The Brexit Thread

[Matt.GC]

Despite living there for 18 months, I didn't realise that the Australian farming standards were so poor. I haven't seen much about if/how UK supermarkets will have to label foods to identify the country of origin and the standards that have been applied to the product.

Interesting, that's the kind of stuff I'd fully expect from the US but not Australia. For now (who knows if this will change in the future), UK supermarkets already have to label the country of origin of meat. Whether the consumer knows enough about Australian welfare standards or not to be able to make an informed choice is another matter.

 

[Alsty]

I think it's obvious that if the consumer knows too much then the rules on country of origin labelling will simply be removed.

 

[D4n]

Animal rights issues aside, the cost to the environment of transporting any meat (which already has a huge footprint) from the opposite side of the world is crazy.

Such a huge backwards step on all counts.

 

[pluk]

We're talking here as if up to this point meat from the other side of the world produced to their standards wasn't already freely available in the UK, which is a nonsense. If you've got a leg of lamb in your freezer it was probably already from Australia or New Zealand.

Even with the removal of tariffs there's still going to be a huge natural economic barrier to significant imports due the the cost of transporting goods such long distances, with fresh rather than frozen product that barrier will be almost total.

With any trade deal there will be winners and losers from various industries within each country. There's going to be a lot of these so we better get used to it.

I think it's obvious that if the consumer knows too much then the rules on country of origin labelling will simply be removed.

Not sure how you'd come to this conclusion. Country of origin labeling has been around since the 60s, and only strengthened since then. The administration overseeing any trade deal wants to gain as much access and consent the least, that's the whole point of negotiations which take years. There's nothing to be gained from our administration strengthening the trading weakening the trading position for our own producers and suppliers.

 

[Alsty]

The Australia deal is purely about sovereignty and nothing to do with economics. It's about justifying that "taking back control" was actually worthwhile.

Over 15 years it will be worth just 0.02% of GDP, around £500 million pounds. In exchange for this our farmers will get sold down the Swanee.

Beef, for example, currently has a quota of 3,761 tonnes. This will be increased to a tariff-free quota of 35,000 tonnes immediately after the deal is in force, 110,000 tonnes after ten years and 170,000 after 15 years.

A similar plan applies to lamb, where imports are currently limited to 13,335 tonnes under the quota. This will go up to a tariff-free quota of 25,000 tonnes when the deal is enacted, 75,000 tonnes after 10 years and 125,000 tonnes after 15 years.

As for our negotiators giving away as little as possible... they seem to capitulate at the first hurdle. They dropped a commitment to a 1.5°c climate temperature limit, for instance.

One might also question the quality of the meat if it can be shipped from the opposite side of the world and still undercut anything produced in this country.

Source

 

[BigT]

It isn’t about cost cutting all of the time, we don’t produce enough meat in this country to feed us all.
We currently import a lot of beef and poultry from Brazil, it’s about improving our trading links with other countries not just to undercut our own farmers.

 

[Alsty]

If people voted Leave for an anti-immigration stance, they probably won't approve of this:

 

[pluk]

If people voted Leave for an anti-immigration stance, they probably won't approve of this:

I don't know because I'm not them, but imagine most of even the most ardent brexiteers know and understand the difference between controlled immigration where people who are perceived to be a benefit to our society are invited to come here and uncontrolled immigration where the occupants of a whole continent can turn up and live here regardless of their intent or ability to contribute anything. So they probably won't have any strong feelings against this.

 

[Alsty]

Well the comments section of said Daily Mail article has people foaming at the mouth, so I'm not so sure.

The government has already created a points based immigration system. As part of the negotiations for the free-trade agreement with India they are proposing relaxing this further to allow young Indians the right to live and work for three years, reduced student visa prices and allowing students to stay for a period of time after they graduate.

Doesn't the fact we have to make such concessions suggest the notion of regaining sovereignty and control is a fallacy? It doesn't exist if you want to trade with other countries.

 

[rob666]

The comments section of the Mail always has people foaming at the mouth...it is where the middle class elderly go to foam at the mouth, on any issue.
They have special drool and spittle trays, and lino, not carpets because of the fluid.

 

[pluk]

The government has already created a points based immigration system. As part of the negotiations for the free-trade agreement with India they are proposing relaxing this further to allow young Indians the right to live and work for three years, reduced student visa prices and allowing students to stay for a period of time after they graduate.

Doesn't the fact we have to make such concessions suggest the notion of regaining sovereignty and control is a fallacy? It doesn't exist if you want to trade with other countries.

Still controlled immigration you are describing, as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement. It's not uncontrolled, it's people we want here for our own and their benefit having a way to come here, it's not really a concession unless you view it as a negative? To make a leap from that sort of arrangement to there being no such thing as the notion of a nation is a nonsense.

 

[BarryZola]

The government will always find a way to get more tax-payers into the country. Ideally you have to have more tax-payers in any given generation than there were in the last one, otherwise you end up not being able to pay for peoples pensions, healthcare etc when they retire. That's why our population will keep on growing whilst everything is always about growing the economy and keeping the nation wealthy. If we don't produce enough of our own good little tax-payers we'll just bring them in from elsewhere. The main problems occur when you don't spend the appropriate amount of money on public services and housing to keep up with the growing population. Then people get angry. That's where we're at now.

 

[Dave]

Still controlled immigration you are describing, as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement. It's not uncontrolled, it's people we want here for our own and their benefit having a way to come here, it's not really a concession unless you view it as a negative? To make a leap from that sort of arrangement to there being no such thing as the notion of a nation is a nonsense.

I would suggest the idea that this trade deal will be mutually beneficial is optimistic. The Australian deal has barely any benefit for the UK. The only trade deals that are mutually beneficial to date are the ones we rolled over from our EU membership.

And we had controls on EU migration, our government chose not to implement them.

 

[Tom]

And we had controls on EU migration, our government chose not to implement them.

Precisely, and anyone that thought the same government - or at least the same party - was likely to give up on the notion of wage dilution through immigration should possibly have educated themselves more.

I can't remember which Lib Dem it was that send it, possibly Vince Cable, but the irony of Brexit is that it could very well make the United Kingdom less white in ethnic makeup. I wonder how well that would have gone down with the fascist vote (a small minority of Brexit backers before anyone jumps in) during the referendum campaign.

An advantage of Brexit however is that there is now a more significant capability to reduce numbers of people coming into the country if required, and if a government interested in doing so was ever formed.

 

[pluk]

I would suggest the idea that this trade deal will be mutually beneficial is optimistic. The Australian deal has barely any benefit for the UK. The only trade deals that are mutually beneficial to date are the ones we rolled over from our EU membership.

Of course it is mutually beneficial, beneficial compared to not having that trade deal, not beneficial over other trade deals lost. With this and Australia geography dictates it won't be of any huge benefit to either party, but there are certainly benefits with a trade deal such as this, including the spending and skills of young student immigration.

And we had controls on EU migration, our government chose not to implement them.

...so we didn't! In the eyes of the electorate EU membership meant unrestricted free movement of people because that's what our government gave them. Controls were always limited in scope though, mostly to do with new countries joining. Free movement of people does remain the aim and default position of the EU.

There was a long running loud voice from the public unhappy with what was happening, which wasn't listened to until Brexit became an option for them to be heard. Its easy to brand those people racists but the opinion becomes more understandable in places which have been totally transformed by mass non integrated immigration in an incredibly short period of time, where peoples worth as an individual employee in certain industries has been driven down by huge a influx of workers suddenly destabilising the labour market.

Those in government in 2004 now admit they got EU immigration policy very wrong as new nations became members and vastly underestimated how many people would come here. Unfortunately they then failed to react to their mistake, paving the way for Brexit. It was a Labour government that made the mistake and a Conservative one which hadn't fixed it since they came to power so there's no party politics here, it was terrible leadership all round. I strongly believe that if this hadn't been allowed to happen and the UK had controlled free movement even to the limited extent they were able to then Brexit would never have followed.

 

[JAperson]

It's an interesting situation about free movement. The EU style free movement was completely unrestricted. The government had the chance to put incredibly limited controls on which I'm not sure would have twisted the vote. A similar free movement deal to Australia and New Zeeland would've been a lot better and would've have likely stopped Brexit from ever happenings
Australia and New Zealand have free movement however it is controlled by limiting factors including criminal records. It allowed each country to refuse the movement of either side but was didn't require visa's or anything like that.
I was and still am pro-EU but lots of little things were very frustrating including the way the free movement system worked. It was a brilliant system (in principle) but wasn't implemented or organised at all.

 

[Alsty]

The whole immigration thing is a false flag. The amount of non-EU immigration always exceeded EU migration. The government always had full control of non-EU migration yet did nothing to stem it, if it was such a problem.

Source

 

[pluk]

The whole immigration thing is a false flag. The amount of non-EU immigration always exceeded EU migration. The government always had full control of non-EU migration yet did nothing to stem it, if it was such a problem.

Source

To dismiss immigration as a false flag is a gross oversimplification and misrepresentation of the data, as I'm sure you know as you appear to be no fool.

That says nothing about who is coming, their intent, their impact or their contribution to the country, does it? Immigration from the rest of the world is (/was) well controlled and so there was no need to stem it.

It can't be lost on you that 'the rest of the world' is many times vastly larger in population than the EU while only a very slightly higher contributor to migration, so EU migration to the UK is huge as a percentage of the population of the EU compared to that of the rest of the world. Why? Because migration from the rest of the world is controlled to allow people who will contribute, who are a needed profession, who will pay to study, who are in need of asylum. Rather than anyone who wants to.

 

[Tom]

I believe that looking at this...

Migrants in the UK Labour Market: An Overview - Migration Observatory - The Migration Observatory (ox.ac.uk)

...we can deduce that EU nationals are more likely to be employed than non-EU nationals living in the UK. You could never just come and claim benefits despite the various myths. Indeed, unemployment rates are/were higher among UK nationals than they were EU nationals living in the UK. EU immigration was effectively a tap of cheap labour on which businesses wanted to draw however. Non-EU migration was more made up other family reunions etc than EU migration was.

Again, if anyone believed that one tap of cheap labour would be stopped for another one not to be opened, then more fool them. The businesses that have the thirst for it fund the Conservative Party for god's sake.

 

[pluk]

I believe that looking at this...

Migrants in the UK Labour Market: An Overview - Migration Observatory - The Migration Observatory (ox.ac.uk)

...we can deduce that EU nationals are more likely to be employed than non-EU nationals living in the UK.

A hugely selective deduction to fit a narrative and out of all context. Well done?