Neverending Story 3: The Ongoing Brexit Thread

BBC Breakfast refused to explain why Frost was proposing changes to NI Protocol.

 

They can't even maintain a coherent argument from sentance to sentance.

Here is @TiceRichard claiming credit for HGV drivers being paid more as "part of the Brexit dividend" then insisting the shortage of HGV drivers is "nothing to do with Brexit", 30 seconds later.

You almost have to admire the dishonesty. It's sort of splendid in its brazenness. pic.twitter.com/bnjVLrflGb

— Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) October 13, 2021

 

Even the Telegraph is now saying Brexit is negatively impacting some sectors.

Crippled construction supply chains in the wake of Covid, Brexit and the energy crisis mean homeowners hoping to renovate have become hamstrung… pic.twitter.com/YbSCrW66oo

— Telegraph Money (@MoneyTelegraph) October 12, 2021

"Listen, don't mention the B word! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right."

 

Repped for the Fawlty Towers ref.

 

Using my amazing powers of math, if you drew a trend line from 2016 to the end of 2022 where it stops, the average would put you a little closer to $130 instead of $140, so for now (and it is early on) it’s hard to say the cost is more than say 7% different than it would have been if the Covid years continued the trend.

It is worrying though. Lumber here a year ago almost quadrupled in price over the course of 6months. It has cooled back down, but prices are always “sticky.”

 

Although, strangely, everyone now believes him that he was lying before when he said he and Boris were lying.

 

Was it you that posted that stuff he said that BoJo was too fecking stupid to understand what the agreement meant anyway?

I suppose there's an interesting philosophical question as to whether someone who doesn't understand the significance and implications of an agreement can be said to be lying when he signs, but...

 

Is that because of all the wood fires?

 

No...it's because Trump made everyone rake up all the leaves in the forests so that when the trees were felled there was no cushion to keep them from splintering!

 

Well, I wasn't suggesting it's a reasonable response.

The only thing I'm not clear about is exactly what HAS been going on with the requested checks and whether the EU has been overly pedantic with the level of detail they've been asking for up till now.

If they're now saying that somewhere between 50% and 80% of them won't now be needed, (depending on who you listen to), it rather raises the question why a lot more was needed in the first place.

Of course, (as I told you before about when we used to send stuff to the states), it's always possible for a state to dick people around if they want to so maybe that's what's been going on? I dunno!

Hard to think of a reason why it can now be significantly reduced otherwise.

 

Well,to be clear, the 80% figure comes from Sefcovic, the EU guy but, I agree, it's hard to tell exactly what's been going on from the outside.

The way these things are meant to work is that you establish a system of checking individual manufacturers, some of which may be huge companies and often international producers, and you check THEM rather than individual shipments. Essentially, you check the first, say, half dozen shipments in some detail and then only check one in every, say, 100 to check you're shipping what you're supposed to.

As I say, I don't know exactly what's being going on but if the EU is asking us to check every single shipment, even on a repeat business basis, that's unreasonable. Quite honestly, if you did that elsewhere it would mean the end of pretty much ALL international trade. More to the point one also has to ask if they're checking goods from, say, the Nissan plant in the UK to the same companies plants in France or Germany in the same level of detail because I tend to think they're not.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...hecks-but-prepares-for-johnson-to-reject-deal

While the EU continues to say checks and controls in the Irish Sea border are necessary to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, and represent the Brexit choices made by the British government, officials admitted more clearly than ever before that its implementation had created “unintended consequences” for businesses and consumers. “It goes far beyond tinkering around the edges,” said one official.

The EU is now proposing a “bespoke Northern Ireland specific solution”. This means checks would be removed on 80% of lines on supermarket shelves, with carefully labelled and sourced British sausages, the product that became emblematic of the row between the two sides, no longer at risk of being prohibited.

In a further concession, trucks carrying mixed loads – for example a lorry bound for a Northern Irish supermarket laden with meat, dairy and confectionery – would only have to provide one health certificate for each journey rather than one for each product line.

Customs paperwork will be hugely reduced through a more generous definition of goods deemed “not at risk” of entering the EU single market via the Irish border.​

Most of that, (although not all, tbf), is how these things were usually done anyway.

But, like I say, the devils in the detail, as they say.

 

Hey, ummm, does the assassination of David Amess have anything to do with Brexit?

 

Do you want it to?

 

It was a 'foreign national', as the BBC reported it, and the case has been passed to the counter-terrorism unit so I wouldn't think so.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ce-take-over-inquiry-into-david-amess-killing

 

Well, if Brexit hadnot taken so long, he might have been stopped coming into the country etc. etc.

Of course it has to do with Brexit. Everything does.

 

I'm still not quite used to the differences between how Americans talk about nationality and how Brits do, but I'm fairly confident my son will always be called an American despite never having set foot there.

 

This pretty much sums up the UK at the moment for me.
A leading political commentator has no clue how inflation works, publicises this fact, and frighteningly, many will either already think in the same manner or believe him.

Cost of living falls. Just as everyone predicted...https://t.co/vafs5EFCYj

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) October 20, 2021