> On his Conservative Home podcast, Mr Rees-Mogg argued there was “no point” agreeing a deal which does not have the support of the DUP.
Then why did they sign and ratify it years ago? The DUP was against it then too. Maybe the explanation is that they saw no immediate political advantage then in derailing the “oven ready deal”, but now that they’re in desperate need of relevance and popularity, they’ll try some more EU-bashing in the hope that this brings them popular support.
Not that the DUP deserves any compassion. If they really were so concerned about the union and the sea border, they could have just demanded a soft Brexit and nothing would have changed. The fact that they did not do so but preferred to support a hugely disruptive hard Brexit speaks volumes about their actual intentions.
The entire reason they supported a hard Brexit in the first place is that they thought it would create a land border that would then destabilize the political settlement and the GFA (which they never supported and forms the legal basis of their doom scenario, Irish unification). Essentially, they tried to set fire to their neighbours’ roof and accidentally lighted up their own.
> “There isn’t a deal to be done. It is back to the drawing board,” said another Conservative backbencher, who doesn’t like the sound of what they are hearing.
If there is no deal to be done, then why doesn’t the UK repudiate the agreement, as these politicians keep threatening to do? “They need us more than we need them”, remember? Why negotiate? The EU is not going to change its position on the sea border and neither is the DUP. If they really mean it, then by all means rip up the Withdrawal Agreement, suspend the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, eat whatever trade sanctions the EU puts on all UK exports in retaliation and pay the economic cost of trying to do the same.
> In his podcast, Mr Rees-Mogg urged Mr Sunak to pass the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would give the UK government the power to rip up parts of the current arrangement with the EU.
Nope. It does not give that power. It’s legal power stops at the UK border because governments abroad do not care about what UK law says. National legislation is never a reason to not uphold your international obligations, and you can not expect the keep enjoying the benefits of treaties if you’re breaking them. The EU will simply see this as breaking the treaty and retaliate accordingly. The consequence of exercising this particular power is a trade war with the EU.
And what is this, in the end? A bunch of self serving liars using this issue to get media attention and political influence. They don’t really care about the NIP or unionism or sovereignty. If they did believe what they said, they wouldn’t have signed and ratified two treaties creating obligations that they now want to dishonour. They just want to raise their profile, blackmail their weak and unpopular government into giving them a “victory” for which the UK will pay dearly.
At the end of the day, it is also pointless, because the EU will not budge and the UK can not afford trade sanctions or “no deal”. If the UK rejects legal arguments, the EU will simply resort to pressure. This is a fight the UK can not win.
100 or so extremist MPs on the far right of the Tory party are black mailing the UK and much of Europe on the altar of their ideological purity.
The only way to deal with them is to vote the Tory party out, or its going to be groundhog day until they go.
2 comments
> On his Conservative Home podcast, Mr Rees-Mogg argued there was “no point” agreeing a deal which does not have the support of the DUP.
Then why did they sign and ratify it years ago? The DUP was against it then too. Maybe the explanation is that they saw no immediate political advantage then in derailing the “oven ready deal”, but now that they’re in desperate need of relevance and popularity, they’ll try some more EU-bashing in the hope that this brings them popular support.
Not that the DUP deserves any compassion. If they really were so concerned about the union and the sea border, they could have just demanded a soft Brexit and nothing would have changed. The fact that they did not do so but preferred to support a hugely disruptive hard Brexit speaks volumes about their actual intentions.
The entire reason they supported a hard Brexit in the first place is that they thought it would create a land border that would then destabilize the political settlement and the GFA (which they never supported and forms the legal basis of their doom scenario, Irish unification). Essentially, they tried to set fire to their neighbours’ roof and accidentally lighted up their own.
> “There isn’t a deal to be done. It is back to the drawing board,” said another Conservative backbencher, who doesn’t like the sound of what they are hearing.
If there is no deal to be done, then why doesn’t the UK repudiate the agreement, as these politicians keep threatening to do? “They need us more than we need them”, remember? Why negotiate? The EU is not going to change its position on the sea border and neither is the DUP. If they really mean it, then by all means rip up the Withdrawal Agreement, suspend the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, eat whatever trade sanctions the EU puts on all UK exports in retaliation and pay the economic cost of trying to do the same.
> In his podcast, Mr Rees-Mogg urged Mr Sunak to pass the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would give the UK government the power to rip up parts of the current arrangement with the EU.
Nope. It does not give that power. It’s legal power stops at the UK border because governments abroad do not care about what UK law says. National legislation is never a reason to not uphold your international obligations, and you can not expect the keep enjoying the benefits of treaties if you’re breaking them. The EU will simply see this as breaking the treaty and retaliate accordingly. The consequence of exercising this particular power is a trade war with the EU.
And what is this, in the end? A bunch of self serving liars using this issue to get media attention and political influence. They don’t really care about the NIP or unionism or sovereignty. If they did believe what they said, they wouldn’t have signed and ratified two treaties creating obligations that they now want to dishonour. They just want to raise their profile, blackmail their weak and unpopular government into giving them a “victory” for which the UK will pay dearly.
At the end of the day, it is also pointless, because the EU will not budge and the UK can not afford trade sanctions or “no deal”. If the UK rejects legal arguments, the EU will simply resort to pressure. This is a fight the UK can not win.
100 or so extremist MPs on the far right of the Tory party are black mailing the UK and much of Europe on the altar of their ideological purity.
The only way to deal with them is to vote the Tory party out, or its going to be groundhog day until they go.