Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120329579#Comment_120329579

Well, it was closed down, and certainly nothing like it once was.

Larbre34

The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded new contracts to Harland and Wolff in Belfast and Devon to build new naval support ships (oilers, freighters, medical ships). It will support about 900 new jobs in the Belfast yard for about 3 to 4 years and will be the first complete new ships built there in 21 years.

Thats all very well and good for a few years, but in Brussels this week, the EU Defence Agency is going to publish a policy to manufacture and procure the massive requirement for armaments and ammunition to be supplied to Ukraine and to resupply and indeed increase supply to EU members on the back of Russia's aggression.

This massive industrial opportunity will only be available to EU members and Norway and Switzerland, who observe EEA rules.

It will be worth tens of Billions over the next decade and will likely be expanded to pool the resourcing of new ships, armour and planes for and within the EU. Britain's current trade relationship with the EU specifically excludes them.

And that sort of loss, with scarce compensatory activity within the UK, is replicated across all the major industrial and agricultural sectors.

UK makers are being left with crumbs.

Pete_Cavan

How can British companies expect to secure EU contracts when they can't even win British contracts;

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/07/british-operator-extremely-disappointed-french-rival-wins-hmrc/

Brexit in a nutshell, taking back control of your borders by contracting it out to a French company. Global Britain can'teven compete domestically. Although after their experience with ferries, it makes sense that they look beyond only domestic businesses.

landofthetree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118041458#Comment_118041458

https://www.agriland.co.uk/farming-news/price-of-farmland-in-england-rose-12-in-2022/

Up 12% in 2022.

landofthetree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120331998#Comment_120331998

UK companies are winning contracts all over Europe.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1004022/national-express-wins-1bn-german-rail-contract-1004022.html

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120334311#Comment_120334311

I'm pretty sure that National Express is mostly foreign owned so not sure that really benefits the UK outside of share trading in London. It's a British company but any overseas contracts they win are likely more to do with the strengths of that local subsidiary and size of the company generally rather than a triumph of British productivity.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120334893#Comment_120334893

I wonder how many, if any, Brrrrritish workers will gain jobs. Execs might get something, but the lads who signal trains or whatever are unlikely to nip on over to Germany for work. For one thing, they'd need visas :)

Gerry T

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120335287#Comment_120335287

Prob a german registered company, employees living in Germany, employees paying taxes in EU and the company corporation tax. Not sure thats such a great british win

Igotadose

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-64891156

So, I heard this mentioned on the radio earlier this afternoon. If you're an ROI resident, you can travel all you want to NI, no visa needed. If, however, you're not, e.g. a US or EU resident on holiday in the ROI that decides to visit NI, you'll now need one of these electronic travel authorisations.

This appears to have been in the works for awhile, it isn't a side-effect of the "Windsor Protocol" I don't think? I guess it's coming up because St. Patrick's is next week when there's an influx of tourists who might not have planned in advance. But, hey, take back control, I'm sure the crack staff at the Home Office can turn these things around post-haste, might only take months. Good luck tourism in NI...

timetogo1

I've had similar conversations with people visiting here from abroad. We did get the question "can we go up to NI". Initially our response was, of course but then it went to oh crap, I don't know. Obviously there are little to no checks but if you've gotten a visitor visa for Ireland then you don't need the hassle of getting in trouble in Northern Ireland.

My missus is Australian and lives here with a visa which is fine. She's gotten stopped before on a bus when heading into NI (before Brexit). It was no hassle then, no idea about now though. Anybody I know just avoids NI now. Plenty to see and do down here anyway.

Inquitus

Hope all the workers are refugees, keep the DT readers happy!

Inquitus

You can get detained and deported if you travel to the North with an Ireland or EU only visa, as it does not cover NI. It was true before Brexit as well.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120341431#Comment_120341431

How many people did this happen to?

timetogo1

Ignore. Would delete this post of I could figure out how to on boards.

The NI thing affected American visitors last year who changed plans to remove NI from their trip. Even if it was always the rule, I doubt anyone cared. But people do now because it's about their sovereignty blah blah.

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347967#Comment_120347967

Still no one cares. There is a little effect from Brexit in that people think to check if they are allowed in but there is no one checking or caring. I guess if you committed a crime or something it could come up.

ArmaniJeanss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120348353#Comment_120348353

More pertinent maybe would be if a crime got committed against you, or you were involved in an accident or had a health issue. Americans in particular would be wary of travelling somewhere where their health insurance may be void because they weren't in a country legally.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120348353#Comment_120348353

Outside of Americans I don't think any tourists know enough about Ireland to even realize they would be crossing in international boundary.

Maybe if you are booking through a travel agent they will tell you but few travel that way now.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/22/channel-crossings-scheme-costs-could-top-9bn-in-three-years

Another of the many direct costs of Brexit as arrivals can't be send back to other EU countries under the Dublin Regulations.

This is in addition to pledge nearly £500m to help the UK fund, for the first time, a migrant detention centre in northern France.

Brexit was supposedly to save an average of £350m a week £7.8 Bn net annual contribution to the EU.

Or was Brexit to take back control on non-EU immigration ? (which they always had full control of)

UK net migration hits all-time record at 504,000 in 2022

And three former Tory party leaders voted against a deal today knowing full well that the EU has been insistent that it's all or nothing from the start and sparking a trade war with the EU wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.

political analyst

The EU didn't cause the economic deprivation that has been prevalent in the north of England. So why did so many people in that area vote for Brexit?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390256#Comment_120390256

The reasons are likely to be complex, but a couple of thoughts:

1. In general, if current arrangements aren't working well for you, you are more likely to be open changing them in the hope that if you change something, something will change.
2. An anti-establishment vote — if you blame the southern/metropolitan/elite/insert term of choice political establishment for your neglect/alienation, you are more likely to vote in favour of something that you perceive them to be against.

Basically, what people wanted were things like a prosperous economy, protection against crime and terrorism, control over immigration, efficient public services, etc, in the hope that this would make things better for them and their community. They didn't perceive EU membership to be delivering any of these things. Moreover, since they wanted an explanation for their plight, they were at least open to arguments that EU membership was actually undermining them.

It's easy to oversimplify here - relationships between the factors that people say matter to them and the Brexit vote is quite complicated. For example, in areas that are economically deprived because education levels, skill levels and productivity levels are below average, the vote for Brexit was above average. But in areas that have experienced high immigration, the vote for Brexit was below average, which is not what you would tend to expect if you think concerns about immigration were a driver for Brexit.

Peregrinus

When even the Telegraph reports that "Tory rebellion fizzles out" the ERG must recognise that the war is over.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/22/rishi-sunak-news-latest-brexit-northern-ireland-erg-pmqs/

(The DUP need to recognise that as well but, true to form, they won't.)

Water John

'The cults of Boris and Brexit are simultaneously exploding.' Associate Editor of the same paper.

That tells both are finished as vote winners.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390293#Comment_120390293

People in the UK who generally have much less experience with referendums than us massively underestimated the anti government vote that occurs even on votes as serious as this.

Also it's generally not areas with high immigration that are anti immigrant. It's areas with a whipped up "fear of immigration". Clowns in backwaters who thing that they are next in line for an "invasion" when the truth is their own youth are not willing to stay there never mind a foreigner.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390825#Comment_120390825

Yes, this is an intriguing development. Johnson appears to be going the way of Trump as a hugely discredited figure in public life and Brexit is now a busted flush and an embarrassment.

Vivisectus

On the one hand it is nice to see both Boris and the ERG becoming politically irrelevant. On the other hand most of the damage has been done and now a lot of these guys will just glom on the next thing as start pretending they were never that involved.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120391508#Comment_120391508

It does strengthen Sunak's hand to a certain extent heading into the next election. The ERG headbangers are finished as a collective force, as are Johnson and Truss (many of the above will probably lose their seats....they're trying to defend a completely failed ideology aka Brexit).

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390825#Comment_120390825

The comments under the Telegraph piece are hilarious btw. The readership are cast adrift, clinging on to the wreckage of Johnson and Brexit and the ERG and unable to accept their entire project has failed disastrously.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120391566#Comment_120391566

Telegraph readers are great fun. Not because what they say is as stupid as Daily Mail readers but because they believe they are so incredibly smart and better than the readers of "rags".

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120392170#Comment_120392170

We've known all along that they are mostly angry and embittered well off male OAPs, but they are really floundering at the moment. Still hitched to Johnson, Truss, Rees-Mogg and Farage etc, even as the whole Brexit empire comes crashing down around them.