It's also possible that leaving the EU this way is, remarkably, a national defeat with no victor. It may be that everyone suffers.
The whole thing puts me in mind of the tales my Chinese pal tells me of his childhood at the end of the Mao era.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Do we need an EU referendum thread? (Brexit thread)
(3978 posts)-
Posted 5 years ago #
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The other beneficiaries of hard border controls would be those involved in smuggling various categories of contraband. Some of that contraband might include previously widely available goods which are trapped in a WTO tariff quagmire post-Brexit and become much more expensive or difficult to import. The huge coastline of the British Isles creates perfect conditions for smugglers, people traffickers, etc. Also you have some interesting possibilities for illicit trade interactions between the tax and duty havens of Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and the UK mainland.
Of course this would be one of the unintended consequences of a hard Brexit, but hardly unforeseen. Maybe good business not only for criminal gangs but also private security firms drafted in to help customs officers secure the ports, patrol coastlines, etc.
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Brexcuses: A crib sheet for shifting blame if Brexit goes bad
If the rudderless project to divorce Europe ends in disappointment, the possible causes will be many
As the UK moves steadily towards its date with Brexit one can already sense the efforts of the Leave campaigners trying to dodge blame for any of the shocks ahead. Rather than own the result, leading advocates are building up alibis in case the outcome is less fabulous than they assured voters it would be. Here then is your cut-out-and-keep guide - the Brexcuses - for Leavers on why things went wrong, just in case they do.
https://www.ft.com/content/4aa912fa-4423-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d
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Paywalled I'm afraid, but you can go through Google:
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It's obvious to me that the Scots and especially the Irish - of all stripes - will be to blame should this whole thing go awry.
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EU have 27 countries on board their union to keep advantages. GB have 2 out of 4 countries on board signed up to be more British and be rewarded by 'the dividend'. Gibralter is a special case but many in south want to hold onto that and 'let us go' if we keep expressing views opposed to this slow motion disaster. It's now clear that the Scots and NI will have to be punished for expressing opinions at odds with the British majority who generously let us stay at the northern end of their islands (!)
I think there can never be a compromise and no doubt some will say it must be SNP fault - media will for sure.Beneficiaries of Brexit:
DHL, TNT, Fedex, UPS - all being paid a fee by HMRC to collect duty. They will make EU as seamless as possible - for a price.Posted 5 years ago # -
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18) We weren’t supposed to win. It never occurred to us that Remain would be so incompetent. Remain should have run a better campaign.
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Well that’s true!
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Ah, didn't see the paywall - only appears with a direct link.
Here's that list in full:
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1) The civil service let us down by not planning for Brexit. I can’t believe the government didn’t have contingency plans for the fact that the Leave campaign didn’t have any. What kind of government leaves important issues like the future of the country to people like us? All we said is that we wanted to leave; why does that make figuring out where to go our job? It was the government’s responsibility to deliver on our promises. If they fail to do so, it can hardly be our fault.
2) No one at the wheel. When we said we wanted to take back control, we obviously meant that figuratively. It didn’t mean we don’t want to delegate.
3) Angry Remain campaigners talked down the country. This panicked us into an economic downturn which would undoubtedly have been avoided if they had not insisted on pointing out news which appeared to suggest they were right. Their selfish inability to admit they were wrong ensured that they were proved right, at great cost to the country.
4) The lefty media. By reporting daily on the sterling sell-off instead of hushing it up, the metropolitan elite in the mainstream media let down the public by telling them things they are better off not knowing. This also alerted currency speculators to things they would not otherwise have noticed. The media failed in its moral duty not to report unwelcome news.
5) George Osborne spooked markets. By not appearing in the first days after the vote to reassure markets, the chancellor let Britain down.
6) Mark Carney spooked markets. By making too many regular appearances designed to calm nerves, the governor of the Bank of England let Britain down. Did we mention he used to work for Goldman Sachs?
7) David Cameron should never have resigned. The Leave campaign always made clear that it wanted him to stay on to lead the exit negotiations even though his last negotiations were a catastrophic failure and in spite of our warnings that he had absolutely no credibility any more.
8) Blame Boris. He left the detailed plans for how to manage Brexit on the bus.
9) Blame Boris some more. We had thought that the lean and hungry sharp-suited Boris Johnson was the man to lead our country but it turned out that we confused him with someone else and that the real Boris Johnson was in fact a large blond bumbler with no idea.
10) Greedy bankers. The ordinary decent citizens of this country were let down by greedy bankers, who put their own welfare ahead of that of people they had never met at the other end of the country. There was no way we could have known they would be seduced abroad by the lure of higher profits and salaries.
11) The French. We thought they’d be more British about this, accept the democratic outcome and work with us to make the best of it. Instead of being British about this; they insisted on being all French and spent the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme plotting ways to steal lucrative business from London.
12) The Germans. We really thought they would help us more this time. We’ve always been able to count on Angela Merkel in the past.
13) Cowardly employers. Craven businesses failed to show faith in the country by continuing to hire people to do jobs they no longer needed.
14) Foreigners let Britain down. Refusing to accept the democratic vote of the British people, foreigners moved their investment elsewhere, thereby failing to all pull together to make the best of it.
15) Immigrants. Are you thinking what we’re thinking?
16) Experts.We needed better experts than those we are fed up listening to.
17) We are all in this together now. So it’s as much their fault as ours.
18) We weren’t supposed to win. It never occurred to us that Remain would be so incompetent. Remain should have run a better campaign.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I was quite surprised not to see cyclists on the list as well? FT getting forgetful in their old age.
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TV 'News management' majored on the Airbus story but kept the British - Irish Council meeting in Guernsey unreported for English viewers.
Media can't cope (not interested) with the Irish / Scottish demension. Neither can what passes for a government down south.Posted 5 years ago # -
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Vote in Westminster tonight endorsed the 'claim of right' of the constitutional convention of '89 and Scottish Parliament vote of 2012. Basically the 'Sovereignty of the Scottish people' to be upheld.
('Scottish people' being people resident here not by ethnicity).
Very unlikely to be reported by any London controlled media. Not on BBC or STV yet - or ever?
Of course the 'Sovereignty of the British people' argument is used by Brexiteers to trump opposition to the EU vote.
#Darkmoney raised by SNP has got some traction. This investigated by The Ferret.
Looks like Scotland's own non billionaire owned media is calling the agenda. Concerted non reporting can only achieve so much. (Offcom doesn't care about bbc or stv ignoring stories btw. Mis reporting is a breach. Ignoring is an editorial decision.)Posted 5 years ago # -
Appears that there is consensus not to report the vote:
- "The SNP had put forward a motion calling on the MPs to back the principles of the Claim of Right for Scotland – acknowledging the sovereign right of the Scottish people to choose the form of government that best suits them – which was passed unanimously." ( from National)
All parties supported the SNP motion with LibDem and Labour amendments not included.
Labour consider this a battle between the will of two nationalist governments. The right of the British people is greater than that of people here 'sort of thing'?Posted 5 years ago # -
When you hear the command 'brace, brace' you will adopt the position shown on your safety card.
That's the ground coming up hard now.
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a Craig Murray link on CCE ?
things are looking up !
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Looks like Craig's blog is monitored as the story for the amesbury two is now that the novichok was in a container? Another puzzler is what was an alleged drug dealer doing at a baptist church pig roast? Also why has there been no link to Julian Cope who used to hang out in amesbury?
On unrelated matter, anyone any Intel on The Common Law Court set up in an Indian restaurant in Dundee and issuing fines (sometimes by the day) regardless of lack of jurisdiction to do so? Seems to be an American concept.?
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Another puzzler is what was an alleged drug dealer doing at a baptist church pig roast?
Looking for Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary?
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Boris resigns.
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- "... instead of freeing British businesses from Brussels red tape, it proposes to wrap them up like mummies in layers of staggeringly complex bureaucracy, with two completely different tariff regimes operating side by side. And this, remember, is what the UK is asking for, not what it will get. "
Scotland's needs and aspirations are invisible against the 'brit-think' agenda. Like a Dr Who episode, C4 et al think timelord Corbyn will arrive as saviour to the UK. I think it's too late for that. Living post UK is quite imaginable now. English voters are annoyed that 'their' parliament is tied up with Brexit. This is felt as a democratic deficit by them as they don't have an English parliament as such. Of course from our point of view it often appears to be just that and has ignored engaging with Holyrood as if we were a foreign state. (UK is a union in theory only?)
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English voters are annoyed that 'their' parliament is tied up with Brexit.
Excuse me if my sympathy is limited here.
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“This is felt as a democratic deficit by them as they don't have an English parliament as such.“
IF England wins the (football) World Cup, there will be a lot more ‘demands’ for England to ‘go it alone’ - not just leaving Europe...
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Imagine England beating France.
Jingoism will be redefined.
If France beats England, Hard Brexit may become harder to argue against.
Tomorrow is another day.
Posted 5 years ago #
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