Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)

Harry Palmr

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, differences depend on what your standards are. BSE was a British invention caused by feeding animal protein to herbivores. Foot and mouth was caused by feeding unpasteurised scrap food to farm animals. Both occurred because of British animal hygiene standards - but did not occur in Ireland due to our animal hygiene standards.

I'm sure the produce tasted the same when sampled by the customer- but not under laboratory test.

We are heading for fully traceable products, and salmonella free chicken.

Just as a note Irish farmers are hardly perfect I recall cattle being fed clenbuterol to increase their non fat weight and so value.

Zubeneschamali

RobMc59 wrote: »

Why?-Japan is ecstatic about the new EU-Japan trade deal and can import cars tariff free into the EU.I still haven't discovered what's in it for the EU though.

They called it the "Cars for Cheese" deal.

Harry Palmr

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

As a poor country you might have no option but cheap grub. Don’t lose the taste for offal.

Liver, kidney, tongue and heart are not to be laughed at - excellent high protein, nutrient packed grub

Adamcp898

Leroy42 wrote: »

What is the plan for UK financial services in a crash out? I hear a lot of talk about tariffs and quotas but nothing, it seems, in relation to FS.

London is such a major contributor to the UK economy (for good or ill) yet there seems very little discussion about it.

I am not too aware of the industry, so excuse me for asking what may well be an easy question, but is a Hard Brexit expected to make any material difference to this area of the UK economy. I know about the movements of assets but even that seems to be shrugged off so leaves me thinking that overall there might not be much impact.

I guess my main point is that as far as I can see there is very little conversation about it in the UK, either in HoC or the media.

"It's complicated", as with everything Brexit related, the degree of which depends on what particular area of FS you're actually in as far as I understand.

There's a need on the EU side to still be able to deal into and through London and that coupled with the state of many of Europe's major financial institutions means there's perhaps a bigger appetite to get it sorted in the form of licenses and agreements between authorities. That being said however, afaiw, it'll be down to each country's financial regulator to grant these institutions licenses to work in London and so depending on how organised they are at dealing with those applications if and when the time comes there will be disruption.

London is one of the largest finance centres in the world, that won't change overnight even with a hard brexit, and one of its large areas is in its financial clearing houses. This was viewed as one of the bigger potential issues regarding brexit and finance given how much international & EU money flows through them but in the last few days the ESMA has clarified the situation by saying in the event of a hard brexit, it would immediately recognise the larger clearing houses (more may be added). This has been expected for a while but it's finally been made official and will help protect financial stability in the EU should "no deal" happen.

There's then the obvious inverse of that which is firms that need access to the EU as well as London will now need to set up a presence in an EU country. The extent to which they do will vary however. As a previous poster pointed out, transferring of hundreds of millions in assets does not necessarily mean the jobs must also follow. The question has to be asked - does this new firm require thousands of highly skilled staff, either moved from the London office or duplicated, or will an IT team suffice to maintain the company's new interests there allowing the staff to remain, so to speak, in London?

A bigger, more long-term issue for London is that the EU and the countries themselves will finally be able to start tightening the screw on the rules regarding how business with London can be done, something they've been gunning for for a long time. That will be what causes the long-term bleed of jobs and money from London. European countries/EU will begin to request greater oversight of operations wrt London and they will begin to insist that a skilled workforce be maintained in their country in order to responsibly oversee any assets that have been transferred from a London branch. Conceivably this could lead to a number of financial institutions beginning to view their London presence as redundant.


How the markets themselves will react to the many forms of Brexit is another question entirely. Everybody is speculating over how much uncertainty is already "priced-in" to the FX markets for instance but that will get shakier and shakier. Some of the latest analysis I heard this morning was that if it came to a no deal scenario, they expected parliament to wake up on March 28 and realise it's time to revoke article 50. Now where such confidence in parliament to suddenly act responsibly, or show this fabled "leadership", comes from is anyone's guess but I wouldn't bank on it. Excuse the pun.

Zubeneschamali

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Liver, kidney, tongue and heart are not to be laughed at - excellent high protein, nutrient packed grub

A chacun son gout.

RobMc59

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Liver, kidney, tongue and heart are not to be laughed at - excellent high protein, nutrient packed grub

Steak and kidney pie with Guinness gravy!-bootiful!

Franz Von Peppercorn

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Liver, kidney, tongue and heart are not to be laughed at - excellent high protein, nutrient packed grub

I agree. I like them myself and the comment was in part referring to the fact that the U.K. has had a long post war tradition, lost clearly on some, of using offal in recipies. Sadly dying out. Can’t remember the last time I saw kidney or liver for breakfast, or steak n kidney pie.

jm08

kunst nugget wrote: »

And some British producers would pride themselves on the same thing while some Irish producers will just aim for the bare minimum. It's hardly a black and white thing when it comes to food production between the two islands.

Its not what is aimed for, its the checking that is done (and why we can't have an open border).


Take for example the horsemeat scandal - that was detected by Irish inspectors (and immediately reported) even though it was happening all over Europe. The UK has a problem because there is a shortage of vetinary inspectors. For example, one slaughterhouse in the UK was butchering injured horses that had to be put down along with animals reared for human consumption. This is a no-no under EU regs. (To do with animals for human consumption should not have been given any medicines/antibiotics for a 3 month period before slaughter).

For Forks Sake

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

The NI unionist field becomes even more fragmented - admittedly, the likes of UKIP and TUV are marginal, at best, but now a party even further to the right has emerged:

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/scrap-all-uk-assemblies-says-new-unionist-party-1-8816844

That is the single worst CV I have ever set eyes on:

Mr Higginson has previously been a trade union representative, a member of the UDR and the NI regional organiser for Ukip.

Sam Russell

kunst nugget wrote: »

Not to be pedantic but we've had cases of BSE in this country and an outbreak of foot and mouth in 2001 so they did both occur here. We obviously were more stringent about how we dealt with these issues so had much more successful outcomes.

I did not say they did not occur in Ireland. I said they were not caused by Irish farm practices. It was feeding animal protein, namely scrapie infected sheep meat to cattle. Most infections occurred in the UK.

The method of containing animal infections is much better handled in Ireland than GB.

An Ciarraioch

Interesting:

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1097924742995197953

Electoral Calculus gives hung parliament projection:

Con 317
Lab 208
SNP 50
Lib Dems 27
Ind Group 26
NI 18
Plaid Cymru 3
Green 1

Franz Von Peppercorn

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Interesting:

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1097924742995197953

Electoral Calculus gives hung parliament projection:

Con 317
Lab 208
SNP 50
Lib Dems 27
Ind Group 26
NI 18
Plaid Cymru 3
Green 1

Is that your own electoral calculus. The problem with fptp is that you can’t have 10% of the vote equally across all constituencies. You need 30% + in 26 constituencies to get 26 seats.

The likely result for a new party on 10% of the vote is 0 seats.

Inquitus

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Is that your own electoral calculus. The problem with fptp is that you can’t have 10% of the vote equally across all constituencies. You need 30% + in 26 constituencies to get 26 seats.

The likely result for a new party on 10% of the vote is 0 seats.

Aye UKIP got 1 seat on 12.6% of the vote in 2015

Seth Brundle

Coincidentally while youse are all chatting about the what farmers produce, the NFU make it clear how worried they are for the future of farming...

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1097841785173393409?s=19

An Ciarraioch

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Is that your own electoral calculus. The problem with fptp is that you can’t have 10% of the vote equally across all constituencies. You need 30% + in 26 constituencies to get 26 seats.

The likely result for a new party on 10% of the vote is 0 seats.

It allows you to create a poll with a "Labour split" option:

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.py?newlabcontrol=Y&CON=32&LAB=26&LIB=9&UKIP=6&Green=4&NewLAB=10&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVUKIP=&TVGreen=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=%28none%29&boundary=2017

Seth Brundle

...also on the agricultural theme, Reuters are claiming farmers who export produce may be, as of next week, subject to tarrifs...

British farmers and food producers must decide whether to proceed with shipments next week because exports could face tariffs if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal, a farming leader said on Tuesday.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29 but Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), said decisions needed to be taken by farmers as soon as next week.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-farming-idUKKCN1Q81ZO

Apparently Michael Gove is also now confirming that agricultural exports to the EU may not even be possible...

A no-deal Brexit would seriously harm the UK’s farmers, Michael Gove has admitted.

The Environment Secretary told the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) conference that there was “no absolute guarantee” that British farmers could export any of their produce to the EU in a no-deal scenario, and would face punishing tariffs even if they could.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/brexit-michael-gove-admits-farmers-may-never-recover-from-no-deal-1-4875463

Folkstonian

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Interesting:

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1097924742995197953

Electoral Calculus gives hung parliament projection:

Con 317
Lab 208
SNP 50
Lib Dems 27
Ind Group 26
NI 18
Plaid Cymru 3
Green 1

If that’s accurate, it’s a fascinating insight into how sick lots of voters are with ‘traditional’ politics at the moment

They don’t have a leader or a manifesto, we don’t know who leads them, or anything about what they stand for apart from remaining in Europe and stopping Corbyn becoming PM.

I wonder if they could become quite a serious force if they receive funding, organise themselves with a proper manifesto and leadership contest, and tempt other MPs to jump ship

prawnsambo

Adamcp898 wrote: »

There's then the obvious inverse of that which is firms that need access to the EU as well as London will now need to set up a presence in an EU country. The extent to which they do will vary however. As a previous poster pointed out, transferring of hundreds of millions in assets does not necessarily mean the jobs must also follow. The question has to be asked - does this new firm require thousands of highly skilled staff, either moved from the London office or duplicated, or will an IT team suffice to maintain the company's new interests there allowing the staff to remain, so to speak, in London?

Great post. Just on the bolded bit, I could be wrong, but is there not a requirement that people managing EU assets be resident in the EU?

Hurrache

Seems Malthouse is dead alright. Good, just because things were getting a bit boring.
https://twitter.com/nick_gutteridge/status/1097907303515344896?s=19

Franz Von Peppercorn

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

It allows you to create a poll with a "Labour split" option:

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.py?newlabcontrol=Y&CON=32&LAB=26&LIB=9&UKIP=6&Green=4&NewLAB=10&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVUKIP=&TVGreen=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=%28none%29&boundary=2017

They admit problems with the model.

The model is based in each seat on a random simulation of Labour votes between the old and new parties, and it is not yet possible to give a definite seat-by-seat prediction or show changed seats.

Capt'n Midnight

Seth Brundle wrote: »

...also on the agricultural theme, Reuters are claiming farmers who export produce may be, as of next week, subject to tarrifs...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-farming-idUKKCN1Q81ZO

Apparently Michael Gove is also now confirming that agricultural exports to the EU may not even be possible...

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/brexit-michael-gove-admits-farmers-may-never-recover-from-no-deal-1-4875463

The UK knows what the Tariffs on food entering the EU are because they've been collecting them on third party imports too.

Clueless.

RobMc59 wrote: »

I imagine as with Irish producers,the British farmers will increase production as required-if Britain has to become more self sufficient it will,just as Ireland will as we are constantly being told on this forum.

LOL

Come B-Day the UK will be importing 90% of it's lettuce.
Double production and they'd still need to import 80%.

road_high wrote: »

Do you not think uk farmers are at full production?! Know thing or two about it and they are generally very intensive as it is- so which environmental rules are you going to jettison so they can up it beyond current thresholds?

Grove has promised that the UK would match the £3Bn farmers get from the EU , but mentioned "environmental" strings attached. I'm taking that as there's no £3Bn if they increase production. Because this is the guy who backstabbed Boris during the leadership contest and mouthed off about fishing while allowing the UK's 114th largest trading partner to walk all over them.

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Meanwhile, the Malthouse Compromise is dead:

Speaking about malt houses, the demand for UK barley from the rest of the EU has practically dried up due to the potential tariff of £90 a tonne once the quota shared between all third party countries has been used up.

Adamcp898

prawnsambo wrote: »

Great post. Just on the bolded bit, I could be wrong, but is there not a requirement that people managing EU assets be resident in the EU?

I'm not sure on the exact regulations surrounding it to be honest. I'd imagine there's no way to just list an empty office with a phone line as your EU division HQ but the levels to which it needs to be staffed I don't know. Or if you can get away with not moving all the vast numbers of analyst and support staff required and essentially just appoint figureheads who sign off on the work.

I know one of the things the City of London was worried about was the potential for other countries to "woo" institutions away from them with attractive packages and then, once established, they'd start to enforce stricter regulation on things such as the numbers of skilled personnel required to oversee assets thus pulling more jobs from London.

Capt'n Midnight

Joanna Better Hairpiece wrote: »

Worth noting that regarding the (Japanense) car plant closures (Nissan/Honda).

The Jap folks sent out a warning to the UK months ago, about it's handling of brexit,
but even more importantly, about it's clear ambitions to re-position as a tax haven on the global stage.

They're heading for 17% CT, maybe lower 15? by 2025, seems that's enough to worry a top3 global power on the other side of planet.

I wouldn't worry too much about Corporation Tax.

Lots of parts and patents and machinery and oversight need to make a car. Tax avoidance by transfer pricing would be a doddle.
Look at Amazon. They made a profit of $11.2bn. And the US government gave them a $129m tax rebate , and they nearly got another £3Bn in tax breaks in New York.


We can argue about whether Brexit and the EU-Japan deal meant that factory would close.

What is beyond arguing is that Brexit makes it extremely difficult to reverse that decision once made.


They used to make up 10% of UK car production. So a lot of suppliers will have to revise forecasts downwards. But unlike Brexit they known what's coming and when.

Patser

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Interesting:

http://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1097924742995197953

Electoral Calculus gives hung parliament projection:

Con 317
Lab 208
SNP 50
Lib Dems 27
Ind Group 26
NI 18
Plaid Cymru 3
Green 1

Those figures don't yet include Farages new Brexit party, if it gets going properly.

So while the Independent Group steals Labour seats, Farages party could nick from the Tories, leading to a proper fracturing of UK politics and the rise of hung parliaments, coalitions with small groups (like DUP currently) holding huge powers. Something the UK is not really used to, and at a time when massive decisions will have to be made - regardless of Brexit outcome.

CelticRambler

Adamcp898 wrote: »

I know one of the things the City of London was worried about was the potential for other countries to "woo" institutions away from them with attractive packages and then, once established, they'd start to enforce stricter regulation on things such as the numbers of skilled personnel required to oversee assets thus pulling more jobs from London.

This is the point that was made in that Guardian article from a week ago or thereabouts, the one that said a no-deal Brexit would actually be very good for the EU in the long term - because Brussels can be just flexible enough with its mini-deals to pick all the cherries at the most convenient time. We're seeing this with the unilateral transitional arrangements that have already been announced.

road_high

Folkstonian wrote: »

High end Irish produce is no better than high end British produce. I’ve lived in both countries, bought from high end supermarkets and independent businesses in both. There’s no substantial difference.

Perhaps not but reputationally Ireland is in a different league. Which really matters when you’re selling infant formula to China or Japan.
Salmonella, BSE and foot and mouth are still synonymous with UK food production, we are very lucky we have a strong recognized brand very distinct from the Uk one

Kermit.de.frog

EU position hardening notably in last 48 hours.

German, french and spanish reps unequivocal today that there will be no unilateral exit or time limit to the backstop.

Hurrache

Yip
https://twitter.com/MichelBarnier/status/1097946483276636163?s=19

Water John

This from The Guardian;
With time running out, cabinet was also updated on the option of a no-deal Brexit if May cannot get her withdrawal agreement approved by parliament. One cabinet source said only Liz Truss, the secretary to the Treasury, spoke up emphatically in favour of keeping no deal as a negotiating option.

“I can’t understand how a No 2 at the Treasury could still countenance keeping that on the table,” the cabinet source said, but added that the general mood in the room had noticeably turned against no deal as a negotiating tactic.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/19/brexit-backstop-may-rules-out-malthouse-compromise

So hopefully the Cabinet are also quietly dropping the No Deal option.

fash

lawred2 wrote: »

Direct rule from Westminster.

How progressive.

The various sub regions should take back control - they hold all the cards and the UK needs them more than they need the UK. These are remoaner traitors to the regions (etc.) engagingin in project fear...