Brexit - or Article 50: the Phoenix!

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I know he's a person who rubs many up the wrong way largely because of the Iraq war but I caught a fair bit of Tony Blair's 'Defence of Globalisation' speech and Q&A yesterday lunchtime on the Beeb - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b90gs0/briefings-tony-blair much of which focussed on Brexit.

Aside from his political stance on Brexit I just couldn't imagine May being able to do this, speak at length and then answer open questions and offer clear rational views on a position, the Maybot would have overheated and lost it. Since Blair we've had Brown, Cameron and May, fairly weak PMs all.
Blair, for me at least, spoke a lot of sense yesterday.
 
Dando said:
why am I not shocked that you left out "should be" from his comment.
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It could have been were it not for May's Red Lines - exactly the sort of ideological constraints that she now asks the EU to be flexible on and that such as Mogg and his ERG cronies demand absolute adherence to from May.
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
It could have been were it not for May's Red Lines - exactly the sort of ideological constraints that she now asks the EU to be flexible on and that such as Mogg and his ERG cronies demand absolute adherence to from May.
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It COULD have been if the EU actually wanted to try and negotiate rather than act like a spoilt child who has to get it's own way. But I guess that's ok as your beloved EU can do no wrong and its all the Governments fault
 
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Dando said:
It COULD have been if the EU actually wanted to try and negotiate rather than act like a spoilt child who has to get it's own way. But I guess that's ok as your beloved EU can do no wrong and its all the Governments fault
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I thought Fox was talking about rWorld trade deals being easy :confused:
Any sorted yet, tick tock.
 
Dando said:
It COULD have been if the EU actually wanted to try and negotiate rather than act like a spoilt child who has to get it's own way. But I guess that's ok as your beloved EU can do no wrong and its all the Governments fault
Click to expand...

EU will be weakened by Brexit and UK will be weakened by Brexit. Assuming that those who voted to remain somehow love the EU or are siding with the EU over the UK is wrong. Most of us didn't give the EU much thought before the ref, worked ok and more positive than negatives being in EU as far as we were concerned.
This Government called the ref with no or little preparation for a leave result and it's been a shambles from day 1, hard to argue against that.
Why would the EU not protect it's position or want to especially help a member state opting to leave more than it needs to, it did not instigate Brexit. A country that has acted in a cocky, demanding, bullish fashion too.
If shoe was on other foot and UK was not leaving and say it was France leaving, do you really think we as a country would be trying to help France get a good deal with the EU because of some saying French wine and Renault cars will cost us more if we have to pay tariffs on them, we wouldn't care we'd just buy wine elsewhere and non-French cars and tell them to do one.
UK is attempting to cherrypick parts it likes of EU memberhsip and ignoring parts it doesn't like from day one, now in a stand-off of our own making.
 
maxfli65 said:
EU will be weakened by Brexit and UK will be weakened by Brexit. Assuming that those who voted to remain somehow love the EU or are siding with the EU over the UK is wrong. Most of us didn't give the EU much thought before the ref, worked ok and more positive than negatives being in EU as far as we were concerned.
This Government called the ref with no or little preparation for a leave result and it's been a shambles from day 1, hard to argue against that.
Why would the EU not protect it's position or want to especially help a member state opting to leave more than it needs to, it did not instigate Brexit. A country that has acted in a cocky, demanding, bullish fashion too.
If shoe was on other foot and UK was not leaving and say it was France leaving, do you really think we as a country would be trying to help France get a good deal with the EU because of some saying French wine and Renault cars will cost us more if we have to pay tariffs on them, we wouldn't care we'd just buy wine elsewhere and non-French cars and tell them to do one.
UK is attempting to cherrypick parts it likes of EU memberhsip and ignoring parts it doesn't like from day one, now in a stand-off of our own making.
Click to expand...

Good post and typifies my thinking as well 👍
 
maxfli65 said:
UK will be weakened by Brexit
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The only thing I disagree with you on is the above. There is absolutely no reason that we should be weakened IF we have competent people negotiating our deals. Unfortunately it seems that is currently not the case.

But I still have to keep banging the drum that my decision to leave wasn't based on the fact that the next 18-24 months would all be sunshine and roses, its for what we can do in the future for ourselves. Being in the EU hasn't always been easy going for us....
 
maxfli65 said:
EU will be weakened by Brexit and UK will be weakened by Brexit. Assuming that those who voted to remain somehow love the EU or are siding with the EU over the UK is wrong. Most of us didn't give the EU much thought before the ref, worked ok and more positive than negatives being in EU as far as we were concerned.
This Government called the ref with no or little preparation for a leave result and it's been a shambles from day 1, hard to argue against that.
Why would the EU not protect it's position or want to especially help a member state opting to leave more than it needs to, it did not instigate Brexit. A country that has acted in a cocky, demanding, bullish fashion too.
If shoe was on other foot and UK was not leaving and say it was France leaving, do you really think we as a country would be trying to help France get a good deal with the EU because of some saying French wine and Renault cars will cost us more if we have to pay tariffs on them, we wouldn't care we'd just buy wine elsewhere and non-French cars and tell them to do one.
UK is attempting to cherrypick parts it likes of EU memberhsip and ignoring parts it doesn't like from day one, now in a stand-off of our own making.
Click to expand...
Cherry picking, is that the same as negotiating, did Canada and Japan cherry pick when they negotiated free trade deals without accepting freedom of movement, superiority of the EU court, not being in the eu customs union etc.
 
maxfli65 said:
EU will be weakened by Brexit and UK will be weakened by Brexit. Assuming that those who voted to remain somehow love the EU or are siding with the EU over the UK is wrong. Most of us didn't give the EU much thought before the ref, worked ok and more positive than negatives being in EU as far as we were concerned.
This Government called the ref with no or little preparation for a leave result and it's been a shambles from day 1, hard to argue against that.
Why would the EU not protect it's position or want to especially help a member state opting to leave more than it needs to, it did not instigate Brexit. A country that has acted in a cocky, demanding, bullish fashion too.
If shoe was on other foot and UK was not leaving and say it was France leaving, do you really think we as a country would be trying to help France get a good deal with the EU because of some saying French wine and Renault cars will cost us more if we have to pay tariffs on them, we wouldn't care we'd just buy wine elsewhere and non-French cars and tell them to do one.
UK is attempting to cherrypick parts it likes of EU memberhsip and ignoring parts it doesn't like from day one, now in a stand-off of our own making.
Click to expand...

Good post :thup:

The referendum was started without proper planning, the instigation of triggering article 50 was done so without proper planning and the people actually involved with acting it all out seem to be doing so without proper planning.

...and we all know what piss poor planning leads to, don't we?

It's all been a cock up from day 1
 
Doon frae Troon said:
I thought Fox was talking about rWorld trade deals being easy :confused:
Any sorted yet, tick tock.
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Just think about it before rubbishing the man. He cannot make trade deals while we are still a member of the EU customs union and how do you know what work has been done by people in his department on setting up future deals. Give the man a chance please
 
PieMan said:
Lots is the answer, across a wide number of Government Departments.
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I'm a bit unsure whether that's a good sign or a bad one!

And that's with a totally neutral approach to 'the deal'!

Hopefully all these 'deals' will leak across to the EU negotiators so a better 'deal' will result! Of course, they might take umbrage and reject any sort of deal - purely to show the (supposed) power that 'Brussels' has!

It could become all about egos! Which would be a great shame for both the EU and the UK!
 
Wonderful quote from Blair's speech...17:35..

'Up till now negotiations have been undertaken by civil servnts in a state of despair, overseen by politicians in a state of denial!'
 
maxfli65 said:
I know he's a person who rubs many up the wrong way largely because of the Iraq war but I caught a fair bit of Tony Blair's 'Defence of Globalisation' speech and Q&A yesterday lunchtime on the Beeb - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b90gs0/briefings-tony-blair much of which focussed on Brexit.

Aside from his political stance on Brexit I just couldn't imagine May being able to do this, speak at length and then answer open questions and offer clear rational views on a position, the Maybot would have overheated and lost it. Since Blair we've had Brown, Cameron and May, fairly weak PMs all.
Blair, for me at least, spoke a lot of sense yesterday.
Click to expand...

He has spoken a lot of sense for some time now - especially on Brexit - but also on labour. I have a lot of time for Blair - some real political pygmies around these days compared with him. If he was in the leadership of a new centre-left party he'd have my vote in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
 
Dando said:
It COULD have been if the EU actually wanted to try and negotiate rather than act like a spoilt child who has to get it's own way. But I guess that's ok as your beloved EU can do no wrong and its all the Governments fault
Click to expand...

Sorry - how can it not be clearer. The UK knew exactly where the EU would be very, very unlikely to move from in respect of the four freedoms. This we knew at the outset. If May had not - by choice- set out her Red Lines after Art50 was triggered there would have been significant scope for the EU and the UK reaching a deal.
 
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