Brexit Thread VIII: Taking a penalty kick-ing

[Seon]

Britain will either accept the unfavorable trade deal offered by the Japanese or it will not. That appears to be the only two options present at the moment as Britain lacks almost any bargaining advantage when it comes to Japan.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If Johnson/Cummings still can't run the country after all they've done, it's not down to the dastardly Remainers, but instead that they're just a bit crap at this whole thing.

The two concepts that (a) there are "dastardly Remainers" and (b) Boris's goverment are a "bit crap at this"; are NOT mutually exclusive.

Britain will either accept the unfavorable trade deal offered by the Japanese ..

Is your opinion of the "trade deal" informed by you having read it?

 

[Hrothbern]

Here a short overview of new UK trade deals I saw today in the Dutch Financial Times.
Summarising those trade deals as a Brexit dream of an UK building on a Global Britain without a plan
(their words)
https://fd.nl/achtergrond/1350214/bouwen-aan-global-britain-brexitdroom-zonder-vast-plan


GDP UK 2019 £ 2,214 Billion.

New Zealand
GDP growth: 2.5% in 19 / 2.7% in 20
Mutual trade: 53rd UK trading partner with a total trading volume of £ 3bn
Trade deal value: Nil
What can be achieved for UK Practice and access to CPTPP
New Zealand back - access for their lamb to the UK market.

Australia
GDP growth: 1.7% in 2019 / 2.3% in 2020
Mutual trade: £ 18bn (€ 20bn) per year
UK exports mainly cars,
Australia mainly lots of gold and some wine
UK trade deal value (estimate): GDP increase of 0.01% -0.02% over 15 years. £ 900m in extra exports to Australia
What can be achieved for the UK More access for services sector, higher whiskey exports
What does Australia want in return? More meat sales.

Japan
GDP growth: 1.0% in 2019 / 0.7% in 2020 Cross-trade: £ 29.5bn (€ 32.5bn) in 2018
Trade deal value: up to 0.07% additional GDP growth over 15 years. £ 15.2bn in extra long-term trade
What can be achieved for the UK New agreements for data and digital services. In essence, this is a renegotiation of the existing EU-Japan deal.
What does Japan want in return? Japan especially wants to prevent more agricultural products from being exported to Japan.

USA
GDP growth: 2.3% in 2019 / 2.0% in 2020
Mutual trade: largest UK trading partner after EU. Good for 19% of UK exports (£ 221bn) and 11% of imports.
Trade deal value: 0.07% to 0.16% higher GDP for UK.
What can be achieved for UK? High symbolic value. New agreements on data and digital services should help the British fintech sector. More car exports,
what does the US want in return? Access for agricultural products, better conditions for American pharmaceutical companies.

 

[Arakhor]

The two concepts that (a) there are "dastardly Remainers" and (b) Boris's goverment are a "bit crap at this"; are NOT mutually exclusive.

My unspoken point was that if there are still dastardly Remainers in a position to disrupt proceedings despite all the heavy-handed centralisation of power, then they are just as crap at centralising as they are at actually running the country.

 

[FriendlyFire]

The two concepts that (a) there are "dastardly Remainers" and (b) Boris's goverment are a "bit crap at this"; are NOT mutually exclusive.

only a bit ? Its taken you this long to realize this ?
Well at least your getting 3 Mil new Hong Kong Citizens

 

[Takhisis]

The deadline of June 30 has expired to extend the transition period... and there is IIRC even a law that extending is impossible.

Again: Parliamentary sovereignty. (The-Queen-in-)Parliament is the maximum authority of the realm and cannot be bound even by (the-Queen-in-)Parliaments past or future (let alone consultative referenda). Parliament can declare any existing Act to be modified, abolished or reinstated, so from the purely legal point of view there are no impediments, within the realm of British law, to (the-Queen-in-)Parliament legislating anything on this or other matters.
Of course there might be the matter of judicial review, but it is nowhere as strong as in the US and similar systems in which higher laws (Constitutions) can be interpreted by judges to override statutes.

The rest is just politics.

 

[Arakhor]

only a bit ? Its taken you this long to realize this ?

In fairness to Edward, he was paraphrasing me and I was parodying by understatement.

 

[Hrothbern]

A petition from the British National Farmers Union against 'food that is illegal to produce here' signed over a million times...
Did I miss something in recent news from the Guardian and BBC ?

A number of British supermarket chains refuse to sell chickens imported from the United States. This further complicates the negotiations between the Americans, who want unhindered access for their farmers to the British market, and the United Kingdom on a trade agreement.

Aldi followed the example of Waitrose and Booths on Monday and stated that he would not sell chlorine chicken, regardless of the conversations between the two countries. The retail chains also object to the sale of beef treated with growth hormones.

Petition
A petition from the British National Farmers Union, which calls on the government to ensure that future trade agreements do not allow 'food that is illegal to produce here' has been signed over a million times.

Another petition, signed over 100,000 times so far, is calling on other major UK supermarket chains including Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's to follow suit with Aldi, Waitrose and Booths.

 

[Takhisis]

It was posted either here or the UK politics thread that there would be USian chlorinated chicken in the UK after all.
Importing chicken all the way from the USA instead of from the EU is already an idiotic idea, but this is the Conservatives and Brexit we're talking about.

 

[EnglishEdward]

During WW2 people here were only too happy to eat USA produced food.
Now it is smeered at, and slandered as poisonous and toxic etc etc.
Nevertheless I ate chicken when in N America (USA & Canada) and I lived.

It seem to me perfectly clear that if US suppliers do not check the quality of their
exports to ensure that they are safe, then the onus is on the UK retailers to do that.
If certain supermarket chains do not want to expand their inspection arrangements
to do that, then it makes sense for them to decline to resell to avoid legal claims.

If they do check, they should look at the extra cost. If it is 3%, they should only buy US food
if it is more than 3% cheaper than food from other sources not requiring such checking.

A petition from the British National Farmers Union, which calls on the
government to ensure that future trade agreements do not allow 'food that is illegal
to produce here' has been signed over a million times.

An interestng number, I wonder who is signing the petition?

There are less than 1 million British farmers, but about 15 million voted Remainers.

Getting a little tired of this persistence in trying to deny me my choice of what I eat.
And making us all pay more by precluding us from using alternative sources.

 

[Kyriakos]

Getting a little tired of this persistence in trying to deny me my choice of what I eat.
And making us all pay more by precluding us from using alternative sources.

I think the key issue is that if those US exports do flood the UK market, Boris is very unlikely to allow for clear branding of the food (eg to note that it is GM/chlorinated/other). Which in essence won't leave you free to make an actual choice.

Supermarkets wouldn't be keen on buying food they cannot sell.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I think the key issue is that if those US exports do flood the UK market, Boris is very unlikely to allow for clear branding of the food (eg to note that it is GM/chlorinated/other).

How?

If a supermarket identifies its lamb as Welsh, or New Zealand, or its chicken as French,
British or USA; is Boris going to put the chief executive of the supermarket in gaol?

Which in essence won't leave you free to make an actual choice.

We are not free to choose at the moment.

 

[Kyriakos]

How?

If a supermarket identifies its lamb as Welsh, or New Zealand, or its chicken as French,
British or USA; is Boris going to put the chief executive of the supermarket in gaol?




We are not free to choose at the moment.

They may have a barely visible emblem of the country of origin, but no notice of the crucial elements (GM).
Hasn't this happened before, for GM foods?

 

[really]

That petition could be taken two ways - not allowing stuff to be sold in the UK that couldn't be produced there or allowing the same production methods to be used to compete.

 

[Kyriakos]

Besides, seeing how the USians are, do you really want to eat what they do?

 

[really]

Relevant to the above:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-53320065

The UK government has submitted applications to the EU to create Border Control Posts (BCPs) at Northern Ireland's ports.

Something no prime minister could ever agree to according to Teresa May.

The BCPs are specifically for food and agriculture as far as I know.

 

[Arakhor]

Getting a little tired of this persistence in trying to deny me my choice of what I eat.
And making us all pay more by precluding us from using alternative sources.

I'm long tired of this Brexit lark, but unlike you, I didn't "win". If you want to eat American food so badly, why not buy it directly and save us the bother?

 

[EnglishEdward]

The argument for proper food labelling in the UK is as much an ethical, health, moral and religious
argument as it is a commercial argument, and it should be maintained independent of trade deals.

Farmers in the UK have made a number of strategic and tactical mistakes.
While they might have very well argued that the UK mirror EU standards on
a interim basis, they needed to set out an independent long term vision.

They failed to do so, and they now fear they will be squeezed in a competition
for lowest possible price. They missed the opportunity to present a case for reverting
to the excellent pre EEC system of a guaranteed market at guaranteed prices.
Putting tariffs in a free trade agreement is a mistake, because it is not free trade.

I don't have any problem with putting BCPs at NI ports for food and agriculture.
Fact is pathogens are like cats, they don't respect human political boundaries.

And by the way, I don't see any reason to be rude about USians.

I'm long tired of this Brexit lark, but unlike you, I didn't "win". If you want to eat American food so badly, why not buy it directly and save us the bother?

Because under current EU rules that apply during this transition,
it is illegal for me to dirtectly import American chicken.

 

[Kyriakos]

And by the way, I don't see any reason to be rude about USians.

And this when the UK hasn't yet concluded the deals with the US?

 

[EnglishEdward]

And this when the UK hasn't yet concluded the deals with the US?

Nothing to do with that.

I just don't see any reasons to be rude about USians in general.

It is usually old world snobbery.