Brexit

[Scoobes]

NightlyPoe said:

Scoobes said:

You didn't answer the question. What realistic alternative/amendment would you send back to them?

The UK (May) picked the UK's red lines knowing full well they weren't compatible with the UK's lawful commitments to the GFA. It's not EU intransigence to ensure international law and agreements are upheld. And as I said before, the backstop was the UK's idea, not the EU's. 

Can you provide a link for why you believe not having a backstop violates international law.  Because I'm not following the logic.

I think I've answered the question several times.  Remove the parts that are incompatible with UK sovereignty and vote on that.

It's not that they won't want trade, it's that they'll hold far more power over us during negotiations as they'll be in trading blocks whilst we're a single Country. The EU negotiations have been proving this for the past 3 years let alone Liam Fox's sham of a department. They'll also still have all their own trade agreements already in place whilst the UK will have erected trade barriers with our closest partners at best and have close to 0 deals at worst. How desperate will the UK look at that point?

Let's be honest, the snafus with the EU are almost entirely political.  If it were simply a matter of trade, the issues are manageable.  Yeah, there's a crap ton to negotiate, but nothing that can't be ironed out.  So that's a bad example.

The process would probably be different depending on which country.  As long as Trump's in office, we know a favorable deal with America is available at the very least.

How much actual sovereignty are you willing to give up for new trade deals?

Huh?

I didn't say the backstop, I said May's red lines were not compatible with the GFA. At present the only way to honour the GFA is to stay in the customs union and the single market. May's red lines mean we can't do either and no one has come up with a realistic alternative so far. She invented the backstop as the only legal method to ensure we don't end up in a situation where we renege on our commitments to the GFA. Once you take out the bits that you consider "protecting our sovereignty", we leave ourselves with 2 options: stay in the customs union and single market or renege on our legal commitments. Any potential alternatives won't exist in a short-medium time frame and would probably require R&D before a genuine technological solution can be found. This is why I place the blame at May and her government.

Remember that May is the one that created the backstop so trying to remove it is already an international humiliation.

So, what is your alternative? Because so far it just sounds like you're happy to renege on the GFA in 0-2 years time.

NightlyPoe said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

The backstop is meant to avoid a hard border in Ireland. Without the backstop there will be a hard border incoming, which would go against the Good Friday Agreement. Hence why Ireland is so adamant about it.

That doesn't make the backstop legally mandated.  You've only reiterated the issue again.  I'm asking for a source that actually says that it's legally mandated for the backstop to be a part of this agreement.

Oh yeah, the deal will be favorable... but only for the US! Trump already said what the UK needs to do: Allow chlorinated chicken to be imported and privatize the NHS. Also, they could veto any other trade agreement, with China for example. Does that look like a fair deal to you? And what did you expect with America first?

That's certainly sensationalized.

In any case, I don't want to get into American politics, but Trump sees Brexit and his election as somewhat linked.  America first sometimes takes a backseat to Trump's interests first and Trump has an interest in portraying himself as assisting.

This is partly what I meant by 'how much sovereignty are you willing to give up?' Are you willing to lower food safety standards or to increase the level of privatization in our health service for a trade deal with the US. Or to give the US the opportunity to veto future trade deals? 

Larger trading blocks and larger Countries are going to be demanding a lot of concessions before they are willing to deal and they're going to be bigger whilst still having all their current trade deals intact. They're going to be negotiating from a position of strength as we'll look isolated. India for instance have already said that any future trade deal would require the UK opening more space for Indians to migrate to the UK.

In any negotiation there will be give and take. We will have to give up something which is why your sovereignty claims when dealing with the Irish border situation are going to come up in other areas when we try to strike trade deals outside the EU.

And what evidence do you have that these claims are sensationalised? Also, how long do you think trade deals take to strike on average?