Customs declarations and brexit

[Phil Pascoe]

It got to Barcelona, so it's not the fault of Britain or Brexit.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Quite obviously you could have had the same level of co-operation without a central body / title.

I mean, its not a mathematical impossibility.

Or were you wanting to discuss probabilities?

Straightforward question.

 

[sploo]

Can you name one good thing that's come out of the EU that couldn't have been done without the existence of the EU?

That probably depends on what you define "the EU" to be?

I mean, you could have this useful harmonisation of standards (leading to frictionless trade) by having some other group of nations come together to agree on a common set of standards. Obviously then you need some way of discussing, negotiating and voting on changes, and bodies that handle disputes in a way that the various members consider to be fair. Pretty quickly you start to approach some sort of Union of European countries... if you get my point.

 

[Cooper]

Lots of passion on both sides of the discussion and also lots of reasoned points of view. What I am interested in is have any of us changed our minds about the referendum result, as a consequence of Johnson's extremely hard Brexit deal? Are they any remainers who are happy with the deal? Are there any leavers who wish we were still members?
Personally I am a passionate European and really resent losing my citizenship but would be prepared for the UK to be part of EFTA as we were before joining the Common Market. That would solve the Northern Ireland boarder issue and the difficulties of small exporting businesses etc. I know to do this would cause some embarrassment to Johnson but the way he leads his private life he seems immune to that.

 

[julianf]

Straightforward question.

I know my mobile operator has put up their roaming charges by about 300% since Brexit. So, if you want an easy, insignificant one, there's one for starters.

I mention this to avoid the "well we could have done that anyway" response, as, this is an example of something that was done as a result of the EU, and has now been lost as a result of us leaving. So, clearly, it was as a result of the EU, and not just "something we could have done regardless"

The problem is your question is generally unprovable - anything that anyone mentions can be responded to with the comment "well we could have done that". Its one of those things that just can not be proven.

You can look at a massive list of things that have been improved by the EU governance, and then watch issues arrise as we move away from that cooperation, but, again, your actual question is not a "Straightforward question" at all, as it can have no provable answer, without, maybe a time machine and a parallel universe for testing.


What is, however, provable is the troubles we are facing as we move away from the EU. A tiny personal, but very provable example is my tracking link posted above. There would have been no customs check prior to our departure, and therefore the mode of failure would not have been present.

 

[RobinBHM]

Can you name one good thing that's come out of the EU that couldn't have been done without the existence of the EU?

Yes

The Single Market.
It made is as easy to order something from Bristol as Berlin.


The ability to freely live, work, retire in 28 countries.

The considerable transformation of Eastern European countries

The Everything But Arms programme helping poor African countries.

 

[julianf]

Lots of passion on both sides of the discussion and also lots of reasoned points of view. What I am interested in is have any of us changed our minds about the referendum result, as a consequence of Johnson's extremely hard Brexit deal? Are they any remainers who are happy with the deal? Are there any leavers who wish we were still members?
Personally I am a passionate European and really resent losing my citizenship but would be prepared for the UK to be part of EFTA as we were before joining the Common Market. That would solve the Northern Ireland boarder issue and the difficulties of small exporting businesses etc. I know to do this would cause some embarrassment to Johnson but the way he leads his private life he seems immune to that.

Common market required synchronisation of standards, and good old england wasnt going to be told what to do by no Johnny foreigner.

(which is the basic, arrogant, nature of brexit)

So now we are not in the common market, but have to synchronise standards in order to be able to trade (ie same thing) but with all the additional complications.

But "the french" cant tell us what to do! (they just wont buy our stuff unless we do what they say - and now, of course, we have no say in it either - the irony of "taking back control")

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes

The Single Market.
It made is as easy to order something from Bristol as Berlin.


The ability to freely live, work, retire in 28 countries.

The considerable transformation of Eastern European countries

The Everything But Arms programme helping poor African countries.

All of which didn't need the existence of the EU.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Common market required synchronisation of standards, and good old england wasnt going to be told what to do by no Johnny foreigner.

Curious, really - we abide by the standards of every Country we trade with.

 

[rafezetter]

It is indeed hard to explain to people the benefits of EU membership when the vast majority of the public were and still are blissfully unaware of them.

Ive yet to have a discussion with a brexiter who has any understanding of how the Single Market works.

The common rulebook is misunderstood and is commonly called "EU bureaucracy"
What the EU have done is take national standards, industry standards and written them into a standard format so they are harmonised.....thats a lot of work and in that sense the EU are bureaucratic.

BUT, once those standards are all common to the 28 countries...each business can trade freely without trade barriers.

It enable small and medium businesses and consumers to buy and sell throughout EU with no trade barriers


In simple terms the Single Market front loads the bureaucracy so businesses can sell and buy with no barriers




And the reason why a politician cant make a case for it: because its technical, its complicated, its boring and so not easy to sell as a political slogan.

however "get back control" "get back sovereignty" etc etc is easy to sell.....even though it is meaningless and falls apart under scrutiny and is demonstrably untrue

Nice - all good and all but the EU is NO LONGER JUST ABOUT THE SINGLE MARKET.

If it was we would still be part of it - and I would have voted to STAY, abd I'm pretty confident most other brexiters would have as well - but the reality is it isn't, just the SM and hasn't been for quite some time, or would you care to explain why there are still several countries that have only "one foot" inside the EU door and the other one firmly out. They joined after us, saw that they only wanted the "single market" bit and ignored the rest.

We would have liked a renegotiated agreement where we had the same deal, but the EU - in thier "infinite wisdom", and I use the term very loosly, decided it was stay or leave, with nothint else on the table, hoping to call our bluff, well, they lost and are now being asshats about it.

Tell me again how the "the EU are our friends".

Those leading the EU are idiots, they SHOULD have just allowed the UK to move to a similar deal and kept the trade, but they didn't for fear that many other countries would follow suit EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS THE ENTIRE REASON FOR IT'S CREATION IN THE FIRST PLACE, and they would have lost thier other forms of leverage, and benefits like free travel of people, including all those leaving thier countries, because they own economies are failing and come to the UK and Germany for work.

It gave them an easy reason not to do much about it, AND those people working outside France and Spain and Poland, were still sending oney earned in the UK back to thier home countries, thus sucking even more life out of the UK - which they were perfecty happy about.

And no, I don't beleive there are more UK people working in the EU than the other way around, thus the "money funnel" is to our benefit, not by a mile.

The EU has been treating the UK as a resource to be mined until empty, our fishing, our jobs, our housing, our schools and our NHS.

They told us we had to keep OUR borders open so that those that would otherwise live in Spain or France or Germany, come here instead where it was historically much easier for them to get all the benefits of a first world nation.

I firmly beleive the EU in it's current form WILL fail, because "the plan" is too at odds with many of the member nations needs.

It should have just stuck to the single market - but Germany (as usual) got greedy.

 

[willsie01]

As Ive mentioned, I have a gripe with those claiming "we must move on"....for the simple reason until the truth is told, we cant find solutions

here is a news article so typical of the misinformation put out by sections of the media:
'My profit has been wiped out by a £250,000 cost': EU's new export rules leave small British firms struggling
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/m...les-leave-small-British-firms-struggling.html
it is blatant gaslighting.

For clarity, these are not new rules. They are existing rules. What has changed is the UK has moved from being in the Single Market to becoming a 3rd country.


I wonder if any brexiters on this forum would agree that the way to move forward is for honesty to replace the emotive sloganeering.

Until people accept the truth about the reality of trade barriers between NI and GB we cant build any solutions

What? There are brexiteers on this forum? Weird. I assumed those joining this forum, given its nature, would be those inclined to rely on empirical evidence.

 

[Jester129]

It was supposedly a Common Market that we joined all of those years ago. It changed to the EEC and then to the EU.
A European Union ruled generally by Merkel & Macron (and look how he turned on us to make himself appear strong in an election year).

Personally I'm just sick and tired of someone that was allowed back in here diving into Brexit at every opportunity, irrespective of what the thread is to do with! Please MODERATORS, do something about it. DoctorBob, I really want to say more, but I can't.

 

[sploo]

All of which didn't need the existence of the EU.

But as already pointed out in this thread; they came about with the EU, and otherwise would have required some sort of other group of nations getting together (with necessary rules, votes, agreements, etc. etc.); all of which gets you back to something that looks like the EU.

 

[sploo]

Curious, really - we abide by the standards of every Country we trade with.

Not sure what you're getting at with that? But, yes, we probably do abide by the standards of countries we deal with; it's just a darn sight easier when all those countries (including ourselves) have the same standards - as it means the burden of bureaucracy is essentially removed from those just trying to get on with trading.

 

[julianf]

It got to Barcelona, so it's not the fault of Britain or Brexit.

I didn't even see this comment before. Its amazing.

I know, in your head, its the foreigners fault again. And i can see your logic there, clearly.

But the reality is that its brexit thats now causing me to have packages lost by foreign customs departments, as, prior, i didnt have to deal with them at all.

Customs departments loose goods. Our own internal mail system is not infallible. The more checks, bottle necks, paperwork, the more issues. Be it at home, or abroad.

Brexit has caused more of these checks, bottlenecks, paperwork etc so has increased the number of issues. I know you're still feeling "but its the Spanish" and, yes, clearly the item disappeared in Spain... Being processed through a system that just wasn't needed to be used by us previously.

 

[RobinBHM]

Curious, really - we abide by the standards of every Country we trade with.

and which of those countries have clubbed together to harmonise standards to remove trade barriers?

A =27 counties of the European Union

 

[RobinBHM]

All of which didn't need the existence of the EU.

yeah....nicely set up strawman.

one thing though, you rather prove my point: brexiters dont understand the Single Market and dont want to.

 

[Jacob]

Can you name one good thing that's come out of the EU that couldn't have been done without the existence of the EU?

One big one which was certainly backed up by the EU was of course GFA. In fact the pacification of Europe is the big bonus and sufficient reason on its own.
There were of course a whole mass of mutually beneficial agreements over thousands of issues, not just trade but education, research, cultural, free movement, alignment over health and welfare care, alignment over higher standards for safety, food, and so on.
Arguably these could all have been done without EU membership - but membership was the vehicle, the means to the end, the seat at the table. Choosing not to being a participant in the process of formulating these things is basically pretty stupid.

 

[sploo]

Nice - all good and all but the EU is NO LONGER JUST ABOUT THE SINGLE MARKET.

If it was we would still be part of it - and I would have voted to STAY, abd I'm pretty confident most other brexiters would have as well - but the reality is it isn't, just the SM and hasn't been for quite some time, or would you care to explain why there are still several countries that have only "one foot" inside the EU door and the other one firmly out. They joined after us, saw that they only wanted the "single market" bit and ignored the rest.

We would have liked a renegotiated agreement where we had the same deal, but the EU - in thier "infinite wisdom", and I use the term very loosly, decided it was stay or leave, with nothint else on the table, hoping to call our bluff, well, they lost and are now being asshats about it.

Tell me again how the "the EU are our friends".

Those leading the EU are idiots, they SHOULD have just allowed the UK to move to a similar deal and kept the trade, but they didn't for fear that many other countries would follow suit EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS THE ENTIRE REASON FOR IT'S CREATION IN THE FIRST PLACE, and they would have lost thier other forms of leverage, and benefits like free travel of people, including all those leaving thier countries, because they own economies are failing and come to the UK and Germany for work.

It gave them an easy reason not to do much about it, AND those people working outside France and Spain and Poland, were still sending oney earned in the UK back to thier home countries, thus sucking even more life out of the UK - which they were perfecty happy about.

And no, I don't beleive there are more UK people working in the EU than the other way around, thus the "money funnel" is to our benefit, not by a mile.

The EU has been treating the UK as a resource to be mined until empty, our fishing, our jobs, our housing, our schools and our NHS.

They told us we had to keep OUR borders open so that those that would otherwise live in Spain or France or Germany, come here instead where it was historically much easier for them to get all the benefits of a first world nation.

I firmly beleive the EU in it's current form WILL fail, because "the plan" is too at odds with many of the member nations needs.

It should have just stuck to the single market - but Germany (as usual) got greedy.

It's hard to know where to even start with that lot, given it appears to refer to a parallel universe.

Mining our NHS... by supplying lots of staff to help it run...

Keeping "OUR" borders open so people could live here instead of Spain... you have been following the news recently about those Brits living in Spain?

 

[Cooper]

Those leading the EU are idiots, they SHOULD have just allowed the UK to move to a similar deal and kept the trade

That sounds like the deal Cameron brought back from his negotiations with the EU but was rejected by his party. They even let the UK put a break on immigration from the EU (if it could be shown to damage employment opportunities here), which is the real reason lots of people wanted out in the first place.