Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

salonfire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120214354#Comment_120214354

You even said it yourself! As long as the goods are not smuggled onwards by a third party. How is that going to be detected with checks bypassed by the green line and no subsequent border?

salonfire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215097#Comment_120215097

The EU getting out manoeuvred by Johnson is very much on topic.

His comments to Northern Ireland business about chucking forms in the bin has come to pass.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215180#Comment_120215180

Why would they be smuggled? Seriously.

You have two types of goods: low value and high value. You also have the fact that there are now years of data available for the movement of goods from GB to NI.

So, the question is what goods, if any are being smuggled? Leaving aside things like drugs which essentially have to be smuggled for obvious reasons, what does that leave? Anything you do smuggle in has to go into NI and then across the border or vice vearsa adding expense and risk. Such goods can then only be sold on the street because legitimate sellers won't touch them without the legitimate paperwork, receipts, traceability and so on.

So, yeah. A non-argument.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215180#Comment_120215180

What goods would be worth the hassle to smuggle?

There's already a well-known pre-existing black market from things like petrol to fireworks - but that happens regardless of EU rules - if we're talking about "proper" trade movement between the UK-EU, what goods would be ripe for manipulation of the rules?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215180#Comment_120215180

Yes I did say that.

However, if the likes of M&S ship goods into NI, and onward to their stores in Ireland, how long would it be before it was noticed by the market surveillance that goes on continuously? Perhaps a few months? And then what? M&S up in court? I doubt that it would be countenanced by any company of any repute.

OK, what about a few packages of sausages? Yea, I am sure that will blow a hole in the SM.

Smugglers need to make a margin of some size to be bothered, and sausages does not factor.

Smuggling is a cottage industry for the main part.

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215189#Comment_120215189

What are you talking about? How does one get access to the green lane?

Do you not understand that there will be spot checks and follow up checks?

Importers will have to prove that final destination is NI. How will they do that?

Johnson hadn't a breeze what he was talking about. He even admitted the deal is awful but somehow now you think he was right all along?

yagan

It's typical that rather than actual news and insight most activity on this thread is responding to the usual thread spammers.

It feels like the new normal is bedding in and the Tory's knowing that they're not going to be reelected will be more focused on looting as much as possible for what remains of this their term.

ambro25

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1623001179511787522?s=20&t=i74OVtZqnjndlLwCPJhLWw

I’d forgotten what a proper British statesman looked and sounded like, in this long-running, debilitating Punch and Judy show that British politics have descended into.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215592#Comment_120215592

The greater the difference in price the greater the smuggling.

The estimated non-UK duty paid market share for NI diesel was 40% in 2004–05

Fuel laundering, tobacco smuggling costing €1bn annually

As long as UK standards don't diverge too far from the EU we should be OK.

salonfire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217768#Comment_120217768

That's the problem though, the UK are going to drive down standards. I wouldn't be surprised to see sweatshops in Bradford full of people desperate for any pitiful wage flooding the North with rubbish. Which then makes it's way to the EU tariff free and standards free.

Then consider cigarettes, booze, electronics, food.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120216982#Comment_120216982

Worth pointing out that he came from a working class area and never went to university. It seems that it's the absolute dregs of society such as the Tory toffs and millionaires with their Oxbridge education who are destroying the country.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217975#Comment_120217975

Based on what, exactly? The same empty bluster we've been subjected to for the past few years?

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217975#Comment_120217975

This has to be the funniest factless unsourced waffle ive read on this thread in a long while and considering this thread thats saying a lot.

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217975#Comment_120217975

Let's go with that for a second and think it through.

You are aware that the EU have access to real time data? And the sweatshop in Bradford would have has to apply for green lane status? And the product can be checked if suspicious?

And that it is actually in the UKs interests to not allow this to happen as if it is found to be happening the entire Green/Red lane could be put in jeopardy.

You still haven't pointed out what the UK have won. You were posting previously that the EU had caved.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120217768#Comment_120217768

There has been a lot of work to stop diesel laundering - and it predates Brexit. Cigarette smuggling to Ireland is mostly involving Eastern European EU countries and placed like Andorra. The UK are not part of that particular problem.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120218777#Comment_120218777

Good to know. I'd be surprised if some form of commitment to alignment wasn't baked into the new agreement all the same.

Sam Russell

I doubt that smuggling will be a huge issue across the NI border any more than normal.

The things that are profitable for smugglers are drugs, and dutiable products - alcohol and fuel. All three of those categories were always subject to controls over that border ever since it came into existence, so no change there - just the actors have changed.

In a UI, much of this smuggling disappears.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120218141#Comment_120218141

Why aren't you thread banning them for brigading?

The only time we should see updates on this thread is when there's events. Instead most times I check in on new posts it's rebuttals against committed brigaders who are only interested in regurgitating anti EU bile.

Enzokk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120215189#Comment_120215189

His comments were that you could throw away documents that will be needed. If I understand the new proposal correctly documentation will still need to be submitted for it to be monitored in real time. Before and what Johnson was mentioning was no documentation needed at all. But less documentation, possibly, and less disruption at the ports.

So no, Johnson has not won this one as what he told those people in NI is not what will be happening at all. The devil is in the details.

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120220053#Comment_120220053

Yes, as with everything related to Brexit yo devil is in the details.

But Brexiteers aren't interested in details. It's all about headlines and soundbites.

Get the soundbite out and assume, correctly in most cases, that nobody will actually look at the details.

The fact the poster even brought up Johnson as some sort of win, when it's beyond any doubt the Johnson had no real understanding of what he was signing the UK up to, tells you all you need to know.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120220359#Comment_120220359

For what it's worth, I don't consider Johnson stupid. Callous, cruel, racist, misogynistic, lazy, narcissistic and venal certainly but not stupid. I think he had a fair idea what was going happen in 2019. He had his "oven ready" deal after all. In 2016, he was clearly gunning to lead the Tory party but the referendum was supposed to produce a win for remain. He'd have united the Leave camp behind him knowing that the question would be settled.

Johnson now represents the only real hope his party has because of 2019. There's nobody else except Liz Truss. There are no ideas, no solutions and no debate since the purge. He has forged a sizeable but unstable coalition spanning much of England at the cost of turning his party into France - unwieldy, fractious and ungovernable. If southern England wanted to level up the north, it would vote Labour.

ambro25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120218777#Comment_120218777

QFT.

Kinda-related, there is a sh*t ton of legit booze- and tobacco-related ‘smuggling’ between Luxembourg where I am, and neighbouring countries (France, Belgium, Germany) due to the vast differential between duty levels. Booze and tobacco costs nothing here (this and the ‘smuggling’, in quotes because EU, goes back decades btw).

Nip into any petrol station in the south of the country and just about each time you’ll see a French-plated Kangoo or similar, with a guy taking a phone pic of the €1k-€2k ‘haul’ in the boot before setting off, for evidence (to order-placers and advance-payers) in case he gets nabbed on the way back. The likelihood of which, is high, because e.g. French customs operate random stop-and-search checkpoints every day, often near the border, sometimes miles and miles away. Got too much booze and back for ‘personal consumption’? Seized, loud fine. Vehicle seized too, if the value is ‘significant’ (think €10k’s worth or more, reason why ‘pro’ smugglers stick to smaller values).

https://actu.fr/faits-divers/lorraine-25-kg-de-tabac-confisques-en-deux-saisies-le-meme-jour-dans-la-meme-voiture_48959968.html

(loads more where this one came from, but quoted bc funny: these guys got nabbed twice on the same day 😂)

I’m reminded of all this by your post, as we got stop-checked last Saturday when we were driving to visit my parents near the bottom bit of Moselle department, adjacent Alsace and Vosges. A 2-hour drive from Lux, we got stopped in a small village about 10 minutes away from arriving. Smart placement, whole road filter-blocked, cars checked both sides, no way out or past short of forcing your way through.

Pretty sure the same setup either already exists, or will exist, in/near the RoI/NI border: it exists everywhere there is a border!

breezy1985

Isn't going North for cheap booze already a thing ?

Going by Boards counties as far away as Cork and Kerry were gonna clear out on a Saturday to do their shopping in Newry after the minimum unit pricing came in 🤣

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120221491#Comment_120221491

That is not smuggling, but canny shopping.

The minimum unit pricing was supposed to be implemented in NI, but wasn't. It mainly affects beer and stout.

I think unit-pricing* and no below cost selling would be more effective.

*Unit pricing - each unit is the same price - one can is the basic price and a slab of 24 cost 24 times that. Buyer would only buy what they wanted.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120221293#Comment_120221293

The Customs are still around here on the border. They routinely take home heating vans (Domestic oil tank and pump in the back of a dirt cheap van) that smuggle across out of action and if you are smuggling drink on a large scale you'll be nabbed. How do I know...their vehicle pound is across the road from me. Can be busy at all times of the day or night.

cml387

The Daily Mail are apoplectic this morning about the fact that Astra Zeneca have announced they are building a new plant in Dublin.

Apoplectic, that is, with the UK government for NOT SASHING TAXES NOW!

I'm not a big reader at all of the Mail Online but the comments underneath seem to fall into two camps, slagging off Jeremy Hunt and blaming Brexit. I don't know if this represents a sea change in Mail readers but it's interesting nonetheless.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120222873#Comment_120222873

By and large the more pro-Brexit papers' comments have tended to simply accuse the government of not Doing Brexit Good; that it's the Tories just making a mess of it, rather than a problem with the actual concept of Brexit itself.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120222873#Comment_120222873

I refuse to click on it at all. It's either pushing and agenda or incredibly stupid. Probably both. Either is plenty of justification for ignoring it. The fourth estate is supposed to hold power to account, not hop into bed with it.

joeysoap

No jury has ever found a defendant guilty of smuggling at Dundalk.

ArmaniJeanss

This is interesting. A private (everyone had to sign a confidentiality agreement) meeting between very senior heads in Labour and the Tories, many of them quite high-profile Remainers and Leavers, plus various diplomats and business leaders to discuss the future.

I'm struggling to come up with an actual opinion as required by the charter, apologies. It's interesting. That'll have to do.

Revealed: secret cross-party summit held to confront failings of Brexit | Brexit | The Guardian