Sunlit uplands. Are we there yet?

[JohnL]

Definite demotion although strangely a full member of cabinet although I can't see him being a non participating member before.

[Sephiroth]

Surprised no-one has posted it on here yet - but I'm sure many will have read similar

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2022/0209/1278727-costs-delays-brexit/

"the only detectable impact so far is increased costs, paperwork and border delays."

[KidKruger]

?Teething problems? is all 🙄

[Sephiroth]

I see the MP for Dover and Deal (someone you would expect to be on top of this) was blaming traffic jams around the ports on EU bureaucracy and explicitly not Brexit

talk about not knowing what you voted for

[diable rouge]

If only it were ignorance, the people who promoted Brexit can't blame Brexit, all part of the Trump/Johnson playbook of denial and non-apology.

Always the victim, it's never their fault...

[Sephiroth]

Not worrying in any way I?m sure

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/feb/27/uk-scientists-fear-brain-drain-as-brexit-rows-put-research-at-risk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[diable rouge]

Welcome to shameless Brexit Britain, or not as the case may be...

Yvette Cooper Tweeting Priti Patel:

Right that Immigration Minister has deleted tweet saying Ukrainians can come pick UK fruit.

But still no answers from @pritipatel to my Qs.

Problem remains. Home Office is restricting Ukrainians to current visas with high hurdles & delays.

That?s not sanctuary, it?s shameful

[Sephiroth]

problem Labour have on that score is that Kinnock posted a video which boiled down to not much more than the govt - are Labour simply scared of the "legitimately concerned voter" or do they share the govt view

[Sephiroth]

Ukrainian calls to join the EU

Hopefully EU respond in kind

Where does that leave the ?I support Ukrainian but don?t like EU and think the invasions is because of NATO expansion ? crowd?

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

While of course one is sympathetic to Zelensky - you'd be mad to admit Ukraine to the EU. They're miles off the accession criteria and the corruption and organised crime was ten times worse than even Bulgaria before the war.

[Sephiroth]

Of course there are reasons to swerve Ukraine/Georgia et al actually joining

But the fact is they view the EU as a good thing. They aren?t calling to team up with U.K. and whatever fantasy worldview it has

We can argue all day long about how much Russia/putin were actively involved in Brexit - but there is zero doubt that Brexit happening was viewed as a good thing by Putin, as it illustrates discord amongst his neighbours.

But boy does uk look sillier by the day

[JohnL]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> While of course one is sympathetic to Zelensky -

> you'd be mad to admit Ukraine to the EU. They're

> miles off the accession criteria and the

> corruption and organised crime was ten times worse

> than even Bulgaria before the war.

They'll probably be a candidate - or maybe a candidate+ (is there such a thing).

The likely future in Ukraine is Russian controlled and a long resistance fight supplied with western weapons until the Russians give up IMHO. Zelenskyy could be given residence in the EU if NATO get him out at some stage and form a government in exile and allow him to EU meetings.

I'm probably totally wrong.

[diable rouge]

Understandable that Ukraine dominates the news cycles, but the 'Benefits of Brexit' march on relentlessly.

Yesterday there was a Cross Party (Tory majority) Report from the Environment Select Committee on the state of the agricultural sector due to Brexit and Covid. Vacancies in the sector have shot up to half a million which has led to problems with food supplies, crops unharvested/left to rot, and the culling of at least 27,000 healthy pigs.

The pig culling is a result of the lack of butchers, and despite filling some vacancies, still well below the levels of when we were in the EU.

So far the Gov has failed to compensate pig farmers, and some now fear going out of business.

"The evidence we have received leaves us in no doubt that labour shortages, caused by Brexit and accentuated by the pandemic, have badly affected businesses across the food and farming sector. If not resolved swiftly, they threaten to shrink the sector permanently."

?the Govt has not demonstrated a strong understanding of these issues and even on occasion sought to pass the blame onto the sector on the basis of incorrect information about its own immigration system.?

As bad as all this is, what's just as dispiriting is Labour/Starmer's reluctance to mention any of this for fear of being seen to criticise Brexit. Although I personally believe that any form of Brexit would've been damaging, there are clearly forms of Brexit that would've been less damaging than the 'oven ready deal' Johnson served up, and that's what Labour/Starmer should do, attack the deal we have and say how it can be bettered in the short term...

[TheCat]

As i've said repeatedely, Brexit itself doesn really do anything. Its the post-Brexit policy-making that will actually determine the success or failure of Brexit. And I'd have to give this government a D minus with regard to post brexit policy making, and thats being kind. So (believe it or not) im in agreement with DR here (if not on the overall brexit issue!) that Sir Keir has an opportunity to hammer the government with areas that they beleive are brexit policy opportunities...for both short and long term benefit (or if you're of a very very anti-brexit persuasion, lets just call it short and long term damage limitation....the overall opporunity for labour to make a mark is the same regardless of how its lablled).

Seperaltey....say what you like about David Frost...and I dont agree with everythign the man has done or said....but in his article in the telegraph today (below) his views are lagreley aligned with my own on this issue...

Beware, Remainers are regrouping

It is so important to get on with our own reforms to improve productivity and growth. All the levers are now in our hands

DAVID FROST

6 April 2022 ? 9:30pm

The Brexit battle seems long over. The titanic debates after the referendum, in which both Remainers and Brexiteers played to sweep the board, seemingly ended with near-total victory for the advocates of a real Brexit. With a supreme effort, Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened.

The grand new free trade agreement we had been told would take 10 years to agree was put in place in 10 months. And the behaviour of the EU in 2021, from subverting the Northern Ireland Protocol to rubbishing the Astrazeneca vaccine, left few people interested in refighting old battles.

And yet. On the fringes of politics the unreconciled Remainers are regrouping. The #brexitshambles hashtag is seen once again on Twitter. Andrew Adonis?s European Movement says that ?Brexit has failed. We were lied to. It?s time to rethink?. Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary at the Treasury, says ?the effect on growth from Brexit is tangible?. Lord Barwell, the former Downing Street chief of staff, is even trying to rehabilitate his and Theresa May?s terrible backstop deal from 2019.

Sir Keir Starmer can see that getting too close to any of these people will make him about as welcome in the Red Wall as Vladimir Putin in downtown Kyiv. Nevertheless he can?t ignore his supporters and therefore has to say that ?a poorly thought-through Brexit is holding Britain back?.

Of course there is little chance of a serious ?rejoin? campaign developing in the short term. Remainer Jacobitism in support of Ursula von der Leyen as the queen over the water is just too unpopular.

The leaders of the pro-EU cause recognise that themselves. Instead, their aim is to keep us aligned with the EU, often using the Northern Ireland Protocol as a weapon. They know that if the UK doesn?t diverge much from EU law, it will be much easier to take us back in later if events work in their favour.

To do this they have to get it established in the public mind that somehow Brexit is ?already failing?, and thus destroy our nerve to do things our own way. Their picture of Britain is not the one the rest of us see: living with Covid successfully, leading on Ukraine, coming out of the economic downturn faster than Germany, and with PMI business confidence levels higher than the eurozone or the US. Instead, they try to suggest that, whatever problems the world has, we in Britain have them worse.

They use any argument that comes to hand. Last autumn it was HGV drivers and the threat to the Christmas turkey supply chain. This month the story is the latest trade figures and delays at Dover (the latter caused, in fact, by the withdrawal of P&O ships). A chart has been circulating showing that our trade performance has been stagnating since Brexit.

In reality, it is almost impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the trade figures amid the noise of recovery from the pandemic, trade re-routing, and methodological change. But to the extent one can, the picture is reassuring.

To get a sense of the orders of magnitude, goods exports to the EU in the last three months of 2018 ? the last relatively normal year ? were ?43.2 billion. In the last three months of 2021, the figure was ?42.4 billion ? a fall of 2 per cent. Exports to the rest of the world over the same period grew by just under 4 per cent. So maybe the short-run Brexit effect is 5-6 per cent, with every chance of catching up further as traders continue to get used to the new arrangements. Hardly the catastrophe that many are claiming.

In any case, what matters is not trade, but economic growth. Here Remainers point to this month?s OBR assessment that GDP will be 4 per cent lower in 2030 than it otherwise would have been.

This is of course not a fact but a prediction, though the distinction seems lost on many. Moreover it is a prediction based on an assumption: that higher trade causes higher productivity. But the association is just as plausibly the other way round. The link between trade and productivity growth found in many analyses of Brexit is often based on evidence from emerging markets or ex-Communist economies, where increased trade went with huge improvements in the way the countries were run more broadly. It doesn?t hold up anything like so clearly for advanced economies. Indeed, the UK?s own trade openness has grown since the financial crash, but productivity has not.

Of course, no sensible person would deny that leaving the single market and customs union has some effect on trade in the short run. I have always been clear about this. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, repeated it this week.

That is why it is so important to get on with our own domestic reforms to improve productivity and growth. All the levers are now in our hands and this really must be the Government?s priority in the upcoming Queen?s Speech.

Sir Ivan Rogers ? another voice from the past ? commented this week that ?History did not end with David Frost?s Trade and Cooperation Agreement?. He is right. Most of us welcome the cooperative approach we and the EU have taken over Ukraine and would like to see more of it. Our treaty framework can indeed be developed further, in areas such as cooperation between our regulators, youth mobility, or visa facilitation for artists. (Indeed we sought some of these in 2020 but were rebuffed or only offered them on unacceptable terms.)

We should always be ready to talk about these things. For the EU, the question that will then need answering is, if the terms can be improved, why is the Northern Ireland Protocol sacrosanct?

In truth it is of course far too soon to draw any of the conclusions the ex-Remain movement would like to. Our destiny is in our hands and it is up to us to do the right things. The economist Tim Worstall noted this week that ?the EU had 1973 to 2020 to show that UK membership was a good idea. 47 years. Let?s measure Brexit by that same standard.? I agree.

If we must, let?s revisit the question in 2067. Meanwhile, let?s get on with the job.

[diable rouge]

I liked this response to Frosty's ramblings...

If that was a Wikipedia entry, it would have ?citation required? about every seven words.

:)

[Earl Aelfheah]

'Brexit itself doesn't really do anything'. OK

[diable rouge]

I think a better way to describe that would be...

''What Brexit does depends on the final deal struck and subsequent post-Brexit policy''

The two go hand in hand...

[Sephiroth]

"Britain shook itself free of the European Union and became a full democracy once again, an outcome which had seemed impossible almost until the moment it happened. "

sure. sure

[TheCat]

Sephiroth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "Britain shook itself free of the European Union

> and became a full democracy once again, an outcome

> which had seemed impossible almost until the

> moment it happened. "

>

> sure. sure

Without doubt thats OTT/emotive language he's used there in support of his position

Not really a crime that you're massively unfamiliar with yourslef, Seph?:)

[Sephiroth]

it's not that it's emotive or OTT - it's just plain wrong. Like pretty much most of the article. And the project itself

Still, being wrong hasn't stopped many madmen in their time

[j.a.]

Basically what we have there is Frost using a lot of words to try and make himself seem reasonable.

He?s trying to say that of course there was always going to be disruption, of course things look bad now, but it?ll shake itself out in the long run so long as we make sensible decisions.

Now this is indeed a reasonable point, but one undermined by the people currently in charge.

Also, his assertion that the NIP should be up for renegotiation. Again, on reasonable point in and of itself, but also one undermined by the fact (which no Leave voter has ever been able to explain) that it was sold to the country as the right deal for us. Indeed Parliament was denied time to scrutinise it precisely because we were told it was so good.

So forgive me if I am not convinced by the suddenly reasonable Mr Frost, who not so long ago was bellicose is his desire to take on the EU in a trade war. It seems to me that they painted themselves into a corner with the NIP, thinking only a couple of moves ahead, and planned to bluff it later. Again, I offer the current crop of idiots at the top of government as Exhibit A regarding the likelihood of this being screwed up yet again.

And this stems, this all stems, from the fact that no one had any idea *how to actually get Brexit done*, or indeed what it should mean. Cakeism and simplism were allowed to define what passes for policy because the entire thing is an emotional project. Amazingly (to me at least) I?m starting to think the only person with a grip on the reality of it may have been a Mr D Cummings?

[JohnL]

Sephiroth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "Britain shook itself free of the European Union

> and became a full democracy once again, an outcome

> which had seemed impossible almost until the

> moment it happened. "

>

> sure. sure

and implying France, Germany et al are not full democracies.

[Sephiroth]

Not even implication is it?

This morning i see frosty is thrilled that is column has the support of the madman Dan Wooton from GB NEWS

Think big, Frost, think big

[TheCat]

Imagine how upset he must be that its not endorsed by the madman sephiroth from EDF.

[Sephiroth]

Frost still losing his mind

He was proud of his deal. Bigged it up massively

He walked away from his deal and says it?s shit. Unconscionable. Forced on him

But he won?t shut up

What is the point of him. He didn?t have any power. Had some power. Loved it. Hated it. Blames everyone else. (Whilst continuing to insult and patronise Irish people

Absolute gobshite. Only liked by other gobshites