UK-EU relations and Northern Ireland

[veravista]

From my understanding I don't think that the UK actually asked for an extension, they just announced they were going to do it.

It says they did ask, in the second paragraph of the quoted article in the first post. I'm not sure what that asking looked like, though.

I'm sure I saw an article yesterday which said that the EU had threatened legal action if we did just extend, it wasn't the Grauniad though. I may have misunderstood though.

[Woodchopper]

The ever excellent Tony Connelly on EU options: https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status ... 28736?s=20

In brief: Take the case to the ECJ (which still has jurisdiction over this issue); use the arbitration mechanism agreed in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement; refuse to ratify the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

[Woodchopper]

Here’s a copy of the Loyalist Communities Council letter: https://twitter.com/AllisonMorris1/stat ... 28195?s=20

Its opposed to a regulatory border between rUK and Northern Ireland.

Interestingly it states that they 'entirely understand' the nationalist demand that there should not be a regulatory border with the Republic of Ireland. But then points out that the nationalists got what they want but the unionists didn't. Which is correct. Dublin proved to be a more reliable partner than did London.

What they are demanding is in effect that there would be no regulatory border between Northern Ireland and both of the rUK and Republic of Ireland. Difficult to see how that'll happen.

[Woodchopper]

The ever excellent Tony Connelly on EU options: https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status ... 28736?s=20

In brief: Take the case to the ECJ (which still has jurisdiction over this issue); use the arbitration mechanism agreed in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement; refuse to ratify the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

That was quick:

The European parliament has postponed setting a date for ratifying the trade and security deal with Britain after Boris Johnson was accused of breaking international law for a second time over Northern Ireland.

The chamber’s political groups agreed on Thursday to wait in light of the latest row with Downing Street, with some senior MEPs warning that the Christmas Eve deal will not be passed at all if the UK goes ahead with its plans.

During discussions with commission officials on Monday night, the claim that international law had been broken was denied by David Frost, who has recently been given a seat in cabinet and responsibility for EU relations. The UK decision has nevertheless infuriated the Irish government and officials in Brussels.

Sources in the European parliament said that as a result a decision on when the trade and security deal would be ratified had been delayed. It had been expected that a vote would be held on 25 March but after a meeting on Thursday it has been left off the parliamentary agenda for now.

The vote could potentially be delayed until late April to allow MEPs to follow how the row over the Northern Ireland border develops.

The trade and security deal with the UK is provisionally in force but it is yet to be formally ratified by the parliament. Its provisions would fall away if MEPs failed to give it their backing, leaving the UK with a no-deal outcome, including tariffs on goods.

The MEP Bernd Lange, the chair of the parliament’s trade committee, tweeted an excerpt of a previous parliamentary resolution in a sign of the anger at the UK’s move.

“Still valid: ‘Should the UK authorities breach – or threaten to breach – the withdrawal agreement, through the United Kingdom internal market bill ... or in any other way, the European parliament will, under no circumstances, ratify any agreement between the EU and the UK,’” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the EU commissioner, set to take key decisions within weeks on access for the City of London to the European market, said Johnson’s unilateral move to ease the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland had damaged Brussels’ trust in the government.

The European commission is examining whether to make positive “equivalence” decisions that would allow the UK financial services sector to operate in the UK market. Brussels has so far granted only limited direct access for the City of London under its system, which is designed to ensure that only firms operating under regulatory systems similar to its own can offer services in the EU.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -officials

[plodder]

They still don't get it. Everyone has to eat this sh.t sandwich, including Eire. The paramilitary letter is just them grumbling that they're getting fed up with the taste of sh.t, and a bit of salt and pepper would help it go down more easily.

Put another way, the only leverage the EU actually has is over Ireland, and the question is what kind of bribe they'll need to get used to SS's.

[malbui]

They still don't get it. Everyone has to eat this sh.t sandwich, including Eire. The paramilitary letter is just them grumbling that they're getting fed up with the taste of sh.t, and a bit of salt and pepper would help it go down more easily.

Put another way, the only leverage the EU actually has is over Ireland, and the question is what kind of bribe they'll need to get used to SS's.

I know it's irritating but it's a fingernails on blackboards thing to me: the country is only called Éire if you're writing as Gaeilge.

[Herainestold]

They still don't get it. Everyone has to eat this sh.t sandwich, including Eire. The paramilitary letter is just them grumbling that they're getting fed up with the taste of sh.t, and a bit of salt and pepper would help it go down more easily.

Put another way, the only leverage the EU actually has is over Ireland, and the question is what kind of bribe they'll need to get used to SS's.

I know it's irritating but it's a fingernails on blackboards thing to me: the country is only called Éire if you're writing as Gaeilge.

Should we refer to it as Republic of Ireland, or just Ireland?

[malbui]

They still don't get it. Everyone has to eat this sh.t sandwich, including Eire. The paramilitary letter is just them grumbling that they're getting fed up with the taste of sh.t, and a bit of salt and pepper would help it go down more easily.

Put another way, the only leverage the EU actually has is over Ireland, and the question is what kind of bribe they'll need to get used to SS's.

I know it's irritating but it's a fingernails on blackboards thing to me: the country is only called Éire if you're writing as Gaeilge.

Should we refer to it as Republic of Ireland, or just Ireland?

Article 4 of the Constitution of Ireland says:

The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.

...or, in the Irish version:

Éire is ainm don Stát nó, sa Sacs-Bhéarla, Ireland.

As an aside, Article 8 says:

1 The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.

2 The English language is recognised as a second official language.

Which puts things in their proper order.

[El Pollo Diablo]

It's really remarkable, to be honest, just how much the Three Tory Witches of Cuntwick have managed to curl their own specific curly furry turds into the cauldron of sh.tty gloop that is Brexit. First, Cameron sets up a poorly defined, completely unnecessary advisory referendum and fights it badly, loses, and then f.cks off; then, May decides that we can't stay in the single market or customs onion because mumble mumble etc, losing votes by historic margins and failing to negotiate successfully with anyone; and then in rushes Johnson to achieve the seemingly impossible and lower the competence bar so far that it's still sinking slowly towards the centre of the earth, with his heady mix of unfounded optimism and lack of concern for anything that doesn't spend any time touching his penis, to f.ck the constitution up so much that even England doesn't have its own free trade area without movement restrictions.

[sTeamTraen]

Should we refer to it as Republic of Ireland, or just Ireland?

Article 4 of the Constitution of Ireland says:

The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.

I think it's OK to say "Republic of Ireland" in sentences where there may be some confusion as to whether one is referring to the political entity or the geographical one.

Using Eire in English is a bit like saying "We're going on holiday to Deutschland". Not offensive, just a weird thing to do in English. I used to think the country was called Eire because it's on the stamps.

The big no-no is to say "Southern Ireland", which is very much a "Man who asked for a double scotch in the Grand Pump Room at Bath moment. To my great surprise, Patrick Kielty (whose father was murdered during the Troubles) said this in his excellent documentary on the Irish border a couple of years ago: "Here I am at the border, standing in Northern Ireland, and with one step, now I'm in Southern Ireland".

The other day I had cause to send a copy of my Irish passport to the Dutch tax authorities. Dutch and UK passports mention the town and country of birth, but Irish ones don't (or at least, mine doesn't, it just says "GBR"). Because bureaucracy abhors a vacuum in the form of an empty field on a computer form, they put the word "Eireannach" as my town of birth, this being the Irish language word for Irish. Perhaps this could be seen as karma for all the traffic offences that Ireland has been unable to enforce on Polish people after writing their name down as Mr or Ms Driving Licence.

[Woodchopper]

The big no-no is to say "Southern Ireland", which is very much a "Man who asked for a double scotch in the Grand Pump Room at Bath moment.

[Aside] In a café in Suffolk a Scandinavian friend asked for a scone with marmalade. He likes scones and he likes marmalade. The waitress looked at him with confusion, and returned with a scone and strawberry jam. Just as its supposed to be. [/Aside]

[plodder]

The ever excellent Tony Connelly on EU options: https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status ... 28736?s=20

In brief: Take the case to the ECJ (which still has jurisdiction over this issue); use the arbitration mechanism agreed in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement; refuse to ratify the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

That was quick:

The European parliament has postponed setting a date for ratifying the trade and security deal with Britain after Boris Johnson was accused of breaking international law for a second time over Northern Ireland.

The chamber’s political groups agreed on Thursday to wait in light of the latest row with Downing Street, with some senior MEPs warning that the Christmas Eve deal will not be passed at all if the UK goes ahead with its plans.

During discussions with commission officials on Monday night, the claim that international law had been broken was denied by David Frost, who has recently been given a seat in cabinet and responsibility for EU relations. The UK decision has nevertheless infuriated the Irish government and officials in Brussels.

Sources in the European parliament said that as a result a decision on when the trade and security deal would be ratified had been delayed. It had been expected that a vote would be held on 25 March but after a meeting on Thursday it has been left off the parliamentary agenda for now.

The vote could potentially be delayed until late April to allow MEPs to follow how the row over the Northern Ireland border develops.

The trade and security deal with the UK is provisionally in force but it is yet to be formally ratified by the parliament. Its provisions would fall away if MEPs failed to give it their backing, leaving the UK with a no-deal outcome, including tariffs on goods.

The MEP Bernd Lange, the chair of the parliament’s trade committee, tweeted an excerpt of a previous parliamentary resolution in a sign of the anger at the UK’s move.

“Still valid: ‘Should the UK authorities breach – or threaten to breach – the withdrawal agreement, through the United Kingdom internal market bill ... or in any other way, the European parliament will, under no circumstances, ratify any agreement between the EU and the UK,’” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the EU commissioner, set to take key decisions within weeks on access for the City of London to the European market, said Johnson’s unilateral move to ease the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland had damaged Brussels’ trust in the government.

The European commission is examining whether to make positive “equivalence” decisions that would allow the UK financial services sector to operate in the UK market. Brussels has so far granted only limited direct access for the City of London under its system, which is designed to ensure that only firms operating under regulatory systems similar to its own can offer services in the EU.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -officials

One of the criticisms laid down by Brexiteers was that MEPs don't have enough power, and they are a diverse lot including plenty of lunatic fringe types. So it'll be interesting to see whether they can be shouted down by the executive or whether they have much influence here.

[Sciolus]

The big no-no is to say "Southern Ireland", which is very much a "Man who asked for a double scotch in the Grand Pump Room at Bath moment.

[Aside] In a café in Suffolk a Scandinavian friend asked for a scone with marmalade. He likes scones and he likes marmalade. The waitress looked at him with confusion, and returned with a scone and strawberry jam. Just as its supposed to be. [/Aside]

Some dialects of Foreign use a word similar to marmalade to mean what we would call jam, so she may have thought he was using a false friend word. Perfectly reasonable unless he said orange marmalade. In which case she was still being perfectly reasonable in putting him right.

[malbui]

As I understand it, marmalade was originally a quince jam so maybe it's best to specify which fruit you're talking about.

[Bird on a Fire]

As I understand it, marmalade was originally a quince jam so maybe it's best to specify which fruit you're talking about.

Yeah, marmelada made from the marmelo (quince) is still a staple on Portuguese shelves. Maybe I've never found a good one but I generally just find it very sweet, and thus prefer it with strong cheese or something rather than on its own as a sweet.

I decided to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... ese_origin and it turns out there are quite a lot, but most of them are either tropical food things from Portuguese colonies (e.g. banana, cashew, mango, molasses for the full geographic spread; also a bunch of fish) or racist things from Portuguese colonies (caste, negro, pickaninny, mulatto), but there's a couple of bits of slang like palaver (which I knew) and savvy (which I didn't, but it seems obvious now I know the etymology).

Pleasingly a few bonus bird names too - flamingo, albatross, dodo, emu, macaw...

[Grumble]

I like marmalade on scones. And jam, sometimes, but more often marmalade. One day I may get round to having them with clotted cream and jam, but I’ve reached my 40’s without doing so.

It’s good on Welsh cakes too. And croissants.

[Millennie Al]

There's no easy way forward here. Republic of Ireland isn't leaving the EU and the UK isn't going back in.

How about the UK does go back in like this: Scotland and Northern Ireland split from England and Wales, resulting in the United Kingdom of Scotland and Northern Ireland rejoining the EU, while England and Wales stay out forming the Independent Kingdom of England and Wales.

[Herainestold]

There's no easy way forward here. Republic of Ireland isn't leaving the EU and the UK isn't going back in.

How about the UK does go back in like this: Scotland and Northern Ireland split from England and Wales, resulting in the United Kingdom of Scotland and Northern Ireland rejoining the EU, while England and Wales stay out forming the Independent Kingdom of England and Wales.

Clever idea, but..the half of Northern Ireland that want to join another country are not thinking Scotland.

[veravista]

One of the criticisms laid down by Brexiteers was that MEPs don't have enough power, and they are a diverse lot including plenty of lunatic fringe types. So it'll be interesting to see whether they can be shouted down by the executive or whether they have much influence here.

Bit of pot/kettle situation there. Frankly the way UK gov has acted over this (a blindingly obvious result to most people who don't think they're exceptional) would test the patience of a monk. It's not the lunatic fringe that will stick their heels in, it's the moderates who have had to put up with this toddler tantrum and probably feel, quite rightly, that the UK needs a good slap.

[Woodchopper]

Sefcovic said the European Commission was already working on “infringement proceedings” against the UK, for what it sees as a breach of the two sides’ 2019 divorce treaty, which includes the Northern Ireland protocol to prevent a hard trade border on the island of Ireland.

“We are currently preparing it and it would be really something coming to our table very soon,” he said. “The most precise term I can give you is really very soon.”

[...]

Sefcovic did not confirm the exact legal route the commission might now be taking and would not be drawn when asked if the European Court of Justice could be an option.

[...]

Sefcovic told MEPs on Thursday that, while the commission had been informed at technical level on Tuesday that the UK was preparing to unveil plans, it was not aware of the substance of the measures until they were publicly announced. His Wednesday night call with Frost was his first meeting with him since the British minister took on his new role.

[...]

Sefcovic said the British move “had a very strong” parallels with the crisis in relations that occurred last autumn when Britain announced plans to break international law by overwriting parts of the protocol.

“It's a bit déjà vu,” said one EU diplomat. “It fundamentally also calls into question the good faith of the UK in all the discussions on Northern Ireland these last months.”

Sefcovic also underlined the need for permanent solutions, negotiated with Brussels, to avoid repeated extensions of temporary waivers.

EU officials note that the UK would have probably obtained a lot of what it is seeking through discussions with Brussels, but UK officials counter that the EU was moving too slowly to avoid supermarket shortages that would have further destabilised Northern Ireland’s political situation.

In addition to threats of legal action by the commission, Britain has also been warned by MEPs that ratification of the two sides’ trade deal is at stake.

“The full implementation of the withdrawal agreement and its protocol [on Northern Ireland] is and remains a red line,” Christophe Hansen, one of the parliament’s lead MEPs on Brexit, said on Thursday

Despite the warnings from MEPs, Downing Street said it expects the EU to complete its ratification process by the end of April, an extended deadline requested by the EU earlier this year and agreed to by the UK.

https://www.ft.com/content/71a59576-26f ... 9ddba59236

[plodder]

There’s no permanent solution right now. What we might see is moves that eventually cause enough leverage to force a solution. A much weaker UK would be one route to untangling this mess, a much richer UK would be another.

[Woodchopper]

There’s no permanent solution right now. What we might see is moves that eventually cause enough leverage to force a solution. A much weaker UK would be one route to untangling this mess, a much richer UK would be another.

You may be correct that the solution is that the UK permanently agrees to transfer billions of extra spending to Northern Ireland. That could be explained to the rUK as compensation for economic disruption. If there's enough cash flowing the unionist factions may be mollified. But I really don't know whether that will work. A lot of the dispute appears to be about more abstract things like identity, and they are more difficult to buy off.

A much weaker or richer UK would affect the balance. But either will take a long time to happen.

[shpalman]

Or, somewhat smaller UK*.

(* - yes I suppose it wouldn't be the UK anymore.)

[JQH]

There's no easy way forward here. Republic of Ireland isn't leaving the EU and the UK isn't going back in.

How about the UK does go back in like this: Scotland and Northern Ireland split from England and Wales, resulting in the United Kingdom of Scotland and Northern Ireland rejoining the EU, while England and Wales stay out forming the Independent Kingdom of England and Wales.

Clever idea, but..the half of Northern Ireland that want to join another country are not thinking Scotland.

True but with S&NI being in the EU, the Irish land border could revert to it's pre Brexit status, which seemed to be acceptable to the Irish nationalists.

[Woodchopper]

Or, somewhat smaller UK*.

(* - yes I suppose it wouldn't be the UK anymore.)

If you mean Scottish independence, its likely that the UK would remain, just as it did in 1922.