1. #19276
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    You are beyond myopic.
    Yes, normal vision can see clearly beyond myopic vision.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    The E.U still expect to tell the Brits who can fish in British waters as though the Brits are still in the E.U
    Not quite. The EU want to keep the status quo on fishing rights in return for UK tariff free trade with the EU on fish.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    They allow Ireland, an E.U. member to have low corporate taxes making most of the rest of Europe uncompetitive in comparison
    Every Member State is entitled to determine their own corporate tax, however, they can’t use it to unfairly provide special treatment for certain companies. The EU investigated Ireland re Apple and concluded that unfair tax benefits were given to the tune of €13bn, which is to be recovered subject to appeal. Ireland is not the only country under investigation, Belgium has also been accused of providing tax benefits to multi-nationals.

  2. #19277
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    Troy there is no point in responding to these dogmatists. Facts are only recognised as such if they accord with the rhetoric churned out in the propaganda fed to them by their leaders on the loony Kipper/Tory rightwing and their shills. Truth is irrelevant.

    Discussion is futile.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Troy there is no point in responding to these dogmatists. Facts are only recognised as such if they accord with the rhetoric churned out in the propaganda fed to them by their leaders on the loony Kipper/Tory rightwing and their shills. Truth is irrelevant.

    Discussion is futile.
    Most of which applies to your repetitive remain dribble. Gawd but you are such a frightful bore.

    If you have nothing new to present, just make up more interesting shit. If it lacks cohesion and veracity, you can turn it into yet another empty assumption. It will still bear no relation to facts or the truth.

  4. #19279
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Can they drag it out any longer...?
    The UK government is highlighting it's success at agreeing a trade agreement with Japan.

    Britain signs post-Brexit trade deal with Japan

    The deal comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson pursues his 'Global Britain' strategy
    by AT Contributor October 23, 2020

    "Britain hailed its first major post-Brexit trade deal Friday after signing an agreement with Japan that it said shows it can stand alone on the global stage, as talks on a pact with the European Union remain bogged down. London said the pact, which was agreed after just a few months of talks over the summer, would boost business between the two by £15.2 billion (US$19.5 billion) and proved others could be signed elsewhere.

    The deal comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson pursues his “Global Britain” strategy that seeks potentially more advantageous trade deals than those that were negotiated while it was an EU member.

    The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement covers sectors including food, textiles and technology and largely replicates the existing EU-Japan arrangement, which will no longer apply to Britain at the end of this year.
    It is due to take effect on January 1 – the end of a transition period in which London and Brussels are trying to thrash out the terms of their own new relationship.

    British-Japanese trade was worth about £30 billion last year, while Britain’s imports and exports to the European Union, its biggest trading partner, totaled $670 billion.

    After the signing ceremony in Tokyo, Britain’s International Trade Minister Liz Truss said: “It used to be said that an independent UK would not be able to strike independent trade deals, or they would take years to conclude. But today we prove the naysayers wrong.”

    Truss also said the deal “paves the way” for Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership between 11 countries including Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam and Australia.
    But joining is likely to be a complex manoeuvre that will take years.

    Long-running post-Brexit talks with the EU resumed Thursday after Britain ended a week of threats to abandon them.

    Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier arrived in London vowing to work around the clock to salvage a trade deal and avert potential economic chaos at the end of the year – although key sticking points still remain.

    Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Friday highlighted the importance of a smooth end to the Brexit transition period, especially for Japanese businesses that see the UK as a “gateway to continental Europe.”

    “It is of paramount importance that the supply chains between the UK and EU are maintained even after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Japan has high hopes that an agreement is reached soon,” he said.


    Britain formally left the EU in January, following a seismic referendum in 2016 that saw voters opt to end five decades of European integration."


    Britain signs post-Brexit trade deal with Japan - Asia Times

    Meaning of paramount in English

    paramount adjective formal uk

    more important than anything else:

    "There are many priorities, but reducing the budget deficit is paramount/is of paramount importance.

    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dic...lish/paramount
    Last edited by OhOh; 29-10-2020 at 05:06 AM.
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  5. #19280
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    Looking to protect the investment in UK car production for Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Worth remembering that these investments were sweetened with UK government subsidies.

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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    London said the pact, which was agreed after just a few months of talks over the summer
    It only took Britains highly efficient trade negotiators a few month! Well done Britain!

    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement covers sectors including food, textiles and technology and largely replicates the existing EU-Japan arrangement, which will no longer apply to Britain at the end of this year.
    Oh, a copy and paste deal.
    Freed from the EU schackles, eh?

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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    London said the pact, which was agreed after just a few months of talks over the summer
    It only took Britains highly efficient trade negotiators a few month! Well done Britain!

    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement covers sectors including food, textiles and technology and largely replicates the existing EU-Japan arrangement, which will no longer apply to Britain at the end of this year.
    Oh, a copy and paste deal.
    Freed from the EU shackles and all that , eh?

  8. #19283
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    And can you remember the cries of the lumpen morons proclaiming the reason they voted to leave the EU was because it was anti-free trade and protectionist.

    Since then of course the Kipper Tory loons in brokendownbrexitBritain have gone hell for leather in order to replicate all those 60 odd FTAs, EPAs and trade pacts made by the EU which according to all Brexit propaganda and bumfluffery didn't , er, well .......exist.

    Stupidest folk in the democratic world, next to Septic rednecks of course.........you can't get thicker than a Brexit Kipper! ( Sung to the Kwikfit fitter advert of the 1990s ).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    Looking to protect the investment in UK car production for Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Worth remembering that these investments were sweetened with UK government subsidies.
    Honda have gone, you idiot, and both Toyota and Nissan have said that if there is a no-deal Brexit then they will want compensation indemnifying them from the 10% add-on to their supply chain costs and EU exports but of course that would mean the EU will block such imports because of the uncompetitive practices introduced by banana republic Britain - state subsidy screws up free enterprise and level playing field markets.

    Brexit according to the outgoing CBI leader has paralysed UK commerce and this is no better illustrated than reference to car production and sales, the worst since 1995.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Honda have gone, you idiot,
    Why are you telling lies again?
    The Honda manufacturing plant at Swindon is planned to close in July 2021. According to Honda UK, this closure has nothing to do with Brexit.
    The Honda European headquarters will remain in UK.
    Please stop making shit up to suit your narrative, you slimy twisting piece of offal.

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    And if you believe that shite then you are a bigger fool than we all take you for. Of course Honda would say that, that's the way they roll but be in no doubt they wanted no part of this Brexit shitstorm. Ford described a no-deal disorderly Brexit as catastrophic and BMW have already said they'd move their e-Mini production back to Europe.

    The thing is, i really, really want a no-deal brexit just to watch you morons screech and squeal like stuck pigs when thousands of real jobs haemorrhage out of Brexitania.

    Schadenfreude, you can't beat it, especially when the English whine and shit themselves.

    Also, Honda have gone in the sense th decision to go has been taken, irrevocably, you dumb pedantic fossilised twat.

  12. #19287
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    After the signing ceremony in Tokyo, Britain’s International Trade Minister Liz Truss said: “It used to be said that an independent UK would not be able to strike independent trade deals, or they would take years to conclude. But today we prove the naysayers wrong.”
    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Truss also said the deal “paves the way” for Britain to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership between 11 countries including Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam and Australia.
    But joining is likely to be a complex manoeuvre that will take years.

    So Ms Truss, you haven't really proved the naysayers wrong have you, but simply managed to get a deal we already had.

    How very Brexit...



    Quote Originally Posted by Switch
    The Honda manufacturing plant at Swindon is planned to close in July 2021.

    It is the only Honda plant in the UK so they have effectively gone.

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    Next to Pridi Patel, Truss is the stupidest person in that BoJo cabinet of jackasses. Remember when the Clown boasted that the UK trade with S.Korea was at its strongest level yet and cited it as an example of a Brexit success story. Stupid fuck forgot that the booming trade arose out of an EU-wide FTA signed up with the Koreans way back in 2011 which was fully ratified in 2015.

    Brexiteers truly are the dumbest fucks.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    And if you believe that shite then you are a bigger fool than we all take you for. Of course Honda would say that, that's the way they roll but be in no doubt they wanted no part of this Brexit shitstorm. Ford described a no-deal disorderly Brexit as catastrophic and BMW have already said they'd move their e-Mini production back to Europe.

    The thing is, i really, really want a no-deal brexit just to watch you morons screech and squeal like stuck pigs when thousands of real jobs haemorrhage out of Brexitania.

    Schadenfreude, you can't beat it, especially when the English whine and shit themselves.

    Also, Honda have gone in the sense th decision to go has been taken, irrevocably, you dumb pedantic fossilised twat.
    There you go again, using the we word in a futile attempt to support your lies, backpedaling like a good remainer. Honda, as insignificant as UK car production is, is not yet closed, so you lied. You compound that lie by saying it is scheduled to happen in the future, but you neglected to mention that tiny fact in your original post. “Honda Is gone” you said, but not only is it not gone yet, the European headquarters will remain in UK.
    You don’t like brexit, and you don’t like British voters because they disagree with you. Neither of these facts has any relevance, because you are a stunted idiot, living beyond your means, in a country you despise. None of which is relevant, other than an amusing side bar, as you scream your irrelevant hurt from the bottom of the third world barrel you chose to live in.
    No escape for you is there?

    Blaming your sad demise on something that doesn’t concern you, would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetically sad.
    Have you tried shouting at clouds? They are at least local, and supremely relevant to your precipitous life choices. Brexit isn’t.

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    Ahh ... they good old days when I first herd of Brexit. I remember them as they were yesterday. I was a young man then full of vigor , optimism and a head full of hair.

    Once upon a time there was a tavern
    Where we used to raise a glass or two
    Remember how we laughed away the hours
    And think of all the great things we would do
    Those were the days my friend
    We thought they'd never end
    We'd sing and dance forever and a day
    We'd live the life we choose
    We'd fight and never lose
    For we were young and sure to have our way
    La la la la la la
    La la la la la la
    La la la la La la la la la la
    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

  16. #19291
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Truss is the stupidest person in that BoJo cabinet of jackasses.
    Indeed, although there is plenty of competition...

    She was quoted in Reuters today, re the Boieng/Airbus feud that has been going on for many years:

    “Britain is learning from the twin errors of values-free globalisation and protectionism,” she said. “We are instead rooting our approach for global free trade in our values of sovereignty, democracy, the rule of law and a fierce commitment to high standards.”
    Want to read the Withdrawal Agreement and the Internal Market Bill again Ms Truss?



    Meanwhile, I heard polls were quoting 57% thought a no-deal would be the fault of Bo-Jo....

  17. #19292
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Indeed, although there is plenty of competition...

    She was quoted in Reuters today, re the Boieng/Airbus feud that has been going on for many years:



    Want to read the Withdrawal Agreement and the Internal Market Bill again Ms Truss?



    Meanwhile, I heard polls were quoting 57% thought a no-deal would be the fault of Bo-Jo....
    Jesus H Christ Troy you really project as a real whingy whiny pom. You make ee aw out of winnie the poo look like a life long optimist. You cannot see one bit of good in anything. Have you ever wondered why people suddenly pick up the phone at work when they see you approach them, or why everyone starts to leave the Christmas work party when you arrive? Or are you still wondering why you are the only worker in an open plan workplace with his own office?
    Kamikaze pilots look forward to a quick saki and a short plane ride with more optimism than you. Fook me you are a sad sack.

  18. #19293
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    You cannot see one bit of good in anything.
    I cannot see one bit of good in Brexit without at least a trade deal with the EU.

    Perhaps you would like to explain your optimism for such a scenario. Project your economic wizardry to show how the UK will be so much better off without an FTA with the EU.

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    Oh dear, not good news at all. Von der Leyen has announced she is optimistic a deal can be done.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Oh dear, not good news at all. Von der Leyen has announced she is optimistic a deal can be done.
    Given the virtual media blackout of both official and unofficial updates this week, it appears very much that the two sides are indeed in "The Tunnel". Doesn't mean that there's going to be light at the end of it, though the respective posturing and showboating has to have come to an end.

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    If Hugh Cow thinks I am a pessimist, have a read of this from Chris Grey....

    Beyond folly

    The last ten days were supposed to be my break from Brexit hence, as trailed two weeks ago, there was no post on this blog last Friday. But escaping did not prove easy, gloomily conscious as I was of taking my first trip to the EU since Britain ceased to be a member and my last before the transition period ends. Even if that had not been in my mind, in motorway service stations and elsewhere was the unavoidable message of the government’s increasingly panicky campaign: “time is running out”. Brexit is not mentioned of course, for we are not supposed to recall that what were to have been the ‘sunny uplands’ turn out to be a quagmire of paperwork, cost, and inconvenience.

    A further reminder, as I drove through Kent, was the sight of huge construction works for one of the lorry parks that will be needed post-transition. Then, taking the Dover to Dunkirk ferry laden with lorries from Portugal to Lithuania to Bulgaria, just a few of the 2.1 million that Dover’s port handles each year, it was hard not to wonder who thinks that what this huge, complex artery of international trade really needs is to have a whole lot of new disruptions. And, over in Dunkirk, the new sanitary and phytosanitary lanes were a visible indication of just what leaving the EU and the single market means in, literally, concrete terms (it is notable that the new facilities and systems needed for Brexit in EU ports have been in place for months whereas, for all the talk of taking back control, the UK is still developing them).

    Petulant children and the role of the man-baby

    None of this, as everyone should know by now, will be avoided by an EU-UK trade deal, although it will be worsened without a deal. On that issue, the outcome remains opaque. The talks have resumed after the UK’s sort-of-but-not-really walk out, a resumption enabled by Michel Barnier ‘conceding’ to British demands to use the ‘right’ words (intensification, compromise needed on both sides, British sovereignty respected).

    In the Ladybird book of international negotiations that seems to be Boris Johnson and David Frost’s go-to text this perhaps counts as a victory and I doubt they have any inkling that to outsiders it resembles an adult placating a petulant child. As Tony Connelly of RTE reports – within a detailed explanation of how the talks faltered and resumed - an EU diplomat described the conversations that preceded the resumption as the UK being “in the therapeutic phase”.

    Connelly and others also report that one reason the outcome remains unknowable is Johnson’s almost pathological aversion to making the necessary choices, with their inevitable costs. One widely discussed suggestion is that he will await the outcome of the US Presidential election before deciding which way to jump. In brief, if Trump were to win then Johnson would be more likely to opt for no deal with the EU, in the expectation that a trade deal with the US is more likely than it would be under Biden (for a wider discussion of what the US election means for the UK see Patrick Wintour’s excellent in-depth analysis, and for what it means for the prospects of a trade deal see my recent article in Byline Times).

    It is a plausible enough theory of Johnson’s decision-making process if only because it is so inane. Economically, of course, no US trade deal could come close to compensating for the damage of there being no deal with the EU (government estimates being +0.16% GDP over 15 years for the former and -7.6% GDP over 15 years for the latter). And if Johnson hasn’t yet learned that Trump is a blowhard who, for all his talk, is not going to do Brexit Britain any special favours, then he simply hasn’t been paying attention. Not that that would be a radical departure from character.

    Yet there is a political, or perhaps just a superstitious, rationale for this theory. Trump’s demise, if it comes, will be as symbolically important for Brexit as Brexit was for his election in 2016. It will mark the rout of the figurehead of nationalist populism and, as Rafael Behr observed some time ago, would scupper Johnson’s “bumbling English Trump tribute act” and the “tantrum diplomacy” that goes with it (of which the UK’s recent outburst over continuing the talks is a good example). Indeed the parasitical relationship of the Brexiters to Trump was made plain this week by Nigel Farage’s cringingly sycophantic endorsement of his idol, in which he underscored that a defeat for the Washington man-baby would be a defeat for nationalists globally.

    So on this account a Biden win most likely heralds a trade deal with the EU (unless, something underpriced in UK discussions which are almost invariably parochial, such a win hardens EU demands upon the UK or at least reduces willingness to accede to those made by the UK). If so, for all that it will by definition make Britain poorer than the present trading relationship, it will be spun as a great victory by Johnson.

    Turning Japanese

    A tiny foretaste of just how dishonest that spin will be came this week in the government’s triumphant announcement that, as a result of the trade deal it has just signed with Japan, soy sauce will be cheaper from 1 January as it will attract a zero tariff. It turned out to be a lie of a strange and complex sort in that soy sauce currently has no tariff charged anyway because of the EU-Japan trade deal which the UK is leaving, so the deal with Japan doesn’t make it cheaper it just stops it getting more expensive by virtue of trading on WTO terms. Anyway, much of it doesn’t come from Japan but from the EU, with which the government says trading on WTO terms is fine. And, anyway, you’d have to use an awful lot of soy sauce to benefit by more than a few pence. These and other nonsensical or misleading features of the announcement have been documented by Full Fact.

    As for the Japan trade deal more generally, it should be filed under ‘not bad news’ rather than ‘good news’ in that, despite some features which do go beyond what the UK had via the EU-Japan deal, it mainly continues those provisions. So if it hadn’t happened it would be a further example of Brexit damage. That it is being trumpeted as evidence of the virtues of Brexit is indicative of the shameless disinformation and ludicrous boosterism of this government, which will go into overdrive if there were to be a deal with the EU. If and when that happens it will be worth recalling how Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement was also greeted as a huge triumph by those who, only months later, denounced it as a disaster.

    Meanwhile in the real world …

    Moving from Brexiter PR back into the real world what we find are new reports of impending labour shortages once transition ends in fields ranging from agriculture to dentistry (£), of regulatory uncertainty in industries from aerospace (£) to chemicals (£), and of ongoing difficulties in the recruitment of trained customs staff (£). Many of these stories are, as they have been for years, under the public radar, appearing in the business pages of newspapers or in the specialist media of particular industries. There is more cut through when the Brexit effects on holidaymakers are reported, as with last weekend’s outrage at the “petty EU” for “threatening” British tourists with longer passport queues from next year.

    It’s a story that encapsulates so much of the Brexiter mindset. That this was likely to be an effect of Brexit is not a new idea, but they dismissed it as more Project Fear. Then, when it threatens to become a reality, they treat it as a form of punishment as if whilst leaving the EU Britain ought to retain the rights it had as a member. As the years have gone on, this mindset seems to have become so ingrained that there is no way of reasoning with it: all the adverse effects of Brexit are either denied (they won’t happen, it’s just scaremongering), ignored (they aren’t happening), displaced (they are happening but it’s not because of Brexit) or disowned (they shouldn’t happen, it’s only because the EU are punishing us).

    Between this barrage of misinformation and the general lack of profile in the news of Brexit effects, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a YouGov poll this week found a very low level of public awareness of how things will change once the transition ends. It should also be noted that even where respondents believe they are clear about what will happen it doesn’t mean that they are. On one specific issue which will affect individuals travelling to the EU – the need to pay for electronic authorization to travel – just 9% knew that from 2022 this will be a requirement, whilst another 14% knew it would be required, but wrongly thought it would begin in 2021 (it doesn’t because the system isn’t ready yet; for more information on this issue see the ETIAS website).

    The interesting and important question will be how people react as the post-transition effects become obvious and, crucially, who they blame. Another YouGov poll this week suggests that 57% of people would blame the government if the transition ends with no deal. But what of those adverse effects that will arise even if there is a deal? Clearly the Brexiter press will push the EU punishment narrative, but this may have much less traction than in the past, if only because public perceptions of governmental competence have been damaged by the handling of the Covid-19 crisis. That of course is now the backdrop to everything and whilst it does not diminish the significance of Brexit it does inflect it in new ways.

    The blindingly obvious is undiscussable

    As I return from France, it, like Germany, is going back into lockdown (and I am beginning a two-week quarantine). The clocks have changed, the weather is awful, much of the UK is subject to stringent restrictions and everyone can see that even greater ones are in prospect. Over 45,000 of our fellow citizens have died because of the virus – in March, it was hoped that 20,000 would be the maximum – and infections continue to rise. We are heading for a long, hard winter and with some two-thirds of businesses at risk of insolvency along with millions of jobs we face a potentially cataclysmic situation that will damage the livelihoods of all but the most comfortably cushioned.

    Few of us have experienced anything like this and much that is familiar is being ripped up by force majeure. But, still, Britain pushes on with the one, supposedly inviolable, immutable policy of Brexit. A policy of such folly that the government no longer dares mention it by name and which even its most enthusiastic proponents have ceased to try to justify in any serious way. The Brexit Emperor lacks not just clothes but skin and flesh.

    Yet even now – hugely difficult as it would be – it wouldn’t be totally impossible given the extraordinary circumstances for the UK to at least try to find some route to extending the transition, which ends in only two months’ time, rather than to just parrot that “time is running out”. It seems feasible that if the UK was open to such an idea the EU would be at least willing to explore how to make it work, if only because of the worsening Covid-19 situation in many of its member states.

    There are plenty of people who can see just how ludicrous this is, but it isn’t in any serious sense within the realms of what is even politically discussable - and way beyond what Johnson’s woefully incompetent and incontinently dishonest leadership is able to deliver. And whilst the mechanics would be hugely complicated the proposition is not: in the face of so overwhelming a public health crisis, and with so much undecided even about the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement (especially as regards Northern Ireland), there is just not enough time to agree and to move to a new relationship which by any standards is important for both parties. So - let’s just take some more time.

    In any other context, political or personal, it would be so blindingly obvious as to not need saying. That it is near to unsayable and certainly won’t happen is down solely to the warthog stubbornness of a small group of fanatical Brexiters still fighting the battle to leave that they have already won, and totally indifferent to its costs.

    So we blunder on, prisoners of a series of past decisions that we do not have the wit or the will to revisit, and of a small but powerful group of ideologues we are either too cowardly or too weak to face down.

    It is worse than folly. It is insanity.

    https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2020/10/beyond-folly.html


    Still feeling optimistic HC, or was that too long for your attention span?

    The links work from the C&Pl and are well worth a read...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    have a read of this from Chris Grey....
    Thank you for posting the article, excellent material here on TD.

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    [QUOTE=Snip...[/QUOTE]

    Thanks for that. An angry and opinionated academic goes to considerable lengths to explain why his blog does not appear ..... by issuing another blog.
    The only difference between him and SA is, SA is not an academic.

    A brief headline with a link would have been more effective than having to read yet another angry diatribe.

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    Chris Grey's polemic is a fine synthesis of my posts and commentary upon the imbecility of Brexit and its stupid supporters over the past four years.

    As he rightly observes, in the context of where we are at in 2020 Brexit is little more than a celebration of insanity.

  25. #19300
    last farang standing
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    I cannot see one bit of good in Brexit without at least a trade deal with the EU.

    Perhaps you would like to explain your optimism for such a scenario. Project your economic wizardry to show how the UK will be so much better off without an FTA with the EU.
    I dont need to. So far all you have brought, (like your oiky boghopper mate whose "facts" when challenged are consistently wrong) is supposition and opinion, obviously taken from your myopic remoaner view point. Anything positive about brexit you studiously ignore. All you quote is anti brexit projections or "worse case scenarios". Economics is like the weather, the best forecast is subject to change without notice.

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