The big Brexit thread - news, updates and discussion

[splonkydoo]

Oh.

Yep. We sent a package through a semi official courier that runs from Ireland to Romania (and everywhere in between) last Sunday.. The driver was on the trip with his teenage son and last we heard they were stuck in Dover for a few days, when they should have been home for Christmas already.

Oh. I heard a similar courier service (romanian) got stopped in France the other day, in the parking lot where everyone was dropping their parcels off to send home for christmas. The filth turned up on some bogus public order/corona charge and destroyed/smashed everyone's parcels in front of them. Utter scum.

 

[Flavour]

I wasn't aware of the fact that only the middle classes eat, say, bananas.
Anyway, it is normal. Children not dying in the first couple of years is also now normal. It wasn't in the past, so maybe we should get rid of it? Probably not possible to source all of our healthcare needs from the back garden.

The middle class bit is where you defend your right to bananas as if it were some centuries old tradition. You have cheap bananas cos farmers in the countries that grow them live in poverty. I have no more to say on the matter

 

[littlebabyjesus]

When did that start? How has consumption changed over time? What keeps prices down? Who is really paying, if yours are so cheap?

What you're actually talking about is the kind of changes that will barely touch the middle classes as they will be able to afford the new high prices and limited availability. These are the kinds of changes that hurt the poorest the most.

 

[TopCat]

It's no surprise that remainers here are big supporters of globalisation.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's no surprise that remainers here are big supporters of globalisation. This was and is a big part of our problems.

Bollocks. You're just coming out with incoherent nonsense. That's all.

 

[Flavour]

So you pay a little more for fair trade bananas. They do exist, and they're not that expensive.

But that's surely a 'middle class' thing to do.

You're all over the place.

"fair trade" jesus christ. Cos the fair trade banana growers can also treat themselves to a bit of smoked Scottish salmon at a moments notice can't they.

 

[TopCat]

Bollocks. You're just coming out with incoherent nonsense. That's all.

You are just getting remoaner tetchy as you know it's TRUE.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

"fair trade" jesus christ. Cos the fair trade banana growers can also treat themselves to a bit of smoked Scottish salmon at a moments notice can't they.

Why do you single out bananas for this special treatment. Fair trade is better. It's far from great. But you will struggle to find anything that hasn't included exploitation of people much poorer than you. Not clothes, not books, not any electronic equipment.

These are things that need changing, of course, but it's disingenuous to single out food.

 

[Winot]

I think they should sign the deal in Deal! There's that pub near there where you can get a French phone signal, should suit everyone.

My favourite pub in Deal is called The Just Reproach. That would be a good place to do it.

 

[Flavour]

What you're actually talking about is the kind of changes that will barely touch the middle classes as they will be able to afford the new high prices and limited availability. These are the kinds of changes that hurt the poorest the most.

Almost as if the underlying problem were global capitalism and the food system another mirror to reflects these widespread and deepening problems inherent in capitalism. I have no time for this argument. "if bananas are more expensive the poor of the UK will suffer and middle class won't!" but the alternative is cheap bananas for everyone on the back of dirt wages in the global South. So take your pick. Ciao

 

[sleaterkinney]

Create lots of jobs, fresher food and cheaper too.

Maybe we can pick berries down the wood?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Almost as if the underlying problem were global capitalism and the food system another mirror to reflects these widespread and deepening problems inherent in capitalism. I have no time for this argument. "if bananas are more expensive the poor of the UK will suffer and middle class won't!" but the alternative is cheap bananas for everyone on the back of dirt wages in the global South. So take your pick. Ciao

You want particular changes. Fine. But don't hide behind the false idea that this is just some 'middle class' concern. It's not. Those changes would affect working class people far more.

 

[Flavour]

Someone else started going about bananas, but yeah it's just an example and applies to everything. That is obvious. I know that. Easy to talk about food as we all eat food every day, yet don't buy books or electronics daily.

Why do you single out bananas for this special treatment. Fair trade is better. It's far from great. But you will struggle to find anything that hasn't included exploitation of people much poorer than you. Not clothes, not books, not any electronic equipment.

These are things that need changing, of course, but it's disingenuous to single out food.

 

[bimble]

"fair trade" jesus christ. Cos the fair trade banana growers can also treat themselves to a bit of smoked Scottish salmon at a moments notice can't they.

No more tea then.

 

[splonkydoo]

The middle class bit is where you defend your right to bananas as if it were some centuries old tradition. You have cheap bananas cos farmers in the countries that grow them live in poverty. I have no more to say on the matter

 

[The39thStep]

It's no surprise that remainers here are big supporters of globalisation.

Life just wouldn't be the same without Kenyan green beans Chilean blueberries, Argentinian blackberries, Zambian sugarsnap peas, Zimbabwean broccoli, or American apples and plums

 

[bimble]

The banana argument is very stupid.
This is genuinely frightening though. Faced with this, the fact that whatever their plans they did not anticipate brexiting right at the worst moment of a mutant virus crisis, i don't know if Johnson will be able to do the same as yesterday, the knowing smirk whilst repeating how we will prosper mightily. He probably will though.

NHS chiefs urge PM to extend Brexit transition by a month

Crashing out of EU without a deal will put patients at risk and leave health service on cliff edge, says NHS Confederation

www.theguardian.com

 

[Yossarian]

2016: Look at Project Fear trying to scare everyone.

2020: Look at the posh cunts and their fancy bananas. The champagne delivery might be late as well, your lordship!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The empty shelves are all part of the plan to save the planet.

Eating lettuce and tomatoes in December???

Worse than Hitler.

 

[andysays]

The idea that everyone can grow their own food is privileged middle class hippy nonsense.

I don't think anyone has suggested here that everyone should grow even some of their own food.

But the idea that we can buy whatever we want, from wherever in the world, at any time of year we want and with no regard to the economic social and climactic consequences, is pretty much the epitome of privileged first world middle class nonsense.

 

[teuchter]

I don't think anyone has suggested here that everyone should grow even some of their own food.

But the idea that we can buy whatever we want, from wherever in the world, at any time of year we want and with no regard to the economic social and climactic consequences, is pretty much the epitome of privileged first world middle class nonsense.

Well, it's news to me that anyone has suggested that either.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't think anyone has suggested here that everyone should grow even some of their own food.

But the idea that we can buy whatever we want, from wherever in the world, at any time of year we want and with no regard to the economic social and climactic consequences, is pretty much the epitome of privileged first world middle class nonsense.

Pretending that the disruption to food supplies caused by brexit is going to do anything to affect the problems of globalisation is errant nonsense. It's a feeble attempt to turn a clear negative into a positive, and a pretty hateful one, imo, because it is doing exactly what a lot of people have been condemning over the last few pages - celebrating or trivialising something that is going to affect the lives of the poorest the most.

 

[grit]

Fog in channel, continent isolated.

 

[teuchter]

I actually generally try not to buy fresh fruit and vegetables from anywhere too far away especially if I suspect they have been air freighted. On the other hand I mostly don't worry too much about stuff from France or Spain because they are relatively close; indeed some parts of France are closer to the south of England than parts of the UK are. If a consequence of Brexit is that prices for stuff from our near neighbours go up, it certainly seems unlikely it's going to help reduce any food miles.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I actually generally try not to buy fresh fruit and vegetables from anywhere too far away especially if I suspect they have been air freighted. On the other hand I mostly don't worry too much about stuff from France or Spain because they are relatively close; indeed some parts of France are closer to the south of England than parts of the UK are. If a consequence of Brexit is that prices for stuff from our near neighbours go up, it certainly seems unlikely it's going to help reduce any food miles.

Yep. Me too. Some of the worst stuff for this, ironically enough, is organic veg, which comes from all over.

 

[platinumsage]

No more tea then.

Japanese tea isn't that expensive, the workers get a decent minimum wage (if they're not robots).

For most food imports the labour costs of growing and harvesting is a tiny proportion of the supermarket price.

 

[Pickman's model]

No more tea then.

Naught tea naught tea very naught tea

 

[bimble]

Japanese tea isn't that expensive, the workers get a decent minimum wage (if they're not robots).

For most food imports the labour costs of growing and harvesting is a tiny proportion of the supermarket price.

I just learnt that the UK is listed just above Japan in the worlds top countries for exporting tea. What a world.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I just learnt that the UK is listed just above Japan in the worlds top countries for exporting tea. What a world.

The Yorkshire tea mines are one of our darkest secrets

 

[brogdale]

so...what's all this, then?