Brexit Deal Imminent

[Harold Gough]

"Agreement on a post-Brexit trade deal appears likely to be announced within hours, after nine months of tortuous negotiations.

A meeting of EU ambassadors has been pencilled in for Christmas Eve to start the ratification process. Sources in Brussels and London confirmed they believed the talks were coming to a successful conclusion.


Diplomats representing the EU member states are already combing through some of the 2,000 pages of legal text that have been agreed.

The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is understood to have been in constant contact with Boris Johnson in the last 72 hours, as she has sought to strike a compromise satisfactory to Downing Street and the EU member states."

It's fortunate, as the lorry delay stacking system in Kent has proved to be an absolute disaster!

Harold

[MJ224]

I suspect the border closure was a shot across the bows from La France.................

With luck, a reasonable agreement has been made. It is really in all our interests, as long as it is fair and reasonable. GB does not have an anchor. We are firmly aground...;-)

Hope this is not read as "political", its meant to be pragmatic.................(please)

[wornish]

You are not being political IMHO, but just being pragmatic as you say.

This post is probably too political l but I have been very good recently.

So here goes. I will let the mods decide to leave it or delete it.

The border closure by France actually stopped traffic entering France from the UK and not traffic coming into the UK, so if anything France shot themselves in the foot despite what the MSM say.
If as Macron wanted we ended up with no deal then the French fishermen would have had no access to UK waters. - hmmm.

I really do hope the deal isn't a sell-out and we can, after 4 long and drawn-out years, finally move forward.
If it is a sell-out Boris knows he is toast and the blame game will go on for many more months if not years. (probably will anyway)

For me, the one thing that has come out of this is the EU bullying tactics have been exposed and they have been backtracking for the last few weeks, having finally got the message.

We have left at the right time.

We have seen the first few examples of how we can be quicker on our feet once we are unshackled from EU bureaucracy.

Glad we didn't join the EU joint PPE buying program as we were told we should have done by the MSM - The EU scheme still hasn't delivered a single item.

Glad we did our own purchasing of COVID vaccines and are now way ahead in deploying them.

Glad we were among the first to identify one of the virus mutations, and have taken action to try and get it under control.
Our testing programs have just identified that we also have the South African mutation here in the UK so we can now try to be pre-emptive in controlling it.

But the MSM simply accuse us of being "plague island" and fawn over how well the EU is handling the pandemic.

[jima]

Just for the sake of balance.

I don't doubt for a millisecond that if the situation were reversed we would have closed borders with France 'toute suite' and would have happily left them out to dry. I don't understand that when Macron does something to protect his people that we don't like he is castigated for being a nasty bullying Frenchman but if Bozo did it he would be simply protecting British interests. I'm no fan of Macron but I wish our PM had half the backbone he has.

I also hope the deal is not a grey ambiguous sell-out. That would be the worst outcome of this whole sorry debacle.

We have not left at the right time. There is no right time. Only time will tell if we have, by the thinnest of majorities and a weak Government, made the biggest mistake of the century. I hope not, for all our sakes.

We are still bound by EU rules (and if you like - bureaucracy) so no, that is not why we are quick on our feet at all. We just are if we choose to be - in or out - and before you throw bricks at the EU buying schemes we have not exactly covered ourselves in glory wasting millions on sub-standard purchases we can't use and tens of millions on dubious 'middle men' to secure supplies we could (and perhaps should) have been able to source ourselves.

As far as vaccines goes, may I remind you that as I understand it this was developed by Turkish (I think) scientists working for a German company and manufactured in Belgium - all in the EU I believe. We should be happy we are getting any at all and btw our deployment seems to be proceeding far slower than we were led to expect (millions by Christmas according to our esteemed Mr Hancock IIRC).

I am glad we have identified the new strain. We, along with South Africa and a few other countries have a more vigorous monitoring program for mutations compared to others. I doubt that there will be anything pre-emptive we can do to 'control' it, by the time we spot such things by definition it is already too late especially for our laggy and indecisive government. Our collective sense of social responsibility has proven to be simply not strong enough to be an effective weapon to defeat it. Only an effective vaccine can do that.

As to MSM - I presume this is a reference to the media in its various forms - it is actually quite difficult to estimate how weak-minded you have to be to pay any attention to what any of them say. They are mostly fair-weather friends with doubtful morals and motives. The other nasty global virus going around for which there is no cure or vaccine is 'Social Media' (which seems to do more harm than good) and the laughable attempts of the conventional media to keep up. Can you tell I'm not a fan?

Please, please let us not connect Brexit jingoism with an extremely serious killer pandemic. The former is a UK/EU spat (whichever way you call it can you say Pot/Kettle) and the latter has the potential to decimate us globally. Take a breath please, and consider what the real priority is here.

[Dewi9]

#Harold mentioned the lorry stacking system in Kent. Presumably he is on about Manston Airport (is that right ?), which was being sorted for just that reason.

However, I have seen several pictures of all the lorries, and read news reports almost in disbeleif. Did HMG honestly expect drivers to be happy with the arrangements ?

Reports state drivers having no access to toilets or food and water. Surely someone could have hired a load of portaloos for them ? As for food, how can they get any when the parking site looks to be miles from anywhere ?

It just shows how out of touch those in power really are. My son is an HGV driver, quite often on 11 - 12 hour trips and says if he has to stop overnight in the lorry it is not so bad, but in the morning .... no wonder we have 'stinky' laybys.

I suppose we just got caught short again and things would have been different by January 1st.

[Harold Gough]

I see this as an own goal by the French. Those continental drivers stuck on the motorway and the airfield were a reality check.

The politics got in the way of reality until the last moment. Too many senior politicians know a great deal about politics and little about reality, science in particular.

Harold

[Tram]

I don't think lorry drivers will get much sympathy from the general public.
Probably got a lot to do with the way they bully other road users and how every major accident involves at least one lorry.
Lost count of the times that a lorry has indicated and puled straight out relying on others to avoid a collision.
Then we have the overtaking or at least trying to whilst running parallel for miles.

[Harold Gough]

From the point of view of self-interest:

I collect some of the rarer cacti and wouldn't want to be involved with expensive import permits or having them in queuing vehicles at a border. I had what might have been my last one delivered a few days ago.

I was also uncertain about future purchases of photographic gear from the EU.

Harold

[moggi1964]

I still chuckle when I see the Govt. ad for businesses to prepare for 1 January 2021. It should go:

'So other than not being in the EU, what should we prepare for?' Err, we'll let you know. Every eventuality would be good.

'You know it's not possible to do that right because there is a cost involved for every eventuality we plan for and we cannot afford to do that. It's almost Christmas; what should we prepare for?' Err, we're working on it.

'You've had four years. WTF'. Deal is done, we'll give you the details shortly. That way you'll be able to prepare.

'We've got less than a week . WTF'. It's the Europeans fault, they played hardball all the way.

'And that's a surprise?' We were very fair, in fact more than fair; it's not our fault.


Of course, I'm sure you could swap out the British Govt for the EU and the story would read the same from the EU businesses perspective.

What a mess!

[Graham_of_Rainham]

Please keep in mind that we have several members from all over the EU and the world as a whole. Some are very active, supportive and helpful.

Long may this continue

[Harold Gough]

They've done it. The deal is agreed.

Harold

[MJ224]

TFFT...........Just one hurdle to go.....................:-)

[Graham_of_Rainham]

The media has already gone into “Paralysis by Analysis” and they haven’t even got the document yet...

[dogs100]

Agreed ... but they would have done that whether we had a deal or not.

[wornish]

Finally got there. It's taken more than 4 years since the vote and I really hope we can now move on.

Devil will be in the over 2000 pages of detail.


The government have just published a summary here.

https://t.co/BubjeTlHgm?amp=1

its 34 pages long!

[Graham_of_Rainham]

[moggi1964]

Gotta love a bit of Douglas Adams 😁

[peak4]

I don't know if anyone here has ever bought anything from the Olympus German eBay shop; certainly I have in the past.
They often offer end of line, or refurbished items as a good price with a full warranty.

There's a new batch of refurb bodies and lenses etc up now, I saw a mention on 4/3s rumours site.
When I was finally able to access the site, which proved exceedingly difficult, it seems that they no longer ship to the UK, since we are not EU members.

[Otto]

The UK government's insistence that non-UK companies must collect and account for UK VAT and duties at the point of sale and send the funds to the government is a big disincentive to smaller businesses. Not only that but they have to pay an annual fee for a permit to do that. Similarly EU customers ordering from UK companies are finding they get additional charges slapped on by their governments at their border so some UK companies are no longer exporting to the EU. All this extra red tape and costs when we were promised that nothing would change and that red tape would actually be reduced!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...buying-from-uk

And scroll down to the paragraph about shipping to the UK on this example

https://www.dutchbikebits.com/shipping

[peak4]

Richard, in the Olympus EU situation I commented on immediately above yours, I suspect it might be a licence type arrangement rather than VAT related.
That is Oly EU won't ship any of their offers to the USA market and vice versa etc.
The Oly EU offers are possibly only licenced from Oly Japan, for within the EU. I assume that includes EEA, as Norway isn't on the excluded list.
Bill

[Otto]

That would make sense Bill, yes.

[moggi1964]

I snoozed and lost when looking to get a decent mechanical shutter release from Germany. I had started the order before Christmas but didn't complete it and when I went back to do so realised I would be paying Euro14 instead of Euro7 for shipping now. The item costs Euro20.

I could buy cheaper on Amazon but this German company is highly regarded. I'm annoyed at myself

[Harold Gough]

Here is an article:

https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/will-brexit-make-it-harder-to-buy-photo-gear-from-the-eu-144562?utm_campaign=518575_January%207%202021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Kelsey%20Media%20Ltd&dm_i=5D8F,B44V,3IZREG,19MR6,1

Harold

[peak4]

If I'm reading everything correctly, the author has got the £135 (€150) the wrong way round. Goods less than this value need the VAT collecting at source.
Business sellers of small items from the EU (or the rest of the world I think) must collect the VAT, register with UK HMRC, for which they are charged a fee, submit the VAT to HMRC, and keep records for 6 years.
This is what may well put them off selling goods into the UK
The EU are bringing in the same rules in a few months time.
We have also scrapped the low value goods VAT exemption (was it £22??) which again may cause further expense for small value transactions.
There's a lot more to it, and it's complicated.

[peak4]

Now as I've finished a very tasty mushroom risotto, I'll add this link to give you a flavour

https://www.avalara.com/vatlive/en/eu-vat-rules/distance-selling/distance-selling-eu-vat-thresholds.html

There is a further link for UK stuff at the bottom of the table on the opening page.