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Brexit matters

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JamesT

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Still would have been a good idea. Why knock it even if you dislike the person?
The thing with remain and reform is whether meaningful reform was possible. Cameron tried negotiating before the referendum and didn't get much out of the EU with the leverage that we might leave and take our contributions with us. Would there have been likely anything further if the referendum had been won by Remain?
 

MattRat

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The thing with remain and reform is whether meaningful reform was possible. Cameron tried negotiating before the referendum and didn't get much out of the EU with the leverage that we might leave and take our contributions with us. Would there have been likely anything further if the referendum had been won by Remain?
Cameron was toothless and even the EU knew it. Corbyn on the other hand has always had teeth, whether you agree with how he used them or not.
 

Bald Rick

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Cameron was toothless and even the EU knew it. Corbyn on the other hand has always had teeth, whether you agree with how he used them or not.

In my opinion, Corbyn’s ideal European Union was to reform it sufficiently such that the first word could be changed to ‘Soviet’.
 

dosxuk

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The thing with remain and reform is whether meaningful reform was possible. Cameron tried negotiating before the referendum and didn't get much out of the EU with the leverage that we might leave and take our contributions with us. Would there have been likely anything further if the referendum had been won by Remain?

The EU's response to Cameron's requests was "you can already do that". Unfortunately most of those things had a negative side to doing it exactly like we wanted, so as a whole we didn't really want to do it, but the right-wing press (& Farage) did, so we had to ask.

Take the much lauded "freedom of movement" it's actually the right to "freedom of movement of labour", with plenty of options available for restricting people who aren't working. However, they require lots of border control measures and paperwork to know exactly who's travelling where and why and what they're doing. Other EU countries do this (our papers complain about the bureaucracy all the time, especially the French and Spanish upsetting our ex-pats), we decided it was more expensive than just accepting or dealing with the people abusing the system.
 

alex397

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Over 10miles (or 17km) of lorry queues heading to Dover being reported by a reliable source (commercial director at Stagecoach South East) on Twitter, yet not seemingly being reported in the media. Interesting.

https://twitter.com/kk77470/status/1484486815902048256?s=21

17km queue of trucks heading into #Dover - not being reported on the news? Meanwhile residents and businesses in #Kent pick up the pieces as usual #kentroadschaos
 

Bald Rick

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Over 10miles (or 17km) of lorry queues heading to Dover being reported by a reliable source (commercial director at Stagecoach South East) on Twitter, yet not seemingly being reported in the media. Interesting.

https://twitter.com/kk77470/status/1484486815902048256?s=21

sounds like fake news. Nothing on the Traffic England speed detectors, not being shown by googlemaps, and nothing on the traffic cameras in Dover. So unless all three of these independent sources are in on the conspiracy…

unless it’s typo, and instead of “Dover” he meant to type “Shepshed” (there’s a 10 mile Q on the M1 northbound there).
 

alex397

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sounds like fake news.
From The Independent: ‘Brexit to blame’: Huge lorry queues at Dover as port bosses call for talks on EU checks
21 January 2022. Huge lorry queues building up at the Port of Dover have been blamed “entirely” on extra controls which have come into force from Brexit.
It comes as port chiefs urged the UK government to hold talks with the EU on ways to ease further checks set to come in later in 2022 which could cause “disastrous” disruption to trade.

One courier told The Independent he had been caught up in queues of up to 15km (9 miles) since full customs controls came into force at the beginning of January.

The British haulier said it was taking 15 to 20 minutes for each driver to clear checks needed for the UK government’s new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (GVMS) system and other export paperwork at Dover.

“It’s entirely Brexit – you can’t blame it on anything else but Brexit,” said the driver, who has had to push back some deliveries.

The haulier added: “People will get to grips with GVMS and the new paperwork in the weeks ahead. But even if they don’t take as long, checks still take time. So the queues are bound to get worse when traffic flows pick up next month.”

Recent disruption has been even more significant around the French port of Calais since new customs controls were introduced on goods imported into the UK at the start of January.

Lorry drivers have reported queueing for up to eight hours to get through controls, partly because UK firms have struggled with complex new customs declarations and rules-of-origin forms.

But the GVMS system is also creating longer checks for lorries heading to the EU at Dover. There was a queue of 7km leading up to Dover port on Friday morning, according to the Sixfold traffic tracker used by the logistics industry which has recorded “higher than usual” build-up this week.

The congestion at Dover in recent days has seen the Operation TAP temporary traffic system being implemented – with all vehicles restricted to 40mph and lorries asked to queue in one lane until there is space.

A cross-party group of MPs on the Transport Committee visited Dover earlier this week to hear the concerns of port chiefs and assess overflow space.

Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, a member of the committee, told The Independent: “There are clearly issues with congestion at Dover. There is no doubt the regulatory changes from Brexit are causing delays.”

She echoed a call from the British Chambers of Commerce for the government to streamline some of the new red tape required. “The government has an opportunity to smooth things out,” she said.

Doug Bannister, chief executive at Port of Dover, has called on the government to start urgent talks with EU authorities over the biometric checks set to come into force in September.

The port chief said the new checks on non-EU citizens – which could involve body or facial scanning similar to those seen at airports – may involve car drivers being asked to step out of their vehicle.

“If it is forcing people to get out of their vehicles inside of a busy port, that is just unsafe. We couldn’t allow that to happen. That will lead to increased queues, no doubt.”

Logistics UK warned at the end of last year that the new biometric checks to travel into the EU could lead to 27km tailbacks.

Transport select committee chair Huw Merriman said the potential for significant traffic delays could be a “disaster” for trade if it were to impact on supply chains.

“That per-vehicle movement will end up causing a 17-mile delay back into Kent and that would be a disaster for the local economy and a disaster for trade as well,” said the Tory MP.

A spokesperson the Home Office said: “The UK is continuing to engage with our European partners at an operational level and, in particular, where we operate juxtaposed controls, to ensure our respective border arrangements work and interact as well as possible.”

Meanwhile, the head of Dublin Port said the route through Dover that once offered Irish traders the fastest means of getting between the Republic of Ireland and the European continent will not “re-emerge” as a preferred option for moving goods.

“I don’t see [the route] recovering,” Dublin Port chief executive Eamonn O’Reilly told the Irish Times.
 
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alex397

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No doubt there’s delays, and no doubt Brexit is to blame, but at the time the teeet was posted, there were categorically not 10m queues leading into Dover.
He may have been referring to the traffic during the evening before.
also, see post #3701.
 

eoff

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Sorry, the tweet said 10 miles.
No need to be sorry, m is a well understood abbreviation for miles with any confusion resolved by context. For example the current PDF of sample traffic signs you can download from a government website has this example..

Clipboard01.jpg
 

jon0844

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No doubt there’s delays, and no doubt Brexit is to blame, but at the time the teeet was posted, there were categorically not 10m queues leading into Dover.

I've been reading about the extra costs of paperwork (one thing Brexit hasn't done is get rid of red tape!), but the bigger problem has been the computer systems have been failing and people can't process the paperwork. The solution has been to just wave lorries through, but many lorries aren't going to purposely join a queue knowing they couldn't get the paperwork done and hoping to get waved through.

As such, I am not sure why the queues would be so bad as a lot of trips are simply being cancelled. End result is still the same; spoiled produce doesn't get to where it needs to go, and prices go up as a result.

Other goods that can withstand a delay just get delayed, and no doubt pushes those prices up as a result too.

I have no idea how it can be spun positively, besides the 'well, that means we should just grow xxx and build yyy here' which isn't likely to happen in many cases, at least not unless the taxpayer wants to fund it.
 

XAM2175

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No need to be sorry, m is a well understood abbreviation for miles with any confusion resolved by context.
Yes, the confusion-resolving context being "when on a road sign appended to a measure of distance." At any other time "m" is the accepted symbol for metres and "mi" for miles.
 

nw1

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If anything it has provided tape manufacturers a whole new market.

Indeed. What I don't get about many Brexiters is that they claim to be libertarians, or opponents of bureaucracy and red tape.

How can something which increases bureaucracy and red tape, and reduces personal freedom to emigrate (both ways, UK to EU or EU to UK) be classified at all as anti-bureaucratic and pro-freedom?

I do get that some versions of Brexit could be implemented which retain personal freedom and do not increase bureaucracy (the Norway model for instance) but our Government have chosen not to implement them, IMO because they believe that a hard Brexit will allow them to gain the xenophobic vote from UKIP / Brexit Party / whatever Farage's current project this week is called.

The Brexit we have is authoritarianism and 'big state' politics of the worst kind. I'm hoping that while the UK government's antics has probably ruined our chances of actually rejoining, future governments (either Labour or more moderate Tories) will seek to soften relations with the EU and bring back some of our freedoms and go some way to restoring the UK's image as an internationally-welcoming country.
 
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najaB

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I'm hoping that while the UK government's antics has probably ruined our chances of actually rejoining, future governments (either Labour or more moderate Tories) will seek to soften relations with the EU and bring back some of our freedoms and go some way to restoring the UK's image as an internationally-welcoming country.
There was almost zero chance of us being ready to re-join this side of 2045-50 anyway, but I can definitely see a future government seeking closer alignment. I'm not sure if our national reputation will ever recover though - having said that, Germany is now seen as a champion of democracy and freedom, something that was unimaginable 75 years ago.
 

MattRat

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Indeed. What I don't get about many Brexiters is that they claim to be libertarians, or opponents of bureaucracy and red tape.

How can something which increases bureaucracy and red tape, and reduces personal freedom to emigrate (both ways, UK to EU or EU to UK) be classified at all as anti-bureaucratic and pro-freedom?

I do get that some versions of Brexit could be implemented which retain personal freedom and do not increase bureaucracy (the Norway model for instance) but our Government have chosen not to implement them, IMO because they believe that a hard Brexit will allow them to gain the xenophobic vote from UKIP / Brexit Party / whatever Farage's current project this week is called.

The Brexit we have is authoritarianism and 'big state' politics of the worst kind. I'm hoping that while the UK government's antics has probably ruined our chances of actually rejoining, future governments (either Labour or more moderate Tories) will seek to soften relations with the EU and bring back some of our freedoms and go some way to restoring the UK's image as an internationally-welcoming country.
The EU is run by beauracrats who want to micro manage every little thing, regardless of whether they need to or not. The problem is, the UK is also run by beauracrats, so nothing changed, except trading one group of beauracrats for another.

In hindsight of course we should have seen it coming, but sadly we have yet to figure out how to see the future.
 

najaB

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The EU is run by beauracrats who want to micro manage every little thing, regardless of whether they need to or not.
Run by bureaucrats? Yes, as are all governments. Micromanage every little thing? Actual evidence needed.
 

MattRat

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Run by bureaucrats? Yes, as are all governments. Micromanage every little thing? Actual evidence needed.
Well, they make laws for supposedly independent countries, when surely they can make their own rules, without interference?
 

XAM2175

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Well, they make laws for supposedly independent countries, when surely they can make their own rules, without interference?
The European Commission and Parliament make laws for and on behalf of sovereign states that have chosen to give the Commission and Parliament the power to do so. It's absurd to characterise it the way you have.
 

MattRat

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The European Commission and Parliament make laws for and on behalf of sovereign states that have chosen to give the Commission and Parliament the power to do so. It's absurd to characterise it the way you have.
Fascinating. If it was that simple, why didn't Cameron talk about it in his 'new deal' before the Brexit vote? Since he obviously wanted people to vote remain.
 

edwin_m

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Fascinating. If it was that simple, why didn't Cameron talk about it in his 'new deal' before the Brexit vote? Since he obviously wanted people to vote remain.
Probably because he thought he'd win without having to exert any effort campaigning, and with other Tories on the other side he didn't want to widen the split in the party. That went well...
 

MattRat

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Probably because he thought he'd win without having to exert any effort campaigning, and with other Tories on the other side he didn't want to widen the split in the party. That went well...
So, arrogance or incompetence? Possible, but is it such a stretch to say that surely he wasn't that stupid?
 

dosxuk

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In hindsight of course we should have seen it coming, but sadly we have yet to figure out how to see the future.
Or we could have looked to see how the EU worked with existing third party countries, and the paperwork involved in that - we should have known all about it because that paperwork was what was preventing us from doing deals with all those other countries.

Many people did in fact point out the issues leaving would cause with amounts of paperwork, form filling and red tape. And it was all dismissed off-hand as Project Fear. After all, we're Britain, and no-one would dare to hold us to a bunch of pointless rules, especially not a block run solely by micro-managing bureaucrats like the EU.
 

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