European Commission President Juncker tweets that a Brexit deal has been done | Hacker News Reader

European Commission President Juncker tweets that a Brexit deal has been done

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67 pointsseapunk103 comments

Doesn't really matter unless it is also passed by the UK parliament - which looks unlikely at this time, which was also the fate of the last deal that Theresa May's government negotiated.

It does matter, because those that reject it will at some point have to justify themselves to the electorate in a General Election, of which currently the opposition are running scared.

Edit: and what's more to remind everyone - over and over and over again we were told 'This is the only deal!' by Barnier, Juncker, Varadkar and many many others, and the anti-Brexit crowd used this to bash Leave over the head again and again. Turns out it wasn't the only deal. Fancy that!

We can't have an election until the extension against no-deal is secured. If Johnson wanted an election he shouldn't have made the fuss about being determined to exit at the end of the month no matter what.

That's of no consequence to what I said. The opposition cannot run for ever.

They're not running, and it doesn't need to be "forever" - we can, and most likely will at this rate, have an election before Christmas. We can't have an election while No Deal is a ticking timebomb in the middle of it. What part of that do you refuse to understand?

Labour are going to get absolutely smashed.

And the Conservative vote will be split by the Brexit party - interesting times!

Elsewhere you wrote that they have a good chance of winning using their "voter fraud tactics", whatever that may mean. Aren't you contradicting yourself?

I disagree, Labour would win if we had a general election but they don't want to win because they don't want to deal with this mess, politically most of Parliament sees this is a damned if you do damn if you don't situation.

This deal is going to fail because of the pro-brexit contingent of the conservative party. The DUP are against and it looks like the ERG are likely to follow suit once it becomes clear exactly what is agreed. So whilst you're right that they'll face a GE at some point, the people responsible for stopping the deal to leave the EU are likely going to be campaigning for a deal to leave the EU (and then continuing to vote against it if they get elected).

Agreed, nothing has substantially changed on either side, this is a moving of deck chairs just so BJ can waft a piece of paper.

The DUP are still against it, the rump of Labour, lib Dems, and the rest will still be against it.

Well, it might matter in that respect but as far as the short term it does look like we won't be leaving on the 31st.

Mind you - I'd happily accept this deal if there was a confirmatory referendum - so maybe some parties would agree with this deal on that basis.

[NB Even Dominic Cummings used to think a confirmatory referendum was a good idea].

To be honest, I'd like a 2nd referendum just to get the politicians to think about a deal that would be acceptable to both sides, rather than being hard remain or hard leave.

Ahem...as far as I can tell, this is the solution the EU initially proposed wrt Northern Ireland. It was the UK that rejected that solution.

So "only deal" is always in the context of "respecting UK red lines". Many other deals were on offer, including Norway etc.

> So "only deal" is always in the context of "respecting UK red lines". Many other deals were on offer, including Norway etc.

No true Scotsman

This is not an example of that.

Everytime someone (whether in the UK or EU) said "There's no other deal possible", it was always in the context of the UK and EU red lines.

Surely as a hacker you must see that once the constraints change, the problem space to explore also changes.

A Norway-like deal was never on offer from the EU as far as I can tell. What's more, even Norway said that they would not support a Norway-like arrangement with the UK joining EFTA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Associatio...

There's nothing stopping the UK from trying to negotiate that kind of relationship.

That was never sought though. May's red lines made that kind of relationship impossible.

Sure, the UK could try that. I was just replying specifically to the assertion that other deals like Norway were "on offer". A Norway deal was discussed, but nobody really offered it to the UK.

I think the parent was talking about the domestic conversation around the Brexit vote.

The red lines weren't drawn until after that vote.

> Norway-like deal was never on offer

This is simply not true.

See Barnier's presentation graphic:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/michel-barnier-killer...

The various models shown (with variations) were all on offer by the EU, rejected/made impossible by the UK's red lines.

that's one nasty GDPR nag screen. 10 clicks deep and still no way to opt out.

Thanks for that graphic. I don't know what Barnier said along showing that slide, but for me it looks more like "there's no point even thinking about offering or discussing these options if you've ruled them out already" and less like "we have offered all of these in earnest". But I understand that your interpretation differs.

Edit: I found this: https://www.businessinsider.de/what-is-the-norway-model-brex... "The EU has always said the Norway option is available to the UK.", which I'll choose to believe. I stand corrected.

The EU position has been simple, accurate, and consistent. The slide simply shows each Brexit option and which UK redline issues get in the way of each of those options, including the Norway route.

To pick just one: Norway has free movement of people with the EU, and is in the Schengen area. To get the same deal, UK would have to drop the objection to free movement.

It was the only deal with the red lines May had declared. Johnson was willing to compromise, so a different deal could be struck.

A different deal could also be struck if the UK were willing to stay fully in the customs union or otherwise were willing to align themselves more to the EU.

Right. May needed the DUP to keep her majority, so she couldn't propose a deal that they wouldn't accept. Johnson has no majority so the DUP are no longer important.

I wouldn't be so sure. If this deal passes the DUP could vote to make Corbyn PM. From their perspective Corbyn is preferable to what they see as de facto Irish unification.

You're not aware of Corbyn's history as regards Ireland then.

And of course it's not the only deal - but notice that it moves none of the EU "red lines". Instead it puts a customs border between parts of the UK. Which was previously unthinkable on the UK side. And was certainly not in the Leave referendum prospectus.

Anyone who thinks this deal is good - better than remain - needs to articulate why a customs border in the UK is an improvement.

The alternative for the DUP if the scupper this will be a united Ireland referendum

Republic of Ireland cannot take the reunification financially. Northern Ireland is underdeveloped and relying on governmental post to keep afloat.

Rep doesn't currently have enough resources to support integration of north. Unfortunately at the moment its romanticized dream.

This is the funny thing about NI - it's portrayed as a catastrophic loss for UK prestige if Ireland were to unite, whereas there are plenty of politicians, civil servants etc. that would be happier if it were no longer the UK's problem, and the remainder of the UK would be better off as a consequence. The same can almost be said of Scotland - England/Wales taxpayers would be better off without it, for example.

People do not always vote in their economic best interests.

According to https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/sites/agriculture/files/rur... , the EU allocated 646 million euros to be spent on the Rural Development Programme in Northern Ireland 2014-2020. Not sure how that compares to UK government spending.

Edit: http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/sites/unitedkingdom/files/... gives a total of 3.5 billion euros EU funding in the same time frame, but only 228 million in the RDP, which made me realize that the 646 million above include 417 million of national co-funding, which I guess means the UK government.

Edit 2: According to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conservative-and-... the UK government has made £2.5 billion available to Northern Ireland over 3 years, which works out to almost twice the amount provided by the EU on a yearly basis. That also squares with the similar proportions for the RDP funding alone.

Presumably some of that is the £1 billion that May promised the DUP to get their votes.

Loads of EU areas are underdeveloped, and the EU spends a lot of money helping develop them. We would help Ireland the same way.

Edit: Not sure why someone reflexively downvoted a factual post, but here is some background: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/erdf/

And here's a map showing that Northern Ireland is already classed as a "transition region", like Eastern Germany for example: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/what/future/img...

> This is the only deal

That was true given the constraints imposed by UK. If UK was willing to change the "red lines" different deals were always possible. The whole UK backstop for example was actually requested by the UK, EU only wanted NI in. It seems that Boris backtracked from it (details are still not known) and a new deal was made.

For me the surprising thing is that Boris actually managed to get a deal at all, as most just assumed he was stalling.

It's the same deal only the backstop is a permanent arrangement.

The idea that Labour don't want an election is absurd. They've been demanding one since last year. The only reason they're voting against one now is that Johnson would pull the UK out of the EU whilst Parliament was dissolved. They'll support an election as soon as possible if there's another extension.

...because the extension is a cynical tactic to attempt to hurt the Conservatives' popularity. Suspect either of Corbyn or McDonnell are terminally unpopular with the public though, but they'll roll out their voter fraud tactics as seen many times in the past, so we might end up with them after all. And god help us if that happens.

The Conservative coalition the Fixed Term Parliament Act into being knowing it requires a super majority to end a government early. That was the cynical idiocy. It's broken our parliament. The LibDems, who proposed it, clearly were not thinking at all when they shat that idea out.

Why wouldn't every non-Conservative politician, including Corbyn et al, vote against a controversial government getting their way? Especially when BoJo threw away his own majority by ejecting MPs. Are you saying that if roles were reversed the Tories would not so vote?

It's one thing to demand something when you know you won't get it, it's quite another when you know you will get it.

Obviously the truth is that they want a general election only if they reckon they can win it, which at the moment is dubious.

Okay, I was wrong.

Hah, I was too quick to doubt myself.

The thing is that now Boris Johnson delivered a deal so he can freely go with no exit if the parliament refuses it. Which he hints he really wants. Until the mess has gone trough courts 31st will be long gone if he decides to not seek extension.

No, parliament have the option to reject it.

Yes but I think he will time it in such a way that hard brexit will be unavoidable if they refuse.

The Benn act requires parliament to have agreed the deal by the 19th Oct, or the letter needs to be sent requesting the extension.

The EU would probably say no. And I can't blame them, since all the past evidence suggests we'd be in the same situation in six months time when that extension is about to expire.

Except everyone in the UK wants an election, but half of them want to prevent no deal first.

And the EU want to appear reasonable.

Wouldn’t the whole brexit thing be easier if there wasn’t a UK anymore and 4 individual countries. Scotland for sure and Northern Ireland I guess want to stay in the EU. England wants to leave. Wales I’m not sure about.

Not everyone in England wants to leave either. Not everyone in Scotland wants to stay.

Politics is always a matter of compromise. Allow Scotland to stay while England leaves, and give everybody some time to move if they're unhappy with the direction of their country.

How would that even work? Individual country laws between England and Scotland couldn't clash with EU laws. That would then infringe on England's independence.

Three way merge? I've heard there are tools to help with this.

I mean England gets to be as independent as they want, but so does Scotland.

This is a really bad idea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

If "everyone" were the threshold we apply, politics could never get anything done. Scotland voted 62% remain, that is a pretty strong mandate for remaining. Stronger than the 51.9% leave vote for the UK overall.

I think the point is that this wasn’t a representative vote done by area.

“Scotland” didn’t vote anything.

Voters in Scotland contributed to the overall result just like everyone one else.

Bigger questions for me:

Why such a small majority can bring in such a devastating change?

Why are the wreckers allowed to have multiple attempts but those that are want to save UK’s current membership and sweetheart rebate deal one allowed one referendum where the details of the “deal” are not known?

With the added weight that Scotland voted in 2014 to remain in the UK.

The 2014 referendum question was "Should Scotland be an independent country?" "No" had 55.3% of the votes (with a very high turnout of 84.6%)

I'm not sure that Scotland and Northern Ireland would automatically be allowed to "stay" in the EU - wouldn't they need to reapply for membership as new entities?

As far as I understand it they would have to reapply, but if I recall correctly back when the referendum on Scottish independence was a thing the EU said that they'd fast track their application, whatever that means.

Again, if I recall correctly.

Scottish independence will happen eventually.

Yes but it would be a mere formality as they are already part of the EU. Especially for NI which would be joining an existing EU state, not getting independence.

A neat solution would be for England and Wales to jointly declare independence, leaving a UK consisting of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This is about as politically realistic as the alternative: for the EU to break into its constituent parts instead so that a simple ROI-UK deal could be arranged without involving trade policy with Hungary, Portugal, etc etc

Some are, some aren't - I flew out to Spain recently and unexpectedly got fairly emotional at the prospect that it might be my last time through the "EU Citizen" channel.

I also see far more EU flags flying from peoples houses than Union Jacks - but then I am in Scotland!

Sorry, I edited the comment above to make it less likely to start a flamewar and now your response has lost context but yes: not everyone is a unionist. However there are enough of them that breaking up the UK is non-trivial (and full disclosure: I hope that continues).

I felt the same about the Notre Dame fire. That was our church burning down.

This is not that simple. It wasn’t a first past the post election in any area. It was based on overall majority for the whole.

As it happens a majority of people in Wales voted for leave but that's not the same as "Wales voted leave".

The 38% who voted leave in Scotland count just the same as the 47% who voted remain in England.

If more people had voted remain in Scotland (38-62) or Northern Ireland (44-56) we wouldn’t be in this situation today.

(The same is obviously also true for people in England and Wales).

The DUP doesn't support it, so this is not a fully agreed deal.

Between the EU and the UK it is a 'deal', but as far as the Democratic and Unionist Party (DUP) is still concerned, they still stand by their rejection of it [0] even after their announcement of the deal. Therefore, more negotiations are needed to satisfy both the DUP and the EU before holding a vote to MPs first.

[0] https://twitter.com/duponline/status/1184707245478678533

Or... the plan is to have a general election with Boris Johnson able to say "I have a deal agreed with the EU, now give me a clear majority and let's get on with it", and bye bye DUP.

His current majority is -41, I believe, due to sacking a lot of MPs. This strategy didn't work for Theresa May (indeed it created the DUP situation!) and it won't work for Johnson.

Many of those 21 MPs have already signalled they would vote with the government.

The Conservatives would at the very least lose a sizable chunk of their seats to Farage's Brexit Party.

But Boris is a bit out of options here. As you said, he already lost the majority so the only thing keeping him in power right now is that the opposition didn't yet vote on removing him.

What's more: he is not May.

He might actually come out of an election successfully in that he can keep being the PM, forming a coalition with the Brexit Party that keeps him in power. While his own party would still have lost lots of seats and lots of goodwill for going in bed with the Brexit Party. But he won't mind, it's Boris First, Party distant second, Country somewhere behind that as a third.

With first-past-the-post, the Brexit Party doesn't have much chance of gaining more than a few seats, just like UKIP.

The EU parliamentary election does not do first-past-the-post, so they could gain a number of seats proportional to the number of votes received there.

I wouldn't be too sure about it. Sure, they will not be able to repeat the results of the last EU election (where they came out on top) at home in the UK, but they still might get gain enough seats to become a player and even a "king maker". After all, we live in a time where every poll said Remain will win, and every pollster said Trump had essentially no chance of winning.

But you're right, First Past the Post voting can pose a major obstacle for them and probably will pose a major obstacle for them in the next election even if it happens sooner than later. Like in 2015 when they had a popular vote share of 12.6% but got had one seat (or 0.2% of seats)

I despise the UKIP as much as any one else, but I think it is a major indictment of the voting system that a party, any party, with more than 10% of the electoral vote has near to no representation in parliament.

Right. They wouldn't lose seats to the Brexit party; they would lose seats due to the Brexit party (to the LibDems and Labour).

They are leading in the polls and the main threat to them is the Brexit Party, which would be thwarted with a deal in hand, so I wouldn't be so sure.

It's not clear to me that the Brexit party will be thwarted. They'll just repeat their usual line that the deal is Brexit-in-name-only and betrays the result of the referendum.

My guess is it will be put to parliament, there will be an amendment added for a second referendum, he will complain about it but deep down be rather pleased to have it taken off his hands.

A referendum with the choice between remain and this deal would allow for this deal to be voted out without too much loss of face on the Leave-side — which is all that seems to matter to most of the backbenchers not in favour of an outright hard brexit.

An election before a referendum on the deal would make this election all about brexit (again) in a time where other priorities should get the focus.

Boris already lost the majority, even without the DUP defecting.

But (parts of) the opposition parties could actually vote for the deal, thinking it's better than no-deal or gambling on a second referendum.

Which parts? Can we name names? Are there really that many people willing to get kicked out of the Labour party at this late stage to support an obviously bad deal?

19 backbenchers. Probably not suffient to swing the vote, but more people might come out.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labou...

That, and also some of those "sacked" Conservatives. They are still elected members of the House of Commons with voting rights. They wanted a deal, now one is on the table they can vote for. While e.g. the people Labour sacked over sexual harassment allegations will probably stay home.

And there is also the Lib Dems who are caught between a rock and a hard place, who might figure this deal is better than nothing.

Because Labour is looking like such an election winning machine right now:

'Louise Ellman quits Labour party with fierce attack on Corbyn

...the Jewish MP attacked the Labour leader’s record on antisemitism, saying: “Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, antisemitism has become mainstream in the Labour party. Jewish members have been bullied, abused and driven out. Antisemites have felt comfortable and vile conspiracy theories have been propagated. A party that permits anti-Jewish racism to flourish cannot be called anti-racist.”

She added: “The overwhelming majority of the Jewish community is fearful of what a Corbyn government might mean for Britain’s Jews. I share those concerns. But this issue is not simply about the Jewish community. This is about the nature of our society. Jeremy Corbyn’s seeming tolerance of antisemitism would embolden racists, poison our public debate and damage the social cohesion of our country.'

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/16/louise-ellm...

This strategy of calling antisemitic to any criticism of the state of Israel could work for a while, but, at some point, it's going to be too obvious.

Too obvious it may be, but it seems to be another bullshit media campaign that's worked. It keeps coming back. It's farcical to think of criticising Israel or their illegal occupation is anti-semitism.

Or perhaps it's no coincidence that Labour courts the Muslim vote, and simultaneously appears to tolerate anti-semitism.

I wonder if that's following a definition of antisemitism which considers any criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic?

According to this article (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/04/labour-adop...):

> The most controversial passage in the draft statement proposed by Corbyn said: “It cannot be considered racist to treat Israel like any other state or assess its conduct against the standards of international law. Nor should it be regarded as antisemitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact, or to support another settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

This statement was not approved by Labour's ruling body.

I don't think that matters, right now he has someone to blame (the DUP), that's all he cares about.

This didn't change much - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50079385

From with it looks like the backstop is still there.

Northern Ireland is going to have different Rules than the rest of the UK that align with EU regulations (it's unclear how much different but the issue was never one of degrees).

There is still going to be a customs check between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK to determine if goods are heading out to the EU or only inside Northern Ireland.

Will farage finally leave the EU with this deal ? It certainly feels like he is the one pushing the barrel on a race to the bottom. His mep salary most definetly makes him interested in that.

No he will not.

He stated that he would rather back an extension + General Election to go for a deal with the Brexit Party, than back Boris's deal due to the agreement mentioning a placement of an internal border between the UK and NI.

At this point, he would rather go for a no deal.

BBC story: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50079385

There is no such title as "EU President".

Fixed

It's a tragedy this divorce, our wife is leaving us and we get to keep the kids.

Duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280334

But this one has comments, the other one doesn't :(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com