OutByEaster? Posted January 7, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2019 7 hours ago, snowychap said: Have we? With whom? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-trade-deal-africa-theresa-may-trip-post-brexit-eu-rollover-a8511871.html Quote Theresa May has come under fire for claiming to have secured the UK’s first post-Brexit trade deal as it is merely a “rollover” of an existing EU agreement. I'd read it that way, I might be wrong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 29 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-trade-deal-africa-theresa-may-trip-post-brexit-eu-rollover-a8511871.html I'd read it that way, I might be wrong. Cheers for that. I'd look specifically at what she said as per that article: Quote I’m delighted that we will today confirm plans to carry over the European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreement with the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) and Mozambique once the EU’s deal no longer applies to the UK And what was said in the article referred to in the one you quoted (same day slightly earlier): Quote Theresa May has announced that the UK has secured its first post-Brexit trade deal during her trip to boost British exports in Africa. The prime minister confirmed that Britain would replicate a deal the EU currently has with six southern African nations. ... Britain plans to take on all of the EU’s current trade deals after Brexit with agreement of the other country’s involved, but the announcement that the first has been locked in will be a boost to Ms May. ... It came moments before she held a bilateral meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa at which the agreement laying ground for the deal was to be set in stone. She 'confirmed plans to...' and whilst the other article says it's to replicate the current deal (with six countries not just SA) and it is 'locked in', it then goes on to say about a meeting she is then to have with the SA bod about laying ground for the deal to be set in stone. Without knowing the detail of what has been actually agreed to and with whom, I think we ought to be a little skeptical on what we accept from news reports and directly from the mouth of the Prime Minister and what we thus assume to be the case for the future. It may well be that the current EPA is grandfathered without any issue or any change at the moment just after the UK leaves the EU whenever (or if) that happens. I don't think though, given the couple of years we have had and the processes that still remain to take place, that we ought to take anything in the future as read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 (edited) @OutByEaster? Here's another article from the day after that announcement/those Indie articles (I don't know how much more accurate it is): Quote UK says will be ready to roll over SADC trade deal post-Brexit – but will it? The UK will be ready to activate an economic partnership agreement with southern African countries from the first day after Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday. But nothing is done yet, writes Chris Horseman. A joint statement between the UK and the countries of the Southern African Development Community, released by May in Cape Town, said a new British-SADC trade deal would “replicate the benefits” of the EU’s EPA with the region, and that it could take effect “as soon as the EU deal no longer applies to the UK”. But closer examination suggests no deal is yet in place and that substantial work remains to translate what is now a statement of intent into an actual trade accord, let alone one that could potentially take effect as early as 30 March if the UK leaves the EU with no transition agreement in place. “We recognise that the affirmations set forth in this political understanding are not intended to be legally binding and remain ‘without prejudice’ to the technical discussions currently underway,” the statement says. ‘Most advanced statement of progress’ to date The announcement that a deal between the UK and SADC (which includes South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini/Swaziland and Mozambique) would be ready as soon as Britain leaves the EU formed a centrepiece of May’s visit to South Africa. The British side presented it as a significant step in the development of the UK’s post-Brexit portfolio of trade agreements. “Today’s announcement is the most advanced statement of progress to date with around 40 existing EU trade agreements that the UK is transitioning, and an important step in positioning the UK as a global champion of free trade and development,” said UK trade chief George Hollingbery, who accompanied May to Africa. The text of the joint statement shows only a commitment among the parties to “continue to work together towards the conclusion of a future UK, SACU [Southern African Customs Union] and Mozambique EPA that ensures continuity in the trade relationship once the EU-SADC EPA no longer applies to the UK”. The wording provides for continuing uncertainty about the terms and timing of the UK’s exit from the bloc. The SADC group says it “takes note” of the UK’s intention to be treated, for the purposes of EU international agreements, as an EU member for the duration of the implementation period between the bloc and Britain. It stops short, however, of explicitly saying it is prepared to treat the UK that way. In any case, as the statement also acknowledges, the March 2019-December 2020 implementation period would only take effect in the context of a wider EU-UK accord on the terms of withdrawal. A ‘no deal’ Brexit would take such an option off the table. It is for this eventuality that the two sides have committed to “ensure that an agreement can be in place” as soon as is necessary after Brexit. In essence, the parties have reiterated that a UK-SADC EPA should “replicate the effects” of the EU-SADC EPA, notably by the UK extending to the southern African countries the same trade preferences they currently enjoy. SADC countries voice concerns over ‘cumulation’ But, as is the case with virtually all EU trade agreements that the UK aims to replicate post-Brexit, the situation is more complicated than a simple copy-and-paste. Indeed, the joint UK-SADC statement draws attention to the fact that the UK and the EU27 must still agree on rules of origin, and particularly provisions relating to cumulation. “SACU and Mozambique emphasise the importance of continued cumulation between all the parties in promoting continuity and to avoid disruption in trade, and urge both the UK and the EU to recognise the importance of cumulation in the discussions on a post-Brexit EU-UK arrangement,” the statement reads. This is particularly importance for manufactured goods such as cars. Ford, for example, has an assembly plant in South Africa that is integral to the supply chain for vehicles finished and sold in Europe. An agreement on cumulative rules of origin among the UK, the EU and SADC is vital to prevent these movements from attracting import duty. Most imports from the SADC region have preferential access to the EU under the terms of the EPA, and London has stressed that these preferences will continue. Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini /Swaziland and Mozambique benefit from duty-free, quota-free access to the EU market for all non-military products. No agreement on South African TRQs However, around 4% of South Africa’s exports to the EU (mostly agricultural products) are subject either to tariff rate quotas or are not eligible for tariff concessions. The question of how South Africa’s TRQs would be divided up between the UK and the EU27 remains unanswered. There are 12 TRQs on goods ranging from wine and fruit juice to sugar and butter. These were not included in the list of WTO-bound TRQs for which the EU and UK proposed a simple split, in a controversial proposal submitted to the World Trade Organization in May. South Africa is understood to be pressing for an increase in its future TRQs, which would require difficult three-way negotiations among South Africa, the EU and the UK. Hollingbery’s comment that the SADC discussions are “the most advanced” of the 40 or so EU trade deals that the UK is seeking to transition – despite the issues that remain unresolved – offers an insight into just how much work officials in London still must do to roll over the terms of EU trade agreements in time for the UK’s departure. The time pressure will become critical if Britain leaves without a deal in place next March, and hence fails to secure for itself the anticipated 21-month breathing space to finalise such deals that would be provided by the proposed implementation period until December 2020. Even the pledge to make progress outlined in the UK-SADC joint statement has failed to convince trade experts such as Helen Dennis, policy & advocacy manager at Fairtrade UK. “I still find it hard to see how these deals could be rolled over in a no-deal scenario,” she told Borderlex. Moreover, SADC is one of only two of the EU’s eight regional EPAs to which all countries in the region have assented to accede – the Caribbean ‘Cariforum’ group being the other. Rolling over existing trade accords and packages of concessions will be all the more difficult where significant numbers of countries in the region are not signatory to the core agreement. Edited January 7, 2019 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 The full joint statement from 29th Aug is available here: Quote Joint meeting of the United Kingdom (UK), the Southern African Customs Union member states (SACU) and Mozambique trade ministers on a future UK, SACU and Mozambique Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). ...more on link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 Tom Peck of the Independent is covering the practice no-deal traffic jam. Sounds like it's going as well as everything else. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 10 hours ago, mjmooney said: Strawberries from the USA and China? From a carbon footprint viewpoint alone, that's madness. We get the majority of our lamb from New Zealand Whilst i completely agree with the sentiment, it's not something that we can claim to already be good at reducing. Lots of our food comes from far away places on big tankers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted January 7, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted January 7, 2019 7 minutes ago, ml1dch said: Tom Peck of the Independent is covering the practice no-deal traffic jam. Sounds like it's going as well as everything else. I "reacted" to this post with the laughing emoji. But to be honest it's actually pretty terrifying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 12 hours ago, Davkaus said: I think a few generations of people have forgotten just how good we have it. From food, to tech, we have the best things available on the planet available to us at the click of a button. In the case of a no deal, when people have to start thinking about seasonal eating (what, you can't get strawberries in January?! Pineapples and bananas don't exist anymore?!), people might realise just how convenient our lives have been for a bloody long time, and that's a result of international trade and cooperation. Yes. However, the downside of this has been that we are very dependent not just on food imports, but also on distribution systems which work very well in normal times, but which are fragile and easily disrupted by major unplanned events. We saw in the fuel protests a few years back how quickly food supplies can fail. It would make sense environmentally, as well as in respect of food security and resilience, to produce more food at home, reduce food miles, eat more seasonally and so on. That would take a little while to bring about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 25 minutes ago, lapal_fan said: Lots of our food comes from far away places on big tankers. We're meant to be curbing this. Sending them five times as far is moronic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 3 hours ago, lapal_fan said: We get the majority of our lamb from New Zealand Whilst i completely agree with the sentiment, it's not something that we can claim to already be good at reducing. Lots of our food comes from far away places on big tankers. For lamb, I gather in 2013 we were the second biggest world importer and third biggest exporter (or rather "sheep meat" rather than just lamb). It sounds crazy, but it's to do with people wanting legs and chops rather than cheaper cuts, so we export cuts we don't want and import those we do, leading to over 60,000 tons of lamb coming from Aus and NZ in 2017. That doesn't seem sensible or sustainable, and part of the answer will be educating and encouraging people to use cheaper cuts, and adopt a more "nose to tail" approach - if you're going to kill an animal for food, then use all of it. Like we used to, and like all peasant communities always do. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 9 minutes ago, peterms said: For lamb, I gather in 2013 we were the second biggest world importer and third biggest exporter (or rather "sheep meat" rather than just lamb). It sounds crazy, but it's to do with people wanting legs and chops rather than cheaper cuts, so we export cuts we don't want and import those we do, leading to over 60,000 tons of lamb coming from Aus and NZ in 2017. That doesn't seem sensible or sustainable, and part of the answer will be educating and encouraging people to use cheaper cuts, and adopt a more "nose to tail" approach - if you're going to kill an animal for food, then use all of it. Like we used to, and like all peasant communities always do. You need Heston/Ramsey/Oliver to make offal and cheaper cuts cool again. Food/Drink is just a type of fashion after all, hence why in the last 5 years, Prosecco has come out of nowhere and is now more popular (as a "posh" drink), than Champagne. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 7 minutes ago, lapal_fan said: You need Heston/Ramsey/Oliver to make offal and cheaper cuts cool again. That's definitely been happening over the last few years, with top chefs promoting previously unfashionable things that need slow cooking like lamb shanks, with charcuterie becoming a new artisan niche, with things like Scotch eggs becoming a designer food item. Pigs ears are trendy among several top chefs, and critics like Jay Rayner also encourage using cheaper cuts, and praise places that offer them. I don't suppose we'll be seeing sheep brains and eyeballs on too many menus anytime soon, but things are definitely moving towards more use of cuts that came to acquire a low status in the postwar years. All that can go hand in hand with higher animal welfare standards - better quality meat, less often, in smaller portions, using more of the animal, and more home-produced. Against that, of course, we have a massive processed food industry, seemingly increasing amounts of food fraud, and people like the disgraced Liam Fox pressing for deregulation and lower standards. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 6 minutes ago, peterms said: For lamb, I gather in 2013 we were the second biggest world importer and third biggest exporter (or rather "sheep meat" rather than just lamb). It sounds crazy, but it's to do with people wanting legs and chops rather than cheaper cuts, so we export cuts we don't want and import those we do, leading to over 60,000 tons of lamb coming from Aus and NZ in 2017. That doesn't seem sensible or sustainable, and part of the answer will be educating and encouraging people to use cheaper cuts, and adopt a more "nose to tail" approach - if you're going to kill an animal for food, then use all of it. Like we used to, and like all peasant communities always do. Similar to fish. People don't want mackerel or herring and chips so we export nearly all of it and buy cod in from abroad. So our gloriously reclaimed fishing waters might be pointless as we put up barriers to the territories into which we'd be selling it. Mackerel and chips however is delicious, so seeing it on more menus might be one of the very few benefits of all this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 7, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2019 36 minutes ago, lapal_fan said: Prosecco has come out of nowhere and is now more popular (as a "posh" drink), than Champagne posh Not round here, every two-bit scally bird drinks it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 1 minute ago, bickster said: posh Not round here, every two-bit scally bird drinks it That's why I put it in quotes tbh. It's the sort of thing anyone can drink, but still has that "exlusive" feeling everyone wants, but you can get it for £15 quid a bottle, rather than £30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 51 minutes ago, ml1dch said: Similar to fish. People don't want mackerel or herring and chips so we export nearly all of it and buy cod in from abroad. So our gloriously reclaimed fishing waters might be pointless as we put up barriers to the territories into which we'd be selling it. Mackerel and chips however is delicious, so seeing it on more menus might be one of the very few benefits of all this. Yes, too many chippies confine themselves to the routine offering. Yet if you do something a little more adventurous, but using local stuff where possible, it can work well. People queue for an hour, outdoors, here for some of this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sid4ever Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 1 hour ago, bickster said: posh Not round here, every two-bit scally bird drinks it In the old days it would have been 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 7, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2019 17 minutes ago, Sid4ever said: In the old days it would have been Especially in Liverpool, we make that shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 7, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted January 7, 2019 Good to see the no deal traffic jam test failed. The department of transport. Failing to make a traffic jam in one of the most easily jammed parts of the country, through sheer incompetence. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wazzap24 Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 (edited) On 06/01/2019 at 09:34, Amsterdam_Neil_D said: Fair point but they did organise themselves to win the Referendum, in a perceived "Easy win" for remain the leavers still won. Yellow vests or clown outfits, they are currently winning. The Remain march the other week, brilliantly organised and got great numbers and was on the News & I thought it might change something, achieved nothing. It was more a comment around the extreme pro-Brexit factions ( The 'New EDL', Britain First and various others). The ones screaming 'Traitors /Enemies of the people' at anybody questioning the madness. * You are right about Vote Leave being more organised etc as a whole, as tonight's Brexit drama with Benedictine Cumonmysnatch will show. *Edit: Extreme like yer man here. Edited January 7, 2019 by wazzap24 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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