Brexit Schmexit

[eFestivals]

Just now, zahidf said:

Amended. She was the one who gave her 'red lines' meaning a hard brexit last year

It depends what you mean by 'hard brexit'

The hardest of brexits is no-deal and WTO rules. It's always been clear she wanted a comprehensive trade deal.

Meanwhile you're now trying to make anything but that hardest of brexits as a soft brexit - when a soft brexit was *always* defined by SM &/or CU, when it's clear that May has agreed something lesser.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Its been clarified: Labour are ok with CU permanently, maybe with SM if rules change by the end of the transition period

no 'taking back control' for Labour then. Even less control.

[lost]

Yep.. wonder whats changed though it seems to change every week. Has Starmer told the shadow trade secretary?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/24/leaving-eu-single-market-customs-union-brexit-britain-europe

Seems strange that Corbyn has sacked rebels for voting against leaving both CU and SM and is now ok with it.

Edited December 5, 2017 by lost

[eFestivals]

29 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Its been clarified: Labour are ok with CU permanently, maybe with SM if rules change by the end of the transition period

Ok with, not adopting it as policy.

All things to all people, with an opinion about nothing at all.

It's not actually anything different to previously. Keeping all the benefits is something Labour have always said they wanted. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by eFestivals

[feral chile]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/31/uk-ports-struggling-fivefold-rise-customs-brexit-hmrc-mps-declaration

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/14/hmrc-chief-warns-post-brexit-border-and-tax-checks-could-cost-up-to-800m

http://www.aircargoweek.com/bifa-shares-parliaments-concerns-customs-plans-post-brexit/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/15/just_how_are_hmrcs_it_systems_going_to_cope_with_brexit/

Quote

 

"Unprecedented challenge" was the phrase which kept being repeated in a recent Treasury Select Committee hearing regarding Brexit, the customs union and HMRC.

The department is already undergoing the “largest transformational change in Europe,” with plans to digitise the tax system, while simultaneously untying itself from the £800m per-yer mega IT contract. And that’s before Brexit.

“There is an unprecedented level of technological change in HMRC, we are attempting to digitise the entire tax system at the moment [with Brexit] added on,” Jon Thompson, chief exec of HMRC recently told MPs.

However, the biggest question currently facing HMRC’s operations is whether we stay in the customs union and what that means for trade deals.

Currently the department is halfway through its plans to overhaul the clunky Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) and replace it with the Customs Declaration Service (CDS), underpinning £34bn in tax at the border.

Thompson said current delivery timetable is tight, but the programme remains on track to be complete in August 2018 and transition users onto the new system by January 2019. “While there are always risks that the programme might encounter unforeseen problems later, there is currently nothing to suggest that this timetable will not be achieved.”

But even if the new customs solution is delivered without a hitch, something that in itself remains highly questionable, it will not have the scalability to deal with the huge increase in traffic.

CDS is intended to handle 150 million declarations each year, up from the current volume of 55 million. That system began several years prior to Brexit due to EU policy changes. Post Brexit, the volume of declarations is expected to increase by up to 300 million, as 130,000 traders will have to make declarations for the first time.

CHIEF's great (though there are 'few alive' who can use it)

Thompson said: “The UK needs to reach a decision with the European Union on its future customs arrangement with the trading bloc within seven months” in order to have the infrastructure and resources in place.

He said the department is working on a contingency plan to run and scale-up CHIEF alongside CDS.

The Register has heard rumours that the incumbent provider, Fujitsu, has put in a bid to be able to scale up the 30-year legacy system CHIEF to potentially handle the exponential increase in declarations. “CHIEF could carry on for another 30 years; it can be scaled. The problem is, it is very old and there are few people alive that can use it still.”

Some kind of contingency plan at least seems sensible, as CDS was designed several years before Brexit, prompting a number of insiders to observe its current set up is simply “not fit for purpose”.

One insider said that a possible option could be a long transition period, with CHIEF being prepped to take the grunt for the duration. He added another alternative could be to look again at the scope and figure out a smarter way of doing it, with far less scope and lots of shortcuts.

From a technocratic perspective, the current problem facing HMRC - and indeed the rest of government - is the sheer complexity it faces.

That is something Thompson acknowledged just in regard to the current CDS system: “Technology projects are complicated by nature… unforeseen things can happen,” he added: “[So] I’m not prepared to commit to everything being fine and dandy.”

Given the problems arising at HMRC when tax credits were introduced under Gordon Brown, it’s certainly hard to imagine a scenario where Brexit won't pose an "unprecedented challenge" to its IT systems. Not least given its woeful track record. Or to use another phrase, "cause a massive clusterfuck".

 

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by feral chile

[zahidf]

 

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

I don't think that vote will work out well, if it happens.

Plenty of leavers will vote against any deal, because it's not as hard as they want (or doesn't deal with a particular thing they want dealt with).

Plenty of remainers will vote against any deal, because it's not as soft as they want, and they'd hope they'd be a better deal by going round again.

And we'd be back where we are.

[eFestivals]

as I've already said feral, the upscaling issues are the easy ones - cos at least there's a way in place of process the scenario, even if there's not the resources there to do it at an increased rate.

BTW, the claims of 5 times the number of transactions is too high. Less than half the UK's trade (by value, not quite the same i know) is with the EU.

[russycarps]

Yep I just cant see how another referendum can work now. 

This paragraph I read earlier sums it up:

It’s no wonder Brexit won. David Cameron drew up a textbook example of a referendum done wrong: asking an ill-informed electorate to choose between a costly and constraining EU marriage full of unsavoury compromises and a fantasized Brexit-with-benefits. The utter vagueness of the Leave option allowed their campaign to cast the widest net of all, encouraging each voter to keep their most favourable version of Brexit in mind, however far that may be from the Leave politicians’ intentions.

This was an act of political genius. It allowed hard and soft Brexiteers, free-market fundamentalists and protectionists, open-door internationalist and xenophobes to all joyously add their votes together and stick it to the EU.

[eFestivals]

Just now, russycarps said:

This was an act of political genius. It allowed hard and soft Brexiteers, free-market fundamentalists and protectionists, open-door internationalist and xenophobes to all joyously add their votes together and stick it to the EU.

yep, with lovely Jez leading the charge on giving the nod that it was OK to do that. 

[eFestivals]

MPs shocked to find impact reports don't say what they'd fantasised

'Nothing new'. No shit sherlock. Did someone think they'd discovered some special-secret facts? 

[russycarps]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yep, with lovely Jez leading the charge on giving the nod that it was OK to do that. 

Yep, and then sticking two fingers up at the lot of us as he went on holiday in the crucial final month, his work complete.

And STILL people think he's a remainer!!

 

 

[zahidf]

Bloody hell

 

 

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Bloody hell

I wouldn't worry about that one. It's merely that spokesman declining to perhaps say it wrong, about something that's already contentious.

And it's quite possible - probable, even - that he's not had a briefing about those particular words since DD said them.

[zahidf]

 

The bastarda are revolting!

And they arent happy either

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, zahidf said:

The bastarda are revolting!

And they arent happy either

they've lost already. They lost when May offered the deal she did the other day. 

Boris has to come out of the woodwork and challenge May, or they have to run away and shut their gob (which is what i reckon Boris wants, I don't think he'd want the humiliation of losing).

[feral chile]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

as I've already said feral, the upscaling issues are the easy ones - cos at least there's a way in place of process the scenario, even if there's not the resources there to do it at an increased rate.

BTW, the claims of 5 times the number of transactions is too high. Less than half the UK's trade (by value, not quite the same i know) is with the EU.

 

1 hour ago, feral chile said:

Given the problems arising at HMRC when tax credits were introduced under Gordon Brown, it’s certainly hard to imagine a scenario where Brexit won't pose an "unprecedented challenge" to its IT systems. Not least given its woeful track record. Or to use another phrase, "cause a massive clusterfuck".

 

So you're not worried about this then?

[feral chile]

1 hour ago, feral chile said:

The problem is, it is very old and there are few people alive that can use it still.”

or this?

 

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, feral chile said:

 

So you're not worried about this then?

I'm always worried about the govts ability to fuck up anything.

But if there's going to be enormous fuck-ups from brexit, that's not going to be the one getting biggest headlines. The ways to manage any new customs process are already in existence, skilled people who know how its done are already in existence, it just needs scaling up.

As we've already discussed that IT project was fucked-up before brexit came into the mix, and the existing systems - used for 60% of our trade already - are up the greater task if it's necessary.

[feral chile]

1 hour ago, russycarps said:

Yep, and then sticking two fingers up at the lot of us as he went on holiday in the crucial final month, his work complete.

And STILL people think he's a remainer!!

 

 

Are there any signs that he's genuinely changed his mind?

surely Momentum are looking at the flaming he's getting for not providing an alternative.

I know it was supposedly a cross party thing -  I don't think anyone got their heads around that - so that in itself led people to think he was a Remainer, I think - we're used to the opposition being...opposed.

[LJS]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

yep, with lovely Jez leading the charge on giving the nod that it was OK to do that. 

So, jez has been upgraded from not campaigning very hard to leading the charge.

Whatever you can accuse Jeremy of, he certainly led fuck all charges during the euref.

[LJS]

 

[pink_triangle]

On 04/12/2017 at 2:55 PM, ThomThomDrum said:

 

 

On 04/12/2017 at 2:55 PM, ThomThomDrum said:

She defo should not have done a deal with the DUP

 

 

What other option did she have with the way the results worked out? The SNP or lib dems weren't willing to prop the torys up. The only other option was the DUP, SNP, Plaid, Lib Dems and Green all wagging labours tail.

[ThomThomDrum]

I know why she did it. Political self preservation post calling an election and getting it disastrously wrong. It was the only move she had to save her ass.

But giving the DUP real power was never going to turn out well for the UK. She should have taken a fall for her country, stepped down and allowed y'all to vote again (don't know if that technically was a possibility?) 

She fucked up something fierce 

What another election would have got ye who knows but if it didn't include the DUP in Government then I'd say you would have been better off

[pink_triangle]

40 minutes ago, ThomThomDrum said:

I know why she did it. Political self preservation post calling an election and getting it disastrously wrong. It was the only move she had to save her ass.

But giving the DUP real power was never going to turn out well for the UK. She should have taken a fall for her country, stepped down and allowed y'all to vote again (don't know if that technically was a possibility?) 

She fucked up something fierce 

What another election would have got ye who knows but if it didn't include the DUP in Government then I'd say you would have been better off

I'm not sure there was a huge call for another election either from the electorate or torys in marginal seats.

Even if there was an election it could easily have given the same result or SNP wagging labours tail. The fact that 3rd (snp) and 4th (lib dems) weren't willing to work with 1st always made things challenging.