Brexit

Yesterday the UK signed a FTA with the EEA countries, the ones that the UK thought of trying to join.

This is a good thing, first and foremost, but Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein are not populous countries, most have the population of a small English city, but it is good. But then again, its not Single Market good. But FTA still means red tape, and there were no tariffs before.

But still.

As Chris Grey pointed out today in his blog: https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/britain-neighbour-from-hell.html

The artcile by Frost was in the Irish Times, for consumption by a non-domestic audience, not the home grown hardline Brexiteers, and so shows that the refusal to accpt the NIP as negotiated and ratified is now core Government policy, and that will be hard to deal with.

As previously stated, the EU has to draw a line somewhere, be it chilled meats or something else, deciding when to act will appear petty, but the longer it goes on, the worse it will be to stop. The extension to the chilled meats requirements were to allow time for British businesses time to adjust their supply chains, there is no real evidence that the Government will use this time as intended, as suspected it is just kicking the can down the road.

The UK has no real interest in making the NIP, and therefore the WA work. Its public rejection of the UK/EU regulatory border in the Irish Sea is clear evidence of that, despite not only the NIP and WA making it clear, the annexes to the NIP even explain how it would work and which EU regulations would be enforced.

The NIP was negotiated with the intention of either trying to change it later, or never to implement it at all. Either way it's the textbook example of bad faith. And the Government is laying the "evidence" to show the EU was being unreasonable in not being flexible, with the opposite is true.

Either way, lies are facts, black is white and up is down, but as long as it keeps the Conservative Party together and behind Johnson, he doesn't care. Meanwhile the economy crumbles, food rots in the fields and what is picked cannot be distributed due to the shortage of lorry drivers.

Meanwhile in Dover, the lorry park/inland processing area is an overgrown field with no work having been carried out for months. A few trenches are all that remain showing the work that has been done over winter. It is planned to open in 2022, but we shall see. Locals in Ashford near to the one that opened there tell of lights so bright and so many it doesn't get dark anymore.

This is not surprising, on Christmas Eve last year, I was up before dawn going to the butchers when Manston was in use as an emergency lorry park, and the lights there atually lit up the clouds several thousand of feet above, I even remarked about it at the time. This is a choice the Government made to define Brexit as the hardest possible, solutions are avaialable, but it means compromise.

Like immigration.

A new immigration and borders bill is being brought by Not-so-Pritti, and it will now be an offense to assist in someone claiming asylum even if you don't seek financial gain from the act, a clause that on first reading might have made the RNLI possible criminals, though the Government have said this is not the case.

But the Government is planning on setting up processing camps, in AFRICA, which they plan to ship immigrants to. This is because having stopped being a member of the EU the Dublin Agreement no longer applies and France and other EU countries do not have to take migrants back. But even this would, clearly, require the agreement of other countries, where under the Dublin Agreement there was no agreement needed.

So it turns out that by "taking back control" of our borders, we have less control.

Well.

And remember, that as the UK Government exerts more control it means that there will be less trade.

Turnes out that reality isnt cakey at all.