Alex Christoforou
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit blueprint, which was greeted with optimism from within his Conservative party, only to have EU officials dismiss the plan as a non-starter.
With the Brexit deadline set for October 31, time is running out for PM Johnson and his EU counterparts to negotiate a new agreement.
On October 17 and 18, EU leaders will meet, and Johnson must have details for his new plan agreed on well in advance of the EU summit, otherwise Britain enters a period of never seen before political uncertainty.
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Is Boris Johnson Running Out The BREXIT Clock? by The Duran
The Duran Quick Take: Episode 329. The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit blueprint, which was greeted with optimism from within his Conservative party, only to have EU officials dismiss the plan as a non-starter.
Boris Johnson Proposes a Northern Ireland solution. This is what the EU originally proposed.
Brexit Irony
When Theresa May first started negotiating Brexit, Michel Barnier, the EU’s negotiator, suggested a Northern Ireland Backstop.
Theresa May how to reject that idea because she needed 9 DUP MPs to hold her fragile coalition together.
Brexit Basics
BBC Brexit Basics shows a NI solution is what the EU originally proposed.
A Northern Ireland only backstop? This is what the EU originally proposed.
It would involve Northern Ireland alone remaining in the EU’s single market and customs union, leaving Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) free to strike trade deals.
But the DUP – a Northern Ireland unionist party that propped up Theresa May’s minority Conservative government – objected to this.
Idea Revived
Boris Johnson revived the idea, somehow getting DUP on board, but now the EU seems united against its own idea.
Barnier Objects
Michel Barnier on Twitter: “I updated @Europarl_EN & EU27 on #UK’s proposals. EU wants a Withdrawal Agreement w/ workable and effective solutions that create legal and practical certainty now. We owe this to peace & stability on the island of Ireland. We must protect consumers & businesses in the EU market. / Twitter”
I updated @Europarl_EN & EU27 on #UK’s proposals. EU wants a Withdrawal Agreement w/ workable and effective solutions that create legal and practical certainty now. We owe this to peace & stability on the island of Ireland. We must protect consumers & businesses in the EU market.
Jennifer Rankin on Twitter: “Brexit latest: Michel Barnier has told EU27 ambassadors it is “difficult” to see a deal emerging in the next ten days unless the British “fundamentally amend their position”. 1. / Twitter”
Brexit latest: Michel Barnier has told EU27 ambassadors it is “difficult” to see a deal emerging in the next ten days unless the British “fundamentally amend their position”. 1.
European Commission Objects
EU Delegation UK on Twitter: “”This solution must meet all the objectives of the #backstop: preventing a hard border, preserving North-South cooperation and the all-island economy, and protecting the EU’s Single Market and Ireland’s place in it.” / Twitter”
“This solution must meet all the objectives of the #backstop: preventing a hard border, preserving North-South cooperation and the all-island economy, and protecting the EU’s Single Market and Ireland’s place in it.”
Placing the Blame
The Guardian Live once again has a good synopsis.
The DUP has accused the Irish government of being “obstructionist and intransigent”. This is from the DUP leader Arlene Foster, commenting on what Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy premier and foreign minister, said earlier about the Brexit deal being unacceptable in its current form.
“The Irish government’s preparedness to dump the consent principle for their country’s expediency is foolish in the extreme and sends a very clear message to unionists.”
Donald Tusk, European Council President
Charles Michel on Twitter: “Today I had two phone calls on #Brexit, first with Dublin then with London.My message to Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar: We stand fully behind Ireland.My message to PM @BorisJohnson: We remain open but still unconvinced. / Twitter”
Today I had two phone calls on #Brexit, first with Dublin then with London.My message to Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar: We stand fully behind Ireland.My message to PM @BorisJohnson: We remain open but still unconvinced.
Tusk is “Open but Unconvinced“.
What’s Going On?
- Bluff by Ireland?
- Bluff by EU?
- Irish Intransigence?
- EU Intransigence?
- All of the Above?
Note the one missing ingredient: UK Intransigence.
Despite appearances, I do not think it is number 4. My guess is 1, 2, and possibly 3.
Odds of Deal
Yesterday, I noted On the Verge of a Brexit Breakthrough.
I see no reason to change that view.
The important point is not the seemingly major disagreements but rather the fact there are are major negotiations underway.
A bluff by Ireland and the EU are highly likely. The alternative is Irish Intransigence, EU Intransigence, or both.
I rule out EU Intransigence on the grounds that the EU will go along if Ireland does.
Key Point
Harry Cole on Twitter: “DUP: “The flippant Dublin reaction to the Prime Minister’s proposals has also exposed the reality that the Irish government would never have consented to the United Kingdom leaving the backstop if it had been implemented.” / Twitter”
DUP: “The flippant Dublin reaction to the Prime Minister’s proposals has also exposed the reality that the Irish government would never have consented to the United Kingdom leaving the backstop if it had been implemented.”
“The flippant Dublin reaction to the Prime Minister’s proposals has also exposed the reality that the Irish government would never have consented to the United Kingdom leaving the backstop if it had been implemented.”
Admitting the Trap
#StandUp4Brexit on Twitter: “”It’s very clear that the Irish Govt are not interested in having an alternative to the Backstop and it actually exposes the fact that the Backstop was a trap. They had never any intention of allowing us to leave the Backstop and that’s what has been shown today” @DUPleader pic.twitter.com/d4SI20lxR2 / Twitter”
“It’s very clear that the Irish Govt are not interested in having an alternative to the Backstop and it actually exposes the fact that the Backstop was a trap. They had never any intention of allowing us to leave the Backstop and that’s what has been shown today” @DUPleader pic.twitter.com/d4SI20lxR2
Majority in UK Parliament on Board
Boris Johnson has achieved something everyone thought impossible:
A Majority!
- DUP is on board
- Rebel Labour MPs on board
- Hard Brexiteers on board
- Most Tories on board
All Aboard
Steve Baker, the chair of the European Research Group, which represents Tories pushing for a harder Brexit, and one of the 28 “Spartans” who voted against Theresa May’s deal on every occasion, tells Johnson: “We now glimpse the possibility of a tolerable deal.”
Johnson says he welcomes that coming from Baker, although he says the two have spoken regularly in recent days, and so, he implies, he is not surprised to have Baker’s support.
That’s pretty amazing actually. And note this.
Northern Ireland’s chief constable, Simon Byrne, has said that his officers will not staff any form of border security after Brexit. At a meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board earlier, Byrne said he had “made it clear” to the Northern Ireland Office that police would not “staff any form of border security” after the UK leaves the EU.
If Ireland or the EU sink this deal, the most likely consequence is No Deal.
Polls show that Johnson will clobber Jeremy Corbyn in an election. Heck, the Liberal Democrats might even become the opposition leader.
The EU has to understand this.
Excellent Eleven-Tweet Chain on a Landing Zone
Andrew Duff on Twitter: “Boris Johnson is right to call his proposal a “broad landing zone in which … a deal can begin to take shape.” As such, it is politically astute. If you accept the premise that the UK is leaving the EU single market and customs union, the proposal is also logical. 1/ / Twitter”
Boris Johnson is right to call his proposal a “broad landing zone in which … a deal can begin to take shape.” As such, it is politically astute. If you accept the premise that the UK is leaving the EU single market and customs union, the proposal is also logical.
Conclusion” The goal is a decent UK-EU working partnership with peace and legitimacy for Ireland, North and South.”
Duff adds in a second Tweet “Johnson is frank about turning away from May’s agreement. In these circs, what works for Ireland that is better than no deal ?”
May’s Deal
It is clear that May’s deal was better for the EU than Johnson’s deal. But it can’t pass.
The choice will be between Johnson’s deal (assuming he can work one out) or no deal.
For political purposes, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats want elections. For political reasons the EU does not want the UK having a say in EU policies and procedures.
Excellent Speech by Johnson
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
I like the scenario where Boris is arrested for contempt of Parliament. Especially as that would demonstrate, as clearly as could be, that the PM is being punished by Parliament for doing his best to carry out the will of the people – whom MPs are supposed represent (but don’t).
Maybe they could put him into a cell with Julian Assange, as Enemies of the State.
The ghastly truth is that there is no version of Brexit which actually works. Either it means Northern Ireland staying in the EU, which the DUP cannot allow, or it means violating the Good Friday Agreement, which the EU cannot allow.
David Cameron should have thought this through before calling the referendum. I don’t understand why he didn’t. The problem is completely insoluble and I rather agree with Alexander that it might all end with Article 50 revocation.
Agreed, you cannot have UK infrastructure on that border – which is impossible to seal anyway. Fortunately, there is a third alternative. Make the whole of Northern Ireland a Freeport. ‘Bring your goods in from anywhere – work on them – take them out again. Neither taxes nor duties payable.’ No border customs check would then be required – at least from the UK side… Now that Arlene has accepted the idea of official checks at the ferries, the East/West ‘customs border’ would only be a ‘port gates’ one (even Switzerland owns a freeport) and won’t become the de-facto EU/UK… Read more »
“No border customs checks would then be required – at least from the UK side” I suppose you mean, the EU would have responsibility for the hard border they would be obliged to set up. Whether it’s their responsibility or ours, it still violates the Good Friday Agreement. The DUP doesn’t like the GFA so they won’t care. But we should care. We will be letting in EU goods across the border with no tariffs or checks, and according to WTO rules we must do the same for other countries. Cheap food from countries which subsidise their agriculture will bankrupt… Read more »
As things stand, there will be a very hard border imposed in three weeks time. Any alternative must be better than that – particularly one that gives wide scope for the usual quirky ‘local interpretations’ to flourish. This is a country where cognitive dissonance is a way of life! The Irish government say that they will never operate border checks – it’s a pointless exercise anyway – even with 47,000 troops in Ulster it still leaked like a sieve. Most bombs that exploded in the North were made by Southern Command and then smuggled north along the hundreds of cross-border… Read more »
Well it’s academic because the government has already said it won’t be imposing tariffs on agricultural goods. Our farmers will be bankrupted anyway.
Boris is doing a Thatcher. She thought the inflation of the 1970s was due to ‘too much money in the economy’ and raised interest rates to eye-watering levels which destroyed nearly a quarter of our industry. The inflation was actually due to the oil price shocks.
Nigel Farage thinks a no-deal Brexit will make us wealthy. His rich friends will be able to buy farms at fire sale prices. Is that what he means?
What the tariffs may be is still uncertain – the UK government may look very different by X-mess. I was born on a dairy farm in the SE (bankrupted by the MMB) and every working farm I knew then has already gone under. All now play-farms – poshed-up farmhouses and horse paddocks – or left to brambles and dereliction in the name of virtue-signalling environmentalism. (Which actually decimates the wildlife that thrived on those farms before – 95% of birds gone – but that doesn’t fit their green-lies narrative…) I’m not a monetarist, but inflation of the money supply by… Read more »
Do you really think we will be free after leaving the EU? Freedom costs money and we won’t have any. We lost our manufacturing industry to Thatcher and all we have left is the corrupt City of London and biotech, which Boris thinks will make us rich but doesn’t actually work.
Well; if we ever actually do leave… we will be free – quite possibly to make our own mistakes. Our legacy industries were crippled by union power destroying productivity – did you ever experience a demarcation dispute? 7 different men from 7 different unions were required to change a sensor in a steelplant – a 10 minute job! If an electrician undid the bolts holding the cover, the AEU would have had everyone outside in seconds – that was their man’s job. Even if the unions hadn’t, Globalism would have finished them now anyway. Can you see Glasgow competing to… Read more »
Free of what? The European elite? Ours is worse. The Brussels technocrats? They are just civil servants. We don’t like them because they have expertise we don’t. And because of what they did to Greece, of course. Well it wasn’t them, it was the European banks which were heavily exposed to Greek debt. The Brussels technocrats just pointed out the problems. Right now they are pointing out the problems with Brexit and we hate them for it. It’s like blaming the unions for what Thatcher did. Coal mines which were profitable were closed down just so she could destroy the… Read more »
If we don’t like our elites, then in theory we can vote in someone to do something about it. Who voted the new crop of Brussel’s bureaucrats into near-absolute power – and who has a vote to get rid of them..? Yes; Greece was eviscerated by the banksters. Goldman cooked their books to get them into the Euro and Schauble was the Eurobanks’ debt collector. They should have had the bottle to erect the middle finger and default. The NUM had become a threat to democracy and thus painted a target on themselves. Joe Gormley knew how far to push… Read more »
And what would have happened if Greece had defaulted? Arguably things would have been even worse. The problem was insoluble, just like the Brexit problem.
No, we can’t vote in someone who can do something about our elites. The Brussels bureaucrats you think have so much power actually have none at all. The power lies in the hands of secret societies and their associates in the intelligence services and the military-industrial complex.
The truth is so nasty nobody wants to know it. I have some experience of these things.
https://www.wanttoknow.info/secret_societies/svali
Lots of countries have defaulted – many, like Argentina, on a serial basis. Life goes on and their creditors have to settle for scraps – instead, the Troika systematically looted Greece. The elites are far from invulnerable and could be taken down in days by the right leader, backed by loyal military and internal security units. Whether such a person could be elected is another matter – almost total control of the media is their current bulwark. (See the child-abuse blackmailed BBC’s blatant lying over non-existent ‘diplomatic immunity’ for NSA staff…) There’s nothing in that link that an ex-intel officer… Read more »
So the bad guys are the Troika, the Eurocrats, the unions, everybody except the ones who are really responsible, who we dare not talk about. Denying their existence is what gives them their power. They hate what they have to do (torture their children) and they all want out. We are not helping. Brexit is their project, and has nothing to do with democracy.
If Brexit is their project, then they’ve made a right mess of it! All their stooges were pushing for Remain. Who’s denying their existence? The dumbed-down populace simply don’t want to know. ‘Their’ power comes from control of the media and vast financial resources to bribe and blackmail almost anyone – those they can’t are threatened with ‘occult demons’. I doubt that many desire to ‘leave’ – power is addictive and the retribution unconstrained. The accounts in that link regarding torturing children are implausible. Electrical torture to that level requires extreme care and precision – any fluid in the stomach… Read more »
Brexit is actually going according to plan. Remember, their most important principle is betrayal. ‘Betrayal is the greatest good’, they say. Their stooges are primarily the Brexiters, who they will betray.
They have ‘gods’ who promised them advanced technology and have not delivered. This is why they all want to leave: the torture isn’t working. Jeffrey Epstein would still be alive if it were.
There a very significant difference between cultists (mostly fantasists) and the very real power wielded by the hyper-rich Talmudic Luciferians.
Epstein and sidekick simply ran a Mossad field-op – the most successful honey-trap in history – videoing and blackmailing any dumb goyim who fell for the jail-bait. (Yes; that includes Andrew – now a lifelong Mossad asset.) Mintpress News has an excellent piece on the background – they been at it for a long while.
Of course Brexit will be betrayed – what better way to divide and disrupt – the Luciferians’ stock-in-trade.
What’s the difference? Do you really think Henry Kissinger isn’t a fantasist? He’s the go-between for the Rockefellers and the ‘aliens’, who promised advanced technology and did not deliver. As a result nobody listens to him any more. Nobody listens to Boris for the same reason. He says the UK will be the greatest place on earth. How, exactly, if not with advanced technology? I was kicked out of my Oxford fellowship for pointing out that common diseases are not caused by faulty genes but by mineral deficiencies. It had to be genes because it’s genes that make people like… Read more »
It could be argued that any ‘true believer’ in any religion is a fantasist for accepting the unprovable promised future benefits. Are not all ‘Gods’ extra-terrestrial – ‘aliens’ by definition – or at least extra-corporeal in the old animist religions. The only reference to genetics that I can recall is Eve being cloned from a part of Adam. (Genesis makes a lot more sense if read as terraforming and seeding a ‘failed’ colony with two m/f clones – potentially a study in environmental mutation?) Boris Kemal believes that he’s intelligent..?? Where’s his evidence for that? (‘Johnson’ is an assumed name… Read more »
Here’s what the aliens do. They start a cult and tell its members the world is going to end and they must warn the public, give away all their possessions and go up on the top of a mountain. The cult members do this and nothing happens. The aliens fall about laughing.
This is approximately what Brexit is all about.
OK….
If you say so…