>A heavily redacted
It was a report based on the evidence of intelligence and security agencies. Of course there were redactions. Which redaction is it that you think hides Russian infiltration of the Conservative party?
>top-line summary
It was the full report. It is 50 pages.
“The report was completed last October, but was sat on by Johnson before the general election and only declassified and cleared for release by the prime minister in December.”
I don’t know man, seems a bit sus.
Regarding what’s been redacted, here’s a few unanswered questions for starts: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53488252
Nevertheless, Boris waiting until after the election to release the report because he wanted it to be a referendum on Brexit and the findings would indicate Russian support for his leave campaign… that seem okay to you?
>I don’t know man, seems a bit sus.
So you think that when Labour get into power they'll release previously unpublished sections which are highly damning? After all, why wouldn't they if they exist?
What makes you say that? The Russian oligarchs giving [donations to Tories](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61080537)? Or the Tories being [charged with spying for China](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68874822)?
Yes they have. Not only that they are purposely sabotaging it for the next government.
Proof they do not care for thos country and every single one of them involved should be out of a seat
Well, that’s one away to approach the touchy issue of more than half the general electorate deciding to line up on a Thursday morning in late June 2016 to royally fuck themselves up.
Nobody forced them to do that and the vast majority (mix of lack of education, closeted xenophobia/racism etc.) fell for the ‘top good to be true’ shit being thrown out by the likes of BoJo and this country’s far-right press.
What an awful lot of what Brexiteers thought was a lack of Sovreignity is actually just geographic fate. We aren't diverging from EU regulations because the EU is still our largest trading partner and that's unlikely to change simply because they are close and have similar levels of income. It's called the gravity effect in trade.
It's like the Canadian beef drama all over again. Canada can't move away from hormone fed beef even if it wants too because it's so heavily dependent on trade with the US. It's forced to follow a degree of their regulations just because it's their Neighbour. The UK is trying to have it's cake and eat it in Trade deal negotiations without understanding that the terms of trade are mostly already written by market forces before governments even sit down to talk.
The UK will continue to follow most EU regulations without any say in them because that's what small countries outside of big trading blocs do. It's not a political decision, it's a market decision. It's inevitable fate.
We've closed 25 out of 150 trade posts... you're making it seem like this is the end of the world.
Those posts were dedicated to negotiating with individual states, not the US as a whole.
At least read the articles you keep spamming.
Texas alone is 4x the size of the entire UK. The gdp of california alone is the 5th largest in the world if it were to be it's own country.
A country as vast and populous as the US and with such a large and diverse economy state to state, does indeed need trade posts for individual states.
> Texas alone is 4x the size of the entire UK.
It's a fraction of the size of the UK in population and barely twice the size in land area and california isn't a fucking country so it's irrelevant.Are you a septic by any chance? Usa is finished as a country anyway.
>we had a perfectly good trade deal with people less than 30 miles away
But, but, but, you're talking about the French! And the Germans! Having a coherent trade agreement with them and others on the European continent. No, no, no that would never do, not with how often we've beaten them in wars and sport, and don't forget how we saved Europe in the 40s!
/s
Try importing something one day. Talk about pain in the backside and the tax. All I said was we had a better trade deal and we did. I didn’t put numbers in my post deliberately not to mislead. Sadly I seem to have failed
When those people get most of their information from reading the Sun of course they would have an issue with it, my issue is those people should never be allowed to vote.
The Tories are a joke.
I couldnt believe I agreed with Neil Kinnock. The lot he faced were "smart, patriotic worthy opponents" .
This lot are "hollow and superficial" .
>Jules Ehrhardt, a designer and investor, said there was “outrage and disbelief in the British business community” at the decision.
>“They are tossing out collective centuries of relational and institutional knowledge core to the UK-US trading relationship,” he said...
>He said the consulate directors had “served as the connective tissue” between British and American business leaders, making introductions, giving advice and lending their expertise. “We shot ourselves in both feet by undermining Britain’s ‘gateway to Europe’ status for American companies following Brexit, and were told to go west, and now we’ve self-elected a lobotomy,” Ehrhardt said.
>“This \[is an\] act of arson in the final stages of this government. We claim it is a special relationship, yet remove our people at the very heart of it.”
Anyone else thinking Kemi is doing this under Sunak's orders knowing they're going to lose the election to spite Labour.
I mean, they know they're not going to win, so why not try to hamper the new government as much as possible so that it increases their chances of getting back in at a later date?
When you have more interest in amassing power for yourself and your backers then running the country, a whole lot of insane actions suddenly make sense.
Good. We need to distance ourselves as much as possible from the states. It should terrify us how many of our tech companies and the basics we buy in our shopping each week is owned by American companies. This is all money that is leaving the country, making us all poorer in the long run
The UK is terrible at self sufficiency when it comes to food though. No government is prioritising this, which in insane when the climate is collapsing as we speak, we will therefore need to rely on America until that changes
Self sufficiency in the UK isn't possible and no government has ever tried to go for that goal. The policy has always been food security not self sufficiency.
To repeat self sufficiency for food in the UK is not possible or even desirable.
We can still import food as necessary, however we should still make it a priority that we should not rely on other countries to feed us. As climate collapse bites, we will find imports either getting prohibitively expensive or being restricted by other countries as their own harvests fail.
Because it would make you poorer. Each country produces the goods and services they have a comparative advantage in so that through free trade everyone pays the lowest price for the things they want. It's been this way for nearly 200 years.
Before the repeal of the Corn laws in 1848 Britain was largely self sufficient in food production but it came at the cost of making land owners very rich while the poor couldn't access cheaper grain from America which kept them poor.
Because it will always cost a British company more to make/grow some things than a Spanish company because of climate/landscape/enviroment/technologies and vice versa. For example if you want Banana's to be grown in Britain that's always going to be more expensive than if they were from India or China because of climate. There's literally nothing Britain can do about that.
You could do that sure, but it would still cost substantially more money than through free trade. We would be poorer as a result. Nationalised agricultural policy was used by communist countries throughout the 20th century and generally resulted in an extremely limited choice of food items and periodic Famine when the goverment fucked up.
There's a reason why the only countries in the world that even try and aim for self sufficiency are North Korea and other failed states. Because the general consensus for 200 years is that the best way to improve living standards is to get really good at making a few things, sell those things cheaper than anyone else in the world and then import everything else you need. Arguably the interconnectedness of the global economy is helping to prevent war. The EU was founded under this very principle - The idea was to tie the economies of Europe together so closely that there could never again be a war between France and Germany.
This isn't actually true. The UK has a trading surplus with the US i.e. we sell more stuff to the US than we buy from them.
What you're suggesting is mercantilism, where you focus on exporting as much as possible and importing as little as possible, and it's an impoverishing policy.
> This isn't actually true. The UK has a trading surplus with the US i.e. we sell more stuff to the US than we buy from them.
Not what I’m talking about…
These are not 'trade deals' but [statements of cooperation](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-03-13/uk-and-texas-pledge-closer-trade-ties-a-wider-deal-with-the-us-government-has-stalled). There's no impact on tariffs but it does serve the PR needs of Badenoch and co who are desperate to give off the appearance that something positive is happening.
What disbelief could there possibly be for trade deals that literally could not happen?
Trade deals (of any legitimacy or note) are the sole responsibility of Congress and after 8 years... it's pretty obviously never happening no matter how many pretendy deals they say they have with individual states that literally cannot be actioned.
These things were entirely about making headlines and that was the extent of it.
Well if the British MPs didn't hound Donald Trump and protest him when he visits his golf courses , maybe just maybe things would be different for us . Leftards have ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us .
Err, news flash, Kemi Badenoch is in charge of the trade deals, not these imaginary "leftards". Plus, if these "leftards" had
>ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us
It goes to show how thin skinned Trump and his acolytes are that they can't take some criticism and mockery.
How dare the people exercise their right of protest against this manchild, knowing that he's so sensitive to criticism and that we should be bending over backwards to accommodate the US.
> Leftards have ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us .
As if Trump would have given us a good deal to begin with. He would never give us a deal that would benefit us, he would want us to remember that we are beholden to him and the US. Besides, it is not like 'leftards' had any say in negotiations anyway, so Trump's ego would have been massaged by the Tories to appease him.
Brexit and the Tories look a lot like deliberate economic sabotage from many angles. Has the UK establishment been infiltrated by a foreign power?
Well they won’t release the Russia report - so makes you wonder
It was released in July 2020.
A heavily redacted top-line summary of the report. Would be nice to see it in full
>A heavily redacted It was a report based on the evidence of intelligence and security agencies. Of course there were redactions. Which redaction is it that you think hides Russian infiltration of the Conservative party? >top-line summary It was the full report. It is 50 pages.
“The report was completed last October, but was sat on by Johnson before the general election and only declassified and cleared for release by the prime minister in December.” I don’t know man, seems a bit sus. Regarding what’s been redacted, here’s a few unanswered questions for starts: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53488252 Nevertheless, Boris waiting until after the election to release the report because he wanted it to be a referendum on Brexit and the findings would indicate Russian support for his leave campaign… that seem okay to you?
>I don’t know man, seems a bit sus. So you think that when Labour get into power they'll release previously unpublished sections which are highly damning? After all, why wouldn't they if they exist?
Suppose we’ll see
U know we won’t
What makes you say that? The Russian oligarchs giving [donations to Tories](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61080537)? Or the Tories being [charged with spying for China](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68874822)?
Or the Russians funding reform?
Proof? Source? Or is this just a nonsense claim.
The voters are the establishment. They chose this idiocy.
Yes they have. Not only that they are purposely sabotaging it for the next government. Proof they do not care for thos country and every single one of them involved should be out of a seat
Well, that’s one away to approach the touchy issue of more than half the general electorate deciding to line up on a Thursday morning in late June 2016 to royally fuck themselves up. Nobody forced them to do that and the vast majority (mix of lack of education, closeted xenophobia/racism etc.) fell for the ‘top good to be true’ shit being thrown out by the likes of BoJo and this country’s far-right press.
What an awful lot of what Brexiteers thought was a lack of Sovreignity is actually just geographic fate. We aren't diverging from EU regulations because the EU is still our largest trading partner and that's unlikely to change simply because they are close and have similar levels of income. It's called the gravity effect in trade. It's like the Canadian beef drama all over again. Canada can't move away from hormone fed beef even if it wants too because it's so heavily dependent on trade with the US. It's forced to follow a degree of their regulations just because it's their Neighbour. The UK is trying to have it's cake and eat it in Trade deal negotiations without understanding that the terms of trade are mostly already written by market forces before governments even sit down to talk. The UK will continue to follow most EU regulations without any say in them because that's what small countries outside of big trading blocs do. It's not a political decision, it's a market decision. It's inevitable fate.
We've closed 25 out of 150 trade posts... you're making it seem like this is the end of the world. Those posts were dedicated to negotiating with individual states, not the US as a whole. At least read the articles you keep spamming.
Texas alone is 4x the size of the entire UK. The gdp of california alone is the 5th largest in the world if it were to be it's own country. A country as vast and populous as the US and with such a large and diverse economy state to state, does indeed need trade posts for individual states.
> Texas alone is 4x the size of the entire UK. It's a fraction of the size of the UK in population and barely twice the size in land area and california isn't a fucking country so it's irrelevant.Are you a septic by any chance? Usa is finished as a country anyway.
Crazy we had a perfectly good trade deal with people less than 30 miles away. Makes ya proud to be English 🤦♀️
>we had a perfectly good trade deal with people less than 30 miles away But, but, but, you're talking about the French! And the Germans! Having a coherent trade agreement with them and others on the European continent. No, no, no that would never do, not with how often we've beaten them in wars and sport, and don't forget how we saved Europe in the 40s! /s
That sovereignty though. Can you not taste it?
🤣 And there was me thinking that taste was because I didn’t live in Ulez area.
And a few short years ago, also a perfectly good deal with the US.
"Had" I'm as anti-Brexit as anyone, but we have an _incredibly_ comprehensive trade deal with the EU. I don't know why you would lie about that.
Try importing something one day. Talk about pain in the backside and the tax. All I said was we had a better trade deal and we did. I didn’t put numbers in my post deliberately not to mislead. Sadly I seem to have failed
It clearly wasn’t perfectly good when so many people had issue with it.
Well just because people believe lies doesn’t mean it wasn’t right. I suspect if we held that referendum today we wouldn’t leave. But such is life.
When those people get most of their information from reading the Sun of course they would have an issue with it, my issue is those people should never be allowed to vote.
The Tories are a joke. I couldnt believe I agreed with Neil Kinnock. The lot he faced were "smart, patriotic worthy opponents" . This lot are "hollow and superficial" .
They were put in power by Brexit voters.
>Jules Ehrhardt, a designer and investor, said there was “outrage and disbelief in the British business community” at the decision. >“They are tossing out collective centuries of relational and institutional knowledge core to the UK-US trading relationship,” he said... >He said the consulate directors had “served as the connective tissue” between British and American business leaders, making introductions, giving advice and lending their expertise. “We shot ourselves in both feet by undermining Britain’s ‘gateway to Europe’ status for American companies following Brexit, and were told to go west, and now we’ve self-elected a lobotomy,” Ehrhardt said. >“This \[is an\] act of arson in the final stages of this government. We claim it is a special relationship, yet remove our people at the very heart of it.” Anyone else thinking Kemi is doing this under Sunak's orders knowing they're going to lose the election to spite Labour.
I mean, they know they're not going to win, so why not try to hamper the new government as much as possible so that it increases their chances of getting back in at a later date? When you have more interest in amassing power for yourself and your backers then running the country, a whole lot of insane actions suddenly make sense.
Killing a trade deal with the us is a good thing.
True - but there’s a difference between that and sacking a bunch of people just before you leave office.
Fair
What on earth has Badenoch achieved as a minister apart from relabelling some gender neutral toilets at her leadership campaign launch?
Good. We need to distance ourselves as much as possible from the states. It should terrify us how many of our tech companies and the basics we buy in our shopping each week is owned by American companies. This is all money that is leaving the country, making us all poorer in the long run
The UK is terrible at self sufficiency when it comes to food though. No government is prioritising this, which in insane when the climate is collapsing as we speak, we will therefore need to rely on America until that changes
Self sufficiency in the UK isn't possible and no government has ever tried to go for that goal. The policy has always been food security not self sufficiency. To repeat self sufficiency for food in the UK is not possible or even desirable.
We can still import food as necessary, however we should still make it a priority that we should not rely on other countries to feed us. As climate collapse bites, we will find imports either getting prohibitively expensive or being restricted by other countries as their own harvests fail.
Why isnt it possible? Seems like it would be smart to try just in case.
Because it would make you poorer. Each country produces the goods and services they have a comparative advantage in so that through free trade everyone pays the lowest price for the things they want. It's been this way for nearly 200 years. Before the repeal of the Corn laws in 1848 Britain was largely self sufficient in food production but it came at the cost of making land owners very rich while the poor couldn't access cheaper grain from America which kept them poor.
Why couldnt you introduce price caps to stop price gouging? Self sufficiency is important because todays allies might not be tomorrow
Because it will always cost a British company more to make/grow some things than a Spanish company because of climate/landscape/enviroment/technologies and vice versa. For example if you want Banana's to be grown in Britain that's always going to be more expensive than if they were from India or China because of climate. There's literally nothing Britain can do about that.
Why not nationalise food production? Seems like we would be fucked if shit really hit the fan and we were on our own
You could do that sure, but it would still cost substantially more money than through free trade. We would be poorer as a result. Nationalised agricultural policy was used by communist countries throughout the 20th century and generally resulted in an extremely limited choice of food items and periodic Famine when the goverment fucked up. There's a reason why the only countries in the world that even try and aim for self sufficiency are North Korea and other failed states. Because the general consensus for 200 years is that the best way to improve living standards is to get really good at making a few things, sell those things cheaper than anyone else in the world and then import everything else you need. Arguably the interconnectedness of the global economy is helping to prevent war. The EU was founded under this very principle - The idea was to tie the economies of Europe together so closely that there could never again be a war between France and Germany.
What about if there was a war then? Say america wasnt on our side, too? Every man for themselves then?
Use civil servants to farm the land? I don't see what could possibly go wrong.
Too many people
> self sufficiency when it comes to food though True, but I’m not talking about that.
You've never had that, you always relied on your empire and merchant navy, going back centuries.
GOOD JOB I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT, THEN.
This isn't actually true. The UK has a trading surplus with the US i.e. we sell more stuff to the US than we buy from them. What you're suggesting is mercantilism, where you focus on exporting as much as possible and importing as little as possible, and it's an impoverishing policy.
> This isn't actually true. The UK has a trading surplus with the US i.e. we sell more stuff to the US than we buy from them. Not what I’m talking about…
Yes! Time to stop selling our industry to the US and taking foreign policy objectives from them.
Yep. Im all for not having their poor food standards imposed on us.
Just curious is there a reason why this happened? I tried to read the article but I don’t think it gave a reason?
Individual states don't set import/export tariffs for the USA so I always wondered what these so-called "trade deals" were all about.
These are not 'trade deals' but [statements of cooperation](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-03-13/uk-and-texas-pledge-closer-trade-ties-a-wider-deal-with-the-us-government-has-stalled). There's no impact on tariffs but it does serve the PR needs of Badenoch and co who are desperate to give off the appearance that something positive is happening.
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The disbelief is from the business community.
I think disbelief sums up England for the past 40 years at least.
Nah, things were good under labour for the most part.
did anyone stop to question what our future trade deals would be like, or if we were even capable of doing them, before they voted for Brexit?
Let’s face it the us-uk trade deal was not going to happen anyway anytime soon.
What disbelief could there possibly be for trade deals that literally could not happen? Trade deals (of any legitimacy or note) are the sole responsibility of Congress and after 8 years... it's pretty obviously never happening no matter how many pretendy deals they say they have with individual states that literally cannot be actioned. These things were entirely about making headlines and that was the extent of it.
Well if the British MPs didn't hound Donald Trump and protest him when he visits his golf courses , maybe just maybe things would be different for us . Leftards have ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us .
Err, news flash, Kemi Badenoch is in charge of the trade deals, not these imaginary "leftards". Plus, if these "leftards" had >ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us It goes to show how thin skinned Trump and his acolytes are that they can't take some criticism and mockery.
Haha yeah sure mate it's those treacherous leftards - not the government, not the people who voted for them.
How dare the people exercise their right of protest against this manchild, knowing that he's so sensitive to criticism and that we should be bending over backwards to accommodate the US.
> Leftards have ruined any chance of diplomatic relations for us . As if Trump would have given us a good deal to begin with. He would never give us a deal that would benefit us, he would want us to remember that we are beholden to him and the US. Besides, it is not like 'leftards' had any say in negotiations anyway, so Trump's ego would have been massaged by the Tories to appease him.