Brexit Discussion Thread VI

Strazdas

brickster69 wrote: »

"I shall have succeeded in my task if the final deal is so hard on the British that in the end they’ll prefer staying in the EU”: 2016, quoted in this week’s @LePoint.

Sounds plausible, shame it has backfired on a huge scale.

Seems to be pure hearsay and impossible to prove. This is something Barnier is supposed to have "confided in friends" back in 2016.

Every Brexit Europhobe on Twitter seems to have seized on the alleged comment and think they are quoting from a TV or newspaper interview he gave.

kunst nugget

Scoondal wrote: »

I think Mrs. May will revoke Article 50 on 28 March. Then sometime in April she will send notification to EU of a new Article 50 stating that UK intends to leave EU (giving UK a further 2 years within EU). That is why she is doing nothing now.

That is a cunning plan of Baldrick proportions.

prawnsambo

Scoondal wrote: »

I think Mrs. May will revoke Article 50 on 28 March. Then sometime in April she will send notification to EU of a new Article 50 stating that UK intends to leave EU (giving UK a further 2 years within EU). That is why she is doing nothing now.

It's also not definitively two years. It's two years or until the coming into force of the withdrawal agreement. So the EU could just say, there it is, we've agreed to it, all you have to do is sign and the job's oxo. Then it's pressure from day one.

Water John

May is playing for the options being, her deal or no deal. That is why she is running it as close to the deadline as possible.
It's not complicated, very simple plan, that is Plan A and it will always be Plan A.

prawnsambo

Water John wrote: »

May is playing for the options being, her deal or no deal. That is why she is running it as close to the deadline as possible.
It's not complicated, very simple plan, that is Plan A and it will always be Plan A.

Yep. And the 'Build Your Own Brexit' is another Baldric-like cunning plan to help the clock tick ever closer to the end date. It's a plan of sorts. But it's gambling the house on the turn of a card.

johnnyskeleton

First Up wrote: »

Rules for goods entering the EU are applied at points of entry, which are designed and equipped to carry out the necessary checks.

Unless there is an agreement that the ENS be lodged in a separate customs office. Irish ports can be "designed and equipped to carry out the necessary checks" too!

http://ec.europa.eu/ecip/help/faq/ens1_en.htm

If goods arrive unchecked from (or through) Northern Ireland there are no mechanisms to police them thereafter. Do you seriously expect wholesalers, retailers or government agencies to monitor every truck, warehouse, shop or transit port?

No, but even in a no deal hard border brexit scenario, they still wont check every truck, warehouse etc. Checking the transit ports is a lot easier than monitoring over 200 roads. As for shops, government agencies currently monitor shops, restaurants etc and if goods are being sold jn breach of EU regulations they are fined. Asian sjops are routinely checked for goods smuggled in from China etc.

Youre comparing any solution to the current membership of the EU. You should compare the solutions to a no deal hard border brexit to see which is worse.

The economy of the EU single market is based on the free movement of materials, components and finished goods, all of which can be relied upon to meet all standards. That allows for specialisation, economies of scale and speed of movement.

Nothing is going to be allowed corrupt or undermine the integrity of that. Ireland is either fully within it, or it is outside. We will be fully supported in our inclusion but there will be no compromise on it.

Perhaps, or perhaps in order to achieve a deal with the UK they can accept some checks on goods shipped from Ireland to other EU countries.

tuxy

Water John wrote: »

May is playing for the options being, her deal or no deal. That is why she is running it as close to the deadline as possible.
It's not complicated, very simple plan, that is Plan A and it will always be Plan A.

And I predict no sign of the men in grey suits that you were talking about.

briany

brickster69 wrote: »

"I shall have succeeded in my task if the final deal is so hard on the British that in the end they’ll prefer staying in the EU”: 2016, quoted in this week’s @LePoint.

Sounds plausible, shame it has backfired on a huge scale.

We, in Ireland, are getting a bit tired of the British trying to make out like the clusterf*ck of a deal is some EU conspiracy to keep them in, paying absolutely no attention to the quite unique geopolitical relationship that the UK shares with Ireland, and how they let stumbled into letting that issue right into the center of their politics with an ill-judged general election.

Oh, but when the British Brexiteers do take note of the NI issue, they say it's overblown. Funnily enough, if you say to British Brexiteers that their concerns over immigration and taking laws from Brussels are overblown, they don't take it at all well.

Water John

No grey suits yet as no one has a scheme to take the Tories forward together.

johnnyskeleton

CelticRambler wrote: »

There speaks a true Brexiteer. Our goods, traded with the rest of the world, are traded as EU goods. We are the EU.

We deal with the UK by treating it as a third country, the same as every other third country, and treating whatever comes out of their fields and factories with suspicion until proven otherwise.

I dont think you read my post or the context at all in the scramble to find Brexiteers under the bed. The other poster was suggesting that requiring a customs check for UK goods at Irish ports to ensure the integrity of the customs union woild require carrying out such checks on all Irish exports, in an attempt to exaggerate the amount of checks that would actually have to be done to ensure the integrity of the customs union i.e. those from the UK into the EU via Ireland. Goods destined for Iran, for example, wouldnt need this check in order to comply with common market rules.

kowtow

prawnsambo wrote: »

Yeah, the Swiss border is notorious for delays. What the poster also left out is that it costs to get your goods cleared. You have to pay an agent and each shipment is charged for. So a groupage load is nice money for an agent.

There were clearance charges as I remember although I don't recall them being extravagant.

And there certainly weren't delays on occasions that I recall - not even delays in during an August when two trucks from different continents managed to arrive within minutes of each other despite six inches of untimely mountain snow, I remember laughing at it at the time.

None of which is to say that there aren't often delays at the border, there are of course, but if someone is moving between countries that kind of thing is a relatively small part of the overall disruption and frankly not a big issue compared to things like residence status, ability to work etc.

Professor Moriarty

Water John wrote: »

May is playing for the options being, her deal or no deal. That is why she is running it as close to the deadline as possible.
It's not complicated, very simple plan, that is Plan A and it will always be Plan A.

No Deal can be taken out of the equation. Unfortunately, it would require legislation that only May's government can bring forward. So, the truth of the matter is that if they were to crash out on the 29th then it would be May's fault.

Enzokk

Mezcita wrote: »

Curious as to why nobody has tried to push Corbyn out yet though. Surely they must be getting worried with Labour being behind in the polls despite the Tories being so useless.

I think there are a couple of things happening for Corbyn opponents in Labour right now. Firstly they shouldn't go after him again if they aren't sure he can be defeated or at least made to go the distance in a Labour leadership election. What happened last time did nothing but strengthen his hold on the party as he was untouchable.

Added to that in the same way as Labour is not trying to get in the way of the Tories destroying themselves over Brexit, Labour MPs will not want to get in him destroying his image with those same members that have catapulted him to the leadership.

lawred2

Katya Adler on BBC telling their viewers that palms are sweaty across the EU.. the Polish utterance being evidence of it apparently.

But yet then tells us that the EU says that there will be no watering down whatever of the agreement..

Such nonsense reporting

prawnsambo

kowtow wrote: »

There were clearance charges as I remember although I don't recall them being extravagant.

And there certainly weren't delays on occasions that I recall - not even delays in during an August when two trucks from different continents managed to arrive within minutes of each other despite six inches of untimely mountain snow, I remember laughing at it at the time.

None of which is to say that there aren't often delays at the border, there are of course, but if someone is moving between countries that kind of thing is a relatively small part of the overall disruption and frankly not a big issue compared to things like residence status, ability to work etc.

They're not extravagant. But from a business point of view, they add up. Roughly €35 to €50 per consignment. The delays at Switzerland can be bad enough. Every Monday morning, there's a huge convoy of trucks queuing to enter.

johnnyskeleton

fly_agaric wrote: »

Not really. That horse meat episode is small fry compared to what could happen if we have an open border with a post hard Brexit UK going down the route of a bonfire of holdover EU regulations + importing from around the world.

You can't test everything and cover all the possible kinds of frauds and scams opened up in such a scenario.
If we still have an open border with UK through the north, any goods coming from here onto the continent (or indeed being exported further afield) will be suspect. People in other EU states (or those who import from us outside the EU) are not going to expose themselves to that. No one is that altruistic (or daft)!

People in other EU member states are already eating Argentinian and Brazilian beef etc. But leaving that aside, yes you cant test everything. What you can do is test enough, and make non compliancw suficiently punitive, that the level of non compliance is acceptably low.

The reason I mention the horsemeat scandal is precisely to illustrate that point. You can never have 100% control of a market or of standards. All you can do is impose a robust regulatory regieme to ensure compliance. Which is a lot easier to do in a few well managed ports than it is kn a 500km meandering land border

Enzokk

lawred2 wrote: »

Katya Adler on BBC telling their viewers that palms are sweaty across the EU.. the Polish utterance being evidence of it apparently.

But yet then tells us that the EU says that there will be no watering down whatever of the agreement..

Such nonsense reporting

Others have commented on her reporting before but I feel it doesn't help that she is doing the Brexitcast podcast on the BBC as well. That is an echo chamber of reporters just backing each other up on what they think is going to happen. The first time I heard about the EU waiting until the end to get the deal over the line was on there and it has now been repeated by politicians as well.

Also, I believe the last episode she was saying that the EU will be open to negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement but at the same time they will not be making changes to it either (or something like that). So it does seem like she is getting information from a few sources and they are contradicting each other and she is reporting that without filtering out what she is hearing on what is true and what is just wishful thinking.

MrMusician18

lawred2 wrote: »

Katya Adler on BBC telling their viewers that palms are sweaty across the EU.. the Polish utterance being evidence of it apparently.

But yet then tells us that the EU says that there will be no watering down whatever of the agreement..

Such nonsense reporting

She really is shite. No wonder the British electorate is so clueless when they're being spoon fed the government line.

Mr.Nice Guy

lawred2 wrote: »

Katya Adler on BBC telling their viewers that palms are sweaty across the EU.. the Polish utterance being evidence of it apparently.

But yet then tells us that the EU says that there will be no watering down whatever of the agreement..

Such nonsense reporting

Notice how she trotted out the line that the EU does deals at the 11th hour which is a frequent comment from David Davis.

prawnsambo

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

People in other EU member states are already eating Argentinian and Brazilian beef etc. But leaving that aside, yes you cant test everything. What you can do is test enough, and make non compliancw suficiently punitive, that the level of non compliance is acceptably low.

They're eating a controlled amount of Argentinian and Brazilian beef which has to meet EU phytosanitary standards and is checked rigorously. You can't ramp that effort up to the levels of the hundreds of thousands of tons of beef that Ireland exports every year.

First Up

johnnyskeleton wrote:

Perhaps, or perhaps in order to achieve a deal with the UK they can accept some checks on goods shipped from Ireland to other EU countries.

Oh there will be checks alright but they won't be carried out on movements within the Single Market.

The EU is not trying to achieve a deal with the UK. It is waiting for the UK to figure out how it is going to accept the only deal it is going to get.

johnnyskeleton

prawnsambo wrote: »

They're eating a controlled amount of Argentinian and Brazilian beef which has to meet EU phytosanitary standards and is checked rigorously. You can't ramp that effort up to the levels of the hundreds of thousands of tons of beef that Ireland exports every year.

So 30k tonnes can be checked but hundreds of thousands cant be?

Professor Moriarty

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Notice how she trotted out the line that the EU does deals at the 11th hour which is a frequent comment from David Davis.

Interesting article (by the BBC no less) on that very point. Essentially, the article says that history shows that the EU does not blink at the last minute.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46488619?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2rgt/reality-check&link_location=live-reporting-story

johnnyskeleton

First Up wrote: »

The EU is not trying to achieve a deal with the UK. It is waiting for the UK to figure out how it is going to accept the only deal it is going to get.

I dont think the see who blinks first approach suits anyone, but it particularly isnt in the style of the EU, who have been trying to reach compromises to date. If there is a practical solution available to the EU they will explore it.

prawnsambo

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

So 30k tonnes can be checked but hundreds of thousands cant be?

Not within any kind of useful timescale no. Where do you think the veterinary inspectors grow that we can just pluck them off the trees?

First Up

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I dont think the see who blinks first approach suits anyone, but it particularly isnt in the style of the EU, who have been trying to reach compromises to date. If there is a practical solution available to the EU they will explore it.

You seem to think the UK has some leverage in the negotiations. It doesn't.

The UK chose to leave the most sucessful political, economic and social initiative in history. The EU will find a practical solution to the disruption it is causing but it will also ensure that any negative consequences are carried where they belong.

Enzokk

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Interesting article (by the BBC no less) on that very point. Essentially, the article says that history shows that the EU does not blink at the last minute.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46488619?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2rgt/reality-check&link_location=live-reporting-story

I think the journalists and now politicians that are of this thinking are confusing what happens at the last minute. Yes, trade deals are negotiated until the last minute and there are nights where those negotiating these deals are working until morning to get the deal done. This is because they don't have unlimited time together to get the deals done and would only have a window where the negotiations can happen.

The UK has already had its last minute negotiations with the EU. The time to change the deal has passed already and the timeline for getting the deal approved was known by all when the negotiations started.

CelticRambler

kowtow wrote: »

... there certainly weren't delays on occasions that I recall - not even delays in during an August when two trucks from different continents managed to arrive within minutes of each other despite six inches of untimely mountain snow, I remember laughing at it at the time.

None of which is to say that there aren't often delays at the border, there are of course, but if someone is moving between countries that kind of thing is a relatively small part of the overall disruption and frankly not a big issue compared to things like residence status, ability to work etc.

Ah, OK - I realise that you're referring to professional relocation services for home-owners, whereas I was referring to private individuals moving their own stuff in a trailer to France (I know lots who have done that) on the one hand, and regular freight traffic across the Swiss border on the other, which comes to a complete stop every night and over the weekend, depending on staffing levels at the designated customs clearance point.

10000maniacs

prawnsambo wrote: »

They're eating a controlled amount of Argentinian and Brazilian beef which has to meet EU phytosanitary standards and is checked rigorously. You can't ramp that effort up to the levels of the hundreds of thousands of tons of beef that Ireland exports every year.

Remember we were all inadvertently eating horse meat up to 2013 which somehow got past EU phytosanitary standards checking. If there was 100% rigorous checking, this would never have happened.

Water John

Kowtow, the UK Govn'ts own document expect between 13 and 25% of goods to get shipped cross channel. That sounds like a much bigger problem than a few minutes delay or a payment to an agent.