Scrutable

While we are all distracted by The Event, the Brexit clock has continued ticking and manoeuvres over the potential US trade deal.

Here's George Monbiot's take.

tl;dr version: The US are viewing us the way Trump views a teenage beauty queen who desperately needs a favour from him ... with exactly the same outcome. No Deal with the EU is not only likely it is actually a prerequisite for any US deal and all the UK governments actions towards the EU negotiations, transition discussions etc. have to be seen through that prism.

Grim reading which makes a mockery of the Leave vote's promises, the Tories election platform and the whole Brexit negotiation

And Katy Balls, Kreminology of the Tories' internal debate

tl;dr version. The two century-old rift has reopened between the protectionist shire Tories and the free market true believers

Leading the charge on the free market side is the international trade secretary, Liz Truss – with a majority of the cabinet sympathetic to her position. They believe they have public support, with internal polling suggesting 62% of Britons back a deal ... So it’s the new intake of red wall MPs who are agitating that protectionism could deprive their voters of a tangible benefit of Brexit: cheaper food on the supermarket shelf.

There are a load of unexamined assumptions in that statement. I can quite imagine "Do you want a trade deal with US ...?" gets 62% support but once you start sticking in the caveats:-

"... but the NHS would be dismembered"
"... but UK farmers and fishermen will go to the wall"
"...but you'll have to accept pay cuts, fewer holidays and worse working conditions".
"... but the food you eat will taste like shite and slowly kill you".

... I imagine that support drops precipitously.

I mean a lot is spoken, without a lot of real knowledge, about the motivations of the ex-red wall voters but one thing I learnt growing up among them is they are fiercely patriotic and instinctively protectionistic when it comes to things like "Buying British" and still believe the abandonment of Imperial Preference in favour of EEC membership was a bad idea, they aren't going to take kindly to an influx of cheap, poor quality US products putting them and their neighbours out of work (sic)*.



*Even if you believe the economics of that is wrong the sentiment in the below cartoon will be still there. If Brexit has taught us nothing else a dry insistence that "well actually if you look at this economic textbook" never beats the raw gut instinct of your normal low-information voter.

It might be how they would like to frame it, but a close trade deal with the US is about as far from free trade as it is possible to be. They're not free marketeers

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:25 am I mean a lot is spoken, without a lot of real knowledge, about the motivations of the ex-red wall voters but one thing I learnt growing up among them is they are fiercely patriotic and instinctively protectionistic when it comes to things like "Buying British" and still believe the abandonment of Imperial Preference in favour of EEC membership was a bad idea, they aren't going to take kindly to an influx of cheap, poor quality US products putting them and their neighbours out of work (sic)*.

This is why one of the US's conditions is to remove country-of-origin requirements from food labels.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:50 pm

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 10:25 am I mean a lot is spoken, without a lot of real knowledge, about the motivations of the ex-red wall voters but one thing I learnt growing up among them is they are fiercely patriotic and instinctively protectionistic when it comes to things like "Buying British" and still believe the abandonment of Imperial Preference in favour of EEC membership was a bad idea, they aren't going to take kindly to an influx of cheap, poor quality US products putting them and their neighbours out of work (sic)*.

This is why one of the US's conditions is to remove country-of-origin requirements from food labels.

Something something choice something something freedom something something liberty something something wibble something something nanny state.

On the plus side, mass agricultural abandonment would be great for the UK's ailing biodiversity. Industrial agriculture is probably f.cked without EU subsidies anyway, as the plans are to move away from subsidising farmers for merely owning land and producing food and towards providing public services. Increased competition from the US would just pull the trigger a bit faster.

There's a really important public conversation to be had about what the British countryside looks like and what it does for British people. At the moment it looks like a factory, enriches landowners and erodes the nation's natural capital.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:56 pm On the plus side, mass agricultural abandonment would be great for the UK's ailing biodiversity. Industrial agriculture is probably f.cked without EU subsidies anyway, as the plans are to move away from subsidising farmers for merely owning land and producing food and towards providing public services. Increased competition from the US would just pull the trigger a bit faster.

There's a really important public conversation to be had about what the British countryside looks like and what it does for British people. At the moment it looks like a factory, enriches landowners and erodes the nation's natural capital.

But but we like farmers' monocultures stretching out as far as the eye can see, I'm not sure how fond we are of looking at miles and miles of marshy sub-arctic scrubland.

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:05 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:56 pm On the plus side, mass agricultural abandonment would be great for the UK's ailing biodiversity. Industrial agriculture is probably f.cked without EU subsidies anyway, as the plans are to move away from subsidising farmers for merely owning land and producing food and towards providing public services. Increased competition from the US would just pull the trigger a bit faster.

There's a really important public conversation to be had about what the British countryside looks like and what it does for British people. At the moment it looks like a factory, enriches landowners and erodes the nation's natural capital.

But but we like farmers' monocultures stretching out as far as the eye can see, I'm not sure how fond we are of looking at miles and miles of marshy sub-arctic scrubland.

I think the evidence from rewilding projects like the Knepp estate in Sussex or Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands shows that people do actually really like seeing countryside with animals in it. It's more an issue of what baseline they're used to: the drastic post-WW2 intensification of farming and consequent eradication of wildlife is really a historical anomaly.

And the UK is getting decreasingly sub-Arctic as time marches on. Even the Arctic won't be Arctic if we continue on the current trajectory till 2030.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:20 pm And the UK is getting decreasingly sub-Arctic as time marches on. Even the Arctic won't be Arctic if we continue on the current trajectory till 2030.

Ah, but as global warming melts the ice caps, we lose the gulf stream and then become sub-arctic

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:23 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:20 pm And the UK is getting decreasingly sub-Arctic as time marches on. Even the Arctic won't be Arctic if we continue on the current trajectory till 2030.

Ah, but as global warming melts the ice caps, we lose the gulf stream and then become sub-arctic

And ultimately sub-marine.

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:25 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:23 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:20 pm And the UK is getting decreasingly sub-Arctic as time marches on. Even the Arctic won't be Arctic if we continue on the current trajectory till 2030.

Ah, but as global warming melts the ice caps, we lose the gulf stream and then become sub-arctic

And ultimately sub-marine.

I have some land set aside - about 35 north of Perth - the Scottish one

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:29 pm

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:25 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:23 pm

Ah, but as global warming melts the ice caps, we lose the gulf stream and then become sub-arctic

And ultimately sub-marine.

I have some land set aside - about 35 north of Perth - the Scottish one

By all accounts the Scots are looking forward to eating homegrown pineapples while watching the English drown.

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:32 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:29 pm I have some land set aside - about 35 north of Perth - the Scottish one

By all accounts the Scots are looking forward to eating homegrown pineapples while watching the English drown.

Fruit and veg? In Scotland?

<other stereotypes are available> Or is it too much for this day and age

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:29 pm

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:25 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:23 pm

Ah, but as global warming melts the ice caps, we lose the gulf stream and then become sub-arctic

And ultimately sub-marine.

I have some land set aside - about 35 north of Perth - the Scottish one

Good choice.
35 miles north of Perth, WA puts you in the Yanchep National Forest, which is very sandy and only grass trees really seem successful there.
35 miles north of Perth, Tasmania would be a bit wet already.
35 miles north of Perth, North Dakota might be OK, though, as you'd be in Canada.

Little waster wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:32 pm

Gentleman Jim wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2020 1:29 pm I have some land set aside - about 35 north of Perth - the Scottish one

By all accounts the Scots are looking forward to eating homegrown pineapples while watching the English drown.

An abundance of fruit is grown in western Norway, well north of Scotland. No pineapples though.

Where will the English go to avoid drowning?
Invade Scotland?
Or buy up large areas in the US Midwest and start terraforming with a view to settling?
Will immigration authorities permit this?

bmforre wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:58 am
Where will the English go to avoid drowning?

It’s think the SOP we follow is:-

Step 1. Deny there’s a problem (this stage is well underway)

Step 2. Accept there’s a problem but say it will be minor (this stage is starting to commence)

Step 3. Admit the problem is serious but assert British ingenuity means we will easily overcome it so there’s no reason to take any lessons from the Dutch.

Step 4. Clap like a bunch of performing f.cking seals in appreciation of our world-beating flood defences as our heads vanish beneath the waves.

Step 5. Stare in amazement up through the turbid flood waters as our Tory betters paddle themselves to safety in the life-boats we paid for, passingly only briefly to congratulate themselves on what a thoroughly marvellous job they have done and check the floating corpses for any jewellery or gold teeth. Aren’t the bluebells lovely?

I have never been to Perth, North Dakota, let alone 35 miles north of there, but 35 miles north of f.cking cold in the winter is really f.cking cold in the winter.

bolo wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:43 pm I have never been to Perth, North Dakota, let alone 35 miles north of there, but 35 miles north of f.cking cold in the winter is really f.cking cold in the winter.

Although you'd still be about 500 miles south of Perth, Scotland...

Wouldn't a US trade deal require ratification by Congress? And isn't compliance with the Good Friday Agreement a precondition for that?

jimbob wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:58 pm Wouldn't a US trade deal require ratification by Congress? And isn't compliance with the Good Friday Agreement a precondition for that?

Yes, and probably.

dyqik wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 4:38 pm

jimbob wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:58 pm Wouldn't a US trade deal require ratification by Congress? And isn't compliance with the Good Friday Agreement a precondition for that?

Yes, and probably.

Well, I guess Congress could go GOP but, at the moment Nancy Pelosi has asserted the second.

jimbob wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 5:56 pm

dyqik wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 4:38 pm

jimbob wrote: Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:58 pm Wouldn't a US trade deal require ratification by Congress? And isn't compliance with the Good Friday Agreement a precondition for that?

Yes, and probably.

Well, I guess Congress could go GOP but, at the moment Nancy Pelosi has asserted the second.

Of course, it almost certainly won't be negotiated within the next Congress. These things take ages, and nothing will start with Trump in the White House