Re-join the EU?

[Cockney Sparrow]

While I can appreciate the sentiment, in a kind of ‘damn them all to hell’ way, disentangling the UK from the EU will look like a walk in the park compared to trying to disentangle Scotland from the rest of the UK.

Well, the Barnett formula will come to an end, and anyone who is conscious of news, current affairs and politics will no longer have to suffer the irritation of the Scottish Nationalists blaming virtually everything possible on the Westminster Government.

I suspect the bulk of the English population would barely notice the difference**. What percentage of the English and Welsh have ever been, or want to go, to Scotland, I wonder? In our wider family, there is a property on the Eastern side of the Scottish Borders - retained largely to maintain a long lasting family ownership. Here in the Home Counties we have to make a point of assuring anyone remotely interested in using it for a holiday, that it doesn't rain all the time, and isn't plagued by midges........... (although we have to also point out it isn't located in "wild and savage scenery" (to use a turn of phrase - nor is there a French widow in any of the rooms.....)).

** On reflection, it might be this lack of awareness or concern that irks the Scottish, to add to their resentment at a Westminster Government they haven't, on the whole and certainly latterly, voted for. And when I say latterly, well.... its because I don't intend (to put it emolliently) to spend the time to check the history of voting in Westminster elections in Scotland in the 20th and 19th century....

[Serial_Apologist]

If - and it’s a very big if - Labour ever returns to power, it will inherit a country where its room for manoeuvre has been severely curtailed and it will be even more hamstrung than the last Labour government was by two decades of Thatcherism.

Too true! It could have been otherwise, the trouble now being that those splitters in the party blasting Corbyn for, "taking Labour away from being the party it used to be" were, (a) a bit late, Callaghan, and, especially, Kinnock and Blair, having already done the deed; and (b) arguing against the very thing Corbyn and the Corbynites were attempting to do, if one actually read the 2019 Manifesto. When self-cancelling rhetoric of the sort that insists black is white is taken as truth, the internal damage has probably gone beyond repair; I believe what is likely to happen before there is any chance of re-joining the EU is one of two things or both: (a) Labour will split, with part of the Right joining the One-Nation wing of the Conservatives, and part the Lib Dems; and the Left, along with the new mass youth intake under Corbyn now seeking a home either staying put as a rump, or taking membership in the Green Party to battle it out over whether socialism is compatible with eco-politics. A few may go back to the Far Left Trotskyist groups from whence many came, treating elections as propaganda opportunities rather than opportunities for winning over "unformulated" radicals in search of tactics and theoretical clarity, if not strategy.

These things are important and not at all secondary matters when it comes to Britain's place in a world bedevilled by the consequences of capitalism's effect on people's hopes and expectations and on the natural environment, which will in turn affect what happens to the EU itself - something which has not thus far entered the discussion.

[oddoneout]

How much effect has the vaccination programme had on attitudes do you think? It was inevitable that the PM would claim all the credit but there was also the very strong messaging that if the country hadn't left the EU it would have been unable to act as swiftly and successfully in developing and using the vaccine. It was an economical with the truth message to say the least but swallowed with gusto, even I think by many of those hitherto pro-EU, which of course was the intention and a big boost for the government.

[french frank]

It was an economical with the truth message to say the least but swallowed with gusto, even I think by many of those hitherto pro-EU, which of course was the intention and a big boost for the government.

Yes, I think the polling results I linked to earlier showed that there had been a small increase in the 'right to leave' supporters and a slightly larger increase in the 'Don't Knows', but the biggest shift was the drop in the 'wrong to leave' support. The message that the EU messed up came through much more clearly than the fact that the UK would have in any case been free to act alone in these circumstances, in or out of the EU. Or to put it more clearly, the pro-Brexit supporters were misleading (to say the least) to claim that if we'd still been in the EU our whole vaccination roll-out would have been considerably delayed.

[mikealdren]

How much effect has the vaccination programme had on attitudes do you think? It was inevitable that the PM would claim all the credit but there was also the very strong messaging that if the country hadn't left the EU it would have been unable to act as swiftly and successfully in developing and using the vaccine. It was an economical with the truth message to say the least but swallowed with gusto, even I think by many of those hitherto pro-EU, which of course was the intention and a big boost for the government.

Despite being a remainer, I have to agree that Boris is correct with this. EU countries which tried to go their own way were told emphatically that they must follow the EU central policy. The UK put significant money into vaccine development and orders and the EU simply tried to get the lowest price possible. 1:0 to Boris on this, the critical Covid policy.

[Katzelmacher]

Despite being a remainer, I have to agree that Boris is correct with this. EU countries which tried to go their own way were told emphatically that they must follow the EU central policy. The UK put significant money into vaccine development and orders and the EU simply tried to get the lowest price possible. 1:0 to Boris on this, the critical Covid policy.

If you don’t like him, why do you use his brand name?

[french frank]

Despite being a remainer, I have to agree that Boris is correct with this. EU countries which tried to go their own way were told emphatically that they must follow the EU central policy. The UK put significant money into vaccine development and orders and the EU simply tried to get the lowest price possible. 1:0 to Boris on this, the critical Covid policy.

That is quite true. What is not true is that this had anything to do with our departure from the EU. Hancock and Rees-Mogg both claimed that post-Brexit the UK was able to move faster than the EU, but Dr June Raine of the MHRA made it quite clear that as full members of the EU and subject to the European Medicines Agency we would still have been able to speed up vaccines approval and roll-out. In fact we still were subject to EMA regulation at the time.

As I said in my previous post, the fact that Johnson got something right (while the EU got it wrong) owed nothing to Brexit. Other EU countries also chose to go their own way under the emergency situation dispensation.

[Bryn]

That is quite true. What is not true is that this had anything to do with our departure from the EU. Hancock and Rees-Mogg both claimed that post-Brexit the UK was able to move faster than the EU, but Dr June Raine of the MHRA made it quite clear that as full members of the EU and subject to the European Medicines Agency we would still have been able to speed up vaccines approval and roll-out. In fact we still were subject to EMA regulation at the time.

As I said in my previous post, the fact that Johnson got something right (while the EU got it wrong) owed nothing to Brexit. Other EU countries also chose to go their own way under the emergency situation dispensation.

Johnson may have approved the fast-tracking but was the initiative not that of the scientists, medics and pharmaceutical companies? Johnson originally sought to play down the threat of SARS-Cov-2.

[cloughie]

Despite being a remainer, I have to agree that Boris is correct with this. EU countries which tried to go their own way were told emphatically that they must follow the EU central policy. The UK put significant money into vaccine development and orders and the EU simply tried to get the lowest price possible. 1:0 to Boris on this, the critical Covid policy.

A good cup win but he’s in the relegation zone in the big league of other issues!

[ardcarp]

I've just heard from a French friend that he and his wife have had their third 'booster jab'. Does the UK have any plans for this? Is France now ahead of the game?

[Dave2002]

As I said in my previous post, the fact that Johnson got something right (while the EU got it wrong) owed nothing to Brexit. Other EU countries also chose to go their own way under the emergency situation dispensation.

He still got the original lockdown wrong. He was a week late - possibly more - and as a result it seems clear to me that he made sure that the death toll from the first wave was around 50k. Chris Witty is on record as saying that if we kept the death toll to 20k that would have been a good result.
Boris - and many others - just did not appear to understand exponential rise - or that deaths on graphs are roughly proportional to the area under the curves on the graphs which we were gradually shown in the daily briefings. It was not clear at the time whether there was knowledge of possible ways that the pandemic would affect the UK. After the event it does now seem that there was reasonably due consideration being given even up to the point at which it became clear that there would be a significant problem within the UK.

Having made that mistake once, Boris repeated the mistake again with the second and perhaps third waves - in which more people died than in the first.

Boris can argue that there wasn't enough known - so he made the best decision at the time. That was questionable - and I would challenge the view that he got that right. He has however, enough wriggle room, to escape from that charge.

I personally was sceptical about the merits of face masks, as indeed was Professor van Tam in the initial phases of the pandemic.
However, subsequent data and analysis from the US and other places does suggest that face masks have a modest effect (about 20-25%) in keeping Covid 19 at bay. The reasons for that are not fully known. The "obvious" ones - that masks prevent viral material in or out of a human being are only weak justification - given the nature of most masks.

Another strategy to minimise the effect of Covid 19 on countries has been to impose very strong controls on travel to and from other countries. A few countries in the world have been fairly successful with that approach - though it is debatable whether that would be a sustainable long term strategy.
Again, the UK has not prevented travel to and from countries where Covid 19 was emerging or prevalent.

It would appear with hindsight that BJ's strategy has been to wait until things are so bad that there is only one sensible option left. This is something which his former adviser has suggested as a consistent modus operandi by our PM.

[oddoneout]

Despite being a remainer, I have to agree that Boris is correct with this. EU countries which tried to go their own way were told emphatically that they must follow the EU central policy. The UK put significant money into vaccine development and orders and the EU simply tried to get the lowest price possible. 1:0 to Boris on this, the critical Covid policy.

The one thing that Johnson could legitimately claim some direct positive influence on was the appointment of Kate Bingham to oversee the development and "bringing to market" of the vaccine, possibly the only occasion where the suspect appointment process turned out well. In fact far beyond well, yet the way she was treated subsequently suggests that the government/Johnson club did not see it in that light.
In connection with my "economical with the truth" comment

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/covid-vaccine-decisions-brexit

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55163730

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4759

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh well, as Dad used to say, never mind.

[eighthobstruction]

....the story in the Daily Mail will be - with all these Afghani's coming: that's our immigration quota sorted for next 10 years ....[meant as satirical humour , rather than out and out rascism]

[ardcarp]

Another strategy to minimise the effect of Covid 19 on countries has been to impose very strong controls on travel to and from other countries. A few countries in the world have been fairly successful with that approach

e.g New Zealand, which yesterday (?) imposed a partial lockdown having discover ONE case of Covid.