Brexit process

[clv101]

* update on the apples

Just returned from Morrisons. They had 4 varieties on offer.

2 New Zealand
1 Chile
1 South African

Wonder if they were shipped here direct or via the EU? I would expect the southern hemisphere don't ship apples separately to 28 EU members, they are instead shipped to a several different EU ports then distributed here. Point is, 'our' New Zealand apples may be disrupted as they come to us via Amsterdam.

[clv101]

If (and I still think it the less likely outcome) we leave in March with 'no deal', it would be worth thinking a bit about how modern economies cope with economic shocks. 2001 Argentine financial crisis, 1997 Asian financial crisis and more recently 2010 Greece. What worked, what didn't, how best to prepare for a possible economic shock?

Greece GDP fell some 40%, 250,000 companies collapsed, 25% unemployment, >50% for young people, at worst half the population lived below the poverty line.

Could the UK be the next modern economy to experience this kind of economic shock? ...if the UK isn't next, which OECD county is most likely next to see an economic shock?

[Little John]

CLV, you haven't actually indicated specifically how this economic armageddon of drastic interruptions to supply of everything from sandwiches to insulin will happen as a consequence of leaving without a deal and falling back on WTO rules.

Care to do that now?

[clv101]

CLV, you haven't actually indicated specifically how this economic armageddon of drastic interruptions to supply of everything from sandwiches to insulin will happen as a consequence of leaving without a deal and falling back on WTO rules.

Care to do that now?

I don't think it will, as I don't think we'll leave with no deal.

However, if we do actually manage to leave without any deal, then it's easy to see how problems arise. On food, we won't be able to export any food products into the EU, as we'd drop out of the EU approved certification schemes - big negative economic hit for UK farmers.

On the import side the UK government could decide to simply continue to accept/trust food from the EU even though we'd dropped out of the certification scheme - but that's a pretty risky public health decision as we'd lose the production/distribution paper trail and confirmation of standards. And with no way of guaranteeing food quality standards all sorts of rubbish might be imported - which would harm export agreements with the rest of the world as we won't be able to offer any assurances of the quality of stuff in the country.

Regarding WTO, that would incur significant tariffs (average 22%?) on food which if the UK decided to drop to zero (it has to be reciprocal and to all countries I think) would expose UK agriculture to cheaper products it couldn't hope to compete against.

[Little John]

My goodness me. How on earth do all of those countries who are not in the EU manage to trade with them without incurring Economic Armageddon? It's a mystery isn't it.

Bearing in mind, of course, that that the majority of EU countries export far more into the UK than then they import from it and so such tariffs would most seriously affect those countries

Additionally, I'd be very interested to know how the EU's customs code of 19,752 tariffs, including 104% on sugar, 50% on New Zealand Lamb, 70% on chicken breasts, 20% on orange juice and bananas, no longer having to be applied by the UK is going to cause prices in those commodities to rise for the UK.

The fact is, in many cases, food prices are driven up by the EU for UK consumers.

[stumuz1]

* update on the apples

Just returned from Morrisons. They had 4 varieties on offer.

2 New Zealand
1 Chile
1 South African

Wonder if they were shipped here direct or via the EU? Point is, 'our' New Zealand apples may be disrupted as they come to us via Amsterdam.

Sorry Chris, that's not the point. The point is we will get our apples from outside the EU when we leave. There will be no or less tariffs on them. As Steve has pointed out, the EU is a protectionist system designed to protect mostly French farmers by imposing punitive tariffs on apples.

Thank you for engaging with the question though. Most people who are remain doctrinaires will not discuss individual products as the answer usually produces an advantage for leave.

So the premise stands. When we leave the EU without a deal, apples will not be in short supply and will be cheaper.

[stumuz1]

If (and I still think it the less likely outcome) we leave in March with 'no deal', it would be worth thinking a bit about how modern economies cope with economic shocks. 2001 Argentine financial crisis, 1997 Asian financial crisis and more recently 2010 Greece. What worked, what didn't, how best to prepare for a possible economic shock?

Argentina had coups,military governments. Do you really envisage the Army marching up Whitehall and imposing military law? Don't think so.

Greece was and is an economic basket case with the generals (the army again) taking turns to plunder the country. The EU forced Greece, a bankrupt nation, to accept the largest loan IN HUMAN HISTORY knowing that it could never pay it back to save French and German banks.

Greece GDP fell some 40%, 250,000 companies collapsed, 25% unemployment, >50% for young people, at worst half the population lived below the poverty line.

It is the biggest scandal in modern financial history. All that suffering imposed by the EU. For what?

Could the UK be the next modern economy to experience this kind of economic shock? ...if the UK isn't next, which OECD county is most likely next to see an economic shock?

No, unlike Greece or Argentina the UK has its own free floating currency which is not pegged to any other currency. It cannot go bankrupt.

Sharing financial sovereignty has been a very bad idea. The next economic shock? Probably Italy. Massive debt denominated in a shared currency, a government that will soon issue mini-bots a parallel currency which the state will accept as tax payments.

[clv101]

Thank you for engaging with the question though. Most people who are remain doctrinaires will not discuss individual products as the answer usually produces an advantage for leave.

I'm not a remain doctrinaire! I'm not any kind of arch remainer - my main issue with the whole situation is the broadscale incompetence with which the situation is being handled with.

[stumuz1]

Thank you for engaging with the question though. Most people who are remain doctrinaires will not discuss individual products as the answer usually produces an advantage for leave.

I'm not a remain doctrinaire! I'm not any kind of arch remainer - my main issue with the whole situation is the broadscale incompetence with which the situation is being handled with.

I do apologise, I accept you are not a remain doctrinaire!

This has been a very useful exercise in gaming the outcome of when we leave. The sort of topic that powerswitch excelled at.

As food is a very live issue, is there any food that we can drill down into to see if there is a stockpiling issue?

Beer, wine, cheese, beef or any other food that we may discuss?

[adam2]

The bulk of the beer consumed in the UK is made here, with imports being a small proportion of sales, no problem.
Beef is largely produced within the UK.
Wine is very largely imported, so supplies MIGHT be affected, but I doubt it.
Cheese is both imported AND exported on a significant scale, due to consumer preferences for different types.
Exports might well be hit, imports probably not.

Remember that the EU suffers from periodic surpluses of cheese, wine, and other products, due to subsidies for the production of same. Are they really going to make these surpluses worse by refusing to sell such goods to us ?

I consider it prudent to keep stocks of almost everything, but not primarily due to Brexit.

[stumuz1]

The bulk of the beer consumed in the UK is made here, with imports being a small proportion of sales, no problem.

Phew!

[kenneal - lagger]

That's probably true if you drink bitter but how much of the CO2 that goes into lager comes from abroad? They were sweating on supplies earlier in the summer when the manufacturers closed for maintenance during the world cup.

[adam2]

The carbon dioxide required in the brewing industry is largely a by product of UK fertiliser production, hence the recent shortages when these plants closed for holidays and maintenance.
In the near term I expect no problem, fertiliser production has ramped up, and the recent shortage was a wake up call, bulk users will probably keep extra supplies for next summers shutdown.

In the longer term, we could face a problem as UK fertiliser production is at risk due to high natural gas prices, and a generally high cost of doing business in the UK.
I expect that in years to come, that fertiliser production will become concentrated in countries with large gas supplies, plenty of space and lower costs of doing business.

Nitrogen from the air can be "fixed" and made into fertiliser by an electric arc process, but this finds little favour under present day conditions.

[Little John]

If CO2 supply ever becomes an issues for beer brewers, they will just market and sell beer like it was marketed and sold before, with the yeast in the bottom, having produced its own CO2.

[RenewableCandy]

1. VT, about our Insulin supplies, this is only what I've seen in various news outlets. P.M. May herself is a Type 1 diabetic so this could get interesting.

2. re Armageddon - probably wouldn't even be being talked about had HMG started to make serious preparations for a no-deal possibility about 18 months ago, NOT at the last minute. If nothing else, insurance may not cover transit for things driven/flown outside an acknowledged trade bloc. And without insurance, who the heck's going to ship anything anywhere?

3. Animals (this is great if your a veggie already, don't mind taking the plunge, or are called Kenneal) most vets who do livestock-in-transit checks are from other EU countries. The Leavers & their xenophobic hangers-on are seeing to it that these folk (along with a huge swathe of hospital staff, including the surgeon - Dutch of course - who patched up my heart) are leaving us.

4. Continental Europeans living here - they're suddenly being told they have to re-apply for right to 'settle' here. It's time-consuming, costly and just unnecessary aggro. And there are 3 million of them - 5% of our population.

5. Our favourite apocalyptic plumber has already left the country. I'm not joking.