Brexit is destroying Britain

Mek

Member
I wonder what it will take for its hard-core supporters, including those in New Zealand, to finally acknowledge Brexit is a disaster?

The numerous problems with such a ridiculous plan were there in plain sight when almost half the country rejected the idea of splitting with the EU back in 2016, but what will it ultimately be that turns the surely shrinking number of supporters of that decision?

Who, apart from those at the top of the pyramid who stand to gain either way, still believes the fantasy that a country can be unscathed by moving from being part of an economy serving 500 million people to one of 66 million?

There seems to be no level of humiliation too great for Britons, so I expected this weekend’s suggestion by former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb that the UK needed a Berlin airlift in reverse – that the EU should provide supplies and other aid to Brexit Britain – may not make much of a difference.

“If the EU would play its cards right, it would offer assistance to the UK now or later when the supply of basic goods and services takes a turn for the worse,” Stubb told UK media.

“This is what friends do, even if the pain has been self-inflicted, stupid an[d] unnecessary.”

Some fellow Europeans down voted the idea on account of the fact the UK government just last week said rising prices in the country were “part of an EU plot”; a ludicrous line of defence now being run by the UK government and its supporters to blame everything from fuel and labour shortages to a shortage of Christmas baubles on a sinister EU plot to make Brexit fail.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson – who has jetted off on holiday as the army is brought in to drive lorries and fill petrol stations – has alternatively suggested shortages are attributable to a “giant waking up” of the UK’s post-Covid economy, with intense consumer demand outpacing efforts to ramp things back up.

The problem, according to Brexit supporters, is anything but Brexit; but, interestingly enough, the way to fix the problem is to apparently reverse certain parts of Brexit. The UK government, for example, has devised a scheme that would extend a temporary visa to 5000 EU truck drivers to transport the UK’s vital supplies of toilet paper and Christmas ham around the country before being booted back out. Unsurprisingly, only 127 have taken up the offer.

Meanwhile, with statistics showing job vacancies in the transport, logistics, and warehousing sector were up by more than 350% on pre-pandemic levels, the government has sent call-up letters far and wide within the UK to try to avert still more of a crisis. One letter was sent to a soldier who had died 10 years prior;
another, according to inews.co.uk, was sent to one David Brown from Ilminster, who, apart from being retired, was also 81, having stopped driving artics some 20 years ago. He was one of one million HGV licence holders targeted by the government as it made a last-ditch desperate attempt to get fuel back in the pumps and save Christmas from toy and food shortages.

The problems are not just in the transporting of goods but, as far as food goes, reach back into the paddock and onto the farm.

Portents of doom

In New Zealand, the Covid pandemic has left our agricultural sectors short of workers, thanks to border closures and a government that takes a dim view of the ever-increasing use of workers on short-term migrant visas. But Britain’s shortage puts New Zealand’s in the shade, with its meat and poultry sector short as many as 25,000 people in its pre-Christmas processing season. The situation has meant Britain is now looking at importing more turkeys from France to make up for the situation.

Pork farmers have not had it any easier. UK pork farmers are facing the imminent possibility of their first- ever cull of healthy animals – some 120,000 are set to be destroyed – with a lack of EU citizen butchers who are now back on the mainland. After the cull has happened, it is expected that pork imports from the EU will also have to be ramped up to fulfil domestic shortages.

It might be the spectre of a Christmas dinner lacking the necessary baubles that may shake some Brexit supporters out of their dream state. The celebration is not so far away and, despite certain high-profile commentators chiding Britons to “think about the real reason for the season” – rather than focusing on ham without the trimmings and stockings full of lumps of coal – even Johnson and co seem to clock the political threat of a lacklustre Christmas for the Covid-plagued UK population.

But Christmas will be lacklustre for many families in the UK anyhow. Benefits have just been cut – a hugely cynical and cruel act as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the UK – while the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said British households will have to find an extra £1,800 to cover utilities,clothing, and transport this year, while food and fuel is destined to rise a further £1100 in the same period.

ONS has also revealed one in six British adults could not buy essential foods in the past fortnight, the outcome of a supply chain crisis, while 15% could not buy fuel.

Price hikes

The country’s Institute of Directors is just one of many parties that believe the current economic situation – rising prices, fuel shortages, and looming tax rises (National Insurance and council taxes are set to rise) – is sending consumer sentiment “off a cliff”. Business confidence has plummeted in the most recent survey, from +22 points to -1 point.

It doesn’t help that a third of the UK’s small businesses are classed as highly indebted, more than double since before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Bank of England, which warned last week there would be a rise in company collapses before the end of 2021.

Small business debt isn’t the only concern either – government debt of £2.2 trillion to the end of March 2021 was 106.0% of GDP (13.1 percentage points above the average of the 27 states of the EU at the time).

Its net new borrowing was £304 billion over the year to March – 14.5% of GDP (and also higher than its EU counterparts by 0.6 percentage points.

The Bank of England expects inflation will rise above 4% this winter – the highest level in a decade – before gradually falling back to 2%, although some believe this is overly optimistic. It is feared that rising inflation could trigger a sell-off in global financial markets, which could further damage the economy, while rising interest rates, falling government revenue, and spiralling public debt have created fears of stagflation.

Moving out

The global semiconductor chip shortage caused by a factory fire in one of the world’s main producers in Japan, combined with stockpiling of existing stocks and the China vs US trade war has proven a highly promising opportunity for New Zealand’s listed tech concern Rakon.

But Japan’s loss has not been the UK’s gain. Last week, the boss of Intel told media that prior to Brexit, the company was considering setting up a multi-billion-pound semiconductor plant in the UK but, after Brexit, that business would now be established in the EU. The aim of building the capacity in the EU is to lessen the company’s reliance on Asia as a supplier of the essential commodity, the worldwide market for which is set to more than double in the next seven years to about US$800b.

The blow for the UK follows Tesla’s choice of Berlin for its third major assembly plant, snubbing post-Brexit Britain in favour of German expertise in engineering and manufacturing that has allowed Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and BMW to dominate the global market for luxury passenger cars.

Britain must now pin its hopes on its ability to stop any seepage from its vitally important financial services sector – although the EU may yet be able to spoil that party. The EU is reviewing ‘delegation rules’ that allow funds in the EU to be managed in London. Currently some €2.3 tr are managed from the English capital,
representing 42% of all assets under management across the EU and the UK. About the same amount again is managed from London on behalf of international investors in Europe. Sector heads are feeling optimistic the EU won’t go for tightening the noose around the UK’s financial services sector, but there’s a few months yet for London’s asset managers to sweat as the EU’s proposals are out in December.

Silver lining

There are purportedly some silver linings to Brexit, and apparently a few of them accrue to the UK itself, including the return of the imperial measurement system, blue passports, and the fact arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage had his car hit while queuing for petrol.

NBC has reported, however, that there definitely are silver linings and these have accrued to Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China – mainly, at this point, “glee, sarcasm and schadenfreude”.

But China believes it is on the cusp of a bi-lateral trade deal with the UK and will also become more crucial to the EU as a result of Brexit. The turmoil of Brexit will also serve to deepen Chinese confidence in its own political system, commentator Lan Hengmin wrote in an opinion piece for China’s state-run Economic Herald.

“The Communist Party’s leadership in politics and our socialist economic system have enabled us to control various conflicts and optimise the various economic factors,” he wrote. “Western countries say China is not democratic enough ... but Western democracy has a fatal weakness in that in order to gain popularity, those in power give way to short-term interests and sacrifice the long-term interests of the people.”

Russian commentators suggest there is a level of karma in the fact the British cheered the break-up of the Soviet Union. But there are more direct geopolitical benefits, former US ambassador to Russia Michael but he and his foreign policy objectives stand to gain enormously from it.”


By Dita De Boni
Senior journalist
Contact the Writer: [email protected]
I had to stop reading this when I got to “ if the EU would play its cards right “. It’s obviously a work of fiction ! We hold all the cards 🙄🙄
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
Brexit has certainly destroyed Britain’s credibility as a partner in any deal. Both Dom Cummins and this morning, Ian Paisley have said Boris clearly had no intention of keeping the withdrawal agreement.

Not intending to keep to an agreement... is that a bit like breaking your own laws? :unsure:
 

Muck Spreader

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin
Brexit is a disaster! We are 9.5 months into a new life outside the EU so I would offer that it is far too early to cast judgment either way. We are living through a period of recovery after a global shutdown which has upended “just in time” and “lean manufacturing” something no one has real previous experience of. Those claiming the log jam at our main container port was due to lack of lorry drivers and many European drivers having returned home after Brexit; look at what has been going on on the American west coast! A major port over there is now working 24/7 to clear their log jam so many of the shortage issues are global and not purely as a result of Brexit I’d suggest.

I paid 1.39 last month , now 1.52 .
They have a special rate for English grockles. 😁
 
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Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia

'The New Zealand trade deal follows advanced free trade agreements already struck with Australia and Japan which the UK government hopes will help pave the way for membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free trade area of 11 Pacific nations with a GDP of £8.4 trillion in 2020.'


I'm in a puzzle. If you look at the map you can just see uk marked in orange.
I always thought the UK was in the Atlantic, as in NATO for instance.
 

Widgetone

Member
Trade
Location
Westish Suffolk

'The New Zealand trade deal follows advanced free trade agreements already struck with Australia and Japan which the UK government hopes will help pave the way for membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free trade area of 11 Pacific nations with a GDP of £8.4 trillion in 2020.'


I'm in a puzzle. If you look at the map you can just see uk marked in orange.
I always thought the UK was in the Atlantic, as in NATO for instance.
Your grasp of geography is on par with mine.
I think it stems from the fact that Northern Hemisphere countries don't much care for GB/UK or whatever we identify as now from some reason, and after Biden told us to do one we have to look further afield.
Whether or not any deal is good for British farmers doesn't really enter into it.
 

arcobob

Member
Location
Norfolk
Sorry to sound nostalgic but it was with some regret that many of us voted to join the EEC and abandon , to some extent at least, the Commonwealth trade links. We may be situated in the Atlantic but many of our closest relatives trade to a great extent within the Pacific region. We have to appreciate that the world is far bigger than Europe.
 

jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Sorry to sound nostalgic but it was with some regret that many of us voted to join the EEC and abandon , to some extent at least, the Commonwealth trade links. We may be situated in the Atlantic but many of our closest relatives trade to a great extent within the Pacific region. We have to appreciate that the world is far bigger than Europe.
The world has just got bigger by £15,000 per container as well.
 

Ashtree

Member
Xi Jun Ping, is mercilessly changing the Chinese economic model. He is pushing industry away from the so called 6/12 economy, where people work 6 days a week, 12 hours per day. Chinese internet giant Ali Baba owned by multi billionaire Jack Ma is a great example. Government crack down has cost him tens of billions of paper worth. He was arrested and disappeared for weeks, while they had a little chat with him. Another mogul, Pony Ma of Tencent also got a bit of a shake down. Lost 14 billion dollars worth in the process. Many more have got the same treatment. No more mega companies allowed, and no more too big to fail allowed. No more fat billionaire allowed to make billions, while those who work for them, work huge hours for low pay. China is now “levelling up”, to create a bigger wealthier middle class, with domestic spending power. It will become ever less focused on being the factory for the world, and shipping containers full of tat to Europe and America. Cost of shipping containers will slip down their radar as a result.
We will have to figure out how to make our own stuff cheaply. Large EU companies are focusing their attention on Africa as the next manufacturing hub. Eliminates that huge sea trek, and plays into the urgency to rely less on an ever more unpredictable China.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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