Brexit Orange Juice (and everything else) a complete rip off

[user1488581876]

I notice in the supermarket this morning that the 1 litre cartons of Tropicana juice are now either 950ml or 850mls. Of course, the price has remained the same.

Looking at the aisles in the supermarket this morning, I can see that products have been shrinking at a very dramatic rate in the last few months.

This surreptitious inflation (shrinkflation) seems to have got really out of hand at the moment.I get the impression the major retailers seem to have decided the Great British Public are complete fools and won't notice.

Ok Carol, that answers the import duty issue, how are you going to get around the weaker pound and the labour issues??

English people won't do the job for minimum wage.
It's seasonal and people won't do it for just 1 month or whatever.

Most horticultural jobs are now provided by the Gangmaster system, farmers have neither the time or experience to employ people on an individual basis. Remember that the old method of piece-work that historically was used to employ women and children during holidays is no-longer legal due to the minimum wage. Throw in the difficulties and delays in receiving benefits when people sign-on and off on JSA, apply for tax-credits etc, it is now practically impossible for someone, especially with a family, to make a regular living picking and packing veg/fruit.

Hence why most work is done by seasonal employees from Eastern Europe, they typically stay on-site in temporary accommodation, are usually single with no dependents living with them so can be flexible about hours and location of work on a daily basis.

So take in now most farms contract directly with supermarkets who will vary their orders on a daily basis and hence require a variable pool of labour provided by a 3rd party (gangmasters), the problems of securing a consistent income with the current benefit system it's hardly surprising that most of the work is done by foreign workers. Once they are gone, the cost of employment will rise, and hence the price of food.

BTW, this is based on my knowledge of fruit farming in Herefordshire, it may be different elsewhere.

YY Ifailed. Also a social housing tenant wouldnt be able to leave their flat for a long period to live on site.
They would end up losing their flat.

At the moment, tax from economic activity across the UK as whole is often recorded by corporate HQs located in London and the South East.

After Brexit, this would turn around. Corporate HQs would move from London to an independent Scotland and would be recorded in Scotland instead.

An independent Scotland would do very well indeed from this.

user If scotland becomes an independent country then transfer pricing rules will apply and tax cannot be easily moved between countries.

travelling There are swings and roundabouts with sterling exchange rates. Lower sterling helps exports, jobs, balance of payments etc. Many organisations were complaining the pound was too high before Brexit. there is no 'ideal' exchange rate.

It is a shame Ta1king can't join us.

I'm here. Still trying to find links on vehicle movements.
And amazed that you think prices will go down not up on imports after brexit as all the tariff free stuff will have tariffs on it.

Good afternoon caroldecker
Here you go

Number of truck shipments per year across the whole 3000 mile US / Canada border
5.6 million
ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/docs/13factsfigures/pdfs/fff2013_highres.pdf
page 51 - I cannot find the stats for the Seattle / Vancouver crossings alone.

Number of truck shipments per year through the two road lanes of Dover Harbour entrance
2.6 million
www.doverport.co.uk/about/performance/

Customs clearance alone will add significantly to the time and costs of import and export after a hard Brexit
let alone the fact that both Dover and Calais have built other stuff on their customs clearance areas
and the Channel Tunnel never had them

Ta1king Glad your back. Tariff free items will not necessarily have tariffs - that is the point. We can make, for example, wine tariff free. European wine will then be the same price whilst US and Aussie wine will be cheaper - cost saving.
Also sugar - taken from this government paper on changes to EU rules:

Import restrictions on raw and white sugar, as well as other factors such as costs of transportation, are however likely to continue to keep the price of sugar higher than would otherwise be the case even after quotas have been removed. Post-2017, EU white sugar prices are projected around 15% above world prices.

Most sugar will also come from developing countries, so they will be richer. Cane sugar from abroad is also less energy intensive to refine, so an environmental benefit. There will be some impact on a small number of sugar beet farmers, but mainly a win/win/win.

Dover and the channel tunnel have many checking areas that can be used for customs as lorries are often stopped and searched for migrants, drugs etc. Most lorries will do no more than they currently do for passport checks. See this border crossing guide which states trucks normally stop just once.
www.niagarafallsbridges.com/ this is just one of many websites showing crossing times - currently no delay.

The vast majority of the 32,000 vehicles that cross the Washington border every day pass through the Peace Arch, Blaine, Lynden or Sumas ports. So 8,000 a day each. At 24 hours a day that is 300 an hour or 5 a minute. Hardly long delays.

caroldecker
If we put a zero tariff on imported sugar the farming industry in Lincolnshire will be crippled
job losses
increased benefits needed
bad thing

If we have a zero tariff on imported wine then booze prices will fall by 75%
so consumption will rise
increasing pressure on the NHS
bad thing

Why on earth would the UK unilaterally reduce tariffs on imports :
that's called making the deficit worse.

Surely the point will be to keep the tariffs the same and thus have more money coming back into the UK's balance of payments £350 million a week we were promised

1,400 people work in sugar beet farming, so hardly a disaster. Farmers make less than 10% of thier money from agriculture - 90% is from CAP payments (fullfact link. so no real hardship anyway.
However, zero tariffs will help alleviate the 200,000 people being driven to poverty by the EU reforms of production quotas of subsidised sugar beet Fairtrade article. I personally do not like to be involved in isolationist, xenophobic policies such as EU agricultural duties.
Farmers make less than 10% of thier money from agriculture - 90% is from CAP payments (fullfact link. so no real hardship anyway.
Cheaper wine does not necessarily lead to more NHS issues - it is much cheaper on the continent with no issues.

carol
You set great store in the CAP payments.
How will they carry on if the £350 million is to be reclaimed ???
After all its an EU project

and surely lots of the "take back control" brigade will want to save jobs in the UK rather than support overseas production.

Cheaper wine does not necessarily lead to more NHS issues - it is much cheaper on the continent with no issues.
Hmmm, and your evidence for that in Latitudes north of 46 is ......

The cheaper shops are no longer cheap... Aldi, Lidl, Home Bargains. I can't make my money stretch forever

Our Lidl no longer have the buckets of Greek yogurt and the individual bakery items that were 39p have gone up to 45p. Just two changes I noticed this week.

I do not support CAP or agricultural subsidies - my point was food should be cheaper without affecting farmers in the UK and boost poorer countries trade.
The fact remainers want to support white European farmers rather than black third world farmers is a mystery to me.

And cost the UK poor money to do so.

The fact remainers want to support white European farmers rather than black third world farmers is a mystery to me.

And there it is.
If you push any leaver hard enough it all comes down to racism and xenophobia.

Ivy I agree, the EU is fundamentally racist and xenophobic. The implication is that Remainers are the same. Not all are, many are ignorant to the racism built into the EU - but many want to share time/space/waelth with those like them and not with 'others' outside the EU.
Why is Turkey, for example, in the customs union but has no FoM even though they want it, but Switzerland, which refuses to join the customs union and, in a referendum, voted against FoM is not allowed to apply it?
The four freedoms don't appear to apply unless countries are predominantly white.

Turkey has a long list of requirements to meet before talks can begin on it applying to become a member of the EU. I doubt they will be met in my lifetime. The requirements are the same for any country that wants to apply. I imagine an implicit one is that the country must be in Europe, at least partly. Most people in Europe are white .

It is so very odd that you have decided to start talking about race Carol. Have you run out of ideas? Your last post seems a bit muddled. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that the muddling is involuntary.

By asserting, here and elsewhere, that Europeans are white, you show yourself up as racist, Caroldecker.

I did not start a discussion on race. Ta1king did that.
I sai nothing about Turkey joining the EU. I mentioned Switzerland as that is out of the EU.
If FoM is so important, why is i not allowed with Turkey and forced on Switzerland?

Is that you claig???

We can make, for example, wine tariff free.

In the same way that we could spend £350m week on the NHS (but won't)

Round at my parents earlier i was having a moan about my organic Weetabix when my DM produced an unopened box from the dining room and told me i could have it.

On the front of the box near the top is GB_ORG-05 EU agriculture. This is not on a box of regular Weetabix.

twofingers The 2 are not comparable. 0% import duty on wine makes sense, the £350 was always bollocks.
helena That is labelling a product as organic, as verified by the Soil Association.