Cont: Brexit: Now What? Magic 8 Ball's up

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

You are assuming that the UcvK will actually bother to enforce it’s borders post Brexit, my guess is that it probably won’t. Obviously, it will be the international community will eventually force the UK to get some control, but I don’t expect much on Nov 1.

I think that would be rather risky with regards to medicines and foodstuffs. We have already had horsemeat lasagnes god knows what would happen if there were no checks at all.

And I don't think the EU will be so lax.

 

[lomiller]

If remoaner MPs get their way, we'll never get the chance to find out whether or not the German car companies and other European manufacturers and farmers will attempt to influence the EU to provide a good trade deal.

EU companies will do what companies ALWAYS do wrt trade. They will push for access to the UK market while denying UK companies access to EU markets.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Rendered impossible by the EU's refusal to discuss a trade deal until after we've left. A very clever negotiating tactic by the EU.

David Davis tried to oppose that EU negotiating policy reality, but was overruled by Mrs May who actually lived in the real world.

FTFY

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Which of the problems currently preventing a withdrawal agreement from being agreed are going to stop being problems preventing a trade agreement when we're out in the cold and desperate having pissed off all our nearest allies and major trading partners and cancelled all our existing arrangements?

 

[The Don]

Which of the problems currently preventing a withdrawal agreement from being agreed are going to stop being problems preventing a trade agreement when we're out in the cold and desperate having pissed off all our nearest allies and major trading partners and cancelled all our existing arrangements?

A no deal Brexit will force the EU to finally come to their senses, accept England's innate superiority and give us all the benefits of EU membership with none of the responsibilities - just as soon as we get some kind of consensus of what those benefits and responsibilities might be.

 

[GlennB]

It seems Johnson's performance in the Q+A session just now was pretty awful. Meanwhile, during his performance, one of his MPs crossed the floor and joined the Lib Dems

Some of the comments are from Sky and the Mail on Sunday :

The quiet precision of Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn and others is exposing Johnson's bluster to damning effect

He needs laughter, an audience which wants to play along and give him energy. Today he's getting the exact opposite.

Boris is having a shocker here. Stumbling over response to Hammond.

Boris now floundering in response to Hilary Benn. Much more of this and the 1922 will be getting a raft of letters asking for Theresa May to come back.

Boris Johnson is really struggling here. It’s as if his own MPs have just woken up to the fact he’s a bit ****

 

[Lothian]

It seems Johnson's performance in the Q+A session just now was pretty awful. Meanwhile, during his performance, one of his MPs crossed the floor and joined the Lib Dems

Some of the comments are from Sky and the Mail on Sunday :

The quiet precision of Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn and others is exposing Johnson's bluster to damning effect

He needs laughter, an audience which wants to play along and give him energy. Today he's getting the exact opposite.

Boris is having a shocker here. Stumbling over response to Hammond.

Boris now floundering in response to Hilary Benn. Much more of this and the 1922 will be getting a raft of letters asking for Theresa May to come back.

Boris Johnson is really struggling here. It’s as if his own MPs have just woken up to the fact he’s a bit ****

He admitted that he has been lying to the public about negotiations with the EU on a deal going well. He admitted there had been no negotiations as there is no point negotiating with no deal taken off the table.
Fair enough I am sure Ceptimus will say. Except the prospect of no deal bring removed only arose when Boris decided to close parliament. Negotiations should have been under way well before that. He has no interest in a deal. He has not been negotiating a deal. Parliament is right not to trust him.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I just realised why Boris has adopted a dog as a new pet in No.10. He needs someone to blame for eating his homework.

 

[llwyd]

He has no interest in a deal. He has not been negotiating a deal.

This much seems evident. No real negotiations going on, no realistic or any counter proposal put on the table concerning the backstop. Johnson and his government are then purposefully aiming for a no-deal on the 31st of October. I can't fathom why, but that seems to be an undeniable fact now.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

This much seems evident. No real negotiations going on, no realistic or any counter proposal put on the table concerning the backstop. Johnson and his government are then purposefully aiming for a no-deal on the 31st of October. I can't fathom why, but that seems to be an undeniable fact now.

Just let go of the ideas that any of them think No Deal is a good idea *and* that any of them cares.

Their general election strategy demands that they out-Brexit Farage's Brexit Party to steal their voters. "Don't vote for Frog-face who just moans about not getting Brexit, vote for the maniac who will actually give it to you, good and hard".

The consequences for the country will be terrible, but they will win the election, Brexit will happen and Boris will be king of the smoking wreckage.

It's that stupid and that simple.

 

[Nessie]

We have no clear idea what kind of shortages of perishable items we may be facing - not least because we have no idea how long customs checking and so on will take after a no-deal Brexit.

Our food industry is like many of our other industries. We have a "just in time" pan-European supply and processing network. For example, even if we have enough milk (at whatever price), we may lack the processing capacity to make all the butter, yoghurt and other dairy products that we need.

We may have enough beef, but we may lack the capacity to create the ready meals that the British population want. Even if there is sufficient food to provide adequate calories for everyone (and even then there is considerable doubt about that), if it isn't of a type and in a form that people want to eat then we will still have a food shortage.

We could be up to our ears in raw swedes and tripe but that doesn't mean that there won't be food shortages

Obviously I am not a fussy eater and I was brought up in a house where it wrong to waste food and to eat what I was given.

 

[llwyd]

Boris will be king of the smoking wreckage.

It's that stupid and that simple.

Well, that just doesn't seem to be a sensible long term strategy - not to speak of the obvious monumental national disaster of a no-deal Brexit. Very strange. Though, am a Nordic and we have a tough time of understanding British politics anyway

 

[Nessie]

Well. In priciple there's already a landcode 'sticker' on your numberplate. So I don't think it would be necessary to add a seperate sticker.

On the other hand.
I do remember getting this folder from the British customs at Dover, while waiting for the ferry, the sunday after the brexit vote that we would have to buy a land code sticker the next time we wanted to visit the UK by car, as the police would have to see from which country you came from.

Uhm. No. Piss off with your stupid stickers. Just look at our number plate. It clearly says which country we come from. Better use the money spend in making these folders to buy the police some glasses or teach them to read.

A shame I did not keep that folder, for I threw it away in disgust.
It did make me wonder though, how fast this was printed and distributed, as the vote had only been two days before.

None of our family cars, nor the motorbike have such a numberplate. Most of the UK registered cars I saw in ROI did not. None of the cars/bikes I have taken to the ROI have had such a number plate.

I think this is another non issue.

 

[Nessie]

30% of our food comes in from the EU.
Remove the free flow of goods, which a No Deal would do, and that is scuppered.
In addition, much of the 20% that comes from other countries is via trade agreements that are EU agreements, and will vanish via a No Deal, since we would fall back to WTO terms.

We only supply half of our own food.

We do not possess food warehouse space to cover that.
Not when a large amount of the warehouse space from October onwards has been prebooked well in advance, as it is every year.

No...we won't starve.
But yes, we'll have a crappy Christmas.

Great work, everyone!

And by "everyone" I mean the twats driving this idiocy.

ETA: But of course some fishmonger in Brum clearly has a better grasp of the intricacies of trade networks...

I think that the wholesale fish merchant, the wholesale florist and the wholesale fruit and veg trader will have a very good idea of how their own business runs.

 

[Nessie]

I didn't say trade would stop. You said that the supply chains are well organised and smoothly running and I pointed out that is aided by being in the EU. You said it wasn't but then went on to say it was.



Fine, but you are dealing with ONE fish trader who may or may not be well informed. I have given you the facts and pointed out why there is room to be concerned. Did your fish trader address these concerns?

The head of Birds Eye is very concerned and he buys and sells a hell of a lot more fish than your market trader does.

The head of Birds Eye is very concerned, because he uses huge amounts of very specific species of fish.

The wholesale fish merchant is less concerned, because he is far more adaptable.

The issue here is about people worrying they may not get cod and chips and may have to try ling. Whoop-de-******-do!

 

[jimbob]

May I ask why you are so sure you will be economically insulated from the effects of Brexit? Do you still have a job, or are you retired?

You're making at least two assumptions in that question - it's the classic, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" sort of question that assumes A) I have a wife, and B) I have beaten her in the past.

Why do you assume I'll be economically insulated? There are more important things than mere economics in this life.

You also assume (I think from the context of your question) that the economic effects of Brexit will be negative. What if the economic effects of Brexit are positive? Why would I want to be insulated from positive economic effects?

There are more important things than economics, however can you explain what the benefits of Brexit are?

Presumably you don't feel that your income is so much at risk that you'd be significantly poorer, maybe losing your job or house. Why is that? What is your income?

I am employed as an engineer in a multinational corporation with about 50% of my immediate colleagues being immigrants, and until recently, about 40% were from the EU. Now of my immediate colleagues, I've lost three EU citizens back to Europe, all with doctorates. Speaking to friends in the NHS, it's going to be even more of a problem in many departments - and again, I'm talking about highly-qualified individuals.

Economically, additional barriers to trade would make us less competitive, so we'd lose business.

 

[Nessie]

Hmm.

From the looks of it this means a reduction in meat consumption by about 50% and a switch from fried to boiled potatoes. If it didn't come with a collapse in fruit and vegetable intake Brexit might as well be a national diet plan, resulting in improved overall health.

So ... almost an upside for Brexit!

McHrozni

The more I read, the more that is becoming apparent. We will have to eat healthier, have slightly smaller quantities, waste less and use fewer food miles.

 

[Wudang]

This much seems evident. No real negotiations going on, no realistic or any counter proposal put on the table concerning the backstop. Johnson and his government are then purposefully aiming for a no-deal on the 31st of October. I can't fathom why, but that seems to be an undeniable fact now.

You're looking for rational reasons for an irrational policy (or set of policies). It's cargo-cult economics from people who think the world should work they dream it does.

 

[erwinl]

None of our family cars, nor the motorbike have such a numberplate. Most of the UK registered cars I saw in ROI did not. None of the cars/bikes I have taken to the ROI have had such a number plate.

I think this is another non issue.

In that case, I do think you will have to have a land code sticker on your car, when going abroad with said car. Shame, because having it on the number plate really saves on ugly stickers on the car itself.
edit: Provided there is a no-deal exit, which is what the UK seems to prefer at this time.

 

[Vixen]

Processed foods are the staple diet of the vast majority of ordinary people I would say.

We eat more than a million fish fingers every day. All cod, haddock or other white fish. None of this is caught in UK waters because UK cod and haddock stocks are protected due to them being hugely depleted. But equally they are about the only fish most Brits eat. Birds Eye is the market leader and make them in Germany and then import the frozen fish fingers. They are looking at a 20% tariff once the initial port chaos calms down. nobody really knows if and when and for how long imports will be affected.

We sell about 200 million portions of good old fish and chips every year. Again almost all cod haddock or other white fish. Half of the market is small independent fish and chip shops. How long would they last without cod and haddock imports? Can they go a month without sales of fish?

Maybe we can all just eat good old british sausages instead? Except 2 thirds of all pork product are imported from the EU.

Roast beef? 35% imported.

Lamb? A third imported.

Ah well at least we can eat chips right? We have potatoes! Well...nope because we are self-sufficient in potatoes but import most of the processed potato products like frozen chips that people actually use. Nobody makes their own chips anymore.

Fruit and veg? F'ed.

Chicken? We make about 60% of what we eat by weight but we have a problem because Brits only like to eat breast meat so we end up exporting the dark meat and importing the white meat meaning that it's actually a lot more than 40% of a shortfall.

Oh and what do you do with the chickens? If the ports are f'ed? You can't export them. You can't let them live for welfare reasons and there isn't enough cold storage capacity so you will need to slaughter them and incinerate them. But there isn't enough incineration capacity to do the job in the UK so you will have chicken meat rotting somewhere. God knows what problems that will cause.

Has all of this been considered and mitigated by the Government who are desperate to make it happen? Would you trust BJ to have this under control?

A large cod and chips from Poppy's was my farewell meal to England and it was incredibly delicious.