[Tubby Isaacs]

Even the voters they're keeping are dying off and not being replaced by younger ones.

About all they have left, just about, is that they're the Opposition, so are more visible than the Lib Dems.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Who's speaking here, do you think? Some clever academic type who think they know about trade but don't know the real world?

A common misunderstanding is that an SPS agreement will mean Britain becomes a ‘rule taker’. In reality, we must comply with the rules of any of our trading partners if we want to export to them – just like America must comply with British rules if they want to send us their products. This means we have been aligned with EU rules and standards all along. The difference this new deal will make is that Britain, unlike their other third country trading partners, will benefit from true, un-fettered access to their market and massively reduced trade friction. It will boost trade and make us more competitive.

Under the existing arrangement we have had to produce a mountain of paperwork to prove we comply, costing business a fortune but with no added value. This extra cost had to be absorbed somewhere in the supply chain, either through lower margins or higher prices, driving food price inflation and rendering UK businesses less competitive.

It's the meat processors' trade association.. Business, and not an area of business particularly associated with liberal leftism. The Tories are taking the side of the man in the pub over groups like this. Incredible.

[Crabcakes]

I can't help there's something missing in all of this stuff. Patel used to be a business lobbyist, and you'd hope she was still in favour of exports in some way. Where are all the business people saying this deal is terrible?

It’s because many Tories have moved on from being pro business because they get nicely funded by those businesses to being pro asset-stripping/oversight hating billionaires because they get nicely funded by those billionaires.

They’ve become Tory concentrate. Much, much thicker, reduced in volume as a consequence, and far more difficult to swallow (and utterly sickening if you have to)

[Abernathy]

I suppose we knew that the “backlash” from the usual suspects in reaction to the Starmer government’s first significant and pragmatic moves - regulatory alignment, youth exchange, etc - to begin to undo some of the damage wrought by the Brexit project, was always coming. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as virulent - or quite as frankly risible - as it has been. All this over the top bombastic nonsense about betrayal, surrender, and capitulation is transparently total bollocks, and what’s more, it is likely to be recognised as such by a majority of electors mindful of one of the modern beat combo The Who’s biggest hits.

As James O’Brexit has been pointing out this morning, nothing that the Brexiters promised has come true, a full nine years later. Cheaper food? Bollocks. Extra £350m a week for the NHS? A stinking lie. Lowered immigration? It’s fucking rocketed. Cutting red tape ? There’s more, not less. Everybody can see that the entire case for Brexit was a pack of lies, and that the mooted Brexit benefits never existed.

People aren’t going to buy the same lies again, are they? At any rate, not in anything like the same numbers. As has been mentioned, significant numbers of those who might have been likely to do so are no longer in a position to do so, on account of having stopped breathing.

Littlejohn, Neil, Hannan, etc are shouting into the void.

It also, I think, is another indicator that Starmer’s approach to this first term of government is actually working. Pragmatic, slow and steady, a plan is coming together. In three or four years’ time, it’s not inconceivable that the UK will be cruising to a second Labour term of government.

[Crabcakes]

The big clue today was Farage being absent. If he thought he could do some damage he’d have been there, bullshitting away.

The fact he steered clear shows he knew he had nothing concrete to pick on, and instead risked tying himself to the failings of Brexit or -
worse still - having to say what he would have done differently.

[Andy McDandy]

Some claim that the word "fascist" has lost much of its power and impact after years of overuse by the left. I'd argue that after 9 years of the right screaming "betrayal!", every time a public figure suggests being vaguely nice to a European, that word has lost power too.

[Youngian]

Littlejohn, Neil, Hannan, etc are shouting into the void.

Britain will become a rule taker they warn. Yeh that's bad, shall we have a referendum as to whether to apply to become a rule maker?

[The Weeping Angel]

The big clue today was Farage being absent. If he thought he could do some damage he’d have been there, bullshitting away.

The fact he steered clear shows he knew he had nothing concrete to pick on, and instead risked tying himself to the failings of Brexit or -
worse still - having to say what he would have done differently.

He's gone on holiday instead.

[davidjay]

They'll be moaning about betrayal and surrender but none of it will matter. In two years time the economy will have improved and after so long struggling that's the only thing most people will bother about.

[mattomac]

Problem is you play this card now what do you play next time.....

[Youngian]

The big clue today was Farage being absent. If he thought he could do some damage he’d have been there, bullshitting away.

The fact he steered clear shows he knew he had nothing concrete to pick on, and instead risked tying himself to the failings of Brexit or -
worse still - having to say what he would have done differently.

He's gone on holiday instead.

Although Badenoch threatened to quash the deal even before it was finalised, Farage is sitting this one out. He's a much better tactician than the Tories and has his eye on bigger prizes than preventing pensioners taking ham sandwiches on a day trip to Calais. Like stopping wogs in dingys from landing.