tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post53133771375795798..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Brexit Trade Deals and the Tory Class InterestPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-40196618894936114242021-06-21T02:52:26.256+01:002021-06-21T02:52:26.256+01:00Thanks for the reply!
I suspect you are correct...Thanks for the reply! <br /><br />I suspect you are correct that all the major players will fudge--in the short term. To take just the question of beef, it is pretty clear that <br /><br />1.) the Johnson government is fudging, as with the NI Protocol in general, and will continue to fudge for as long as they can get away with it. In fact, in between moments of naked repression, fudging seems to be the Tories' main method. Hard to know what they'll do when the conflict with Brussels sharpens, but they have certainly made it abundantly clear that they couldn't care less about NI. (Scottish secession strikes fear into the hearts of British militarists; Irish unity might make Whitehall breathe a sigh of relief.) <br />2.) Ditto the EU bureaucracy. The whole NI Protocol is one big kick into the long grass, given that the mandarins of Berlin and Brussels aren't stupid enough to believe that the UK government is truly going to do a sincere or competent job of inspecting cargoes between Great Britain and NI. But Brussels may have to toss the ball back into play when the big beef-producing interests/rural social base in Denmark/France/Italy/Poland/Spain start raising hell. (They haven't forgotten about the scandal a few years back of Irish horsemeat transhipped through GB and sold on the continent marked as Polish beef.) <br />3.) This probably goes for Fine Gael too. It's not their MO to rock the boat, and they certainly have no loyalty to their traditional core social base of rural capitalists; but Irish politics are not English politics. Since the breakdown of the old Irish party system, FG faces real multi-party competition; and if they were seen to betray their core voters, they could face consequences Johnson has not had to face. <br />4.) Sinn Fein will see opportunity here, notwithstanding their pieties about how much they hate the thought of a hard border. <br />5.) And the broad Left in the Republic of Ireland would be motivated to raise a ruckus for reasons we would share. If FG, SF, and the Left all saw a confluence of interest, that starts to look like a social majority in the ROI, and we might see real action out of the Irish government. <br />6.) The DUP will fudge as if their lives depended on it--since their political life as a party does seem to depend upon it at this point. <br />7.) As with other aspects of the DUP's crisis, it will be interesting to see what hay the other unionist parties can make. <br /><br />Those are some of my guesses. I would be interested to hear any disagreements or other thoughts. <br /><br />One note: it's interesting to see such a well-informed writer employ the phrase "goods coming from the UK into NI"--as if the UK and the island of Great Britain were coterminous. Am I right that this slippage is pretty universal among the English? If even the most thoughtful Englishmen forget from time to time that NI is still, in fact, part of the UK, I can't imagine that this bodes well for Northern Irish unionism. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-21517695491796645892021-06-20T17:59:52.947+01:002021-06-20T17:59:52.947+01:00If I may comment on the comment from "anonymo...If I may comment on the comment from "anonymous" the answer to the question of "what would this mean for the NI border" is: Quite a lot.<br /><br />At present, in order to preserve the good friday agreement the EU has effectively entrusted the UK with preserving an EU customs border. The border is now down the Irish sea. That matters, because once an item is in free circulation in the EU it can go anywhere and there is no way to effectively track it (unless it is a particularly sensitive piece of equipment). Excise fraud happens in this way, in that a factory might produce 8 lorries of vodka, they might go into the EU and whilst one might be tracked the other 7 might just disappear. <br /><br />Therefore your instincts are right. The EU will expect high standards of inspection by UK officials for goods coming from the UK into NI. The UK is not good at doing high standards of inspection (or any for that matter) as this costs money (even though it prevents fraud and therefore losing money in other areas). The Tories don't like giving money to the public sector to improve public services, so we will be at an impasse. If you recall, this whole Brexit venture was supposed to save money so we could spend it on the NHS.<br /><br />There is no way the EU will allow australian hormone treated beef (for example) into the single market, but also no way that they will want to set up barriers in Ireland. <br /><br />Something will have to give at some point. My belief is that the current crop will want to "see what happens" or fudge the issue somehow but I can't see how that is possible. Perhaps the best solution is for NI to join Ireland. Either that or the UK simply joins the customs union, but that would mean no Australian or US deal.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-38362969628051211442021-06-19T22:10:00.674+01:002021-06-19T22:10:00.674+01:00Could you comment on how this Australia-UK deal mi...Could you comment on how this Australia-UK deal might further foul up the situation in Northern Ireland? (Or perhaps ripen the situation there--I guess one chooses metaphors based on one's opinion of the United Kingdom... ) <br /><br />My understanding is that quite a lot of Australian produce does not meet and never has met EU standards--and that therefore this deal will open UK markets up in a way that, for Australian agri-business, represents a big advance on their pre-Brexit situation. In other words, Australia will be able to export goods to the UK which it couldn't while the UK was still in the EU. Again, I am a long way away from the action; but my understanding is that "getting Brexit done" has not yet, for the UK government, meant getting down to brass tacks and undertaking all the hard, tedious work of slashing UK safety and quality standards to something crummier than the EU standards--and, therefore, that the EU standards are, for the moment, more or less de facto in place. Until the ships from Australia tie up and start unloading, that is. <br /><br />What does this mean, then, for the inspection regimes in the Irish Sea and along the land border between the UK and the Irish Republic? Is the EU likely to push for more vigorous port inspections on Merseyside or in Belfast Harbor? Or for a hardening of the land border? I see no evidence that the Johnson government has a plan--any more than they had a plan for Northern Ireland in the event of Brexit--but I would be interested in your thoughts about how they might react to any pushback from the EU or from the Irish government. <br /><br />And one wonders what the political players in Northern Ireland will be up to. The Irish government too, for that matter: are they likely to raise hell about this further upset to the Good Friday Agreement? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-36998932029786999562021-06-18T17:01:34.975+01:002021-06-18T17:01:34.975+01:00Kamo
There are reasons for voting brexit, but thi...Kamo<br /><br />There are reasons for voting brexit, but this is not one and on balance you were right to vote the way you did. <br /><br />What happens in a free trade zone is that the biggest country wins. Every time. Take, for instance, the computer market. Thanks to the insistance of the US, when it was able to throw it's weight around and really before the a union of countries got together to stop it, initially put massive tariffs on computer equipment as the biggest threat to the establishment of its own companies were Japanese companies. These tariffs were huge and protected a newly forming industry from being bought out. Once the US industry was big enough the US insisted on other countries signing up to a treaty to ensure that computer related things got 0% import tariffs. You will have heard of some of those US based computer manufacturers and such equipment. I'm using a US manufacturer's computer to type this. <br /><br />In the UK we have no such industry. Sure, there's the odd exception, but mostly when they get big enough a US corporation buys them or destroys them when they are in the nascent stage. <br /><br />This kind of thing happens on the international stage a lot. A few years ago the EU wanted to put large anti-dumping tariffs on chinese steel because subsidised (and some argue poor quality) Chinese steel was putting European businesses out of business. One country vetoed that proposal and paid with the shutting down of their steel industry plants and sadly people's jobs - you will note that steel is needed for defence so it is not like a country can willingly give such operations up with no consequence. That country of course was the UK under Cameron/Osborne. <br /><br />Agriculture products are responsible for the vast majority of international trade. Not only should you think about food safety, some would argue you need to think about animal welfare, carbon emmissions and sustainable land use. A country must always also carefully think about its situation if things went wrong or if war broke out, hence many subsidise their food production sector- to make sure they can feed themselves if the fan was hit by agricultural byproducts. There are therefore solid reasons for taking care of the agricultural sector. <br /><br />However, when the UK was part of the EU it made a right mess of the common agricultural policy. Much of the money that came from the EU to subsidise food production ended up in the hands of the artistocracy and the rentiers. I would not regret the end of their gravy train if that was a consequence of brexit, but I doubt that will be as effectively brexit gives those guys more power. They are the Tories and who the Tories stand- and have always stood- for. <br />TowerBridgenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-38938614028598436432021-06-18T11:46:30.675+01:002021-06-18T11:46:30.675+01:00«it's always about class. Their class.»
What ...«<i>it's always about class. Their class.</i>»<br /><br />What some people argue is that Labour is also “<i>always about class. Their class</i>”, the working class. But there are some fundamental differences:<br /><br />* There are many more people in the working class than in the rentier class.<br /><br />* Most working class members have much worse living standards than rentier class members,<br /><br />* It is thus much worse for a rentier class member to fall into the working class than for a working class member to rise into the rentier class.<br /><br />Therefore protecting the interests of the working class means also protecting the interests of the rentier class against the risk of a potential fall into the working class, and this enables rentier class members to take more risks if they wish by limiting their downside.<br /><br />The Labour coalition thus should include all those, usually small, rentiers who already are partly working class, or that are at greatest risk of falling into the working class. If the Labour left were not so much into posturing, and the New Labour Militant Mandelsoncy entrysts were not so much into the interests of big rentiers.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-65341984018235350732021-06-17T22:34:12.040+01:002021-06-17T22:34:12.040+01:00with Kamo on this.
I can walk into my local Waitr...with Kamo on this.<br /><br />I can walk into my local Waitrose and buy 'beef', 'Hereford Aged beef', 'Aberdeen Angus beef', and 'Wagu beef'. All at different prices. This is nothing new, in the EU days you could buy battery-farm produced Danish pork, or free-range UK pork. Food is a branded tiered market. Farmers should have no problem surviving and even prospering.<br /><br />Brexit for me was a process of swapping problems we couldn't solve (open borders, federalisation) for problems we could solve. We can solve the problem of making sure farmers can earn a living from and in a way that benefits the environment. If we can afford to pay Diversity co-ordinators, we can pay farmers to manage land.<br /><br />Right now, as a Brexiteer, I'm looking at wages going up for working people due to restrictions on European immigration and cheaper food to benefit poorer people. Tangible benefits. Needless to say Labour are against both.<br /><br />We cannot live in a state of fear, that any change may bring disaster. To live a full and prosperous life individuals must learn to embrace risk; to make judgements, to consider the likelihood of risks materialising and have contingency plans, but ultimately, to back yourself to rise to the occasion and do what is needed to grab opportunities. Moaners and perma-pessimists are set on taking us on a road to poverty and misery. Ignore them.Dippernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-69525836998826064572021-06-17T09:44:56.403+01:002021-06-17T09:44:56.403+01:00I'm not convinced about this piece, perhaps I&...I'm not convinced about this piece, perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to position the interests of British farmers as consistent with the general British public? As long as it is safe to consume, the British public having access to cheaper produce from Australia is not a bad thing. Nor is it a bad thing for Britian to try and position itself with the growing parts of the global economy, the British economy having been based on overseas trade for hundreds of years. As for farmers losing their livelihoods, this is unfortunate, but it is a trend that has been ongoing since the advent of industrialisation.<br /><br />I voted Remain, but not every Leave argument was a dud. And this is at least a step in the direction of one of their more sound arguments. The EU's petty protectionism is one of it's weaknesses and one that will scupper the UK rejoining in the future.Kamonoreply@blogger.com