EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/07/23/britain-is-back-on-the-road-to-the-brexit-cliff-edge-is-anyone-even-driving-the-car/

I'm still not sure if there's a plan or if this is all a lucky accident for a small group of people...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53574355

Full clarity still can't be given to firms over sea border. It's ok...only 5 months to go 🙄

Then there are rumours two large supermarkets may move their NI warehouses due to all this.

Brexit: Boris Johnson faces Eurotunnel test

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/30/brexit-european-court-row-puts-eurotunnel-operations-at-risk?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

The cherry picking over the EJC continues, which can leave the UK exposed to trade wars, unless a custom agreement is agreed.

Brexit: Boris Johnson faces Eurotunnel test

Which will win, Boris Johnson, or a 300km/h train? There's only one way to find out

:')

But the Eurotunnel company may sue over damage to the train... ;)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53685266

Let's throw another 355 million at a self-created red-tape problem... NI businesses happy they get some help, though haulier license issues not sorted.

https://twitter.com/UE/status/1292105984765304832

@UE: BREAKING Conservative donor Tate & Lyle - one of the only large UK businesses to back hard Brexit - will get a tariff break worth up to £73m next year in one of the government’s first post-Brexit trade reforms

New @UE investigation

https://t.co/wGWLQQgF9p

sweet!

Oh shit, I started buying their sugar after seeing the factory across the river.

Trebles all round!

Logged in to post that...

Only company to import raw cane sugar, not suspicious at all 🙄

Nordzucker owns McKinney, the production may be in Germany but I've been buying it since I found out T&L employed Davis Davis and were big brexit fans.

Our native (UK) Sugar Beet farmers are, how you say, fucked.

I read a decent blog piece recently - maybe a few weeks ago - by someone who owns one of the big sugar beet farms, about that. I can't find it. Anyone know which one I mean?

https://www.transparency.org.uk/why-corruption-matters

What, like, proper fucked?

I bet they voted for Brexit.

T&L have always been mired in sleeze - prior to being sold to the US, they received massive subsidies from the EU (dwarfing a paltry 70mil).

To be fair, the whole EU sugar policy is a bit shit, unless of course, you're an EU sugar producer.

(Caveat - the last time i really knew anything about this was over a decade ago)

Interesting wrinkle to the Tate and Lyle thing- rules of origin mean that their sugar will face EU tariffs if sold in Northern Ireland, and anything made with it (above a certain %) for export will also attract tariffs even with an FTA in place, again due to rules of origin.

So it’ll be cheaper for Tate and Lyle, but more expensive for the UK companies who use it.

From what I understood rules of origin is complex, sometimes with enough processing / checks items can be ok.

I can be wrong though

Gove visits NI and says NI exports will have "best if both worlds" (except services eh?) and it's a better deal than what Scotland gets.

Lol man just doesn't care anymore eh?

You are correct. Raw sugar (albeit processed from Sugar Kane is going to get tariffs. Food products made with said sugar- that’s down to the % of the final product.

Not a single car made in the UK today by a volume manufacturer qualifies for an FTA due to rules of origin. We just assemble them here, the majority of parts are imported.

Ah I didn't know that about cars :)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/irish-sea-border-chaos-brexit-northern-ireland

And it's even worse than I thought...again.

I didn't know NI does a lot of food processing from ingredients from all over, that's going to work well with the floating border... Not.

Sometimes I bet the politicians wish the broadcast link would go down...
https://twitter.com/jonathanpienews/status/1301452693228130304?s=21