brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire

So if there's a customs border in the Irish sea, does that mean losing the DUP over this or what?

actual regional policy obviously requires more lines and less guesswork and handwaving -- this info has been available to any pundit prepared to do their homework

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2017/1204/924815-single-market-eu-negotiations/

take that lads

a nation once again... in terms of trade

so NI gets to stay in the single market? neat trick

surely this means wales or scotland could try to do so too

The DUP are against this because....it's a further weakening of their place in the union?

Trying to see the downside besides but I......struggle to think like the DUP tbh

but then as alba says, govt loses DUP. and with it its governing majority and.. its authority to negotiate brexit lol seriously tho

i guess anything that treats the island of ireland as one entity is disagreeable to them, not to suggest they're some of the most dire retrograde incompetents to ever take office or anything like that.

look forward to independent england begging to join the eu in 2027

Any good analysis out there on eg odds of and mechanisms through which Scotland break away to retain EU membership, and further parliamentary ramifications of same, etc

i guess anything that treats the island of ireland as one entity is disagreeable to them

I'm not even sure this is true tbh, I think anything that they think works to their advantage is agreeable to them.

would a hard border work to their advantage tho? i don't see how.

Is anyone in NI in favour of that?

Right now, Ireland is powerfully demonstrating the importance of being independent when it comes to defending your vital national interests

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017

This is what Arlene Foster said before:

"The Prime Minister understands the needs of Northern Ireland and we of course welcome the fact that she has been very clear in relation to the fact that there cannot be a border down the Irish Sea.

“There has been some currency given to that recently, particularly from the European Union side.

“But of course she very clearly understands that that would be a disaster for Northern Ireland and would be a red line for us in the Democratic Unionist Party.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/12/arlene-foster-rejects-prospect-post-brexit-irish-sea-border/

as i understand it, DUP are threatening to decline to continue to offer confidence and supply if a sea border is established (or more generally if NI is treated in any way difft from the rest of the UK)

(ie the post-election agreement they had with may would come to an end)

this wd put this govt at risk of falling (failiing to get any of its legislation through) at which point the spectre of failing a vote of confidence begins to arise (it used to be triggered automatically, now it has actually to be proposed and voted through, which is a higher hurdle -- i suspect the DUP will continue to support the govt despite the C&S failing, but of course they can extract further concessions with every vote)

at some point, sooner rather than later, the agreement with the DUP breaking down would cause the the govt to fall: DUP doesn't want this (it REALLY doesn't want a corbyn govt) but it is GOOD at brinkmanship

Surely the Tories know they can push the DUP as far as possible, due to them not wanting Corbyn in.

in a way i can see the DUP's point: hey UK, you say you want to be independent of the EU? then how come you're taking Ireland's side in this? and not ours? when we are part of you?!

stephen bush is always good on the irish issue (he was crossly bringing it up many months ago)

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/11/time-running-out-theresa-may-address-irish-brexit-problem
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/11/could-brexit-come-unstuck-because-irish-border
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/11/could-irish-border-bring-down-conservative-government
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/12/what-are-risks-dup-if-it-pulls-plug-theresa-may

Surely the Tories know

centrist julio rising lol

Thanks mark

yeah this is it:

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the only option that avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland or in the Irish Sea is for the whole of the UK to stay within the regulatory orbit of the EU. That's also the only way to secure a trade deal with anything like the same level of market access that the EU and UK enjoy now. The only real question is whether a Conservative prime minister can survive that – or if a drastic Brexit is the price the United Kingdom pays for the governing party's preoccupations.

except even this conclusion elides the border question

Belfast is brilliant, I’m upping sticks

in a way i can see the DUP's point: hey UK, you say you want to be independent of the EU? then how come you're taking Ireland's side in this? and not ours? when we are part of you?!

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 4 December 2017 12:23 (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's only a point if you were ignoring the actual necessities, the stuff literally hardcoded into any possible brexit.

Which yknow obv but still

fwiw I don't think there is a logically reconcilable DUP position and this current situation is a point of no return inevitable since....I'd say 1995 but tbh since Redmond..... Election result and Brexit have brought it to a head but it would've happened organically (iykwim) regardless.

Feel kinda optimistic about the whole thing.

XP Belfast is a great town...hopefully this doesn't get too....bumpy

Surely the Tories know they can push the DUP as far as possible, due to them not wanting Corbyn in.

Pretty sure the DUP don't really care that much who's in charge in Westminster.

The way housing is going I'd consider moving north meself if they get a hybrid deal, civil servant euros will soon be the new bitcoin

Maybe I'm overrating how much the DUP hate Corbyn and Labour left then. xp

As I've said before, NI Unionists are indignant about being treated differently to the rest of the UK except when they're indignant about not being treated as different from the rest of the UK.

Or unless they’re trying to keep Sunday trading, abortion and LGBT rights away, then it’s fine.

Precisely.

Pretty sure the DUP don't really care that much who's in charge in Westminster.

this is bollocks - they're rabidly anti-corbyn. "ira sympathiser etc"

maybe somebody should just build the dup the time machine they've craved for all these years so they can go back to 1690

Pretty sure the DUP don't really care that much who's in charge in Westminster.
Sure they do. Corbyn explicitly supports a United Ireland, for one thing. He would be a lot more sympathetic to Irish people than any other prospective PM in a while. How do you think they'd react to direct rule under him?

this current deal with a weak tory party must be the peak of their relationship with britain as far as power and influence goes? given how volatile things are the trough could come with corbyn.

i dunno what paths would lead to a united ireland but with all this horse trading over borders it does seem like a lot of things are more up for grabs, or could be so in the blink of an eye.

DUP held sway before: i.e. over lab under gordon brown at some point in the late 90s or early 00s -- not sure how to judge -- except in the retrospect we haven't reached -- which is peak sway tho

tbh i'd say the official ulster unionists held stronger sway over labour in the late 70s (i think with the DUP's help) (stubbornly not looking this up obv) but the stakes were less, shooting war or no shooting war

(julio i was just amused at your sudden new enthusiasm for a. tory diplomatic competence and b. the commonsensical ability of the non-extreme to tame the extreme -- neither of these seem greatly in evidence)

(i'd *maaaaybe* put more of a questionmark than stephen bush does over the DUP's ability to paisley their way thru to what they want and hang the rest -- but this is literally the one thing they do and they have a lot of practice down the decades)

Here we go

If one part of UK can retain regulatory alignment with EU and effectively stay in the single market (which is the right solution for Northern Ireland) there is surely no good practical reason why others can’t.

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017

Varadkar speaking at 2.30 about a proposed border deal.

may also under pressure from tory "grandees" over the weekend re the continued role of the ECJ during the transitional period: the cut-off date is i think march (thanks to one of her unforced legislative errors) but to achieve the actual brexit she wants they need to still be around (i haven't quite twigged why i have to say: possibly bcz the person i read explaining it was JEREMY HUNT) (he says with out it -- and without fully backing her resusicating it -- no brexit at all)

the pressure here (re the ECJ) is probably more important than the details

Here'e Stephen Bush again. Though if I'm still confused after reading a Stephen Bush explainer, things are bad

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/12/has-theresa-may-avoided-crisis-irish-border-or-just-delayed-it

lol mark well that's one way to read my post.

Its not competence, they don't know much about anything but Tories I thnk still know a thing or two about diggng their heels in (look at the MPs saying they share passwords in constituency offices w/staff, all so that Damian Green could survive), are shameless, and ultimately did cut a deal with the DUP swiftly. They are limping around but this government isn't dead, its going on.

DUP held sway before: i.e. over lab under gordon brown at some point in the late 90s or early 00s

Really?

Yeah I thought Brown had talks with them but it never came to any deal?

Its all on the DUP who know what they want and know the boundaries (lol boundary) of what is actually and politically possible and know that the combination of those two things is a null set.

The maximum power they could have wished for and they are desperate to opt out but there isn't even that option, as it is they are simply refusing to govern NI at present because no democratically acceptable governance can be digested by their core membership.

It's all a rather neat end to an artificially sustained system of bigotry in power tbh I just hope enough of the external powers maintain their current positions so that they don't get to return to their dissonant existence without ceding entirely from a say in running the statelet.

haha knew i shd have should have looked it up: yes brown went to the DUP in 2010 when he had a hung parliament but could not seal the deal (so the sway never really came into effect, unless you read it as SO MUCH sway they simply brought an end to brown)

one of the things we're abt to find out is whether sir-humphrey-esque wordgames in these kinds of agreements -- where the negotiators of difft sides deliberately choose agree to read the same words as having difft meanings -- can actually function in the age of the internet (when the fact of this shared fiction is instantly undermined)

There we are:

Breaking...

Ominous comments from Arlene Foster: "We will not accept any form of regulatory divergence which separates NI economically or politically from the rest of the UK."

— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) December 4, 2017

good luck with that

I find it impossible to read any DUP statement, without hearing it in that voice from the Harry Enfield sketch.