EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

During the coverage leading up to the Referendum Terese Villiers,(a former Tory MEP, of the brexxitty mindset) and possibly still the serving NI Secretary was asked about the implications for the NI/ROI border,
and she brushed away the question as irrelevant.
Two options:
i) either the pro-brexit politicians are very dense are never thought through the implications
ii) pro-Brexit think tanks researched the implications, foresaw the current unfolding disaster and deliberately hid it from the specifically chosen dense 'talking heads' that were the faces of their campaign.

[Editted to replace 'Eire' with 'ROI' following @mmccarthy examples.
I'm one of those English people who seldom thought of NI between the GFA and the referendum debate].

Iron heart? I got the same email.

I think importing a G plan chair from the UK into Europe is going to end up being an expensive saga. I’ve contacted the Swedish tax office to see if they can give me a quote.

Yep. What benefit to the UK economy will there be in all these businesses setting up branches in Europe? Fucking brextards

I think many people in mainland UK have no real idea about, nor interest in, NI generally and indeed further wish it and the attendant troubles (small t) would just go sort of go away. They see it these days as a localised Irish issue.

^^ Richard North has stated that the Leave campaign simply never thought of NI, and when it was mentioned dismissed it as unimportant.

As far as I can remember:
the price of 'sugar' in the EU is above the World market price for two reasons.

Firms with Colonial/Slave era histories like Tate & Lyle can strong arm small producers in the caribbean, (and possibly elsewhere) to keep the sugar cane growers on the breadline, and keep all the added value for themselves.

France, East Anglia, (and potentially other tracts of agricultural land within the EU), can produce beet-based sugar. It provides employment and a food-security, local source of low-carbon/low food miles sugar.
The EU also gives special tariff arrangements to formerly colonially impoverished states in the Caribbean as long as the production meets some EU standards, 'Organic', 'Fairtrade', etc.
[I seem to remember the French were better at this than the UK, as Tate & Lyle have always been politically connected, long before David 'thick as mince' Davis appeared on the English political scene].

This reduces the likelihood of impoverished Caribbean farmers reverting to the guaranteed crop of choice:- weed.

A lot of former colonial/impoverished places are on the EU “anything but guns” tariff- which means zero tariff for their exports, which is why Mogg’s statement that their stuff would be cheaper post Brexit was always balls.

Plenty of other options:

1) understood but didn't care
2) generally understood it was an issue but assumed someone else would solve it for them (eg "remoaner civil servants")
3) etc

Initially my first thought is the second option, but I do recall hearing MPs describe the NI/ROI border as an 'internal' border with regard to the UK (unfortunately it's hard to find the quote due to the actual internal border that's been drawn on the Irish sea). So there are definitely some MPs who fall into the former unfortunately.

It was always going to come down to either an ROI/NI border (breaking the GFA, likely resurgence of Irish & Unionist paramilitary groups), or an NI/GB border. It's depressing how simple an issue it really is, but no one seemed to acknowledge that they'd just landed themselves in a situation with two pretty shit solutions.

I completely understand that for a lot of the population in the UK, it's not important to them, and there's no real need to understand it either. However, it was a very, very obvious issue to anyone looking to implement a border between the EU & UK. Just can't believe that no one 'in the know' brought these issues to the general public in any meaningful way.

The only positive to come out of Theresa May's premiership was that she got a decent hairdresser who got rid of her Ozzy curtains.

Yeah, Ill go along with those, as well.
Some threads move so fast, a couple of options are all that I can summon.

We have an over-running project building laptops for deployment to EU countries from UK. There is now VAT, customs declarations and duty to take into account... oops

It did seem odd that pro-Brexit dunces were against EU Freedom of Movement.
but proclaimed the UK/ROI free travel zone as a bastion of democratic rights.
I had always assumed this was to make it easy for English aristocrat absentee landlords to travel back & forth unhindered.

Exactly. What really blew my mind was that even after the referendum when the NI border issue was inescapable, Theresa May did that deal with the DUP.

Then inevitably, when she agreed regulatory alignment on the island in principle with the EU and Eire, Arlene Foster was able to veto it and that became the impasse for years until a new Government was formed.

She could have formed a minority government or a cross party Brexit alliance as suggested at the time, but instead she thought it better to be beholden to the DUP during negotiations involving the NI border. All for the sake of 10 seats to claim a majority after her shit awful GE campaign.

I'm with you but I think it was actively discouraged in a blasé Johnson/ERG 'piffle' way and the most important thing latterly was to 'get Brexit done' which I'm sure doesn't need my translation as to the level of consideration such detail might require. Of course we also had the period when the DUP held inordinate sway by virtue of holding the whip hand for May's Tory majority - but put simply, they probably did realise there were two pretty shit options which they would rather not talk about too much.

NI: The place time forgot :p

TBF not sure many Brexiters in England would have even cared, polls indicate Tory voting Brexiters don't care much.

Cameron should have input safeguards, either a super majority or 3/4 UK countries voting leave, but no.

The ERG of course also didn't give a hoot, they pushed out May along with that twat Boris Johnson btw who also dumped her under the brexit bus, she in fairness tried with all her other awfulness to prevent this.

Many opportunities to prevent this, but hey ho, "oven ready Brexit"

/rant

:)

Cameron should have input safeguards, either a super majority or 3/4 UK countries voting leave, but no.

I suspect this wasn't an option when negotiating with ERG pre-2015 election when sorting the manifesto. He was terrified that the Tory party would break up as the ERG were threatening to join the Brexit party.

And now the UK is at risk of break up...

Yep,
The Tory party first & foremost,
everytime.

Can't help but wonder what would have happened if the ERG walked and UKIP got dunno 10 seats.

Then what? They are a minority anyway, and Labour/Greens/Alliance wouldn't be happy to work with them.

A few years later they still cannot get their EU ref through as they are toxic. OK sure, perhaps Cons lose to Labour for 5 years, that's fine too as they can then blame Labour for everything they fucked up with the help of the Murdoch press.

Nothing changes. UK still intact.

no more sub compact triple crank conversions for @Lolo

Sorry to be a “snowflake” here, but could you guys stop using Eire to describe Ireland or the ROI? It’s inaccurate and continues to be used deliberately by conservative types who refuse to recognise Irish independence or whatever other petty reasons they choose to use it. Goes back to 1937 and has a history of misuse. Also, the correct spelling is Éire, eire having a very different meaning in the language.

Happy to use ROI to describe the majority of the island of Ireland from now on.

Full disclosure however as a 56 year old Englishman, this is the first time I've ever heard that Eire was a problematic description, and (tbh without foundation) I thought it was a Irish based descriptor.

I see that you think it is deliberately used by people with an agenda, but there is a possibility that it has been used by people like me who were honestly trying to choose the correct term.

Good point, is it still used by Ireland on their stamps, Euro coins and passports? If so its hard to pull people up for not realising it’s a bit contentious.