Our E U Frieds

[Clone]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/34550424/keir-starmer-fish-brexit/

 

 

[Clone]

Friends 

[Old_Geezer]

They won't like it when a decent government has to force them back off of our fishing grounds after they are out of power, causing international ructions.

 

What sort of "derence" deal could possibly require a concession anyway ? Must be nonsense.

[theshedman]

Starmer and his crew are always happy to give any of our goods or money to johnny foreigner it's only the people he is supposed to be representing that he has a problem giving stuff to and is quite happy to take things away from them.

[New Judge]

Only an organisation as dispicable as the EU could attempt to make the success of a defence pact dependant on fishing rights:

"We'd love to have you with us in a defence and security pact so as to help protect all of Europe from Communist agression. However, unless you allow us to plunder your fishing grounds, I'm afraid you'll be excluded." 

And of course, Mr Starmer will not only consider this seriously, he'll almost certainly capitulate. He is totally enthralled by the EU; the best interests of the UK and its people come very low down the list of his priorities whenever the EU is involved.

[Ellipsis]

If we say no deal then where will the EU buy the defence, if not the UK? If they have reasonable alternatives then doing a deal is good for both sides ... that's what deals are about.

[Clone]

Try blackmail.

These are our supposed friends and allies, yet they continually show themselves as the complete opposite.

[sandyRoe]

"Transactional" seems to be the buzz word now.  If it's good enough for our American cousins why not for the EU, too?

[Ellipsis]

> These are our supposed friends and allies

We left them ...

If they can supply defence equipment themselves, why wouldn't they do that? If they can't then why would they buy from the UK rather than, say, the USA? It's all about deals ...

[Hymie]

Remember before the Brexit vote in 2016, David Davis said there would be no downsides to Brexit, only considerable upsides.

 

Now Brexiteers are complaining at the downsides to Brexit – how ironic.

[New Judge]

"Now Brexiteers are complaining at the downsides to Brexit – how ironic."

Who is complaining?

I don't particularly want the UK to become involved in a defence pact (or any otther pact for that matter) with the EU. We have NATO to look after western Europe's defence arrangements.

If we had remained in the EU the UK would have been roped in to whatever defence arrangements the French and Germans concoct to suit themselves and still have no control over who fishes in UK waters. The status quo is absolutely fine with me.

I was simply commenting that only an organisation as unprincipled as the EU could seek to lever an article concerning fishing rights into a defence pact.

Basically what the EU is saying is that they will kindly allow the UK defence industry to bid for contracts for a Europe-wide defence plan as it's very important that all nations tackle the current threats together. But not so important that if the UK fails to let EU nations plunder all its cod and haddock they will be excluded.

The UK has the largest net sales figures of defence products in the whole of Europe (inclusing Russia) and without its inclusion any EU defence plan will be severely compromised.

Quite why Mr Starmer should acquiesce to demands on fishing when defence is being discussed is anybody's guess - except, of course, he believes the sun shines out of the EU HQ in Brussels/Strasbourg (which, depending on the time of year).

[Old_Geezer]

A Labour government making dodgy decisions is not a downside of Brexit. But we know that for there are no such downsides.

 

It is, however, a downside of making protest votes against the previous party in government, who failed miserably to successfully tackle problems. But that's always a risk. After all, the public only get politicians wanting to be elected as choices on the voting slip.

[New Judge]

"It is, however, a downside of making protest votes against the previous party in government,..."

But to be fair, OG, the failure to properly capitalise on Brexit (and the failure to see it properly implemented) was not the only fault of the previous government which led to their demise.

It is quite true that most Tories were Euromaniacs under the skin and their hearts were never really in the project. But the Tories deserved a good kicking for many other reasons.

As I said at the time of the GE, the UK has to experience a proper Labour government from time to time so as to fully understand the implications of such a catastrophic choice. It’s just unfortunate that the rest of us, who are fully aware of those implications, have to suffer for five years so that others can learn a valuable lesson.

[ynnafymmi]

You have to remember NJ,your heroine(and mine)Margaret Thatcher was a great Europhile(with reservations,of course),couldnt you be more Thatcher rather than Corbyn or Johnson or Mick Lynch?

[New Judge]

If the EU had evolved the way it has and Mrs T had still been at the helm we would have been out long before we were.

I doubt very much that she would have signed the Maastricht Treaty; without the UK's ratification it could not have been implemented and the EU could not have been born.

[ynnafymmi]

@15.33.With or without a referendum NJ?

[Hymie]

If I remember correctly, the Irish had to vote three times on the Maastricht Treaty, before returning the desired result.

[Ellipsis]

 > The Sun on Sunday understands the “likely direction of travel” is that Britain will do a fish deal in return for UK defence firms getting access to EU weapons contracts.

Guess what, it's not clear what The Sun On Sunday is actually saying. But it looks like it's conflating a defence pact with a defence deal. Why would it do this? I can't imagine ... perhaps they're thick or perhaps they're nasty.

Let's clear this up. To have a defence pact, the EU needs to have some defence capability - it needs to have some equipment. That equipment could be bought within the EU itself, or by the UK, or by the USA, or by some other place, depending on the deal that is done. However it's done, once the EU has some defence capability, it can go into a defence pact with the UK.

The deal part of it is that if the EU wants to deal with the UK, rather than anyone else in the world including itself, they would look a sweetener of a fish side deal to make the defence contract deal more appealing. Without that side deal, maybe the EU would deal with someone else that could strike a better deal. Either way, the UK and EU can still have a defence pact e.g. over Ukraine ...