Niche Scotpol tweet, but Bobby Gillespie was very much in the ‘wouldn’t touch yer parochial nationalist Indy with a shitty stick’ in 2014; comes from a SLab establishment family.
The advantage of being the biggest in the room is that even when you are morally and legally wrong, you can still get your way.
Except they haven't. The announcement was basically AZN is giving them nothing extra. The EU were demanding their contract was to be fulfilled, which would mean 10s of millions more doses arriving now, that isn't what has been announced. It is all spin.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
TNE currently more than washes its face, making £80,000 as a standalone business. But that is based on a shoestring editorial budget of £6,500 per issue, with some costs absorbed by Archant and only three members of staff, including editor Jasper Copping and digital editor Jono Read. That editorial budget will rise by 50 per cent immediately; and Archant will no longer foot the bill for overheads.
So trying to turn a hobby publication into a real publication.
I would imagine they will take it down the NYT / FT route i.e. a subscription model aimed at wealthier pro-European types. The FT apparently makes most of its profit from the "How to Spend It" publications, so that would be a focus.
Unlikely, given the deal is almost exactly the same as what AZN offered at the start of all this.
Reread the interview with the AZN CEO - he specifically said that further down the road, supply from the UK plants was possible. But that under the contracts with the UK government they had to deliver to the UK first.
I see the SCons are asking everyone to put independence behind them by employing the novel strategy of using every waking breath to mention independence (plenty of them mumbling the word in their sleep too I’ll bet). https://twitter.com/andrewlearmonth/status/1356189937029292035?s=21
Its very odd. We know for a Fact that there cannot possibly be a threat from Independence because the Tories are in Power and the PM Won't Allow It and there'll be Barbed Wire.
So no threat at all and the people talking about should just be ignored or better still told their views are irrelevant regardless of how they vote. And yet instead here we are, wanting to *debate* like its actually possible that independence could be on the agenda.
Calling @HYUFD to explain why the leader of the SCons has got it so very wrong.
An Indy-dominated Scot Parl election is good for SCon in battle with SLAB to retain second place. Unionists will hold noses and go Tory, It's actually quite possible in my view that, notwithstanding recent polling, they do better than in 2016.
Latest update on vaccine roll-out in Scotland is dismal. Fewer jabbed yesterday than the previous Sunday. Don't think the focusing on care homes explanation will wash for much longer. They really need to pick up the pace. Perhaps the new mass-vas centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen will turn the tide. But they've been seriously slow about it. Strange.
NB: one interesting development (to me, at any rate) is that Iain McWhirter, a political commentator of some standing in Scotland, of moderate pro-Indy views, is becoming increasingly hostile and exasperated with the Sturgeon government.
Unlikely, given the deal is almost exactly the same as what AZN offered at the start of all this.
Reread the interview with the AZN CEO - he specifically said that further down the road, supply from the UK plants was possible. But that under the contracts with the UK government they had to deliver to the UK first.
Its more media mischief making....they were happily repeating the bullshit claims of the UK getting all their jabs on time over the weekend.
The UK government has said virtually nothing during this how EU outburst. I thought that was very telling.
It’s not the scintillating and devastating take down of the Gordon Brittas meme which gets more hilarious on its 50th retelling, but brutal nevertheless.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
People lapping up Cyclefree's subject matter expertise on the AZ vaccine contract yet not so happy with yours on the food industry. Wonder why this is?
And why not? Sputnik has been approved in 16 countries, Sinopharm in 11, and Sinovac in 7. All 3 prevent hospitalisations.
It isn't good to rely on authoritarian dictatorships for something so important.
Is it better to have tens of thousands of excess deaths and shut your economy down for an extra couple of months because you wont buy their drugs but will buy everything else from them?
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Thanks - the first two words would have sufficed. I am not pointing it out to embarrass you, or to deny problems, just as an illustration that there are usually creative solutions.
I see the SCons are asking everyone to put independence behind them by employing the novel strategy of using every waking breath to mention independence (plenty of them mumbling the word in their sleep too I’ll bet). https://twitter.com/andrewlearmonth/status/1356189937029292035?s=21
Its very odd. We know for a Fact that there cannot possibly be a threat from Independence because the Tories are in Power and the PM Won't Allow It and there'll be Barbed Wire.
So no threat at all and the people talking about should just be ignored or better still told their views are irrelevant regardless of how they vote. And yet instead here we are, wanting to *debate* like its actually possible that independence could be on the agenda.
Calling @HYUFD to explain why the leader of the SCons has got it so very wrong.
An Indy-dominated Scot Parl election is good for SCon in battle with SLAB to retain second place. Unionists will hold noses and go Tory, It's actually quite possible in my view that, notwithstanding recent polling, they do better than in 2016.
Latest update on vaccine roll-out in Scotland is dismal. Fewer jabbed yesterday than the previous Sunday. Don't think the focusing on care homes explanation will wash for much longer. They really need to pick up the pace. Perhaps the new mass-vas centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen will turn the tide. But they've been seriously slow about it. Strange.
NB: one interesting development (to me, at any rate) is that Iain McWhirter, a political commentator of some standing in Scotland, of moderate pro-Indy views, is becoming increasingly hostile and exasperated with the Sturgeon government.
What I think will be a fascinating in this election will be how much nose-holding goes on. Whilst the SNP have their resolute fans and implacable hostiles, how many people will vote for them to advance the independence cause who wouldn't normally vote for them? An independent Scotland doesn't mean endless SNP rule.
And as you say the reverse has to be true. If your aim is to elect as many unionist members as possible will Con / Lab / LD voters hold their respective noses to vote for whichever candidate / list has the best chance? And will they split constituency and list votes?
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
Indeed. There is no crisis. As we were discussing with regards to wine this morning.
A cloning machine. To go clone yourself. So that your massive knowledge expertise can be used everywhere to put right these fools who don't know how to run their business the way you can.
It occurs to me that if we postponed the locals a month one possible way forward could be to vote outside in gazebos. It should be warm enough, although it being the UK it wouldn’t be guaranteed to be dry.
Might be worth a shot, anyway.
23 June 2016 says hello...
Reasonably warm but soaking wet wasn't it?
Could potentially have been done in gazebos?
With the danger of lightning strikes! There was a huge clap of thunder as I left the polling station. It felt very ominous...
I seem to recall rather glorious sunny weather the next morning though.
A new dawn had broken, had it not?
More a case of "never glad confident morning again".
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
Oh and Philip, here's that random bloke off twitter with FBPE in his handle spouting off about wine.
If it is "impossible" to buy EU wine after April then I am willing to make a £100 bet.
I challenge anyone to pick a date this year and I will go to my local supermarket or bottle store and look for a bottle of EU wine. If I can go to a bottle store or supermarket and pick up a bottle of EU wine then I'm happy to put a photograph of the bottle and my receipt here and you pay me £100. If I am incapable of finding any EU wines then I will pay you £100.
Any takers? If I don't know what I'm talking about and it really is "impossible" to import wine after April, as opposed to a bit more inconvenient, then that should be guaranteed money in your pocket straight from a mug apparently. Who wants in?
I do enjoy your strawman arguments deployed once you've pillocked yourself into a corner.
No straw man. You said "impossible". I defined "impossible".
Do you have some other definition of "impossible"? Do you know what the word "impossible" means?
To answer my own question above. I said "its impossible to replace wine that doesn't exist." As in replace the 50% of wine from the EU with the other 50% as the volume doesn't exist.
Quite how that has been changed to "impossible to import from the EU" is something that only Philip can understand.
Can I gently point out that wine is not fungible? Australian wine is not a perfect substitute for Burgundy.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
Brexiters: Brexit will be fantastic Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
It’s not the scintillating and devastating take down of the Gordon Brittas meme which gets more hilarious on its 50th retelling, but brutal nevertheless.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
Indeed. There is no crisis. As we were discussing with regards to wine this morning.
A cloning machine. To go clone yourself. So that your massive knowledge expertise can be used everywhere to put right these fools who don't know how to run their business the way you can.
Absolutely there is no crisis with regards to wine, which is why you refused to take my bet or put up a counteroffer. Because you know there's no story here.
I ran the numbers before on the cost of a pallet of wine, got it to 15p per bottle of wine. That's per pallet if every pallet is unique, not for eg 24 identical pallets in a single lorry which brings it down to less than a penny a bottle. Versus £2.23 per bottle of wine in duty before VAT.
You and Scott are scraping the barrel but drawing a blank, because there's nothing here to see.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
"Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption,” said Cameron. Touching upon Britain’s warring past, Cameron continued by saying: "what happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain. That was true in 1914, 1940, 1989.... and it is true in 2016." “We should listen to the voices that say Europe had a violent history, we've managed to avoid that and so why put at risk the things that achieve that?" Cameron continued.
He doesn't use the term "world war 3"; he just mentions the dates of the first two and asks rhetorically whether they could ever happen again. He knew what he was saying.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
Brexiters: Brexit will be fantastic Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
I always said there would be costs and disruption and companies will need to adapt, I never denied it. That was right, there are marginal costs and disruption that companies need to adapt.
Other than that, good point well made *slow handclap*
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
Life will go on as normal for fuckwits that have little more in their lives than being a 24/7 keyboard warrior, but people who actually run businesses are having to deal with the shit that Brexit has brought on us. You clearly have no idea about this because you know the square root of fuck all about business, or anything else for that matter. Most of what people who have half a brain where worried about has come to pass, it is just that the media hasn't picked up on it because of Covid dominating the headlines, and you want to deny it exists because it doesn't suit your nasty little populist right wing view that everything Brexity is wonderful.
Shitty people like you do not care about the many businesses that have lost out because of your thick brained obsession. Your attitude is not that dissimilar to Dominic Cummings' statement on old people at the beginning of the pandemic. Totally sociopathic!
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Thanks - the first two words would have sufficed. I am not pointing it out to embarrass you, or to deny problems, just as an illustration that there are usually creative solutions.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
mid to late 1990s?
I know it's Monday but there's a significant sense of humour deficit in here today. Someone get on the blower to the Bank of England...
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
7 Seasons worth, says it was pretty damn popular. Certainly more than Keir Starmer.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
I think its your age. My wife is 6 years younger, but that is a lifetime of formative TV experience growing up. I also spent a year in NZ, and missed the 1998 football world cup, notably 'vindaloo' - simply never heard it.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
It was one of those 'Hyperbolic Binary Opposers' (HBOs) that are invariably a sign of dumbed down debate.
"The EU has been instrumental in building and preserving peace on the continent of Europe after the ravages of 2 great wars in the first half of the century."
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
I can assure you from personal experience that their has been an explosion in red tape, cost and bureaucracy for British exporters. This is a direct consequence of Brexit, is an undeniable fact and can't be wished away by Boris's flatulence.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
TV used to be awful, didn't it?
The problem (well, one of them) with the Brittas thing is that the people old enough to get the reference will be past the tipping point in age at which it becomes compulsory to vote Tory anyway.
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
Oh and Philip, here's that random bloke off twitter with FBPE in his handle spouting off about wine.
If it is "impossible" to buy EU wine after April then I am willing to make a £100 bet.
I challenge anyone to pick a date this year and I will go to my local supermarket or bottle store and look for a bottle of EU wine. If I can go to a bottle store or supermarket and pick up a bottle of EU wine then I'm happy to put a photograph of the bottle and my receipt here and you pay me £100. If I am incapable of finding any EU wines then I will pay you £100.
Any takers? If I don't know what I'm talking about and it really is "impossible" to import wine after April, as opposed to a bit more inconvenient, then that should be guaranteed money in your pocket straight from a mug apparently. Who wants in?
I do enjoy your strawman arguments deployed once you've pillocked yourself into a corner.
No straw man. You said "impossible". I defined "impossible".
Do you have some other definition of "impossible"? Do you know what the word "impossible" means?
To answer my own question above. I said "its impossible to replace wine that doesn't exist." As in replace the 50% of wine from the EU with the other 50% as the volume doesn't exist.
Quite how that has been changed to "impossible to import from the EU" is something that only Philip can understand.
Can I gently point out that wine is not fungible? Australian wine is not a perfect substitute for Burgundy.
And yet @Phil et al were this morning saying how you could or should bulk import the wine and bottle it in the UK.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
TV used to be awful, didn't it?
The problem (well, one of them) with the Brittas thing is that the people old enough to get the reference will be past the tipping point in age at which it becomes compulsory to vote Tory anyway.
If you think Mrs Brown's Boys is an improvement, I think you need your head examining.
There is actually a serious lack of good tv comedy sitcoms at the moment. The likes of Only Fools and Horses (although some "interesting" language used at times) is infinitely funnier.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
7 Seasons worth, says it was pretty damn popular.
Perhaps in its day.
Never seems to have made the must-watch repeatability of Fawlty Towers, or the cult/niche following of Red Dwarf or Yes, Minister though.
I'd never heard of it until it was mentioned here, or if I had it didn't ring any bells. If you'd said Arnold Rimmer on the other hand . . .
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
It was one of those 'Hyperbolic Binary Opposers' (HBOs) that are invariably a sign of dumbed down debate.
"The EU has been instrumental in building and preserving peace on the continent of Europe after the ravages of 2 great wars in the first half of the century."
"So, if we leave it's gonna be WW3?"
Read Cameron's quote, he was asking about the risk of leaving.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
7 Seasons worth, says it was pretty damn popular.
It’s nowhere near the glittering cultural edifice that was Allo, Allo.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
Life will go on as normal for fuckwits that have little more in their lives than being a 24/7 keyboard warrior, but people who actually run businesses are having to deal with the shit that Brexit has brought on us. You clearly have no idea about this because you know the square root of fuck all about business, or anything else for that matter. Most of what people who have half a brain where worried about has come to pass, it is just that the media hasn't picked up on it because of Covid dominating the headlines, and you want to deny it exists because it doesn't suit your nasty little populist right wing view that everything Brexity is wonderful.
Shitty people like you do not care about the many businesses that have lost out because of your thick brained obsession. Your attitude is not that dissimilar to Dominic Cummings' statement on old people at the beginning of the pandemic. Totally sociopathic!
I counted ten outright insults in that lovely little outburst. Impressive.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
Brexiters: Brexit will be fantastic Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
I can't remember if we spoke about this @TOPPING - but the concept of an ARR is in the Trade treaty. How frustrating.
I am hoping it can be altered (as trade press seems to suggest) - something like a much higher threshold for regulation (as has already happened with export limits on antiques/art) would be useful.
However, the trade treaty didn't include any reference to the mad system of import certification for cultural goods that the EU want to bring in. So there is every chance that London will prosper as an art/antiques selling hub....
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
Oh and Philip, here's that random bloke off twitter with FBPE in his handle spouting off about wine.
If it is "impossible" to buy EU wine after April then I am willing to make a £100 bet.
I challenge anyone to pick a date this year and I will go to my local supermarket or bottle store and look for a bottle of EU wine. If I can go to a bottle store or supermarket and pick up a bottle of EU wine then I'm happy to put a photograph of the bottle and my receipt here and you pay me £100. If I am incapable of finding any EU wines then I will pay you £100.
Any takers? If I don't know what I'm talking about and it really is "impossible" to import wine after April, as opposed to a bit more inconvenient, then that should be guaranteed money in your pocket straight from a mug apparently. Who wants in?
I do enjoy your strawman arguments deployed once you've pillocked yourself into a corner.
No straw man. You said "impossible". I defined "impossible".
Do you have some other definition of "impossible"? Do you know what the word "impossible" means?
To answer my own question above. I said "its impossible to replace wine that doesn't exist." As in replace the 50% of wine from the EU with the other 50% as the volume doesn't exist.
Quite how that has been changed to "impossible to import from the EU" is something that only Philip can understand.
Can I gently point out that wine is not fungible? Australian wine is not a perfect substitute for Burgundy.
And yet @Phil et al were this morning saying how you could or should bulk import the wine and bottle it in the UK.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
I can assure you from personal experience that their has been an explosion in red tape, cost and bureaucracy for British exporters. This is a direct consequence of Brexit, is an undeniable fact and can't be wished away by Boris's flatulence.
For goodness sake don't tell @Philip what industry that pertains to or he will be forced to disprove your assertion using examples to prove his point.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
What have we had five years of? We have had five weeks of a deal. We have five weeks of data and a confounding factor of "Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln..." proportions hampering our analysis of it. And if you are saying where we are now was broadly predictable for five years I have to point out your failure to predict it even five minutes before it happened.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
7 Seasons worth, says it was pretty damn popular.
Perhaps in its day.
Never seems to have made the must-watch repeatability of Fawlty Towers, or the cult/niche following of Red Dwarf or Yes, Minister though.
I'd never heard of it until it was mentioned here, or if I had it didn't ring any bells. If you'd said Arnold Rimmer on the other hand . . .
I am not saying it was particularly great. It certainly isn't Only Fools and Horses. I was just saying it was popular at the time, that is just a fact.
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
Oh and Philip, here's that random bloke off twitter with FBPE in his handle spouting off about wine.
If it is "impossible" to buy EU wine after April then I am willing to make a £100 bet.
I challenge anyone to pick a date this year and I will go to my local supermarket or bottle store and look for a bottle of EU wine. If I can go to a bottle store or supermarket and pick up a bottle of EU wine then I'm happy to put a photograph of the bottle and my receipt here and you pay me £100. If I am incapable of finding any EU wines then I will pay you £100.
Any takers? If I don't know what I'm talking about and it really is "impossible" to import wine after April, as opposed to a bit more inconvenient, then that should be guaranteed money in your pocket straight from a mug apparently. Who wants in?
I do enjoy your strawman arguments deployed once you've pillocked yourself into a corner.
No straw man. You said "impossible". I defined "impossible".
Do you have some other definition of "impossible"? Do you know what the word "impossible" means?
To answer my own question above. I said "its impossible to replace wine that doesn't exist." As in replace the 50% of wine from the EU with the other 50% as the volume doesn't exist.
Quite how that has been changed to "impossible to import from the EU" is something that only Philip can understand.
Can I gently point out that wine is not fungible? Australian wine is not a perfect substitute for Burgundy.
And yet @Phil et al were this morning saying how you could or should bulk import the wine and bottle it in the UK.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
I can assure you from personal experience that their has been an explosion in red tape, cost and bureaucracy for British exporters. This is a direct consequence of Brexit, is an undeniable fact and can't be wished away by Boris's flatulence.
I'm happy to accept that you're right on that point.
Companies will adapt, get used to it and move on. That's life.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Thanks - the first two words would have sufficed. I am not pointing it out to embarrass you, or to deny problems, just as an illustration that there are usually creative solutions.
Side of bus: "Brexit - we'll manage"
(Additional "musn't grumble" optional.)
As you know, I think we'll do a lot more than manage, but managing the immediate difficulties successfully is a good start.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
Thanks for again demonstrating your ignorance on the subject. I am not remotely interested in wine, but I was interested in the response to someone else who made the same point you did. The production volume of New World wine cannot possibly replace the volume lost from not being able to import viably from the EEA - the wine simply doesn't exist in anywhere near sufficient volume to be imported as a replacement.
So yes, its impossible to replace wine that doesn't exist.
The total production of wine in 2018 for the whole world was 292 million hecto litres or 292 billion litres. The eu produced last year 14 billion litres of wine.....the idea that the rest of the world doesnt produce enough wine to to replace the 4 billion litres we import is ....odd
I think you are out by a factor of 10 on the meaning of hectolitre.
Lo! And so a clever PB'er spots his gross error.
A very useful behaviour to adopt - and to encourage in others - is, before doing any calculation, take a rough guess as to what the answer might be. It'll prevent those embarrassments where you cock up an Excel formula and come up with a dumb answer, which you share with others because it came out of the computer and so must be true.
In the long run it'll also make you better at guessing.
a hecto litre is 100 litres yes? so a figure of 292 million hectolitres - 292,000,000 x 100 ah yes 29.2 doh its early
That was hard work.
Well perhaps if someone had just said you have the decimal point in the wrong place rather than just saying no you are wrong without giving a reason why...always happy to go recheck a calculation because we all make mistakes
That you had made a mistake was obvious - and should have been to you. That's the learning point. It's not our job to work out why you went wrong.
I was once out in a calculation (that I submitted) by 68 orders of magnitude: it can be easily done if you are in a hurry.
"Dear Guiness Book of Records...."
Can't imagine that being beaten - other than in calaculating the number of atoms in the Universe.
I expect others have made the same mistake or worse: it involves missing the minus sign off an exponential.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
Those were the days where you could either watch BBC1 or be working down a mine, right?
Yep - definitely a very different era for TV watching, but the point is still valid - it was a big show in its day, but before your time.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
Brexiters: Brexit will be fantastic Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
I can't remember if we spoke about this @TOPPING - but the concept of an ARR is in the Trade treaty. How frustrating.
I am hoping it can be altered (as trade press seems to suggest) - something like a much higher threshold for regulation (as has already happened with export limits on antiques/art) would be useful.
However, the trade treaty didn't include any reference to the mad system of import certification for cultural goods that the EU want to bring in. So there is every chance that London will prosper as an art/antiques selling hub....
We did discuss this yes. And yes I see that the regs have been maintained "as is".
I don't suppose, so early in the new reality, that anything else was likely, was it?
But keep us posted on any changes would be interesting.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
What have we had five years of? We have had five weeks of a deal. We have five weeks of data and a confounding factor of "Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln..." proportions hampering our analysis of it. And if you are saying where we are now was broadly predictable for five years I have to point out your failure to predict it even five minutes before it happened.
I predicted it for years before it happened actually.
I just also never claimed to be infallible and acknowledged that I could be wrong. But what has happened is precisely what I predicted right back from when Theresa May was PM.
But I've pointed that out to you a few times and you keep repeating this lie, so no doubt you'll repeat this lie again in the future. Whatever makes you happy. Maybe next time I should just respond with "Yes, dear."
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
Brexiters: Brexit will be fantastic Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
I can't remember if we spoke about this @TOPPING - but the concept of an ARR is in the Trade treaty. How frustrating.
I am hoping it can be altered (as trade press seems to suggest) - something like a much higher threshold for regulation (as has already happened with export limits on antiques/art) would be useful.
However, the trade treaty didn't include any reference to the mad system of import certification for cultural goods that the EU want to bring in. So there is every chance that London will prosper as an art/antiques selling hub....
We did discuss this yes. And yes I see that the regs have been maintained "as is".
I don't suppose, so early in the new reality, that anything else was likely, was it?
But keep us posted on any changes would be interesting.
Will do. I've been putting off buying a couple of Kyffin Williams on the basis that I'm hopeful of a threshold increase, or a removal of dead artists from the regulations etc. Probably a mistake, the last two I kept tabs on seemed very pricey.....
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
TV used to be awful, didn't it?
The problem (well, one of them) with the Brittas thing is that the people old enough to get the reference will be past the tipping point in age at which it becomes compulsory to vote Tory anyway.
If you think Mrs Brown's Boys is an improvement, I think you need your head examining.
There is actually a serious lack of good tv comedy sitcoms at the moment. The likes of Only Fools and Horses (although some "interesting" language used at times) is infinitely funnier.
Re watching the IT crowd at the mo - seriously funny stuff. And always up for a half hour of Father Ted - even though I've watched them all countless times, the humour, the timing are still impecable. Current stuff - Ghosts has been very good.
Someone was muttering something about 'solidarity' earlier...
For some reason the catastrofuck of the EU vaccine negotiation keeps being used as proof that we were right to leave the EEA. I don't get it, unless like Big G they don't know the difference.
I think the EEA problem may be 'free movement' - not a problem for me but a biggy for those who voted Leave.
Considering that the EEA is outside of the Customs Union and deals with customs paperwork too which is what RP keeps complaining about - I'm not convinced he understands the difference either.
EEA+CU doesn't exist. Well it does, its called EU membership.
Oh luv, the problem at the moment is the ludicrous amount of SPS red tape, none of which would exist if we remained in the EEA.
Do try and keep up.
So fill in the SPS and move on.
You were convinced, absolutely conviced, that customs paperwork was going to bring the border to a crashing halt. It hasn't happened. So now complaints are boiled down to moaning about firms getting used to SPS red tape. Struggling to give a damn about that to be frank. If that's all you've got to complain about it isn't very much.
Wowsers. To everyone with eyes and a brain the border has been reduced to this uncomfortable quiet where there's only a fraction of normal traffic and half of that is empty vehicles.
You remember Multiplicity? You need to be like Michael Keaton. Go clone yourself. Then you can go and fix all the problems by a combination of "nope, no problem here", "market forces", "go buy something else" or some other fantastic solution.
Go on Philip. Go clone yourself.
I'm sure it has reduced as you say. You did also say that we would have food shortages - particularly in fresh produce. Is that still your prediction? Update: supermarket shelves in my part of Scotland's snowy wastes are still very much groaning with fresh produce.
We've managed, albeit with "fresh" not exactly the correct description for produce that's struggling to stay in life at times. And why have we done so? Because we haven't seen the endless queues that everyone including the government expected. And why haven't we done so? Because we have largely stopped importing and exporting. With traffic levels far lower than normal the trucks with fresh aren't getting stuck.
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away. Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year". Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet". Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition" Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
I can assure you from personal experience that their has been an explosion in red tape, cost and bureaucracy for British exporters. This is a direct consequence of Brexit, is an undeniable fact and can't be wished away by Boris's flatulence.
For goodness sake don't tell @Philip what industry that pertains to or he will be forced to disprove your assertion using examples to prove his point.
Why would I when I have always acknowledged there are costs and disruption that companies will adapt to?
Why do you insist in this myth that I am some form of zealot who denies any cost. I don't deny there will be costs, I have accepted them and moved on. There is such a thing as opportunity cost too - all decisions have costs.
Six US states now over 2,000 deaths/m pop. No proper country has yet achieved this. Belgium 1,815/m.
Proceed with care, Ishmael.
The US is proving to be a bit of a laboratory for lockdown versus not. Is there much difference in outcome between the states that have locked down hard, versus those that haven't?
There better be, for the sake of the lockdowners.
Are we still arguing about whether or not lockdowns work? Just look at the case chart earlier last year for the answer to that question.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Look at the case charts of US states that have not imposed lockdowns.
Same result. Without the horrendous effects, of course.
Oh dear. Awks. very awks
What makes you think that economic consequences are linked to the lockdowns - other than post hoc ergo propter hoc, of course?
Since we are quoting stats by states, here are the unemployment rates for each state. Pretty clear the hardest lockdowns have had the worst effects on UB rates - without seeing a noticeable outperformance when it comes to the death rates.
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
The correct price of anything is the price someone is willing to pay for it.
If the price of importing is higher than many consumers are willing to pay for it, the economics of businesses importing them is no longer viable. Its *possible* to import at a price that not enough consumers are prepared to pay. So it doesn't get imported.
I can sketch this with crayons if you like. Its called "adding". The ape-men of the Indus understand this, you and Baldrick apparently do not.
Are you trying to explain the concept of Supply and Demand to me? After I already mentioned it? 🤔
It may be possible to set an import price that no imports will happen. That's not going to happen though.
What may happen is that there is a marginal price change, so some things will be marginally more expensive, which means marginally less trade. That is supply and demand, that is not an impossibility to trade though.
£1.50 for paperwork on a £7 bottle of wine isn't marginal. Heck even on a £15 bottle of wine that isn't marginal.
You can get New World bottles of wine for £4 (£3.33+VAT) in the supermarket.
Are you suggesting that 50% of the price of the wine is the paperwork. Or is it possible to do the paperwork for less than £1.50 per bottle - eg if you buy a large shipment instead of a small one?
I thought you were an expert on wine?
The reality is that most New World wine now is shipped in tanks and bottled in the UK...
Those tanks are of course already used 24/7 365 days of the year so are not immediately available for new imports.
Yes, that's surely the kind of innovation we'll see for EU wines as well, it's better for the environment too as you're no longer transporting heavy glass bottles by truck.
I think the government made a huge mistake in not having a 12 month deal implementation period where businesses had time to digest the new rules and switch to new import and export methods over the year.
Which is great on one level but does mean that small vineyards with limited supplies (i.e. the products the wine importer currently sells) will continue to be a red tape paperwork nightmare.
I'm not sure that it does, if a small producer is selling 10,000 litres in the UK then I'm sure they can get a tanker to take it across the border to a bottling plant.
Max that is not how it works.
It simply isn't.
Plus what bottling plant, exactly?
They can build some if its economic to do so.
Or tens of thousands of litres can be carried in a single HGV in bottles. How many bottles of wine do you think make up a 24 pallet HGV? It isn't single digit bottles of wine.
Which is where we started.
1 container full of identical items = 1 set of paperwork. 24 pallets with different items = 24 sets of paperwork 24 pallets with 3 different products each = 72 sets of paperwork.
Any issue with any single set of paperwork and that container isn't going anywhere.
And each set of paperwork (even if 100% correct first time) takes time and money to create. Add 72 sets and it's a nightmare.
I believe a price of £200 was quoted earlier per set of paperwork? So lets work with 1 HGV with 24 pallets of wine.
There are 112 cases of wine in a pallet, 12 bottles per case. That's 1,334 bottles of wine per pallet.
A HGV with 24 pallets has 32,256 bottles in the HGV.
Even if all 24 pallets were unique, each with a different set of paperwork so 24 sets of paperwork @ £200 each then that would be 15p per bottle in paperwork costs. 15p != £1.50 per bottle.
Import 24 pallets on a single set of paperwork and its ~0.6 pence per bottle.
Put multiple pallets of the same wine in and the cost comes down. Choose to split pallets rather than buying whole pallets at once and the cost goes up. But we're talking pennies not pounds.
1334 bottles on a pallet, so GBP200 is about 15p per bottle (round figures)
10 different types on wine in a single pallet and you are at £1.50 per bottle
I predicted it for years before it happened actually.
I just also never claimed to be infallible and acknowledged that I could be wrong. But what has happened is precisely what I predicted right back from when Theresa May was PM.
But I've pointed that out to you a few times and you keep repeating this lie, so no doubt you'll repeat this lie again in the future. Whatever makes you happy. Maybe next time I should just respond with "Yes, dear."
Working assumptions: AZ overpromised everyone on delivery and then overcooked the cuts to Europe. Furthermore, whilst they could win in court, the reputational cost wouldn't be worth it. Like a celeb victim of a kiss'n'tell who doesn't bloke the story, but knows that disproving it will be embarrassing in other ways.
(No knowledge apart from the experience of human frailty that teaching gives a person. And reading between the lines of "it's so unfair, I shouldn't have a detention" statements.)
Working assumptions: AZ overpromised everyone on delivery and then overcooked the cuts to Europe. Furthermore, whilst they could win in court, the reputational cost wouldn't be worth it. Like a celeb victim of a kiss'n'tell who doesn't bloke the story, but knows that disproving it will be embarrassing in other ways.
(No knowledge apart from the experience of human frailty that teaching gives a person. And reading between the lines of "it's so unfair, I shouldn't have a detention" statements.)
They aren't getting anymore.....so your working assumption is wrong.
Region of Residence 1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 289,359 2,757 292,116 East Of England 34,215 254 34,469 London 45,621 844 46,465 Midlands 58,924 303 59,227 North East And Yorkshire 36,981 481 37,462 North West 33,624 269 33,893 South East 51,827 262 52,089 South West 26,987 341 27,328
Please form an orderly queue to the organised panic at the church hall. Tea and biscuits will be served.
I do wonder, however, if it is just possible that those who were so convinced that the EU were the adults, the reasonable ones whose views and positions should be given unstinting respect and deference through the long and tedious Brexit saga are taking the opportunity to reflect. It turns out that the EU is not an institution of laws after all. It is a bureaucratic mess, slow and incompetent, with a massive democratic deficit who cannot be relied upon to respect the views of its members (in this case Ireland and Art 16).
Thank the lord we are out of it. Now let's move on together and make the best of our own path.
As I keep pointing out, there is a world of difference between the EU pooing the bed over their vaccine fiasco and the EU stating a core negotiating position that the UK refused to accept. Nor are the EU the reason why we have chosen to leave the EEA. From the EU's self-imposed idiocy to our own - a wine importer whose business cannot function under the rules the UK government demanded be imposed.
Some of the responses are quite funny as well. "Can't you import wine from elsewhere?" No - it doesn't exist. ROW doesn't produce anywhere near enough wine to replace EU volume. Err, "they need our customs. can't the frogs tell Macron to change his rules?" No, these are our rules. Insisted on by the UK government.
Your constant posting of anti brexit stories is rather pointless even more so after these last few days
We are not going back so business will have to adapt
I think we know that. The actual issue at the moment (if you read the tweets) is the paperwork requirements are making low volume imports impossible.
Importing a container with a single product on it not a problem - 1 set of paperwork required. Start importing different product within a single container and the problems start to occur - as you need 1 set of paperwork per product and any 1 mistake on single form is enough to block the whole container from moving. Start splitting pallets into smaller orders and real problems begin. Remember 1 mistake blocks the entire container
We've spent 30+ years with paperwork free exports and imports from the EU. The introduction of paperwork (a lot of which HMRC have zero people who understand it) is making things impossible. And Covid is sweeping this under the table.
Now things will get easier - but they will get easier by people reducing the products they import and export - so less paperwork is required and less paperwork is the only way to avoid mistakes occurring.
So people will adjust. That's not impossible.
If people don't want to adjust, especially people with EU flags in their Twitter handle, that's on them not politics.
The idea it is "impossible" to import wines from outside of a customs union would be a strange thought to anyone who likes New World wines.
I would go and read the thread - there isn't enough available New World wine to replace the EU imports.
And the issue is mainly the one I've pointed out all month - why should I continue to purchase from you when other options are easier.
Which is why the UK is now (note now not back in 2019 when it made sense to do so) telling companies to set up EU subsidiaries so that the paperwork is hidden away internally and stock is sent direct from a warehouse in the EU.
The tweeter is being very misleading suggesting that all EU wine will have to be replaced and the wine industry is under threat
In reality *his* business model of short line mixed pallets is under threat. Perhaps he needs to transact via an aggregator - which will come at a cost - but is feasible
So Brexit necessitates a hike in business costs - the absolute inversion of what its proponents claimed would happen. Is there a single element of 'Project Fear' that hasn't come to pass?
WW3?
The WW3 thing was one of the Leave campaign's most egregious lies. Dave said no such thing. In fact, when I've asked Leavers on here to provide evidence they've always failed miserably and had to resort to the absurd claim that it was in an 'earlier draft' that never saw the light of day. Ridiculous.
"Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption,” said Cameron. Touching upon Britain’s warring past, Cameron continued by saying: "what happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain. That was true in 1914, 1940, 1989.... and it is true in 2016." “We should listen to the voices that say Europe had a violent history, we've managed to avoid that and so why put at risk the things that achieve that?" Cameron continued.
He doesn't use the term "world war 3"; he just mentions the dates of the first two and asks rhetorically whether they could ever happen again. He knew what he was saying.
And a perfectly valid argument. That a Europe closely co-operating and tied together, politically and economically, was likely a safer, more peaceful proposition than a bunch of atomized nation states aggressively pursuing only their own agendas. One of the strongest arguments for the EU (imvio) and one which figured high on my list of reasons for voting Remain. I was just as concerned that Brexit would be bad for the EU as that it would be bad for Britain.
By no stretch of the imagination was that a "Project Fear" threat that WW3 would be erupting in no time if we left. The Osborne "Emergency Budget" was Remain Project Fear. So was some of Carney's stuff. And (arguably) Obama's "back of the queue". OTOH the Farage poster was Leave Project Fear. In fact the whole Turkish thing was Leave Project Fear. Project Fear pretty much balanced out. But this one - WW3 - was not a part of it. It was simply a good and fair pro-EU point.
What @Big_G_NorthWales seems oblivious to is that I am not arguing to rejoin the EU - that ship has sailed. What I am arguing - with evidence - is that the rules insisted on by the UK government have brought a significant number of industries to a stand.
Brexit - leaving the EU - did not have to bring self-harm to our status as a global trading nation. Our government could have understood both how trade worked and the areas where the rules it blindly insisted would be fine would not be fine. Instead we have this.
"We are not going back so business will have to adapt". In the case of the wine industry it will adapt by closing down. The other story I ready this morning was from major Norniron logistics firm McCulla, reporting in detail how the new rules has brought their industry to its knees. These companies will close without either rapid changes or long-term support. They "will have to adapt" by closing down.
The new rules are unworkable. And this is the false dawn before we stop breaching WTO rules and start imposing them fully. They will either need to be renegotiated or we will see chunks of our economic output simply stop. That isn't an argument to rejoin the EU, its an argument to negotiate a trading deal that works.
Sadly people like Big G never understood the difference between the EU and EEA. It is our departure from the latter which has so broken the food and drink industry.
If they're so unworkable then how do we have so many New World wines available to drink? Is the old world seriously so sclerotic that we face a future of only New World wines if we're not in the EEA? Because I'm 100% OK with that even if that happens, but I don't believe it for one second.
I think that's going to far and too unfair on the EU there, I don't believe its really that sclerotic as to be impossible to deal with - and that's coming from me!
The issue is not that there isn't enough wine in the rest of the world, it's just that that wine is already being sold elsewhere and isn't available for us to buy.
1-3 years time the market will have adjusted and we may be in a position to buy more wine from the RoW but for the moment the RoW production is being produced for the pre-existing markets and is (probably) given how most markets work already presold elsewhere.
Have you never heard of the concepts of Supply and Demand?
Prices may change, contracts may change, but the idea it is literally "impossible" to import wine whether from the EU or the Rest of the World is a lie.
Harder to import EU wine? I believe that. More expensive to import EU wine? I believe that. Impossible to import EU wine? Lie, lie, lie.
Impossible doesn't mean a touch more expensive or there's more paperwork.
The correct price of anything is the price someone is willing to pay for it.
If the price of importing is higher than many consumers are willing to pay for it, the economics of businesses importing them is no longer viable. Its *possible* to import at a price that not enough consumers are prepared to pay. So it doesn't get imported.
I can sketch this with crayons if you like. Its called "adding". The ape-men of the Indus understand this, you and Baldrick apparently do not.
Are you trying to explain the concept of Supply and Demand to me? After I already mentioned it? 🤔
It may be possible to set an import price that no imports will happen. That's not going to happen though.
What may happen is that there is a marginal price change, so some things will be marginally more expensive, which means marginally less trade. That is supply and demand, that is not an impossibility to trade though.
£1.50 for paperwork on a £7 bottle of wine isn't marginal. Heck even on a £15 bottle of wine that isn't marginal.
You can get New World bottles of wine for £4 (£3.33+VAT) in the supermarket.
Are you suggesting that 50% of the price of the wine is the paperwork. Or is it possible to do the paperwork for less than £1.50 per bottle - eg if you buy a large shipment instead of a small one?
I thought you were an expert on wine?
The reality is that most New World wine now is shipped in tanks and bottled in the UK...
Those tanks are of course already used 24/7 365 days of the year so are not immediately available for new imports.
Yes, that's surely the kind of innovation we'll see for EU wines as well, it's better for the environment too as you're no longer transporting heavy glass bottles by truck.
I think the government made a huge mistake in not having a 12 month deal implementation period where businesses had time to digest the new rules and switch to new import and export methods over the year.
Which is great on one level but does mean that small vineyards with limited supplies (i.e. the products the wine importer currently sells) will continue to be a red tape paperwork nightmare.
I'm not sure that it does, if a small producer is selling 10,000 litres in the UK then I'm sure they can get a tanker to take it across the border to a bottling plant.
Max that is not how it works.
It simply isn't.
Plus what bottling plant, exactly?
They can build some if its economic to do so.
Or tens of thousands of litres can be carried in a single HGV in bottles. How many bottles of wine do you think make up a 24 pallet HGV? It isn't single digit bottles of wine.
Which is where we started.
1 container full of identical items = 1 set of paperwork. 24 pallets with different items = 24 sets of paperwork 24 pallets with 3 different products each = 72 sets of paperwork.
Any issue with any single set of paperwork and that container isn't going anywhere.
And each set of paperwork (even if 100% correct first time) takes time and money to create. Add 72 sets and it's a nightmare.
I believe a price of £200 was quoted earlier per set of paperwork? So lets work with 1 HGV with 24 pallets of wine.
There are 112 cases of wine in a pallet, 12 bottles per case. That's 1,334 bottles of wine per pallet.
A HGV with 24 pallets has 32,256 bottles in the HGV.
Even if all 24 pallets were unique, each with a different set of paperwork so 24 sets of paperwork @ £200 each then that would be 15p per bottle in paperwork costs. 15p != £1.50 per bottle.
Import 24 pallets on a single set of paperwork and its ~0.6 pence per bottle.
Put multiple pallets of the same wine in and the cost comes down. Choose to split pallets rather than buying whole pallets at once and the cost goes up. But we're talking pennies not pounds.
1334 bottles on a pallet, so GBP200 is about 15p per bottle (round figures)
10 different types on wine in a single pallet and you are at £1.50 per bottle
The issue is with his specific business model
Thanks for confirming my maths. Funny all the critics went silent on that after I posted it. 🤷🏻♂️
~133 bottles of wine per containment is the only way to get to £1.50 per bottle. So about just 11 cases of wine per document. That really isn't very much to be importing if you're doing it wholesale, adjusting the business model might work better.
I've googled Gordon Brittas and I still don't know who he is.
Character from a sitcom, first hit on google.
I know that. It's a sitcom I've never heard of. Not even once.
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
They used to get around 10 million viewers per episode, only just behind Only Fools and Horses....most of the current BBC comedy could only dream for that sort of viewership. What was Mrs Brown's Boys on Christmas Day, 4 million?
TV used to be awful, didn't it?
The problem (well, one of them) with the Brittas thing is that the people old enough to get the reference will be past the tipping point in age at which it becomes compulsory to vote Tory anyway.
If you think Mrs Brown's Boys is an improvement, I think you need your head examining.
I don't!
I'll correct myself: much TV is still awful, the difference being that it's now very easy to access more good TV than you could ever need.
The Brittas Empire was a somewhat mediocre 1990s sitcom. Nothing like as funny as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf, for example.
I love Chris Barrie, but I couldn't get past his annoying accent.
I didn't know this...it got canned from ITV because the viewership was too low.
We did two series for Thames TV, then ITV took over and said if any episode got 10m viewers, the show would stay on air. We got 7m, which people would kill for today – and ITV pulled the plug. I felt so cross that I went to the BBC, who took it, and it became a huge hit and definitely got more than 10 million viewers.
Working assumptions: AZ overpromised everyone on delivery and then overcooked the cuts to Europe. Furthermore, whilst they could win in court, the reputational cost wouldn't be worth it. Like a celeb victim of a kiss'n'tell who doesn't bloke the story, but knows that disproving it will be embarrassing in other ways.
(No knowledge apart from the experience of human frailty that teaching gives a person. And reading between the lines of "it's so unfair, I shouldn't have a detention" statements.)
They aren't getting anymore.....so your working assumption is wrong.
Well, since about a week ago, they think they can improve production by 1m doses, it seems.
Which given the rate at which they are producing, the rate they are supposed to get to and the time involved, is probably a fair bit of work to have done.
Working assumptions: AZ overpromised everyone on delivery and then overcooked the cuts to Europe. Furthermore, whilst they could win in court, the reputational cost wouldn't be worth it. Like a celeb victim of a kiss'n'tell who doesn't bloke the story, but knows that disproving it will be embarrassing in other ways.
(No knowledge apart from the experience of human frailty that teaching gives a person. And reading between the lines of "it's so unfair, I shouldn't have a detention" statements.)
They aren't getting anymore.....so your working assumption is wrong.
Precisely.
The EU signed the documents three months later then moan that it isn't "first come, first served".
Sorry but actions have consequences. If you don't sign your contract until months after someone else does you might indeed find yourself "back of the queue".
Comments
Its the early months of WWII from a trade perspective. We've declared war (on ourselves) and we know its coming even if its still sunny and you can get about without fear of your life. As we whittle our way down through the stockpiles we'll need to import more again. Which creates the problem that not even the vast new truck parks will solve.
There is something quite funny though in your post. "The border will stop functioning" I said. Not sending trucks through it is it not functioning. Yet "there are no queues so everything is fine" is the response.
Yes. Its all fine. As with Philip you absolutely know more about it than the producers, the wholesalers, the retails, the exporters, the logistics industry and indeed our own government. Perhaps you need to go clone yourself as well.
Maybe PM BJ isn't contradicting UVDL's assertion as he wants her to have a face-saving way to get out of the hole she has dug?
Reread the interview with the AZN CEO - he specifically said that further down the road, supply from the UK plants was possible. But that under the contracts with the UK government they had to deliver to the UK first.
Latest update on vaccine roll-out in Scotland is dismal. Fewer jabbed yesterday than the previous Sunday. Don't think the focusing on care homes explanation will wash for much longer. They really need to pick up the pace. Perhaps the new mass-vas centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen will turn the tide. But they've been seriously slow about it. Strange.
NB: one interesting development (to me, at any rate) is that Iain McWhirter, a political commentator of some standing in Scotland, of moderate pro-Indy views, is becoming increasingly hostile and exasperated with the Sturgeon government.
The UK government has said virtually nothing during this how EU outburst. I thought that was very telling.
https://twitter.com/olidugmore/status/1356198125506080768?s=21
You guys (not you personally) have been kicking the can indefinitely on when this supposed disaster is supposed to arrive.
First it was vote for Brexit and there'd be an immediate catastrophe as confidence will evaporate and money will run away.
Then it was "we voted leave and the crisis is coming but we haven't invoked Article 50 year".
Then it was "we've invoked Article 50 and the crisis is coming but we haven't left yet".
Then it was "we've left and the crisis is coming but we haven't left transition"
Now it is "we've left transition and the crisis is coming but we're trading on stockpiles"
Maybe RP there simply isn't a wolf? Maybe there simply isn't going to be a crisis? Maybe companies, especially those who trade in teeny tiny volumes instead of by the pallet load, will need to adjust but life will go on as normal?
When are you going to stop kicking the can of the supposed crisis down the road? We've had five years of this now. Are we going to get to 2030 and we'll still have you and Scott saying "the crisis is coming but . . . "
I can only assume this is a glitch in the Matrix.
And as you say the reverse has to be true. If your aim is to elect as many unionist members as possible will Con / Lab / LD voters hold their respective noses to vote for whichever candidate / list has the best chance? And will they split constituency and list votes?
A cloning machine. To go clone yourself. So that your massive knowledge expertise can be used everywhere to put right these fools who don't know how to run their business the way you can.
PG Wodehouse, Blandings Castle and Elsewhere.
Sane people: It will increase costs and restrict supply
Brexiters: no it won't, people will adapt
*concrete example of Brexit increasing costs and reducing supply*
Brexiters: What are you all whining about, all it's doing is increasing costs and reducing supply
I ran the numbers before on the cost of a pallet of wine, got it to 15p per bottle of wine. That's per pallet if every pallet is unique, not for eg 24 identical pallets in a single lorry which brings it down to less than a penny a bottle. Versus £2.23 per bottle of wine in duty before VAT.
You and Scott are scraping the barrel but drawing a blank, because there's nothing here to see.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/brexit-david-cameron-predicts-world-war
"Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption,” said Cameron. Touching upon Britain’s warring past, Cameron continued by saying: "what happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain. That was true in 1914, 1940, 1989.... and it is true in 2016." “We should listen to the voices that say Europe had a violent history, we've managed to avoid that and so why put at risk the things that achieve that?" Cameron continued.
He doesn't use the term "world war 3"; he just mentions the dates of the first two and asks rhetorically whether they could ever happen again. He knew what he was saying.
Other than that, good point well made *slow handclap*
Shitty people like you do not care about the many businesses that have lost out because of your thick brained obsession. Your attitude is not that dissimilar to Dominic Cummings' statement on old people at the beginning of the pandemic. Totally sociopathic!
(Additional "musn't grumble" optional.)
What crisis...
"The EU has been instrumental in building and preserving peace on the continent of Europe after the ravages of 2 great wars in the first half of the century."
"So, if we leave it's gonna be WW3?"
The problem (well, one of them) with the Brittas thing is that the people old enough to get the reference will be past the tipping point in age at which it becomes compulsory to vote Tory anyway.
There is actually a serious lack of good tv comedy sitcoms at the moment. The likes of Only Fools and Horses (although some "interesting" language used at times) is infinitely funnier.
Never seems to have made the must-watch repeatability of Fawlty Towers, or the cult/niche following of Red Dwarf or Yes, Minister though.
I'd never heard of it until it was mentioned here, or if I had it didn't ring any bells. If you'd said Arnold Rimmer on the other hand . . .
I am hoping it can be altered (as trade press seems to suggest) - something like a much higher threshold for regulation (as has already happened with export limits on antiques/art) would be useful.
However, the trade treaty didn't include any reference to the mad system of import certification for cultural goods that the EU want to bring in. So there is every chance that London will prosper as an art/antiques selling hub....
Companies will adapt, get used to it and move on. That's life.
Side of bus: "Brexit - we'll manage"(Additional "musn't grumble" optional.)
As you know, I think we'll do a lot more than manage, but managing the immediate difficulties successfully is a good start.
Many of them will die.
I don't suppose, so early in the new reality, that anything else was likely, was it?
But keep us posted on any changes would be interesting.
I just also never claimed to be infallible and acknowledged that I could be wrong. But what has happened is precisely what I predicted right back from when Theresa May was PM.
But I've pointed that out to you a few times and you keep repeating this lie, so no doubt you'll repeat this lie again in the future. Whatever makes you happy. Maybe next time I should just respond with "Yes, dear."
Other companies will take their place and the market will suit the ones that survive and are created in the future. That's evolution.
Why do you insist in this myth that I am some form of zealot who denies any cost. I don't deny there will be costs, I have accepted them and moved on. There is such a thing as opportunity cost too - all decisions have costs.
By pure coincidence, there is likely to be a by-election there in the summer.
Apparently.
That's a major escalation of hostilities in the civil war.
Appreciate that this will likely pass non-Scot PBers by, but defenestrating Cherry of all people is an extraordinarily provocative thing to do.
10 different types on wine in a single pallet and you are at £1.50 per bottle
The issue is with his specific business model
Go clone yourself
Should we stop the clock and never change anything?
Should we roll back the clock to bring back Blockbusters?
Or all the way back to bring back the Luddites?
I'm not a Luddite. I accept change brings disruption.
(No knowledge apart from the experience of human frailty that teaching gives a person. And reading between the lines of "it's so unfair, I shouldn't have a detention" statements.)
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1356239882604191746
Region of Residence 1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date
Total 289,359 2,757 292,116
East Of England 34,215 254 34,469
London 45,621 844 46,465
Midlands 58,924 303 59,227
North East And Yorkshire 36,981 481 37,462
North West 33,624 269 33,893
South East 51,827 262 52,089
South West 26,987 341 27,328
Please form an orderly queue to the organised panic at the church hall. Tea and biscuits will be served.
By no stretch of the imagination was that a "Project Fear" threat that WW3 would be erupting in no time if we left. The Osborne "Emergency Budget" was Remain Project Fear. So was some of Carney's stuff. And (arguably) Obama's "back of the queue". OTOH the Farage poster was Leave Project Fear. In fact the whole Turkish thing was Leave Project Fear. Project Fear pretty much balanced out. But this one - WW3 - was not a part of it. It was simply a good and fair pro-EU point.
I love Chris Barrie, but I couldn't get past his annoying accent.
~133 bottles of wine per containment is the only way to get to £1.50 per bottle. So about just 11 cases of wine per document. That really isn't very much to be importing if you're doing it wholesale, adjusting the business model might work better.
I'll correct myself: much TV is still awful, the difference being that it's now very easy to access more good TV than you could ever need.
https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1355822011495440386?s=21
We did two series for Thames TV, then ITV took over and said if any episode got 10m viewers, the show would stay on air. We got 7m, which people would kill for today – and ITV pulled the plug. I felt so cross that I went to the BBC, who took it, and it became a huge hit and definitely got more than 10 million viewers.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/18/how-we-made-men-behaving-badly
Which given the rate at which they are producing, the rate they are supposed to get to and the time involved, is probably a fair bit of work to have done.
The EU signed the documents three months later then moan that it isn't "first come, first served".
Sorry but actions have consequences. If you don't sign your contract until months after someone else does you might indeed find yourself "back of the queue".
What is the tangible quid pro quo?
The answer was in the question.
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1356233347928883206?s=21