What will the UK do wrt Brexit?

Great Debates
1622

The two sides are too far apart and too constrained by their own politics to make any compromises.

However, the EU is in a rather better position than the UK to handle a no-Deal Brexit. The UK has plug a very big hole in its economy as a major trading nation. The EU shares the burden across many countries and has a continental scale to its economy, much like the US.

Boris and the Conservatives will handle this by blaming the French. The economic fallout will seriously damage the UK economy, but that will be blamed on the Covid pandemic. But it will be hard to miss the fact that trade will be massively disrupted and food prices will rise.

Boris is gambling on a huge vaccination program to achieve a political success to offset the failure of EU talks.

I expect there will be a some bilateral deals to aid specific industries, where there is a mutual interest in doing so. Like the car manufacturing supply chain. The UK Financial Services sector will take a hit and it I expect the EU will try to develop a similar capability. But the news will be full of moans from distressed British expats finding that they are no longer allowed to live permanently in sunny Spain and are obliged to pay health insurance. The British general public have very little idea about economics or trade, but they certainly feel the need to have summer holidays in the sun. The benefits of EU membership have been derided for decades by the popular press in the UK. I guess come January, with no deal, there will be a reality check which might come as a bit of a shock.

Withdrawing from a major trading block at precisely the same time the economy needs to be recusitated after the Covid lockdowns? The timing could not be worst.

1623

apparent breakthrough on fishing, but now a spat over EU environmental, social and labour regulations. EU is saying that the UK will have to follow developments in EU law in those areas, or else face tariffs, while the UK is asserting their sovereingty arguments (again).

1624

It now appears obvious that the new waves of Fascist-Lite world leaders dont really have any plans. Boris, trump, Modi, Bolsonaro, etc, their only goal is making their fanbase happy, but outside of that- they got nuttin.

Boris- foreigners are ruining our englishness! Let’s brexit! But the “and then what?” he has no clue and never had a clue.

1625

Can anyone tell me if there is any truth in this conjecture: that France (and others) are using the fishing issue in an attempt to leverage concessions from the UK in other areas? Because my visceral reaction to foreign fisherpeople wanting to fish in UK waters (to the detriment of the UK fishing industry and/or the environment) is that they can kindly fuck off. Am I wrong to think this way?

1626

Yes, you’re wrong. You’re ultra-simplifying a very complex situation.

“We export the majority of what we catch in UK vessels and we import the majority of what we eat in the UK.”
 
Read these three articles, and you’ll understand the issues better:
 

 

Some of the most vibrant, locally important and ecologically respectful parts of the UK industry have nothing to gain and everything to lose from Brexit.

They depend on shellfish, lobsters, crabs and langoustines (crayfish) that are quota-free or are overwhelmingly allocated to the UK. More than 80% is sold to the continent (mostly Spain and France). This trade has grown large because of the border-free EU single market.

Post-Brexit, trucks arriving in France with fish caught by scores of small boats will have to supply scores of “origin” and “health” documents – one for each boat and each catch. Traders will have to find UK local inspectors in working hours to verify the origin of the seafood and vets to certify its quality.

 

Taking fish out of the sea is only part of the overall picture. About three-quarters of the seafood landed by UK fishermen is sold to EU countries – a trade reliant on being fast and frictionless. Brexit is likely to mean more customs delays and inspections – and if Britain restricts access to UK waters, the EU could impose tariffs on British exports.

He and Ingram were at pains to stress that they were not looking for European boats to be excluded from UK waters, pointing out that the UK fishing fleet doesn’t have the capacity to land the entire permitted quotas.

1627

How do you feel about Australians coming over here and working in our bars? If differently, why?

1628

Thank you very much, that was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Having read all of that I feel I have a better handle on the situation.

I suppose I started from the general principle that nobody ‘owns’ the seas or their contents except by international convention/agreement. Currently, I see there is a Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) covering the area in question, which is exactly such an agreement. I don’t know how well that works at the moment, nor whether it is enforced in any meaningful way, but I can see the sense in it now that I know the last, bolded clause in your post. However, I don’t see that anyone is seriously suggesting that foreign boats should be banned from British waters - rather, it looks like the UK fishing industry wants Brexit to be an opportunity to renegotiate certain fishing rights to give them more of the quotas than the currently have. But naturally, that would mean reducing the quotas available to other countries, notably France - and understandably, that is the sticking point. Do I have that right now?

I’m not sure this differs significantly from my initial statement given the important qualifier of “to the detriment of the UK fishing industry”. In other words, parts of the UK fishing industry clearly feel that the status quo gives away too much to other countries. But I now understand that simply banning all foreign fishing vessels from UK waters would be ridiculous and counter-productive for everyone. And I also better understand why France and other countries are potentially unhappy about changes to the status quo, given it is based on many decades (or more) of tradition. Hopefully, that has now been resolved in a way that is OK for everyone. Perhaps a better simplification would have been that the British position is “sorry, now we’re leaving the EU we want to renegotiate fishing rules” and the EU position is “well, OK, but this would involve concessions on our part, so to get those you’re going to have to be more flexible elsewhere”. I suppose I was thinking too much like a Cornish fisherperson who sees French and Spanish trawlers hoovering up fish a few miles off the English coast and believes Brexit can just make them go away.

Differently I think, because they are different situations. Firstly, most fish that we like to eat are a limited resource that (we have discovered) need to be managed carefully to be sustainable. Whereas in many areas of the UK, bars seem to be in unlimited supply (well, pre-2020 anyway). Slightly less flippantly, I don’t believe that foreigners working in bars in the UK are significantly affecting the opportunities for British people to work in bars (and I think that applies to most industries, but I could be wrong). Whereas it seems there might be some areas of fishing where this is a problem. I think a closer analogy might be if French farmers were to farm British land and export the produce without being owners or tenants of that land. I assume very few people would find that a reasonable arrangement.

1629

Ah if only the Fisheries issue was a simple tale of plucky British fishermen campaiging agaist the predations of dastardly French and Spanish trawlers and factory ships intent on robbing the UK of its fishing rights.

Sadly this heroic image does not bear examination.

The UK does not have enough boats to catch the fish in UK waters. In any case it is mackeral and there is not such a big market for this in the UK. We like white fish: Cod and Haddock and we import it from other fisheries in colder waters off Iceland and north of Norway. So it is a very established practice to sell the rights to the fishing quota to other interests who have sell it on to the large domestic markets in France and Spain.

Why maintain a boat and go to sea when you can just do a deal?

This report suggests that UK fisheries are stitched up by a few familes who make a fortune trading these quotas. While it is easy to blame the EU for this situation and interview small scale fishermen frozen out of these deals about their hardships. The UK must bear some responsibility for this.

It will be interesting to see what the government does about fisheries if we leave the EU. I don’t doubt the Fishing magnates have a lot of influence within the Conservative party and will be anxious to protect their interests.

Those small fishermen who make such a compelling case for their livelihood will not find their situation changed much after Brexit unless there is a wholesale reform of the industry.

However, we don’t hear much about this in the press.

Instead it is used a political diversion, away from the really fundamental issues at the heart of the Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU. If the politicians wanted the issue to go away, they would just introduce some kind of compensation scheme for the various fishing communities that are directly affected.

In the UK Farming and Fishing was sold out and corporatised by big land owners and fish quota barons many years ago and is in dire need of reform.

There is a new Agriculture Act and a Fisheries Act that plans to institute a lot of reforms. I expect this to be an important part of the governments political strategy to play the Environment card and go seriously Green in time for the UK hosted delayed COP international climate change conference next year. Boris Johnson and the Conservatives owning this policy will out manoervre Labour and generally follow a global trend.

I don’t doubt that big landowners and the fishing magnates will be adequately compensated. Will the prospects of the little guys in farming and fishing improve? Maybe…

Such is politics.

1630

They want to fish within the three mile limit? I doubt that very much.

1631

Well nothing much came from Boris’s fish supper in Brussels except that we should wait until Sunday for a final verdict on whether a Free Trade deal is possible between the UK and EU.

It is not looking likely, their positions are too far apart. Boris has his party watching him like a hawk for any sign that he will compromise the principle of sovereignty that the Brexit faction hold dear. If the EU concedes it undermines the principles that are fundamental to the EU and sends a message that if you push hard enough when negotiating you can have your cake and eat it. There is a little point in having an trading block if any member can leave, not pay membership fee and still get all the benefits of single market.

The two positions are irreconcilable.

The EU will try to make life difficult once the door is closed. There will be trarrifs and checks at the border making the Dover-Calais route a congested bottleneck. The big companies most directly affected by this will put into action their contingency plans. There will be a steady stream of bad Brexit news starting from January.

I expect both the UK and EU have plans on place for this eventuality. They have both had years to prepare for it. But which side has the deepest pockets?

1632

Not “tradition”, but legal rights.

1633

“Johnson is backed by speculators who have bet billions on a hard Brexit – and there is only one option that works for them: a crash-out no-deal that sends the currency tumbling and inflation soaring.”
     – Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer under May, 2019

The question now is whether or not Johnson is going to betray the people who put him power, and agree to some kind of deal at the last moment. I wouldn’t bet on it.

1634

This!

1635

There are going to be some real winners with Brexit. If there is no agreement on reciprocal medical cover with EU, then all the elderly expats who get healthcare in Spain and all those other sunny countries, will be facing big monthly medical insurance fees. All travellers from the UK to the EU will have get private medical insurance for their trips.

A lot of UK nationals don’t bother with travel insurance for medical treatment when visiting the EU, assuming it will be provided for the local health service in each country.

Travel and medical insurance companies will do very well out of it and many ex-pat pensioners dependent on publicly funded medical services may be obliged to return to the UK. More work for the NHS. The job agencies that provide many of the extra nursing staff will do well…if they can get extra workers into then country because recruiting from the EU will suddenly become a lot more difficult.

Who knows, Brexit might breathe some life into these rather forlorn seaside towns around the UK coastline, that once provided holidays for the working class families. They all certainly voted for Brexit, so this might be their pay back time.

Perhaps people will opt for two weeks in one of the UK’s lovely seaside towns instead of Spain. Blackpool instead of the Costa Brava. Britons might holiday again like they did in the 1970s.

1636

Great! England is my number 2 fantasy place for me to dream about living in behind upstate NY, and my family occasionally also daydreams about building a miniature golf course, so maybe I can convince them to invest in a seaside crazy golf course when the pound crashes

:money_mouth_face:

1637

Jaywick Sands is waiting to welcome you!

1638

…mmm, where can I get stock in Butlin’s?

1639

It seems the problem is that if the EU changes its regulations in future, then the UK will have to comply with the new regulations if it wants to keep exporting to the EU on the same terms, otherwise there will be tariffs.

Apparently nobody thought of this before in years of negotiations. :roll_eyes:

Johnson is also talking about an ‘Australia-style’ deal. However, Australia is very unhappy with their deal, and is currently negotiating a free trade agreement.

Andrew Marr said a couple of months ago that an ‘Australia-style’ deal could just as well be called an ‘Afghanistan-style’ deal or a ‘Mongolia-style’ deal.

FullFact.org checked this statement and found that it was inaccurate. Afghanistan and Mongolia actually have better terms than Australia for trade with the EU. :rofl:

1640

I don’t get why this is an issue. Of course you would have to meet local standards to trade in any other market and of course there would be tariffs and/or other barriers if you don’t keep up with changing standards.

Independence/sovereignty cuts both ways.

1641

This discussion brings back bad memories of the 1995 sovereignty debate in Canada, where there were similar illogicalities being put forward