Brexit...

[ChrisJC]

One more meme just for Alex... I really cant be bothered putting all the points into text!

NB vaccine roll out is easier if you dont have to go through all the data but just rubber stamp it, and then dont honour export contracts on said vaccines...

Indeed. Anyone with half a brain would realise what a load of bollocks that is. Makes a nice meme. If you believe it, frankly you need to look past the end of your nose, stop listening to James O'Brien who has the same issue, and actually start looking for facts.

Two quick points:
1. If Galileo is an EU project, please explain why Israel and Morocco are involved?
2. Erasmus was available when I was a student in the late 80's / early 90's. That was before the EU.

Explain how just the current fiasco surrounding those two is anything other than bloody minded point scoring to the detriment of both parties?, aka revenge?

Chris.

 

[mikem]

"The Erasmus Programme is a European Union student exchange programme established in 1987."

& Galileo - because they bought into it.

 

[Mark]

The best scaremongering headline the BBC could come up with over the last week was

"Empty shelves, no custard creams for brits in Belgium"

 

[ChrisJC]

"The Erasmus Programme is a European Union student exchange programme established in 1987."

& Galileo - because they bought into it.

Well, the EU was formed by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 ?! Certainly after Erasmus.

So by your own admission either of those two is inextricably linked to being a member of the EU...

Unless you are a politician or journalist with a vendetta.

Chris.

 

[2xw]

Two quick points:
1. If Galileo is an EU project, please explain why Israel and Morocco are involved?
2. Erasmus was available when I was a student in the late 80's / early 90's. That was before the EU.

Explain how just the current fiasco surrounding those two is anything other than bloody minded point scoring to the detriment of both parties?, aka revenge?

1. Galileo is an EU project. Israel, Morocco, China, Ukraine, and Norway bought into it. The UK was also involved. The UK then left it whilst the Tories pretended they'd been booted out of it. Then the UK said they'd make a better one and that they'd try to reclaim the money from the EU. Then they gave up and Sam Gyimah resigned for some reason. Then Theresa May said she'd allocated ?92m for it, they invested in OneWeb, which went bankrupt, now they've abandoned the UK version, and Whitehall folks are pressuring gov to get back involved in Galileo. The Dep for BEIS says they will not participate in EUs Galileo but when the whole Brexit thing dies down they probably will, quietly - it'd be good for everyone and as you point out EU membership is not a requirement. It's more of a story about Tory incompetance than Brexit itself although the two are intertwined.

2. That wasn't before the EU - maybe on a technicality. The European Communities started in 1965, and the UK had joined it in 1973, and the Schengen agreement, which probably is related to ERASMUS, began in 1986.

As far as explaining why it isn't bloody-minded point scoring. It is - that's politics - it was always going to be a natural consequence and anybody could have seen that coming a mile off. It is what folks voted for.

 

[mikem]

The treaty of Rome (formation of EEC) was as far back as 1957 & in 1987: "The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community, an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992" - so it was in progress

 

[Mark Wright]

Ya lots of negative I see draws a lot of attention it?s why I stay away from social websites that ent mines and caves is not good fun gets people very depressed it turns not sociable . Many of them people also say covid is not real ?

13.5million people have been vaccinated so far and people say are government is crap and couldn?t run a corner shop don?t think so  :spank:

Its the NHS delivering the vaccinations, not the Government.

I was talking with a family friend the other day who is a retired nurse. She has been volunteering to give vaccinations in the Barnsley area. She told me that if the Government had been doing their bit and getting supplies to the vaccination centres they might have been able to vaccinate nearly everybody in the top 9 categories by now.

The government is crap and couldn?t run a piss up in a brewery.

Mark

 

[Fjell]

Our kid is vaccinating in Huddersfield. And even made the telly. After 3 min.

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2021-02-04/calls-for-greater-vaccine-uptake-as-40-of-over-eighties-from-bame-backgrounds-turning-down-jab

Where does your friend think the government is hiding vaccine? If you want to worry there is zero stock for second jabs.

 

[Fjell]

The EU blocked military access to Galileo for the UK. No-one seems to know why beyond pique and it means the UK military is locked into the US for ever. I believe we formally walked away last month.

The fact that key global ground stations are on UK territory is believed not to be linked to several highly embarrassing major outages in recent years.  :halo:

In other completely unrelated news:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/biden-vs-merkel-the-battle-over-russian-gas-is-heating-up

 

[Mark Wright]

She wasn?t suggesting the government was hiding vaccines, just that her team could be doing significantly more than they are doing if they had enough vaccine. There?s nothing the vaccinators can do about that unfortunately.

I read that a hospital in London yesterday was carrying out 100 vaccinations a day when they could have been delivering 1000. I think this had something to do with the majority of the older population being vaccinated in some areas.

Talking of hiding vaccines, nothing would surprise me with this shower. Haven?t the government just had to set up a special task force to try and locate ?27B of PPE that they?ve misplaced?

 

 

[andrewmcleod]

Fun Brexit facts:

We have probably paid (ever) around ?222 billion in EU contributions. Estimates of the reduction in UK GDP since Brexit are around ?100-?200 billion.

The war generation (i.e. those alive in WWII) voted to Remain.

Margaret Thatcher was one of the major architects of the Single Market (which we just left).

Brexit has bugger all to do with vaccinations; everything we've done since then we could have done in the EU (we approved the Pfizer vaccine while still subject to EU law during the transition period, for example).

 

[Fjell]

If the EU chucked in it?s famous collection of non-tariff barriers then trade would flow freely. They don?t need to exist, they are protectionist and keep out stuff from all over the world, whilst maintaining a large trade surplus to others. It has been criticised for a very long time as it keeps poorer countries poor. Maybe it wasn?t obvious from the inside.

If the UK stops behaving like that it will be a moral win.

https://doc-research.org/2019/04/europe-trade-africa/

 

[pwhole]

Here's a another piece from Nick Cohen of The Observer, no rabid leftie, this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/13/in-the-fairytale-land-of-brexit-were-trading-with-the-world-its-a-fantasy

The government, too, must try to keep us trapped in a joyless version of Disney World. It cannot tell the truth to its voters or, I suspect, to itself. I met Truss before we left the EU. She carried the secret smile of the zealot convinced they are in possession of a truth the uninitiated could never grasp. The glow of the convinced fanatic shone from her face, as if it was emitting a harsh, fluorescent light. The oldest question in journalism is: are they lying or are they genuinely that stupid? I am sure I am being too kind but my impression was that Truss was genuinely stupid enough to believe her Brexit promises.

Now she is being ?mugged by reality? ? a phrase conservatives once used about naive liberals, yet it applies to them in spades. My sources report that Truss changes her mind constantly and civil servants are exhausting themselves as they try to keep up with her contradictory demands. She insists her special advisers rewrite her civil servants? briefs to make them more ideologically palatable, as if Conservative political appointees can make Britain great again by redrafting the country in Microsoft Word.

 

[aardgoose]

The EU blocked military access to Galileo for the UK. No-one seems to know why beyond pique

Translation: the EU enforced the rules agreed when the UK was a member.

 

[aardgoose]

Non tariff barriers are world wide, not something dreamt up by the EU.

Plumbers in the US need state licenses https://www.nextinsurance.com/blog/plumber-licensing-requirements/.
The US has multiple plumbing codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Plumbing_Code

These are non tariff barriers within the US.

The UK chose to leave the SM, that was always going to damage businesses. It isn't the EU's fault that people thought 'Free Trade Agreements' provided better terms than the SM. They don't. Some people thought 'Free Trade' meant regulation free. They were wrong.

Australian states have independent rules for livestock health. There are non tariff barriers moving livestock between states, ie costs.

 

[Fjell]

Sylvia Pfeifer in London DECEMBER 3 2018

Airbus has hit out at the EU for Britain?s decision to quit the military side of the EU?s Galileo satellite navigation system after being frozen out by Brussels, warning it will undermine security ambitions across the bloc.

Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, said the move is a ?serious blow to the EU?s common security and defence ambition?.

?Don?t those talking about a ?European army? know that the UK is one of only two serious military powers in Europe?? Mr Enders wrote in an Airbus Twitter post.

Britain, along with France, has traditionally been one of the most active defence powers in Europe. France and Germany recently called for the creation of a European Army in a bid for closer defence co-operation between EU member states.

Mr Enders? criticism was echoed by Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and currently co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Mr Bildt attacked the move to exclude the UK from the ?security part of the Galileo satellite system? and thus forcing them out, as ?strategic folly of the first order?.

 

[Pitlamp]

I've said all along that one of the best reasons for closer European links / co-operation is the threat from a certain gentleman just to the east with the initials VP.

 

[pwhole]

Indeed. And given he's also been running the USA for the last four years, he's well overdue for retirement, voluntarily or otherwise. Hopefully otherwise, and live on TV.

Anyway, I briefly encountered this guy many years ago when I was dabbling in fabric design, and spent more time on the damp side of the hill, where the silk-related industries hang out. They tried it in Sheffield but it was too dry, and everyone kept getting shocks from the static - this is why there's a 'Silk Road' in Macclesfield. I used to use a fabric printer in Bollington who I'm pleased to see are still going strong. But he's not happy either, and is slowly but surely moving his operations to France:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/14/as-half-its-sales-are-wiped-out-silk-firm-joins-exodus-to-europe

Bennett, meanwhile, is glad that after a dismal period, his French investment will help Bennett Silks in a way he had not expected. But he still can?t believe the unnecessary problems that have been put in exporters? ways. He ridicules the idea that other trade deals with far-off countries will replace being members of the EU single market.

?To turn our backs on the world?s largest trading bloc, which is on our doorstep, in favour of trying to create trade deals with countries that couldn?t be further away, and have much smaller economies, is total stupidity and beyond comprehension,? he says. ?Covid has kept the Brexit issues out of the headlines, but to try and get a message across to our single- minded, short-sighted government, it needs to be in the headlines. I cannot think of one single positive benefit from Brexit, only negatives, and all my customers and contacts are of the same opinion.?

Britain used to be great but no longer, he says, blaming Tory politicians at the top of government. ?To adapt a phrase from our most famous leader, ?Never in the field of British business has so much been destroyed for so many, by so few?

 

[Mark Wright]

Ive just been discussing the same Guardian article with my other company director. About 1/3 of my business is selling goods into the EU and the other 2/3 is selling them services.

Dominic Raab suggested this morning that businesses should take a 10 year view of our new trading relationship with the EU.

I wouldn?t be surprised if a lot of UK businesses set up subsidiaries in the EU this week resulting in significant UK job losses, not to mention the significant loss of UK tax revenue.

You can?t blame them really.

 

[Fjell]

In 2019 I think we were at 43% exports to the EU and 54% imports. I have seen some suggestions that that will fall to 30% exports and 40% imports within 5 years.

The trade deal we have is worse than the one they have with Canada, so in the end this is a strategic choice by the EU. You can only hope it is what they intended to happen. I have my doubts to be honest. The history of this sort of thing in Europe is that of countries falling into line eventually if pressure is applied, and I think for years there was an assumption that would happen again. It didn?t, and there is no script for what to do next.