OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[swaledale]

We have the morons saying 'I told you so' less than 3 weeks, yes 3 weeks, into the transition. That's what I call losers grabbing at straws whilst they're still there. Come back with sensible arguments after a sensible period of time.

Let me tell you a story, back in 1985, myself and my wife really stretched ourselves, possibly overstretched ourselves, to buy a detached house in need of a bit of tlc. Friends called us mad and for a couple of years, it was a struggle and we put off starting a family. For those couple of years, we had a few 'I told you so' comments. I look back on that purchase as the best decision we ever made and we wouldn't be in the position that we're in today, if we hadn't made it.

Brexit is another one of those decisions.

And you know this how?

Serious question, name actual factual reasons why Brexit is a good decision.

[swaledale]

Congratulations on your 1985 vision. We had more or less exactly the same experience two years earlier...it wasn’t unusual with property in the early eighties or, on occasions, since...but how do you know ‘Brexit is another of those decisions’ and where is the evidence of anything other than wishful thinking?

Aye and rA for evey body whose gamble paid off, there were a fair few that didn't. It is rather amazing how short term memories are, it might be just worth thinking back to what started the 2008 financial crisis off!

So lets hope that Brexit turns out Ram's way rather than the other eh? I mean what can go wrong gambling the economy and future life chances of a whole country on a vague proposition?

[swaledale]

You know those "small extra admin and small extra costs" you mention so casually? heres a real example for you.


Paul is a director of Leon Paul, based in Hendon, north London, which employs 50 people. It is a niche business, which has been in his family since it was set up in 1921. It designs and manufactures equipment for the Olympic sport of sword fencing. But in many ways it is typical of tens of thousands of small companies that sold some of their goods at home and some abroad, and enjoyed seamless access to the border-free EU market for decades. “Previously the business of sending orders direct to customers in Europe was very straightforward,” he says.

“You put something in a box, sent it off with a courier and it got to the customer in a day or two days without any friction, just like sending something within this country.”

Almost a third of Leon Paul’s £7m annual turnover is to customers in EU countries. On average each order to the EU has been worth about £200. But the European export side of the business is now looking increasingly unsustainable.

We did everything we could to prepare for Brexit and are part of the DTI’s export champion community,” says Paul. But since 1 January, his firm – like other UK exporters – has been hit by three new charges. And four days ago the firm discovered another one that his customers in the EU will have to pay on receiving the goods.

“As far as I can see, currently, companies like ours in the UK are not going to be able to do ‘end sales’ to customers in the EU any more. Particularly, small orders for anything under £100 will be completely impossible,” says Paul.

The new export levies, which he says will amount to £160,000 a year for Leon Paul, are first, a “Brexit charge”, as the couriers are calling it, an export fee of £4.50 for every parcel shipped to the EU to cover costs of extra administration and form filling that couriers must carry out.

Second, there is a “deferment account fee” of £5 per parcel that covers couriers’ costs of pre-paying import charges in the destination country; and third, a “disbursement charge” which is set at different levels in each EU country with a minimum of about €14 per parcel, or calculated as a percentage of the value of the goods, whichever is the higher, plus VAT in the destination country. This covers the costs of the tax authority in the recipient country inspecting and processing the parcels.

For the past fortnight Paul has been trying to work out how to absorb the extra costs. But he is struggling to see an easy way.

“Jobs lost will be lost here,” he says. “That is the reality. All of these fees will come straight off profit margins.

[Ram59]

Congratulations on your 1985 vision. We had more or less exactly the same experience two years earlier...it wasn’t unusual with property in the early eighties or, on occasions, since...but how do you know ‘Brexit is another of those decisions’ and where is the evidence of anything other than wishful thinking?

The point is that I don't know, just like you don't know that it's wrong. What I'm trying to say is that it's absolute rubbish after 3 weeks to say problems now, prove brexit to be wrong. Just like my friends who told us 6 months after we bought the house, that we were wrong, although they were correct in saying that at the time, we were suffering an adverse affect on our lifestyle.

[Andy_Faber]

You know those "small extra admin and small extra costs" you mention so casually? heres a real example for you.

Yes I am part of the 'horsey' world' through my youngest daughter and have made use of the skills acquired in my former profession (I was an accountant, so of course I'm skilled in everything) to help a couple of her professional (ie they make a living out of it) friends work through import/export issues in the past, mainly to the middle east and America. It appears EU import/export will be roughly the - just a cost of doing what they love doing to these folk, tbh at the mo they have more of an issue with the cost of winter feed. OK?

[Trickytreesreds]

- nicked

The Company behind the fake lorries in London today - is a major donor to the SNP and also a major recipient of U.K. subsidies for the fishing industry except they actually don’t do any fishing - they are wholesalers - so why they have bought fish and shell fish from the fishermen that they cannot export is a bit of an Agatha Christie type mystery - or perhaps not as DR Collins were one of the major players in purchasing our fishermen’s quotas over the past 25 years so perhaps they have to buy the quotas from them - the CEO of DR Collins - James Cook - is a good friend of Ian Blackford and Nicola Sturgeon who both regularly enjoy summer holidays at his large Caribbean estate - I knew I could smell a rat somewhere along the line

Of course the SNP would never stoop so low, I'm sure. They only have the nation at heart.

[swaledale]

Yes I am part of the 'horsey' world' through my youngest daughter and have made use of the skills acquired in my former profession (I was an accountant, so of course I'm skilled in everything) to help a couple of her professional (ie they make a living out of it) friends work through import/export issues in the past, mainly to the middle east and America. It appears EU import/export will be roughly the - just a cost of doing what they love doing to these folk, tbh at the mo they have more of an issue with the cost of winter feed. OK?

Yes but as the example above shows and I've both personally seen others and read of other examples where experienced businessmen who export and prepared for everything, have found the circumstances to be completely different to that expected, along with a lot of other little charges etc popping up. Now if you export outside the EU, its not an issue, but if your trade is with the Eu then there is the buggeration factor a the moment and the continual additional costs and admin which hold sway going forward that will threaten the viability of many.

[Trickytreesreds]

Terrible.

https://news.sky.com/story/nissan-boss-says-brexit-is-positive-and-claims-new-trade-deal-gives-carmaker-a-competitive-advantage-12194667

[MadAmster]

So. Tariff free but not extra documentation (and therefore cost-) free.

All Gupta is saying is that having a deal is better than no deal at all. Something they can handle. He's not saying it's great or an improvement on how things were but it's it's way better than a nod eal wud have been.

I may be wrong but "things not being as bad as they might have been" doesn't feel like a win.

[Trickytreesreds]

So. Tariff free but not extra documentation (and therefore cost-) free.

All Gupta is saying is that having a deal is better than no deal at all. Something they can handle. He's not saying it's great or an improvement on how things were but it's it's way better than a nod eal wud have been.

I may be wrong but "things not being as bad as they might have been" doesn't feel like a win.

I read some thing funny yesterday Maddy. It was from a hauler, who was complaining he has to fill in a 10 page document for every different item he hauls, He sends things to Hong Kong as well but that only requires a 2 page document?We have had Dutch and French border officials confiscating ham and cheese sandwiches from truckers?
You see the pettyness of this is mainly from one side.
So be it. The resolve will get harder.

They never seem to learn. Already we have MP's saying that the fishing rules in 5 years will change drastically. The EU will get less than ever as a result. One thing already done, which has got the Spanish crying, is the downgrading of EU officials to not having full diplomatic immunity
The EU is an entity not a country.
This upsets the Spanish accusing us being petty. Coming from a country regularly violating Gibraltan waters and being cockbadgers on the border is actually quite funny.

[swaledale]

What a relief it is not to have to read Thicky's hogwash! Ignore is a wonderful thing! You can't argue with a dumb mind so I won't.

In Brexit news the government seems to be sinking even lower and to what end? Pissing off your biggest and closet trading partner seems unwise and counter productive.

in a row that has been rumbling for a year alongside Brexit trade talks, the government is refusing to give full diplomatic status to the EU’s ambassador to the UK, João Vale de Almeida and his 25-strong mission. The Foreign Office claims it does not want to set a precedent by treating an international body in the same way it treats a nation state, with diplomats afforded the privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention.

Which is total *******s because Britain has ambassadors to any number of international organisations from the OECD to the World Trade Organization, and expects them to have full diplomatic status – not paying local taxes, the CD number plate, and other assorted rights. The UK insists its head of delegation to the World Bank and the IMF also have ambassadorial status.

Our man in Brussels, Sir Tim Barrow, was previously UK ambassador in Moscow, and he is unlikely to take kindly to having his own status downgraded, which is the obvious reciprocal action the EU can take if No 10 insists on this childish, petulant decision to refuse the normal diplomatic status that [U]142 countries around the world grant to EU delegations.

In 2018, the Trump administration did something similar, at time when the US president was denouncing the EU as a “foe”. A year later the decision was reversed, perhaps Trump’s then ambassador to the EU, former hotelier Gordon Sondland, was concerned he would have lost all his rights and privileges in exchange.

Britain’s rupture with Europe has many fallouts. The loss of collegial and cooperative work with member states’ ambassadors as well as with the EU overseas missions can only weaken the Foreign Office and the quality of information that flows into the red box of the prime minister and others who receive diplomatic cables.

More importantly it shows a complete lack of class! How much more damage can our mini Trump do to the Uk's reputation?

[swaledale]

The Johnson government has negotiated an excellent deal on trade in goods – excellent for the EU, that is. German cars can continue to flow into Britain, along with other manufactured goods, in which the EU has a trade surplus with the UK. For the 80% of the British economy which is services, almost everything still remains to be agreed. That includes financial services, which make up close to 10% of British exports. Some €6bn (£5.3bn) worth of European trades left the London Stock Exchange for markets inside the EU on the first day of trading this year. Le Figaro ironically called this a “Big Bang”. (Now what is the French for schadenfreude?)

An excellent report written by trade expert David Henig for the advocacy group Best for Britain argues that the Johnson deal is only “a framework for future cooperation”. He goes on to identify a long list of areas where it would be in Britain’s longer-term economic interest to secure further agreements. Many of these, such as a finding of “equivalence” for Britain’s financial services, are in the unilateral gift of the EU – and some can be withdrawn at will, as the Swiss have found out. The asymmetry of power between the two sides is now more acute than ever.

And all for what? If “sovereignty” means a state’s formal legal authority to make its own laws, adjudicated by its own courts, then the UK has gained some more sovereignty. If “sovereignty” means the effective power of a state to control its own destiny and advance its national interests, then the UK has lost sovereignty.

[MadAmster]

Already we have MP's saying that the fishing rules in 5 years will change drastically. The EU will get less than ever as a result. One thing already done, which has got the Spanish crying, is the downgrading of EU officials to not having full diplomatic immunity
.

Yes, they will get less. It's part and parcel of the deal they just signed and they understand that. What won't change in 5 years is the seemingly endless number of forms to be filled in and that is not going to help UK/Scots fishermen one iota.

Less documents needed for Hong Kong than for the EU? That's probably down to the content of the deal signed with the Chinese a few years back. It's also irrelevant. What is relevant is, and I don't know the answer to this, both the UK and Canada have very recent deals with the EU, how many forms would a UK company have to fill in to export 100 tons of grain to the EU and is that the same number as a Canadian company would have to fill in for 100 tons of grain? If so then the UK is being treated the same as any other 3rd (ie. non-EU) country. If we have to fill more in then BoJo has right royally screwed up.

[AdiSalisbury]

I read some thing funny yesterday Maddy. It was from a hauler, who was complaining he has to fill in a 10 page document for every different item he hauls, He sends things to Hong Kong as well but that only requires a 2 page document?We have had Dutch and French border officials confiscating ham and cheese sandwiches from truckers?
You see the pettyness of this is mainly from one side.
So be it. The resolve will get harder.

They never seem to learn. Already we have MP's saying that the fishing rules in 5 years will change drastically. The EU will get less than ever as a result. One thing already done, which has got the Spanish crying, is the downgrading of EU officials to not having full diplomatic immunity
The EU is an entity not a country.
This upsets the Spanish accusing us being petty. Coming from a country regularly violating Gibraltan waters and being cockbadgers on the border is actually quite funny.

Quoted just so Swale has to read what the "dumb mind" wrote.

[Trickytreesreds]

Quoted just so Swale has to read what the "dumb mind" wrote.

Adi, he read it. You know he did.
He's an habitual bull****ter and con merchant. He's fooling no one anymore. He even threw in the obligatory insult.
Keyboard child.