Brexit. What may happen next? - Page 2

Thank you very much for your long post (which covered many issues). But first, you seem to be saying to me, "you are dreaming". I think I made it quite clear, I only posted a news link ("not MY article ") & without comment. Also to me, "put it behind you". I did. 6 yrs ago. But I am interested in the ongoing brexit situation & the current changes in the UK current, change-over, between Autumn 2022 & potentially 2024. Much may change. Let's see. But don't shoot this messenger. I just read the news & with interest with my Spanish family living here who HAVE been ( & financially) affected. A little different from how others may have been. But thanks for your input. 

We have ALL gone through many changes during the continuing, mutant virus & variable changing world situation. Let's hope WE all keep safe and an interest as it all progresses. V

Hi GrannyRose,

The article did include the news of BoJo's resignation, but I agree it was primarily a commentary of what could happen following his departure.  I don't know whether you read the other link that Villas included to a "locked" thread, but the purpose of this thread is to continue a, hopefully, sensible discussion about the future of UK/EU relations and share opinions of what a change of PM may mean for UK citizens living and visiting in Spain.

As someone who voted to remain in the EU, I wish the UK was still a member state, but I'm sufficiently realistic to understand that is unlikely to happen for at least a generation.  Not least because Brexit is NOT done, with the Nothern Ireland Protocol continuing to put the Good Friday Agreement at risk.  But at least a change of Prime Minister could see an improvement in the UK's relationship with the EU, potentially allowing productive negotiations which may eventually enable Brexit to be done.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Brexit was signed and agreed to but we should have been permitted some leeway.  I live in (NI) and we are the victims of the EU’s requirement to have a border. Because of the fact that there was a border between the North and the south since partition for many years but was removed to the great joy of many people once we all joined the EU.   It would have been a simple thing to install check points for goods etc., travelling from north to south but this was not allowed to happen because the government in the Rep of Ireland wouldn’t permit it and sided with the EU all the way through negotiations.  What have we got now? We have a border which essentially is in the north of Ireland at our ports. We ,in the north are piggy’s in the middle. We’re either one thing nor another. We try to order things online from mainland U.K. and are told that they don’t deliver to (NI). Go into the duty free in Alicante and look at the cigarettes. You’re not allowed to bring the same quantity on the Belfast flight as the U.K. mainland flights.  Why?  God only knows.  The protocol should have been sorted out ages ago but the Nationalist parties refuse to support the Unionist parties in their plea to give us a chance to be recognised as part of the U.K. which we are at the moment.  Businesses eg garden centres aren’t allowed to bring anything over from their suppliers in England because if the EU ruling on soil.  It’s so unfair.  All we want is to be permitted to bring products from mainland U.K. that we brought in for years. Produce going to the EU ( ie. South of Ireland would’ve checked separately.  The whole thing has become a political football and it’s time to sort out the rights of the people of Northern Ireland. I know that 51%of the population voted to remain in the EU but like Scotland, we were all classed as United Kingdom and that was that. Many people over here like to see us as Irish and rightly so but we are not part of the Rep of Ireland at this present moment and find ourselves being used as pawns. 

No doubt I’ll receive all sorts of nasty comments but I’m simply telling you the truth. Boris only stepped in recently to be seen to sort it out. Should have been dealt with firmly soon after we left. 

Hi GrannyRose,

"Brexit was signed and agreed to but we should have been permitted some leeway."  The Withdrawal Agreement, which includes the Northern Ireland Protocol, was signed on 24 January 2020.  Although the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, we had a transition period until 31 December 2020 - so we had 11 months leeway.

I don't understand your statement, "Because of the fact that there was a border between the North and the south since partition for many years but was removed to the great joy of many people once we all joined the EU."  Both the UK and the Republic of Ireland joined the EU in 1973, pre-dating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement by some 25 years.  The Good Friday Agreement provided for the phased withdrawal of physical ("hard") border controls and customs checks between north and south, which were finally removed in 2005.

The UK voted to leave the EU on a manifesto which, ironically, included "protecting our borders", so why do you seem to believe that the EU doesn't have the right to do the same?  Following the 2016 referendum and during the first year of negotiations, both the UK and EU committed to avoiding a "hard" border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.  So Northern Ireland citizens are not "the victims of the EU’s requirement to have a border", they're having to live with the consequences of a British government which signed the Withdrawal Agreement and NI Protocol by the agreed deadline, just so they could say they "Got Brexit Done", without understanding - or ignoring? - the practicalities of what they were committing to.  

The border we have today, essentially down the middle of the Irish Sea, was one of Theresa May's "red lines", but then BoJo became PM, for whom getting Brexit done was his highest priority, irrespective of the consequences.  During the 2019 General Election campaign, a leaked HM Treasury analysis explained some of the implications of the Protocol.  The paper said Northern Ireland would be cut off from whole swathes of the UK Internal Market, would face shortages and prices rises in shops, and would effectively be severed from the UK's economic union.  When BoJo was asked about the report at a press conference, he said, "there will be no checks on goods going from GB to NI, and from NI to GB" - an extraordinary response, given that it was his government which negotiated and agreed the Protocol that replaced the previous "Irish backstop".  I absolutely agree that what the citizens of Northern Ireland are having to endure is ridiculous, but the blame lies with the current UK government.  In the meantime, it continues to apply its own "leeway" by the continued suspension of legally agreed customs procedures and by introducing a bill last month that will see it renege on most of the NI Protocol, an international treaty that BoJo signed only a little more than 2 years ago.

Kind regards,

Kim

Sometimes “the truth” requires looking at an issue from more than one side. A dialectical perspective is often a better way forward. 

Concur. V

One thing that has not been mentioned it that the original Good Friday agreement signed in 1998 and effective from 1999 stated there must never be a Border on the Isle of Ireland. That is why David Cameron should never even have offered a vote on the UK's membership with the EU. He did it purely to shut his own party's discord over the EU up. However, that issue cannot be resolved as a border wherever it is, in the sea or at port does not work.

Brexit is not working in the UK, sadly nothing will improve with the EU, as all the candidates except Tom Tugendhat have been in Bojo's cabinet and have gone along with everything to date. Nothing will change the top 3 are awful people, look at how they have voted on many issues, its quite an eye opener. I don't want any of them to be PM, they will be just as bad as BJ, Rushi Sunak has overseen the finances and look where the UK is today. A reccesion is imminent, many were already at food banks and I have noticed at supermarkets the food bank bins normally full, now only have only a few items in them. I've never even seen a food bank container in Spain and yet the UK is supposed to be a world leader. It's a fantasy!.

I'd also like to know where is the £350 million a week the Uk were paying for its EU membership gone to??? I'd like a poltical jounalist to find out and ask the government. Everyone seems to have forgotton about that and how it would save the UK billions to spend on 40 new hospitals.

Hi Alfapash,

"I'd also like to know where is the £350 million a week the Uk were paying for its EU membership gone to??? "

That was one of the first lies in the Brexit campaign - the UK never paid £350m per week to the EU and what we did pay doesn't even cover the loss of revenue from our largest pre-Brexit trading partner:

https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-statistics-authority-misuse/

Kind regards, 

Kim

Totally understand and agree with everything you have said but if Rep of Ireland could have found it in their heart to put a few electronic checks here there and everywhere to detect what was coming into the country, there was no need for the use of the word BORDER.  The border that was formed after partition was removed when the U.K. joined the EU. As one European State there was no need for a border with the south of Ireland.  Nobody ever wanted to see a border back in the old sense but we could have introduced a system the same as they use in other parts of Europe. 

Boris made a mess of it in his haste to get Brexit done but the EU went out of their way to make it very difficult to leave. All I’m saying is that we are the ones left “holding the baby”. 

("We are the one's holding the baby"). 

When you say "we".....Is that us, you, UK, Ireland or just us Europeans? 

Wherever beforehand 2016 (& without financial constrictions), Brits HAD the right to move, interact, trade & settle. Most people thought that political border controls had gone after the Berlin wall was consigned to the history books.

(PS: I was not allowed to partake in this decision along with many others) no matter what ongoing changes have occurred in the last 6 years & more importantly 6 weeks.

V