Brexit: give me a positive effect... XII

[TheDecameron]

More and more it appears Brexit can only thrive in the minds of its followers provided our closest allies are turned into incompetent rivals or worse! The same sentiment is trickling down to the other countries making up the present United Kingdom- it’s the oxygen of right wing populism in Britain and it does not end well.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I think your first point accords perfectly with my earlier statement that EU influence is mainly in technical standards. It also shouldn't be forgotten that many and probably most of these are elaborated hand me downs from the UN and other global standards bodies such as the ISO.

I think if I were given a choice, I'd prefer to be a global leader in technical and legal standards, than in warmongering, propaganda or market manipulation which seem to be the other levers of power operated globally. And it matters not whether the standards originated with the EU or the UN/ISO, what matters is that a workable, comprehensive standard has been developed from the (often skeletal) basis of those other bodies' work. Your description of them as 'elaborated hand me downs' is a bit of a tell, to be blunt. To take an example I'm familiar with: Convention 108 is a global convention on the protection of personal data. It's a bit sketchy, even in its recently modified and updated form. It took the GDPR to codify it and develop it into a set of principles, rights and processes that give comprehensive, practical effect to the broad-brush aims set out in Convention 108. To use a musical analogy, Con 108 is like the melody and chorus of a song, whereas GDPR adds the harmony and orchestration that turns it into a work people can perform meaningfully.

 

[richardg]

Well I can assure you there are plenty here who will not take it. That doesn't mean they have spoken to you, or that you would say if they had. Nor does it mean it's as big a problem here as elsewhere which it clearly isn't. The French are indeed extremely anti, as are large swathes of the US. None of that makes much sense to me, but there we are.

Im not denying that, but don't deny the evidence that the French are particularly difficult about it, obviously resulting in a higher amount of vaccinations going in the bin. Why try to discredit this point by saying other countries in the EU are like this?

 

[richardg]

More and more it appears Brexit can only thrive in the minds of its followers provided our closest allies are turned into incompetent rivals or worse! The same sentiment is trickling down to the other countries making up the present United Kingdom- it’s the oxygen of right wing populism in Britain and it does not end well.

Meanwhile, EU customers cannot easily get the quality British brands that I sell. German and French customs seem to be taking 2 weeks to process parcels fomr UK.

I'm making a killing on British brands in the EU right now.

 

[kabayiri]

More and more it appears Brexit can only thrive in the minds of its followers provided our closest allies are turned into incompetent rivals or worse! The same sentiment is trickling down to the other countries making up the present United Kingdom- it’s the oxygen of right wing populism in Britain and it does not end well.

There is no choice but to make it work.
That was always going to be the case once the result of the referendum came in.
I'm not particularly enamoured by the idea of a dominant China in decades to come, either, but somehow we need to make that work globally too.

 

[martin clark]

'no choice but to make it work'

True; here's a nice summary article from outside - the Wilson Center in the US:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/no-exit-brexit

 

[PsB]

The EU doesn't produce, own or export vaccines.

Neither does the UK, by that measure. Pharma companies (most of them multinational) do. They do so under contract to (and under the supervision of) various government agencies. In many cases, the pharma companies have had only a minor role in the actual development of the vaccine, and have focused on the challenges of testing and then producing millions of doses every week. One could even make the case that the IP on these vaccines should be open source, as the research was largely publicly funded. The AZ vaccine is a case in point: research by a British university lab, fine tuned by that university's business arm, manufactured by an Anglo-Swedish company in a variety of factories around Europe and the world (many of them owned by independent sub-contractors, it would seem). To draw definitive conclusions from all this on the merits of the various political systems behind the procurement or regulatory agencies strikes me as rather bizarre, even though I see the attraction for Brexiters to draw attention to one area where the UK has done well recently.

I would rather celebrate the fact that we have at least half a dozen effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of the virus, an incredible achievement when you think of it, and millions of people are getting vaccinated every week and protected in record time. Vaccines from China, Russia, the US, the EU, the UK, India, etc. The main challenge now is how to get these vaccines distributed worldwide, not just in rich countries or countries that have production facilities. If this doesn't happen, we risk millions of unnecessary deaths and getting swamped by new variants. All the rest is background noise IMHO.

 

[eternumviti]

Not remotely true, quelle surprise.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/...outperformed-the-eu-on-covid-19-vaccinations/

"It is extremely hard to get accurate figures on vaccine production and supply, as all parties tend to regard them as commercial or state secrets. However, it is public knowledge that as of 23 March the UK had put around 30 million jabs in arms. It is also publicly stated that about 13 million of these are Pfizer jabs, all of which are imported from the EU. Alongside this, the UK has received 5 million from the Serum Institute in India, and is strongly suspected to have received non-trivial amounts of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the Halix plant in the Netherlands, a lack of information about this being one of the sore points in the UK-EU debate."

"The cause of this is different degrees of vaccine nationalism. The vaccine producing countries of Europe have made enough to vaccinate about half their population with a first jab (the 100 million jabs were made in EU states with a combined population of about 200 million – Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy). If they had kept this for themselves, they would be far ahead of the UK – which would have had to make do with its own more limited production – and at around the same stage as the US.

However, the European producers have exported about a third of their production globally, to countries such as Mexico, Canada, Chile, the US (not much) and, above all, the largest recipient, the UK. The overwhelming reason why the UK is so far ahead with its vaccination programme is that it has received so many vaccines from the EU.

The European producers have also exported about another third to the other countries of the EU, their neighbours. An early decision was taken by EU states that it would be unacceptable for some states to protect their populations while others looked on with empty hands and full hospitals, and so vaccines are distributed within the EU on a per capita basis. This was not a legal obligation inherent in EU membership, but a pragmatic, if also ethical, political decision. If one wants relationships to survive a crisis, there has to be a degree of solidarity.

By contrast, not a single dose of vaccine has been exported from the US or UK."

Meanwhile we await full details the AZ contract disputes and whether any other pressures were brought by a government desperate for something better to report than their lamentable COVID response all the way through.

Sorry, what did I say that wasn't 'remotely true'? The various international, privately or publically (but neither nationalised nor 'supranationalised') owned drugs companies that develop, produce and sell the vaccines happen to have their European production and distribution centres in EU member countries. This does not make them, or the vaccines that they produce, a possession of the EU. The exports that are made by these companies, be it to Mexico, Canada, the US or even the UK are a matter of contract between the companies and the countries concerned. Unfortunately for the citizens of the EU countries, the Commission, the member countries and the EMA were all caught picking their noses, scratching their backsides, dreamily perusing lengthy legal texts or doodling tasteful pictures of blue starry flags when they should have been getting their own contracts in place and the vaccines cleared for use. It is not the fault of Mexico, Canada, the US or the UK that they weren't.

The piece that you have quoted, as interesting as it may be, is entirely irrelevant to this pretty straightforward fact. The piece clearly has an axe to grind regarding the UK, which obviously accords with your own anti-UK sensibilities. The above notwithstanding, I notice that it also fails to mention two or three things that spring to mind. The Halix plant which is 'strongly suspected' to have sent 'non-trivial' amounts of the AZ vaccine to the UK was apparently set up with £24bn of UK taxpayers' money, and was contracted early by the UK government to supply...the UK, that the 'pragmatic' and 'ethical' decision by EU member states to outsource the acquisition and rollout of the vaccines to the EC has been a spectacular failure, not helped at all by the toxic anti UK/AZ narrative which has been triggered and perpetuated by one or two notable EU member state leaders and EC functionaries, and that a 'degree of solidarity' didn't preclude Germany from nipping out of the back door to secure an extra 30 million doses for itself.

 

[TheDecameron]

Somewhere on the outskirts of paranoia...

 

[eternumviti]

I think if I were given a choice, I'd prefer to be a global leader in technical and legal standards, than in warmongering, propaganda or market manipulation which seem to be the other levers of power operated globally. And it matters not whether the standards originated with the EU or the UN/ISO, what matters is that a workable, comprehensive standard has been developed from the (often skeletal) basis of those other bodies' work. Your description of them as 'elaborated hand me downs' is a bit of a tell, to be blunt. To take an example I'm familiar with: Convention 108 is a global convention on the protection of personal data. It's a bit sketchy, even in its recently modified and updated form. It took the GDPR to codify it and develop it into a set of principles, rights and processes that give comprehensive, practical effect to the broad-brush aims set out in Convention 108. To use a musical analogy, Con 108 is like the melody and chorus of a song, whereas GDPR adds the harmony and orchestration that turns it into a work people can perform meaningfully.

So, in a word...elaborated.

Neither does the UK, by that measure...

I didn't say that it did. However, the UK government has poured £millions of taxpayers' cash into the development and rollout of the Oxford AZ vaccine, of which, as an aside, I am a grateful recipient of some weeks standing.

 

[eternumviti]

Somewhere on the outskirts of paranoia...

Have you received your first shot yet?

Or did you request that it be sent to the EU?

 

[SteveS1]

Somewhere on the outskirts of paranoia...

Indeed, it's almost laughable.

 

[PsB]

I didn't say that it did.

[Brian mode] Please point out where I say that you did... [/Brian mode]

However, the UK government has poured £millions of taxpayers' cash into the development and rollout of the Oxford AZ vaccine, of which, as an aside, I am a grateful recipient of some weeks standing.

So have the EU and its member states, so have the US; and China, and Russia, and...
As you know I'm based in France, probably about the same age as you, and I've received the same AZ jab as you have just by going to my GP, so the outcomes are not very different for us. TBH I would have preferred the Pfizer jabs my daughter got through her NHS job in the UK or the Moderna jabs my father received here, but the AZ is good enough for now.

 

[tonerei]

[Brian mode] Please point out where I say that you did... [/Brian mode]

So have the EU and its member states, so have the US; and China, and Russia, and...
As you know I'm based in France, probably about the same age as you, and I've received the same AZ jab as you have just by going to my GP, so the outcomes are not very different for us. TBH I would have preferred the Pfizer jabs my daughter got through her NHS job in the UK or the Moderna jabs my father received here, but the AZ is good enough for now.

Stop speaking sense you will blow their minds!

 

[sean99]

'no choice but to make it work'

True; here's a nice summary article from outside - the Wilson Center in the US:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/no-exit-brexit

Wow - from that link
"The impact has already been dramatic. In January 2021, €6.5 billion in deals shifted immediately from the UK to the EU. Amsterdam surpassed London as Europe’s largest share trading center as it recorded a fourfold increase in average traded shares per day, rising to €9.2 billion, and London lost half of its daily average value of traded shares, down to €8.6 billion. Amsterdam has also picked up activity in swaps and sovereign debt markets that typically used to take place in London. Even before January 2021, EY estimated banks had shifted €1.6 trillion in assets and sovereign debt trading to cities such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Milan that would typically have taken place on venues in London. More than £4 billion, or $5.3 billion, of insurance premium income in 2019 that would typically be handled in London was written in new hubs such as Brussels."

 

[TheDecameron]

Neither does the UK, by that measure. Pharma companies (most of them multinational) do. They do so under contract to (and under the supervision of) various government agencies. In many cases, the pharma companies have had only a minor role in the actual development of the vaccine, and have focused on the challenges of testing and then producing millions of doses every week. One could even make the case that the IP on these vaccines should be open source, as the research was largely publicly funded. The AZ vaccine is a case in point: research by a British university lab, fine tuned by that university's business arm, manufactured by an Anglo-Swedish company in a variety of factories around Europe and the world (many of them owned by independent sub-contractors, it would seem). To draw definitive conclusions from all this on the merits of the various political systems behind the procurement or regulatory agencies strikes me as rather bizarre, even though I see the attraction for Brexiters to draw attention to one area where the UK has done well recently.

I would rather celebrate the fact that we have at least half a dozen effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of the virus, an incredible achievement when you think of it, and millions of people are getting vaccinated every week and protected in record time. Vaccines from China, Russia, the US, the EU, the UK, India, etc. The main challenge now is how to get these vaccines distributed worldwide, not just in rich countries or countries that have production facilities. If this doesn't happen, we risk millions of unnecessary deaths and getting swamped by new variants. All the rest is background noise IMHO.

Britain has been notoriously slow at investing in infrastructure or modern manufacturing processes ( robots, as pointed out frequently by one member here with knowledge). Look at the transport network here and compare it with the vast reach of the integrated high speed rail network across much of Europe.

Sorry, what did I say that wasn't 'remotely true'? The various international, privately or publically (but neither nationalised nor 'supranationalised') owned drugs companies that develop, produce and sell the vaccines happen to have their European production and distribution centres in EU member countries. This does not make them, or the vaccines that they produce, a possession of the EU. The exports that are made by these companies, be it to Mexico, Canada, the US or even the UK are a matter of contract between the companies and the countries concerned. Unfortunately for the citizens of the EU countries, the Commission, the member countries and the EMA were all caught picking their noses, scratching their backsides, dreamily perusing lengthy legal texts or doodling tasteful pictures of blue starry flags when they should have been getting their own contracts in place and the vaccines cleared for use. It is not the fault of Mexico, Canada, the US or the UK that they weren't.

The piece that you have quoted, as interesting as it may be, is entirely irrelevant to this pretty straightforward fact. The piece clearly has an axe to grind regarding the UK, which obviously accords with your own anti-UK sensibilities. The above notwithstanding, I notice that it also fails to mention two or three things that spring to mind. The Halix plant which is 'strongly suspected' to have sent 'non-trivial' amounts of the AZ vaccine to the UK was apparently set up with £24bn of UK taxpayers' money, and was contracted early by the UK government to supply...the UK, that the 'pragmatic' and 'ethical' decision by EU member states to outsource the acquisition and rollout of the vaccines to the EC has been a spectacular failure, not helped at all by the toxic anti UK/AZ narrative which has been triggered and perpetuated by one or two notable EU member state leaders and EC functionaries, and that a 'degree of solidarity' didn't preclude Germany from nipping out of the back door to secure an extra 30 million doses for itself.

Are you claiming British taxpayers put £24bn into a factory in Belgium? Can you show me where you’re getting the AZ UKgov investment numbers from? I’ve not seen the detail.

 

[Colin Barron]

Well I can assure you there are plenty here who will not take it. That doesn't mean they have spoken to you, or that you would say if they had. Nor does it mean it's as big a problem here as elsewhere which it clearly isn't. The French are indeed extremely anti, as are large swathes of the US. None of that makes much sense to me, but there we are.

Any idea of the UK percentage? Is it anywhere near the 1/3 to 1/2 of the population that is quoted for France.

 

[wacko]

Wow - from that link
"The impact has already been dramatic. In January 2021, €6.5 billion in deals shifted immediately from the UK to the EU. Amsterdam surpassed London as Europe’s largest share trading center as it recorded a fourfold increase in average traded shares per day, rising to €9.2 billion, and London lost half of its daily average value of traded shares, down to €8.6 billion. Amsterdam has also picked up activity in swaps and sovereign debt markets that typically used to take place in London. Even before January 2021, EY estimated banks had shifted €1.6 trillion in assets and sovereign debt trading to cities such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Milan that would typically have taken place on venues in London. More than £4 billion, or $5.3 billion, of insurance premium income in 2019 that would typically be handled in London was written in new hubs such as Brussels."

Yebbut we can pick our own fruit and veg now.
And wot about the child allowances sent back to Poland ? Glad we don't have those hardworking types here anymore.

 

[Cav]

Or did you request that it be sent to the EU?

Can we do that?

 

[SteveS1]

Any idea of the UK percentage? Is it anywhere near the 1/3 to 1/2 of the population that is quoted for France.

Not sure the figures are robust (from the Mail which I will not link to, so you can google that) but even a briefest look other suggestions are all in the area of about 15% refused to attend, did not turn up. That's in the more enthusiastic age groups, those most at risk. One Telegraph article quotes up to 25% of Health Workers in London declined, which is obviously not great. I also suspect younger age groups will not be as willing or bothered as older groups have been, but we'll see.

What validation is there of those figures in France?