Tomorrow is a dark day for small businesses in the UK

[lostmybuttons]

I run a small business, mostly selling on Etsy. But as of tomorrow, Friday 13th December the introduction of the new GPSR legislation is creating such a huge headache for businesses like mine.

We can no longer sell to the EU or Northern Ireland, without paying for an appointed representative to ensure our products are safe. The cost for this is completely unachievable for most businesses like mine. Obviously, we all want our products to be as safe as possible but is it right that it'll cost me at least £2,000 a year to tell me my paper stationery is safe!!

Our only choice is to stop selling to the EU and Northern Ireland, which is a huge loss in income for those already struggling.

We feel like we are shouting into the void and absolutely no one is listening.

This is compounded by the fact that Etsy refuse to separate Northern Ireland in our shipping settings, so by default we are all breaking the legislation and risking fine of up to £20,000.

All Etsy have advised is to cancel any NI orders, which frankly is terrible customer service.

If there was ever a time to shop independent, your small business friends need you now.

The Dublin stuff is to counter rubbish by another poster, i should have made that clear.

Don't be coy now with your insults. What exactly is 'rubbish'?

Otherwise you'd see a deterrent in the EU from it. And do you?

I don't usually engage with your posts but given your own incorrect posting below.

I’ve disabled all sales to the EU, EEA and NI for the foreseeable future.

I cannot believe that I cannot ship to part of the UK but there it is. Luckily most of my sales are outside that trading block so I’m not gping to be jumping through the hoops needed to restart sales.

Yes we can still sell to Canada ( and love to!). I just hope the rest of the world realises they can still ship to us, even if they can’t to most of geographic Europe.

Not a risk I can afford to take.

That's awful. Especially re NI which should be included in Uk rules.

All I can suggest is to put in big writing IM SO SORRY NEW LEGISLATION MEANS I CANNOT POST TO NI BUT I CAN POST TO A FRIEND ON THE UK MAINLAND IF YOU HAVE ONE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING MY SMALL BUSINESS AND IF YOURE AN NI RESIDENT WHO IS INCONVENIENCED BY THIS PLEASE WRITE TO X OR SIGN X PETITION

We can't do that without having a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, which would violate the treaty between the UK and the Republic.

which the UK as a matter of real-world commerce has had to accept.

But we "took back control" of our import policies, right? 🤦‍♀️

Thank you for that excellent rebuttal. You have saved me a lot of typing.

@TheQuirkyMaker Because the UK has left the EU, I cannot gift my cousin, who lives in Northern Ireland, a house plant that I propagated from one of my collection. I don't have any way to make the right kind of paperwork to prove that it is safe according to EU standards, and it would need that paperwork to cross the customs barrier that now exists between Great Britain and NI.

To be absolutely clear, I cannot send a Christmas flowering cactus as a gift from one part of my own country to another because of rules made by and for the EU without the UK's involvement.

This does not look like "taking back control" to me. This looks like surrendering control over internal movement of goods to the EU. "Surrendering" is the right word, we weren't forced to leave, we chose to through that referendum.

And if you think that moving the customs barrier to be between NI and the Republic is an option, you're wrong. The binding treaty known as "the Good Friday Agreement" prevents that, plus doing so would reignite The Troubles, turning my cousin's home back into a warzone.

All good points. But you must concede that we now have greater democracy and freedom, as we can now chose whether to follow EU law or not. It may be pragmatic to follow those laws, but we now have the choice.
And Michael Gove was spot on when he said we have the exact same rights to travel, work and live in EU countries (subject to some 90 day rules and other bits of red tape).
So pretty much all upsides and no downsides, as David Davis said.

Who is we? None of us have any freedom to follow rules now or not, thats down to politicians who we don't actually vote into cabinet positions or the civil servants who negotiate or decide these things.

The reality is there is no additional democracy at all.

You might also note that the UK had a host of opt outs for pretty much anything we didn't like, inc Worker rights and product safety.

Travel? to some extent but now limited. Work? no, far harder. Live? now only for those with a lot of money: to pay health insurance for periods over 90 days per year & to be self sufficient, there is also the taxation of money originating & taxed in the UK but transferred to an EU country, to be taxed again.

Gove, like Johnson, wont admit that Brexit was all a power play for them and had nothing to do with helping the UK, which is seeing a drop of GDP of around 4%.
Yet posters bang on about drops in GDP of 0.1% and how Labour is destroying the economy!!!

I understand you, keep going!

I think you live on a different planet tbh, you fail to comprehend so spectacularly.

Can't quite believe some people are still pretending Brexit has any upside at all! Talk about turkeys having voted for Christmas.

No, we don't.

And no, we really, really don't.

This sounds great - are you happy to tell us what the plug-in is?

Alexandra2001
On the Dublin agreement, isn't it funny that sending 200 migrants to Rwanda would stop cross channel migration but being sent back to a mainland European country from the UK, isn't any sort of deterrent at all?

We were only returning a few hundred asylum seekers per year back to mainland Europe under the Dublin agreement, but surely, most asylum seekers would much rather be sent back to somewhere in Europe than given a one way ticket to Rwanda - I know I would.

*the Dublin Agreement is useless when you've land borders and in Schengen, but that's not the case with the UK, so comparisons with the EU and their immigration problems are a red herring.^

Would you prefer to look at the Republic of Ireland?

2023
Only three people transferred by State to other EU countries last year under Dublin Regulation on asylum claims.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/02/07/three-people-transferred-to-other-states-in-2022-says-department-of-justice/

Anyone in doubt should look at numbers crossing pre 2021 and post 2021

Just a reminder that in 2020 there were 417,000 first-time asylum applicants in the EU, in 2022 881,000 and 2023 over 1 million.

Alexandra2001
Starmer has ruled out Erasmus, ruled out FOM for younger people

Starmer was quite clearly lying when he said he had ruled out a youth mobility scheme with the EU. On Erasmus, the EU wanted £2 billion for us to join the scheme - that would be a hard-sell to the British public when twice as many EU students come to us as go the other way.

I am totally unfamiliar with this so please excuse my ignorance. Does this apply to traders in the EU selling within the EU, or is it just because the UK is now outside the EU?

EAS is the name of the company who make the Shopify app. They also offer GPSR services to other marketplaces and platforms. Can’t yet vouch for it but I’ve registered and am waiting for their assessment of our products. Their EU VAT plugin has been excellent though.

Yes it is a policy to unite product safety regs in all member states as well as those countries that export to EU member states and NI.

It's to enforce equal compliance and plug any gaps that might exist in each member states own safety regulations so the EU and any country exporting to EU come under the same safety rules.

We don't have the choice because of the Good Friday Agreement. We cannot do anything that prevents free movement and free trade between NI and the Republic.

subject to some 90 day rules and other bits of red tape

Those "bits of red tape" have made it impossible for grassroots musicians to tour in the EU and for EU musicians to tour here.

We aren't in Erasmus any more, denying overseas study opportunities to British students.

The people of the UK have de facto lost freedoms. Not gained them.

Are you blaming the Good Friday Agreement for this mess?

True. The pp is also missing we had high asylum claims pre Brexit. The agreement was not a deterrent. Land border or not that's not its aim or outcome.

“The annual number of asylum applications to the UK peaked in 2002 at 84,132'

35k migrants crossing, 200 planned too but never set to Rwanda.

Sunak had the option to call the GE in October, giving us plenty of time to see this policy in action but he didn't, why? because he knew it wouldn't make any difference and more importantly, there wouldn't even have been any flights.

People bang on about Australia but are pulling the wool over our eyes, Australia sent back 100% of migrants and to a very remote island, more akin to a prison camp than the nice hotels in Rwanda, people went mad in these places, some even setting themselves on fire, such were the conditions...
its quite bizarre that people whose parents or themselves came here as migrants, perhaps even from Australia, want to subject people to this sort of thing.

But the bottom line is we had no cross channel migration pre the UK officially leaving the EU.

There is no point paying 1000s to cross but risk being sent back.

A million migrants claiming asylum in the EU and then trying to come here, would be exactly the same people who could have been sent back if we were still in the EU, you ve not made your argument stronger Clav.