UK Politics - BoJo and chums

[EnglishEdward]

Yes, I have read the Good Friday Agreement.

 

[Samson]

Have you ever read the Good Friday Agreement?

I have not, and only really have the vaguest idea what it really says. Feel free to correct any possible misunderstanding. What I posted was just the thought that popped into my head when I read the headline.

 

[EnglishEdward]

@Samson

I thought not.

There is also a problem with the term "Brexit", so it is best I do not use it.

While the DUP were not originally in favour of the GFA, they learnt to live with it.

In the 2016 referendum, the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland voted by a simple overall majority to Leave the EU.

The DUP may or may not have been in favour of the UK leaving the EU.
I think they were, but that was hardly material to the outcome of that vote.

The Good Friday Agreement stated that the UK and RoI were in the EU, but it
did not require the UK (or the RoI) to remain in the EU or in the EU's single market.

The concept that there is an incompatibility between the UK leaving the
EU and the Good Friday Agreement is merely false propaganda that
has been endlessly repeated until it is mistaken as valid received wisdom.

The DUP was never in favour of Britain leaving the EU and leaving NI behind
in the single market with a tariff wall between Britain and Northern Ireland;
yet that was in the agreement that Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer signed off.
The DUP's view is that putting a trade wall between NI and Britain breaks the GFA.

 

[really]

I imagine that Edward will point out that the Good Friday Agreement doesn't explicitly address customs infrastructure which is correct.

However Ireland, the EU, the USA, the two British prime ministers who negotiated it and the current British government agree that there should be no return to border posts of any kind which makes the absence of explicit terms in the agreement moot.

I doubt even the DUP know what the plan was. I don't think they thought too far ahead.

 

[Gorbles]

Yes, I have read the Good Friday Agreement.

Good. Can you break down what's wrong with this report please?

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/596826/IPOL_STU(2017)596826_EN.pdf

 

[Senethro]

@Samson

I thought not.

There is also a problem with the term "Brexit", so it is best I do not use it.

While the DUP were not originally in favour of the GFA, they learnt to live with it.

In the 2016 referendum, the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland voted by a simple overall majority to Leave the EU.

The DUP may or may not have been in favour of the UK leaving the EU.
I think they were, but that was hardly material to the outcome of that vote.

The Good Friday Agreement stated that the UK and RoI were in the EU, but it
did not require the UK (or the RoI) to remain in the EU or in the EU's single market.

The concept that there is an incompatibility between the UK leaving the
EU and the Good Friday Agreement is merely false propaganda that
has been endlessly repeated until it is mistaken as valid received wisdom.

The DUP was never in favour of Britain leaving the EU and leaving NI behind
in the single market with a tariff wall between Britain and Northern Ireland;
yet that was in the agreement that Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer signed off.
The DUP's view is that putting a trade wall between NI and Britain breaks the GFA.

If stuff happens then its going to be of little comfort to know that one side was being silly about definitions and understandings. Their being wrong won't make anything right.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Good. Can you break down what's wrong with this report please?

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/596826/IPOL_STU(2017)596826_EN.pdf

One, but not one of the main, reasons why I voted for the UK to Leave the
EU was that I had got bored of reading their interminable documents.

 

[Arakhor]

One, but not one of the main, reasons why I voted for the UK to Leave the
EU was that I had got bored of reading their interminable documents.

That's a no, then?

 

[really]

The DUP may or may not have been in favour of the UK leaving the EU.
I think they were, but that was hardly material to the outcome of that vote.

The DUP vote may be immaterial gaining 250,000 of about 32,000,000 cast in the last general election but their Brexit spending wasn't - they spent £400k on a newspaper ad that didn't even run in Northern Ireland.

 

[Arakhor]

Meanwhile, the DUP has decided that they think the Tories would rather have direct rule from Westminister than lose the DUP as allies. I mean, they might be right, but they already have first-hand experience of being dumped like the embarrassment they are by this very group of Tories, so I'm not sure why they think this is such a good idea.

 

[EnglishEdward]

That's a no, then?

You think I don't know when people are trying to deflect me down a rabbit hole?

 

[Gorbles]

You think I don't know when people are trying to deflect me down a rabbit hole?

Not deflecting anything at all. You're the one professing knowledge of the Good Friday Agreement and are insistent on it's lack of relation to the process of leaving the EU (both informally and politically-referred to as "Brexit" by us regular folk, the media, and the government).

You were the one deflecting from the original pointing of blame. So let's ease up with the hypocritical finger-pointing, eh?

 

[Arakhor]

You think I don't know when people are trying to deflect me down a rabbit hole?

You brought up the Good Friday Agreement. It doesn't seem unreasonable that you'd follow through with it, even if it was with only a couple of sentences.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I have already supplied a few sentences about the Good Friday Agreement.

That EU PDF is not the Good Friday Agreement.

 

[Gorbles]

I have already supplied a few sentences about the Good Friday Agreement.

That EU PDF is not the Good Friday Agreement.

You supplied a few sentences in the context of someone raising it with Brexit. Funny you should miss that out, but I guess a polite question was too much, so I'll drop it.

 

[Takhisis]

It's amazing how the continued fighting over screwing over the Irish (it is Lord Frost's turn to claim that the UK has no option but to rip up the NI protocol) distracts from larger troubles both social and environmental at home, like

• the Conservatives intentionally moving to replace renewables with coal, oil and gas in the name of sovereignty.
• junk food for all, in the name of freedom!

 

[Arakhor]

Meanwhile, Johnson has been threatening to private the Passport Agency (a really stupid idea, if I've ever heard one) because they're so behind on work, and yet now wants to sack 91,000 civil servants, ostensibly to be able to cut taxes. Of course, levying a windfall tax on the energy companies would be a great idea too, but that wouldn't be Tory!

 

[Takhisis]

Sack public employees and privatise public offices because they are behind on work is a positively Thatcherian misstroke of genius!

 

[Takhisis]

^Speaking of whom, in Air Strip One:

Margaret Thatcher statue egged within hours of it being installed
The memorial of the former prime minister in her home town of Grantham was unveiled without ceremony

Spoiler :

Warnings that a new statue of Margaret Thatcher would attract egg-throwing protests came true within two hours of it being installed in her home town of Grantham on Sunday.

The bronze statue was, without ceremony, placed on a 3-metre (10ft) high plinth to make it more difficult for protesters to inflict any damage.

Shortly afterwards a man was seen throwing eggs from behind a temporary fence and, when one connected, a cry of “oi” could be heard.

The egg-throwing came as a surprise to nobody in Grantham. There is pride but also heightened awareness of how divisive a figure Thatcher remains.

After it was installed on a warm Sunday morning, a number of people stopped to take selfies. But loud booing could also be heard from passing motorists.

The Labour councillor Lee Steptoe said the egg-throwing was “absolutely inevitable”. “The statue was always going to be a prime target for petty vandalism and political protest. She was the most divisive prime minister probably in history and certainly in my lifetime,” he said.

He added that now the statue was up, the challenge was to “concentrate on the cost of modern-day Tory policies which are driving millions of people to food banks”.

Councillor Kelham Cooke, the Conservative leader of South Kesteven council, said the statue was a fitting tribute to a unique political figure.

“Margaret Thatcher will always be a significant part of Grantham’s heritage,” he said. “She and her family have close ties with Grantham. She was born, raised and went to school here.”

He added: “It is, therefore, appropriate that she is commemorated by her home town, and that the debate that surrounds her legacy takes place here in Grantham. We must never hide from our history, and this memorial will be a talking point for generations to come.

“We hope that this memorial will encourage others to visit Grantham and to see where she lived and visit the exhibition of her life in Grantham Museum.

“This is about inspiring, educating and informing people about someone who represents a significant part of Grantham’s heritage.”

The statue, made by the sculptor Douglas Jennings, was originally intended to stand close to parliament but it was rejected by Westminster council in 2018. Councillors said it was too soon after her death, in 2013.

They would also have been aware of the attack in 2002 on the marble statue of Thatcher in the Guildhall Art Gallery in London. It was attacked with a cricket bat and decapitated with a metal bar in what a protester called “an act of satirical humour”. A court found him guilty of criminal damage and jailed him for three months.

After Westminster’s refusal, the statue was offered to Grantham, with work to achieve that spearheaded by Grantham Community Heritage Association (GCHA), the educational charity that manages the museum.

It has been a rocky road. There was horror when it was revealed that a £100,000 unveiling ceremony was being planned. A Facebook group proposed an “egg-throwing contest”, which attracted 13,000 expressions of interest.

That event was abandoned and in strikingly low-key fashion the statue was lowered into place on Sunday morning. An official unveiling by the Public Memorials Appeal (PMA), which funded the £300,000 statue through public donations, would take place at a later date, the council said.

Graham Jeal, a trustee of GCHA, said there had been a long conversation in Grantham about having a permanent memorial to Thatcher.

“The delivery of the memorial has secured the museum for the next few years and has helped the museum finances survive the Covid pandemic,” he said. “It is recognised that the full spectrum of views exist in Grantham about the legacy of Margaret Thatcher and an exhibition inside the museum illustrates this.”

The statue has been placed in St Peter’s Hill Green, close to the museum and the site of the grocer’s shop owned by Thatcher’s family.

Lincolnshire police confirmed it had received reports of criminal damage to the statue but no arrests had been made and inquiries were ongoing.

 

[Kyriakos]

Unlike with ancient greek art, there are other reasons for this statue being unsuitable for the homophonic miners.