Brexit - was it worth it? (Vol. 2)

[rscott]

crankedup said:

I caught a television interview last night, BBC East, was an interview with a shellfish fisherman. It would appear he was the chap that Fittser quoted yesterday in here. Almost word for word, he said that he couldn’t export into the EU unless he cleaned his product prior to export. Went on saying that purchase of the purification equipment would make his product uncompetitive with the French and other EU Countries, the additional paperwork added further to his costs,so he is basically stuffed he concluded.
Been trading for years and now brought to a stop due to that change in conformity. The business must have considered that nothing would change ‘because it was always business as usual’.

add : looking at the link provided by deepend, it is a Company fairly local to me. At one time I used to live in Maldon, every year would be an oyster celebration, who has the best oysters. A nice bit of PR, the same thing for Colchester, the local Mayors would be involved for the picture opportunity and free oysters can’t stand the things personally.

Edited by crankedup on Wednesday 3rd March 10:41

The Hayward family are one of the oldest established oyster producers in the area and have supplied the Oyster Feast in Colchester for years. And they're very pleasant oysters too - they're at the various rural shows in the area, usually with Mersea Brewery

Perhaps he foolishly believed the statements by the government that it was a temporary problem which would go away in April this year, so decided it wasn't worth spending a hundred thousand or so for the sake of 3 months.

[turbobloke]

rscott said:

crankedup said:

I caught a television interview last night, BBC East, was an interview with a shellfish fisherman. It would appear he was the chap that Fittser quoted yesterday in here. Almost word for word, he said that he couldn’t export into the EU unless he cleaned his product prior to export. Went on saying that purchase of the purification equipment would make his product uncompetitive with the French and other EU Countries, the additional paperwork added further to his costs,so he is basically stuffed he concluded.
Been trading for years and now brought to a stop due to that change in conformity. The business must have considered that nothing would change ‘because it was always business as usual’.

add : looking at the link provided by deepend, it is a Company fairly local to me. At one time I used to live in Maldon, every year would be an oyster celebration, who has the best oysters. A nice bit of PR, the same thing for Colchester, the local Mayors would be involved for the picture opportunity and free oysters can’t stand the things personally.

Edited by crankedup on Wednesday 3rd March 10:41

The Hayward family are one of the oldest established oyster producers in the area and have supplied the Oyster Feast in Colchester for years. And they're very pleasant oysters too - they're at the various rural shows in the area, usually with Mersea Brewery

Perhaps he foolishly believed the statements by the government that it was a temporary problem which would go away in April this year, so decided it wasn't worth spending a hundred thousand or so for the sake of 3 months.

If investment kept a profitable business going into the future, 3 months is irrelevant and admin is never absent.

Spot on fpr the 'believing politicians' thing, who on earth would be foolish enough to do that.

Yet now it often looks as though remainers believed leave politicians and campaigners, not transparently tactical at all.

[Iminquarantine]

Oh no, foreign investors buying up U.K. plc on the cheap.

https://www.ft.com/content/79e6ec3e-e869-4c77-beef...



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https://www.ft.com/content/79e6ec3e-e869-4c77-beef-938c306ed7bc?fbclid=IwAR3vMQIRRLaID_6gUDOE2-od1IIzckju5KT1llw4Fh_P8OsSZef07OMwG8k

When Boris Johnson last year proclaimed that Britain would make it “easier than ever for the world to benefit from what we have to offer” he would not have expected to be taken quite so literally by overseas corporate raiders.

Almost two months after Brexit, the value of British businesses sold to overseas buyers is the highest on record for that period, at close to £20bn, according to Refinitiv. 



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The UK is likely to lose some of its best-known companies as a result. Insurer RSA’s 300-year history in Britain looks set to end in a £7.2bn takeover from two overseas rivals. Other deals have emerged for motor recovery group AA; bookmaker William Hill; financial groups IHS Markit and AFH Financial; security firm G4S, games maker Codemasters, property firm McCarthy & Stone and the 178-year-old insurer LV=. Aggreko is in discussions with a private equity-backed consortium from the UK and US.

Alex Ballantine, head of global industrials at investment bank Baird, said that while valuations of US industrials were “higher than ever . . . the UK is definitely being penalised for Brexit and Covid”.


The UK was by far the worst-performing equity region last year, down almost 15 per cent in dollar terms, and underperforming the eurozone by about a fifth. 

Edited by Iminquarantine on Wednesday 3rd March 11:33

[sunbeam alpine]

turbobloke said:

rscott said:

crankedup said:

I caught a television interview last night, BBC East, was an interview with a shellfish fisherman. It would appear he was the chap that Fittser quoted yesterday in here. Almost word for word, he said that he couldn’t export into the EU unless he cleaned his product prior to export. Went on saying that purchase of the purification equipment would make his product uncompetitive with the French and other EU Countries, the additional paperwork added further to his costs,so he is basically stuffed he concluded.
Been trading for years and now brought to a stop due to that change in conformity. The business must have considered that nothing would change ‘because it was always business as usual’.

add : looking at the link provided by deepend, it is a Company fairly local to me. At one time I used to live in Maldon, every year would be an oyster celebration, who has the best oysters. A nice bit of PR, the same thing for Colchester, the local Mayors would be involved for the picture opportunity and free oysters can’t stand the things personally.

Edited by crankedup on Wednesday 3rd March 10:41

The Hayward family are one of the oldest established oyster producers in the area and have supplied the Oyster Feast in Colchester for years. And they're very pleasant oysters too - they're at the various rural shows in the area, usually with Mersea Brewery

Perhaps he foolishly believed the statements by the government that it was a temporary problem which would go away in April this year, so decided it wasn't worth spending a hundred thousand or so for the sake of 3 months.

If investment kept a profitable business going into the future, 3 months is irrelevant and admin is never absent.

Spot on fpr the 'believing politicians' thing, who on earth would be foolish enough to do that.

Yet now it often looks as though remainers believed leave politicians and campaigners, not transparently tactical at all.

From my reading of the various articles over purification (and if I've undesrtood it correctly) - it seems to reduce the shelf life of the product - so it either needs to happen as close as possible to the point of sale, or the purified product needs to be able to be transported very quickly to the point of sale.

I can't imagine the actual cost of purification being higher in the UK (either in terms of installation or running costs) than it would be in the EU.

[JeffreyD]

turbobloke said:

If investment kept a profitable business going into the future, 3 months is irrelevant and admin is never absent.

Spot on fpr the 'believing politicians' thing, who on earth would be foolish enough to do that.

Yet now it often looks as though remainers believed leave politicians and campaigners, not transparently tactical at all.

Faced with a significant investment, the business is told

1. It won't be needed in 3 months
2. We are offering grants totalling £100 million

Why would anyone "invest" their own cash in anything that had less than a 3 month payback?

And there is a fundamental difference between believing what a minister of the crown says about a specific issue and what a campaign tells you to win their vote.

[crankedup]

JeffreyD said:

turbobloke said:

If investment kept a profitable business going into the future, 3 months is irrelevant and admin is never absent.

Spot on fpr the 'believing politicians' thing, who on earth would be foolish enough to do that.

Yet now it often looks as though remainers believed leave politicians and campaigners, not transparently tactical at all.

Faced with a significant investment, the business is told

1. It won't be needed in 3 months
2. We are offering grants totalling £100 million

Why would anyone "invest" their own cash in anything that had less than a 3 month payback?

And there is a fundamental difference between believing what a minister of the crown says about a specific issue and what a campaign tells you to win their vote.

Following on from my posts yesterday, given the risk to the business if the Government made a pigs ear of the trade deal regarding my product. After doing the sums if the business could afford to invest in equipment that would be a decider between continue or die, I would invest. The investment would be half way house just to keep afloat and retain my customer base as far as possible. I would also be applying for a Government grant in tandem that would complete the upgrade in equipment required. It’s a business cost that would offer continuation of the business rather than a gamble that all I hear from Government is good.
Having said that I do have sympathy for the guys situation, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.

[crankedup]

rscott said:

crankedup said:

I caught a television interview last night, BBC East, was an interview with a shellfish fisherman. It would appear he was the chap that Fittser quoted yesterday in here. Almost word for word, he said that he couldn’t export into the EU unless he cleaned his product prior to export. Went on saying that purchase of the purification equipment would make his product uncompetitive with the French and other EU Countries, the additional paperwork added further to his costs,so he is basically stuffed he concluded.
Been trading for years and now brought to a stop due to that change in conformity. The business must have considered that nothing would change ‘because it was always business as usual’.

add : looking at the link provided by deepend, it is a Company fairly local to me. At one time I used to live in Maldon, every year would be an oyster celebration, who has the best oysters. A nice bit of PR, the same thing for Colchester, the local Mayors would be involved for the picture opportunity and free oysters can’t stand the things personally.

Edited by crankedup on Wednesday 3rd March 10:41

The Hayward family are one of the oldest established oyster producers in the area and have supplied the Oyster Feast in Colchester for years. And they're very pleasant oysters too - they're at the various rural shows in the area, usually with Mersea Brewery

Perhaps he foolishly believed the statements by the government that it was a temporary problem which would go away in April this year, so decided it wasn't worth spending a hundred thousand or so for the sake of 3 months.

Perhaps the business can find a way around the current problems to keep their head above water. Receive that grant aid and work to regain its export trade.

[JeffreyD]

Cranked you say you'd be applying for a government grant at the same time as investing.

At the relevant time which grant schemes were available? If there was a scheme available fo shellfish purification tanks then I'd accept that this business has fked itself.

[Iminquarantine]

LSE opinion piece outlining future winning for the City of London in financial services.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2021/03/03/brexit-h...

[crankedup]

JeffreyD said:

Cranked you say you'd be applying for a government grant at the same time as investing.

At the relevant time which grant schemes were available? If there was a scheme available fo shellfish purification tanks then I'd accept that this business has fked itself.

The £100million Government grant aid to the fishing industry was announced many months ago. Governments general line is that the grant aid is for the update of the fishing fleet. They would have known of this grant aid coming down the pipeline via their own or trade. information. With that knowledge, that is when I would have begun my ordering of equipment and in tandem commenced my application for grant aid.
Of course only the business owner himself knows his financial position and what was or was not possible. Of course I am merely a poster on a sub section of a motoring forum, but it does seem to be that the business were living in trust to a great extent.

[jimKRFC]

rscott said:

jimKRFC said:

rscott said:

Well the British government were telling fishermen the ban on live shellfish was temporary, so presumably they thought it would be possible to wait it out. Unfortunately the EU had been saying for weeks that it would be indefinite.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/am...

The UK line appears to have been that they were informed that the ban was temporary, until a new health check certificate could be prepared, then it would continue. But then the EU changed it's mind.

The EU say all unprocessed bi-valves are banned but I've not seen a direct response to the claims (bit like no EU/Barnier response to Frosts statement that EU said they would block food to NI).

All unprocessed bi-valves have been banned from outside the EU for years. It seems the British government had assumed the new health certificates would exempt our fishermen from that, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence the EU ever said that would be the case.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/exclusiv...

I'm not saying they aren't. The UK Gov is saying the EU said one thing (they need a new health certificate & it's fine) then went and did something else (banned forever), there appears to be no EU denial of this statement.

From Eustices letter to the EU Fisheries minister:

"We are surprised that the Commission has changed its position, and in our view this is inconsistent with earlier statements provides to us by Commission Services. On 27 September 2019 the Commission Services provided advice to the UK Chief Veterinary Officer that when these animals are exported to the EU for purification, they can be certified with the model Export Health Certificate set out in Part A of Annex IV to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1251/2008. The Commission Services advised that there was no need to provide supplementary documentation to assist with traceability to the waters of origin and we advised our industry accordingly, stating that the trade could continue. This is therefore unexpected and difficult news for an industry that relies on trade between the UK and EU.

We also note a parallel concern about advice we have received but do not share about not being able to transport live bivalve molluscs for human consumption in viviers.

We can see no scientific or technical justification for this change and the news was conveyed to us rather casually and after the event. This is not in the collaborative and cooperative spirit in which we wish to work together going forward."


https://thefishingdaily.com/latest-news/eustice-cl...

[JeffreyD]

There is a link in a post above that shows the UK government acknowledged in writing the EU position of no imports other than class A.

I think it was a letter from Eustice on 10 December.

[Tryke3]

Iminquarantine said:

LSE opinion piece outlining future winning for the City of London in financial services.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2021/03/03/brexit-h...

I will say it again, the EU is being led by experts and we are being led by clowns who love 3-word soundbites, this is the difference

[silentbrown]

stongle said:

...the ability of businesses to change...

Remember that (according to the chancellor), 90% of UK businesses make less than £250K profit per annum.

Most of these will be employing just a handful of people (if any) and the business will be almost entirely based on the founder/owner's skills, knowledge and contacts. Most of these businesses cannot easily "pivot" in any meaningful way.

[roger.mellie]

UK planning to "unilaterally" extend the NI protocol grace period.

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1367124159...
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-562...

I've mixed opionions on this. On the plus side it's a good thing for NI business to remove that uncertainty, on the minus the notion that the UK can make unilateral decisions without agreeing them with Ireland or the wider EU first looks like asking for trouble. Not a good faith action. Seems like a can kicking sticking plaster rather than a proper solution too.

[wc98]

JeffreyD said:

Any insight as to how the shelfish issue is impacting his business?

Would be good to see the other side of the coin.

not long back from a good catch up with him and his business partner who is also a good friend. at the moment he is doing well but the issues already highlighted post the changeover did cause a fair amount of grief and still are to a much lesser degree. lots of deliberate pain in the arse things from customs (both uk and french, he is thinking of charging uk customs for the advice on how to fill certain forms in on more than one occasion) ,one example being a three page document that had the information printed on each page in the required five languages but french customs wanting fifteen separate documents ,one for each language stating the exact same thing.

i won't say how that was resolved but anyone involved in the industry that would like some advice is welcome to pm me. let's just say a form of french/spanish ingenuity when it comes to having the correct paperwork was used. he is looking to grow his business in a big way this year, he is currently kitting out a huge unit he recently took over and given his past record i have no doubt he will do so.

there are new health certs for shellfish but he has no problems with the new system outside of incompetent/pain in the arse customs. there are however big issues for bi valves and i now understand the issue around the oyster business mentioned earlier in the thread, my friend doesn't think the outlook under current regs is good.

the uk market is bigger than i thought and i hope it can help keep that business going until a solution can be negotiated or financial assistance is made available to keep the business competitive. given the quantities it supplied i have no doubt there will be customers on the other side that will also be hoping it gets resolved. there is huge demand for and undersupply of most sea food in the eu 90% of the time. farmed products are probably the only area any product shortfall may be able to be made up by eu producers. as a result this might well be a situation that isn't resolved in the favour of the uk suppliers but i don't know enough about their capability to ramp up oyster production to fill in the shortfall.

[wc98]

Tryke3 said:

So... it isn't foreigners taking British jobs anymore is it ?

no, but i have a photo of a horse.

[wc98]

rscott said:

Can the Canadians supply the same type of shellfish (and fresh, not frozen) that he supplies?
Don't recall seeing Canadian oysters in Europe before. I have seen this fisherman's for sale there though - his family are one of the most highly regarded producers and have been in the business for nearly 300 years.
They've not been reluctant to adapt before though - they've opened various restaurants around here, have retail outlets in Borough Market, etc.

It's not that they failed to prepare, more that they couldn't do so because the rules weren't clarified until the very last minute.

i agree on your last line and i get the impression those tasked with providing assistance at the moment are still in headless chicken mode. i will try and dig out a list of approved nations and what they export to the eu and uk. some were eye openers for me (moldovan caviar and farmed shrimp from asia, anyone that has seen the conditions they are farmed in wouldn't eat them !) which is why i am struggling to see why many of these rules are anything more than a paperwork exercise . now they are the eu's rules to set, but they certainly reinforce their liking for rules and the protectionist nature of how they trade with the rest of the world.

found the list . now obviously they don't all sell live oysters into the eu, but some of them do along with other shellfish under the bi valve classification. how are they managing to do this if a uk company cannot ?
LIST OF THIRD COUNTRIES OR REGIONS THEREOF FROM WHICH ENTRY INTO THE UNION ARE PERMITTED OF LIVE, CHILLED, FROZEN OR PROCESSED BIVALVE MOLLUSCS, ECHINODERMS, TUNICATES AND MARINE GASTROPODS FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?ur...

[Vanden Saab]

wc98 said:

Tryke3 said:

So... it isn't foreigners taking British jobs anymore is it ?

no, but i have a photo of a horse.

Red rum (deal)

[wc98]

Vanden Saab said:

wc98 said:

Tryke3 said:

So... it isn't foreigners taking British jobs anymore is it ?

no, but i have a photo of a horse.

Red rum (deal)

especially if you export shergarburgers