Good to see Dougie keeping these people on their toes. It’s like whackamole!

STW: ‘Something Brexit something bad, and here’s why…’
Dougie: ‘But something whatabout, but maybe OK, or even better, I haven’t looked into it, maybe someone else could run and fetch that fact…’
STW: (on toes)

😉 Keep at them Dougie!

PS the reasons for a horse meat scandal sticking in your noggin are manifold. I had the same thing for ‘lamb’ doner meat when it was discovered that it was mostly chicken, some beef, and in some reports ‘an unidentified meat’.

The horse meat thing also seems to activate a ‘moral repulsion’ conundrum for us Brits, who traditionally reject the facts that (for example) pigs are sentient, not to mention smarter than your average horse, probably moreso than your dog or cat, which may or may not surprise you. With our dog, it would not. (And he is emotionally manipulative if not a great puzzle-solver)

Pigs are intelligent, communicative, curious, and even creative. They are emotionally complex and have functional long-term memories. If it was found that you had some (unlisted) intensively-raised pork in your beefburger (rather than some knackers yard horse) as a Brit I imagine (religious exceptions, er, excepted) that it may cause you less than mild concern? The red tops wouldn’t have quite the field day, at least.

The matter of US food quality is a complex one.

The extra trade friction costs created by brexit has to offset in some way

And slashing standards is the obvious way to do it.

Now we’re out, the starting gun has been fired on the race to the bottom.

Its going to be a double whammy though. As soon as the government start shredding workers rights etc then the EU’s level playing field rules will kick in and they’ll (rightly) impose economic sanctions on the UK.

Who do you think those economic sanctions will clobber? Like all economic sanctions they are felt by those at the bottom of the pile while the rich and privelidged remain unaffected.

Did you know that US megafoods inc often export/produce different, vaguely healthier versions of their foods to the EU? Has it been established whether the UK will be continuing to import those versions, or shall we be joining/continuing along the conveyor belt yellow brick road to the great over-worked, over-sugared, over-processed, diabetic Dream Citadel In The Sky??

What do you think? Which one do you think works out cheaper?

Here’s a thought – will rules of origin make us trade a little less with the rest of the world post Brexit.
Things we make ourselves are ok obviously, and things from the EU are ok but not other places.
Brexit may force us to trade more with the EU and less with other places.

Discuss.

Rationally.

Brexit may force us to trade more with the EU and less with other places.

Of course, the “deal” means that a German shop can source from anywhere in the world, and sell on to France, Spain, Holland… blah blah blah without tariff and RoO issues, where as a UK shop can source from anywhere in the world and sell on to… er… um…

In short, yes. But the same pressures on EU countries to source more from the UK rather than other places are not the same.

Dougiedogg

another downside to the food regs stuff is this:

a british food producer pre brexit adhered to EU regs and thus the food is more expensive but it allowed them to export to the EU

If we have a deal with the US that allows their less regulated and thus cheaper food into the UK market then the british food producer now has a choice. Be undercut by the US companies or drop standards to match and thus be barred from export to the EU

On American food, can I just point to one basic food stuff.

Chocolate. Any country that can’t get chocolate even close to right…

I lived in the US for a bit, I travel there regularly (pre-2020), there food is poor. And it’s heavily implicated in their obesity issues.

Yea that’s true TJ. My line of questioning was along the lines of “is the food actually worse for your health?” which by the balance of discussion on here suggests yes, it is.

I assume P7 is being sarcastic towards me.

I assume P7 is being sarcastic towards me.

Not really, I’m actually grateful (as I’m sure are many) of the break in the echo chamber. Unverified claims and/or reckonings (whether from leavers, remainers or undecideds) are worse than useless, so your prodding is really keeping people on their toes. Self included. My winkicon was a slight tease re fact-checking delegation, but it’s meant good-naturedly. At least as much good-nature as I can muster given what we are (most of us) all facing now, largely on account of ‘emotional’ voters who did not/do not care so much about fact-checking.

May I ask if you are aware of the business practice of selling (comparatively) lower-quality goods at (comparatively) higher prices?

Polish trucking magazine https://t.co/xcD1A22Sbb reports: A Polish truck driver entered Kent on Monday with valid Kent permit. He turned up at Ashford when they told him that his documents need to be double-checked, so he was sent to a different truck park to wait. 1/4

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 14, 2021

On Wednesday (!) he was informed his paperwork got a green light and told to come back to Ashford custom place only to find that custom truck park is full. He was told to park on yet another truck park which serves the queue. 2/4

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 14, 2021

There, the police come and fined him 300 pounds because his Kent access permit has by this time expired. So apparently the document called "kent access permit" needs to be renamed to "Kent accessing and then sitting for days, waiting for the paperwork permit". 3/4

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 14, 2021

Also, in Ashford drivers have to wait up to 4 hours outside in the rain in the queue to the customs office:

Cc: @donnyc1975, @mrjamesob @BBCSangita @aljwhite

Source in PL: https://t.co/VeH4yRgtdP
4/4 pic.twitter.com/TJIStS66sA

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 14, 2021

Found in comments:

"The English tell you to leave the compound after paperwork is done even if your driving time is over. You can't just drive out and park in the lay-by, as they will slam a wheel clamp on you for that…"

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 15, 2021

"I've been **** about for two days in United Whoredom. Now the best thing: I arrived in Germany, it took 15 minutes".

— Tomasz Oryński (@TOrynski) January 15, 2021

May I ask if you are aware of the business practice of selling (comparatively) lower-quality goods at (comparatively) higher prices?

No but I don’t really understand the question. Do you mean adulteration or for example manufacturing cars in india from indian steel and manufacturing the same model in france with french steel and selling at the same price?

binners

If I was one of those Scottish fishermen or fish processors watching this, I’d presently be trying to source Semtex. If you wanted to get a group of people you’ve already betrayed up to a level of boiling, revolutionary apoplexy, you’d be hard-pushed to do better than this

That clip of Rees-Mogg is absolutely terrible. He should be completely & utterly ashamed of that. But, it appears to fit in with him taking this all as a big jolly wheeze & a bit of a game.

See… I understand Rees-Moog, he has gained riches and power from this fishy game. A few people can laugh about this con, they have won… but what about all the people hoping that they will benefit as well? Will they be laughing as all this sinks home for them? Or will they just patently wait 10, 20, 40, 50 years for the benefits?

You have to remember Rees-Mogg has adopted Bannon’s “flood the zone with shit” approach to the news cycle.

Say daft shit to focus outrage on that instead of the issue at hand, until it gets knocked off the top by some other daft shit.

Yea that’s true TJ. My line of questioning was along the lines of “is the food actually worse for your health?” which by the balance of discussion on here suggests yes, it is.

Yes. A wide variety of US foods contain lots of high fructose corn syrup, which is pretty bad for you. The reason for this is that when consumerism was getting going the British Empire owned much of the world’s sugar production in the Caribbean, and the Americans didn’t want to (or couldn’t) trade with them. Then they realised that they could make a sweet syrup from corn which they could grow, so they promoted its use in everything. The US Corn farmer’s lobby is massive (I urge you to read about the lobby system in US politics – it’s shocking) and they are very good at getting their own business and products promoted via political means.

I don’t doubt it’ll be 10 years until benefits settle in and 20 years until we’ll know if brexit was a good idea. Maybe 40 years to be sure.

Pretty irrelevant, as the disaster unfolds, we’ll be at least back in the CU and SM in ten years.

Who do you think those economic sanctions will clobber? Like all economic sanctions they are felt by those at the bottom of the pile while the rich and privelidged remain unaffected.

It’s all about economies within the economy. What is unfolding is perfect for Rees-Mogg and his ilk in the part of the economy he gets rich from…the rest of it and those that rely on it? **** business.

Back to Kent, if you don’t mind. The early hours of Monday morning, a friend of mine has three trucks heading to Belgium, they hit Kent and the M20 and firstly the Traffic officers try to split their convoy, three wide vehicles with support vans following, which they obviously refused too, but then when they eventually stopped in “operation stack” or whatever it is, another Traffic officer mentioned in passing there were over 20k trucks stuck in Kent and they were expecting it to be 30k by mid week. Now to be fair his trucks were on their ferry the same day , but they are special loads, but his drivers said they passed trucks on the other side, on their way north up the M20 yesterday, they has seen on Monday morning. I can’t find anything online about operation stack, or numbers of trucks at the moment, but has anyone else heard anything relating to this?

but what about all the people hoping that they will benefit as well?

Fauxrage? He’s hawking gold and bitcoin investment advice to British OAPs based on the trust he won from them since he saved them from nasty furryners, and gave the OAP’s a blue passport, and took that nasty red one away from all of those nasty remainers. A hat trick. Sealed with a deal. Just £99 a year. See nigesbuybullionandbitcoinsfrommymatesdotcom. Allegedly. Or is it satire? I hardly know any more.

Otherwise I reckon the drug industry (especially painkillers, legal and illegal) slumlording, dodgy insurance deals and shitefood and snax opportunities could be goers? Especially for those who don’t have to worry or concern themselves about startup costs and/or holding one’s nose as they mop up.

Brexit on the whole is, IMO/IME a very brutal winner-takes-all US-style affair. Unsurprisingly, considering how and by whom/for whom it was engineered.

Whats pretty obvious is that everything going on in Kent isn’t ‘teething troubles’ as that pob-faced **** Gove would have us believe. This is the ‘new normal’. This is just what happens when you leave the customs union and the single market and become a third country

If you have a look on Twitter under tags like #Brexitreality its full of stuff like this

Wow! This is big !!!

From Germany: "Schenker AG, the logistics subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn with 76,000 employees and a presence in 130 countries, will currently no longer accept goods for transport to the UK."#BrexitReality https://t.co/IBJMv4VpHJ

— Brexit Bin 🇪🇺🇬🇧🇩🇪🕊🇺🇦 #BrexitHasFailed (@BrexitBin) January 13, 2021

This is the true Reality of Brexit, Peoples jobs and livelihoods at risk! #RejoinEU #BrexitReality https://t.co/fBvEmMSf6J

— UK Rejoin The EU (@UKRejoinTheEU) January 15, 2021

Awake worrying – Yesterday @DPDgroup_news said we cannot ship products to EU – horse pet food – 30% of business gone unless we can find a new shipper. 100 plus parcels returned – list of prohibited items is huge @guardian @thetimes @northwaleslive @talkRADIO #BrexitReality pic.twitter.com/QBmixFcOet

— forageplus (@forageplus) January 15, 2021

If you have a look on Twitter under tags like #Brexitreality its full of stuff like this

Stop being so deliberately negative. That’s not helping. Now is the time we need to heal, and all pull together to make this thing a success.

You want a positive outcome from Brexit? Easy – the Banbury and North Oxfordshire local nativity trail this year was completely excellent, you can’t tell me that would have happened had the Fisheries minister wasted her precious time reading the EU trade agreement instead. Mark one in the WIN column.

I think Stan may be right…

We seem to be very close to the point where the people who promoted Brexit will be blaming the people who voted for Brexit that Brexit happened.

— Stanley Chow (@stan_chow) January 15, 2021

Similar to the through-the-looking-glass spectacle the other day which saw Jeremy Hunt almost give his boss a hard time about the state of the NHS.

There’s a few tweets flying around about Brexiteer’s being unhappy that they are being blamed for the brexit difficulties and impacts. Apparently businesses should have been better prepared for the sunlit uplands…

Apparently businesses should have been better prepared

I keep hearing that.

And that it’s the big bad EU making our people fill out paperwork. Obviously not hearing that from anyone who deals with exports to anywhere else in the world.

Some people still think that the benefits of SM & SU will return naturally after some “teething problems” simply by fact that we want to trade, and because the EEA countries are close by, and have “the same standards”… they still don’t get it at all… and it’s not their fault… it’s people like Rees-Moog and his “cheap shoes” & “happy fish” quips betraying the fact that trade with fewer shared rules will be more bureaucratic, slower, and costly… even after companies have bedded in the systems that result from the new rules signed at Christmas, and fully uncovered on New Years Eve.

There’s a few tweets flying around about Brexiteer’s being unhappy that they are being blamed for the brexit difficulties and impacts. Apparently businesses should have been better prepared for the sunlit uplands…

Think you’ll find someone on here suggested that a page or two back

https://twitter.com/WeNeedEU/status/1350061901741481990?s=19

Click on it to see the full thread, it’s very well done!

From the link above:

“Hello, IT? My economy has stopped working.”

“Have you tried -”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Check settings. What does it say under software?”

“Compatible with EU membership.”

“Do you have that?”

“I just uninstalled it.”

“Er – Why?”

“Honestly, I can’t remember. Something about fish?”

“Is your fish industry running okay?”

“No, actually that was the first app to crash.”

“You see, that one really needs the EU platform installed.”

“Really? But my mate told me fishing would run better without it.”

“He sounds confused. Can you reinstall your EU app?”

“That might be hard. I threw it away. Also, now my economy has completely crashed. It’s not letting me install anything. All these trade deals have stopped working too.”

“Sounds like you’ll have to buy a new licence. Unfortunately without the old one it’ll be pricey.”

“What about this app my mate gave me instead? It’s called Sovereignty 45.”

“Mate, don’t touch that. It’s malware. It’ll reduce your economy down to the levels of 1945.”

“But those were the glory years! Weren’t they?”

“Mate, when were you born?”

“1960. Why?”

“And do you have strange marks on your fingernails, indicating vitamin deficiency?”

“I do! How did you know?”

“An inspired guess. Listen – don’t touch anything. Restart your economy in safe mode, restoring Single Market and Customs Union. That should sort it for now.”

“But my mate said those things let in viruses.”

“Is your mate’s name Nigel by any chance?”

“Yes! How did you -”

“Another wild stab. Those aren’t viruses, they are EU workers, and they are vital to the smooth running of your systems.”

“But I clicked on a pop-up that said it would get rid of them all for me.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to deduce your modus operandi. Well, at least you’ve called me now. You’ll just have to run your economy at half-power until I get your new membership installed.”

Boris’s phone Must be red hot with N.I business people waiting for him to tell them to bin the paperwork.

Another small business story:

Over the past 15 days I have not only been running my company as normal but I have been faced with largest threat to its future since it began in 1992. This is #Brexit & here is my thread on just how bad things are getting. 1/26

— Daniel Lambert (Wines). 🇪🇺🇫🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🍇🥂 (@DanielLambert29) January 16, 2021

+UPDATE+

The UK Govt plans to raise money from hauliers by taxing them £50 an hour as they park at the govt's 'inland border facilities" while waiting for Brexit customs checks.

— Nick🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@nicktolhurst) January 16, 2021

lost for words, the idea of delaying drivers then charging them…. I guess they got the idea from premium rate helplines.

Ramping up the self imposed siege. **** business.

40% of trade in a danish seafood market is new scottish boats land there instead of in Scotland

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/16/nhs-worker-stuck-in-kenya-as-settled-status-documents-are-rejected

mrmo
Free Member

lost for words, the idea of delaying drivers then charging them…. I guess they got the idea from premium rate helplines.

It’s the MO of organised crime basically. The fact that the Kent permits aren’t long enough to reliably get you through the car parks of doom is the same thing. They’re in charge of every part- the length of the permit, the length of the queue, the length of the process- but it’s you that pays if you “overstay”.

Exact same systems routinely used for years on overseas students

the advice given by the Home Office to prove my status online is not enough

This has been made clear to the UK government from the moment they announced the details of the scheme (including privately within the FCO and publicly by the campaigners for the 3 million and by representatives for foreign states), but in typical fashion, they either don’t understand, or don’t care, or both.

Sometimes little things really resonate.

I can’t help but think Mogg has just guaranteed a second referendum for Scotland. The result too.

Can we get some Brexit positives on here?

Looks like an open border on the way between Gibraltar and Spain. Good news.

I thought it was only open for spanish? Basically gibralter has joined Shengen but only EU citizens and those with a right to live in the EU can avail themselves of it.

Not quite sure how it’ll work, we’ll see in the summer, but it’s for the people of Gibraltar and Schengen countries only, yes. Good for the people of that corner of Spain.

My dad once ended up in a cell for landing on the coast of Spain, rather than back in Gibraltar, due to a storm. 40+ years ago though.

I visited Gibraltar when on holiday in Spain as a lad 55 or so years ago. Spanish customs raided the bus on the way home and (according to my parents) found loads of contraband. That was in Franco days. Looking back it feels weird that we were holidaying in a fascist dictatorship, but that was the start of the Costa [whatever] cheap holiday era. Europe has changed a bit since then…