Johnson and Brexit

Jura

Why do you think Boris Johnson voted FOR the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement?

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We are all aware of the rise in child poverty and the cost of alleviating the problem.

The U.K. has received millions of pounds to do just that from the EU.

Guess what?

We are giving £3.4million back having not the wit nor willingness to spend it.

This government has never earned the right to govern

A more prosperous UK outside the EU

By JOHNREDWOOD | Published: JULY 26, 2019

Over the next few days I will publish pieces setting out how we can use our new found freedoms and spend our own money after 31 October when we are scheduled to leave the EU.

One of the important wins will be to resume our full voting membership of the World Trade Organisation. Once out we will decide our own tariffs for imports into the UK. We can exercise this freedom to take all tariffs off products we do not make or grow for ourselves, providing cheaper food and clothes for UK consumers.

The EU imposes average tariffs of 5%, with an average 11.8% tariff on food. Dairy products are charged at a high 38.1%, fruit and vegetables at 11.5% and sugar and confectionery at 23%. Why shouldn’t we enjoy cheaper oranges and lemons from countries like South Africa, and cheaper wines from Australia and New Zealand?

The UK government has already set out a provisional tariff schedule, and has decided to abolish all tariffs on imported components, providing a welcome boost to UK manufacturing.

The EU will decide whether the UK must pay the external tariffs it charges the USA, China and others on their exports to the EU, or whether to negotiate a free trade agreement to avoid tariffs both ways.

Either way there are plenty of UK trade opportunities. EU tariffs in certain areas are too high. They are an unwelcome tax on the consumer, designed to protect continental farmers and producers at the expense of growers and makers elsewhere in the world. We should bring those down as we leave.

'Why do you think Boris Johnson voted FOR the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement?'

because this is the way is bread was buttered at the moment... and because he knew he could afford to do so, knowing she would not get the numbers.

John Redwood another looking to see how much money he can personally make out of Brexit. Being he is already a multi-millionaire, it is obvious that any amount of money is never enough to any number of Tory MPs.

However, I have to say that John Redwood and Jacob Rees Mogg should sit very well together in this Boris the Buffoon government, with their "personal wealth for me" agenda.

Isn't it John Redwood that advised people to invest their money abroad?

Well said, Opal. I'm not going to add anything to the 'discussion' but it does seem to be very one-sided. I find it hard to understand why the majority on this site seem to be 'remainers' and yet the country as a whole supports our leaving the EU. That suggests that either, the 'leavers' on here are afraid to speak their minds or they are in the minority. It would seem to be the latter.

Redwood was paid £250k last year for a part-time job advising Charles Stanley investors. His advise was to take all your money OUT of the UK.

With their funds safe in some tax haven, investors will be able to pounce like vultures and buy up the assets of all the people and businesses which will inevitably go bust as the pound would tank if brexit is not stopped.

It is called "disaster capitalism". and JRM's father wrote a book about it.

I really don't find the leavers on this forum afraid to 'speak their mind' and, numbers wise I'd say it's about 50/50 [bit like the referendum really....and I would dispute the fact that the country, as a whole, supports Brexit; 52/48 isn't 'the country as a whole [imo]….

The 52/48 split related to those who voted in the fraudulent referendum more than three years ago. There is no evidence that "the country as a whole supports our leaving the EU", and that has not been the case for most of the last three years.

One of my consolation readings is Dr Richard North's daily blog on Brexit. North was a founder member of UKIP and actually produced a detailed, and probably workable, plan for a gradual withdrawal from the EU over a period of a decade (which has been ignored). He has been in despair over the mess that our government has created over the past 3 years.

But apart from all that, he absolutely knows about EU regulations and laws. Not only does he have working knowledge but he co-wrote a book about the EU, so well researched.

He blogged on the matter of the Irish border very recently; it was part of a critique of the recently published Alternative Arrangements Commission (AAC) report.

The sticking point for any wild ideas of inspections away from the border, scanning of lorry contents, trusted trader schemes, et al is the need for physical checks (known as Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) checks ) on live animals, plant material, etc being transported across the border. I'll try to pick out the relevant parts of a long blog post.

First, his critique of the AAC report's suggestion:

In this, we can cut to the chase with an important example that we have rehearsed before, represented by the sixth recommendation which asserts that, "Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) checks should be carried out by mobile units away from the border using the existing EU Union Customs Code or a common area for SPS measures".

It really does say something of all these "23 technical experts" that they are all prepared to put their names to an extraordinarily basic error, in lumping SPS checks with the Union Custom Code (UCC)

Anyone with any serious acquaintance with the EU's application of SPS checks, through its system of Official Controls, will know that these are framed and implemented outside the UCC, and do not depend in any way on the code. In fact, for relevant products, customs control cannot start until SPS clearance has been given, fees have been paid and the appropriate certificates have been issued.

And the reason why these checks cannot be done away from the border:

Of course, no more does this apply to their recommendation that SPS checks "should be carried out by mobile units away from the border", which relies on claimed "geographic flexibilities", which they the AAC asserts are "allowed in the Union Customs Code and BIP Regulation". These, they claim, permit the border authorities, "to move any facilities away from the border and to use mobile units to conduct checks where possible".

It is another mark of the utter amateurism of the AAC that, in addition to miscasting the UCC (which makes no reference to SPS checks, much less affording any "geographic flexibilities"), the "23 technical experts" allow the reference to this "BIP Regulation" to stand. As I pointed out earlier, there is no single BIP Regulation as such.

But even if there was, the law cited, Commission Decision 2009/821/EC isn't it. This Decision makes no reference whatsoever to the criteria for siting what are currently known as Border Inspection Posts (BIPs). For the law currently in force, one must go to Council Directive 97/78 which requires, apart from certain very limited exceptions, BIPs be located in the "*immediate vicinity of the point of entry*" into the territory of the Member State

This is Regulation (EU) 2017/625 which repeats the requirement that the newly designated Border Control Posts (BCPs) should be located "in the immediate vicinity of the point of entry into the Union". And supplementing this law is Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1012 which does allow limited "geographic flexibilities" arising from certain geographical constraints But, as the recital sets out:

Geographical constraints should be those that result from the natural characteristics and landscape of the point of entry, and the distance from the point of entry should not exceed what is strictly necessary to overcome the difficulties caused by the geographical constraints. Furthermore, that distance should not be such as to pose a risk to human, animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment. Specific geographical constraints should include those that may cause major transportation constraints like, for example, high passes with roads unsuitable for the movement of animals and goods or causing significant delays in their movement.

Not with even the wildest of imagining can the law be taken as permitting the use of mobile control teams, where the only reference to their application is for visiting teams to deal with "unprocessed logs and sawn and chipped wood" in multiple BCPs. For the rest, Article 47 of Regulation (EU) 2017/625 requires official controls to be carried out on the relevant products "at the border control post of first arrival into the Union"

The whole blog is here for anyone interested in technical detail rather than optimistic assumptions:

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87307

If anyone thinks that this can be airily dismissed as no being important can wave goodbye to any trade in agricultural and horticultural products with the EU.

And remember that the installation of any hard structure on the NI/Ireland border is a target for trouble because of the breaking of the GFA.

So, Varian, why was it that the Brexit party did so well in the European elections? IMO, that election acted as a second referendum....the result is that the country is still split. My point is that the members on this site don't seem to reflect the country as a whole.

Oh, hello, a new poster.

Hi there Yorath0. How long will you last?

My point is that the members on this site don't seem to reflect the country as a whole

Members aren't obliged to post on here just to keep the numbers even.

The country is still split RL. The Brexit Party may have done well in the EU elections, but more people voted for parties which support Remaining in the EU.

"Oh, hello, a new poster.

Hi there Yorath0. How long will you last?"
-

Sigh

MaizeD you do seem a bit out of sorts?

Thank you for an excerpt from Dr North’s blog. I wonder if Boris and his team have read it? I hardly understood half of it. All those rules and regulations! A lot of E.U. red tape and as we all know by now they are very keen on that.

Fair enough.

Two thoughts:

Would’ve thought a UKIP founder could be so clever? I remember some posters on GN being castigated for being supporters of that political party. Seems they placed their trust in academics after all!

And my second point.

I know I get laughed at when I say clever people are on the case of Brexit but I truly believe there are some in team Boris.

This Dr North won’t be the only person in the U.K. aware of difficulties.

Negotiations may yet work to facilitate a new WA. Obviously we can’t force the EU to bend it’s rules (though it does do so when it suits them as has been demonstrated in the past!). But the ball is in their court now. They aren’t dealing with Theresa the Appeaser or Olly Robbins. Do a deal or not, it’s over to them.

If not, we walk.

With No Deal.

We are no-where ready or able to deal with No Deal ...

www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/2488079598145198/

The head of the UK's biggest charitable funder of scientific research has written to the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson backing his vision of a thriving science sector, but warning that leaving the EU without a deal is a "threat to that". In a letter, seen by the BBC, chairwoman of the Wellcome Trust Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, asks the new PM to up investment spending in science to German levels, and to ensure that immigration policy was "more welcoming" to top scientists.

The Wellcome Trust is responsible for £1bn of funding a year, and should be a key part of Boris Johnson's vision of the UK as a "science superpower". Its chairwoman told the BBC that while she agrees that there is a great prize to be grasped she is anxious about the damage she says Brexit has done to recruiting scientists.

"While we do collaborative work of course with the US and areas outside Europe, Australia, Singapore, other countries - and those matter - the vast bulk of the collaborations are with Europe. "And if we amputate them, or make those collaborations difficult or harder to do - we will be the loser," she said.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49133625

I saw that on the news jura it was concerning . Then I remembered who has been in charge thus far!

Full steam ahead though now with Boris and his Cabinet. A totally different ‘can do’ positivity with a new Chancellor who will open the purse strings for No Deal. Unlike Hammond. No wonder things didn’t get done!

So Dr Richard North is an expert on all things EU, especially regulations and laws. And as an expert, he decided to become a founder member of UKIP? So what does that tell you? That people who have expert knowledge and experience of the EU and its dealings believe that we would be better off outside it? Surely not …….

Did you listen, really listen, to what he is saying. No amount of 'can do'attitude can do what he is describing, in just a few weeks.

Yes Varian- I have mentionned this before- perhaps the greatest loss in a post Brexit Britain- will be the massive brain drain of amazing scientific and medical research. Not just from foreign researchers, but our very own - as they won't be able to continue the research projects without the team work and the funding from the EU.

Urmstongran Quote [ Full steam ahead though now with Boris and his Cabinet. A totally different ‘can do’ positivity with a new Chancellor who will open the purse strings for No Deal. Unlike Hammond. No wonder things didn’t get done!] End Quote.

So, when Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party speak of opening the purse strings, that in the view of many forum members will "financially ruin the whole British economy.

However, when Boris (The Buffoon) Johnson and the Tory party speak of opening the purse strings to mitigate this Brexit crisis they have created, that will save the whole British economy.

Some people have some very strange one-sided perceptions.

And Totally Rediculas.

If a plan for withdrawing from the EU had been put forward at the referendum with a sensible timescale plus a solution to the Irish problem I would have accepted the result of the referendum. As it is, there isn't a single Brexit supporter that I have any respect for or faith in. Tim Wetherspoon/Dyson spring to mind. Many Brexit supporters have relocated to other countries. As for all this money that is now available, why did we have the austerity cuts that fuelled the support for Brexit. Johnson is promising the sort of things that nearly made me vote Conservative a few years ago; none of which came to fruition. He hasn't even consulted people on many promises; the police haven't got the means to train and recruit all of the promised 20,00 police [which will still only bring us back to the numbers before they were cut by, I presume, May when she was Home Secretary].