No body is lying here - your are suggesting that you German friends will be laughing - don't see much laughing going on in Brussels. If it weren't for our own MPs including our own Speaker siding with Europe against their own country their would be a lot more glum faces in Europe. The UK leaving is a huge issue for the EU - you and you relatives might think its a laughing matter, I doubt Tusk/Barnier/Jonkers/Merkel etc are laughing.

You have been named and shamed so life is too short to go through hundreds of pages to pander to your over inflated ego.

Why do you insist on portraying other people who want what is best for their country as traitors? Why do you insist on portraying our peaceful neighbours as an enemy, to be hated and feared?
What kind of person speaks like that? What kind of person [ithinks [/ilike that?

Come on.
Mrs May couldn't get agreement within her own cabinet and Boris has had to withdraw the whip from 21 of his own MP's, with others still deeply concerned with the direction of travel, towards a no deal Brexit.
Boris's fag packet arrangements, with effectively 2 borders on the island of Ireland, drive a bus through the Good Friday Agreement and appear unworkable for all but the Tory inner circle.
As for laughing. If it wasn't such a serious issue, the whole world would be laughing at the UK government (if we can actually still call it that)

Having sold us something which was always impossible to deliver (with a deal), rather than admit that perhaps a mistake or two had been made Boris & Co have now had to take us down a path to self destruction in the name of "no deal".

Some of the numbers coming out are eye wateringly bad for all of us in the UK and still there is no realistic likelihood of life being better Iin the short to medium term if we leave with no deal.

The figures may mean an instant return to austerity, to cover the government borrowing needed just to plug the holes in the post Brexit dyke.

Why did Macron announce that the May deal would give the EU "tremendous leverage" against the UK within hours of the deal being struck? Not very friendly and peaceful IMO. And what is best for our country is not necessarily what people like Blair and Bercow think.

Tut, tut. My relatives in Germany are bloody furious. They much prefer a peaceful, co-operative Europe to the one some of them experienced. There is also the small matter of how the British ones amongst them who travel to a neighbouring EU country every day for work are going to get on. Or move backwards & forwards to the UK. What they will laugh at, & won't miss the irony, is an ignorant xenophobe quoting factless cliches from a newspaper who supported the Nazi's in the 30s

50% aren't, 50% are.

You call it ego, I call it honesty. I'll give £100 to the Tory party for any example you give of me making things up.

I agree about - she didn't want to leave and soon took over from Davies when it looked like he might be making progress towards a deal. Everything May touched was a disaster - the Foreign Office, the 2017 GE, the Brexit negotiations she was one of the worst if not the worst ministers we have ever had.

Everyone said including Cameron if we leave it will be on WTO terms - nobody could be under illusions that that wasn't the case. No deal is better than a bad deal etc.

How many times has the IFS made predictions that have actually been accurate? Are they basing their predictions on Yellowhammer or on the latest situation - even the BOE have reduced downwards the impact of no deal.

It is obvious that their will be short term impacts - given the likes of Germany are already in recession the impact of pound euro may not be be as bad as initially thought - who knows.

Let's be fair compared to the monies Labour is going to borrow need to buy all the utilities/trains etc the no deal impact whilst large will pale into insignificance by comparison.

The Good Friday agreement is being used as if Ireland will become another Syria - more people are getting killed in London than ever were in Ireland 3,500 people died over a 32 year period so 100 a year 2 a week is that really worth negatively impacting 60m people for? Lets get some perspective here - this is yet another blocking mechanism to stop Brexit.

After all of your "rant", you are basically saying "sod the people in N. Ireland" and if Brexit trashes the Good Friday Agreement, something that EVERYONE has said they wont do, it's tough.
Do you not think that it may have been better to first of all, realise that there may be a problem in Ireland, before making wild fantasy promises about just how easy all of this was going to be.
You create numbers about people being killed in London but, these are not quite the same as the sectarian killings of the 70's and 80's are they.

Desperate is the word that best describes your current position so, at least you have something in common with our Prime Minister.
Fag packet ideas instead of workable solutions doesn't help any of us.

Gambling with all of our futures is just bloody ridiculous and even if/when we leave, there will still need to be a close trading relationship (for both sides), which will mean that as suppliers into the EU, we will still have to comply with much of their legislation.

I've got an old empty packet of Embassy no 6 somewhere and I'll send you it, just in case you need to scribble down your ideas on solving this fiasco.

David Davis flushed his reputation down the toilet with remarkable brio, I can’t believe anybody would want to recruit him to their argument! Mind you Boris Johnson is Prime Minister, so clearly opinions vary. I accept that Cameron may have said that about the WTO, but it wasn’t something I expected. On the other side, it is easy enough to find footage of Farage lauding the success of Norway as an example of what can be achieved outside the EU (with huge amounts of gas and oil, and a tiny population, obviously).

Given that many of us see Brexit itself as negatively impacting the UK, the hypothetical deaths of 2 people a week in Northern Ireland (or Brighton, Birmingham, Warrington etc.) does seem a high price to pay. The murder rate in London is slightly higher, per week. But not by head of population. The population of London is about 5 times that of Northern Ireland.

Also, assuming we’re cool with a few violent deaths here or there, the economic impact of a return to the Troubles would be significant.

ATEOTD, killings are the responsibility of the killers. But this is a real issue - the UK isn’t the only place where people feel strongly about national identity, sovereignty and real/perceived wrongs done to them by people from across a few miles of salt water.

Didn't he also say that WTO was the absolute worst case scenario?

I'm reasonably up to date with politics but have to admit to not having much of a clue of the implications or requirements of WTO. I would say the vast majority of the population know even less than that.

A pretty well written Brexit-perspective on what Remain said about access to the single market and about the customs union, from last year: https://brexitcentral.com/knew-voting-j ... ade-clear/

A pretty well written Brexit-perspective on what Remain said about access to the single market and about the customs union, from last year: https://brexitcentral.com/knew-voting-j ... ade-clear/

And there we have it folks. The Brexiteers have gone so utterly insane in support of their extremist ideology that they've started rationalising Brexit in terms of how many people need to die before it starts to look like bad idea.

They have truly gone down the rabbit hole.

(out of interest, Brexiteers, if 100 people a year were being killed in the UK by radical Islamic terrorists would you have the same view that any attempts to stop it weren't worth "negatively impacting 60m people for?"icon_wink.gif

Lad is on a wind up, surely?

The 100 deaths a year thing Sal, that was a pee take yeah?

What’d be the Remain equivalent? ‘As long as denying the 17.4 million leads to no more than 14 new Tommy Robinsons and 6 new Katie Hopkins...’?

Anyway, Varadkar and Johnson seem to have maybe made a little progress at least.

Big changes in language from the EU in the last few days, from frantic to positive.

Boris is telling them over and over, in no uncertain terms, that we are leaving in 3 weeks, deal or not deal. They believe him, and they are scared.

I've always maintained the EU will blink at the last moment [i(unless a no-deal is impossible)[/i. They simply cannot be seen to fail, resulting in an unavoidable hardening of the border in Ireland and damaging Ireland enormously economically, as well as innumerable European businesses. The EU can't negotiate a deal to protect it's members and economy? Not a good look.

In truth Varadkar has lost the plot. He approached this entirely the wrong way. He should have aligned his interests with the UK for obvious reasons, instead he chose to take the 'us vs them' approach and view the UK as the opposition rather than willing partners. He placed his bets on the UK revoking A50, a 2nd referendum or giving in to a very soft, EU-driven Brexit. Boris's hard line is scaring him witless and he know he has to move.

Meanwhile the UK is gambling on the deadline. I don't actually think Boris is necessarily bothered whether the current deal is accepted or not, so legally speaking we would be out on 31st Oct unless Boris writes to the EU and they agree an extension. There are, apparently, ways around that, which is why you're seeing hints of a mixture of EU compromise and panic. Mark my words, we will see increasingly provocative and probably insulting rhetoric up until the deadline but I think they'll continue to offer small concessions.

The answer depends on what you personally define as 'best' and 'country'.

Is 'best' a gradual erosion of the nation state, a weakening of borders, handing over many of your hard-fought democratic freedoms to a body that - despite their most earnest protestations - is about as democratic as the USSR was, [iwhere it matters[/i.

Do you define the nation-state as a vague and outdated concept fit to be frittered away or something you identify with and cherish? Do you care if the ultimate goal is totally centralised power in Brussels? Do you identify as English, British or European first?

You woke Europhiles probably associate patriotism with racism and xenophobia. Yet I bet you mumble the national anthem at internationals. Would you sing the Anthem of Europe? Why the EU thinks it needs an anthem at all should be a stark indicator of where it's heading.

Our neighbours may be peaceful, but that doesn't mean they have our best interests at heart. Indeed, much of the language they use - and if you've seen the Brexit Behind Closed Doors documentary you'll agree - is often anything but friendly. I can't necessarily blame them for that right now, but in fact this behaviour goes back decades to when De Gaulle did everything he could to block our entry to the Common Market, and has been repeated over the years.

The UK has never been the most beloved of European nations. We're too rebellious, too outspoken and in their eyes uncultured, unsophisticated and arrogant (an hilarious accusation coming from the French, Germanics, Italians & Scandies). And to be fair we're obnoxious drunken s on holiday. This grotty little island has punched above its weight for hundreds of years often to the detriment of our European neighbours and while there's curious fondness for our sense of humour it's more in the nature of those uncouth cousins you tolerate but tend not to invite to family gatherings.

Why on earth would Varadkar have "aligned his interests with the UK"? The people of the Republic of Ireland would have no truck with such a thing - they are so Europhilic it would make London blush and the other EU countries have followed their policy lead in all the key areas because it's so important for them.

By the way, it's laughable, but predictable, for Brexiteers to try and paint the Irish (the Irish!) as bullies (booo hoo, they "played 'us vs them'"icon_wink.gif. Projection much? Is there no end to the extremes to which Brexiteers will go to try and claim for themselves the mantle of victims?

Anyway, a nice spin from you there of what appears to be happening today - which is the EU sticking by the red lines they've reiterated since the very start and Johnson panicking and chucking everything and anything under the bus to get a deal.

Hmmm. I must have imagined the result on 12 June 2008. Quite the swing followed. Curious. Europhiles indeed. Eire's economy has done so well in the EU, yes?

FFS, Eire's only land border is with the UK. If you don't understand why Eire should have been doing their best to ensure a positive agreement with the UK, you probably shouldn't be discussing politics.

And your interpretation of events reeks of blinkered Europhilia. The EU has been banking on the UK taking no-deal off the table, revelling in the knowledge they hold all the cards. They've been sitting back, comfy in this knowledge. Unless you've not been paying attention, this has been confirmed by insiders on both sides. Now, however, we are telling them energetically and repeatedly that the 31 Oct deadline WILL apply, deal or no deal, regardless of any idiotic amendments, and they are worried.

You think the EU will throw Eire under the bus and allow a no-deal outcome. I disagree. I think they will blink.

So i think the problem here is you want to distinguish between "the EU" and the ROI. Whereas I pretty clearly stated above that the EU is in fact following Ireland's lead. Broadly, if it works for the Irish, it will work for the EU. There won't be any throwing the Irish under any bus apart from those who have brought this chaos upon them in the first place.

As for Irish pubic views on the EU and whether Ireland has prospered since joining the community, those don't take much finding out and they won't match whatever your agenda is.

While it is possible they’ve finally seen the whites of Boris’s eyes and pooped themselves, it also seems plausible that Boris has amended his offer. Which I suspect was always the plan.

At this point, it isn’t about ‘winning’, if it ever was, it is about avoiding a mutually assured poop show (MAPS). If Johnson has concocted something that meets the approval of the EU and Westminster, whether through balls out steel-eyed resolute determination, or some clever customs solution, then kudos to him.

And the UK's only land border is with Eire. There is obvious sense in Eire wanting a free border with NI, but by the same logic the UK should want a free border with all it's nearest overseas neighbours in Western Europe than the other major markets 4,000 miles away.

It would be great to know what concessions (in either direction) were offered in either the meeting with Boris and the Irish PM or between Boris and Barnier.
Certainly something changed due to one or both of these but, it doesn't appear to have been made public.

As Irelands most important trading partner, it's just possible that Boris has "persuaded" him that Ireland need to do a little more.
Alternatively, Boris, desperate to get something back to Parliament in time for "super Saturday", has thrown himself under the proverbial bus.

Anyway, it appears that we are all entering "the tunnel" and lets see what comes out of the other end , which still has to make it through Parliament.

It’s probably best that it is kept quiet unless/until they have something final to present. Otherwise it’ll start getting picked apart before it is done.

From the Irish perspective I imagine the main problems, in rough order of ease of dealing with, are that the new plan (BJ v1) is not immediately operative, the effective DUP veto on implementing and continuing it, and just having customs checks at all.

The first could be solved by an extension to the post-Brexit transition period, the second was, I assume, initially put in as a tactical concession for this round of talks. The interesting one is having the Customs border at all. As it always has been. The problem is that it is essentially trinary choice - Customs Union/regulatory alignment, in the Irish Sea or on the island of Ireland. There’s little room for compromise on that point - one side has to give way. The other can help them out presentationally but not much more than that.

Indeed, "taking back control of our borders and immigration" is bloody difficult if there isn't a border.
Although it becomes easier when people or goods make it onto the "mainland", theoretically, the movement of both goods and services will be free accross all of Ireland and with all the good will in the world, this could only be "managed" properly with a border between the north and south.
Unless everyone is going to be tagged, all the technology in the world wont prevent people and goods being moved illegally between the two halves of Ireland and without physical checks in place, I'm not sure how the movement of goods can be controlled, in fact, I'd suggest that it's utterly impossible.
Having done a lot of business over there (north and south) for many, many years and with the culture of "palm greasing" in certain areas, "smuggling" will become rife and there will have to be some "beefed up" customs checks on this side of the water for any goods coming in.

It is tricky, because according to this, it is currently unlawful for NI and GB to end up in different customs territories... https://mobile.twitter.com/IanDunt/stat ... 4613681152 Obviously legislation can be changed by a new vote, but it is another wrinkle BJ could have maybe have done without. Then there’s UK’s commitments under the Good Friday agreement, requiring an open border and an absence of checks. And finally Brexiteers’ expectation of / demand for a hard/non-BRINO Brexit. I don’t find May or Johnson hugely sympathetic, but I have to admit it is a knotty problem. Obviously the New Deal for Northern Ireland money might help, but how much is enough for the DUP to go with something that cuts at their very reason for existing? Or could Johnson even pivot to Labour MPs open to a softer Brexit deal? it’d put both him and them under pressure, if he did - but even I would have applaud his ‘bravery’.

It is tricky, because according to this, it is currently unlawful for NI and GB to end up in different customs territories... https://mobile.twitter.com/IanDunt/stat ... 4613681152 Obviously legislation can be changed by a new vote, but it is another wrinkle BJ could have maybe have done without. Then there’s UK’s commitments under the Good Friday agreement, requiring an open border and an absence of checks. And finally Brexiteers’ expectation of / demand for a hard/non-BRINO Brexit. I don’t find May or Johnson hugely sympathetic, but I have to admit it is a knotty problem. Obviously the New Deal for Northern Ireland money might help, but how much is enough for the DUP to go with something that cuts at their very reason for existing? Or could Johnson even pivot to Labour MPs open to a softer Brexit deal? it’d put both him and them under pressure, if he did - but even I would have applaud his ‘bravery’.

The point of the post is you will never get a perfect deal - it doesn't exist there are always compromises. Both sides need to agree what is important to them i.e. what they must have and what they would like to have and they are usually decided by impact on the whole - e.g. you wouldn't bet the farm but you might be willing to give in on some other elements of the deal because if it gets the deal done. The GFA maybe on of those elements that needs to be sacrificed to get the deal through for the bigger benefit of the whole?

In London the Police seem to have accepted young black people will continue to murder each other in an around East London which contains the violence into a designated area then enables them to concentrate resources into other more media-friendly activities.