The cliff edges nearer because May doesn’t want to split party!

Out means out. Not cutting the umbilical cord would be folly.
Much more than 50% of our goods come from China.
Just look at the labels or 'Made in ***' stickers on all the items in your home, the boxes they came in.
Does anyone really think that China will pass up that export market?
I imported a bed from the USA. It's a huge mahogany affair. The sticker says Made in China.

fullfact.org/europe/how-eu-works-what-customs-union/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA14TjBRD_ARIsAOCmO9Zb8LMZu62Yv6b0uQTHpPs_4A1lFxswVaJ4gVGXyRuz1ByJk8RYRhIaAkfDEALw_wcB

For anyone as as I am about the various terminology this is quite useful!

Gabriella - you should have said 50% of the poor quality goods come from China. Often on slave Labour.

Currently, EU rules limit the dangers represented by those goods- be they safety of use, materials, chemicals and pollution. Once these checks are gone - what will happen. Same for meat from USA or elsewhere, and all sorts of produce.

I do not pretend to fully understand all the details of leaving the EU.
What I do know is that it was a bloody stupid idea not to have thrashed all this out at home & cross-party BEFORE deciding to trigger Article 50. UK could then have gone to the negotiating table with some confidence and credibility!
Too important a decision, which will impact on us all and for future generations, without having any clear idea what a) we all really wanted & b) what we could realistically expect.
It is a national matter not party politics. Idiots!

Labaik Ethel seems to think she does . Whatever happens i will still have a mortgage still have my job and my lovely family.

I think there are some civil servants who think their jobs are safe, whoever agreed the cladding at Grenfell Tower appears not to have lost their job, or if they have I haven't hear it. Then there is whoever gave the freight contract to Seabourne without doing due diligence. If their jobs are secure I imagine the jobs of the ones who have negotiated with the EU civil servants are also secure.

jura2
Yes, there is a lot of tat I agree but so often, when we buy things, we don't look at the labels to see where they're made.
Much of our clothing, from both ends of the market, is made in Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and China and many items such as lampshades and bases, some furniture, mirrors, plant-pots electrical goods etc...are made in China too.
I wonder where Boden, beloved clothier of GNers, have their clothes manufactured.

Urmstongran. 'Great news just though this morning though about a post Brexit relationship with Switzerland. That should please and reassure jura2'

Thanks - I have talked about this agreement on another thread. Sadly, it has not been ratified and signed, and the right in the shape of the SDP/UDC party- are doing everything they can to stop it. So we are defo not out of the woods yet. I wish...

And as an aside, Luckygirl - yes I do (iron sheet). Nothing better than good quality cotton sheets freshly ironed- a real luxury x

jura2

Re Boden.
Please see screenshot.

Gabriella- what I was trying to say is that currently EU rules ensure that wherever goods are made, or produce/meat produced- they have to follow EU regulations and standards, re safety, chemicals, pollutants, etc, etc.

Which is not at all guaranteed after Brexit. Especially if we have to go with begging bowl to these countries for trade agreements. Trump has made that very clear. He wants us to drop our EU based requirements on animal welfare, pollutants and chemicals in produce we buy, be they meat, cereal or other- give up working rights re wages, conditions, hours, holidays, maternity, etc, etc.

That's only Trump. How much of our merchandise is bought from America? Almost zero.
We can negotiate on our own terms with China and those countries not wedded to or inside the EU.
More countries will follow when we leave, mark my words.

When you say "we" don't look at the labels do you really mean "many/some people don't look at the labels"

We need more exports, not mor imports. Neither the EU nor the UK is likely to make a trade deal with protectionist China any time soon. And Germany exports five times as much as we do to China, so it’s unlikely that being in the EU is stopping us. Face facts.

...and every morning when you put on a pair of M&S knickers, remember, that in a sweat shop in Sri Lanka or Taiwan, some downtrodden employee is working all the hours heaven sends, for peanuts.
That is what jura2 would have us believe. It's tat. Even M&S tat.

jura2 just watched Liam Fox & his Swiss counterpart signing the trade deal. Excellent!
Many more to come hopefully.
No Deal is looking more and more likely on 29th of next month - eek! So close now - Remainers cannot coalesce around what proposal ought to stop it.

Will we have greater negotiating power as an small independent country or as part of a much bigger group with more to offer? I thought there was something abut economies of scale? But I am not a economic expert ...

PECS
Evidently not you.
'We' was used loosely as most people don't look at the place of manufacture when buying and those that do, often still choose to purchase, as any other shop will most likely have similar items made in the same places.

I do remember the days when M&S stuff was all made in Leicester. The seconds shop was brilliant. But this is another story. it is not the EU that closed the textile industry- it was the need/wish or greed for low prices. And the jobs did not go to the EU either.

Why do people assume that after 29/3 the UK standards will automatically be lower?

I would be happy for the UK to emerge like a phoenix and be a beacon for finance and services.

We have got a manufacturing industry in the UK, but so many are only to keen to talk the UK down adinfinitim.

There is nothing wrong with Europe but the EU us corrupt, why when so many of you decry that the H of C’s is corrupt and a jobs for the boys network are you happy to contribute to the EU?

This Brexit is an utter disgrace which flies in the face of the good that the late Margaret Thatcher achieved by bringing in foreign investors. The economy was at its best because of the low interest charged for foreign trade/businesses.
Foreign trade was encouraged for the good of the country and its inhabitants.
Now, we're pushing them all away ?? Why ?

We'll never see its like again since the demise of MT. We're going further and further down the mire without a strong leader.

Praise the Lord!

I wish it could all be settled soon. Right from the start there should have been a cross party committee set up to thrash out what was needed from the EU before negotiations were started. Too many personal feelings are getting in the way rather than going for what the public voted for.

I voted to leave on the information given at the time and remembering my mother being dead against joining in the first place when I didn't have a vote. Husband voted remain so we cancelled each other out. Looking at how the EU is now treating the UK I would not change my mind. However, I am being made to feel responsible by son who lives in Europe. He is now going down the route of claiming Irish citizenship through his late paternal Irish grandmother to stop any problems moving around Europe with a UK passport. He has stated he will not be able to visit UK after March in case he can't go back (since then the country he is in have stated they are going to bring in a law for UK citizens to still be able to reside there). I have had to get six birth, marriage and death certificates and husband's passport notarized just to accompany the form which have cost nearly £100. After getting three certificates and being told he needed more I did raise the subject of the cost having not budgeted for it and being so close to Christmas and he said to just let him know the total and he would reimburse. Some three weeks later no sign of funds but he is not short of money, I am being made to suffer. He has said that just applying is going to cost €1000 and I am feeling the blame rightly or wrongly for an expense that is not needed in his mind.

But it just said on the news that the trade deal with Switzerland is basically the same one that we have via the EU. So what have we gained?

Hazy52
More fool you. He's an adult. Make him do his own dirty work.

I agree that giving a date for triggering article 50 was a major tactical error on the part of TM. I do not know what she was playing at.

Here’s what we have gained by the new trade deal Labaik

The government has signed a trade deal with Switzerland, heralded as the most significant such agreement in the run-up to Brexit.

The deal, known as a trade continuity agreement, will guarantee future trading terms between the two countries once the UK has left the EU.

It was signed, in the Swiss city of Bern, by International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and the Swiss federal councillor Guy Parmelin.

The agreement is designed to remove the threat of additional tariffs in trade between the two countries and to also to lift the possibility of additional duties on "the vast majority of goods".

The government says that "trading on these preferential terms", as opposed to sticking to the terms of the World Trade Organisation, "will deliver significant savings and help to safeguard British jobs".

It is claimed that the deal will, for instance, avoid around £8m of tariffs being added to the price of cars exported from the UK to Switzerland, while British consumers will benefit from lowers prices on Swiss goods, "such as clocks, watches and pharmaceutical products".

The trade between the two countries is reckoned to be worth more than £32bn per year, making this the biggest agreement signed since the UK voted to leave the European Union.

And that’s just the start.
I’m optimistic.
?