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

[Geoff Parkstone]

But isn't Barnier French anyway?

[swaledale]

Breaking news and believe it when (if ever) it surfaces in the real world, my bag-carrying bum boy pal on the inside says The EU have blinked, Merkel has said give some concessions to do a deal and Mac Ron has had a 'bennie' about it. We'll see, he gets HIS info about 8th hand but he's the best I have

Or in the real world both sides are making compromises. Johnson has lowered the Uk's demands on fishing access, the French naturally because the impact on them is greatest are pushing for as much as they can get, the other Eu states less concerned because its not an issue for them.

As always a lot of grandstanding for the benefit of the suckers, sorry voters which will result in a deal where both sides claim victory!

However the net result wil be that the UK is a loser!

[swaledale]

Honestly...I give up...you’ve accused me of worrying, being concerned, advocating safety first, having grey hair, being bald, being risk averse etc and virtually all of that is just in your head...just your assumptions.
Am I ‘worried’? Not especially but about some private things which you know nothing about...to an extent, yes...aren’t we all?
Am I ‘concerned’? About Derby’s chances of avoiding relegation...about how long the pandemic is going to disrupt all our lives for? Yes...of course...again aren’t we all?
Do I ‘advocate safety first’? Can’t think of an example but as far as Covid is concerned...is that so daft?
Am I bald or have grey hair? Not that it matters but ‘no’ on both counts.

You’re not sure ‘how I work out you’ve gone out more than me but hey ho.’ Because you’ve written, ‘I follow my own instincts on these matters and as I avoid others most of the time (apart from shopping) have no impact on others.’

As I’ve said, this is not a competition...but it is you who, in your own words, ‘avoid others most of the time’ while I have eaten out in a number of pubs, have flown to Southern Europe, have eaten out there half a dozen times and visited a number of bars - all in the open air - since the pandemic began.

Do I ‘follow my own instincts’. Like you...yes...and my current instinct is that arguing with you in your current frame of mind is utterly pointless for me and equally boring for others, so you have the last word if you like...I won’t be responding further upon what’s ‘obvious’ from what we’ve both posted.

Ah you bite every time! So easy fishing with you. Your posts demonstrate all to clearly that you don't understand the difference between being risk averse as you undoubtedly are (and a constant worrier) and able to assess risks. Its not the same, and often thsoe that are risk averse fail to spot the obvious risk which you do frequently.

Anyway it was you that turned this into a covid thread!!

[swaledale]

It is now clear that Brexit means that the UK will give up wealth in exchange for sovereignty.

In what proportions and over what timescale is the only real subject of negotiation. Whether that exchange should be made at all is the essential difference between leavers and remainers. The scenario we now call “no deal” is a way of describing the highest price for the largest portion of sovereignty.

Leavers started from a position of denial that sovereignty had any price at all – that Brexit was all upside. That case rested on two pillars. First was the idea that EU membership was a drag on Britain, an unwanted subscription service that could be cancelled and the money redirected to better causes.

Second was the belief that Europeans would be so sad to lose access to British markets that they would agree to continue something like the old service without charge. Those things were not true, but the Brexiteers believed they could be made true by force of conviction and a more aggressive negotiating stance.

Meanwhile, remainers saw the whole deal as a scam. The price was too high and the sovereignty being bought was worthless. It could not make Britain hefty enough in the world to rival Washington or Beijing. There was more global leverage available from a seat at EU summits in Brussels. The best deal on sovereignty was therefore the one that invested the whole pot in the European project.

But that argument has never had traction with leavers. The claim that Brexit has no value is palpable nonsense to tens of millions of people who, by the act of voting, bestowed it with profound emotional significance. Sovereignty sounds like independence which is something people want for themselves and their country.

The two tribes measure the issues on completely different scales, and will continue to do so. Pro-Europeans will be disappointed if they anticipate some definitive moment of vindication, when the bill lands for the hollow monument to sovereignty that Johnson is erecting at vast national expense.

Restricted access to European markets will take a toll in jobs and forgone growth. But there will be foreigners and a pandemic to blame. The political furnaces will fire up, incinerating the evidence presented by economists and pumping out the same polluting cloud of specious argument.

And so one of the biggest examples of a country shooting itself in the foot over a spurious "independence" proposition will come to pass.

[swaledale]

So Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS a fervent Brexiteer, decides to move abroad and avoid paying tax in the country he was said would be a great palce after Brexit, then instead of locating a factory in Wales decides that maybe France would be better?

James Dyson another prominent Brexiteer, decides that locating his companies HQ in Singapore is better than locating it in the UK, it just so happens that doing so means he can take advantage of the trade deal Singapore has with the EU! of course Dyson isn't a resident of the Uk either!

Anyone spot a pattern here?

[Andy_Faber]

So Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS a fervent Brexiteer, decides to move abroad and avoid paying tax in the country he was said would be a great palce after Brexit, then instead of locating a factory in Wales decides that maybe France would be better?

James Dyson another prominent Brexiteer, decides that locating his companies HQ in Singapore is better than locating it in the UK, it just so happens that doing so means he can take advantage of the trade deal Singapore has with the EU! of course Dyson isn't a resident of the Uk either!

Anyone spot a pattern here?

yes you're getting more bitter with every post

[Geoff Parkstone]

So Jim Ratcliffe of INEOS a fervent Brexiteer, decides to move abroad and avoid paying tax in the country he was said would be a great palce after Brexit, then instead of locating a factory in Wales decides that maybe France would be better?

James Dyson another prominent Brexiteer, decides that locating his companies HQ in Singapore is better than locating it in the UK, it just so happens that doing so means he can take advantage of the trade deal Singapore has with the EU! of course Dyson isn't a resident of the Uk either!

Anyone spot a pattern here?

Let's hope that the same pattern emerges with wetherspoon.

Then there might be less bitter around too

[ramAnag]

Ursula Von Derby Leyden is apparently a qualified Gynaecologist. I have every faith that she will easily identify Johnson for what he is.

[ramAnag]

Ursula Von Derby Leyden is apparently a qualified Gynaecologist. I have every faith that she will easily identify Johnson for what he is.

von der Leyen, not Von Derby Leyden, sorry...bloody predictor text!

[Geoff Parkstone]

A jolly nice man??

[swaledale]

yes you're getting more bitter with every post

Clearly you don't have a clue! You would ahve to be rather dim to think that. Not bitter at all, no reason to be feel sorry for the mugs that are going to suffer though but hey ho thats life!

[swaledale]

von der Leyen, not Von Derby Leyden, sorry...bloody predictor text!

A cunning stunt?

[swaledale]

Perhaps its all a cunning ploy? Boris Johnson will hail himself as a hero with a breakthrough before the weekend is out? Despite saying no deal is now the likeliest outcome. Sorry the "Australia" option as he calls it.

This is a total reversal of everything the Brexiters ever said.

They promised voters that a deal would be a piece of cake to seal – “the easiest in human history” – such a breeze that David Davis, our then Brexit secretary, could turn up to the first round of Brussels talks without a document in his hand, armed only with a smile. In July 2017, Johnson cheerfully told the Commons: “There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal.”


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Exactly a year ago tomorrow, he won a general election by swearing that a Brexit deal was “oven-ready”, waiting only for the electorate to flick the switch by voting Conservative. Sure, the Tories now like to say they were referring only to the withdrawal agreement (the same text Johnson later condemned as contradictory and sought to rewrite).

But plenty of voters thought the deal was done – and Johnson was happy for them to think it.

Still, that serial deception is secondary to the damage a no-deal Brexit will do, an impact so obvious that until relatively recently, all but a tiny core of fanatics agreed it was a disaster that had to be averted at all costs. It will shrink our GDP by at least an extra 2% on top of the 4% that would be inflicted by leaving the EU even with a trade agreement. It will cripple our exports. The more than 50% of our imports that come from the EU will be disrupted or become more expensive, whether that be food, medicine, chemicals or industrial components. The tariff on basic foodstuffs will be 20% or more.

The change will play havoc with supply chains and drive out foreign investors who located in Britain because they believed they’d have easy access to the single market. Last month Nissan warned that its plant in Sunderland “will not be sustainable” if there is no deal. Honda of course is to close its Swindon plant. After many years of ultra-smooth trade, on 1 January we will add a whole lot of friction.

For the ultras of the so called European Research Group there was no agreement that could ever match the thrill of severing all ties with the dreaded continent, walking out and slamming the door in our neighbours’ faces.

But the deal on the table would once have delighted the hardest Brexiters. They would be out of the EU and unbound by the single market’s obligation to allow the free movement of people. Britain could freely import and export into the single market, only facing extra impediments if it chose to diverge from EU environmental or labour standards. That should hardly be a problem, given that Brexiters always insist they have no desire to weaken those safeguards. If you ask Brexiters what exactly it is they want to do that the EU has stopped them doing, they change the subject. It’s the theoretical right to deviate from EU standards they want.

As Von der Leyen pointed out, Britain would retain that right under the deal on offer. It’s just that, if Britain chose to exercise it, there might be a cost – in the form of measures imposed by Brussels to offset any advantage the UK would have given itself. That is what Johnson finds so unacceptable. And so he has decided that, rather than face the possibility of tariffs and barriers being imposed in future, he will choose the certainty of tariffs and barriers in three weeks’ time. It defies logic: “Because I worry that you might one day punch me in the face, I’m going to punch myself in the face right now.”

Of course if the worst fears of Brexit materialise, will those who voted for it will blame the Brexiters? I doubt it. They’ll be urged instead, by the government and much of the right wing media, to blame anybody and everybody else: Europe, remainers, the traitors in their midst.

I will feel sorry for those who suffer, but it will be partly ameliorated by the thought that many of them will have voted for Brexit, that they were stupid enough to believe the lies spun to them by a right wing largely ex pat tax dodging elite who somehow convinced them that they were voting against the political elite in the UK.

[MadAmster]

When will the dumbass realise that the "Australia deal" he talks of is actually NO ****IN DEAL? TW*T.

[AdiSalisbury]

Ursula Von Derby Leyden is apparently a qualified Gynaecologist. I have every faith that she will easily identify Johnson for what he is.

I thought this was another post about swale