Brexit mega thread part 11: is fucktastrophy a word?

[mirages08]

Part 11 of this mega thread

Couldn't see a new one?

Hope you don't mind a newbie starting it!

More winning.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/14/exclusive-new-uk-banks-post-brexit-investment-only-one-third-of-lost-eu-funds?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1694672460

If only somebody had warned about this before we left…

Surprise, surprise - thing are so much more nuanced than the Brexiter wants us to know. And of course China is a beacon of trading benevolence which never imposes tariffs or acts unethically.

EVs are an environmental clusterfuck. And even if they are the saviour of the motor industry (they aren't) then the UK is probably one of the least EV friendly nations on earth.

The only good thing about them is you can pretend to be a fighter pilot when you press the loud pedal.

Are they still refusing to import our opium ?

Confirmation that the EU wants to prevent ordinary people becoming dependent on a regime that tortures and enslaves ordinary people. Excellent news. As an ordinary person living in the EU I fully support this.

Interesting the BBC is currently running a story about how Keir Starmer is talking to the EU about the Tories sacred cow of immigration and small boats. I guess the view is Rish! has failed (and he's in power) so lets see what Labour will do.

Chinese electric car manufacture is very carbon heavy and then off course there is the carbon emissions from shipping them to Europe.

Agree with all SerendipityJane says re EVs. Yes they are environmentally damaging (making new stuff always is) and she's right they may well not be the future of motoring long term (could still be tho, IMO)

However selling them isn't currently illegal and restricting access for European consumers to non-EU products and consequently seeing those European consumers charged higher prices is still wrong IMO.

To tweak a current meme, it's batteries. It's always batteries.

(Actually it isn't. It's more energy density).

You can put 500kWh into a petrol car in about 2 minutes. The same - even with the most expensive cables and infrastructure - would take about 25 minutes for an electric car. And although scientifically, copper isn't magnetic, you'd be amazed at the pull it has on thieves.

I can't fault the concept of EVs. Offload all the pollution processing to a single power plant, rather than fitting it to every car. But the materials science hasn't - and may never - catch up.

The only reason to persist with EVs is to eventually move towards a grid of autonomous vehicles that are effectively the new horse drawn coach. In theory you could transport the same numbers at a fraction of the energy needed per person. However as we know, when it comes to saving the planet, it's always someone elses job.

Meanwhile, I see the EU is starting to really dig into Apple and their potentially radiation busting iPhone 12. However I am sure Brexiteers will tell us that a little bit of radiation never did them any harm. Certainly didn't affect their intelligence.

This is a woefully naive view of global economics and national security.

China regularly drives economic dumping in order to cripple domestic industries abroad (who operate with rules and regulations), which then results in dependency on China for critical sectors: like renewables (solar panels).

This is a huge national security risk as it would then allow China to behave badly (militarily) because they would threaten to cripple us economically.

It is obvious to every developed country now that any kind of dependency vis-a-vis China in critical industries is a huge risk. US, Canada, EU etc all re-shoring jobs and supply lines to be less dependent on China.

China haven't yet learned how to do capitalism. Maybe they never will, as there are worrying signs they refuse to learn from their mistakes. And as the late, great Richard Feynman warned, you can't game nature.

I was hoping they'd learn when they decided to stop the advance of western tech companies by restricting exports of rare earth metals (does anyone remember how it was the end of the iPhone ?). Instead all they did was force the price down and the number of suppliers up. In fact it's possible that is where Putin got the idea to stop NATO expansion by invading Ukraine.

That said, I was amused to read that their approach to social media companies that don't play ball is to shut them down for a month. You'd have thought the Tories would be all over that.

Some good news for British environmental protection: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66804160
thank you to the House of Lords

Bloody unelected politicians!

Oh, they're ours, they must be, er, good unelected politicians, er, or, er, something...

There was a piece yesterday where a usual suspect loonytoons Brexiteer was demanding Sunak put a line in the Kings Speech committing the government to taking advantage of Brexit freedoms and dumping the environment legislation.

The rising note of hysteria is certainly in harmony with the equally loonytoons MAGA republicans who are demanding all sorts or increasingly ludicrous "things".

Incidentally I was overly amused to read that the move to impeach Biden will fail thanks to rules the Republicans forced into Congress to protect Trump in 2016.

Oh I can see charlie boy LOVING that 😖🙄

To the kind PM'er who said I was making shit up:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/14/eu-housebuilding-rules-should-be-scrapped-rishi-sunak/

More winning

https://www.mining.com/uks-only-rare-earths-producer-eyes-us-eu-markets/

I see Starmer, our PM-to-be, has clear, concrete and sensible ideas for the UK"s relationship with the EU after the general election.

""As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK," he said, although he did not specify what parts of the deal he would seek to improve.

He added that he was confident a better deal could be negotiated with Brussels, as well as a "closer trading relationship".

"We have to make it work. That's not a question of going back in, but I refuse to accept that we can't make it work...""

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66839501

Hopefully that's a very gentle noose being unobtrusively placed around the most prominent part of the Tory party. Which is, of course, their ever so big balls.

This clip sums up the Brexit shitshow

https://x.com/bbclaurak/status/1703635061755564059?s=20

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… what really happened in Number 10 at the moment we left the EU? Watch pictures never seen before in episode 2 of ‘State of Chaos’ on ⁦@BBCiPlayer⁩ now

Has Starmer had that conversation with the EU though. 2025 is supposed to be a review not a renegotiation. And I don’t think he’s going to be able to pick and choose any more than the Tories are.

Unless what he actually means is we’re rejoining the SM & CU.

I very much doubt he's had that conversation with the EU.

On rejoining the SM & CU, not a chance.

From the BBC story "But he ruled out re-joining the customs union, the single market or the EU."

To be fair, that has been Labour's policy consistently. From last year: "With Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.”
https://labour.org.uk/press/keir-starmer-sets-out-labours-5-point-plan-to-make-brexit-work/

Labour have to get themselves elected first. As to what happens then - I could quite see that what Starmer says now being wholly irrelevant then. But rejoining Erasmus and making life easier for Musicians, (all things that the EU was prepared to offer but the UK 'negotiators' were too pig-headed to accept this) would be a very good start.

There may be a few things like that, but otherwise we’re back to cakeism and rolling over checks on goods indefinitely.

I don't know whether Starmer is hoping for a Swiss style deal, but that's the last thing the EU wants.