NI / ROI border - again...

Martin Holden

Member
Trade
Location
Cheltenham
Having read many articles about the border issue, I have come the conclusion this part of the withdrawal agreement is a bit of a white elephant. Surely our standards or those of the EU are not going to diverge that much if at all. After all we presumably will carry on trading with the EU. Tariffs should be equal “goods in” and “goods out”. The talk of cheap food imports and high tariffs on food exports is a “supertanker” crash for UK food production. Tit for tat tariffs across the UK/EU border are nonsense as no one wins, so keep it tariff free. Is the issue one of the EU thinking we will strike trade deals with other countries and then send their goods into Europe via the UK? All this posturing and bluster from both sides is a waste of time. We will have a border called the channel, so what’s the issue with a land border on the Island of Ireland. Talk of a resurgence of the troubles in NI based on trading issues is hard to comprehend. The issue re the split between national and republicans in NI is way deeper than trading issues. It will take generations and then some for total peace to exist I fear and such a crying shame as both countries are wonderful places.

Regarding food, we should be using Brexit to “dig in” and become even more self sufficient here in the UK. I’m sure we can produce far more than we do today with modern techniques. About time the nation is made much more aware of home produced high standard food
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
I struggle to see the actual economic significance of the border in all of this!?, what is actually going to change when the UK leaves?, they say different custom rules regulations and standards will apply, but what that will actually be?, any why?, are the EU or UK going to suddenly drop standards on the things they produce??, why do the rules have to be different? As I understand it the UK are getting out because they want to set their own standards, but surely not to drop them or change them sooo dramatically??, anyway why can't there be two standards if needs be? We already have different 'tarrifs/standards' on loads of items, fuel, fags, alcohol, sugar taxes, hell its even two different currencies either side of the 'border', but for example all the fuel we use in this part of Ireland is supplied from ports in Northern Ireland.
Milk has been mentioned before... NI cannot process all the milk they produce, a fair chunk comes across the border gets processed and goes back across the border again (in a few hours) to be sold both in the ni market and UK market, they say there is not enough spare processing capacity in the UK for this milk, but this won't be able to continue after brexit?


You imply that milk crosses back into Northern Ireland to be sold within hours. I'd think the volume of this is tiny. Anything going to GB market may come through Belfast but more likely to go through Dublin.

Regarding the capacity, it's relatively recently that this has occurred as dairys have failed and been taken over by or sold to southern companies. So this loss of capacity has been in the hands of dairy farmers who voted with their feet to sell control of their dairy future for a quick bob. Much the same as GB farmers moving to Muller etc
 

nivilla1982

Member
Livestock Farmer
Talk of "NI only Backstop" from Brussels this morning with a "double majority" required in the NI Assembly to vote to leave EU rules/regulatory environment.
In effect it would be a nationalist veto on NI leaving the backstop and EU Customs regime.
While the PM's proposal would have been an effective unionist veto over stormont leaving the UK zone etc.
 
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bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Me different or Irish people in general ?? Cant say i agree people are people good , bad and indifferent wherever you go . Then of course you have the odd crackpot who blames every other nationality for everything wrong in their world including their small plonker !!!!

There you go , just proved my point .
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

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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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