Brexit 2019 and Poland

It was discussed at the time of the referendum - that if we left we would lose those benefits if we rejoined. It was covered in all the serious press and in plenty of TV pieces.

Spectator former editor was a Mr B Johnson by the way. His career as a rabble rousing journalist is probably not the ideal preparation for running a country of 60 million people.

Oh, I knew about rejoining. I was talking about stopping the process before UK actually left.

I think the EU regarded UK opt outs as dead as soon as May invoked article 50 on March 29, 2017...


So? What's more important, the messenger or the truth value of the message? Do you have any source willing that the EU will go back to the pre-article 50 status quo?

Generally speaking, the UK isn't that isolated in the EU. They were normally the alternative to the Franco-German axis, so you'd find the UK gaining support on an issue-by-issue basis on many things, particularly by the EU-13 accession countries that were uncomfortable with things. But the problem goes back to 1973 - the UK never embraced the EU, so you rarely find British officials in good positions because they were simply never encouraged to learn languages and to consider the EU as a career, unlike in other countries.

Privately, I suspect that the wealthier EU countries (with the exception of Ireland) want the UK gone.

Politically maybe...economically it's the Germans who will be the most sorry to see the Brits go. The french and the german ideas about how to organize an economy differ wildly!

With Britain vanishes one of the few countries who have a similiar outlook in that regard...Germany's most loved position (sitting tight on the money) will be harder to defend. The "big spender" will become more powerful now.

They said that for the first time back in July. You don't follow the Irish news obviously which you certainly should do, in relation to Brexit. If you did, you wouldn't be two months behind with the news!


Maf, really, don't be silly. The 'compulsion' to have checks arises from the fact that we are a member of the EU and we must try to abide by its rules, we have a responsibility and an obligation to other members to do so. It's not the EU who has brought this situation about. It's the UK. If the UK had accepted the Withdrawal Agreement there would be no issue about checks.

Btw, in terms of how the border will be handled immediately post-Brexit, as you were asking, from our side in the Republic, the latest statement is that it will be a gradual change, based on what can be done safely without causing any repercussions in NI. The EU will leave it up to us and be available for consultancy and support. That's how it will be to start anyway.

I really don't know where it will all end, with Sinn Féin now saying that any checks of any kind anywhere on the island of Ireland are a no-go.

I suspect that if it does end up being no deal, then Ireland will do spot checks on cars and buses away from the border, while controlling truck traffic by funnelling them through certain roads and then building the checkpoints away from the border line. I don't know if you remember this, but tinyurl.com/y5oopkel - this was where the Irish border entry checks took place up until 1993 on the main Belfast-Dublin road - so there's precedent for not having the checks next to the border. The exit checks were in Dundalk on the Dublin Road, so they were even further away.

Maybe, but they repeated it last week, please keep up.


ROI needs to clamp down on and control it's extremists from within.


Exactly, which is why this is all much a do about nothing..... just a smokescreen..... Britain and Ireland will not allow a hard border at the border.

Surely they're full of it, I would be amazed if there are no provisions for spot checks at present (the way that schengen rules are periodically lifted for certain occasions).

If the UK agreed to a border that cannot ever be checked then they've effectively relinquished sovereignty over NI and so they've already mostly cut it loose...

Germany now dominates the European Union. Its banks squeeze Southern European countries for overdue loan payments. Berlin pressures Eastern Europe - whose leaders grew up with lectures about the nightmares of Nazi Germany - to follow Berlin's disastrous open borders plan. That laxity has resulted in more than a million migrants entering the European Union from the Middle East and North Africa.

Berlin also tried to hold the United Kingdom hostage to prevent Brexit - the verdict of the British people, a majority of whom voted to leave the EU. Less than half of today's German population has a favourable view of America, the country whose troops and nuclear umbrella still keep a virtually unarmed Germany secure.

A clairvoyant in 1945 might have warned both Europe and the United States that a "Fourth Reich" financial powerhouse would someday dominate Europe.

In addition, Germany still has an existential fear of Russia. After all, more than 3 million German soldiers perished on the Eastern Front in World War II. Millions of German speakers were ethnically cleansed from postwar Russia and Eastern Europe by the Russian Army.

No wonder that German Chancellor Angela Merkel seeks close ties with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's autocratic Russia. As was true during the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Germany once again has little if any ability to ward off Russian aggression, whether conventional or nuclear, and knows it.

It is the biggest country so it will be the most powerful - that was foreseen in 1945 which is why it's military was restricted and foreign troops placed there. The idea, as in Japan, was to build democracy to prevent another Hitler. And democracies sometimes take weird decisions.

What is your idea - break it up into city states ?

How so?


I wouldn't call it fear...not in the same way as Poles do. Rather fascination and a pool of possibilities...


Now that's just not true....if Merkel wanted close ties with Russia there wouldn't be economical sanctions in place.

See Boris has lost another minister and another vote overnight. LOL but don't underestimate him

Well I read this morning that he is considering defying the new law which should be passed this coming week and which will force him to seek an extension.

" A senior No 10 source told The Sunday Times: "If there isn't a deal by the 18 [October] we will sabotage the extension."

"It is thought that Mr Johnson believes he could legally disregard some or all of the bill's requirements - a move that could see him hauled before the courts and potentially facing prison."

Looks like it's going to be another action packed start to the week in parliament!!

Remainers: We must prevent a general election to overturn the results of the referendum, conspire with foreign governments and put the prime minister trying to enforce the referendum behind bars.... all to defend democracy by continuing to block any deal and refuse to leave with no deal...

How on earth did the UK ever control so much of the world? Has it declined or was the rest of the world even more shambolic?

Leavers - We must suspend a democratically elected parliament, decide which laws we are going to follow, break up the union and rip up international treaties in order to achieve the results of a referendum 3 1/2 years ago won with a tiny majority

Unless you haven't told us everything and you're fluent in Polish you have no way of knowing much about Polish people's take on Russia.

Not "existential fear"? (I'm quoting Milo here)

I found it abit curious to hear that sentence with regards to Germany...after all it had been Germany which attacked Russia, not the other way around. Half of Germany was occupied by russian troops it rather pitied than feared (at least in the times I grew up)...it had been the Russian Gorbatchov who decided to help to kick the old men brigade in East-Berlin into the bin of history...

German entrepreneurs and big business are rather chafing under the economical sanctions than supporting them etc...

It's Poland which looks to the US and it's soldiers (Trump) to keep it safe from Russia...many Germans on the other hand would rather like to see the troops go and nobody really feels threatened by Russia.

But Poles do, don't they?

Well there was no condition set to the size of majority needed and the UK should already be out almost six months ago and it's just the concerted effort of elites to end run the will of the majority.

Like I said, Brexit won't happen and the results will be more expensive (in social and political terms) than just going through with it.

But a condition was set that this was an advisory referendum with legislation to be passed in parliament to enact it - neither May nor Boris have achieved that, mainly through their own mid-steps and lack of honesty

I think the whys and wherefores of this deserve a bit more scrutiny...

Me too(hash tag).
I would say that Germany always looed at Russia as a big market and a potential ally to help them dominate so called MittelEuropa. Still building northstream2.


Not really. I would rather call it being realistic, Being realistic as to Russia aims and worldview. At the same time there is no much interest in Russia as a country and the country is seen as a backwoods thug, no much to offer but then are string and if one is not carful being mugged is a possibility. I don't know if you can call it fear.

On the other hand Russians as individuals as seen as OK for the most part people that most of people can relate to on some basic level.

As for NI issue, It is really complex and difficult to deal with because no matter what they do a one or the other group of people will be in up in arms. So the effort here should be to find a solution. Boris as expected is talk and no action and he is just wasting time. I think that the UK are really clueless (or they just don't give a Sh..) about NI issues and boy IT can go spectacularly wrong if not handled right.

In politics one should always remember about Murphy's law. Sadly most politician's are good at talking not problem solving.

Apropos North Stream....lately I came to think that projekt isn't done yet. Recently even Schäuble (the still most powerful wheelchair guy) criticized the project. He even acknowledged the destroyed trust by partners and allies. Unwavering support ala Merkel it was not!

spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wolfgang-schaeuble-ueber-nord-stream-2-viel-vertrauen-zerstoert-a-1285717.html

(my translation) "It doesn't belong to the high points of german politics"

There aren't.

The slogan of the border communities on both sides is "No hard border, no soft border, no border in Ireland".

The problem is that the border is not just a physical place in Ireland, it's in people's heads. Psychologically, this is a return to a divided Ireland in the heads of many people, a backward step and destroys the freedoms of the Good Friday Agreement and the small group of terrorists/extremists will feel that gives them a mandate to take action.

Another bomb earlier today in a border area. That's the second in two weeks.

independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/man-arrested-after-bomb-found-in-northern-ireland-border-town-38477913.html

Then the UK has no effective jurisdiction over NI and has already ceded it to..... who? .... how did such an absurd situation arise? You can't be a separate country if you can't _ever_ enforce borders.... maybe it's a good thing that brexit will bring this fiction to a head

Simply not true.

Now France is saying it will block an extension unless there's a clear plan in place...

How will this affect things? On the one hand they've said this kind of thing before and then caved, on the other hand the useless and hopeless UK government couldn't pour p1ss out of a boot with instructions printed on the bottom and the likelihood of competence occurring is probably negligible...

The two scenarios mentioned (if France is serious, which... they're French which means you can't necessarily believe them)

1 UK can't leave without a deal, no extension would mean 50 is automatically revoked and British democracy is effectively dead

2 UK can't get an extension - then it's no deal despite what parliament says (and their "no no deal exit" is as ineffective as King Canute telling the tide to not come in).

wazzup?

You mean loan payments for which Greece got better conditions than the USA and which they only have to pay back over the next few decades?


It used to be very different only two decades ago. Sympathy for the Americans was so great after 9/11 that the German government followed them into war in Afganistan, despite the fact that war is very unpopular in Germany. This changed however after the illegal Iraq war, though Obama did a lot to restore the American image. The disastrous Trump presidency has however robbed Germans of their illusions, Bush was not an accident, there is evidently a significant part of the American population who thinks like him.


Fun fact, if you asked Germans how many German soldiers died in Russia, most would struggle for an answer. But if you asked them how many Russians died, most would likely be able to name 20 millions. Because what dominates the debate regarding Russia is not a sense of fear, but responsibility. Politicians who argue for better relationships with Russia do this mostly because of German crimes against Russia, which means Germany supposedly owes Russia a special relationship (which is why e.g. the Left Party advocates it).


You mean the same Angela Merkel, who pushed through the sanctions against Russia when many European countries (e.g. Italy), not to mention parts of the German industry, would have prefered to not implement them.

You seem to have in general a rather twisted image of Germany, which like your image of the EU is seemingly based on resentiments. This is somewhat understandable, but it is really getting ridiculous when you make such easily refutable claims. You can say what you want about Merkel, but there is no doubt that she was always sceptical about Putin, and that she is the one mayor Western politician who has been cautious about reapproachment towards Russua (whereas Johnson, Trump and even Macron have made hints that this could soon change).

Putin and Merkel: A Rivalry of History, Distrust and Power

nytimes.com/2017/03/12/world/europe/vladimir-putin-angela-merkel-russia-germany.html

I think anyone sensible in France would say 31 Jan makes no sense. Any extension in my opinion should be say 1 year with a mechanism that makes it final after that. That gives the British one year to resolve the chaos, have another election, maybe have another referendum and then decide one way or the other.

One reason we are at this point is that the UK govt did nothing for the first 18 months after Article 50. If 2 years ago they had been honest about the negative economic consequences then they could have started to prepare and work on treaties that would mitigate the damage.

Boris is bad but he will have to go some to be as bad as May.

or anywhere else....


well from their point of view there wasn't much to do, the awful withdrawal agreement meant not much wold change and trying to negotiate (much less renegotiate) with the EU is a non-starter (dinosaurs aren't good at adapting to changing conditions) so May probably figured she'd be able to ram through the WA and that would be that... not a terrible plan from a certain point of view* but once parliament began rejecting it then... too late to look for a plan B

I actually feel kind of sorry for May, she took on a job that no one else wanted and so she sort of assumed that her plan would work before she was given the axe... only to find the axe embedded deeply between her shoulder blades.

*not saying I agree with it, but the WA didn't leave a lot of room left for preparation and the specter of no deal didn't start haunting the elites until sometime this year