Television producer/director/scriptwriter on lots of shows you know. Aiming for effective communication of accurate information. Experts are good. Be nice.
Joined April 2013
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Nick Webb retweeted
NEW: Ten years on, Prime Minister @andyburnham tells @campbellclaret & @RoryStewartUK that there was ‘clear’ Russian interference in the Brexit vote.
FINALLY after years of cover-ups & denials from the highest levels of the UK govt. That in itself deserves an inquiry.
1/
Nick Webb retweeted
So many still do not get this do they? Brexit *levelled down* trade. The UK now has regulatory (SPS) & customs borders against the whole world.
The only way to offset the extra trading costs of Brexit was always to lower or give up altogether on EU (former UK) level import standards &/or border controls....
Nothing we can do to remove these borders/hardest of barriers to trade, for our *exports* unless agreeing a single market of regulations & customs union with another country/bloc
(& even then would also need to be at least as 1/2 bn consumer wealthy & as close as the EU)
It is what we forewarned would happen. Brexit politicians were desperate to show the "benefits" of Brexit. The only thing they could do was unilaterally drop the UK's pants to more (lower standards) imports to offset the extra Brexit costs of now trading across an added 31 regulatory/SPS borders & 28 customs borders.
..domestic suppliers & exporters? Fuck them.
@tradeandtillage
@MrDavidCatt1
@SaveBritishFood
Nick Webb retweeted
As I have forewarned this last decade @Nick1webb @Chevaliereducep
Nick Webb retweeted
@steveboyl3 true (above) for you too. Tragic if not criminal what UK Gov has done to its own people.
xitter.cf/vivamjm/status/1296020…
Nick Webb retweeted
Not if we join the EEA (Single Market) via EFTA. Or, Swiss like, reciprocate FoM with the EEA30, via EFTA membership
@EFTA4UK ..
Disputes would then be adjudicated via our (mutually recgnised) court
Nick Webb retweeted
So much continued ignorance @Nick1webb ..
We already have a Canada-style (FTA) deal with the EU. Better than Canada's: it is tariff & quota free...
The only way to significantly improve this is a Turkiye style (customs union) deal or an EFTA4 (single market/reciprocal 4 freedoms) deal. Both would be the most improved.
Exc: Burnham ‘should drop obsolete Brexit red lines’ so UK can get a Canada-style deal with EU
European Parliament Brexit chief Sandro Gozi’s suggestion came as EU sources warned no deal on Made In Europe is possible this year
inews.co.uk/news/politics/eu…
Nick Webb retweeted
Tommy Robinson claims he’s going bankrupt, has no assets, and can’t get a bank account in the UK.
But does his evidence back up his claim?
By 'liberalise' he means lower standards. Why would you want lower standard goods (especially food) entering the UK and being sold to our population? US sellers (big corporations) would be the main benefactors, not the 🇬🇧 public.
Obviously talking his own book here, but still not good...
Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, has accused the UK of failing to take advantage of Brexit by aligning with EU rules, and closing its market to US goods.
He told the FT: 'That’s how we interpret it... based on my conversations with the UK, where I say, "Hey, you’re free of the EU. Why don’t you liberalise a little bit?"
'And they say, "Well, we have to wait and see what the EU says about it." You know that is a problem for us and that’s challenging.'
Asked whether the UK was using Brexit to its advantage, he bluntly replied: 'No, they're not.'
ft.com/content/0d2beac3-ef62…
Nick Webb retweeted
I wish everybody was capable of telling the truth so that the British public could make an *informed* choice.
I still believe an EFTA/EEA based Brexit would have been the best compromise to satisfy & unify the majority. i.e. the "Rich, happy & catching their own fish" ..."Iceland/Norway/Switzerland option"...
With reciprocal FoM, Schengen, their own currency & option to make "their own trade deals"
Freedom of Movement, single market (EEA) ...and Schengen...
But not the/a customs union...
Iceland (along with fellow EFTA members) has its own customs territory, enabling it to set its own tariff schedule. (Meaning a customs border with the EU27 & its fellow EFTA members). EFTA membership allows collectively made trade deals or individual ones. Eg Iceland has its own individual FTA with China. But must apply the same regulations, market rules & standards as the EU27 do.
You might say @EFTA4UK was the best place for the UK too.
Nick Webb retweeted
The USA at least has the excuse of being the bigger, stronger economy.
The UK was always the weaker in leaving the EU
and should always be grateful it was dealing with the honourable EU27
& not Trump's mafia extortionate administration
Nick Webb retweeted
Why is nobody pushing back with the facts @Nick1webb ..
That so/too many seem to have forgotten.
The EU has never done more than what the UK negotiated. It has never "punished" the UK. The UK got what *it* wanted. It got its "Canada Style" FTA and it got its WA that the UK (Boris Johnson) ammended & wanted. But leaving the single market & customs union, *regardless of any final deal*, was always going to be the destructive (Mogg's words) "self harming" element of Brexit, especially to UK *exports* & *our* greater rights & choices
Turkiye is (3 decades now) in a (non agri) customs union with the EU, but outside the EU. Is this one-directional??
There are 16 (CET) customs unions around the world, for a good reason. They are a good thing.
The WA originally left just NI in the customs union to avoid an unavoidable resurrected customs border (from leaving the/a CU) .. Foster intervened when May was about to sign it & resulted in it being for the whole UK. Johnson then "triumphantly" reopened the WA with *his* offer to move the customs (dual tariff) border back to between GB & NI..along with a full regulatory/SPS border, leaving Northern Ireland under the legal authority of the ECJ, to allow continued free movement of goods across the EU/UK land border in Ireland
Nick Webb retweeted
You too are overlooking the fact that leaving a customs union means unavoidably resurrecting a customs border with customs checkpoint border "furniture".
All parties (not least the PSNI chief constable) agreed that this could not be done in Ireland for the sake of the GFA. That was & remains the difference. It was the UK's (Johnson's) eventually agreed proposal to move the customs (dual tariff) border back to between GB & NI. .along with the full regulatory/SPS border, leaving NI under the legal authority of the ECJ to permit continued FoM of goods (no border controls) across the borders there.
@Nick1webb @johnmfitzp
Nick Webb retweeted
"Mr Juncker told his college of commissioners in Strasbourg on Tuesday that the Luxembourg lunch was the first time that “Boris Johnson understood the meaning of the single market”"
ft.com/content/7453c686-d9b7…
Nick Webb retweeted
"Boris Johnson didn’t “even vaguely understand” what quitting the EU Customs Union meant until as late as October 2020, his former adviser Dominic Cummings has claimed."
thelondoneconomic.com/politi…
Nick Webb retweeted
Christ the lack of understanding means the UK is going to remain fucked (getting ever more fucked) for a very long time. @nick1webb
The coverage of Canada's refusal to do a trade deal with the US, at the expense of a 'no deal' solution with their biggest trading partner, strikes me as curiously, but not very logically, different from the 2018-19 coverage over Brexit and UK-EU trade policy.
Canada is currently being praised for standing up to the US -- its largest and closest trading partner. Canada has opted for a 'no deal' with the US rather than accede to a bad deal. In so doing, Canada says it is protecting its own sovereignty over trade policy, even if it means costs will rise at least temporarily.
This differs quite a lot from how many of the same 'sensible' commentators in 2018-19 attacked those who said that Britain should stay outside of the EU custom union and be prepared to take 'no deal' over having a bad deal imposed on the UK.
I recall vividly that this position was portrayed by many 'sensible' commentators as basically an expression of insanity.
Nick Webb retweeted
A no deal for Canada would mean returning to the status quo (unless the other vindictive party decides to escalate by imposing higher tariffs)..
A no deal for the UK would have automatically meant WTO tariffs (instead of the tariff & quota free deal we got, that other countries can only dream) as well as resurrecting the hardest of non tariff barriers to trade (regulatory & customs borders) we did by leaving a single market of regulations & customs union. @Nick1webb
Nick Webb retweeted
The EU never loaded their deal with uneasonable and destructive demands at the last moment. What a puerile comparison.
Nick Webb retweeted
Its literally a reverse BREXIT. We have a deal that the larger party wants to unilaterally change while still telling us what to do. THAT'S what we are saying no to
Nick Webb retweeted
No mention of the fact that Canada is now mov9ng to get as comprehensive a trade deal as possible with the EU. Not to mention the other trade deals it has already signed.
Nick Webb retweeted
Good luck @Nick1webb ...
It is clear from above the UK is no further along, after a decade now, in crushing the (deliberately) mindless understanding of international trade ...
and just how huge a loss it was for the UK to leave *its* SM&CU