Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Syt]

"Good luck, sucker!"

[Sheilbh]

it's been a privilege to serve your two predecessors.. you, not so much

"Your government faces challenges on a number of fronts"

[Josquius]

On the whole English nationalism thing - an argument for dissolving the UK (by a Scot) from an English perspective:

Bye Bye Britain
Neal Ascherson

In​ 2019

Suffice to say though he hints towards some good points, e.g. The destruction of the metropolitan cities. His conclusion is wrong.
England is the horrible ugly fake one that needs to burn in eternal fire forever more. A complete accident of history which does nothing to represent any facts on the ground.
Britain is the real one.

[HVC]

does he have a super thick scots accent? because that's how i read it.

[Sheilbh]

does he have a super thick scots accent? because that's how i read it.

He has a very posh Scots/Edinburgh accent. It's fairly distinctive, "sex" is what the coal comes in kind of accent.

[Tamas]

Deal made with rebels,

PM to grant Commons vote on when to invoke powers to breach withdrawal agreement

Some rebels.

[Sheilbh]

This feels like one of those great Brexit breakthroughs when the Tories manage to negotiate a position that they can all agree to, without any reference to the EU they're actually negotiating with

This is a degree of control - parliament has very little oversight (and relatively little interest in having oversight) over secondary legislation which is a big issue - at least that has to go through the Commonsand we've seen how uncomfortable even an 80 seat majority Tory Commons is in doing that, if it required the House of Lords then it would never happen. Of course Parliament can always break international law whenever it wants so I assume this is more of a vote to authorise ministers to breach it.

Interesting thread from the RTE London Correspondent on today's Liaison Committee on Johnson possibly hinting at a climbdown:

Did @BorisJohnson give himself a ladder to climb down when responding to @hilarybennmp's question if he believes the EU is acting in bad faith?

Johnson replies: "It is always possible that I am mistaken [that the EU is acting in bad faith].
2/ "Perhaps they will prove my suspicions wrong, and perhaps they will agree in the Joint Committee to withdraw some of the extreme suggestions that I've heard and all will be well.
3/ "But until such time I prefer to have protections guarantee the integrity of this country and protect against the potential rupture of the United Kingdom..."
4/ Note that the Working Paper circulated by the European Commission to member states today (see earlier thread) states: "Michel Barnier clearly stated that the EU is *not* refusing to list the UK as a third country for food imports."
5/ The Commission and Member states have believed the hold up over the "listing of the UK" for food imports provided Johnson with what was described as an "insane" smokescreen to retroactively justify the Internal Market Bill, which breaches the Protocol
6/ If the Commission spells out in the Joint Committee that it is not threatening, a food blockade of NI, and never has, will that permit a de-escalation?
7/ The Joint Committee was due to meet on September 25, although there is a belief that will have to be postponed until the EU's deadline for the offending elements of the Internal Mkt Bill be withdrawn (ie, end of September)

[Sheilbh]

One for Tyr - about local lockdowns being announced - this is astonishing. Time for indepedence for the North

[celedhring]

Isn't Sunderland on the opposite coast? 

[Tamas]

Isn't Sunderland on the opposite coast? 

If it's outside the M25 then nobody cares where it is.

[Josquius]

One for Tyr - about local lockdowns being announced - this is astonishing. Time for indepedence for the North

Checking up there IS a hamlet called Sunderland over there. But seriously. Pff.
Bad enough that they seem to not realise that Northumberland and County Durham are counties rather than towns.

[The Larch]

So, it seems that the Dems are not happy with the Internal Market Bill either.

Biden and Pelosi warn UK over risking Good Friday agreement
Leading Democrats tell UK foreign secretary that Northern Ireland peace deal cannot be casualty of Brexit

Joe Biden on Wednesday joined the clamour of Democrats warning Boris Johnson not to let the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement become a casualty of his Brexit talks.

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, is in Washington trying to repair relations with pro-Irish Democrats amid concerns that the UK's attempt to leave the EU on its own terms will undermine the Good Friday peace agreement.

Democrats have warned that if the UK undermines the peace process or reinstates a hard border to secure Brexit on its terms, the UK's chances of securing the required congressional support for a UK-US free trade deal will disappear.

Tories don't seem to be taking these comments well, and claim it is done in order to pander for Irish American votes, but isn't the US one of the agreement's international guarantors? That'd give them a voice on the matter, I'd say.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - I mean whatever happens there will not be a trade deal with the US. It's a Tory fever dream that won't survive any contact with reality. The Tories aren't entirely wrong about not so much Irish-American voters but Irish-American politicians - I think they just underestimate how many Irish-American politicians there are who really care about Ireland. I don't think the US has a formal role under the Good Friday Agreement but they were absolutely essential. They're not a guarantor - it's a bilateral treaty between UK and Ireland - but I think they informally see themselves as a guarantor (I query the extent to which grous in Northern Ireland would agree - in particular, I don't think unionists would be keen on that perspective given that even at the heigh of the Troubles, Gerry Adams was visiting the White House or Congress which is not an honour the US typically extends to terrorists).

Of course there is an irony that arguably the biggest effect of the Good Friday Agreement was affirming the existence of the border. The Single Market and trade restrictions went with Maastricht, but there were still border posts and closed roads because of the violence and weapons-smuggling. It isn't until republicans accept that the border exists and, with unionists, that it is dependent on consent that the actual phsyical presence of the border can disappear. It's part of the genius of that deal that only be accepting a border, could the border disappear.

[Sheilbh]

Government statement on the offending clauses - this doesn't change much, but feels like the start of a particularly graceless U-turn

Government statement on notwithstanding clauses

Published 17 September 2020

HMG will ask Parliament to support the use of the provisions in Clauses 42, 43 and 45 of the UKIM Bill, and any similar subsequent provisions, only in the case of, in our view, the EU being engaged in a material breach of its duties of good faith or other obligations, and thereby undermining the fundamental purpose of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Examples of such behaviour would include:

a. insistence that GB-NI tariffs and related provision such as import VAT should be charged in ways that are not related to the real risk of goods entering the EU single market;

b. such insistence under (a.) leading to a failure to reach agreement in the Joint Committee, with the result that the default provisions on tariffs between GB and NI apply;

c. insistence on paperwork requirements (export declarations) for NI goods going to GB, thereby compromising the principle of "unfettered access" in Article 6 of the Protocol;

d. insistence that the EU's state aid provisions should apply in GB in circumstances when there is no link or only a trivial one to commercial operations taking place in NI; and

e. refusal to grant 3rd country listing to UK agricultural goods for manifestly unreasonable or poorly justified reasons.

HMG confirms that in parallel with the use of these provisions it would always activate appropriate formal dispute settlement mechanisms with the aim of finding a solution through this route.

Further measures will be set out in the Finance Bill, relating to tariffs on GB-NI movements, including the same Parliamentary process that the Government has committed to for the UKIM Bill.

[The Larch]

Ah, my bad, I was under the impression that both the US and the EU were guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement.

Btw, apparently those same Tories that got angry about Biden pronouncing himself on the topic also took offence at the name "Good Friday Agreement", repeatedly calling it "Belfast Agreement" instead. Which is exactly its official name, then?