Most liked posts in thread: Brexit

I work in supply chain, I hope I do really...

 

Something ironic about you saying you can be grown up after the way you've posted in this thread. Some of the shortages we are seeing, whether directly effected by it or not all stem from China.

It's the manufacturing hub of the world, at the start of this year a prolonged closure with the Chinese new year and then add in the factory closures because of the lockdown China was essentially closed down for circa a month. Most of the factories are back at work now, but even still are only running at about 50% capacity in my industry and are obviously facing back logs because of the down time.

Exchange rates have a huge factor too, we were at about 1.31 USD to the pound last week, as of this morning it had dropped to 1.22USD. The market is very volatile, particularly in my industry there is a lot of gambling, because my products are commodity it is almost like gambling on currency trading.

The reality is WTO rules or not, do you see shortage on shelves of countries that adopt these trade rules? No. In a Brexit scenario major superstores like your Asda, Tescos etc can work with the supply chain to make sure they forward buy stock to cover extra demand and make sure stock is here to service stores again. The supply chain just hasn't had any time to plan around this as it has come on so quickly.


To reiterate comparing the shortages we are seeing now to a Brexit scenario is stupidity even when looking at it from a neutral point of view.

 

Write out 1000 times and present to me before you go home...

 

Are you telling me that controlling borders , controlling laws, sovereignty, being able to strike our own trade deals (control) and breaking free of the EU so we can make our own decisions (more control) were not major factors in leaving the EU?

I disagree that Brexit voters are not at fault for Brexit. What could Theresa May have done differently? How for example would she be able to control our borders without leaving the largest free-trading single market on the planet? It turns out that contrary to the myth before the vote, you can't. How would we strike trade deals which are just as lucrative as the ones we have now (or better as some were telling us prior to leaving) when we are going to go from having a pull power/overall market of over 500M customers to 65M? What can she do about the decrease in the number of EU doctors coming here and businesses announcing a decrease in investment due to the Brexit vote? Jaguar for example have announced that 80M worth of investment over the next 5 years is in jeopardy because of Brexit. The only viable solution to this is staying in the customs union and if we stay in the customers Union, we can't deliver 'the will of the people'. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. The list goes on and on and on.

It's easy to blame others, but I've yet to see a viable solution given from a single Brexit voter which would make Brexit better and help solve issues such as some of the above. Even the people in charge don't have a clue and contrary to popular belief, most of them are far more intelligent than your average Joe and I include myself in that bracket. When you vote for the unknown and it doesn't go to plan, you've got to take responsibility for it.

It is also worth remembering that all of these questions have an answer if you go with the theory of the EU needing us more than we need them. Meanwhile in the real world...

 

The only thing about voting for Brexit I could possibly understand, is the protest vote, totally understandable...What I don’t understand, and probably never will, is the worship of utter cünts like Farage, Rees-Mogg, Johnson, Redwood etc..Huge swathes of decent, hard working men and women, totally persuaded that these demagogues are speaking for them.... I mean, Rees-Mogg FFS! What a Tw@t.

 

I guess that I am the only present or past European civil servant writing on this board.

I worked for the European Commission for 31 years, starting in the salaries department, moving on to desk officer for the European Social Fund in UK and Ireland, international trade relations in agriculture and, finally, in information and communication in agriculture.

This means I know a little bit about the workings of the European Institutions, in particular the Commission and the UK’s management of EU funds. Maybe I could lend a bit of insight to dispel some of the arguments that are based on vague general impressions or misleading disinformation from certain sections of the UK popular press.

When I was a desk officer for the European Social Fund, I attended monitoring committees the length and breadth of the UK, where central government, local government, NGOs, voluntary organisations, educational establishments (colleges and stuff) and, (cough) I would gather to decide how to allocate the ESF’s funding within the various regions, designated as rural development areas, areas in industrial decline or areas seriously lagging behind.

Separately, there was a nationwide programme in favour of long-term unemployed, basically designed to train them for the market, which is very important to make them employable in a modern jobs market, addressing the supply side for the employment market..But the regional programmes, including support from the European Regional Development Fund for infrastructure and agriculture funds for farmers were designed to address the demand side for employment, encouraging employment growth and stability.

Actions for the long-term unemployed could be carried out absolutely on every square inch of the UK territory, affluent or not. There are unemployed people everywhere in need of help, Surrey, Kensington, whatever..

The industrial decline, rural development and regions seriously lagging behind got additional funding for, as I say, promoting employment growth and stability. The UK government, chairing these regional monitoring committees, was always trying to steamroller support for training courses for the long-term unemployed. My argument was that this was covered by the nationwide programme specifically for them. To then spend the money allocated to the regions was not only a waste of money but a blatant attempt to take unemployed people off the unemployed statistics. In other words. Massaging the unemployment figures, when this was contrary to the Regulations the Commission has to defend.

Sometimes I won the argument and the other partners saw my point of view, other times the money was spent on things like 1-year training courses for long-term unemployed in trainee baggage handlers at airports, trainee herdsmen, long-term training courses with no job at the end but net reductions in unemployment figures for a time.

My job was not to support the UK government but to work for correct implementation of Council Regulations ie regulations passed by the Council of Ministers, ie the member states = You Lot.

Message of the above: don’t blame the Commission for mismanagement of EU funds when the member state concerned is abusing them.

Next stage of my career was international relations, in particular in agriculture. This brought me into the negotiations for Free trade Agreements, in a junior technical and supportive role but I saw how they work. I worked on FTAs with South Africa, Mexico, Chile and Mercosur (Argentina, Brasil, Uruguay and Paraguay). I was also on the desk for agriculture trade relations with ASEAN countries.

A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) takes YEARS to complete, just for one. There are tens of thousands of industrial and agricultural products with each line subject to negotiations for dismantling tariffs, whether immediate or progressive.

You would not believe how one little product line can cause a negotiation to stall. It is really complicated as both parties have defensive and offensive interests, meaning those products for which they apply and want to maintain tariffs (defensive) and those on the other side where they want to export and see a dismantling of the other side’s tariffs (offensive). For example, a round of negotiations with South Africa stalled because 2 parties could not agree on what they had agreed at the previous negotiating round : did we agree on net weight or gross weight for canned peaches?

A FTA is not just about tariffs. It’s about establishing common standards like animal welfare, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, protection of intellectual property rights, protection of geographical indications and designations of origin, rules of origin (did that garlic really come from Netherlands or is it a re-exported Chinese garlic subject to different tariffs?), dispute settlement procedures, anti-dumping and countervailing measures, safeguard clauses.

I would not even want a FTA with the USA. Would you trust a Free trade Agreement with Trump, who jumps in and out of agreements at will? I definitely would never buy their chlorinated washed chickens, their genetically modified cereals, other crops treated with pesticides banned from the EU food chain and their beef cattle stuffed with corn and hormones, bringing them up to beef market inside 13 months, instead of the 24 to 36 months it takes to feed up a grass-grazed European animal to market. USA agriculture is too profit-based, at the expense of health concerns. EU standards are more demanding than USA.

Outside of a FTA, products being imported are subject to masses of red-tape, checking certificates of conformity, rules of origin and tariffs of individual components in a complex finished product such as a car. Yes it’s a British manufactured car but where did that engine, exhaust manifold, textile seat covering , leather steering wheel come from?

Jumping out of the EU is not going to eliminate red-tape at import/export borders, it’s going to be a nightmare. UK ports are going to have to control factors that are taken for granted within a common market and a customs union.

I said above that a FTA takes YEARS to complete. The Mercosur deal never happened. It failed and was scrapped after years of back and forth between Europe and South America due to Latin economic factors outside the EU’s control.

Today I heard Rees-Mogg say that UK can launch Free Trade negotiations with the rest of the world, quoting some % of the world’s population as being open for new FTAs. This ignores the fact that most of that population is poor.

Firstly, I hope you have read and understood what I wrote above about what negotiating a FTA involves and the time it takes just to complete 1. Secondly, the EU represents 22% of the world economy, more than USA. We are expected to dump relations with the biggest market, the closest market right on our doorstep, to negotiate with Africa, South America and the USA? Do you know how far away countries like Australia, New Zealand are? Do you seriously expect to have meaningful exports to China?

And services: I heard that services represents 80% of the UK economy. EU principles guarantee free movement of money, goods, people and services. So we now want to block this free movement, to the utter displeasure of service industries, manufacturers and importers/exporters dependent on just-in-time delivery of components.

I had a heated discussion with an old friend recently. He said he voted “leave” because he was fed up with an unelected Brussels bureaucrat (J-C Juncker) telling him what to do. I had to explain what the European Commission is. It is the European civil service, delivering what the Council of Ministers has decided. The Council means the elected governments of the member states. All civil servants are “unelected”. The Commission does not decide, it implements instructions form the Council that have been approved by the democratically elected European Parliament. If you didn’t vote, don’t complain. He could not name 1 single thing that had impacted his life from the Commission “telling him what to do”.

How about a new view on immigration? A true born Brit is born here, in hospital, cared for in hospital, educated at the nation’s expense until finally launched onto the jobs and tax-paying market to recoup some of the investment. European immigrants can come here as ready-made workers and tax-payers. There is not a fixed number of jobs in the UK, regardless of population. (Say) 5 million new arrivals are 5 million new consumers to be fed, housed, needing services, creating more demand and instantly ready to pay tax. Not bad faced with an ageing pensioned population, needing new funds in government coffers.

Leaving the EU will not avoid having to respect rules and standards to be able to export into it, with no input into what those rules are. This makes UK a rules taker, not a rule maker and a net loser of sovereignty.

People are saying “Just get on with it”. But what is “It”. Nobody agrees what Brexit means. But a lot of people agree that it should not happen.

Revoke article 50 and revert to status quo, which is infinitely superior to anything that is currently being proposed.

But please stop chanting drunkenly in front of TV cameras.

 

I agree we will work it out given time. The trouble is we had worked it out and very favourably. We might be better off but it’s a big risk. I’m not confident that those proposing it have our best interests at heart. The low tax model doesn’t sit comfortably with me as it’s a race to the bottom. I’d hope eventually that tax rules stop the shifting of profits to countries with lower tax rates. Something the EU was trying slowly I admit to stop. When negotiating with a pop of 60m do we think we will get a better deal than 600m?. It was also a rotten lie that we had laws pushed into us. As a country we supported over 95% of the laws and drafted many. I personally think half the reason people want to leave is they are just fed up. Inequality is massive due to chronic underinvestment. Brexit won’t solve that and create some utopia. In fact its likely to increase inequality as workers rights lessen. I’m a big fan of stopping tax avoidance. Why doesn’t this happen. Because politics is dominated by rich people and influenced by massive multinationals. Is capitalism good; yes. But only when the wealth filters down.

 

Top post Damo, reality for me is that it made not a huge difference to me which way the vote went because I believe in Great Britain, I don't fear independence and I don't believe anyone should. Europe is a Union which shares some values I agree with and others I don't, there's no reason we can't take what we've learnt from the Union and apply the principle here in the UK but try improve it and adjust to what our country needs the most.

Absolute fact for me that immigration is a problem, I don't care about the numbers but I see the reality of it and it's an issue. I'm not saying close the borders, us against the world but they're must be a better system than what we have now but we're powerless to change that. I want us to be able to change that.

As I said in my first post, I trade with countries all over the world and the UK. If we have issues with products etc it may just encourage people to look closer to the home. We have some absolutely fantastic manufacturers here in the UK that maybe don't get a fair crack of the whip because of cheap labour in both Europe and the far east.

Why would workers rights lessen? One thing I will admit to is that workers rights have improved while we've been part of the union, as I said above there's no reason why we can't learn from that? There are fine countries outside of the EU which operate with employee laws, these aren't exclusive to the EU.

Even if the people at the top don't have the best interests at heart, there's no reason that everyday working people/business owners/service providers can't make it a great success.

 

The whole brexit thing has turned into a complete shambles, no surprises when it involves the feckwits in the houses of parliament. At the beginning there was good debate to be had regarding the pros and cons of leaving and staying. Unfortunately this was dumped by the wayside a long time ago as both sides of the debate have turned it into a slanging match of who can bullshit the furthest. I washed my hands of it a long time ago, the people of this country deserve to be represented far better regardless of the outcome.

 

I'm sorry Rod thats wrong. You can't start adding the non voters into the equation. 72% of the elctorate going out to vote is almost unprecedented in the recent history of this country. Its just another way of trying to twist the agenda. Same with this idea that we didn't know what we were voting for. Its exactly the same when you go to vote in a local or general election. You don't know the full details of what you are voting for yet people still go and vote.

 

Did you miss the first one ?

 

Shows how far as a nation we have fallen when these people would put the EU before before their own, Embarrassing

 

Laughable that the MPs vote to take control from the government to move things forward and then cannot agree itself upon an answer to the problems they themselves created, Sack the lot of them,

 

You didn't go out in numbers and vote for it either.
Keep telling us leaves enough times and we'll start believing you remoaners.
72 % an unprecedented turn out never been know, as I say us leavers got out in numbers but you remoaners keep bleating "we didn't want it. it was thrust upon us""


One will continue to fight for what I feel is right, don't think you need to the MPs in Parliament are doing enough trying to scupper a democratic vote.

 

The fact you quoted this post highlights you were one that my post was aimed at. At the end of the day I could debate with you but I've seen what you resort to when some disagrees with you.

Thrust upon remainers? It was put to the whole country and the majority of the country voted for Brexit.

 

So most of the country wants no deal but the MPs are dead against the will of the people, On these figures maybe another vote would still be a win for Leaving providing all the MPs who voted to stop brexit were forced to resign in shame.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/brexit-poll-reveals-all-of-england-and-wales-now-favour-no-deal-except-london/ar-BBVBwRN

 

Whatever he does is non of your business and whatever it is it will be better than our disgraceful out of touch MPs who seem to go from University to MP without ever working in the real world and understanding real peoples problems