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On December 31 2020 00:55 Silvanel wrote:
So what do You guys think about Brexit deal? Great deal for the EU. Get to keep selling stuff to the UK with minimal hassle, slowly transitioning out of London being its financial center and gave up practically nothing.
Meanwhile the UK is still sitting at the table for dinner but no longer gets to decide what its eating other then being able to walk away entirely.
Seriously did not expect Johnson to cave like that at the last minute after actively steering into a no-deal for the entire time.
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Yeah i thought so too, but messaging from BoJo is triumfant so i thought i might have missed something.
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On December 31 2020 04:58 Silvanel wrote:
Yeah i thought so too, but messaging from BoJo is triumfant so i thought i might have missed something. Obviously BoJo isn't going to stand there saying he screwed the UK over. And its not like he hasn't lied repeatedly before.
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True, i just wanted second opinion so to speak, on the issue.
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No matter how it turned out, there was zero chance that Boris Johnson wouldn't claim it is a huge victory.
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
Looks a pretty fucking pointless process with few upsides. At least the backbone of the UK economy that is the fishing industry seems to have done alright...
It’s like finally getting your acrimonious divorce through the courts only your ex-wife got awarded the house, you still have to live in the house and it’s her house her rules apart from some concessions like promising not to move your slippers from your favourite spot and recycling your newspapers before you’ve finished reading them.
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Oh, I thought this agreement is insanely funny. All they got is some fishing concessions and FREEDOM!
That's like their negotiation team had to sing every morning:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves.
In the good old days I always thought this song is kinda satire in modern times. But now it looks dead serious :D
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brexit voters should be paying me a fucking stipend
each yr we calculate the average loss of earnings and everyone that voted for that sack of shit can contribute to make up the difference
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I am honestly happy and relieved. While the deal is less deep than ideal, it is weirdly bread and has lots of committees, working groups, and stuff like that. That should mean that in the future it might be relatively easy to upgrade the deal to include more stuff. Perhaps in as little time as a decade the UK and EU relationship might be similar to the Swiss-EU one. That is far from optimal, but workable.
This whole Brexit mess is still a loss for everybody, and I am not sure the UK will survive, but at least the worst case of total chaos has be averted. Plus, I don't see anybody of the usual suspects who supported Brexit (be it evil billionaires / Putin / China / US evangelicals) gaining much.
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On January 02 2021 05:10 Zealos wrote:
brexit voters should be paying me a fucking stipend
each yr we calculate the average loss of earnings and everyone that voted for that sack of shit can contribute to make up the difference
Would be nice, hell I’d take a few admissions that it was an ill-advised shitstorm of a path to go down and a mistake but good luck even extracting those from people.
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/11/dutch-officials-seize-ham-sandwiches-from-british-drivers
This was on dutch news as well,a whole topic with the supervising customs service officer explain to his deputys that they had to seize everything that was not allowed. It makes me feel a bit ashamed of my country (the netherlands).
There is enforcing the rules and there is enforcing the rules to the extreme. I mean,seizing ham sandwiches that are brought for lunch,really?
I know the airports all over the world can do similar seiings when it comes to exotic meals from abroad but that often has a more or less valid reason behind it. Seizing ham sandwiches that are brought for lunch goes to far when hamsandwiches itself are perfectly fine as long as the come from the eu.
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The sandwiches wouldn't had come from the EU though. Not anymore. They would had come from Hell, or wherever ferries depart for the Netherlands nowadays. To be fair, those products would had been made under EU rules anyways and are perfectly safe, but for how long for would that be the case? Seems pretty mean spirited if they simply couldn't consume their sandwiches at the border, though it's not really clear from the article whether they were allowed to eat them or not.
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
It does seem overly petty, especially if the option to just eat them there and then isn’t on the table.
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It does seem overly petty, especially if the option to just eat them there and then isn’t on the table.
Why? It's confiscated. You're not allowed to consume/use prohibited items in airport security either. There's entire TV shows about how people go through the green gate, get pulled by customs officers and get all their food shit thrown away. That's not radioactive plutonium cheese, that's just flat out normal cheese.
Doesn't really occur to me why a british truck driver should be an exception. The only reasoning for legitimate bitching would be if a dutch truck driver bought a ham sandwich in ASDA and was allowed to take it across the border. As long as the rules are applied to everyone equally, you have zero reason to scoff.
Lets keep in mind that we were the guys who pressed for as little, if "none" isn't possible, transition time. The rules came into force on the first of january. Deal with it - i have to deal with the fact that i have to pay VAT and import duty on my birthday gifts sent by my parents.
Mind boggling that rules/laws are apparently up for discussion. If you get caught with 50g of cheese from turkey, they'll take it. You're not allowed to eat it either, it gets thrown in the bin at the airport in front of you. The UK is no different from turkey in that sense. You can't bring even 20g of ham from the UK, all meat products are prohibited, as well as milk and dairy products or potatoes. This goes for every single non-EU country. Including the UK. Not sure what's there to bitch about - that's what "we" wanted.
edit:
Even worse so considering that drivers should actually know, since the defra guidance for commercial drivers actually states that it's prohibited. And they make it unmistakably by literally saying "you can't bring a ham and cheese sandwich".
+ Show Spoiler +Drivers travelling to the EU should be aware of additional restrictions to personal imports. If you are carrying prohibited items in your luggage, vehicle or person you need to use, consume, or dispose of them at or before the border. You cannot bring POAO (products of an animal origin) such as those containing meat or dairy (e.g. a ham and cheese sandwich) into the EU. There are exceptions to this rule for certain quantities of powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods, or special processed pet feed. Find out more on the rules and exemptions in the European Commission guidance on personal imports. You cannot bring certain plants and plant products into the EU. Find out more in the European Commission guidance on plant health biosecurity. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transporting-goods-between-great-britain-and-the-eu-guidance-for-hauliers-and-commercial-drivers
You say it's petty that it got confiscated, i say it's the drivers fault for not reading about his own responsibilities.
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It can be their own fault and still be petty. It's a sandwich...
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On January 12 2021 14:52 RvB wrote:
It can be their own fault and still be petty. It's a sandwich...
True, but legally speaking there is no difference between a ham sandwich and some disease riddled piece of exotic meat from a wet market in a third world country. Ideally, there would be the offer to eat the sandwich then and there, before crossing the border. But we are talking about lorry drivers, that would probably cause unwanted delays for those in the queue. But by next week all the drivers will know that they have to eat their ham sandwich before the border, and keep their jam sandwich for after (is jam allowed? I believe there might be restrictions on plant seeds, to prevent the introduction of invasive species)
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On January 12 2021 12:55 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +It does seem overly petty, especially if the option to just eat them there and then isn’t on the table.
Why? It's confiscated. You're not allowed to consume/use prohibited items in airport security either. There's entire TV shows about how people go through the green gate, get pulled by customs officers and get all their food shit thrown away. That's not radioactive plutonium cheese, that's just flat out normal cheese. Doesn't really occur to me why a british truck driver should be an exception. The only reasoning for legitimate bitching would be if a dutch truck driver bought a ham sandwich in ASDA and was allowed to take it across the border. As long as the rules are applied to everyone equally, you have zero reason to scoff. Lets keep in mind that we were the guys who pressed for as little, if "none" isn't possible, transition time. The rules came into force on the first of january. Deal with it - i have to deal with the fact that i have to pay VAT and import duty on my birthday gifts sent by my parents. Mind boggling that rules/laws are apparently up for discussion. If you get caught with 50g of cheese from turkey, they'll take it. You're not allowed to eat it either, it gets thrown in the bin at the airport in front of you. The UK is no different from turkey in that sense. You can't bring even 20g of ham from the UK, all meat products are prohibited, as well as milk and dairy products or potatoes. This goes for every single non-EU country. Including the UK. Not sure what's there to bitch about - that's what "we" wanted. edit: Even worse so considering that drivers should actually know, since the defra guidance for commercial drivers actually states that it's prohibited. And they make it unmistakably by literally saying "you can't bring a ham and cheese sandwich". + Show Spoiler +Drivers travelling to the EU should be aware of additional restrictions to personal imports. If you are carrying prohibited items in your luggage, vehicle or person you need to use, consume, or dispose of them at or before the border. You cannot bring POAO (products of an animal origin) such as those containing meat or dairy (e.g. a ham and cheese sandwich) into the EU. There are exceptions to this rule for certain quantities of powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods, or special processed pet feed. Find out more on the rules and exemptions in the European Commission guidance on personal imports. You cannot bring certain plants and plant products into the EU. Find out more in the European Commission guidance on plant health biosecurity. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transporting-goods-between-great-britain-and-the-eu-guidance-for-hauliers-and-commercial-driversYou say it's petty that it got confiscated, i say it's the drivers fault for not reading about his own responsibilities.
Oh I don’t disagree with any of that, didn’t mean to give the opposite impression.
Almost as if Brexit would have many entirely predictable consequences eh? Who’d have thought it?
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In the non-Brexit, non-covid section of the British politics Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard steps down. I find it interesting how windy the seats of Scottish Tory and Labour leaders have become post Dugdale and Davidson. (or maybe even before tbh I didn't really follow it before)
One explanation is the obvious electoral pressure from SNP, with independence at around 50% support it is hard for the three large pro-UK parties to gain traction against the single large pro-independance party. + Show Spoiler +whether lib dems are a big pro-UK party or greens a significant pro-indy one are debatable I guess
Another thing could be that it is hard to distinguish the Scottish Labour and the Scottish Tories from their English counterparts, due to media coverage and them being the realistic government parties there. If BoJo or someone else pulls Tories to right in England it was very difficult for Scottish counterparts to try to keep a separate line when they were constantly attacked based on what happened in England. Similarly Labour I think have had the same issue where they are often evaluated based on what happened in England (and especially with Corbyn) rather than what they do in Scotland.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/14/scottish-labour-leader-richard-leonard-steps-down
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Supposedly it was EU that was being petty: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-55742664
I mean UK is picking fight with EU for no aparent reason other than + Show Spoiler +pleasing their Russian masters
TLDR: UK wants to be first country in the world denying diplomatic rights to EU ambassador despite them fighting for those rights when they were still in the EU.
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Is it only me, or are the vaccine rollouts a major benefit of Brexit? After reading a few articles on the subject, the UK has been very successful negotiating their own contracts and approving vaccines quickly, and have gotten their hands on many more shots than the EU so far. It feels like the EU is too big and sluggish in this situation, despite the financial power.
I am not a fan of neither BOJO nor Brexit, but they still deserve credit when it is due.
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-52380823
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EPT
