Moar Brexit winning AWEZOMNESS. For India.
Government hands Brexit helpline contract – to company in India
Look at London 2012
An event that I thought was an excellent marker on our road of progress.
Turns out it was the high water mark of the temporary illusion.
Where we have gone as a country since London 2012 is tragic.
Brexit has laid bare the true position, character and abilty of this small island.
What it has achieved is the opposite of what people voted for.
Problem is no one likes admitting they made a mistake.
We will not recover from this as the position we had before brexit was smoke and mirrors- there is simply no place to recover too.
We have done this to ourselves and Europe has no interest in our future.
I think the problem with rejoining, and the damage we’ve done generally, is this:
We have for many years enjoyed status beyond our station.
I think it gets even worse than this. Previously, British civil servants had a reputation for being effective legislators and negotiators. This in turn meant that we had a disproportionate amount of leverage in the drafting and implementation of EU rules and regulations. The recent debacle with the appallingly low standards of professional competence shown by Davis, Raab, Frost et al mean that reputation is in tatters, mainly because our government and its supporters had “had enough of experts”.
If (when) we rejoin we will have moved ourselves from beings facto “rule makers” to “rule-takers” to a far greater extent than was the case before.
That is going to happen anyway. Take UKCA. Even once it gets going, it will mostly have to keep in line with whatever CEN decide in future, even if we wait for their standards to be taken up by the ISO. We will no longer be setting world standards, we will be accepting them.
Looks like there's anther farming supply chain that is heavily relant on European labour and that is now, amazingly, leading to real-world financial and business hardship:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58749841
oldman - how very true.
Look at London 2012
An event that I thought was an excellent marker on our descent into division, sub mediocrity and thence Brexit
Couldn’t you do the assignment then come back to Belgium for a couple of weeks’ holiday? In some things like this you only need to spend a few days back in that country to reset the clock.
I could do that. But to get permanent residency or indeed a citizenship application, I need 5 years continuous residency. Also, 5 years of continual tax payments as proof. Without that, I'm looking at a different route as a non-EU national which is typically 10 years. The withdrawal agreement forces Belgium to consider me as equal to an EU national, but if I left, I wouldn't have that benefit. I can't put my family through the 10 year wait.
I'm just frustrated that I have to wait 5 years to get back the freedom to move that I had for most of my life. Also, it's ironic that I can't go work in the UK (need to return to Belgium afterwards...) but my EU-passport-holding colleagues can.
Sorry to hear that a van that hit garage. A HGV would've been much more poetic.
I would anyone proclaiming that Brexit has been a success evidence that they may need locked away for their own safety and kept from any sharp objects
Looks like there’s anther farming supply chain that is heavily relant on European labour and that is now, amazingly, leading to real-world financial and business hardship
I think we can take it as read that the list of sectors struggling is just going to grow and grow as reality re-establishes itself over the fantastical nonsense that exists only in the minds of Brexiteers
reality re-establishes itself
How much reality before enough Leave voters turn on Brexit?
That's the only question. Depends on the workings of the mind of your average Leave voter. I won't pretend to be able to figure that out because, well, you know.....
"There were approximately 1.55 million unemployed people in the United Kingdom in the three months to July 2021, with the figure in December 2020 being the highest number since September 2015, when there were just over 1.76 million unemployed.
Sep 24, 2021
• Unemployment figures UK 2021 | Statista"
Bit of training and Bobs your uncle . . . .
How many of them are able to do the work? For example, how many are receiving benefits because they are disabled or unable to work through illness?
“Bob is 50, with lung cancer. He is also his wife’s carer, she has Alzheimer’s. Bob has been approached to train as an HGV trainer. He would be expected to complete his training and qualify for class 1 this time next year. In the meantime, we are hoping he will move to Norfolk until Christmas to work in a Turkey farm. Of course, he will need to return regularly to his local hospital for treatment and assessment, and find someone else to care for his wife in the home he shares with her in Teesside.”
Kelvin makes a good point but fails to include the large number currently unemployed who are unemployable due to their innate inablilty to actually hold a job down. Either way just because there are 1.5 million unemployed doesn't mean we have 1.5 million people who can fill the skills gaps with a bit of training.
Most of the people currently employed are in and out of work (they are genuinely “between jobs”), so they are employable… but where? And doing what? The number is currently higher than normal as companies fired (or more often didn’t renew part time contracts) during the pandemic, in the expectation they can recruit again as things pick up. For some workers this is new, for others this form of insecure working arrangement is now entirely normal (say “flexible workforce with a fixed grin”)… that doesn’t mean they are about to train to work in food production or logistics the other end of the country, rather than get their next job in a sector they are used to working in, in the region they are settled in. Especially not for a seasonal job that makes them unavailable to take on the job they really want when a position arises.
I can’t be angry with people parroting simple solutions when the world is not simple. The number one clown in number ten will be parroting this “train our own” line, while doing absolutely **** all to help people educate and train themselves. The buck stops with him. All anger should be reserved for him. What could he do? Start with the nurses… we are desperately short of them, but then expect Brits to go into mountains of debt while they train. The answer isn’t stopping nurses coming here, it is for a government to value educating and training… and to fund it and support people. Take any other sector with a huge number of full time vacancies, and it’s a similar problem, with similar government action required. But even if you fixed all that, which would take years (yeah, we’ve had five years since the referendum, but hey, haven’t probably started yet, have we)… that still doesn’t solve seasonal work, which the world-over relies on people moving around. Or the simple issue of not having enough workers. Where a worker is someone genuinely suitable for the job.
I backed a fairly small Kickstarter project a little while ago. I've just had this update.
>>
If you enjoy stories about bureaucratic absurdity, feel free to read on. Otherwise, you can just skip this part.
In order to import goods into the UK post-Brexit, foreign companies need something called an Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number issued by the UK government. They also need to register for VAT in the UK and get a separate number for that.
We knew this going into the project. Which is why, many months ago, we hired a UK accounting firm to help get us an EORI number and VAT registration number for the UK. That way, by the time we were ready to ship, everything would be set.
We knew that there were months long delays in getting these numbers, which is why we applied early.
To say that the application process has been a nightmare is an understatement. The UK's application was far more onerous than any other we've had to fill out. We were asked to submit documents no other government ever asked to see "prove" that our products existed and that we were serious about importing. The whole process seemed designed to discourage foreign companies from even bothering to ship goods into the UK.
It was particularly infuriating because we'd already collected VAT from our UK customers. It was as if the UK didn't want the money that we'd already collected for it.
By comparison, getting an EU EORI number and getting VAT registered in the EU was a breeze! Thanks, EU!
For being a monstrous bureaucracy, you're surprisingly business friendly!
So we submitted our UK application. And we waited, and we waited, and we waited. For months, neither us nor our accountants received any updates on our application.
Finally, two weeks ago, we received a snail mail letter from the UK government, mailed from Malta(!), that informed us our application had been denied because we had "applied more than three months in advance" of our estimated import date.
You read that right. We were rejected because we applied too early. And we were informed of our rejection via snail mail from another continent--not an email.
We think this is the guy in charge of handling EORI numbers for the UK
Our accountants have informed us that there's no legal requirement that a company have to register for an EORI number within three months of an expected import date. We're talked to other publishers and no one's ever heard of this happening. It's just a strange, bureaucratic mystery--we've been rejected based on a rule or regulation whose existence no one can point us to.
So due to the incompetence of the UK government, we've had to reapply. Our accountants are working to get our new application approved as soon as possible. But until we get a UK EORI number, our UK shipments are probably going to have to sit at the factory.
Being foolishly optimistic Americans, we are hopeful that we'll get the necessary numbers and approval in the next few weeks. But until then, UK shipments may be delayed. By how long, we don't know.
Let’s hope they can ship the initial batch into the UK before they need to test and mark the product up for UKCA compliance. I can see that one being the real block to smaller operations selling new kit into the UK if/when it becomes mandatory.
I have a small online business - most products are about a tenner and with the Deminimis (<£22)rule on low value goods, it was possible to ship all around the world without filling out reams of paperwork. About 10% of our sales were to the EU, but the ‘experts’ in our Government decided we wanted to embrace being a 3rd country having helped write the rules so now you need an EORI number to ship small packages to the EU…for a small business like mine the costs exceed the sales value so we no longer ship to the EU.
(say “flexible workforce with a fixed grin”)
TBH my current favourite is “transition away from a low-income high-immigration economy”.
I’m not sure what the transition is to 🙂
Low income, low immigration, obvs.
As has been said before, when Johnson and chums start talking about mobility and flexibility in a workforce, they mean zero-hours, minimum wage, gig economy.
Singapore on Thames
Not going to happen as just about all rental housing in Singapore is state owned.
Hey, let’s not get onto rising private rent prices negating any short term rise in wages, that’s not the shift in focus Johnson and the Britannia Unchained cabinet want to happen right now.
Rejoin single market petition
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/596930?fbclid=IwAR3iPubJOSgoBnm7QRoOfUVXUdIUIq37tEj8wYBKGTB0IsysHDlpKDdecH0
The petition is now over halfway to the point where the government will respond to it.
Just signed it.
**** Brexit.
The petition is now over halfway to the point where the government will respond to it.
Except, "we're not going to respond to it" is seemingly an acceptable response.
I've signed it. There is symbolic value even though I know full well that they won't do anything.
I’m just frustrated that I have to wait 5 years to get back the freedom to move that I had for most of my life. Also, it’s ironic that I can’t go work in the UK (need to return to Belgium afterwards…) but my EU-passport-holding colleagues can.
In June 2016 I forecast that a consequence of leaving was that jobs like I'd had in the past would now be done by EU27 passport holders, even if based in the UK. These jobs were working across the world (mainly the developed countries, therefore Europe is a major constituent) for global businesses based out of London. Why employ a Brit and face uncertainty and cost when you could employ an EU27 citizen with UK rights.
Same reason Brits were employed by US businesses in Europe, we spoke their lingo and didn't have costs attached that US passport holders did.
It'll be interesting if the UK ever re-joins, to add up the cost of this folly - both economically & socially.
Tory Stephen Kerr on radio Scotland this morning claimed the fuel crisis isn't caused by Brexit, it's caused by a lack of tanker drivers.
@intheborders similarly I'm at a significant disadvantage because now instead of just jumping on a plane and being there tomorrow I need to fart about with work permits that could take a week.
Rejoin single market petition
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/596930?fbclid=IwAR3iPubJOSgoBnm7QRoOfUVXUdIUIq37tEj8wYBKGTB0IsysHDlpKDdecH0/a >
I'd rather rejoin the EU properly, but this would do in the mean time.
edit - just over 5000 signatures since March, I doubt it'll make a lot of headway.
I'm sort of impressed how over the weekend several prominent Tories were floating the explanation that Brexit is simultaneously nothing to do with the reason that there are shortages of everything (A Bad Thing), and Brexit is the reason there are short term shortages because it is realigning a broken consumer market (a Good Thing)
heads you lose...etc etc.
Tory Stephen Kerr on radio Scotland this morning claimed the fuel crisis isn’t caused by Brexit, it’s caused by a lack of tanker drivers.
He's absolutely correct.
Oh, wait...
heads you lose…etc etc.
Johnson has used this tactic all along, and it's now normal business.
- Not caused by Brexit
- A price worth paying for Brexit
It keeps two camps onside... the "Brexit is an unalloyed good" idiots (sorry, they are), and also the "economic damage is worth it to get rid of foreigners" nationalists (for that is what they are). The "rising wages" (don't look at cost of living, don't look at the fact unemployment has risen for the low waged shifting the average wage higher, don't look at the effects of a bounce back from pandemic measures and furlough tapering off, don't look at the tax and benefit changes coming that are aimed at recovering any wage rises from the lower paid) line is being pushed so hard by the PM now (and repeated by so many who love to tell us good things about Brexit), because it supports both conceits, even though they are mutually exclusive. Claiming an economic benefit for keeping out people with accents (there isn't one, it's a lie)... while also saying that the economic damage of keeping out people with accents is worth it to make the country purer (don't call us anti-foreigner though, we just want to live amongst our "own").
@tthew it's gone up over a thousand since it popped up on my FB yesterday ,spread the word.
Article in the Guardian this morning saying that the worker shortage is spreading to other industries, and it could well drive up wages and hence costs.
And, counter intuitively, job losses. When you can't get the key staff you need to operate, you need to change your business model to accept this new reality. Be that cutbacks, relocation, offshoring... and that has a knock on effect on other companies... who have to change... etc, etc.
Yes, that was the other thing - reducing services offered. If we have fewer people available to work then our economy is going to shrink, unless we can get the automation in place. But there just isn't time for that, our workforce has shrunk in a matter of months.
I cant help but be a bit cynical.
unless we can get the automation in place.
By buying robots built in Germany using Chinese parts or American built autonomous vehicles built from Japanese parts.
nickc
Full MemberI’m sort of impressed how over the weekend several prominent Tories were floating the explanation that Brexit is simultaneously nothing to do with the reason that there are shortages of everything (A Bad Thing), and Brexit is the reason there are short term shortages because it is realigning a broken consumer market (a Good Thing)
See also: There is no driver shortage, it's all just the ex-BBC Road Haulage Association remainer chief (always mention all those 3 things together) cooking up a fake story with his friends in the media.
But at the same time, sending in the 150 army drivers will make a big difference to the driver shortage that definitely doesn't exist, hoorah! And the short term visas thing is a great move from Brilliant Boris to fix the driver shortage that definitely doesn't exist.
But at the same time, sending in the 150 army drivers will make a big difference to the driver shortage that definitely doesn’t exist, hoorah! And the short term visas thing is a great move from Brilliant Boris to fix the driver shortage that definitely doesn’t exist.
But they've sent the army in Hurrah <cue patriotic dam busters music>.
What exactly are these robots going to buy?
