Absolutely, especially with regard to cars.
's funny how the rats want to leave the sinking ship.
But at least he doesn’t get to take a yellow jersey with him…
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Hi Mat,
In answer to your query I would say that I believe that the current UK Government is making a reasonably successful effort to achieve the goal that it was elected to do, namely to get the UK out from under the rule of Brussels.
Conveniently, the media are of course pre-occupied with the Corona Virus pandemic, and this is for the most part allowing Brexit matters to proceed quietly in the background without excessive media promulgation of old disputes between ‘leavers’ and ‘remainers’ which, in a democracy, should have been put to one side after the last General Election.
Previously I had thought that this time of the Transition Period coming towards its end would have been full of more media inspired contention and I am pleased that such is not the case as it would be unhelpfully divisive.
I cannot agree with you when you say that the advantages of leaving the EU have evaporated, but I do recognise that a person’s view of that would depend on what they considered the advantages to be in the first place. The UK will be extricating itself from the jurisdiction of the ECJ, and that will be a good thing. The UK will also be fully deciding upon its own laws rather than being subordinate to Brussels in that regard. Additionally, the threat to the position of our Head of State posed by the concept of “Ever Closer Union” will also be removed. (I accept that the EU may have dropped that particular phraseology but I believe that it still holds the concept dear.)
For me, these matters constitute the essence of ‘Sovereignty’, the retention of which has always been the reason for departing from the EU, and there will of course be a price to be paid.
The issue of Brexit has indeed brought a spotlight to shine on the differences between the nations which form the United Kingdom, and that is perhaps a good thing. You specifically referred to Scotland, and my view is that if the citizenry of Scotland (not merely the residents therein), decide that they wish to become an independent country, then that is what should happen.
Scotland should also be allowed to have as many referenda on the subject as they wish, provided that they are prepared to fund such events from within their own resources.
I have no doubts that an independent Scotland would continue to be a strong friend and ally of that which would remain of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The situation in relation to the island of Ireland you mentioned has indeed become a mess, mainly due to politicians being frightened of speaking the truth about the matter. The Good Friday agreement was over 20 years ago and things have moved on since then. I question the curious premise that seems to prevail that making a few customs checks on goods vehicles on the border between the Republic and NI would lead to violence. The ‘Hard Border’ in Ireland was never the cause of ‘The Troubles’, but was in fact a symptom of it in an effort to stop the flow of arms, explosives, and persons intent on violent crime across the border. The Good Friday agreement stopped the violence. People have learnt to live in peace and have grown sufficiently to know that in reality there is no need for a return to violence just because a few trucks may need to be checked. Such a premise is simply without foundation in a sensible democracy. Let’s face it — there are many borders in the world where customs checks are carried out without it leading to violence.
As for ‘Project Fear’, I don’t think the predictions of Cameron and Osborne about house prices dropping by a third, unemployment going through the roof (due to Brexit), and the value of the £ collapsing due specifically to Brexit have actually materialised. Yes, the £ is having a bit of a troubled time at present but that is due to a multiplicity of factors and it has happened many times in the past before the word ‘Brexit’ was even invented.
So I think I can probably sum up my current view of the Brexit process with the phrase “Steady as she goes Number 1”.
I hope that I have at least in some way sated your curiosity.
Have a safe day.
Thank you @Robert_Hodge for the comprehensive reply. You can probably tell that I do not share your beliefs but at the same time I respect your right to hold them.
I certainly hope that the outcome of the end of the transition period is not as damaging to UK as I fear it will, and that this current shambles of à government is replaced with a more honourable group of people.
My question to you was, as you say, out of pure curiosity as it has been a while since the subject was discussed. I hope that others do not seek to “dismantle” your views as this was not my intention.
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What Brexit will do is hinder the financial recovery from the pandemic.
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Hope you will be able to reconcile all those so called “freedoms” that will be enjoyed in UK as you find living here more complicated with none of the easy movement of goods and services (withdrawal of bank accounts being the latest manifestation). And I don’t say that because we import lots of UK products…we source all our products and services locally…not import them. It just not having common processes, standards and procures is going to cause so many headaches…so enjoy!
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@strudball
Good morning John,
The issue of whether or not to leave the EU was never one of what would best suit the convenience of the British citizen residing in Europe, but rather which scenario would be the most appropriate for the UK as a whole going forward. A matter of the national interest over-riding the personal.
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Very saintly …unfortunately I’m more concerned as to how it is going to make our life here more awkward than the many Brits who wanted to pull up the drawbridge (and didn’t know how it will also affect them.)
Read the UK gov “Border with the European Union.” … operating Model…its a 100 page Pdf and explains in detail the new procedures…it is so onerous and it effects private individuals too that many business with limited product volume won’t find it economically viable. Do you remember the pre -single market days of when custom officers wanted to know if you had “any items on this list in your car”. welcome back to them.
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In terms of ‘national interest’ there are many of us who will never believe that the economic fallout / inconvenience/ and general ‘going back in time’ will ever be outweighed by some spurious notion of sovereignty.
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To me, the least sovereign part of the UK is the Sovereign herself. The whole system in the UK is now more akin to a banana republic/dictatorship rather than the parliamentary democracy it is supposed to be 
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The brexit debate was a dialogue de sourds, wasn’t it? - and Robert’s post a perfect illustration of this. To brexiters, I’m sure, these words have a meaning - but to remainers they are almost entirely empty of any real content whatsoever.
A couple of examples:
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Saying that the UK will leave ‘the jurisdiction of the ECJ, and that will be a good thing’ does not offer either argument or evidence; since personally I see leaving the jurisdiction of the ECJ as a bad thing, we are no further forward at all in understanding our different perspectives.
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Similarly, ‘the UK will also be fully deciding upon its own laws rather than being subordinate to Brussels’ to me sounds like playing with words without any real content: any international treaty or co-operation between nations, or notion of any international law, might be said to ‘subordinate’ a country to extra-national rules - just saying this does not address at all the question of whether it is a good or bad thing - and to me it is manifestly a good thing! - indeed a necessary thing.
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Most egregious, perhaps, is the statement that - well, what actually is it? - that the £ hasn’t collapsed or that its collapse is not due to brexit? Again, literally non-sense to me, since the £ did collapse the very day after the brexit vote. Here’s the opening paragraph of a newspaper report that day:
The value of sterling slumped to a 31-year low on currency markets and was on course for its biggest one-day loss in history as panicking investors contemplated the prospect of a vote to leave the European Union.
I could go through all the individual points like this - but I see no point now. The damage has been done, and - here’s the key lesson for me - a lot of the damage was done precisely because words like ‘sovereignty’ and ‘subordinate’ and ‘collapse’ were bandied about without any real attempt to agree on what they actually meant.
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Exactly, because BoJo and his cronies are only in it for themselves.
BoJo said that he took two days to decide which path to follow, ie. which would suit his career the best.
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I am inclined to agree with Geoff’s analysis - it is difficult to persuade people who have essentially made their minds up, the big problem with many who support Brexit cannot enumerate or describe either the problems that were due to the EU, nor how leaving the EU will improve our lives.
The problem with the Leave campaign - apart from the fact that there was not a single coherent view of Brexit among Leavers was that the whole thing was based on a particular viewpoint as to how the EU would behave (German car manufacturers for example) or the misguided belief that, without the UK then the EU would simply collapse.
However I am going to try to address Robert’s points - so this might get rather long.
Right off the bat this seems manifestly false measured in any way other than the simple fact of us leaving the EU. In terms of handling the exit I would say that the government has been worse than useless. Given the trashing of our international reputation and relationship with the EU with years of bad faith negotiations from David Davis signing the interim agreement and then appearing on the Andrew Marr show the very next morning and saying “Oh but none of that is binding” to throwing away the provisions of the Political Declaration to the present fiasco with the Internal Market Bill and the stated intent to ignore international law. Then there is the fact that years of denying that there would be a no deal outcome and counting it as “project fear” has left business with no idea what conditions it would be trading under and the government only now frantically trying to get some systems together - with the full expectation that they will not be ready so generating the necessity to build huge lorry parks in Kent to handle the backlog.
It would have been less of a disaster, frankly, had we triggered Article 50 in 2017 and left in 2019 without doing anything else - chances are business would have sorted itself out having had 2 years of clarity.
Obviously that wasn’t possible because of the “slight” complication of the UK border in Ireland - this has been the proverbial spanner in the works - but it speaks to the monumental arrogance and incompetence of the government that the ramifications of handling the border was not explored before we triggered Article 50.
But we can be more objective about the government’s performance - we were offered a set of assurances regarding Brexit as follows:
Perhaps Robert could take us through these points one by one and give examples of the government’s “successful effort” to meet each promise.
The idea that the losing side should “put up and shut up” is not democracy it is autocracy, it is not even consistent with the views of the leave campaign - “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way.” N.Farage 2016
The only, narrow way I might agree with Robert’s point is that we are here now, the deed is done, we need to make the best of it - but you can’t persuade me that it was handled well, nor honestly, nor that the government is managing to make the best of it when they are apparently hell bent on making the worst of it as far as I can see - being a group of talentless individuals lead by a lazy, over privileged old-Etonian who is controlled by a set of promoted-past-their-ability “advisers” who’s main aim seems to be to destroy our institutions without the ability to rebuild them.
Johnson has somehow conned the country into thinking that he is “one of the lads” but he is not up to the job of PM, or handling Covid, nor of delivering a Brexit that will not massively harm the UK.
Not really - there were specific promises, as above, plus others - these have simply been cast aside, the public were conned, there is no other term for it.
I agree with Geoff - I doubt that it will be a good thing, especially given the governments current efforts to emasculate judicial (as well as parliamentary) oversight.
But, as you consider it “a good thing” I am sure that you can provide us with examples of cases in which ECJ judgements have been deleterious to the nation’s well being.
This is a common claim - that we are “subordinate to Brussels” but it totally ignores the fact that WE are (well, were) part of the EU government with as much (and in many cases much more - at least until we burnt our bridges) influence on EU politics than other EU members.
And, as Geoff points out any international treaty we enter into will require that we give up a bit of “sovereignty” and control in order to realise the benefits. In fact we wlll almost certainly have less control given that we are a medium sized nation coming up against the huge blocs of the USA, the EU, China and Russia.
I’m not sure that “things have moved on” quite as much as you suppose in Ireland, 20 years is quite a short time (let is face it Brexiteers are still living in a 1950’s fantasy - it is a bit of a stretch to suppose Irish memories do not stretch back into the 1990’s).
The fact of the matter, however, is that the UK entered into a binding agreement which has certain implications for the free movement of goods and people across the UK border in Ireland which are somewhat incompatible with that border also being a UK-EU border when the UK is no longer a member state.
I realise that honouring binding international agreements is out of favour with Brexiteers and the UK government at present but the inhabitants of the island of Ireland might think differently (the EU certainly does).
The issue of the border there might be merely symbolic - but you won’t have to scratch Ireland very deeply before you find unrest.
Many of the dire predictions, I agree, did not come to pass - except there’s that little problem that we are not fully out of the EU for another 3 months - so we have not put those predictions to the test yet. However the signs are not good, systems not ready, even Michael Gove admitting there might be 7000 lorries tailed back waiting to get through Dover, chaos at other ports, large financial institutions moving to the EU, UK banks closing accounts for EU residents, government still not admitting the impact on GB-NI trade and trying to renege on signed agreements and, at best, negotiating a poor FTA which will not provide anything close to “the same benefit” as EU membership.
If you want a nautical analogy I’d say we’re more like the Titanic just after she hit the 'berg - fatally holed, those crew who are actually aware of the problem not yet accepting the seriousness of the situation and the passengers totally clueless on deck as the band plays on.
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What I find interesting about the ‘project fear’ smokescreen is that in so far as it has any basis, it seems to be in the statements of Tory politicians. So not ‘project fear’ but ‘project lying Tories’ again. 'Twas ever thus!
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So who is it convenient for and in what specific way is it in the national interest.
We were always sovereign - as the act of Brexit proves so we gain little and lose much.
I really never saw the “national interest” argument, and it is getting less and less convincing all the time.
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Robert, Your comments on Northern Ireland are so steeped in ignorance that I won’t even bother to refute them. Unfortunately the liar Johnson and his cronies are either as ignorant as you or just don’t give a damn, or both.
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The sovereign is just a bit of glitter frankly.
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Tourist attraction.
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