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Stocking up for Brexit?


BigMouth
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^ What a piece of hogwash propaganda.

 

When you have the same article stating that the UK only produces 60% of its food consumption - then cites that a 'no-deal' would decimate the UK's food export trade, any little credibility it might have had vanishes.

 

He makes a few good and valid points, but is so fanatical about 'proving' a 'no-deal' cannot possibly be anything short of apocalyptic, provable facts and common sense are almost immediate casualties. Nice try, but......

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^ What a piece of hogwash propaganda.

 

When you have the same article stating that the UK only produces 60% of its food consumption - then cites that a 'no-deal' would decimate the UK's food export trade, any little credibility it might have had vanishes.

 

He makes a few good and valid points, but is so fanatical about 'proving' a 'no-deal' cannot possibly be anything short of apocalyptic, provable facts and common sense are almost immediate casualties. Nice try, but......

 

What you don't think we import/export food to and from the rest of Europe?

Of course you will have your own citations to back up your assertions, don't you?

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I can remember when we were self sufficient in milk ect.  The CAP put paid to that and obliged us to "down scale" and buy EU surplus..  Crazy.

 

I can also remember "wine lakes", "butter mountains" and a few other things produced by EU "subsidy junkies".  All sold off (eventually) to "countries in need"(?) for pennies.

 

It might be worth noting that during the last "disagreement" with our continental friends(?), about the only thing that wasn't rationed was fish and chips.

 

Now, I'm not blinkered as to the percieved "difficulties" but, I do think that there is a little to much apocalyptic rhetoric coming from certain quarters.

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^ What a piece of hogwash propaganda.

 

When you have the same article stating that the UK only produces 60% of its food consumption - then cites that a 'no-deal' would decimate the UK's food export trade, any little credibility it might have had vanishes.

 

He makes a few good and valid points, but is so fanatical about 'proving' a 'no-deal' cannot possibly be anything short of apocalyptic, provable facts and common sense are almost immediate casualties. Nice try, but......

 

What you don't think we import/export food to and from the rest of Europe?

Of course you will have your own citations to back up your assertions, don't you?

 

 

Of course we currently export/import food with Europe, I never said different.

 

I said it hadn't always been that way, and needn't continue to be. Even if that trade cut dead tomorrow the ramnifications for us would be a hell of a lot less catastrophic than the doom-merchants among the remainers are trying to con everyone in to believing.

 

The only figure you need if right there in front of you lifted from the article you linked.

 

According to that guy, we produce 60% of our food consumption. By default and basic arithmetic that means 40% of what we eat is imported. That 40% isn't all imported from Europe, a quick glance around Tesco proves that, its full of New Zealand butter and lamb, fruit from Peru, South Africa and Israel etc.....

 

He also claims we export food to Europe (as we know from elsewhere, local fish ends up there, and then there were the several infamous occasions French farmers set fire to UK lamb as it came out of Calais......). So, while maybe 60% of what we actually do eat is UK produced, by default of being able to export food, we know the UK produces more than 60% of its total food consumption.

 

If a 'no-deal' comes along, would it be so radical that the UK simply eats that food it produces and exports to Europe right now, for itself, to replace some/most/all of the food it eats that's currently imported from Europe, that would no longer be avaiable.

 

That guy's article depends several key pieces which he attempts to present as 'facts', which are anything but. Firstly he attempts to establish the premise that the EU and US economies are the only two economies that can possible be relevant to a post Brexit U.K. who will be 'obliged' to align with one or the other. Bull, its a gobal economy, and especially all your brand name grocery products are owned by little more than a dozen, if even that, global behemoths who care none for borders or poltics, only their own bottom line, and none of them are going shrug off losing a bloc of up to a potential 50 odd Million customers - They'll ensure their products get to our shelves, one way or the another.

 

Then he goes on to try and 'prove' that logistically the UK's docks and import/export systems and personnel couldn't cope - The only scrap of credibility that argument has is to rely on the Government doing absolutely nothing to prepare for a 'no-deal' over the next 6 months, which they'll only do if they want to lose the next election, and May wants to be thrown out of the PM's job in disgrace, and they all suffer from collective delusional insanity..... Whether they want one, two, or all of those though is probably irrelevant, as industry and commerce won't let them make such a pig's ear of it. There's nothing quite like CEO's en masse staring at their gravy train heading for a wreck, descending on Downing Street to change a Government's mind, get things done, and get them done very quickly.

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At the end of the day governments don’t really affect things as much as they think. Whatever happens it will be up to the businesses and the working man (probably rules some of you out) who will pick up the pieces and make thing work. As GR says, they will always find away to supply the market. In the short term we may find things a little more expensive. We already pay more in taxes than rUK so what’s new. We could even grow some food ourselves, the same food that kept us going in the past is still there. We don’t have to buy the nutrionless tasteless crap from the supermarkets, a lot of us don’t.

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A business can NOT just import food without some sort of agreement between the two governments no matter how big they are.

What are the customs arrangements? what are the food hygiene standards What are the animal welfare standards?

Yes all that will come in time but that is the crux, it takes time to put in place which we don't have.

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No, you don't need some sort of agreement between two governments. You need the government of the importing country to accept that the hygeine and animal welfare standards of the exporting country are acceptable within the importing country.

 

As I've already said, we're importing food from multiple nations worldwide already, so nothing more needs doing for us to import more/other food products from them, the system is already up and running.

 

Don't try and tell me that if a UK importer approaches an exporter in any foreign country with a proposition, that that exporter won't go the extra mile to source product that is compliant with the destination country requirements.

 

China have it down to a fine art with the manufacture of consumer products, they'll set up their factory to do an order of however many units CE compliant and customer standard specific, and as soon as its done they re-jig the place to do an order of the same product for someone somewhere else to entirely different specs and standards. Food is not really much different.

 

Yes, time is a factor with any change, and the current Government is doing its best to make a pigs ear of things by bickering and procrastinating, but business hasn't. As soon as the vote result was in, Tesco at least suddenly started printing the Union Jack on packaging plugging the 'Britishness' angle, and began relocating production of some of its products from other EU countries back in to the UK.

 

There's also the question of whether the UK will need to import much food after Brexit, UK agriculture production has been aggressively capped and restrained for decades by the EU - It's been compulsory for farms of over a certain size to leave a set percentage of their arable land fallow every year, for which they've received a subsidy as compensation, from everyone's tax dollars, or they were penalised for non-compliance.

 

That land can be brought back in to production in one season, and there's a whole lot more under utilised farmland that if the market is there farmers will be delighted to increase production to supply.

Edited by Ghostrider
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"No, you don't need some sort of agreement between two governments. You need the government of the importing country to accept that the hygeine and animal welfare standards of the exporting country are acceptable within the importing country."

 

You need a trade agreement! 

 

As I've already said, we're importing food from multiple nations worldwide already, so nothing more needs doing for us to import more/other food products from them, the system is already up and running."

 

These agreements are between the Third country and the EU not the UK.

 

"Don't try and tell me that if a UK importer approaches an exporter in any foreign country with a proposition, that that exporter won't go the extra mile to source product that is compliant with the destination country requirements."

 

Not if there are no trade agreements in place they won't.

 

China have it down to a fine art with the manufacture of consumer products, they'll set up their factory to do an order of however many units CE compliant and customer standard specific, and as soon as its done they re-jig the place to do an order of the same product for someone somewhere else to entirely different specs and standards. Food is not really much different."

 

Yes it is.

 

"Yes, time is a factor with any change, and the current Government is doing its best to make a pigs ear of things by bickering and procrastinating, but business hasn't. As soon as the vote result was in, Tesco at least suddenly started printing the Union Jack on packaging plugging the 'Britishness' angle, and began relocating production of some of its products from other EU countries back in to the UK."

 

Tell me more about this production that is being relocated?

 

"There's also the question of whether the UK will need to import much food after Brexit, UK agriculture production has been aggressively capped and restrained for decades by the EU - It's been compulsory for farms of over a certain size to leave a set percentage of their arable land fallow every year, for which they've received a subsidy as compensation, from everyone's tax dollars, or they were penalised for non-compliance."

 

Have you got figures for this?

 

"That land can be brought back in to production in one season, and there's a whole lot more under utilised farmland that if the market is there farmers will be delighted to increase production to supply."

 

The discussion is surely about the short term? This years harvest is going to be way down on production anyway of most produce. To increase supply like this would take considerable effort and investment now. Is this happening?

 

 

 

If we crash out with no deal we will be relying on WTO rules. Now correct me if I am wrong but every other member has 9 weeks to decide if the UKs proposals would adversely affect them before coming to the negotiating table. So possible 9 weeks before any trade could take place. I am happy/relieved to be corrected on this.

 

Edited by mikeyboy
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  • 1 month later...

So apparently our NHS, farmers,and many other important employers will be unable to find workers when we eventually leave the EU.(if we do ?) no doctors ,nurses or strawberry pickers ect.

 

This is being blamed on everything except the real problem - money..

 

Someone from the EU working in the UK will be experiencing a pay cut just now with the reduced value of the pound to the euro.

 

I would think it possible that anyone in a highly paid job like doctors for instance may find that it is just as rewarding to work elsewhere in the EU rather than Britain.

 

So the lack of EU workers in my opinion has more to do with their earnings and less to do with all the political rhetoric being banded about by all parties.

 

Should the pound keep falling UK workers might well find it more rewarding to work "abroad" causing even more problems .

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