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EU referendum/Brexit discussion - Part 2


john999boy

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Trade requires equil standards. Equil standards requires burocracy. Burocracy requires paperword - OH - wasn't loads of paperwork what the leavers wanted rid of? Well they will get more of it instead. Loads more paperwork, loads more burocracy, loads more rules made outside the country - get used to it, come to terms with it, the UK isn't the center of the world, we don't make all the rules - in short: we need to grow up and play well with others!

The reason people seem to concentrate on tarrifs is because they include actual numbers - something these numbers are quite stark:

As soon as the UK leaves the EU Customs Union, trade will be subject to tariffs. This is not a matter of choice, as some pro-Leave advocates have claimed. WTO rules require that the minimum “Most Favoured Nation” tariff is applied to everyone unless there is an FTA in place.

For non-agricultural goods, the average tariff imposed will be relatively small, at 2.3%. For agricultural goods, however, the tariffs are far higher, averaging 22.3%.

Our top 10 food and drink exports would have to pay the following charges in order to gain access to the European market:

 

 

 

Top food & drink exports

 

UK farming will be particularly badly hit by tariffs, which are generally higher for agricultural produce that they are for other types of goods. Most farms are small businesses operating on tight margins and some – especially in the livestock sector – are dependent on exports. Tariffs will include 47% on milk, 40% on cheese, 59% on beef, and 40% on lamb. Arable producers face levies of 40% on unmilled wheat, and around 10% on fruit and vegetables.

Liam Fox made it clear in his speech to the WTO on 27th September 2016 that the UK will inherit the EU MFN tariff. This means that the charges listed in the table above will not only be applied by the EU to our exports - they will also be applied by the UK to imports from the EU and the rest of the world.

 

Edited by S00perb
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@Lee01 agree with above the WTO is a last resort but agreeing to non favourable agreements to the EU is just as bad. If they wish to punish us for leaving then they will and as we've seen so far it's not being a negotiation but a brick wall of demands and both sides will lose out.  As we already know the EU exports more to us than they import from us. If no agreement can be reached then the UK will pay more in tariffs from the imports from the EU increasing our cost of goods on the shelf. If we can't overcome the non trade barriers and produce is wasted as it sits waiting to pass through customs then the supplier foots the bill. Both sides lose out in that scenario.

We would still be able to agree RTA with other countries where we can buy produce cheaper and avoid NTB's too but this would lead us further from EU, you only need look at the origin of foods in the supermarket to see just how far it travels. It will take time to make those changes but a one country negotiating with an another can make these agreements quicker than a club of 27 all trying to protect their own interests. TTIP is a classic example of this with 4 years and still no end in sight, CETA is going a similar route. Of course we would have to ensure that entering into an agreement with any other country, especially much bigger ones, is of benefit to ourselves too otherwise it's no better than being dictated to by the EU.

 

@S00perb stating WTO tariffs without quotas is meaningless as you are showing just the higher tariff rate for goods outside the quota. Again regional trade agreements can be negotiated.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff-rate_quota

 

 

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No regrets in my choice. WTO is the back stop if if no agreement can be reached with the EU. It would be better to be within the WTO than a punishing agreement with the EU. 

 

After Junkers speech today it is apparent that he has learned nothing from the past and only wants to force more powers to the EU and take them from their member states with a single European President, European Minister of Economy and Finance and a European defence force despite assurances that there would be no EU Army.  I've never wanted to be part a federal Europe so I have no regrets. Even emails from my friends in Cologne are saying this isn't what they want from the EU and are worried as they have been down this route before. 

 

Lots of the Remainers state that those who voted for Brexit sacrificed the future of our youth. The truth is that it had already been happening under the EU and nothing was done to stop it. Even Macron is now trying to prevent the same happening with France with cheap labour from the East. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/international/industrial-zone-shifts-east-in-europe.html?mcubz=1

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Missed this on the day of the Channel 4 news but it has come up in specialist customs forums......

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/dover-ceo-fears-gridlock-if-no-customs-deal-agreed   11 SEP 2017  Business, Politics, UK

4 minute video with it. ^^^^^^^

Dover CEO fears gridlock if no customs deal agreed

Siobhan Kennedy Business Editor

The Port of Dover handles more than £120bn worth of trade each year. But Channel 4 News has been speaking exclusively to the Chief Executive, who is worried that red tape after Brexit could seriously harm that free flow of trade.

 

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Even the Government (well the slightly sensible one Phil your boots Hammond) have said.  

Reckon Newhaven, Portmouth, Plymouth, where I was a Customs Officer, will become much busier as/when Dover saturates.    

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-customs-checks-philip-hammond_uk_59b8067ce4b027c149e2d85d

 

UK Ports Can’t Deal With Even ‘Minutes’ Of Customs Checks Post-Brexit, Philip Hammond Reveals

Chancellor admitted trade will not be as ‘frictionless’ as it is now.

Britain’s ports would grind to a halt after Brexit if lorries had to spend just “minutes” undergoing customs checks, Philip Hammond admitted today.  The Chancellor made the dire warning of the UK’s preparedness for life outside the EU’s customs union as he admitted there would be “significant disruptions to patterns of movements” at Dover if no Brexit deal was reached with Brussels.  Appearing before the Lords Economic Affairs Committee this afternoon, Hammond revealed the EU was not even willing to enter into discussions about a future customs system with the UK – even on a technical level.   The National Audit Office estimates the number of customs declarations at UK borders could sour from 55million a year to 255million after Brexit.    When asked by former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lamont whether he believed the capacity of UK ports were “adequate” to handle the increase, Hammond replied: “No it’s clearly not. Anyone who’s visited Dover will know that Dover operates as a flow-through port and volumes of trade at Dover could not accommodated if goods had to be held for inspection even, I suspect, if they were held for minutes, it would still impede the operation of the port.  “Roll-on, roll-off traffic at Dover is predicated on trucks rolling off a ferry immediately, [going] out of the port and the ferry reloading and departing pretty rapidly – Ryanair style turnaround times.”  In August, the Government released a position paper calling for a “highly streamlined customs arrangement” or a “customs partnership” with the EU after Brexit.  Both of those proposals were based on the UK and EU agreeing a free trade deal.  This afternoon, Hammond told peers the Treasury was putting in place contingency plans for no deal being reached, but admitted it would not be an ideal system.  He said: “We recognise that the timescales are very challenging and in a no deal scenario not everything we would want to put in place will be in place on day 1, but we will have a working system in place on day 1, I have had assurances by HMRC.”

 

The customs processing system due to be online at UK ports in March 2019 is the Customs Declaration Service (CDS).    In July, the National Audit Office discovered that even if the CDS was delivered by its planned date of January 2019, it has never been tested to the capacity needed just two months later.    Even in tests it has only been used to process 180million declarations a year – far short of the 255million the UK is predicted to get through.  The report said: “Until it is shown to work at this level and with the UK’s specific systems, there is a risk that this new component may not meet the UK’s requirements.”  While the current system CHIEF (Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight) could be upgraded to act as a safety net, there is no money in HMRC’s budget to do this.  Hammond told peers one of the biggest difficulties for HMRC has been trying to talk to its European counterparts.  He said: “In terms of level of engagement with our nearest neighbours at the customs service level that has been limited and it has been limited because the view of many of our neighbours is that until such time as the commission, or the council of ministers has declared sufficient progress they are not authorized to engage with us on post-exit planning and post-exit arrangements.  “We have had less engagement than we would like with our customs counterparts with our immediate neighbours both at a technical level and to discuss possible deal scenario technical challenges and no deal scenario technical challenges.”

 

Edited by lol-lol
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2 hours ago, Headinawayoffski said:

 

logo.png

 

One can be creative, and we in the international logistics are community are very adaptable and flexible by most working practices and standards but one has to obey the EU's rules on import procedures if one wants to import to it.

 

UK firms will have to obey the EU protocols on import procedures.  They may well become creative in using new routes rather than Dover ie the longer channel crossings which give more time to prepare the customs declarations or using air or rail movements to circumvent bottlenecks at Dover but there will be costs attached to these creative moves.  Maybe moving ones goods via Ireland iif that proves easier than customs clearing in mainland Europe.

 

Having one's Euro banking and data centres moved to mainland Europe but some of your worker remote accessing from the UK on lower wages to be competitive and but to obey EU laws.

 

Lots of creative steps, most with additional costs and for what benefit?  Immigration that was from mostly outside the EU anyway, standards that we will have to conform to anyways and a world more interested in doing deals with the EU that the UK.  Canada-EU goes live next week, Japan next year, all to be lost by the UK in the following year it is looking like with the failure to agree transitional arrangement and with the normal time period for doing FTAs 4 to 9 years.        

 

   

Edited by lol-lol
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How smoothly did the UK & France have things and people crossing the channel up to now?

 

How were things going to be happening in the not distant future as the EU countries that feed off the poorer ones got their way and have more countries join the EU and the Euro zone.

 

BREXIT might be short pain for long time gain, because as it is the UK & Exports Imports was more suiting Continental European EU countries than it was the UK.

France could bring imports and exports to a grinding halt, and still will be able to, but we will just have to see how French Producers & Manufacturers Exporting to the UK and other EU Countries exporters are going to be able to accept difficulties put in their way cutting incomes they rely on, if such a thing happens.

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Looks like Timothy Less had an insight into the way the EU would be going back in July when he wrote the article below. Junkers speech yesterday confirms what he was predicting

 

Quote

It is becoming an orthodoxy among enthusiasts for the European project that the EU has rediscovered its mojo. The populists have been defeated. Growth in the eurozone is picking up. Public support for the EU is growing. Most importantly, the Franco-German engine is back up and running and a Great Leap Forward in integration is planned that brings an end to the EU’s woes.

Put together, the inevitable conclusion is that Britain has badly misread the facts by writing off the EU as a failing enterprise.

It is understandable that Europe’s supporters should look for good news after years of crisis. However, at the risk of spoiling the party, reports of the EU’s revival are greatly exaggerated.

The problem, as always, is the eurozone. Migration, terrorism, Russia and Brexit are all difficulties but the EU’s existential crisis is the impoverishment of millions in the Mediterranean caused by the monetary straightjacket in which they are trapped. If nothing changes, Italians and others will eventually elect governments who promise to bring their suffering to an end by leaving the single currency, and take the edifice down with it.

The current spurt of growth (1.8% annually in the first quarter) is hardly evidence that monetary union is working. Most of this is occurring in the north of the Eurozone, and especially in Germany (up 2.9%). By contrast, the Mediterranean is still stagnant. Italy grew by just 1.2% in the first quarter and Greece by just 0.4% and even then, only with the help of ECB which continues to pump the European financial system with money.

Worse, this may be as good as it gets. After four years of growth, the Eurozone is probably at the peak of its current economic cycle and, if history is any guide, it is headed for a downturn before the end of this decade.

This will pose a major challenge for the eurozone’s institutions. Potentially, the ECB can increase its purchase of government bonds, with all the attendant risks for monetary stability and the already-excessive debt in recipient countries. If not, then the only way an insolvent government can avoid a financing crisis is to re-launch its own currency.

Fortunately, this worst-case scenario can potentially be mitigated if the Eurozone moves rapidly towards establishing some kind of institutionalised burden-sharing. The nature of this mechanism is up for debate, whether debt mutualisation, euro-bonds or a full fiscal union. Whatever the final arrangement, the basic idea that Emanuel Macron, the Commission and others are now pushing is the same: that rich members of the Eurozone directly transfer funds to poorer members.

After a decade of short-term fixes in which European leaders have avoided tough decisions, the prospect of a permanent solution to the Eurozone’s problems is welcome news. The problem is that these noble objectives are at odds with the political reality of a severe solidarity deficit across Europe.

It is certainly true that growing numbers of Europeans are favourably inclined towards the EU and that no populist party has made an electoral breakthrough, at least in western Europe. However, as a Pew poll published last month makes clear, a majority of Europeans want their governments to take fundamental powers back from Brussels, not see more power given away – especially power over their money, which is what economic burden-sharing inevitably means.

This solidarity deficit begins in Germany where the prevailing view is that the solution to excessive debt in the Mediterranean is for the locals to obey the rules and stop spending. Although Angela Merkel has recently hinted at some sort of alternative remedy, there is no evidence to suggest that her electorate, or indeed her own political party, is ready for Germany to provide a permanent stream of funding to the Mediterranean.

The one possibility for a breakthrough is if France, the Eurozone’s second-biggest economy and a perennial rule-breaker, can demonstrate that it would not be a liability if the Germans agreed to open their wallets. But this is tricky. To assuage German fears, a president with a limited franchise must enact the kind of fiscal and structural reforms which none of his predecessors ever managed in the name of European order which half the electorate rejected in the first round of presidential elections.

Even if Macron succeeded, Germany and France would then have to persuade other rich, eurozone members, such as the increasingly Eurosceptic Austria, Netherlands and Finland, to accept greater burden-sharing. And to persuade the Mediterranean to accept permanent fiscal diktat from Germany. And to persuade the euro-outs in the East, which oppose the whole idea of a “core Europe” from which they are excluded, not to veto all this.

Against this backdrop, European leaders would ideally concede that the whole idea of incorporating radically different economies into a single economic framework was a historic mistake and embark on an orderly dismantling of the euro zone in which those countries which clearly cannot cope are set free. Not only would they be relieved of their debts but northern governments and the ECB would underwrite their transition to a new national currency.

However, there is no apparent appetite for an “ever looser union”. True believers are averse to any rolling back of the European project in which they have invested their hopes of peace and prosperity. Realists worry about the cost to northern taxpayers and the potential for unintended consequences. And even those who are most suffering – in Greece and Italy –  still believe the euro can be made to work for them.

There is no doubting the eagerness of Macron who has correctly identified that a paradigm shift is needed to save the euro zone and, by extension, the EU; nor Merkel’s awareness that the EU is Germany’s best protection against itself.

Following the German elections, we will therefore probably see some proposal that obliges Germans to dig a little deeper into their pockets and which Macron can use to justify reform in France. But the agreement will be so loaded with caveats and conditions that it does not really commit Germany to anything or, crucially, provide any relief to the suffering of the Mediterranean.

Perhaps this analysis is all wrong there are deep reserves of solidarity in Europe which remain undiscovered. But there is no evidence of this in opinion polls, elections or the positions adopted by governments, Instead, the Mediterranean seems destined for continued austerity, stagnation and the mass emigration of its young, before a cyclical downturn in the European economy finally brings matters to a head.

For the moment, enthusiasts for the EU can take solace in the fact that the EU’s problems are momentarily obscured from view. The EU did not crash after the Brexit referendum and many Europeans say they want the EU to work, not least France’s youthful new leader. But bold statements and a little economic growth do not equate to any kind of revival. Behind the façade, nothing is fixed and nothing is likely to be fixed.

Instead, the existential crisis of the last few years is set to continue for precisely the same reason as it has until now – there is no politically-saleable solution to the eurozone’s desperate contradictions. Far from making a Great Leap Forward, the EU is going nowhere.

Timothy Less is the Director of the Nova Europa political risk consultancy and a former British diplomat.

 

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The Englishman took the kitty that there was for the drinks, paid for his taxi and gave some to the Northern Irishman even though he had not put any money in but had been drinking out of the kitty.

 

Scotsman went home, turned up the heating switched on all the lights in the house, drank whisky, ate loads of lovely local produce and counted his money and knew that there was no need to worry because there was plenty of that for the future and surplus to sell to the Englishman.

Edited by Headinawayoffski
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5 minutes ago, Headinawayoffski said:

The Englishman took the kitty that there was for the drinks, paid for his taxi and gave some to the Northern Irishman even though he had not put any money in but had been drinking out of the kitty.

Slightly more accurate - the Englishman SAID he (she) would give the money to the Iroshman, but found out it was going to have to check with some lawyers as to the legality of giving the money, then found out it would have to go to a vote and in the meantime the Irishman stabbed the English as soon as he had the chance

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Which was yesterday, just as a little warning, and next time it might be a knee capping, unless George Osborne gets there first and it is a chopping up / disappearance.

Edited by Headinawayoffski
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1 minute ago, Headinawayoffski said:

Which was yesterday, just as a little warning, and next time it might be a knee capping, unless George Osborne gets there first and it is a chopping up / disappearance.

The thing about paying a blackmailer - they always come back for more. So maybe they have no intention of paying them

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The thing is that regardless of the cheating lying barstewards and how they behave to stay in power,

the little lady from the bit of the UK that keeps the economy of the south & who is in the Blue & White dress with the dirk in her hand bag would do the deal as well if she could. Take the Queens silver dollar.

 

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On 12/09/2017 at 16:00, CWARD said:

 

Don't blame the messenger

 

 

I guess sometimes the EU doesn't work in the interests of it's most active supporters but lets fair. The BT pension problem has been ongoing for a long time with 85% of it's members retired (it could be those evil oldies that voted out too, the irony) now they are having to look at other means of dealing with the deficit which could include splitting the company up and sell off some assets to input some cash into the scheme.

 

BT's pension is government guaranteed, copper bottomed. I've been complaining to HMG about it for years as it is a form of state aid

 

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Yesterday in an industry meeting a nice lady from BT told us they were putting up the price of entries in the BT phone book by 15% - the reason? It is produced in the EU and the devaluation of sterling has put their costs up. Yet another Brexit bonus for businesses. 

 

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2 minutes ago, domhnall said:

 

BT's pension is government guaranteed, copper bottomed. I've been complaining to HMG about it for years as it is a form of state aid

 

 

It is Crown Guaranteed but doesn't mean they can carry on incurring such a huge pension deficit as the state can insist on the release of assets to fund the pension or even liquidate them. They are no longer exempt from PPF now either so your complaining hasn't gone unheard.

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3 minutes ago, CWARD said:

 

It is Crown Guaranteed but doesn't mean they can carry on incurring such a huge pension deficit as the state can insist on the release of assets to fund the pension or even liquidate them. They are no longer exempt from PPF now either so your complaining hasn't gone unheard.

 

ironic that I used an EU law to complain! :)

 

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6 minutes ago, domhnall said:

Yesterday in an industry meeting a nice lady from BT told us they were putting up the price of entries in the BT phone book by 15% - the reason? It is produced in the EU and the devaluation of sterling has put their costs up. Yet another Brexit bonus for businesses. 

 

 

It's been produced in Spain since 2006. Did they reduce your cost of entry when the £ was strong against the € or just charge you the same?

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2 minutes ago, domhnall said:

 

ironic that I used an EU law to complain! :)

 

 

Ironic that many industries that required state aid couldn't under EU law and are no longer here. Some that required intervention from the EU to prevent dumping from outside the EU but nothing was done. I wonder how those people voted, probably the same way as those that used to have a job that relocated to Eastern Europe with the help of EU grants. 

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