The UK is going for a No Deal Brexit. Overall there is nothing in Britain itself that needs to go badly except the EU is probably going to make it as unpleasant as possible. Ireland is another matter, the chance of violence there is high.
I suspect Britain's standing in the world will take a hit
[quote]The UK is going for a No Deal Brexit. Overall there is [b][u]nothing[/u] in Britain itself that needs to go badly[/b] except the EU is probably going to make it as unpleasant as possible. [b][u]Ireland[/u] is another matter[/b], the chance of violence there is high.[/quote]
So "Northern-Ireland" is already a part of Ireland? I also don't see how a "No Deal Brexit" would not have bad consequences for trade in Britain? Since (ussually) there are agreements before trade with countries (or groups of countries that have a union that organises trade).
Same goes for the EU... since a lot of memberstates trade with britain. The economies are entwined?
I also don't get how the EU is making things as unpleasant as possible? Specially after months (years by now) of the UK being absolutely devided for anny sollution to the problem. How is the EU creating that paradigm?
Northern Ireland is not yet part of Ireland but the chance of violence at the border is very high, and if the UK suffers economic hardship, it's population could very well decide to join the EU.
The trade issues will be complicated but a doomsday prediction is overblown. If Britain can't get goods from the EU, there is the rest of the world it can trade with. And the EU itself will want to keep trading for products essential to its member nations. Trade is a very robust phenomenon, if politicians write rules to make it harder, businesses find ways around it, or the blackmarket steps in.
The EU has a strong incentive that Britain doesn't leave the EU unscathed, they need to dissuade other nations from toying with the idea. So they are not going to be cooperative in providing Britain an environment where it can flourish. It will use legislation to isolate Britain, woo Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and hamper Britain's economic growth
So, a violent border dispute doesn't qualify as something going badly for Britain?
So, "badly" isn't a "doomsday prediction" [i](honestly, I understood "badly" in a way less intense way as a doomsday prediction) [/i]. Also... trading with the rest of the world? You don't think that trade negotations have to be done? Because at the moment, I don't think a lot of those are going on? Do you think that (except for the EU memberstates that are already trading with the UK) that other countries in the world will just go: "well, you guys seem to be in a pickle, we'll help you out right away.". And that this scenario would also mean that the UK being in need of negotations, really have a lot of leverage towards the country that is going to want to "help" you out?
[quote]The EU has a strong incentive that Britain doesn't leave the EU unscathed, they need to dissuade other nations from toying with the idea. [/quote]
<- I'm sorry, but the demands of the UK are so ridiculous, that the EU doesn't even have a way to make things "easy"? Have you even looked at what the UK wants? And do you think that the EU out of some weird form of uber-solidarity would just go: "yeah sure buddy, we'll give you exactly what you want even if it hurts our own position."?
for a simplistic overview of the idiotic way the UK has taken this toppic to heart I would refer to this video that kinda explains why the EU has verry little to no wiggle room at all:
Go ask some people in Northern Ireland if they are British and count how many answer before one punches you. lol
Trade negotiations are a politicians game. When disorder reigns, it's business that makes the rules, and often politicians are just lead by the nose by money. The US is already backing a UK trade deal, and as I said, when a population of people want something they can't get legally, the blackmarket works quite quickly. Perhaps you really believe people will starve in England because of lack of trade rules....oh please
You also seem to think that other countries trading with the UK is the same as other countries choosing to "help them out". It's not a favour, countries trade for money, if the UK can't get some medicine from the EU, you don't think there's a whole line of other countries out there willing to fulfill that order? You don't think there's some enterprising businessmen out there willing to risk breaking some rules to make a fortune? Or some politician willing to look the other way to keep their constituents happy?
You seem to want to paint the EU as some innocent bystander in this whole thing. If they really were cooperative, they'd just offer an extension. The EU is the other half of this shit sandwich, there are no innocent parties here, and you'd be naive to believe so.
[quote]Go ask some people in Northern Ireland if they are British and count how many answer before one punches you.[/quote]
What kind of a responds is that? We already established Northern-Ireland is British. Their politicians seat in the British parlement. The conservative party is only keeping it's nose above water because an extreme-conservative northern Ireland party is supporting them from the benches by voting in the conservatives favor [i](as long as it supports their own interests too of course)[/i]. You can't really cherrypick when Northern-Ireland is and isn't a part of Britain when it suits your narrative. It either is a part of Britain or it isn't.
[quote]Perhaps you really believe people will starve in England because of lack of trade rules....oh please[/quote]
I never said that. But you said: [i]" Overall there is nothing in Britain itself that needs to go badly"[/i].
I honestly wouldn't really call black markets popping up in a liberal democracy as being a "good" thing. You are practically giving me everything I need to tell you that there are definetly going to be some stuff that is going to go "badly". And rushed descision making in complex toppics like trade, where one country NEEDS to have something badly and the other wants it only because it benefits them... I don't want to be a negotatior on the "need" side. They ussually have verry little leverage in the negotation.
[quote]You seem to want to paint the EU as some innocent bystander in this whole thing. If[/quote]
From every memberstate in the EU parlement, the British always had the best deal. Their deal was diffrent then other deals, and they had more independence on several toppics then anny other memberstate. And they still have their own currency.
It was a UK politician, that hold the referendum. It's not something the EU organised. It was UK politicians that promised a lot of stuff to their voters, not the EU. It was the UK politicians that put demands on the table for Brexit that were impossible to solve in the current EU framework (see video I posted above).
How manny "extension" does the EU need to give to be seen as being "cooperative"? You have a massive member-state that the EU knows is going to leave. There is LOADS of confussion in that member-state of what they actually want. The memberstate is not being cooperative itself, because it asks stuff that the EU simply can't provide.
In the mean time, while all this crisis stuff with a memberstate that actually wants out (Get the fuck on with it!), the EU itself is also burdened with this problem. It needs to get rid of the bagage that the UK put upon itself and the EU, and move on with their work. Every time you extend and delay, gives room for more non-descisions and it only prolongs insecurity. The problem that is mainly located on the British Island and it's Norther-Ireland apendix also has a toll on EU descision making. How long does the EU need to be okay with all this?
The UK made a choice, they voted for it in a referendum (how democratic can you get) now they should face the consequences of the their choice. The problem is that the UK acts like a spoiled brat. They want and want and want, and if they don't get it, the parlement is devided, nothing gets done, and they asks for delays. Because none of the people in parlement want to face the music. That's the actual problem. They gave the people a choice, the choice created a situation they didn't think about, now no one knows what to do annymore and instead of being mature about it and face potential political suicide. That's why things take so long. And in the mean time, certain political actors make it look like the EU is the problem, because they just don't give them exactly what they want.
Fuck, I wanted an Optimus-Prime special edition as a kid, but I only got a bumblebee and that's my parents fault. If dad became a doctor instead of construction worker, I could have just gotten what I want. What assholes. <- This is almost the mentality we are dealing with here.
@Kwek00 [quote]We already established Northern-Ireland is British. [/quote]
Just as an aside, I'm not sure that's correct. The UK, in full, is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain [b]and[/b] Northern Ireland" (my emphasis). If NI were part of Britain that second part would be tautologous.
@Sharon So what is it then? It's not Ireland, it's not by itself, and their politicians influence the UKs descision making. From where I stand, that makes it a part of the UK.
If it wasn't a part of the UK at all, then I wonder why the conservative party is making such a fuzz about it in Brexit-negotations. Have your back-stop, abort it, ... what ever. If it doesnt matter to the UK, then this case would have been settled long ago. But it hasn't, exactly because it's not that independent at all.
Dear oh dear you have simplistic top-down view of the world. No, we did not establish that Northern Ireland is British. You're assuming that because that's what is written down on a piece of paper. Many people would call people living in Northern Ireland Irish, including the people who are living there right now. There have been decades of violence on this very issue, and if Northern Ireland suffers under a No Deal Brexit they had very little say in and the EU throws them a lifeline, Northern Ireland may very well decide to cut ties with the UK.
I'm not even going to bother responding to the rest, you are viewing the situation purely through a governmental perspective as if every issue has neat boundaries around it and people are going to act like robots "Northern Ireland is British, it says so on my map", "Countries won't 'help' the UK with trade, and even if they wanted to it must take months for a trade deal to be all contracted up and finalized and every UK politician is just going to wait until that happens". It's just not realistic.
@Kwek00 [quote]From where I stand, that makes it a part of the UK. [/quote] I agree, that's what I said, it is part of the UK. I was just questioning whether it is part of (Great) Britain.
@plungesponge Then why does the UK treat it like it's british? If it's so not British, then why make a point of it. Why not keep it in?
When these disputes were having? What army stepped in? It was the british army, why was that, if it wasn't british?
And don't throw that social constructivist crap at me. No country "really" excists, they are all lines on a map. They are all fabricated. That's all really cool, till you need to make deals and start negotating things. Then suddenly all those "social constructions" are really real and need to be dealt with at the table. Can you imagine someone at a negotation table going: "well the EU is just a social construction, it doesnt really excist, but we want out of it.".
You can't cherrypick when something is real and when it isn't in a particulair situation. In this situation you can't go: "well it's either a social construction OR real depending on what my narrative is.".
.... you're really not aware of the conflict between the British and the Irish? lol, I don't think I have enough time to fill you in. I might suggest you read up before you next throw your opinions on Brexit out there because you really don't know the basics.
@Kwek00 I think it's important to distinguish England from Great Britain from the UK. They're three different things although some people seem to treat them as synomymous. :(
@Sharon When it comes to this particulair toppic, when it comes to brexit. All these diffrent things are pretty much treated the same way. It doesn't change annything to the conversation. I'm probably only confused on the UK and Britain. I'm aware of the England thing. But at the negotiation table, you don't have an: English, Scotisch, Welsh, Norther-Irish negotatior. Just someone that represents all of them as a unit.
This cherry picking idea that Northern-Ireland become "Ireland" when it suits Plungesponge, and then talking about the Northern-Ireland border dispute, will change nothing to the problems discussed at the table UNLESS the unit wants to abort Norther-Ireland. So far, we haven't seen a lot of voices at the table in favor of that.
@plungesponge That's a great comparisson right there.
Does Taiwan have annything to do with the Chinese governement what so ever? Do they reign idependently from eachother? When China does trade negotations, is Taiwan included and represented by China?
For someone that gets it all, you do ask a really stupid question right now. It would be much more intresting to look at Hong Kong and China. The relationship there is way more intresting.
@plungesponge BTW, when you have a problem with your insurancy, and the guys say: "we are not going to pay you because this is not covered by the contract.". Is your responds also: "well you'll make a great bureaucrat, just doing stuff that is in the contract is so bureaucratic of you.". How does your world view actually works? Is this some sort of humanistic utopia, where things that are discussed are actually just things on a paper for you? And when the things on the paper, don't really fit your narrative, they become social constructions that we shouldn't pay to much attention off?
Good, maybe now you can understand why Northern Ireland is not British.
Northern Ireland has its own government system, in fact so do Scotland and Wales. Oh I'll grant you that Northern Ireland is closer to the UK government than Taiwan is to China, but ask the local population whether that feel represented by Boris Johnson and it's not all that different from how the Taiwanese view China.
The trade argument is even weaker. The US doesn't even officially recognize Taiwan as separate. By those all important categories you like putting people in, Taiwan is absolutely a part of China... on the books. You can't view Taiwan as separate to China without also seeing Northern Ireland as separate from Britain. That's exactly why the term "Great Britain" specifically excludes Northern Ireland. Look it up lol. This was your whole initial argument in the first place, that Northern Ireland is part of Britain. It ain't. You've been wrong from the start.
Is Northern-Ireland at the table during Brexit as a sovereign state all by itself trying to get it's own deals?
When China makes a trade-deal, is Taiwan automatically included?
I believe semantics are important, but if they don't change the reality, then it's a nice thing to know about, but it doesn't contribute.
[quote]Northern Ireland has its own government system, in fact so do Scotland and Wales.[/quote]
Great! So does Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. Because "Belgium" is seen as a Federation. And I'm not aware what specific toppics are specifically in the political field of: Whales, Scotland, England, Northern-Ireland. But when it comes to Brexit negotations, all these parties were represented by 1 entity, the UK (or what ever you like to call it).
Just like when Belgium makes a deal on a toppic that specifically belongs to the federal governement, all the members of that federation doesn't sit at the table.
Ow look, the big UK red line... it engulfs Northern Ireland. I already said to Sharon, that I'll talk about the UK from now on, because my use of "Britain" could be wrong. So I was wrong on Britain. Great I learned something. Now? This changes the Brexit conversation in what way? Is Northern-Ireland going to be independely looking for a deal with the EU now?
