Wes Tender

Waah, waah, waah. It is all so unfair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7NlFWh7Sz8

Fisheries, so-called level playing field, (state subsidies, workplace rules and standards) and regulatory control. These are the same three sticking points that have endured throughout the negotiations process. Without any significant ground being given by either side, no FTA will be agreed On our side, any significant movement on any of these will constitute a BRINO, and Boris and the Conservatives will be toast come the next election. On the EU side, there is a mini-civil war between the two major players and their allies among the 27. Macron is doing his best to sink the whole thing with his position on fisheries and Merkel and her allies on the other side are fearful of the effects on German manufacturing if the UK is not hamstrung by EU regulations and laws. It is the French who are being the most stubbornly stupid over fisheries, and it is beginning to sink in that if they crash the FTA negotiations with their ridiculous stance that they be allowed to continue fishing our waters as if we had not left the EU and were still tied to the CFP, not only will they not be entitled to access our fishing waters at all, but they will also decimate their agricultural industry when tariffs are applied to their over-priced produce. Even if a FTA is agreed between Barnier and Frost, the French or some mini-state like Wallonia could still veto it. The typical EU ploy is to wait until 5 to midnight in the negotiations, hoping that the other party will fold. Another tactic is to make the proposed deal as long as possible, hundreds if not thousands of pages, leave the agreement so late that there is not time to scrutinise it properly and hey presto some clause hidden deep within will come back to bite us. They have overplayed their hand this time and totally misjudged our position, probably mistakenly based on what a walkover May and Robbins were. I hope that we don't give an inch and tell the EU on Sunday night that there really is no point in us continuing these negotiations if the EU don't recognise that we are an independent third country and should be treated as such.

To be fair to aintforever, this might well be true based on his posts as I recall them around the time of the Referendum and for a while afterwards. Of course, he has changed into a fully-blown remoaner since, for some reason.

With a supreme effort of memory, you might recall that in an act of gross duplicity, she shafted them all by going behind their backs and formulating with that useless Robbins the sellout to the EU that was the Chequers agreement. Davis and Boris both resigned and this Chequers surrender Bill was rejected three times in the House.

Oh look; another attack of Verbal diarrhea

Equally of course, they wish to continue to access our markets where they have a massive trade surplus in goods, and to have the sovereign right to undercut us too, armed with powers to attempt to hamstring our efforts to grow our economy Your problem is that you only see the "reality" from their side.

And yet history will judge him not on those things, but what he achieves in the most important decision in our history for the past fifty years. He has a massive electoral mandate to get Brexit done and will be toast politically if he delivers a BRINO capitulation to the EU. My expectation is that either if we leave with a proper FTA with the EU, or without one on WTO terms, as Boris states, we will thrive in the medium to long term and look back wondering why we didn't do it earlier.

You must be pretty shallow if you believe that a person's appearance or body language are significant factors in their ability to negotiate a deal competently. Despite his appearance, he was elected Mayor of London twice, led the leave referendum campaign that produced a winning majority, and is the PM following a near landslide General Election majority of 80 seats. It appears to be the case that either the electorate find his eccentricity endearing, or else they couldn't care a toss about it. Naturally those who aren't Conservative voters will find petty reasons to be critical of him. Further to the unsolicited gossip regarding Boris' alleged diplomatic faux pas, I hear that the Union Jack was flown outside the EU offices upside down, a traditional distress signal. Was that a simple error, or a deliberate insult, I wonder?

As I said, you place reliance on a third-hand account of events from somebody who was not even in attendance and who is unlikely to be impartial about their report on events. I read several reports online from MEPs who are disparaging about how the EU are wrong to treat us with such disrespect and arrogance. The fact that you place such credence on such reports suggests that you are perhaps the fourth form debater.

Rather that than EU good, UK bad, which is the position of many on here.

What is even more astonishing, is that there is such a substantial number of people who still persist in belly-aching, bitching, whining about how unfair it all is that they lost the referendum vote, despite all the best efforts of the establishment with all the money they threw at project fear. Having witnessed the way that the EU have reacted towards us over the past four and a half years with their desire to punish us for having the audacity to leave their cosy cartel, it is not surprising that many who voted to remain in the referendum have now changed their minds since. The sensible ones will have accepted the position that we are now in, and wish the UK the best for our future, but there is a fifth column who only desire failure so that their petty little minds can crow about how right they were to predict failure.

Well done Boris. So the EU side thought that he had gone there to make peace, eh? Or did they believe that we would roll over and accede to their demands that we allow them to carry on fishing our territorial waters as if we were still under the CFP? Allow them to dictate how we should govern ourselves overseen by the jurisdiction of their law court? Despite this summary being third hand, and therefore probably spun to create mischief, there are elements of it that inspire confidence in Boris from the Brexiteer perspective. Yes, Barnier has been ineffective in getting an agreement between the UK and the EU over a four and a half year period, although he came close to getting a complete cave-in from us under the hapless May and the incompetent Robbins. How the EU must be kicking themselves that they didn't accept that arrangement. Is it an unreasonable request that if Barnier isn't capable of getting a deal done, that Boris might wish to deal with the organ-grinder instead of the monkey? Is it an unreasonable assumption that Barnier being French, he will have a bias favouring the nation of his birth in the negotiations? Boris is called arrogant, but it seems that Macron is a model of self-effacing modesty. And what bluff was it from Boris that VDL called? What fresh proposals were they expecting from Boris? That he cave in on all their demands? The main benefit from the face to face talks is that it has now become crystal clear to the President of the EU that our negotiator Lord Frost's negotiating position was also completely in accord with the mandate given to him from the UK government. Perhaps the penny will finally have dropped that we will not allow our three red lines to be breached and that if the EU want a deal with us, it is they who will have to drop their demands in those three areas. So Boris being Boris upset the EU side at the dinner with a bit of light-hearted banter, and should have realised that the Germans especially lack a sense of humour. If the EU were caused offence, then they should ponder the numerous incidents of offence that they caused since we voted to leave, disrespecting May at every opportunity, the insult to Boris being forced to speak next to a baying crowd by the Luxembourg PM, their jolly little japes involving cherries on cakes, etc. Some of the media even believe that the serving of fish for both of the first two courses was a deliberate act of mischief, although I don't think that it would have been given any offence to our side.

Lots of the EU deals are also with small Islands and no account small backwater countries too. https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/negotiations-and-agreements/

Good riddance

It isn't about the money, I could easily afford far more than the £50 too. I recall that originally you balked at the amount. It is the principle, something that you appear to have difficulty grasping. A bet is a matter of honour and you don't seem to have that virtue.

Another fine example of the sort of puerile insult hurled at the Brexit side. I invite condemnation of this sort of behaviour by those who are unhappy at the pretty mild names that the remain side are called. I won't hold my breath though.

I have given up expecting you to act honourably and with integrity over that bet. Going back to the question I asked, are you going to post that quote from LD?

You can't recall the £50 bet you made that we would take the Norway option.

I don't recall LD saying those exact words. Are you paraphrasing incorrectly to make a point? No doubt you will be happy to post the exact quote.

You don't need to be a member of the EU single market to avoid tariffs. A FTA between the two parties can do away with the majority of them. Canada, Japan, S.Korea and others have FTAs with the EU doing away with most tariffs without having to have Single Market membership. Tariffs will only apply if there is no FTA, and of course they will apply both ways.

Plundering our waters, not pillaging; I don't recall using pillaging. 😉 And you are correct, I have never called for remoaners to be strung up or called them traitors. I am a democrat and believe in the right to freedom of speech and opinion. I would say that my language has been pretty mild, compared to that which is hurled at we Brexiteers on here. Clueless wankers, village idiots, Jihadists, fuckwits, retards, etc. have all been flung about liberally by some. But it's a football forum, so only to be expected, I suppose. And the double standards are breathtaking when over-sensitive souls are offended by being called remoaners and yet have nothing at all to say about the use of the far more industrial and insulting language of others on their side of the argument. The weakest and most risible insult though, is to be accused of being of pensionable age and apparently being schooled in one's opinions via Facebook. I'm afraid that I have no control over my age, but on the plus side it provides an ability to assess situations through experience. I only use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends on four Continents, nothing more. Ironic really when in the next breath the same poster quotes Twatter as a source for his opinions. I'm not on the banal and unreliable Twatter, preferring to obtain my current affairs information from numerous other sources both pro and anti-Brexit.

Well, as you're ignoring my comments, I'll avail myself of the opportunity of accepting you are only critical of the language employed by those whose opinions you oppose, but totally ambivalent towards it from those you agree with. Hypocrite.

Whitey, I await your condemnation of the insulting language from VFTP. Or do you only level the criticism at those whose views you oppose?

Isn't it easy not to bother to refute anything, but instead to hurl puerile insults? It speaks volumes about the sort of person you are. This is your usual MO, suggestive that you aren't exactly clued up on the issues yourself, but only too ready to hurl insults at those who hold the opposite opinion to you.

*yawn*