EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Come October the 1st we are (apparently, many don't believe it will happen) going to start opening trucks and having a look, to see whether they genuinely do have 150 washing machines in the back, and checking whether sausages are made from Percy Pig rather than Henry Horse.

Which isn't going to have much impact on things coming from China that should already be subject to those checks at some point in the journey.

Better paid truckers would inject a lot of money into the sex work industry though, finally some Brexit rewards.

I wouldn't get to worried about stricter controls, the UK has always been a bit negligent.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/uk-faces-2bn-fine-over-chinese-imports-scam-say-eu-anti-fraud-investigators

Where between the outbound Chinese border and our border would you expect someone to check for UK taxable items?

I think the crux of this beef is that @jellybaby is saying the China>UK customs checks is already a well established system and the new EU>UK checks are additional to this so they shouldn't be affected, @sumo is saying that the additional new EU>UK checks are being taken on, at least in part by the systems involved in the China>UK checks, and so are being affected, but neither has seen the subtle difference in the others point of view. As for who is right I don't know.

Tldr.. a right shambles

Hmm

Depends how it was 'shipped'. At a sea port if it arrives by container on a boat. At an air port if arriving by plane.

(pre-Brexit) At the EU border if arriving by land but I'm not sure how much arrives that way?

Are you suggesting things are transiting through the EU in a customs sealed way (TIR Convention?) who no longer check it because it is exiting the EU and then the UK are not checking it either because it has come from the EU?

I used to always get a charge or at least a sticker on the box saying it had been inspected. Since Brexit and all the reports of how fucked the systems are, no fees and no stickers.

So here's the thing, I've never made any claims about how things are getting through the EU to the UK, all I said was a comment about my experience getting things shipped in to the country since Brexit happened.

Let's look at the original quotes

Dammit said:
"Entertainingly we have not yet started checking inbound goods on our side of the channel, that’s October the 1st."

Sumo said:
"That explains why I haven't had a single customs charge for any the shit I've bought from China."

I don't want to get in to a big discussion about our border and customs process, I made an observation and you seem to have taken this as a challenge.

Are you suggesting things are transiting through the EU in a customs sealed way (TIR Convention?) who no longer check it because it is exiting the EU and then the UK are not checking it either because it has come from the EU?

Yes. Smugglers paradise, right now. If you stick it in the container in, say, Belarus and mark it "Jellybaby Enterprises, London UK" then it will currently be delivered to you with the paperwork having been checked, but nothing else.

Starting to do physical checks is likely to snarl things up hugely, so the assumption is that that particular can will be kicked down the road until something too nasty to ignore gets in - likely fake products that are a bit too flammable/baby formula made out of ground up patio furniture/similar.

"That explains why I haven't had a single customs charge for any the shit I've bought from China."

I also haven't had a single customs charge for the things I've imported from China although I do that a lot less often than I do from the EU.

I made an observation

Which I don't understand the relevance to Brexit.

Customs and Excise is effectively a single entity, it's operating on the very edge of capacity right now. Is that having an impact on non-EU imports? I'd say it's likely. Is it definite? I can't say.

Could it be affecting low-risk, low-value personal imports from China? Maybe.

My imports used to get checked, brexit happened, my imports no longer are being checked.

I came here for the hot take on co-op sandwiches, stayed for the sex worker benefits and the kafka like discussion of why or why not something may or may not have or have not had or had not been given a stamp or a nod through and why this may or may not reflect either a requirement to pay people more or go back in time.

You can't just pay people more, because that would cause a massive movement from one underpaid job to the new newly paid job.
And I hate doing the dammit eg, but e.g. fruit pickers become truck drivers, truck drivers become ambo drivers, sex workers still suck off who ever.

My imports used to get checked

That's the bit of information I was missing

You can't just pay people more, because that would cause a massive movement from one underpaid job to the new newly paid job.

And I hate doing the dammit eg, but e.g. fruit pickers become truck drivers, truck drivers become ambo drivers, sex workers still suck off who ever.

Isn't the current issue also that its almost impossible for people to train and pass tests to become HGV drivers, so increasing pay doesn't really help, as there is a limited supply.

My stepdad is a HGV driver (currently works for a milk company dragging it up from the cows down here to you milk drinkers up there). From his observation there are loads of jobs around, but they aren't paying higher wages than have been paid in the past.

My stepdad is a HGV driver (currently works for a milk company dragging it up from the cows down here to you milk drinkers up there). From his observation there are loads of jobs around, but they aren't paying higher wages than have been paid in the past.

Presumably because the contracts the haulers have haven't changed and an adjustment while everything feeds through the supply chains will take years.

I would guess so.

I would add, it is an horrendous job really: lonely, low-paid, days away from family, I think I saw a fact that the average HGV driver is in their 50s, so not sure this will get better in the long term anyway.

it is an horrendous job really

Agreed. Seems worse than a tube driver to me with a similar skill level required and yet they are paid a decent salary.

Yep. I used to live next door to a long haul driver, he used to go away for 4 weeks at a time, driving all over Europe. he was completely deaf from playing loud music to keep himself awake, as apparently in the 80s he used to take speed to keep him going but now he was in his fifties he didn't think that was sensible anymore....

kafka like discussion of why or why not something may or may not have or have not had or had not been given a stamp or a nod through and why this may or may not reflect either a requirement to pay people more or go back in time.

Lol. I like how this all started because of a semantic issue.

Tesla better hurry up with their self-driving trucks (the ones that won’t hit bikes, people or pets, or any other object for that matter).

Also the argument that you can’t pay X underpaid job more because then underpaid people from another industry will leave their old jobs is hilarious. I expect to hear it at some point from the US republican party, who love “defending the free market” except when it’s inconvenient.

Also the argument that you can’t pay X underpaid job more because then underpaid people from another industry will leave their old jobs is hilarious.

If you've got people in a shit job requiring few quals and there's another new job line opening up paying more, people will move. Why do uber etc manage to get people on board? Because there's the prospect of earning more (prospect not actual earn). I'm not saying "don't pay them more". I'm saying "this is not going to be as easy as "pay them more!"".

Or not. I may or may not have said that.

Yup, I change jobs simply because they pay £1/hr more than the last, every pennies count.

These are jobs that don’t have promotion, which is a keys factor.

Got a new blue black passport in our household today. Made me genuinely sad.

On the worker chat, one silver lining is the stonking business my recruiter mate is doing. They specialise in hospitality and until recently their business was dead and they were considering moving and setting up a B&B. Now they're doing more business than they've ever done before.

Not sure if it's actually ironic but they are the first leave voting business owner I've come into contact with whose business has benefited.

#everycloud