Bringing goods from the EU

[thetyreman]

That is an absolute outrage if they allow it. There is no way you can import meat and say it's British produce, No way at all. Utterly unethical.

I also feel that consumers are going to kick up a storm as will the media.

agree, I will not stand for it personally, there will be huge protests about this subject.

 

[Droogs]

Her ladyship says it was to do with pre-prepared foods such as ping and takea away nuggets kind of thing. The meat can come in under the new lower standards and once processed into the "meal" can be then labled made in uk and does not have to declare origin of meat contents as being from US. It was apparently part to the uk trade deal paperwork and that the removal of the ethical treatment of farm animals by removing the acknowledgement that they can feel pain was the first part of the legislation needed to push through the laxer rules for importer of us meat here. She said it was part of somenting from PETA or one of the other animal things she looks at

 

[selectortone]

The USA has poor food hygiene standards, and has almost ten times the rate of food poisoning per 1000 population than the UK. Clorination of chicken won't harm you in the short term, but it hides low standards of poultry husbandry which also require regular use of antibiotics, a use no longer permitted here or in EU. Regular use of antibiotics as growth promoters, to keep low level infection of poorly raised birds at a minimum, is just about the best way to create antibiotic resistant bugs. As we are now close to bug resistance overcoming ALL antibiotics from over use, this affects your future health. You could die from a workshop cut pre antibiotics, and many did. This is just one example; there are other similar stories in the US livestock sector, that we definitely do not want to import, for public health reasons. Just in case you think I am a cuddly animal crusader, think again. I (a retired agronomist) usually buy eggs from caged hens. If the hens were that unhappy they'd go off lay and that affects profit so no one would use cages. "Free range" doesn't mean a wander round the farmyard; more like access to a small prison exercise yard. It certainly does not look like the pictures on the egg box! Animal welfare in the legislation sense relates to the practice of animal husbandry - the scientific techniques of animal production. Albeit that the RSPCA would investigate you for cruelty for too enthusiastically thrashing your stock with a large stick...

But the Americans do have nice clean shiny eggs.

 

[MarkDennehy]

This underestimates the power of retailers and wholesalers in the food supply chain.

So when Uber was starting its "we're not a taxi company so we don't have to adhere to taxi company laws" business plan in the US, everyone there referred to it as "chickenisation" which I didn't understand because I thought Uber invented the practice of saying that its drivers were not employees, but independent contractors that had a contract with Uber; I learned that I was utterly wrong, they'd just stolen the idea from the chicken industry.

Turns out, the entire chicken industry in the US is currently three companies that do to farmers what Uber does to drivers. In effect, it's a monopoly arrangement - if you're a US chicken farmer, you have a single company that you can deal with to get your chickens to market; the others won't deal with you or use the Irish Insurance trick of quoting a price that is so high it's silly. So you wind up in a contract with the chicken packing company that says who you buy chicks from, how you feed them, how much light they get per day, what vets you can use and what treatments they must administer, they (the packing company) design the coops you have to get a loan to build, and you have to sign up to an NDA so you can't publicly complain and you can't sue in court because the contract specifies an non-court arbitration mechanism for disputes. And you don't get a specified price for the chicken until after you ship it off, so you never earn enough to get out from under. It's a remarkably durable system (if you're a chicken packer). Agriculture in the US has a really high rate of deaths at work, mainly because of suicide, and chicken farmers top the tables for suicide.

The laws on animal welfare prevent all of this from happening in Ireland or the EU in general. Removing them is like undoing your seatbelt while driving. It's not immediately fatal to do so, but if there wasn't a law against doing it, your annual deaths from road accidents goes up becuase Humans Gotta Human. Similarly, if you make it legal to do what has been done in the US, well, people will want to do it because it makes them a lot of money legally.

From the point of view of your average person, this is really bad for farmers. But it's also really bad from the point of view of your average chicken eater because those companies want maximised profit, and producing chicken which is 100% safe to eat is expensive; and if they can control the rules of the game the way they do, well, you just say that 99% safe to eat is legal and away you go.

I guess if you're a vegan who doesn't worry about farmers, it's not a big deal.

 

[artie]

But the Americans do have nice clean shiny eggs.

I eat nice shiny eggs as well.
Straight from the bum of my flock of truly free range hens.
All four of them roam free from dawn to dusk on nice clean grass.
When I say straight I do of course mean via pot or pan.

 

[sploo]

The laws on animal welfare prevent all of this from happening in Ireland or the EU in general. Removing them is like undoing your seatbelt while driving. It's not immediately fatal to do so, but if there wasn't a law against doing it, your annual deaths from road accidents goes up becuase Humans Gotta Human. Similarly, if you make it legal to do what has been done in the US, well, people will want to do it because it makes them a lot of money legally.

From the point of view of your average person, this is really bad for farmers. But it's also really bad from the point of view of your average chicken eater because those companies want maximised profit, and producing chicken which is 100% safe to eat is expensive; and if they can control the rules of the game the way they do, well, you just say that 99% safe to eat is legal and away you go.

Perfectly summarised, and exemplifies the size/influence issue I brought up earlier in the thread; if individuals or corporations can influence national governments to relax standards (such that it allows them to increase profit) they will. A benefit of a large, lumbering organisation such as the EU is that it's just that much harder to influence, as you'd have to threaten/bribe/squeeze so many different people in so many different nations that it's just that bit more difficult to get the kind of power that you might have over a single national government. Note that I'm not claiming there's no corruption in the EU - far from it; just that it's harder for "The Chicken CoOp Inc Ltd Of-Your-Country" to massage enough MEPs to pass that chlorine hose bill that'll allow the CEO to buy another yacht this year

 

[doctor Bob]

I buy good food. I'm slim, but only because of my work and exercise, I eat like a horse.
A large proportion of the population don't care what they eat, you just have to look around.
Harlow is my local takeaway empire, gregs, street grazers, etc etc, it's an eyeopener.

 

[MarkDennehy]

BTW, just to abuse a deceased ungulate (to stay roughly on tone if not on theme), this is the kind of thing I was talking about with regard to Tesla:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a...cars-after-concluding-theyll-inevitably-fail/

 

[alexalexander]

But the Americans do have nice clean shiny eggs.

and remember that egg shells are porous and whatever they were washed in would have seeped inside.

 

[RobinBHM]

Similarly, if you make it legal to do what has been done in the US, well, people will want to do it because it makes them a lot of money legally

I have nothing against legitimate discussions about Brexit, but what is frustrating is that the Leave campaign was made up of disparate groups. Some honestly believed UK would be better outside Europe.

However a significant amount of the Leave campaign was driven not by ideology but simple greed.
Brexit is for a large part a vehicle for deregulation. Many of the Brexit so called think tanks are nothing more than lobby groups often funded by US libertarian groups.

Brexit removes the checks and balances from government, allowing the executive to avoid scrutiny and deregulate for self interest. Opening up the UK Market to USA food and private healthcare will result in lucrative deals for those with the right connections.

Brexit was sold as the UK getting back control, but it's really about those in power taking back control for personal gain. Covid emergency legislation was a rather good example of how deregulation enables contracts with no scrutiny.






Here is an extract from Desmog.com

"If you have detected a distinctly American flavour to the rampant lobbying in Westminster corridors over a Brexit deal, there is a good reason why.

A close look at the transatlantic connections of the London-based groups pushing for the most deregulated form of Brexit reveals strong ties to major US libertarian influencers. These include fossil fuel magnates the Koch brothers — known for funding climate science denial around the world — and the man who bankrolled Donald Trump’s campaign, Robert Mercer.

At the heart of this network lies a little-known power couple, Matthew and Sarah Elliott. Together, the husband and wife team connect senior members of the Leave campaign and groups pushing a libertarian free-market ideology from offices in Westminster’s Tufton Street to major US libertarian lobbyists and funders.

Collectively, the network aims to use Brexit as an opportunity to slash regulations in the UK, paving the way for a wide-ranging US-UK free-trade deal that could have disastrous consequences for the environment.

The current draft withdrawal agreement appears to try and provide some protection for the current level of environmental regulation — at least in principle. But politicians associated with this transatlantic network are lobbying hard for the draft deal to be scrapped, along with those protections.

This DeSmog UK investigation reveals the strength of the ties between Matthew and Sarah Elliott, UKlobbyists and politicians, and US groups with vested interests in fossil fuels keen to profit from deregulation.

It shows how organisations with strong ties to the Koch Brothers and Robert Mercer increased their political activities in the UK immediately before and after the Brexit referendum.

And it uncovers US libertarian spending patterns that show increased resources flowing into Europe prior to and around the time of the Brexit referendum, as pro-Brexit groups with ties to the Elliotts in the UK saw their budgets balloon."
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/11/18...libertarians-and-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-brexit

 

[sploo]

I have nothing against legitimate discussions about Brexit, but what is frustrating is that the Leave campaign was made up of disparate groups. Some honestly believed UK would be better outside Europe.

However a significant amount of the Leave campaign was driven not by ideology but simple greed.
Brexit is for a large part a vehicle for deregulation. Many of the Brexit so called think tanks are nothing more than lobby groups often funded by US libertarian groups.

Brexit removes the checks and balances from government, allowing the executive to avoid scrutiny and deregulate for self interest. Opening up the UK Market to USA food and private healthcare will result in lucrative deals for those with the right connections.

Brexit was sold as the UK getting back control, but it's really about those in power taking back control for personal gain. Covid emergency legislation was a rather good example of how deregulation enables contracts with no scrutiny.






Here is an extract from Desmog.com

"If you have detected a distinctly American flavour to the rampant lobbying in Westminster corridors over a Brexit deal, there is a good reason why.

A close look at the transatlantic connections of the London-based groups pushing for the most deregulated form of Brexit reveals strong ties to major US libertarian influencers. These include fossil fuel magnates the Koch brothers — known for funding climate science denial around the world — and the man who bankrolled Donald Trump’s campaign, Robert Mercer.

At the heart of this network lies a little-known power couple, Matthew and Sarah Elliott. Together, the husband and wife team connect senior members of the Leave campaign and groups pushing a libertarian free-market ideology from offices in Westminster’s Tufton Street to major US libertarian lobbyists and funders.

Collectively, the network aims to use Brexit as an opportunity to slash regulations in the UK, paving the way for a wide-ranging US-UK free-trade deal that could have disastrous consequences for the environment.

The current draft withdrawal agreement appears to try and provide some protection for the current level of environmental regulation — at least in principle. But politicians associated with this transatlantic network are lobbying hard for the draft deal to be scrapped, along with those protections.

This DeSmog UK investigation reveals the strength of the ties between Matthew and Sarah Elliott, UKlobbyists and politicians, and US groups with vested interests in fossil fuels keen to profit from deregulation.

It shows how organisations with strong ties to the Koch Brothers and Robert Mercer increased their political activities in the UK immediately before and after the Brexit referendum.

And it uncovers US libertarian spending patterns that show increased resources flowing into Europe prior to and around the time of the Brexit referendum, as pro-Brexit groups with ties to the Elliotts in the UK saw their budgets balloon."
https://www.desmog.co.uk/2018/11/18...libertarians-and-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-brexit

Chilling, but absolutely no surprises. The drive for deregulation for the purposes of profit was pretty clear right from the start of the Brexit campaigning; it's just taken time to unweave the threads of exactly who was funding what.

 

[McAldo]

My DPD Local parcel to Italy got returned to me for the third time.
Even DPD customer care have given up on it, and insist they would like to send me a refund.
I guess it is just getting expensive for them to keep collecting it just to give up because of delays at the HUB. They will not give me any details but looking at the tracking it seems every time the thing gets delayed, so I guess it costs them too much to keep it in the warehouse or in a truck queueing.

What a pain in the backside..
I will need to try some alternative service without even knowing if it will make any difference.
I guess an air delivery would work, but it would also cost double the value of the item (an old floor tom drum which is not made anymore, my friend is in love with it because it is a perfect match for his old drumset. As a musician I appreciate that, but surely this is turning into a nightmare).

 

[Jacob]

Ultimately that will be down to the consumer. I......

Except for those who don't know what they are getting or can't afford premium prices.
Relaxing regulations affects the poorest and most disadvantaged first. It also gives greater economic power to those who want to reduce standards and it becomes a downward spiral.
It's an old story, twas ever thus.

 

[Rorschach]

Except for those who don't know what they are getting or can't afford premium prices.
Relaxing regulations affects the poorest and most disadvantaged first. It also gives greater economic power to those who want to reduce standards and it becomes a downward spiral.
It's an old story, twas ever thus.

You think I can afford premium prices!

 

[jcassidy]

I believe that Thomann are doing the UK VAT collection for orders <£135; so they'll remove the German VAT, charge the UK VAT, add a fee for the hassle of the UK related paperwork, and send it. Over £135 the rules are different; plus I guess those sort of orders would likely go via a courier; who will charge their own fees for the paperwork.

The £135 limit is because, after this, HMRC will apply customs and duties, and that's an entire encyclopedia of rates and levies and it's not worth Thomann's time tryingn to figure out which HMRC may or may not apply to any given pakcage.

I don't know exactly how a low value (e.g. tens of GBP) package will be marked for shipping into the UK; I mean, how do the authorities know if the EU seller has already collected the UK VAT on behalf of HMRC? I assume that would be stated on paperwork - but paperwork with every small value order is going to be a nightmare of bureaucracy and extra cost.

I've found that for items under the VAT limit (£22 or thereabouts), I actually save money on Amazon.co.uk as they remove the UK VAT and there is no Irish VAT applicable. Everything over £22 is not worthwhile buying. Can't wait for Amazon to open a fulfillment centre in Dublin - surely Amazon.ie is not far away!

 

[Jacob]

You think I can afford premium prices!

It's enough to turn you vegetarian! Grass is a bit boring though - must dig out some grass recipes.

 

[sploo]

The £135 limit is because, after this, HMRC will apply customs and duties, and that's an entire encyclopedia of rates and levies and it's not worth Thomann's time tryingn to figure out which HMRC may or may not apply to any given pakcage.

Yep. At least there is a bit of common sense there (no extra duty on orders <£135).

 

[Droogs]

You think I can afford premium prices!

If anything in your shopping cart is branded with anything other than "Tesco Basics", Then yeah you can afford premium prices as far as about 9 million others in the UK are concerned.

just reread that and it comes accross as a personal dig which is not meant Rorschach - collective you/we sort of thing

 

[doctor Bob]

Don't get me started on food, diet, health.
This country is full of grazers, used to be 3 meals a day, now it's just graze all day long.
Eating crrap is a habit.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There are clearly deficiences in US agriculture. But in the UK most agricultural output is controlled by the major 5 supermarket chains that account for 75% of food sales.

The risks associated with poor agricultural practices have not been properly communicated - the result is fear mongering over chlorine washed chicken, rather than an informed debate over all real risks.

The government has control over food standards, BUT it needs to take its obligations seriously.

For the general public price is a major issue, and supermarkets will seek lowest possible cost suppliers. The public are unable to differentiate on the basis of appearance.

Those campaining for better standards have not put their message across in a way which motivates all to demand better and hold the government to account.