I remember when I was fruit picking in OZ we would sometimes ship from North Queensland down to the fruit market in Melbourne rather than Brisbane as a better price could be have then it would be shipped back to stores close to us.

seemed like madness but they did anything to maximise the sale price per box and the difference in transportation cost was minimal

the difference in transportation cost was minimal

Dunno if it is still the case but one company shipped langoustine from Scotland to Thailand for processing before they got returned as scampi.

A pretty good summary by Gary Younge of this whole chaotic farce

Rudderless and riven by Brexit, the Tories have only one ambition left

So on Friday at Chequers the government will do what it has been doing for the past two years: spend an inordinate amount of time negotiating with itself before producing a “solution” that is unworkable, only to take it to Brussels and discover it is also unacceptable. The problem is not just that they don’t have a rabbit; they don’t even have a hat.

Is there a single person who believes that by the end of today we’ll be any clearer on anything than we were 2 years ago? Surely not even May believes there will be a shred of progress or unity.

All I’m hoping for is that some peoples bluff finally gets called and she issues ultimatums to the nutters to either sign up to a sensible option or resign, thus instigating the collapse of this utterly inept government, and then the two wings of the Tory party can set about the all out war with each other they’ve threatened for decades.

I don’t have much more hope in Corbyn when it comes to the EU, but anything has to be better than this

Can the can (Suzi Quattro reference not deliberate) be kicked any further down the road or is this it?

I get the impression that as far as the likes of Airbus, JLR, Rolls Royce, Siemens etc are concerned this is the last chance saloon before they say “**** it! Time to get the **** out of Dodge to somewhere a bit less mental”, and we start the rapid downward spiral into a dystopian No Deal hell that has previously only existed in John Redwoods head

Had Davis threatened to resign yet ?

I believe that the formerly disgraced minister Liam Fox has threatened to quit, thus improving our chances of getting a decent trade deal by 976.45%

Top Trumps are missing a trick here by not releasing a set of cards featuring cabinet ministers and their reason for quittage.

Top Trumps are missing a trick here by not releasing a set of cards featuring cabinet ministers and their reason for quittage.

More like the deck of cards the US forces had in Iraq.  Who’d be the Ace of Spades in the Brexit deck though?  J R-M, BoJo, May, Davies?  Farage obvs the Joker,

We are at the point where the obviousness of this must start to be clear to more and more people…

Dominic Cummings said there should be no plan for Brexit because solid proposals would place leavers in an “unwinnable debate”
As a propaganda tactic to win a referendum this was brilliant.
As a strategy for Britain’s future, it was a disaster pic.twitter.com/BhENoWYFmn

— Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) July 6, 2018

My local (tory) MP is a full Brexit roaster.

He’s all over the news / facebook / local events and essentially all he ever does is shit stir to whip up the local Gammons:

“We must deliver the Brexit people voted for”

“We mustn’t betray those who voted for Brexit”

“Brexit means brexit”

“Look at these people!!11! They’re trying to betray Brexit. We musn’t betray Brexit”.

I have never, ever actually heard him define what people want from Brexit. Deliver what? Why? What does it offer to people in your area?

It offers nothing that’s why. When we all end up poorer he can still say we delivered Brexit. Oh well you never said you didn’t want economic ruin, we just delivered Brexit!!

Brexit chickens all coming home to roost

Come on Leave voters, you e all gone so quiet.. jambs, ninfan, turnerguy, deviant, cheek, even THM isn’t here to tell us how great the Tories are doing

Anyway here’s some for the gammons

Airbus CEO Enders: “Absolutely realistic” Brexit warning about thousands of parts not being certified.. no EASA & certifying UK parts in Airbus planes “falls apart” on Brexit, could mean production standstills..after 1 year “lost” in this process, have to prepare for worst case pic.twitter.com/UIPdo17kc9

— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) July 6, 2018

If you want to know why the PM is – probably right now – patiently explain to her colleagues why she in effect wants UK inside the single market for agriculture and food, this video is a wonderfully synoptic explanation https://t.co/2IvgLORc0x

— Robert Peston (@Peston) July 6, 2018

I like that agreement between the cabinet somehow equates to agreement with the EU

The news is in.  It’s to be a specially picked cherry cake that we can have and still eat

It’s a breakthrough.   Unfortunately one that is simply never going to be accepted by the EU

got to start somewhere

Soft brexit it is then

Telegraph is frothing

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/;jsessionid=k0uy4b2ngvebpqfiqmgsffwavcbqwiv0/

Just wait till we concede even more to the EU

It’s still not going to be accepted by the eu. It’s just total nonsense

Why’s it nonsense, specifically?

I can see some significant issues though – if Parliament has to argue over each and every rule for harmonization, it’s going to be US style horse trading, we’ll end up with people having to trade progressive legislation in one area for neocapitalist exploitation in another.

Why’s it nonsense, specifically?

FOM for farm workers and not bankers, and for engineers/factory workers but not hotel staff it all sounds a bit daft assuming those parts of the economy staying in the singlemarket are going to abide by the “rules”

sorry i meant Mobility Framework not FOM silly me

Brexit the rebranding exercise

Random Twitter comments

This would have been a good starting negotiation standpoint 16 months ago. But now? This is embarrassing.

On losing jobs due to leaving the EU.

It’s something we’ll just have to get through. Like the Blitz.

As it stands can I still buy my chocolates from Belgium at the same price?

Depends if they are on the list for goods to be on the free trade agreement.

obviously as it has taken 2 years to get to a position how long will it be to define all of the other policies and have those agreed.

If the fallback is we are in until everything is decided as a contributing rule taker it may make the Canada treaty seem fast…

As it stands can I still buy my chocolates from Belgium at the same price?

Only if we beat them in the final

If Sweden win will will have to take the krona as our currency?

it is nonsense because the 4 freedoms are not negociable .

As Chris says

It’s still attempting to cherry pick and split the four freedoms.  There is no recognition of the position of the eu

It’s not even a starting point. There is nothing for the eu to work with

at least the Brexiters are going in full meltdown .

It would require huge wide ranging trade agreements that have no parallel anywhere and would need the founding treaties of the eu to be altered

 it is nonsense because the 4 freedoms are not negociable .

This. Two years of negotiating with itself and the torys come up with this. What’s even more laughable is it doesn’t include services.

We are a service based economy.

Nah the EU are pragmatic enough to bend the rules a bit, ala Switzerland & Norway.

This is either a starting point & we’ll keep making concessions to get a services deal.

Brexies will raise a stink, but they’ve got nothing better

Or we’ll just crash out with no deal….. no po me is stupid enough to agree that tho so….. #peoplesvote

Hahahahah

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/06/theresa-may-has-betrayed-us-brexiteer-ministers-letting-get/

Oh, it’s frothy.  Complete Gammon-shart.

They skipped the chapter about Suez when they studied history.

Nice purple ie UKIP blouse she had on, deliberate I’m sure.

Even if this made sense, and even if EU accepted it, it only covers goods….which only makes up 20% of our economy (or is it 20% of uur trade with Europe….whatever…it’s bad)

And why are the press calling it soft brexit…it isn’t cos it ends freedom of movement

Nah the EU are pragmatic enough to bend the rules a bit, ala Switzerland & Norway.

Norway and Switzerland still have to accept freedom of movement.  Not only that, but they also have borders with the EU.

Norwegian lessons for all then?

Anyone seen the supporting presentation video for this .

A bit shite doesn’t really do it justice.

It’s still attempting to cherry pick and split the four freedoms.  There is no recognition of the position of the eu

It’s not suggesting bilateral freedom of movement though is it?  It’s not an EU freedom if it’s just letting others in. We just won’t be able to go the other way..?  I can’t see anything relating to this in the statement.

Well what a surprise. Nobody resigned.

I expect this will be the beginning of a succession of quiet climb downs and backtracks until we end up back where we were but with no say over anything.

so this Taking Back Control lark has all gone brilliantly

To be fair to May she’s played a blinder by announcing all this today, while the Gammons are busy attaching their St George’s cross flags to their cars and getting the Carling in

We now know exactly where Fox, Johnson and Davis actually stand: totally unprincipled.