AIBU to be worried about what the Director of the Food and Drink Federation said on the radio this morning?

[borntobequiet]

I get up early and like to listen to Farming Today on the radio (really interesting and informative about far more than just farming technicalities). This morning they interviewed Ian Wright, the director mentioned above. He was definite that leaving the EU without a deal would be devastating for both imports and exports. It would result in total logjams at ports, with just in time deliveries held up for considerable periods of time, and would impact very seriously on food availability in shops. This is all based on the government's own technical notices published recently. Here's a link to the programme (hope it works as they had an error message up earlier):
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q
And here is a link to the Food and Drink Federation's statement on their website:
www.fdf.org.uk/news.aspx?article=8062
What worries me most is that this doesn't seem to be properly reported on mainstream BBC programmes or in much of the print and broadcast media.

Given the pronouncements of Victor Orban and the like, nothing would surprise me.

If you saw on TV that people had run out of food and drugs and had nothing to eat and were dying in hospitals

If that really happened I'd expect to be watching something entirely different on TV. Riots and looting, civil unrest. Mrs May standing outside 10 Downing Street and an unhappy crowd baying for revenge - scenes reminiscent of Ceausescu's last speech.

[To avoid any doubt, I am not predicting that this will happen]

There is no blockade. It is the UK that is building the customs and regulations wall around the country - not the EU.

That is laughable and patently untrue. If we are in a situation where people in the U.K. were starving and dying it wouldn’t be UK customs officers who were stopping them from getting to us believe me. It would be a blockade and EU customs guards would be the ones stopping it.

It is nothing to do with the EU. The UK, as May keeps telling everyone, is leaving the EU on 29th March. After that, the consequences are entirely down to the decisions made by the UK government and 'the will of the people.'

Do you actually realise what you are saying?

Okay, lets get something straight. We have had a Democratic vote on whether or not we are going to leave the EU. We’re not proliferating nuclear weapons, we’re not threatening our neighbours. We’ve simply made a political decision which the EU doesn’t like.

I know you’ve dressed it up a bit, but what you have just said is that you believe that starving people or leaving them to die without medicine is an acceptable consequence and punishment for Brexit.

Now, I have a feeling that most people in the EU have a slightly more ethical attitude to you so I don’t think it will happen.

If you really believe that Brexit is a good reason for people to be left to starve and die I suggest you sit down and take a long hard look at yourself.

The EU is not refusing to allow the food through or holding it up - the bottleneck is on the UK side, caused entirely by UK government decisions.

This, apparently, is exactly the same as the EU blockading the UK - but, let's be clear, because it's written by a Leaver, it is not hysterical, mmm'kay?

Mrs May standing outside 10 Downing Street and an unhappy crowd baying for revenge - scenes reminiscent of Ceausescu's last speech.

What an utterly repellent and offensive comparison that is to make. Ceausescu was a dictator who murdered his own people. May is the elected PM of a democratic country carrying out the mandate voted for by our population.

That’s a crass comparison.

It would be a blockade and EU customs guards would be the ones stopping it.

No @Geraldine170 - it really wouldn't.

I know you’ve dressed it up a bit, but what you have just said is that you believe that starving people or leaving them to die without medicine is an acceptable consequence and punishment for Brexit.

Now, I have a feeling that most people in the EU have a slightly more ethical attitude to you so I don’t think it will happen.

If you really believe that Brexit is a good reason for people to be left to starve and die I suggest you sit down and take a long hard look at yourself.

At no point have I said any of these things. You seem unable to understand a rational argument and unwilling to engage in a polite debate.

@Geraldine170 - nice cut and paste to avoid the caveat.
You are really getting very worked up telling us all we are getting worked up over nothing.

And yes, if a country used trade rules to stop essentials arriving in another country leading to serious food shortages it would be a crime against humanity. The Irish famine is an exact example of that and was a crime against humanity

This is actually true, and I do get what you are saying. However, it's not just the EU. Many many agreements that the UK is party to are actually EU agreement with third countries. Those third countries will not deal with the UK if it has not replaced those agreements. So for example they may not allow UK planes to land, or allow their own places to take off to the UK if we have not put aviation agreements in place.

It's not just the EU. It's everyone else as well.

Sadly I think the rest of the world WOULD just look at the UK and laugh and say they brought it on themselves. Even though half of us didn't, and many people were denied a vote...

My hope is that the EU citizens living here who want to stay are now lobbying their governments to stop the EU tail wagging the member state dogs, and getting them to put peoples' needs ahead of dogma. And we should be doing the same. But as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on another thread, my MP is a smug leaver in a safe Tory seat so there's no point at all me contacting him. Even if there were a Corbyn landslide, he'd still be there, the last Tory MP in Westminster...

That is laughable and patently untrue. If we are in a situation where people in the U.K. were starving and dying it wouldn’t be UK customs officers who were stopping them from getting to us believe me. It would be a blockade and EU customs guards would be the ones stopping it.

Well lets imagine a situation where trucks are held up at the border for 5 hours either way.

That's usually an extra working day because of drivers' hours restrictions.

Any restrictions on food coming in to the country are entirely controllable by UK Customs. They can theoretically just wave it through (illegally and in breach of WTO regs) if they want.

Unfortunately the ferry bringing those trucks to the UK is the same ferry that should have docked in Calais 4 hours earlier and started to load trucks to come back to the UK. It can't load trucks from Calais because French Douane aren't just waving UK trucks through to France and there's a 5 hour delay on every ferry being disembarked.

Maybe we can easily find four times as many ferries as we're currently using on Dover-Calais. I imagine there's a cost implication even if we can though.

The idea that big businesses are trying to protect consumers is ridiculous. They see an opportunity to hike prices and use Brexit as the excuse to hide behind. I hope when we leave the EU we will be able to stop companies ripping us off like this.

Fishes

Presumably, that's a "blockade".

Have any of you thought how you would feel if this was another country?
I'd think that country had gone mad and brought its tribulations on itself.

I suspect that the Leavers on this thread will, mysteriously, not label language like "virtual holocaust," "blockade," "crime against humanity" and "most evil regime in history" as "hysterical/hyperbolic" scaremongering

Don't waste a bet on me; some of us are (I hope) capable of recognising those things no matter they come from

On a positive note, I've just got a great deal on a huge sack of rice. I use a LOT of rice, but if it turns out I need to conserve it for years - well, I guess the weevils will supply a little extra protein

Eyes much loved cats thoughtfully ...

Presumably, that's a "blockade".

Not at all. Our imaginary situation is that it takes 10 minutes for every truck to get through customs. That's a conservative 5 hours extra for every ferry to disembark, because there are currently not sufficient holding facilities at the ports. Nobody's 'blockading' anything, it's just that without those extra holding facilities we'll need a lot more ferries (and trains) to carry the goods.

I'm not trying to put a remain or leave spin on things here, it's just something I know about and there's a bit of maths and logic in there as well.

A "blockade" would be something deliberate.

Genuine question.why would we not be able to import food from the EU in the event of 'no deal' ?
I don't get it.Everyone is saying we would trade with EU on WTO terms

A "blockade" would be something deliberate

Very true

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-farmers-block-roads-in-protest-at-huge-drop-in-milk-and-pork-prices-following-russian-trade-a6875581.html
www.reuters.com/article/us-france-biofuels-protests/french-farm-union-calls-to-block-refineries-over-palm-oil-imports-idUSKCN1IW2DG
en.rfi.fr/20180131-french-farmers-protest-toulouse-EU-subsidies

I haven't watched it all the way through but this seems to be a clear and unbiased explanation of our trade relationship with the EU and how WTO rules work.

AFAIK yes we can trade with anyone, but either under WTO rules alone (which seems to be done only by Mauritania) or by negotiating free trade deals with them for more favourable terms, which take time and expertise to achieve. We have free trade agreements with much of the world in place already through the EU, including a recent one with Japan creating an open trade zone of over 600 million people - which we lose on leaving the EU.

@FruitofAutumn - we have to apply to get WTO trading, as I understand it.
In any event, even if we get imports from the EU, unless we have a free trade deal - with functioning contracts etc, we pay import duties on anything coming in. So prices go up. If we don't have import duties we screw up our WTO application.
But it'll be fine. Rich white men have said so. Don't worry. It's hysterical and unpatriotic to worry.

The agriculture sector in this country is very dependent on a profitable and efficient import/export system. If our farms become uncompetitive, and imports become a lot more expensive, then farms will go out of business and home-produced food will become a lot more expensive, or lower quality.

UK farmers are currently subsidised to the tune of £3 Billion a year, in various forms. It will be a painful process to shift this situation, and if they can't be competitive in global markets too, then UK farming is going to decline, fairly quickly.

(Also with wheat as an example, a lot of what we produce isn't of milling quality so we are very much reliant on imports).

A "blockade" would be something deliberate

Excuse me? Do you understand how this would happen? Do you think EU laws are like edicts from God and they just happen and once they are in place there is nothing anybody could do? They’re not.

If this were to happen it would have to be through a deliberate act by the EU. There’s no other way it could happen unless they deliberately impeded trade.

Again, go and have a read about the Irish famine. Perhaps go and find your local Irish Community Centre and go in and announce that the Irish famine was nothing to do with the British because we only accidentally enforced the Corn Laws?

The only way this could happen is if EU officials acting under EU directives refused to allow essential goods in to the U.K. by imposing restrictive conditions on releasing them to us. The U.K. would never be the one to turn away supplies in that situation, it would only ever be the EU who would stop the flow of essentials.

If the EU was aware that dangerous levels of shortage were happening in the U.K. and refused to allow supplies to enter it would be literally genocidal. Nobody excuses the Irish Famine by saying their hands were tied by corn laws, nobody would excuse the EU if it said it was just following rules while people starved either.

I can’t understand how people could be daft enough to think this could happen and not be deliberate. Again that brings me back to remainers only pretending to believe this could happen. Surely if you think the EU is such a marvellous, efficient, kindhearted organisation you couldn’t also think they were incapable of ensuring that a neighbouring country could access the resources essential for life? It just makes no sense. Why on earth would people think an organisation which would do that was a good thing?

Anyway, I think I’m going to stop arguing about this because it’s pointless. I don’t for a second believe remainers believe this would happen, but I don’t for a second believe they would be honest about that either.