Brexit Thread 2

[Moggy]

It would finally mean a big change in attitudes from consumers, manufacturers, and supermarkets who will have their hand forced by outside factors, seeing as we currently bin 16% of our fruit and vegetable output because of imperfections, and something like 130,000 gallons of British milk is swilled every single year. How disgusting is it that as a nation we’re throwing away £10billion of food every year, most of it when we’ve brought it home.

And all we needed to do was isolate ourselves from the world and starve

[Lex-Man]

It would finally mean a big change in attitudes from consumers, manufacturers, and supermarkets who will have their hand forced by outside factors, seeing as we currently bin 16% of our fruit and vegetable output because of imperfections, and something like 130,000 gallons of British milk is swilled every single year. How disgusting is it that as a nation we’re throwing away £10billion of food every year, most of it when we’ve brought it home.

And all we needed to do was isolate ourselves from the world and starve

We'll look really good on the C02 front as well. Barely any flights and no money for petrol or new electronics.

[Moggy]

It would finally mean a big change in attitudes from consumers, manufacturers, and supermarkets who will have their hand forced by outside factors, seeing as we currently bin 16% of our fruit and vegetable output because of imperfections, and something like 130,000 gallons of British milk is swilled every single year. How disgusting is it that as a nation we’re throwing away £10billion of food every year, most of it when we’ve brought it home.

And all we needed to do was isolate ourselves from the world and starve

We'll look really good on the C02 front as well. Barely any flights and no money for petrol or new electronics.

We survived and thrived as a country before aeroplanes were invented, so why wouldn’t we after all of our aircraft are grounded?

[Herdanos]

Obviously the U.K isn’t going to run out of food in the doomsday scenario sense

Did you... not read the article that you posted? "Research showed 7 August 2019 would be the nominal day that Britain would run out of food if it were asked to be wholly self-sufficient based on seasonal growth, the NFU said."

[Meep]

Obviously the U.K isn’t going to run out of food in the doomsday scenario sense

Did you... not read the article that you posted? "Research showed 7 August 2019 would be the nominal day that Britain would run out of food if it were asked to be wholly self-sufficient based on seasonal growth, the NFU said."

But it won't have to be. Food will still get imported, just more expensively.

Or more cheaply, I suppose. The government could drop all tariffs. The only problem is according to WTO rules they would have to do that unilaterally and it would basically destroy UK agriculture as it could not compete.

[Benzin]

Sweet delicious chlorinated chickens

[That]

The problem with "food will still get imported" is that we don't have the infrastructure to handle that many non-EU food imports. Who checks the manifests and who inspects the food for safety? Can we do that quickly & efficiently enough to keep shelves full of food coming to every supermarket up and down the country? The answer is probably "no". A possibility is that we will end up with no or very lax inspections, and then the shelves will fill again, but we won't have any assurances the food coming in is safe.

[BID0]

Normally I have about a month of food stocked, but I've been making space and putting more bits away ready for next year. It's going to be absolute chaos even if the supply can still be maintained (it wont). You only have to look at the state of stores over a 4 day bank holiday weekend from people panic buying.

[Squinty]

Normally I have about a month of food stocked, but I've been making space and putting more bits away ready for next year. It's going to be absolute chaos even if the supply can still be maintained (it wont). You only have to look at the state of stores over a 4 day bank holiday weekend from people panic buying.

I just buy food each week, but I'm upping the amount of food I'm buying in response to this. I already have been inadvertently over the last few weeks, especially tinned food. Might broaden that to rice and a few other stuff.

[BID0]

Normally I have about a month of food stocked, but I've been making space and putting more bits away ready for next year. It's going to be absolute chaos even if the supply can still be maintained (it wont). You only have to look at the state of stores over a 4 day bank holiday weekend from people panic buying.

I just buy food each week, but I'm upping the amount of food I'm buying in response to this. I already have been inadvertently over the last few weeks, especially tinned food. Might broaden that to rice and a few other stuff.

Rice, Pasta and Lentils are all really good, full of protein, cheap and really versatile. It's worth doing, they don't perish for a long time so even if everything turns out to be okay (it wont) then they will not go to waste.

[Octoroc]

Tinned food has a special taste all of it's own whether it be processed peas, Fray Bentos pies, beefburgers in gravy or condensed milk.

It's the golden taste of the 70s.

Think of the money we'll save not having to use fridges.

[Rex Kramer]

Tinned food has a special taste all of it's own whether it be processed peas, Fray Bentos pies, beefburgers in gravy or condensed milk.

It's the golden taste of the 70s.

Think of the money we'll save not having to use fridges.

Tinned new potatoes My grandma used to try and make chips out of them, they were strawberry floating appalling.

[BID0]

strawberry float

[Squinty]

Pound has slumped again. Even with the interest rate rise. Great stuff.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Pound has slumped again. Even with the interest rate rise. Great stuff.

I'm of firm belief that this interest rise and any future ones over the next few months will be done to attempt to limit the fall in the value of the pound as opposed to a response inflation and personal borrowing levels that they will try to make out.

[Knoyleo]

The problem with "food will still get imported" is that we don't have the infrastructure to handle that many non-EU food imports. Who checks the manifests and who inspects the food for safety? Can we do that quickly & efficiently enough to keep shelves full of food coming to every supermarket up and down the country? The answer is probably "no". A possibility is that we will end up with no or very lax inspections, and then the shelves will fill again, but we won't have any assurances the food coming in is safe.

Speaking as someone who works for an importer, of both food and non food products, this is only one part of the nightmare scenario Brexit is likely to be.

The port of Felixstowe, the largest shipping port in the UK, and one of the biggest in Northern Europe, is currently still running at about 2/3rds capacity after an IT systems failure over 8 weeks ago. This was a switch to a system that the port owner already operates elsewhere, but it went wrong, knocked out their site communications for a weekend, and they're still struggling to recover. That's a relatively minor (compared to the requirements of Brexit) change, that's caused massive disruption. The biggest threat is going to be the need to implement a new customs system, and the delays that this will cause. It won't just be more stuff requiring customs checks, but whether the current system will work with the increased volume. If not, a new system needs to be in place, which will impact all inbound trade. The current temporary delays are already causing shipping lines to move vessels elsewhere in Europe and omit UK calls, to redeliver stock later, and that's with other UK ports running at full capacity. If customs control delays cause a significant backlog at all ports, that takes a long time to clear, the UK risks being demoted as an important European call. Major vessels calling into the UK will come less frequently, and the stock will take longer to get off the port. Imports of perishables will be much more difficult, or more expensive if they have to pay for faster options, if they're even available.

I also know that port health inspections on food goods are largely dependent on the shipper and the consignee having a good relationship with the port authorities. If we suddenly start importing food from a lot of new origins, port health authorities will want to start checking a lot more boxes coming off boats. This will totally depend on their capacity, though. They can't process more boxes than they have the manpower to check, which means a sudden shift to a lot of new food origins will probably see a lot of food products coming in completely unchecked. It's then up to the individual retailers to decide that they're happy with that stock on their shelves.

[Squinty]

Pound has slumped again. Even with the interest rate rise. Great stuff.

I'm of firm belief that this interest rise and any future ones over the next few months will be done to attempt to limit the fall in the value of the pound as opposed to a response inflation and personal borrowing levels that they will try to make out.

Yeah, I agree with this assessment..

[That]

The problem with "food will still get imported" is that we don't have the infrastructure to handle that many non-EU food imports. Who checks the manifests and who inspects the food for safety? Can we do that quickly & efficiently enough to keep shelves full of food coming to every supermarket up and down the country? The answer is probably "no". A possibility is that we will end up with no or very lax inspections, and then the shelves will fill again, but we won't have any assurances the food coming in is safe.

Speaking as someone who works for an importer, of both food and non food products, this is only one part of the nightmare scenario Brexit is likely to be.

The port of Felixstowe, the largest shipping port in the UK, and one of the biggest in Northern Europe, is currently still running at about 2/3rds capacity after an IT systems failure over 8 weeks ago. This was a switch to a system that the port owner already operates elsewhere, but it went wrong, knocked out their site communications for a weekend, and they're still struggling to recover. That's a relatively minor (compared to the requirements of Brexit) change, that's caused massive disruption. The biggest threat is going to be the need to implement a new customs system, and the delays that this will cause. It won't just be more stuff requiring customs checks, but whether the current system will work with the increased volume. If not, a new system needs to be in place, which will impact all inbound trade. The current temporary delays are already causing shipping lines to move vessels elsewhere in Europe and omit UK calls, to redeliver stock later, and that's with other UK ports running at full capacity. If customs control delays cause a significant backlog at all ports, that takes a long time to clear, the UK risks being demoted as an important European call. Major vessels calling into the UK will come less frequently, and the stock will take longer to get off the port. Imports of perishables will be much more difficult, or more expensive if they have to pay for faster options, if they're even available.

I also know that port health inspections on food goods are largely dependent on the shipper and the consignee having a good relationship with the port authorities. If we suddenly start importing food from a lot of new origins, port health authorities will want to start checking a lot more boxes coming off boats. This will totally depend on their capacity, though. They can't process more boxes than they have the manpower to check, which means a sudden shift to a lot of new food origins will probably see a lot of food products coming in completely unchecked. It's then up to the individual retailers to decide that they're happy with that stock on their shelves.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare on so many levels, and is even worse than I thought the situation was. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

[Cheeky Devlin]

The problem with "food will still get imported" is that we don't have the infrastructure to handle that many non-EU food imports. Who checks the manifests and who inspects the food for safety? Can we do that quickly & efficiently enough to keep shelves full of food coming to every supermarket up and down the country? The answer is probably "no". A possibility is that we will end up with no or very lax inspections, and then the shelves will fill again, but we won't have any assurances the food coming in is safe.

Speaking as someone who works for an importer, of both food and non food products, this is only one part of the nightmare scenario Brexit is likely to be.

The port of Felixstowe, the largest shipping port in the UK, and one of the biggest in Northern Europe, is currently still running at about 2/3rds capacity after an IT systems failure over 8 weeks ago. This was a switch to a system that the port owner already operates elsewhere, but it went wrong, knocked out their site communications for a weekend, and they're still struggling to recover. That's a relatively minor (compared to the requirements of Brexit) change, that's caused massive disruption. The biggest threat is going to be the need to implement a new customs system, and the delays that this will cause. It won't just be more stuff requiring customs checks, but whether the current system will work with the increased volume. If not, a new system needs to be in place, which will impact all inbound trade. The current temporary delays are already causing shipping lines to move vessels elsewhere in Europe and omit UK calls, to redeliver stock later, and that's with other UK ports running at full capacity. If customs control delays cause a significant backlog at all ports, that takes a long time to clear, the UK risks being demoted as an important European call. Major vessels calling into the UK will come less frequently, and the stock will take longer to get off the port. Imports of perishables will be much more difficult, or more expensive if they have to pay for faster options, if they're even available.

I also know that port health inspections on food goods are largely dependent on the shipper and the consignee having a good relationship with the port authorities. If we suddenly start importing food from a lot of new origins, port health authorities will want to start checking a lot more boxes coming off boats. This will totally depend on their capacity, though. They can't process more boxes than they have the manpower to check, which means a sudden shift to a lot of new food origins will probably see a lot of food products coming in completely unchecked. It's then up to the individual retailers to decide that they're happy with that stock on their shelves.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare on so many levels, and is even worse than I thought the situation was. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Yeah this is pretty much spot on. People don't realise that so much of what comes in from the EU undergoes no checks at all. Add that traffic to the Non-EU imports and the increase in volume alone could potentially bring the system to it's knees.

To make the situation even more hilarious, there is the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) being rolled out (Starting next week) which will replace the existing CHIEF system that's used for every import and export into the UK from outside the EU. This is intended to be fully in place before Brexit and should (In theory) provide far more capacity than the current system and make it easier for Importers and Exporters to submit declarations. I'm quietly confident about it from what I've seen, but massive IT rollouts like this have a nasty habit of being an absolute disaster. Luckily they're running both systems concurrently until CDS is ready to take over completely, but it's a scary thought.

Oh and the postal service is suddenly going to have to put EVERY parcel through customs as well. There's currently around a weeks backlog of parcels to work through and I can only imagine how long it will take once they include the EU parcels in that as well.

It's not underselling it to say that the vast majority of people don't have a single clue how imports/exports work, which makes my blood boil when Politicians and Brexiteers seem to think it'll be the easiest thing in the world to just switch everything over. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

The only plus side is that my job is safe for the forseeable future. Might even be some promotion opportunities in it.

[BID0]

Episode 2 of 2 Blokes and a Teddy in a Pub is out



It’s a bit all over the place this episode. I think one too many largers are to blame.

Talking points
- what third county status will mean for the UK
- explaining tariffs and WTO for people who still don’t understand how they work and why they’re there
- status of non UK residents in the UK on day 0
- the damage done to the UK already since the referendum result came in
- world/trade treaties prevent the EU meeting the UK halfway to help the UK out of this hole. They’re legally bound to do things properly
- how countries outside of the EU but have trade deals with the EU will veto anything that helps the UK get a transition period