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  1. #341
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    You in an EU Nation i gather?
    No. English by birth, American by naturalization, raised in the Carolinas for four decades. My family moved across the pond when I was just over two. We still have a lot of family there though and I travel back every other year. I’m a dual national so I have a vestige interest in it.

  2. #342
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by Kdogg View Post
    I should never post after a loss in any sport. To correct myself: Germany and France were kicking Spain under the table. England gets the boot, still pays and gets no say in how we run things.
    It's a punt, isn't it? As I understand it, the EU conceded that Spain could deal with the Brits unilaterally on Gibraltar, and it would not have to be handled through the entire membership. Beneficial to both the UK and Spain, and I don't believe anyone else really cares that much about the Rock.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  3. #343
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    It's a punt, isn't it? As I understand it, the EU conceded that Spain could deal with the Brits unilaterally on Gibraltar, and it would not have to be handled through the entire membership. Beneficial to both the UK and Spain, and I don't believe anyone else really cares that much about the Rock.
    Sure. Until you need to float your armada past it.

    Okay, dating myself a bit.

    I agree, although internally this is probably a benefit for Spain which had to give up some things on Gibraltar to join the EU I believe (UK was already a member so it extracted some concessions). At least that is my understanding, I am far from well-read in it. (As Eddie Izard says, some people are broadly read. I’m more thinly read).

    EU passed the agreement as expected. Now up to the UK. Looking iffy right now at best there but the reality of the situation is pretty stark. Is a bad deal better than a no-deal crash out? With a second referendum or a major renegotiation seemingly off the table for now, not a lot of leverage and two dodgy options.

  4. #344
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    On the Road to Nowhere
    NYT article:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...cq4?li=BBnb7Kz

    My favorite line:

    "Economic rules are now so intertwined that the former director-general of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, has likened Brexit to removing an egg from an omelet."

  5. #345
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont
    Some time ago the New Yorker had an article about the thousands of trucks each day that pass from France to the UK via the chunnel...almost all of them pass freely and easily these days...if things revert
    to all kinds of arcane customs duties, import quotas and the like, it will result in gargantuan problems and delays which can't be fixed...meanwhile, Macros challenging the Brits on behalf of poisson everywhere...

  6. #346
    Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
    Some time ago the New Yorker had an article about the thousands of trucks each day that pass from France to the UK via the chunnel...almost all of them pass freely and easily these days...if things revert
    to all kinds of arcane customs duties, import quotas and the like, it will result in gargantuan problems and delays which can't be fixed...meanwhile, Macros challenging the Brits on behalf of poisson everywhere...
    This might be the only area where the UK is actually prepared for the consequences of Brexit. The French workers strike so much in Calais, the UK already has a plan in place to deal with the backlog. Expanding that system will be a pain but they have that planned out.

  7. #347
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
    Some time ago the New Yorker had an article about the thousands of trucks each day that pass from France to the UK via the chunnel...almost all of them pass freely and easily these days...if things revert
    to all kinds of arcane customs duties, import quotas and the like, it will result in gargantuan problems and delays which can't be fixed...meanwhile, Macros challenging the Brits on behalf of poisson everywhere...
    Quote Originally Posted by Kdogg View Post
    This might be the only area where the UK is actually prepared for the consequences of Brexit. The French workers strike so much in Calais, the UK already has a plan in place to deal with the backlog. Expanding that system will be a pain but they have that planned out.
    You’ll also need passport checks for the Chunnel train and auto passengers. (Although maybe these exist already, since U.K. is not part of the Schengen area?)

  8. #348
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    You’ll also need passport checks for the Chunnel train and auto passengers. (Although maybe these exist already, since U.K. is not part of the Schengen area?)
    I went through the Chunnel last year. IIRC we did have to show our passports in London to get on the train, but maybe that was more about security than customs. Certainly nothing in Paris.

  9. #349
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Blow-up in the House of Commons today:

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/brexit...-commons-vote/


    road wreck likely. (Note, it is The Sun so hyperbole warning too)

  10. #350
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  11. #351
    Well the Total Recall "was it all a dream" scenario has been deemed a legal, viable and possible (if unlikely) option. We will see if and how the vote goes tomorrow.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-46481643

  12. #352
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by Kdogg View Post
    Well the Total Recall "was it all a dream" scenario has been deemed a legal, viable and possible (if unlikely) option. We will see if and how the vote goes tomorrow.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-46481643
    The "if" has been answered. With a "no".
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/uk/br...ntl/index.html
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  13. #353
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Vermont
    NY Times has a nice decision tree kind of analysis today...authors seem to feel that IF May expected the vote to be kind of close, she might be able to go back to the EU for some minor tweaks to get more members on board.
    Otherwise it's a mess...possibly another Brexit vote since May doesn't seem to have a Plan B at this point...it's all clear as mud as my grandfather liked to say...

  14. #354
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
    NY Times has a nice decision tree kind of analysis today...authors seem to feel that IF May expected the vote to be kind of close, she might be able to go back to the EU for some minor tweaks to get more members on board.
    Otherwise it's a mess...possibly another Brexit vote since May doesn't seem to have a Plan B at this point...it's all clear as mud as my grandfather liked to say...
    Something I've wondered about: could the UK use the Northern Ireland border as a bludgeon with the EU? Or is there something keeping their hands tied?

    -jk

  15. #355
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    Something I've wondered about: could the UK use the Northern Ireland border as a bludgeon with the EU? Or is there something keeping their hands tied?

    -jk
    The threat of renewed violence and a rearming of the IRA and Unionists are something nobody and I mean nobody wants. We are closing in on twenty years of peace in Northern Ireland. Everyone wants to keep that and that means no hard border. Logistically it’s impossible now anyway but politically it’s a chip nobody is going to play. The governing of Northern Ireland is already tenuous so any transition needs to be frictionless.

  16. #356
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    The "if" has been answered. With a "no".
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/uk/br...ntl/index.html
    I just don't get what is going on. So everybody agrees that a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster, but May had to withdraw her negotiated plan because it was going to be badly defeated. Meanwhile, the EU has stated definitively that there will be no more negotiations, and the only other possibility seems to be a re-vote, but that seems not to have enough support in Parliament either. Sure looks to me like they are headed for the no-deal Brexit. Is there any reason for optimism from those who follow it more closely?

  17. #357
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    Something I've wondered about: could the UK use the Northern Ireland border as a bludgeon with the EU? Or is there something keeping their hands tied?

    -jk
    Quote Originally Posted by Kdogg View Post
    The threat of renewed violence and a rearming of the IRA and Unionists are something nobody and I mean nobody wants. We are closing in on twenty years of peace in Northern Ireland. Everyone wants to keep that and that means no hard boarder. Logistically it’s impossible now anyway but politically it’s a chip nobody is going to play. The governing of Northern Ireland is already tenuous so any transition needs to be frictionless.
    Yeah, things still get chippy during Marching Season as is.

    I was in Ireland three years ago, and someone referred to Northern Ireland as “the unfinished business of 1916.”

    It’s — complicated.

  18. #358
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by howardlander View Post
    I just don't get what is going on. So everybody agrees that a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster, but May had to withdraw her negotiated plan because it was going to be badly defeated. Meanwhile, the EU has stated definitively that there will be no more negotiations, and the only other possibility seems to be a re-vote, but that seems not to have enough support in Parliament either. Sure looks to me like they are headed for the no-deal Brexit. Is there any reason for optimism from those who follow it more closely?
    Well, none of the parties are showing their hands -- the EU, Teresa May, the hard-liners pro-Brexit, the pro-EU Conservatives, the Labour Party MP's of any stripe, etc.

    The opposition to the May Brexit agreement in Parliament is coming from three directions -- pro-Brexit types who think that a better deal can be had; anti-Brexit MP's who don't want to leave the EU; and the Labour Party opposition, who want to bring the Gouvernment down and get new elections.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  19. #359
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by howardlander View Post
    I just don't get what is going on.
    You aren't alone. Here's the headline of an article on CNN this morning.

    (It's not just you) Brexit is making Britain very hard to understand right now
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/11/uk/br...gbr/index.html
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  20. #360
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    The major problem right now is the Ireland/NIreland border. Tons of folks cross the border daily to do business/shop/whatever. But, Ireland is part of the EU and NIreland is part of the UK and is going to Brexit the heck out of the EU.

    So, what do you do with that border? Do you put up customs stations to inspect and potentially tax any goods crossing over? Do you put up immigration posts to check visas/passports of everyone who moves across? The people of NIreland really don't want that because it would add time, money, and a pain in the rear to anything they did in Ireland. But, if you don't have those kinds of checks in place, then NIreland is essentially still part of the EU and would open a large back door through which anyone in the UK could emigrate or do business like they were still in the EU.

    I see no solution to this. Seriously, nothing works. The NIreland folks will not accept customs and immigration on their border and without their MPs, Theresa May's government will fall. But the Brexiteers cannot allow NIReland to be a part of the EU because that basically undermines the entire theory of Brexit.

    So, when faced with a really, really difficult question, Theresa May and the EU dealt with it the way all good politicians do... they employed the time honored tradition of punting it down the road. They agreed to talk about it in the future. They said they would try really hard come up with some sort of trade agreement that would allow for some freer movement of goods and people along the border, but they aren't sure exactly how that will work. In the mean time, things essentially won't change along the border. They also said that if the two sides cannot come to a new trade agreement, there is a "backstop" proposal that keeps the border open indefinitely.

    Well, it is pretty easy to see what the Brexiteers are worried about. They say the backstop allows EU countries/companies to continue to do business custom-free by going in through the NIreland back door. It would allow the EU to either never reach a trade agreement with the UK or at least give the EU ammo to blackmail the UK into a bad trade agreement.

    This whole thing is a Gordian knot. It will bring May down and I suspect, at some point before things are finalized, the UK will vote again and elect to remain in the EU.

    -Jason "writing this post made my head hurt... imagine what it must be to be Theresa May and have your entire career and legacy tied to this morass" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

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