So that's three deals that Starmer has now made with countries/blocs that the Tories promised they'd do and failed to deliver.
Really feels nice having a government that actually wants to govern.
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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I still dont like him, but fair enough, he can push back against the needle at times and that should be praised.
That just seems to be how it goes in this country.
It starts with the Tories being out of power and Labour being in power, Labour do a bunch of things that piss people off and eventually this results in them losing power and the Tories gaining it, then you have about 10 or 15 years of the Tories utterly devastating everything because they're a bunch of incompetent and corrupt politicians, everyone gets sick of that, votes them out and Labour back in. Labour remain in power until they've pissed off enough people again and everyone's forgotten how bad the last conservative government was. Repeat.
The point is though if you actually look at the data, things do improve under Labour for all of the other bad things they do, they are better at politics than the conservatives.
Very pleased, but very worried this is another weapon in Farage's bum-bag of horrors.
It's not like "the elites have undone Brexit!" has to be true to be effective. It just has to activate the braindead "i just want are sovrinty back" subset of voters who fucked us all over in the first place. 😬
Don't worry. The papers are already on it, in their bid to put Farage in power.
The Brexit faithful will never stop believing and inventing new reasons it failed. Wrong type of Brexit. What Brexit did they want? Vera Lynn singing on the cliffs of Dover. Dying old men smoking in pubs. No muzzies. A flashback to a childhood without all the grotty bits they'd forgotten.
As expected, the Brexit faithful and the rightwing press are already at it: unacceptable, sellout, waiving the white flag, surrender, capitulation, etc. This deal could prove to be rather popular, so the outrage crowd may find their attacks fall a bit flat.
The Brexit faithful will never stop believing and inventing new reasons it failed.
What are you talking about, "failed"? The UK is not a member of the EU anymore.
Yeah but we're not exactly living in the utopian society that we were promised. If anything brexit has proven to be as disastrous as everyone who opposed it predicted.
The brexit voters are utterly unprepared to accept they made a mistake so they are casting around to find reasons to blame everyone but themselves. Clearly somebody did something wrong clearly there was some evil cabal intent on ruining it for them.
we're not exactly living in the utopian society that we were promised
I've no idea what promises you're referring to. I'd be astonished if anyone promised that brexit would bring about a utopian society, that seems like hyperbole verging on ridiculousness on your part.
If anything brexit has proven to be as disastrous as everyone who opposed it predicted.
I've no idea what predictions you're referring to or what disasters.
The brexit voters are utterly unprepared to accept they made a mistake
I don't see how voting for brexit was a mistake. Again, the UK is out of the EU. Seems successful to me.
You know all of the promises that Boris Johnson the enormously deceitful individual gave. How he'd be able to negotiate all our own trade deals with India and Australia and suddenly those countries would randomly want to trade with us. Where did those trade deals go?
How are we better out of the EU than we are in it if our biggest trading partner remains the EU and therefore all of our policies and business practises have to be in line with EU requirements in order for them to accept our goods. What we seem to have voted for is to still be under EU rules but to have lost any ability to have an input on them.
You appear to be defining success according to your own definition so you can claim victory where none was achieved. You are defining success as it was done, yeah we left but we got zero benefit out of it.
You know all of the promises that Boris Johnson the enormously deceitful individual gave.
No. I didn't pay any attention to the brexit campaigning. I'd been arguing to leave the EU for years before all that nonsense happened. Why on Earth anyone would pay any attention to anything Johnson says, ever, is beyond me.
How are we better out of the EU than we are in it if our biggest trading partner remains the EU
There's more to life and government than just trade. If you want to know some of my arguments for why we're better off out of the EU, I'll repurpose a previous comment:
For a start it means that the structure of the government better reflects the concerns of the population. The EU never really made much of a dent in the consciousness of Britons. I expect the number of citizens who knew the name of their MEP off the top of their head would be dwarfed by the number of citizens who knew the name of their MP. This is in comparison to continental countries, particularly in my mind Germany, where the EU, EU political parties and MEPs are very much present in the minds of the electorate. At least, that was my experience.
Also, in my view the EU is quite undemocratic. The separate Council, Commission and Parliament are an affront. Especially the fact that the Parliament, which represents the electorate, does not have the power to introduce legislation. The people are an inconvenient afterthought in the EU power structure. Here's Yanis Varoufakis when he was finance minister for Greece back when they had their economic meltdown, talking about the impending referendum on whether to accept European proposals regarding Greece's debt: [in the event that the referendum accepts the European proposals] "I am not going to impede its progress through parliament. This is my commitment to democracy and my commitment to the people, that I have entrusted with the decision, with the verdict of yes/no, or no, in a way that has incensed my colleagues in the Euro group who don't believe that 'such complex matters', as I've been told, 'should be put to common folk'." -- https://youtu.be/OmqnYHmRg48?t=625 That, to me, is the EU. The British people are better off out of it.
EU Regional Development Funds are another horror. They're run by unelected bureaucrats, stepping on the toes of existing, democratically elected regional institutions like.. councils. Instead of giving hundreds of millions to councils for development projects, or even creating larger regional institutions with democratically elected leadership, someone thought it would be a good idea to give those millions to unelected bureaucrats to spend in the same area. I'm still mystified as to how this ever came to pass. Brexit couldn't come soon enough.
very worried this is another weapon in Farage's bum-bag of horrors.
Fascists never run out of stuff for their bum-bag of horrors; that's kind of how they work. If there's no problem they'll make up a problem and keep making up problems until they win.
I thought the only upside of Brexit would be at least we wouldn't have to hear from Nigel any more, and his millionaire man-of-the-people ways.
How wrong I was.
Paywall-free: https://archive.is/0CHsG
Wait, the guardian is paywalled now? Is this supposed to help with the typos?
They refuse access in the UK unless you permit tracking cookies or pay them.
I don't pay or accept cookies 🤔. Maybe I'm special?
Maybe you use a VPN? Maybe you clicked "Accept" by accident once? Maybe the paywall is limited to particular networks? etc., etc.
Oh look! We can make beneficial treaties with the EU without being a member! Yay brexit!
Edit: not /s
Feels like when a bunch of kids steal my shirt and throw it around. Then when I finally catch it I think I've won. Except all I did really was get my shirt back and they've thrown my shoes in the bushes.
Except there are no kids, you did it all to yourself. Making us twice as crazy
Yep. By following EU rules on the items we sell. With no control of those rules. Exactly as remainers claimed.
By following EU rules on the items we sell.
On items we sell to the EU. Critical omission.
Nope. We are required to keep our food standards equal to the EU.
So also on items we sell to ourselves. Not an omission at all. And the very point that brexiters kept arguing. We have always been able to sell to other nations using Thier standards. We are not allowed to accept other standards.
also on items we sell to ourselves
You're claiming that the deal with the EU contains clauses which obligate the UK to use the EU's rules for food sold domestically in the UK?
States it in the article
I can't see any mention of domestic sales, could you quote the part you're referring to?
Reread.
Alignment of UK food standards. Means our own standards must continue to meet the EUs.
This is the only reason the EU will ever accept removal of documentation confirming the standards followed in food it will eat.
And exactly what remainers claimed about EU trade throughout the ref.
It is also the exact reason the US trade deals keep failing. Their food standards do not meet ours. So importing US food into the UK would mean deals like this. Where our food standards must align are impossible.
It really is not that complex. If your standards don't meet those of the folks your selling to. Your companies are required to proove the items sold meet their standards not yours. Hence all the last 4 years of difficulties selling to the EU. Has been created by brexiters insisting we should not follow EU aligned standards. Creating the same mountains of paperwork any nation with differing standards face selling to the EU.
The same reason the US wants us to accept chlorinated chicken. So they do not have to proove all their chicken is kept to the same standards we currently require.
They can sell chicken to us now if they are willing to breed it as we do and provide evidence at each import that they did so. Just like we are with the EU now.
But a trade deal giving them simple trade would require alignment between our rules.
All those ISO EN and CE standards you see on electronics and toys. Are the same thing for non food standards. If China wants to sell crap to the UK they need that documention. Of course it's up to the UK to enforce those standards. Hence why non aligned crap gets in. But food tends to be closer watched.