Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

The Bruges speech and the other events of 1988 remain core to the issue of brexit right up to the referendum.
Lest we forget the main reason the tories found themselves in the political cold in the noughties was how much energy they put into ranting against Europe whilst people just didn't care. That they burned a lot of political capital in the 90s fighting the working time directive.
I have no time for lexit myths. With the vote as close as it was useful idiots from the left voting for brexit made the difference and handed supreme power to the crazy wing of the Tories.

Now undoubtedly remaining in the EU would be better from any angle of wanting to make a impact on the world at large. But the brexity thatcherites don't have any incorrect but honest belief in the free market as the real answer for making the world a richer place. Theyre disaster capitalists who want to rape the country for their own benefit and nobody else's.


I am not celebrating one poll yet but promising. I do believe Johnson is unlikely to survive to another election-frankly I'm surprised he is still pm, thought he'd have resigned by now. With Johnson vs starmer then starmers advantages can really shine. Starmer vs sunak will be tougher.

[Josquius]

BBC News - HS2 rail extension to Leeds set to be scrapped
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59292120


So it's looking more and more likely hs2 to the east shall be scrapped.
This is pretty blood horrendous and by all rights should see the tories wiped out in the north east and Yorkshire.
Of course considering even the greens are anti hs2 I suspect some absolute morons will see this as a good thing.

[Duque de Bragança]

Bad news for Novocastrum/Pons Aelius and everything north of the Hadrian Wall I guess.

In France, the Green mayor of Bordeaux turned against an extension of the High-speed line to Toulouse. His city is already connected to Paris (2 hours for 550 km basically) so he does not need to play nice besides TGVs are not green according to him. 
Pity the Toulouse city, départements and region participated as well in the financing of the line to Bordeaux. 

He can still be overridden but that wiill take an agreement between the reminder of the left and the right. 

[Sheilbh]

So it's looking more and more likely hs2 to the east shall be scrapped.
This is pretty blood horrendous and by all rights should see the tories wiped out in the north east and Yorkshire.
Of course considering even the greens are anti hs2 I suspect some absolute morons will see this as a good thing.

Yep

And the mind-blowing thing is that given a huge amount of the benefits of HS2 is from the East Midlands and then the East-West connections we have the classic British trifecta: governments taking all the political cost, paying for 90% of the physical work and not getting the benefit

I hate to go full "DECLINE" but in other big infrastructure products it makes me think of the Victorian Bazelgette sewers that London still uses. They decided to double the capacity of the sewers because "who knows when we'll have a chance to build this again" - which is why they're at capacity now and not in the 60s. Now we're spending billions on infrastructure that takes a decade or two to build and is already at capacity when it opens

Meanwhile - rare - but I can't think of anything to disagree with in this by Johnson this evening (and there have been reports of FCDO and MoD intesnifying contacts with Kyiv in the last month or two). For me the pleasant surprises of this government have almost entirely been in foreign poicy (and I suspect it is Johnson - I get the sense Sunak is a little Osborneite in his attitudes for example):

West must choose between Russian gas and supporting Ukraine, PM warns
Boris Johnson sends message to nations amid rising tensions on borders of eastern Europe
Rowena Mason
Mon 15 Nov 2021 21.46 GMT

Boris Johnson has warned that the west must soon choose between reliance on Russian gas and standing up for Ukraine amid continuing tensions on the borders of eastern Europe.

In a message to European countries that are heavily dependent on Russian gas, the prime minister suggested he believes Vladimir Putin could be serious about restricting supplies from pipelines that run through eastern Europe, if the west signals its intention to defend Ukraine.

He also accused Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, of an "abhorrent" attempt to engineer a migrant crisis on the border with Poland in an effort to undermine European unity.

EU foreign ministers are now expected to expand sanctions against Belarus to include airlines, travel agents and individuals alleged to be helping to entice migrants to Europe in what is being described as a "hybrid attack" on the bloc.

Speaking at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Johnson said: "When our Polish friends asked for our help to deal with a contrived crisis on their border with Belarus, we were quick to respond. And we hope that our friends may recognise that a choice is shortly coming between mainlining ever more Russian hydrocarbons in giant new pipelines and sticking up for Ukraine and championing the cause of peace and stability, let me put it that way."

Earlier in the day, Downing Street also voiced concern about the buildup of Russian forces along the border with Ukraine. Russia dismissed claims that it is preparing to invade, after the Ukrainian defence ministry reported that about 90,000 Russian troops were massing in the area.

However, the prime minister's official spokesperson said: "We are seeing a concerning situation at the border. We remain in unwavering support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and will continue to support them in face of Russian hostility."

Over the weekend, Gen Sir Nick Carter, the outgoing head of the army, said the west would have to be prepared for an escalation of tensions with Russia. Asked whether it could turn into a shooting war, Carter said: "I don't know. I think we have to be on our guard and make sure deterrence prevails and critically we have to make sure there is unity in the Nato alliance and we don't allow any gaps to occur in our collective position."

Johnson also used his speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet to speak about the Cop26 summit, saying it was "frustrating" to have seen the commitment to phasing out coal weakened to "phasing down" the fossil fuel. But he added: "I have been watching politics a long time now and I know when a tipping point is reached.

"The language does matter, but whether you are talking about phasing down or phasing out, the day is now not far off when it will be as politically unacceptable, anywhere in the world, to open a new coal-fired power station as it now is to get on an aeroplane and light a cigar."

He went on to make a plea for international cooperation, saying the Cop26 summit was perhaps helped by "a collective sense of embarrassment at the way internationalism failed us during Covid: the squabbles over PPE, the crazy decisions of some countries to try to stop the export of vaccines to others, something we were victims of at the start of this year."

In the wide-ranging speech, he also made a pledge to make the UK into a "science superpower", promising to "go big on quantum computing".

"If AI can mimic the intuitive flair of the human brain, then quantum computing will enable us to process information so fast that we can process an almost infinite number of solutions at once," he said. "And if we could perfect it, there are so many problems we could solve, including how to turn nitrogen into fertiliser and feed the world without creating so much CO2.

"So I am setting the ambition that the UK will aim to build a general-purpose quantum computer, and secure the single biggest share of a global quantum computing market by 2040."

Which reminds me I quite enjoyed this New Left Review critique of Johnson's foreign policy (https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/global-britain). Obviously an awful lot to disagree with, but I think criticising Britain for over-militarising and tying itself too closely to America is a more serious and credible critique than the standard establishment Remainer line of irrelevance being the main problem.

Separately I see a Guardian writer did a story on the upcoming ban on foie gras and chefs (including French chefs) in the UK trying to develop a vegan "faux gras" alternative. Apparently this has a Brexit angle because the French press have picked it up as a declaration of war on "our foie gras" (which is so much better than "our NHS" as a national rallying cry)

[Josquius]

I mean... Broadly good but....

He also accused Belarus's authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia, of an "abhorrent" attempt to engineer a migrant crisis on the border with Poland in an effort to undermine European unity.

Pot-kettle much?

[Sheilbh]

That's the Guardian description

I think his actual lines were:

"When we say that we support the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine that is not because we want to be adversarial to Russia, or that we want in some way strategically to encircle or undermine that great country [...] It is because we have a commitment to democracy and freedom that is shared now across the vast mass of the European continent. And when our Polish friends asked for our help to deal with a contrived crisis on their border with Belarus, we were quick to respond. [...] And we hope that our friends may recognise that a choice is shortly coming between mainlining ever more  Russian hydrocarbons in giant new pipelines and sticking up for Ukraine and championing the cause of peace and stability, let me put it that way."

Although I think there is an argument that you can support European unity while not thinking it's right for your country - that has been a standard theme in British views since the Treaty of Rome

It was also my mum's reasoning for almost voting leave "we just get in the way and block things" - and I think that's not an unfair criticism/comment. If a country isn't committed to European unity/integration as a consensus position across politics, perhaps it shouldn't be in an organisation commited to greater European unity/integration.

[Tamas]

Boris Johnson has warned that the west must soon choose between reliance on Russian gas and standing up for Ukraine amid continuing tensions on the borders of eastern Europe.

That's going to be a though choice.

Everyone knows Ukraine is going to be thrown under the bus. The various pipelines enabling that have already been built with Western consent.

[Sheilbh]

Was just about to post a piece by an MP - I quickly checked Wikipedia to see what type of constituency he has (true Blue shire Tory) and discovered that he's younger than me. So I'm now choosing to ignore that piece and, indeed, that MP's existence.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Was just about to post a piece by an MP - I quickly checked Wikipedia to see what type of constituency he has (true Blue shire Tory) and discovered that he's younger than me. So I'm now choosing to ignore that piece and, indeed, that MP's existence.

Quite right too. Though using those rules I would have to ignore Cameron (easy) and Obama 

The real problem is presumably when the pope is younger than oneself; at that point the only way forward is to die 

[garbon]

Sounds great!

In the wide-ranging speech, he also made a pledge to make the UK into a "science superpower", promising to "go big on quantum computing".

"If AI can mimic the intuitive flair of the human brain, then quantum computing will enable us to process information so fast that we can process an almost infinite number of solutions at once," he said. "And if we could perfect it, there are so many problems we could solve, including how to turn nitrogen into fertiliser and feed the world without creating so much CO2.

"So I am setting the ambition that the UK will aim to build a general-purpose quantum computer, and secure the single biggest share of a global quantum computing market by 2040."

[Zanza]

That ambition will of course fail, but I guess setting it for today's headlines is all he cares about.

[Sheilbh]

That ambition will of course fail, but I guess setting it for today's headlines is all he cares about.

Isn't the point of ambition that it's high even if you fail? Also Johnson's been talking about science and R&D for his entire time in office and it is the centre of the Integrated Defence Review.

It will fail and the issue with this ambition though is the issue with levelling up, rail infrastructure and everything else. I think the ideas are pretty good. There are proposals to do it but when the rubber hits the road and government actually needs to spend money they don't which means it will fail (or, in the case of HS2, having considered spending 100% of the money for 100% of the benefit, we have somehow contrived a bespoke solution where we spend 90% of the money and get 50% of the benefit ).

But as I said before I think if I was looking at a post-Brexit strategy for the UK - my focus would be on trying to get first mover advantage around regulations, investing hugely in R&D and science. The government has the rhetoric on a lot of that but not (generally) the substance. As with almost everything else (including levelling up, infrastructure, clean energy etc) our model should be France plus more responsive and stable regulation.

From a regulatory standpoint there is some interesting and positive stuff - so, because we talked about it earlier, the consultations by the MHRA on medical device regulation and a specific work programme for software and AI look positive. Similarly the consultation on amending the UK's version of GDPR is a bit of a curate's egg - there is some good ideas in there.

If we could combine responsive regulations, plus state support with the current private investment/entrepeneurial side (of mid-size countries the UK does well in investment in early stage companies) - I think that is approaching a strategy (and could be linked to other items like levelling up). But unless we actually start spending money on it, then we're not there - and from what I understand the issue in the UK isn't necessarily science. We have good research universities and lots of good cutting edge scientific research - the bit we lack is the technical bit between research science and the world. It's the engineering, technician we under-invest in and are really bad at, while the French are world leaders especially in things like quantum computing, nuclear etc. And ultimately that needs money and support to build it up.

As a total aside I genuinely think there's a cultural element here and that at some point we went from being a country that valorised industrial engineers/icons like Brunel, Stevenson, H&W etc into one that mainly celebrates eccentrics in a shed building Rube Goldberg machines. I think this may be partly to do with our de-industrialisation but I think it pre-dates it and I think class is part of it - tinkerers don't threaten to disrupt hierarachies.

[garbon]

And our resident apologist for the Tories, ladies & gentlemen.

I think Boris should promise chocolate milk in the drinking fountains next.

[Zanza]

Everything you write sounds plausible. It reinforces my view that Johnson is only talking, but not actually making policy to achieve his stated ambitions.

There are examples related to the thread title Brexit besides the domestic issues you named.  British government policy makes it harder for scientists and students from Europe to come to the UK. British hostility in diplomatic relations with the EU might see it excluded from the science program Horizon. Both not sensible policies when your stated goal is to become a science superpower.

[The Larch]

Everything you write sounds plausible. It reinforces my view that Johnson is only talking, but not actually making policy to achieve his stated ambitions.

There are examples related to the thread title Brexit besides the domestic issues you named.  British government policy makes it harder for scientists and students from Europe to come to the UK. British hostility in diplomatic relations with the EU might see it excluded from the science program Horizon. Both not sensible policies when your stated goal is to become a science superpower.

What's with the UK's participation in Horizon? I read somewhere recently that it had been agreed but is now on jeopardy as a collateral victim of the disputes regarding the Northern Ireland agreement.