Brexit - The UK leaves the EU

Deal or No Deal?

  • Voted Leave - May's Deal

  • Voted Leave - No Deal

  • Voted Leave - Second Referendum

  • Did not vote/abstained - May's Deal

  • Did not vote/abstained - No Deal

  • Did not vote/abstained - Second Referendum

  • Voted Remain - May's Deal

  • Voted Remain - No Deal

  • Voted Remain - Second Referendum

Results are only viewable after voting.
Touring Mars
Doesn't this imply that the EU deliberately holds imports from third countries to a much higher standard than they do from within their own single market?
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I haven't looked into it at all, but my guess is that the delay is in certifying and providing evidence of compliance to whatever the standard is, rather than in meeting the criteria of the standard itself. In medical manufacturing, one of my fears is ISO standards and British Standards diverge, meaning we have to show compliance with a whole other standard, despite it probably not actually changing how we work.
 
Liquid
Seems like a benefit of being in the club than outside it.
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Sure. But it does grate a bit when trade is being decimated on the grounds of 'standards' when actually nothing has changed.

Paradoxically, it suggests that standards within the Single Market are lower, which is not really much of a 'benefit'.
 
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Touring Mars
Due to NZ having better alignment with the EU on veterinary checks than the UK, it is currently onerously difficult for Welsh lamb producers to export to the EU.
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Have we changed anything to do with vet checks? Can hardly see that we've had time to!
 


I would think that Irish hauliers bypassing the UK and heading directly to mainland Europe would be a logical consequence of Brexit. Why would you cross borders and customs (twice) if you can just travel directly from an EU country to another?
 
For those still watching, the whole Brexit debacle is entering a new phase... and it is not looking good at all.

Even to seasoned followers of the Brexit issue, recent events, actions and comments have become harder and harder to fathom, but this is a great video that speculates as to what Boris Johnson and the current UK Government are possibly attempting to do:



Summary: Boris and/or the ERG are seeking to crash the Brexit deal by making impossible demands of the EU, with the intent of making it impossible for the EU to ratify the UK-EU trade deal, thus giving the appearance that it is the EU (and not the UK) who are responsible for the collapse of the deal. I think Phil (the author of the video) is probably right.

Meanwhile, things are going from bad to worse on numerous fronts, not least in Northern Ireland. The EU are furious that the UK has unilaterally decided to extend 'grace periods' without its consent - the question is not simply why is the UK Government doing this (it's because the trade deal is crippling NI-GB trade), but why is it choosing to do it this way (i.e. unilaterally without even consulting the EU)?

The EU, in response, is preparing legal action against the UK - and, it has postponed the ratification of the trade deal. The video above suggests that this is probably the real aim of what the hard Brexiteers really wanted all along.

Hard Brexiteers have also pointed out repeatedly that the chief win of Brexit is 'massive' new trade opportunities with non-EU countries in the form of new international trade deals that the UK was unable to forge as an EU member state.... but, how is this even remotely likely to happen when a) countries (like the USA, as a major example) are almost certain to prioritise trade deal negotiations with the EU and not the UK; b) international law is on the side of the EU (if the UK decides to throw out the Withdrawal Agreement and c) why would anyone seek a trade deal with the UK when the UK is ready to deliberately scupper it's most important trade deal (with the EU) and probably break international law in the process?
 
I’ve got a flight stick being sent from Belgium from Logitech, via UPS who are great for stupidly detailed tracking info.

Total time to clear Belgium customs, from arrival to dispatch, 2 hours.

Total time to clear UK customs, from arrival to dispatch, 2 days!

Yep this brexit lark is great for the consumer, particularly as the above is quick, Logitech even state when you order some packages can be delayed by up to four weeks. I’m going to guess that hasn’t been an issue with the Belgium side either.
 
Scaff
I’ve got a flight stick being sent from Belgium from Logitech, via UPS who are great for stupidly detailed tracking info.

Total time to clear Belgium customs, from arrival to dispatch, 2 hours.

Total time to clear UK customs, from arrival to dispatch, 2 days!

Yep this brexit lark is great for the consumer, particularly as the above is quick, Logitech even state when you order some packages can be delayed by up to four weeks. I’m going to guess that hasn’t been an issue with the Belgium side either.
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It's all become utterly useless.
We are in such a poor position now.
 
MrCrynox
It's all become utterly useless.
We are in such a poor position now.
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Just wait until the grace periods end and/or the EU imposes sanctions/punitive tariffs for Johnson breaking the Withdrawal Agreement. This shower of fecal matter is only just getting started...

What is the UK's current solution for imports? Don't bother checking anything coming in. Meanwhile, the EU have full checks on everything coming from and going to the UK. This puts UK businesses at a severe disadvantage in terms of UK-EU trade, and it also doesn't bode well for future trade deals either.

I don't know whether it is sheer incompetence, or that Boris and his cronies genuinely believed their own BS about how easy it would be to secure a trade deal that effectively kept us in the single market. Either way, there can be no excuse for the UK's almost total lack of preparedness for Brexit itself, and now as a direct result, we are currently on the brink of breaking international law by not enforcing checks, breaking international law by not implementing the Withdrawal Agreement in NI properly, and, best of all, leaving our external borders wide open, putting at risk legal UK trade, undermining efforts to combat human trafficking and illegal immigration, and potentially making a mockery of our biosafety controls including COVID travel restrictions.

Oh, and it is not at all clear when this shameful and downright dangerous state of affairs is likely to end...
 
Like I said, utterly hopeless. Just look anything being bought from outside the UK & the awful effect it has had on us. Import tax, VAT, handling charges, yet we have a supposed free trade deal.

How can we knowingly put ourselves into this position, we might as well have got a shotgun out & blown our legs off.
 
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As if most people on the island of Britain have ever given a toss about Northern Ireland. Nobody knows about it and very few care to want to know.

It was unionists rioting so it goes unnoticed anyway. The cynical view says if there were 3 republicans gathered on the same street breathing the same air, it'd have been headline news. And I think there's some merit in that.
 
Liquid
As if most people on the island of Britain have ever given a toss about Northern Ireland. Nobody knows about it and very few care to want to know.

It was unionists rioting so it goes unnoticed anyway. The cynical view says if there were 3 republicans gathered on the same street breathing the same air, it'd have been headline news. And I think there's some merit in that.
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That's what she said, pretty much.

I remember the only reason we on the mainland used to give a toss about what happened in Northern Ireland. Luckily that has no chance of happening ever again now, eh?
 
Liquid
As if most people on the island of Britain have ever given a toss about Northern Ireland. Nobody knows about it and very few care to want to know.
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I think this is a bit unfair - or at least, this isn't the whole story.

Speaking from my own (very limited) perspective, my views on NI are a mixture of empathy, pity, confusion, irritation, exasperation and anger. Far from not knowing anything about it or caring, the news on NI when I grew up was almost universally negative - with terrorist groups killing people, politicians and religious leaders shouting the odds at each other, and a society split on both sectarian and nationalistic grounds... it was enough to make one despair and the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland had also had enough of it - but for an external observer with no power or influence over a situation that seemed so intractable, I think it is quite understandable to have given up 'caring' about NI politics (but while continuing to empathize with the people caught up in The Troubles).

Knowing many Irish and Northern Irish people, including segments of my own family, NI politics was (and to a large extent, still is) a taboo subject. Very strong feelings still exist, esp. among those who have lost friends or family members, and simply put, it was better all round just to not talk about it in certain company.

Sadly, the state of NI (and British) politics is still pathetic, though it is still a vast improvement over what it used to be like (which only goes to show how bad it was if today can be considered a vast improvement). But many of the old fault lines are still there - but the GFA and the UK and Ireland's mutual membership of the EU have held things together successfully for many years. Obviously, that is now gone, and with it the larger fault lines are being exposed again and with it comes a risk of a return to the bad old days.

Yes, I reckon there are plenty of people - I'm looking at you, Brexit voters - who still view NI as nothing more than an afterthought and probably couldn't care less about what happens in NI... clearly, some Brexiteers were not put off (and I guess some were positively encouraged) by the prospect of it all kicking off in Ireland again, but that is certainly not the case for a very large number of British people. To be clear, there are people on both sides of the Brexit divide who are deeply concerned about what is happening in Ireland, though I suspect that those who couldn't care less about NI are far more likely to belong in the Brexiteer camp.
 
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Like @Touring Mars, i grew up with The Troubles being very much almost daily headline news, especially when the bombing spread to mainland Britain. It's not a period of time that i'd want revisiting in a hurry.

For anyone outside of Northern Ireland and to a lesser extent, even outside of Belfast, Northern Irish politics and The Troubles are something probably difficult to comprehend. For those too young to even remember those times it would be much harder still. So i can understand the general apathy.

The problems in Northern Ireland were only ever appeased, not solved, so all Brexit has done is open those wounds up again and anyone who thought this wasn't going to be on the cards once more is fooling themselves.
 
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What's the actual cause of these riots? I know there have been protests about the NI-UK border protocol (Brexit), but I thought this violence was due to anti-police sentiment related to the handling of the Bobby Storey funeral (not Brexit).
 
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Touring Mars
Speaking from my own (very limited) perspective, my views on NI are a mixture of empathy, pity, confusion, irritation, exasperation and anger. Far from not knowing anything about it or caring, the news on NI when I grew up was almost universally negative - with terrorist groups killing people, politicians and religious leaders shouting the odds at each other, and a society split on both sectarian and nationalistic grounds... it was enough to make one despair and the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland had also had enough of it - but for an external observer with no power or influence over a situation that seemed so intractable, I think it is quite understandable to have given up 'caring' about NI politics (but while continuing to empathize with the people caught up in The Troubles).
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Okay, you're right about that. But what I see as someone who didn't grow up during the height of the Troubles is that there has been a generational shift in knowledge and caring. The Good Friday generation on the island of Britain, Wales and England especially, certainly don't know or care that much about Northern Ireland; its status within the UK, how it is different to Great Britain, what's the deal with the Republic, why there are divisions, what's the UDA/UVF or IRA/INLA, what's the difference between the UDA and UVF or between the IRA and INLA, knowledge of the hunger strikers and so on. It really is a topic completely unknown to those aged 30 and under.

Scotland is a little bit different I know but I still maintain that as a general rule, a supermajority of people aged about 30 and under haven't got a clue about Northern Ireland and don't really care. They've never been exposed to it. The most basic knowledge is just "Catholics vs Protestants".

One telling comment I have read is that after the peak (or nadir?) of the Troubles in Ireland, the relative quiet on the island of Ireland and the halting of reporting meant that attacks in Britain by nationalist paramilitaries were all the more shocking and surprising. A very loaded statement, sure, but it is important that things like this aren't ignored by the England-centric UK media; if the same thing was happening in London or Birmingham or Manchester, it'd be wall-to-wall coverage but because it's Belfast/Northern Ireland/Ulster... sod it, who cares?

Let's face it, if you go down the rabbit hole of "not reporting on Northern Ireland", things like the Twelfth have been ignored for centuries...

Outspacer
What's the actual cause of these riots? I know there have been protests about the NI-UK border protocol (Brexit), but I thought this violence was due to anti-police sentiment related to the handling of the Bobby Storey funeral (not Brexit).
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Liquid
0fc.gif
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Much posting about people not caring about what's going on in NI, and yet asking what's going on in NI gets a wisecrack meme :rolleyes:

Yes my question was loaded, I didn't try to hide that. Clearly the answer to that side of it is that "not both" reasons are because of Brexit. But it's still a genuine question - as you make a point of in your post, nuances in NI are important (and the peace process wouldn't have succeded if it had trivialised any of them).

It seems to me that while we could say that Brexit and the border protocol has affected (particularly unionist) sentiment in NI, maybe that it's put a thumb on the scales, we can't say that it's the cause of these riots and violence.
 
I agree @Outspacer, I don't think this has much to do with Brexit per se, but it certainly can't have helped.

The pandemic has probably played as much a role, if not considerably more so, in making the situation more volatile in NI that it was, but just as @Liquid says that young people in the UK probably don't care about NI, it could also be argued that the people who are rioting in Belfast right now look pretty young and unlikely to be engaged with politics directly, and certainly not that interested in the machinations of an international agreement between the UK and the EU.

There's many factors at play, but of all of these factors, Brexit is probably one of the least important... and indeed, trouble has flared in NI many times long before the Withdrawal Agreement was put into force.
 
Touring Mars
I agree @Outspacer, I don't think this has much to do with Brexit per se, but it certainly can't have helped.

The pandemic has probably played as much a role, if not considerably more so, in making the situation more volatile in NI that it was, but just as @Liquid says that young people in the UK probably don't care about NI, it could also be argued that the people who are rioting in Belfast right now look pretty young and unlikely to be engaged with politics directly, and certainly not that interested in the machinations of an international agreement between the UK and the EU.

There's many factors at play, but of all of these factors, Brexit is probably one of the least important... and indeed, trouble has flared in NI many times long before the Withdrawal Agreement was put into force.
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So that's all fair enough and reasonable, but rather in contrast to the lengthy analyses above concluding that Brexiteers don't care about NI, even positing that some might be pleased by the violence! One could level the same charge against Remainer retweeters that use pictures of the violence with a pithy one-liner - they appear to care far more about bolstering their anti-brexit argument than they care about the people of NI. Not only is it dishonest if the major trigger isn't Brexit, and disrespectful of the actual mix of grievances, it tacitly condones and justifies the violence as being totally understandable, an inevitable outcome. I see this as dangerous and needing to be challenged.
 
Outspacer
So that's all fair enough and reasonable, but rather in contrast to the lengthy analyses above concluding that Brexiteers don't care about NI, even positing that some might be pleased by the violence! One could level the same charge against Remainer retweeters that use pictures of the violence with a pithy one-liner - they appear to care far more about bolstering their anti-brexit argument than they care about the people of NI. Not only is it dishonest if the major trigger isn't Brexit, and disrespectful of the actual mix of grievances, it tacitly condones and justifies the violence as being totally understandable, an inevitable outcome. I see this as dangerous and needing to be challenged.
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I'd suggest that a great many voters, both leave and remain, didn't care about NI when they voted, likely not maliciously so, but I really don't recall it being discussed that much prior to the vote. Also, perhaps not so much here, but it's very common to see on the internet, people posting pictures of riots in European countries as evidence that it's a good we left, and/or somehow has proof the EU is about to fail... it's tit-for-tat.

FWIW, I do business with both Northern and Southern Ireland. I've no idea if they want a united Ireland or not, but all of them are ****ed off with Brexit, and want things back the way they were. (edit: meant to imply within the context of business at least)
 
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MatskiMonk
I'd suggest that a great many voters, both leave and remain, didn't care about NI when they voted, likely not maliciously so, but I really don't recall it being discussed that much prior to the vote.
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Exactly, I don't think there's more 'not-carers' on either side to any great extent. There was some talk about how bad a hard border within Ireland would be of course, but alternatives weren't discussed with any rigour by either camp - remainers didn't expect to lose, so leavers' vague ideas (that were never going to be accepted by the EU) weren't properly challenged.

MatskiMonk
Also, perhaps not so much here, but it's very common to see on the internet, people posting pictures of riots in European countries as evidence that it's a good we left, and/or somehow has proof the EU is about to fail... it's tit-for-tat.
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I tend to stay away from Twitter, Facebook, etc unless led there by something. Horrid echo chambers for anything political, and pretty much devoid of any actual information. Anyway, I'd address such a post chain here in the same way as I am this one. GTP is better than those places :)

MatskiMonk
FWIW, I do business with both Northern and Southern Ireland. I've no idea if they want a united Ireland or not, but all of them are ****ed off with Brexit, and want things back the way they were. (edit: meant to imply within the context of business at least)
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I'm not surprised to hear that at all! But it's also clear to see that a border in the sea is more anti-unionist than it is anti-nationalist, so I'd expect them to feel more aggrieved by it politically.
 
Today's Daily Express have an article titled:

"Brexit trade boom created since Britain's EU split - New data shows 'significant' shift"

Pity they are talking about Ireland 🤣

Meanwhile, on the same page, they have a video about how UK retailers are "finding it harder to work with the EU".

You Dont Say Nicholas Cage GIF
 
MIE1992
Didn't the lore of the WipEout racing series predict this?
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All I can find is something about an economic depression which lasted until the end of the decade...

wipeout.fandom.com

The Fall of the F9000

The Fall of the F9000 was a controversy that involved the F9000 International Federation of Anti-Gravity Racing, administered by the Overtel Corporation, and other related parties, legitimate or not. The Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition exposed numerous sensitive documents, detailing various acts...
wipeout.fandom.com wipeout.fandom.com
 

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