Brexit watch, round 2

I can't help but wonder if so many branches are closing because peoples banking habits have changed or if peoples banking habits have had to change because branches are closing.

Our family business is in a small market town, the business was established in 1890 by Mr. S.'s great grandfather. A lot of our customers pay with cheques and a surprising number with cash so we need our local Lloyds branch. The staff are fantastic and it would be awful if they lost their jobs if our local branch is one of those to close.

Using the uncertainty of the future due to BREXIT as one of the reason for so many closures is outrageous considering the level of profit just announced.

We went to Gibraltar in the mid 80's and queued for ages to get into Spain. One of the reasons for the hold up was the Spanish were having their raising of the flag ceremony.

Loved it there, they're more 'British' than we are.

Nfk Re Gibraltar - the Spanish closed the border between Spain and The Rock for years (about 1969 to 1985) which caused great difficulties for people on both sides but mainly those on Gibraltar. This was Franco's reaction to the Gibraltese referendum returning a 99% vote in favour of retaining British sovereignty.

Even in 1995 I remember sitting in a queue for an hour or more trying to get across.

I don't know what it is like now but it will only get much worse.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jul/12/uk-scientists-dropped-from-eu-projects-because-of-post-brexit-funding-fears

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36835566

www.dumbartonreporter.co.uk/news/14316425.Brexit__could_mean_loss_of_science_superpower_status_/

Not if it doesn't have any money! Much of it currently comes from the EU.

daphne (realist) dill

Rubbish! Any good research lab, especially ones with new up-to-dare facilities will attract skilled scientists.

What a Prophet of Doom you are.

Funding for smaller facilities always had to be sought. My step-sister was a scientist working in smaller research labs and was always chasing the money. This is nothing new.

AstraZeneca have been planning that investment since 2013. Most of it has already happened.

GSK is investing in its plants, because the NHS is its biggest customer and so BREXIT has minimal effect. It closed its Harlow complex in 2013.

The real problem is for all the small research labs, who have already had funding cut. If that funding can't be replaced, British scientists will start to move abroad, so companies like AstraZeneca and GSK won't have a ready pool of skilled scientists.

Pfizer has already more or less pulled out if the UK, although that didn't have much to do with BREXIT.

GlaxoSmithKlien investing £275 million in their plants here.
AstraZeneca investing £330 million in Cambridge because ' we are the best in the world'
Not a lot, I know, but every little bit counts, doesn't it

My last post @ whitewave

Of course it is. They're terrified of it. They NEED free movement of goods and labour with the EU, but there's no way they'll give up sovereignty.

www.economist.com/news/europe/21702147-territory-dragged-europe-against-its-will-spain-looms-rock-out

I got my info from the BBC business website
'Lloyd's is already carrying out 9000 redundancies and 200 branch closures
It announced those cost cutting measures in 2014
The bank confirmed that the decision to make further cuts was taken BEFORE the referendum on June 23rd'
Those cuts have been' accelerated' by current uncertainty. Yes.I could be cynical and say it's no secret the banks and multinationals would have preferred a Remain vote.No secret.These job losses were already earmarked.Catastrophying.A lot of it going on nowadays.
Durham you were straight on to post that Barclays were cutting jobs because of Brexit.So eager to find any bad news you didn't even get the bank name correct.
Gibraltar.Yes a difficult one.Close friend flew out to see her son yesterday. He started a business there 4 years ago.She is very worried but philosophical that some resolution will be sorted.She had reservations about his decision to start up there from the start because Spain has wanted joint sovereignty long before the Referendum was a twinkle in David Cameron eye.She voted Remain simply because of her son.She knows I voted leave and see lots of valid reasons why I did,and has known me long enough to know it was a long held view and nothing to do with Farage,racism or stupid posters.etc.We are able to still be good friends,share our points of view and she isn't going into meltdown.What hope is there of moving forward productively if we do ?

Obviously on their minds though

The Gibraltese won't accept shared sovereignty without a fight. 96% of them voted to remain in the UK and part of the reason for that is that they're fanatically British. Ironic, isn't it?

Britain’s ability to protect the interests of Gibraltar has been damaged by the EU referendum result, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said today.

In an interview with ITV’s Robert Peston, Mr Hammond repeated a stark warning he first voiced when he visited Gibraltar ahead of the referendum campaign.

“We will be less able to protect Gibraltar’s interests, not to defend Gibraltar’s territory, of course we can do that, but to protect Gibraltar’s interests if we are not in the European Union,” he said.

“Gibraltar depends on thousands and thousands of Spanish workers crossing that border every day and any disruption to that flow will be extremely damaging to the Gibraltar economy.”

Mr Hammond was speaking after Spain’s acting Foreign Secretary, José Manuel García-Margallo, said on Friday that Spain would seek joint sovereignty over the Rock after the Brexit Rock.

That statement was immediately rejected by both the British and Gibraltar governments.

On Friday, UK Europe Minister David Lidington reaffirmed Britain’s double-lock sovereignty commitment to Gibraltar.

“I want to be absolutely clear,” he said in a message to Gibraltar.

“The United Kingdom will continue to stand beside Gibraltar.”

“We will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against your wishes.”

“Furthermore, the UK will not enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content.”

Likewise Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, in an address to the Gibraltar Parliament on Friday, said there was no prospect of any joint sovereignty deal.

“This government is confident there will be no talks or even talks about talks against the express wishes of the people of Gibraltar in respect of the sovereignty of Gibraltar,” Mr Picardo said.

“Gibraltar will never be Spanish in whole, in part or at all.”

“Gibraltar will never pay a sovereignty price for access to the single market.”

chronicle.gi/2016/06/gib-interests-harder-to-protect-after-brexit-vote-hammond-says/

Shared sovereignty is one thing the Spanish might go for, or even full sovereignty if they think they can get away with it as part of negotiations.

Wow, NfkDumpling! You seem to have a short memory. There were LOADS of problems at the Gib/Spain border. According to my neighbour (who does actually know) there wasn't the same number of people living on Spain and living in Gibraltar when she lived there. She's in her 70s now, but lived in Gibraltar until she moved to the UK 10 years ago to be nearer her daughter, who lives here. The Gibraltese generally had very little to do with Spain until the EU broke down some of the barriers.

Apparently Lloyds have announced that the loss of all those jobs is nothing to do with Brexit and was decided months ago.

There wasn't a problem before the EU and people lived in Spain and worked in Gibraltar then. And it was before computerisation really took over. Visas were issued annually and this can done these days with a press of a button on line.

People have to show their passports now, because Gibraltar isn't in the Schengen area. The problems are likely to be that people might need visas to work in Gibraltar (and vice versa) and it depends what the rules are for the British living in Spain. The Spanish probably won't kick them out, although they might, because unemployment in Southern Spain is high. The low pound has affected what it can buy in Spain, so people working in Gibraltar, but living in Spain are effectively paying more for their rent. There will almost certainly be more paperwork involved. Gibraltar also depends heavily on imports from the EU and is worried about Spanish customs being 'difficult'.

Can you imagine the logistics of it. The queues at the border posts if everyone has to be checked.

Well, it will still be a very little place stuck on a rock at the entrance to the Med.

One of my neighbours is from Gibraltar and has just come back from visiting relatives. They're all very worried and not very happy.

A lot of British emigrate to work in Gibraltar, but property prices are high, so they live in Spain and cross the border every day to work. This could be more complicated post BREXIT.

Gibraltar is another issue which will need to be added to the negotiations.

Apparently the sub can make its own air and water, so can go all round the world without the need to resurface. That's probably why it didn't know where it was - or that there was a tanker above it.

Disaster?
I presume you mean the sub, not Gibraltar.

Perhaps they should rename it.

Take that back. It was a nuclear one, but no damage to the nuclear reactor.

Gibraltar, eh? Where will it be? Pleased I do not live there.
Did you see about the submarine which crashed off the coast of Gibraltar? Pleased it wasn't a nuclear sub. It was called Ambush, and crashed into a tanker.

Brilliant, daphne.
I just got down to the word bovine, and why they should be careful about how they use it.
I won't use it with my grandson next year. He has enough problems using simple words.
He keeps reading about the odd shower in weather forecasts, and wonders how they are odd.