Post-Brexit Britain's global ambitions start with investment at home, says PM

[Rookiescot]

10 minutes ago, 7by7 said:

The Stonehenge tunnel has been in the planning stage for some years. That it finally got approval after Johnson became PM is coincidence.

What Somerset Road?

[Kwasaki]

On 3/18/2021 at 7:06 PM, billd766 said:

Just the usual suspects from the Remain in the EU at all costs brigade.

Yeah but I understand as I said I had children of my own. 

[7by7]

On 3/18/2021 at 12:53 PM, Kwasaki said:

Lots of projects on infrastructure going ahead

As already seen, the Stonehenge tunnel project dates back to well before Brexit.

As do Crossrail and HS2.

Crossrail; Act authorising construction passed in 2008.

HS2; announced and requisite Bills presented to Parliament in 2012.

What other major infrastructure projects have been approved, let alone begun, since Brexit?

[7by7]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:05 PM, placeholder said:

What has infrastructure got to do with membership in the EU?

As EU members we could have applied for EU grants to help pay for infrastructure projects. 

See also EU funding in the UK, although that doesn't just cover infrastructure.

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The majority of EU funding in the UK comes from the European Structural and Investment (ESI) funds (discussed in section 2) and the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (discussed in section 3). For the 2014-20 funding period, the UK was allocated €17.2 billion and €22.5 billion through these funds respectively

 

[bannork]

2 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

Yeah but I understand as I said I had children of my own. 

What happened to them, you use the past tense? Did they move to the EU?

 

[Hi from France]

I agree: its pretty much over now: relations on a downward spiral, which neither side wants or knows how to avert 

 

 

bridges are burned Johnson’s Brexit completely killed any intent of “deep and special partnership”,

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Specifically, it is Johnson’s Brexit. He pulped the chapters in Theresa May’s deal that would have made good on her pledge of a “deep and special partnership”. The adjustment was more than tonal. It was an ideological choice with immediate consequences: rivalry over alignment, competition before cooperation. Those priorities are baked into Johnson’s trade deal. Diplomatic bridges were burned and back channels blocked to make a point about regulatory freedom.

 

betraying the UK signature again and again has killed trust

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Europeans have learned to disregard what Johnson says and focus on what he does. If he were serious about a cooperative spirit he would not, for example, be refusing to apply the full terms of the withdrawal agreement in Northern Ireland. Reliable partners do not sign treaties with their fingers crossed. If the British prime minister valued respectful dialogue, he would not have refused full diplomatic status to the EU’s ambassador.

 

 

.... the UK is a structural rival, the win-win EU principle does not apply

 

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Britain is in the sour spot relative to the EU: too small to be an equal, too big to be a client; not powerful enough to assert its will in trade negotiations but hefty enough to cause trouble.

 

That is a blueprint for relations on a downward spiral, which neither side wants or knows how to avert

 

add to this that BJ is very solidly installed in power and will be there for years and years: there are no pro-Europeans left and even moderate Eurosceptics tories have been annihilated

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Johnson’s consequential victory was not the defeat of enthusiastic pro-Europeans, who had not been a dominant cultural force, but the annihilation of rational Eurosceptics. It was the banishment of moderate Tories and the scorching of earth beneath anyone who could see flaws in the EU but wanted to address them from the inside, because membership still served the national interest

 

 

 

yeah my feeling is that it's pretty much over: as he says there is a UK-shaped hole in Europe.