Most questions posed on Quora are posted anonymously, then you see the quality of the questions you will understand why. In this selection on the Brexit topic from the site it is clear that while Remain supporters accuse Brexit supporters of being ignorant, xenophobic, ignorant oiks who are incapable of understanding the issues, most questions on Brexit are clearly posed by Remain supporting trolls and the articulate, reasoned arguments offered in response are from Leave supporters. Draw your own conclusions.
How much more evidence do brexit enthusiasts need to see before they admit it is severely damaging the UK economy?
Most know there will be a hit to the economy and periods of turbulence.
Whenever you change the status quo, that will happen.
But they understand a few profoundly important things remainers don’t seem to be able to grasp or care about.
One is that certain principles, such as our democratic system giving us more control of our lives via the democratic vote than is offered by the EU model is worth the price of leaving in order to preserve it. Particularly when the globalist trend is towards being ever more tightly controlled by the financiers and bankers and technocrats for whom democracy is simply a troublesome thorn in their side.
Two, they understand that there are two major economies in this world. The main one, ran by a small group of wealthy-beyond-imagination banking and finance cartels and heads of big business, dwarfs the scant economy for the rest of the world’s population, the one where a few percentage growth points, bull markets and gdp do not factor and do not trickle down for the most part. See the graph for the transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the mega-rich rulers of the world, the 1% dynasties.
They know the ‘economy’ spoken about in such doomday terms is the economy for the 1% but deceitfully sold to us as being about us and our jobs, the parasitic economy where they cream of the vast majority of profits they make from the workers in the other ‘wage slave’ economy, those who have to put up with austerity measures, high taxes, high cost of living, stagnant wages well behind the rate inflation.
They recognize the difference. The market speculators and investors will have a reaction, there will be a fall out, and they are in panic mode (and have managed to whip up half the country into a panic through their propaganda). Inward foreign investment might stall here and there for a while, but that it will be replaced
In time, as life and trade and building new international agreements and aliances across the globe carry on as normal, there will be new deals and investments, new economic growth engines, and we’ll be a free nation on top of that to make decisions that benefit us.
Did you not watch the program on BBC2 last night about the EU, specifically the Eurozone crisis in Greece? The bailing out of that economy, and how it’s still in a dire state, like many economies in the EU, and how it’s the everyday people of Europe who have to pay the costs through taxes, austerity and such?
A rare factual, warts and all look at the EU as it is, an elite political project built on ideological sand and the central banking pyramid scheme.
That’s what the financiers and mega-rich do. Takes the risks by speculating on the markets, fund borrowing so as to debt enslave entire nations like they did in Greece, and then make all of us foot the bill when it goes wrong, while they still make trillions on the money they loan out. And politicians are in the pocket. In fact the EU was set up for their purposes, not for the rest of us.
We did the right thing to stay out of the Eurozone, when many remainers would have forced us into it.
We did the right thing for the long-term getting out of organization we only ever had very limited power to do anything in, and which will forever be putting its own aims above the people.
If the Brexit turns out to be Armageddon for Britain, what’s your backup plan?
I’m watching the German justice minister on BBC Breakfast who has UK/German dual nationality. Katarina Varley.
Here’s the EU negotiating position.
Please tell us what you want, because you are the people leaving. This is all your fault.
Britain puts forward a position. Technology away from the border.
The EU: No, you can’t have that. We have always been clear about our “freedoms”.
Conclusion from the EU: Britain’s position is confused and has no plan.
Conclusion from Naga Muchetty interviewing Varley, “Just what is the UK’s position?” Thanks for confirming the EUs propaganda position.
OK, that’s an aside. I work for an organisation that is global. It employs people who communicate across continents, in countries such as the US, India, the UK and China. Information and cash is transferred around the globe in milliseconds. The organisation is HQ’d outside the EU- it could be HQ’d anywhere.
Where does the EU fit into all this? It doesn’t. It’s an irrelevance. Trading blocs, tariffs are irrelevant. Yes, we’re regulated but we’re regulated in some way in every market we operate in. Money moves to the places that have the least burdensome regulations but which protect trade.
So Brexit (and the EU) is an irrelevance in the scheme of things. Does it create disruption? Yes, in the short term. People are focusing on the equivalent of what happens in the aftermath of a divorce. To begin with there is confusion. Life goes on.
Why should there be Armageddon? What are You saying? Every divorce ends up in the kids being butchered?
If British people want “Brexit” so badly, then why did they agree to join the E.U. in the first place?
OK bear with me for a minute. To answer this you need to know why the working class and lower middle class voted for leave and it goes like this:
Leaving was fairly directly a consequence of our country’s neoliberal economic model. Generally it goes like this:
- Feminism basically doubled the workforce. Supply and demand for jobs meant that overall wages stagnated. Corporations made more money selling the same goods at the same prices but were paying less for labour. This was noted.
- Globalism widened up the markets, made it easier to sell to much larger audiences. These big worldwide markets made juicy tempting targets for the corporate interests.
- Unfortunately British wages were still pretty high compared to those in the rest of the global markets which put our corporations at somewhat of a disadvantage. Some dealt with this by outsourcing manufacturing to low wage countries like China, decent wage jobs for the working class started drying up because these jobs were most easily outsourced.
- Fertility rates decreased due to more people struggling financially and more women spending their most fertile periods studying or climbing career ladders only to have much smaller families.
- The population started ageing and the pool of workers started to drop. This would have led to a smaller working population and eventually rising wages. Can’t have that. Pressure was applied to open the country up to immigration. Initially to the other developed EU countries which had little effect on anything except helping jobs that required unusual skill sets find people, immigration wasn’t especially fast and had a decent mix of people from different economic levels as there was no massive driving force in either direction immigration wise. People mostly enjoyed this immigration.
- This didn’t play into the benefits of the aforementioned corporate interests so they pushed for the government to widen it further. Cue the Eastern European countries being given EU membership and open borders.
- Suddenly we have a whole influx of massive numbers of people from poorer countries able to come to the UK, compete for the low wage jobs (pushing wages down a bit further and satisfying those corporate interests who are now more competitive globally) but coming so quickly they formed their own areas where English was a second language and working class people in the affordable areas these people moved into started being displaced and feeling like they were being replaced.
- To compound this, the government had basically thrown open the door to non-EU countries as well, basically deciding to allow easy immigration and turn a blind eye to illegal immigration leading to a large influx of people from REALLY poor countries like Somalia.
- Many of the young men from these places having come from incredibly deprived areas where things are very dog-eat-dog were, by the nature of things, tougher and more aggressive than most of our criminal underclass. They brought the savage survival mentality to London gang cultur,e and stabbings/ knifecrime sky rocketed. This might have been containable but at the same time the government has been defunding the police massively, leaving no resource to prevent this escalating.
- As countries like China developed they started having a larger skill base than before while retaining lower wages than the UK. This allowed UK companies to outsource more skilled jobs abroad. This further ate into working class and lower middle class incomes.
- Foreign investment in the UK real estate industry was opened up and allowed to go largely unregulated. This led to massive amounts of UK property being bought up by (particularly Chinese for some reason) foreign interests and was driving prices up massively.
- The UK public made noise several times about this being unacceptable and the government kept trying to placate the public by noisily going and negotiating with the EU. Unfortunately they didn’t really care about the working and lower middle class so they instead negotiated a bunch of special exemptions in EU rules that did almost nothing for anybody but the rich globalist types who we have already ascertained are the driving force behind much of our government’s decisions.
- The UK public kept being fed a “Oh we would do something about the fact you are all getting poorer, and can’t afford homes, and crime is (while dropping overall) getting scarily violent when it does occur … But the nasty no-fun people in Brussels keep stopping us. Woe.”
- Big spate of terror attacks, people getting blown up, shot, run-over, all over Europe. Largely due to the unrest in the Middle East in part thanks to the economic colonialism of the West’s leaders in support of our corporations best interests.
People have been on dropping (real-terms) incomes for decades and can no longer afford to have the basics. We have shocking amounts of people dying over winter from not affording heating for instance. We can’t afford to have families because both prospective parents need to work to make ends meet and by the time they are economically stable the woman’s fertility is declining and a small family is all that is possible. Depression and suicides are at hideous rates.
Our government likes to not do anything about it because it supports neoliberal economics and sees the UK’s success represented by it’s GDP. The British People are effectively only important in so far as they are useful resources for the corporate interests who have all the influence in the parliament. Maintaining low wages with our decently skilled workforce makes those corporate interests more relevant and competitive on the world stage (many of our skilled professions enjoy wages about half those in Germany and about a third of those in the US).
The government likes to then blame the EU for not doing anything about it despite that being patently false, and expects the UK population to simply take this or be placated with promises about welfare when most Brits HATE the idea of living on handouts. (Except the NHS which we are very proud of.) Both labour and the conservatives are steadily eroding funding and privatising while blaming the extra load caused by immigration for it’s slow decay because they are trying to make us lose faith in it so they can sell it off and go to an American model). Effectively, the UK Government likes to treat the UK population as a bunch of mugs and while most can’t tell exactly what is happening they aren’t fooled who’s fault it is.
Brexit was offered as a way to placate the masses because the conservatives thought it could never lose the referendum (because it really does not make sense to leave the EU) but underestimated how many people (particularly the most suffering working class and lower middle class) would seize the chance to throw the whole board over because any chance at escaping the hopeless downward spiral they are caught in is worth seizing. They were offered a blind jump into the unknown or the status quo that was strangling them.
So they jumped.
It’s not about the EU. It’s not about race or religion. It’s not really about immigration as nobody gave a damn when it wasn’t a flood of people moving into all the houses our middle class could no longer afford … It’s about the average person not able to live the life their parents could. Of being told “everything is OK” and “look how well the economy is doing!” while life gets harder year after year after year.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When the average Brit does not have to worry about food, shelter, water, and supporting their family … They can focus on higher things and they (by and large) voted remain.
There is a whole lot of surface level factors to the leave vote and none of them would matter if the bottom half of the population wasn’t getting poorer. People are becoming suspicious and reactionary because they are becoming desperate. They can’t afford to be forgiving and welcoming anymore because they don’t have the margin left to absorb any more hits.
So! Finally bringing this back to your question. None of the above was relevant when Britain joined the EU. While wages had started to stagnate it had not had time to really bite. We had a strong middle and working class, decent incomes and people were hopeful and welcoming. The economy wasn’t doing too great but that’s why all the above has been implemented. All of which has been eroded away by the above economic factors over time.
Hope that answers your question.
Why do some Brexiteers think that everything will remain (mostly) unchanged after hard Brexit? Do you really think that the EU will trade and collaborate with the UK on the same terms even after no deal?
There was a very interesting piece by leading economist Roger Bootle today in today’s Telegraph.[1] I recommend a read if you have a subscription. For those that don’t, I’ll briefly summarise his main points. Please bear with the off-topic reference to the Euro. It has a point, which will become clear if you read on.
- The Euro, which has been a disaster, was seen by the European elites as a part of the political project of integration, leading eventually to a federal European state
- Although the primary motive for forming the euro was political, before its formation, key European leaders thought a single currency would have major economic benefits. They believed it would bring significant gains through a reduction in transactions costs and uncertainty
- In fact, the Euro currency has been a guarantee of structural domination by Germany and the subjugation of debt-ridden smaller economies on the periphery
- Euro supporters greatly overestimated the gains from reducing transactions costs and uncertainty about currency values. In the modern world, companies are readily able to deal with such costs and uncertainties. The gains from monetary union have been tiny
- Yet prior to the Euro’s birth, many establishment figures in Britain were strongly in favour. Proponents included Tony Blair, the CBI, representatives of big business and the City. They envisaged serious economic decline, or even disaster, if the UK stood aside. We now know that their views were comprehensively wrong
- Yesterday’s “transactions costs and uncertainty” is today’s “border frictions and disruptions”. Yesterday’s supposed need for a common currency in order to make the trading union work is today’s supposed need for a “deal” with the EU in order to enable us to trade with it
- Many Remainers are in blatant denial of the facts. The EU’s economic performance compared with other developed countries has been poor. This is for a good reason. The EU makes bad decisions. Its institutions don’t work very well and its political agenda is oblivious to economic costs
- As the EU elites make ever more disastrous decisions, the EU falls further behind the rest of the world
- We escaped membership of the euro by the skin of our teeth. We now need to grit those teeth to escape fully and finally from the entity that conceived of the euro monstrosity in the first place
That’s Bootle’s assessment. Below is mine.
If we leave the EU without a deal, the main thing that will change is tariffs. In trading with the EU we will face its “Common External Tariff” (CET) schedule. Average tariffs are around 3%.
“Trading frictions” exist in theory, but they are today’s equivalent of yesterday’s transactions costs, when trading across a currency border: existing in theory but in practice virtually irrelevant. We were so worried about transactions costs when deciding whether to join the Euro, just as we are worried about trading frictions today. In regard to trading frictions, consider the following:
- As early as in 2008, 99% of the UK’s non-EU trade was registered and pre-cleared electronically. Filling in an electronic customs registration form takes about 15 seconds
- Around 2% of goods crossings are subject to physical checks. The deputy CEO of the Port of Calais has said that in the event of a no-deal Brexit, 1% of British lorries will be checked[2]
- The CEO of the port of Zeebrugge said new capacity would be needed in the event of a no-deal Brexit but implied this would be a small expansion of existing systems and processes already extensively used to handle non-EU trade, and applying them to the UK. He implied the cost and effort would not be a big deal
- Various worries about the possible impact of a no-deal Brexit have been raised and all of them have been dismissed. The worries about whether flights will land, British hauliers will be licensed, whether the UK will be able to sell financial services to the EU have all been dismissed in memoranda published by the EU, covering its no-deal planning. Separately and some months ago, the EU assured the Irish Taoiseach that it would not require a hard border in Ireland, in the event of a no-deal Brexit
- Worries about food and medical supplies are more easily dismissed since whether we block them is our choice. We’re obviously not going to block imported necessities
Considering the above, the benefits of trading within the EU internal market are overblown and consequently, so are the costs of not trading within it.
Leaving the EU without a deal puts Britain on the same footing vis-a-vis the EU as most other countries already are. Trade works. JIT supply chains work. It operates like clockwork and with huge volumes. Today, 43% of our trade is on WTO terms; that’s about the same as our volume of trade with the EU.
This study of long term comparative economic data finds no benefit of the EU’s internal market versus alternative arrangements. From the perspective of trading with the EU in services, various studies have shown there is no benefit to being inside it versus outside.[3]
During the run up to the referendum, I had many in-depth conversations with a WTO and international trade expert. This individual is a former head of the UK’s government’s international trade policy, a British trade negotiator and one of the architects of the WTO in its current form.
His analysis was convincing and compelling: there’s almost nothing the EU can do to materially impede trade with the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit, either in goods or services. Some of his views were expressed in an article for BrexitCentral in March last year.[4] I am in the fortunate position of having access to such expertise, as the individual I am talking about is my father.
In November, I attended a seminar hosted by a law firm of the legalities of a no-deal Brexit. The event was amusingly called: “No-deal Brexit: WTO or WTF?” One of the presenters (a senior lawyer who from his nuances was clearly talking from a Remain perspective) said as regards collaborating in financial services, the EU doesn’t really have an option. London is about three times the size of the rest of the EU’s capital markets put together and is deeply entrenched within the EU’s financial system, such that refusal to cooperate on financial services would pull the plug on the majority of the EU’s companies and governments.
To be clear, I do not think the EU will collaborate on the same terms in the event of a no-deal Brexit. It clearly will not. What I do deny is that this will make any practical difference.
Footnotes
[1] Brexit warnings echo the nonsense uttered over the euro 20 years ago
[2] Barney Lane’s answer to Where is the physical bottleneck that will supposedly cause delays at Dover post-Brexit? Why would physical inspection of no more than 2% of incoming vehicles (WTO limit) delay the other 98%?
[3] The EU single market in services barely exists, and has been slowly disappearing since 2010 | BrexitCentral
[4] Government and business should prepare for the advantages of trading under WTO rules | BrexitCentral
Judging by the so-called “deal” that Theresa May has secured with the EU, it strikes me that far from being “determined to take Britain to a cliff edge “no deal” Brexit”, May is actually trying to force Parliament to accept a deal that will, in essence, please neither Brexiteer nor Remainer.
This is because the “deal” as it now stands with the inclusion of the so-called “backstop” will mean nothing short of the UK being permanently bound by EU rules and regulations, which will be little different to be an actual EU Member State but without the right to influence how those rules and regulations are drawn up and implemented.
Ostensibly, therefore, there will be no “cliff edge” – a much overused and abused term – because the UK will, in effect, not have left the EU.
As to the “cliff edge”, this merely refers to the UK leaving the EU without a deal and trading with the bloc as it does with the rest of the world. And Remainer claims of the damage this will do bare no basis to reality given that our present trade with the EU is ‘frictionless’, while trade on WTO terms is beset with ‘frictions’. This is a false dichotomy, and intra-EU trading arrangements are not so different from those on WTO terms.
And here’s why:
- We already have virtually frictionless trade with the rest of the world through electronic customs declarations, goods pre-clearance and trusted trader schemes, all operated under the EU’s Union Customs Code. This would in future apply to our trade with the EU because the only additional physical checks on EU imports after Brexit would be customs duty checks, but they are unlikely to exceed the current threshold – less than 3% of imports are checked on entry. If necessary, the UK could unilaterally suspend duties for a short period to avoid any immediate difficulties. In addition, HMRC is implementing a range of technical solutions to minimise trade frictions.
- Most UK/EU exporters are already used to Union Customs Code (UCC) export processes, and HMRC has issued guidelines for ‘no-deal’ trading with the EU. The EU has established customs systems (already used on the Swiss border, for example), and new technology is available to trace and identify cargoes.
- VAT and excise duties are already collected in the UK and the Irish Republic without any border control. A study commissioned by the European Parliament found that ‘international standards and best practices and technologies’ can be used to avoid a ‘hard border’, and this has been confirmed by both Irish and British authorities. Where necessary, inland inspection facilities can be established. Technology exists for tracking cargoes.
So, can we take the risk that next April UK firms will be faced with EU tariffs and potential regulatory checks?
- Tariffs and regulatory checks could be disruptive for a minority of UK businesses, namely, those connected with dairy products and meat. This works both ways. British producers are likely to increase their share of the domestic market by reducing EU imports subsidised at higher rates than they receive. Moreover, the impact can be mitigated by government action.
- Most engineering firms will be little affected. Car companies can withstand 10% tariffs on sales into the EU and 4.5% tariffs on components from the EU since they have benefited from a 15% depreciation in sterling. Border checks on their components from the EU will be illegal under WTO rules which prohibit unnecessary checks.
So what about travel and transportation?
- The EU has already made a reciprocal offer to the UK in respect of air traffic rights and the validity of aviation safety certificates in the event of no-deal.
- Reciprocal visa-free travel has already been agreed. The EU has announced that the mutual recognition of driving licences and road vehicles will continue. So taking your car abroad or hiring a vehicle on holiday should be no more complicated than it is now.
And what about “frictionless” trade under WTO rules?
- We already have virtually frictionless trade with the rest of the world through electronic customs declarations, goods pre-clearance and trusted trader schemes, all operated under the EU’s Union Customs Code.
- There is no reason to turn back the clock to paper checks when goods arrive at the border, as implied by the ‘cliff edge’ doomsday prophets.
- We start from a strong position. The UK (in 2016) was ranked 5th in the world by the World Customs Organisation for the ease of its import and export processes.
- Customs can operate with no technology at all using well tried customs techniques including the EU’s own TRANSIT and TRACE systems. The heads of UK and Irish customs concur with this judgement. For example, most goods crossing the Swiss borders use established customs systems (TRANSIT and TRACE systems) to drive through customs without stopping and without any monitoring at the border.
- New technology in the form of tamper-proof chips can be used to connect the physical cargo with the import declaration. This would highlight incorrectly declared goods, and allow for differential taxation based on the location/declaration combination.
Then, of course, despite what we are constantly being told, intra-EU trade is NOT without frictions because:
- EU goods are not exempt from certain controls on import, so there is no truly ‘frictionless’ trade in place even now.
- .Targeted checks where criminality is suspected are required even on intra-EU trade. This is to satisfy member states’ obligations to the EU to tackle fraud.
- In the Withdrawal Agreement backstop, the EU has mandated the creation of a paper document to accompany all goods traded between GB, NI and the EU. This will in fact add trade friction to an arrangement supposedly designed to avoid the need for border controls.
So what about imports to and exports from the EU under WTO rules? Again, we have nothing to fear because:
- Less than 3% of total imports are checked on entry into the UK. This percentage is unlikely to change in a no-deal Brexit.
- Even in 2008, 99% of goods entering the UK were cleared electronically.
- Imports from the EU are already subject to checks.
- The only additional physical checks on EU imports after Brexit would be customs duty checks. But these are unlikely to exceed the current threshold required to ensure compliance with our current EU obligations.
- 10.5.Given the same level of EU imports after 29 March 2019 as currently, the level of physical checks that will be required on EU imports is unlikely to increase.
- HMRC has issued no-deal guidance for exporters.
- Exporters to the rest of the world (i.e. the majority of UK exporters) will already be used to the system under the EU’s Union Customs Code (UCC) rules, which will be adapted to UK law.
- Traders who currently export ONLY to the EU27 will not be familiar with UCC export processes, so this procedure will be new to them, but this is a very small number of exporters (only 8% of all UK businesses trade with the EU, and of those, many also export to the rest of the world under UCC rules).
- However, the EU’s Union Customs Code (UCC) was introduced across the EU on 1 May 2016. Anyone who intends to export to the EU after a no-deal Brexit can find out now about how it works from the European Commission website.
- All UCC requirements on UK exporters to the EU will be familiar to the customs authorities in the EU27, since there will be no change other than implementing the existing UCC import procedures for goods from the UK.
And when it comes to no “hard” border’ in Northern Ireland, people should note that:
- VAT and excise dues are already collected by the authorities in both countries without anyone ever being stopped at the border.
- Smuggling and excise fraud already takes place across the NI border, e.g. fuel in tankers disguised as milk lorries, excise goods shipped through bonded warehouses. This is combatted by police and fraud investigators in targeted operations almost always away from the border itself.
- WTO rules do not require border checks on goods – that is a matter for each country to decide. The only requirement is to treat all third countries equally (the ‘most favoured nation’ rule -MFN).
- Physical checks can be conducted away from the border, as they already are for fraud and other non-duty checks in NI. Inland inspection facilities are now established in mainland UK and could also be set up in NI.
- A study commissioned by the European Parliament found that ‘international standards and best practices and technologies’ can be used to avoid a ‘hard border’ in NI.
- Technical solutions can ensure no hardening of the Irish border in ways that damage the Belfast Agreement and peace process.
- The customs technology to minimise or avoid border checks is available and is being used in many other applications. For example, at both the Norway-Sweden border and the Canada-US border, low friction borders have been created by sharing data and facilities, and the creation of electronic environments for trade and travel.
- Both the Irish Republic and HMRC already operate electronic customs clearance systems under the UCC – a key aspect of invisible borders. And HMRC is domesticating UCC provisions into UK law, so procedures will remain the same for customs, VAT and excise.
- Ireland has already published guidance with links to electronic systems for no-deal trade with the UK post-Brexit.
- The head of UK customs, Jon Thompson, has repeatedly confirmed in UK Parliamentary Select Committee hearings that there is absolutely no need for the UK to erect a hard border under any scenario, including leaving without a deal.
- The heads of a number of prominent UK and Irish businesses have asserted that invisible borders are now possible. This can all be achieved with existing technical solutions, and in compliance with the UCC.
As to the claims of chaos at Dover, people should note the following:
- While queues at Dover are theoretically possible, in practice they are highly unlikely. WTO rules prohibit checks undertaken for political reasons or for competitive advantage. French officials have dismissed fears of a Calais ‘go-slow’ and suggested that as few as 1% of UK lorries would be subject to a physical check. New technology is already being installed at Calais to avoid delays, with automated checks.
- HMRC is preparing for all scenarios post-Brexit (see further details below), and has set up inland inspection facilities to divert traffic away from Channel ports for targeted checks if necessary. The UK accedes to international transit conventions in its own right, and these enable simplified customs transit procedures right across the world and cover all countries in the EU
- It would require French customs to instigate unnecessary and excessive checks at Calais and elsewhere. But this is highly unlikely, for several reasons not least because WTO rules prohibit unnecessary checks undertaken for political reasons or for competitive advantage. The UK can maintain de facto alignment with EU for as long as it considers necessary, in order to avoid the need for checks.
- Even those who maintain that some additional checks would be required accept that these could be limited. There is no legal requirement to inspect more than a tiny fraction of vehicles.
- French officials have dismissed fears of a Calais ‘go-slow’ and suggested that as few as 1% of UK lorries would be subject to a physical check.
- Julian Jessop of the IEA has produced a rough calculation: for there to be an additional two-minute delay on average in crossing the frontier, it would require at least 10% of UK lorries to be subject to a new 20-minute check (i.e. ten times more than French officials have indicated will be checked).
- EU preparations for no-deal only say that checks may be conducted, not that they will be.
- New technology is already being installed at Calais to avoid delays, with automated checks and a turf war about where lorries might be inspected.
- A rail freight scanner has already been installed at Fréthun near Calais for unaccompanied rail freight (boosting Eurotunnel’s freight revenues considerably). This allows French customs to scan containers on 30 trains per day without the need for them to stop before they enter or leave the Channel Tunnel.
- Under the UK’s Transit Regulations (November 2018), the UK accedes to international transit conventions in its own right. These enable simplified customs transit procedures right across the world and cover all countries in the EU.
- Physical checks that are needed can be conducted away from the border, as they already are in many countries.
- HMRC is preparing for all scenarios post-Brexit, and has set up inland inspection facilities to divert traffic away from Channel ports for targeted checks.
- Currently, ‘intelligence led’ inspections by the UK affect only 2% of non-EU goods shipments. The remainder are cleared immediately by computer-based procedures.
- WTO rules prohibit unnecessary checks, and it is highly unlikely that more than 1% of goods would be checked.
- Additional customs and regulatory checks could admittedly be disruptive for a minority of UK businesses, namely, those connected with dairy products, meat and fresh foods, which cannot tolerate long delays. But this works both ways as unwarranted regulatory checks at Calais could lead to French importers suffering tit-for-tat delays at Dover. So to avoid this, the French have already installed scanning technology to speed up clearance at Calais.
- The AEO trusted trader scheme under the UCC should eliminate the need for physical customs checks at Calais, since goods can be pre-cleared for customs electronically.
- Most engineering firms will be little affected (hence why heads of firms like Dyson, JCB and Northern Ireland’s Wrightbus support Brexit).
- Car companies can withstand 10% tariffs on sales into the EU and 4.5% tariffs on components from the EU since they have benefited from a 15% depreciation in sterling.
And transportation and travel will not be disrupted because of the following:
- The EU has already made a reciprocal offer to the UK in respect of air traffic rights and the validity of aviation safety certificates in the event of ‘no deal’.
- Several French regional airports derive close to 80% of their traffic from UK-owned airlines. Local tourism would be ruined by prohibitions on landing rights.
- France has passed legislation giving the President decree-making powers to ensure minimal disruption.
- Reciprocal visa-free travel for trips of up to 90 days has already been agreed between the UK and EU even in the event of “no deal”.
- In its no-deal preparedness notices on travel, the EU has announced that the mutual recognition of driving licences and road vehicles will continue under the rules of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic 1968.
- In March 2018 the British government announced that it would be ratifying the Convention in its own right. This means taking your car abroad or hiring a vehicle on holiday should be no more complicated than it is now.
Solutions being implemented by HMRC to minimise trade frictions as part of no-deal Brexit customs planning:
- Replicating the rules and procedures in the EU’s Union Customs Code to operate domestically under the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, thus ensuring no unexpected changes for UK importers or for EU exporters to the UK. The first regulations under the Act, including the Import and Transit regulations, were made on 30 November 2018.
- A new online Customs Declarations System to replace the 25 year-old CHIEF system. Expected to be able to handle up to 400 million declarations a year.
- Importers will be able to declare import VAT on their VAT monthly return, rather than at the border thus mitigating cash flow and procedural problems.
- Trusted trader schemes are provided for in the new Import regulations (Part 9). This further minimises paperwork and the need for border controls.
- Big manufacturers or food importers reliant on just-in-time deliveries from the EU27 should be registered as Authorised Economic Operators (AEOs). This means that freight is pre-cleared electronically (as is currently the case for most rest of the world imports) and not held up for checks at the border.
- Major supermarkets who import produce from outside the EU will already be familiar with the AEO system. The no-deal UK system will replicate exactly what they are used to under the UCC, and so should enable them to handle produce imported from the EU27 in the same way as they do for produce imported from Africa or South America.
- Inland inspection facilities to check the small number of consignments that will need to be physically checked have already been set up. Staff are currently being recruited. There is a large facility at Magna Park, Milton Keynes and another at Hayes. This means lorries can be directed away from ports for targeted checks, minimising delays.
- The Import Regulations mandate electronic pre-clearance for customs as RoRo ports, to avoid delays at Dover.
- There could be contingency plans to waive checks if required to avoid gridlock for security reasons. The growth in unaccompanied rail freight scanned automatically would also reduce the number of lorries over time.
- HMRC has already published no-deal notices and guidance for importers and exporters on its website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/expo…
All of these plans are well advanced. If just-in-time importers get themselves set up and registered as AEOs, their EU imports should not be subject to any delays on entering the UK and vice-versa.
Need I say more?
Yes it was all racism however on the basis of over 30 years as a local government manager I can say categorically that the strain on housing and education in the UK is entirely due to immigration. I can back this up but until 1997 I was one of a number of people demolishing modern social housing because it was surplus to requirements. Now the media just scream there is a housing crisis but never say why. As for education we had been closing and some cases demolishing primary and high schools from the 1980s onward because were simply not enough children coming through to fill them. One district I worked in had 3 High schools until 1997 now it has one and suddenly finds it is short of places.
Our politician’s attitude to the immigration stream reminds me of a tragedy that took place in England some years ago. Three boys on holiday with their High School were swept out to sea by a sudden wave and instantly disappeared. When their classmates told the teachers they went into shock and simply got everyone on the bus and drove back to their hotel. All the time the children on the bus were screaming “But Sir X Y & Z have been washed away!” There was absolutely nothing they could have done it happened too quickly but it took them half an hour before they came out of shock and called the authorities.
Our politicians are like that over immigration. They can see the problem but because the reality and the decisions they will have to make are so appalling they just cannot accept it. So they call everyone racists and fascists and somehow hope it will go away.
