A twitter thread by Financial Times journalist, Peter Foster.
Some people may find it very sad.
We write a lot about the impact of Brexit on business (rightly) but what about the impact on individuals - and it’s not just about the money! As me and @DanielThomasLDN report her for @FinancialTimes Stay with me... /1
Brexit is about building back barriers - economic but also social and cultural with Europe - and these barriers are built back by increment. Just as gravity impacts trade, so it impacts our social and cultural interactions. The bureaucracy created by Brexit does that...EG... /2
Adrian Bagley, a semi-retired architect who buys and sells model trains from collectors in the EU on the Catawiki auction website...he's been doing it for years. It gives him great pleasure interacting with buyers n sellers from Romania or Austria /3
It's a hobby. It's not life and death, and Mr Bagley excepts ultimately his travails are trivial - but new rules on VAT and the 'handling charges' that parcel companies charge have permanently disadvantaged him with EU contacts /4
I feel like a semi-invisible barrier has come down between me and all those countries I had previously been on the same footing with, when we were all following the same rules. Now I feel I’ve been cut off by duties and so-called ‘handling charges’,” he says. /5
The barriers work both ways. An Italian collector who bought a train from Mr Bagley is cross that he suddenly has to pay VAT and charges on receipt - and Mr Bagley pays 25% effective surcharge on what he buys. (£53.56 in 20% VAT+ £12.50 handling fees on a €250.49 train) /6
This means that EU collectors low-ball his sales (coz they know charges are coming) and he can't compete on a level playing field for with EU bidders for an EU product, since they don't have VAT+ handling. Cry me a river, you say. Well, I do. /7
Similarly with José Martín Quesada who was sent some home baked pastries by his mother in Spain after Christmas which arrived rotten after weeks waiting for health certs etc. “My mother sent the most innocent parcel of home-cooked food and it was declared a biohazard.” /8
Cry me another river. Is Mr Quesada going to starve no? Was his Christmas ruined? Probably not. But his mother's attempt to show him some seasonal consideration was made impossible. Multiply these stories out by the thousands, tens of thousands, and it's a sorry tale I think/9
I've wrote about au pairs being blocked for no really good reason (to much mockery) but that's 50k cultural interactions a year - young Europeans meeting brits, learn English, young English kids meeting EU citizens, hearing languages...realising the world is round, not flat. /10
I've written about the outbound travel industry - young brits going to work in campsites and skiing chalets, running canoeing holidays or guiding musical tours...all that is now made measurably more difficult. Gravity will take it's toll./11
This week's Lords EU committee report on #Brexit and Services tells the story... here @SBIT_UK explains.
As I type UK companies are not signing chalet contracts that would create jobs for UK hires this summer./12
Sorry, image missing.
Again. Not the end of the world, things might get a bit pricier etc. But all just part of the incremental losses caused by building barriers that have material impact - if you have an Irish passport, say, you'll find it easier to get hired. Just a fact. /13
It's no good saying "we're out of the EU, not out of Europe" because a lot of European - the wiring under the plasterwork - is driving by EU rules and regulation. Over time, people will bother less, in both directions. /14
Similarly with the decision to drop Erasmus+. The Lords report worth reading on this, but the Turing scheme is nothing like a replacement and - again - ignores the reality that the EU is a our neighbour. It's another rock in the road. /15
Sorry, image missing
twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1375381463252795395
Just as was warned and predicted, Northern Ireland is showing signs of the peace breaking down. At the moment from the loyalists who are extremely unhappy with the Brexit deal, but if the violence continues the nationalists will undoubtedly be drawn in.
I get so bloody angry at the thought of all the work by the U.K. and USA in bringing peace to Ireland, being trashed by this useless, lying and corrupt government.
I was listening to the Food programme at lunch time and the plight of, in particular, mussel farmers, but also all the almost entirely small businesses involved in harvesting crustacae.
Most of their catch is exported to the EU and they were worried about new rules after Brexit but the government assured them there would be no change and they would still have the same access to EU markets as before.
Come 1 Jan 2021. All export orders have been turned back, because the government may have thought they had an agreement, but they don't, and the EU now insists that all imports of crustacea from the UK have to match water quality standards that all third party countries have to meet in order to sell in the EU. Their businesses have all but been destroyed.
They have met with government ministers, who just mutter about finding new markets and developing the UK market. Not much help when you are harvesting several tons of shell fish a week and they have a short sell by date.
Funny that isn’t it? The EU countries were perfectly happy with UK quality of water standards when they accepted our shellfish products prior to us leaving the EU.Nothing changed in the quality from December to January.
The EU bloc will do all they can to stop the UK doing well...but we will.
Money is being provided to them (fishing businesses) meanwhile, and yes it’s a problem, and yes, it will be solved.
Live bivalve mussels cannot be imported into the EU unless pre treated in a purification plant. We don't have any of those. When we were members we weren't importing, we were already there. Now we've left, we're importing. Simples.
Any third party country can bypass this if they have what are classed as Grade A waters. As before, we only have a tiny proportion on our waters graded A.
Another example of wanting to leave but still benefit from the advantages of membership.
www.bighospitality.co.uk/Article/2021/02/04/Future-of-UK-shellfish-industry-in-doubt-as-EU-confirms-live-import-ban
No lemongrove:the EU weren’t happy with the quality of U.K. waters, that’s why they had standards which we didn’t meet. The crustaceans had to go through a purification process in an EU country, that was only acceptable as we were a member state. Non member states from similar water quality not acceptable. It’s funny how we aren’t happy to be treated as non members when we asked not to be a member. It also makes me cross that 84% of our rivers are below EU standards of water quality.
lemongrove
Funny that isn’t it? The EU countries were perfectly happy with UK quality of water standards when they accepted our shellfish products prior to us leaving the EU.Nothing changed in the quality from December to January.
The EU bloc will do all they can to stop the UK doing well...but we will.
Money is being provided to them (fishing businesses) meanwhile, and yes it’s a problem, and yes, it will be solved.
Not before many of them will have lost their businesses.
lemongrove
Funny that isn’t it? The EU countries were perfectly happy with UK quality of water standards when they accepted our shellfish products prior to us leaving the EU.Nothing changed in the quality from December to January.
The EU bloc will do all they can to stop the UK doing well...but we will.
Money is being provided to them (fishing businesses) meanwhile, and yes it’s a problem, and yes, it will be solved.
If you listen to the live shellfish exporters you will learn that this problem will not be solved by any means apart from bringing our coastal waters up to Grade A standard.
The shellfish cannot be purified in the UK before export to the EU because it shortens their 'shelf life' and many would be dead or dying before they reached the EU market. So building more depuration plants in the UK won't do anything for it.
The EU won't alter its rules for a third country, either. Rules, incidentally, which the UK were insistent on making when we were in the EU because they eliminated third country competition for our shellfish. Rules which our government knew about before the appalling Brexit deal. Article about this here:
yorkshirebylines.co.uk/hapless-defra-secretary-eustice-humiliated-and-schooled-by-the-eu/
The shellfish that the EU were 'happy' about were depurated in the EU before being sold.
Northern Ireland and the violence is escalating.
I think they are at a dangerous time.
I was absolutely horrified watching the burning vehicles in Belfast on the news last night. For the people of Ireland both sides of the border I hope this does not escalate,
The Good Friday agreement problems as they came to light should have been enough to stop Brexit in its tracks. Who on earth would risk going back to all those years of attacks - oh I forgot - people not wishing to pay tax on their millions!
Can anybody explain why people need so many millions in the bank? I can understand paying off a mortgage and investing in a business etc but not just stashing money away. Why don’t they want to pay taxes? It is reasonable to want to help and fund your country surely.
I watched an item on the BBC from NI, the reporter stated that the current violence relates to a funeral several days ago where a number Sin Fein politicians attended against the current Covid regulations. They were not fined which under the guidelines they should have been, this has now escalated to the last 3/4 nights of violence directed towards the police.
Not sure how you can link a funeral to Brexit?
Not sure how you can link a funeral to Brexit?
NI is a ticking bomb because of Brexit. It just needs an excuse to set it off.
I suspect that had we not left the EU this would not have escalated in such a fashion.
GrannyGravy13
I watched an item on the BBC from NI, the reporter stated that the current violence relates to a funeral several days ago where a number Sin Fein politicians attended against the current Covid regulations. They were not fined which under the guidelines they should have been, this has now escalated to the last 3/4 nights of violence directed towards the police.
Not sure how you can link a funeral to Brexit?
Because the loyalists who are creating the violence have stated that they are protesting because they are totally against the Brexit agreement.
The funeral is a different issue, but will get muddled in with it all.
We knew that this Brexit agreement was playing with fire.
Johnson needs to step in with an early intervention (today) to try to prevent this getting any worse.
GG13 The funeral was on 16th March so about 3 weeks ago, it was the decision not to prosecute anyone - which would be nigh on impossible- the unionists are angry about but also Westminster's Brexit treaty which treats NI differently from the rest of the UK - which they promised not to and which the DUP opposed - or maybe you didn't know that? So its all coming to a head.
Loyalists are annoyed at the funeral because the authorities failed to stop attendance by members of Sinn Fein.
The funeral was on the 30th June last year.
Long memories in NI.
I also suspect that there have been recent instances that have not been reported by the national media.
Perhaps any NI gran could verify this?
Dilly, thank you for your lovely thoughtful posts.
I also "lost" family abroad because of Brexit and that was horrible - but I can't imagine what it's like to have actually voted for it too.
I hope in due course you feel better about the whole thing and feel as I do that the people I love are simply reaching out for better lives elsewhere. We have brought them up to be strong and adventurous and that is good.
I know how my parents felt when we did it for our own family (as we spent time in America) though we did come back.
These are indeed consequences of Brexit on "unimportant people" and are actually quite important in "unimportant" peoples' lives.
Sending lots of positive thoughts to you Dilly.
"NI is a ticking bomb because of Brexit. It just needs an excuse to set it off".
NI has always been a ticking bomb and tragically Brexit is being used as an excuse to set it off. For those who want to light the fuse Brexit is a convenient excuse.
Not an excuse when the Brexit treaty is real in its impact on NI. Or maybe you'd deny that too. It may be fuel to the flames, but its fuel that didn't need to be added and was added deliberately.
I'm not denying anything seamstress simply expressing my opinion.
Smileless2012
"NI is a ticking bomb because of Brexit. It just needs an excuse to set it off".
NI has always been a ticking bomb and tragically Brexit is being used as an excuse to set it off. For those who want to light the fuse Brexit is a convenient excuse.
I believe that people tried to point this out before the Referendum and have been pointing it out ever since. That Brexit woould upset the equilibrium in NI.
The 'Boris solution' is particularly bad for NI, May's would have been better but it was strongly opposed by the Brexit extremists in her party. The reality seems to be that Brexit supporters don't really care very much about NI.
There were few problems serious enough to threaten the GFA in NI before Brexit.
Yes it's a pity that May wasn't supported.
MaizieD
Smileless2012
"NI is a ticking bomb because of Brexit. It just needs an excuse to set it off".
NI has always been a ticking bomb and tragically Brexit is being used as an excuse to set it off. For those who want to light the fuse Brexit is a convenient excuse.I believe that people tried to point this out before the Referendum and have been pointing it out ever since. That Brexit woould upset the equilibrium in NI.
The 'Boris solution' is particularly bad for NI, May's would have been better but it was strongly opposed by the Brexit extremists in her party. The reality seems to be that Brexit supporters don't really care very much about NI.
There were few problems serious enough to threaten the GFA in NI before Brexit.
I remember repeatedly asking the question "What about Ireland?" Answer there was none.
MaizieD: "There is 'another scheme' It's called the Turing Scheme."
And to add to this - my partner has been involved in the assessment of Erasmus and Erasmus+ applications for the last ten years. They have been contacted to work with the Turing scheme but have turned it down as it's a pale imitation of Erasmus missing many of the most important aspects.
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