Brexit - Time to scrap it and start again?

**Daruwind** · December 25, 2020, 10:42 AM

Interesting point, look like North Ireland was sacrificed from UK point of view. NI will remain part of custom union and have access to full single market.

**Alastor** · December 25, 2020, 11:16 AM

Until this thing is signed off by all parties involved I don't think it's prudent to say we are done just yet. Irrespective of the contents of the deal that is. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved here and it is unusual for the EU to announce a deal without parliamentary scrutiny. I expect there will be some discussion at least there. By the time all this is done, hopefully there will be enough clarity about what the deal entails. For now I feel cautiously optimistic, that this is a decent deal for the EU all things considered. At least in the face of the inevitability of Brexit.

Then of course we'll have to to wait and see how long it will take Boris to threaten to break whatever deal he signed off to if sth doesn't go his way. ;D

**~~Exarch~~** · December 25, 2020, 07:33 PM

Looks to me like the Anglos want Northern Ireland to be their little tax haven/EU access port.

It's only a matter of time before northern ireland is subsumed back into the irish, especially if the anglos misbehave when it comes to EU interests, eg Nordstrem pipeline.

**Cope** · December 25, 2020, 09:13 PM

Originally Posted by antaeus

I hear the UK is looking for a supplier of discount coal?

I was thinking more sun, roos and didgeridoos.

**~~Exarch~~** · December 25, 2020, 11:17 PM

Regarding UK wanting to form a EU style commonwealth alliance, it'll never work because there was already an anglo centred alliance called the British Commonwealth and that too failed due to infighting, when south africa refused to give up apartheid and when rhodesia got blacked.

Secondly, the market of the CANZUK amounts to...~100mln or a huwhite indonesia, so CANZUK would have about the same amount of pull as indonesia.

**pchalk** · December 26, 2020, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by Daruwind

Interesting point, look like North Ireland was sacrificed from UK point of view. NI will remain part of custom union and have access to full single market.

As much as many in the UK don't want it, I always figured there would be different rules for NI.

**Daruwind** · December 27, 2020, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by pchalk

As much as many in the UK don't want it, I always figured there would be different rules for NI.

I´m from czech, middle europe so only external commenter but in my eyes any similar step is one more step closer to united Ireland. NI and Scotland development, that will be interesting to follow...

**pchalk** · December 27, 2020, 06:55 AM

Originally Posted by Daruwind

I´m from czech, middle europe so only external commenter but in my eyes any similar step is one more step closer to united Ireland. NI and Scotland development, that will be interesting to follow...

I am also an outsider

.

You are right, there is certainly the risk of that. I think it could go either way. We will see.

**AqD** · December 27, 2020, 07:19 AM

Originally Posted by Alastor

Until this thing is signed off by all parties involved I don't think it's prudent to say we are done just yet. Irrespective of the contents of the deal that is. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved here and it is unusual for the EU to announce a deal without parliamentary scrutiny. I expect there will be some discussion at least there. By the time all this is done, hopefully there will be enough clarity about what the deal entails. For now I feel cautiously optimistic, that this is a decent deal for the EU all things considered. At least in the face of the inevitability of Brexit.

Don't know about other industries, financial services are breaking regardless of the final terms and accounts are already being moved.

The process is irreversible I presume, they could say goodbye to London as the EU financial center.

**~~Exarch~~** · December 27, 2020, 08:04 AM

Germany's Frankfurt is gearing up to take over from London as Europe's finance capital; there won't be a "singapore on the Thames" because both the EU and China will ensure the UK never becomes the finance capital it so desperately wants to cling onto.

**Ludicus** · December 28, 2020, 10:12 AM

Originally Posted by Daruwind

NI and Scotland development, that will be interesting to follow...

Indeed.Well, post-Brexit UK always welcome back in EU.

A deal to end the Brexit delusions | Financial Times

After four and a half painful years, we have reached the end of the beginning of Brexit. We have a deal. It is, inevitably, a damaging deal for the British economy compared with remaining inside the EU.

Some delusions have already disappeared. Brexiters told the country that it would be easy to secure an excellent free trade agreement with the EU, because it held “all the cards”. In fact, it has proved quite hard to do so and the UK has had to make difficult concessions since 2016, notably over the money it owed the EU, the Irish border, and EU demands for a “level playing field”.

These delusions were buttressed by others. Among them was the idea that the UK and the EU would negotiate as “sovereign equals”. Yes, the EU and UK are equally sovereign. But they are not equally powerful. The UK economy is less than 20 per cent of the EU’s. Forty-six per cent of UK merchandise exports went to the EU in 2019, while only 15 per cent of EU merchandise exports (excluding its internal trade) went to the UK.

The economic relationship between the EU and UK is rather like Canada’s with the US. As Jonathan Portes of King’s College London points out, the trade deal imposed on Canada and Mexico by the US is quite intrusive.
In defence, education, housing, health, regional development, public investment and welfare, the UK already largely had control. But British people are about to lose valuable opportunities to do business or live, study and work in the EU. They will not “take back control” over their lives, but lose it.

Even where control will be regained, in theory, the reality may shock Leavers. Consider immigration. In the 12 months ending June 2016 (the month of the referendum), net immigration from EU plus non-EU sources was 355,000 (with net emigration by British people ignored). In the 12 months ending March 2020, net immigration was 374,000. Net immigration from the EU collapsed from 189,000 to 58,000. But that from the rest of the world — always notionally under UK control — exploded, from 166,000 to 316,000.

Mr Johnson promised that the UK will “prosper mightily” even without a deal. But virtually all economists agree that the UK will be significantly poorer in the long run, even under this sort of deal, than if it had remained a member.

Even the survival of the UK is in doubt. Scotland and Northern Ireland may both leave the Union, the former to join the EU, arguing that it, too, wants “to take back control”, and the latter to join Ireland and so the EU, too. England may then have a border with the EU on the Irish Sea and the Tweed.

Brexit is, in many ways, the English equivalent of Donald Trump’s promise to “make America great again”. A big difference is that, unlike Mr Trump’s time as US president, Brexit is forever. It seems almost certain to damage the country’s prosperity and influence permanently.