BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT!

[Brian Peacock]

Nasty

Post-Brexit lorry queues could make Kent 'toilet of England'

Campaigners warn that roads and laybys are already littered with urine and excrement...

Yeah, I've been to Margate too.

[Scot Dutchy]

The future:

Trial of Brexit border checks causes five-mile lorry queues in Kent

M20 backlog caused by French authorities testing post-Brexit checks at the Eurotunnel

Queues of trucks stretching for five miles unexpectedly built up in Kent on Tuesday after the French started a trial of post-Brexit checks.

Lorries on their way across the English channel were forced to stop in long lines up to junction 11 on the M20 as they tried to approach the Eurotunnel entrance just outside Folkestone and the Port of Dover.

[Brian Peacock]

It's only just begun.

88,000 hauliers, many of them one-cab independents, are still waiting on 1800 allocated EU special licences to transport across borders without customs checks. The rest are just going to have to park up and wait at every border they want to cross.

[Scot Dutchy]

Biden is going to give Johnson a hard time. A US-UK trade deal? No hard border?

Brexit talks: Joe Biden says UK and Ireland must not have hard border

US president-elect’s renewed call for Good Friday peace deal to be honoured could complicate Britain’s negotiations with EU

To put it lightly...

[Brian Peacock]

The longer the govt pretend the Irish land border isn't a problem the more of a problem it becomes.

[Scot Dutchy]

The longer the govt pretend the Irish land border isn't a problem the more of a problem it becomes.

As the Irish say: Putting it on the long finger will not solve anything. My wife tells me that often.

[Brian Peacock]

You're wife is wise. You should listen to her.

[Scot Dutchy]

We are the exact opposite of each other.

[Scot Dutchy]

It's all about the money...

Brexit stems from a civil war in capitalism – we are all just collateral damage

To one sort of capitalist, the insecurity and chaos that Brexit will bring is horrifying. To the other, it is highly profitable

Where there is chaos, the government will multiply it. Where people are pushed to the brink, it will shove them over. Boris Johnson ignored the pleas of businesses and politicians across the UK – especially in Northern Ireland – to extend the Brexit transition process. Never mind the pandemic, never mind unemployment, poverty and insecurity – nothing must prevent our experiment in unassisted flight. We will leap from the white cliffs on 1 January, come what may.

Perhaps, after so much macho bluster, the government will take the last of its last chances and strike a deal this week. If so, with scarcely any time for refinement, the agreement is likely to be rushed and bodged. In any event, pain will follow. Disruption at the border is likely to be felt across the nation.

So it is worth repeating the big question: why are we doing this to ourselves? I believe the answer is that Brexit is the outcome of a civil war within capitalism.

Broadly speaking, there are two dominant forms of capitalist enterprise. The first could be described as housetrained capitalism. It seeks an accommodation with the administrative state, and benefits from stability, predictability and the regulations that exclude dirtier and rougher competitors. It can coexist with a tame and feeble form of democracy.

The second could be described as warlord capitalism. This sees all restraints on accumulation – including taxes, regulations and the public ownership of essential services – as illegitimate. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of profit-making. Its justifying ideology was formulated by Friedrich Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty and by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged. These books sweep away social complexity and other people’s interests. They fetishise something they call “liberty”, which turns out to mean total freedom for plutocrats, at society’s expense.

[Scot Dutchy]

EU threatens to pull out of Brexit talks if UK refuses to compromise

Michel Barnier says further negotiations would be pointless if UK does not change stance

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned David Frost that without a major negotiating shift by Downing Street within the next 48 hours he will pull out of the Brexit negotiations in London this weekend, pushing the talks into a fresh crisis.

In talks via videoconference on Tuesday, Barnier told his British counterpart that further negotiations would be pointless if the UK was not willing to compromise on the outstanding issues.

Should Barnier effectively walk out on the negotiations it would present the most dangerous moment yet for the troubled talks, with just 36 days to go before the end of the transition period.

[rainbow]

I don't know why Barmier even bothers.

At the beginning, he should've asked Boris for his plan, then replied:

"Are you serious?"

[Brian Peacock]

... and then followed it up with, "Ain't nobody got time for that shit!"

[Scot Dutchy]

Well there is even more shit coming your way:

Report casts doubt on UK pledge to prevent low-quality food imports

Ministers have refused to sign safeguards, potentially spelling disaster for farmers after Brexit

Ministers’ pledges to preserve the UK’s food and farming standards after Brexit will not prevent the import of lower-standard products and could spell potential disaster for Britain’s farmers, a report has found.

The government has repeatedly promised that a ban on chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef would remain in place after Brexit, and has made changes to the way future trade bills will be scrutinised. But ministers have refused to sign safeguards on imported food into law, despite pressure from consumers and civil society groups.

The headline bans on two products will still allow a large number of other lower-standard imports, while the changes to the way trade bills are managed are too weak to ensure a robust scrutiny of their impacts, according to the damning verdict of the Future British Standards Coalition (FBSC), which represents farmers and food producers, and animal welfare and green campaigners.

Chlorinated turkeys next xmas (2021)? Or a nice joint of hormone filled beef. Lovely.

[Scot Dutchy]

Wasting his time. Johnson wants a no-deal so his chums can import the rubbish.

Barnier to travel to UK for Brexit talks despite 'lack of progress'

EU chief negotiator had told British counterpart he could not see any point in coming to London

Michel Barnier has backed down from his threat to pull out of planned Brexit negotiations in London, telling EU ambassadors that he would persist despite a lack of progress over the last week.

The bloc’s chief negotiator told representatives for member states that he would travel on Friday evening to try to break the logjam over the most contentious areas.

He echoed the warning made by the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, earlier in the week, saying he could not be confident that Downing Street would compromise sufficiently for a deal to be possible. “It was pretty downbeat,” said one diplomat of the private briefing.

Barnier had told his British counterpart David Frost on Tuesday via videoconference that he could not see any point in coming to London unless the UK moved towards the EU’s positions.

Despite a lack of substantive moves by Frost in the past 48 hours, the EU negotiator opted to avoid a major crisis in the negotiations.

John Redwood was among a group of Brexiter MPs on the Tory backbenches who had celebrated the threat as a sign that the talks could collapse.

[Scot Dutchy]

Arses are twitching:

City of London faces Brexit uncertainty over access to EU markets

UK’s failure to offer assurances over regulatory changes is causing delays, EU diplomats told

The City of London is facing fresh Brexit uncertainty after Brussels raised doubts over access to the EU market being granted by the end of the year for firms in any of the 26 areas of the financial services sector awaiting decisions.

Diplomats for the EU’s member states were told in a behind-closed-doors meeting in Brussels that the failure of the British government to offer assurances over regulatory changes after 1 January was holding up the so-called “equivalence decisions”.

A European commission official said it was unclear whether it was in the EU’s interests to go any further in providing access to the European market for those working out of the UK given the uncertainty.

Being caught by the short and curlies.