Brexit

[C8RKH]

5 hours ago, Hello Paul said:

LOL! Let's add this to the list (below) of made-up press articles on non-existent "EU rules"! It's amusing how gullible the UK public is - it must be hilarious working for The Sun/Daily Fail/etc, getting drunk over lunch while making up these ridiculous "laws" and putting it in a story, only to hear irate, tory-voting, brexshit-supporting readers phoning in to Jeremy Vine the next day, getting all hot under their xenophobic, Boris-loving, gammony collars about the "EU banning same-sex flats" or "EU funding for African trapeze artists"! I would say "you couldn't make it up!" but that's exactly what the UK press does on a daily basis! 🤣

You write like you worked for the News of the World, but that, like Remain, is a thing of the past. Thankfully.

 

[Barrykearley]

It’s alright - there’s still the Lib Dem’s whom you can vote for at the next election - they wish to rejoin. Oh hang on - no even they have smelt the coffee.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

You write like you worked for the News of the World, but that, like Remain, is a thing of the past. Thankfully.

 

Cough, “Sun on Sunday”.

A bit like airline “Swissair” ceasing trading in 2002 and “Swiss” coincidentally being launched the same day...

 

 

[exeterjeep]

Brexit has given the UK back its independence and boosted innovation, inventor Sir James Dyson has said

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56741000

[mg4lotus]

Somewhat hypocritical.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Too true. He claims that he moved Dyson to Asia because his British suppliers “didn’t want to expand with us”.

What an arrogant liar.

[Chillidoggy]

I'm impressed with Dyson; he's got the audacity to flog hairdryers for £300, fans for £350, and people are actually hoovering them up.

 

 

[Colin P]

Dyson is a bit like Apple: Good packaging and spin which makes them fashionable, but short lived (built in obsolescence), now built as cheaply as possible in the East, can't repair them and massively overpriced. Usually someone else makes an equivalent product better and cheaper.

And to top it all off, they sponsor Bath Rugby, so I'm out.

[PaulCP]

Interesting comment from Barnier during today’s discussions in the EU Parliament on the ratification of the EU-U.K. trade deal

“In the European Parliament, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said Brexit was a divorce and a warning of the feelings of the people: "It's a failure of the European Union and we have to learn lessons from it."

He went on to say that unless the EU starts to listen to the people the same sort of referendum result would happen on some other EU member countries.

Von de Leyen and a French MEP just appeared to make the usual threats whilst a German MEP described Brexit as a lose-lose situation for both the EU and U.K.

[SFO]

From The Spectator
Why is Ursula von der Leyen still talking about Sofagate?

27 April 2021, 1:51pm

Almost a month has passed since the now infamous ‘sofa-gate’ incident where, during a meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, Ursula von der Leyen was not provided with a chair. Instead she was forced to sit on a nearby sofa. And yet it is this event – rather than Europe’s ongoing vaccine woes – that seems to be at the forefront of the president of the European Commission’s thoughts.

Von der Leyen used a speech given to the European Parliament to reiterate accusations of sexism over sofa-gate. The president did everything she could to drive home her feminist message, concluding that: 

'I am the president of the European commission. And this is how I expected to be treated when visiting Turkey two weeks ago, like, a commission president – but I was not.'

You only need to imagine a man saying those words to realise how grating they actually are. Strip away the guise of feminism and what’s left is a remark that smacks more of hubris than a genuine cry of discrimination.

What von der Leyen doesn’t seem to realise is that bringing up this diplomatic faux pas again a month after it occurred betrays just how vast the gulf is between her priorities as a world leader and those of ordinary Europeans. Or, indeed, women.

It’s hard for the sisterhood to feel much sympathy for an individual who has risen seamlessly to the top of her profession (and, as Katja Hoyer points out, has largely failed upwards) and whose case for discrimination amounts to having to sit on a rather palatial sofa as opposed to a chair.

What’s more, this diplomatic quibble is taking place against a backdrop of a global pandemic in which Europe is hardly faring well. Do EU citizens, stuck as they are in a cycle of endless lockdowns and vaccine delays, really want to hear their president moaning about these sorts of political micro aggressions?

This is a drama that is largely of the president’s own making. If she had kept her displeasure to herself during the Erdogan encounter, it’s unlikely any of the press present would have picked up on the sleight. But her visibly wounded pride gave the game away. To raise it again may earn her kudos in fashionable quarters – Vogue has already published a profile piece on her, complete with a glossy photo portrait. But it won’t increase her capital with ordinary Europeans, not that she needs to worry about anything as inconvenient as an electorate.

And perhaps that’s the takeaway point from this whole saga. Electorates keep politicians humble. As Boris Johnson is finding, even off-the-cuff remarks uttered in the heat of the moment in a private study demand public scrutiny when you are elected to office. Von der Leyen, on the other hand, can become as wrapped up in diplomatic tit-for-tats as she likes without ever being brought back down to earth by the perspective of the man (or woman) on the street.

But with Euroscepticism growing in almost every quarter of the EU – from Italy and Poland to France – von der Leyen does need to choose her words wisely if she wants to keep dissenting voices on side and, indeed, court potential members like Turkey. A good place to start would be to prioritise diplomatic relations over an insignificant personal sleight. 

Von der Leyen may be used to being treated as a European heavyweight. But in the post-pandemic landscape, it might not be such a bad thing if she finds she has to work a little harder to justify the privileges and platform she has come to enjoy, even if it means taking a sofa seat.

[C8RKH]

Maybe, @SFOthe Turkish President is a recent convert to the excellent music of the Divine Comedy and he took their lyrics to heart when he decided which seat to give Ursula:

"It's hard to get by when your arse is the size, of a small country"

Whilst that might obviously not be the true case, it does seem that her head and ego are as large as a small country!

 

[C8RKH]

Anyone still got any fondness left for our Eurocrat cousins?  If so, could you justify this as an approach please?   The irony, of the French of all people, accusing the UK of using red tape to obfuscate.  And what is, again, with all the threats?  It seems a weekly occurrence that we are "threatened" by our so called allies and neighbours in Europe.

Post-Brexit fishing rights row rumbles on as France threatens to cut off electricity supply to Jersey

It is claimed that the UK is using red tape to limit French fishing, in breach of the agreement made with the EU last year.

[Neal H]

If the French have a dispute with the U.K, why pick on Jersey? It’s not even part of the U.K. It’s a self governing parliamentary democracy.

[C8RKH]

Because they know they can "boss" Jersey about. Same reason, Spain continually bullies Gibraltar.  Bullies pick on who they know is weaker than them. It's a very nasty trait of the Spanish/French political elite.

[Chillidoggy]

The UK is responsible for the defence of Jersey.

 

[C8RKH]

Agreed.  However, it is far easier to bully the smaller player Jersey into submission through threats and intimidation, to "encourage" them to assert pressure on the UK.

It is exactly the same tactics used by Spain with Gibraltar (whom the UK is also responsible to defend!) to exert pressure to get their way not just within Gibraltar but with the UK.

Me personally, I'd spend a few hundred million pounds on deepening and expanding the dock facilities in Gibraltar, within her territorial waters of course, and then I'd move one of our two aircraft carriers there as a permanent "home base" with the associated defence/support ships. I'd shut down the border with Spain to stop people crossing to work in Gibraltar, and the additional jobs created would keep the Gibraltarians employed in well paid, secure jobs and self sufficient.  Then, any little pissy Spanish naval ship that tried to do one of it's 30+ per day incursions into Gibraltarian waters would be seized and impounded. The crew would be "deported" back to Spain as soon as the paperwork to return them was complete which unfortunately would be a big job  and take between 35 and 60 days on average to complete. EVERY TIME they did an incursion, that would be my reaction.

As for the French. Well, if they cut off electricity to Jersey then I would create an immediate reciprocal ban on ALL imports from France, whether French origin or not - the latter to encourage supplies to migrate their business from the French ports to the the more reasonable Dutch etc.

I for one and sick of tired of the pissy actions and whining, and it's about time we just put the cup of tea down and gave them a slap!

I would also calculate the annual cost of disruption due to illegal French ATC strikes to the UK economy, and seek full redress through the appropriate International Courts.

[SFO]

The French really are outrageous but utterly pathetic. The sooner President Moron is shot, the better.  

Just shows we cannot rely on them for anything. Cutting off electricity is the sort of threat North Korea makes. 

[mg4lotus]

Russian tactic. That and Novachoc.

[Chillidoggy]

4 hours ago, SFO said:

The French really are outrageous but utterly pathetic. The sooner President Moron is shot, the better.  

Just shows we cannot rely on them for anything. Cutting off electricity is the sort of threat North Korea makes. 

Wars have been fought for less.

[Barrykearley]

5 hours ago, SFO said:

The French really are outrageous but utterly pathetic. The sooner President Moron is shot, the better.  

Just shows we cannot rely on them for anything. Cutting off electricity is the sort of threat North Korea makes. 

Fingers crossed the French will do exactly that. The damage that will be done to them and the wider EU will be massive.

[DDubya]

Not even the German’s threatened that🤌

[exeterjeep]

The Germans invaded Jersey and the other CI during the war.

Now the French are stopping the ferry from leaving harbour.

[Kimbers]

Its a lot bigger than them. I'd just do a Clarkson "FULL POWER".

[PaulCP]

Stopping a ferry from leaving, which is one thing that they said they wouldn’t do.

There is now a video on Sky News showing a French fishing boat ramming a British fishing boat...........-.........so much for a peaceful protest🙄

My understanding is that the approach by Jersey is in line with what was approved by the EU in the negotiations.
 

However, this all comes back to what a French businessman told me many years ago during an acquisition process I was involved in. Over dinner he said “the problem with the British is that they want to dot all of the “I”s & cross all of the “T”s when negotiating. In France we just agree to everything and then ignore the bits which we don’t like afterwards, including all EU directives.”
How true!😠

[Neal H]

What’s the point of sending a gun boat if it’s not going to shoot things?