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Friday 24 July 2020

EU trade talks latest

"Give up your rights under international law" 
"No" 
"You're being unreasonable"

"Subject your trade to our political court"
"No"
"You're being very unreasonable"

"Allow us to dictate your national standards"
"No"
"There you go again - just unreasonable. Clearly you don't want a trade deal."

20 comments:

jim said...

Member to Club Secretary - I'm leaving. Your choice sir, collect your stuff, hand in your key on the way out.

But I'd still like to bring in my eggs and cakes and old cows to flog off as usual. That won't be possible sir, unless you sign up to these rules.

But I don't like those rules, I want special rules, just for me. That won't be possible sir, other members wouldn't like it. Thems the rules, take em or leave em.

Your being unreasonable. No sir, if you want something from us even though you are leaving, well, we want something from you. Surely you must have realised that, but sorry to see you leave sir, hand in your key on the way out.

Anonymous said...

Jim, you could have added, but didn't:
"All I want is the exact same arrangements you've already agreed with Canada and Japan. As I have been a net contributor to the club for almost half a century, you could surely agree to the same deal as you already have with entities that have never paid a penny into the club?"

Raedwald said...

Nice Jim but not the case -

UK exporters are quite ready for products exported to the EU to meet EU standards, labelling and packaging. Just as EU products imported into the UK must in future meet UK standards, labelling and packaging.

This has always been the case with international trade and is no great impediment.

Dave_G said...


@Jim - don't you mean...

"you'll still have to pay your dues for another 10 years even though you can't use the facilities and oh, by the way, we still want to sell you goods and services you don't want and come into your house uninvited'.

DiscoveredJoys said...

A 'no deal' is better than a 'bad deal' because up to now the 'bad deal' would weigh on us but not the rEU.

As a further anecdote my plumber tells me that WC cisterns are limited to 6 litres capacity rather than the 9 litres/two gallon sizes we used in the UK. All for saving water of course except you may often find you have to flush the smaller cistern twice to remove all excreta.

Plus laws to require domestic incandescent bulbs with CFLs. Limiting the power of vacuum cleaners. And so on.

Do we want a 'level playing field'? No, nope, no way. It is the rEU playing field and they won't change it. We're better off out.

Doonhamer said...

Oh, please, please, pretty pleaxe, just get out.
The so called no-deal is a deal. It was all pre-arranged years ago.
We can live with slightly higher priced German cars, and French food and drink, and Danish ham and windmills.
And just at the moment we don't seem to be selling them much.
Then once we are outside we can start genuine negotiations, rather than all this grandstanding, huffing and bluffing, and name-calling.
The people, the real people, of the countries of Europe know that we really like them and their stuff and the reverse is true so a good outcome is a certainty.
After that Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the Northern Isles can decide their relationships with rest of UK/England without the EU problem complicating the issue.

Doonhamer said...

PS. We all know of Small-Man syndrome. Or should that now be small person syndrome?.
Is there a Small-Country syndrome?
A disproportionate number of these EU bar stewards seem to come from geographically challenged nations.
The effect is magnified when the bar steward is stature challenged and also comes from a bijou nation.

John Brown said...

Raedwald, you’ve forgotten :

“We want your fish”
“No”
“You’re being unreasonable”

JohnofEnfield said...

The posturing of the bureaucrats is delightful to behold. Where’s Churchill when we need him? ✌️

jim said...

I enjoyed the whimsy. More seriously it seems to me that Brexit is a sideshow and merely a symptom of a deeper and more serious and intractable problem. Putting to one side propaganda from both Leave and Remain we are left with much the same problem the whole of the developed West has - what do we do with all the people. This Covid thing points up the problem more clearly - we don't have a viable use for about 30% of the population. We are not the only country to discover this.

At the moment we can go for Brexit make-work projects - lots of Customs persons and form fillers. We can hire a few more coppers and nurses etc etc. We can go for some sort of Citizen's Wage - whether or not we call it The Dole. But non of this is very productive - sooner or later the spectre of foreign exchange and the D word hoves into view. Still, the long-term is made up of a concatenation of short-terms.

Looking around I can see the rich getting richer, the poor staying much the same and the middle getting squeezed hard and pushed downwards Brexit or not. We can see acres of think tanks and shagged out politicos and half-wits scraping out a living. Never mind, parliament is out for the summer, Tuscany calls.

Ed P said...

Jim, you could add quite a few to the 30%: all the state-paid NHS paper-pushers.

These unnecessary middle levels of the bureaucratic behemoth absorb any extra funds thrown at the NHS.
Stupid governments take the easy path (for votes), rather than tackling the desperately-needed structural reforms.

Raedwald said...

Jim - good points.

I have to say I've always loathed an economy based on consumer capitalism and if the current crisis brings us to a turning point, albeit a painful one, it will be beneficial. The obscenity of £5 jeans and 99p tees, of plastics, of white goods and iPhones, of cars that are regulated out of use years before their economic lifespans, of factory food and thowaway meat has been hard to stomach.

You're right that Brexit is just *a* manifestation of a much deeper change afoot - the tectonic plates are shifting and we're undergoing one of those epochal shifts. As you say, plenty of suggestions but no real grasp of what will emerge on the other side.

If I were to recommend Summer reading to anyone Tuscany bound it would be John Berger's Pig Earth, and Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil. We're all going to be higgling for eggs before this is out ..

DeeDee99 said...

:)

We have a bit of a history when it comes to "being unreasonable" in the face of demands from various continental European nations.

Dave_G said...


In the face of a dearth of jobs and having 'too many people' why on earth are we insistent on allowing anyone/everyone in to this country? Especially those of limited intelligence and ability? The LEAST people we need.

The (conspiracy theory?) New World Order called for depopulation as well as centralisation of Government and a single global currency. We are seeing the move towards the Government and monetary side of the 'conspiracies' coming to fruition. What's the next step?

Greg T said...

Actually
Bollocks, bollocks & more bollocks.

"We expect you to observe International Law, same as us" ... No!
"if we are trading with you, our side must abide by certain rules, we expect you to do the same" ... No!
If your products & services are marketed to us, they must meet our standards, obviously" ... No!

Self-defeating stupidity & selfishness & amazing ignorance & arrogance

Mark said...

@Troll

"bollocks, bollocks and more bollocks"

For once you actually titled your arse dribble correctly.

You're learning!

PS I don't believe there is a butt hurt barrier you can struggle through

Anonymous said...

Looks like those German car manufacturers aren't even going to try to pressure their government into asking the European Union to give the UK what it wants.

Germany has just said that the UK needs to be "more realistic".

That's a bit late really. It would not have voted Leave if it were.

But it's just as Leave were repeatedly and patiently advised that it would be.

Span Ows said...

Anon 07:21, you're so wrong...unbelievably so but hey, par for the course.

[shakes head in wonder]

Mark said...

"Repeatedly" certainly. "patiently?" As defined in the new troll dictionary perhaps.

Now how much would we have been on the hook for to bail out italy and spain?

Me gag don said...

80 billion euro.
More than the cost of our own covid. Would be our Eu contributions.

As it is, if we wished, we could axe HS2. And add in five years of payments to the wonderful bureaucracy that we need no longer make, and ALL of the chancellor’s covid debt is gone.