No deal Brexit impact

[Alexphd1]

I just hope the decisions are more made at Westminster than hollyrood...  

[joe90]

Just now, Alexphd1 said:

I just hope the decisions are more made at Westminster than hollyrood...  

 

? Is that a reference to possible devolution?

[LA3222]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

The whole idea of leaving the EU was to distort the 'level playing field'

Why we are arguing over fishing, worth about 0.06% of our economy.

The argument is being presented by the Press/Euro as a fish issue. That's not the issue at hand it is sovereignty, the minute you use that word all the liberals get up in arms and start conflating 'sovereignty' with xenophobia/racism/nationalism and whatever else you would care to dress it up as.

 

The argument needs presenting in a way that is better understood. 

 

The EU want the UK to sign over access to a resource 'owned' by the UK (and by extension UK citizens) into perpetuity. Forever. 

 

Why would anyone in their right mind agree to sign away a valuable resource that belongs to them forever? I am sure the Eurozone will be granted fishing rights, but it will be determined by the UK government on behalf of UK citizens and for the benefit of UK citizens.

 

Would the EU sign over oil drilling rights in Greek waters over to Turkey into perpetuity? Don't be daft.

 

This isn't about fish, its about protecting UK resources for the benefit of the UK taxpayers.

[Alexphd1]

Sorry bit of thread drift on my behalf will keep it on brexit .

[joe90]

8 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said:

Sorry bit of thread drift on my behalf will keep it on brexit .

We are used to that ????? start a new thread and put your tin hat on.

[Alexphd1]

All seriousness I try and stay out of politics on online forums it only ends in tears but I did bite when I was reading about fishing rights, a subject that plays a big part in my life. 

 

[joe90]

5 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said:

it only ends in tears

It has got near that here but the mods read us the riot act now and again.

 

6 minutes ago, Alexphd1 said:

a subject that plays a big part in my life. 

I, for one , would be interested in your point of view on this part of Brexit but understand your reluctance, you’re probably  better informed than most here. I believe there is nothing wrong with having an opinion.

[Crofter]

We will see the benefits of Brexit on the fishing industry quite soon. Every fishing boat now has to register with their LA Environmental Health as a food production business, something neither the fishermen nor the council are well equipped to deal with. Every shipment of live shellfish will have to be inspected by a vet (there is one such vet to cover the whole of Highland region). Nobody knows exactly what procedures and paperwork are going to be needed and there is a feeling that the first few lorry loads of live exports are going to sit and die in a layby somewhere because of a missing piece of paper. A lot of smaller fishermen are going to sit tight and hope to ride out the storm, not selling anything to export, whilst they wait for the kinks to be ironed out.

And then there's the effects of the tariffs- these vary depending on species and level of processing, but are at least 5%, and up to around 20% for certain products. How many businesses can swallow that kind of cost without damage?

[Alexphd1]

We have just finished with the environmental health no major problems tbh all pretty common sense. The last boat I worked on shifted 80% of their produce outwith EU mostly to japan. The boat before we shifted high end langoustine to Dubai, international paperwork is not a new thing within the industry. A friend have recently set up a shellfish export buisness specialising in brown crab to china, he seams to be constantly looking for staff. 

When it come to fish I think people forget there is a big world outwith EU who luckily seem to have appetite for good quality seafood. 

[SteamyTea]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/11/year-uk-has-paid-appalling-price-boris-johnson-s-election-victory

 

30 NOVEMBER 2020
A year on, the UK has paid an appalling price for Boris Johnson’s election victory
Through his shameful conduct, the Prime Minister has debased his office and trashed Britain’s global reputation. 

BY
MARTIN FLETCHER
Through his shameful conduct, the Prime Minister has debased his office and trashed Britain’s global reputation.
 

The 12 December anniversary of Boris Johnson’s “stonking” election victory over the weakest opposition in memory looms, and what a year it has been. Not so much an annus horribilis as what our classically-trained Prime Minister might, in another context, call the “annus horribilissimus”. 

Deep within me I can summon a modicum of sympathy for our Great Dear Leader. To be hit by the Covid-19 pandemic so early in his term was cruel. Even Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, would have struggled. But the pandemic has exposed him for the weak, vacillating and incompetent leader that he is, and the country is paying an appalling price.

He failed to prepare for the first wave in the spring, or the second wave in the autumn. He failed to stockpile PPE, protect care homes, provide testing or impose swift lockdowns. Lacking a coherent strategy, he has “veered like a shopping trolley” between authoritarianism and libertarianism, between science and political expediency, between saving lives and saving the economy. Now we’ve been granted a brief respite from our terrible tiers so we can go out and spread the virus for five days over Christmas.

The result is the worst of all possible worlds. Despite spending more money fighting Covid-19 (£280bn and rising) than any other G7 country save Canada, we have also suffered the second highest death rate after Italy. 

[See also: The biggest mistakes made by Boris Johnson’s government during the Covid-19 crisis]

The pandemic was unavoidable. Brexit was a choice. Last summer the European Union (having mysteriously survived all those Brexiteer predictions of its imminent collapse) offered to extend the transition period beyond 31 December, but Johnson in his wisdom said no. Thus chaos will be piled on chaos a month from now. 

A post-Christmas surge in Covid will almost certainly coincide with bedlam at our ports, disrupted supply lines, higher prices, and shortages of food, fuel and medicines. An economy forecast to contract by 11.3 per cent in 2020 (its worst performance since 1709) will suffer several more percentage points of lost growth over the next few years with or without the “oven ready” deal Johnson repeatedly promised us 12 months ago.

All those trade agreements he promised have failed to materialise – not even one with Trump’s America. His “global Britain” is cutting foreign aid, disbanding the Department for International Development, cracking down on immigration and consumed by a narrow, mean-spirited nationalism. The pandemic has destroyed the myth that our small island can raise the drawbridge and “take back control” in this age of globalisation. 

Far from strengthening the United Kingdom, Brexit is hastening its disintegration as support for Scottish independence surges and Northern Ireland’s fragile peace comes under threat. Far from becoming a low-tax, low-regulation Singapore-on-Thames, we face a mountain of new red tape and higher taxes to fill the black hole in the public finances. 

As the costs of Brexit have become ever more apparent, and the benefits ever more illusory, who but a handful of crazed zealots will be celebrating our “liberation” on New Year’s Eve? And how extraordinary that in last week’s spending review statement, Rishi Sunak failed to mention Brexit once, its enormous economic consequences notwithstanding? Even among its advocates Brexit has become a taboo subject, a dirty word.

Covid and Brexit apart, Johnson faces a third grave charge, namely that his shameful conduct has debased his office, weakened the institutions of government with all their checks and balances, and tarnished Britain’s reputation in the world.

He has explicitly condoned the breaking of international law. He has undermined cabinet government by stuffing his own with pliant mediocrities (remember them all dutifully tweeting their support for Dominic Cummings after he blatantly breached the lockdown rules?). He has sought to bypass parliament and politicise the civil service. He has attempted to cow the judiciary and independent media.

[See also: How Priti Patel became unsackable]

The list goes on. He has ousted honest and capable public servants, often through smears and anonymous briefings, while rewarding cronies with jobs, peerages and lucrative contracts. No other prime minister has been reprimanded by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, as Johnson was last month, for “packing the composition of interview panels with allies” and “the growth of unregulated appointments”.

He has brazenly and shamelessly refused to dismiss ministers and top aides no matter how egregious their transgressions. He stood by Priti Patel despite a report concluding that she bullied civil servants, prompting his adviser on ministerial standards to resign in protest. He stood by Gavin Williamson despite the A-level results fiasco. He kept Cummings despite his Barnard Castle escapade. He ignored Robert Jenrick’s malodorous approval of Richard Desmond’s £1bn housing development. He refused to suspend a Tory MP accused of rape, but removed the whip from another Conservative, Julian Lewis, who won election as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee and published the report into Russian interference in British politics. 

Instead of seeking to unite our fractured country, Johnson has frequently taunted the half of the country that voted Remain. He governs through infantile three-word slogans. He prefers fantastical visions – UK space commands and wind farms powering every British home within nine years – to policies rooted in reality. If he really wants Britain to be the “world leader” in green energy, why not end the ten-year freeze on fuel duty? 

Johnson is so profligate with public money that senior civil servants have sought an unprecedented 17 “ministerial directions” to signal disagreement with spending decisions they consider risky or wasteful. He has obfuscated, dissembled and played fast and loose with facts, earning at least two rebukes from the UK Statistics Authority. 

He has made so many vacuous promises – of “world-beating” apps, of putting a “tiger in the tank” of the Brexit talks, of sending the virus packing within 12 weeks, by the summer, by Christmas, by next Easter – that he has lost all credibility. As John Major observed in a brilliant speech on 9 November, “false optimism is deceit by another name”.

A year on from Johnson’s election victory, I struggle to think of a single way in which the country has benefited from his premiership, and I’m evidently not alone. His approval rating has plunged to -24. Labour has overtaken the Tories in the polls. Despite an 80-seat majority he struggles to win key parliamentary votes. He has squandered the support even of the slavishly sycophantic Tory press, and the process of “levelling up” seems to be going into reverse.

The good news is that our floundering featherweight of a prime minister has finally been forced to jettison Cummings and his Vote Leave henchmen in favour of apparent grown-ups such as Simon Case and Dan Rosenfield – and that there are now only four years left until the next election.

[daiking]

@SteamyTea I’ve just read Martin Fletcher’s Twitter feed ?

 

Did Boris sleep with his partner as well?

[LA3222]

21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/11/year-uk-has-paid-appalling-price-boris-johnson-s-election-victory

 

30 NOVEMBER 2020
A year on, the UK has paid an appalling price for Boris Johnson’s election victory
Through his shameful conduct, the Prime Minister has debased his office and trashed Britain’s global reputation. 

BY
MARTIN FLETCHER
Through his shameful conduct, the Prime Minister has debased his office and trashed Britain’s global reputation.
 

The 12 December anniversary of Boris Johnson’s “stonking” election victory over the weakest opposition in memory looms, and what a year it has been. Not so much an annus horribilis as what our classically-trained Prime Minister might, in another context, call the “annus horribilissimus”. 

Deep within me I can summon a modicum of sympathy for our Great Dear Leader. To be hit by the Covid-19 pandemic so early in his term was cruel. Even Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, would have struggled. But the pandemic has exposed him for the weak, vacillating and incompetent leader that he is, and the country is paying an appalling price.

He failed to prepare for the first wave in the spring, or the second wave in the autumn. He failed to stockpile PPE, protect care homes, provide testing or impose swift lockdowns. Lacking a coherent strategy, he has “veered like a shopping trolley” between authoritarianism and libertarianism, between science and political expediency, between saving lives and saving the economy. Now we’ve been granted a brief respite from our terrible tiers so we can go out and spread the virus for five days over Christmas.

The result is the worst of all possible worlds. Despite spending more money fighting Covid-19 (£280bn and rising) than any other G7 country save Canada, we have also suffered the second highest death rate after Italy. 

[See also: The biggest mistakes made by Boris Johnson’s government during the Covid-19 crisis]

The pandemic was unavoidable. Brexit was a choice. Last summer the European Union (having mysteriously survived all those Brexiteer predictions of its imminent collapse) offered to extend the transition period beyond 31 December, but Johnson in his wisdom said no. Thus chaos will be piled on chaos a month from now. 

A post-Christmas surge in Covid will almost certainly coincide with bedlam at our ports, disrupted supply lines, higher prices, and shortages of food, fuel and medicines. An economy forecast to contract by 11.3 per cent in 2020 (its worst performance since 1709) will suffer several more percentage points of lost growth over the next few years with or without the “oven ready” deal Johnson repeatedly promised us 12 months ago.

All those trade agreements he promised have failed to materialise – not even one with Trump’s America. His “global Britain” is cutting foreign aid, disbanding the Department for International Development, cracking down on immigration and consumed by a narrow, mean-spirited nationalism. The pandemic has destroyed the myth that our small island can raise the drawbridge and “take back control” in this age of globalisation. 

Far from strengthening the United Kingdom, Brexit is hastening its disintegration as support for Scottish independence surges and Northern Ireland’s fragile peace comes under threat. Far from becoming a low-tax, low-regulation Singapore-on-Thames, we face a mountain of new red tape and higher taxes to fill the black hole in the public finances. 

As the costs of Brexit have become ever more apparent, and the benefits ever more illusory, who but a handful of crazed zealots will be celebrating our “liberation” on New Year’s Eve? And how extraordinary that in last week’s spending review statement, Rishi Sunak failed to mention Brexit once, its enormous economic consequences notwithstanding? Even among its advocates Brexit has become a taboo subject, a dirty word.

Covid and Brexit apart, Johnson faces a third grave charge, namely that his shameful conduct has debased his office, weakened the institutions of government with all their checks and balances, and tarnished Britain’s reputation in the world.

He has explicitly condoned the breaking of international law. He has undermined cabinet government by stuffing his own with pliant mediocrities (remember them all dutifully tweeting their support for Dominic Cummings after he blatantly breached the lockdown rules?). He has sought to bypass parliament and politicise the civil service. He has attempted to cow the judiciary and independent media.

[See also: How Priti Patel became unsackable]

The list goes on. He has ousted honest and capable public servants, often through smears and anonymous briefings, while rewarding cronies with jobs, peerages and lucrative contracts. No other prime minister has been reprimanded by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, as Johnson was last month, for “packing the composition of interview panels with allies” and “the growth of unregulated appointments”.

He has brazenly and shamelessly refused to dismiss ministers and top aides no matter how egregious their transgressions. He stood by Priti Patel despite a report concluding that she bullied civil servants, prompting his adviser on ministerial standards to resign in protest. He stood by Gavin Williamson despite the A-level results fiasco. He kept Cummings despite his Barnard Castle escapade. He ignored Robert Jenrick’s malodorous approval of Richard Desmond’s £1bn housing development. He refused to suspend a Tory MP accused of rape, but removed the whip from another Conservative, Julian Lewis, who won election as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee and published the report into Russian interference in British politics. 

Instead of seeking to unite our fractured country, Johnson has frequently taunted the half of the country that voted Remain. He governs through infantile three-word slogans. He prefers fantastical visions – UK space commands and wind farms powering every British home within nine years – to policies rooted in reality. If he really wants Britain to be the “world leader” in green energy, why not end the ten-year freeze on fuel duty? 

Johnson is so profligate with public money that senior civil servants have sought an unprecedented 17 “ministerial directions” to signal disagreement with spending decisions they consider risky or wasteful. He has obfuscated, dissembled and played fast and loose with facts, earning at least two rebukes from the UK Statistics Authority. 

He has made so many vacuous promises – of “world-beating” apps, of putting a “tiger in the tank” of the Brexit talks, of sending the virus packing within 12 weeks, by the summer, by Christmas, by next Easter – that he has lost all credibility. As John Major observed in a brilliant speech on 9 November, “false optimism is deceit by another name”.

A year on from Johnson’s election victory, I struggle to think of a single way in which the country has benefited from his premiership, and I’m evidently not alone. His approval rating has plunged to -24. Labour has overtaken the Tories in the polls. Despite an 80-seat majority he struggles to win key parliamentary votes. He has squandered the support even of the slavishly sycophantic Tory press, and the process of “levelling up” seems to be going into reverse.

The good news is that our floundering featherweight of a prime minister has finally been forced to jettison Cummings and his Vote Leave henchmen in favour of apparent grown-ups such as Simon Case and Dan Rosenfield – and that there are now only four years left until the next election.

People will read/buy into whatever it is they want to believe. Clearly you enjoy reading such garbage and no doubt buy into it. I was going to put some time into refuting line by line this dross but 1. It will have no material impact, those that want to hear this sort of stuff will not be persuaded otherwise and those that don't buy into it will not need persuading otherwise anyway. - yes I recognise this line equally applies to myself in that it would be difficult to persuade me to buy into this crap. 2. I have more important things to do.

 

The  only things I will say are comparing countries and how they dealt with covid is generally a waste of time, each country is different and can react differently so if you can name me another country with the same circumstances i.e. population density, travel hubs, laws, health provision, devolved responsibilities etc etc as the UK which have done things better then please do.

 

Secondly, can you provide the evidence which explicitly states that Priti Patel has been found guilty of bullying Civil Servants can you provide a link? and not to some crap news article which spins the internal Government report wording into that which they want it to say. I think the bigger story in this issue is how senior Civil Servants will nod their heads when given instruction by elected MPs and then do what they like anyway. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by LA3222

[SteamyTea]

16 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

People will read/buy into whatever it is they want to believe.

Trueish, but they may do some independent research as well.  Not many of us think the Earth is a flat, spinning disk, but only a few of us have flown complete around it in one direction.

17 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

The  only things I will say are comparing countries and how they dealt with covid is generally a waste of time

Do you take this view on all comparisons, i.e. U-Values, Price, Car Performance?

What a silly statement.

18 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

Secondly, can you provide the evidence which explicitly states that Priti Patel has been found guilty of bullying Civil Servants can you provide a link

No, because I have not looked, and it was not about Patel, it was about Boris.  There is a link there if you ant to follow it.

 

[SteamyTea]

31 minutes ago, daiking said:

@SteamyTea I’ve just read Martin Fletcher’s Twitter feed ?

 

Did Boris sleep with his partner as well?

I have no idea who Martin Fletcher is, or if he has a partner.

 

https://twitter.com/MartinFletcher

 

He seems to have a motorbike.

Edited December 1, 2020 by SteamyTea

[LA3222]

13 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Do you take this view on all comparisons, i.e. U-Values, Price, Car Performance?

What a silly statement.

I believe the only silly statement appears to be your own. The COVID situation is far to complex to tie 'success' into the death rate, but that is the headline metric that the press love because it makes headlines and sells papers.

 

I fail to understand how anyone with any sense can do so. The issues are huge, economic consequences balanced against health needs, supply chains, logistics, medical facilities available, transport - I.e. Heathrow is an international hub and the busiest airport in Europe, factors like this will have a huge impact on infection spread which other countries don't have to factor in. The effect that democracy has, I.e. China can do what they like and lock it right down, we can't, New Zealand has performed well, but how can you compare the UK to them? I could go on and on, but there are simply to many individual differences to mention. Equally, where something does work elsewhere, that doesn't automatically mean it will work here. 

 

This is another area where anti Boris/Conservatives can take a pop because its an easy target. Always easy to criticise in these circumstances but what would you do differently? How would we ever know that would have worked?

 

Kier Starmer is now playing the same blame game. Abstaining the Labour party from Wednesdays vote because he wants to let the conservatives take all the 'blame. He doesnt have the balls to instruct labour to vote against it but at the same time wont support it? Why.

 

To say we can compare the 'success' of one country versus another is ridiculous and selectively ignores the myriad of differences which influence the individual response of the various governments.

Edited December 1, 2020 by LA3222

[joe90]

36 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

those that want to hear this sort of stuff will not be persuaded otherwise and those that don't buy into it will not need persuading otherwise anyway.

Oh how true.
 

I notice that Labour are going to abstain from today’s vote, that way, whatever happens they can shy away from any blame. Their stance is all criticism and no plan of their own. 

[LA3222]

Just now, joe90 said:

Oh how true.
 

I notice that Labour are going to abstain from today’s vote, that way, whatever happens they can shy away from any blame. Their stance is all criticism and no plan of their own. 

Ha, I just said the exact same thing in my previous post. Cowards.

[daiking]

16 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I have no idea who Martin Fletcher is, or if he has a partner.

 

https://twitter.com/MartinFletcher

 

He seems to have a motorbike.

Neither did I.

 

I think it’s important to seek out opposing opinions but with all the will in the world I cannot waste my time following up on articles in the New Statesman, written by people so ideologically blind that a 3 sec Twitter search shows them to be borderline demented and obsessed. And give it any more credence than, say, Nigel Farage on the other side. 

[SteamyTea]

So the UK handled BREXIT and COVID well then, no unnecessary deaths, or unexpected economic changes then.

Good to know, we can all give ourselves a slap on the back and say 'Well done'.

[joe90]

1 minute ago, LA3222 said:

I just said the exact same thing in my previous post

missed that!!, (great minds think alike ?). When  Keir Starmer won the leadership the first thing he said was he wanted to work with the government during this pandemic, not against. Ha!

[daiking]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

So the UK handled BREXIT and COVID well then, no unnecessary deaths, or unexpected economic changes then.

Good to know, we can all give ourselves a slap on the back and say 'Well done'.

And how has the rest of Europe handled Covid? We’ve all pretty much done the same - very badly. Same mistakes, same responses, I’m afraid. 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, daiking said:

Neither did I.

 

I think it’s important to seek out opposing opinions but with all the will in the world I cannot waste my time following up on articles in the New Statesman, written by people so ideologically blind that a 3 sec Twitter search shows them to be borderline demented and obsessed. And give it any more credence than, say, Nigel Farage on the other side. 

This is part of the problem will all reporting.  It is often the style, rather than the substance.

I skip the adjectives, then see what is left.

[joe90]

From what I have read, the only people that did well were those previously hit by Mers and SARS.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, joe90 said:

From what I have read, the only people that did well were those previously hit by Mers and SARS.

Yes, as they new the consequences and prepared for the next time.

 

And this may explain some of it.

https://www.tes.com/news/pisa-glance-global-education-rankings-science-maths-and-reading

Edited December 1, 2020 by SteamyTea

[LA3222]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Yes, as they new the consequences and prepared for the next time.

But then here you are, holding up the UK as a country which has done badly - when as @daiking points out, we've all done badly.

 

The only areas I have read about which have done well are countries under a dictatorship, pre-prepared countries as @joe90 said, and Africa.

 

I will say though, with the countries that have experienced SARs etc and the fact they did ok now - let's not forget, when they went though SARs etc, they did just as bad as we are now with COVID!

 

Africa is an area which seems vastly under reported. Why have they done well where Western countries with all their medical facilitates etc havent?

 

I would suggest the issue lies more with western Liberal attitudes. The minute the government tries to prohibit/restrict they are all up in arms about oppression, government heavy handedness etc. That makes government action very difficult. Christmas is a prime example, they made no allowance for Eid, yet we are for Christmas, why? Because your average westerner will just chin off any restrictions and do what the hell they like. Who then polices that? Look at what happened when pubs were told to shut at 10, everyone hit the local off licence and got pissed in the streets.

 

The government is not the primary issue, people and their willingness to disregard the issue and danger presented is. 

 

Equally the Government can't be 'strong' when EVERY decision taken is constantly sniped at/undermined by the press, the opposition party, the SNP etc. This sniping just validates the belief in citizens that the government don't know what they're doing so let's do what we like?‍♂️