Brexit for trees

Was this really what they voted for in the 2016 referendum?

The Guardian Feb 17th 2021.
Brexit forces Northern Ireland buyers to cancel orders for 100,000 trees

Orders have been cancelled because of a post-Brexit ban on the plants being moved from Britain.

First it was shellfish and now trees, what’s next?

Brexit - Teething problems

From The Guardian in the past few days in mid Feb 2021. I am sure I do not need to comment, these speak for themselves.

Opinion on Brexit by Observer columnist Nick Cohen
In the fairytale land of Brexit, we’re trading with the world. It’s a fantasy

Half of UK exporters to EU are having Brexit difficulties, survey finds

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said that 49% of UK-based exporters in a survey of 470 firms had suffered problems with post-Brexit arrangements since the start of the year, as companies struggled to adapt and faced higher costs due to extra border checks and paperwork.

Brexit: as half its sales are wiped out, silk firm joins exodus to Europe

Mike Bennett runs a small firm called Bennett Silks in Stockport, Greater Manchester, which has been in his family since his great-grandfather set it up in 1904.

“Our only chance to retain EU business is to create a distribution centre in France,” he said. This, unfortunately, will have the effect of taking jobs and economic activity away from north-west England.

“To turn our backs on the world’s largest trading bloc, which is on our doorstep, in favour of trying to create trade deals with countries that couldn’t be further away, and have much smaller economies, is total stupidity and beyond comprehension,” he says.

“Britain used to be great but no longer,” he says, blaming Tory politicians at the top of government. “To adapt a phrase from our most famous leader, ‘Never in the field of British business has so much been destroyed for so many, by so few.’”

Post-Brexit

Brexit Was Sold as Taking Back U.K. Control. Post-Brexit Is Out of Control.

This is from The New York Times on Feb 12th 2021. A few highlights below.

As the new year made Brexit a reality, Tony Hale…confronted the need to extricate 53 tons of rotting pork products from administrative purgatory at a port in the Netherlands.

… incorrectly prepared documents meant sending five containers full of pork to… — the incinerator.

The trade deal… stopped tariffs from being imposed on goods… but did not prevent the revival of customs procedures, health and safety checks, value-added taxes on imports, and other time-consuming, commerce-limiting hindrances.

On Friday, the Office of National Statistics announced that Britain’s economy contracted by nearly 10 percent last year, the worst plunge in centuries.

The volume of exports crossing the channel in January collapsed by more than two-thirds…

Roughly half of all trucks bringing goods from Calais to Dover are now returning empty…

Administration officials have minimized Brexit troubles, describing them as “teething problems” that will subside once businesses master the intricacies of the new procedures.

Britain’s lucrative finance industry has seen trading in the stocks of European companies shift abruptly to the continent…

“We are going to be living with Brexit for the rest of our lives,” … “The coronavirus is an acute condition. Brexit is chronic.”

And so on, you get the picture…

Brexit: “Move to EU”

I wrote in a previous post about Brexit: “who needs comedy, when reality is this funny, at least from outside the UK.”

This is from The Guardian Jan 23rd 2021:
Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told

In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely.

I guess that the Free Trade deal means that UK companies are free to set up shop in the EU?

If this was not such a serious issue, this would be funny in the UK as well.

PS This just gets better (or worse, depending on where you live) The Guardian Jan 26th 2021:

Logistics and warehousing companies in the Netherlands are being inundated with requests from British businesses looking to rent warehouse space, as the country experiences a Brexit boom in investment and jobs.
Brexit: Dutch warehouse boom as UK firms forced to invest abroad

The punchline here is: the country experiencing a Brexit boom is not the UK.

Brexit done

The UK finally got Brexit done, four and a half years after the referendum. The punchline here is; but it is not over.

The editorial in The Guardian - published Thu 31 Dec 2020 23.00 GMT which is the exact time of UK’s departure from the EU - makes the point much better than I can, so here is the link.

The Guardian view of Brexit: a tragic national error

Brexit regret

May 17th, 2020 - during the Covid-19 pandemic

Politicians have always given comedians, cartoonists and satirists good material, and the present is no exception. We have the Brexit saga, which is a gift that keeps on giving. There is also of course the presidency on the other side of the Atlantic, but can't fit them both into one text, way too much material. Brexit will have to do for now, and it is approaching yet another deadline.

Let me “briefly” refresh your memory on this saga.

David Cameron the Prime Minister (remember him?) promised a referendum on should the UK stay in the EU or not, and that referendum was held in June 2016. Cameron was for remaining in the EU, was sure the Remain side would win, and promptly lost to the Leave side, who did not expect to win, and were totally unprepared for it. Anyway, the next day Cameron resigns, and Theresa May becomes PM.

And we get the classic Brexit means Brexit. They spend the next six months debating what that really means; Irish backstop, financial institutions, EU citizens in UK and vice versa, immigration, customs union, regulatory alignment, no-deal or trade-deal, or Canada-style or Norway, and so on.

In December they vote on May's plan and officially notify the EU on March 29th. In Brexit jargon they invoke Article 50, and begin a two year withdrawal process. May calls a snap general election for June 2017, and thinks she will win, and of course loses the majority.

UK and EU negotiate and negotiate, and ministers resign and are replaced, and finally in November 2018 they come up with a Withdrawal Agreement. All 27 other EU members endorse it. The UK parliament rejects it in January, and again in March. Theresa May then asks the EU for an extension, gets one until May 22nd, and the parliament rejects the agreement the third time.

The original Glorious Brexit Day of March 29th 2019 comes and goes, and even before the second Brexit day arrives, May asks for another extension from the EU and gets one until October.

Since the UK is still in the EU, they have to hold European Parliament elections in May. They do and the “winners” are the Brexit party, and the Anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour do not do so well, and the next day May resigns.

A Conservative party leadership contest takes place and Boris Johnson becomes PM in July. The next day, with the October deadline approaching, the parliament promptly starts summer recess until Sep 3rd. Johnson wants to keep the parliament from interfering, and decides to “prorogue” it in September. Which means that the parliament would not really have time to debate Brexit before the October deadline.

The parliament comes back to work, passes a motion for an emergency debate, and the next day passes a bill that requires Johnson to ask for an extension to the Brexit deadline, if the parliament does not approve a withdrawal agreement or a No-deal-Brexit. Later the same day, Johnson proposes to call a general election in October, but parliament rejects it.

A few days later Government again tries to get a general election in October, but is rejected again. Parliament is prorogued and the Party conference season starts. Also, John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, who gave us a lot of laughs with his unique style, announces that he will resign.

Two weeks later the Supreme Court of the UK rules that basically the prorogation is unlawful, and the parliament is called back the next day. The Government proposes to replace the Irish backstop with regulatory alignment and a customs border.

The parliament is prorogued for about a week, this time lawfully, and comes back to work. The UK and the EU agree on the new Withdrawal agreement, but the parliament first passes an amendment and then approves it and the amendment. This in turn kicks in the bill they passed in September, and requires Johnson to ask for yet another extension to Brexit.

In September Johnson said “I’d rather be dead in a ditch” than ask for an extension, but has to, and he writes two letters: one unsigned which asks for an extension until January, and one signed which says that the extension would be a mistake.

The Government tries to have a new vote on the withdrawal, but the Speaker refuses, since it has already been voted on during this parliamentary session. Even the UK parliament has rules they have to follow, does not always look like it though.

In the background there is a running lawsuit in Edinburgh about writing the letter to the EU asking for an extension, which also creates some weird and funny moments. The petitioners ask for a ruling that if Johnson does not write the letter, the court should write it itself. Also the court can not decide the case because as of yet “the PM has not acted unlawfully” and “the situation remains fluid”. Then when Johnson writes the letters, they decide that the first letter fulfills the requirements, but the second negates the first. And the court of course refuses to dismiss the case.

In late October the Government introduces a bill, which is passed, but the timeline to get all the stages of the bill completed in three days and before the current Brexit day Oct 31st is rejected.

The EU agrees to extend the Brexit deadline to Jan 31st 2020.

The same day the Government loses a vote to have an election on Dec 12th, withdraws the bill with the rejected timeline, and next day introduces a new short election bill. They have a Fixed-term Parliaments Act in the UK, but this bill somehow gets around it, and is passed.

The election is held and the Conservatives win a majority, the Withdrawal agreement is passed in parliament and the UK leaves the EU at 11.00 pm on Jan 31st 2020. A Glorious day with Union Jacks and I Got Brexit Done coffee mugs and tea towels and the like.

And on Feb 1st, to the hard part, the negotiations about the future relationship with the EU. The UK had to withdraw from the EU before the trade negotiations could start, because when it was in the EU it had a veto right, you can't be on both sides of the negotiation table, especially with a veto right.

So, now there is a transition period, which ends on Dec 31st 2020. This transition period can be extended for two years, but the extension should be made by a legally binding deadline of July 1st, and by a UK-EU joint committee.

The EU has said from the start that negotiating a trade deal in such a short time frame is difficult, and they have also implied that they would be open to an extension if the UK applies for one. The UK of course said that it will not apply for an extension, and would say “no” even if the EU asked for one.

The negotiations start, and then the pandemic hits, which means no face-to-face negotiations, only video conferencing.

As of today there is six weeks left until the extension deadline, and the latest from the negotiations is “very little progress” and “very disappointing”.

Regardless of how this chapter of the saga ends: in a trade deal or an extension or a no-trade-deal-brexit, this saga will still generate a lot of material for cartoonists and comedians.

Then again who needs comedy, when reality is this funny, at least from outside the UK.

My biggest regret regarding Brexit, besides the obvious stupidity of the whole thing, is that Blackadder and Yes Minister aired years ago. I wish both shows were on now and could give their takes on this saga.

Blackadder, Baldrick, Brexit and the rest of the crew. Maybe Brexit just needed a cunning plan to work. Gods of Comedy really are cruel, they gave us both Blackadder and Brexit, but not at the same time.

And Yes Minister, a series that would have suited Brexit absolutely perfectly. Minister Hacker trying to get Brexit done, Bernard trying to help him on the way, and Sir Humphrey right at home with all the Brexit jargon and the archaic parliamentary rules. But it was not meant to be. Though the writers gave us a taste in The Guardian after the referendum.

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. We have the original Blackadder and Yes Minister, let's be happy with that. And remember, most likely we will still have years of Brexit to enjoy.

And finally and fittingly, for all the present and future participants in all the negotiations, twists and the cunning plans in the Brexit saga still to come; quoting Captain Blackadder as they are about to go over the top, into no man's land, to face the German machine guns: “Good luck everyone“.