UKH

International laws WILL be broken admits Brandon Lewis the N Ireland Secretary. Good job MPs were given all that time to study the detail of the Withdrawal Agreement!!! Top legal civil servant quits and even May asks why any other countries should ever trust us again.  Clearly, international laws and treaties are the same as rules about not going to Barnard Castle. There is no end to the deceit and lies.

and soon we'll be expecting international laws governing fishing rights to be upheld!  Good luck.

Marina Hyde’s new column  skewers this latest farce pretty effectively:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/britain-negotiate-bre...

”...setting ourselves up as the country you really can’t trust seems an eccentric way to launch a new era of global dealmaking.”

They can't stop dinghies coming over so loads of foreign trawlers need not worry about heading close to the UK coast.

The Conservative party, the party  'not of law and order'

Nobody ever asks what we are going to do with all the sodding fish we secure exclusive access to. We won't eat it and the Continentals won't be able to afford it.  Remind me what all this is for please.

It's about the principle of taking back the control of the fish!

imho, it's a part of a viewpoint based in part on a sense of greatness and independence which has it's roots in the empire days, which are no longer with us, and which can't happen again unless we exploit other countries, which isn't going to happen.

I've a certain respect for people who have a Brexit position which isn't based upon the above, but on things relating to a lack of democracy in the EU or it being something of a neo liberal group which isn't as in line with their politics as they might like it to be, or based on how Greece was treated and how the rules don't seem to strictly apply to all countries all of the time, but anything Brexit related to do with our nation's greatness which could somehow be regained by leaving the EU, seems to be based on nostalgia and overlooking who needed to be trod on for Britain to have a strong world position like it used to, I think, which seems like a tragedy given the depth of the upheaval which may happen. At least they're not viewpoints that are harking back to a past which can never be recreated.

Edit: I'm a remoaner by the way, but democracy is democracy, so there you go I guess.

The whole point of the, admittedly flawed, Common Fishing Policy was that fish are recognised as a mobile resource. We could take back control of " our" waters but the fish clear off. Could easily happen if climate change alters ocean temperature and currents.

Corrupt planning deals, wayward blind advisors, halting parliament, exam fiascos,  £350m buses, breaking International law.....not a single apology or sense of regret anywhere.

Im starting to get very f*cked off with this government and increasingly embarrassed to be British, and tory is my natural home. Not a bone in my body would vote tory with this lot at the helm.

Words escape me.

Have you seen the latest episode of The Boys? We will train them to attack any ships which dare cross into our glorious waters whilst not waving a union jack with johnsons face on the top left quadrant.

Yep I'm a traditional Tory voter but would rather cheese grate my toes than vote for this lot......the Tory party is dead at the moment. 

It’s a load of pollocks. 

Before the Danish-Prussian Wars of 1860s, Denmark was under the impression it was a mighty power. After they were soundly thrashed in an industrial warfare scenario, they were taught and accepted their new status. Ever since they've been blessed with a sense of realism about what is possible for their country. Maybe after the inevitable Brexit debacle we'll be reconciled to our true character and status and accept the possible; stop yearning for a past that never was. 

As you suggest most of the story of Empire is a giant lie anyway.

Hope you like herring 😀😀

The Queen of the Stream, Grayling is supposed to be tasty, but he don’t look it. Perhaps well  battered with mushy peas. 

Don't forget attacking the judiciary/judicial review/legal aid, gutting the civil service, shifting hundreds of millions of public money to dubious companies owned by rich mates without going to tender, lying to Parliament continually, dissolving PHE without Parliamentary oversight, attacking the electoral commission. I'm sure there's more, but it's been so relentless that I can't remember the half of it.

Coincidentally, in this random youtube video of somebody creatively seating a tractor tyre with starter fluid and a lit rag on the end of a pole, somebody has commented ''10,000 more men like this and we'd still have an Empire''.

youtube.com/watch?v=v6RixOkqmSI&

Edit: I'd be really interested, and pleased, if the disliker could articulate why they have done, it's good to hear different points of view.

No grilled like trout and  very tasty the grayling is.

Thanks for depressing me further....

If it's any consolation, I feel the same.

I like raw fish with wasabi and soy - think it’s called Sushi Rinak

It’s not my dislike and you’d be a very brave/foolish person to enter this thread against the UKC massive.

Probably need to crowd source this, things I remember are stoking culture wars, suppressing the Russia report, "activist lawyers"/using govt websites to spread disinformation

And the majority of the population seem to let it wash over them, oblivious, or ignorant, or warped by right wing divisive politics.  Farage, Cameron, Boris have much to answer for.

I've largely stopped eating fish because industrialised fishing is killing the sea. Shame cos I'll eat and enjoy anything from the ocean. 

Not anymore. The Danish fished industrially for sandeel and pout in the north sea to make into fishmeal, but not so much anymore. The fishmeal was often used for fertiliser and pig / fishfarm food.

The Dutch catch a lot of pelagic fish (herring/mackerel/scad/) and flatfish, the French catch a lot of allsorts.

Why do you believe that?

Personally I love the scrappy little oily fish we sold to europe so look forward to them becoming popular again in eateries here. 

Jk

An article in the news today said the EU would be within its rights to punish the UK for reneging on the withdrawal treaty by implementing tariffs or sanctions.  They could quite easily prevent the UK fishing industry from exporting its catch to its main market, or charge the UK to do so in the form of tariffs! "Here you go Britain, you have your 200 mile / halfway limit, by the way, we're going to put a 50% tariff on all the fish you sell us and use the money to subsidise our own fleets and consumers. Stick that in your trawl and tow it around!"

Wow. Everyday is a schoolday.

I never realised liquorice was a seafood!

There's a time and a plaice for cod awful jokes. Can't just go around making them for the halibut.

Hardly surprising since they were invented by Bertie Bassett. 

I wanted to make a joke about would Scotland sell Sturgeons eggs, but thought that would be arrogant and caviarlier. 

The problem with international laws is that there is no consequences for breaking them. The Earth is a collection of countries existing in a state of anarchy with one another. We create international laws then when they become inconvenient we ignore them, and nothing happens. Iraq being a prime example.* The average Tory voter is probably delighted - bloody johnny foreigner, telling us what to do! 

*This only applies to countries with nukes.

Courtesy of tw*tter: Probably not the first withdrawal agreement Johnson has reneged on. 

Not my dislike either, but speaking from the ‘empire’, we’re f*cking glad we’re not being run from the UK otherwise there’s a good chance we’d have twice as many dead people. And the Icelanders are much cooler doing the tyre thing. 

Careful what you say in a public forum, if Priti Patel happened to drop in here you might give her ideas about how to solve the Channel migrant problem!

There's hope yet with the continued expansion of offshore wind farms as they provide a safe haven for fish due to fishing boats being restricted from entering. 

https://www.sheffieldrenewables.org.uk/2013/01/18/offshore-wind-an-unexpect...

I would also say one of the very few potential benefits of Brexit is the reduction in over fishing if the amount of "super trawlers" in British waters are reduced. Obviously this is a *very* qualified statement and assumes that fishing rights aren't merely reallocated or restrictions on British vessels are removed entirely.

I don't eat people and would gyp at the thought of a bottom feeder like Patel.

The Channel crossing people is only a problem because the government needs it to be problem

Presumably international law does not exist forever and, like any law, can be changed ?

The withdrawal agreement was in expectation of free trade with the EU.

But they have stuck to "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" unless we accept all their demands.

Did they not refuse discussion until the withdrawal agreement was passed ?

Amazingly, Cameron and May are now ALMOST appearing to be moderates!

Johnson, Cummings, Francois, Baker etc are running the asylum.

Seeing May on Channel 4 news appearing to talk sense and making none blustering criticism made me momentarily forget how awful she was as PM. Still, her husband got a peerage for... something or another so she must have done something right... surely?  

Not unilaterally, no.

That is entirely untrue. The WA set up the legal framework for leaving the EU without violating, amongst other things, the GFA.

So has BoJo.

No, they refused to not follow the rules that *we* helped put in place when we were a member of the EU. They are a rules based organisation. We knew the rules.

Do you not remember the frantic and endless repetition of the phrase "backstop" last year? The backstop was for exactly the instance of an FTA not being agreed. Don't let them make a mug of you by letting them re-write recent history to the exact opposite of what happened.

The EU demanded a backstop before talks. We are walking away. Backstop goes.

Er, no.

we agreed a legally binding document with another party (the withdrawal agreement) in order to achieve an objective - "get brexit done". We have now decided we dont like part of this agreement and want to change it / ignore it. however, its a legally binding agreement, and will need the consent of the other party to vary its terms. We can walk away as much as we like; its a legally enforceable document.

How would you feel if I agreed to engage your services at £50 an hour in order to get something done, but then at payment time decided to pay you £30 an hour. You ok with that?

If the backstop goes, we are in violation of the Good Friday Agreement, which is binding international law. Why would any country negotiate with the UK if it is seen as ignoring its own democratically voted legal obligations?

There is no 'we'.   Scotland totally rejects everything the Brexiteer English government stands for and wishes to remain in the EU.   Large numbers of people in England feel the same.  The Tories have gone way to far down this sh*thole for the 'we' that used to be the UK to be preserved.

Wake me up when the pantomime is over and we have a trade deal which is 99.99pct equivalent to what we currently have, which is what will happen.  

We were forced to agree to things that were unacceptable in order to get a deal which was then withheld until we gave in on everything else. Did we have a choice ? What would you have done ?

They only allowed three days for Parliament to scrutinise their deal, and are now being hoist by their own petard. I believe it was a document of hundreds of pages and we know Johnson doesn't worry about details but just look for some soundbites.

You've got a short memory.

We agreed a WA with the EU, which was downvoted in the commons by the tory hardliners. May resigned. Johnson got the job and mildly tweaked the WA which amazingly made it acceptable to those who previously hated it. It lt also respected the GFA, but upset the DUP (who nobody cares about now) as it meant a form of customs within the UK.

We signed the WA with the EU and left the EU on 31/1/20. 

Of course we had a choice. We could have agreed to a "soft brexit" / customs union / FTA at any time.

What would I have done? Assuming I respect the leave referendum "victory", i would go for the soft brexit and remain in the customs union etc. There was a lack of choice because all the promises made by the UK govt were hollow, based on impossible circumstances, and as it turns out, were not even based on lies, but were just lies themselves, and they wanted to be re-elected in order to carry out "the will of the people".

So your corner's negotiating position (BMW  still want to sell us cars, apparently) wasn't all that compelling after all ?

Or just the fact we pitch chancer politicians against skilled negotiators (formerly our trade negotiators) ?

We hold all the cards. It will be the easiest deal ever. They want to sell us their BMWs and prosecco. The EU is failing anyhow. Britain’s going to make dozens of trade agreements before we’ve even left. 
 

One suspects you parroted those lines too, at one time. 

Been honest about the political reality and the difficulty of reaching an acceptable position that the EU could agree with before the referendum four years back. In fact, I seem to remember that I did say those things then.

WTF?

The withdrawal agreement, particularly the parts covering NI, are insurance clauses intended PRECISELY for a no deal scenario. They prevent either compromising the EU single market (by creating a back door for UK goods if the Irish border remains open as the GFA, another legally binding treaty signed by the UK, demands) or the GFA itself (by forcing the Irish border to become a customs border). The EU insisted on these clauses already during the negotiations under May, but they were accepted and signed off by the Johnson government once they could afford to throw the DUP under the bus.

To now claim that these insurance provisions were only ever meant to be valid in conjunction with a FTA for goods (when they would anyway be redundant), and that you had crossed the fingers behind the back while signing so it does not really count, ner ner, takes some brass neck.

CB

Don't panic. With WEXIT we don't need international law as Britain sails off through the void becoming very more vibrant and successful in outer space. We will negotiate new and fairer trade deals with Alpha Centuri because trading across light years is so much easier and more efficient than trading with your nearest neighbours. Contingency plans are in place in case we meet with alien life and border force are being armed with laser blasters to ward off illegal interstellar immigration.

Longlive Palpatine!

You may also not that BMW arent so keen to build cars / engines here. more mini's are now produced in holland than the UK, and the engines used in the South Africa assembly plant now originate in munich rather than cheshire. And Ineos have abandoned plans to build the Grenadier in bridgend, having acquired a factory in Hambach (france) to build their "Iconic British Defender replacement".

..... using BMW engines and a ZF automatic gear box, both sourced from Germany, i.e. within the common market. No idea why that would be.

We could hazard a guess........

Not being under the jurisdiction of the EU anymore. We can throw them under the bus instead of the DUP as they insisted. Seems fair.

There's zero democratic mandate for this. They're the actions of a dictator in charge of a pariah state.

More Brexiter idiocy, who would have thought...

Take a guess who the the UK government officially and in a legally binding document accepted as an arbiter for disputes under the WA?

In principle you are right, though: Nothing short of war can really stop a country from reneging on treaties. It does come with a price, though, to be paid in all later treaty negotiations. Who wants to treat with a banana republic that thinks treaties are there to be broken in "limited and specific" ways?

Treaties have to suit both parties.

Preferably before they are signed...

It did. Which is why Johnson signed it and the Conservatives supported it. 

The referendum was won by 1,269,501 votes, Scotland supplied 1,018,322, Northern Ireland 349,442 and Wales 854,572 leave votes to the cause of Brexit. 

While I won't disagree that the Brexit referendum and subsequent debacle was/is caused by a predominantly English Tory party but supported at critical times by heavily bribed Ulster Unionists, and agree that there are many in England who don't want anything to do with it,  it is entirely false to suggest that Scotland wanted nothing to do with it when 38% of Scots voted for it, providing as can be seen in the figures above critical votes (alongside those from other devolved nations).

The suggestion that somehow the Scottish population is as pure as the driven snae in relation to Brexit is a bit tiresome.

We aren't going to get of this mess by ignoring Brexit voters, just as the Westminster government isn't going to get out of it by ignoring laws.

Who insisted? Thats a quite fantastical accusation!

The DUP and the tories entered into a confidence and supply agreement; the DUP would support the tories in westminster in exchange for additional investment in NI, allowing the tories to form a government with a majority. Its really as simple as that. all a bit of a waste of time really as it was factions in the tory party that voted down their own deal.

Sure, this is why there are negotiations

BEFORE SIGNING THE LEGALLY BINDING TREATY!

Usually I don't do capitals, but your posts appear deliberately obtuse.

CB

There is no point. He seems to revel in his intellectual dishonesty.

I think discussing the concept of a spherical planet with a flat earthist might be simpler.

Your cognitive dissonance must be audible to others.

There was a GE on the basis of getting exactly this agreement signed. That you and the Brexiters in government think it fine to go back on a signed treaty without agreement of the other party says everything about this process.

How do you convince yourself you're one of the "good guys" in this situation at this point?

Impossible. We have taken our country back and are free to make our own decisions without the EU impossing anything on us. We have made Great Britain great again and no unelected bureaucrat elite can change that

I don’t even think most brexiteers believe their own bullshit anymore, it feels rather more like a nihilist drive towards destruction combined with a slightly machiavelian pleasure in practicing intellectual dishonesty.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is to keep your distance and ignore as much as possible.

 

That's good to know. Cos I was fretting.

Yus My Dear, anything you say.  We COULD try that but anyone sensible might realise that a continent can make life awkward for a backsliding uppity little island that is likely to break up politically anyway ...

Have you EVER bought something that really was not what it was sold to be?  If not now is the time to recognise that you all did in 2016

In yor favour it wasn't shoddily made but fraudulently misrepresented by a gang of political crooks

Burning the country down to own the libs

Very fair, if you do not want to strike any trade deals with any country in the world. Why would they sign anything with us if we prove that the deal won't be worth the paper it's written on?

Here is the American reaction so far. Remember that Pelosi controls the House of Representatives and any trade deal has to go through that chamber. Plus, it would not be safe to assume that Trump would be necessarily OK with it either, Trump does whatever he needs for votes and the Irish vote is pretty important.

And you all thought Corbyn would wreck the UK ...

Idiots.

Scotland is going to get out of this mess by leaving the UK.

At that point there is a massive majority in Scotland in favour of EU membership.

The EU referendum was a non-event in Scotland.  Nobody thought Brexit had a hope in hell of winning, both campaigns were next to invisible and there was a low turnout.   Every election since has shown strong support for the EU.

Also there is a US election coming long before any trade deal and Biden is in front.

we're supposed to think they are idiots because that hides what they told us in plain sight, THEY were taking back CONTROL for themselves and their cronies.

Law only matters if it suits THEM

I have bad news for you. Scotland won’t be allowed to. On the contrary, the Scottish Parliament will be, slowly but surely, neutered and incapacitated until it is a joke Parliament, and you won’t get any referendum not matter how much a majority of the population demands it or how clear the mandate is.

The internal market bill is the first step. Is it completely undemocratic, authoritarian, oppressive ? Yes. But that’s the reality we live in now.

Many, if not most, of the English Brexit voters would quite like Scotland to leave because they believe their own propaganda about English superiority and Scotland being an economic drain on England.    

F*cking with the devolution settlement in the same year as no-deal Brexit and disastrous handling of Coronavirus is going to cause another large switch to the SNP and it is already 55% for Independence.

It is Scottish Unionists that are desperate to stay, and who are in for a shock when their friends in London who are far less invested in the union see the writing on the wall and drop them just like they did their local supporters in every other country that left the English empire.

At what point do you Brexiters that are not totally stupid and not out and out racist stop repeating the lies of the govt and accept that Brexit is not what you were sold? What will it take for you to look up and realise that there are no sunlit uplands?

Some, yes, but a bigger number actually identify as British, and losing Scotland would be a serious blow to their nationalistic pride.

The same isn’t true of Northern Ireland, if you study the social attitude polling. As such I think that Irish reunification is far more likely than Scottish Independence.

Sure it will, but they won’t really care, as, ultimately, Westminster has the power. They can override Scottish laws, dismantle the Scottish Parliament. They can even throw Nicola sturgeon and yourself in a dark cell, if they want to. And they will, if  they have to.

They knew it was lies from the very start. It may be a reassuring and comfortable thought to think that the brexit vote is the result of ignorance, but it is far more plausible that it is the result of hatred, nihilism and arrogance.

And that is why you are never going to convince him with facts, no matter how ginormously obvious they are. 

Your best bet is to take your distance as much as possible and let Darwinism do its job.

Indeed, my point is that whoever wins what they are doing can massively backfire.

The polling shows that they are pretty apathetic about keeping Scotland.

In theory they can do all those things but the cost of suppressing a country is very high and the English ruling class don't care enough about keeping their colonies to pay the price.  

Look at what is happening with Ireland.  The Tories think they can f*ck with the Good Friday Agreement to pursue their Brexit agenda and that the Irish can do nothing about it because they have all the power.  They are discovering that Ireland is an EU state with the power of the EU behind it and the large ethnic Irish community in the US has the political influence in the Senate to stop their US trade deal.   

Even for the most inept government we have ever had, how did they not see this? Or did they see it, and it's just been a game of bouncing from lie to lie to get tax-avoiding Brexit at any cost?

Not really true: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/09/07/how-do-eng...

The cost of brexit is even higher, it didn’t prevent them from doing it.

I can see what is happening, and what is happening is that they don’t give a single f*ck.

They are no longer conservatives or unionists. By their actions they are English nationalists or more likely simply grifters setting themselves up for life by manipulating the English nationalist tendencies of the electorate.

To be fair, I am entirely comfortable with us not having an FTA with the US. To apply Brexiter logic, we've never had one before now, how ever did we survive?

Sushi from the river? I just have to hope the sea trout will grab my fly!!

So am I, but if that is Brexiter logic they'd better start questioning why the government has been selling that as an ultra high priority.

TBH, for the English Nationalist Party, sorry, I mean the Conservatives, losing Scotland would make sound electoral sense. Without Scotland, and the risk of cooperation between Labour and the SNP, the Tory stranglehold over the rest of the country would be unassailable.

49% of Tory voters are either glad to see the back of Scotland or don't care.   All the arguments the unionists will deploy to win Indyref 2 will increase that number - its an inherent problem with the strategy of arguing Scotland can't survive without handouts from England.

The cost of Brexit is high, but nothing like the cost of trying to suppress a country by force.

They probably don't, but they will be made to in the course of the next year.  They are grossly overestimating the power of England with respect to other countries.

The UK not England.

To be fair, the Little Englanders aren't the only ones grossly overestimating their power when it comes to other countries.

"Typically at this point he'll take umbrage to some benign turn of phrase, accuse you of being abusive. Say something like that's what remoaners are like and storm off in pseudo offence because his demonstrably untrue quasi logic has been shown to be the con that it is. "

I posted that about him in April 2019 (may even have been the second time i posted along those lines if i recall correctly but can't be arsed checking). In the ensuing year and a half his only thing that's changed about his MO is the increasing victim complex about how the EU did/forced the UK to do blah, blah, blah. . . Otherwise it's the same crap over and over

The logical conclusion of self-determination isn't a single Scotland. At present Highlanders would vote to be shot of the central belt in a heart-beat, the Northern Isles would look at the mess on the mainland and opt to revert to a Scandinavian protectorate.  The Western Isles would certainly demand increased devolved powers, except for Barra which being culturally, historically and religiously separate would definitely want to be free........#theindpendantRepublicofBarra,

and what a nice little offshore tax exile it could be. All the locals could do very nicely being directors of multiple companies, helping rich Scots evade tax, a bit like Jersey or the Isle of Man, but being colder and wetter it wouldn't be such an expat non-dom honeypot. Having a circular road, it could even have its own TT, image the craic and the rammy......

In more normal times, with a grown-up, sensible and law-abiding government (even one I disagreed with, politically) I'd have some sympathy with that attitude.

With the current mix of shrewd right-wing zealots and half-witted Brexit henchmen who can't believe that, against all odds and previous expectations, they've somehow ended up not only in parliament but in government, anything is possible.

From Reuters https://ara.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-johnson-idUSKCN1NN0U4

Oven ready indeed.

The very fact that the prime minister is paid to write a weekly column in a national newspaper strikes me as deeply corrupt. God, this country is f*cked.

Sorry I should have said, that is what Bojo wrote when Theresa May was PM.

England.  

'UK' means England with 90% of the population absorbs and controls Scotland.

Scotland has absolutely nothing to do with or influence on what is happening now.  We have not voted Tory since 1950 and we overwhelmingly rejected them at the last election.  We still get forced to put up with all their sh*te even to the extent of the c*nts planning to remove powers from the Scottish parliament based on English votes giving them a majority at Westminster.  The situation is unacceptable and will be resolved by independence.

Ah yes, I see the context of the quote properly. Good god, what an utterly execrable excuse for a leader we've been lumbered with.

What do you think British foreign investment capital is? Bruh Neo-colonialism is a thing

I figured that it would be inferred that I meant on the same scale which the empire did, neo-colonialism is indeed a thing.

Now that went down well with the EU.

I have not heard a diplomatic response as blunt as the one given by Sefcovic following his meeting with Gove in a very long time!

CB

Rutland has the same problem.

Is your MP a Tory MP? If so, email them and ask if they're really prepared to vote for a bill that will tear up recently agreed international treaty, ruining our international reputation, creating animosity with the EU, undermining the rule of law domestically, reneging on their election platform 9 months ago and threatening the Good Friday Agreement.

https://www.writetothem.com/

It could just be a terrible negotiating ploy. Just remember Merkel ( current rotating President) removed Brexit on the current agenda for the next Ministers meeting. Thus pxxxxg of the U.K. team. So this maybe a way of being a bit more blunt with the EU. 
 

I do not support this tactic. But I can see the negotiating ploy by saying the U.K. can play the game as well. 

What game ? The game of self destructing all your chances at a successful negotiation and all future ones by repeated, severe, breach of trust, and showing that you don’t care about international law nor domestic law ?

Doesn’t make sense. The only thing that makes sense is that it is an ideological move by a populist, undemocratic, corrupt, authoritarian and protectionist government. 

Your attempts at excusing the inexcusable are getting increasingly absurd. This is the very opposite of a negotiating ploy, it’s a ploy to annihilate any negotiation.

If it was another country doing this you’ll make the same assessment as above straight away (and it is perceived exactly as such in the international press as far as I can tell) You just cannot quite believe it is happening in the UK, but I’m afraid it is.

By that point you should have realised that the government is not really interested in a deal.

Amazing how many folk pontificate without any understanding of how international law works. It cannot override national sovereignty. And you might like to check on how many times the EU has ducked and dived round treaties. This is weaponisation of the N Ireland issue by Remoaners and the bastard US democrats once again

Hahahahaha

Not tactics, there simply was nothing to be discussed at prime ministerial level. Agenda time is too precious to even waste a few minutes to agree that the UK sent a negotiator lacking procura.

CB

How brain f*cked can you be before it becomes lethal?

edit: to explain it to you slowly and in simple words, so as not to fry the remains of your brain:

The WA is a treaty negotiated over several years between UK and EU.  No one forced to the UK to sign and ratify that treaty if they did not like it. In fact, the HoC several times voted that agreement down, back when May was PM. So, it was not forced ont the UK.

The key question of the last election in the UK then was about the Tories getting a majority in parliament willing to sign the same international treaty to "get Brexit done", which was not possible as long as they needed the DUP votes (as the agreement includes rules that treat NI differently in the absence of a free trade agreement for goods, which is the only way the UK can stick to its commitments under the GFA)

To come back nine months later arguing that a unilateral decision in parliament can override the committments made in that treaty, "because sovereignty", can only be believed by idiots. Every single fucking international treaty gives away a piece of sovereignty, simply because each signatory countries uses its sovereignty to commit themselves, voluntarily (usually asking parliament or sometimes even their people in a referendum for ratification), to abide by the agreement they have signed.

Also, the signatories usually know that there will be disagreements down the line. Most treaties therefore contain arbitration and dispute resolution provisions.

Now, use your political expertise and take a brave guess who the UK government voluntarily agreed to be the arbiter for dispute resolution for that particular treaty....

If you really believe that a parliament should be free to overrule any ratified international treaty (parliaments should of course be free to refuse to ratify treaties negotiated by the government), then you should e.g. of course be happy with the Spanish government revoking the ceding of Gibraltar.

CB

It is, isnt it....

But it doesn't. Its a legally binding agreement between a sovereign nation on one side, and 27 sovereign nations o the other (acting as 1 in this case). There is no need for it to override sovereignty, as it is separate to that. Its the fact that the UK is a sovereign nation that allows it to sign up to such a treaty.

Go on then, give us a few examples

And the scottish issue, but i'm minded to ignore you on this bit as you have resorted to name calling and insults. Anyway, the northern ireland issue only became an issue when the government lied about the customs paperwork.

Done.

'Just remember Merkel ( current rotating President) removed Brexit on the current agenda for the next Ministers meeting. '

Just guessing, but maybe Merkel - as a serious politician - made a judgement call that Brexit was going round in circles so she might as well not waste any of Ministers time on it and focus on more pressing matters over which they have rather more control?

I rather think the EU have got over Brexit and don't really give a toss, frankly, about the economic consequences - but there is genuine concern about another terrorist treat being (re) introduced.

Urine Idiot

Urine Describably wrong about how sovereignty works.  Your kind of exercise of sovereignty means probably urine conflict

Why don't you share with us the benefit of your insight then?

Second largest party with 25% of the vote doesnt really seem to be overwhelmingly rejected however I am guessing, just like the brexiteers you so closely resemble, you just decide any dissenters do not exist.

Just to check. As part of this great freedom you will take Gove back wont you?

I'm looking forward to that too; i've done a google search (not massively extensive, i grant you) and cant find any examples, unless you count accusations made by brexity groups such as facts4eu.org, who i think can be safely ignored.

That depends on him meeting the furry boots criteria.

Which is obviously likely.

The EU breaking rules? Hard to say. Individual member states? All the time.

However, this is why the Lisbon treaty, like all international treaties, has a dispute resolution mechanism. A bit toothless, unfortunately, which is why we still have to endure the Visegrad traitors, but nevertheless. Germany regularly gets whacked over the head for dragging their feet implementing EU regulations, e.g. concerning nitrate levels in drinking water.

CB

Oh yes, individual states break EU rules all the time - we do it regularly with (for eg) state subsidies to nissan. France do it regularly with farming and steel.

https://facts4eu.org/news/2020_sep_eu_in_default
 

There you go.

Took me all of 30 seconds to find.

Didn’t bother reading it, except for the title.

It’s on the Internet, it must be true.

All not a problem with a dispute resolution mechanism in place. We (Germany) wanted to introduce a motorway toll, but the bill was ruled illegal by the ECJ. That is OK, this loss of sovereignty was the price paid (by sovereign decision!) for European integration.

What would be inacceptable is if the German government now would claim that the act of the Bundestag overrides establishing that toll overrides the international obligations.

What, a link to idiot central, the political equivalent of flat earthers?

I hope you are joking.

CB

Of course I’m serious.

As I said, it’s on the internet, it must be true.

And don’t even get me started on Covid!

https://facts4eu.org/news/2020_aug_covid_ex_crisis

Don’t you see he is taking pleasure in lying and intellectual dishonesty? You can never win. Run, and let Darwinism run its course.

Since my previous two links weren’t highbrow enough for you, have a read of this for a few examples of the EU’s attitude towards treaties.

Sorry, can’t get the link to work.

Try Googling this -

Yearbook of European Law, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2016)
The Macro Level: The Structural Impact of General International Law on EU Law
The Court of Justice of the EU and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
Gunnar Beck 

Exactly so - and since there is dispute resolution in the withdrawal agreement, you do really have to wonder whether the UK is really taking it all seriously, or whether this is continually playing to the selected audience.........

Oh come on, even Baron has his ironic moments - that facts 4eu.org (as i referenced above) is hilarious. It reads like a cross between the Daily Mash and the Sun, but has "serious" figures doing quotes etc, and comes across as heavily satirical. Unfortunately, though, there are people who take it seriously and genuinely believe it.......

That is exactly why I pointed out that it is pointless to engage with him, intellectual dishonnesty on his part is a deliberate game and he derives pleasure from it. It’s all a joke to him.

What in heaven’s name is intellectual dishonesty?

I must admit to occasionally enjoying joining in some of the threads on UKC.

That’s a bit naughty of me, isn’t it?

Sovereignty as a currency is actually a really good metaphor. In international relations it's currency to be spent on building formal relationships across borders. It does us no good hoarding it and sticking it under the bed in carrier bags.

That is the whole point. There is now! And always remember that it is the Ministers who decide, the negotiating team headed by Barnier ultimately  follows what they are told to do by the Ministers.

I don't know. He accuses me of it too. Seems to be his standard idea of an insult.

I thought he is ROM and is currently banned ?

Surely not!?

Wouldn’t that be dishonest?

Not really. Barnier, unlike Frost, has a well defined mandate (which has both some latitude but also certain red lines) under which he can and does speak for the EU. Frost apparently never decides anything on his own but checks back with London every five minutes, which led to great frustrations on the EU side. If you appoint a negotiator, give him the power to negotiate!

That Barnier has to stick to the terms of his mandate , and that whatever he decides will later have to be approved by council, parliament, and member states is absolutely normal for any treaty negotiated by the commission (essentially the EU civil service). Similarly, any FTA will have to be ratified by the HoC.

Contrary to what you claim, there is still nothing to be presented to the EU parliament and the council....

CB

Well there is now......

The negotiations were always going to be tense and fraught ( hardly unexpected) and I expect more blow ups over the next few months.It would be niave to think it was going to be plain sailing.

I voted remain, still not changed my view, but the negotiating tactics from both sides are fascinating.And let us not forget the EU plays serious hardball with anyone outside the club.So the Uk will want to show the same mettle and nerve.These negotiations will be tough.

Only in a limited and specific way.

😀

It seems that they are in the drivers seat, and we are the "rabbit in the headlights".

Who do you think will end up "under the bus"?

Whats happening isn’t a negotiating tactic, nor is it the U.K. “showing it’s muscles”. 
It’s domestic politics.

It is so bleeding obvious I don’t understand how the penny isn’t dropping. Beside in order to have a negotiating tactic you need to negotiate. Which this government hasn’t done, really.

Intellectual dishonesty is pushing a position that you well know to be absurd as well as intentionally peddling lies for an ideological purpose.

Unlike simple ignorance, it is malign in intent.

Thanks Rom.

So now the EU is a 'foreign power' and legislation to take power back from the Scottish parliament and renege on a binding treaty contrary to international law is necessary to stop it breaking up the UK.

The foreign power threatening Scotland's prosperity is not the EU, it is Eng;land.

Pictures of the London skyline before and after the discovery of oil.   I'm asking myself why, when a trillion dollars or so came out the North Sea it isn't Aberdeen or Glasgow that's had this kind of transformation.

https://twitter.com/fifelike/status/1304447346869231616

Because they're violent, drug ridden shitholes where no-one wants to live or work? 😉

it's not effing England it's the Tories.  I'm losing patience with you - be careful if you don't want to turn potential allies into enemies

That’s a picture of the City of London before and after the Big Bang of financial deregulation, fed by inward investment from US and other international banks. Poor effort, Tom.

Thatcher took the money from the north sea and used it to fund the unemployment caused by closing down unionised industries and infrastructure spending in London and the South east.  She caused population movement to the south east.  She put the power to regulate oil in London and which encouraged the oil companies to put their headquarters staff in London.  BP spends far more in London than it does in Scotland and claims its London staff add far more value than those elsewhere. 

Look at the skyline of Houston or the Gulf states before and after oil or how propserous Oslo has become.  Didn't happen in Scotland. The wealth from the North Sea went to London.    It was taken by fraud.  The 1979 devolution referendum was rigged by classifying the government's report on the amount of oil in the North Sea and the likely economic prosperity of independent Scotland so that they could lie about how much oil there was.  They also gerrymandered the criterion for approval by setting a requirement for a proportion of the electorate as well as a simple majority of votes cast and using outdated electoral rolls making it pretty much impossible to achieve.   

Your comparison with Houston, a single industry city, is instructive. So those London buildings are all oil company HQs are they?

Give us a break from the flights of fancy and instead address how the Nats propose to fill the gaping hole in the Scottish economy that the accelerating collapse of the global oil industry will create. You can’t tax wind generation like you can oil without making it completely uneconomic. And you can’t export electricity without massive losses in distribution. Besides, Scotland’s neighbours are net producers of power.

When I worked in the oil industry it was not the Scottish oil industry - it was lots of people from the UK working for a British industry, people from all over the UK but in a Scottish setting for me.  This myth of a Scottish Oil industry disturbs me as it does not accord with perception then.

The Uk has used oil money to balance the current account, and has allowed a lower tax environment than in other nations (see Norway).

Thats because industrial regulation is the job of government, and the government are based in London. I'm surprised you dont know this already as you bang on constantly about how london unfairly dominates everything.

They were already there, by and large.

Hang on, isnt Oslo the capital in the same way as London? Surely you should be arguing that it should have been the regions of Norway that produce the oil that benefitted and not the capital? And yes, I am aware Scotland is a nation and not a region.

So prosecute them.

Yeah, I second this. I have a great deal of sympathy for the independence cause, and I consider the Tories an enemy of the UK. Please don't conflate me with the Tories, they are as much my enemy as they are yours.