Westminstenders: Move Your Business To The EU

[RedToothBrush]

The government is advising people to move their businesses to the EU to avoid UK taxation and red tape.

Why would you do this?

For the interests of the uk?

Or is it about power WITHIN the uk?

Mistigri
The "return to campus 1 day/week" plan is unworkable. People in my university have been working on it round the clock since the decree was published and it is just not possible to implement it. It raises huge issues since staff have to be able to teach on campus and online: there's no way they'll be on campus 1 day a week. But there are 12 people sharing a v small office with me: where do we go to Zoom between our onsite lessons if we are on campus?

We are being told that if we don't comply and teach on campus Monday week, it is a "faute professionnelle"...
A lot of staff are going to be signed off on sick leave on Feb 8th, I reckon, so the students will have no classes, Zoom or otherwise.

I agree that Covid transmission on campus is probably not too bad in classrooms (if people wear masks - but a lot of my colleages are anti-maskers). The queuing in narrow corridors, with a mask round your chin, blethering and laughing in between classes, as well as the piano my UFR decided to place in the entrance in Sept 'to cheer people' up, so that students congregated to play and sing together, are a bit less reassuring. Not to mention the buses and the other public transport all those students and staff need to get to campus. The wifi in our CROUS is so bad that lots of students gave up their accommodation, went back to their parents for the distance learning and are a very, very long way from campus (100km...).

Currently, they are polling students to see how many want to go on campus the equivalent of one day a week - which would have to be two half-days of 5-6h each, if anything.

I've thought all along the the political inertia from the UK govt to ratify the deal ASAP was a gift to the EU. The EU can now use the Brexit mess and the known (now demonstrated by vehicle numbers) vulnerabilities of UK exports to gently twist the UK scrotum until it squeaks, on various issues as they see fit, vaccines being just one.

you don't know me and have no idea which way I voted or not You need to grow up and stop Insulting people , most of us left that behind in the school playground

I called you lazy because you hadn't troubled to read what I posted, in the same way that Johnson's himself and most of his Cabinet are too lazy to read legislation that they vote upon and whoops they find they don't like it when they do. If you are a Leaver - own it you won, if not if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.

So you reply with comment telling me to grow up.

I said nothing about the eu messing up the English (or British supply). I praised GPs surgeries for handling the roll out well. I said that countries should get together to co-operate instead of Johnson's Cabinet crowing about how Brexit enabled them to approve the vaccine early.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/9798f0c1-1712-442e-a795-518c39a9e418

Interesting article. This is a big win for Johnson. I despise the man and think he is the worst PM ever but I am grateful that my parents (in their early 70's) are getting vaccinated next week.)

I wonder how this looks to those outside Europe?

Part of the Pasteur failure is bad luck, but it happened against a backdrop of chronic underfunding, worsening working conditions, very poor pay and serious brain drain.

So we decided that with underfunding of universities, by making it difficult for EU staff to come here, and not making it easy for them to stay, we will copy them too.

At one time, say before 2010, a more pragmatic UK Government would as part of the EU probably been in Brussels knocking a few heads together and saying come on, we have to tackle this together.

I recall a quote from somewhere, a couple of years ago to the effect that "Leavers think the EU is weak; Remainers think the EU is nice; both are wrong" - this is, I think, slightly off the mark.

Miles off, more like.

I have a tiniest degree of sympathy with Leavers who complain that you can't possibly know what their views were from their leave vote. Until you ask them and get the four-plus years of drivel these threads have seen. Then you realise.

However, from day one, the reasons people voted Remain have been demonstrated to be as wide and varied as possible. And most of them were not because they had some teenage crush on the EU. In fact many Remainers were - and are as critical of the EU (if not more so) as Leavers claimed to be.

So for the more critical thinking remain voter, events of the past 48 hours merely exist on a timeline from then to the future and don't really mean much in isolation.

But I reject the assertion that Remainers were naively thinking that "EU" was Lativian for Papa Natale.

Peregrina
It will be really interesting to see whether France changes strategy on research funding in light of this.
I'm not sure, TBH: the reforms were voted in on 24th Dec 2020 despite the CNRS and other bodies saying how damaging they would be, especially to fundamental rather than project-based research (I posted before about a colleague here who was working on coronaviruses after previous outbreaks and had funding cut just as he was making progress, because it was not deemed a priority).

The reforms are part of Macron's restructuring of the public sector and he's ramming them through, along with some other little plans (like imposing obligatory language tests, by a Greek-based certification board, for every HE student in France - they have to take one, but not pass or get a specific score.)

Remember how Macron wanted to try and Make our Planet Great Again and attract disenchanted scientists from abroad during the Trump years by creating a handful of v well-paid posts? I'm not sure he did it and the whole research and HE sector in France are woefully poorly funded, apart from more prestigious non-university sectors, like prépas and Grandes Écoles (where the politicians almost all study...). If they do decide to change things after the Pasteur embarrassment, they'll probably divert even more funds from other HE sectors.

@Peregrina

At one time, say before 2010, a more pragmatic UK Government would as part of the EU probably been in Brussels knocking a few heads together and saying come on, we have to tackle this together.

I'm curious about the US. Basically having to go from a standing start to 100million vaccinations in 100 days (maybe not official, but certainly a suggested target).

Having studied far too much WW2 documentaries about impressive greenfield to full plant production (plus being in awe of the Apollo programme) it's probably the only country that I would put money on being able to do it.

If it so wished.

I'd suggest that's an ambition and attitide Europe needs to learn.

@Peregrina

At one time, say before 2010, a more pragmatic UK Government would as part of the EU probably been in Brussels knocking a few heads together and saying come on, we have to tackle this together.

I had thought this too, Peregrina. The UK was a pain in the backside for the EU in many ways but we were drivers of useful change and sensible policy on occasion. The EU vaccine requisition and rollout might have been much better managed with our input. I think that our NHS model has a lot to do with it. Despite some European health systems being better for individuals in normal times, a fully socialised and notionally nationwide system (yes, I know health is devolved, but there are underlying structural similarities) offers the potential to react quickly and the capacity to roll out fast in an emergency, which affects the mindset of planners. Of course, we might have got bogged down in bureaucracy, but who knows? At least we were big enough in the EU to have plenty of clout.

I certainly don't think the EU is weak. Overly beauracratic? sure. Lacking in democratic legitimacy? yep I'd say so, but weak? certainly not. An international organisation claiming to represent c450m citizens has got serious heft worldwide, as it is attempting to demonstrate.

I just see it as an indication of how bumpy things are going to be over the coming years. Of course the EU isn't 'nice'. That's why it's a good idea to be in the team driving it.

The whole incident is utterly fascinating, though. Quite bizarre. I think looking at it through a Leave/Remain lens isn't really going to grasp the implications of this. 😁

As for Leavers, I noticed an article where one - driven to despair about a shattered business, started by saying she had no idea why she voted Leave, then let slip it was because she thought workers' rights would be reduced Post-Brexit.
Alas, on balance, she'd prefer to have kept workers' rights and her business.

I found that a relief, to be honest. Finally, a bit of real honesty about incentives and motivations. Plus confirmation that people really did take a pic n mix approach to benefits of Brexit, and were encouraged to do that, rather than look at things holistically. Even when being self-interested, people didn't look at their self-interests holistically.

This is good (Bloomberg has done some good articles on haulage issues generally, unfortunately paywalled but they let me read this):

t.co/QpXkUOz05W?amp=1

^Truckloads of British pig meat waiting to be shipped to Germany and stuffed into bratwursts perished at U.K. ports this month while stuck in line for customs clearance.

It’s a story that barely made a ripple in the U.K., as the country’s first month outside the EU was overshadowed by the coronavirus and the grim milestonee of 100,000 deaths

Personally I find it devastating (to my old-person sense of British fair play and an entire working lifetime in manufacturing industry). So many companies shrinking or going under through little or no fault of their own, so many jobs unnecessarily lost.

I work for a large company which is obviously quite used to exporting outside the EU and which is ostensibly well-prepared, but there are apparently quite a lot of "teething troubles", mainly REACH related (chemicals).

Sorry, italics fail - I'm on a old version of the app and can't decide whether to update it or just give up and delete it.

I'm curious about the US. Basically having to go from a standing start to 100million vaccinations in 100 days (maybe not official, but certainly a suggested target).

The last president preferred golfing to helping his country. Biden has said live on TV, that his 100M shots in 100 days will hopefully be exceeded. He has organised roll out to facilitate this, when there was little will or care from his predecessor.

So many companies shrinking or going under through little or no fault of their own, so many jobs unnecessarily lost.

Well, through no fault of some

www.expressandstar.com/news/business/2021/01/29/i-made-a-mistake-voting-for-brexit-says-business-as-stock-sits-waiting-to-leave-west-midlands/

Absent from the article is how she chose to ignore repeated and detailed warnings that this would happen.

(I think this is the story @thecatfromjapan alluded to)

So sympathy is in short supply right now. Remember that Leaver decided to piss away your childrens rights so she could send kids up chimneys.

@Coquohvan

I'm curious about the US. Basically having to go from a standing start to 100million vaccinations in 100 days (maybe not official, but certainly a suggested target).

The last president preferred golfing to helping his country. Biden has said live on TV, that his 100M shots in 100 days will hopefully be exceeded. He has organised roll out to facilitate this, when there was little will or care from his predecessor.

Like I said, probably the only country in the world I would believe could do it on that scale would be the US. If they wanted too ...

Worth remembering that even the US has vaccine supply issues - particularly with Pfizer. And they haven't approved AZ. Moderna also said they have production issues this week.

So they will be battling many of the issues the EU and UK have and they also didn't order as quickly as the UK albeit faster than the EU.

So my question here is exactly how are they dealing with that and what can everyone else learn from that?

Interesting little graphic about which vaccines have reached which stage

www.biopharmadive.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-pipeline-types/579122/

Thanks, DGR. That is it.

And I see I did my old truck of alluding to something without the reference.

My aim for this year is to not do that any more.

I'm deeply unimpressed by the appearance that after a year of available time for planning a vaccine rollout, it seem very few - if any - countries actually managed more than choosing the fucking font.

You have unknowns. You then have known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

OK, so back in March, there was no idea how a vaccine would exactly emerge. However we knew enough about the virus to start looking at all sorts of issues around delivering it and plan accordingly.

I rather naively imagined that was actually what government was for (and to paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke "why it cost so fucking much" )

Not for the first time does the closing scene of Fawlty Towers S1E6 echo around my head ....

Of course the EU isn't 'nice'. That's why it's a good idea to be in the team driving it. Cat

To adapt a phrase ; better to be inside the tent pssing out, than outside the tent being pssed on.

The problem was that remainers didn’t think the sun shone out if the EU’s posterior, no prospect of sunlit uplands. All that was on offer was just plodding along with the same imperfect old, same imperfect old, and a bunch of benefits that lost their shine in the telling, and to many were for the benefit of the chattering classes. It didn’t help that you kept saying “It is far from perfect but..... “ when the leave campaign was offering your friends and family sunlit uplands and someone to blame for all their perceived ills and frustration.

And entirely unsurprising that those who voted to leave would assume the same emotional zeal for the EU that they had mobilised for hating it..... (though I never lay much store by multiple fevered posts in the wee small hours unless they are not the wee small hours in another time zone, no sign of that poster this morning, perhaps a bit of a headache? )

@UltimateFoole

Of course the EU isn't 'nice'. That's why it's a good idea to be in the team driving it. Cat

To adapt a phrase ; better to be inside the tent pssing out, than outside the tent being pssed on.

Exactly- being from NZ we know all about this.... the most obvious example of this would be the bombing of the the rainbow warrior, by French agents at the behest of the French government while tied up in Auckland Harbour. lots of "friends" full of platitudes..... but at the end of the day we had to suck it up, as France was more important to them than NZ was......

Mistigri
Irish Times I think. Not my screenshot.

Although, from that article (7 Dec);

AstraZeneca said it was using a continental facility initially because it had booked capacity there “which we wanted to use rather than waste”, not because of problems at the British sites.

www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/supply-of-covid-vaccine-doses-held-up-by-manufacturing-delays-1.4430676

I've found the vaccine manufacturer in the Netherlands here (April 2020);

Leiden, The Netherlands (April 15,2020) – HALIX B.V. has joined a consortium of partners under the guidance of the University of Oxford, to provide GMP manufacturing services supporting the large scale production of a COVID-19 vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), being developed by the University’s Jenner Institute. This GMP manufacturing scale-up is taking place alongside early phase clinical trials.

www.halix.nl/2020/04/15/halix-enters-collaboration-university-oxford-gmp-manufacturing-covid-19-vaccine/#more-3741

On the face of it, I can't see any problem with the UK laying claim to the first batches of the vaccine if HALIX joined the Oxford consortium as early as April 2020.

Further scale up of production here - 8 December;

Leiden, The Netherlands (08.12.2020) – HALIX B.V. signed an agreement with AstraZeneca AB for large-scale commercial drug substance manufacture of AZD1222, the adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Under the agreement, HALIX will provide commercial manufacturing of drug substance at its state-of-the-art cGMP facility at the Leiden Bio Science Park in the Netherlands. To meet the increased demand, HALIX expands with two additional viral vector production lines.

With this agreement, HALIX continues its key role as one of the original partners in the University of Oxford’s consortium for the manufacture of AZD1222.

www.halix.nl/2020/12/08/halix-signs-agreement-astrazeneca-commercial-manufacture-covid-19-vaccine/#more-4030