Brexit certainly didn't hurt its vaccination efforts, considering the disaster that the EU is on that front with its suboptimal common purchasing agreement: the UK leads all major countries of the world, with nearly 20% of its population having got at least one dose. (US is second best -- again among major countries, with ~13%). Plenty of reporting on all this for those interested, so I am not providing cites.
This was possible whilst in the EU, and actually, the deals for the vaccines were done whilst in the EU. Brexit has nothing to do with this. We merely authorised the vaccines first and earlier than the EU. From this article:
Under European law a vaccine must be authorised by the EMA, but individual countries can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.
Britain is still subject to those EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period which runs until the end of the year (2020).
And its chief executive, Dr June Raine, said on Wednesday that "we have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until 1 January".
So, nothing to do with Brexit.
Au contraire mon frere, Brexit certainly played its role. Several E.U. nations such as France and Germany initiated their own negotiations with Astra Zeneca a month or so after the U.K. finalized their deal with the company. But before they could finalize their deals the European Commission stepped in and said, “Hold up. We need to be in charge of this at an E.U. level.” That delayed negotiations by an additional two months. The U.K. was not constrained in any way.
And now the E.U. is upset with Astra Zeneca because they are honoring contracts in the order in which they were negotiated and received. Comical.
Is that actually correct? The EU said hold up?
There was bloc negotiation for the entire EU programme and, AFAIK, freedom for member states to negotiate their own supplies too (supposedly at worse rates).
I'll admit to not following much of this as things progressed so it would be nice to know one way or another.
Yes, it is correct (Halfway down here), the Commission leaned on states to go with them instead. Germany also then bought more vaccines anyway when they saw the EU was making an absolute mess of it.
That link is a quite nice summary of the situation but nowhere does it states can't go alone. The EU pushed for a common front with member state participation for the EU plan (with all the negotiating benefits of acting as a bloc) but makes it clear that member states were free to purchase extra doses on their own terms if they saw fit. The fact that four states banded together to order more doses didn't really fall into the spirit of things but that was sorted.
At the moment I don't see this as a planning issue but more of a production issue and that's where the 'contract conflict' arose.
As stated in the article, the EU has one of the best vaccine portfolios in the world AND has more legal weight behind it if something goes wrong with one of the vaccines.
Some states like Germany did band together when they saw the EU’s vaccine procurement scheme was going sideways. However, under the membership terms of the vaccine pool, they’re not allowed to access these additional purchases ahead of the EU.
It's funny how those who voted for Brexit are the same ones who are blaming the EU (that they're happily no longer a part of) for messing up their vaccine rollout, and those who voted to remain are the ones who present the facts.
The only ones with a screwed up vaccine rollout are the members of the EU vaccine pool. Thank goodness we didn’t listen to the Remoaners who wanted the U.K. to join it. As EU president Ursula von der Leyen admitted, when it came to vaccines the U.K. is a speedboat and the EU is lumbering oil tanker.
Brexit certainly didn't hurt its vaccination efforts, considering the disaster that the EU is on that front with its suboptimal common purchasing agreement: the UK leads all major countries of the world, with nearly 20% of its population having got at least one dose. (US is second best -- again among major countries, with ~13%). Plenty of reporting on all this for those interested, so I am not providing cites.
This was possible whilst in the EU, and actually, the deals for the vaccines were done whilst in the EU. Brexit has nothing to do with this. We merely authorised the vaccines first and earlier than the EU. From this article:
Under European law a vaccine must be authorised by the EMA, but individual countries can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.
Britain is still subject to those EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period which runs until the end of the year (2020).
And its chief executive, Dr June Raine, said on Wednesday that "we have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until 1 January".
So, nothing to do with Brexit.
Au contraire mon frere, Brexit certainly played its role. Several E.U. nations such as France and Germany initiated their own negotiations with Astra Zeneca a month or so after the U.K. finalized their deal with the company. But before they could finalize their deals the European Commission stepped in and said, “Hold up. We need to be in charge of this at an E.U. level.” That delayed negotiations by an additional two months. The U.K. was not constrained in any way.
And now the E.U. is upset with Astra Zeneca because they are honoring contracts in the order in which they were negotiated and received. Comical.
Is that actually correct? The EU said hold up?
There was bloc negotiation for the entire EU programme and, AFAIK, freedom for member states to negotiate their own supplies too (supposedly at worse rates).
I'll admit to not following much of this as things progressed so it would be nice to know one way or another.
Yes, it is correct (Halfway down here), the Commission leaned on states to go with them instead. Germany also then bought more vaccines anyway when they saw the EU was making an absolute mess of it.
That link is a quite nice summary of the situation but nowhere does it states can't go alone. The EU pushed for a common front with member state participation for the EU plan (with all the negotiating benefits of acting as a bloc) but makes it clear that member states were free to purchase extra doses on their own terms if they saw fit. The fact that four states banded together to order more doses didn't really fall into the spirit of things but that was sorted.
At the moment I don't see this as a planning issue but more of a production issue and that's where the 'contract conflict' arose.
As stated in the article, the EU has one of the best vaccine portfolios in the world AND has more legal weight behind it if something goes wrong with one of the vaccines.
According to the Guardian, “It’s legally binding,” Von der Layen had said. “We have all agreed, legally binding, that there will be no parallel negotiations, no parallel contracts … We’re all working together.”
So that doesn't really align with "member states were free to purchase extra doses if they saw fit". Which Germany did anyway. But the EU ignored it because the EU doesn't criticise Germany.
The quality of the vaccine portfolio is irrelevant when tens of thousands of people have died in the time the EU has been wading through its beloved bureaucracy, they at one point hadn't even ordered enough of their own vaccine...
Oh, and "Brussels threw at AstraZeneca the fact that it had invested more than €300m (£265m; $364m) to help it develop the vaccine and to produce it in mass quantities. In reality, Brussels has yet to hand over a substantial lump of the promised amount." More lies from the Von der Layen camp. The legal weight is irrelevant when they're trying to use contract clauses in their arguments against the drugmakers that don't, in fact, exist.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Brexit has been popular among all classes of British society outside of London. It wasn’t just Conservatives who supported it. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party was conspicuously silent when it came to campaigning for the Remain movement.
He really wasn't, the conspicuous silence was the UK media's silence in reporting it. Corbyn went up and down the country campaigning for remain, far more than any prominent Tory.
I'm not at all a Corbyn supporter and never voted for him, but the press treated him abominably, either ignoring his message or focusing exclusively on the worst possible reading, while leaping on any inclarity or slight gaffe with glee.
It's well known he was anti-EU. Always has been. No one was convinced by the sudden facade of neutrality, another reason he was so unpopular.
Why then, if he was campaigning for remain as you claim, would he refuse to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave, always claiming it didn't matter what he thought or did?
No it isn't well known. It's well known that he has mixed feelings on the EU, as any sensible person would. But he campaigned solidly for Remain and was not "conspicuously silent", as you claim.
Regarding your assertion that he "refuse(d) to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave", that's pretty much untrue (bar some unsubstantiated claims from Chris Bryant about private meetings). He voted Remain, as was upfront about that. He had some hesitance in saying where he'd vote in an (unannounced and never held) second referendum, as such talk would have been divisive and unhelpful in the immediate aftermath of the first referendum, but as the situation got worse and worse he eventually said he'd vote Remain again: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-remain-vote-second-referendum-eu-negotiations-theresa-may-a7996996.html
No significant Tory did that.
You have been misled by a media that was hostile to the man pretty much from the start. He wasn't a great leader, played the political and campaign management game badly, and I disagree with him on many things, but he stood for Remain and was nevertheless terribly misrepresented by the gutter press.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Brexit has been popular among all classes of British society outside of London. It wasn’t just Conservatives who supported it. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party was conspicuously silent when it came to campaigning for the Remain movement.
He really wasn't, the conspicuous silence was the UK media's silence in reporting it. Corbyn went up and down the country campaigning for remain, far more than any prominent Tory.
I'm not at all a Corbyn supporter and never voted for him, but the press treated him abominably, either ignoring his message or focusing exclusively on the worst possible reading, while leaping on any inclarity or slight gaffe with glee.
It's well known he was anti-EU. Always has been. No one was convinced by the sudden facade of neutrality, another reason he was so unpopular.
Why then, if he was campaigning for remain as you claim, would he refuse to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave, always claiming it didn't matter what he thought or did?
No it isn't well known. It's well known that he has mixed feelings on the EU, as any sensible person would. But he campaigned solidly for Remain and was not "conspicuously silent", as you claim.
That might be your view, but few others think that. Which is one of the big reasons the northern Labour voters didn't vote for him, he wasn't being truthful. And even if he was campaigning for remain, as I said, people knew it was a facade. Let me help you with some cherry picked facts out of the 17 here about how much he disliked the EU:
Jeremy Corbyn voted for Britain to leave the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1975 European referendum.
Jeremy Corbyn opposed the creation of the European Union (EU) under the Maastricht Treaty
Jeremy Corbyn voted for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in 2011 (breaking the Labour whip to do so).
In 2011 Jeremy Corbyn also opposed the creation of the EU’s European Stability Mechanism, which helps members of the Euro in financial difficulties.
In 2016 his long-time left-wing ally Tariq Ali said that he was sure that if Corbyn was not Labour leader he would be campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, whilst his brother Piers Corbyn also said that Jeremy Corbyn was privately opposed to Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Jeremy Corbyn went on holiday during the 2016 referendum campaign and his office staff consistently undermined the Remain campaign. He refused to attend a key Remain campaign launch and also attacked government ministers for publicising the Remain case, saying they should also have promoted arguments in favour of Leave vote.
Yup. Assuredly a committed Europhile and hard remain campaigner. More like an inner tyrant trying to do as much as possible to damage remain.
Regarding your assertion that he "refuse(d) to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave", that's pretty much untrue (bar some unsubstantiated claims from Chris Bryant about private meetings). He voted Remain, as was upfront about that. He had some hesitance in saying where he'd vote in an (unannounced and never held) second referendum, as such talk would have been divisive and unhelpful in the immediate aftermath of the first referendum, but as the situation got worse and worse he eventually said he'd vote Remain again: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-remain-vote-second-referendum-eu-negotiations-theresa-may-a7996996.html
No significant Tory did that.
You have been misled by a media that was hostile to the man pretty much from the start. He wasn't a great leader, played the political and campaign management game badly, and I disagree with him on many things, but he stood for Remain and was nevertheless terribly misrepresented by the gutter press.
There was no need for the press to berate or misrepresent him. He incessently did things that were detrimental to his leadership and Labour's chances.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Brexit has been popular among all classes of British society outside of London. It wasn’t just Conservatives who supported it. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party was conspicuously silent when it came to campaigning for the Remain movement.
He really wasn't, the conspicuous silence was the UK media's silence in reporting it. Corbyn went up and down the country campaigning for remain, far more than any prominent Tory.
I'm not at all a Corbyn supporter and never voted for him, but the press treated him abominably, either ignoring his message or focusing exclusively on the worst possible reading, while leaping on any inclarity or slight gaffe with glee.
It's well known he was anti-EU. Always has been. No one was convinced by the sudden facade of neutrality, another reason he was so unpopular.
Why then, if he was campaigning for remain as you claim, would he refuse to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave, always claiming it didn't matter what he thought or did?
No it isn't well known. It's well known that he has mixed feelings on the EU, as any sensible person would. But he campaigned solidly for Remain and was not "conspicuously silent", as you claim.
That might be your view, but few others think that. Which is one of the big reasons the northern Labour voters didn't vote for him, he wasn't being truthful. And even if he was campaigning for remain, as I said, people knew it was a facade. Let me help you with some cherry picked facts out of the 17 here about how much he disliked the EU:
Jeremy Corbyn voted for Britain to leave the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1975 European referendum.
Jeremy Corbyn opposed the creation of the European Union (EU) under the Maastricht Treaty
Jeremy Corbyn voted for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in 2011 (breaking the Labour whip to do so).
In 2011 Jeremy Corbyn also opposed the creation of the EU’s European Stability Mechanism, which helps members of the Euro in financial difficulties.
In 2016 his long-time left-wing ally Tariq Ali said that he was sure that if Corbyn was not Labour leader he would be campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, whilst his brother Piers Corbyn also said that Jeremy Corbyn was privately opposed to Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Jeremy Corbyn went on holiday during the 2016 referendum campaign and his office staff consistently undermined the Remain campaign. He refused to attend a key Remain campaign launch and also attacked government ministers for publicising the Remain case, saying they should also have promoted arguments in favour of Leave vote.
Yup. Assuredly a committed Europhile and hard remain campaigner. More like an inner tyrant trying to do as much as possible to damage remain.
Regarding your assertion that he "refuse(d) to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave", that's pretty much untrue (bar some unsubstantiated claims from Chris Bryant about private meetings). He voted Remain, as was upfront about that. He had some hesitance in saying where he'd vote in an (unannounced and never held) second referendum, as such talk would have been divisive and unhelpful in the immediate aftermath of the first referendum, but as the situation got worse and worse he eventually said he'd vote Remain again: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-remain-vote-second-referendum-eu-negotiations-theresa-may-a7996996.html
No significant Tory did that.
You have been misled by a media that was hostile to the man pretty much from the start. He wasn't a great leader, played the political and campaign management game badly, and I disagree with him on many things, but he stood for Remain and was nevertheless terribly misrepresented by the gutter press.
There was no need for the press to berate or misrepresent him. He incessently did things that were detrimental to his leadership and Labour's chances.
I don't entirely disagree, he was a bad leader, a poor spokesman for the Labour party, and his relentless honesty and balance meant his stance on Brexit appeared diluted. But you misrepresent his campaigning for the Remain cause by dredging up history that has little bearing on the 2016 referendum and hearsay. Corbyn's public actions said something very different, he campaigned for Remain more than any other leader, but his actions were undermined by a hostile press (and a rebellion within his own party). Consider how many headlines blamed Corbyn for Brexit, despite David Cameron calling the referendum in the first place.
What people think and what is actually true are fairly independent things, and the whole thing is a mark of shamefully incompetence on the entire country.
I'm vociferously pro-EU, but only a fool would say that it's perfect and couldn't use reform in many ways. Corbyn is less pro-EU than I am, and his poor political skills meant he sometimes seemed to emphasise the imperfections over the overall stance of Remain. But he was definitely on the side of Remain, and committed many hundreds of hours to campaigning for it, more than most other significant political figures, no matter how many tabloids or Blairist/Brownite blogs you read.
The tendency towards character assassination of the written media in the UK is deplorable. It's comparable to the worst TV news in the USA. Don't read that shit.
All the England haters here need to remember that England stood alone against the German fascists while the rest of you Europeans knelt on bended knee before Hitler, waiting for the the English and the U.S. to liberate your asses. England and the Unites States have a legendary “special relationship”. The Germans started TWO world conflagrations in the 20th century that devastated Europe. The EU today is once more dominated by German industrial might and economic prowess. You are still kneeling before them. So I would love to see Apple partner with the English to build their car and let the EU stew about it.
No wonder England exited that shit hole. Fuck the EU and its member states.
Brexit certainly didn't hurt its vaccination efforts, considering the disaster that the EU is on that front with its suboptimal common purchasing agreement: the UK leads all major countries of the world, with nearly 20% of its population having got at least one dose. (US is second best -- again among major countries, with ~13%). Plenty of reporting on all this for those interested, so I am not providing cites.
This was possible whilst in the EU, and actually, the deals for the vaccines were done whilst in the EU. Brexit has nothing to do with this. We merely authorised the vaccines first and earlier than the EU. From this article:
Under European law a vaccine must be authorised by the EMA, but individual countries can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market.
Britain is still subject to those EU rules during the post-Brexit transition period which runs until the end of the year (2020).
And its chief executive, Dr June Raine, said on Wednesday that "we have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until 1 January".
So, nothing to do with Brexit.
Au contraire mon frere, Brexit certainly played its role. Several E.U. nations such as France and Germany initiated their own negotiations with Astra Zeneca a month or so after the U.K. finalized their deal with the company. But before they could finalize their deals the European Commission stepped in and said, “Hold up. We need to be in charge of this at an E.U. level.” That delayed negotiations by an additional two months. The U.K. was not constrained in any way.
And now the E.U. is upset with Astra Zeneca because they are honoring contracts in the order in which they were negotiated and received. Comical.
Is that actually correct? The EU said hold up?
There was bloc negotiation for the entire EU programme and, AFAIK, freedom for member states to negotiate their own supplies too (supposedly at worse rates).
I'll admit to not following much of this as things progressed so it would be nice to know one way or another.
Yes, it is correct (Halfway down here), the Commission leaned on states to go with them instead. Germany also then bought more vaccines anyway when they saw the EU was making an absolute mess of it.
That link is a quite nice summary of the situation but nowhere does it states can't go alone. The EU pushed for a common front with member state participation for the EU plan (with all the negotiating benefits of acting as a bloc) but makes it clear that member states were free to purchase extra doses on their own terms if they saw fit. The fact that four states banded together to order more doses didn't really fall into the spirit of things but that was sorted.
At the moment I don't see this as a planning issue but more of a production issue and that's where the 'contract conflict' arose.
As stated in the article, the EU has one of the best vaccine portfolios in the world AND has more legal weight behind it if something goes wrong with one of the vaccines.
According to the Guardian, “It’s legally binding,” Von der Layen had said. “We have all agreed, legally binding, that there will be no parallel negotiations, no parallel contracts … We’re all working together.”
So that doesn't really align with "member states were free to purchase extra doses if they saw fit". Which Germany did anyway. But the EU ignored it because the EU doesn't criticise Germany.
The quality of the vaccine portfolio is irrelevant when tens of thousands of people have died in the time the EU has been wading through its beloved bureaucracy, they at one point hadn't even ordered enough of their own vaccine...
Oh, and "Brussels threw at AstraZeneca the fact that it had invested more than €300m (£265m; $364m) to help it develop the vaccine and to produce it in mass quantities. In reality, Brussels has yet to hand over a substantial lump of the promised amount." More lies from the Von der Layen camp. The legal weight is irrelevant when they're trying to use contract clauses in their arguments against the drugmakers that don't, in fact, exist.
Thanks for digging out another link. I found this this one too.
P.S. Mark Pack is a Liberal Democrat politican, not an unbiased source. He has a clear vested interest in making both Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party look bad.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Russia
There's a reason Russia supported Brexit with one of their disinformation campaigns.
What reason is that? You can’t just drop that little nugget without explanation. Unless, of course, you don’t have one and are just talking shit, as usual.
You don't see why it would be in Russia's interest to destabilise and weaken the EU?
It’s late in this comments thread. But I just have to add that the E.U. is doing a great job of that on their own. They need no help from Vlad the Impaler.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Russia
There's a reason Russia supported Brexit with one of their disinformation campaigns.
What reason is that? You can’t just drop that little nugget without explanation. Unless, of course, you don’t have one and are just talking shit, as usual.
You don't see why it would be in Russia's interest to destabilise and weaken the EU?
It’s late in this comments thread. But I just have to add that the E.U. is doing a great job of that on their own. They need no help from Vlad the Impaler.
Not really, and in any case that's rather a glib and tangential point, not really useful to the original claim about Russia.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Russia
There's a reason Russia supported Brexit with one of their disinformation campaigns.
What reason is that? You can’t just drop that little nugget without explanation. Unless, of course, you don’t have one and are just talking shit, as usual.
You don't see why it would be in Russia's interest to destabilise and weaken the EU?
It’s late in this comments thread. But I just have to add that the E.U. is doing a great job of that on their own. They need no help from Vlad the Impaler.
Not really, and in any case that's rather a glib and tangential point, not really useful to the original claim about Russia.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Brexit has been popular among all classes of British society outside of London. It wasn’t just Conservatives who supported it. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party was conspicuously silent when it came to campaigning for the Remain movement.
He really wasn't, the conspicuous silence was the UK media's silence in reporting it. Corbyn went up and down the country campaigning for remain, far more than any prominent Tory.
I'm not at all a Corbyn supporter and never voted for him, but the press treated him abominably, either ignoring his message or focusing exclusively on the worst possible reading, while leaping on any inclarity or slight gaffe with glee.
The same happened in the U.S. in 2016 -- while the press fawned over Trump and amplified his message without challenging the lies they pretty much crucified Hillary -- every interview started and ended with "What about the emails".
I do not think that either Brexit or Trump would have happened had the free press been reporting fully and accurately. And, I think they understand that now.
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Russia
There's a reason Russia supported Brexit with one of their disinformation campaigns.
What reason is that? You can’t just drop that little nugget without explanation. Unless, of course, you don’t have one and are just talking shit, as usual.
You don't see why it would be in Russia's interest to destabilise and weaken the EU?
It’s late in this comments thread. But I just have to add that the E.U. is doing a great job of that on their own. They need no help from Vlad the Impaler.
Russia's Putin had a hand in pushing Brexit just as Trump got hand from him in 2016 -- he put his disinformation forces to work in both campaigns as was documented by their respective country's intelligence services.
It's funny how those who voted for Brexit are the same ones who are blaming the EU (that they're happily no longer a part of) for messing up their vaccine rollout, and those who voted to remain are the ones who present the facts.
The only ones with a screwed up vaccine rollout are the members of the EU vaccine pool. Thank goodness we didn’t listen to the Remoaners who wanted the U.K. to join it. As EU president Ursula von der Leyen admitted, when it came to vaccines the U.K. is a speedboat and the EU is lumbering oil tanker.
That doesn't refute my point at all. I said the ones blaming the EU for their vaccine rollout are the ones who voted for Brexit (because of a deep-seated loathing of the EU), which you are proving. I know the UK has administered more vaccination doses than the EU collective pot; I never said they didn't, so this graphic is a little unnecessary and beside the point.
Remainers are the ones presenting facts and being shouted down because those facts don't fit your narrative.
Go on, then, tell us the great things that have happened since we left the EU at 11:00pm on 31st December 2020 (because that's when we legally stopped having to follow EU law). I mentioned fishing, and no one refuted it. How about the cheese company that used to sell £30 gift sets into the EU without issue, but now have to pay £120 per gift set for a health certificate to export it to the EU, making it no longer viable?
Literally, don't do it. Do not do it. The UK is a terrible place to do business. Brexit has destroyed the many to enrich the minuscule few. The Tory governments of the last ten years have ruined us. Build the Apple Car somewhere else. Please.
Serious question — who is enriched by brexit?
My impression has been that it’s bad for everybody, that it’s a collective delusion among older, less educated English (certainly not Scottish) nationalists mourning the long lost empire.
Russia
There's a reason Russia supported Brexit with one of their disinformation campaigns.
What reason is that? You can’t just drop that little nugget without explanation. Unless, of course, you don’t have one and are just talking shit, as usual.
You don't see why it would be in Russia's interest to destabilise and weaken the EU?
It’s late in this comments thread. But I just have to add that the E.U. is doing a great job of that on their own. They need no help from Vlad the Impaler.
Not really, and in any case that's rather a glib and tangential point, not really useful to the original claim about Russia.
You’re really no fun sometimes.
I don't think needlessly piling on to an admittedly flawed organisation, but a flawed organisation that has been the best safeguard for peace in Europe for the past 50 years is particularly fun, sorry.
Comments
As EU president Ursula von der Leyen admitted, when it came to vaccines the U.K. is a speedboat and the EU is lumbering oil tanker.
According to the Guardian, “It’s legally binding,” Von der Layen had said. “We have all agreed, legally binding, that there will be no parallel negotiations, no parallel contracts … We’re all working together.”
So that doesn't really align with "member states were free to purchase extra doses if they saw fit". Which Germany did anyway. But the EU ignored it because the EU doesn't criticise Germany.
The quality of the vaccine portfolio is irrelevant when tens of thousands of people have died in the time the EU has been wading through its beloved bureaucracy, they at one point hadn't even ordered enough of their own vaccine...
Oh, and "Brussels threw at AstraZeneca the fact that it had invested more than €300m (£265m; $364m) to help it develop the vaccine and to produce it in mass quantities. In reality, Brussels has yet to hand over a substantial lump of the promised amount." More lies from the Von der Layen camp. The legal weight is irrelevant when they're trying to use contract clauses in their arguments against the drugmakers that don't, in fact, exist.
Regarding your assertion that he "refuse(d) to be drawn in interviews on whether he voted to remain or leave", that's pretty much untrue (bar some unsubstantiated claims from Chris Bryant about private meetings). He voted Remain, as was upfront about that. He had some hesitance in saying where he'd vote in an (unannounced and never held) second referendum, as such talk would have been divisive and unhelpful in the immediate aftermath of the first referendum, but as the situation got worse and worse he eventually said he'd vote Remain again: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-remain-vote-second-referendum-eu-negotiations-theresa-may-a7996996.html
No significant Tory did that.
You have been misled by a media that was hostile to the man pretty much from the start. He wasn't a great leader, played the political and campaign management game badly, and I disagree with him on many things, but he stood for Remain and was nevertheless terribly misrepresented by the gutter press.
- Jeremy Corbyn opposed the creation of the European Union (EU) under the Maastricht Treaty
- Jeremy Corbyn voted for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in 2011 (breaking the Labour whip to do so).
- In 2011 Jeremy Corbyn also opposed the creation of the EU’s European Stability Mechanism, which helps members of the Euro in financial difficulties.
- In 2016 his long-time left-wing ally Tariq Ali said that he was sure that if Corbyn was not Labour leader he would be campaigning for Britain to leave the EU, whilst his brother Piers Corbyn also said that Jeremy Corbyn was privately opposed to Britain’s membership of the European Union.
- Jeremy Corbyn went on holiday during the 2016 referendum campaign and his office staff consistently undermined the Remain campaign. He refused to attend a key Remain campaign launch and also attacked government ministers for publicising the Remain case, saying they should also have promoted arguments in favour of Leave vote.
Yup. Assuredly a committed Europhile and hard remain campaigner. More like an inner tyrant trying to do as much as possible to damage remain."Jeremy Corbyn is a “friend” of Brexit, an anti-EU Labour MP has reassured eurosceptics."
There was no need for the press to berate or misrepresent him. He incessently did things that were detrimental to his leadership and Labour's chances.
What people think and what is actually true are fairly independent things, and the whole thing is a mark of shamefully incompetence on the entire country.
I'm vociferously pro-EU, but only a fool would say that it's perfect and couldn't use reform in many ways. Corbyn is less pro-EU than I am, and his poor political skills meant he sometimes seemed to emphasise the imperfections over the overall stance of Remain. But he was definitely on the side of Remain, and committed many hundreds of hours to campaigning for it, more than most other significant political figures, no matter how many tabloids or Blairist/Brownite blogs you read.
The tendency towards character assassination of the written media in the UK is deplorable. It's comparable to the worst TV news in the USA. Don't read that shit.
No wonder England exited that shit hole. Fuck the EU and its member states.
"Britain needs to stay in the EU"
Such equivocation, what a tyrant.
Jfc, I can't really believe you called the wet blanket nice guy a tyrant
https://www.politico.eu/article/germanys-coronavirus-vaccine-side-deal-at-odds-with-legally-binding-eu-pact/
And must admit there's some possibly contradictory interpretations going on.
Russia's Putin had a hand in pushing Brexit just as Trump got hand from him in 2016 -- he put his disinformation forces to work in both campaigns as was documented by their respective country's intelligence services.
Remainers are the ones presenting facts and being shouted down because those facts don't fit your narrative.
Go on, then, tell us the great things that have happened since we left the EU at 11:00pm on 31st December 2020 (because that's when we legally stopped having to follow EU law). I mentioned fishing, and no one refuted it. How about the cheese company that used to sell £30 gift sets into the EU without issue, but now have to pay £120 per gift set for a health certificate to export it to the EU, making it no longer viable?