OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Andy_Faber]

Except what we are seeing is politicians doing what politicians everywhere do, ours especially, which is a lot of hot air, designed to distract from the fact that they are unable to deliver their promises. So its not peculiar to the EU, I mean its something Farage tends to do almost everyday, waffle a lot of hot air about something that when one delves beneath the detail isn't actually true.

If we get away from the ill informed and incorrect Brexit side issue, the cold facts are this. The delay to the Eu in delivering the vaccine isn't going to make much difference, it will still be mid summer at the earliest before vaccination is going to impact generally on lives.

The Uk isn't going to benefit in the medium term by non cooperation, before life in the UK returns to something like normal, all of the EU and a great proportion of the rest of the world are going to have to have the vaccination as reinfection and more importantly new mutants will keep coming in from outside.

So if the world is going to defeat this virus, it needs to work cooperatively in order to ensure very country gets the vaccine.

Talking EU-tinted rubbish AGAIN Swale, I can't even be bothered to go into detail

[Ram59]

Now the EU has invoked article 16 in the Brexit agreement which gives NI access to the EU, to prevent NI gaining access to EU produced vaccines, not that we should need them. So they've basically put the border back between the north and the south, I wonder what our friend Biden is making of this?

So Swale thinks that we should co-operate with these evil people, what a joke.

[Trickytreesreds]

Now the EU has invoked article 16 in the Brexit agreement which gives NI access to the EU, to prevent NI gaining access to EU produced vaccines, not that we should need them. So they've basically put the border back between the north and the south, I wonder what our friend Biden is making of this?

So Swale thinks that we should co-operate with these evil people, what a joke.

The Oxford vccine seems to be in demand over there, even though Macron has now jumped on the project fear band wagon slaughtering it, saying that it doesn't work? The German press claimed it was only 8% effective?
Maybe it's the fact that the Oxford vaccine only costs £3 a dose and it's not sold for profit.
Pfizer on the other hand is touted to be £28 a dose.
Maybe that's what's got them screaming, that we are hogging the non profit stuff.

First come, first served and all that.

The EU has introduced controls to prevent the export of COVID-19 vaccines from the bloc to Northern Ireland.

Brussels triggered Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol that forms part of the Brexit withdrawal deal.

The move comes amid a row with vaccine maker AstraZeneca over the supply of vaccine doses to the 27 members of the bloc.

The EU decision to activate Article 16 will frustrate any effort to use Northern Ireland as a back door to bring vaccines into the rest of the UK.

Under the terms of the protocol, goods should be able to move freely between the EU and Northern Ireland as the region remains in the single market for goods and still operates under EU customs rules.

[ramAnag]

Back to being wrong Swale, including your tailgunner.

Oh ffs...grow up, you’re better than that.

So I agree wholeheartedly with that particular post from Swale...so what? Is one not allowed to publicly agree with someone anymore?

By the same token would I refer to you as Tricky or Gunterry’s ‘tailgunner’? No...I’m a little more grown up than that.

[Andy_Faber]

Gotta say the EU are far from covering themselves in glory on this, time for the in-denials to lower the blue flag an pop it in a drawer for a while methinks.

[Trickytreesreds]

Oh ffs...grow up, you’re better than that.

So I agree wholeheartedly with that particular post from Swale...so what? Is one not allowed to publicly agree with someone anymore?

By the same token would I refer to you as Tricky or Gunterry’s ‘tailgunner’? No...I’m a little more grown up than that.

I don't have a tail gunner, I'm a single seat fighter

[Trickytreesreds]

Gotta say the EU are far from covering themselves in glory on this, time for the in-denials to lower the blue flag an pop it in a drawer for a while methinks.

Certainly caused a **** storm in NI. AF isn't impressed.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-eu-introduces-controls-on-vaccine-exports-to-northern-ireland-12202656

[Ram59]

Oh ffs...grow up, you’re better than that.

So I agree wholeheartedly with that particular post from Swale...so what? Is one not allowed to publicly agree with someone anymore?

By the same token would I refer to you as Tricky or Gunterry’s ‘tailgunner’? No...I’m a little more grown up than that.

Sorry RA, but so much more claptrap from Swale, I expected more from you, than your 'glowing' admiration for every word he said and it tipped me over the edge.

I couldn't resist lighting that particular fire and I should have been above that.

But, surely you can see that the EU are backing themselves into a corner here. Just at a time when they should be sitting down with Johnson and 'asking' for our help in this matter, they're threatening all sorts of actions, not completely in the spirit of the law and now they've backed it up with a first strike, which is pointless.

Johnson, despite being goaded by the press for action against the threats, kept his council. This escalation in NI, is only going to make that much more difficult.

[Trickytreesreds]

Love this -

You'll have guessed I'm talking about the fact the EU forgot to order any Covid vaccine. No, it's worse than that. It wasn't just a failure of oversight or even the glacially-slow decision making, held up inevitably by the EU's sheer size and overwhelming control freakery, but Brussels actually effectively stopped the member states from saving their own citizens' lives.

Member states were effectively banned from sourcing their own Covid vaccines lest it reflect badly on the EU's notion of itself as a benign superstate and of course its grip on centralised control. (Oh, and so a French vaccine would be commercially favoured over the British one. That's the one that doesn't work by the way.)

Astonishingly Germany quietly secured a stash of vaccine for itself. More astonishingly Mrs Merkel is sitting on that stash until all EU nations have received their allotted doses instead of getting it into German arms.

You probably don't need to be a trained epidemiologist to conclude many human beings might die as a result of these particularly mindless pieces of adherence to “one EU” dogma.

It's all so terrible that when all this is over the EU's conduct should be properly investigated as the crime it so obviously looks like to the man on the Essen omnibus.

Dogma is the enemy of good politics. Indeed of any good decision making.

And this awful scandal is proof, were any further proof needed, of why Britain was right to cut ties with this now, by definition, dangerous organisation.

And it gets worse.

Today we learn that “our friends” in Brussels intend to consign more people to an early death by banning, or severely restricting, exports of any and all Covid vaccine from the EU.

And the people who will die this time are are likely to be British.

Some might see that as tantamount to an act of war.

And it would be hard not to have some sympathy with that view.

Here's the thing. Whatever the hue of your politics it is clear that Britain anticipated the vaccine need better and acted faster than the EU. We got to the front of the queue.

The fact AstraZeneca now has production problems is unfortunate but frankly it's the EU's problem.

Admittedly not much of this seems fair, in that cut and dried way we British admirers of cricket appreciate.


It's a mess and there's no perfect solution.

But why should a grandma in Tunbridge Wells have to forgo her chance of safety from Covid, and maybe even her life, because Brussels was simply too thick to see this coming? Ursula von der Leyen does not get to play God on this one and chose who lives and who dies. First come, first served has to be the way, both commercially and morally.

But not for the EU.

So tomorrow the EU Commission (whose fault this is) will seek to impose a mechanism by which EU countries will be able to block vaccine exports if the EU's own purchase orders have not yet been filled.

This is vile protectionism of the worst kind – the kind indeed the EU professes to loathe. It out-Trumps Trump both in its scale and its malice.

Not just Britain but Australia and Canada will be hit.

Under the scheme, the EU will instruct its customs authorities to block vaccine exports unless they come with a prior authorisation. That will allow the EU to prioritise shipments to its own countries before authorising exports.

In short: stuff you Britain.

It perhaps tells us nothing we hadn't already gleaned from four long years of Brexit negotiations during which the EU treated Britain like something it had trodden in.

One final piece of advice for our friends in Brussels: a new coronavirus vaccine called Novavax is being made in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England.

You might want to get your order in today.

[ramAnag]

Sorry RA, but so much more claptrap from Swale, I expected more from you, than your 'glowing' admiration for every word he said and it tipped me over the edge.

I couldn't resist lighting that particular fire and I should have been above that.

But, surely you can see that the EU are backing themselves into a corner here. Just at a time when they should be sitting down with Johnson and 'asking' for our help in this matter, they're threatening all sorts of actions, not completely in the spirit of the law and now they've backed it up with a first strike, which is pointless.

Johnson, despite being goaded by the press for action against the threats, kept his council. This escalation in NI, is only going to make that much more difficult.

Unlike just about everyone else on here tonight, Swale wasn’t making a particularly political point. He was despairing of politicians in general and making the point that, if we are to return to normal, the World, for once, needs to act together.

I’ve actually said that before on here and been scoffed at by the more jingoistic anti Europeans amongst us...but it’s true and I wholeheartedly applaud the sentiment. Doesn’t make me anyone’s tailgunner/follower and it doesn’t make him wrong.

[swaledale]

Regrettably the press, or certain sections of it are only too pleased to jump on the anti EU bandwagon, whilst conveniently ignoring Johnson's threaten to break international law and other disrespectful actions and threats made by the UK.

Seems nationalist jingoism overrules common sense, on either side and knowing that the proles love it, the politicians on both sides bang that drum.

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. That Shakespeare had the human psyche pretty well summed up.

I'm not defending the EU's stance, but its kind of ironic that people get all steamed up over it, when the UK has in the past threatened to renege on an international treaty, threatens to be the only country not to give the EU ambassador diplomatic status, has an arsehole of a UK politician Farage, acting in a childish and disrespectful manner in the EU parliament, amongst other insulting actions and words towards the EU from the UK.

Once the UK was respected for being a leading exponent of statesmanship and fairness, regrettably the current government have badly damaged that reputation.

Now the spectacle of politicians playing ya boo sucks politics is not welcome, but given that the leading proponent of this sort of childish, lying popularism is Johnson himself, I'm not surprised he is saying and doing nothing.


And in the end what I said is factually the reality, we all act in unison together or we won't beat this virus, its a global problem, too bad the narrow minded little Englanders can't grasp that, lets hope the lesson isn't learnt the hard way.

[swaledale]

Unlike just about everyone else on here tonight, Swale wasn’t making a particularly political point. He was despairing of politicians in general and making the point that, if we are to return to normal, the World, for once, needs to act together.

I’ve actually said that before on here and been scoffed at by the more jingoistic anti Europeans amongst us...but it’s true and I wholeheartedly applaud the sentiment. Doesn’t make me anyone’s tailgunner/follower and it doesn’t make him wrong.

You know what rA? I long ago realised that by and large voters get the government they deserve - they seem incapable of looking at the bigger picture, incapable of forming opinions for themselves based on proper evaluation of the facts, they love simplistic nationalistic symbols and respond to the dog whistle as predictably as any canine.

[swaledale]

Gotta say the EU are far from covering themselves in glory on this, time for the in-denials to lower the blue flag an pop it in a drawer for a while methinks.

What do you expect? The Uk has hardly covered it self in glory with its actions and words. Not defending the EU, but they are a group of politicians creating a smokescreen for their own cock ups, just as for decades Uk politicians blamed the EU for things they either chose not to do or had cocked up.

[Ram59]

Regrettably the press, or certain sections of it are only too pleased to jump on the anti EU bandwagon, whilst conveniently ignoring Johnson's threaten to break international law and other disrespectful actions and threats made by the UK.

Seems nationalist jingoism overrules common sense, on either side and knowing that the proles love it, the politicians on both sides bang that drum.

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. That Shakespeare had the human psyche pretty well summed up.

I'm not defending the EU's stance, but its kind of ironic that people get all steamed up over it, when the UK has in the past threatened to renege on an international treaty, threatens to be the only country not to give the EU ambassador diplomatic status, has an arsehole of a UK politician Farage, acting in a childish and disrespectful manner in the EU parliament, amongst other insulting actions and words towards the EU from the UK.

Once the UK was respected for being a leading exponent of statesmanship and fairness, regrettably the current government have badly damaged that reputation.

Now the spectacle of politicians playing ya boo sucks politics is not welcome, but given that the leading proponent of this sort of childish, lying popularism is Johnson himself, I'm not surprised he is saying and doing nothing.


And in the end what I said is factually the reality, we all act in unison together or we won't beat this virus, its a global problem, too bad the narrow minded little Englanders can't grasp that, lets hope the lesson isn't learnt the hard way.

So you and the like were justified to call out the government for considering breaking a law, but anyone who dares criticise your beloved EU for their disgraceful actions are on the jingoistic anti EU bandwagon?

Narrow minded Englanders can't grasp the global pandemic, do me a favour, which country will donate the most vaccines to the third world this year, which company has developed and is selling an easily distributed vaccine for NO PROFIT to the third world?

People like you, who hate this country so much, make me sick.

[ramAnag]

So you and the like were justified to call out the government for considering breaking a law, but anyone who dares criticise your beloved EU for their disgraceful actions are on the jingoistic anti EU bandwagon?

Narrow minded Englanders can't grasp the global pandemic, do me a favour, which country will donate the most vaccines to the third world this year, which company has developed and is selling an easily distributed vaccine for NO PROFIT to the third world?

People like you, who hate this country so much, make me sick.

Oh God, here we go again. There seem to be one or two showing their true colours tonight

Anyone who opposes Brexit or doesn’t speak disdainfully of Europeans ‘hates this country’. I remember having that one chucked at me by someone who then had to make a ham fisted apology.

No idea what’s up with you tonight Ram. You and I will often disagree but you usually show some respect and think things through.

Which bit of Swale saying, ‘I’m not defending the EU’s stance...’ did you fail to comprehend, and what has he said that leads you to think he ‘hates this country’.