Brexit Penny Dropping?

[manxman1980]

5 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

“It is less costly for a supplier to supply to the Netherlands and other countries in the northern part, because they don't have these 25 miles of the English Channel to negotiate because that adds a cost,” said Chris White of Fruit Net. 

The Netherlands are also in this thing called the Common Market which means transportation of goods across national borders is simpler and less expensive. 

The UK left that Common Market and is now a third party and less of a priority for producers in the Common Market. 

[The Voice of Reason]

5 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

The Netherlands are also in this thing called the Common Market which means transportation of goods across national borders is simpler and less expensive. 

The UK left that Common Market and is now a third party and less of a priority for producers in the Common Market. 

It’s called geography.

If you have a limited supply of goods, all of which you know you can sell, it makes sense to sell them where it costs you less to get them to. ( It’s also called economics)

But let’s not facts get in the way of Brexit bashing shall we?

[manxman1980]

39 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

It’s called geography.

If you have a limited supply of goods, all of which you know you can sell, it makes sense to sell them where it costs you less to get them to. ( It’s also called economics)

But let’s not facts get in the way of Brexit bashing shall we?

Yes, but Ireland and Northern Ireland don't have a shortage...

[woolley]

50 minutes ago, manxman1980 said:

Yes, but Ireland and Northern Ireland don't have a shortage...

Er...... https://www.irishexaminer.com/food/arid-41079614.html

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/tomato-shortage-could-last-until-may-due-to-high-energy-costs-irish-shoppers-warned-42358919.html

Just because you chaps want this to be due to Brexit, and no matter how many times you repeat the misinformation, it simply isn't true.

Edited February 27, 2023 by woolley

[P.K.]

So now you can explain how there are no shortages in NI...

[woolley]

10 minutes ago, P.K. said:

So now you can explain how there are no shortages in NI...

There are. And in Ireland too. Ireland is in the EU. Can you explain why people keep claiming there are shortages only in Britain? It's a campaign of disinformation.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=147111938219589

Edited February 27, 2023 by woolley

[manxman1980]

6 hours ago, woolley said:

There are. And in Ireland too. Ireland is in the EU. Can you explain why people keep claiming there are shortages only in Britain? It's a campaign of disinformation.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=147111938219589

In which case I stand corrected.  Everything I had seen and heard had suggested no issues in NI or Ireland. 

 

[manxman1980]

@woolley

While you are in the mood for actually discussing Beexit perhaps you could explain to me why we needed a deal on Northern Ireland yesterday? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11800327/How-new-Brexit-deal-attempts-fix-problems-Northern-Ireland.html

I thought that Johnson had already "got Brexit done" with his "oven ready" deal...

Why several years after Brexit have Brexiteers been arguing over this?

[P.K.]

2 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

@woolley

While you are in the mood for actually discussing Beexit perhaps you could explain to me why we needed a deal on Northern Ireland yesterday? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11800327/How-new-Brexit-deal-attempts-fix-problems-Northern-Ireland.html

I thought that Johnson had already "got Brexit done" with his "oven ready" deal...

Why several years after Brexit have Brexiteers been arguing over this?

This was all about the oven ready deal that was anything but put out to fool the hard of thinking. They had to find some middle ground to get it past intellectual colossus Mark Francois and his blinkered brexit morons of the ERG and get the DUP with their stone age ideals back into Stormont.

If it works then fair play. Not that the folks in NI thought their situation was anything other than ok. Apart from the lack of government that is...

Edited February 28, 2023 by P.K.

[P.K.]

Now back to the map and a cautionary tale about Morocco:

In January 2021, a continuity agreement between UK and Morocco came into force, replacing the EU-Morocco agreement we had just binned off. Even though pretty much identical as the deal we had under the EU umbrella this was lauded by UKGov as an example of how post-Brexit Britain would strike it's own deals and bypass the EU for food security. The view from Maroc

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/02/293590/post-brexit-uk-pledges-to-boost-cooperation-with-morocco

The appalling UK right wing press, which is to say pretty much all of it, had several premature ejaculations over the deal. Claiming it was a major step forward:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1547904/brexit-news-uk-morocco-sea-route-trade

The Downing Street press office went into overdrive claiming that how trade with Morocco had increased dramatically, and that now, 25% of tomatoes consumed in UK originated in Morocco. Helped by a brand new freight ferry service called United Seaways that was 'up-&-running' between Tangiers and Poole, providing a weekly service bypassing the need for trucks to drive through Spain & France.

Of course, like most of brexit it was all cloud cuckoo land they were selling to a gullible public. United Seaways was a shell company based in Gibraltar that had no ships. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. So back to trucking goods through the EU to reach the UK. Business as usual.

Anyway, the lack of EU workers, rising energy bills etc has hit the UK market garden business hard making the UK even more reliant on imports. Bad weather has led to a bit of a shortage in Europe. Particularly in the UK. This is simply because the EU is purchasing from places like Morocco, Tunisia and so on to make up their shortfall.

The bottom line is why should somewhere like Morocco export to the UK with two borders to cross and all the admin, time and extra costs involved with brexit if the EU will buy all their product at a decent price with no hassle. Which means the UK won't get a look in and hasn't. This won't be easy to fix.

Still, brexiteers will no doubt think that not eating foreign food is a brexit benefit...!

Edited February 28, 2023 by P.K.

[Non-Believer]

5 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

@woolley

While you are in the mood for actually discussing Beexit perhaps you could explain to me why we needed a deal on Northern Ireland yesterday? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11800327/How-new-Brexit-deal-attempts-fix-problems-Northern-Ireland.html

I thought that Johnson had already "got Brexit done" with his "oven ready" deal...

Why several years after Brexit have Brexiteers been arguing over this?

I've just been watching Rishi Sunak proudly telling Northern Ireland that they now have huge potential in being able to access the EU markets directly and also attract inward EU investment, "Nobody else can do that".

Let's hope that they do and show Brexit up for the crippling disaster that it is for the rest of the UK.

[genericUserName]

2 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

I've just been watching Rishi Sunak proudly telling Northern Ireland that they now have huge potential in being able to access the EU markets directly and also attract inward EU investment, "Nobody else can do that".

Let's hope that they do and show Brexit up for the crippling disaster that it is for the rest of the UK.

Brexit, like Partition, has failed.

Britain is clearly edging towards de facto and then full membership of the Single Market. Starting with improved relations with the EU. Labour and all sensible Tories want that. Obviously it will take time.

 

[manxman1980]

7 minutes ago, genericUserName said:

 

Britain is clearly edging towards de facto and then full membership of the Single Market.

 

That will require Britain to give up that precious sovereignty though so the Brexit crowd are likely to have a fit.

[woolley]

10 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

@woolley

While you are in the mood for actually discussing Beexit perhaps you could explain to me why we needed a deal on Northern Ireland yesterday? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11800327/How-new-Brexit-deal-attempts-fix-problems-Northern-Ireland.html

I thought that Johnson had already "got Brexit done" with his "oven ready" deal...

Why several years after Brexit have Brexiteers been arguing over this?

I wouldn't say I'm in the mood for discussing it. I left that behind a long time ago because it is the most circular of arguments with extremely entrenched positions that the passage of years doesn't appear to soothe. The fact that some people are still here regularly, and still at it, proves the point. Nowadays then, I usually restrict myself to correcting absolute rubbish as I felt compelled to do last night concerning the food shortages which are due to sustained adverse weather in Southern Europe and North Africa, and inflated energy costs. I don't want ulcers so I keep out of this the rest of the time.

To answer your question though, and since you ask so nicely, Johnson's deal was never the finished article. He signed it in a dash leaving loose ends, and he concealed the fact which has led to it becoming a running sore. I don't think that this was unknown at the time - I certainly knew the shortcomings - but everyone had had enough and just wanted to "get Brexit done".

I don't have a lot of time for Johnson generally. He was never even a genuine supporter of Brexit. Let's face it, anyone who agonises for a whole weekend as BoJo did over whether to support leave or remain is hardly a true believer. We develop deep convictions about weighty matters such as this over decades of experience; or at least we should. He was doing what he always does - opportunistically looking after Boris.

However, in this instance I can see where he was coming from politically. Somebody had to do something to overcome the treachery of the 2017-19 Parliament where Soubry and Co, aided and abetted by Bercow, were employing every trick in the book to frustrate the referendum result. He had to have something to fight the 2019 election with, and this was it. Grudgingly, I have to admit that there was seemingly nobody else on the stage who could deliver what had been voted for. To this extent the end justified the means and his place in history is assured.

How the background developed around the Good Friday Agreement and the undermining of nation states by Brussels over half a century is a whole separate debate that probably won't see the light of day until the EU is consigned to history.

[woolley]

5 hours ago, manxman1980 said:

That will require Britain to give up that precious sovereignty though so the Brexit crowd are likely to have a fit.

I have absolutely no problem with a European free trade zone similar to the Single Market, but it should be run along the lines of NAFTA. There is absolutely no need or desire for the apparatus and trappings of state at continental level, and therefore no risk to sovereignty.