Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Not if what replaces him is a representative of the political wing of the IRA. That will just open one hell of a can of worms.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Ireland has a proportional voting system, and neither of the two main parties there will go into coalition with Sinn Féin. There isn’t going to be an IRA-sympathising Taoiseach.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

I welcome it, but don't remember anyone saying it would be difficult to achieve - considering the WTO has 164 members, not sure what, if any, the problem was supposed to be?

The UK has been a member of the WTO since 1995, anyway, it's just we were dealt with as part of the EU...

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

True, but has been represented by the EU, and voted and debated on what is best for the EU, not necessarily what is best for the UK.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Brexit LIVE: EU on alert as report warns of bankruptcies across bloc - Ireland at risk:shocked:


OOh heck :shocked:

THE EU is on alert after an economic report warned economies in the bloc will suffer because of Brexit, with bankruptcies anticipated in Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...-single-market

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

But wait! We need the EU more than they need us, at least that's what remainers kept telling us.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Yet oddly, when bankruptcies have or were predicted on the UK side A proportion people simply discarded them as 'Project Fear'

I suspect the truth lies that to a degree the EU needs us, and we will need the EU. To what degree that is?

There's a lot of political willy waving (or Sabre rattling if you prefer) ongoing at the moment, from both sides. Hopefully it will calm down.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

And they still owe us ww3 and a starving population:(

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If I remember correctly, you weren’t very happy when Parliamentary Sovereignty* was happening...

*In the U.K., we have the idea of parliamentary sovereignty, which holds that Parliament is the highest source of authority to make/amend laws without restriction.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

As has been explained, more than once in this thread, the leavers’ problem with parliament’s behaviour was that it was using its sovereignty to defy the expressed will of the electorate. That is a novel problem in our system because we don’t typically settle issues via referendums, but we did in this case, and that referendum was authorised by Parliament and conducted on the understanding, of both sides, that the outcome would be respected.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

And there we’ll have to agree to disagree - we either have Parliamentary Sovereignty, even if we disagree with how our Sovereign Parliament utilises it, or we don’t...

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If Nathalie Loiseau reflects EU thinking then we will leave in December with no deal.........

Typical 1 way traffic from the EU that think the smart way to negotiate is to dictate terms.

It also seems the “Level playing field” is also a 1 way direction.

This is just a clip but seek out the whole interview.

https://youtu.be/vLPNB_HBCeM

---------- Post added at 19:09 ---------- Previous post was at 19:04 ----------

That like saying I don’t like how Stalin operates, but he is in charge so ....................

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

The British constitution has never been that binary, or so unyielding, as I’m sure you’re aware. Being unwritten, it is both stable and also flexible. Parliament called its own sovereignty into question by authorising such a referendum.

The constitutional understanding of parliamentary sovereignty has changed before and can change again - I would much rather parliament had not caused it to be challenged in this way, but they did, and now the question of where parliament’s sovereignty ultimately arises from, and how long parliament can go on frustrating the clearly expressed will of the electorate, remains open. It might just make our next constitutional crisis that much harder to resolve.

Re: Brexit Development(s) Discussion
 

Are we talking about Cummings or Johnson here? I'm not sure the latter has a clue, given his public performance when asked about the nitty gritty of Brexit.

---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 20:37 ----------

On the contrary, the two main Parliamentary parties did their best to comply with the will of the people. We have seen three years of classic parliamentary democracy in action.

The Tories initially conducted negotiations around May's red lines and then via Johnson, who pragmatically dropped the Irish Sea border red line. Labour promoted a customs union Brexit, consistently voting down anything that could not achieve that without another year of trade negotiations. They sought to confirm that choice with the electorate by having a confirmatory referendum.

Frankly, the difficulty for Parliament was that the binary referendum gave them no clue what the people really wanted. They were handed an insoluble conundrum. In 2016 the Leave campaign had dangled all kinds of Brexit in front of the electorate, from No Deal to being full members of the EEA. Farage famously recommended the Norway solution, but later denied it. The upshot of this was that those who voted for Brexit, voted with different models of Brexit in mind.

Throughout the following three years different political factions on the Leave side were able to promote different versions, but in the end No Deal zealots, on the back of Johnson's political ambitions, have won through. They have a virtual guarantee of No Deal in twelve months time, if they choose it, thus completely ignoring polls showing that most of us don't want No Deal and ignoring the fact that parties that wanted a confirmatory referendum collectively accrued more votes than those who promoted Brexit.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Look up the word 'sovereignty' and you will see that it is always defined in terms of the state, not in terms of a small or large majority of the electorate.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

You always have to resort to emotional ad hominem personal attacks, rather than debating the point - what does that say about you and your position?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

[/COLOR][QUOTE=Sephiroth;36024424]First, what is the State if not its people, the majority of which did not intend Parliament to misuse its sovereignty?

Second, what is your actual point? Support for the parliamentary games? Or just catching me out. I respect the latter!






A state is a nation or territory considered as an organised political community under one government. The people are an essential element of a state, but they are not synonymous with it.

Parliamentary sovereignty is a description of to what extent the Parliament of the United Kingdom does have absolute and unlimited power. The European Union Referendum Act 2015, approved on 14th December 2015, made legal provision for a consultative referendum to be held in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, on whether it should remain a member state of the European Union or leave it. Parliament in so doing did not peel off some of its sovereignty and hand it to the people. This was a consultative referendum, that did not oblige the sitting government or Parliament to take that expressed public opinion through into legislation. Political reality and rash promises by some members of government, made it difficult to ignore public opinion, but Parliamentary sovereignty remained supreme. Parliament could decide whether to carry out the wishes of the 52% or not. Parliament decided to do so, when it voted to trigger Article 50, mostly because those parties who supported Remain were wary of consequences, come the next general election. As it happens, they should not have been afraid because public opinion has been at least 53% in favour of Remain for the last 18 months. If Parliament had held its nerve and voted against the trigger, history could have been so different.

Interestingly, if the referendum had been binding, and parliamentary sovereignty had been put out on loan to the people sic, the Electoral Commission has already announced that it would have had the power to nullify the result because of the industrial levels of electoral fraud by the leave campaign. As it is, it could only heavily fine the culprits. But, that is another story.

As for the conduct of Parliament, I stand by my view that the shadow government did not try to thwart the referendum result. Corbyn was adamant that we should try to leave with a customs union arrangement. Internal politics and the threat that Remainers might cease to support Labour, forced him to concede a confirmatory and binding referendum. This backfired, because Leave supporter's views had hardened in the direction of a No Deal Brexit. They wanted Brexit done, even though a Labour government on 13th December 2019 would have given business the certainty it needed to trade with the EU as before, i.e. frictionless trade, zero tariffs and JIT components and food stuffs.

The conduct of Parliament during this time was not a pretty sight, but it was parliamentary democracy as we have become accustomed to. Unfortunately, with the current model of political parties competing for power, policies and high principle often get brushed aside. Tory Remainers and Labour Leavers often voted against their conscience to tow the party line. Power became more important than principle. We can probably both agree that that is disgusting.

Ironically, we have just left a parliament, with its jurisdiction now 20 miles away from our coast, that has no party system and which more often than not votes purely on the merits of legislation. Now that is what parliamentary democracy should be like. Also ironic, is the fact that until the Tories came to power in 2010, the UK had voted for legislation that gained approval, 95% of the time. We made the EU what it is.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9324086.html
Now there's a surprise ! Appears we're an irrelevance after all.. We've been played big time by both Trump and Putin. Welcome to the Third World, UK.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

I think the debate is around the tension between delegated democracy ie Parliament and the Lords and direct democracy ie the referendum. The latter is an integral part of democracies like Switzerland but the UK does not have a long tradition in this area.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Which, no doubt, is why we made such a mess of it. The Austrians, who are also referendum experts, warned us against a binary referendum. They told us that this would lead the leave side attempting to be all things to all people. dangling less radical forms of Brexit in front of the voter. By golly we certainly saw that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kgAPwqhoHo

The referendum was a travesty of democracy for the reason I gave above, but also for the way the Leave campaign deployed untruths to catch the wavering voter. The £350 million per week lie was one of many. Cummings has acknowledged that the lie on a bus won the referendum. Even today, 30% of Leavers believe the lie is true. The way the Remain campaign deployed expert analysis of the full range of possible outcomes of the full range of possible Brexit styles cannot be compared with the Leave campaign's distortion of reality appealing to our natural xenophobia with its declaration that we were being ruled by a bunch of foreigners in Brussels. Remain campaigners didn't deliver a dangerous appeal to racists and Islamaphobes. Farage was happy to tell us that our membership of the EU would lead to 70 million Turks and male Muslim refugees coming over here, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and raping our women and girls. Farage told us how Norway's rape incidents were far higher than ours and blamed Norway's acceptance of large numbers of refugees for it. He completely ignored the fact that Norway was a much broader definition of rape, as Assange learned to his cost.

Here we see Farage's photoshopped image of refugees, which wasn't even taken in the place he said it was. https://www.google.com/search?q=brea...mgZr4VoXzHxmjM

Democracy only works if the people have all the facts in front of them. We failed to provide them that. The way the referendum was conceived and deployed failed to deliver a democratic process up to the day of the binary referendum vote, leaving Parliament an angrily divided nation and no clue as to what kind of Brexit voters wanted. The following three years reflected that impossible conundrum. Parliamentary democracy didn't fail. Direct democracy failed.


NB delegated democracy? Representative democracy surely.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If only she was trying to do that,in reality she was trying to stop brexit out of her own self interest.
Any hoo all the remainers treachery/ back stabbing /lies and scheming got them no where and democracy won the day albeit 3.5 years late.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Gina Miller has a long history, prior to the referendum, of tackling misuse of power or misuse of law. You need to research this. All cases she raised were attempts to ensure the law was clarified and/or complied with.

---------- Post added at 15:15 ---------- Previous post was at 14:23 ----------

Last first. You cannot equate the industrial levels of fraud and lies of the Leave campaign with Cameron's and Osbourn's inept and overblown handling of the factual expert analyses. They treated the electorate like idiots, but compared with the deceit of Leave they were amateurish. It is also noteworthy that the Eurosceptic press cherry-picked the most extreme predictions of broad-spectrum expert analyses of the full range of Brexit outcomes, turned them into headlines and called it Project Fear.

If you really want Parliamentary democracy then you will have to argue for doing away with the party system, which is a whole other debate. Meanwhile both houses of Parliament did their best to democratically seek a solution to the hopeless puzzle the referendum left them. Because of the flaw of having a party system the whole process became as much about tribalism and political power as it was about making the best of the most fundamental change our country has had to deal with since WW2.


You insist that our representatives in The Commons thrust two fingers in the face of the electorate. I have explained above why, over all, they did not. True the SNP, representing a nation that voted to Remain and the LibDems, sought to prevent Brexit, as did a minority of Tories and Labour MPs. However, both main parties had their own serious proposals for Brexit. Indeed Corbyn attracted the hostility and mistrust of Remainers for pushing his customs union Brexit.

Not all binary referendums are inappropriate. A referendum on fox hunting or capital punishment would need to be binary. However, to make binary and complex referendums work, organisers must ensure that proper information is made available and that fake information is minimised. That certainly didn't happen in our referendum.

To make it worse, a binary referendum, as we were warned would, in this case, create more problems than it solved. Our referendum result told Parliament that 48% of the electorate that voted wanted to Remain (clear enough) and that 52% wanted to Leave the EU, but not in which manner. As I explained above, even now, Parliament hasn't decided how we leave the EU. We have approved a political declaration and have formally left, but have no clue what our trading relationship will be. More uncertainty for commerce!!

To avoid the last three years of uncertainty we should have had a referendum with more than one choice of how to leave the EU, ranging from, for example, EEA, Norway-style, a customs union Brexit, Canada ++ and No Deal. All the options would have the outcome of us being free of all the EU treaties. To avoid splitting the Leave vote there would have had to have been two ballot papers. Ballot 1, giving a clear choice between Leave and Remain and Ballot 2, using a system of one perhaps two transferable votes with second and third choices of Brexit styles coming into play in the case of no clear winner. The outcome, would have been a majority for Leave or Remain from Ballot 1 and a majority for a particular kind of Brexit from Ballot 2. The Leave campaign would not have been able to tempt waverers with a soft Brexit when they were clearly entrapping people to get a hard Brexit outcome. Instead the referendum campaign could have been an informed debate about the merits of one kind of Brexit or another and the comparative merits of Remain. Farage and others would have been forced to come clean about their intention to have a No Deal Brexit and would probably have had to reveal that the real motive for pushing for a referendum in the first place was to avoid the new EU rules on off-shore tax avoidance which finally came into EU practice on 31st January 2020. Phew! That was close!

Yes, the GE has settled matters by allowing one point of view to prevail, but it has not settled the debate. Mostly due to Remain disarray, the Remain vote was split and the Brexit vote was focused on getting Johnson elected to 'get Brexit done, however, parties supporting a confirmatory referendum,collectively got more votes than the Tories, Brexit Ltd and UKIP got collectively. This closely reflected the poll of polls finding that a sustained majority of between 54% and 53% of voters wanted to Remain over a period of the last eighteen months.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

It never ceases to amuse me how remainers cite polls post-referendum as proof things have changed, when the Leave campaign effectively shut up shop and stopped making the case for Leave in 2016 (and focused instead on lobbying to ensure the results were honoured), while the Remain campaign (or, at least, most of its senior members) continued promulgation of their warnings of dire doom and gloom, imminent catastrophe, failure to get a deal, etc etc etc. The chaos they and their placemen in the Commons (until 2019) concocted quite naturally worried a lot of people. They now brazenly use the fear they have created as evidence they are right. It’s nonsense on stilts.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Filtered through the first past the post constituency system the majority of electorate voted for parties that supported a confirmatory referendum, but still ended up with the minority who still support Brexit, getting their way.

---------- Post added at 20:48 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

Quoting post-referendum polls was a demonstration that democracy is a dynamic thing, and didn't end on 23rd June 2016.

53% of the population don't want what 47% have gained for us.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

That is untrue. 51.9% voted for parties that did not support a confirmatory referendum.

You are including the Lib Dem vote who had other ideas.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Nice little sleight of hand, but as I already pointed out, a post-referendum poll does not tell you more than the actual referendum result. Our exit from the EU was gained for us by the votes of 51%, not the opinion of 47% (a figure which, incidentally, excludes don’t knows, and in any case is not the last word on the subject - a Yougov poll on 20 January reported 45% for leave and 40% for remain).

The only fair indicator is the actual votes in the real referendum, conducted after an official, regulated campaign. You and I both know how that turned out and there’s really no point going over it again and again making pointless assertions about its fairness, veracity or permanence. It was what it was, we all understood the outcome was intended to be implemented, and it was. The end.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

There was another relevant poll in December, which voted in a government to get the exit done.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

We have now left the EU so all this % rubbish is irrelevant,while i find it all highly amusing being told we didn't vote to leave when we clearly have gone;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

We're making a good impression of having stayed, still paying in , still obeying the rules...
31st Jan was just a cosmetic party piece for the easily fooled.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Sorry i don't speak Klingon,and your desperately clinging on ;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

[/COLOR]We left the EU precisely because we are like this - grabbers, protectionists, schemers

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

So in what way are you more 'free' this month than you were last month?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If anything we'll be losing as many freedoms as any we're gaining. E.g. freedom of movement for UK workers to work anywhere in the EU. Though I guess most Brexiteers are long past working....

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Ok, reciprocal healthcare, workers rights, consumer rights, easier travel, and the little matter of trade with our biggest trading partner. Yes there may be new arrangements but they won't be as good, the EU will make sure of that.

However the decision has been made, but I think some are going to be awfully disappointed when they realise what 'freedom' means in practice,; mostly freedom for our own Govt. to screw us over without fear of any check on them. It'll benefit a few toffs at the expense of the rest of us.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Just keep believing that if it helps you.

Who next to blame though when there isn't a bright new dawn? Nasty Govt, Nasty homeless, Nasty BBC, Nasty Civil Service, Nasty Boris ?? The grass as we'll find isn't always greener. As part of a bigger economic unit we had protection and influence, now we have none.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

All seemed based on hope and wanting to 'stiff' everyone. That isn't a good basis for negotiating our future, particularly when we're in a weak position.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

South Africa - 6,000 miles away
Canada - 3,000 miles away
Australia - 9,500 miles away
NZ - 11,500 miles away

France - 20 miles
Germany - 300 miles
Italy - 750 miles
Spain - 800 miles

Not sure you’ve thought this fully through... ;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Well here is a fundamental and probably irreconcilable difference between you and leavers (and a lot of remainers I suspect). It is a very peculiar idea of sovereignty that assumes a national government of necessity requires an external check on its power. We do of course have internal checks - principally, Parliament, and judges who determine whether government is properly exercising the powers legislated for it. Then every 5 years or so, the whole electorate casts its judgement on Parliament.

All these are internal to the United Kingdom, which is a sovereign nation state that, in common with almost every other sovereign nation state on earth, is the final arbiter of what goes on in its own territory. Only within the bizarre experiment that is the EU has national sovereignty been so traduced (the process being obfuscated by nonsensical terms like “pooled sovereignty” in order to try to hide what’s been going on).

I believe in this country and I simply lack the self-loathing instincts required to believe we need rescuing from our own government by an association of nations, almost all of which have been governed by a dictator within living memory. People who genuinely need rescuing from their own governments live in places where torture, extrajudicial punishment and corruption is endemic, if not industrial in scale. Such places undergo violent revolution sooner or later. Here in the UK, nothing could be further from the truth, and it requires a severe lack of perspective to think otherwise.

---------- Post added at 15:26 ---------- Previous post was at 14:54 ----------

A reminder to ALL forum members: when replying to a post, please do not put ANYTHING within quote tags except for content you are actually quoting. Do not put your reply to a quote within the quote. It needlessly messes up subsequent members’ ability to follow and contribute to threads within a discussion.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

South Africa - 6,000 miles away Top class fruit & wine.
Canada - 3,000 miles away Top wheat, fish, beef.
Australia - 9,500 miles away Top fruit, beef, wine.
NZ - 11,500 miles away Top wine, lamb, butter,cheese.

France - 20 miles Macron.
Germany - 300 miles Possibly some hope there.
Italy - 750 miles Up schmitt creek, nix paddle.
Spain - 800 miles 25% youth unemployment when I last looked; Gibraltar.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Do the Italians and Greeks know about this? Maybe someone should let them know they're not screwed after all ;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Wonder how top that Australian fruit will be after traveling 10000 miles, the reason our trade with those countries is negligible isn't because of the EU it's because they're so far away and strangely that isn't going to change because of leaving.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Eh, we had things then we don’t have now - diphtheria, rickets, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, and a captive Commonwealth marketplace.

However, in today’s economies, 75% of Australia and NZ food exports go to China, East Asia, and the Oceanic countries (including USA) - do you really believe it makes economic sense to ship things 10,000 miles around the world when you have existing profitable markets closer to hand.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

It’s not always profitable. Cane sugar from the Americas is (or would be) far cheaper than European grown beet sugar, but EU tariffs are designed to protect beet producers, which are mostly located in northern continental Europe (and most of that in France and Germany). Prior to our entry into the EU most sugar refined in the UK came from cane. There’s no reason why that shouldn’t resume, now we are no longer obligated to subscribe to Franco-German protectionism that is the very heart of the European project.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Over 50% of the sugar in the U.K. comes from U.K. produced beet sugar (and we also export 300,000 tonnes of beet sugar annually), so any ‘freeing up" of the market would decimate that industry.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Sugar beet is just a sweeter relative of beetroot. It’s not the only thing that can be grown on that land. If domestically grown product can’t compete with imports then its producers should grow something else that is profitable.

Seriously ... did you think the corn laws were a good idea? Keeping staple food prices artificially high to protect domestic producers is as absurd now as it ever was.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

But Cane Sugar from the Americas is already tariff free - the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries trading under Everything but Arms (EBA) have unrestricted, tariff-free imports of raw sugar into the EU.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If you’re going to copy and paste material it’s considered polite to provide the link, so the rest of us can determine whether you’ve understood what you’ve quoted in its context.

As you appear to have copied from here ... https://www.ragus.co.uk/tariffs-on-sugars-explained/ ... I think I might charitably suggest you have oversimplified it to the point of misunderstanding it.

The vast majority of sugar cane is produced in Brazil, imports of which attract tariffs from €98 to €419 per tonne, depending on how refined it is, and what sort of refining it is intended for. The LDC countries barely register as cane producers on a global scale.

Also, would you mind clarifying: do you think it’s a good thing to use tariffs to protect domestic food production, even when this pushes up food prices for consumers?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Boom.....head shot...50 pts. :sniper:

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Poppycock at least 100 points deserved!:D

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Well, apparently, the Brazilians subsidise their sugar productions/exports.

https://sugaralliance.org/brazils-2-...s-exposed/4412

I made the point about the Caribbean sugar imports because that's where we imported a lot of sugar from in the 50s.

(and the reason I didn't provide a link previously, is that I was putting my grandson back to bed at the same time, and he distracted me - sorry).

Yes, I think we should subsidise our home production, otherwise we become dependent on imports, which can so so badly wrong.

---------- Post added at 12:48 ---------- Previous post was at 12:13 ----------

On a separate note...

https://www.cityam.com/boris-bridge-...o-10-confirms/

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Yes, Boris has got a great record on building bridges...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Bridge

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Yes nothing reeks more of getting your country back, freedom and not being governed by foreigners more than surrendering your ability to sustain yourself with homegrown food. Looks like Patrick bloody Minford was right for just about the first time in his life, we will have to sacrifice agriculture and manufacturing as well on the brexit alter

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51453189

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Well that is the biggest 'well duh' moment but at least it's good that Government representatives are now admitting that there will be friction...

For the company I work for, we are 'no deal' ready with the IT and customs infrastructure in place as we have obviously come close a couple of times already. The big unknowns are what effects customs holdups will be and being able to get a good handle on resourcing needed in terms of people and time

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Has the penny dropped yet?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

My reference to the corn laws was deliberate. The protectionism they entailed placed an unnecessary drag on the economy, and their eventual removal made food cheaper, thereby improving living standards and allowing more disposable income to be spent elsewhere. The whole British economy benefited. Protectionism is always shortsighted in the end.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

And yet the whole world indulges in protectionism, I'd go as far as saying we are already the least protectionist country in the world, going even further by removing the means to feed ourselves doesn't seem shortsighted to me, it seems reckless

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

As an EU member, we were placed an equal 51st in the world in terms of tariffs using the weighted mean which takes into account what we actually import. The weighted mean was 1.79%

The proposed UK tariff schedule in front of the WTO is about 1.6% weighted mean which would put us 18th on this measure of protectionism.

There are plenty of less protectionist countries than the UK including some quite big players such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico and Chile

EDIT - source material - https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/ind...AR.ZS/rankings

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

That's in terms of trade alone, I doubt those countries are as keen as us to sell of key infrastructure, industries and assests to the highest bidder.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If you accept that less protectionism makes countries richer, then will the greater protectionism that Brexit heralds make us poorer?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Oh, for sure. Free movement of goods is just one aspect of a non-protectionist country. There's also free movement of services, money and people but we tried that and didn't like it

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9335281.html

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind ! :D

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Ah, the “Independent”, never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Paragraph 10:

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Colin sounds intelligent though, so why is he blaming Brexit ? ;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

If that was the case then the site wouldn't have put in that sentence. Looks like the Leaver was jumping to conclusions and The Independent kindly pointed out the error of his ways.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

So you actually have no idea what impression the Independent wishes to convey then? You really think this is a straight and even reporting of facts and nothing more?

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Chillax old chap. Colin is a Brexiteer and he's not happy. We need to.listen to his wise words of wisdom.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

In response to the charge: is it letting the facts get in the way of a good story? No it's not as it states them.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

But not all of them such as the staff training that was occurring.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

I went through Schipol last year, automated passport e-scanners, no people required, very quick. Only for EU citizens though.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Every minute you lose in Amsterdam, is a minute you'll regret old chap ;) No wonder Colin was pissed off !

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Ah well, I only used to write for the papers, what do I know ... :rolleyes:

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

I went to Spain last week ......no issues. Even went through the “ EU” channel.

Will be going to France next month and expect zero issues.

I suggest, along with the thousands that have travelled since the end of January this is the case.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

The staff training is mentioned.

---------- Post added at 10:23 ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 ----------

I think your gripe's with Colin for jumping to conclusions and not with the article which reported the real reasons for the delay.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

Gosh, apparently I don’t know the contents of my own mind either ...

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

You're in good company around here ;)

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

The EU needs us far more.

Plus put the Royal Navy in our fishing waters and kick out any fishing vessels we want.

Especially thos big buggers that can take the entire stock with one sweep.

Re: [Updated] The UK’s future relationship with the EU
 

EU's requirements don't seem to be going down too well with BoJo. To the Government's credit, it's made a strong case but the UK has handed the negotiating edge to the EU by insisting upon a December deadline.
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-joh...nable-11935283

So, maybe the obvious thing would be for the UK to ramp up relationships with other countries, to put some pressure on the EU?
The opposite has happened!
https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial
Maybe like the EU does, the rest of world just needs to understand that need us more than we need them, and they'll have to come knocking on our door?