Supermarkets are this weekend stockpiling food and other goods after being told by ministers that a no-deal Brexit is on the cards.
Food producers have warned there will be shortages of vegetables for three months and emergency planners predict that no-deal would spark panic-buying on a scale that could dwarf the coronavirus crisis.
In a sign of what might be to come, lorries were backed up for three miles on the A20 outside Dover yesterday, after Calais suffered 10-mile tailbacks on Friday. Hauliers blamed the jams in Kent on “stock-building”.
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From journalist Finian Cunningham:
(December 14, 2020)
Arrogant Brits Want Cake and Eat It
BJ.jpg
You have to laugh at Boris Johnson and his Brexit supporters who seem to live in delusions of grandeur about “Great Britain” as if it still has an empire “upon which the sun never sets.”
The latest move of ordering the Royal Navy to “defend” British waters from European fishing boats is typical of British hypocrisy and anachronistic jingoism.
They want out of the European Union yet they still expect favorable access to the EU’s single market – the biggest trading bloc in the world.
Tory Prime Minister Johnson is the personification of arrogant British mentality which perceives his country as a law unto itself, superior to everyone else, and so, so ever-so clever that they don’t have to answer to anyone or play by the rules of others. The hubris of empire.
Johnson and the bumptious Brits say they want to “reclaim independence and sovereignty” from the “yoke of the EU.”
Fair enough, that’s their prerogative; and yes, indeed, four years ago a majority of British people voted in a referendum to quit the bloc.
Let’s admit, too, that there are many things about the EU’s superstructure that are objectionable. Its slavish imposition of neoliberal capitalist austerity, for example. Also, its craven following of American foreign policy of aggression towards Russia and China, as well as supporting countless US illegal overseas wars.
Leaving the EU is not the issue. What is confounding is how the British say they want out, but yet they still want to remain inside the EU’s single market. Furthermore, the Brits don’t want to abide by the EU’s regulations and standards which are required for access to the market. Those standards include labor rights, food safety, environmental protection, and so on.
This is what is referred to as the “level playing field”. The Brits want to flog their exports to the EU and to import from the bloc without paying tariffs and taxes. But then they don’t want to abide by the EU’s rules. Indeed, Johnson and his conceited band of merry men go apoplectic at any suggestion of conforming to EU rules. They fulminate and stammer that that would be an outrageous infringement of “British sovereignty.”
If the Brits want to cut loose from the EU then let it be. Let them go their own way as a global free-trading single entity. That’s hardly feasible in this modern day, especially given the fact that Britain relies on the EU for over half its exports and imports.
In any case, however, post-Brexit Britain keeps procrastinating on going it alone despite many supporters of Brexit deludedly demanding such an outcome in their nostalgia for former imperial glory.
Johnson and his government are evidently clinging on to the conceited notion that they can wrangle a trade deal from the EU but without having to play by EU rules.
That’s a classic case of “wanting your cake and wanting to eat it.”
One suspects that despite all the bluster and bombast of Johnson and his ilk claiming they are prepared to go for a “hard Brexit”, which is sometimes referred to as the “Australian option” of accepting World Trade Organization terms as a single free trader – the inner reality is the opposite. Johnson and many others within the ruling class realize that Britain will be hit with a devastating economic and social crash if it ejects from the EU at the end of this month without a follow-on trade deal.
This is why Johnson pulled back from the deadline for a deal which expired on Sunday. He is now saying he wants to “go the extra mile” in order to salvage a deal. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says she is also willing to extend the deadline for the sake of avoiding a hard Brexit.
But Britain has much more to lose and suffer in the event of a hard Brexit. Food shortages and price inflation will hit struggling British people even harder if border checks and tariffs are imposed overnight.
Johnson once blustered that he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit. That was over a year ago. And yet this clown with a posh accent is still wrangling for extra time. He knows there will a calamity for the British economy. It’s only British arrogance that is preventing a straightforward mutual deal to be made.
And that could have been done months ago. The Brits seem to still think they are “Great” and everyone else must kowtow to their one-sided, self-aggrandizing demands.
What we are witnessing is a broken-down, has-been empire way out of its depth as a presumed global power. Never mind cake, the Brits are going to eat humble pie if they want to access the EU single market.
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Hmmm Finnian Cunningham, the Irish hack who now writes for that well-respected purveyor of the truth, RT.
There's more more truth and realism in your many and various Trump memes..
Hmmm Finnian Cunningham, the Irish hack who now writes for that well-respected purveyor of the truth, RT.
There's more more truth and realism in your many and various Trump memes..
It's an opinion piece Tman.
Finnian Cunningham thinks it's truthful and realistic.
That's how opinions work.
No need to play the man, try playing the ball.
People write "opinion pieces" all the time but that doesn't mean they're immune from criticism, especially so when their "employer" is known to be an habitual propaganda spreader.
After the pieces on the Salisbury poisonings and Russian military actions in the Crimea were shown to be biased in the extreme (to name just two instances) is RT still even licensed as news channel under Ofcom rules?
It's quite simple really. I'm assuming PBD presented the article as a serious critique rather than another of his humourous memes, therefore the author of said article (and his background and motives) are relevant. There's not much to be said about the content as it merely rehashes the tired old themes of "Empire" etc and adds nothing new.
I'm guessing there's more than a little confirmational bias on your part, hence your pejorative reply.
I read the question on the referendum paper and fully understood the implication including trading on WTO terms which is nothing to be feared, but an opportunity for a reset in our relationship with the EU, they are pragmatic enough to realise a deal will eventually be done without the pressure of an artificial pressure of a self imposed timescale.
They have after all done trade deals with other non EU countries,, there will be some adjustments.
I don't buy into this apocalyptic post Brexit world Remainers keeps spouting out without any real evidence to back it up instead using pro remain links and theoretical projection, which are not fact.
Six of Nine loves Seven of Nine, together in Electric Dreams.
The most dangerous moment for any utopia is when it becomes reality. What world is Brexit about to be sprung into, with or without a deal? Here is where the main interested parties stand.
• Most Britons now think Brexit is a bad idea. In dozens of polls by YouGov from February 2018, majorities in almost every one said Britain was wrong to vote to leave. That looks like a robust consensus, whatever one’s reservations about polling.
But Britons were switching off from Brexit even before the pandemic captured all attention. Boris Johnson — with a large parliamentary majority and four years until the next election — could have prepared people for hard choices, saying that sovereignty was worth sacrifices. He hasn’t. Ministers avoid mentioning Brexit whenever possible.
This suggests most Britons will get angry when Brexit destroys jobs, reduces their personal access to Europe and raises food prices. (The UK imports about 80 per cent of its food, counting raw ingredients as well as packaged products, estimates HSBC.) Even a trade deal with the EU would hurt. With customs barriers in the Irish Sea, “the United Kingdom has actually ended up with a free trade area smaller than the United Kingdom”, writes legal commentator David Allen Green.
The coming pain will surprise many hard Leavers, whose newspapers and Brexiter bubbles have spent years denying that Brexit entails trade-offs.
The most dangerous moment for any utopia is when it becomes reality. What world is Brexit about to be sprung into, with or without a deal? Here is where the main interested parties stand.
• Most Britons now think Brexit is a bad idea. In dozens of polls by YouGov from February 2018, majorities in almost every one said Britain was wrong to vote to leave. That looks like a robust consensus, whatever one’s reservations about polling.
But Britons were switching off from Brexit even before the pandemic captured all attention. Boris Johnson — with a large parliamentary majority and four years until the next election — could have prepared people for hard choices, saying that sovereignty was worth sacrifices. He hasn’t. Ministers avoid mentioning Brexit whenever possible.
This suggests most Britons will get angry when Brexit destroys jobs, reduces their personal access to Europe and raises food prices. (The UK imports about 80 per cent of its food, counting raw ingredients as well as packaged products, estimates HSBC.) Even a trade deal with the EU would hurt. With customs barriers in the Irish Sea, “the United Kingdom has actually ended up with a free trade area smaller than the United Kingdom”, writes legal commentator David Allen Green.
The coming pain will surprise many hard Leavers, whose newspapers and Brexiter bubbles have spent years denying that Brexit entails trade-offs.
As quoted by you I agree, However given the full quote it does make sense.
With customs barriers in the Irish Sea, “the United Kingdom has actually ended up with a free trade area smaller than the United Kingdom”
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I'm surprised it needs explaining that the area of the UK in which goods can move freely without artificial barriers will be smaller than the actual size of the UK.
That was the whole premise behind the idea of avoiding a hard border between NI and the ROI.
What shocks me to the core is that here we are four and a half years after the referendum and still no plan, still nothing beyond suck it and see, honestly it won't be as bad as you think.
It's also chilling to see people still trying to position this as a battle between one side and the other using language like leavers and remainers.
There are no "remainers". It's a defunct position. The question now is whether you support the government's position or not. It's not whether you support leaving the EU any more but whether you support leaving in this manner because that's the reality of the situation.
As quoted by you I agree, However given the full quote it does make sense.
With customs barriers in the Irish Sea, “the United Kingdom has actually ended up with a free trade area smaller than the United Kingdom”
That is still subjective aa it hadn't gone into effect yet if it ever does, even then anything NI bound is tariff free, anything to the Republic is tariffed like any 3rd country, so......not as simple as you think as if carving off NI is reducing the territorial integrity of the UK, it doesnt work like that.
Again more confirmation bias, if everybody agreed it would be an echo chamber and nothing of note will come out of the closed debating chamber.
As mentioned before "Remainer" is a defunct position as we have now left the EU and is in EEA arrangement until 31st December, after that we will be trading on WTO terms, this should be seen as an opportunity, if we can create a strong internal market as we can, we will be less dependent on Europe, we are more fortunate than a landlocked country would be as we have access to the high seas and the rest of the world, landlocked nations are dependent on the goodwill of their neighbours who can make thing difficult if they wanted to.
Six of Nine loves Seven of Nine, together in Electric Dreams.
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