Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

Sam Russell

MBSnr wrote: »

I'm not sure of the actual detailed specifics here. It's about 10 or so (moving not including waiting) hrs from Dublin - Hollyhead to Calais and 24-26 hrs via Rosslare-Dunkirk (moving all the time). Legally a HGV driver can't drive more than 9 hours in one day and has to have a break of 45 mins after 4.5 hrs. It takes around 6 hrs Hollyhead to Dover, so there's a 45 min stop there already on the way to Dover. So conceivably via the UK they'd get to France within the 9 hours (moving time) but would have to wait up some place the other side of the channel before they could legally continue. (If the driver was staying with the same vehicle all the way through to the end point).

Effectively the direct ferry allows the HGV drivers to drive 9 hours from landing in Dunkirk to where ever with perhaps a total difference of only a few hours later compared with travelling via the UK landbridge.

Also, the direct route does not require a driver to accompany the truck - thus saving on driver hours and wages. Until things settle down, the direct route to either Dunkirk or Cherbourg. Cherbourg wins for west of Paris, Dunkirk for east of Paris.

Zubeneschamali

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

A labour government?

Not a hope. Tories again ahead in latest polls.
Why would the Tories be gone?

Brexit has happened on paper, but has not really happened until January. January will be a mess, Feb a disaster, Mar a catastrophe and so on until someone is elected to talk reality with Europe.

CelticRambler

MBSnr wrote: »

It takes around 6 hrs Hollyhead to Dover, so there's a 45 min stop there already on the way to Dover.

"Around 6 hours" - if you're in a family car, perhaps, and travelling according to your own schedule. When you're in a truck, limited to 90kmh, and tied to a suppliers' loading times, you could expect to add at least two hours to that on every trip - several more if there's any kind of port-related disruption on the M20 or the M2.

Once the "worst case (that isn't really the worst, but we don't want to frighten people)" scenario comes into effect, with an additional queue/slow drive of 5 hours through Kent, it's quite likely that Landbridge will represent a day-and-a-half's travel for freight.

You cannot compare the journey times of new, direct sea-routes with today's relatively frictionless landbridge times.

Edit: it's 300km from Germany to Italy, across Switzerland. In principle, a three-a-half-hour drive. I've seen trucks (with all their paperwork in order) take two days to make it from one EU frontier to the other, due to hold-ups at the EU-non-EU border.

Chips Lovell

On the subject of meat, there was a curious detail in the Sunday Times report today on the progress of the Brexit negotiations:

In an attempt to show Britain is ready to use the freedom of having left the EU, the government will begin the process of banning live animal exports - a move that was illegal while the UK was a member.

Ministers will launch a public consultation on the move, which is also expected to set out plans to improve welfare standards for transporting animals within England.

Currently, animals can be exported overseas to be immediately slaughtered.

Why is it curious? Well, come January there will be a 10.2% tariff for live cattle exports, which means not many people may opt to export cattle for slaughter. Which means it could be a largely token gesture.

However, their real problem lies not around slaughter but processing. Presently, a lot of British beef is exported to the EU because they don't have the processing capacity themselves after BSE. Dubbed "the carousel effect" carcasses go out (mainly to Ireland and the Netherlands) and butchered meat comes back.

If this were to continue in January, the tariff for exporting carcasses is 12.8%. And the tariff for importing bovine cuts is another 12.8%. Unless Britain expands it meat processing capacity quickly, the British beef trade could be in big trouble.

View

Chips Lovell wrote: »

On the subject of meat, there was a curious detail in the Sunday Times report today on the progress of the Brexit negotiations:



Why is it curious? Well, come January there will be a 10.2% tariff for live cattle exports, which means not many people may opt to export cattle for slaughter. Which means it could be a largely token gesture.

However, their real problem lies not around slaughter but processing. Presently, a lot of British beef is exported to the EU because they don't have the processing capacity themselves after BSE. Dubbed "the carousel effect" carcasses go out (mainly to Ireland and the Netherlands) and butchered meat comes back.

If this were to continue in January, the tariff for exporting carcasses is 12.8%. And the tariff for importing bovine cuts is another 12.8%. Unless Britain expands it meat processing capacity quickly, the British beef trade could be in big trouble.

The banning of live exports mentioned above will create interesting times on the NI side of the border. :-)

CelticRambler

Chips Lovell wrote: »

Presently, a lot of British beef is exported to the EU because they don't have the processing capacity themselves after BSE. Dubbed "the carousel effect" carcasses go out (mainly to Ireland and the Netherlands) and butchered meat comes back.

For the benefit of ExMachina1000:

The UK currently imports around 35 per cent of the beef and veal it consumes or around 250,000 tonnes annually ... The dominant supplier has always been Ireland, with a market share of almost 70 per cent. No other country accounts for more than eight per cent of UK imports.

Explain to us how the UK is going to scale up "other country" imports from less than 8% to match Ireland's almost 70% - especially if a chunk of that 70% is British beef going out and coming back again.

And before you suggest that production is brought home, remember that this is one sector that depends heavily on EU migrant labour (representing anywhere from 60-85% of the workforce) because the natives don't want to do the work.

Nody

Chips Lovell wrote: »

If this were to continue in January, the tariff for exporting carcasses is 12.8%. And the tariff for importing bovine cuts is another 12.8%. Unless Britain expands it meat processing capacity quickly, the British beef trade could be in big trouble.

Well I don't think the tariffs honestly will be the issue here; there are rules around tariff exceptions if you can show the export / import is for the same amount. For example if a company exports cookies from a EU country made with sugar they can reclaim the exported sugar amount vs. imported sugar tariff free because the net balance is zero. Same with export of cream from Norway exported to EU to be converted to cheese; the fat content in the cream exported can be used to offset import of equal amount of cheese fat content (Norway has a fat cheese tax).

The problem will be the healthcare requirements to allow the beef to be touched in an EU country (since UK has declared they are not actually going to check things until summer anyway), the sample checks and controls etc. at the border. That's what is going to cause problems; not the tariffs. Without certification on equality for photosynthesis etc. there will be a very high percentage check required before it's allowed to cross the border and be processed.

trellheim

The banning of live exports mentioned above will create interesting times on the NI side of the border. :-)

I may have picked this up wrong but doesn't WA cover this ?

CelticRambler

Nody wrote: »

Well I don't think the tariffs honestly will be the issue here; there are rules around tariff exceptions if you can show the export / import is for the same amount.

The issue could arise from the devilish detail that the UK exports whole animals, but only re-imports premium cuts, especially (according to the article linked above) in respect of the Dutch processors. That means that the Dutch are selling on the cheap cuts and offal to non-UK customers, and they'll have to either justify a 12.8% increase in price or source their whole carcasses from a country that doesn't require the imposition of tariffs. Maybe one with surplus production, like, I dunno, Ireland ... ?

Seth Brundle

An Claidheamh wrote: »

"The only thing they (the English) have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease"

Jacques Chirac

I get the sentiment but in fairness, Britain has given the agricultural sector many important advancments such as popularising crop rotation.

Professor Moriarty

Seth Brundle wrote: »

I get the sentiment but in fairness, Britain has given the agricultural sector many important advancments such as popularising crop rotation.

Crop rotation has been popular throughout Europe for centuries.

declanflynn

Seth Brundle wrote: »

I get the sentiment but in fairness, Britain has given the agricultural sector many important advancments such as popularising crop rotation.

That was a long time ago!

listermint

Seth Brundle wrote: »

I get the sentiment but in fairness, Britain has given the agricultural sector many important advancments such as popularising crop rotation.

Erm. The Greeks and the Romans were rotating crops.....

Perhaps people confuse that with what the Romans brought with them.... Technology and know how

Brussels Sprout

I've just binge-watched The Crown. If you were to map out the major Geo-political events pertaining to Britain that have occurred in the timeline of that show I think it's clear that the country has been on fairly steady decline since the 1950's. The country was already on the slide but hit a peak in World War 2. Since then though there hasn't been too many good times. The Suez crisis & losing the Empire, the economic crises of the 1970's, Thatcher throwing large sections of the country under the bus in the 80's.

It must have been hard to take for the average citizen especially if they were raised with an outsize sense of superiority over other countries. The right-wing print media have managed to take that bitterness and sense of loss and focus it on the EU for the past 30 years or so. It's difficult to imagine that this isn't going to end in yet another disappointment for them though. At some point they're just going to have to accept that there's nothing special about them. They're just another European country who happened to colonise a lot of countries a long time ago - like Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain or Portugal. Nothing more, nothing less.

MBSnr

CelticRambler wrote: »

"Around 6 hours" - if you're in a family car, perhaps, and travelling according to your own schedule.
.
Snip

Well I was just generalising that a ferry is going to be comparable to the existing travel time now without delays on the land bridge....

Capt'n Midnight

Sam Russell wrote: »

Also, the direct route does not require a driver to accompany the truck - thus saving on driver hours and wages. Until things settle down, the direct route to either Dunkirk or Cherbourg. Cherbourg wins for west of Paris, Dunkirk for east of Paris.

Or Rotterdam or Bilbao or Santander for other destinations.

We used to be a captive market but alternatives to UK suppliers have never been more accessible.

Sam Russell

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Or Rotterdam or Bilbao or Santander for other destinations.

We used to be a captive market but alternatives to UK suppliers have never been more accessible.

I was referring to the Rosslare to Cherbourg vs the new service from Rosslare to Dunkirk. The other services leave from different ports with wholly different transit times.

Dunkirk is 20 to 22 hours while Cherbourg is about 18 hours. Paris is about equal travel time from each one.

Strazdas

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

I've just binge-watched The Crown. If you were to map out the major Geo-political events pertaining to Britain that have occurred in the timeline of that show I think it's clear that the country has been on fairly steady decline since the 1950's. The country was already on the slide but hit a peak in World War 2. Since then though there hasn't been too many good times. The Suez crisis & losing the Empire, the economic crises of the 1970's, Thatcher throwing large sections of the country under the bus in the 80's.

It must have been hard to take for the average citizen especially if they were raised with an outsize sense of superiority over other countries. The right-wing print media have managed to take that bitterness and sense of loss and focus it on the EU for the past 30 years or so. It's difficult to imagine that this isn't going to end in yet another disappointment for them though. At some point they're just going to have to accept that there's nothing special about them. They're just another European country who happened to colonise a lot of countries a long time ago - like Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain or Portugal. Nothing more, nothing less.

A key point about WW2 is that it virtually bankrupted Britain and rapidly hastened the end of the empire. By 1973, the country was on the ropes.

The Brexiteers of course have invented an alternative universe of where they had a great war and won it, the country was prospering for decades afterwards (and was sovereign) but then made a terrible error in joining the EEC. They are divorced from anything to do with the real world.

An Claidheamh

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

I've just binge-watched The Crown. If you were to map out the major Geo-political events pertaining to Britain that have occurred in the timeline of that show I think it's clear that the country has been on fairly steady decline since the 1950's. The country was already on the slide but hit a peak in World War .

Probably really peaked at World War One, in fact Daily Mail Columnist Peter Hitchens (not exactly a left winger) laments that getting involved in WW1 cost Britain its empire and was a massive mistake - it was essentially and Franco-German conflict
(Germany actually never declared war on Britain)

The Japanese defeated them in Singapore and other parts of Asia, the Germans rang rings around them in North Africa (with half the numbers)

Remember Britain was too weak to invade Ireland at WW2, a bit like Germany invading Poland, -



plan was for a Protestant dictator and to round up rebels/Irish democratically elected government in a concentration camp in the midlands - assuming there was no resistance, and those who fought back would be said to be Nazis by the Brits (this has been edited out of Irish history - deValera and Irish government knew about this of course, not that they ever trusted Churchill, so when Irish defence forces deserted to the Brits for extra pay, it was in this context, though they were treated leniently for desertion)

Churchill believed that sending Scottish British soldiers would make the Irish more amenable to occupation (even though the Black and Tans had high levels of Scots - who weren’t too popular as it happened)

Even a defeat of the defence forces would result in a guerilla army holding down hundreds of thousands of the British army (which was the actual British army), as the defence forces had ?30-50,000 armed infrantry compared to IRA on 1919 who had at most 3,000

Gen Montgomery regarded an attempted invasion of Ireland, while the Red Army was fighting the Nazis on their own, as nonsense - and half heartedly drew up proposals to capture Cork under unders from Churchill

*source, Montgomery’s autobiography

*Churchill may have been drunk

Furthermore, by 1940, Britain was relying on second hand American battleships for their once imperious navy, the ‘clash for clunkers’ policy

An Claidheamh

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

I've just binge-watched The Crown. If you were to map out the major Geo-political events pertaining to Britain that have occurred in the timeline of that show I think it's clear that the country has been on fairly steady decline since the 1950's. The country was already on the slide but hit a peak in World War 2. Since then though there hasn't been too many good times. The Suez crisis & losing the Empire, the economic crises of the 1970's, Thatcher throwing large sections of the country under the bus in the 80's.

It must have been hard to take for the average citizen especially if they were raised with an outsize sense of superiority over other countries. The right-wing print media have managed to take that bitterness and sense of loss and focus it on the EU for the past 30 years or so. It's difficult to imagine that this isn't going to end in yet another disappointment for them though. At some point they're just going to have to accept that there's nothing special about them. They're just another European country who happened to colonise a lot of countries a long time ago - like Belgium, France, Netherlands, Spain or Portugal. Nothing more, nothing less.

Thing which I always found interesting was that WW2 ended the French empire :

After WW2, the Vietnamese who were armed to fight the Japanese fought the French out, this obviously hurt their ego and they asked for American help, we know what happened next

By the 1960s, when the Vietnamese delegation went to Paris to meet the Americans for peace talks, they were greeted with crowds waving their flag (even though they were a “lost colony”)

As it happened, France was under a socialist government

However, the same happening in the UK would be unheard of, yet France were equally a proud and imperialist country

I guess they just got over it, as did the Germans

20silkcut

Britain was not at its peak during world war 2.
The peak of the British empire was much earlier before world war 1 c 1910-14.

Geuze

ExMachina1000 wrote: »

Irish beef is expensive. The new ferry route was deemed not economically viable previously. Who will buy this expensive product?

Is it?

From what I read, farmers here get paid similar, or lower, prices than on the continent.

https://www.bordbia.ie/farmers-growers/prices-markets/cattle-trade-prices/

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/beef-price-how-does-ireland-stack-up-against-other-eu-countries/

20silkcut

20silkcut wrote: »

Britain was not at its peak during world war 2.
The peak of the British empire was much earlier before world war 1 c 1910-14.

Correct, after WWI the Empire was severely weakened due to the costs of war, one of the reasons why Ireland wasn't "retained" as it almost certainly would have been if the Easter Rising was earlier (before the great war).
Any way OT and sweet FA to do with Brexit!

Geuze

MBSnr wrote: »

I'm not sure of the actual detailed specifics here. It's about 10 or so (moving not including waiting) hrs from Dublin - Hollyhead to Calais and 24-26 hrs via Rosslare-Dunkirk (moving all the time).

I read somewhere that Dublin-Calais takes 13 hrs.

This new route is 24hrs on the ship.

Strazdas

Deleted User wrote: »

Correct, after WWI the Empire was severely weakened due to the costs of war, one of the reasons why Ireland wasn't "retained" as it almost certainly would have been if the Easter Rising was earlier (before the great war).
Any way OT and sweet FA to do with Brexit!

It looks like the two world wars were bad news for Britain. The bulk of countries left the empire in the 15 years or so after WW2.

Historians will probably lump together WW1, WW2 and Brexit as three bad and damaging events for the UK.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that these discussions are offtopic btw. Brexit was almost certainly firmly shaped by earlier 20th century British history (or via a rewriting of it) - the connection has been made numerous times.

MBSnr

Geuze wrote: »

I read somewhere that Dublin-Calais takes 13 hrs.

This new route is 24hrs on the ship.

Yes. I should have used that figure but I used a cars time instead from Google maps in my example.
If the weather is rough the ship might have to run slower and take over 24 hrs.

Brussels Sprout

For everyone pointing out, in response to my previous post, that the UK did not peak during WW2. Forgive me, I did not mean an absolute peak. More like a local maximum. An upward bump on an otherwise downward trajectory. They pulled off the same feat in 1982 on a smaller scale.

selectamatic

Geuze wrote: »

Is it?

From what I read, farmers here get paid similar, or lower, prices than on the continent.

https://www.bordbia.ie/farmers-growers/prices-markets/cattle-trade-prices/

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/beef-price-how-does-ireland-stack-up-against-other-eu-countries/

Exactly. Irish beef isn't at all expensive. It's actually ridiculously cheap considering the quality of it due to the grass : concentrates ratio our cattle are finished on.

Polish beef is one of the only EU sources that is cheaper.

UK processors are currently paying roughly €100+ more per animal compared to here.

Demand for finished heavy overage cattle has increased greatly in Ireland over the last month also due to demand for manufacturing beef for the uk market. Almost seems like they're stocking up because there was very little demand for similar beef this time last year.

reslfj

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

... Thatcher throwing large sections of the country under the bus in the 80's.

Not that I will support Thatcher, but many sections of UK business were grossly inefficient and had a very low productivity. This can - imo - be blamed on the unions and their members as much as on Ms. Thatcher.

Some unions and workers sought conflict, as did Ms. Thatcher - and they lost because they did not any longer have a valid business case to defend.

Coal was not recognised as a climate problem back then. But large scale bulk shipping from very efficient surface mines from as far away as ZA and Australia was available by the late 1960's. Other businesses like auto died - as has been written here many time - because UK cars e.g. Morris/Austin were far worse than most cars from continental Europe or US cars built for and in Europe (Opel, Ford).

Business policies can't survive, if the try to be all things to all people e.g. social or regional policies too.

A country must first and foremost demand of its factories and its working population that they continue to design and produce excellent products at the right cost/price. Products which will be in demand domestically and outside the domestic market too.

No 'amount of' Brexit can change this, nor can any theoretical 'socialism'.

Lars

reslfj

Strazdas wrote: »

A key point about WW2 is that it virtually bankrupted Britain and rapidly hastened the end of the empire...

The UK and France were told - in no uncertain terms - by President Eisenhower during the Suez conflict in 1956 that they were no longer world powers and their empires should be dismantled - period.

The loss of India and the rest of the Empire in the 1950-60's was also a loss of ( a monopoly) market for UK products and this is where EFTA was far too small as a replacement and the EEC so much larger and better.

Lars