EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

We end up with two internal borders and more red tape than a communist ticker tape parade.

Dunno. This is just one of those comedy ideas that they throw out isn't it?

It's not like lorries are just ambling around the country and popping into Kent regardless of whether they're ready to cross the channel yet - the N lorries the UK needs to supply it all need to come through Dover without delay, you can't lower that number or slow it down.

Their ferry ticket (or whatever equivalent they use) is the paperwork that they're prepared to go - I doubt any lorries come into Kent without that, so you'll not get anyone failing whatever the KAP requirements are.

The government estimate that 70% of lorries won’t have the correct paperwork in January.

All joking aside, every single one of the haulage associations say this is going to be an ongoing disaster with only very minimal improvement on the horizon as people become more aware of what paperwork they need. The head of the RHA is stockpiling food for January.

On Jan 1st though you need a ferry ticket plus x amounts of customs forms, tariff payment receipts, country of origin proofs etc etc

My wife isn't a trucker [look to camera], but she too has started stockpiling food for January

The government probably won't know what 70% of the paperwork required will be by January. And even that they'll only communicate to the hauliers with a couple of weeks to go.

Personally I've had it up to here with all these illegals coming into Kent.

From Sussex.

We end up with two internal borders and more red tape than a communist ticker tape parade.

Who’s here thinking it’ll be as good as our test and trace system for the pandemic?

Government’s worst case scenario is Government’s best case scenario.

But seriously, #kexit now then I know where to move to.

FFS. Didn't Raab alert Gove to how reliant UK trade is on the Dover-Calais route? I know it was a surprise for him, but surely he would have passed the info on to the relevant people and it would have been taken into account in the plans?

Okay, answered my own question - what plans?

The head of the RHA is stockpiling food for January.

Surely he/she just needs to believe more that it'll be ok?

I'm off to Costco for some prepping this week - covid/brexit is going to be a shit show sandwich this winter.

What a shitshow. I need to move out of Kent.

Are you kidding? You're about to have more rights than the rest of the UK

My friend of a friend who was in DExEU reckons the previous 3-months'-rations approach is looking a bit cavalier. He's now suggesting 6-9 months and a fairly sturdy water filtration unit. Not sure how feasible that is unless you have your own warehouse. Time to start adding some extra security measures to my industrial unit.

This tense relationship that the Swiss have with the EU continues.

Some parallels with us. Apparently freedom of movement doesn't account for much immigration into Switzerland overall. Switzerland is also a country that has encouraged high immigration for decades for economic policy reasons. Labour shortages, ageing population, declining regional populations etc. Some people seem to blame the EU for this.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/23/europe/switzerland-immigration-vote-walkup-intl/index.html

I earn decent money, but after a two week holiday in Switzerland I had to go home before I faced the prospect of bailiffs waiting for me, waiting to take my TV. It's astonishingly expensive there.

I spoke to our French and Swiss team about this and the Swiss guys all head over the border to do their shopping, and keep PO Boxes there to get mail order/internet shopping delivered too as it's easier to drive over and get it than wait two weeks for customs to release it.

But, and here we lead the world, no Geneva Access Pass (or not that I know of).

I'd be fully up for working in Switzerland and living in France, however.

I spent a couple of days in switzerland once on the way to milan on the Bernina Express (fully recommended even though I hate heights)

We arrived on a swiss national holiday we werent aware of so zero places to eat were open. ended up having lunch in a starbucks. A hot chocolate, a coffee, Two sandwiches and a salad came to the equivalent of £40.

we ended up eating like poor church mice for the next couple of days and then when we got to Milan absolutely gorging ourselves on good and much cheaper italian food.

Never going back.

#csb

If you stay in self catering places you can feed yourself relatively cheaply and well. But yeah, food shopping in Switzerland in terms of price is like doing your weekly shop in a UK train station Marks & Spencer.

One of the main reasons that prepared foods, restaurants and bars are so expensive in CH is because they have to pay their staff well. The average wage for a waitress or waiter is £17ph.

Minimum wage in Luxembourg is just shy of 25k and there's an annual index linked increase most years except when inflation is extremely low. Obvious side effect is that stuff costs a lot as if you want to have even a small cafe with a few salaried staff you're already 100k in the hole a year.

I will say though that Switzerland is on another level; I had a couple of pints sitting bike the lake in Lucerne once and thought there had been a horrible mistake with the bill.

I will say though that Switzerland is on another level; I had a couple of pints sitting bike the lake in Lucerne once and thought there had been a horrible mistake with the bill.

£35 for a Margherita pizza in one little Italian place we know in Valais. Its sensational pizza but there are limits! Just makes us cook more when we are there. As I said a few posts ago, cheap ingredients are still a thing in Switzerland. We often take a slow cooker with us when we visit.

My wife's from Metz and a lot of her friends and family live in and around Thionville and Hyange, they're pretty unremarkable towns but house prices are really expensive for the region because almost everyone who lives there works in Luxembourg.