m2btj
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Post by m2btj on Mar 14, 2019 16:43:23 GMT
The EU have all the cards and we are up a creek without a paddle (mixing my metaphors). I have managed construction sites for the last 30 years and routinely get involved in final account negotiations with clients and sub-contractors. I have been on more negotiating skills courses than I care to remember.
The first thing they tell you on the course is that there are 2 golden rules in negotiations:
- never let the other side know what your bottom line is
- always be prepared to walk away
The voting fiasco last night (assuming TM takes notice of it) has wrecked any chance we have of getting a decent deal. The best way forward now is probably to get the bosses of the top unions to negotiate for us, as they obviously know how the game is played.
Having no deal brexit on the table is a bit like our nuclear deterrent. Everyone prays that you will never need to use it, but having it there means you are operating from a position of strength.
I spent a career in senior sales & the government's negotiating position on Brexit has been nothing short of disgraceful. Instead of putting together the strongest possible team of professional negotiators (business leaders, cross party politicians, TUC, etc) we end up with civil servants who never believed in Brexit. In fact, Britain’s ambassador to the European Union Sir Ivan Rogers totally undermined our position before resigning in 2017. These civil servants were looking to take up senior EU positions after leaving the CS. Even Tony Blair sees himself as the next President of the EU if he can successfully deliver the 'peoples vote'. In his speech to the European Parliament yesterday, German Conservative, Hans Olaf Henkel pointed out that the UK was the EU's largest single trading partner & Brexit would be a total disaster for every member economy. In fact, a hard Brexit would push their already fragile economies into recession. I wish I had a hand like that in some of my negotiations! Barnier & his team are to be congratulated & had us on the ropes from the outset. Theresa May has been reduced to walking around in a punch drunk daze. Whatever the outcome, my belief in the democratic system & our so called leaders is in tatters!
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Post by captainconfident on Mar 14, 2019 16:49:11 GMT
"“I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates of global success are moving.”
Andrea Leadsom, speech to City leaders while she was Treasury Secretary, quoted in Mail on Sunday, April 2013
So is she always right about these things and about the Vienna Treaty?
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sqh
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Before P2P, savers put a guinea in a piggy bank, now they smash the banks to become guinea pigs.
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Post by sqh on Mar 14, 2019 16:53:03 GMT
One of today's amendments calls for a second referendum. They aren't even suggesting that we could vote NO, and even if you could vote NO it would be discounted, because a NO deal Brexit has been ruled out.
I think any MP who votes for this amendment needs to be deselected, for blatantly defying the referendum result.
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copacetic
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Post by copacetic on Mar 14, 2019 17:08:51 GMT
I live in Northern Ireland. The uncertainty of Irish border issue is just being used as a political weapon in the negotiation. If the UK government states they aren't going to supply any funding to put up a border check who exactly is going to make them? WTO? No, they already said no. The EU? No, if we leave without a deal they don't have any say on the NI side of the border. I'm pretty sure the headline "EU forces Irish government to break Good Friday Agreement by erecting border post checks for goods heading south" would only be followed by the headline "EU prompts Irexit." Sure, the EU are happy to financially punish the UK to hold together the union, but if they force a current member state into political instability then I think there'd be more than a few people questioning how far the EU has strayed from it's original purpose.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Mar 14, 2019 17:15:16 GMT
I live in Northern Ireland. The uncertainty of Irish border issue is just being used as a political weapon in the negotiation. If the UK government states they aren't going to supply any funding to put up a border check who exactly is going to make them? WTO? No, they already said no. The EU? No, if we leave without a deal they don't have any say on the NI side of the border. I'm pretty sure the headline "EU forces Irish government to break Good Friday Agreement by erecting border post checks for goods heading south" would only be followed by the headline "EU prompts Irexit." Sure, the EU are happy to financially punish the UK to hold together the union, but if they force a current member state into political instability then I think there'd be more than a few people questioning how far the EU has strayed from it's original purpose.
I'm not sure that I agree with all of that but I appreciate the perspective / insight, thank you ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) .
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cb25
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Post by cb25 on Mar 14, 2019 17:41:43 GMT
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Mar 14, 2019 18:01:38 GMT
Labour where whipped to abstain. Many think a far more robust whipping would do them good.
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cb25
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Post by cb25 on Mar 14, 2019 18:03:35 GMT
Labour where whipped to abstain. Many think a far more robust whipping would do them good. I thought the numbers were a bit light.
Labour's position is too cunning for me - if they can't get a GE (they can't), they'll push for a second referendum (they don't).
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toffeeboy
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Post by toffeeboy on Mar 14, 2019 18:26:30 GMT
Labour where whipped to abstain. Many think a far more robust whipping would do them good. I thought the numbers were a bit light.
Labour's position is too cunning for me - if they can't get a GE (they can't), they'll push for a second referendum (they don't). They tried for the general election with a vote of no confidence and failed.
They couldn't risk trying for a second referendum and failing as well or even worse actually winning and then losing the referendum.
Far easier to sit in opposition and say you aren't doing it right, Corbyn has made a political career out of doing just that.
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Post by samford71 on Mar 14, 2019 19:45:25 GMT
In other news the UK successfuly completed two further trade deals in preparation for Brexit ... with the economic superpowers that are Fiji and Papua New Guinea. That's another 0.032% of global GDP added to the list.
Another 750 deals like that and we will have signed deals with equivalent GDP to the economic bloc we are leaving. Just don't hold your breath.
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Mar 14, 2019 22:07:15 GMT
Labour where whipped to abstain. Many think a far more robust whipping would do them good. I thought the numbers were a bit light.
Labour's position is too cunning for me - if they can't get a GE (they can't), they'll push for a second referendum (they don't). People's vote told them not to as timing isn't right. The mouth is still above the doo doo (in their opinion)
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cb25
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Post by cb25 on Mar 14, 2019 22:14:30 GMT
I wonder if May will use the agreed extension to her advantage - "approve my deal next time and I'll ask for an extension of a couple of months to do the paperwork, vote it down again and I'll ask for 1-2 year extension, hold a GE and/or second referendum, then who knows what'll happen".
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Mar 14, 2019 22:36:55 GMT
Labour's position is too cunning for me - if they can't get a GE (they can't), they'll push for a second referendum (they don't). I though that the popular view was that JC would be putting forward another vote of no confidence. I wonder how Chuka and his new mates in TIG would vote, given they will all probably be out of a job if we have a GE.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Mar 14, 2019 22:47:33 GMT
Labour's position is too cunning for me - if they can't get a GE (they can't), they'll push for a second referendum (they don't). I though that the popular view was that JC would be putting forward another vote of no confidence. I wonder how Chuka and his new mates in TIG would vote, given they will all probably be out of a job if we have a GE. I can't talk for all of them but Chuka is my local MP and he had a 25k majority at the last election in a constituency that was 75% remain.
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Mar 14, 2019 22:54:01 GMT
I though that the popular view was that JC would be putting forward another vote of no confidence. I wonder how Chuka and his new mates in TIG would vote, given they will all probably be out of a job if we have a GE. I can't talk for all of them but Chuka is my local MP and he had a 25k majority at the last election in a constituency that was 75% remain. But still only a 'ten a penny' politician. Party loyalty always sways voters sooner or later. Otherwise we would have a parliament filled with people of integrity, heaven forbid.
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