BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT!

[Brian Peacock]

Typical centrist. The people of the UK don't need the EU to administer a moral corrective because a bunch of self-entitled 1%ers have monopolised the offices and powers of state for their own ends. I always thought that the EU was a bit more egalitarian than that - at least in principle. I think you just like the idea of the EU punishing Britain on your behalf.

[Scot Dutchy]

Typical centrist. The people of the UK don't need the EU to administer a moral corrective because a bunch of self-entitled 1%ers have monopolised the offices and powers of state for their own ends. I always thought that the EU was a bit more egalitarian than that - at least in principle. I think you just like the idea of the EU punishing Britain on your behalf.

Who else is going to do it? The EU is very egalitarian and always has been if you play by the agreed rules. I am not expecting anyone to do anything on my behalf.

[JimC]

There is more than a touch of schadenfreude in your attitude to the UK, Scot...

[Scot Dutchy]

Nice to put a label on it Jim.

[Scot Dutchy]

A good way to start.

Johnson risks rift with Biden by pressing ahead with Brexit bill

Prime minister says changes to legislation will protect Northern Ireland peace deal

Boris Johnson has risked opening a rift with the US president-elect, Joe Biden, by insisting the internal markets bill that reneges on part of the EU withdrawal agreement would go ahead as planned.

The prime minister said the legislation would go through parliament and added that the planned changes, which would hand unilateral power to ministers to change or disapply export rules for goods traveling from Britain to Northern Ireland, would protect the Good Friday peace deal.

“The whole point of that bill and indeed the finance bill is to protect and uphold the Good Friday agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland. And again, that’s one of the things that we’re united on with our friends in the White House,” he said.

Biden, who has Irish roots, has expressed negative views on the UK’s plans to override parts of the agreement if no deal is reached with the bloc.

During the campaign, Biden said that “any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border”.

Johnson, who has not yet spoken to Biden, said there was “far more that unites the government of this country and government in Washington any time, any stage, than divides us” – despite a series of sceptical comments made by Biden and his allies about the prime minister.

The House of Lords is expected to vote this week to remove parts of the internal markets bill that would break international law by removing some of the commitments in the agreement, something Labour has challenged the government to concede.

Biden has previously called Johnson the “physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump” and allies of the new Democratic administration have been scathing about the UK prime minister.

[rainbow]

Brexit has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

[Scot Dutchy]

Brexit has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

There will be plenty wishing that and probably Johnson himself.

[Scot Dutchy]

With Biden elected, a no-deal Brexit would make Britain a pariah. It can't happen

These are the end days when Boris Johnson must finally confront his own lies: the humiliation will be eye-watering

With stubborn folly, this government pursues its only trademark policy: “Get Brexit done”, and damn any consequences. Never mind the tectonic shift in global politics that has just shaken the ground beneath their feet.

Yesterday in the House of Lords it was still trying to push through its international law-breaking bill that could turn Britain into a rogue state. It knew it faced a monumental rebellion from its own side after the last Lords debate, led by the former lord chief justice Lord Judge, the ex-Tory leader Michael Howard, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. All lined up to block the breaking of international law in the internal markets bill that would renege on the EU withdrawal agreement and its Northern Irish protocol.

Politics is mercurial, with Donald Trump the loser – for now, a spent force. Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Rishi Sunak, Dominic Cummings, Nigel Farage and their Brexiter band now look like abandoned passengers on a flimsy life-raft cut loose from a sinking mothership.

Joe Biden memorably nailed Johnson as Trump’s “physical and emotional clone”. Unforgotten is that fawning picture of Gove grinning, thumbs-up, with Trump; with Rupert Murdoch, mentor to both men, lurking in the background. Murdoch jumped the Trump ship at the very last moment: he always rats when power wanes. John Major, in his autobiography, said he saw power evaporate the day Murdoch dumped him. If the old monster turns towards Labour as he did in 1996 (only once Tony Blair’s imminent victory was certain), the failure of Brexit will be one reason why.

The Murdoch empire was key to that vote, which tore Britain apart, and its results are about to prove as chaotic and prosperity-sapping as “project fear” warned in 2016. Already public opinion is swinging against it: asked “in hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?” people say “wrong” by 54% to 46%.

Hammering on with the internal markets bill is supposed to be a show of Brexiters’ defiance before this week’s critical EU negotiations. But this is a last hurrah. Their Brexit balloon is deflating fast because no deal, and breaking the Northern Irish protocol, has now become an impossibility.

Biden says “Ireland will be written on my soul” when he dies. He was a key player in the peace process: inviting Gerry Adams to the US, against British wishes, proved to be a pivotal point in the IRA turning away from violence. Reneging on the Northern Ireland protocol now would make the UK a pariah.

===============================//
The killer for the Tories will be if a widespread view takes hold that their Brexit was a terrible error. But without doubt, they will be charged with inexcusable incompetence, wasting four years and still bungling it right down to the wire. Brexit and Covid will merge into similar tales of breathtaking maladministration. The tilt in the global political axis has just tipped against them.

[Brian Peacock]

"Lord Judge" eh? No there's someone bred for high office.

[rainbow]

Typical centrist. The people of the UK don't need the EU to administer a moral corrective because a bunch of self-entitled 1%ers have monopolised the offices and powers of state for their own ends. I always thought that the EU was a bit more egalitarian than that - at least in principle. I think you just like the idea of the EU punishing Britain on your behalf.

Who else is going to do it? The EU is very egalitarian and always has been if you play by the agreed rules. I am not expecting anyone to do anything on my behalf.

There are many Greeks who disagree, just saying.

Elderly Greek refugee, living off the UK welfare system:

[Svartalf]

<o<, is that thing even still alive? time to get that box and long rest.

[Scot Dutchy]

Nasty

Post-Brexit lorry queues could make Kent 'toilet of England'

Campaigners warn that roads and laybys are already littered with urine and excrement

Kent could become the “toilet of England” in less than eight weeks unless dedicated loos are provided for thousands of lorry drivers who could be held up in the county for hours by post-Brexit border checks, campaigners have warned.

They say Kent’s main roads and laybys are already littered with bottles of urine and bags of excrement and the problem could become much worse after 31 December.

“It has got the potential to be disgusting,” said Phil Silkstone, a regional official for Unite, which represents many lorry drivers.

[Scot Dutchy]

Well he has nothing to lose with Trump gone and the UK government in a mess. Any deal will be seen by his chums as a sign of weakness.

No-deal fears rise as Boris Johnson 'least willing to budge on Brexit'

The prime minister remains determined not to compromise over the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union, say senior Whitehall sources

Pure arrogance as always. It wont affect him now will it.

[Scot Dutchy]

Is Britain really about to embrace chaos and misery for the sake of Brexit dogma?

No sane government would contemplate a future without a proper deal with the EU

British business and finance are holding their breath. Few can quite believe that a British government could drive the British economy this close to the brink. Surely no sane government, entrusted with our collective wellbeing, could calmly contemplate imposing on its citizens immense trade disruption, transport chaos, shortages in medicine, fresh foods and key technologies? Then there’s the rise in unemployment created by two lockdowns and widespread bankruptcies. Even a minimalist deal, as John Major said last week, will be far more brutal than anyone expects.

Yet for what? A utopian conception of sovereignty that even in the full flush of empire never held true? Surely rationality must prevail and a deal that goes well beyond the skinny Canada-style deal with the EU – which Boris Johnson says is all he wants – will be struck?

But here we are. As I write, with days to complete negotiations and secure ratification, nobody knows whether there will be no deal – or “Canada”, which is barely better. The reasons are well rehearsed. A reckless, unfocused, Brexit-obsessed prime minister. A Tory party in thrall to its Brexiter ultras. A lapdog rightwing media. And too many of the potential countervailing forces, from the opposition through to business itself, are afraid of offering high-profile arguments for something better out of fear of being cast as undemocratic Remoaners.

Thus the obvious goes unsaid. Britain has no option but to engage extensively with the continent of which it is part. It always has. It always will. Global Britain is just another vacuous slogan. Whatever happens on 1 January is but the beginning of another chapter in Britain’s relationship with Europe. Of course we will have to strike trade bargains on everything from organic food to cars. Equally, with services, whether we’re talking trade in data or mutual recognition of audit standards, there will have to be an accommodation with the 450 million people on our doorstep. And because they are part of a bigger unit, they will get more of their way than we will ours. Only Brexit ideologues, in the same la-la land as Donald Trump in their denial of reality, could think otherwise.

[Brian Peacock]

Well he has nothing to lose with Trump gone and the UK government in a mess. Any deal will be seen by his chums as a sign of weakness.

No-deal fears rise as Boris Johnson 'least willing to budge on Brexit'

The prime minister remains determined not to compromise over the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union, say senior Whitehall sources

Pure arrogance as always. It wont affect him now will it.

The tax dodgers have him by the balls.