Westminstenders: Tachographs and Empty Shelves

[pointythings]

So Grant Shapps' solution to the shortage of lorry drivers is to allow them to drive longer hours.

Leading to more accidents and deaths on the UK's roads. But Brexit is Job Done and all is well - isn't it?

@prettybird

Is it the case that in theory at least it could be reversed repeatedly by the House of Lords as this reduction was not in the manifesto?

Ah, but "fiscal responsibility" was also in the manifesto, so it's clearly a case of top trumps.

Which means any manifesto promise can be happily broken (triple lock anyone ?) if it keeps that promise.

So that makes the Lords even less useful.

True DGR

Not a single pint of milk in my fairly large local Sainsbury’s yesterday & very little bread a sign of things getting more difficult I fear.

I’ve been buying extra of some things I really don’t want to run out of, though trying to be careful not to end up with an olive oil lake or a mountain of jam like I did a while ago.

I'll not be running out of jam.....more jars of home grown raspberry jam made last night to add to the stash of raspberry, blackcurrant and plum jams from last year and the years before that

No bread in my delivery today. I ordered 3 different loaves from one bakery which was probably a mistake as I suspect is more likely to be covid & SI in this case.

Luckily have some in the freezer, but I also didn't get any strawberries, raspberries or blueberries, which either means the crops are ruined by heavy rains from a couple of days back, or distribution or no pickers...so climate or brexit?

I feel the lack, no matter what the cause. Wish I had a garden to grow some.

I have just bought both raspberries and blueberries from a Co-op in North Wales. Not a strawberry to be seen, though!

We were paying for an anthem, a flag, fancy buildings, large expense budgets, private school fees for the kids, 1st class travel, diplomats. The EU is not a country so why should it have diplomats that we were paying towards.

Ahhh, begrudgery.

Also unabashed ignorance.

You paid for diplomats (and trade missions, and trade treaty negotiators) because they all made life in the UK better and membership of the bloc gave the UK real clout.

Now that the UK isn't in the EU any more, the US has moved on. No more special relationship, no more clout. Instead of easy trade with a huge, prosperous market in everything the UK produces, you are left relying for income on arms sales to tin pot dictatorships, and you can get used to the seeing the interests of big donors to the Conservative Party pursued instead of foreign policy.

Sovereignty and the rules for immigration are important for any country and we had given them up to the EU.

There's that word again.

Please explain in detail what you mean by 'sovereignty' in the context of membership of the EU.
Explain how it was 'given up'.
Explain how trade agreements work and how they affect 'sovereignty'.

Also explain how the UK gave up its control over immigration.

We probably do pay towards the school fees of our diplomats sent abroad but in the EU we were paying towards everybody else's as well

Only you?
All alone?
Shouldering the burden of school fees for all those diplomats' children?

Or could it be that Greeks, Hungarians, Irish, Poles, Germans, French, Danish, Swedish, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Czechs, Croats, Slovaks, Slovenians, Italians, Cypriots, Maltese, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourgers, Austrians, Finns, Romanians, and Bulgarians also chipped in?

Everybody does not have to abide by the rules set by the EU regardless of whether we are in or out.

You are completely and utterly wrong.
100% wrong, wrong, wrong.

Every single country seeking to trade with the EU has to abide with the EU rules.
Every.Single.Country.

That is why the EU negotiates trade agreements with other countries, effectively dictating its terms.

On the battlegroups paper, yes I read it, what are you suggesting I've missed?

@LouiseCollins28

...the French-British-German initiative...

You probably realise this but I suggest that the Trump camp's reservations about NATO were about a) whether it served America's interests from his "America First" POV and b) the extent to which citizens in NATO nations that weren't the USA relied too heavily on the promise of NATOs common defence, thereby avoiding the need to invest in their own capability and relying on the American tax payer. European NATO members (including the UKs) failure to invest enough in their own capability caused this and an EU structure doesn't really solve the problem

@LouiseCollins28
The idea that an American president could pull the rug out from under Europe was only hypothetical until Trump came along.

Most of what Europe (and the rest of the world tbf) believed about American political discourse, assumptions, and potential was well and truly demolished first in the election of Trump, and then in his actions as president.

Europe saw Trump ride roughshod over European concerns and upend established diplomatic norms for four years. Rethinking reliance on NATO is a smart move, given that the American role in it is so lopsided, and given that the unthinkable in American politics actually came about and could well happen again. Kamala Harris has the charisma of a bookcase.

An EU structure absolutely solves the problem of an unstable US which dominates the current defensive structure.

Thanks for the reply math, apols for my horribly long sentence, that wasn't an easy read.

Donald Trump, for all his failings, was notably not keen on foreign military intervention (good IMO). Through his business links with Britain had some sense of investment here too. I never felt that the rug was likely to be pulled from under Britain, even if his relationship with NATO was fraught.

The fundamental difference between NATO and any European force seems to me to be that while operating for NATO forces remain their nation's, operating for the EU they wouldn't. Also NATO is a defensive alliance and the EUs proposals are not for common defence but for some more interventionist reasons IMO.

mathanxiety, freedom of movement meant that the UK had no control over immigration as people from any EU country had the right to come here and I'm tired of defining sovereignty for you. I gave you the oxford dictionary definition a few days ago. You have the definition so work the rest out yourself. Do we need to spend our money on an anthem, flag, diplomats, posh buildings in 2 cities in order to have a trading arrangement. Of course we don't. Of course all the EU countries are made to pay collectively for these things. Don't twist my words, I never said it was just me.
You can't justify the anthem, flag, diplomats so, don't ever bother trying. I'm just glad we've left. Job done. 😄🇬🇧

The way we as UK are going is so very sad to sad to see. I should maybe have said England.
We have no money for foreign aid but loads for a yacht and a media room and not to mention the matey contracts handed around like a box of after eights at Christmas !
We have no lorry drivers. The food shelves have definitely been lacking recently. ( my local Lidl has had no multi cartons of juice for packed lunches of any flavour and very little bottled water or juices for at least 9 days now) not a big concern but I was promised sunlit uplands so was expecting not only the usual supply of food and drink but the chance of a gold Willy Wonka ticket on every carton.

The racism and absolute shitshow of thuggish behaviour over the football is disgraceful. Aided and abetted by those that should know better! Lots of uncomfortable knee shuffling and brow patting now by those who sneered at players who make a stand against racism by taking the knee.

We have so many people struggling day to day with poverty and a real worry about how our future health and social care will look. ( also I will say I was very,very surprised at Esther McVey and her husbands vote tonight. Has anybody got any info on the whys of that?)
We pay sod all respect or care to our future generation they get the scraps. How many children in poverty?
We sadly also have JoHnson as PM
BUT let's blame the EU for everything that's wrong.
Apologies for very ranty post. I don't post often but read always. I know I went off topic but am feeling just a bit done with the blaming and the constant excuses of " we didn't expect the EU to x, y and z! YOU must have known you negotiated the deal!

Rant away @Menomadness

But dontcha know, none of those issues are anything WHATSOEVER to do with Brexit

....after all, it's "Job Done"

All the problems we're experiencing now are figments of our imagination

Thank you Pretty bird
And in true Jim Royale style
Job done, my arse! 🙄

I think I'd use even stronger language

Do we need to spend our money on an anthem, flag, diplomats, posh buildings in 2 cities in order to have a trading arrangement

Its a club, club members get to decide what the subs are spent on - we had huge benefits from the club - far outstripping the relative pittance spent on these.

Our contributions to the EU were less than 0.7% of our GDP - you cannot seriously suggest that the anthem etc are a valid reason to give up the benefits we had?

As for justifying the trimmings:
Many clubs have a flag - my tennis club for one
Whats wrong with an anthem? Not as if they paid Schiller/Beethoven to write/score it?
Diplomats - if you're one of the largest trading blocks in the world you are talking to governments - people who talk to governments are called diplomats
The shuttle between strasbourg/brussels is accepted as a pain - but the members of the club dont want to give it up - a decision they are entitled to make. (and if you think these are posh buildings you haven't been there!)

mathanxiety, freedom of movement meant that the UK had no control over immigration as people from any EU country had the right to come here

@foxandcubs
Do you realise that worked both ways?
1,300,000 Britons live and work in other European countries.

What exactly is your objection to EU citizens living and working in the UK anyway?

I'm tired of defining sovereignty for you. I gave you the oxford dictionary definition a few days ago. You have the definition so work the rest out yourself.
I take it from your inability to answer my questions that you have no idea what 'sovereignty' means in the context of the UK relationship with the EU. I also deduce that you don't understand how trade agreements work.

Do we need to spend our money on an anthem, flag, diplomats, posh buildings in 2 cities in order to have a trading arrangement.

You're objecting to 'posh' buildings?
Flags?
Anthems?
Private schools for diplomats' children?
Are you serious here?

Yes, you need diplomats. They represent the EU, and they once represented you, working hard to open doors to trade.
The Delegation of the European Union presents and explains EU policy to both the U.S. administration and Congress. The Delegation also analyzes and reports on the political, social, and economic situation in the U.S., and acts as a liaison with other international organizations in Washington, D.C. Through its engagement with political actors, the media, academia, business circles, and civil society, the Delegation raises awareness of EU issues and concerns, and promotes the EU-U.S. relationship among the broader American public.

The Delegation represents the EU in matters where the Member States have agreed that their interests be represented collectively, for example, in areas of customs and trade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegation_of_the_European_Union_to_the_United_States

Do you think international trade just happens all by itself?
No international agreements necessary, no little details about customs, prices of goods that might undermine domestic producers, no safety rules keeping lead out of children's toys, asbestos out of dog food, low grade steel out of high rise buildings?

I highly recommend you read a memoir of one of the UK's foremost EU representatives, Sir Roy Denman - "Missed Chances, Britain and Europe in the 20th Century".
He was a leading British civil servant, EU trade negotiator, and Ambassador of the EU to the US.

*And he had just one son and one daughter, so it's unlikely their education bankrupted the British public.

mathanxiety, FrankieStein - logical arguments don't cut it with the TrueBelieving Brexiters.

Just maybe, for example, if we'd been fully committed to the EU our one time pragmatism might have stopped the shuffling round between buildings, but instead we were more concerned about getting special deals for ourselves. Once we had done that the ERG types were still not happy. As they are still not happy - those that haven't gone strangely quiet, it's all the EU's fault.

It’s rather extraordinary to hear the nonsense still being trotted out by people with no clue what they’re talking about. Still it bumps the thread I suppose.