The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Lichfield Dean]

2 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Basically, we are a slave state of the EU where we have to do what they tell us for five years, after which time we either renew for another five years or get hit by a load of tariffs.

Also, Northern Ireland is cut adrift from the rest of the UK, and nobody knows what is happening with Gibraltar.

Lastly, national law has been reframed to come under the umbrella of this agreement, which allows the government to propose legislation without requiring parliamentary readings. Basically, they snuck in a few lines that gives them Henry VIII powers.

So parliament is now not really sovereign due to being bound by EU laws (we no longer have a say in those of course) and is doubly not sovereign because the government seem to have wrestled power away from it. Might as well shut the whole thing down and make Boris King, except a King who effectively has to do what the EU says.

Oh, and also, the fishermen have been screwed over as well 

To be fair, there is an element of "worst case interpretation" about what I said, and I'm unclear how much of this stuff is deliberately malicious vs incompetent goofball wording.

But it does all bother me very much that we are potentially in a worse situation than we were before AND we are still beholden to EU rules and regs that we no longer have a say in. And Boris has the nerve to claim we have both had the cake and eaten it? And his followers will believe him... Aaarrghhh.

[Xela]

2 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

Been waiting for one of the wife’s Christmas presents since 20th November.

Don't claim a selection of fine sours and stouts is a present for your missus  

[chrisp65]

4 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Boris has the nerve to claim we have both had the cake and eaten it

Urinal cake

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

And she likes to keep up with gravy news so she might read it

She's a keeper then. 

[fightoffyour]

12 minutes ago, Xela said:

Don't claim a selection of fine sours and stouts is a present for your missus  

She would actually love that at least as much as me!

 

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

She's a keeper then. 

It was established that she’s a keeper when it was established that she’s a two fisted drinker 

[Xela]

2 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

It was established that she’s a keeper when it was established that she’s a two fisted drinker 

[fightoffyour]

11 minutes ago, Xela said:

I was referring to this 

On 15/09/2020 at 07:00, il_serpente said:

Bagged yourself a two-fisted drinker, I see.   Well done!

...and Congratulations!

[StefanAVFC]

Just a tragic, tragic bunch of skin suits

[chrisp65]

The one redeeming feature of 2020 is that psycho is still dead.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

7 hours ago, blandy said:

Did they? I don't recall that (memory thankfully wiped).

If you'd like to refresh your memory, I can heartily recommend searching this thread for the word 'unicorn' (and also, weirdly, 'u knee corn').

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

Just a tragic, tragic bunch of skin suits

The only logical reason for him to take it to a Holiday Inn for an evening is surely to have sex with it. 

 

[ChrisVillan]

When are the street parties?

[kidlewis]

19 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

The only logical reason for him to take it to a Holiday Inn for an evening is surely to have sex with it. 

 

Stolen from twitter:

imagine shining a UV light on that....

[bickster]

5 hours ago, ml1dch said:

The only logical reason for him to take it to a Holiday Inn for an evening is surely to have sex with it. 

 

Nah the weird f**ker will probably put a nappy on, smear it in butter and just cry alone

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

16 hours ago, Genie said:

Could Starmer/ labour have just abstained from voting?

They could have but it's a bit Corbyn and the public's view on "abstain" as a vote is probably more negative than positive overall no matter the subject at a guess.

 

[blandy]

9 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

If you'd like to refresh your memory, I can heartily recommend searching this thread for the word 'unicorn' (and also, weirdly, 'u knee corn').

No, no help at all. Pages of comments about Corbyn’s ludicrous “policy”, but nothing about soft Brexit being unicorns and fantasy.

Its been a huge, huge, problem all along that leaders and others have promised or proposed the unobtainable. Whether that’s leaving the EU and retaining all the benefits, whether it’s Corbyn’s leave the customs union, but be in a new customs unicorn, sorry, union, whether it’s we’ll negotiate a labour Brexit in the first 6 months and then hold a referendum on it.

Soft Brexit, stay in the SM & CU, protect jobs and standards, maintain and grow trade in services etc. a Norway type of deal. A soft Brexit. No one called that a unicorn or a fantasy. Soft leave was always viable, it was just not pursued by the tories because of May’s insistence that we leave the SM... and Labour couldn’t bring itself to commit one way or the other, which is what the comments was about on the previous page - they needed to pick a horse.

[darrenm]

47 minutes ago, blandy said:

No, no help at all. Pages of comments about Corbyn’s ludicrous “policy”, but nothing about soft Brexit being unicorns and fantasy.

Its been a huge, huge, problem all along that leaders and others have promised or proposed the unobtainable. Whether that’s leaving the EU and retaining all the benefits, whether it’s Corbyn’s leave the customs union, but be in a new customs unicorn, sorry, union, whether it’s we’ll negotiate a labour Brexit in the first 6 months and then hold a referendum on it.

Soft Brexit, stay in the SM & CU, protect jobs and standards, maintain and grow trade in services etc. a Norway type of deal. A soft Brexit. No one called that a unicorn or a fantasy. Soft leave was always viable, it was just not pursued by the tories because of May’s insistence that we leave the SM... and Labour couldn’t bring itself to commit one way or the other, which is what the comments was about on the previous page - they needed to pick a horse.

I think you're a bit confused about the/a customs union. They're the same thing. A customs union does the same job as the customs union for a non-EU state. Labour's policy of a customs union wasn't unicorns at all, it was to all intents and purposes staying in the customs union. Here's Keir to explain

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/labour-backs-staying-in-eu-customs-union-keir-starmer-confirms

The renegotiate the deal in 6 months and have a referendum on it was always attainable because it was basically going to be the same as we have now. Full regulatory alignment, customs union, single market access (again, membership by another name). It was all going to be Norway with a customs union. Here's Guy Verhofstadt to explain

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1083930/Brexit-news-UK-EU-Guy-Verhofstadt-Ireland-border-backstop-Theresa-May-Jeremy-Corbyn

I think you're proving Hanoi's point

 

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I think you're proving Hanoi's point

You are of course welcome to that view.

l perceive the underlying point Hanoi was making to be not actually that remainers (generally) called soft Brexit a complete fantasy, (as that’s clearly bollex), but instead that certain posters on VT called Labour’s particular policy (or more accurate policies, as it kept changing) on Brexit complete fantasy, and there he’s right of course, we did.
The guardian article from Feb 2018 pre- dates the “unicorn” comments about Labour’s policies by ages - in other words they were not directed specifically at the detail of Labour’s claim in the article that the labour position on “a” customs union is all rather marvellous and really just the same as “the” customs union, but on Labour’s policy as it evolved over time. You can see that here:

https://www.villatalk.com/search/?&q=unicorn&type=forums_topic&page=2&item=14720&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy

or if you can’t be arsed (I wouldn’t blame you) then TL:DR, no one called a soft Brexit, SM&CU a fantasy or a unicorn, and it wasn’t Labour’s policy anyway. See you article, right at the end. She was right.

Quote

Lucas said: “Leaving the single market – threatening labour standards, putting women’s rights at risk, and giving those who want to weaken or abolish environmental protection an opportunity to run amok – would still be a mistake and should be opposed by those on the left in all parties.”

 

[darrenm]

Just a bit more on this because I find the revisionism a bit funny. When the EU said that the WA was closed, Corbyn offered May a way forward which amounted to basically remain by another name. It was called unicorns by lots of people and it was derided by the Labour hard remainers such as Umunna and Owen Smith as fantasy and that it wasn't a 2nd referendum which they considered the only acceptable course for the Labour party. Although Stephen Kinnock and pro-EU Tories like Oliver Letwin thought it was a way forward
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47160625

Quote

 

However, it was criticised by Labour members of the People's Vote campaign for another EU referendum, who said Mr Corbyn had gone back on a commitment to back a public vote, if he cannot force a general election.

Mr Smith, who challenged Mr Corbyn for the Labour leadership in 2016, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "At the moment, I may be asked by the Labour Party to row in behind a policy decision that they know, and the government knows, is going to make the people I represent poorer and - more fundamentally actually - is at odds with the internationalist, social democratic values I believe in."

Another pro-EU Labour MP, Chuka Umunna, said: "This is not opposition, it is the facilitation of a deal which will make this country poorer."

But Labour's Stephen Kinnock, who backs the "Norway Plus" model of a close economic partnership with the EU, welcomed Mr Corbyn's letter, tweeting: "This can break the deadlock."

And the Conservative former cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin, who also favours a Norway-style agreement, said it could be the basis of a cross-party deal.

 

Even Ian Dunt backed it (from the waybackmachine due to Dunt deleting it since, lest the frightful Corbynistas are able to cite him backing Corbyn)

Quote

 

It's become a biannual tradition now for Labour to upgrade its Brexit policy in some significant way. Maybe we should turn into a national holiday, so we can at least get some free time to work out what the hell it means. But as confusing as these shifts can be, they all follow a similar theme: Keir Starmer pulling Jeremy Corbyn just that inch closer to where he wants to go. And the place he wants to go is quite clearly something like Norway Plus.

Last night, the opposition leader wrote a letter to the prime minister setting out Labour's conditions for supporting a deal. They reveal part of the plan, but to really understand it you need to combine it with Starmer's interview on Newsnight on Monday and a little bit of policy geekery about Swiss employment law. As ever with Labour's Kremlin-style Brexit policy, it only becomes clear when you pick up all the clues hidden in various locations. It's like Pokemon Go for broken political nerds.

Corbyn's letter reiterates an argument Starmer has been making for a while now. It says that the backstop is a regrettable but necessary device. It's necessary because the prime minister's end goal from Brexit, in so far as it can be distinguished, is for a Canada-type arrangement of different regulations and tariff rates. That means checks on the border in Ireland. And that means the backstop will come into force and may be hard to leave.

But instead of altering the backstop, it proposes altering the end destination, so that we can avoid it coming into force at all. This has the advantage of only requiring amendments to the future relationship document - not the withdrawal agreement, which the EU has refused to reopen. Given that Brussels repeatedly said the document could change if there were different red lines from the UK, this is manifestly deliverable and realistic.

But Labour is not being naive. It wants the changes locked in place with domestic legislation, so that Theresa May can't go back on what she's promised once the deal is secured.

Then there's the content. On the face of it, this doesn't seem to have changed much: Customs union membership with a say on trade deals and a close single market relationship. But there is now a bit more detail to the single market aspect.

Corbyn is using the word 'alignment'. This is not a word he's used much before. A quick check on Hansard shows he has said it three times previously in relation to Brexit in the Commons, two of which were quotes and the third a question about government policy.

But Starmer has been saying it with growing frequency. He talked about it throughout 2017 and 2018 and then much more this year.

On January 9th, he said:

"As for a single market deal, my own view is that there are advantages in what we call the Norway model but that there are also disadvantages in that, and therefore it must be possible - again, I have had discussions [with officials in Brussels] - to explore a close economic relationship that keeps alignment, with, of course, oversight and enforcement mechanisms to go with it, but which is not simply the EEA."

This provides some clarity. It suggests we'll keep the same laws as the EU, enforced by the same institutions. That suggests the same courts and agencies. There is no mention of areas we'll carve out - not even on Corbyn's hated state aid rules.

When people call plans like this 'Norway', they don't literally mean Norway. They mean that it is modelled on that type of arrangement. Starmer is clear he would not be looking to join the Efta group of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein and then, through them, stay in the single market through the EEA agreement. He's trying to set up something which is very much like it, but different.

One key difference from Norway is that it would involve membership of a customs union with the EU. So in this respect it would be closer. Labour accepts this would involve "alignment with the union customs code, a common external tariff and an agreement on commercial policy" but demands that Britain be given a "say" on future EU trade deals.

Quite what a "say" entails is another matter. It would certainly not involve a veto. But the EU has lots of formats in which countries are consulted on things. Norway is consulted on new regulations and then has its civil servants come in and sort out how they'll implement them. That is a "say", albeit not a terribly strong one. It is probable that the officials in Brussels will be envisaging something similar.

But in other ways the relationship would presumably be more distant than Norway. After all, Corbyn has repeatedly said that free movement would end after Brexit. And without free movement, you're basically out of the single market.

But there is a new wrinkle here. The Corbyn letter does not mention it, but Starmer did, in an interview with Newsnight on Monday. When he was asked about the free movement of workers rather than citizens, this is how he answered:

"Most people would agree that if someone is coming to do a job - and it needs to be done and it's been advertised locally beforehand with nobody able to do it - then most people would say: 'I would accept that'."

Two interesting things about this. The first is that Starmer does not rule out the free movement of people with job offers and in fact suggests the public would accept it. This is only a small step from the existing system, where free movement rights are contingent on having a job offer, a course placement or being able to demonstrate independent means after three months. Maybe Labour would offer strict enforcement of this existing system, or else accept a certain loss of market access in a new arrangement for making free movement contingent on a pre-travel job offer.

The other interest aspect is the mention of jobs being advertised locally. This seems to be a reference to recent Swiss policy, in which new roles in industries with a high unemployment rate have to be advertised in local job centres for five working days before they can be promoted outside those offices. There is no restriction on who can apply for the role - that would breach EU rules on non-discrimination. But the location of the ad is restricted for a time-limited period. That's been accepted by the EU before. It would be again. Perhaps it could operate across the economy, without the need for sector-by-sector unemployment-level benchmarks. There's stuff to play with there.

Starmer is quite clearly moulding an immigration policy which could be sold at home but still, when you get down to it, is more of a reform of free movement than an abolition. And that means that you could keep really very close to the single market indeed.

It's ambitious, but it is within the realms of what the EU has said is possible. And importantly, it could potentially be hammered out before backstop came into operation. The withdrawal agreement puts in place a transition to the end of 2020, with a one-time extension to 2022. That's just about enough time for this sort of thing if the negotiating team are less incompetent and self-interested than the existing one - and if they know what they want going in, rather than use up vital negotiating time arguing with themselves.

Of course, it would be helpful if Labour could actually present these ideas properly, rather than forcing journalists to run around piecing them together. And none of this changes the fact that May is unlikely to ever go for this option. It would tear her party in half.

But be that as it may: it is the closest thing to a credible plan we've seen from Labour since this thing began. Starmer deserves credit for pushing the leadership into a position where it could accept it.

 

Unicorns, indeed https://web.archive.org/web/20201107224403/https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/02/07/labour-s-new-brexit-policy-looks-an-awful-lot-like-norway-pl/

[ml1dch]

9 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I think you're a bit confused about the/a customs union. They're the same thing. A customs union does the same job as the customs union for a non-EU state. Labour's policy of a customs union wasn't unicorns at all, it was to all intents and purposes staying in the customs union. Here's Keir to explain

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/labour-backs-staying-in-eu-customs-union-keir-starmer-confirms

The renegotiate the deal in 6 months and have a referendum on it was always attainable because it was basically going to be the same as we have now. Full regulatory alignment, customs union, single market access (again, membership by another name). It was all going to be Norway with a customs union. Here's Guy Verhofstadt to explain

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1083930/Brexit-news-UK-EU-Guy-Verhofstadt-Ireland-border-backstop-Theresa-May-Jeremy-Corbyn

I think you're proving Hanoi's point

 

As Blandy said, I don't think the policy was derided as being "unicorns" or unattainable. 

It was derided as being politically unsellable and pointless. Why keep everything exactly the same, only with our representation removed? How do argue for that policy? Even the Tories can lie their way through a load of guff about freedom and immigrants on the route they've chosen. 

The point that was being made by many at the time was that if Labour wanted to use their political capital arguing that the future should be exactly the same but without representation, they should just be arguing that they would be better of arguing to keep things as they were.