Brexit matters

[JamesT]

Can the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Ireland assemblies not change their voting system to proportional representation?

They already are. Scotland and Wales use the Additional Member System and NI uses Single Transferable Vote for its elections.

 

[eoff]

Can the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Ireland assemblies not change their voting system to proportional representation?

Multiple different systems are used for voting in UK, Scottish Parliament and Council elections in Scotland.

 

[37424]

They already are. Scotland and Wales use the Additional Member System and NI uses Single Transferable Vote for its elections.

Indeed although the Scottish and Welsh system is a strange mix of First Past the Post and Proportional Representation.

 

[317 forever]

Well, they can and they can't. I'm just saying that the number of people who voted Leave in Scotland is not statistically insignificant, and they're instrumental in the vote going the way it did. The way the SNP talk, you'd think the result in Scotland was 99.9% remain.

Up to a point. Had Scottish Leave voters voted Remain instead Remain would have won. However, had Scottish Leave voters merely abstained Leave would still have won.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==

I don't think you can easily align the 38% of leave voters with the Tories - some Scottish nationalists don't want an independent Scotland to be in the EU, and some independence supporters voted Leave in order to create a crisis which would lead to a new Indyref.

Fully agree that England needs devolution. The SNP constantly whine about Scotland being hard done by, but if there's a democratic deficit anywhere in the UK these days it's in England. A federal solution, with more policy issues devolved, is the only thing that will keep the UK together, although I fear it's too late for that now.

Brian Souter is a case in point. He admitted on Question Time to have voted for Scottish independence and Brexit.

 

[ainsworth74]

Can the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Ireland assemblies not change their voting system to proportional representation?

For Westminster elections? No, that's determined by Parliament. For their own parliaments/assemblies they all ready do use various flavours of Proportional Representation (Single Transferable Vote in Northern Ireland, Additional Member System in Scotland and Wales).

 

[21C101]

Brian Souter is a case in point. He admitted on Question Time to have voted for Scottish independence and Brexit

To my mind it is a contradiction in terms to support both Scottish Independence and rejoining the EU. And may over time cost the SNP significant numbers of votes.

 

[317 forever]

I've accepted that Remain lost the vote, and that it had to be honoured. I'm just depressed about it all at the moment, because all I can see is what we're about to lose, and all of our dealings with Europe are going to get more difficult and more expensive, for absolutely no gain. The whole aftermath has been abysmally handled by just about every politician.

I fear for Scotland's future. I'm an Englishman who lives in Scotland, and I find the rise of hardcore nationalism here to be really, really unpleasant. Scotland's links with rUK are far more economically and culturally important than our links to the EU, and I don't consider the breakup of the UK to be an acceptable price to pay for Scotland rejoining the EU. It will result in a much harder border with England that will have devastating economic effects on a lot of people and places. Hardly surprising the SNP are being awkward, though. It forwards their agenda, regardless of how bad that would be for your average Scot, and diverts attention away from how spectacularly useless they've been in Government.

Although the support for independence has increased, there are still plenty of Scots who, just like Ruth Davidson, preferred to stay in the EU and voted Remain, but do not consider it so important as to need to leave the UK to achieve it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==

Oh definitely, and it's likely the deal is better than no deal but what frustrates me is that the question of whether or not he ran down the clock simply isn't put to him. I'm sure we used to have journalists that asked hard questions but now we seem to just have yes men.

Theresa May was said to have run down the clock regarding a Withdrawal Agreement. This also meant that we had a shorter transition period to arrange a Trade Deal.

 

[class ep-09]

Vietnam Confirm support for UK joining CPTPP (see below), joinging Japan, Singapore, Aus, NZ and Canada

Other sources indicate that the formal UK application will be made within weeks.

The UK Department for Trade's chief negotiator Crawford Falconer helped lead the New Zealand negotiations for the predecessor TPP.

Things seem to be moving very fast.

Vietnam Issues Preferential Tariffs, Rules of Origin Guidelines for UKVFTA

Vietnam recently issued rules of origin guidelines and preferential tariffs for the implementation of the UK-Vietnam free trade agreement

www.vietnam-briefing.com

And your point is ...?

What is the level of trade UK have with these countries comparing trade with EU?

What was stopping UK to trade with these countries before ( hint : nothing, as other EU countries very successfully trade with them while being in the EU) ?

What is combined population of these countries ( less than EU )

UK had already free trade deals with 3 of these countries while being in the EU ( Singapore, Canada ,Japan).

So what exactly are the measurable benefits of joining that organisation ?

What are the goods we could not sell / buy from these countries ( because of EU of course ..) , that we can sell / buy now ?

How much more of trade UK will gain by joining , and what was stopping UK trading more ( not EU that is for sure as explained earlier).

UK had not more to trade with them because it had nothing to trade.

Besides - you have to leave the planet Earth to go further with goods , if you send / bring them to / from New Zealand or Australia

 

[najaB]

To my mind it is a contradiction in terms to support both Scottish Independence and rejoining the EU.

Only because you see EU membership as complete surrender of sovereignty. It is not.

 

[317 forever]

That is an absurd argument. I have a 2kW heater in my sons bedroom which is on for longer than any any vacuum cleaner ever will be. I can buy a 3kW greenhouse heater for about £50 and use it all winter (got better things to do with my money but plenty others do). Somehow the national grid copes.

I get the train to work and walk to the station, have had the same car for 14 years and do about 4,000 miles a year in it.

So yes I deeply resent unelected officials in brussels telling me I cant use a powerful vacuum cleaner for an hour a week.

Nothing will happen on 2nd January (aside perhaps from ending of VAT on tampons), but I hope to see in time an end to the officious micromanagment of peoples lives, typified by the vacuum cleaner regulations, by remote unelected and unremovable technocratic officials who are only lobbyable by huge corporations.

And yes, MPs vulnerability to lobbying by ordinary constituents, particularly those in marginal constituencies, will be a significant driver, as it was for getting a referendum held in the first place. Cameron only agreed to it for fear of losing a slew of seats to Farage in the 2015 election.

Or more likely to Labour indirectly as a result of voter defections to UKIP. As he was not heading a majority government but a coalition, he worried about losing his premiership in 2015 without the pledge of an EU referendum. There was also the small matter that he was hoping for the LibDems to retain the balance of power but with fewer say 30 seats, and the LibDems to "prevent" the EU referendum from happening.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Has anyone noticed any "everyday changes" yet to brexit.
I'm not talking about the big things such as not being able to live and work in the EU (we have already discussed these changes a lot) but day to day changes such as increase in prices or lack of availability of produce either in supermarkets or products delisted on amazon?

 

[317 forever]

Although we have yet to see exactly how it will pan out, I am now less against Brexit than when the vote was announced.

EU & UK politicians have pulled together to produce a tariff-free Trade Agreement, and a Withdrawal Agreement to keep the Irish border open.

We are still free in principle to keep the good from Europe and adopt anything we agree with.

In terms of governance we can choose our own legislation without the risk of EU Directives applying to matters not important for the Single Market or Customs Union.

Rejoining would have advantages and may well be nicer, but this would be a last not a first resort. We can seek closer relations with Europe over trade and other matters. We can, as I said above, still adopt measures from the EU that we favour.

Although I partook in the Remain campaign, and to a lesser extent in People's Vote events, I doubt I would partake in a Rejoin movement, especially if it were not even on clearly defined terms.

As we had the General Election at the end of 2019 which the Conservatives won having pledged to implement Brexit, it is democratically appropriate whatever may have happened in the 2016 campaign.

 

[najaB]

EU & UK politicians have pulled together to produce a tariff-free Trade Agreement...

That covers less than half of UK/EU trade...

 

[Typhoon]

And your point is ...?

What is the level of trade UK have with these countries comparing trade with EU?

What was stopping UK to trade with these countries before ( hint : nothing, as other EU countries very successfully trade with them while being in the EU) ?

What is combined population of these countries ( less than EU )

UK had already free trade deals with 3 of these countries while being in the EU ( Singapore, Canada ,Japan).

So what exactly are the measurable benefits of joining that organisation ?

What are the goods we could not sell / buy from these countries ( because of EU of course ..) , that we can sell / buy now ?

How much more of trade UK will gain by joining , and what was stopping UK trading more ( not EU that is for sure as explained earlier).

UK had not more to trade with them because it had nothing to trade.

Besides - you have to leave the planet Earth to go further with goods , if you send / bring them to / from New Zealand or Australia

An answer to some of your points:
Trade with Japan ($8.3 billion), Singapore ($6.8 billion), others outside top fifteen exports. EU countries - 8 of our top exporters. these provided over $180 billion in exports. If we lose just 5% of our trade with the EU because of increased bureaucracy/ no deal on services, we are going to have to do an awful lot of exporting to Vietnam, Peru and the like; and they are not exactly rich. For instance, Vietnam has a GDP of almost half of that of Poland but a population two and a half times greater. I think the likes of Vietnam see the UK as a place to sell their goods produced by cheap labour, to increase their revenue rather than somewhere to buy our more up-market (but more expensive) products.

 

[najaB]

I think the likes of Vietnam see the UK as a place to sell their goods produced by cheap labour, to increase their revenue rather than somewhere to buy our more up-market (but more expensive) products.

Bingo!

 

[21C101]

"What gardening taught me about London’s liberal elite​

You can tell a lot about modern Britain from certain backyards...​

...my average client is a certain type of person; this is a milieu whose habits and preoccupations are in many ways crucial to an understanding of modern Britain. I work for London’s rich, liberal middle class. In 21st-century London, these are the victors, and these streets represent their spoils....

......Sometimes, between the yoga and the online painting class, a client will come outside to extemporise on the latest news. Mostly, it’s incomprehension. “Why are they doing this?” they say, when talk turns to Brexit, because there is no escaping Brexit if you live on these islands. “What could they possibly be getting out of it?

I just shrug, feign ambivalence. They wouldn’t like the answer. For whatever deceits and nostalgias underpin Britain’s culture war, this is what really animates the national rage: the theory that the people holding the reins inflated huge bubbles in the financial and property markets, colluded in sustaining them for as long as possible to the detriment of everyone else.

The obstinacy with which many cleave to the Brexit cause is rooted in the suspicion that Europe was somehow an apparatus of this hegemony, and, by association, of their dispossession.

That behind the liberal establishment’s horror of Brexit is the fear that it might immiserate these gleaming streets. That it might drag us all, poor and rich alike, back into the primordial clay.

Perhaps one day I will tell them: “Because it will hurt you, too.”

What gardening taught me about London's liberal elite

You can tell a lot about modern Britain from certain backyards

unherd.com

 

[najaB]

Perhaps one day I will tell them: “Because it will hurt you, too.”

So much for Brexit being about making people's lives better...

 

[Dave1987]

An answer to some of your points:
Trade with Japan ($8.3 billion), Singapore ($6.8 billion), others outside top fifteen exports. EU countries - 8 of our top exporters. these provided over $180 billion in exports. If we lose just 5% of our trade with the EU because of increased bureaucracy/ no deal on services, we are going to have to do an awful lot of exporting to Vietnam, Peru and the like; and they are not exactly rich. For instance, Vietnam has a GDP of almost half of that of Poland but a population two and a half times greater. I think the likes of Vietnam see the UK as a place to sell their goods produced by cheap labour, to increase their revenue rather than somewhere to buy our more up-market (but more expensive) products.

Indeed the EU has just completed a pretty lucrative trade deal with China (predicted to be the largest economy in the world soon). We seem to be just "trying to make the best of a bad situation" at the moment. A trade deal with China on better terms than the EU has achieved would be something that convinces me Brexit was worth it. Trying to get access to the US markets by the "backdoor" of the CTPP by hoping Biden gets the US to rejoin is just desperate. The EU is trying to improve the standards of countries it does trade deals with. We seem so desperate to do any kind of deals with anyone that we will accept anything we are given. The pure fact that the EU got China to agree to improve standards in China as part of their trade deal shows the lure the EU market has to the world.

 

[37424]

Indeed the EU has just completed a pretty lucrative trade deal with China (predicted to be the largest economy in the world soon). We seem to be just "trying to make the best of a bad situation" at the moment. A trade deal with China on better terms than the EU has achieved would be something that convinces me Brexit was worth it. Trying to get access to the US markets by the "backdoor" of the CTPP by hoping Biden gets the US to rejoin is just desperate. The EU is trying to improve the standards of countries it does trade deals with. We seem so desperate to do any kind of deals with anyone that we will accept anything we are given. The pure fact that the EU got China to agree to improve standards in China as part of their trade deal shows the lure the EU market has to the world.

Indeed and of course taking account of one fairly basic fact in terms of influence in any Trade deal, EU population 450 Million, UK population 68 Million, In fact I can see the EU being spurred on to prove a point

 

[edwin_m]

The obstinacy with which many cleave to the Brexit cause is rooted in the suspicion that Europe was somehow an apparatus of this hegemony, and, by association, of their dispossession.

This is what I've been saying all along. Britain has some huge problems with cultural and regional division, which manifested themselves in the Brexit referendum result. As the writer implies, the EU had very little to do with causing those problems.

A lot of those who voted to leave were looking for an opportunity to kick the establishment for wrongdoings ranging from Thatcherism to austerity, not for some fanciful notion of sovereignty. And those who encouraged them to do so have made those problems worse in three or four different ways.

 

[class ep-09]

An answer to some of your points:
Trade with Japan ($8.3 billion), Singapore ($6.8 billion), others outside top fifteen exports. EU countries - 8 of our top exporters. these provided over $180 billion in exports. If we lose just 5% of our trade with the EU because of increased bureaucracy/ no deal on services, we are going to have to do an awful lot of exporting to Vietnam, Peru and the like; and they are not exactly rich. For instance, Vietnam has a GDP of almost half of that of Poland but a population two and a half times greater. I think the likes of Vietnam see the UK as a place to sell their goods produced by cheap labour, to increase their revenue rather than somewhere to buy our more up-market (but more expensive) products.

Not sure if you red my post correctly but I 100% agree with you.

My original post was a comment to another forum member, praising UK government for potentially joining to another trading block half across the globe stating that it will be great success , completely ignoring the EU is the trading block , where our trade mostly comes from.

 

[Journeyman]

Not sure if you red my post correctly but I 100% agree with you.

My original post was a comment to another forum member, praising UK government for potentially joining to another trading block half across the globe stating that it will be great success , completely ignoring the EU is the trading block , where our trade mostly comes from.

And said trading block is the epitome of the "unelected bureaucrats" Brexiteers complain about, with none of the democratic participation and safeguards of the EU.

 

[Typhoon]

Not sure if you red my post correctly but I 100% agree with you.

My original post was a comment to another forum member, praising UK government for potentially joining to another trading block half across the globe stating that it will be great success , completely ignoring the EU is the trading block , where our trade mostly comes from.

Yes - I was trying to provide solid numerical back up to some of your rhetorical questions before others weighed in with some sort of 'oh, but it provides us with the opportunity to get into the valuable Peruvian market'. I had found the data in a previous post and didn't want the sort of response that certain newspapers (and blinkered MPs) give - lauding a trade deal with somewhere like Georgia when we hardly trade with them, as though quantity outweighed volume!

I guessed that you wouldn't get a response from the other forum member, so responded with facts supporting your argument. Sorry if I gave the impression that I was questioning your argument. I was aiming to bolster it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==

And said trading block is the epitome of the "unelected bureaucrats" Brexiteers complain about, with none of the democratic participation and safeguards of the EU.

Good to know that we want to be in partnership with the absolute monarchy that is Brunei and the one party Communist Vietnam.

 

[radamfi]

Has anyone noticed any "everyday changes" yet to brexit.
I'm not talking about the big things such as not being able to live and work in the EU (we have already discussed these changes a lot) but day to day changes such as increase in prices or lack of availability of produce either in supermarkets or products delisted on amazon?

Various online retailers have stopped delivering to the UK. This is because of the new VAT rules making it uneconomic.

 

[class ep-09]

Yes - I was trying to provide solid numerical back up to some of your rhetorical questions before others weighed in with some sort of 'oh, but it provides us with the opportunity to get into the valuable Peruvian market'. I had found the data in a previous post and didn't want the sort of response that certain newspapers (and blinkered MPs) give - lauding a trade deal with somewhere like Georgia when we hardly trade with them, as though quantity outweighed volume!

I guessed that you wouldn't get a response from the other forum member, so responded with facts supporting your argument. Sorry if I gave the impression that I was questioning your argument. I was aiming to bolster it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2021 ==


Good to know that we want to be in partnership with the absolute monarchy that is Brunei and the one party Communist Vietnam.

I got it . Thank you

 

[radamfi]

A list of about 180 businesses that no longer ship to the UK or from the UK:

BrexitImpacts

docs.google.com

 

[eoff]

Various online retailers have stopped delivering to the UK. This is because of the new VAT rules making it uneconomic.

I'm actually waiting for a parcel from Germany shipped today.
This seems a bit more subtle than it first appears. Brexit should have just meant that EU companies ship ex VAT with a customs declaration and that tax/duty may be payable on import. The real problem is that for shipments of value < £135 the foreign company has to register for and manage UK VAT payments, this is a huge burden. I don't know where this came from unless it was an attempt to make life easier for HMRC detaling with imports.

 

[JamesT]

I'm actually waiting for a parcel from Germany shipped today.
This seems a bit more subtle than it first appears. Brexit should have just meant that EU companies ship ex VAT with a customs declaration and that tax/duty may be payable on import. The real problem is that for shipments of value < £135 the foreign company has to register for and manage UK VAT payments, this is a huge burden. I don't know where this came from unless it was an attempt to make life easier for HMRC detaling with imports.

Amusingly, it's implementation of a system that the EU have delayed until later this year. There is perceived to be a lot of avoidance of VAT by overseas retailers to UK consumers which gets missed at the import stage. So instead they're putting the onus on the suppliers to manage it instead of the import courier. The £135/€150 threshold is where import duty kicks in on top of the VAT. Whether the dodgy Chinese tat merchants will comply or just send the stuff and hope HMRC don't spot it is anyone's guess.

 

[radamfi]

Amusingly, it's implementation of a system that the EU have delayed until later this year. There is perceived to be a lot of avoidance of VAT by overseas retailers to UK consumers which gets missed at the import stage. So instead they're putting the onus on the suppliers to manage it instead of the import courier. The £135/€150 threshold is where import duty kicks in on top of the VAT. Whether the dodgy Chinese tat merchants will comply or just send the stuff and hope HMRC don't spot it is anyone's guess.

What is supposed to happen if something arrives in the UK from someone who hasn't complied with this rule?

What happens to parcel forwarding firms? A lot of online retailers will only ship to their own country, or maybe neighbouring ones, so these parcel forwarding firms enable those goods to be sold worldwide. In particular, there are many such providers in the US who ship to the UK to serve customers who take advantage of better choice and lower prices in America, even when duty and VAT are added on arrival in the UK. As far as the American shop is concerned, it is just a domestic sale, so they can't be responsible for paying UK VAT.

 

[ComUtoR]

Various online retailers have stopped delivering to the UK. This is because of the new VAT rules making it uneconomic.

This is a very misleading statement

A list of about 180 businesses that no longer ship to the UK or from the UK:

BrexitImpacts

docs.google.com

From your list of buisness you can pick out those who have decided not to ship to the UK, some who aren't shipping to the EU, those that are in the process of changing and those who are making it clear there will be a different process and may be subject to customs etc.