[Britse politiek] #115: Don't mention the Russians!

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 10:47 schreef ipa84 het volgende:
Gisteren zat ik de podcast van Tim de Wit te luisteren. Daar hadden ze het over Tony Abbott de oud premier van Australië die ze hebben binnen gehaald als adviseur om vrije handelsverdragen af te sluiten. Nadeel is dat die nogal wat homofobe en vrouw onvriendelijke uitspraken heeft gedaan. Daar hadden ze bij Sky News Matt Hancock minster van volksgezondheid wat vragen over gesteld. Laat ik het zo zeggen het is en mooi stukje cabaret geworden.

'A homophobe and misogynist'? Former Australian PM Tony Abbott lined up for Brexit trade role

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Brits, take it from an Aussie: If Tony Abbott is your solution, you've got big problems
Our former PM has not only made deeply sexist remarks, he’s also inept – and unsuited to be anyone’s trade envoy

It’s true that Tony Abbott was a highly effective opposition leader.

Between 2013 and 2015, he was involved in enough domestic scandals, international embarrassments and local protests to damage the reputation of a sitting Australian prime minister.

Alas for Abbott, he was prime minister himself at the time.

We Australians have been obliged to reflect on the qualities of our former conservative “Liberal” leader at the prompting of the British. For reasons that are inexplicable to us, Abbott has been given the role of trade adviser by Boris Johnson’s government.

The task ahead is to skilfully create for Britain a post-Brexit trade environment. The nation must replace a forsaken European common market membership with international exchanges that are profitable, advantageous and – fingers crossed! – don’t result in too much visible pus in the food.

I can only imagine someone in the appointment process believed the whole endeavour is destined to fail and only a fool would take the job. In that case, Britain, fair enough: Abbott romps it home on both fronts.

Prior to becoming prime minister, Abbott really was an exceptional opposition leader. Against Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government, he led “the party of no” – fighting her legislation and trying to block her agenda. If there was a protest placard calling Gillard a “bitch”, Abbott wouldn’t shy away from being photographed under it.

For all his opposition, Gillard passed hundreds of bills, yet Abbott’s loudness convinced Australians the country was in chaos and Labor had caused it. Labor rolled Gillard, Abbott won the 2013 election and revealed – surprise! – the chaos was him the whole time.

Much has been made of Abbott’s reputation for sexism and misogyny – his public insistence that virginity is the greatest gift a woman can give someone, for example. His conviction that women were not suited to leadership. There were sleazy winks and references to a candidate’s “sex appeal”.

Should this behaviour have disqualified him from becoming a trade envoy? Yes. But it’s not the only reason. Neither are his statements about Indigenous Australians or his ugly opposition to marriage equality.

Love, that stuff ain’t the half of it.

Abbott is a man whose nuanced contribution to international relations as prime minister was not limited to threatening to “shirtfront” Vladimir Putin with an Aussie Rules football tackle over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. He also dropped a casual comparison to the Holocaust in a speech on the national jobs report. He reintroduced knights and dames to the Australian honours system, and the Australian he honoured first was … Prince Philip? He even got the name of Canada wrong (“Canadia”); he was in Canada at the time. Trade adviser?!

Maybe his British backers missed the time Abbott ate a raw onion like an apple in front of the national news media, and for no particular reason. The Australian town of Ballarat commemorates it regularly, crowning a local statue of the former PM with a garland of onions.

Perhaps what his British friends have also either missed or wilfully ignored was that Abbott wasn’t just a gaffe-prone, sexist, political eccentric. He is not merely an out-of-his-depth clown tripping over bits of international politics in a hapless, endless dance with his too-big shoes.

Australians have elected and re-elected prime ministers who’ve overstepped the boundaries of acceptable political behaviour, adult circumspection or simple good taste. Robert Menzies fangirled the Queen. Bob Hawke encouraged the whole country to take the day off for a yacht race. Paul Keating leaned towards his opposition nemesis in parliament and taunted him by purring “I wanna do you slowly”.

But Abbott is not only out of the prime ministership but out of parliament itself because he’s not a leader: he’s a neocon ideologue whose political judgment is not only aggressive but woefully inept.

In his first 100 days in office, Abbott pursued a rightwing thinktank’s wishlist of radical policy initiatives with gusto so cack-handed that middle Australia mobilised mass protest marches within months. The brutality of his poor-punishing first budget so enraged the population that what should have been a friendly centre-right cross bench was provoked into becoming a populist firewall of legislative opposition to his agenda.

He burned sympathisers and alienated natural allies so forcefully that there were 60 consecutive weeks of him trailing Labor at the polls before his own side necked him from the job. Once deposed, Abbott promised not to snipe from the backbenches … and then sniped from the backbenches. His loud, conspicuous failure to read the national mood on the issue of marriage equality is not simply one of the reasons his once solidly conservative seat is now in the possession of a liberal independent; his presence actively hurt the “no” campaign.

The Australian reaction to Abbott’s adviser appointment cannot be repeated, but it begins with a “W” and ends with “TF”. “Whichever Australian traded Tony Abbott to Britain,” remarked local cartoonist Jon Kudelka, “is the person Britain actually needs to help them with trade.” To appoint Abbott instead does not speak to qualification, or good governance – let alone anything like a desirable outcome. It speaks to “jobs for the boys” ideological loyalty that overrides history, fact and reason.

Dear cousins: my God. I fear chlorinated chicken is the least of your imported trading problems now.

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 13:40 schreef VoMy het volgende:
Voor het 'roddelcircuit': Het was/is Mark Francois.

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 13:40 schreef VoMy het volgende:
Voor het 'roddelcircuit': Het was/is Mark Francois.

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 16:03 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

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Eh...waar heeft dat betrekking op?

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 16:27 schreef capricia het volgende:

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Er is een Conservative MP met rape allegations aan zijn broek.
Maar wie het precies is wordt natuurlijk niet bekend gemaakt.

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 22:28 schreef beantherio het volgende:
[ twitter ]

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Op woensdag 9 september 2020 22:34 schreef beantherio het volgende:
[ twitter ]

De inhoud van dat overleg laat zich raden.

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 17:32 schreef beantherio het volgende:

Het principe dat internationale verdragen boven nationale wetgeving gaan is toch ook gewoon van toepassing op Groot Brittannië?

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 17:35 schreef Tijn het volgende:

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Niks is van toepassing op de Britten! Ze laten een stel buitenlanders zich niet vertellen wat ze wel en niet mogen, kom nou.

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 18:42 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
En dit is de eis vd EU ah VK: https://www.nu.nl/brexit/(...)-geschrapt-zien.html

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 18:42 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
En dit is de eis vd EU ah VK: https://www.nu.nl/brexit/(...)-geschrapt-zien.html

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 19:03 schreef capricia het volgende:
[ twitter ]
Het gaat steeds onplezierig worden.

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One well-placed Whitehall figure suggested that Downing Street’s stance went beyond its issues with the withdrawal treaty and was in fact about its agenda to tackle “activist judges” and examine the role of judicial review.

“Number 10 are doing this deliberately to pick a fight with the judiciary. They want to put the judges and Supreme Court on [the] wrong side of popular opinion. It’s a mistake to assume this is all about Brexit.”

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 19:32 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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https://www.ft.com/content/6d7594dc-e67d-4f21-a1be-9a2327ac6474

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 18:25 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

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Yep, dat is de grondhouding nu. Rule Brittania enzo.

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 19:52 schreef Tijn het volgende:

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Britannia waives the rules

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 20:55 schreef zalkc het volgende:
Maar is het nu het moment om kunstmest te gaan verkopen in Noord-Ierland?

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 19:52 schreef Tijn het volgende:

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Britannia waives the rules

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Op donderdag 10 september 2020 18:50 schreef Litpho het volgende:

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Hoeveel Britse kranten zouden morgen als reactie headlines met “EU veto” hebben?

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Press release
UK and Japan agree historic free trade agreement

The UK has today secured a free trade agreement with Japan, which is the UK’s first major trade deal as an independent trading nation.

The UK has secured a free trade agreement with Japan, which is the UK’s first major trade deal as an independent trading nation and will increase trade with Japan by an estimated £15.2 billion.

The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was agreed in principle by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Japan’s Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu on a video call this morning (Friday 11 September).

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Op vrijdag 11 september 2020 10:18 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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https://www.gov.uk/govern(...)free-trade-agreement

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Op vrijdag 11 september 2020 10:19 schreef RipCity het volgende:

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Goh toevallige timing.

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Op vrijdag 11 september 2020 10:50 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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Was al bekend dat Japan de deal deze week wilde sluiten, zodat de huidige regering het nog kan afwerken en het vanaf 1 januari van kracht wordt (dacht ik).
Ze hadden een maand geleden al een deal kunnen hebben, maar toen vroegen de Britten plots lagere tarieven op hun kaas (een maand onderhandelen over exports ter waarde van 0.03¤ per Brit per jaar... ).

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Op vrijdag 11 september 2020 13:33 schreef freako het volgende:

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Ik neem aan dat Japan er ook wat bij wint tov de EU-Japan deal waar deze overeenkomst op gebaseerd is. Ben wel benieuwd wat voor concessies het VK heeft moeten doen.

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Brexit: UK negotiators 'believe brinkmanship will reboot trade talks' - Guardian

Britain’s Brexit negotiators believe Downing Street’s plan to break international law, pushing the trade and security negotiations to the brink, may have helped reboot the talks by offering Brussels a reality check about the looming danger of a no-deal outcome.

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Op vrijdag 11 september 2020 19:29 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:
[ twitter ]

Maar goed, dit soort geframe van internationale resultaten is niet exclusief Brits. Ook hier speelden de media een spel door te doen alsof Rutte zoveel binnen heeft gesleept in Europa.

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Op zaterdag 12 september 2020 01:15 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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Dat het Japan meer voordeel oplevert is logisch. Een EU handelsverdrag zal tarieven ten gunste van industrieën en sectoren in alle lidstaten bevatten. Het heeft voor GB geen zin om tarieven te behouden op produkten die niet in GB gemaakt worden. Japan daarentegen heeft geen reden om vrijwillig tarieven te schrappen.

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Senior Government sources on Friday accused Mr Barnier, Brussels' chief negotiator, of issuing an "explicit threat" to deny the UK approved third-party status for food exports in the event of no trade deal.

Failure to issue the status, which is granted to non-EU countries and acknowledges that their agricultural systems meet basic standards, could also cause major complications for sending live animals or meat products to Northern Ireland after the transition period ends.

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It is now more than seven months since this country left the EU on January 31, and since then we have been working hard to build what I am sure will be a great new future relationship.

We want a thoroughgoing free trade deal. We want a deal like the one between the EU and Canada; and since we currently conform with every jot and tittle of EU regulation, and since we have been loyal and paid-up members for more than four decades, it strikes me that if the EU is willing to offer these terms to Canada then it makes sense to offer the same to us.

Our partners know that, whatever happens, the UK is their friend, their biggest single export market and committed forever to the peace and security of the European continent. They know that there are ways in which we want to continue and even deepen our relations, not just in trade.

As I have never tired of saying, we have left the EU, but we have not left Europe. But they also know – or at least they know now – that leaving the EU means the UK is serious about its new-found sovereignty.

In forging our new relationships, we can't have our lives or our economy regulated by the European Court; we must have the right to devise our own laws and regulations. And we must have sole control of our spectacular marine wealth – our fisheries.

Those are some of our conditions, and in the last few months I believe we have made considerable progress. If both sides want it, there is a great free trade deal there to be done.

So I have become anxious in the last few weeks to discover that there is an obstacle. Our negotiators believe that there may be a serious misunderstanding about the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement that we reached last October.

You may remember those days. They were torrid. We were negotiating with one hand tied behind our back, since Parliament had voted to deprive the UK side of the right to walk away. We had a deadline of October 31 – which Parliament decided to flout. MPs were in a state of constant turmoil and recrimination. And yet, provided it was applied in good faith, the Withdrawal Agreement we reached was extremely good.

We excised the baleful presence of the Northern Ireland "backstop", which effectively kept this country locked in the EU's legal orbit, forced to accept EU laws, unable to do free trade deals. We made sure that Northern Ireland was explicitly recognised as part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, and able to take part fully in new free trade agreements (such as the one Liz Truss has just done with Japan). And we also took steps to protect free movement at the all-important border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

We agreed that, in some limited ways, Northern Ireland would continue to conform with EU law for four years. We agreed that this limited alignment would end, unless the Northern Irish assembly voted to continue it. We agreed to do some light-touch checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland, in case they should go on to Ireland, in order to avoid checks at the North-South border.

And on the basis of that excellent deal we left the EU – and so it is deeply regrettable that what seemed so simple and clear to us is seen very differently by our EU friends.

We decided in the Withdrawal Agreement to create a Joint Committee, in which we would thrash out the details of these new arrangements. It is here that things risk coming unstuck. We are now hearing that, unless we agree to the EU's terms, the EU will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol to impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea.

We are being told that the EU will not only impose tariffs on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but that they might actually stop the transport of food products from GB to NI.

I have to say that we never seriously believed that the EU would be willing to use a treaty, negotiated in good faith, to blockade one part of the UK, to cut it off, or that they would actually threaten to destroy the economic and territorial integrity of the UK. This was for the very good reason that any such barrier, any such tariffs or division, would be completely contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

By actively undermining the Union of our country, such an interpretation would seriously endanger peace and stability in Northern Ireland. This interpretation cannot have been the real intention of those who framed the protocol (it certainly wasn't ours) – and it is therefore vital that we close that option down.

We want an agreement in the Joint Committee on how we can implement the protocol. We have consistently shown that we are willing to help our friends – to the extent that is possible and reasonable – to protect the integrity of their Single Market and to keep a fluid North-South border.

But we cannot leave the theoretical power to carve up our country – to divide it – in the hands of an international organisation. We have to protect the UK from that disaster, and that is why we have devised a legal safety net – in the UK Internal Market Bill – to clarify the position and to sort out the inconsistencies.

This Bill protects jobs and growth across the UK by preventing barriers to trade between the nations and regions. It means that anything approved for sale in Scotland or Wales must be good for sale in England or Northern Ireland, and vice-versa.

The Bill gives freedoms and certainties for businesses and citizens that were previously set out in EU law. That is why, as we now come out of the EU, it is absolutely vital. It is now also clear that we need this Bill to protect the free flow of goods and services between NI and the rest of the UK, and to make sense of that commitment in the EU withdrawal agreement – that NI is part of the UK customs territory. It is therefore crucial for peace, and for the Union itself. We must get this Bill through.

So I say to my fellow parliamentarians that we cannot go back to the dark days of last year – the squabbling that so undermined our negotiators. If we fail to pass this Bill, or if we weaken its protections, then we will in fact reduce the chances of getting that Canada-style deal.

As it happens, I believe that this country will prosper mightily in either event. We could do very well indeed if we left on Australian terms. But there is no doubt that, in the short term at least, the Canada deal would be better and smoother – and that is what we are pitching for.

So let's end any potential for misunderstanding. Let's remove this danger to the very fabric of the United Kingdom. Let's make the EU take their threats off the table. And let's get this Bill through, back up our negotiators and protect our country.

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One of the biggest sticking points was so-called tariff rate quotas in agriculture, which let European farmers export a limited amount of sensitive foodstuffs to Japan at a lower tariff.

Tokyo refused to give the UK any new quota, but for 10 out of 25 products covered in the EU-Japan deal — including cheese, tea extracts and bread mixes — the UK will be able to use any quota left over by the EU.

For example, if the EU uses only 19,000 tonnes of its 20,000 tonne quota for low-tariff cheese exports, the UK will be able to use the remaining 1,000 tonnes. Asked whether that meant the UK could end up empty-handed, one official said: “There is headroom in these quotas.”

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Op zaterdag 12 september 2020 12:52 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:
Over de GB-Japan deal:
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https://www.ft.com/content/1cb01980-ee86-4283-b25a-528c5b3b1807

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Brexit: Further clashes over work on NI port controls

Stormont ministers have clashed over the environment minister's proposal that work should be halted on facilities at ports that could be used for checks related to Brexit.

The controls are currently used for checks on agri-food products and animals.

In July, the UK confirmed it intended to put border control posts at Northern Ireland's ports.

Work to expand the posts was then requested by the government.

However, it is understood Environment Minister Edwin Poots has taken the view that to press ahead with the expansion of current point of entry controls would be a waste of public resources after the latest UK Internal Market Bill.

The new bill sets out rules for the operation of the UK internal market - trade between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - after the end of the Brexit transition period in January.

There has been controversy over the bill explicitly stating that these powers should apply even if they are incompatible with international law.

However, ministers say it is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if trade deal negotiations with the EU fail.

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Op zaterdag 12 september 2020 12:50 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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https://www.telegraph.co.(...)threat-integrity-uk/

Boris Johnson's brief in The Telegraph, waarin hij de Internal Market Bill tracht te rechtvaardigen:
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[ twitter ]

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Op zaterdag 12 september 2020 14:42 schreef Em31 het volgende:

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‘We are now hearing that’ Het is zijn eigen geweldige oven-ready deal waar hij een verkiezing mee won. Beschamend.