Regret it Brexit?

MaizieD and varian
One of your posts seems to infer that the loss of cheap imported food from the EU will be catastrophic with poor being worst hit and yet the other post seems to infer that the import of cheap imported food from other parts of the world will be catastrophic as it will dessimate local farming.
Whilst I believe neither, both postings show how gullible we can be to propaganda

MaizieD
This would raise concerns about food safety and food security. At present food safety is more or less protected by EU regulation; protection which we we lose on leaving the EU. Food security hardly bears thinking about.

The U.K. Has always had and no doubt will continue to have food and animal welfare standards far in excess of the most of the rest of Europe. Will you tolerate a lowering of standards, I know I won't, we can choose what we buy and inevitably who we elect.

We hear a lot about the UK being like Norway or Switzerland - well I have just come bsck to Germany after a week in Basle which is in Switzerland and is near the German border.

Queues of lorries a mile long on the motorway but fortunately not for cars so we were through easily enough.

And the Swiss are so well organised. The trams in Basle run every few minutes and the whole town centre is just trams or cyclists , no cars except for a few hours in the mornings.

I see no future without being a member of the Customs Union

varian Sun 20-May-18 20:22:44 "Rising food prices will hit the poorest hardest, and that of course will include many poor folk who were deceived into voting leave. Both commentators are making predictions but I know which I believe"

Tim Wallace
28 FEBRUARY 2018 • 6:06PM
"Claims food prices will soar on a "no deal" Brexit are based on a misunderstanding of the global trade system, according to minister George Eustice who said that even in a "no deal" scenario food costs should hardly change.
“What you might call an extreme scenario of World Trade Organisation tariffs – and it is extreme, because you would have the freedom to change those tariffs if you want – prices might go up by about 4pc,” he said, citing research from the Resolution Foundation.
“And if you did a complete Adam Smith liberalisation with the rest of the world food prices might go down by about 1pc. It is pretty marginal when you consider that in a typical year food prices will go up and down by between about 5pc and 10pc.”
This contrasts with warnings from the British Retail Consortium that costs could rise by as much as a third, with imported foods from the EU costing an extra 22pc on average.
Even the most optimistic forecasts on their research showed prices rising by 5pc to 9pc.

George Eustice told the Lords that a change in the price of diesel would have a bigger effect on food prices than tariffs on agricultural imports - which the UK could in any case choose not to levy CREDIT: PARLIAMENT TV
“For consumers, new tariffs will mean higher prices,” the BRC said in September. “The price of cheese for instance could rise by more than 30pc, or for tomatoes nearly 20pc.”
But Mr Eustice told the House of Lords’s EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee that these forecasts are based on faulty analyses.
“The BRC… is simply quoting what the headline tariffs are on certain products. What they fail to take account of is the impact of those tariffs in a real life scenario on retail prices,” he said.
A system called tariff-rate quotas lets in a certain proportion of goods at a lower rate, for instance, while raw agricultural commodities which attract the taxes make up only a small proportion of the retail price, he said.
“The value of the wheat that goes into a loaf of bread is only about 9pc of its value. The real cost of making bread is the machinery and the plant you need to run a big factory, and more importantly hundreds and hundreds of delivery vans trucking this bulky product across the country. So a few pence on the price of diesel is likely to have far more impact than a few tariffs on wheat,” he said.
“The most likely scenario is that food prices won’t change much at all – we are likely to have free trade agreement with the EU, and even if we didn’t the impact on food prices would be a few percentage points, even before taking into account we would have the freedom to have tariff rate suspensions,” he said.
A BRC spokesperson said: “For consumers, new tariffs will mean higher prices. The BRC has estimated potential price increases for a number of everyday food items should goods from the EU face WTO tariffs. But our research has never said that the potential reversion to 'most favoured nation' tariffs under a ‘clean break’ Brexit scenario would simply equal the prospective increase in prices.
"Other factors such as currency fluctuations and commodity price movements will also have an impact upon prices. Our modelling shows is that there is a spectrum of potential price increases, contingent on lots of different factors. The priority for the UK government has to be securing the continuity of free trade with Europe from March 2019 and delivering a fair Brexit for consumers.”

The importance of balancing information. The devil is always in the detail and usually the truth is somewhere in between.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/02/28/food-prices-wont-change-much-brexit-minister-dismisses-tariff/

“Project Fear” has been proved pretty groundless, argues Ruth Lea, CBE (Arbuthnot Banking Group)
blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/01/23/project-fear-was-groundless-the-uk-economy-has-been-remarkably-resilient/

MargaretX
When you consider Switzerland has a population of around 8.2 million and the UK has around 68 million it is probably inevitable that their infrastructure is better able to cope.
Both Norway and Sweden have populations vastly lower than UK.
How does the ‘well organised’ Swiss impact on the UK’s being (or not being) part of the EU customs union?

I was wondering that myself Joelsnan ?
The Swiss make good chocolate and cuckoo clocks but that doesn’t affect us either, and no doubt will continue to not affect us after Brexit.
Yes, project fear is still alive and kicking and telling us that food will be awful and that we have no decent standards without the EU enforcing it.

It's not a question of having no decent standards without the EU enforcing it. It's a question of what standards we can negotiate in a trade deal. As a far smaller market than the EU we will have far less bargaining power. We may have to choose between not getting any food at all and lowering our standards to get a deal. Or getting more expensive food at the standards we want if any country is prepared to accept them.

This is not lack of ambition; this is facing reality.

No it isn’t, we always had good standards in the UK, far better than most EU countries, for farming and animal husbandry.
It’s more pessimism and doom mongering and is nothing to do with ‘facing reality’.

Will you tolerate a lowering of standards,

If that's the only food that other countries are prepared to sell us I might well have to. If these hoped for 'tariff free' deals come about it is likely to destroy the UK farming industry and with it our high standards.

When is reality going to be faced?

MaizieD
As our standards appear to be (in most instances) in excess of what the EU requires and based on the fact that our food and welfare inspectors will also have to eat the food that they inspect I have little doubt that we would maintain and improve on our own high standards based on consumer need. Also we should have no problem exporting to the EU depending on what trade deal is agreed because of our higher standards. Point is...will EU be able to rise to our standards especially on animal welfare?

^“Project Fear” has been proved pretty groundless, argues Ruth Lea, CBE (Arbuthnot Banking Group)
blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/01/23/project-fear-was-groundless-the-uk-economy-has-been-remarkably-resilient/^

Has she forgotten the £60billion that the BOE pumped into the economy to prop up the pound immediately after the referendum and the fact that our growth has slowed to a snail's pace? And that we haven't left yet?

Joelsnan. If our agricultural industry dies from having to compete with cheap food we won't have any 'high standard' food to export...

Goodness Maizie do you really think that ‘other’ countries will only want to sell us substandard food?

Maizie this country is very dependent on its farming industry, no government would allow it to be decimated. The world is a very unstable place and conflict could erupt anywhere, think back to the wars, it was the farmers, smallholders and backyard gardeners that stopped the country from starving.
Mind you with the drastic growth in population we would probably starve anyway. Even so, our farming industry will be protected and based upon the high quality of product will continue to market worldwide.

MaizieD Sun 20-May-18 21:26:16
'This twitter thread in support, varian
(I've no idea who this guy is, POGS isn't going to like it. But I'm more interested in critiques of his references/sources/maths than quibbles about who he might be. Once again, his 'bias' is crystal clear)'.

Having been one of your targets I feel I have to say something about your comments about POGS. Whilst you purport to be more interested in critique than who POGS is, this is clearly not the case from the evidence of your own post. Not only do you want to know who he/she is...I would like to know who you are.... but it is none of my business just as it is none of your business who POGS is.

You infer bias, no you don't infer it you state that it is "clear". Well of course your bias is clear, as is mine and others on the matter of Brexit, the difference is that some of us are happy to read all the information available even if we might not agree with it.
Play the ball not the person! As far as I can see from the posting on the thread POGS (be the poster male or female) has been courteous and well mannered to you. Surely you should respond likewise.

MaizieD Sun 20-May-18 23:19:30

You say "£60billion that the BOE pumped into the economy to prop up the pound immediately after the referendum" It's not a figure I am familiar with. However, why would that surprise anyone. Wouldn't we expect the BoE to be ready to protect the pound?

Business/trade/investment is about confidence and the higher the confidence in the stability of the Country and the pound, the better business fairs and so do we as citizens. This is how things work. It is all about confidence which I am sure you are aware of since the purpose of project fear is to undermine confidence in this country at home and abroad to attempt to bring this country to it's knees.

Project Fear from the BOE failed.
"The Bank of England’s chief economist has admitted his profession is in crisis having failed to foresee the 2008 financial crash and having misjudged the impact of the Brexit vote.
Andrew Haldane, said it was “a fair cop” referring to a series of forecasting errors before and after the financial crash which had brought the profession’s reputation into question.
Blaming the failure of economic models to cope with “irrational behaviour” in the modern era, the economist said the profession needed to adapt to regain the trust of the public and politicians.
The bank has come under intense criticism for predicting a dramatic slowdown in the UK’s fortunes in the event of a vote for Brexit only for the economy to bounce back strongly and remain one of the best performing in the developed world."

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/05/why-uk-economy-defied-predictions-doom-brexit-vote

"The Bank of England promised action The Bank of England officials who had been up all night as votes were counted knew they had not much time to reassure investors and stop capital flight from the UK and British banks as markets opened.

"In a speech timed for after Mr Cameron’s resignation, a grave-looking Mark Carney, the bank’s governor, stated that the BoE would take extraordinary measures to protect financial stability. He noted that the volatility was expected and that commercial bank capital buffers were 10 times as high as before the financial crisis. He also offered to lend banks £250bn immediately if their normal sources of funding dried up; and made it clear the central bank could lend foreign currency too.

In the event, there was little overt capital flight and the contingency measures were little used. By July 5, Mr Carney had said the BoE’s plan was working, by the autumn it was clear banks had not cut their lending, and by the start of 2017, the greater concern was that consumer credit was growing too quickly. Verdict In the event, the BoE was not required to undertake much firefighting. Financial stability failures are easy to identify but successes almost impossible".

www.ft.com/content/6aec5eb8-0256-11e7-aa5b-6bb07f5c8e12

Yet another pre -Brexit vote, "Project Fear" example that did not come to pass.

A couple of recent polls reported yesterday:

1,000 voters in England were asked to consider this. A number of scenarios were put forward with people asked whether leaving the European Union would be worth it if it meant the UK lost Northern Ireland or Scotland or Gibraltar.

Results showed that only 37% thought losing Gibraltar was a step too far; 35% Scotland and 31% Northern Ireland, proving that it is 'all about England' for the vast majority.

Second survey of 200,000 voters UK wide gave Remain at 51% and Leave 49%. Proving that we should not have proceeded when the original result was so close.

Granny23 As with the pre referendum polls and experts who predicted a definite remain result, all of these polls should be taken with a degree of scepticism.

Of course all polls are simply a snapshot, but when several polls point in the same direction then you can see a trend.

The Galileo project is coming to the fore now with the problems it will cause - the money will be more than we are investing at the mo too.

Welshwife
Yes the RAF are developing their own Space Agency. It sounds as though this has been on the cards for a long while. It sounds as though Australia, NZ and Canada will be cooperating in the development of security satellites.
With the undoubted innovative nature of UK scientists and engineers this is good news with an anticipated 5000 jobs for the UK.
This is probably not the outcome the EU anticipated on snubbing UK.

I don’t think it is quite like that - there has been a lot of work gone into it all ready in Europe and the U.K. is HOPING Australia will join with them to develop a system as good as Galileo. There was no need to start developing it before Brexit was on the cards as the European one is due to be so good. It is a pressing problem now as USA are talking of turning off the military side of GPS.
They are hoping now to be able to pay to stay in Euratom.

Interesting that there are 27 members to the EU however UK has paid 12% of Gallileo development costs.
I understand that UK could block or at least delay Gallileo because UK developed the essential encryption technology.

Unfortunately they cannot remain in the project as it is for EU countries but maybe they will use their input as some bargaining power for other things they need.

It seems that the cost of Gallileo is about £9billion. Will it cost us that much to develop our own system?

The Telegraph says it will cost £500 million but that seems a bit optimistic to me...