Their first attempt was to pin all the blame on the EU- they were implementing the deal in a deliberately heavy handed fashion to punish the UK for leaving. They were being to strict in implementing it to the absolute letter and were not being accommodating to the UK governments reasonable demands. Then they accused the EU of undermining the Good Friday Agreement, finally they claimed the deal itself was a bad deal they had only agreed too as the EU knew they had the UK over a barrel on the border issue and it had to go somewhere other than on land to avoid possible violent uprising.

And now we are where we are which is the UK and DUP saying that the deal struck allows them, in the event it is felt by either side that the effect of the deal is undermining the Good Friday Agreement, to invoke Article 16 and dissolve the agreement and remove the sea border. It also allows for the other side to take any measures they see fit in retaliation; tariffs and trade wars.

The UK government is demanding most of the checks be removed and the EU Court removed from overseeing the implementation of the Deal. They have made that last bit their red line.
The EU for there part made a generous offer to reduce a large number of the checks and paperwork on  many goods, most of what the UK had asked for and more than most expected, but the EU Court remaining the arbitrator in disputes over the EU economic zone is for them a red line, it has to remain.
So current stalemate with opposing red lines.

How this resolves we should know by Xmas. More than trade and politics hangs in the balance here. If the UK does follow through on its threat it puts us back to the start of the problem with no solution, a border has to exist somewhere. And none of the possibilities pleases both sides. Not EU or UK or Nationalists or Unionists. And if the EU give in they have an open border they have no control over the goods passing back and forth. And if the UK give in they risk Unionists taking to the streets and rioting and then subsequent retaliation from the Nationalist side and a plunge back to the Troubles. The potential exists were this to go wrong for the fallout not just to be political but also grass roots and along very old violent divisional lines.

And now we get to the current latest Brexit fallout. And this one goes back to 1066 really. England and France are picking a fight with each other over fishing rights.

The short of it for background is the UK were supposed to, under the deal, give fishing permits along the English south coast to French vessels who had been fishing there prior for years.
The number of actual permits given by the UK however was considerably less than the number of French boats who had been fishing there before Brexit.
The French being quick and keen to uproar and protest made a lot of noise of this, and there was high seas tensions between fishing boats and they blockaded the isle of Jersey. Getting as far as Boris sending a naval ship to the vicinity as a warning shot across the bows to France not to make this an issue.
The French of course saw it as an insulting arrogant English gesture.

So fast forward a couple of months of increasing tensions and this permits issue and now the French have seized a UK fishing boat they say was fishing in their waters without a permit.

The UK said the boat was on the list of permitted boats, and they didn't understand why the EU had removed the boat from the list and denied its permit

The French say what matters is it doesn't have a permit so was legally seized under the terms of the deal.

So the UK foreign minister summoned the French ambassador.

It didn't seem to help much as now the French say if the UK don't give out the agreed number of licenses to French fishing boats to fish in UK water they will blockade French ports to UK fishing vessels preventing the UK selling its seafood to the EU market, its main market.

Now something to consider here is Macron, the French President is going into an election year. And this plays well to the home crowd and the fishing lobby is a strong one in France. And I wasn't joking about 1066 both sides have already played on appeals to the past. And that rhetoric can also be found in commentators from right-wing tabloids to right leaning historians such as David Starkey.

However this is also a gamble for Macron, if he actually follows through with his plans he is also risking hundreds of jobs in the French markets along the coast where the catches are landed processed, checked and shipped on in to the EU heartlands. And he risks doing it right before Xmas and in the run up to election.
Mind you if he loses that the right wing party who would replace him is predicted to be even more combative with the UK than Macron is already.

Boris has responded to all this by pinning the whole thing on the French trying to punish us for leaving, for which there is in fact considerable truth, or more specifically they are trying to punish the English, but in this case they will in fact considerably harm Scotland as the large part of the UK fishing fleet is in Scottish waters. But that history between England and France provokes both sides. Just today the BBC got hold of a letter seemingly from the French President to the EU asking them to demonstrate there is “more damage to leaving the EU than to remaining there.” France wants revenge. Punishment. A crime of historic rather than amorous passion. Very French of course.

So two large battlefronts between EU and UK. NI and fishing. The same two issues which dominated the debate in the lead up to the vote. The same two issues the Tories and Farage and their like assured us were all resolved, perfect, the best deals ever, 'oven-ready', you need but vote to Leave and they could smoothly be implemented without a feather ruffled.

And those who warned these issues would lead to disaster were labelled as 'Project Fear', a term the Tories first came up with internally during the Scottish independence referendum, referring to the strategy of using only absolute worst case situation analysis and exaggeration and extrapolation form the worst to dissuade voters, a campaign of deliberate over the top  unrelenting negativity.

However the SNP used it very successfully during the independence campaign by turning it back on the Tories and Unionists persuading many voters it was lies deliberately designed to scare them cooked up by the 'Project Fear' plan, whose name and memos had leaked to the press.

And so Boris  ever the politician to turn on the spot where advantage is to be gained, and having seen how do so turned on those who said NI and fishing were sell outs and trouble waiting to happen once we left, by saying that they were employing the policy of 'Project Fear.' Exaggerating and lying doom mongers trying to scare the British public out of taking back their inherent British sovereign rights.

The entire Brexit thing has been something you could not write as political satire, probably not even as farce, as it would still seem too ridiculous.

We've had the minster in charge of negotiating the fishing deal signing it without first reading the deal, why you might ask not? Because she was too busy at the time organising her daughters school nativity play.

We have the DUP minsters and Tories having come up with a deal which the EU accepted now saying the deal is undermining the peace agreement and its all the fault of the EU for actually implementing the agreed deal.

Or the chief negotiator of the overall Deal with the EU, Lord Frost, now still the Chief negotiator despite his main argument now being that the deal he negotiated and signed with Boris is in fact a terribly negotiated deal that is bad for the UK and NI peace and has to be torn up and started again. And in tearing up the deal neither he, nor Boris offers us any idea of what the alternatives actually are.

The very people who made and signed the Withdrawal Deal are the same people telling us its an awful deal terribly negotiated but its OK you can trust them to make a new deal.

So there you go, long but hopefully helpful for those in other climes who have shown an interest in the madness that Brexit has increasingly becomes. }}

Thanks Petty, and not only this, but add to the "you couldn't make it up" scenario, is David Davis, one of the arch Brexiteers, the one who sat in front of Barnier with little but a foolish smirk,  is accusing the government of destroying democracy and the rule of law. Has he only just realised?

{{ Well Farage is back! Joining new Brexit party Reform UK. Along with other nutters like Widdecombe. Only good thing about it is it will take votes off the Tories and make it even more likely they will lose the next election. Not that Labour under Starmer are much better.
Reform are putting up over 600 candidates across the UK at the next election. And they are sitting about 10% in the polls, just above the lib dems.
So what do they stand for- well still getting Brexit done. Mainly NI. But their solution is of course madness. They want to tear up agreements, chuck out any EU involvement in movement of goods, in and out of the EU! And they want to support the DUP and the Unionists in NI.
Problem there is NI voted Remain, there is a majority in favour of the protocol and a majority among the people and business to remain in the single market. If they take that away to support an increasingly minority DUP voice all they will do is push more NI voters towards the Alliance and Sinn Fein parties, which in turn will lead to them calling a referendum on rejoining the rest of Ireland and leaving the UK. And unlike Scotland they don't have to go begging Westminster for permission to do so, as the right to do is enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.
Widdecombe somehow thinks forcing NI out of the Uk will 'save the Union'. She has not got a clue.}}

Lets hope that most people have now woken up to those two grotesques charlatans.

If Brexit leads to a more united Ireland then it's one scrap of silver lining at least.

Will it though? Or will it result in a reversal of the roles and loyalists militarising themselves and doing what the IRA did 30 years ago?

{{ That is certainly a real risk Lance, but pushing people towards parties in favour of reunification by ignoring the majority will and votes of the overall population of NI is not a way to avoid that in my view.
I think Irish reunification is pretty much inevitable unless the UK government takes the extreme position of relocating protestant, unionists to NI, otherwise the simple changes in demographics over time on current trends will mean at least a referendum is highly likely at some point. }}

I dont disagree Petty... just pointing out that a unification isn't what everyone wants and given both the history and the current views of the loyalist side I dont think this will all be rainbows and unicorns.

{{ oh you are right Lance, its never easy in NI. But I think the rise of the Alliance party in NI is an indicator that the younger generations who make up most of its voters view both the DUP and Sinn Féin as relics of a past they have no desire to revisit. And the hope with such a party is that it can draw votes from both catholic and protestant voters as a result, providing at least some rule by consent of the people.
But there will be for the foreseeable future a hardcore on both sides who will never let go of the past, or the religious and political dividing lines of the past. And its in that minority group the potential for serious trouble lies. }}

Well.... the tories are getting a pasting today! Still early in the counting process but hopefully carries on.

great I hope they are annihilated.

{{ I am on nightshift at moment so had an eye on this as result came in, which was entertaining. But I think the results are being overplayed in many quarters.

I'd sum it up as Labour did very well, but not as well they might have hoped. And the Tories did very badly, but not as badly as they might have feared.

If you look at the percentage of vote Labour has hardly budged since the last round of local council elections. Another issue is the tories won so big last time out under Boris that labour need a huge swing of 10 points to win a general election, and they fell short of that here.

My own observations of what has happened is not that Labour did really well so much as a mix of Tory voters staying home, and people opting for third parties like Lib Dems and Greens, who both did better than expected which meant the Tories got squeezed or their vote collapsed, making Labours results look better than they probably really are. }}

{{ Another great speech frm SNP's Mhaira Black. She gets suspicously little coverage in the press, I couldnt even find a BBC report on this debate, let alone her speech itself. Fortunately this politics commentator recorded it and reacts to it (dont worry he only interupts a few times and then briefly).
Intelligent working class with a passion for changing the circumstances of the poverty struck communitites she grew up in. And she doesnt mince her words, much to the Speakers annoyance at one point. }}

She reminds me of Little Bear in Game of Thrones.

Saw Farage on Sky news saying that 'Brexit is dead' and saying it is because he wasn't in charge. He would have made Liz Truss look like Michael Foot. He will never admit that Brexit was a lie and a scam for the disaster capitalists.