News: 1602845109

"and just yesterday UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s self imposed deadline to get the thing done came and went."

Which hopefully means now the advice will be hard brexit and all the preparation the gov has made to implement that and assistance to businesses can be rolled out and waiting for the day. After 4 years there should surely be such prep and when offering such a referendum the option of leaving would surely have been thought through and planned?

This isn't a "dead in a ditch" hard deadline, like last October, this is even more flexible. Anyway, there's plenty of time to prepare once the EU realises who holds all the cards.

Only one thing is certain. We are in for a big change in the way business works. The irony is the only way the economy can navigate its way through the shock is how well business adapts and innovates its way through the change. It's largely the Remainers in business who can save the Brexiteer's bacon.

I just filled in a Government survey on how my business is doing that. I replied, we can't plan and execute until we know what the change is. The survey asked what government could do to help.

I answered - "extend the transition period to at least six months after a deal or no-deal is agreed for that to be put in place". True Brexiteers can't surely begrudge this to minimise disruption, M20 lorry parks, no fresh veg in Sainsburys and other potential issues which may invite a backlash they could well do without at a time when Covid-19 will still be challenging for the headlines and the government's attention.

Surely a very small price to pay?

27 EU countries or one fractured England, Scotland, Wales, NI, Cornwall and Overseas tax havens that can't keep promises or honour international treaties?

codejunky I think you forgot the troll icon, or you need a sarcasm icon.

BoJo has just been on BBC News saying that we should prepare for a 'no deal Brexit', and to become like Australia as the EU has rejected a Canada-style deal.

By which I presume he means cutting British businesses out of European supply chains, and then towing our island to a different hemisphere.

Filled with convicts?

A mostly parched, empty desert?

At least Australia has vast natural resources and good barby weather (most of the time).

Perhaps Boris would like to import some Oz wildlife to keep as pets at No 10?

The UK won't "become like Australia". Because we *do* have a comprehensive low-friction trade agreement with our nearest neighbour -- the Closer Economic Relations treaty with New Zealand (and our Constitution has an invitation to New Zealand to join the Commonwealth of Australia). We also have a trade agreement with our next-nearest neighbours, the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. As you'd expect we also have FTAs with major trading partners like USA, China and Japan. These treaties are the result of over twenty-five years' sustained effort. Ironically an effort initiated by the UK ending Commonwealth Preference to join the EU (which caused an economic crisis in Australia).

Australia doesn't yet have a trade agreement with the EU. The issues there are around agricultural goods, and especially the ever-increasing application by the EU of 'appellation' to limit competition. So trade with the EU occurs on WTO terms. This is no great drama for Australia as the EU is on the other side of the world -- and thus not tightly integrated into production chains. Whereas for UK firms European firms are a few hundred kilometres away and production processes have become tightly interwound.

Australia's situation is in no way comparable to a UK having no trade agreement with the EU and seeking to trade with close-by nations under WTO terms.

Agree that comparing the UK to Australia is daft.

Its not about Business, they know nothing of Business especially trade and they don't care about Business.

This is cargo cult'ing at its worst.

As for Australia, NZ is 2.8 of exports, the USA 4%, a paltry amount.

There is only one country relevant to Australia:

https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports-by-country#:~:text=Australia%20Exports%20By%20Country%20Value%20Year%3B%20China%3A%20%24103.00B,2019%20United%20Kingdom%3A%20%2410.57B%202019%20United%20States%3A%20%2410.17B

China is 40% a huge amount for one country.

You have to add the values of the next 8 Export countries to get even close to that.

Where China goes Australia goes. For good and bad.

The UK has exports to the US of 15%, Germany 9.9%, France 6.7%, Netherlands 6%, Ireland 6%.

Much more evenly balanced but of course just about ready to tell its nearest free trade area thanks but no thanks.

However there will be Portaloo's in Farage Park, maybe they could lay some music on, deckchairs, that kind of thing I can hear it now 'Who do you think you are kidding ~~~~~' wafting over the muddy fields

The EU hasn't rejected anything yet, it's still waiting to hear the realistic proposals from the UK. Anyway the EU-Canada FTA explicitly excludes financial services and the UK isn't keen on that.

Killer spiders in the toilets?

Canada isn't on the doorstep and is moving towards EU. Even an ESA associate. Getting treated badly by USA.

UK is leaving, only a train journey or ferry away and doesn't want to keep any EU or European or even some UN rights or laws. No-one asked the UK to leave and they invented the rules of Article 50 and got the others to agree to them.

It sounds like everyone in the UK is too young to remember the way things were done before the UK joined the single market. Maybe they should not have fired all the boomers.

Oh, I remember them alright. That's just one of the reasons that I am stockpiling in my "Brexit Cupboard"

Yup.

Clothes and LP-records were really cheap so we bought lots of those when travelling to the UK.

I also remember the constant strikes, the garbage piled up everywhere never quite collected before the bin-men striked again. Strange hotel food out of tins. And my parents having to arrange a totally different route through France and Germany to get home from our UK vacation because the train or ferry or both, who cares at this point?, were on strike or out of fuel or spares or all of the above!

Whatever. It sure was an Adventure, "the way things were done".

One is rather looking forward to seeing those times once again, I'd say (but only from a safe distance).

That was most of the 1970's, and thus mostly after the UK joined the EEC (though mostly unrelated to the UK's membership of the EEC, and more to do with incompetent Government/management/unions competing to see who could cause the most damage to the economy).

Yeah, before the single market, there was the common market. Before the common market the UK was in the EFTA. The EFTA was a kind of copy of the EEC with a bunch of other countries which weren't in the EEC and the driving force behind setting it up was UK. The UK's reason for setting it up was because it was becoming clear the EEC wouldn't have them. Once the UK had got the EFTA set up it carried on lobbying to get into the EEC as it became clear that the EFTA wasn't good enough to sort out its economy.

So basically you have to go back to 1959 to get to the point where the UK wasn't in some kind of European trading bloc.

I remember it vividly, especially c. 24 hours with no food, little sleep and many remarkably heavily armed police, with big dogs.

All because some numpty messed up the paperwork for certain equipment I was carrying. West Germany, they really did not have a sense of humour.

Even now I can't really laugh about it.

They’re _Chermuns_. Not well known for their sense of humor. I was last in the FRG in August of 1978, and discovered first-hand the lack of humor, the number of cops, the number and size of guns, and the number, size, and general toothyness of the dogs. Apparently their cousins over in the DDR had even less of a sense of humor, but I’ve never been there. Austrians and Swiss were much more friendly. The French didn’t give a damn, or were on strike, or something. Das polizei, they take paperwork very seriously, they do.

> Apparently their cousins over in the DDR had even less of a sense of humor

Rest assured this was VERY true for the police over there. Passing the border to and from the DDR could be quite, erm, entertaining.

there was no plan and no plan to have a plan. Surely that can't be right?

Maybe there was a plan not to have a plan?

There was indeed a plan not to have a plan. Until then none of the pro-Brexit factions could agree with each other on how to Brexit (SM & CU, EFTA, FTA, Switzerland, WTO, some other TLA). Once they all agreed that all they wanted to do was Brexit and not ask each other any questions, they could put aside their deferences and work with each other.

And that's how we got to where we are today. Every time the government has to do something they can only agree on kicking the can down the road because if they don't it'll implode (the government, not the can).

Very soon the UK will see the real impact of Brexit.

Not the image painted by the Brexit campaign, not the prophesied doom from the alleged 'Project Fear', but reality.

This story shows a reality like this:

The engines are not working, we are losing altitude.

We are seeing details on the ground before impact. But we are past the point of no return.

Brace, brace!

I'm sure a trade deal can be negotiated between the end of November and Easter next year, once it's clear who's won the US elections, whether the Japanese Diet will ratify the UK FTA despite the UK's internal markets Bill (violating State Aid provisions of the Japan-UK FTA) and everyone seeing how well the UK handles the no deal situation.

Well, if the Japanese think we were trying to deceive them they will walk away never to return

We muddled through in 1940 using pure British spirit

In spite of having more fighters and pilots than the Germans

And less far to fly so more time on target

With a well planned radar, reporting, and control system

And deeper and better organised industry supply, recovery and maintenance chains

But mostly better mustaches

So all we need i the mustaches and we can win again

He predicted Brexit will be "chaos".

Tftfy

According to Lord Agnew it's all the industry's fault. They've had their heads in the sand. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54525211

What a twat?

What are businesses supposed to do, no one has told them.

>What are businesses supposed to do

Move to Europe ?

There's no clarity possible unless the people creating policy are sufficiently informed about the subject. For example, the British Chambers of Commerce recently published a "guidance dashboard" for brexit drawn from official sources that classify personal data protection as "digital". As a lot less than 10% of data protection law in Europe and the UK relates to technologies (90%+ relates to human rights and corporate governance), this is indicative of zero understanding of the subject on the part of policy makers. But I'm sure this is not an isolated example (remembering the allocation of a shipping contract to a [1]ferry company with no ferries whose T&Cs were those of a fast food take away).

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/seaborne-freight-ferry-no-deal-brexit-deal-website-takeaway-chris-grayling-dover-calais-a8709526.html

My offer for a house in Ireland has been accepted. By lads, have fun without me....

If I was single and pre kids and I think I would go there are well. But 30 years too late.

Even that's unclear.

You get residency in Ireland, but until you have Irish citizenship you are still a Brit as far as the eu is concerned.

Will you need a visa to go to France?

But France isn't going to have a consulate in Ireland because it's an Eu country

Will you have to travel to London to get a visa to go from Ireland to France ?

Good job all this will be sorted out before anybody makes any rash decisions to leave

It could be [1]ETIAS (electronic visa) when it comes online in 2022. Until then there's the French Consulate General in Dublin (if you have Irish residency) or London (if you have Northern Irish residency) if the Brexit talks to pear shaped.

[1] https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/etias/check/

From their website:

Do I need an ETIAS?

"As of now, it is still unclear how traveling for Britons will be arranged in a post-Brexit Europe."