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Mark

The Politics Thread 2019

By Mark, in General Chat

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Nick

Nick

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Innovindil said:

 

Why did no one tell me Boris has jedi powers? This changes everything. 

He’s surely more Jabba offspring with Jacob Rees Mogg starring as Voldemort’s secret muggle love child.

 

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Nick

Nick

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Buce said:

 

For anybody who's watched Blazing Saddles (and who hasn't?) Britain threatening 'No Deal' is like when the black sherrif puts a gun to his own head and says, "nobody move, or the nigga gets it".

 

Sure, the EU will see some harm from No Deal, but they are not nearly as dependent on us for trade, as we are on them. If we leave without a deal on October 31st, we are committing economic suicide and we'll be back begging for talks within days. And the first thing they will say is 'give us what you owe us first'.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/eu-parliament-no-deal-boris-johnson-hard-brexit

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bovril

bovril

Posted
Posted (edited)
Just now, Swan Lesta said:

Didn’t read that way but I’ll try not to get too blustery or hysterical about it Bov.

"I would like more of this type of thing in this thread please and less of the bluster and hysteria that some other posters and some journalists may occasionally contribute".

 

Nobody writes in full sentences on the internet its passive aggressive. Calm yer tits. 

Edited by bovril
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DJ Barry Hammond

DJ Barry Hammond

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, sm1 said:

The UK has a massive trade deficit with the EU amounting to over 80B a year. The biggest deficit being with EU powerhouse Germany of over 40B. In fact we have a trade deficit with every major European country including France, Spain, Belgium etc. Does anyone honestly think these countries which run the EU will jeopardise 318B worth of exports annually (the amount the EU exports to us). Trade is a 2way street and we give far more then we receive, it is paramount for the EU to make a deal with us either face to face or via the WTO.

 

Thats a very old Brexiteer argument - that as of now hasn’t shown much in the way of being reality as the EU has stood firm in its position.

 

It may yet blink as things get closer to no-deal, but there are plenty of reasons to think it won’t. 

 

Worth remembering, Macron had wanted to kick us out without a deal when the extension was being discussed.

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted (edited)

As sterling falls, will PM alter course or risk price hikes as election looms?

Money markets did not take a disorderly departure seriously, but do now. So should Johnson

 

British holidaymakers heading abroad for their summer holidays might not thank him for it, but the fall in the value of the pound to its lowest level in 28 months is evidence that Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy is having an impact.

The currency markets never took the idea seriously that the UK would leave the EU without a deal when Theresa May was prime minister. That has changed in the past five days as the new government has rammed home the message that the 31 October deadline for departure is set in stone.

Johnson believes that the UK has to show it is ready for no deal to get an exit agreement that has a chance of getting through parliament. But so far the EU has shown no sign of changing its stance that there can be no reopening of the withdrawal agreement signed by May. The pound’s current level – at risk of sliding below $1.20 against the US currency – is the result.

 

As Guy Foster, head of research at wealth manager Brewin Dolphin, put it: “The prime minister’s negotiating strategy revolves around making the market’s most-feared outcome look like his preferred outcome. Hence we are seeing a lot of weakness in the pound.”

The chances are that the pound could go lower before it bottoms out. No serious negotiations appear to be in prospect for the next month and the government’s strategy relies on the EU softening its stance as the clock ticks down to the Brexit deadline.

Nor are any of the usual weapons for shoring up sterling available. The Bank of England is not going to intervene in the currency markets to buy pounds when ministerial rhetoric is pushing the exchange rate lower. Higher interest rates are not an option either because the economy is weak.

There are two big risks for the government. The first is that an intensification of the selling pressure on the pound means that Johnson blinks first in his standoff with Brussels. A softening of the Number 10 line on Brexit would see the pound gain on the currency markets but force Johnson to eat a big helping of humble pie.

 

The second risk is that the fall in sterling cuts short the new prime minister’s honeymoon by pushing up the cost of imports. The effect of that would be to drive inflation higher and erode growth in living standards.

Many in the currency markets think the impasse between the UK and the EU will only be ended by Johnson calling a general election. A squeeze on living standards caused by a depreciating pound would make it harder for Johnson to secure his own mandate – as May found to her cost in 2017.

Edited by Buce
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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted

Brexit: mess with Good Friday and we’ll block UK trade deal, US politicians warn

Hostile Congress could hold up trade deal if Brexit jeopardises N Ireland peace agreement

 

Any future US-UK trade deal would almost certainly be blocked by the US Congress if Brexit affects the Irish border and jeopardises peace in Northern Ireland, congressional leaders and diplomats have warned.

Boris Johnson has presented a trade deal with the US as a way of offsetting the economic costs of leaving the EU, and Donald Trump promised the two countries could strike “a very substantial trade agreement” that would increase trade “four or five times”.

Trump, however, would not be able to push an agreement through a hostile Congress, where there would be strong bipartisan opposition to any UK trade deal in the event of a threat to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, and to the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

 

Johnson’s rise to power, and his demand for the EU to drop the backstop, which is intended to safeguard the open border after Brexit, has galvanised determination in Congress to make a stand in defence of the landmark accord, to which the US is guarantor.

“The American dimension to the Good Friday agreement is indispensable,” said Richard Neal, who is co-chair of the 54-strong Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress, and also chairs the powerful House ways and means committee, with the power to hold up a trade deal indefinitely.

“We oversee all trade agreements as part of our tax jurisdiction,” Neal, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, said in a phone interview. He pointed out that such a complex trade deal could take four or five years, even without the Northern Ireland issue.

“I would have little enthusiasm for entertaining a bilateral trade agreement with the UK, if they were to jeopardise the agreement.”

 

Pete King, the Republican co-chair of the Friends of Ireland group, said the threat to abandon the backstop and endanger the open border was a “needless provocation”, adding that his party would have no compunction about defying Trump over the issue.

“I would think anyone who has a strong belief in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement the open border would certainly be willing to go against the president,” King said.

In the event of a hard Brexit, in the absence of guarantees for the Northern Ireland agreement, the strength of sentiment among Irish Americans – a tenth of the population, many of them in swing states – could make it an issue in next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

Johnson has refused to meet EU leaders until the backstop is scrapped. On Tuesday, Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, told Johnson the backstop could not be removed from the UK withdrawal agreement.

After a contentious phone call between the two leaders, a spokesman for Varadkar said that alternatives to the backstop, as a means of guaranteeing the Northern Irish peace agreement “have yet to be identified and demonstrated”.

For the past eight months, Congress has held up ratification of a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, which Trump has presented as an extraordinary achievement (though it differs little from its predecessor, Nafta). Representative King said a UK trade deal would face even greater obstacles.

“First of all trade deals are always difficult,” the New York Republican said in a telephone interview. “There’s any number of other labour and environmental issues that get brought up. But to have a solid block on one particular issue would make it very, very difficult to get it through Congress, unless the border issue is resolved.”

The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has said that a US-UK trade deal has “no chance whatsoever” of passing in Congress. Over the weekend, a committee of former members of Congress and foreign policy officials said “all of Irish America will support the Speaker right down the line”.

The adhoc committee to protect the Good Friday agreement, established earlier this year, wrote to the UK’s new secretary for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith, on Sunday to raise its concerns about Johnson’s statements about abandoning the backstop.

A European diplomat in Washington predicted the Irish American caucus would be decisive in holding up an agreement. “I think there is enough meat in the Irish-American lobby to stop a UK trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement is affected,” the diplomat said.

The Irish embassy has been energetically lobbying in defence of the 1998 peace agreement. The ambassador, Daniel Mulhall, said he has been pushing at an open door.

“There is a genuine groundswell of opinion within Irish America in favour of the Good Friday agreement and against anything that would be perceived to undermine that agreement,” Mulhall said.

“Wherever I go, wherever I speak to Irish-American audiences, the first question is always to do with Brexit,” the ambassador added. “And they always reflect a deep concern about Brexit.”

“Politically we have a good caucus here. It’s active … They see the Good Friday agreement and all that’s flowed from it as an achievement for Irish America .. and they’re loathe to see that jeopardised in the Brexit context.”

Amanda Sloat, a former state department official and now a Brexit expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said: “Trade deals are always challenging to ratify in Congress … There will be significant resistance, as Speaker Pelosi has said, to ratifying a trade agreement that is seen to harm the Good Friday agreement or the interests of people in Northern Ireland.”

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Strokes

Strokes

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Buce said:

Brexit: mess with Good Friday and we’ll block UK trade deal, US politicians warn

Hostile Congress could hold up trade deal if Brexit jeopardises N Ireland peace agreement

 

Any future US-UK trade deal would almost certainly be blocked by the US Congress if Brexit affects the Irish border and jeopardises peace in Northern Ireland, congressional leaders and diplomats have warned.

Boris Johnson has presented a trade deal with the US as a way of offsetting the economic costs of leaving the EU, and Donald Trump promised the two countries could strike “a very substantial trade agreement” that would increase trade “four or five times”.

Trump, however, would not be able to push an agreement through a hostile Congress, where there would be strong bipartisan opposition to any UK trade deal in the event of a threat to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, and to the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

 

Johnson’s rise to power, and his demand for the EU to drop the backstop, which is intended to safeguard the open border after Brexit, has galvanised determination in Congress to make a stand in defence of the landmark accord, to which the US is guarantor.

“The American dimension to the Good Friday agreement is indispensable,” said Richard Neal, who is co-chair of the 54-strong Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress, and also chairs the powerful House ways and means committee, with the power to hold up a trade deal indefinitely.

“We oversee all trade agreements as part of our tax jurisdiction,” Neal, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, said in a phone interview. He pointed out that such a complex trade deal could take four or five years, even without the Northern Ireland issue.

“I would have little enthusiasm for entertaining a bilateral trade agreement with the UK, if they were to jeopardise the agreement.”

 

Pete King, the Republican co-chair of the Friends of Ireland group, said the threat to abandon the backstop and endanger the open border was a “needless provocation”, adding that his party would have no compunction about defying Trump over the issue.

“I would think anyone who has a strong belief in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement the open border would certainly be willing to go against the president,” King said.

In the event of a hard Brexit, in the absence of guarantees for the Northern Ireland agreement, the strength of sentiment among Irish Americans – a tenth of the population, many of them in swing states – could make it an issue in next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

Johnson has refused to meet EU leaders until the backstop is scrapped. On Tuesday, Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, told Johnson the backstop could not be removed from the UK withdrawal agreement.

After a contentious phone call between the two leaders, a spokesman for Varadkar said that alternatives to the backstop, as a means of guaranteeing the Northern Irish peace agreement “have yet to be identified and demonstrated”.

For the past eight months, Congress has held up ratification of a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, the USMCA, which Trump has presented as an extraordinary achievement (though it differs little from its predecessor, Nafta). Representative King said a UK trade deal would face even greater obstacles.

“First of all trade deals are always difficult,” the New York Republican said in a telephone interview. “There’s any number of other labour and environmental issues that get brought up. But to have a solid block on one particular issue would make it very, very difficult to get it through Congress, unless the border issue is resolved.”

The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has said that a US-UK trade deal has “no chance whatsoever” of passing in Congress. Over the weekend, a committee of former members of Congress and foreign policy officials said “all of Irish America will support the Speaker right down the line”.

The adhoc committee to protect the Good Friday agreement, established earlier this year, wrote to the UK’s new secretary for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith, on Sunday to raise its concerns about Johnson’s statements about abandoning the backstop.

A European diplomat in Washington predicted the Irish American caucus would be decisive in holding up an agreement. “I think there is enough meat in the Irish-American lobby to stop a UK trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement is affected,” the diplomat said.

The Irish embassy has been energetically lobbying in defence of the 1998 peace agreement. The ambassador, Daniel Mulhall, said he has been pushing at an open door.

“There is a genuine groundswell of opinion within Irish America in favour of the Good Friday agreement and against anything that would be perceived to undermine that agreement,” Mulhall said.

“Wherever I go, wherever I speak to Irish-American audiences, the first question is always to do with Brexit,” the ambassador added. “And they always reflect a deep concern about Brexit.”

“Politically we have a good caucus here. It’s active … They see the Good Friday agreement and all that’s flowed from it as an achievement for Irish America .. and they’re loathe to see that jeopardised in the Brexit context.”

Amanda Sloat, a former state department official and now a Brexit expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said: “Trade deals are always challenging to ratify in Congress … There will be significant resistance, as Speaker Pelosi has said, to ratifying a trade agreement that is seen to harm the Good Friday agreement or the interests of people in Northern Ireland.”

We don’t want your chlorinated chicken anyway :ph34r:

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

We don’t want your chlorinated chicken anyway :ph34r:

 

True enough, but this is really significant - a deal with the US is being touted as the get out clause for a No Deal Brexit. A whole new ball game now.

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Izzy

Izzy

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Innovindil said:

 

Why did no one tell me Boris has jedi powers? This changes everything. 

That's is quite funny.

 

But in all seriousness, most normal humans would have gone back and checked the fella was O.K. rather than just keep walking :rolleyes:

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Strokes

Strokes

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

True enough, but this is really significant - a deal with the US is being touted as the get out clause for a No Deal Brexit. A whole new ball game now.

Yeah I agree, we just need the whole thing put to bed one way or another. Just sign the withdrawal and talk trade with the EU. Hopefully the backstop is not needed.

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Foxin_Mad

Foxin_Mad

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Strokes said:

Yeah I agree, we just need the whole thing put to bed one way or another. Just sign the withdrawal and talk trade with the EU. Hopefully the backstop is not needed.

To be honest we should have done that about 8 months ago.

 

We probably wont need the backstop anyway, its there as an insurance much like you get insurance in case your house burns down. The hope is that we never need to use it, use it as an incentive to get the deal done.

 

To be honest if the hard Brexiteers Tories like Mogg lose Brexit, it is their own fault for not backing the deal. May did the best she could with what she had. Just get it done one way of another FFS. 

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Strokes

Strokes

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Foxin_Mad said:

To be honest we should have done that about 8 months ago.

 

We probably wont need the backstop anyway, its there as an insurance much like you get insurance in case your house burns down. The hope is that we never need to use it, use it as an incentive to get the deal done.

 

To be honest if the hard Brexiteers Tories like Mogg lose Brexit, it is their own fault for not backing the deal. May did the best she could with what she had. Just get it done one way of another FFS. 

The whole thing could and should have been done so much better but it wasn’t and we just need to move on now. The uncertainty is damaging and it’s ended up with us putting a clown in charge of the country. I’m sick of it tbh.

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Yeah I agree, we just need the whole thing put to bed one way or another. Just sign the withdrawal and talk trade with the EU. Hopefully the backstop is not needed.

 

I honestly can't see any solution beyond a second referendum.

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davieG

davieG

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

The whole thing could and should have been done so much better but it wasn’t and we just need to move on now. The uncertainty is damaging and it’s ended up with us putting a clown in charge of the country. I’m sick of it tbh.

What's puzzling me is a No Deal surely means a hard border that will have to be negotiated away and could take years, logic tells me it would take longer than removing the back-stop. Or am I missing something? 

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Innovindil

Innovindil

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, Izzy said:

That's is quite funny.

 

But in all seriousness, most normal humans would have gone back and checked the fella was O.K. rather than just keep walking :rolleyes:

He was going to help him up but the other guy was faster. Don't really think he needed checking to see if he was okay from his fall onto some gravel/sand bags lol

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