Saturday 29 December 2018

Jon Sopel and Katya Adler on Brexit


Correspondents Look Ahead 2018 turned briefly to Brexit. This is what was said:

Lyse Doucet: Let's stay on Europe. We've managed to talk for quite some time without mentioning that B word, Brexit, and who can possibly predict a Brexit? Does anyone want to give a punt on this and be prepared to face up to the consequences next year? What about you, Jon Sopel? 
Jon Sopel: I think that as someone who spent ten years covering politics at Westminster during the dog years of John Major, all the struggle that he was having with the Maastricht Treaty, that was as nothing. There is total collective nervous political breakdown in the UK. Nothing has a majority. The only thing that commands a majority is to say no to something. We don't want that. We don't want this. We don't want something else. And I don't see if you can't get a majority how you either avoid one of two conclusions: One is you park Article 50 and say, OK, we're not ready for that to implement and, therefore, we won't go on March 29, or we have to put the question back to the people with seismic consequences, I think, for faith in British politics, for all sorts of other things as well. 
Lyse Doucet: Katya, how does it look from Brussels? What do you think? 
Katya Adler: The huge outpouring of European emotion the day after the UK voted to leave has given way to dispassion. You know, there's a dispassionate viewpoint now. Brexit either happens or it doesn't happen. They hope we'll change our mind. They hope that they've made this process hideous enough that the UK will change their mind. And if they don't the UK will leave and can forget any special deals as a former member. The UK becomes officially what's known as a 'third country'. which in EUspeak means 'an outsider'. And that means it will be treated as such. It's not about punishment, as it's so often viewed from the United Kingdom. It is about the EU, which on the world trading stage is a feared player that sets the rules. It is a rule setter. And the UK is going to end up being a rule taker. Whether it stays very close to the EU or has a more distant relationship with the EU, the EU will set those regulations. And the public in the United Kingdom was never given to understand that when it was time to vote.

6 comments:

  1. I think if Katya did a bit of investigating she will find that the EU is a 'rule taker' too. Ideas are proposed in UN committees that the EU implements. For instance fishery policy set by UN committee, with Norway as chairman, becomes an EU directive, which is 'faxed' to Norway. So who does the 'rule making'.
    As a sovereign nation we get to sit on these UN committees in our own right and can influence things; as an EU member we had to take what a representative of 'the 28' had negotiated for us, which might not take account of our national interest.
    More BBC fakery.

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  2. I thin she's gone native.

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  3. Katya Adler says the EU "hope that they've made this process hideous enough", and yet it's "not about punishment". Bit of an interesting contradiction.

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  4. Katya Adler might as well be the media spokeperson for the EU. She never, ever deviates from the official EU line.

    She is always supportive of the EU as an institution. She does her utmost to propagate the idea it is an institution built on law - when we know that Germany for instance can by fiat, and against EU law, declare the EU open to any undocumented migrant who wishes to enter and when we know the French authorities can completely ignore the laws on free movement and free trade in goods, allowing ports to be blockaded, causing chaos in this country.

    The fact that she can hold these two contradictive ideas, that Alex Cull references, in her head shows how eager she is to obey her EU masters.

    She never willingly comments on the bizzare behaviour of top EU officials like Juncker, or the amazing lack of ethnic and cultural diversity among its leadership or on the massive corruption throughout the EU...

    She is an EU lackey.

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    1. MB- She was asked about this (her EU bias) some months ago.

      Adler’s response was that as she was the BBC EU editor based in Brussels she has a duty to report from the EU’s point of view.

      Rubbish. A convenient get out of jail card - but I don’t agree with her poor excuse.

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  5. I see that the BBC was putting the boot in on this evening's national news slot (Sun 30th) regarding the contract given out to Seaborne Freight, should we end up in a No Deal Brexit situation.
    And when they mentioned Sajid Javid's name again, they couldn't resist, as they often do by suggesting that he is likely to become the next Tory Leader. Why do they try to manipualte politics and speculate who might get the top job. Is it because the BBC would be quite happy to see him in No10.

    What do the Tories in the heartlands and Shires think about this?
    Are they quite happy to follow the BBC's race and diversity agenda and put Javid in the top job?
    And of course as is required for every daily news bulletin, they finished off the news with a story on racism in Argentina of all places.

    But a story that mystified all in our household just before Christmas was the homelessness issue just before Christmas Eve, when the BBC (BBC London News) picked out and interviewed a homeless Black Dutch immigrant called Robert who went on to tell us of his hardships on the streets. But why pick on a Dutch immigrant for a story like this? Would it not have been more beneficial to have picked out one of our own people like one of our many ex-military soldiers who I hear are having a hard time surviving on the streets, having lost everything in their lives.

    John... N. London.

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