Gove: "Post-Brexit talks: UK prepared to walk away in June if no progress"

[Miljea]

BBC News

Is this the Brexit you voted for, Leavers??

Seriously? Threatening the EU?

Text: "The UK has warned the EU it will walk away from trade talks in June unless there is a "broad outline" of a deal.

Michael Gove told MPs the UK wanted to strike a "comprehensive free trade agreement" in 10 months.

But the government would not accept any alignment with EU laws as the EU is demanding, with Mr Gove adding: "We will not trade away our sovereignty."

The EU has already set out its priorities ahead of the formal start of the talks on Monday."

One would almost think No Deal was precisely what we're heading for....

Maybe someone will come from the other side and tell us, in italics why this is great news.

Doubletrouble99
Those are the top 5 import products.
There are very many others, since the UK only produces just over 50% of its food.

£400m of fresh tomatoes imported yearly from the EU.

19% of UK fruit & veg imports come from Spain alone.
11% from NL.

Sure, you can argue that people will alter their diets to adjust to what's available, but the UK does not have the capacity, on any level, to produce any replacement crops in the next year or so. Or to suddenly have herds of cattle for beef. Where will they graze? Where will the pigs be raised for the pork? Pork that will, we are told, be produced in compliance with EU standards...The farming industry is very fragile and not prepared for a huge shift to provide replacement products for its domestic market.

Sure, we should all be eating locally produced food, but if your locality produces little or no food...
It's back to the turnip-eating argument again.

The UK imported 135m litres of French wine in 2018. Imagine the carbon footprint for equivalent imports of New World wines.

People seem unable to take on board that we have not been self - sufficient in food for a very long long time - probably a century and a half.

I would also suggest that we are not as prepare to put up with the monotonous diets of earlier years, nor do we do the manual work which would have worked off the calories of a carbohydrate heavy diet.

Still as long as we have blue passports and 'sovrenitee' non of this matters!

I'm not suggesting we can ever be self sufficient in food. However there are far too many products we import that we could easily produce so a really do think we need a rethink. I have no idea about the CAP and how that is distributed these days but there used to be a thing called set a side. Which paid farmers not to farm their land. If that's still the case then I would imagine the UK government won't be continuing that.

We could do with a rethink - but it can't be done in months. It needs planning, which smacks of socialism, or even of Communist five year plans!

Could you give some examples of products that we could produce that won't rely heavily on imported raw materials ?

I have no idea about the CAP and how that is distributed these days but there used to be a thing called set a side.
So you do not like EU rules and then quote one which was abolished over ten years ago
great

You make a statement saying we will still buy eu goods (such as German cars) but the EU has ‘plenty of alternatives’ to our goods? Is there any evidence for this or is it something you would like to be true?

What do we make that can't be bought elsewhere? honestly scratching my head, ARM chipsets? are saying the Swiss or Germans don't do precision engineering?
On the other hand we have no automotive sector, so everything is foreign owned and once we lose access to the SM, there isn't any reason to based in the UK, Teslas are far too expensive.

As for Airbus, once the current production cycle is done, the political pressure to move will be immense should the UK become a rival to the EU, UK companies long prevented from new tenders for Airbus.

What brexitiers seem to want is what we had minus the so called negatives, not going to happen unless we agree to be partners with the EU and we don't want that.

Yep sorry, Norway is in SM not CU.

If people are prepared to pay incredibly higher prices for milk, for vegetables etc then yes of course we can grow our own.

But people love Aldi and Lidl.

So....

Interestingly over supper tonight, DH and I agreed that we will only but UK reared free range meat from now on
(for culinary reasons)
so on the other days we will go veggie
BUT
we have access to a really good butcher
AND
can afford it

most have neither of the latter

But if the US deal insists we remove the info about where it was produced, none of us will be able to do that?

Humina - Why would we do that?

Peregrina - You ever heard the saying 'necessity is the mother of invention'. As for planning, well surely the Gov. can subsidise farming in such a way as to encourage the production of products we might need.

This article brilliantly outlines the realities of the UK's negotiations:

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2020/02/28/week-in-review-johnson-s-clown-car-government-is-veering-us

It also reveals what is government is attempting to keep quiet - dropping out of the unified patent system. An act of political vandalism, which one will really care about. But shows how Johnson would rather following ideology than do what is best for the country.

For those who don't read the whole thing, here is the last two paragraphs:

"That's two simultaneous talks in which Britain is by far the junior partner, against seasoned negotiators, operating under an impossible time frame, with a ministerial team selected for cattle-like obedience, a leadership strategy based on deception, and no basic grounding in empirical reality or the consequences of our actions.

The sheer scale of the inadequacy and irresponsibility is mind-boggling. A clown-car, tottering down a high speed motorway, surrounded by heavy-duty vehicles travelling at speed. And we are going to have to live with the outcome of these decisions for years."

You ever heard the saying 'necessity is the mother of invention'. As for planning, well surely the Gov. can subsidise farming in such a way as to encourage the production of products we might need.

Well yes, but not in the way that I think is meant.

The will be no subsidiary for farmers. The opposite is going to happen. DEFRA are going to reduce support for farmers by 5-25%.

southhamssociety.org/defra-confirms-reductions-in-support-for-farmers/

Defra is also reconciled to about 25% of farmers going out of business (to allow farms to be brought up by the American agricultural industry when food/agriculture is no longer aligned to the EU?).

hortnews.com/claims-defra-preparing-25-uk-farms-disappear/

When are people going to realise brexit is not for the benefit of the "people". The government are not going to help those hit by brexit. Brexit is going to redistribute the wealth further upwards (and outwards). The opposite of Robin hood.

'No Deal enables them to become incredibly rich, walk away from NI issues and blame the EU. '

Apologies for an uninformed question. But Humina and others can you please explain why/how they stand to become personally rich from a No Deal?

I am watching in despair at what is happening. But still struggling to understand why anyone would want to do this.

The anti-tax avoidance directive can be cancelled for a start. Does anyone have any details on what will happen to that once brexit had happened?

Also there many disaster capitalists have donated to the tory party and Johnson's leadership campaign directly. They will profit from market volatility. Then there is straightforward selling off assests that wouldn't have been allowed before and buying up bankrupt companies as a result of brexit.

You ever heard the saying 'necessity is the mother of invention'. As for planning, well surely the Gov. can subsidise farming in such a way as to encourage the production of products we might need

So Brexit has now become Make do and Mend ?

UK doesn't import significantly more food now than it did in pre EEC 1960s.

Todays papers reporting Govt paper suggesting UK doesn't need farms, it can import all its food, just as Singapore does.

Defra is also reconciled to about 25% of farmers going out of business (to allow farms to be brought up by the American agricultural industry when food/agriculture is no longer aligned to the EU?).

I cannot help but think that this will be akin to the fishing industry, where the boat owners said the effect of "Sod this for a game of soldiers, I am getting out of this gruelling life while I can."

With a lot of farms already on the margins - how many will say, "Let's get out now."? Then we will see a latter day Farage come along to whine about how we sold our farming industry - except that who will he sound off about? He won't be able to blame the EU.

Oddballs and Wierdos, pt 94:

"...powerful Treasury adviser Tim Leunig argues that the food sector is not 'critically important' to the economy – and that agriculture and fishery production 'certainly isn't'"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8060473/Britain-doesnt-need-farmers-reveal-leaked-emails-senior-government-official.html

How big is the population of Singapore, and for the Raab's of this world - do you know its geographical location? Does it occur to you that it might be importing food from countries which are near neighbours - that it won't be seeking to import it from half way round the world because it's had a tantrum about doing business with its neighbours?

Singapore has no welfare state. Familes are expected to look after their elderly. Property prices are astronomic. Four generations living in one tiny flat is not uncommon.

A Tory wet dream:
Singapore has no welfare state. Tick
Familes (women) are expected to look after their elderly. Tick
Property prices are astronomic. Tick
Four generations living in one tiny flat is not uncommon. Not a bad idea.

Isn't Singapore very clean though, so dropping litter is fined? Didn't they ban chewing gum or some such? Or was it cigarettes? I had an uncle caught out by one of these rules when he visited - they asked him when he'd last been there, and he told them, liberating them during the War, so they let him off.

Oddly, Singapore is almost exactly the same size and shape as the Isle of Wight, so we could make our own version of it as an experiment.

The EU want to impose all the restrictions on us so I feel it is the EU that is threatening the U.K.
If you are not a member of a club you do not get the benefits.
You could term it a restriction
but if you do not pay the membership fee and abide by the rules of a club it will not let you in

The whole point of leaving is we don't want to be members of the club. We don't want all the benefits of said membership and we don't want to be net contributors into a club we get less from than other members.

What we want is a fair trade deal. That doesn't involve reneging on the Canada style deal offer, or trying to impose all the EU regulations on us and restricting our ability to trade on our own terms with other countries.

And the EU are trying to impose on us a restriction on supporting U.K. industry with taxpayers money, yet France and Germany support far more than we do.
What's that all about?