Brexit: give me a positive effect... IX

[SteveS1]

My 'rant', such as it was, was aimed at bureaucracy in general. If you were to reread it you will perhaps note that my crosshairs fall on the UK Home Office and the NHS, two notably cumbersome institutions that have destroyed between them tens of thousands of lives in the last year alone, largely due to bureaucratic bloat and incompetence.

Perhaps living in France, a nation whose notoriously interfering, intransigent and constrictive bureaucracy forms the model for the EU's own institutions has inured you to the debilitating effects of excessive red tape. Then again, you work for a corporation which you describe as 'international', which might easily be taken for the type of organisation (to which which major airlines also 'belong') which has lobbying clout in Brussels, and thus powerfully influence the shape of the kinds of expensive regulation, designed to price smaller incomers out of the market, which serve also to routinely frustrate and enrage their own clients in incidents that bear a remarkable similarity to those taking place in Barcelona and N.Italy.

Good, glad you're on board with the need to reduce bureaucracy, perhaps start by not voting for more of it? I can just hear it now, it may be more bureaucracy but at least it's our bureaucracy ......cont p94.

 

[wacko]

^^ why would anyone believe what a UK Government Minister says ? How far the UK has fallen.

 

[eternumviti]

Good, glad you're on board with the need to reduce bureaucracy, perhaps start by not voting for more of it? I can just hear it now, it may be more bureaucracy but at least it's our bureaucracy ......cont p94.

Well, I've always seen leaving the EU as the beginning of a process, and I voted for Brexit, so off to a good start.

I don't think that anyone reading my comments above would mistake them for somehow excusing UK bureaucracy, could they Steve? Please show me where I say 'destroying thousands of lives in the UK is fine because its UK bureaucracy that did it'?

Itching for your undoubtedly illuminating reply.

 

[SteveS1]

Well, I've always seen leaving the EU as the beginning of a process, and I voted for Brexit, so off to a good start.

I don't think that anyone reading my comments above would mistake them for somehow excusing UK bureaucracy, could they Steve? Please show me where I say 'destroying thousands of lives in the UK is fine because its UK bureaucracy that did it'?

Itching for your undoubtedly illuminating reply.

The first Brexit outcome is a massive increase in UK bureaucracy as a result of a) work we never had to do and b) no economy of scale for the stuff we did.

You constantly choose to ignore some pretty basic facts about the benefits of pooling resources and sharing services as if they never figured. Well they did and not just in terms of manpower but also technical skills and infrastucture. You have swallowed too much of your own sovereignty kool aid. We are suddenly in an economically weaker, less efficient and less secure position as a result of a national act of self harm that you voted for.

So it's not a case of saying you are in favour of more bureaucracy, more an observation that voting for Brexit made it an inevitable consequence that we seem ill prepared for - so you can't be that bothered about it.

 

[TheDecameron]

Lord Ricketts, cross party peer and former National Security Advisor and ex-Met Chief Constable, Ian Blair contradicting claims by Pritti Patel that leaving the EU has strengthened UK security, indeed quite the reverse. But what do facts matter, eh?

Priti has a ready stock of alternative facts as Gavin Williamson did with his vaccine approval junk. The Tories went full Trump some time ago- if the organ grinder lies habitually the monkeys will do the same.

 

[eternumviti]

Setting your points (Steve) aside for a moment, I was quite specific in my earlier posts, which referred to the Home Office and the NHS. I fail to see how Brexit need lead to on increase in the size of either. Such as Brexit might have any direct effect on them, they almost certainly already possess sufficient bloat for resources to be effectively and more efficiently be redeployed.

This was, or should have been, the task of one Dominic Cummings. I have no doubt at all that he is still there, somewhere behind the scenery, and on the payroll.

The areas where there will need to be an increase in manpower will be in the spheres of customs, regulation and trade. The personnel in these areas will be tasked with UK specific requirements, which in itself will have efficiency advantages over the factor of 28. It is worth bearing in mind that the Canadian team in the Canada/EU negotiations was very small, but very focused. It only had one job to do.

It took the EU 50 years to get on top of drawing up and completing trade deals with any of the world's major economies. This is due largely to two facts; the inherently protectionist nature of the EU, and the structural disadvantages of cleaving to the disparate requirements of ever increasing numbers of EU members. To these must be added the inefficiencies which are always going to be a legacy of the avalanches of red tape which pour out of an a set of institutions which are dominated, indeed run, by their own bureaucracy. The lunatics haven't merely taken over the asylum, they built it.

 

[PsB]

My 'rant', such as it was, was aimed at bureaucracy in general. If you were to reread it you will perhaps note that my crosshairs fall on the UK Home Office and the NHS, two notably cumbersome institutions that have destroyed between them tens of thousands of lives in the last year alone, largely due to bureaucratic bloat and incompetence.

Perhaps living in France, a nation whose notoriously interfering, intransigent and constrictive bureaucracy forms the model for the EU's own institutions has inured you to the debilitating effects of excessive red tape. Then again, you work for a corporation which you describe as 'international', which might easily be taken for the type of organisation (to which which major airlines also 'belong') which has lobbying clout in Brussels, and thus powerfully influence the shape of the kinds of expensive regulation, designed to price smaller incomers out of the market, which serve also to routinely frustrate and enrage their own clients in incidents that bear a remarkable similarity to those taking place in Barcelona and N.Italy.

I am fascinated by your style of discourse. Only you could turn an incident where a British-owned airline prevented British passengers from boarding their flight to Spain (because it misinterpreted new regs brought on by the Brexit you voted for) into a complaint about the NHS, the EU and French bureaucracy. It's remarkable in its non-linearity. A bit like Tarzan swinging through the rain forest, deftly looping from one vine to the next, with occasional pauses to vocalize. And you always return to the same place.

I have lived, worked and rented houses/flats in many countries, including bureaucratic nightmares like Egypt and Greece, several times in common law countries like the UK and the US, France, selected Nordic countries etc. so I have probably experienced a wider sample on these matters than you have. I would say France is in the middle of the pack. Some things are simple, some are complicated, and every country thinks it does things right. Taking leases as an example, the two easiest countries have been Egypt and Finland, for totally different reasons (anything goes in Egypt, and Finnish leases are standard, short and backed by unambiguous law and high trust). The most complicated was certainly the lease in Surrey, which ran to dozens of pages, included vast fees for solicitors, agents and assorted hangers on, real estate appraisals that took half a day to a day each time and all sorts of other nonsense. Same for work contracts: my Finnish contract was just a couple of pages, my British contract ran on and on. Common law means that the parties have to define their own agreement, which is why there are so many lawyers, solicitors etc. in the US and in the UK. As I've written here before, regulation is always needed, and can be done by lawyers or by bureaucratic code. The bureaucrats tend to work out cheaper.

 

[kabayiri]

The first Brexit outcome is a massive increase in UK bureaucracy as a result of a) work we never had to do and b) no economy of scale for the stuff we did.

You constantly choose to ignore some pretty basic facts about the benefits of pooling resources and sharing services as if they never figured. Well they did and not just in terms of manpower but also technical skills and infrastucture. You have swallowed too much of your own sovereignty kool aid. We are suddenly in an economically weaker, less efficient and less secure position as a result of a national act of self harm that you voted for.

So it's not a case of saying you are in favour of more bureaucracy, more an observation that voting for Brexit made it an inevitable consequence that we seem ill prepared for - so you can't be that bothered about it.

You can level much of the same arguments against Scottish independence. An independent Scotland would also find itself having to create and support new functions to replace those lost from the Union.

Yet, this argument doesn't really resonate with people who desire independence. There is always a cost involved with change. Some are willing to accept it more than others.

 

[SteveS1]

You can level much of the same arguments against Scottish independence. An independent Scotland would also find itself having to create and support new functions to replace those lost from the Union.

Yet, this argument doesn't really resonate with people who desire independence. There is always a cost involved with change. Some are willing to accept it more than others.

Or you can see the believers in Brexit suddenly don't think the same concerns apply to Scotland - see what I did there?

For the avoidance of doubt, I believe both to be absurdly bad moves for similar reasons. But there are those who rationalise them for Brexit and then deny them for Scotland. That is not credible. The moral course if the SNP cleans up in May is another vote, this time with the voters knowing exactly what the UK Brexit status is. I have no doubt that had they known during IndyRef that England was intending to pull out of the EU it would have affected the outcome in favour of Independence. Despite Johnson's usual bluster there is little he can do to stop that momentum, he let the cat out of the bag. A united Ireland is now inevitably closer too.

This brings me no pleasure at all, left behind in an English Tory backwater will not be anything like fun.

 

[tuga]

There are reports of Brit nationals living and working in Spain and Italy trying to return home after spending Christmas in the UK being turned around at their destination airports and being sent back to the UK. Something to to with 'green card' documents that they've either applied for or actually possess but not being accepted.

Bureaucracy running away with itself again. It seems completely out of control, whereever you are. Like the nonsense of the retired doctors here who are being blocked at the application portal that they've been instructed to use.

Brit nationals which were not allowed a say in the Referendum... I'm sure it's the EU's fault, that bunch of corrupt unelected bureaucrats.

 

[eternumviti]

One of the prospective joys of automation and AI is that it might serve to release thousands of time and space sucking conveyancing solicitors, perhaps to become customs officials.

But then again...

The conduct of vast British corporations is no different from the conduct of vast corporations the world over. They are responsible for the webs of regulatory red tape that serve eventually to tie even themselves up in knots, and render them increasingly inefficient. With about 30,000 lobbyists crawling all over it, the EU is one of the globe's largest conduits for that highway of regulation. It is, for humble air travellers as for the ordinary clients of banks, Internet and phone service and utility providers, one of the major causes of the scream of frustration that was Brexit.

Didn't you hear it?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

But then again...

The conduct of vast British corporations is no different from the conduct of vast corporations the world over. They are responsible for the webs of regulatory red tape that serve eventually to tie even themselves up in knots, and render them increasingly inefficient. With about 30,000 lobbyists crawling all over it, the EU is one of the globe's largest conduits for that highway of regulation.

If businesses didn't misbehave, regulation wouldn't be required. If businesses didn't lobby against regulation, or constantly test its boundaries, it wouldn't have to be so prescriptive and full of red tape so as to shut down loopholes. Businesses are the cause of red tape, not its victims.

 

[tuga]

Well, I've always seen leaving the EU as the beginning of a process, and I voted for Brexit, so off to a good start.

In a way it'll be good.

Britain, pehaps I should say England, will finally come to grips with the fact that it is no longer the superpower that it once was, that it's become a backward, conservative, unjust society which at times, to the eyes of this legal alien, looks like a time-trip to medieval feudalism.
All other colonialist nations of Europe have already suffered their decline and have risen from the ashes. I hope that BrExit will at least prove to be the catalyst for this much needed change.

 

[eternumviti]

Or you can see the believers in Brexit suddenly don't think the same concerns apply to Scotland - see what I did there?

For the avoidance of doubt, I believe both to be absurdly bad moves for similar reasons. But there are those who rationalise them for Brexit and then deny them for Scotland. That is not credible. The moral course if the SNP cleans up in May is another vote, this time with the voters knowing exactly what the UK Brexit status is. I have no doubt that had they known during IndyRef that England was intending to pull out of the EU it would have affected the outcome in favour of Independence. Despite Johnson's usual bluster there is little he can do to stop that momentum, he let the cat out of the bag. A united Ireland is now inevitably closer too.

This brings me no pleasure at all, left behind in an English Tory backwater will not be anything like fun.

I don't think you have to be a leaver to think that Scottish secession from the Union is perhaps undesirable. The conflation of the two is anyway a bit facile. Having said that, I as a supporter of Brexit can also understand the emotions and the motives behind Scottish nationalism, even if I think, like you, it would be a mistake.

Important to bear in mind there are those too who rationalise Scottish independence from the UK who absolutely refuse to countenance any virtue to wishes for British independence from the EU.

 

[lagavullin10y]

The conduct of vast British corporations is no different from the conduct of vast corporations the world over. They are responsible for the webs of regulatory red tape that serve eventually to tie even themselves up in knots, and render them increasingly inefficient. With about 30,000 lobbyists crawling all over it, the EU is one of the globe's largest conduits for that highway of regulation. It is, for humble air travellers as for the ordinary clients of banks, Internet and phone service and utility providers, one of the major causes of the scream of frustration that was Brexit.

Didn't you hear it?

Well, didn't you understand it?

Do you have any idea how useful the EU was for me over the last 20 years? Especially the law prohibiting EU wide roaming tariffs has saved me thousands.

 

[SteveS1]

Important to bear in mind there are those too who rationalise Scottish independence from the UK who absolutely refuse to countenance any virtue to wishes for British independence from the EU.

I think that is implicit in my post. The problem in countering it is to have made much of "better together" to keep the Union together and then plough on against their wishes with something that profoundly flies in the face of that.

If you think a notional sovereignty trumps every practical and economic consideration for one scenario you are in no credible position to argue against it. The same applies in reverse.

 

[TheDecameron]

The areas where there will need to be an increase in manpower will be in the spheres of customs, regulation and trade. The personnel in these areas will be tasked with UK specific requirements, which in itself will have efficiency advantages over the factor of 28.

At last! a purported benefit of Brexit even if it is a counterfactual one.

 

[eternumviti]

In a way it'll be good.

Britain, pehaps I should say England, will finally come to grips with the fact that it is no longer the superpower that it once was, that it's become a backward, conservative, unjust society which at times, to the eyes of this legal alien, looks like a time-trip to medieval feudalism.
All other colonialist nations of Europe have already suffered their decline and have risen from the ashes. I hope that BrExit will at least prove to be the catalyst for this much needed change.

Oh, that is (characteristically, I have to say) disingenuous. A sense of defeatism, post empire and Suez, is what took the UK into the EC in the first place. Together with the lamentable state of this country in the 1970s, I think that the sense of UK exceptionalism to which you refer was ancient history long before Portugal retreated both from dictatorship and from empire.

 

[eisenach]

Johnson telling porkies shocker : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55522329

"The prime minister gave several examples, which we will look at in turn.

"They've already got substantial amounts of money coming back into this country, as a result of leaving the EU"
We're not sure which money he's referring to here (we asked the government but it did not clarify this).

A great deal was made in the EU referendum campaign about the contributions to the EU budget that would no longer have to be made after Brexit.

The UK was making its regular contributions to the EU budget until the end of 2020 (as the two sides were still in a transition period), so the amount saved since will not be huge.

Also, the UK is still paying money to the EU as part of the divorce bill, covering things like spending that the EU committed to while the UK was a member, but has not yet funded - along with contributions to the pensions of EU staff.

The Office for Budget Responsibility expects that the UK will be contributing about £7.1bn this year, down from last year's contribution of £8.2bn.

That's an average saving of about £3m a day this year - so £9m so far.

"One of the first things we've done on day one is get rid of pulse trawling"
Pulse trawling, which involves the use of an electric current to force fish off the seabed making them easier to catch, was indeed banned in UK waters on 1 January 2021.

But France and Belgium - both EU member states - had already outlawed the practice in their territorial waters (which stretch up to 12 nautical miles from the coast). The UK could have done the same when it was still a member of the EU.

An EU-wide ban was also passed into law in June 2019 and is due to come into full effect on 1 July 2021.

Pulse fishing has become less common over the past few decades in EU waters.

There were eight vessels - seven from the Netherlands and one from the UK - using the technique in UK waters between January 2019 and June 2020, according to ocean conservation charity the Blue Marine Foundation.

Four were fishing within UK territorial waters and therefore could have been banned by the UK, before it left the EU.

But the other four boats, which were operating within the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone (which stretches up to 200 nautical miles from the coast) but beyond UK territorial waters, could not have been outlawed, while the UK was in the EU.

Now, the UK is an independent coastal state so it can ban them.

"We will be able to ban these huge hoover trawlers that come in and hoover everything off the bottom of the sea"
Mr Johnson is likely referring to super trawlers here (as "hoover trawlers" isn't a widely recognised term). Again, we asked the government but it did not clarify this.

Super trawlers are typically defined as vessels over 100m in length - 25 of them fished in UK waters in 2019, according to Greenpeace.

Most had a Russian or Dutch flag, except one vessel - the Frank Bonefaas - which sails under a British flag but is majority Dutch-owned.

• Who really owns UK fishing rights?

Now that the UK has left the EU, it can ban super trawlers from fishing in UK waters, but - under the terms of the Brexit trade deal - this rule must apply equally to UK and EU boats.

This is further complicated by a section of the agreement, which secures access to the UK's territorial waters (between 6-12 nautical miles) for any vessel active in those waters between 2012-16. This measure would - in theory - apply to several super trawlers.

The Marine Management Organisation has already granted temporary licences to at least seven super trawlers (six of which are registered in the EU) to continue fishing in UK waters beyond 31 December 2020.

"We've got control over our borders - a points based immigration system has already been established"
The points-based immigration system did go live at the start of the year as freedom of movement ended for EU citizens (and for UK citizens in the EU).

In future, EU citizens will have to have a certain number of points based on things like skills, to be allowed to work in the UK.

There will be some exceptions for people working in areas with labour shortages.

You can read more about the points-based immigration system here.


"One of the things you can do is have free ports"
This is a claim Mr Johnson has made before - we looked into it in 2019.

Free ports are small free-trade zones, sometimes called special economic zones, in which normal tax and customs rules do not apply.

In fact, there are more than 80 free ports in the EU (a point made by Andrew Marr) and the UK had them until 2012.

But they have to comply with EU rules that are designed to ensure fair competition between member states.

Supporters of free ports argue that these zones could be more beneficial for the UK once it is outside the EU.

But if the tax benefits given to companies operating inside them are too generous, they could in theory trigger action from the EU, under the terms of the new trade deal. Some trade experts argue that free ports could simply move investment from other parts of the UK.

A government spokesperson said: "free ports will empower regions across the UK to become hubs for international trade and investment."

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Oh, that is (characteristically, I have to say) disingenuous. A sense of defeatism, post empire and Suez, is what took the UK into the EC in the first place. Together with the lamentable state of this country in the 1970s, I think that the sense of UK exceptionalism to which you refer was ancient history long before Portugal retreated both from dictatorship and from empire.

That was then.

Many people have come to believe in English exceptionalism since then, largely due to the efforts of the tabloid press, plus national politicians. Many of these don't remember the decline that led to the sense you describe, or were born after it.