Dano1977 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

Dano1977 wrote:

Now if we could just get them to have only 1 building and not 2....

And yes everybody - except for the French - agrees on that, but it is still so minuscule.........

So I must conclude that your only aim is to discredit the EU and not to start a serious discussion in which you are going to contribute, well that's a shame, would like to hear your views on things that matter, no on these futile matters.

Estimates at £130 million a year.

JJJ wrote:

Which is still less than Manchester City spent on defence this year.

par13del wrote:

JJJ wrote:

Which is still less than Manchester City spent on defence this year.

If I were to weigh in on this I would say why should it matter that they are spending less than Manchester City, equivalence only goes so far, my issue would be whether what they are presently doing is efficient and could be done better or more economically, this is a discussion for another thread.
Would make an interesting discussion if debated without emotion.

JJJ wrote:

par13del wrote:

JJJ wrote:

Which is still less than Manchester City spent on defence this year.

If I were to weigh in on this I would say why should it matter that they are spending less than Manchester City, equivalence only goes so far, my issue would be whether what they are presently doing is efficient and could be done better or more economically, this is a discussion for another thread.
Would make an interesting discussion if debated without emotion.

I'm all for it, but if someone starts throwing numbers out of context so can I. I'd love to have apples to apples comparisons but I guess numbers will be hard to come by.

For one most countries nowadays have dedicated aircraft to fly VIPs around (Cam force one for the UK, or is it May force one now?), often buried within defence spending. The EU has no such resources.

Dano1977 wrote:

JJJ wrote:

par13del wrote:

If I were to weigh in on this I would say why should it matter that they are spending less than Manchester City, equivalence only goes so far, my issue would be whether what they are presently doing is efficient and could be done better or more economically, this is a discussion for another thread.
Would make an interesting discussion if debated without emotion.

I'm all for it, but if someone starts throwing numbers out of context so can I. I'd love to have apples to apples comparisons but I guess numbers will be hard to come by.

For one most countries nowadays have dedicated aircraft to fly VIPs around (Cam force one for the UK, or is it May force one now?), often buried within defence spending. The EU has no such resources.

Remember on here, when David Cameron became PM, his first visit to Washington....

Commercial BA flight, then off to New York on the Amtrak. A few people on here went crazy about no V.I.P or charter aircraft,
Yeah it was all spin for "austerity" and living within our means, but it certainly got people talking about it.

seahawk wrote:

Why talk about money, when you should talk about freedom? The UK wants its freedom back and freedom is priceless.

par13del wrote:

I suspect most will view this as Remainers doing all they can to derail the will of the people via the referendum..

tommy1808 wrote:

hard Brexit is a clear minority position among the voters of that referendum. Colossal government screw up to give just 2 boxes for 3 options.

best regards
Thomas

par13del wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

hard Brexit is a clear minority position among the voters of that referendum. Colossal government screw up to give just 2 boxes for 3 options.

best regards
Thomas

Makes no difference to the EU, they have already stated the freedoms cannot be cherry picked, so what's the point of suggesting something to your public on your future relationship with the EU when the EU has already stated it is a non-starter?

The strategy may be to push the public to accept the Norway model, which if you mention it now would rile up the public, but by 2019 with the continued lack of progress, it may become more palatable, which once again, has nothing to do with the EU as nothing on that side is changing.

par13del wrote:

Prior to the referendum there was no Hard and Soft Brexit, just Brexit, the difference is a construct after the vote.

The EU position has been the same throughout, the freedoms are not up for discussion, so regardless of how you state it, the EU will give the UK access to the common market if they accept the freedoms,

the UK voters have stated that they want to take back control of their country, there was no vote about access to this versus access to that etc etc etc.

Funny how the Brexit graph does not reflect the vote, so is it a case of the government not heeding the wishes of the people or catering to the special interest?

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Give it time and the EU will cave in on freedom of movement.

tommy1808 wrote:

the delusion keeps going on ....

After finally somehow accepting that they can have all four freedoms of the common market or none of them, they now try to get temporary access to the common market, but not temporarily stay in the EU......

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... exit#img-1

As if those two are different in any way ....

best regards
Thomas

Dano1977 wrote:

And you choose the most anti brexit left wing paper going...

Dano1977 wrote:

And you choose the most anti brexit left wing paper going...

ElPistolero wrote:

Which parts of this story are untrue or incorrect?

par13del wrote:

In my opinion they would be better off spending that money preparing the country for WTO rules versus giving sure money to the EU when there is no certainty that they will get that past parliament and the EU would already list it as a certainty with no sure way of having all members agree in any timely fashion.
Money has to be spent on securing the borders such as updating facilities, hiring and training staff, those have to be done in any event as it does not appear as if the country will take a Norway style model.
Where I fault the May government is they are putting the country specific items which they have to do on hold pending EU negotiations as if the EU is somehow going to take care of them, are they even designing new government forms, license decals, UK versions of EU documents - stands to reason the EU will not provide for free and when they change....- etc etc etc, there are many things an independent country has to do which for some has to duplicate what the EU does, its what independence is all about.

tommy1808 wrote:

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Give it time and the EU will cave in on freedom of movement.

So, give up freedom of movement for 400+ million people, so 60+ million people can say "Yes, we own our borders"?

Not going to happen.... simply because there is absolutely no way to justify that.

best regards
Thomas

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news ... -fd3dwp7s3

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

In fact, didn't the Paris attackers slip seamlessly between Belgium and France due to their being no border controls?

Aesma wrote:

The EU could then probably sue the UK over the money, or otherwise retaliate nastily.

Jayafe wrote:

So if a terrorist goes from NJ to NY not being detected is because of the lack of border controls, and customs and a frontier between states should be brought back?

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Jayafe wrote:

So if a terrorist goes from NJ to NY not being detected is because of the lack of border controls, and customs and a frontier between states should be brought back?

But New York and New Jersey are in the same country. Brussels and Paris aren't.

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Jayafe wrote:

So if a terrorist goes from NJ to NY not being detected is because of the lack of border controls, and customs and a frontier between states should be brought back?

But New York and New Jersey are in the same country. Brussels and Paris aren't.

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

What was wrong with border between member states?

tommy1808 wrote:

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

What was wrong with border between member states?

as someone that is old enough to remembers when they did exist and someone that crosses them over 100 times per year i would say just about everything.

best regards
Thomas

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

What was wrong with border between member states?

WildcatYXU wrote:

[Now its a completely different story.

Aesma wrote:

As a kid I crossed borders several times a year, but only on vacation. It wasn't a huge deal but it took some time. Now you don't even notice the frontier. Several of my family members live on either side of the Italian frontier, and work on the other, go see each other every other day, etc. If there were controls it would be a massive hindrance.

tommy1808 wrote:

WildcatYXU wrote:

[Now its a completely different story.

Exactly! What many people don´t understand about the Schengen Agreement, not that there is nothing to criticize about it, is that it actually leads to less people coming into the Schengen member states, not more. Because, like most stuff going on in the EU, that is a consensus organisation. Meaning that the rules to obtain a VISA are more or less the harshest any of the members states pushes for. It is not like the UK, controlling its own borders, had any less non-EU immigrants as the Schengen area.

best regards
Thomas

WildcatYXU wrote:

non-EU immigrants actually kept in the Schengen area so they won't even reach the UK shores? Or is this gone now?

par13del wrote:

I suspect Ireland did not sign up because the UK chose not to and the special relationship that existed between both entities on the island of Ireland and the UK, hence I'm somewhat puzzled why the Irish border has become such a big issue from the EU side.

tommy1808 wrote:

par13del wrote:

I suspect Ireland did not sign up because the UK chose not to and the special relationship that existed between both entities on the island of Ireland and the UK, hence I'm somewhat puzzled why the Irish border has become such a big issue from the EU side.

In one word? Customs.

Best regards
Thomaa

Jayafe wrote:

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

What was wrong with border between member states?

No, you definitely have no idea what you are talking about

tommy1808 wrote:

WildcatYXU wrote:

[Now its a completely different story.

Exactly! What many people don´t understand about the Schengen Agreement, not that there is nothing to criticize about it, is that it actually leads to less people coming into the Schengen member states, not more. Because, like most stuff going on in the EU, that is a consensus organisation. Meaning that the rules to obtain a VISA are more or less the harshest any of the members states pushes for. It is not like the UK, controlling its own borders, had any less non-EU immigrants as the Schengen area.

Olddog wrote:

I think that the UK is trying to force ROI and EU to bear the political and monetary cost of a hard border. .

Olddog wrote:

I think that the UK is trying to force ROI and EU to bear the political and monetary cost of a hard border. As I don't think they are totally inept, it is the only reason I see for them to come up with such a solution .

...But to understand how this seems to the Irish government and to most people on the island, imagine you are in a decent job. It is reasonably paid, apparently secure and the working environment is quite amicable. Your neighbour, who you like but do not quite trust (there’s a bit of history there) comes to you with a proposition. She’s establishing an extremely risky start-up venture with a high probability of catastrophic failure. Will you join her? Well, you ask, what are the possible rewards? Ah, she says, if – against the odds – everything goes splendidly, you’ll get the same pay and conditions you have now...
...This [the new paper] is a welcome concession to reality, but it is predicated on an even bigger unreality: the assumption that the EU will agree to something quite extraordinary: that a 500km external EU border with more than 200 crossing points will be effectively unpoliced. People and goods will pass over it without let or hindrance. Smugglers, people traffickers and terrorists will go on their merry way unmolested. Small companies will not have to do customs checks at all; large ones will operate a charming honour system in which they retrospectively declare the goods they have moved and pay their duties...
...The absurdity of the proposition becomes clear when we think about all the new trade deals that post-Brexit Britain is going to make. With no Irish border controls, US beef, Australian lamb, Chinese steel and Indian cars can be imported into Belfast, sent an hour down the road to Dundalk and exported tariff-free to France, Germany or any other EU country. The only way to stop this happening would be in effect to make Ireland itself a semi-detached member of the EU with all Irish exports subjected to customs controls at EU ports. And this is simply not going to happen – why on earth would any Irish government ever agree to it ?

This is why the position paper, for all its nice words, feels less like a serious attempt to find solutions and more like an early move in the blame game that will unfold when those solutions have not been found. It claims the moral high ground: Britain is utterly opposed to a hard border. Thus, when the EU responds by saying that a hard border follows inevitably from a decision to leave the customs union, it will be the EU’s fault. But this is not a blame game or any other kind of game. It is deadly serious. Britain has enormous political and moral responsibilities in Ireland. The position paper tells us what fulfilling those responsibilities would look like in practice – and it looks very like preserving the status quo. The minimum necessary for that to be a credible proposition would be for Britain to stay in the customs union. If it is not willing to do that, it cannot claim to be taking its responsibilities seriously.

JJJ wrote:

Money is not the issue. The Northern Irish split is.

Put the border on the sea (as per Taoiseach Varadkar proposal) and the DUP and other unionists will fume, put a hard border and the republicans will riot. Keep people and stuff flowing and the whole corps of leavers will demand May's head.

As much as the British government pretends, there's no cake and eat it approach here. Someone will feel deeply wronged no matter the outcome. And with May's fledging support that makes it even worse.

scbriml wrote:

For people, I don't see how an open border between RoI and NI is any different post-Brexit to what's in place today. Given RoI is already outside the Schengen agreement and that the UK wants visa-free travel for EU citizens, the only difference post-Brexit would be that an EU citizen that travels to RoI, then crosses the 'non border' into NI would not have the right to live or work there that they do today.