I was watching the House of Lords debate on Article 50 last night: it shows the level of excitement I wanted in my life and the quality if the offering on other television channels I have available to me. There were a number of rather good speeches; some less so. A moment I enjoyed was when Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, a Labour peer, described what he called the 'Oops moments' that are now creeping out of the woodwork when the ramifications of leaving the EU are considered.
Oops, we didn't think about Northern Ireland.
Oops, no one mentioned Euratom.
Oops, you mean we won't reduce inward migration?
Oops, the City might be leaving after all.
Oops, what is the cost of inducing all those car companies to stay?
Oops, we never thought we'd be creating mass migration from the UK of the key employees of many organisations.
Oops, as he actually put it, we just did not think about this.
And he was right.
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Great stuff.
But can anyone tell me what May was doing being in the HoL?
I mean honestly. What does she think she is doing?
Our Prime Minister is a control freak? A bully? A severe headmistress?
Had I would have told her to ‘eff off. Oh alright then – I would have challenged her on HoL TV cameras to explain to the house what she was doing there. Her own party voted her in – not the public.
I’m no fan of the HoL but have you noticed all the critical stories being released recently too? Dirty stuff.
But I’m not going a long with it.
Oops – meant to say ‘Had I been there…..’
This post makes me regret your having binned your system of indicating approval or disapproval of a post (though, of course, the neo-liberal trolls abused the system, the way Republicans in the USA use voter suppression legislation, to give false readings), as I’d surely give the content of this one a gold star for telling the truth with humour.
It also indicates why the Lords have survived, and why any replacement must build in the chief merit of the Lords, which is their ability to provide wise, disinterested comment based on real experience and evidence, and largely unfettered by Party lines.
This brief post alone would appear to report on more truthful observation and consideration of the Article 50 business than was evidenced in the majority of the debate in the Commons.
It’s not just the Lords that needs reform, then; clearly, so does the Commons, in the direction of choosing MP’s of wider experience and knowledge (and hopefully judgement), especially on the crucial matter of the nature of money and taxation – a “Positive Money” poll suggested fewer than 10% of MP’s really understand those two prime desiderata of an informed legislature.
Debates in the Lords are so much better than the Commons
Although the SNP do add depth to the Commons precisely because most have done other jobs and so have much to add
Nobody needed to mention Euratom, or the European Medicines Agency, or The ESRC: they are not ‘EU’ institutions and they are not affected by Article 50.
We didn’t need to leave them, and nobody mentioned them in the Referendum.
Nor in Parliament, until after the fact.
We pulled out of these joint European projects in a deliberate Hard Brexit, ahead of Article 50, because the hardliners wanted to: and they are getting everything they ask for, no matter what the cost.
Agreed
And CERN? Dr Lyn Evans led the design and development of the large harden collider ring, the largest CERN project. He’s a proud welshman who joined CERN at the time the UK became a member. Is this now possible?
And on the effect of Brexit, CERN’s Director General Dr Fabiola Gianotti said; “CERN Member States that are not EU Members, and do not have special arrangements with the EU, can participate in CERN-EU projects, but can not lead them, or receive EU funding.” dated 28 July 2016.
Like Horizon 2020 will turn out, on a much smaller scale
To complement this and also counter the nonsensical “broad brush” claims being made about the state of agriculture in the UK after Brexit, Private Eye had a a very interesting piece looking at the detail – and that’s the crucial word here and one we seldom hear from the likes of Johnson, May and co – as it will likely apply to sheep farming.
They point out that the UK exports 40% of the total production of lamb to EU countries (worth nearly £300 million). The current EU sheep meat tariff is £2,689 per tonne which effectively keeps produce from low cost food countries (i.e. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China and the US) out of the EU and thus largely out of the UK. However, when we leave the single market that levy applies to UK sheep meat. As PE notes ‘this would either price UK lamb off EU supermarket shelves or require UK farmers to take a huge cut to absorb the cost of the export levy. Such a cut would reduce what farmers receive for a fat lamb from £80 to £30 per head, making sheep farming in the UK completely uneconomic.’ (PE No.1437, p.17)
This is not the only threat, of course because those self same low cost food countries are also exactly those countries that May and co are targetting for bilateral trade agreements. Consequently they’re unlikely to agree to tariffs in the region of those currently operated by the EU in any trade deal. Result: an open market to produce at a cost UK farmers cannot compete with.
Note also the same apllies to beef (EU levy £2622 per tonne), butter (EU tariff £1635 per tonne, milk – which incidentally currently allows the profitable export of large quantities of milk to Eire for processing into cheese but would become uneconomic once we’re outside the single market and the milk tarriff applies).
So, here we have a real case of the impact of Brexit, not the airy-fairy nonsence that our PM and the rest of the lemmings around her utter. It’d be good to hear an equally detailed response that explains exactly how this situation and the many thousands like it that Brexit will expose are going to be dealt with.
Channel 4 picked this up last night
It’s pretty scary stuff
And farmers voted for this….
Before the June vote, I asked my cousins, who farm on the Welsh Border, how they were going to continue their sales of lambs (from which most of their income derives) to Europe if Britain left the EU. They took a collective deep breath, and said, ‘We’ll vote Remain – and warn our mates’.
I think they tried, but failed. That constituency had a high Leave percentage.
Things are most definitely going to be grim in that small community (main source of income – stock-rearing) – who’ve collectively cut off their nose to spite their face.
I can’t remember where I saw it but I loved a small comment describing Foxes negotiating strategy: “This what we want from our negotiations with the EU and if we don’t get, I’ll blow our brains out”.
@Ivan, exactly. Its interesting that Private Eye is the [only] current success of UK journalism with an increasing readership and sales.
Indeed
Yes, I spotted that reported somewhere, @Tony_B. The same article also noted that the viewing figures for the late night satirical shows in the US (e.g. The Late Show, The Daily Show, etc) are also up and continuing to increase. Having watched a few while I’ve been off work I can see why. In fact I’ve even started watching ‘Morning Joe’ on MSNBC, the two presenters are republicans but boy do they get stuck into Trump and his cronies.
Had you watched the cycling from one of the more scenic parts of Belgium you would have seen them all hard at work to get back where they started from. A metaphor for our times and certainly more fun than the House of Lords.
Mmmmm….not sure about that
In 1975 voting for the EC or was it EEC or then maybe Common Market, nobody told us that there would be Treaties galore, et al, eg 1977 MacDougall Report, named after an economic adviser to the CBI, was produced at the request of the Commission; Maastricht; Amsterdam ; Nice; Constitution Treaty, oh sorry I meant the Lisbon thing let’s forget France & Holland voted against the uhm Constitution Treaty, not that I’ve just brought it up; ………..
Nobody told us that a nation could never vote No, well if they did vote no they would have to re-vote.
Were we told of all the unelected people, like Cecilia Malmots & of TTIP or do I mean CETA ???