Cont: Brexit: Now What? Part 6. Pick up sticks...

[Lothian]

I am very strongly for European Union, but I abhor the EU. It's a bloated undemocratic gravy train that badly needs serious reform.

I hear this quite a bit. Last time I checked the percentage of the EU budget spent on admin was half the percentage the UK government spent.

 

[quadraginta]

Taking back control it totally worth ending all those pesky exports. British goods for british people! That is the whole problem, you think that british people should engage in some activity as lowly as trade! That is for the little people after all.

A nation of shopkeepers?

 

[Wudang]

I am very strongly for European Union, but I abhor the EU. It's a bloated undemocratic gravy train that badly needs serious reform..

Well maybe we could fix that by changing things so we had elected Members of the European Parliament ... oh wait.

 

[Parsman]

A nation of shopkeepers?

Keepers of empty shops. And a lot of high streets in the UK have got a head start on that.

 

[Vixen]

The company I work for recently had a potential new customer in Italy cancel their order (cleaning products) because we're a US company with no physical presence in the EU. As the importer of a product manufactured outside the EU, the customer would have been responsible for ensuring that any hazardous chemicals they were bringing into the EU in excess of 1 tonne per year were properly registered under REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). As far as I know, the status of the UK with regards to REACH and other European Chemical Agency regulations is still up in the air, so there could be a significant impact on the chemical industry in the UK.

Those are other things, little discussed. As much as we deride EU-regulations - bent banana ban, jaffa: cake or biscuit?; hot food takeaway VAT-ed, cold food not; etcetera, they do serve to protect us against baddies.

For example, the EU banned certain allergens and carcinogens in perfumes (as a perfume lover, allergic and asthmatic, this is great news for me); it has largely resricted the use of trans-fats (carcinogenic) in foods, etc. and limited genetically modified foods.

So, the UK leaves the EU and its regulations. We strike up a trade deal with the USA...and find ourselves flooded with GMO foods (for example, corn) and trans-fats, which are not restricted there.

 

[Lothian]

Those are other things, little discussed. As much as we deride EU-regulations - bent banana ban, jaffa: cake or biscuit?; hot food takeaway VAT-ed, cold food not; etcetera, they do serve to protect us against baddies.

I think the bent banana thing was more a Newspaper headline to deaminase the EU rather than a real story. My bananas haven't changed.
Jaffa Cakes and takeaway food had nothing to do with the EU they were purely domestic matters.

 

[3point14]

I think the bent banana thing was more a Newspaper headline to deaminase the EU rather than a real story. My bananas haven't changed.
Jaffa Cakes and takeaway food had nothing to do with the EU they were purely domestic matters.

Pretty much all of the 'Mad European legislation' stories have been proved to be utter bunk.

The majority of them appear in the Daily Mail, a publication so unconcerned about accuracy that it is not actually accepted as a site anymore by Wikipedia.

 

[Pixel42]

There was a "guide to the 10 best euromyths" article on the BBC news website during the referendum campaign, according to which the EU have not only banned bent bananas they've also banned straight ones, and stopped British barmaids from showing their cleavage. All the stories are, of course, 100% ********.

The article quoted the actual EU regulations about fruit, which must be "free from disease and malformation", i.e. healthy. Obviously two scumbag tabloid journalists read it, and thought "how can I wilfully mispresent this in order to make is seem unreasonable?". One decided to pretend that bent bananas were malformed and the other that straight ones were, which is why we got two versions of this particular bit of nonsense.

 

[ohms]

The Attorney General's advice is starting to appear online and it doesn't make pretty reading for the government.

https://twitter.com/ShadowBrexit/status/1070283336684355584

 

[zooterkin]

Of all the options currently on the table, Mays Brexit deal (which is worse than what we have now) and a hard Brexit then I think the hard Brexit is the best option.

That's only two of the options, remain is still on the table, explicitly mentioned by the PM.

I think the bent banana thing was more a Newspaper headline to deaminase the EU rather than a real story. My bananas haven't changed.
Jaffa Cakes and takeaway food had nothing to do with the EU they were purely domestic matters.

Don't go confusing things with facts.

Pretty much all of the 'Mad European legislation' stories have been proved to be utter bunk.

The majority of them appear in the Daily Mail, a publication so unconcerned about accuracy that it is not actually accepted as a site anymore by Wikipedia.

Cite?

 

[Mojo]

I think the bent banana thing was more a Newspaper headline to deaminase the EU rather than a real story. My bananas haven't changed.
Jaffa Cakes and takeaway food had nothing to do with the EU they were purely domestic matters.

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

 

[BobTheCoward]

Now, the legal advice....there was never a summary released? That was proposed as an option and rejected? So all the MPs acting like they did a great thing because they found X statement in the full release don't actually know if the summary would have exuded that?

 

[Lothian]

The Attorney General's advice is starting to appear online and it doesn't make pretty reading for the government.

https://twitter.com/ShadowBrexit/status/1070283336684355584

There is a lot of talk about the EU locking us in by not agreeing a new deal. I think this ignores the real problem. Unless we give up on a stated aim there is no possible deal we can put to the EU that respects how international trade and borders work.

A new deal will be either, the UK free to strike new trade deals but have a hard border in Ireland or have an open border with Ireland but locked into the EU. There is currently no other alternative that would work and allow the sides to collect their dues from imports and exports and to protect their own businesses.

It is not a case of the nasty EU locking us in, it will be the UK can not devise a deal that allows both, making our own deals and keeping the border open. It doesn't need intransigence from the EU, there is simply no current technological solution that gives us what we want.

 

[Information Analyst]

I already have had a mental image of some British holiday makers in a hotel in Germany, where the eccentric hotel manager tells his staff "don't mention Brexit! I did, but I think I got away with it".

Fehlerhafte Türme - they'll only make 12 episodes, but each one will be a masterpiece...

 

[Information Analyst]

The Government has been found to be in contempt of Parliament. Just let that sentence sink in for a minute.

Even Thatcher never managed that.

 

[Information Analyst]

There was a "guide to the 10 best euromyths" article on the BBC news website during the referendum campaign, according to which the EU have not only banned bent bananas they've also banned straight ones, and stopped British barmaids from showing their cleavage. All the stories are, of course, 100% ********.

The article quoted the actual EU regulations about fruit, which must be "free from disease and malformation", i.e. healthy. Obviously two scumbag tabloid journalists read it, and thought "how can I wilfully mispresent this in order to make is seem unreasonable?". One decided to pretend that bent bananas were malformed and the other that straight ones were, which is why we got two versions of this particular bit of nonsense.

There was also the "single bananas are banned" nonsense.

 

[Darat]

Pretty much all of the 'Mad European legislation' stories have been proved to be utter bunk.

The majority of them appear in the Daily Mail, a publication so unconcerned about accuracy that it is not actually accepted as a site anymore by Wikipedia.

Lots of the more recent ones were lies concocted by Johnson.

 

[Darat]

There was a "guide to the 10 best euromyths" article on the BBC news website during the referendum campaign, according to which the EU have not only banned bent bananas they've also banned straight ones, and stopped British barmaids from showing their cleavage. All the stories are, of course, 100% ********.

The article quoted the actual EU regulations about fruit, which must be "free from disease and malformation", i.e. healthy. Obviously two scumbag tabloid journalists read it, and thought "how can I wilfully mispresent this in order to make is seem unreasonable?". One decided to pretend that bent bananas were malformed and the other that straight ones were, which is why we got two versions of this particular bit of nonsense.

Most of the complaints about regulations are about regulations that make trade easier. So I can ring up a supplier anywhere in the EU and say I want a thousand kilos of “class 2“ of product X and there is no issue about what I am ordering, we both know what “class 2“ means. I don't have to send them my specifications, they don't need to check if they can deliver that specification, we can use standard shipping crates and so on.

 

[wobs]

Lots of the more recent ones were lies concocted by Johnson.

You mean like Turkey joining the EU? Oh, wait....

"Boris Johnson has announced that Britain will support Turkey's bid to join the EU despite putting warnings about the prospect at the heart of the Brexit campaign in the run up to the referendum."

Difficult to know where to start with this one.

 

[Darat]

That's only two of the options, remain is still on the table, explicitly mentioned by the PM.


Don't go confusing things with facts.

Cite?

I disagree, if we are to have another referendum all it should be is whether we go with May's deal or a no deal exit.