Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Gavagai]

@ Gustaran. I was wrong about Ireland visa policy, thanks. Of course, it makes Brexit even less of a problem in that respect.
Your clauses (a) and (b) is exactly the BS by which EU covers up its decision to be as uncooperative, as possible. There are multiple loopholes in WTO rules, they are very flexible. Referring to them is nothing more than an excuse. Alternatively, UK could remaind a member of a single market but with the ability to opt-out of certain EU rules. This is exactly the case for EFTA members, the popular idea that Norway, Iceland, etc. have no say in respect to whether they will follow EU rules is a popular myth (see article 102 here: https://www.efta.int/sites/default/files...eement.pdf). Hell, freaking Lichtenstein is a member of both EEA and a custom union with Switzerland - and everyone is fine with this. I will reiterate: legalistic excuses notwithstanding, what is really going on here is that EU does not belive that its members have a right to leave and they want to punish the UK for the attempt. This attitude, of course, confirms that Britain's decision to leave was right all along.

[Gustaran]

The UK can choose not to apply tariffs. There is a good BBC article here: BBC News - WTO rules: What happens if there's a no-deal Brexit?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46892372

What it boils down to, after a set of steps, is the RoI might refuse to follow EU orders and not introduce a hard border itself and break the Belfast agreement. So the RoI has to start making decisions...

That is certainly an interesting article about some legal implications, but IMHO the huge main issue is the last paragraph:

But the key point remains: Even if the WTO is on side, would the EU and its member states tolerate a situation where there is an open backdoor into the single market for more than a couple of months?

There is not a snowball's chance in hell this will be accepted for any amount of time. It would immediately undermine all international trade to and from the EU Single Market. The RoI will rather be kicked out of the Single Market or at the very least there will be custom checks between the RoI and the rest of Europe.

It's almost an absurd suggestion. All other countries in the world could ignore the EU trade policy and the Single Market rules and import their goods through the UK and via Ireland into the EU, as long as they got a better deal with the UK.

[Krill]

Exactly. But you seem to think the RoI will accept that they will have to break the Belfast agreement, not the UK.

The RoI will rather be kicked out of the Single Market or at the very least there will be custom checks between the RoI and the rest of Europe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...xit-border

The only thing I could say with any certainty is this: To even consider this as necessary will weaken the EU more than the UK leaving with a deal, or remaining in the EU. The RoI would need to run into that scenario willingly for it to not have any damaging effect on the EU integrity. And if bombings start again, oh holy fuck. If the Belfast agreement is broken by the RoI and there are terrorist bombings in the UK because of it, and the IRA is not hunted down in the RoI, that is coming very close to state sanctioned terrorism by a Western European country. At that point all bets are off.

Varadkar needs a deal. He might not want to admit it, but he really needs to keep that border open and right now he might be the one forced to close it.

I don't believe that this will be so easily ignored. I believe (I hate that word in this context, but I have nothing to back it up) that Varadkar really needs to find a way to back down on the backstop. He has a minority government and can you imagine trying to push that shit through a parliament? Varadkar needs a deal more than May does at this point, given she has said she is leaving.

[ipecac]

Freedom of movement has nothing to do with your so called "hordes of migrants". It refers to the 4 foundations of the EU single market: Freedom of goods, capital, services and labour and of course only relates to citizens of the EU.

Hordes is an obvious fact.

A person that is granted asylum in Germany will be assigned to a German state and may not move away for several years. In any case, while immigrants with a legal status in Germany could travel to the UK for vacation, they have neither the right to move there permanently or to seek work within the UK, unless the UK allows it.

The point in my post is about the big picture. The plan is to eventually make the recent hordes and their children EU citizens, which then allows them free movement. Poland and Hungary will not tolerate free movement of them into their countries, and Italy probably not, and waiting 'several years' won't change that.

And while I do not know the future, I highly doubt that the question of immigration will even disturb the EU any longer, because everybody knows that certain countries will not take any immigrants at all. If I had to guess I would assume we will see some sort of compromise (i.e. certain countries paying money instead of taking immigrants).

Again, sooner or later the immigrants and their children will become EU citizens and therefore granted the right of free movement and free labour, so the question will not die down. In fact it'll just get worse.

[AdrienIer]

Exactly. But you seem to think the RoI will accept that they will have to break the Belfast agreement, not the UK.

The RoI will rather be kicked out of the Single Market or at the very least there will be custom checks between the RoI and the rest of Europe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...xit-border

The only thing I could say with any certainty is this: To even consider this as necessary will weaken the EU more than the UK leaving with a deal, or remaining in the EU. The RoI would need to run into that scenario willingly for it to not have any damaging effect on the EU integrity. And if bombings start again, oh holy fuck. If the Belfast agreement is broken by the RoI and there are terrorist bombings in the UK because of it, and the IRA is not hunted down in the RoI, that is coming very close to state sanctioned terrorism by a Western European country. At that point all bets are off.

Varadkar needs a deal. He might not want to admit it, but he really needs to keep that border open and right now he might be the one forced to close it.

I don't believe that this will be so easily ignored. I believe (I hate that word in this context, but I have nothing to back it up) that Varadkar really needs to find a way to back down on the backstop. He has a minority government and can you imagine trying to push that shit through a parliament? Varadkar needs a deal more than May does at this point, given she has said she is leaving.

The future frontier in Ireland is a direct consequence of the UK's decision to brexit. The UK would like to avoid taking responsibility for its decision, but fortunately no one is falling for that trick. The Irish certainly aren't :
https://news.sky.com/story/sky-data-poll...p-11629673

[Krill]

Did you just try to justify terrorism?

[AdrienIer]

Wut ?? How could you possibly read that from my post ?

[Krill]

The reality of the situation is that if there is a no deal Brexit, the economic consequences are no one's fault, blame is irrelevant: what happens, happens.

If someone starts blowing up car bombs again, that is a somewhat different issue. I don't think you can say that is justified in any circumstance.

[Krill]

Wut ?? How could you possibly read that from my post ?

Because you obviously didn't read my post: it is not the UKs sole responsibility if there is a hard border on the island of Ireland, it is also the EUs. Read the BBC article posted above. There are specific circumstances, that are quite likely in a no deal situation where it is not the UK that causes a hard border to occur but the EU and Ireland.

Is it legalistic? Sure, you can say that. But it would be a decision made by the EU to close the border, not the UK.

If Ireland closes the border, how is that the UKs responsibility? How? We've already had one bomb go off in NI. We don't want a return to the troubles. If this comes to pass and bombs start going off again, how is that purely the responsibility of the UK? That's why I stated the RoI really needs to work with the UK even in a no deal situation to keep things working, and even then... someone is going to do something stupid.

[Gustaran]

Your clauses (a) and (b) is exactly the BS by which EU covers up its decision to be as uncooperative, as possible. There are multiple loopholes in WTO rules, they are very flexible. Referring to them is nothing more than an excuse.

I am sorry, but these are the rules of international trade. It's like saying "I don't care what the law says". But for the sake of it, if we ignore WTO, it is still completely clear that:

a) Either you are in a customs union and have open borders
b) Or you are not in a customs union, then there have to be at least customs border checks for goods

Alternatively, UK could remaind a member of a single market but with the ability to opt-out of certain EU rules. This is exactly the case for EFTA members, the popular idea that Norway, Iceland, etc. have no say in respect to whether they will follow EU rules is a popular myth

Well, we have to be clear here, that's major decision: Do you want to stay in the single market or not? Do you want to stay in the customs union or not? Do you accept free movement of people or not?

Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing:

Only EU's 28 member states are fully within the European Single Market, while several other countries have been granted various degrees of access to it. The Single Market has been extended, with exceptions, to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA) and to Switzerland through bilateral treaties. The exceptions, where these EEA states do not participate in the EU Single Market, are:[141]

• the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy (although the agreement contains provisions on trade in agricultural and fishery products);
  
• the customs union;
  
• the common trade policy;
  
• the common foreign and security policy;
  
• the field of justice and home affairs (although all the EFTA countries are part of the Schengen area); or
  
• the economic and monetary union (EMU).
  

Switzerland, a member of EFTA but not of the EEA, participates in the Single Market with a number of exceptions, as defined by the Switzerland–European Union relations.

So yes, Switzerland for example has access to the single market, but is not part of the customs union. Switzerland is also part of Schengen Area, so you can travel across the border easier, but if you transport goods you still have to go through customs at the border. At the same time Switzerland has to acknowledge freedom of movement, so as a EU citizen German you can work in Switzerland without problems. Is that your preferred model?


Just to remind you, here is what Theresa May has negotiated:

The Withdrawal Agreement reached in November guarantees the rights of UK citizens currently living in the EU27 states and European nationals in Britain, settles the UK’s outstanding liabilities to Brussels budgets for a payment of around £39 billion and takes Britain out of the EU single market and customs union, the common agriculture and fisheries policies and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

So the UK has decided to leave the single market and the customs union for the time being. Do you think the EU forced them out? Quite the opposite, everybody was hoping the UK would stay in the customs union.
Seriously, it would have been really easy had the UK stated from the beginning "we want exactly the same status as Norway has". But instead not even the UK parliament seems to be in agreement what exactly it is they want.

As I have written before: What I critizice is that there are very few Brexiteer around who can really explain in detail what model they prefer. Sure, it is freaking complicated, even I will happily admit I understand not even half of it.
But while repeating the tale of the "mean EU" is easy, getting to the bottom of it and deciding what exactly you want - because all these points are indeed trade-offs - is difficult.