Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
you could swap Bollocks for, poppycock, balderdash, nonsense. It wasn't emotive, I was trying to succinctly summarise what you had posted. I think I did a pretty good job too. I then went on to make several valid points that you ran away from.
|
I'm sure Hugh posted a comment about self-praise being no praise at all but you may not have seen it. Anyway, I digress. It looks like you might actually be serious so like a hungry fish, I'll bite.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
What bollocks, nobody believes we are “entitled” and it is nothing to do with “British exceptionalism” which I haven’t seen any evidence of. There’s been plenty of EU exceptionalism however.
|
Are you simply cutting and pasting EU for British or do you have any evidence to back up your claim? Plenty of evidence to support British exceptionalism from the "they need us more than we need them" to the German car manufacturers driving to our rescue."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
We just want a deal based on trade and equivalence of product standards, which is what you expect from a trade deal.
|
You might think that but in trade deals, everything including the kitchen sink is thrown in. Hence the statement about nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
The EU are adding a political dimension to it, and it has bugger all with protecting the “single market” and everything to do with control and anti-competition.
The EU is the biggest protectionist outfit on the planet.
Yes it does. We can agree not to lessen standards from this point, but if we want to diverge away from EU legislation in the future it is reasonable and correct, as long as our product is still has equivalence. What the EU want is anti-competitive.
|
If the UK decided to subsidise its car manufacturers then the Single Market - a key selling point of EU membership - would be damaged by unfair competition from the UK.
In reality, this is highly unlikely as the UK is a high-cost, high-skills country so it should have nothing to fear by agreeing to a level playing field enforceable in British courts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Why, don’t EU residents eat fish?
If they don’t buy our fish, I can see the headlines already as EU seafood restaurants hike prices or go out of business because they can’t get enough fish and Atlantic Shrimp.
Don’t be daft.
|
We've done the fishing argument before.
Also worth noting that the value of fish is all about freshness. New certification processes and port delays render it less fresh and therefore it will be worth less at European markets, potentially rendering it uneconomic to export. The law of unintended cobsequences.