Will Boris get Brexit done?

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  • An interesting article in the Daily Mail. Boris will not be visiting Brussels, or other countries, to beg for a deal.

    The CBI (those bastions of Remain) also say the EU is NOT ready for a WTO Brexit. interesting times ahead (if true).

    Boris Johnson plans to give the EU the cold shoulder

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

  • He seems like the man of the moment, to be honest. He has said all the things one wishes politicians before him had said and he seems to have enough assertiveness to carry them through. I think the last Tory who did this was Thatcher and the last politician to fire people up initially was Tony Blair. However ... both fell on their swords.


    The question is will Boris, and it's impossible to know until time gives an answer.

    I've always said about Boris that if he's got the right minions under him to do all the work, then Boris can concentrate on what he does best which is the showmanship stuff. I think Boris does have some good people, so it's really over to them to do their stuff, if he lets them.

    I have a firm belief that the two decades of every new century are the death throes of the foregoing century and that the year 20 of every new century spells a watershed for a sea change.

    Interesting. Let the sea flood in.:)

    Also, the people change and if they help this by not voting unwisely and not believing all sorts of ridiculous rubbish about almost everything, the world can take a turn for the better. There are a lot of human caused problems in our time, serious ones, overpopulation and pollution two of the biggest and constant conflict a third. Dumbing down and religious extremism looming there as biggies if something isn't done about them. If something can be done to lessen these a start will have been made.

    Pollution is a fixable problem if there's a will to do it, but I think those other things will be with humanity for a long time to come, unfortunately.:(

    Boris has made impressive speeches and has energy and assertiveness. I think he'll be a very difficult individual to slap down and the EU is going to quail before the newly elected Brexiteers.

    I don't think anyone will be able to slap Boris down, he's too big!^^ As for the EU, we'll see. So far, everything has gone their way with May's help and complicity, so I welcome Boris as a change of guard.

    They are standing on the brink of dissolution with the cold wind of reality blowing in their faces and if they bugger this up, the west is doomed.

    I tend to agree.

  • An interesting article in the Daily Mail. Boris will not be visiting Brussels, or other countries, to beg for a deal.

    The CBI (those bastions of Remain) also say the EU is NOT ready for a WTO Brexit. interesting times ahead (if true).

    Boris Johnson plans to give the EU the cold shoulder

    Yep. He announced on Day One of his premiership that unless the Backstop is dropped, he will not enter into any negotiations and quite rightly so! They're not negotiations if it's all one-sided as it has been up to now.

    Either the EU starts negotiating with the UK properly, or they don't. The ball's in their court regardless of how they spin it. And talking of spin, lots more to say on the chief spinner in the Irish thread if I get a chance.

  • Lets keep all discussion about whether the UK gets a deal with the EU or not in this thread please. I've unpinned the two other threads we were discussing these subjects as they were from the May era and she's gone.:)

    So, all specific discussion about no deal planning, negotiations with the EU, parliamentary procedures about Brexit etc all go here now please and I've changed the title of the thread and pinned it to reflect that this is THE main Brexit thread now.

    And please, lets keep the discussion tightly on Brexit and not general rants about the EU or talk about other subjects. Use this thread for general EU rants or discussion: Brexit and EU general chit chat.

  • It looks like Boris is aiming for a FTA with the EU, and the EU are sticking out for the WA. It's stalemate at the moment.

    I am not worried by a WTO exit. There may be short term pain, but it will be worth it for the long term gain of regaining our sovereignty, our fishing, and all the rest that the EU take from us. Also, a WTO Brexit insulates us from 'donating' to future bail outs, which are likely to be in the region of hundreds of billions.

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

  • The discussions about a FTA were meant to be in parallel with the WA, because how can you discuss exit without knowing what the future is? It's only because the EU insisted on dealing with the WA first and May agreed with them, that we're in this mess.

    My feeling is we're out of time. Everyone is on holiday and by the time everyone is back, there just isn't time to deal with these things and besides, it doesn't look like the EU will budge.

    I just hope that Boris and Cummings are planning a "buy British" campaign or something similar for November onwards.

  • Boris calls it lubrication, luckily Hammond was a good saver, so there is plenty of dosh to splash about.:)

    The actual figure is about £33bn now, as we're 4 months on from March when we were meant to leave and we've still been paying into the EU coffers.

    The EU has just been running the clock down and our money in the process and May let them do it. Only leaving will stop all this.

  • in response to comment #60 ....

    Re Jordan Peterson

    Granted, he’s better than his followers but surely that’s inevitable. I can see that he could be viewed as a social justice warrior but only insofar that he has a keen sense of what is right and wrong Certainly he is against labels and identity politics. I suppose it’s true that anyone who proselytizes a definite viewpoint which resonates with audience can end up creating enthusiastic acolytes but on the whole I think the main effect is to rescuing or enlighten people from a dull acceptance of their own discontentment or obstacles.

    Population growth

    The big question is how an increasingly over-crowded world can possibly survive for much longer if it is getting stupider by the minute and seeking anxiety avoidance by suppression or euphemism. I lapped up a great book by Henry Kissinger called World Order but wondered if what I had absorbed has become futile and beside the point. (A United Nations with the power of veto is about as United as the United Kingdom).

    Assuming there was a creator (otherwise one goes around in circles chasing infinity), did he/she/it grant us a freehold or leasehold on existence? If freehold, did this dispensation come with a universe of unlimited size where it was left to the population to expand to that universe or, if the universe is of finite size was it left to us to ration out our mortality in a Darwin-esque fashion so as to survive in our universe in a civilised rather than Soylent Green manner?

    Thanks to an excess of liberalism, political correctness, anxiety avoidance coupled with poor education, I’m not at all sure there is a way of expressing such thoughts that could command respect, concern and engaged discussion rather than indifference, incomprehension, ridicule or hatred. Besides, what’s the bloody point when a nation lead by Birdbrain-in-Chief Theresa May burbles on about a giant step for mankind by achieving zero emissions in Britain by 2030 (which mean cars, fridges, trains, engines and steel girders imported from Asia grow on trees). We now have a Second Coming to Save The Planet, in the form of a cute child called Gerta Thunberg, who thinks that solution is to pay more attention to global warming because it’s important and there isn’t much time. Phew, and here I was worrying that no one had a solution!

    In an article in today’s times about this child goddess of climate change a reader blessed with an IQ in double figures comments that “Greta Thunberg needs to understand that climate change is being caused by the world population expanding at an unsustainable rate and she needs to start ranting on about that”. To which another reader offers the reassurance that “World population is expected to peak at 10 billion in 2050”. Thank goodness, I was starting to getting worried. This replying reader hasn’t revealed where he got this reassuring fact (hopefully not from the same forecasting team that predicts UK’s GNP over the 10 years for Brexit without a deal vs with a deal vs remaining). As for why population growth is going to plateau at 10 billion, who knows? Who cares? It just Is. Don’t be a pedant. “What?” beats “Why?”

    continued overleaf/

    technical note: (at midpoint Horizon relocated Little Wing's posting and part-completed response to a more relevant thread .... so on the next page is the rest of my response

  • With partly resigned facetiousness, I replied that this maximum prediction of 10 billion could come true if:

    - China takes charge and impose family size limits
    - Child benefits be reversed, with state rewards and tax reductions for those with fewer children
    - Parent eligibility testing (part of Darwin’s survival of the fittest redefined for the 21st century)
    - Iran / North Korea / Russia steps up nuclear weapon development (what’s 1% of 10 billion?!)
    - Famine in sub-Sahara Africa is allowed to continue until they’re all dead
    - Acceptance of increased suicides due to increased mental depression, to offset overcrowding
    - Rubber dinghies to be punctured or manufactured with a slow puncture (not too slow)
    - Down-market seasides to be giant detention centres for unwanted/unsuitable immigrants
    - Earth finally colonises other planets (ideal locations for the Islam Awakening)
    - Popular democracy free to protest uninhibitedly, all the way to annihilation of one another
    - No-deal Brexit
    - The Irish
    - Channel Four News interviewed an expert on this subject who says it will plateau at 10 billion

    Democracy, freedom and capitalism:

    I’m not sure in what way you think “humanity” will divided into two camps. I reckon it is a division along a continuum of democracy versus totalitarianism; a trend already in evidence, with the polar opposites being America versus China – and we can all have fun positioning the other nations along that continuum. I suspect there will always be argument - or violence – to arrive at a workable happy medium.

    Some of the heated argument will emanate from the totalitarian end of the scale, who will view the grass on the other side as decidedly greener and more willing to accommodate individual aspirations. The only argument coming from the opposite end will be those who, for one reason or another, have failed in a democratic and competitive society, creating resentment and a chip on their shoulder, best relieved by redistribution of wealth which ultimately is a preference for equal outcome rather than equal opportunity, leading to Marxism which inevitably leads to totalitarianism.

    If one accepts that argument, it perhaps follows that Democracy, Capitalism and Freedom is the only game in town and it could one day achieve universal acceptance and appeal if only it could operate with more humanity, integrity, sanity, treating better those who through no fault of their own are stuck at the bottom of the ladder.

    As for the freedom part of the package, it is liable to fracture when it fails to create an upper limit on permissiveness (eg . accommodate those freedom seekers who are unhappy being on the receiving end of someone else’s unacceptable idea of freedom). I can understand why China is, for the time being, far from convinced - or at least highly ambivalent – as to whether Western democracy and freedom offer the Great Leap Forward they are looking for. They can’t just abandon, walk away from or suffocate their highly profitable toe in the Western water that is Hong Kong.

    The West’s search for an ideal operable model of democracy, capitalism, freedom and equal opportunity is likely to entail a process of never-ending continual improvement. To succeed there needs to be massive improvements in education, crime prevention and surveillance. Elitism should never have been allowed to become a dirty word. People need to become educated to the point that they can understand how society needs to work; only then will one be able to talk about such things without being branded as a “conspiracy theorist”, “political agitator”, “racist”, “Islamphobic” or an “ugly face of eugenics”.

    Educating and motivating youth to wise up is a huge challenge. They need to rise above academia leftwing groupthink, be a lot smarter and less impressionable than their “friends” on social media and be less like self-absorbed snowflakes dripping with self-oppression, self-righteousness and self-entitlement.

    The Islam Awakening

    None of the above is going to gain traction until the Western recognises and deals with the threat of Islam hegemony, which is already creating havoc or unrest in Europe, has been checked by Trump in America and given ruthless short shrift in China.

    Political leadership

    I would like to think that in an odd-man-out comparison of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Chance the Gardener (from that movie Being
    There), that the odd man out is Chance the Gardener and not Boris Johnson, and that both Boris and Donald will win over voters by breaking the political mold with straight talk and ultimately conquering people’s misgivings by delivering improvements

  • There are articles in the Express and Telegraph saying that Brexit cannot now be stopped. I hope they are correct. In a way, the long drawn out decision to appoint our new PM may have worked in Boris's favour by reducing Parliamentary opportunities to delay or stop Brexit.

    No deal EU exit ‘too late’ to stop

    Mark Twain — 'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.'

  • Brexit: EU 'refusing to negotiate', says Gove

    Cabinet minister Michael Gove says the EU "seem to be refusing to negotiate with the UK" over a new Brexit deal.

    Mr Gove, who is responsible for no-deal planning, said he was "deeply saddened" that Brussels was, in his words, saying "no, we don't want to talk".

    It comes after the EU said UK demands to remove the Irish backstop from Theresa May's deal were unacceptable.

    Well, we're in a stand-off situation now and I don't see either side backing down and besides, the time to renegotiate if both parties wanted to is getting is getting less and less with every day.

    Is Boris correct in insisting that the Backstop be ditched before the UK renters negotiations with the EU?

  • Agree. I've not been able to follow the daily ins and outs of it all, but basically all Boris has to do is nothing and hopefully there won't be any outside influences to stop us leaving the EU at the end of October.

    On another note, I will try and create a thread at some point, but I caught a bit of BBC Parliament last week and they were running various things on there while parliament is on recess, including various lectures. One of the lectures was by the former head of he Supreme Court and he gave a very good reminder of why we need to leave the EU. I recommend it to those who have iplayer access.

  • Brexit: Legal bid to prevent Boris Johnson shutting down parliament

    A group of politicians has started a legal action aimed at preventing Boris Johnson shutting down parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.

    The group of 24 parliamentarians include Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, SNP MP Joanna Cherry and independent MP Heidi Allen.

    They have lodged legal papers at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

    Almost missed this article today, so the nonsense starts.:thumbdown:

    I wondered why this is being heard in Scotland, but further down the article it says this:

    Quote

    It is understood that the case has been brought in Scotland because the Court of Session continues to sit over the summer, while the equivalent court in England is on holiday.

    Still seems strange. How can a Scottish court rule on UK constitutional matters? Surely only the Supreme Court can do this?:/

    Anyway, to the matter at hand and as we said in the Lib Dem thread, Jo Swinson and comrades have no interest in democracy, they're just trying to thwart Brexit. Will they succeed?

  • Corbyn seeks clarity on 'unconstitutional' election-time no-deal

    Jeremy Corbyn has asked the cabinet secretary to rule on whether Boris Johnson could force through a no-deal Brexit in a general election period.

    There have been reports the PM could call an election that would be held after the 31 October Brexit deadline - the day the UK is due to leave the EU.

    The Labour leader has written to Sir Mark Sedwill saying such a move would be an "anti-democratic abuse of power".

    It comes amid speculation MPs will table a no-confidence motion in the PM.

    It is thought opposition MPs could propose the vote in a bid to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal.

    Everyone is lining up their tanks against Johnson, but I've read conflicting things on whether Boris can get a no-deal through via calling for an election. Some articles say he can, others he can't.

    The one benefit to all this "noise" from the remainers, is it may eventually bring the EU back to the negotiation table.

  • Remainer MPs win first court bid in attempt to sabotage No Deal Brexit – before Halloween deadline

    DESPERATE Remainer MPs and anti-Brexit lawyers today passed their first legal hurdle after launching a court bid to stop No Deal Brexit.

    The group of more than 70 MPs and campaigners were given a boost when a top judge agreed to give their case a full hearing on September 6.

    Just catching up on loads of news including all Brexit news and of course this nonsense that I mentioned last week, has now started. What a Scottish court has to do with this, I've no idea.X/

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