Westminstenders: The New Era

[RedToothBrush]

Scotland.
The GFA.
Its not Brexit Honest.
Levelling Up Shitholes caused by Tory austerity.
Babymilk Shortages
Cronyism

But we did good with covid jabs.

I see you're on it, but wanted to leave this www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-must-stand-up-to-the-farming-lobby-and-back-the-australia-trade-deal?fbclid=IwAR1KTSj4roBpZtTkBCHVYhIroBqzS9xEbg91gK_DfaNdePEzDU3IITT46Pk

Next - employment rights?

After we left, we were always going to go back to the more liberal regime we enjoyed before we left. Sure, that may mean some changes to the way farming is organised, and paid for. But that doesn’t mean it will be worse

Subsidy has been part and parcel of UK agri since the 50s, if not before.
Also, what will a more liberal attitude to what comes into the UK do for GB to NI trade?

Funny, I seem to recall many Brexshittiers pompously telling us that it would herald a new age of low mileage food, and a move towards self sufficiency.

I wonder what has happened to them?

I seem to recall Brexiters telling us that now we could impose higher food standards.

My favourite bit from the piece "True, farming is not crucial to the British economy" - neither was fishing and fisheries, clearly! Just pretty essential to individuals, their businesses and their local economies, sorry to continue - "and neither, as it happens, is trade with Australia. But the principle is important - and if the UK doesn't embrace free trade then leaving the EU will hardly have been worth the bother".

No kidding.

@Peregrina

I seem to recall Brexiters telling us that now we could impose higher food standards.

Very true

Don’t forget, higher environmental standards! I guess that includes far greater food miles and dumbing down on our agricultural standards to compete with imports,
But hey, at least consumers will be getting even cheaper food and it makes Brexit look worthwhile to some people.

DrBlackbird
I'll answer that one...yes, I would [vote for Biden]
Is the question one of whether I'd vote for Trump or Biden? If so, even asking that question is worrying.

Clearly not the question I was asking - I didn't mention Donald Trump. I wouldn't vote for either of them.

Biden was never fired for lying, has never engaged in serial adultery, acknowledges all of his children,

The fact-check article I linked to (CNN) covers the first 100 days of Biden's presidency - not the whole of his adult life - that was not my intention. If you want to criticise Boris Johnson's personal conduct, rather than his political responses over a short time period, then I suppose you should know that Biden and his wife had an affair while she was married to someone else - or at least they haven't denied it;

nypost.com/2020/08/17/jill-bidens-ex-husband-accuses-her-of-having-affair-with-joe-biden/

And according to our favourite newspaper, Joe Biden championed the Iraq war -
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war

[Biden] has not had his former boss go on the record stating that he was not fit to to be PM.
Thinking about it, his former boss absolutely supported Biden as the best man to run the country.

Perhaps he chose Biden over Trump, but Max Hastings also wrote this article;
"Are two old men the best America has to offer?"

And this;
"It's simpler to damn a man for his sexual lapses than for his policies."

Let's hope you are never presented with a female politician whose child was fathered by a married man, or a single mother whose children have different fathers - she wouldn't pass your morality test for government office.

Max Hastings' thoughts on other political leaders:

"few people will mourn the witless Energy Minister Ed Davey."

"I do not for a moment believe that Labour's fortunes have recovered because the public warmed to Sarah Brown or decided that her husband [Gordon Brown] is not really the bumbling zombie he appears..."

"He won't see a jail cell. But Blair (and his Iraq war conspirators) should be barred from public life."

"Today, the overwhelming view both at Westminster and across the country is that the Labour Party has perpetrated a grotesque joke; that Corbyn’s masquerade as Opposition leader will quickly collapse"

2020
"Didn't millions of voters reject [Labour's] Marxist prospectus?"

No doubt you believe every word.

What is all that drivel?

HannibalHayeski
Quite besides the point that the Irish have a veto on any trade deal anyway

Indeed - although it was an Irishman who held the position of EU Commissioner for Agriculture when the Mercosur deal was agreed in principal in 2019;

In a statement after the deal was announced, Phil Hogan, the EU’s Commissioner for Agriculture conceded it would present “some challenges” to European farmers.

“The European Commission will be available to help farmers meet these challenges. For this agreement to be a win-win, we will only open up to agricultural products from Mercosur with carefully managed quotas that will ensure that there is no risk that any product will flood the EU market and thereby threaten the livelihood of EU farmers,” he said.

No doubt the UK government would give similar assurances.

www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/irish-farmers-furious-over-eu-south-american-deal-to-cut-tariffs-1.3940859

🐿🐿🐿🐿

A twitter thread by Dmitry Grozoubinski

17/ A lot of questions have arisen over Australian hormone use.

The EU bans hormone growth promotants (HGP's), and the UK has the option of keeping that ban or not. It seems unlikely they'll remove it as part of the FTA.

22/ climate change...

Here's what the UK's shipping imports look like...

Agriculture is a tiny fraction, and Australian agriculture would be a sliver of it.

Press Release 18 May 2021

The UK is to begin negotiations for upgraded trade deals with Canada and Mexico this year focused on creating even greater opportunities for UK businesses in industries of the future such as digital, data and services.

A call for input will ask for views from the public, businesses and other stakeholders on what the UK’s ambitions should be for these free trade agreements.

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-prepares-to-launch-new-trade-deal-negotiations-with-canada-and-mexico

"UK government to pay older farmers to retire"

Or are they being paid off because the trade agreement with Australia will render them penniless just as they begin to think of retirement?

Really interesting blog by David Allen Green on the intervention by Pritti Patel preventing the release of the report produced by the independent public inquiry into the failures of the investigations into the murder of Daniel Morgan

davidallengreen.com/2021/05/the-extraordinary-intervention-of-priti-patel-in-delaying-publication-of-the-daniel-morgan-report/

www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/nigel-farage-hits-out-at-hoaxers-amid-speculation-only-21-people-attended-first-us-tour-date-270081/

Wrt to @Clavinova's gloom and doom comment and quote on Irish beef upthread...

Market insights: mid-term report
www.farmersjournal.ie/market-insights-mid-term-report-564993
Sales beyond the EU continue to grow...

Can anyone explain to me why Irish agricultural products, processed foods and live animals alike, can be sold all over the world?
Japan, Phillipines, China, Canada, USA, UAE, Iraq, Australia - all non-EU.

Also, fyi Clavinova the EU-Mercosur trade agreement has not been ratified and remains an agreement in principle only. This is because individual members have a say in what the big, bad EU does.

Clavinova Clearly you've been having a little too much Australian wine..... why are you so vexed by what the EU does?
Or for that matter Biden/

We aren't in the EU and don't have a say in US elections.

What is the point of this?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taskforce-provides-vital-help-for-scottish-seafood-exporters?utmmedium=email&utmmcampaign=govuk-notifications&utmsource=5daafa02-1b14-4257-98c8-88affde2ec5b&utmmcontent=immediately
and what is the vital help given. New pens to write some more things down, or an actual processing factory so we can export some of the troubling molluscs. Good name for a band, The Troubling Molluscs 🦪

Oh Jesus H Christ. The Government are readying to sell ALL our NHS data off to their mates (before selling them the NHS). We have just over a month to opt out of having out data sold.

And where is the information to the fucking public? If only more people looked at the Byline Times.

At least I'm in Scotland

@HannibalHayeski

Oh Jesus H Christ. The Government are readying to sell ALL our NHS data off to their mates (before selling them the NHS). We have just over a month to opt out of having out data sold.

And where is the information to the fucking public? If only more people looked at the Byline Times.

I suspect they have already done it. I look forward to parents of terminally ill children being offered special deals on mini coffins via Amazon, and deals from Spotify on funeral playlists.

Still a place for Latin, it seems. I wonder how less derailed these threads would be if they weren't in English ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57172634

I opted out via the nhs digital site, i assume it is this?
your-data-matters.service.nhs.uk/landingpage

With older farmers paid off and younger people not coming forward we will get the disingenuous story - we had to do a deal with Australia to feed ourselves. Very much the same as the NI Protocol which they signed but are pretending was nothing to do with them.