Current Affairs EU In or Out

[ToffeeTim]

But we did it before the EU existed......

I've tried to tell people that the Ireland Act 1947 (under Clement Atlees government) granted freedom of travel, labour, citizenship, and voting rights between ROI and UK. And this legislation clearly predates the European Union.

But it's almost like people want to ignore this and just shout "IT CAN'T WORK!!!" even though it blatantly can and already did.

I'm going to call out anyone who trawls out this "danger to the peace" nonsense every time I see it too. I grew up in a place which is full of people who justify murdering their neighbours and it makes sick seeing these weak apologists. If people choose to murder then they alone are responsible for murder, they have no justification and no one should be making excuses for them.

 

[Charlie Sweet]

Last time I looked Japan was not in the EU, yet the EU can set up their trade deals, yet we are hankcuft by the EU on certain trade deals do you know what bullying is well look at the negotiations with the EU so far

So you think the UK alone would negotiate a better deal with the Japanese than the EU could? What reason do you have for that view? Without looking to deeply into I can see the idea that the EU with over 11 times the population of the UK can offer a lot more to Japanese industry than the UK can? So generally speaking the more you can offer someone the more you can expect back in return. But that's just my opinion - what's your reasoning?

Yet Southern Ireland work closely with the UK like the massive loan Gideon gave them after the banking crash while imposing severe austerity on the rest of the U.K.

As of April 2017 Ireland had paid the UK £368 million in interest on that loan. So Ireland have actually been helping the UK treasury lessen the impact of austerity. Or do you not see that?

 

[peteblue]

I've tried to tell people that the Ireland Act 1947 (under Clement Atlees government) granted freedom of travel, labour, citizenship, and voting rights between ROI and UK. And this legislation clearly predates the European Union.

But it's almost like people want to ignore this and just shout "IT CAN'T WORK!!!" even though it blatantly can and already did.

I'm going to call out anyone who trawls out this "danger to the peace" nonsense every time I see it too. I grew up in a place which is full of people who justify murdering their neighbours and it makes sick seeing these weak apologists. If people choose to murder then they alone are responsible for murder, they have no justification and no one should be making excuses for them.

Well said......

 

[Charlie Sweet]

I'm going to call out anyone who trawls out this "danger to the peace" nonsense every time I see it too. I grew up in a place which is full of people who justify murdering their neighbours and it makes sick seeing these weak apologists. If people choose to murder then they alone are responsible for murder, they have no justification and no one should be making excuses for them.

Call me out all you want but you're wrong. I've also had direct experience of the troubles via close family members so I also have some stripes.

Terrorists are evil. Pure and simple. However if Tory politicians are idiotic enough to unwind a carefully crafted peace settlement to a 30 year war - because of their warped ideology of a Great British Empire mentality - then they very definitely do have blood on their hands.

A hard Brexit border would instantly turn the IRA's heartlands into the most lucrative blackmarket hotspot since Al Capone's East Coast domain during prohibition. Do you think the loyalist mobs will then just sit back and lose out on untold millions?

My family are split between the south and Derry. I lived in Derry in the 80s for a couple of years and now have a share in a Belfast business. I'm across about twice a month.

I'm guessing you live in the North? My post isn't to diminish the evils of terrorist activities. I want them all a million miles away from our decent society. I am just saying when I hear Rees Mogg go on about there being no distinction between his Somerset village and Enniskillen (I think that was the NI town he quoted) then it makes my blood boil!

 

[Joey66]

Brexit

The stock market slumped this week was that Brexit?

 

[peteblue]

The stock market slumped this week was that Brexit?

Of course......

 

[Charlie Sweet]

I've tried to tell people that the Ireland Act 1947 (under Clement Atlees government) granted freedom of travel, labour, citizenship, and voting rights between ROI and UK. And this legislation clearly predates the European Union.

But it's almost like people want to ignore this and just shout "IT CAN'T WORK!!!" even though it blatantly can and already did.

.

Okay back to the debate.

In simple terms tell me how you square this issue:

Statement A - the GFA and it's unhindered freedoms of movement for people and services across the island of Ireland will not be affected by Brexit. The Irish population in NI will be fully respected in all civil regards. In the absence of a negotiated settlement the UK government commits to there being no hard border in Ireland and full alignment with the EU

Statement B - on leaving the EU after Brexit there will be no customs union of any kind with the EU. Free movement of people will be at an end as the UK will fully control its borders.The ECJ will have no role to play in the UK after Brexit. There will be no divergence or special status for NI relative to the rest of the UK.

Those two statements are impossible to reconcile. That's not me being awkward it's just an obvious fact! And this was pointed out (and ignored) before the referendum.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Call me out all you want but you're wrong. I've also had direct experience of the troubles via close family members so I also have some stripes.

Terrorists are evil. Pure and simple. However if Tory politicians are idiotic enough to unwind a carefully crafted peace settlement to a 30 year war - because of their warped ideology of a Great British Empire mentality - then they very definitely do have blood on their hands.

A hard Brexit border would instantly turn the IRA's heartlands into the most lucrative blackmarket hotspot since Al Capone's East Coast domain during prohibition. Do you think the loyalist mobs will then just sit back and lose out on untold millions?

My family are split between the south and Derry. I lived in Derry in the 80s for a couple of years and now have a share in a Belfast business. I'm across about twice a month.

I'm guessing you live in the North? My post isn't to diminish the evils of terrorist activities. I want them all a million miles away from our decent society. I am just saying when I hear Rees Mogg go on about there being no distinction between his Somerset village and Enniskillen (I think that was the NI town he quoted) then it makes my blood boil!

Im just outside belfast yeah.

I really think you are overestimating the importance and influence of Jacob Rees Mogg mate. He's a backbench MP with no involvement in the Brexit process whatsoever. He may want a closed border for immigration purposes but that ain't happenning in Ireland. Way too much hysteria surrounding it. The only border issue is customs. It's not on British interests or Irish interests to smack tariffs onto goods and hurt their own business's by raising prices. It would be idiotic for May or Varadkar to get in a tariff war with their nearest and longest standing trade partner.

Tariffs suit one group. The Brussels elites. They may say they are fighting Irelands corner. All they are doing is ensuring their is a large cake round the corner, and that their slice of it is the whole cake. Their motives are not trustworthy.

 

[hullefc]

Last time I looked Japan was not in the EU, yet the EU can set up their trade deals, yet we are hankcuft by the EU on certain trade deals do you know what bullying is well look at the negotiations with the EU so far

Japanese industry is making things in the UK and have said the UK needs to stay in the customs union and the single market. After the vote, and May was appointed PM, she said that 'Japanese car manufactures wouldn't be affected'. The Japanese were satisfied with that. Move forward 18 months and the Japanese have lost faith in the Tories and are demanded that the UK stays in the customs union and the single market and doesn't revert to WTO tariffs.

 

[Joey66]

So you think the UK alone would negotiate a better deal with the Japanese than the EU could? What reason do you have for that view? Without looking to deeply into I can see the idea that the EU with over 11 times the population of the UK can offer a lot more to Japanese industry than the UK can? So generally speaking the more you can offer someone the more you can expect back in return. But that's just my opinion - what's your reasoning?



As of April 2017 Ireland had paid the UK £368 million in interest on that loan. So Ireland have actually been helping the UK treasury lessen the impact of austerity. Or do you not see that?

Yes but they needed a friendly bail out from the UK - not the EU!
You put the EU on a high pedestal of mythology as if it's the b all and end all with free trade we will grow far better 10 billion better off to start with plus spending the other 8 billion on what we want to spend it on !
Out of a largest Quango on record we can strive out in the rest of the world and still keep them as a trading block even with tarrifs we would gain inside the EU trading block!
Project fear from Blair - Campbell - and Clegg all total losers!

 

[hullefc]

And what if the ROI had not joined the EU as it only did so because the U.K. did. What if the ROI could not access NI because the EU said so, who would you blame, the EU or the U.K. ?

But the RoI is in the EU and it is the UK government that is threatening the ROI with a hard border, so they could not access the NI market. There can not be a border on the island of Ireland unless the UK government reneges on the Good Friday Agreement and repeals the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Unfortunately, this conundrum is lost on the likes of Rees Mogg, Gove, Duncan Smith and Johnson who haven't a clue what is in the GFA but carry on with their rhetoric. Their rhetoric has hit reality and has left them ratcheting up the civil war in the Tory party.

Furthermore, to control EU immigration there has to be border check on the island of Ireland. Which is against the GFA an international treaty lodge and recognised by the UN. It wont look good for the UK government trying to negotiation FTA when they renege on international treaties. This goes completely over the heads of the gang of four who haven't a clue. Brexit doesn't mean Brexit in Ireland.

 

[hullefc]

Yet Southern Ireland work closely with the UK like the massive loan Gideon gave them after the banking crash while imposing severe austerity on the rest of the U.K.

The UK government forced the Irish government to bail out Ulster bank which was part of RBS, a British bank.

"June 10 2013 10:31 AM

IRELAND accepted a £10bn 'back-door bailout’ from the UK, a British newspaper has claimed.

The Times reports that Ireland received the cash injection to pump into Ulster Bank, further to the sector’s initial £45bn bail out five years ago. A subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank has apparently received a previously unreported amount of £10bn.

This is more than three times the £3.25bn direct loan offered by the British Government to Ireland in 2010.

The article focuses on the outrage of British taxpayers at another seemingly clandestine financial loan to its Irish neighbours.

It includes calculations from Investec’s Ian Gordon that demonstrate Ulster Bank represented £12.7bn of RBS’s £44.3bn in bad loans since 2008. “When RBS failed, Ulster Bank accounted for only around 10pc of group loans, yet cumulative Irish impairments since then have been £12.7bn and over just the past three years Ireland has contributed around half of all RBS bad debts,” said Gordon.

Speculation on the topic of the separation of Ulster Bank from parent RBS has now become rife, according to The Times. It quotes an anonymous Tory minister who said that the UK should have insisted that the Irish Government took full control of the bank in 2010. “We should have dealt with this at the time of the bilateral loan negotiations. We missed a trick by failing to do so,” he said.

However, RBS Group executive Stephen Hester last week said that he still intends to keep Ulster Bank under the RBS umbrella.

But Jeffrey Donaldson of the Democratic Unionist Party has outlined concerns UK taxpayers may have. “The situation undoubtedly raises questions about the accountability to Parliament and the British public about the kinds of bailout that have been going on under the surface in the banking system,” he said.

Ireland were force to pay over the odds to bail out a British bank. They were conned, kicked in the teeth when they were down by the Tories..

 

[hullefc]

That’s like saying the U.K. is in the EU, so maybe the EU should solve the issue. This is a Sovereign nation issue. The EU is neither Sovereign nor a Nation, again, what does it have to do with Germany, France, Italy, Poland etc etc if the U.K., NI and ROI agree on something.......

May have skipped your notice but the Republic of Ireland is in the EU. The sovereign issue is the Good Friday Agreement an international treaty recognised with the UN. The GFA does not allow for checks on the movement of people on the island of Ireland. The UK government has said they want to control EU immigration into the UK, they cannot do that on the island of Ireland. An EU citizen can go to Dublin and onwards to Belfast i.e in the UK and then to the rest of the UK. How does the UK government stop EU immigration from coming into the UK on the island of Ireland?

 

[hullefc]

I've tried to tell people that the Ireland Act 1947 (under Clement Atlees government) granted freedom of travel, labour, citizenship, and voting rights between ROI and UK. And this legislation clearly predates the European Union.

But it's almost like people want to ignore this and just shout "IT CAN'T WORK!!!" even though it blatantly can and already did.

I'm going to call out anyone who trawls out this "danger to the peace" nonsense every time I see it too. I grew up in a place which is full of people who justify murdering their neighbours and it makes sick seeing these weak apologists. If people choose to murder then they alone are responsible for murder, they have no justification and no one should be making excuses for them.

That means the UK government cannot stop EU citizens coming to the UK. How can the UK government stop an EU citizen getting into the UK, when they can come to Dublin, get a train to Belfast i.e the UK and move onwards to the rest of the UK?

 

[hullefc]

Government faces difficulty securing binding Border deal
Ministers fear EU’s patience with the UK is running out amid renewed Brexit talks
about 20 hours ago
Pat Leahy

Screengrab from UK’s Parliamentary Recording Unit footage showing British prime minister Theresa May pointing towards Boris Johnson. Photograph: AFP Photo/PRU

Theresa May chaired a cabinet meeting which discussed the British position, but sources in London said they expected no decisive moves on the British government position.

“It’s hard to negotiate with the British government because the British government is effectively still negotiating with itself,” said one influential source in Dublin.

Senior sources in Dublin and Brussels point to the contradiction in the British government’s stated positions.

While London has pledged to maintain a soft border in Ireland, if necessary by maintaining the same rules on either side of the Border, the EU believes this is incompatible with the UK’s stated desire to leave the single market and the customs union in order to negotiate trade deals with other countries.

‘Fudging’ untenable
“The British positions are irreconcilable,” said a senior source in Dublin. “And we have reached the point where fudging that is no longer tenable.”

The European Commission is likely to propose wording in the coming weeks for the legal agreement giving force to the political declarations about the Border made by the British government in advance of last December’s European summit. However, putting these in a legal text is likely to be difficult for the British government to agree to, sources say.

“It’s not the case that the EU is struggling to come up with a legal text. The struggle will be to agree it with the British,” according to a person familiar with the process.

The December agreement stipulated that in the event there was no agreement between the UK and the EU, the British would propose solutions to the problem of keeping the status quo on the Border.

If these were not agreed, the British said, then the UK would “maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South co-operation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 agreement.”

Northern Ireland
Officials expect that the commission draft will propose that in the event of no agreement, a combination of single market and customs unions rules should apply to Northern Ireland.

“The commission will propose something that enables Northern Ireland to function as if it was still part of the EU. That’ll be difficult for the British,” one source familiar with discussions in Brussels said.

The Irish Government is also concerned that EU sentiment towards Britain is hardening, risking a total breakdown of the Brexit talks. “The British are seeking latitude and it just isn’t there,” said one informed source".

It's make your mind up time for May and the Tories.