Reuters reports that Prime Minister May has virtually reached agreement with EU negotiators on the terms of Brexit:
Britain and the European Union agreed on Monday to a transition period to avoid a “cliff edge” Brexit next year….Britain would remain effectively a non-voting EU member for 21 months until the end of 2020.
As an aside, “cliff edge” implies that the aftermath of Brexit is a long way down. As always, this assumes that such EU mandates that actually do good, will not be replaced by Parliament, that trade with the Continent will be prohibited, that consumers in Britain and the Continent will stop favoring each other’s goods, and that open-air space vacuums will open up where EU offices used to be and begin sucking pedestrians into them. In fact, as always, people will adapt to change, even to the reappearance of shrimp-flavored crisps at the pub.
So much for the putative problem. The stated remedy is for Britain to continue paying dues and charges to the Community, and renounce the ability to influence them for nearly two years, as penance for the decision to exercise its rights under treaty.
May I refer readers to a document dated 4 July 1776 in which colonists tried to cordially and patiently list to King George the reasons why he should take his troops and go f*** himself? Chief among these is that we colonials were suffering abuses from the Kingdom and that we had no redress other than to “dissolve the bonds.” The EU is not quartering troops in private homes, but many of the other complaints against the EU are just as serious. Why would May consider sacrificing Britain’s influence over the EU a good solution, even for an interim? -An interim which, including the run-up to the interim, comprises more than half of her current term? The only answer is that it is additional foot-dragging before full effect of a national decision that May does not view as favorable – indeed, views as a terrifying “cliff” – and does not want to happen.
(The remaining stumbling blocks to this agreement mostly revolve around the dilemma of the status of the border in Ireland, for which our Publisher has a fine solution, agree to a hard border but conduct business as usual.)
This is not to claim that the Colonies have learned a lesson about swiftly putting into effect the will of the people, as the Mother Country has not. Why, even before he was elected, Trump was gotten to stop promising to “repeal Obama-care” and start chanting, with his party, “repeal and replace” (alliteration, yes, very good, but replace with what?). The promise’s current form is “Shore up Obama-care” by continuing payment of taxpayer loot to health insurance companies so they would stop quitting the business entirely, to do, now by statute, what Obama had been doing lawlessly. The more of this you pursue, the sooner the underlying problem, a loathsome coercive arrangment, is forgotten.
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I'm confident that the commissions incompetence and bureaucracy will mean that nothing discussed during those two years will actually come into force until we are fully out anyway.
I'm hoping EU at some point takes the "tough" stance that it's going to fund the Britanic sized hole in their budget by imposing tariffs on british exports to the EU. DD then bites their hand off... Ok done. Bye... result EU citizens pay for their budget, which is how it should be.
Sorry, no, you impose tarrifs on *imports*, not exports. The only source of money to pay tarrifs is the people buying the stuff, tarrifs is punching your own people in the face for the crime of wanting to buy foreigners' goods.
If the EU penalizes British exports, those tariffs would indeed be on *imports* into the EU.
Yes, Hallowed is daring the EU to punch its own people in the face for it having driven Britain away. It would be a good test as to whether there are any political consequences for malfeasance.
Are reductions-in-force in European government, considering there will be one less nation to dictate to, off the table?
I very much doubt it. Won't make much difference to the budget in any case, it's the CAP payments and the various developmental transfers that is the cloth that ought to be cut accordingly.
That the FFC is a useless bitch is a given.
The question is now--what are the EU cunts in on that we don't know? If this still gets us out--obvious shit that it is--why are they keen for a sign up?
Of course a fucked up sell out on both sides might mean abstention by labour Brixeteers or even support for Cob if the "deal" is a sell out on both sides anyway. That much should be obvious to the stupid bitch May. Delivering a good Brexit might just turn the trick for BluLabour after Grandpa Deaths treachery.
I would love to see this "deal" shat on in Parliament but the danger is then the quick election that Comrade Treason needs if he is to have a chance. If he has to wait another 2-3 years he and his brand will be lower than whaleshit by then. Not to mention he and McNasty at each others throats.
Of course the FFC has plenty of time for more dimwit disasters in that time also.
I try to follow British politics, but I need a Gazetteer of your nasty nicknames for all the principals in order to understand you.
Agreed, the problem with actual Parliamentary review of this deal is another snap election, and we've seen that Mrs May does not do well in elections. Another problem is that those who would vote No Confidence want to carry out the expressed will of the people even less than she does.
I must have missed it, but the EU must have introduced an honours system and Mrs May appears to have been secretly awarded the top one.
Bungo, would that be the Kinnock Award for unelected effrontery
It might be that Mrs May has not gotten a coveted Atta-girl from the EU but is sincerely clueless in her own right.