Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Here’s some good news, no really I’m not shitting you

U.K. and EU negotiators have agreed a draft deal on Britain’s re-entry into the Horizon Europe research program after months of hard-fought talks.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be presented with the draft deal by officials this weekend ahead of a crunch meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen next Tuesday where the final agreement may be confirmed, two U.K. government officials — granted anonymity to speak about sensitive discussions — said.

One of the officials said Britain will re-join Horizon Europe, which has a €95.5 billion budget for the period 2021-27, and the Copernicus Earth observation program — but not Euratom’s nuclear energy R&D scheme, which both the British government and the U.K. nuclear sector consider “poor value for money,” the official said. https://www.politico.eu/article/britain ... izon-deal/

Doesn’t look like the government will take up Rees Mogg’s brilliant idea for manufacturers to have two production lines.

Another nail was quietly hammered into Brexit’s coffin yesterday as the Department for Business and Trade announced that plans to force UK firms to adopt the UKCA (United Kingdom Conformity Assessed) mark by a December 2024 deadline have been “extended indefinitely”. It’s very hard to see that it will ever be resurrected, at least for the 18 product areas which come under the department’s control.

The idea of totally replacing the European Union’s CE (Conformité Européenne or European Conformity) mark is now essentially dead.

The official statement said the move followed “extensive engagement with industry” and was intended to “ease burdens and boost growth for the UK economy”. If the government had carried out extensive engagement with industry before the referendum or before negotiations began, it might have avoided this utterly humiliating climbdown. https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/business ... a-marking/

It was always a monumentally stoopid idea - and anyway, what was wrong with the BS "Kite Mark" rather than this wanky UKCA... thing? I thought it was all about harking back to the past?

Rule takers, not rule makers. Still, blue passports though.

Dalem Lake wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 5:53 am Rule takers, not rule makers. Still, blue passports though.

That’s why Farage abandoned his ‘isn’t Switzerland/Norway great?’ position, tactics for a future referendum.

Fine article byJonathan Freedland, here. Someone on my Fleecebook timeline said that it points up the shocking irony that we must, for now, live with : that the entire shadow cabinet, including Starmer, and most of the Labour Party membership would (privately) agree completely with everything Freedland has to say.

I’m less than happy with Starmer saying so unequivocally “ There’s no case for going back to the EU, no case for going into the single market or customs union, and no [case for]freedom of movement.” But I know that he does not mean that. There very obviously IS a case, and a good one, for all of that, but again remember the porcelain vase and the long shiny-floored corridor. The time to advocate for that case is when Labour is safely in government.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisf ... Z7_G6flxMg

Before Brexit there was no small boats crisis: more proof that leaving the EU made everything worse

Talking to a Brexit-voting friend yesterday, and he tacitly agreed it had failed. In exactly the terms I told him it would...

Just as there was cake and eat it in the Brexit vote, I think it's more than likely there's cake and eat in this swing to rejoin. We'd not get the rebate back. Plus a lot of people like the current immigration system a lot more than FoM. Lots for a No vote or Tory party to get its teeth into there. And I doubt the EU would be that interested with the prospect of ReLeave being back on the agenda if the Tories won the next election.

What Starmer has done is deny the Tories a substantial base, which Rejoin Now would have given them. Without that base, the Tories are really struggling. Lots of people who would have been in that base become swing voters, and though these can be won, it's a tall order.

Well, that’s right. When the UK was an EU member, we had THE best membership terms of any member state : not just the generous contribution rebate, but specific exemption from Schengen, specific exemption from the Eurozone, and explicit exemption from the EU’s “ever closer union” mission statement.
And we still fucking left. It’s highly unlikely that we’d get anything resembling those terms if some day we’re in a position to re-join.

It wasn't a bad bit of negotiating by Cameron, in fairness. The trouble was that he made the public expect a lot more special treatment. That probably cost the votes of people who were open to persuasion. The renegotiation was understandably seen as "they never give us what we want".

Plus a lot of people like the current immigration system a lot more than FoM.

They’re very silent about this support up here Fenland Brexit central when you casually mention there’s more brown faces around since the white Poles and Slovaks went home. Which I do often.