The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Genie]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

More uk.gov BS.

http://infacts.org/we-dont-need-to-leave-the-eu-to-scrap-the-tampon-tax/

 

Hmm, so it’s kinda, half a positive then. 
Is that it? I’m being serious by the way, is there any positives at all? 
The big one (control of our borders) has already been debunked as France and Germany shut us out, and that’s despite the EU telling them they shouldn’t.

 

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Is that it? I’m being serious by the way, is there any positives at all? 

 

We can catch more fish. It's just the selling them that's the problem.

We'll soon get rid of those rebellious scots? Honestly, there's a reason BJ was going on about fish quotas so much, it's all he's got. 

We've voted to make life harder and more expensive, but at least we're in control of things we were mostly in control of anyway. And there's no European Court jurisdiction, which is going to improve my life literally immeasurably. 

 

[Enda]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

Hmm, so it’s kinda, half a positive then. 
Is that it? I’m being serious by the way, is there any positives at all? 
The big one (control of our borders) has already been debunked as France and Germany shut us out, and that’s despite the EU telling them they shouldn’t.

You could, at least in theory, now approve vaccines faster than the EU would. I think it’s fair to say the EU has been slow in approving the vaccines, and that has cost lives. It arguably set the EU back about a month.

The vaccine *rollout* thing... that was optional. Could have done that in or out.

[LondonLax]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

Hmm, so it’s kinda, half a positive then. 
Is that it? I’m being serious by the way, is there any positives at all? 
The big one (control of our borders) has already been debunked as France and Germany shut us out, and that’s despite the EU telling them they shouldn’t.

 

That’s a bit of a red herring though. The UK is now allowed to discern between allowing EU citizens to arrive as tourists and preventing EU tourists from applying for jobs in the UK to stay longer than 90 days, which wasn’t possible under EU regulations.

Personally I am not in support of that change but I suppose if you were one of those ‘the foreigners are taking our jobs!’ types the UK now has more power to decide who is permitted to work and stay in the UK. 

[Genie]

I was wondering, with the Oxford vaccine would we have been able to give ourselves first dibs on supply of that or would we have had to give ourselves and the other EU nations a “fair slice” if we were in the EU?

[Davkaus]

Just now, Enda said:

You could, at least in theory, now approve vaccines faster than the EU would. I think it’s fair to say the EU has been slow in approving the vaccines, and that has cost lives. It arguably set the EU back about a month.

The vaccine *rollout* thing... that was optional. Could have done that in or out.

Good article here about that. Just because individual countries in the EU didn't take the option doesn't mean they couldn't. We did nothing that being in the EU would have prevented us from doing at all. We were just the only country to do it.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4759

I've taken relevant excerpts rather than posting the whole article.

Quote

Why was the vaccine given temporary authorisation?

Usually, the UK would wait for the European Medicines Agency to approve a vaccine before looking to distribute it, but in an emergency EU countries are allowed to use their own regulator to issue temporary authorisation. In October the government made changes to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 to allow the MHRA to grant temporary authorisation of a covid-19 vaccine without needing to wait for the EMA.2

A temporary use authorisation is valid for one year only and requires the pharmaceutical companies to complete specific obligations, such as ongoing or new studies, says the law firm Brodies.3 Once comprehensive data on the product have been obtained, standard marketing authorisation can be granted. This initially lasts five years but can be renewed and is not subject to specific obligations.

What about other European countries?

Most European Union countries are waiting for the EMA to grant approval. The EMA has said it will decide by 29 December whether to provisionally authorise the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. Unlike the UK’s temporary authorisation, the EMA is hoping to grant the vaccine “conditional marketing authorisation” for its use in any EU country.

The Swiss medical regulator Swissmedic has said it did not have all the data it needed to approve the vaccines, especially when it came to use in people with pre-existing illnesses. “We lack data on the effectiveness of the clinical trials and on the important subgroups that participated in these large studies,” said Claus Bolte, head of Swissmedic’s authorisation division, at a press briefing on 1 December.4

Does approval have anything to do with Brexit?

Though some MPs have suggested that this approval process has been made possible only because the UK is leaving the European Union, Salisbury said that is not true. The MHRA acted in line with EU regulations, and any other EU country could have done the same, he said.

Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has said that still being in the transition period may have helped speed up the approval because UK staff have not had to assess new vaccines or drugs intended for the whole EU for the past 18 months, allowing them to focus on the UK authorisation.

However, this will change from 1 January 2021 when the MHRA will become responsible for handling all applications for new drugs and vaccines to be authorised in the UK.

 

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

We can catch more fish. It's just the selling them that's the problem

It was unbelievably short sighted to fight for a bigger catch of something at the cost of losing the market to sell them into. 

[ROTTERDAM1982]

So apart from those too arrogant, there is an acceptance we have got the vaccine quicker than we would have if we had remained?

[LondonLax]

3 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

So apart from those too arrogant, there is an acceptance we have got the vaccine quicker than we would have if we had remained?

What are you on about? The UK started it’s vaccine program while still in the EU regulations. You were vaccinating people last year but you only left the EU’s regulations in January.

[Davkaus]

14 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

So apart from those too arrogant, there is an acceptance we have got the vaccine quicker than we would have if we had remained?

Why aren't you posting your source for this? 

[bickster]

31 minutes ago, Genie said:

I was wondering, with the Oxford vaccine would we have been able to give ourselves first dibs on supply of that or would we have had to give ourselves and the other EU nations a “fair slice” if we were in the EU?

You would imagine we'd have been in the EU procurement programme that we still could have been and declined. Paying less for the vaccines as a result

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

You would imagine we'd have been in the EU procurement programme that we still could have been and declined. Paying less for the vaccines as a result

We’re getting Oxford-AZ at cost price / zero profit. Are they offering all customers that price, or just the UK due to the investment in it?

I guess we could have gotten the other ones cheaper.

Its not clear if the UK is getting short shipped the Pfizer one like the EU is.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Its not clear if the UK is getting short shipped the Pfizer one like the EU is.

We didn't get as many of the first batch as we were supposed to and the second batch was ages off the first I think

[Rolta]

1 hour ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

So apart from those too arrogant, there is an acceptance we have got the vaccine quicker than we would have if we had remained?

Except that's not what happened. It seems it's what you want to have happened, which is classic, 'I voted for Brexit, and I'll clutch at any straw I can.' The government lie for people like you. 

[StefanAVFC]

Too arrogant about what? Asking for citations to justify bold claims? 

[Rolta]

The government's own website says it. It was the serial liars Rees Mogg and Hancock that said otherwise. They love giving soundbytes to Brexit voters because let's face it, there's not much thinking going on and 20 second quotes on the news is all you need to get people to believe what they are already predisposed to believe. I love Rotterdam's line about EU politicians being whatever he said (edit: full of shit)...that is always the comeback from someone who voted and believed these conmen. 'What about Labour...what about the EU...what about this...'

Quote

However, if a suitable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, with strong supporting evidence of safety, quality and effectiveness from clinical trials becomes available before the end of the transition period, EU legislation allows for temporary authorisation of supply in the UK, based on the public health need.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-mhra-statement

[Stevo985]

13 hours ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

So apart from those too arrogant, there is an acceptance we have got the vaccine quicker than we would have if we had remained?

It's not true mate.

A few politicians tried to claim it was when it first happened but it was quickly debunked, usually by a newsreader interviewing one of said politicians. They were lying to try and get some positive propaganda out there about Brexit. And it worked, despite it being untrue.

We could have done the same thing if we were in the EU, evidenced by the fact we were in the EU when we did it.

Also Germany confirmed that they thought about doing it too but decided it was safer to go along with the rest of the EU as I believe they were doing extra safety checks or testing before they rolled it out.

 

I'm not sure what arrogance has to do with stating facts. If you have a source to confirm the opposite then by all means post it.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Stevo985

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

So we've established the UK could have gone solo even if still in the EU (even though not one of the other members did). Is anyone actually arguing that the UK would have been better off adopting the same strategy as those other member states, or that the EU has handled vaccine approval, procurement and distribution better than the UK?

[bickster]

12 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

or that the EU has handled vaccine approval, procurement and distribution better than the UK?

On that, they have been worse than us.

[bickster]

One for the Schadenfreude Files

For those unaware June Mummery is an ex-Brexit Party MEP and owner of a seafood business