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

[roger.mellie]

silentbrown said:

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.

I remember the first year our company had to declare a profit and pay tax on it instead of writing it all off on R&D spend etc. The personal angst our CFO went through was an amusing or should that be amazing sight to behold

I suspect all of those sub-250K businesses are similarly tax efficient, they'd be crazy not to be. I do agree that not everyone has the luxury of being able to pivot and brexit will be an unasked for problem for some. Per my earlier comment some will have to make an open and honest decision on whether it's a good idea to increase investment given the long term prospects for their business due to brexit. Winners and losers, but I'm fairly sure most on this thread are not victim blaming or casting aspersions on those that have lost out, but it did raise my hackles a bit when I thought some were.

[crankedup]

WC98 thank you for posting interesting ‘inside industry’ knowledge.

[turbobloke]

crankedup said:

WC98 thank you for posting interesting ‘inside industry’ knowledge.

I was glued to the post, like its subject.

[wc98]

crankedup said:

WC98 thank you for posting interesting ‘inside industry’ knowledge.

to be fair i was long overdue to pay him a visit to see how he was getting on. i was putting it off as i knew how hard he would be at it given the reporting on the issues when the rules changed. glad to say he is doing well and didn't punch me on the nose for voting to leave

[Iminquarantine]

roger.mellie said:

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.

Should do wonders for future trade deals, esp with the United States. Britain signs deal, decides it doesn’t like the terms of the deal, so unilaterally changes it.

[turbobloke]

Iminquarantine said:

roger.mellie said:

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.

Should do wonders for future trade deals, esp with the United States. Britain signs deal, decides it doesn’t like the terms of the deal, so unilaterally changes it.

It's politics. People may whine for effect and to please supporters but it'll be business as usual because trade benefits both parties to a deal.

[Murph7355]

Iminquarantine said:

Should do wonders for future trade deals, esp with the United States. Britain signs deal, decides it doesn’t like the terms of the deal, so unilaterally changes it.

Timetables on some of the loose ends seem to be being treated flexibly by both sides at the moment.

[bitchstewie]

Iminquarantine said:

Should do wonders for future trade deals, esp with the United States. Britain signs deal, decides it doesn’t like the terms of the deal, so unilaterally changes it.

It's the EU's fault.

Don't ask how just stick to the script.

[turbobloke]

bhstewie said:

Iminquarantine said:

Should do wonders for future trade deals, esp with the United States. Britain signs deal, decides it doesn’t like the terms of the deal, so unilaterally changes it.

It's the EU's fault.

Don't ask how just stick to the script.

As long as others ^ stick to the irony

[roger.mellie]

crankedup said:

WC98 thank you for posting interesting ‘inside industry’ knowledge.

Agreed, posts like that are what makes this thread interesting. Every day should be a school day

[bitchstewie]

I know the Byline times have a bias but isn't this the basic issue?

Hapless DEFRA secretary Eustice humiliated and schooled by the EU

I keep hearing terms like "it depends who you believe" but this seems to explain it quite well.

http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DE...

[JeffreyD]

wc98 said:

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.

Thanks for the reply. There's definitely money in fish for those who can do it right.

It does look like the issue with bi-valves is different than other shellfish and that describing them all as "shellfish" is a bit confusing. And I have no idea how many of the current providers are the sort of business that would invest what's needed or just go back to being one man bands. Catching and selling locally.

The issue with fresh fish is different than processed and frozen.

Edited by JeffreyD on Wednesday 3rd March 17:47

[JeffreyD]

What do people think of the new "Free Ports" same old ones as we had when we were in the EU or something new and exciting/frightening?

[crankedup]

roger.mellie said:

crankedup said:

WC98 thank you for posting interesting ‘inside industry’ knowledge.

Agreed, posts like that are what makes this thread interesting. Every day should be a school day

Indeed that is so. Sometimes, as is the case with many forums, it can get a little testy. NOT.

[stongle]

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...

Yet more NON-READING. The article clearly states: these are not the opinions of the LSE, but of the author......

So no, wrong off the bat. As usual. You can't have a serious debate in here, if basic comprehension is missing.

Look, Zombies..... grrr Brexit.

[roger.mellie]

turbobloke said:

It's politics. People may whine for effect and to please supporters but it'll be business as usual because trade benefits both parties to a deal.

It is politics, but is it good politics?

Sometimes you’re overkeen to defend the government when there’s really no need.

In all likelihood it’ll be a storm in a teacup but it won’t be one our politicians come out of with flying colours and as suggested by Iminquarantine you can’t ignore that other nations will be looking on. Unforced errors are not something to be defended regardless of your opinion on the policy.

[Iminquarantine]

stongle said:

Yet more NON-READING. The article clearly states: these are not the opinions of the LSE, but of the author......

So no, wrong off the bat. As usual. You can't have a serious debate in here, if basic comprehension is missing.

Look, Zombies..... grrr Brexit.

Yawn. I said in my post it was an opinion piece. It is published on the LSE website. It has a copyright notice at the bottom of the page, for LSE. There have been newspaper opinion pieces published by Brexstters right here, but I haven’t responded with what is frankly a monumentally thick comment of “oh that’s not an Express/Sun/Mail opinion, it’s only an editorial reflecting the opinion of the author” and this criticism if from someone who regularly posts paragraphs in which individual sentences make sense, but the whole is just meaningless waffle.

Since you want to descend to level of Brexit-tardfest-minus 50, your post has several punctuation errors including missing quotes and a missing comma. Therefore it is garbage.

[roger.mellie]

JeffreyD said:

What do people think of the new "Free Ports" same old ones as we had when we were in the EU or something new and exciting/frightening?

I was hoping someone who knows more than me would reply to that question

I’ve been reading up on them today and the general consensus seems to be that they’ll allow some economic advantages to the areas in which they’re created but no overall net benefit to UK Plc. The fact that they create additional internal uk borders did give me a wry chuckle.

A cynic (moi?) could call it shifting the deck chairs on the titanic. I don’t mean that seriously but I like having the chance to use the metaphor . It’s something very typical of modern day politics, a headline grabbing policy that will get the pro government hacks praising them without actually requiring the government to do anything of consequence.

All that said, I knew almost nothing about free ports yesterday so I’ll happily bow down to someone with a more expert view. Maybe I’m wrong enough to encourage one out of the woodwork!

[JeffreyD]

roger.mellie said:

I was hoping someone who knows more than me would reply to that question

I’ve been reading up on them today and the general consensus seems to be that they’ll allow some economic advantages to the areas in which they’re created but no overall net benefit to UK Plc. The fact that they create additional internal uk borders did give me a wry chuckle.

A cynic (moi?) could call it shifting the deck chairs on the titanic. I don’t mean that seriously but I like having the chance to use the metaphor . It’s something very typical of modern day politics, a headline grabbing policy that will get the pro government hacks praising them without actually requiring the government to do anything of consequence.

All that said, I knew almost nothing about free ports yesterday so I’ll happily bow down to someone with a more expert view. Maybe I’m wrong enough to encourage one out of the woodwork!

I posted it in here as Sunak specifically mentioned it as a Brexit benefit.

At the moment I've only read a load of remain types saying "we could always do them" or some full on rants about deregulation, lower employment standards and a gateway to organised crime and the Russian Mafia.

[Mortarboard]

Well that budget wont help businesses deal with Brexit!

Missed opportunities there i think.

M.