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    Re: Every crisis is an opportunity ? Archived Message

    Posted by Ken Waldron on April 6, 2019, 3:45 pm, in reply to "Every crisis is an opportunity ?"

    Is the UK essentially self-sufficient in food and water?

    No. Only 60 per cent self-sufficient in food as a whole. Englands water supply in some areas comes from Wales. Only Scotland would be self sufficient in water food and energy.

    "...a kind of ground-shaking shock that could be good for the UK in terms of being a net producer in some fashion, as opposed to a net consumer."

    If you chose to ignore very simple stuff like the power of collective bargaining (which is what No deal Brexit does) then you are choosing to be stuffed no matter how very clever you think you are.


    Fox’s failures prove Britain is more ‘global’ inside EU

    by Luke Lythgoe | 06.02.2019

    Liam Fox’s department for international trade is looking woefully unprepared for Brexit. Don’t forget, this is the minister who claimed he would have trade deals with 60 plus countries that we already enjoy thanks to our EU membership rolled over by the Brexit deadline.

    Now, with 51 days until the Brexit deadline, Fox has managed to rollover precisely zero of the EU’s 40 or so deals. The CBI has today warned of the “hugely damaging implications” of Fox’s failure for “relationships across the globe… from Japan to Turkey” if we crash out of the EU without these deals signed.

    And that’s not the only example of the government underestimating the complexities of going it alone in global trade. Ministers have told businesses that they are considering cutting swathes of import tariffs on food and goods in the event of a no-deal Brexit, The Times reports. The idea is to protect shoppers from double-digit price rises when tariffs are slapped on EU imports overnight.

    But it’s not that simple. Thanks to WTO rules – so beloved by the Brexiters – we would have to reduce our tariffs with all other countries around the world to zero too. That would open up UK farmers and other producers to cheap goods from across the globe, including agricultural giants like the US, Australia or Brazil. As the head of the British Ceramic Confederation told The Times, it was a “foolhardy action” that could “ruin” her industry.

    It would also make cutting new trade deals much harder. Where’s the UK’s negotiating leverage if tariffs have already been unilaterally slashed to zero?

    But Fox is not the only minister who is making a mess of our post-Brexit trade links. Chris Grayling is apparently no longer welcome in Calais due to his “completely disrespectful” when he visited on Tuesday, according to the port’s chairman.

    These out-of-their-depth Brexiters are proving just how complex and interconnected trade is in the 21st century. Their travails have blown a hole in the Leave campaign’s defiant “Global Britain” narrative, since adopted by the government. The prospect of being an “independent trading nation” is looking less glorious and much more of a headache.

    The fact is that, as a member of the EU, the UK could punch above its weight on the trading world stage. As part of a bloc of 500 million consumers, we could help drive favourable deals with other giant global economies. The EU’s latest free trade agreement with Japan, which we risk losing just weeks after it came into force, is a prime example.

    But by ourselves, as a medium-sized economy, we risk being bullied by big global players like Trump’s America. Although Brexiters refuse to see the logic, by staying in the EU we are a more global Britain.

    http://infacts.org/foxs-failures-prove-britain-is-more-global-inside-eu/

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