The Brexit Thread

[The Sisko]

12 hours ago, China said:

Brexit: Tentative progress made as EU hints at concessions

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

Why is it that all over the world, liberals always **** up like a bunch of punks? They should have introduced the Hard Line According to Terrence Trent Darby (yeah, totally dated myself with that reference) from the beginning and made an example of them. Now with Putin and the far-right egging their idiotic followers on, the EU is going to end up with a bunch of other countries with nationalist movements wanting out and the whole thing may collapse. Brilliant.🙄 Putin likely to win again.

[TradeTheBeal!]

This seems inconvenient.

 

 

[London Kev]

 

Thank **** for that.

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, London Kev said:

 

Thank **** for that.

 

So how is this different from staying in the EU?

[The Sisko]

[London Kev]

2 hours ago, bearrock said:

 

So how is this different from staying in the EU?

 

I think it's because now we don't have to pay them £250,000,000 a week (or £350,000,000 a week if you believe Boris' bus).

[Wildbunny]

3 hours ago, bearrock said:

 

So how is this different from staying in the EU?

They where never really in it anyway.

 

What really matters to them is to believe they are still the driving force in EU, and that leaving EU will harm Germany's power.

 

Mind you, Brits like to think they are smarter than everybody else and that they still rule the world.

[China]

At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it's as bad as you thought

 

Boris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: “The war is over.”

 

The Brexit deal itself is nothing but thin gruel. It will make it much harder for Britain to sell services to EU countries, where we were once advantaged. Britons will lose their right to freely travel, work and settle in other European countries. While there will be no tariffs or restrictions on the quantity of goods that can be sold, British exports will for the first time in decades face checks on their origins and compliance with EU regulations.

 

The government fought hard for regulatory autonomy that it imagines will allow Britain to achieve escape velocity from economic reality. It is a fantasy. Britain’s producers will need to meet EU regulations to sell into their most important export market, no matter what bureaucrats in Whitehall may say. A separate set of British regulations for companies to comply with harms rather than enhances our international competitiveness.

 

After nearly half a century of closer integration with the European economy, Britain is now locked into needlessly throwing up new barriers to trade with our closest neighbours. As the past few days has shown, the ports can quickly descend into chaos. Even if implementation of the deal is smooth – a big if – it will prove costly to the UK economy, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating it will knock more than 2% off growth and see inflation climb to 3.5%. That means fewer good jobs, lower incomes and higher prices.

 

Click on the link for more

[FrFan]

[China]

[The Sisko]

On 12/24/2020 at 4:34 PM, China said:

At long last we have a Brexit deal – and it's as bad as you thought

 

The Brexit deal itself is nothing but thin gruel. It will make it much harder for Britain to sell services to EU countries, where we were once advantaged. Britons will lose their right to freely travel, work and settle in other European countries. While there will be no tariffs or restrictions on the quantity of goods that can be sold, British exports will for the first time in decades face checks on their origins and compliance with EU regulations...

 

...After nearly half a century of closer integration with the European economy, Britain is now locked into needlessly throwing up new barriers to trade with our closest neighbours. As the past few days has shown, the ports can quickly descend into chaos. Even if implementation of the deal is smooth – a big if – it will prove costly to the UK economy, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating it will knock more than 2% off growth and see inflation climb to 3.5%. That means fewer good jobs, lower incomes and higher prices.

 

Click on the link for more

Well, that’s certainly encouraging. I was thinking they essentially got the barriers to immigration without giving up much on the trade side. Hopefully they get schtupped on the economic consequences. 

 

And lest any of our folks across the pond think I have it in for them, that’s not the case. Consistent with my hopes for so-called real ‘Muricuns to suffer as a result of Tя☭mp’s trade and other policies, I’m hoping most of the fallout primarily hits the class of Britons that voted for Brexit.

[China]

Exclusive: 'It's a catastrophe': Scottish fishermen halt exports due to Brexit red tape

 

Many Scottish fishermen have halted exports to European Union markets after post-Brexit bureaucracy shattered the system that used to put fresh langoustines and scallops in French shops just over a day after they were harvested.

 

Fishing exporters told Reuters their businesses could become unviable after the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork added days to their delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load.

 

Business owners said they had tried to send small deliveries to France and Spain to test the new systems this week but it was taking five hours to secure a health certificate in Scotland, a document which is required to apply for other customs paperwork.

 

In the first working week after Brexit, one-day deliveries were taking three or more days - if they got through at all.

 

Owners could not say for sure where their valuable cargo was. A trade group told boats to stop fishing exported stocks.

 

“Our customers are pulling out,” Santiago Buesa of SB Fish told Reuters. “We are fresh product and the customers expect to have it fresh, so they’re not buying. It’s a catastrophe.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told

 

British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit, the Observer can reveal.

 

In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Ministers refusing to open talks to solve Brexit exports crisis to make EU feel ‘pain’, industry leader says

 

Ministers are refusing to open talks to solve the exporting crisis caused by Brexit until the EU feels “some of the pain”, an industry leader says.

 

The delayed introduction of UK border controls in April is “another potential car crash”, the head of Scottish Food and Drink warned – telling MPs: “The clock is ticking.”

 

But, James Withers added: “The mood music I pick up from government officials is that there is a reluctance to engage with the EU until April.

 

“In other words, that they need to feel some of the pain that we are feeling before it will come to the table.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Brexit Britain could unite with Canada and Australia to create ‘third biggest military'

 

This would give Britons, excluding those with a serious criminal conviction, the right to live and work in the other three CANZAK countries and vice-versa.

 

The four powers would also agree to cooperate more closely foreign policy and defence.

 

Toronto based James Skinner is the founder and chief executive of CANZUK International, a group launched under a different name in 2015.

 

Speaking to Express.co.uk he argued the new association would immediately become the third most powerful military force in the world, behind only the United States and China.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[DCSaints_fan]

On 12/24/2020 at 12:17 PM, bearrock said:

 

So how is this different from staying in the EU?

Now they don’t have a vote over trade regulations.

[China]

Brexit LIVE: Where's the fish, Boris? UK salmon producers aghast as 97% of catch 'lost'

 

The Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO) said the Treasury figures for January underestimated foreign sales by much as 97 percent, meaning the extent of the problems for Scottish fishing exports post-Brexit may not be as serious as first thought. New post-Brexit rules came into force on January 1 with red-tape causing delays for some in the seafood sector who usually export to Europe.

 

Hamish MacDonnell, director of strategic engagement at the SSPO, told the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee the HMRC figures were "not just wrong, they were very, very wrong".

He said: "It is really difficult for you as a committee, or anybody else, to really assess the impact of Brexit when we don't have a proper baseline on the stats.

 

"We sent about 5,000 tonnes of salmon to Europe in January - the Eurostat system, which records how much Scottish salmon went into the EU, records about 4,700 tonnes going in.

"The HMRC figures say we only sent 80 tonnes - which is only 3 percent of the amount that actually went there."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

'Stop buying from EU superstate!' Britons furious as Brussels desperate to sabotage Brexit

 

BREXIT Minister Lord David Frost has warned EU insiders are sabotaging the UK's success for the sake of proving Britons' decision to leave the bloc was a mistake. And Britons have lashed out at the bloc urging people to stop buying from the "EU superstate".
 

The UK Brexit chief claimed that while the British Government wishes a successful future on EU member states, Brussels is adamant to prove Brexit should have been avoided by hijacking Britain's future as an independent nation.

 

Speaking to the Spectator, Lord Frost urged the EU to solve "arguments about trade" in a "grown-up way", drawing comparisons to the US-Canada model.

 

He said: "I don’t think it’s incompatible with friendly relations between sovereign equals to have arguments about trade and resolve them in a grown-up way…

 

"There definitely are US-Canada trade disputes and life goes on. And I don’t see why it shouldn’t be like that."

 

Now, Britons have hit back at the EU urging people to "stop buying any goods" from the bloc.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Italy Warns U.K.: America Is Feeding You Counterfeit Pasta

 

British lovers of Italian cuisine, be warned: Your pasta could be fake. Italy’s powerful agriculture lobby group Coldiretti has accused the U.S. of cashing in on shortages caused by Brexit.

 

Lorenzo Bazzana, Coldiretti’s chief economist, said in a statement that British consumers are now subject to “fake” Italian products that use fancy labeling and Italian colors to try to pass crappy cuisine for authentic Italian products. He blamed Brexit for a drop in imports of Italian products into the U.K., which he says has paved the way for what Italians see as culinary crimes, with the U.S. as the biggest offender.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Christmas dinner could be cancelled as Brits face meat shortage ‘in two weeks’

 

There are fears that Christmas dinner could be ‘cancelled’, thanks to a shortage of carbon dioxide (CO2), the UK’s biggest poultry supplier has warned.

 

The unprecedented rise in gas prices has forced the closures of two large fertiliser plants in Teesside and Cheshire, which supply CO2 produced as a by-product to the food industry.

 

The gas is vital in cooling systems used to refrigeration, meaning frozen food is likely to be badly hit. It also extends the shelf-life of products and is used while slaughtering livestock.

Industry experts are warning that the shortage is likely to be impact meat supplies on supermarket shelves the week after next.

 

The owner of Bernard Matthews and 2 Sisters Food Group says the issue, combined with a shortage of workers, will impact the supply of Christmas turkeys and could tip the industry ‘over the edge’.

 

The intervention is far from the first warning about supplies to the UK over Christmas, including to wine, and comes amid various shortages across the country, which experts have partly blamed on Brexit, Covid and staff shortages.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Is it a bluff? Some in Hungary and Poland talk of EU pullout

 

When Hungary and Poland joined the European Union in 2004, after decades of Communist domination, their citizens thirsted for Western democratic standards and prosperity.

 

Yet 17 years later, as the EU ramps up efforts to rein in democratic backsliding in both countries, some of the governing right-wing populists in Hungary and Poland are comparing the bloc to their former Soviet oppressors — and flirting with the prospect of exiting the trade bloc.

 

“Brussels sends us overlords who are supposed to bring Poland to order, on our knees,” a leading member of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party, Marek Suski, said this month, adding that Poland “will fight the Brussels occupier” as it fought past Nazi and Soviet occupiers.

 

It’s unclear to what extent this kind of talk represents a real desire to leave the 27-member bloc or a negotiating tactic to counter arm-twisting from Brussels. The two countries are the largest net beneficiaries of EU money, and the vast majority of their citizens want to stay in the bloc.

 

Yet the rhetoric has increased in recent months, after the EU resorted to financially penalizing members that fail its rule of law and democratic governance standards.

 

In December, EU lawmakers approved a regulation tying access to some EU funds to a country’s respect for the rule of law. This is seen as targeting Hungary and Poland — close political allies often accused of eroding judicial independence and media freedom, and curtailing minority and migrant rights.

 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called the so-called rule of law mechanism “a political and ideological weapon” designed to blackmail countries like Hungary that reject immigration. His Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, called it “a bad solution that threatens a breakup of Europe in the future.”

 

The EU’s executive commission has also delayed payment of tens of billions of euros in post-pandemic recovery funds over concerns the two countries’ spending plans do not adequately safeguard against corruption or guarantee judicial independence.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

‘Up to 90 percent’ of UK petrol pumps dry amid panic buying

 

Petrol pumps in English cities are running dry after panic buying worsened shortages caused by a lack of truckers.

 

Queues of cars snaked back from filling stations across the country on Sunday, swallowing up supplies and forcing many retailers to shut despite assurances from the government that the United Kingdom is not short of fuel.

 

“Some of our members, large groups with a portfolio of sites, report 50 percent are dry as of yesterday, some even report as many as 90 percent are dry as of yesterday,” Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), told UK broadcaster Sky News on Monday.

 

The PRA represents independent fuel retailers, who account for 65 percent of all UK forecourts.

 

“So you can see it is quite acute,” Madderson said. “Monday morning is going to start pretty dry.”

 

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from outside a petrol station in the capital, London, said people were attempting to stockpile fuel using jerry cans.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

‘You are on your own now’ – EU lorry drivers react to pleas for them to return to UK

 

EU lorry drivers have rejected calls for them to come and work in the UK in a damning Facebook post.

Commenting in a group called ‘Koleka Problem’, George Mihulecea from Bucharest, Romania, said “most of the drivers left because of work condition reasons” and that it is not “worth it anymore” to come to the UK. 

 

He added: “I wish them luck. They think drivers are waiting at the border to be employed in UK. 

 

“Drivers shortage is just the beginning, the warehouse operators will be the next to leave.”

 

Jimmy Hoffa from Pazardzjik, Bulgaria told Britain “you are on your own now”, whilst Vytautas Bielskis from Breda in the Netherlands said there is “no chance” he would come work under the post-Brexit visa rules proposed by the UK government. 

 

Click on the link for the full article