What about Gibraltar?

[franky1]

I'm lucky enough to visit Somerset fairly often, and the last time I was there I was given some "Sops in Wine" cider apples. A lovely old English apple with pink flesh.

a cornish pasty aint a cornish pasty unless its from cornwall. and cider aint true cider unless from somerset.
your kent cider and that irish stuff aint real cider. its just alcohol with flavouring or alcoholic applejuice if your lucky

somerset still grows the proper stuff. and so it should
just like cheddar cheese should only be made in cheddar

as for the other stuff about how simple/hard it is for the irish border disputes. media again hypes up how much violence and riots will errupt due to brexit. when infact britain has no control over what border walls europe want to put up

britain doesnt and shouldnt be the ones putting up a wall.. if europe wants to keep britiain from trading with southern ireland under the good friday agreement, unhindered by customs. then europe need to be the bad guys and build their prison walls

southern and northern ireland can just continue as they are and then worry about customs at the coastal borders..
and again
thinking not bing EU means no trade.. again for emphasis. america, russia, africa, asia are not EU but they have trade deals.. so a stay in EU is not a binary option of trade or not trade. we can be out and still trade.
if europ want to waste money on walls, and hope to recoup THEIR losses via customs they could. or they can get an accountant and realise its cheaper and more peaceful to just let north/south ireland do as they have done and just worry about customs at the costal borders towards europe or england

[styca]

as for the other stuff about how simple/hard it is for the irish border disputes. media again hypes up how much violence and riots will errupt due to brexit. when infact britain has no control over what border walls europe want to put up

True that media hype everything up to the point of absurdity. But still any border changes to N Ireland, whether invisible borders in the sea or physical borders with the Republic, are going to rasie tensions and create conflict. We've just barely managed to keep a lid on the Ireland stuff the last couple of decades, it's not going to take much to start it all off again.

thinking not bing EU means no trade.. again for emphasis. america, russia, africa, asia are not EU but they have trade deals.. so a stay in EU is not a binary option of trade or not trade. we can be out and still trade.

True again, and yet Britain is much smaller economically than the EU (especially the EU with Britain as a part of it). The bigger you are in economic terms, the more negotiating power you have. We will get worse trade deals as an independent country. The negotiations with the US and China will basically be non-existent, we take the terms they offer and that's it. The UK doesn't have the weight it thinks it has.

[franky1]

True again, and yet Britain is much smaller economically than the EU (especially the EU with Britain as a part of it). The bigger you are in economic terms, the more negotiating power you have. We will get worse trade deals as an independent country. The negotiations with the US and China will basically be non-existent, we take the terms they offer and that's it. The UK doesn't have the weight it thinks it has.

britain has more weight than people think. britain is a convenient gateway access to the commonwealth countries. yep dont think of britain as a customer base of under 70mill but a customer base of hundreds of millions of people via the commonwealth

also the trade deals customs taxes will never be even in 'worse cases' 100% tax, or 500% or 50% instead its like 6%-16%
we in britain are able to cope with at 'worsecase' 16%.. w are already used to seeing bread an veg drop and rise in price by 50% purely due to seasonal farming changes and also financial exchange rate changes and we dont even blink an eye

dont believe me that the rates are only going to be 6%-16%
well
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-rates-of-customs-duty-on-imports-after-eu-exit/mfn-and-tariff-quota-rates-of-customs-duty-on-imports-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal

so all this media fear mongering about things becoming mega expensive when the reality is just 16% worse case

hell lets put things into perspective
swiss cheese £18.25/kg has a duty of £0.24 in worse case deal
so £18.25 becomes £18.49.. but hey they worlds going to end because cheese is 24p a kg more expensive.
oh as the retailer sit shows. most people dont even buy a kg of cheese instead they prefer 200g so the £3.65 pack of 200g cheese is actually going to be £3.70..  and as you can see, thats not really a noticable change

[Jet Cash]

I switched to UK food products quite  a while ago. For example, Somerset brie is creamier and has a better taste (in my opinion) than the sterile product that France pushes out ito its export market. Britain buys twice as much from the EU as it sells, so the EU will be in a mess if we stop trading with them, and our food prices will drop, and quality will improve, once we are out of their control.

Don;t even start on banking, almost all of the EU derivatives are traded through London, and LIBOR is the defined rate in most of them. Having to rewite the derivative agreement will cause massive losses for EU banks, as most of them are toxic.

[styca]

-snip-

I agree that there is a lot of fear-mongering, and the media catastrophising about absolutely everything. I do think my point stands that we will get worse deals outside the EU than we would as part of it, whatever the percentage difference may be. Even 1%, it's still a net loss. But my main concern is leaving under the current Tory government. They don't like the EU because of the rights and protections it offers. Once free of EU constraints, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his coterie of arrogant, entitled, incompetent Eton/Oxbridge friends will ramp up their plans to dismantle the state. The US healthcare firms are already waiting like vampires, ready to bleed the NHS dry. Food standards will disappear, chlorinated chicken being the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. Workers' rights, redundancy protection, maternity pay etc etc will all be targets in the ongoing quest to fuck the ordinary man-in-the-street and increase the rate at which the money already flows from the hard-working average person into the overflowing pockets of the undeserving rich.

[franky1]

But my main concern is leaving under the current Tory government. They don't like the EU because of the rights and protections it offers. Once free of EU constraints, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his coterie of arrogant, entitled, incompetent Eton/Oxbridge friends will ramp up their plans to dismantle the state. The US healthcare firms are already waiting like vampires, ready to bleed the NHS dry. Food standards will disappear, chlorinated chicken being the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. Workers' rights, redundancy protection, maternity pay etc etc will all be targets in the ongoing quest to fuck the ordinary man-in-the-street and increase the rate at which the money already flows from the hard-working average person into the overflowing pockets of the undeserving rich.

i agree fully with your tory assessment. but boris was not the planner/instigator of this whole saga.. he has only been in the job a couple months.. it was cameron and May that were the trigger. boris is just the gunshot residue

in my view i see that behind hidden doors real deals have already been done but to save face and glamourise things. they have to make things look scary for 2 reasons
1. EU dont want other countries folowing suit
2. if things went smoothly in media then th PM(s) cant then tak the trophy for solving XYZ.
so i believe the deals have ben done and all this last couple years is just fake political posturing and acting out like its more complicated than it is. purely for show

and as for th food standards.. actually the UK food standards include all EU food standards and have more standards above that. so even without EU law. UK food standards remains higher than EU. brexit itself wont harm standards.. because after brexit.. then britain has to as a separate thing altogther then go through all the uk stuff and start changing the uk laws to be less regulated. which in itself is a timely thing to happen way way after brexit
in short brexit dosnt make UK a lawlss country. britain still carries on as is. but then gets to decide if it wants to remove certain statements that are in UK law that were just copy/paste laws of EU. or just leave the standards as they are

[BigBoy89]

There is a more interesting problem than customs on Gibraltar <> UK border.

"Around 20,000 people are permanently employed in Gibraltar, consisting of both locals, and foreigners living just across the border in Spain. It has been estimated that about 9,000 cross the border for work everyday and most of the time is without incident."

A friend of mine is one of those 20 000 people. He's living in Algeciras because it's a few times cheaper and he's worried about what to do after 2021.
Brits are planning to cancel the people's free movement agreement after Brexit. There will be no VISAs for EU citizens, but most probably they will be allowed 3 months of free stay every 6 months. If Brits doesn't make some exceptions, many people will end screwed.

[KingScorpio]

no one in europe gives a damn about the islanders even if entire world speaks english that doesnt mean england is anyhow more respected financially

It's true that the UK has a tendency to over-estimate its importance in the world, and does often behave with a sort of arrogant entitlement, particularly towards the EU.
However - even if Europe is no doubt sick of all the UK whining and complaining, and sick of the fact this single country has taken over EU business for the last couple of years, and still hasn't left... the fact remains that the UK will be a very important trading partner for the EU. The UK does still matter, just less than a lot of people think.

the uk will not be a trusted trading partner, as it is not a trust worthy country anymore we are talking here about a nazi state brexit is defakto making uk a nazi system, thats why scots now want out.

but eu sucks as the freemasons controlling the central bank basically are spineless criminals, letting in refugees causing a conflict between the population while they only care of controlling the currency

[Artemis3]

There is a more interesting problem than customs on Gibraltar <> UK border.

"Around 20,000 people are permanently employed in Gibraltar, consisting of both locals, and foreigners living just across the border in Spain. It has been estimated that about 9,000 cross the border for work everyday and most of the time is without incident."

A friend of mine is one of those 20 000 people. He's living in Algeciras because it's a few times cheaper and he's worried about what to do after 2021.
Brits are planning to cancel the people's free movement agreement after Brexit. There will be no VISAs for EU citizens, but most probably they will be allowed 3 months of free stay every 6 months. If Brits doesn't make some exceptions, many people will end screwed.

If i am to guess, they would probably issue some sort of special entry permit for these people. It is not that uncommon in borders, probably not extensive to all Spanish nationals, just those living nearby. The rest would have to do customs like all EU citizens...

What is the importance of Gibraltar at this point in time? is it justifiable to maintain it? Beyond bragging and some "UK proud" that is. Is it even sustainable? Hong Kong is a commerce hub, but Gibraltar is... some rock with an airstrip crossed by its main street (or did they finish that tunnel?).

Well i can also think of a sheep island in front of Argentina they waged a war for. But at least there they say there is some oil now... Colonies are funny things, is Gibraltar a colony? I don't even understand this "commonwealth" business...

[franky1]

gibralter has many hidden things going on.

such as some african countries set up businesses in gibralter to then be 'a british company' without having to travel thousands of miles to get to actual britain

(hint: egypt makes more potato than what the UK thinks it gets from irish(EU) land while still technically calling it a british farming company )
its complicated but yea. it happens