How is Brexit affecting us?

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  • Telford wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Ok @Telford . There really is nothing v interesting on telly anyway, something about cars I think. So I ll bite.


    I think we all aware of the fabulously factually inaccurate Brexit Campaign? As we are not in the House of Commons I call it lies. You might disagree? We can agree to differ.
    BIB....On both sides
    I may regret this.

    The lies on the Leave side are well documented and legion (eg: fictional numbers like £350m on buses). What lies were told by the Remain campaign?

    How was the £350m a fictional number? It was a guesstimate
    The UK government (and EU) provided a lot of information on what was spent. The gross payments from the UK to EU for the benefits of EU membership over the years prior to 2016 were approximately £12b per year - if you wanted to guestimate the gross cost of EU membership then you'd get to approximately £250m per week. Of course, net costs to the UK government were much lower, as a significant portion of that came straight back to fund things the UK government would otherwise need to fund. And, if you factor in the economic growth associated with EU membership (or, more accurately membership of the Single Market and Customs Union) the added tax revenue more than compensated for the net costs to the government.

    And, even if that money was to become available, who actually believed them that it would be added to the NHS budget? But, it would take until after Brexit to see if that would happen ... still waiting (funding related to coronavirus doesn't count).
    Remain lie....‘Two thirds of British jobs in manufacturing are dependent on demand from Europe’...Not even close
    At the time, I never heard a figure put on that (clearly Alan Johnson did, grossly exaggerating the numbers). What was repeatedly stated was that if UK businesses couldn't export freely to the EU and alternative buyers weren't found then people would lose their jobs - without quantifying how many jobs, though quite a lot of industries came out with figures of what might happen in their sectors. The response to those comments from Leave campaign was generally to either state that after leaving the EU the UK would still be in the Single Market and Customs Union so there wouldn't be any additional barriers to trade and/or that by the time the UK had left there'd be a whole boatload of trade deals with other nations creating new markets. What we have is no SM/CU membership, and a handful of trade deals that are more or less the same as those we had as an EU member.

  • Comparing the Full Fact checks on both statistics, the Alan Johnson figure is described as inaccurate and use of out-of-date figures, which had been since updated. And that it was pretty impossible to put an accurate figure on the cost to industry as much of the information was not collected in that form.

    In contrast the Full Fact analysis of the £350,000 figure (link) describes it as:
    We have never paid the EU £350 million a week and we have never owed the EU £350 million a week. After we leave the EU, that means we cannot take back control of £350 million a week.

    That figure was described as misleading by UK Statistics Authority and Boris Johnson has been criticised for continuing to use it after the inaccuracies have been pointed out.
  • Another blow to British farming:
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/05/live-farm-animal-exports-to-mainland-eu-at-a-standstill-post-brexit

    This may or may not be a Good Thing, depending on one's views on the export of live animals, many of whom are used for breeding rather than for food.

  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    Alan29 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Just because one initiates a divorce doesn't mean that the future relationship shouldn't be amicable

    Yeah, but you seem to want to initiate a divorce, but still come back for a shag a couple of times a week. Divorcing couples usually aren't that friendly.
    That's not what I said or what I meant

    You have been continually advocating that various aspects of UK-EU trade should just carry on working the same way as they did before Brexit, and blaming the EU for choosing not to do that. I'd say my characterization was fair.

    The EU are obsessed with their rules so I accept that it was fair

    Deleted.

    It's still showing

    I think Alan might have meant that his reply to what you said had been deleted...

    Thats the one.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    edited February 6
    The figure on the bus is a very successful way of trolling Remainers.

    The general public has no idea how much £350m is. They just equate 'hundreds of millions a week' with 'lots of money' - if the Brexiteers had quoted the net figure, it's not as though the general public would have gone, 'Oh, that's OK then'. The point of the misstatement is to actively encourage the Remain campaign to bring up the correct amount, so that the general public is constantly reminded that the UK did in fact send (as they perceive it) 'lots of money' to the EU.

    A more accurate line of attack for Remain would be that it isn't really lots of money in the context of government expenditure; it's something like 0.1% of GDP, so if Brexit causes the economy to be 0.2% smaller than it would have been, already we have made a net loss.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    We've had our first very tangible effect this week. Mr Nen's car battery is flat and won't charge and ordering one is proving very problematic. There are none in the country at all and looking at online suppliers the price is twice what he was expecting. On phoning up the suppliers he's told, "Sorry. Because of Brexit we're having no end of supply problems." :disappointed:
  • :grimace:

    I presume it's not one which could be replaced by a standard one from (say) Half*rd's?
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    No - I believe it has to be A Special Sort Of Battery. He seems to have a way forward; I haven't asked too much.
  • Best of luck!
    :wink:
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    A local coffee van cannot take her usual pitch in front of the train station. She needs a new part it is stuck in Brexit hell
  • Mr Dragon is expecting a parcel from Canada which has been flown direct to Stansted, but is apparently held up in the warehouse by "Brexit related delays".
  • This sort of thing :rage: is just going to increase as time goes on, ISTM. Annoying for individuals, potentially disastrous for businesses and jobs.

    Ah well. We have Our Sovereignty, and Our Borders, though I've not seen any Unicorns yet...
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    I saw a unicorn. It looked a lot like a donkey with a broken broom handle strapped to its head with duct tape.
  • No, that was Bozzie Johnson, after he'd rummaged through his cosplay box for something that didn't make him look like a Fat Butcher...
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Boris is pretending to be Pat Butcher??? Those earrings will be heavy
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 11
    :lol:

    No, a Fat Butcher - as per Marina Hyde in the Grauniad:
    https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/09/covid-travel-rules-borders-boris-johnson-quarantine

    The whole piece is worth reading, but the description of Bozzie as a meat salesperson comes about halfway down. I think the appellation *Fat Butcher* was given by a reader commenting on the subject...
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Pendragon wrote: »
    Mr Dragon is expecting a parcel from Canada which has been flown direct to Stansted, but is apparently held up in the warehouse by "Brexit related delays".

    Surely that's the very thing Brexiteers wanted - trade between the UK and Places That Aren't The EU?

    :rage:
  • The delays are probably because the number of staff handling imports and associated paperwork has risen a small amount, but the amount of paperwork has increased much more. That means more time until each item is processed, regardless of where it came from.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Ah - I see what you mean.
  • I have been able to track my Brexit-affected parcel online. It has been going backwards and forwards across the Netherlands since January 5. Several times a week I get emails telling me there has been a Brexit related delay and delivery will be a day late. Some days I get three or four emails telling me the same thing. If I add them all up that probably comes near the actual delay.
  • The EU's rules about animal product imports are undoubtedly absurd. Any products of animal origin coming into the single market have to be inspected by a vet. Seriously?? Richard North has been having a lot of fun on his blog, commending the brave veterinarians defending Europe against rogue ravioli from Britain, with their rubber stamps and ink of the correct colour.

    Amusing thought this is, it doesn't make me any better disposed towards Brexit. The EU imposing ridiculous rules on countries who are not in the single market is not in itself a good reason for leaving the single market. Rather the reverse.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    edited February 13
    It's not imposing new rules on countries not in the market; those rules were always there (and many of them formulated by Britain). It's just that the British government is having trouble accepting the fact that we're now one of those countries, and that the EU didn't push us out - largely at the Government's own behest, we jumped.
  • The rules are there for things that Brits generally support. Animal welfare, that the meat and other animal products entering the EU haven't been produced with undue suffering on the part of the animals. Who better than a vet to assess animal welfare? The UK could avoid such necessities, but the government chose not to seek the necessary terms in the agreement signed at the last minute in December.
  • I don't think anyone would object to Vets inspecting live animals, or even whole carcasses. But anything of animal origin (sausages, cheese, ravioli) entering the EU needs to be signed off by a vet, who is really just checking paperwork, largely relating to food hygiene issues. It's mainly causing a boom for agencies who supply vets.

    I agree, these are not new rules. Any country in the single market has no incentive to change them, anyone outside the single market can't change them.
  • I wonder how many of the EU rules which are now causing us problems (self-inflicted, I agree) were originally instigated by the UK? Certainly, many of them would have been at least supported by this country.

    Perhaps we're simply reaping what we've sown...
  • I wonder how many of the EU rules which are now causing us problems (self-inflicted, I agree) were originally instigated by the UK?
    I think that's going to be difficult to quantify because the rules come from different routes - some from Council of Ministers, some from the Commission, and even if the representatives of one nation first suggest something it's not likely to be tabled until there's been a fair bit of off the record talking to gain some support before it gets that far.

    The famous big one is the Single Market - that was something that Mrs T pushed onto the European agenda. At the other end of the spectrum, many of the various standards did originate in individual nations and then got adopted at an EU level - one I'm familiar with are two standard methods for detecting irradiated food, which were defined through UK government funding before being adopted across the EU, I work with the two scientists who wrote most of the words of those standards which were retained by the lawyers as they polished them off (obviously the French and German versions are translations of the same words).
    Certainly, many of them would have been at least supported by this country
    That's much more quantifiable. At the vote on the final version, the UK voted for 95% of EU regulations - abstained on 3% and voted against 2%. Of course, by the time things got to the point of a vote the UK representatives in the EU would have already been involved in the drafting process and so influenced those regulations to something more favourable to the UK - by all accounts, it's something that the UK appointees on the Commission and the teams supporting Ministers were very good at making EU regulations better for the UK.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 13
    Thanks @Alan Cresswell .

    Given our positive input over many years, our ridiculous flounce looks all the more insane.

    How the f**k did we fall into this situation? Or, more to the point, how the f**k do we get out of it?
  • Why should we get out of it? We HaVe Ar CunNtry BaCk! and soon millions of gibbering natives will be worshipping the white man as gods again!

    Or something like that. I did notice in my previous workplace that the number of new victims, sorry, recruits from Europe was definitely falling, and being replaced with people from China. South Korea and the subcontinent. So those who voted because they didn't like funny-coloured people will be getting a nice surprise.

    (on the animal products thing, I should poinb out than in 2000 we had an outbreak of African Swine Fever in this country that was believed to have been caused by imported meat - rarely remembered as the year after we had foot and mouth)
  • So the latest message is that we should take a 10 year view

    So the great dividends that were promised won't actually materialise for a decade? In other words, it is a tacit admission that Brexit is going to be the economic disaster we all knew it was going to be.
  • Yes, a ten year view is tacitly admitting that it's gone tits up, but look, there's a giant squirrel.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I suppose it's a marginal improvement on the 50 years the Haunted Pencil was talking about.

    I can't get my head around all these Tory politicians, who surely must all be members of various exclusive clubs, not understanding that if you leave a club, you don't get to use the facilities, and that this isn't the club's fault.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    edited February 14
    But they have friends who are still members

    So can be guests?
  • I think that's so as far as exclusive clubs are concerned, but *England* now doesn't have any friends, at least in the EU.

    I think Frau von der Leyen and M Barnier had quite enough of Bozzie's table manners at that infamous Fish Dinner in Memison Brussels...
  • As Michael Gove said: the people of this country have had enough of exports.
  • It seems to have escaped Mr Raab that the businesses that have effectively lost their markets in the EU have somehow to survive for the ten years he foresees as being needed to establish a customer base in the great new opportunities offered by the developing countries.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Which many of them won't. :cry:
  • Well, quite - and some of these *developing* countries are not exactly inviting places to try to do business in...
  • A delegation of famous actors has sent on open letter to Boris Johnson urging him to re-negotiate the Brexit deal so their profession can enjoy freedom of movement when touring Europe again.

    Good luck with that. The government seems quite happy to throw financial services, fishing, small businesses and academics under the bus so I doubt they'll be much moved by the wails of a bunch of luvvies.
  • And the media seem to be ignoring most Brexit problems. A far cry from the days when fishermen were the doughty heroes standing against the Brussels monster. Now they are cold shouldered, but hang on, the Express recently blazoned a great new opportunity for fishing fleets, catching tuna. Call me a sceptic.
  • RocinanteRocinante Shipmate
    edited February 16
    That would be a nautical exploit comparable to the Russian Navy sending its Baltic Fleet 18,000 miles to fight the Japanese. (Spoiler alert: they lost).
  • Rocinante wrote: »
    A delegation of famous actors has sent on open letter to Boris Johnson urging him to re-negotiate the Brexit deal so their profession can enjoy freedom of movement when touring Europe again.

    Good luck with that. The government seems quite happy to throw financial services, fishing, small businesses and academics under the bus so I doubt they'll be much moved by the wails of a bunch of luvvies.

    On the contrary, the wailing of luvvies is suspected of being one of the causes of Johnson's many children.

    Those of you who now can't get enough brain bleach: you're welcome.
  • Rocinante wrote: »
    A delegation of famous actors has sent on open letter to Boris Johnson urging him to re-negotiate the Brexit deal so their profession can enjoy freedom of movement when touring Europe again.

    Good luck with that. The government seems quite happy to throw financial services, fishing, small businesses and academics under the bus so I doubt they'll be much moved by the wails of a bunch of luvvies.

    I have a cousin wot is a Nactor, albeit not especially famous, and he says that it's not just the luvvies who are finding things difficult, but the multitude of other *supporting* people involved in the performing arts generally.

    However, I suspect that you are right, and that their plight will go unheeded.
  • Rocinante wrote: »
    That would be a nautical exploit comparable to the Russian Navy sending its Baltic Fleet 18,000 miles to fight the Japanese. (Spoiler alert: they lost).

    Ironically, in the process opening fire on British fishing boats on the Dogger Bank having mistaken them for Japanese torpedo boats, a species almost as numerous within the North Sea as tuna.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
  • Most Brexiteers probably think that luvvies, like ballet dancers, ought to get themselves a proper job.
  • Eirenist wrote: »
    Most Brexiteers probably think that luvvies, like ballet dancers, ought to get themselves a proper job.

    Very likely - and the many others who depend for their living on various aspects of the performing arts are obviously Little People (or Horrid Foreign People Not Like Us), and unworthy of consideration, or even thought.
  • The difficulties with travel and touring also apply to musicians, which is going to impoverish that sector even more than the Covid closures have. And again, it's not just the musicians, it's all the support networks, the roadies, lighting and sound techs that are struggling too.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited February 16
    The difficulties with travel and touring also apply to musicians, which is going to impoverish that sector even more than the Covid closures have. And again, it's not just the musicians, it's all the support networks, the roadies, lighting and sound techs that are struggling too.

    Yes, those are the *many others* I have in mind, and I referred to *the performing arts* in order to include musicians etc. etc.

    My father worked at the Old Vic theatre in London for some years - not as a performer, but as a scene-painter/builder (at which he was very accomplished). God alone knows how such people are managing these days, although once Covid is past it may be possible for at least some theatres to be revived.
  • Free-lance ballet company pianists (and their families) are possibly being supported by their aged parents. Guess how I know?!
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Habe noch keine Bratwurst
  • We were hoping for a BBQ down here, but charcoal has been held up at the border, and there's no bratwurst either. I suspect rat will be too stringy.
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