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  • A brilliant assessment in Politics.Co.UK.

    Brexit: The Never Ending Story

    This is the evaluation of the deal that goes way beyond the mere nuts and bolts of who-got-what and looks at the deeper significance of the mechanics of Brexit itself, and how the future is likely to shape up.

    Brexit........ the process...... is not over and never will be. It is going to keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back. Why..? Because Britain has painted itself into a corner that it can't get out of.

    It's the messy divorce where the parted couple can't live with each other, and can't live without each other.

    Britain might want to diverge completely, but business won't let them. The EU is, and always will be our biggest market because even Boris Johnson can't alter the geography and geology of the continent. We are where we are and continental drift will take umpteen million years to shift it.

    OB argued that in five years time, the deal on fishing is up and Britain will be able to fish as much as it likes. But that is only PARTLY true.

    snip:


    Legally, Britain’s position was completely sound. But it had a problem with leverage. Britain does not eat its own fish – 80% of what it catches goes to the EU. So if the UK refused to play ball, the EU would simply apply the tariffs on fish, which are very high, and make the sector unprofitable. You could catch all the fish you want, you just couldn’t sell them................

    ..................Boris Johnson claimed that after the five and a half year adjustment period is over, Britain could catch “all the fish that it wants”. In fact, this is incorrect. The deal clearly suggests that after this period the quota will stay at the point of the initial reduction. Of course, the UK can close its waters if it wants to, but tariffs will go up.

    This dynamic is very similar to the one experienced by countries like Norway in the EEA agreement. They technically have a way of vetoing European law. It’s called Article 102 – the ‘right of reservation’. Norway even came pretty close to using it over the Postal Services Directive. But if they did it, it would neutralise that whole part of the agreement. So they never do, because the consequences are too dire.

    This is the great advantage the EU has. It is an advantage of size, but also of solidarity. The UK can’t pick countries off and sell the fish to one of them if tariffs go up with another. The tariffs are the same for all. This is what gives the EU its strength. It’s why the UK mostly capitulated. And it’s why the dynamic is likely to remain the same in future. After all, this is the most messianically pro-Brexit government we’re likely to see. If they didn’t take no-deal in the face of EU leverage, how likely is it that a future one will?

    There is ultimately no closure here. We are going to see the same dynamic in future that we have witnessed over the last four years: constant talking and bickering, with the UK facing the reality of EU leverage.


    Throughout the whole assessment, one thing comes back to me time and again....... All the time we have these constant rounds of negotiating, haggling, bickering for a little bit here and a little bit there.... going round and round in circles.... British business and the British people are going to get bloody fed up with it. And the message that Brexit is never over and actually, we will never be completely independent of Europe being relentlessly pumped by people like me (and we are not going to stop).... then it will become increasingly obvious that Brexit has failed to achieve the one thing it has always said it was all about: Complete independence. You know.... this "sovereignty" thing.

    And that, for rejoiners, is also leverage of a kind.

    snip:

    So structurally, economically and politically, the winds blow in the direction of integration. It’s not conspiracy or magic; it’s just that people trade most with places that are close and big. And when they trade, they want less friction. Brexit has done many shocking things, but it cannot negate the objective reality of geography or trade flows., for

    Even in the moment of Brexit’s triumph, it carries the seeds of its own failure.

  • A new era has begun for the United Kingdom after it completed its formal separation from the European Union.

    The UK stopped following EU rules at 23:00 GMT, as replacement arrangements for travel, trade, immigration and security co-operation came into force.

    With Parliament rubber stamping the deal yesterday, we have now properly left the EU! Finally!^^

    Happy New Year all.8)

  • It is indeed a happy new year, and finally democracy has prevailed, those that feel they cant accept the UK not being in the EU are quite welcome to go and live in a country that is still in the EU, better they do that than make a nuisance of themselves bleating and moaning and wishing failiure and negativity on everybody else.

  • Woohooo no more remain remoan, brexit, stay, leave, tic-tac-toe back and forth arguments. Can we get back to left and right now LOL

    If only, but Brexit isn't done quite yet Norra, not by a long shot.

    What was agreed on Christmas Eve was a deal on essentially tariff free goods between the UK and EU, but as the bulk of economy is financial services, this has yet to be agreed on. Lot's more Brexit to come in 2021!...

  • Your joking. I thought that was the end the final straw hung drawn and quartered out the EU and they no longer have a say. Why did we have all the fireworks then. What a complete joke so we have put up with more years of crap brexit arguments. Maybe we can have a new law made then that makes those that try to hinder the exit a terrorist act or at least treason and enforce it.

  • Your joking. I thought that was the end the final straw hung drawn and quartered out the EU and they no longer have a say. Why did we have all the fireworks then. What a complete joke so we have put up with more years of crap brexit arguments. Maybe we can have a new law made then that makes those that try to hinder the exit a terrorist act or at least treason and enforce it.

    The trade agreement is about goods, not services. However, now that is out of the way and we have our country back, hopefully the talks on services can be carried out more privately and without the constant media hype.

  • I love this.......

    The trade agreement is about goods, not services. However, now that is out of the way and we have our country back, hopefully the talks on services can be carried out more privately and without the constant media hype.

    EU Share Trading Flees London On First Full Working Day Of Brexit

    Despite your boundless Pollyanna like enthusiasm for bigging Brexit up at every opportunity, the experience in the real world is somewhat different to your rose-tinted spectacles view.:

    Snip:

    London’s financial sector started to feel the full effects of Brexit on the first trading day of 2021 as nearly €6bn of EU share dealing shifted away from the City to facilities in European capitals.

    Trading in equities such as Santander, Deutsche Bank and Total moved to EU marketplaces or back to primary exchanges such as the Madrid, Frankfurt and Paris bourses, according to data from Refinitiv — an abrupt change for investors in London who have grown accustomed to trading shares in Europe across borders without restrictions.

    Brexit has lost Britain 6 billion Euros of business, in one sector, in one day. Well, that's "prospering mightily" if ever I saw it.

    Further snip:

    “It’s been an extraordinary day. Shifting liquidity is one of the hardest things to do. It’s not ‘Big Bang’ — it’s ‘Bang and It’s Gone’. The City has lost its European share business,” said Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of Aquis Exchange.


    Note those words........ "Bang, and it's gone". Now that the EU has grabbed a big chunk of Britain's financial services sector....... with more likely to follow....... there is no incentive for them to loosen their tightening grip on the sector. Britain has nothing left to offer that Europe wants enough to part with what they're taking now.

    "Bang and it's gone." The City of London has LOST it's European share business. Major countries in other blocs are likely to follow the EU's lead with relation to European business. They're not going to saddle themselves to a Britain that has no influence, expertise or clients on the continent, when they can deal with Paris or Frankfurt and trade on the much richer pickings of European business.

    Feel free to try to spin this. The people in our group who look out for things like this will share the next indication of weakening British influence when it arises, for the rest of us to disseminate more widely. I'll be sure to let you know when it happens.

    I look forward to debunking your next attempt at turning a sows ear into a silk purse. I doubt I'll have to work hard to do it.

  • Woohooo no more remain remoan, brexit, stay, leave, tic-tac-toe back and forth arguments. Can we get back to left and right now LOL

    You're quite right. Norra........ No more "Remain" . That's dead and buried. By all means argue left vs right. I'd be interested to read what you have to say.

    However........................

    The Brexit fight now moves on to "Rejoin". I've posted plenty on that in other places on this site. If you want to get depressed, read some of it. Rejoin is a very real programme, with a growing, determined membership. And we're in it for the long haul.

    Brexit isn't over by a long way. It isn't over by a VERY long way.

  • Australia Rejects UK Trade Deal

    "First blow for post-Brexit Britain". Any hope of a post-Brexit flurry of trade deals* has been thwarted as Australia has denied British requests for freedom of movement arrangements.

    Last year, New Zealand made a similar rejection..... which wasn't widely reported in the tory tabloid press...... as I suspect Australia's won't be either.

    Quite where this leaves trade negotiations between the two countries is anybody's guess.


    Australia Seems A Lot Closer To Having an FTA with the EU Though.

    Negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between Aussie and EU are already 18 months along and the language between them seems much "warmer" and receptive to an agreement.


    *And let's not have any nonsense about already having signed 60 "trade deals". We all know they are just rollovers that maintain arrangements that Britain enjoyed as EU members while trade deal negotiations take place.

  • UK Faces A Trade Boycott After Brexit VAT Change

    Yeah.... yet ANOTHER example of the fustercluck that is Brexit..... you know.... that thing that we're supposed to 'prosper mightily' from.... having a deleterious effect on trade between Britain and somewhere else.

    This time, it's businesses all over Europe and USA deciding to stop trading with Britain because of one of those godawful ideas by you-know-who to make businesses all over the world register with HM Revenue and Customs and collect VAT before sending the goods.

    A heck of a lot of businesses including a bicycle saddle maker actually IN THE UK (Smethwick in the midlands to be precise) deciding to not sell to British customers any more.

    Brooks England To Suspend Trading With British Customers Due To Brexit Bureaucracy

    If it wasn't so stupidly ironic it would be funny.

    Wasn't Brexit supposed to do away with "red tape and bureaucracy"....? Instead, our traders are staring down the barrel of 5 or 6 million + additional customs declarations forms that we didn't have to complete before, at God only knows what cost (to be passed on to the customer, natch).

    The litany of Brexit balls-ups and failures is growing by the day.

    I think we should rejoin the EU. Once we were back in, all these difficulties would just disappear overnight.

  • I said that in jest really. I have no left or right and am just bored of hearing about Breixit TBH.

    I'm sorry if you're bored by it all, but it's not going to go away. If you voted for it, then you brought this on yourself. You didn't seriously think the 48% who voted to remain were just going to lie down and take being cast aside with no consideration whatsoever, did you..?

    Did you really think the Scots would just say "Oh well, that's democracy" and let the Tories trample all over them..?

    If there had been some sort of halfway meeting of minds to reflect the very narrow majority in the vote.... say.... Britain staying in the Customs Union and Single Market... Erasmus.... by agreeing to Freedom of Movement and the Level Playing Field, then that would have been enough for almost everybody and we wouldn't be going through all this now.

    But no. Brexit had to "mean Brexit" and it became winner take all and to hell with what the 16 million+ people who voted against it cared about.

    51.89% played 48.11%....... A difference of just 3.78% but extreme Brexit took 100% of the control. Not fair, not reasonable and a million bloody miles away from democratic.

    That's why rejoiners like me are now finding it possible to recruit those who are seriously considering how we are going to get our way back to the EU. They're listening to us. We're getting OUR message across now.

    This will drag on for as long as it takes. It's not going to go away, Norra. Not now, not tomorrow.... not ever.

  • You may have missed the bit that stated (my highlighting):

    A Defra spokesperson said:“Emergency authorisations for pesticides are only granted in exceptional circumstances where diseases or pests cannot be controlled by any other reasonable means. Emergency authorisations are used by countries across Europe.

    “Pesticides can only be used where we judge there to be no harm to human health and animal health and no unacceptable risks to the environment. The temporary use of this product is strictly limited to a non-flowering crop and will be tightly controlled to minimise any potential risk to pollinators.”

  • Its a pesticide that kills bees

    Yes I know, it's also a systemic one that gets into the sap of the plant. The seed is treated before planting so there's no surface contamination that bees could come into contact with. The specific crop is sugar beet which does not flower.

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