Getting brexit done!

[Alf Bentley]

16 minutes ago, Strokes said:

No I don’t comment on every point nor do I expect you too, the luvvies was a bit tongue in cheek no need to get defensive.

I think you’ve covered it quite well in all fairness and I do hope we, as a country can hold our heads high on our part (it’s by no means certain, even if I believe it to be malicious). 
I really don’t take pleasure in EU exposing themselves as the callous, disgusting dictators that I always believed they were. Well, not under these circumstances anyway. 

 

No problem, you Brexshit bozo! 

[bovril]

3 hours ago, Strokes said:

Despicable behaviour from the EU over the vaccine row, do any of the EU luvvies on here have any support for them on it?

If we were the perpetrators and Europe the victims, I’m not sure it would be quite so silent in here.

Has anybody defended the EU's behaviour? 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

2 hours ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

That was one of the inevitable things going to happen. I am sure it will get better over time but people have to realise that excesses now have to be paid for expensive UK goods or you go for imports where the goods are fairly cheap but the tax very high. It's unfortunate for people like you and clubs/organisations (like UFS) who were reliant on imported goods.

 

Same thing with fresh produce. People forget how reliant the UK was on EU imports. Not many people bothered going to the local farm shop to support UK businesses at any point. Even before Brexit, there were many choices to support local/British but many people (for ease/price) opted for the foreign alternative.

Yeah, without going into too much detail, two suppliers now flat refuse to ship to the UK and the shipping for the others has gone up considerably. For the vast majority of the stuff we use there are zero alternatives in the UK so we're at their mercy basically. 

Edited 22 March 2021 by Sol thewall Bamba

[Innovindil]

56 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

I tend to agree with your point in bold. Or at least, if the EU had a strong legal case v. AZ, they'd be using it to force AZ to increase supplies.

Though it could be a grey area as the precise scope of application of legal concepts like "best endeavours" is much contested in court: https://www.taylorwessing.com/synapse/commercial_endeavours.html#:~:text=recognised this formulation as being,concept of reasonableness still applies.

 

I'm not convinced that no legal knowledge is necessary. I haven't read the EU-AZ contract (presumably you have as you quote from it). Plus, I don't know which courts or legal jurisdiction the contract comes under, which language takes precedence if it is drafted in more than one or how concepts like "best efforts/endeavours" (or possibly French-language equivalents) are interpreted under EU law - assuming the contract ultimately comes under EU/ECJ law?

 

As I said, I suspect that the EU has no solid legal grounds for its accusation about UK blocking exports. You seem 100% confident about this, so I assume you have a detailed knowledge of all EU-UK agreements over vaccine supplies and of the UK export procedures applied in this case. If not, your confidence is the equivalent of someone posting: "Leicester should sell Vardy. Fact!"

 

Yes, whether it's through a more conciliatory approach (esp. from the EU) or through threats of mutual harm, let's hope that a co-operative way forward can be found. EU blocking and UK counter-blocking is a Lose-Lose scenario - and on such a crucial, urgent issue (not to mention an increased likelihood of further EU-UK conflict over other issues).

I'm going by what the AZ CEO said in an interview reguarding the contract. Normally I'd chalk it off as contested, but I think I'd fall towards believing him. These lot aren't out to make money and enough other sources are quoting the best efforts bit too and defending their actions. 

 

I am 100% confident in this, because it makes absolutely zero sense for us to drop a bollock and place a ban on exports. The contract we signed with them isn't best effort, it's get everything made at UK sites until our order is fulfilled. Why put an export ban in place when contractually they have nothing to export yet. It's lunacy. 

 

The EU ****ed up. And as much as it's not fair on Europeans, they'll have to suck it up and wait like everyone else. Their ire should be directed at their leaders and the system they have in place. To quote the president of the European comission:

 

"A country can be a speedboat, the EU is more like a tanker,"

 

Indeed. 

[Innovindil]

6 minutes ago, bovril said:

Has anybody defended the EU's behaviour? 

Where did he say anyone had. 

[bovril]

Just now, Innovindil said:

Where did he say anyone had. 

He didn't to be fair, he said there had been silence from the luvvies which is a bit weird considering almost every other post in the Corona thread is about the EU's behaviour. 

[KrefelderFox666]

6 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Yeah, without going into too much detail, two suppliers now flat refuse to ship to the UK and the shipping for the others has gone up considerably. For the vast majority of the stuff we use there are zero alternatives in the UK so we're at their mercy basically. 

On a larger scale, and due to involvement with the UK Fanclub, I was aware that Bayern Munich stopped shipping merchandise to the UK due to the post-Brexit issues. I think they have now found a way around that but it seems potentially the massive paperwork overhead is putting firms off bothering with exporting to the UK altogether. When someone as large as Bayern Munich stop delivering to the UK I can only imagine the problems faced for smaller companies.

[bovril]

And slightly ironic that remainers are being accused of dodging difficult conversations considering how much has been discussed about the vaccine wars vs how much has been discussed about UK's exports plummeting. 

[Ginger_Filbert]

8 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Yeah, without going into too much detail, two suppliers now flat refuse to ship to the UK and the shipping for the others has gone up considerably. For the vast majority of the stuff we use there are zero alternatives in the UK so we're at their mercy basically. 

I smell a business opportunity for a few UFS lads, that once set up could give UFS mates rates. 

[Spudulike]

Wonder who? Pfizer (would make sense). 

 

 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

4 minutes ago, Ginger_Filbert said:

I smell a business opportunity for a few UFS lads, that once set up could give UFS mates rates. 

Ha, very very small customer base  

[Sol thewall Bamba]

6 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

On a larger scale, and due to involvement with the UK Fanclub, I was aware that Bayern Munich stopped shipping merchandise to the UK due to the post-Brexit issues. I think they have now found a way around that but it seems potentially the massive paperwork overhead is putting firms off bothering with exporting to the UK altogether. When someone as large as Bayern Munich stop delivering to the UK I can only imagine the problems faced for smaller companies.

Pretty sure someone was quoted over £20 to ship a Bochum shirt to the UK recently. 

[KrefelderFox666]

15 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Wonder who? Pfizer (would make sense). 

 

 

Pfizer are American though strictly speaking. Bayer are the biggest ones but not sure if they would be setting up so big here.

[dsr-burnley]

6 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

Pfizer are American though strictly speaking. Bayer are the biggest ones but not sure if they would be setting up so big here.

With the EU offering a specific threat to steal intellectual property rights, any pharmaceutical company would be tempted to move.  Though I would have thought this predates the current nonsense.

[Innovindil]

33 minutes ago, bovril said:

And slightly ironic that remainers are being accused of dodging difficult conversations considering how much has been discussed about the vaccine wars vs how much has been discussed about UK's exports plummeting. 

What exactly is there to discuss about exports going down? Someone says they've gone down, next person says yes I agree they've gone down. End of discussion isn't it? 

[Jon the Hat]

18 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

What exactly is there to discuss about exports going down? Someone says they've gone down, next person says yes I agree they've gone down. End of discussion isn't it? 

January had some specific issues including the stopping of drivers crossing into France due to covid etc, and inevitable initial paperwork issues.  I seriously doubt you can extrapolate the 68% reduction or whatever it was.

[Strokes]

2 hours ago, bovril said:

Has anybody defended the EU's behaviour? 

I don’t think so but it’s not like I’ve seen it discussed, hence canvassing opinions.

I know it was a tad provocative but I’m genuinely intrigued too certain peoples take on it.

Your own being one of those.

[bovril]

11 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I don’t think so but it’s not like I’ve seen it discussed, hence canvassing opinions.

I know it was a tad provocative but I’m genuinely intrigued too certain peoples take on it.

Your own being one of those.

It's been discussed a lot in the Corona thread no? This thread seems to be more for actual changes caused by Brexit.

 

My own take on it is that the EU failed to realise that vaccines were the best way out of this and were both naive and quite tight-fisted. They're trying to procure vaccines for 27 countries though and some may not have any if they weren't part of the EU. The biggest mistake they made imo is the way they turned a contractual dispute into a political scandal and implicitely blamed the UK for nicking vaccines - it looks like they're changing their tone a little now. They also seem to have realised that the criticisms of AZ have had seriously negative consequences in terms of Europeans avoiding that particular product.

 

I do find it a bit cringey that Brexiters are getting so excited by us beating the EU in vaccine rollout considering we still have Europe's worse death toll and second worse economic crash after Spain, I believe. And that's without getting into the absurd conspiracy theories that the EU are somehow deliberately trashing the AZ vaccine to piss off the Brits. 

I read quite a lot of press from EU countries and the criticism has been mostly towards AZ and their CEO. Brexiters seem to need to convince themselves Europeans hate us.

Edited 22 March 2021 by bovril

[Finnaldo]

17 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I don’t think so but it’s not like I’ve seen it discussed, hence canvassing opinions.

I know it was a tad provocative but I’m genuinely intrigued too certain peoples take on it.

Your own being one of those.

To be fair I’ve not met anyone thus far who hasn’t said the EU aren’t wrong. My friends are majority remain, the more casual of those think they EU have been complete prats over it and the more passionate Remainers have begrudgingly accepted it’s a massive own goal for the EU. The only place I’ve seen Pro-EU stances is the occasional reply on Reddit or Twitter, heavily downvoted or argued, and they either can’t get over their own ego or may just be trolls.

 

No threats have been acted on yet either (nor do I expect them to, mostly as I think it’s political pandering for member states with elections coming up), so there’s not too much to properly address. I’d imagine they would be more conversation if export bans were actually put in place. 

Edited 22 March 2021 by Finnaldo

[Robo61]

2 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

If it took the UK 3 months to "renege" on the treaty, it's two months longer than the EU took to suspend it altogether.  We can at least be assured that the EU's objections to the extension of the grace period are not objections in prionciple, they are only objections because they see it as being to the EU's disadvantage.  The EU has no objection to changing the rules as long as the change is in their favour.

The EU did not suspend the agreement at all,  it took action to invoke section protect its interests,  something the UK has similarly threatended to do more than once in the last few months.    thats not so say they were right to do so but they were not breaking the agreement in any way. 

 

All governments are elected first and foremost to look after the interests of its citizens,  something the UK has done very well with the vaccine programme,  or are you sayng we have been acting in some wider principle way.

 

 

[KrefelderFox666]

41 minutes ago, bovril said:

It's been discussed a lot in the Corona thread no? This thread seems to be more for actual changes caused by Brexit.

 

My own take on it is that the EU failed to realise that vaccines were the best way out of this and were both naive and quite tight-fisted. They're trying to procure vaccines for 27 countries though and some may not have any if they weren't part of the EU. The biggest mistake they made imo is the way they turned a contractual dispute into a political scandal and implicitely blamed the UK for nicking vaccines - it looks like they're changing their tone a little now. They also seem to have realised that the criticisms of AZ have had seriously negative consequences in terms of Europeans avoiding that particular product.

 

I do find it a bit cringey that Brexiters are getting so excited by us beating the EU in vaccine rollout considering we still have Europe's worse death toll and second worse economic crash after Spain, I believe. And that's without getting into the absurd conspiracy theories that the EU are somehow deliberately trashing the AZ vaccine to piss off the Brits. 

I read quite a lot of press from EU countries and the criticism has been mostly towards AZ and their CEO. Brexiters seem to need to convince themselves Europeans hate us.

Very good post. A lot of people seem to forget that behind the EU are real people in those countries who are suffering due to bad decisions. Be happy that the UK are having a successful vaccination program but don't belittle citizen living in EU states who are unfortunate to not benefit from a successful vaccination program (and outside of the EU there are many other countries who are not as lucky as us over here or Israel or other examples).

 

It's really weird to see grown adults get so into the political side like it's a football match between the UK and the EU. People are constantly looking to justify Brexit was right (or wrong). The referendum was the worst thing to happen to this country, not because of the result, but the fact it split the country and causes constant bickering and tension.

[dsr-burnley]

27 minutes ago, Robo61 said:

The EU did not suspend the agreement at all ...

Other authorities say they did.

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-fight-crisis-call/

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/european-commission-president-apologises-over-triggering-of-article-16-40076641.html

[bovril]

1 hour ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

 

It's really weird to see grown adults get so into the political side like it's a football match between the UK and the EU. People are constantly looking to justify Brexit was right (or wrong). The referendum was the worst thing to happen to this country, not because of the result, but the fact it split the country and causes constant bickering and tension.

It's the glee with which some people point out their least favourite countries are now struggling with coronvairus that is quite sick. 

[Robo61]

3 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

Other authorities say they did.

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-fight-crisis-call/

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/european-commission-president-apologises-over-triggering-of-article-16-40076641.html

Point to where it says it they suspended any agreement,  the article merely says that article 16 was triggered,   something,  though I'll advised,  they were entitled to do under the terms of the treaty.  The UK on the other hand has unilaterally delayed implementation of cross border checks, something it is not entitled to do and is being taken to the ECJ for.  Nobody is going to come well out of this largely due to promises made during the referendum which are impossible to keep without breaking the Good Friday Agreement.

[dsr-burnley]

3 hours ago, Robo61 said:

Point to where it says it they suspended any agreement,  the article merely says that article 16 was triggered,   something,  though I'll advised,  they were entitled to do under the terms of the treaty.  The UK on the other hand has unilaterally delayed implementation of cross border checks, something it is not entitled to do and is being taken to the ECJ for.  Nobody is going to come well out of this largely due to promises made during the referendum which are impossible to keep without breaking the Good Friday Agreement.

OK, in a sense you might actually be right.  They didn't suspend the agreement, they just suspended the provisions of the agreement.  To me that's an insignificant difference, but if it really makes all the difference to you, that's fine.  Be happy.

 

I suppose we could look at our respective season tickets in the same way.  We could be upset that our season tickets have been suspended and we haven't been able to go on matches; but we need not be upset.  Our season tickets have not been suspended, they have merely invoked the rule that means we aren't allowed to go on matches.  It may be an entirely different thing; but the effect isn't so very different, is it?

 

(It might, incidentally, be worth also considering, while van Leyden is bleating about how they thought that other countries would be nice and would deal in good faith and give the EU the vaccines it wants, why the EU appears to be playing this treaty straight down the small print and invoking every tiny letter of the treaty to gain an advantage and to frustrate trade.  It's almost as if good faith only works one way.  It hink we'll find this treaty is torn up before another 18 months is up because it isn't workable without good faith.  True, the agreement does say that trees can be sent to Northern Ireland but doesn't specify that the mud on their roots can be sent as well.  And so the EU, like Protia, can insist that trees with roots cannot be sent to Northern Ireland as indeed they have done.  But it's not good faith, by any imagination.  Similarly, when the EU bans the export of shellfish from the UK to the EU because British waters aren't clean enough, but allows EU ships who caught shellfish in UK waters to sell it in the EU, that is not good faith.)

Edited 22 March 2021 by dsr-burnley