To be furious at Brexit checks 'price you pay to be sovereign again'

[NoCloudsAllowed]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/31/uk-minister-andrea-leadsom-brexit-checks-price-you-pay-sovereign-state-again

Andrea Leadsom saying barrier checks are the price of sovereignty.

This is not what they promised, is it? The bare faced lies of it all. They've delayed introducing checks because they knew they couldn't square it with Leave campaign promises. In the end, the issue of NI was only solvable by these checks.

This is supposed to cost £330m a year. It will make food more expensive and supply less reliable. There is zero, absolutely zero, benefit to the country. It's just a direct detriment imposed because they can't accept the whole thing is a fuck up.

They never actually express what this sovereignty is supposed to do for us, or what was problematic about the EU rules. It's all on 'the principle of the thing'. Sovereignty won't feed hungry children, will it?

I think I'm just as piping mad about this as I was in 2016 - they're taking the whole country for fools.

Polls are SM fodder without a GE manifesto to vote for on it

Maybe the 63% of the 1280 people who completed the poll can tell us what is so amazing about the EU just right now that they insist that the UK absolutely has to rejoin it with all the costs and losses that would involve.

Those people gave their opinion to a poll. I don't think that counts as 'insisting'.

Maybe they read this -

The economy is between 4-6% smaller - 100 billion hit to prosperity. Leaving public finances less sustainable in part due to significant adverse impact on British trade.

www.ft.com/content/e39d0315-fd5b-47c8-8560-04bb786f2c13

We know it won't be happening, well.. not in my lifetime probably. But it does show (in a small sample,I grant you) that people like me are not happy with the decision. And if the Govt would just fess up and not make out that all is well, that would be a start. I'd accept that

Maybe the 37% can list all those amazing Brexit Benefits the UK is currently enjoying

Your FT article (2022) quotes economist Simon French from Panmure Gordon.
Is that the same Simon French who said this in 2023;

As Simon French, the chief economist and head of research at the investment bank Panmure Gordon was quick to note, the entire UK economic narrative, post-pandemic, has just been revised away. All those headlines about the UK economy not being back at pre-COVID levels, or bottom of the G7, are now obsolete.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-uk-actually-fared-much-better-after-covid-than-first-thought-heres-why-it-matters-12952220

The FT article promotes Mark Carney's nonsense comparison with Germany - debunked here;

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/11/brexit-damage-uk-economy-mark-carney

So I see none of the Brexit fanatics have answered the basic question:

What do we in the UK now that countries in the EU don't know?
Why is there no demand to follow the UK out?
Why are countries wanting to join?

They don't have control over their borders (except they do) and they don't control who can work in their countries (except they can). So why the heck are they still in the EU?

What do we know that they don't?
What do they know that we don't?

newbie82
Sadiq Khan intervened this month, claiming London’s economy, alone has shrunk by £30 billion

Sadiq Khan commissioned Cambridge Econometrics to produce the report.
I've just googled the company - I see they have an office in Brussels as well -where they carry out work for the European Commission;

https://www.camecon.com/news/new-brussels-office/

From November 2023 -

	Our estimates further suggest that three years after the transition period, UK real GDP is some 2-3 per cent lower due to Brexit, compared to a scenario where the United Kingdom retained EU membership. This corresponds to a per capita income loss of approximately £850.

Our estimates indicate that the negative impact of Brexit gradually escalates, reaching some 5-6 per cent of GDP or about £2,300 per capita by 2035. The reduction in real incomes resulting from the fall in the UK terms of trade associated with changes in trading relations with the European Union and the fall in productivity are the largest contributors to the estimated reduction in real GDP, with each accounting for over 2.5 percentage points.
www.niesr.ac.uk/about-us

Redpaisley
By and large EU has more buying power than UK, an example is Canada trying to sell inferior meat which it agrees to not sell in EU

I watched BBC News last night - they had a feature on the farmers' protests in Brussels - funnily enough 'cheap meat from Canada' was mentioned.

Have the Tufton Street gang not commissioned a report on how well the UK economy is doing after Brexit?

You do realise though that the EU deal means that there is no treated meat with hormones allowed in?

We couldn't negotiate that with Canada so the trade negotiations have stalled

Actually some people voted Leave not because of UK 'soverinty' but because of various displeasures with the EU itself and it's various structures, decision-making processes and direction(s).

Rather than being scared of Turkey joining (as I am assumed to think as a 'gammon' leaver) I was far more annoyed that the EU refused to accept Albania's application.

Fast forward a few years, post-Brexit, the EU farmers are rebelling, the European far right is gaining prominence, most recently in The Netherlands, Hungary is going hard-line (pro-Russian) and Italy has signed a 'Rwanda-style' asylum-seeker with Albania, considering it a safe country, which it is.

The circles go round and round and meanwhile what exactly does the EU actually do other than shake its fist at the people it presumes to represent?

Notonthestairs
compared to a scenario where the United Kingdom retained EU membership

How do we know the formula for the counterfactual is accurate? The doppelgänger UK doesn't exist.

by 2035

How many countries will have joined the CPTPP by 2035? Half a dozen countries (including China) have already made formal applications to join. Will the UK have a free trade deal with the US by 2035? Will the US apply to join the CPTPP? Will any member states leave the EU by 2035?

Will the EU have free movement of people with Albania or Serbia by 2035? Or Ukraine (population 40 million)? Who is going to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine? The EU?

"Rwanda-style' asylum-seeker with Albania, "

It's not a Rwanda style deal - successful asylum seekers have the opportunity to move to Italy.

TheHateIsNotGood
I was far more annoyed that the EU refused to accept Albania's application

Cross post.

So @Clavinova and @TheHateIsNotGood if the EU had accepted Albania as a member state you would have been happy staying in the EU?

Going back to the thread - what will be the impact of these new checks on the cost and supply of food from the EU?

It's also Italy who processes the claims.

Brexit has been a blow to UK trade, GDP and public finances.
We are a very long way from the suggestions of easiest ever trade deals, sunlit uplands, access to the single market and all the other lies told to voters.

Er - don't the asylum-seekers that the UK proposes to send to Rwanda also have the ability to return to the UK once their application has been processed eventually? I believe they will.

Anyway, Albania is pretty close to Italy, I've caught the ferry a few times. There is a saying "all the good Italian chefs are Albanian" and for bistro meals this could very well be true.

Hopefully, the UK will be signing a similar 'Albanian-style' asylum seeker agreement too; seeing as they've already agreed upon repatriation with much needed development funds too.

I don't know why people in the Netherlands would be feeling so smug - their government collapsed last year because of immigration. Now they've voted for some strange looking far-right guy - is he likely to be PM? Farmers in the Netherlands have been protesting for some months now as well;

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/16/nitrogen-wars-the-dutch-farmers-revolt-that-turned-a-nation-upside-down

"Er - don't the asylum-seekers that the UK proposes to send to Rwanda also have the ability to return to the UK once their application has been processed eventually? I believe they will."

No they dont. They get to stay in Rwanda.

According to the government, the costs will be at least £330m a year.

DuncinToffee
If the EU had accepted Albania as a member state you would have been happy staying in the EU?

I can only speak for myself - No.