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Post by number13 on Jun 14, 2021 22:43:43 GMT
Trying very hard to leave out the politics on this, I'm assuming that Ireland trades with the UK on a scale several times larger than with the EU?
We operate the CTA to our mutual benefit without affecting Ireland's rights within the EU, couldn't a "Common Trade Area" be equally beneficial? The EU seem convinced that continuing free UK-Ireland trade will be a gaping hole in the protectionist wall around Europe, but would it really?
I don't say there wouldn't be 'leaks' but compared with the benefits I imagine they would be small - unless global, uniform application of 'the rules' is seen as more important than anything else.
EDIT: I thought that both Britain and Ireland had always carried out at least some 'health checks' on goods to take advantage of having sea borders to help protect our farming industries. (Protect as in medically, not economically.) Is that not right?
Yeah, sounds lovely. Except one nation in your proposed "Common Trade Area" is part and parcel to the entire EU trading bloc, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof and takes those same rights and responsibilities seriously. And the other one isn't and doesn't. The simple thing is Irish companies import/export to the UK, and UK companies import/export to Ireland. There is no trade deal the UK can make with Ireland alone. It's just that simple. The EU are convinced that free trade between the UK and Ireland will be a gaping hole....because it will be. And "protectionist"? The EU have literally not changed anything since the UK was a member and it wasn't protectionist then, but once they leave then it is protectionist? No, just that you don't get the benefits of the club when you leave the club. I voted Remain as I've said before. And of course the EU is protectionist and always has been, has anyone ever seriously argued otherwise, whether when we were in or not? (Agricultural tariffs are the most extreme, ranging from the 20%s to 50%s.) But please do not read criticism into my post where there was none. I'm not complaining about the UK-EU deal (with if necessary 'a border down the Irish Sea', for want of a better term) thus we are not subject to most of that protectionism, but it most certainly exists for countries which don't have an EU trade deal.
The amount that people in Britain (including the vast majority of Conservative voters and Brexit voters) don't care what procedures are necessary, now or in the future, to ship goods back-and-forth to the island of Ireland so long as it got us the EU deal we needed, would probably astonish the Conservative hardliners, among others. We (not the royal we but I'm sure this generalisation is true), we the people are fine whether the government implements the existing protocol to the letter, or another, different one, ends up being negotiated. As long as it works, the details won't worry hardly anyone 'over here'. I'm sorry if that sounds dismissive, but I'm sure it is reality.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 15, 2021 11:41:36 GMT
New trade deal with Australia! It will add 0.02% to our GDP! Stick that in your pipe & smoke it Brussels! To quote the great Anakin Skywalker, "Yippeeee!"
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Post by number13 on Jun 15, 2021 12:19:06 GMT
New trade deal with Australia! It will add 0.02% to our GDP! Stick that in your pipe & smoke it Brussels! To quote the great Anakin Skywalker, "Yippeeee!" I expect there's a lot of pain around on twitter today, I admire the coping mechanisms, humour can be very helpful. Better anyway than the sour types complaining that Pacific rim countries should stick to the Pacific rim, tut tut.
What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 15, 2021 12:46:24 GMT
TIM TAMS IN OUR TIME "This morning I had another talk with the Australian Prime Minister Scott Walker, & here are the Tim Tams which bears his name upon them as well as mine."
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Post by mark687 on Jun 15, 2021 12:51:27 GMT
TIM TAMS IN OUR TIME "This morning I had another talk with the Australian Prime Minister Scott Walker, & here are the Tim Tams which bears his name upon them as well as mine." Bring on the Vegemite! (seriously much better then Marmite ) Regards mark687
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Post by mark687 on Jun 15, 2021 12:58:28 GMT
New trade deal with Australia! It will add 0.02% to our GDP! Stick that in your pipe & smoke it Brussels! To quote the great Anakin Skywalker, "Yippeeee!" I expect there's a lot of pain around on twitter today, I admire the coping mechanisms, humour can be very helpful. Better anyway than the sour types complaining that Pacific rim countries should stick to the Pacific rim, tut tut.
What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin.
Will be interesting given Biden's clear and firm stance on China, whether US admission to CPTPP is as straightforward as hoped. Regards mark687
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2021 15:20:09 GMT
That article is dated 11th March 2020 and was a forecast. Do keep up.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 15, 2021 15:28:46 GMT
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812
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Post by lidar2 on Jun 16, 2021 14:16:24 GMT
New trade deal with Australia! It will add 0.02% to our GDP! Stick that in your pipe & smoke it Brussels! To quote the great Anakin Skywalker, "Yippeeee!" I expect there's a lot of pain around on twitter today, I admire the coping mechanisms, humour can be very helpful. Better anyway than the sour types complaining that Pacific rim countries should stick to the Pacific rim, tut tut.
What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin.
I think we are back to the old brexit truism that people will interpret whatever happens in such a way as to vindicate their position, be it leave or remain. I doubtless am as guilty of this as anyone else, but I do try to look at the facts coldly and rationally and see past the propaganda.
Yes, a trade deal has been done just like the leavers said they would. But the fact of a deal, in and of itself, proves nothing one way or the other. To give a silly example if I went and posted on the What's Made Your Day or Not thread that I had done a deal to buy a 2nd hand car, would anyone reading it know if it was a good deal or not? It would depend on the make, model, age , mileage, condition, accessories of the car, how much I had agreed to pay for it, plus what other similar cars where selling for at the time. The fact I had done a deal tells you nothing whatsoever about whether I am wise or unwise, a tough negotiator or a pushover - it only tells you the bare fact that I have done a deal.
Likewise the bare fact that the UK has done a deal with Australia doesn't really tell us anything about whether brexit was a good thing or a bad thing. We need to look at the terms of the deal.
And when we do that, and see that it is projected to add 0.02% to UK GDP (the government's own figure according to the BBC) then, with the best will in the world, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is a deal done more for its political benefits to a government wanting to portray brexit as a success than for any economic benefits to the UK economy. The economic case for Remain, expressed amongst other places in HM Treasury forecasts was that the GDP increases from such deals would be insufficient to offset the GDP losses from leaving the EU. The economic case for Leave, expressed by what I think it is fair to say was a minority of mainstream economists, was that the GDP gains from such deals would more than offset the GDP losses from leaving the EU. On the basis of the 0.02% figure, the economic case for remain looks closer to being vindicated by this trade deal than the case for leave.
If humour helps people cope with the wrong turn we took in 2016, the fair do's to them.
ps You ask What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin
What will leavers say if the EU does a trade deal with the CPTPP group and it turns out the UK could have got the benefits of CPTPP without having to leave the EU?
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812
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Post by lidar2 on Jun 16, 2021 16:35:05 GMT
Re the current dispute over the NI Protocol
From the BBC website Reality Check: Northern Ireland's chief vet Robert Huey said in April his team was conducting more checks on products of animal origin moving across the Irish Sea than France was at all its ports. It was also conducting 325 documentary checks every day, he said, while Rotterdam, one of the busiest ports in the world, had only 125. This is partly because containers arriving in Rotterdam are often full of one commodity, whereas each supermarket lorry crossing from GB to Northern Ireland contains multiple loads, all of which need to be checked. If all the current grace periods expired, Mr Huey added, his team would need to conduct nearly as many checks on food as were being conducted in the whole of the EU. And he has only 12 vets.
Assuming the above to be accurate, I think it is fair to say that the Protocol is, at this point in time and for some considerable time to come, unimplementable in full as the EU are demanding. And I have no doubt that both the EU and the UK know that to be the case and what we saw at the weekend was just grandstanding and posturing for the folks back home.
So the UK has a valid point about the problems with the Protocol, but the problem is that Boris has so much form for breaking promises and treaties that he is like the boy who cried wolf once too often. He has little or no credibility left when he cries wolf for genuine reasons.
The 2 current compromise proposals floating about - the EU's proposed alignment-with-a-get-out-clause vs. the UK's proposed New-Zealand-style-equivalence are not very different in practice. In fact I would go so far as to say they are almost identical in practice. In theory they are quite different, as the EU points out, and if the UK and the EU were starting from different points like the EU and NZ are, then they would be different in practice. But given that the 2 parties are starting from the exact same point of pre-existing alignment, as the UK and the EU would be, I find it hard to believe that the gap in their positions is really insurmountable. Both proposals allow scope for the positions to evolve. And let's not forget that an EU-UK veterinary agreement would be of huge benefit to the GB agrifood sector as well but getting it under these circumstances, and labelling it as NZ style equivalence, would help Boris sell it to the ERG nutcases.
It was not much reported in the UK press, but at the G7 weekend Joe Biden said he would not let a UK-EU veterinary agreement get in the way of a US-UK trade deal. So maybe that is the real "win" the UK is after. Likewise the EU is a legalistic, risk averse organisation but it has got itself into the position of demanding the full implementation of something that is, with the best will in the world, unimplementable for the foreseeable future. Even having international law on their side can't make something that is unworkable into something workable. The EU needs a face-saving way to climb down without setting a precedent for other 3rd countries to use against it in future trade talks.
Let's face it - what's going on now is straight out of the Johnston/Frost playbook - we saw it in the run up to the withdrawal agreement in 2019 and the FTA in 2020. Building up to a crisis, inflammatory comments, talking and looking tough, followed by a climbdown portrayed as a triumph.
All of the above could be utterly wrong and you could re-read this post in a month's time and think what a clueless prat lidar2 is for calling it wrong (assuming you don't think that already) but that is my prediction for how this will all play out.
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Post by number13 on Jun 17, 2021 9:10:30 GMT
ps You ask What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin
What will leavers say if the EU does a trade deal with the CPTPP group and it turns out the UK could have got the benefits of CPTPP without having to leave the EU?
If we're in first, we can veto them just for the historical lols! And our representative should of course wear a General De Gaulle mask while issuing the official 'non!'
But seriously, I think the resistance in the EU to any trade deal involving the US is... considerable. The EU seem to think they occupy some sort of moral social high ground far above the unpleasant stench of free market capitalism wafting out of the Anglosphere. They're like a North London dinner party looking down at people who fly an England flag; you wouldn't believe it was biologically possible for noses to turn up quite so much.
I think you could be right about the NI protocol - but whatever credibility our government may or may not have on the issue, the EU have no more, not after the 'vaccine blocking' debacle earlier this year. Perhaps they were trying to achieve one of those level playing fields they're always on about?
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 17, 2021 14:51:38 GMT
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Post by Chakoteya on Jun 17, 2021 16:50:33 GMT
for those of us without a Times subscription. Or who have loathed and shunned anything Murdoch-connected for the past few decades....
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 17, 2021 19:33:42 GMT
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812
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Post by lidar2 on Jun 18, 2021 8:13:01 GMT
ps You ask What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin
What will leavers say if the EU does a trade deal with the CPTPP group and it turns out the UK could have got the benefits of CPTPP without having to leave the EU?
If we're in first, we can veto them just for the historical lols! And our representative should of course wear a General De Gaulle mask while issuing the official 'non!'
But seriously, I think the resistance in the EU to any trade deal involving the US is... considerable. The EU seem to think they occupy some sort of moral social high ground far above the unpleasant stench of free market capitalism wafting out of the Anglosphere. They're like a North London dinner party looking down at people who fly an England flag; you wouldn't believe it was biologically possible for noses to turn up quite so much.
I think you could be right about the NI protocol - but whatever credibility our government may or may not have on the issue, the EU have no more, not after the 'vaccine blocking' debacle earlier this year. Perhaps they were trying to achieve one of those level playing fields they're always on about? This makes me even more convinced we are shortly going to see a EU-UK veterinary agreement www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/18/british-food-and-drink-exports-to-eu-fall-by-2bn-in-first-quarter-of-2021 Northern Ireland will be the face-saving reason for the deal, but it will be as much to secure the UK food and drink industry as for anything to do with NI.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812
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Post by lidar2 on Jun 18, 2021 10:26:20 GMT
ps You ask What will they say about our admission to the CPTPP group (if all goes well) and (hopefully sooner rather than later, now the world has a sensible U.S. President again) when the U.S. too joins that group and makes it the world's largest Free Trade group by a big margin
What will leavers say if the EU does a trade deal with the CPTPP group and it turns out the UK could have got the benefits of CPTPP without having to leave the EU?
If we're in first, we can veto them just for the historical lols! And our representative should of course wear a General De Gaulle mask while issuing the official 'non!'
But seriously, I think the resistance in the EU to any trade deal involving the US is... considerable. The EU seem to think they occupy some sort of moral social high ground far above the unpleasant stench of free market capitalism wafting out of the Anglosphere. They're like a North London dinner party looking down at people who fly an England flag; you wouldn't believe it was biologically possible for noses to turn up quite so much.
I think you could be right about the NI protocol - but whatever credibility our government may or may not have on the issue, the EU have no more, not after the 'vaccine blocking' debacle earlier this year. Perhaps they were trying to achieve one of those level playing fields they're always on about? It is true the EU have little or no credibility either.
The NI Protocol is basically Theresa May's Chequers Plan of 2018 (remember that?) for NI only. Her plan for the whole of the UK is that the UK would remain in the EU customs area for admin purposes but would be its own UK customs territory and able to strike its own trade deals. UK importers would pay the EU tariff on goods coming in but if the goods remained in the UK they would reclaim the difference between the EU tariff and a lower UK tariff from the government, so the UK could have its own tariffs and its own trade deals.
The EU rubbished this, saying it was impossible to have a 3rd country (the UK) policing EU borders. And yet, that is exactly what the NI Protocol sets up for the GB/NI border. Somehow a 3rd country policing EU borders is magically no longer a problem.
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Post by Chakoteya on Jun 18, 2021 16:28:30 GMT
I wonder where we would be now if Bozza and his cronies hadn't scuppered Mrs May's original plans to sort out this knotty problem...? Full alignment now and in the future with the Internal Market and Customs Union - the derided Backstop - sounds just so sensible now, doesn't it? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42280487 for those who've forgotten about it.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 24, 2021 6:11:30 GMT
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jun 24, 2021 7:12:45 GMT
TIM TAMS IN OUR TIME "This morning I had another talk with the Australian Prime Minister Scott Walker, & here are the Tim Tams which bears his name upon them as well as mine." Bring on the Vegemite! (seriously much better then Marmite ) Regards mark687 Scott Morrison the Aussie PM (or his official name, Scomo..) Representing Tim Tams. I have 4 different flavoured packets in my pantry right now
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jun 24, 2021 11:27:21 GMT
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