Brexit

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Re: Brexit

Postby cmsellers » Fri Aug 07, 2020 3:57 pm

Chances are that the Russians can make at most the difference of a few points at the margins. Enough to potentially flip 80k votes in the Midwestern US, or an election like Brexit where the polls showed it extremely close. The Scottish referendum was close enough that the SNP thinks they can win a second, post-EU round. And since their goal is to sow chaos, they surely see that as good enough. Corbyn was such a basket case that nothing could have saved him.
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Re: Brexit

Postby Marcuse » Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:37 pm

Pedgerow wrote:Thank you very much! That makes sense. And also, you've drawn attention to something else I was wondering about.

Marcuse wrote:I'm sure the conservatives (and some of Labour frankly) are more than willing to look the other way.


Jeremy Corbyn was meant to be the friend of Russia, the RT operative trying to infiltrate our political system. So does this mean Russia wanted us all to vote for him? Or did they want us to vote Conservative, in favour of Brexit but against their alleged pal?


In response I would say that Russians aren't interested in picking a side, that side might lose after all. They're looking to make and secure influence and the furtherance of their interests no matter the leadership (which to be fair most countries are looking to do that, it's the Russian methods that are questionable). To that end it's not inconceivable that they simply go after everyone (don't forget former SNP leader Alex Salmond has or had his own show on RT). If I had to make a distinction between the establishment (both Labour and Conservative) and Corbyn, it's that Corbyn is too stupid to need to be bribed to further that agenda.

If Russia has been campaigning for both Scottish independence and the Labour Party... they're not very good at this, are they? They currently have a 1/3 success rate. Or maybe that's just what they want us to think.


Or they back all the horses so they can point to whichever wins and claim they did it to throw the entire process into doubt and disrepute, thus discrediting the kind of democratic institutions they dislike and prefer not to have to deal with.
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Re: Brexit

Postby Pedgerow » Fri Oct 16, 2020 7:18 pm

Yesterday was the last day, allegedly, when it would have been possible to arrange a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. That's what Boris Johnson said a couple of months ago, anyway. Since then, if you don't just love the Brexit saga as much as I do, the existing parts of a deal which had already been agreed have also been torn up, in a unilateral decision that the government admits breaks international law. So the "oven-ready deal" that Boris Johnson was re-elected on, now turns out to be an actual step backwards. But that's old news. Where have you been?

Since any deal would need to be ratified by all 27 remaining EU countries, and this could take months to do, we really should have had a deal by now if we were going to have it wrapped up by the end of the transition period, on the 31st of December this year. Boris Johnson set the date of the 15th of October as the latest possible date for us to agree the deal, and even the chance to get our all-powerful financial services involved didn't help resolve whatever bullshit about fucking fishing that they're still arguing over. So that looks like No Deal after all, then. And indeed, today's news seems to back that up.

Of course, that might not be the case. In Boris's announcement, he talks about how great our "Australia-style deal" will be, meaning that our current Brexit, formerly WTO Brexit, formerly No-Deal Brexit, has been renamed once again. Maybe it's just bold-faced mendacity (there's a first time for everything!), or maybe, in fact, even he thinks that No Deal in a borderline apocalyptic economic climate is the dumbest idea ever. Perhaps all this posturing is just both sides taking a strong negotiating position and waiting to see who blinks. Perhaps this is all just the most exciting part in a game of International Trade Deal Bureaucracy Chicken. After all, you'd think there would have been a Brexiteer countdown with fireworks and 52% nationwide jubilation yesterday if it was really the end. I certainly didn't see anything like that. So maybe I'm wrong and there actually haven't been any recent developments in Brexit at all.
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Re: Brexit

Postby Pedgerow » Thu Dec 24, 2020 6:16 pm

Sacre bleu! We have le deal.

On the one hand, it's been really looking for months like we'd end up with No Deal. We couldn't possibly agree on all the details of fish-based bureaucracy and whether or not it's okay to give your country's businesses taxpayer money so they can be better than foreign businesses, or whatever it was they were arguing over. Fun fact for foreigners: it's complicated enough that the news barely reported on any of these details at all over here. The Brexit negotiations have largely been closed-book because, famously, the people have had enough of experts. Anyway, No Deal has been the most likely outcome for a long time now, so maybe this is good news?

On the other hand, my theory for a while has been that this is all brinkmanship. The threat of No Deal has loomed larger and larger, and I've always thought that with a couple of days to go, we would sign literally any deal, good or bad, and then all the brown-nosing sycophants would cheer for God Emperor Boris for his masterful statecraft, getting a deal through nothing but his own inspirational genius. I'm the sort of hardcore Remainer who has been hoping for No Deal, precisely so that wouldn't happen. Obviously it would be bullshit and lies, but that's never stopped them before, and for once I wanted it to backfire. My personal situation is such that I wouldn't be affected too badly, and if these shitstains can use their own imperviousness to harm others while they profit themselves, surely I can too and wish for the end of their ruinous careers. And yet they get away with it once again. Bastards.

Anyway, it's worth noting that nobody has actually read the deal yet, so all we're getting from both sides right now is "This deal from glorious Boris is probably excellent" vs "Boris the Bastard has almost certainly doomed us all", and we won't know who's telling the truth for a few more days yet. I saw a news story a couple of days ago that the UK side was willing to compromise on the fishing stuff, so I think we've just bailed on that and everything else has fallen into place. But I could be wrong, of course.
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