UK & EU Agree Post-Brexit Trade Deal

[1andrew1]

I don't think there's any ideology involved on the EU's part. Rightly or wrongly, it's just defending its members' interests. I doubt anyone can wring a better deal from the EU than Lady Thatcher did. Running down the clock only plays to the EU's advantage. To his credit, this is something Dominic Cummings appreciated.

No deal means no Nissan and more unemployment. The OBR suggests an additional 2% reduction in GDP on top of the 4% the country will suffer if it left with the current deal. The EU's calculation will be that BoJo can't afford no deal, especially now. On the one hand, BoJo acknowledges this and quietly paid out a £1bn leaving settlement to the EU last week. But he also knows that economic literacy is low in the UK and the population can't easily translate a 6% decline in GDP into the impact on their pay checks and public services. The fog of Covid also helps.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.

[Mr K]

Anyway it plays out isn't good. It's a matter of the what's least damaging. Turns out Brexit was all about a few fish, and its going to cost us billions that we don't have. I don't even like fish...

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Anyway it plays out isn't good. It's a matter of the what's least damaging. Turns out Brexit was all about a few fish, and its going to cost us billions that we don't have. I don't even like fish...

The really sad thing is we will end up selling quotas to catch these fish to European countries so it won't even be British workers benefiting, iirc even one of those loony groups, fish for leave or some irrelevant nonsense name is happy to settle for 60% British boats and crews, all the cost and hassle for that and they won't get 60% because a lot of quotas were sold 30 years ago!

[1andrew1]

Polly Toynbee's predictions on Brexit. Not long till we find out if she's right!

However hard he bluffs and fibs to disguise the inconvenient truth, Johnson will sign a deal that agrees to align with EU standards on working rights, animal welfare, the environment and much else. For any future divergences there will be an adjudications body, which may or may not be the European court of justice.

Fish will be reapportioned, with complexity and transitions that try to shield the hard fact: we took back control of our waters in theory, but gave it up in the same breath because there is no fishing industry without that vital EU market to buy more than 70% of our catch. Our 12,000 fisher folk were shamefully exploited as Brexit visual aids; everyone knew they were destined to be sold down the Channel. This is the last bitter cod-liver oil pill that UK negotiators are struggling to swallow, but they will.

Lawbreaking clauses in the internal markets bill repudiating last year’s EU withdrawal agreement will be abandoned. The Northern Ireland protocol will stand – so there will be a border down the Irish Sea, with customs posts. That’s despite Johnson pledging, “There’s no question of there being checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other...rtan-ntp-feeds

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Polly Toynbee's predictions on Brexit. Not long till we find out if she's right!

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other...rtan-ntp-feeds

She has it right imo, fish is not the issue, the real issue is standard's. I fear for our farmers to, how can they compete when evrryone else has subsidies except them.

Polly Tuscany is the very sort of angry, upper class champagne socialist who's properly cross about Brexit because it messes with their holidays and their kids' gap-yah plans. She neither understands, nor cares about, the working class voters whose cause she flatters herself is also hers. Her prediction is based on a fairly standard failing of the British left, which is to despise one's political opponents and assume them to be utterly incapable of anything (a trait you rarely see on the mainstream right, where the opposition is generally treated as intellectually wrong, but not fundamentally wicked). That angry little rant essentially boils down to a prediction that the EU will continue to exert the same influence it does now, the UK will score none of its negotiating objectives and the whole exercise will be shown to have been a total, unmitigated and pointless disaster. My own prediction is that she's too blinded by hate to be taken seriously.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Chris

Polly Tuscany is the very sort of angry, upper class champagne socialist who's properly cross about Brexit because it messes with their holidays and their kids' gap-yah plans. She neither understands, nor cares about, the working class voters whose cause she flatters herself is also hers. Her prediction is based on a fairly standard failing of the British left, which is to despise one's political opponents and assume them to be utterly incapable of anything (a trait you rarely see on the mainstream right, where the opposition is generally treated as intellectually wrong, but not fundamentally wicked). That angry little rant essentially boils down to a prediction that the EU will continue to exert the same influence it does now, the UK will score none of its negotiating objectives and the whole exercise will be shown to have been a total, unmitigated and pointless disaster. My own prediction is that she's too blinded by hate to be taken seriously.

And you're too blinded by the no win situation we're in.

[Sephiroth]

https://britishseafishing.co.uk/brexit-and-britains-fisheries/

This article provides some perspective on what the fishing argument is all about (my bold highlight).

The way quotas are set centrally by the EU is also seen as being hugely unfair on British fishermen, as they can often end up getting only a tiny proportion of the catch within their own waters, as the following statistics show:

40% of Denmark’s entire fishing take comes from Britain’s territorial waters.
In the Celtic Sea, France gets nearly three times the British allocation of Dover sole, roughly four times more cod and five times more haddock. France has 84% of the quota for cod in the English Channel, while Britain has only 9%.

A single Dutch trawler the Cornelis Vrolijk, had the right to catch 23% of England’s entire fishing quota. In comparison the entire small inshore fishing fleet for the whole England is given 4% of the quota.

European fishermen take 173 times more herring, 45 times more whiting, 16 times more mackerel and 14 times more haddock and cod out of UK waters than British fishermen do.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

https://britishseafishing.co.uk/brexit-and-britains-fisheries/

This article provides some perspective on what the fishing argument is all about (my bold highlight).

At the end of the day no one gives a toss about fish. It was hardly mentioned as an issue. If that's what Brexit has come down to then its pathetic. Wages, prices, jobs and standard of living are the issues. Brexit isn't going to improve any of those, quite the opposite.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by Mr K

At the end of the day no one gives a toss about fish. It was hardly mentioned as an issue. If that's what Brexit has come down to then its pathetic. Wages, prices, jobs and standard of living are the issues. Brexit isn't going to improve any of those, quite the opposite.

So speaks the expert.

I think you'd have a few fishermen around the British Isles disagreeing with you there.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

https://britishseafishing.co.uk/brexit-and-britains-fisheries/

This article provides some perspective on what the fishing argument is all about (my bold highlight).

If the UK had sold that quota to a British company instead of to the highest bidder, we wouldn't be in this situation. British fishermen have been sold down the river before, and then proudly paraded by Brexiters. How long till they're thrown overboard again like the farmers?

[Carth]

Polly who?

What does she do for a living then (apart from write opinion pieces in the Guardian)? Does she have a 'proper' job or live off dads money?
and no, I'm not wasting my time looking . . .

Back to the fish . . . you'd think all these 'remain' type antagonists would be behind us having a fishing fleet again, it would give us something to sell to the EU members demanding our fish . . we don't have much else to sell

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

https://britishseafishing.co.uk/brexit-and-britains-fisheries/

This article provides some perspective on what the fishing argument is all about (my bold highlight).

How will Brexit stop DEFRA giving/selling fishing rights to companies like this? It wasn't the EU who divvies up the rights to vessels, it's the UK Government

Originally Posted by jonbxx

How will Brexit stop DEFRA giving/selling fishing rights to companies like this? It wasn't the EU who divvies up the rights to vessels, it's the UK Government

Brexit returns the entire regulatory framework to exclusively British control. It is that British control that allows us to set (or re-set) our quotas and the licences that divide them up. It also allows us to make rules about who can buy rights, and how long they can hold them. Within the EU, the UK had no sovereign means of bringing those quota allocations back under UK control. Outside, we do.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Chris

Brexit returns the entire regulatory framework to exclusively British control. It is that British control that allows us to set (or re-set) our quotas and the licences that divide them up. It also allows us to make rules about who can buy rights, and how long they can hold them. Within the EU, the UK had no sovereign means of bringing those quota allocations back under UK control. Outside, we do.

The EU sets the quotas but has no say on who the government gives licences to. Here's the wording of the regulations;

Each Member State shall decide how the fishing opportunities that are allocated to it, and which are not subject to a system of transferable fishing concessions, may be allocated to vessels flying its flag (e.g. by creating individual fishing opportunities). It shall inform the Commission of the allocation method.

and

When allocating the fishing opportunities available to them, as referred to in Article 16, Member States shall use transparent and objective criteria including those of an environmental, social and economic nature. The criteria to be used may include, inter alia, the impact of fishing on the environment, the history of compliance, the contribution to the local economy and historic catch levels. Within the fishing opportunities allocated to them, Member States shall endeavour to provide incentives to fishing vessels deploying selective fishing gear or using fishing techniques with reduced environmental impact, such as reduced energy consumption or habitat damage.

Articles 16 and 17 here - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...3R1380&from=EN