Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

yagan

Silent Running wrote: »

The point still stands though: a majority, however slim, forced Brexit on the entire populace.

I can't help but feel that the general election copper fastened the Brexit result. I know, first past the post, etc... but the result made the Brexit mess much worse.

Democracy in action? Hmmm.

I had been living in England up to that point but the moment of no return was the last MEP election which was a clear chance to register a protest against Brexit.

Turnout 37%.

Brexit vote turnout was almost double at 72%.

Any lingering optimism I had that the UK public would wake up evaporated.

political analyst

schmoo2k wrote: »

You did say that in your opinion the current Jan 01 2021 was the wrong date, I was simply wondering what you would consider to be a more appropriate date?

I was referring to the transition period that commenced when Britain ceased to adhere to the single-market and customs union rules. I didn't say what you claim I said.

kowloon

Enzokk wrote: »

How else do they still support the royal family or can you explain the deference to Rees-Mogg who has at no point shown to have any concern for those below him but still gets elected with huge majorities? He sounds posh so he must know what he is doing.

That guy's mannerisms and attitude make me despise him more than people who probably deserve it a lot more.

schmoo2k

Leroy42 wrote: »

What I don't get is why the UK public, who clearly voted to 'get Brexit done' are not turning on Johnson as Brexit is clearly not done and now is pushed out a further six months.

At what point do the voters start to think they were sold a pup in 2019?

I would question the media, which is IMO very biased in the UK (I don't think its great here either, but way better than the USA and UK).

Its going to get worse in the UK with the new Fox news style station due to open soon.

Leroy42

So effectively the UK will have no import border controls for at least a year.

But the other issue is that all those amazing trade deal that Liz Truss has been signing are pretty much worthless to the other country. Why would they sign anything when there is nothing to stop them from doing business anyway?

Seth Brundle

Leroy42 wrote: »

But the other issue is that all those amazing trade deal that Liz Truss has been signing are pretty much worthless to the other country. Why would they sign anything when there is nothing to stop them from doing business anyway?

Well none of the trade deals secured so far have put the UK in a position better than they had when they were a part of the nasty EU.

Capt'n Midnight

Leroy42 wrote: »

So effectively the UK will have no import border controls for at least a year.

But the other issue is that all those amazing trade deal that Liz Truss has been signing are pretty much worthless to the other country. Why would they sign anything when there is nothing to stop them from doing business anyway?

Aren't most of the UK 'trade deals' just continuity deals or rollovers of existing deals rather than renegotiations ? Though Japan will allow imports of one Maclaren worth of cheese in return for the UK giving preferential treatment to looking after Japanese car factories in the UK.



Normally big deals aren't just trade. There's visas and mutual recognition of standards and degrees. There's data protection and financial services and fishing rights, all the other stuff the UK has abandoned for the sake of getting the purest Brexit deal.

For the countries where the the EU deal was better for third countries than a separate UK deal a rollover was a nobrainer to lock in the existing advantage.

johnnyskeleton

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Well none of the trade deals secured so far have put the UK in a position better than they had when they were a part of the nasty EU.

I thought their quota for blue cheese into the difficult Japanese market had increased by 5%?

I mean, I know 5% of 0 is still 0, but still, its about future growth and opportunities in, um, non stagnant markets

Nody

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I thought their quota for blue cheese into the difficult Japanese market had increased by 5%?

I mean, I know 5% of 0 is still 0, but still, its about future growth and opportunities in, um, non stagnant markets

They get to use what's left of the EU quota if it's not used up every year; they did not get their own quota.

johnnyskeleton

Nody wrote: »

They get to use what's left of the EU quota if it's not used up every year; they did not get their own quota.

Thats for all other types of cheese. I accept that the post Brexit Uk-Japan is worse for non blue cheese cheese makees. But for blue cheese makers, they could see as much as a 5% increase on the £102,000 Japanese blue chese market by 2030. That would mean an extra £5-6,000 directly into the pockets of UK Blue Cheese manufacturers.

Now, you could well argue that this isnt worth losing access to the EU market for blue cheese makers (nor should non blue cheese cheese makers be forgotten as they are in trouble in both markets post Brexit), but the point being that the UK did get a better deal outside of the EU for blue cheese makers.

Capt'n Midnight

Nody wrote: »

They get to use what's left of the EU quota if it's not used up every year; they did not get their own quota.

Oh my. I missed that bit of detail in the deal.

So if the UK get the Japanese to start buying more cheese then broadly similar Irish cheese will be 30% cheaper than the UK stuff ?



https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/933984/uk-japan-cepa-agri-foods-explainer.pdf

, cheddar cheese (MFN 29.8% reducing gradually to
0% by 2033)
...
Under the UK’s arrangement, Japanese importers would
initially pay no tariff on imports of covered products. At
the end of each financial year, importers would pay the
same in quota rate as under the EU scheme (usually 0%
tariff) for any TRQ volume not utilised by the EU27.

Capt'n Midnight

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

the point being that the UK did get a better deal outside of the EU for blue cheese makers.

Nope.

The deal they got was for the TRQ volume not utilised by the EU27.

Which is exactly the same deal they had when they were in the EU, except now there are 27 counties are ahead of them in the queue to allocate that quota.

Peregrinus

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I thought their quota for blue cheese into the difficult Japanese market had increased by 5%?

I mean, I know 5% of 0 is still 0, but still, its about future growth and opportunities in, um, non stagnant markets

In what sense is the Japanese market for blue cheese "non-stagnant"?

Strazdas

Leroy42 wrote: »

What I don't get is why the UK public, who clearly voted to 'get Brexit done' are not turning on Johnson as Brexit is clearly not done and now is pushed out a further six months.

At what point do the voters start to think they were sold a pup in 2019?

It could happen if they had a free press, but instead they have a deeply corrupt one owned by offshore billionaires, who are brainwashing them into thinking black is white and vice versa.

It's fascinating to see where this is all heading. I could see the UK go bankrupt at some point soon and the whole thing come crashing down a la Ireland in 2010.

Peregrinus

Leroy42 wrote: »

What I don't get is why the UK public, who clearly voted to 'get Brexit done' are not turning on Johnson as Brexit is clearly not done and now is pushed out a further six months.

At what point do the voters start to think they were sold a pup in 2019?

They wanted to "get Brexit done" because they were bored with Brexit. Seriously bored. The whole point of getting Brexit done was so that they wouldn have to hear about Brexit, or think about Brexit, any more.

Their motivation for wanting Brexit done is also a powerful motivation for not being receptive to messages that it hasn't been done, or has been done badly.

People want to hear what they want to hear. They don't want to hear that Brexit has been a shîtshow, so they won't hear that. The truer it is that Brexit has been a shîtshow, the more they don't want to hear that.

BonnieSituation

Strazdas wrote: »

It could happen if they had a free press, but instead they have a deeply corrupt one owned by offshore billionaires, who are brainwashing them into thinking black is white and vice versa.

It's fascinating to see where this is all heading. I could see the UK go bankrupt at some point soon and the whole thing come crashing down a la Ireland in 2010.

What happened here in 2008/10 doesn't come close to the shítshow playing out across the water.

Don't forget, they went bankrupt before, there was a reason they wanted to join the ECSC in the first place.

Zubeneschamali

Peregrinus wrote: »

They don't want to hear that Brexit has been a shîtshow, so they won't hear that. The truer it is that Brexit has been a shîtshow, the more they don't want to hear that.

All true, but this also means their leaders (including the opposition) are not talking about it, not addressing the problems with it, not prioritising fixing it. After all, if you have to pretend Brexit is done, you can't announce a giant and expensive fix, or justify a huge U turn.

So this la la la not listening attitude from the public guarantees that Brexit will get worse, not better, until eventually there is a crisis.

And it will be much harder to fix by then.

Enzokk

Exports to the EU fell by 40% in January.

Exports to EU plunge by £5.6bn in first month since Brexit

In the first month since Brexit on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, official trade figures showed exports of goods to the EU plunged by 40.7%, or £5.6bn, in the biggest monthly fall in UK imports and exports to the bloc in more than 20 years.

The slump in trade with the EU, excluding gold and other precious metals, is a reflection of disruption at UK borders.

In case anybody was wondering, trade to non-EU countries only fell by 12% so you cannot blame Covid for all of that,

https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1370278634364280834?s=20

https://twitter.com/thom_sampson/status/1370270991448965121?s=20

An Ciarraioch

Enzokk wrote: »

Exports to the EU fell by 40% in January.

Exports to EU plunge by £5.6bn in first month since Brexit



In case anybody was wondering, trade to non-EU countries only fell by 12% so you cannot blame Covid for all of that,

https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1370278634364280834?s=20

https://twitter.com/thom_sampson/status/1370270991448965121?s=20

And, ahead of our CSO trade stats on Monday, we already know that our imports from the UK are 32% lower:

https://twitter.com/thom_sampson/status/1370274366290853891

Peregrinus

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

All true, but this also means their leaders (including the opposition) are not talking about it, not addressing the problems with it, not prioritising fixing it. After all, if you have to pretend Brexit is done, you can't announce a giant and expensive fix, or justify a huge U turn.

So this la la la not listening attitude from the public guarantees that Brexit will get worse, not better, until eventually there is a crisis.

And it will be much harder to fix by then.

I agree.

Except, there may not be a crisis at all, in the sense of some spectacular moment where the problems of Brexit can no longer be denied. Instead what there may be is steady grind of constant underperformance, relative to European comparators, so that Britain becomes again the Sick Man of Europe, falling further and further behind, with stagnant real wages and stagnant living standards. The analysts and the experts will be able to see why this is happening, but those who are motivated to deny that this is the reason will be able to do so. And a change of course won't be possible until there has been sufficient generational change in UK politics that the UK has a political leadership who are not compromised by either having supported Brexit or having tacitly assented to it, and who can therefore tell the truth about Brexit without suffering personal political cost.

Last time round, from the time the UK's political leadership recognised that the UK needed to join the EU to the time that it actually joined was about 13 years. This time it may be longer.

Hurrache

To put it in monetary terms, the decline in their exports to the EU equates to £5.6 billion.

Meanwhile, at least one UK holiday firm in France have said "Brexit has meant that we are no longer able to recruit staff from the UK as their climbing and canoeing qualifications are no longer valid.".

Peregrinus

The Office for Budget Responsibility is a UK government agency whose job is to provide independent and authoritative economic forecasts and analysis of the public finances. Although publicly funded and overseen by the Treasury, it acts independently of political control. This is intentional, since its job is includes evaluating the Government's performance against its fiscal targets, and scrutinising government policy costings.

Their analysis is that, given the terms of the WA and the TCA, Brexit will result, long-term, in a 4% hit to UK productivity . That is, every year into the indefinite future, UK GDP will be 4% lower than it would have been, but for Brexit.

UK GDP for 2019 was £2.173 trillion, so that translates to an annual cost to the UK national economy of £87 billion (in 2019 pounds). It means a hit to government finances - i.e. tax receipts lower than they would otherwise have been - of about £40 billion.

(OBR hasn't modelled the extent to which these costs might be offset by improvements to productivity from better trade deals that the UK might negotiate with the rest of the world. It can't model those trade deals, because none of them exist yet. But other modelling suggests that, on the most optimistic view of possible future trade deals, less than 10% of the Brexit hit can be offset.)

The full economic impact of Brexit hasn't hit yet, obviously. We've seen the trade disruption but the full costs - business failures, unemployment, etc - will only unfold over time. OBR estimates than in 2021, the adverse impact on government finances will be only (!) £30 billion; it will rise in later years.

Treasury quietly accepts OBR/s analysis; it has used it in support of the budget introduced this week.

The budget includes £29 billion of tax increases. This is presented as something necessary to finance Covid-related expenditure. But, in fact, it would more or less what would have been needed simply to keep government finances unchanged post Brexit, even if there had been no Covid, no pandemic and no associated extraordinary expenditure. The Covid-related expenditure comes on top of that and, realistically, is being financed entirely by borrowing.

johnnyskeleton

Peregrinus wrote: »

In what sense is the Japanese market for blue cheese "non-stagnant"?

Brexit is based on the idea that the UK wants to stop trading with the stagnant markets of the EU, and trade with the countries where current and future growth will be. Japans' growth has been largely stagnant since the 1990s.

Peregrinus

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Brexit is based on the idea that the UK wants to stop trading with the stagnant markets of the EU, and trade with the countries where current and future growth will be. Japans' growth has been largely stagnant since the 1990s.

And the blue cheese market in Japan has been stagnant since for ever. They don't eat the stuff; they consider it revolting. Sales are almost entirely to a few high-end specialty restaurants.) Even if the UK has secured world-beatingly favourable terms for the import of blue cheese to Japan, that's about as much use as favourable terms for the import of culinary snails to Ireland. No matter how favourable the terms of import, you're not going to sell very much.

Professor Moriarty

Peregrinus wrote: »

And the blue cheese market in Japan has been stagnant since for ever. They don't eat the stuff; they consider it revolting. Sales are almost entirely to a few high-end specialty restaurants.) Even if the UK has secured world-beatingly favourable terms for the import of blue cheese to Japan, that's about as much use as favourable terms for the import of culinary snails to Ireland. No matter how favourable the terms of import, you're not going to sell very much.

It speaks volumes when the main topic is sales of blue cheese to Japan. Well done Truss. A true patriot.

Professor Moriarty

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/uk-to-depart-from-gdpr/5107685.article

Depending how far Uk is planning on departing from gdpr, this is going to be another kick for uk services

Gdpr is already a huge subject in my current employer with many man hours put in as it’s becoming a worldwide standard almost

Moi aussi. It's embedded and it ain't going away.

johnnyskeleton

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Brexit is based on the idea that the UK wants to stop trading with the stagnant markets of the EU, and trade with the countries where current and future growth will be. Japans' growth has been largely stagnant since the 1990s.

Japan is but only one country outside the EU, there are hundreds of other countries out there that you could have mentioned, many of which are still growing rapidly.

The real issue is that Britain would be in direct competition with China in many of these markets, so any produce would have to be "specialised" to have any chance of competing with the mass production of Chinese industry.

murphaph

And the Chinese aren't standing still either. They don't want to remain the sweat shop of the world. They want to move higher up the food chain too. I can see a time when middle class Chinese are making satellites and their kids plastic toys are being made in Africa for them.

ancapailldorcha

Deleted User wrote: »

Japan is but only one country outside the EU, there are hundreds of other countries out there that you could have mentioned, many of which are still growing rapidly.

The real issue is that Britain would be in direct competition with China in many of these markets, so any produce would have to be "specialised" to have any chance of competing with the mass production of Chinese industry.

Japan is a wealthy country and one the UK prioritised trade with for good reason. Uganda might have a higher growth rate but that's not much good if British service exports aren't suitable for their market.

murphaph

murphaph wrote: »

And the Chinese aren't standing still either. They don't want to remain the sweat shop of the world. They want to move higher up the food chain too. I can see a time when middle class Chinese are making satellites and their kids plastic toys are being made in Africa for them.

Just look at the current range of EVs that are starting to come out of China, they're already there.
Give it about a decade or so and the streets here will be full of them, many with badges of defunct western car makers, the same way as old electrical goods labels are appearing on new Chinese products already.