Brexit Thread V - The Final Countdown?!?

[Timsup2nothin]

May has formally rejected the Corbyn offer for a Customs Union with a letter to Corbyn.



May offers to allign the UK with the current EU standards on environmental and workers rights... but not on health and food standards (which she needs for US food imports).
May also does not want a permanent EU allignment to environmental and workers standards, keeping open a slow diverge.

I understand also that May has no clear position on backing the one-nation conservatives of the Tories and the hard-Brexiteers Tories (who want a max liberalised Singapore FTA).
This Tory divide is important when it would come to making choices after a cliff edge no-deal, and atm two so called "After" scenarios are being prepared.
A choice now by May would risk split-up of the Tories.
If May would have backed the Customs Union proposal of Corbyn, the Tory party would risk that split-up as well.

So... as the article states: nothing much happening except the clock running down and more pressure for the showdown at the end of Feb if not end of March.

I'll be ready to send you a sandwich.

 

[Hrothbern]

I'll be ready to send you a sandwich.

When WW2 was in its last weeks in the Netherlands, famine killing many people, US and UK airplanes dropped containers all over the big cities with chocolate, coffee, tea and.... white flower for bread.
It was called Operation "Manna" by the Brits and Operation "Chowhound" by the USians.
This was after an action earlier that year where the Red Cross supplied Swedish white flower.

My parents always remembered that delicious white bread tasting like cake
(our whole-grain domestic flower was mixed with everything you did not die from)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ah yes, good old USian enriched and sweetened to the point where it isn't even really bread anymore loaf candy. A favorite around the world!

 

[Kyriakos]

It was when the dutch started becoming obese

 

[Hrothbern]

It was when the dutch started becoming obese

Well... the people that lived in rural areas, forced to eat whole-grain bread and local vegetables were remarkable healthy !
Perhaps the higher fibre content, or the low availibility of sugar, or similar effects of eating less, and less meat and less processed foods.
IDK.

There has also been done a big study in Denmark on that period (Denmark much more rural at that time) and the frequency of heart diseases was never so low.

BTW, one of the most valuable goods on the black market in NL during the war was soap !

And one of the best actions of the government directly after the war was declare all money without value and every citizen got 10 new guilders.

And... we are NOT obese... by law we have to bicycle every day one hour and when there is winter we have to ice skate to school and our jobs.

 

[Kyriakos]

WTH is up with south african difference in obesity numbers between men and women?

 

[Hrothbern]

WTH is up with south african difference in obesity numbers between men and women?

The same in Turkey.

For Turkey I understand it is a cultural preference.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, i have heard of "arabian taste in women", 'but this is ridiculous'

 

[Hrothbern]

Hm, i have heard of "arabian taste in women", 'but this is ridiculous'

The original unexpurgated translation of "one thousand and one nights" is a good read
though many volumes (I have only 3).

 

[Arakhor]

Tusk was elected by the European Council by a double majority. His term is shorter at 2.5 years and ends this Nov. The UK voted for him afaik.

"Unelected Eurocrats" is a trope. Don't expect anyone to actually look into the mechanics of how they got appointed because they might learn something they don't want to.

May has formally rejected the Corbyn offer for a Customs Union with a letter to Corbyn.

What has it come to when even the Prime Minister openly admits that there is a potential Parliamentary majority for a Brexit deal, but that Tory party survival takes precedence over that?

 

[Kyriakos]

What has it come to when even the Prime Minister openly admits that there is a potential Parliamentary majority for a Brexit deal, but that Tory party survival takes precedence over that?

Another episode of looking after the patrons in Yes Minstrel.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

Tusk was elected by the European Council by a double majority. His term is shorter at 2.5 years and ends this Nov. The UK voted for him afaik.

Well I didn’t vote for him or any other candidate. Did you?

Do you seriously not see the problem when the EU’s el presidente has no actual, real voters to answer to?

Same for Juncker, who the UK most definitely did not vote for btw.

But I shouldn’t complain really. Because those two (along with Varadker) have done more for the Brexit cause than any Brit I know.

Edit: Meanwhile, taken from the Telegraph feeder:

Boris Johnson has suggested he could back the Prime Minister's Brexit deal if she manages to secure a time limit or exit mechanism in the Irish backstop.

In comments that will encourage Downing Street, the former foreign secretary said the main barrier to a deal is finding a way to “get out of the backstop” and ensure that the UK is not “locked in that prison of the customs union.”

His intervention suggests that Theresa May is now close to breaking the Brexit deadlock, providing she can deliver on her pledge to secure legally-binding changes to the withdrawal agreement.[/I]

 

[Arakhor]

You are aware of how a representative democracy works, aren't you? I didn't vote for Theresa May, yet she's still the Prime Minister (and thus our representative on the European Council).

 

[Kyriakos]

You are aware of how a representative democracy works, aren't you? I didn't vote for Theresa May, yet she's still the Prime Minister (and thus our representative on the European Council).

The tories didnt vote for the royal family either, yet...

I dislike eu officials cause they are ruinous. I dont care much about how they got elected.

 

[Hrothbern]

Boris Johnson has suggested he could back the Prime Minister's Brexit deal if she manages to secure a time limit or exit mechanism in the Irish backstop.

I need some help in English to understand precisely what Boris Johnson is saying there:

"Boris Johnson has suggested he could back the Prime Minister's Brexit deal if she manages to secure a time limit or exit mechanism in the Irish backstop"

Now.... if I remove that "suggested" .... Boris is saying: "he could back....."

What does that mean ?
Is it:
"he will back" ?
"he is going to back" ?
Does he commit to anything at all ???

My understanding of English is that he does not commit to anything with his statement.
Correct ?

And then the article (or Boris ?) adds in front: "suggested"

For me, but please correct if my understanding of English is wrong... for me Boris says:
Hey May, do your thing, get that permanent backstop out of the way... and then I will see what I will do... but don't count on anything !
And even if I back you... you know... it is up to Rees-Mogg to have ofc his own opinion, etc, etc.

Correct ?
And if correct... than both the statement from Boris Johnson as the article of the Telegraph are just hot air.

 

[Kyriakos]

You can google urban dictionary meanings of the term "gove". Very funny, but nsfw.

 

[Cheetah]

Does he commit to anything at all ???

My understanding of English is that he does not commit to anything with his statement.
Correct ?

[...] suggested he could [...]

Those are two weasel words, just to make it really clear that he doesn't commit to anything whatsoever, but that he can still claim to have made his position clear.

But it's all idiotic anyway: The EU is not going to accept a backstop that the UK can leave when it feels like it. That's not a backstop!

Boris Johnson as and the article of the Telegraph are just hot air.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Hrothbern]

You can google urban dictionary meanings of the term "gove". Very funny, but nsfw.

oops
I did google
TIL

 

[Cheetah]

Well I didn’t vote for him or any other candidate. Did you?

Not that I think you'll actually consider any information on the subject, but let's give it a try, at least for any other observer which might stumble in on this:

Tusk, the President of the European Council, was chosen by a qualified majority vote, where your representative -- your democratically elected Prime Minister -- had one of twenty seven votes, and one of the most powerful votes, seeing as she represented one of the biggest populations.

Tusk needed at least 16 votes representing at least 65% of the EU population to be elected, and got that.

Juncker, the President of the European Commission, was the candidate proposed for the position by the European People's Party (EPP). The party getting the most votes in the parliamentary election gets the presidency.

The EPP won the parliamentary election in 2014 with 36% of the votes (11%-points ahead of the second largest party), and Juncker then became President.

No UK parties are members of the EPP, so you're right that no one in the UK voted for Juncker. But that doesn't make it not-democratic! UK voters voted for S&D's Martin Schulz (Labour) or ALDE's Guy Verhofstadt (Liberal Democrats). UK voters also voted for ECR (Tories, UUP) and EFDD (UKIP, Libertarian Party, Social Democratic Party, Thurrock Independents, etc.), but neither of those groups cared enough to nominate any candidate.

 

[Hrothbern]

Serious again:

From reading various articles today and since Friday:
My feel so far:

* May is trying to win Labour MP votes by promising small gift consessions, just enough to get votes, and not too much to avoid a split-up of the Tory party, but if so needed isolating Rees-Mogg, etc.
* Corbyn is trying to defend the split-up of his party against May's meddling, but allowing enough Labour MP's to support a small-gifted May deal, just enough to get a Brexit and be able to say that that Brexit deal is not his deal.
* The EU, recognising the polarised situation, preferring a stable negotiating partner during the transition period, prefers a Withdrawal deal that has an ample majority and is supported more broadly in the Parliament, like with a future direction of some degree of a Customs Union. And signals that Remainers should realise that the EU is just what it is, and not what Remainers hope it should be.

Parallel to this is the discussion between the UK and the EU on the feasibility of a software solution.
The main issue there is the WTO.
The legalistic culture of the EU will simply exclude solutions that are not waterproof when challenged by other WTO members.
(the WTO is only a list of agreed rules by members, and does not challenge itself members that are possibly in violation. The WTO panels do however rule in disputes between members, but cannot really enforce something).
The following article explains that WTO issue.
https://tradebetablog.wordpress.com...o-require-countries-to-control-their-borders/

The issue is not that there is a WTO rule that forces a country to have a border control.
The issue is that the WTO has non-discrimination rules. Meaning that if you apply at WTO level no border control for one country, that no border control applies to all countries trading on WTO level with the UK.
If the UK applies a traditional border between London port and the US when importing apples from Washington (the state), and the UK applies a softer software border between Ireland and Northern Ireland (UK), the US can decide to complain that its apples were discriminated against. No equal treatment, and the US can raise a dispute with the UK.
Perhaps that does not bother Rees-Mogg, but the EU will never take that risk.