UK Politics Thread

[Jimbuna]

Brexit: 'I was asked to pay an extra £82 for my £200 coat'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55734277

[Skybird]

I wonder how some people sleepwalk throuhg their lives. I have just placed an order for an Ubiquinol supplement from the UK, and checked the German website of the customs office, now expecting to be asked for an additonal roughly one quarter of the buying price for customs and VAT. Not before calculating that into the total costs I placed the order, its still cheaper than any offer available from the Netherlands, US and UK (German companies seem to not produce what I want).

I will see , its a test run. But when I am aware that things have changed, why are so many others not? Hasn't Brexit been in the news for long time enough...?

[Catfish]

I wanted to order some spoke nipples for a swiss bike in a swiss shop.
Price ~ 12 cent per piece, wanted 50.
Overall cost 67,50 Euros, including customs.
The boss even called me and advised me to order those within the EU, since the customs formalities were so complicated and expensive.. he literally said "that is why the EU was founded, we will move the shop to the EU, swiss law is ridiculous".
If you just buy it in Switzerland yourself and export it there's only VAT

[Jimbuna]

Back in the day my brother-in-law had a mate I would meet every summer on the annual jolly boys outing to the Headingley test and he was always adamant he would never buy anything that had been made in Japan. He told me the reason was he had an uncle who was tortured to death by the Japanese in Burma.

Whilst I understood his reasoning I still thought it a little strange.

I'm now finding myself in the same frame of mind regarding products coming out of China.

[Jimbuna]

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ort-government

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...erendum-brexit

Old, but usually you look at who profits most of a situation. Unless you are "not interested"

[Jimbuna]

It wouldn't surprise me if Russia were involved with interfering in most Western political business but what I'd love to know is how said behaviour can be stopped.

[Jimbuna]

This sounds to me to be nothing more than a load of tosh.

[Catfish]

"Scotch Whisky Association reports £500m loss after US tariffs"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...iness-55897019

The tarriffs were placed by Trump as a retaliation for Airbus state support.
Good that the US state never supported Boeing [/cynism]
And of course it is retaliation for the EU not doing kowtows 24 hours a day, to Trump.

"The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said distillers are "continuing to pay the price for an aerospace dispute that has nothing to do" with them."
This tarriff hampering Scotland's whisky trade is of course nonsense, but trade wars always produce a lot of unrelated fallout.

[Jimbuna]

Hopefully the new POTUS will ease the tariffs and if and when Trump visits one of his scottish golf courses the bar bill he runs up will be reflective of what happened in the past

I'm not sure Nicola Sturgeon is fond of him either so there's a surprise.

[Catfish]

I do not quite understand this, the UK which still includes Scotland () is not longer in the EU, so those tarriffs should be abandoned anyway.

[Jimbuna]

Hopefully it is simply a case of Biden getting around to dropping them but heaven only knows how many Trump reversals he has on his list.

[Jimbuna]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for "urgent action" from the EU amid rising tensions over post-Brexit checks at Northern Ireland ports.

UK and EU leaders are to hold talks to try to resolve the trade issues between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Checks on goods were suspended on Tuesday after threats to staff.

The UK government wrote to the European Commission overnight, calling for temporary lighter enforcement of the rules to be extended until early 2023.

But Northern Ireland's First Minister, Arlene Foster, issued a warning against "just kicking things down the road", telling BBC Radio Ulster: "We need to find solutions that are sustainable, that are workable and long lasting."

On Tuesday, Mr Johnson said the EU had "undermined" the Brexit deal by threatening emergency controls of Covid vaccine exports across the Irish border.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the threat had been a "mistake that shouldn't have happened".

But he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a separate issue to address over trade rules, and it was Brexit "causing all of this tension" - not the measures being put in place. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55913907

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

I do not quite understand this, the UK which still includes Scotland () is not longer in the EU, so those tarriffs should be abandoned anyway.

I wondered, too, but the war over subsidies and sanctions between Boeing and Airbus is a different thing from the trade war Biden's predecessor launched, and the UK delivers wings and gear made in UK plants at Flinton and Broughton.

[Catfish]

True, international companies are so intertwined that intentional punishing one company or nation equals international collateral damage, with all that can be expected as a reaction.