Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,915
Mr McS - and we stay in (accede to) the Single Market also?
Mr W - I think they're torn between knowing what 'what' is before they jump and catering for their existing clients before taking on any more!
howard mcsweeney1 and Paul Watkins like this
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Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
button limekiln roundabout and motis have nothing in common, that roundabout is a death trap.
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,915
Brian, they have a lot in common - the roundabout is the route into and out of Motis. Inbound traffic goes in and comes out on the same side of the carriageway, whilst outbound traffic crosses over the inbound route going in, and again coming out. And that's what, 5% of all freight vehicles maybe? Now imagine it much, much higher.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Ever since the Referendum there has been excited chatter about the return of Freight Forwarding in the town like in its heyday. I don't think it is great news at all as firstly the way our Government has been behaving up until now if no deal happens it will be a last minute thing. Current businesses would not have time to find staff then train them up to an acceptable level, not something that can be learned in a week or two.
New companies or existing ones opening a branch here would have the same problems plus finding office space without any idea how much business they would attract thus how many staff they would need. Experienced people from before the single market would now be retired or taken up a new career.
Button likes this
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,915
Spot on, Mr McS. The two worries for would-be customs agents are: just where are qualified staff coming from, and the cost of customs guarantees - which have to be backed by a financial institution. Two roles here for government, I feel.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/27/eurotunnel-tory-brexit-customs-union
Below is the telling bit in my view.
He added that technology to prevent delays already existed, but said nothing could be planned or built until the UK and EU had decided on their future trading arrangements. Only then could precise specifications for checking goods be determined, equipment built, staff trained, and people educated about the new situation.
“The important part for industry is having a clear specification of what will be needed – and we don’t expect that to be agreed until the future trading arrangements are settled, during the transition period [from April 2019 to the end of 2020]. But even once industry has a specification, it could still take several years to build it, develop the necessary infrastructure, recruit and train new staff and educate transporters from across Europe in its use.”
Button likes this
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Times.
Three former cabinet ministers are attempting to unite warring Conservative MPs behind a “sensible Brexit” compromise. Amber Rudd, Damian Green and Justine Greening held a private meeting with Theresa May yesterday at which they told her that there was a large majority in the parliamentary party in favour of a compromise with the EU. It followed a series of informal consultations with backbench MPs on both sides of the Brexit divide in an attempt to build a consensus on a “pragmatic approach” to the negotiations in Brussels. The trio told Mrs May to ignore the noisy protests on both extremes of the party and pursue a policy that kept the UK closely aligned to the single market and customs union.
“That’s where the vast majority of the party is,” Ms Rudd, the former home secretary, told The Times. “We just haven’t been as shouty. We wanted to tell the prime minister what lots of MPs are telling us: Ms Rudd ruled out remaining in the customs union but said: “Whatever customs union alternative we go for we have to give ourselves sufficient time to deliver it. What is practical must be the guiding principle while protecting the Good Friday agreement.” The three former cabinet ministers are understood to be concerned that the Tory Party’s public debate on Brexit has been dominated by hardline Brexiteers and Remainers.
They insist that neither position is backed by the “vast majority” of MPs who want both to fulfil the terms of the referendum while keeping close economic links with the EU.
Ms Rudd, Ms Greening, the former education secretary, and Mr Green, the former deputy prime minister, have also held talks with Brexiteers in an attempt to broker a compromise that would preserve Mrs May’s red lines of leaving the customs union and single market. Under their proposals, the UK would legally commit to remaining aligned with single market rules on goods in order to preserve trade. They also support a government pledge to stay in a customs union for a limited time while new arrangements to avoid disruption at the border are put in place.
One Conservative MP said the three former ministers had been increasingly active in recent weeks to build support for their agenda. “Justine has been having endless cups of tea with the Brexiteers trying to broker a compromise,” they said. “All three of them have the advantage of having been in government until recently and they understand the complexities of what the government is trying to do. The more voices arguing for compromise the better.” One pro-European Tory said they doubted that the trio would be able to find common ground with Brexiteer backbenchers such as the former cabinet minister John Redwood. “I think some on that side of the party don’t want any kind of deal at all and will vote against whatever the prime minister comes back with,” they said.
Downing Street played down the significance of the meeting, saying that Mrs May met regularly with all sections of the parliamentary party and that the meeting had been agreed “some time ago”.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
UK citizens living in one member state but working in others are being left in limbo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44319776Weird Granny Slater- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 2,871
But some UK citizens, being more equal than others, can afford to hedge their bets:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44313941'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
Reginald Barrington- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,206
I think all uk citizens can afford to hedge their bets, considering the Cartes De Séjour is free!
Arte et Marte
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Gloomy prognosis from the Sunday Times.
Britain would be hit with shortages of medicine, fuel and food within a fortnight if the UK tries to leave the European Union without a deal, according to a Doomsday Brexit scenario drawn up by senior civil servants for David Davis. Whitehall has begun contingency planning for the port of Dover to collapse “on day one” if Britain crashes out of the EU, leading to critical shortages of supplies.
Last month officials in Davis’s Brexit department and the departments of health and transport drew up scenarios for a no-deal Brexit — a mild one, a severe one and one dubbed “Armageddon”.
A source said: “In the second scenario, not even the worst, the port of Dover will collapse on day one. The supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days, and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks.”
Officials would have to charter aircraft, or use the RAF to ferry supplies to the furthest corners of the UK. “You would have to medevac medicine into Britain, and at the end of week two we would be running out of petrol as well,” the source said.
Concern about chaos at Dover was behind a decision by Highways England to announce plans last month to build “one or more lorry holding areas” in Kent “to reduce the congestion caused by cross-Channel disruption”. It is understood that the papers were prepared for the so-called Inter-Ministerial Group on Preparedness, which meets weekly when parliament is sitting. One official said the scenarios are so explosive they have only been shared with a handful of ministers and are “locked in a safe”.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 7,532
'If no one went no faster than what I do there'd be a sight less trouble in this world'
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,667
From the biased article obviously approved by that sour grapes Brexit supporter George Osborne.
“The supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days, and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks.”
Does that mean Spain will no longer be sending their tasteless fresh food, I can but hope this happens then our supermarkets will be forced to buy more home produced fresh food.
I am not at all sure EU based medical companies will cut their vast profits by refusing to continue their sales to the UK, most are multi national so will simply ship from outside the EU.
John Buckley likes this
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
Genuine question here, apart from the manky “fresh” produce from Spain or France, ( which personally I wouldn’t give you twopence for anyway ) which particular foodstuff deprivation is going to lead to this doomsday scenario?
Might miss a bit of Belgium chocolate I guess, but would probably survive!
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
John Buckley- Registered: 6 Oct 2013
- Posts: 615
As an addition to the above, even if there was a shred of truth in what has been forecast by no doubt “experts”, then surely it is the responsibility of the government to safeguard its citizens now and take the appropriate action to minimise our predicted suffering?
A good start would be to tell the EU, in the most polite way, that the UK government has a duty first and foremost to its people and therefore in order to avoid any possible future disaster we have no choice but to start, arrange and commence trade negotiations with other countries now, not if and when they say we can.
I’m sure they would understand our predicament and be only too happy to agree, if not, for starters they can waive goodbye to their anticipated forty billion windfall and we do it anyway!
After all, if they have no inclination to assist us in a possible time of emergency then why should we bother with them?
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,915
I haven't read the article because it's too hot to get exasperated and I need to crack-on with my bucket list as a precaution. But I hope we can agree that it's alarming. I wouldn't want to be a parliamentarian who presided over Doomsday and so, if there's a chance of meltdown, government should commence asking the border industry (who have been quite vocal on Brexit consequences for really some time now) what HMG can have, instead of preaching what it wants. Anything involving more land or more people is out of the question around these parts if one is talking about Spring next year; so, for example, one should forget about consumer protection controls at the border or bringing back cabotage - since we currently have insufficient haulers of our own.
But judging from the posts above, it sounds like the article is yet more vague "journalism"; 'crash out' sounds like Spring 2019, but 'no deal' - is that with the EU or with RoW countries, and does it concern process or tariffs? It doesn't help Dover Straits routes, but RoW-facing boxports should be little affected beyond government system changes to keep the customs duty and some of the VAT for the Treasury - and to collect higher rates of duty if one assumes that the RoW deals Dr Fox is indeed working on won't be in place in time. Those ports have staff and land in place and can stack their customers one on top the other. Ro-ro ports cannot, so I'm planning on a nice cliff-top picnic to watch the fun.
ray hutstone likes this
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Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
All rubbish
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,915
Could you be more specific Mr M?
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