Vocal Voices

I read an article on the Boris-Macron phone call yesterday. But I don't like reading tabloid media. I had a look at the BBC site, which had the same article and something was missing.

Today I went and found the original UK Gov statement.

I have bolded the part that the BBC missed.

The Prime Minister emphasised that progress must be made in the coming days to bridge the significant gaps, notably in the areas of fisheries and the level playing field, through the process of intensive talks between Chief Negotiators agreed with the President of the European Commission

It is sadly true that every time we see the status change of the UK, the BBC seeks to hide it.

Let me explain my thoughts.

Our PM, just told the head of state of a supposedly sovereign nation to stop interfering in a process for which he has no authority to make statements on.

He also told him that a national of his own country had more power than the president of his country when negotiating.

Finally he told a president, head of state of a country, that if he wanted to know the state of play or to make suggestions, that he should contact the correct EU authority for that activity, the president of the Commission.

That half of that paragraph is something I have been hoping for since Margaret Thatcher broke international law and refused to pay into the EU budget.

It is so important that the BBC completely ignored it. Just as the Soviets used to when a child asked "why".

Comments from the two articles. First the government statement and then the BBC's version quoting the same from a government spokesman.....

Gov.uk

He underlined that a deal was better for both sides, but also that the UK was prepared to end the transition period on Australia-style terms if an agreement could not be found.

BBC

"He underlined that a deal was better for both sides, but also that the UK was prepared to end the transition period on Australia-style terms if an agreement could not be found,"

Gov.uk

He confirmed the UK’s commitment to exploring every avenue to reach an agreement.

BBC

"He confirmed the UK's commitment to exploring every avenue to reach an agreement".

Gov.uk

The Prime Minister emphasised that progress must be made in the coming days to bridge the significant gaps

BBC

"the prime minister emphasised that progress must be made in the coming days to bridge the significant gaps"

The BIG difference comes in the explainers given by the BBC. It took all the main points from what the GOVERNMENT said and repeated them word-for-word, then explained what they mean.

All this BBC bashing is getting desperate. Other news outlets are available - try the Express, Mail or Torygraph for a Cycloptic view. Plenty of excuses for a rant in those publications.

You just proved my point WM.

Where is the part where our PM tells the French president that it is up to the negotiators and the president of the commission. Not the French President?

It is not there and it is the most important part of the whole communication.

So either thr BBC doesn't understand what they are reporting or they deliberately suppressed the most important part of a government communication.

Other press reports included it.

So, your choice, which one is it? Incompetent or controlling?

I had to laugh! Big Boy has told little Mr Micro how the EU will carry out negotiations with the mighty UK: or else. Micro was then to go tell the EU commission how it will proceed.

But what if the EU thinks: "Nah, we will go our own way!" what is Big Boy going to do then? Will he suck his thumb, stamp his feet, shake his girly fists, ruffle his hair, throw his toys out of the cot - or all five?

It's not the best negotiating tactic I have come across.... unless he wants the talks to fail.

Hmmm...... Demonic?

It was in the BBC piece, just not as verbatim as the quotes I provided, the ones you claimed the BBC did not report because it hides things.

Not at all.

The reality of the whole story was that Macron, apparently, has still not learned that France is not the EU and that he has to do as he is told when EU negotiations are going on. Merkel will learn the same lesson.

All 27 member states signed a document agreeing the negotiator and the EU negotiating parameters. After that all 27 member states have to get their nose out.

This is, by far, the most important part of the whole text. You could ignore absolutely everything else. It is all about what Barnier and Von Der Leyen decide right now and not what Macron wants.

Reading the press today comes to some inevitable conclusions.

The EU has the sole competency for negotiating trade deals with the bloc. The 27 member states were asked what they "wanted". Of course they all "wanted" status quo, nothing would change for them. But they also wanted the situation with the UK to change and not be the same as it was. Essentially they were all of the belief that the EU is the largest market in the world and so the UK would have to bow down to anything the EU wanted.

So they gave their "wants" to the EU and let the EU loose to "negotiate". Now I'm aware that as each country no longer negotiates trade deals, they are less and less aware of what the word "negotiate" means. In short it means that each side starts from a given position and then each side concedes some of their own position in order to retain some of it's own start point.

What France and most of the other coastal nations are saying is "nothing will change" and assuming that someone else in the 27 will "take one for the team". Germany being the prime target for everyone.

Of course this is not going to happen and never was. Germany wants freedom to keep on punting hundreds of billions of € of goods into the UK without tariffs. They don't care so much about fishing. Macron will lose the next election if anything changes with fishing. Merkel may lose hers if tariffs come on vehicles and other goods.

But, member state politics aside, it is the EU who will do the negotiations and present a "deal" for the Parliament to approve and then for the member states to ratify. Parliament may get to discuss and may ask for changes, which the UK may choose to refuse. The member states won't get a chance to negotiate anything, they get to "ratify".

Which is why that part of the statement is so important. It is also vital because it means that our PM actually understands how the EU works. Unlike Theresa May, half the civil service and most of parliament.

Of course the BBC would ignore it.

What is also important is that both Merkel and Macron were both reminded that they have no say in this negotiation unless they change it at the summit this week.

You see our PM knows how the EU works and he knows how to leverage them. Macron will descend into the Summit on Thursday like a nuclear bomb, Merkel will come in determined to see that things are guaranteed to pan out for Germany, all the factions will be at each others throat. Something May never even came close to because she was too busy trying to be the good person, the light of reason.

Why wouldn't we ignore the fact that out PM just set the wolves at each others throats? Destroying a chance of unity and the ability of the EU to Force the UK to its will?

But there are wheels within wheels within wheels. I talked, last year, about how Ireland needed to tread carefully when lambasting the UK and May over trying to get the withdrawal agreement done. Ireland was going to tell the UK what was what and the EU was at its back. But when the fishing is not resolved and when fishing rights that used to be in the UK waters get parcelled out over the whole EU, Ireland has large fishing resources which will be easy to "distribute". When Ireland is standing there, back to the wall, facing 26 member states determined to "reallocate" their fishing grounds, looking to the UK will draw nothing but a steely gaze and a You made your bed now lie in it response.

But why would we want to know all these things? I mean we can just capitulate and let the EU walk all over us.

So either the BBC thinks this is a good thing to do, or they don't understand the EU.

Or we can fight back, use the divisions within the EU against them and come out with out heads held high. After all, we have been in this club for more than 4 decades, who else would know the divisions so well?

If you, WM, who at least understand the EU to a point where you can fight for the good parts of the EU, don't see this, what hope in hell does the man in the street have? It is the duty of the press to present a truthful representation of the facts. They have been criminally negligent in this.

Personally I thought that wilfully acting in a way that would allow other countries to damage the UK was Treason. Otherwise why would we have put all those people in Jail or even killed them?

Perhaps that will come back to haunt some in the future?

Yes, I can see the positives and negatives with the EU, just as I can understand the positive and negative arguments of Brexit.

What I do not understand is the infatuation with, and the continuation of, Project Hate (the EU) since we voted to leave. Why? We have left. Most of us have moved on. We cannot change anything; we have no input and nor does the media, despite what some want to believe. Things will be what they will be and it serves no purpose to 'big up' or 'slag off' one side against the other.

What the EU and the sovereign nations within it do is entirely up to them. How they want to negotiate, and who with, is their choice, not ours. We are on the outside looking in and they have most of the ranking cards. Pretending we can force their hand by telling them 'how to behave' is pathetic and ultimately counter-productive, then again I suppose to attack is seen as the best form of defence.

Anyway I have a unicorn stable to build, so must be off: Thursday approaches.

Ah, but how you report it is extremely important to how it is viewed by the people.

Who said anything about hate? Macron is about to get slapped silly (local French politics) and there is nothing he can do about it.

If you do a bit of extensive reading into the preparations for the summit on Thursday (beyond the usual suspects in the press), you find that EU politicians are blathering the most horrendous BS. Like the French saying that "nothing must change and French Fisherman must continue, deal or no deal".

Why it is not challenged that if we have no deal the French fisherman get absoluteley Zero access to UK waters, therefore everything changes, is a very glaring question. Even the French Fisherman believe in the fairies and unicorns of "nothing changes but the UK get stuffed post Brexit".

So I point it out. Because it is relevant and it is mass public manipulation by state media outlets who have a duty of care to tell the public the truth.

We will never be able to move on until this question of our trading relationship is closed. Or I should say settled, one way or the other, for the next few years. That has not happened. It won't happen until January.

But, at least, until January we should be told the truth. Not some specially selected slices of the truth which paint an entirely different picture to reality.

So, we get told (a version of) the truth. What can we then do? Wave a Union Jack, sing Rule Britannia, piss in the wind?

The latter, most likely. Constantly rehashing all the old fake reasons for leaving the EU serves no purpose whatsoever. We had a vote and we left. The reasons for leaving no longer exist: they are irrelevant.

Let's talk fish.... and a few truths from the House of Commons research library.

Fishing is 0.12% of GDP involving under 0.1% of the UK's 33-million national workforce.

The majority of fish eaten in the UK is imported. Some 83% of the cod consumed in the UK comes from abroad, alongside 58% of its haddock. The UK catch is 5% cod and 7% haddock, while the UK fleet catches a lot of herring, 93% of which is exported, mostly to Norway and the Netherlands.

Overall, the UK imports 70% of the fish it eats and exports 80% of what it catches.

And let's not forget that under the CFP the UK fishing industry sold "in good faith" many of its quotas to EU fleets.

We have been sucked in to a bun fight with a sovereign nation, France, backed by 26 other members of the club, and could trash a comprehensive FTA covering 99;88% of our GDP with the world's largest trading bloc, and our near neighbours, because of it.

Great work - not.

Workingman wrote:
We have been sucked in to a bun fight with a sovereign nation, France, backed by 26 other members of the club, and could trash a comprehensive FTA covering 99;88% of our GDP with the world's largest trading bloc, and our near neighbours, because of it.

Great work - not.

UK GDP 2019. £2,210 billion.
UK Export trade to the EU 2019. £300 billion.

I don't count imports, the EU is only ONE part of the world and one of the most expensive parts of the world too. If you must, I'll allow 50% of EU imports as "potentially", unchangeable.

UK imports from the EU. £372 billion. Half is £186 billion.

£486 billion is 23% of the UK economy. Not to be ignored and a massive impact if we lost it.

Now, just to keep this real, let us say we face an average of 20% of tariffs on the £300 billion we export. Let us also say this reduces our exports by 20% to the EU due to cost.

20% of the 300 billion is £60 billion.

Again, a fairly hefty cost. Every year. But hardly country or soul crushing. In fact sucking in imports from the rest of the world could reduce our import bill dramatically, rebalancing the import export balance. In the long term the deficit could reduce dramatically, the economy could expand hugely and that £60bn could, very easily, become a foot note on our sad history with the EU.

So whilst my vision could be deemed blue sky and naive, 99.88% of GDP is, to be kind about it, misguided and to be blunt is a figure designed to drive people into a course of action through blind fear.

As for the EU being the largest trading bloc in the world? Only by the number of nations in it. By actual trade, which is how you should measure it, it is third to the US which is second to NAFTA. When the UK is finally gone, within a decade, it will become 4th to China.

To be honest I'm sick and tired of the whole assertion that the EU is the ONLY possibility the UK could trade with, the LARGEST trading bloc in the world and a bunch of "very nice people", in terms of negotiating a trade deal.

If you want to trace the current outbreak of salmonella in chicken, I'm sure you will find it comes form Broilers from Brazil, who don't dilute chlorine wash their chickens. It certainly isn't coming from the US, we don't let them in. This is Within the EU. When we leave our trade will naturally move away from the EU. Even with a FTA. Because the EU is expensive and the only reason we have not done so until now is because EU trade barriers have blocked that trade and made it too expensive.

So that 23% of our economy will drop, dramatically, over the next 10 years FTA or not. In the end, the UK, which is a highly competitive country, denied the open and free access to a trading enclave, will go out and trade with the rest of the world.

As for fish and "sold in good faith"? We were robbed blind by nations who have fished their own stocks to destruction and fully intend to do the same to the UK. Just go check on the French lambasting their government because there is no sole left in French waters. Not only have they totally fished out their own stocks, they want ours too.

Anyway. Let's see what happens tomorrow. The French and Spanish are lathering themselves into a fury. We are pressuring the EU to come to the summit, tomorrow, with a statement that a framework deal is agreed or that there is an alignment that allows us to progress. That framework and that alignment will not concede on fishing and will only have slight concessions on alignment with standards. About the same alignment that Canada would have with CETA.

Germany and Spain desperately need the level playing field, France, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and sundry others desperately need fishing to remain the same.

But don't expect to read that in the BBC. They want you to fear 99.88% destruction of our economy and to understand that the fisheries deal that gave away 90% of our fish stocks, in perpetuity, was a really good deal from some "wonderful chaps"!

No. let's not do any more long-winded whatifery and just face facts. Unicorns do not exist, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is an optical illusion and the EU is going to protect its customs union and single market whether we like it or not.

See the BBC article on the UK - EU (non) deal on electric cars for details of my last.

I'm out.