Disqus - Latest Comments for MFlanagan

Re: Brexit: a journey into the unknown

MFlanagan — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 07:18:21 -0000

I'd strongly challenge this alleged "mainstream, multilateral trade movement" exists any more.

Both US presidential candidates opposed multilateralism. Neither China nor India have any taste for the kind of multilateralism Britain and the EU have been proposing, which is why RCEP has got nowhere. Pursuing deals with NZ and Chile really isn't a sound strategy - and if we're honest, their appetite for a US-free TPP doesn't appeal to many of the other TPP negotiators.

The question isn't what Dr North cares for: it's what's in Britain's interest. Britain can't be in the Single Market and be a party to FTAs other than with the EU - whether bilateral or multilateral - anyway.

The good Brexit argument is that being tied to the EU slows down any opening we might want to the world's faster-growing economies.

What IS possible is for Britain to stay in the Single Market (SM), or in some SM-lite deal that doesn't require physical Customs procedures etc, for a long enough period of time for Britain to set up the independent control systems it needs. And for Britain to negotiate - and possibly even ratify but not implement - appropriate other deals in parallel. That will inevitably take many years longer than the kamikaze Brexiteers delude themselves.

Then, when we've got adequate control systems of our own, we can implement our new deals - but simultaneously lose our free movement of goods within the Single Market.

NAFTA - which Trump promised he'd start renegotiating the day he took office - won't even get its negotiators round the table before July. Any worthwhile deal we might start negotiating with, say, China will take years longer.

Apart from the shambolic state of Britain's preparedness fir a hard Brexit: the honest truth is that, with current attitudes in China, India and the US, it'll be the best part of a decade before we can create any significant new deals with anyone else that are in our interest.

The best we're likely to get before then are the third-country the EU has already ratified - like Korea or Mexico. And they CAN be accommodated within the kind of SM-lite EU arrangement we need to keep hold of for the next few years.

Re: Brexit: back to darkness

MFlanagan — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 03:48:59 -0000

You've chosen to feature a picture making the 24% figure bigger than your headline. Your opponents will - quite rightly - laugh this article away because the number is simply spurious.

Equally, you're absolutely right to say that "the overall costs will exceed that amount by a country mile - especially if you have trucked queuing for 4-5 days, with loads spoiling as a result, or JIT deadlines missed."

My own business deals daily with firms for which a couple of days' Customs delays over documentation discrepancies are almost inevitable - and will take them close to bankruptcy.

But demonising the people you need to convince as followers of " Breitbart, the Daily Express or Rees Mogg" isn't going to help.

May believes lunatics like Fox matter because they influence the people who keep her party functioning. We HAVE to find arguments the Tory heartland can buy into.

Those of my neighbours who run the Tory coffee mornings and dish out their leaflets haven't heard of Breitbart, wouldn't be seen dead reading the Express and think Rees-Mogg's a posturing fogey. But they've learned to mistrust all arguments tainted with "Remain"

Our culture's built - from Churchill to Christ to Lincoln to Shakespeare- on soundbites. Dr North may not like them - but those of us trying to reverse May's kamikaze cult need to develop some.

Before our neighbours go broke,. get made redundant or lose their GP surgery in the inevitable post-Depression austerity programme..

Re: Brexit: back to darkness

MFlanagan — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 02:45:29 -0000

""Brexit customs checks could land UK with 24% price rise","

The problem with this whole issue about re-imposing Customs controls is that it invites silly numbers like this.

The source of the "24%" additional transaction cost claims is obscure, and anyone trying to find it eventually discovers it's based on data almost 20 years old about what happens in Mogadishu.
Using the "up to 24%" number is almost as dishonest, and invites the same reaction, as the Brexit "£350 mn a day" claim about the cost of EU membership

The three far more important facts are that:
- the "leaked" document says “Any form of customs controls will increase the costs to businesses and consumers of imported and exported products. These costs can be both financial and measured in time/delays ,”
- even if HMRC's systems upgrade happens on time (as if...), there is no plan in France or Belgium to upgrade their import processing systems. With the French Senate arguing forcibly that the EU should ensure Britain is punished, it's close to certain France will weaponise trade delays on April Fools' Day 2019
- Though HMRC claim they'll "only" inspect "up to 10%" of incoming consignments, that'll still mean 39 million inspections a year: only slightly less than all the consignments currently being presented to Customs, practically none of which get inspected.

What the pro-trade lobby needs to do is to develop accurate soundbites to communicate the gravity of the catastrophe awaiting us.

With the greatest respect to Dr North, 1,500 word documents - especially those headlining hokey data - aren't going to convince many people.

Re: Brexit: Formula One on the brink?

MFlanagan — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 04:15:01 -0000

I'm aware of all that. I'm merely pointing out that the author of this blog almost certainly meant to type "No plans have been made for what to do in French unions strike, or if French customs introduce any delays to the system."

Re: Brexit: Formula One on the brink?

MFlanagan — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 03:36:10 -0000

Is there a typo here?

Did you really mean "There are contingencies for French unions to strike, which has happened a lot recently with air traffic control and railways in the country, nor for French customs to introduce any delays to the system."

Re: I realise that I'm blinkered but....

MFlanagan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:35:31 -0000

It's simply absurd - and characteristically ill-informed - to delude yourselves that the Sri Lankan GSP+ argument has anything to do with non-existent European "industrial protectionists". The EU has practically no garment industry to protect - and the loss of GSP+ will simply mean garments will be made in China from Chinese yarn and fabric, rather than in Sri Lanka from Lankan or Indian raw materials.

The Sri Lankans want to retain GSP+ because it gives them a competitive advantage over China denied to almost all its Asian competitors apart from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos. The EU wants to take GSP+ away because Sri Lanka agreed to respect human rights when it was awarded a GSP+ concession that Pakistan and India don't have, has almost certainly reneged on its promise and has arrogantly refused to cooperate in the EU's investigations

The Sri Lankan government, like all the world's poorest nations, has opposed free trade in garments for the past 15 years because it believes free trade would destroy its apparel industry. Free-trade fundamentalists consistently distort these countries' arguments by unsubstantiated smears against the EU's motives for continuing to make it easier for smaller developing countries to supply us than for China and the Koreas.

The blunt truth, though, is that if the EU accepted your argument, Sri Lanka would be in a WORSE position than it will be if it takes away the GSP+ concession. You want the country to have no tariff preference over China: without GSP+, Sri Lanka pays 9.6% import duty on most clothes, compared to the 12% China pays.

If you really do believe returning Sri Lanka to the same, small, tariff preference over China as Vietnam and Indonesia will "impoverish" the country, you must concede that abolishing the preference altogether will impoverish it more.

If impoverishing poor countries really is your objective, at least admit it. And stop inventing fantastical "industrial protectionist" bogeymen to disguise it.

Re: Backing UK Retail - Retail Week

MFlanagan — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:07:09 -0000

Might your own coverage of all this be a good place to start?

" BRC: Worst December sales on record" says your headline.

Nonsense on stilts. Worse: cheap sensationalist nonsense that doesn't even describe the press release properly.

December sales were actually the second best on record: A 1.4% fall in total sales means British consumers spent more this Christmas than any other Christmas ever, apart from 2007.

Ah, you mean they're the worst year on year performance ever? If so- why not say that? Except, of course that they're not. They're merely the worst performance since 1994. And not only is that not "ever" - it just means it's the biggest drop since the last recession. Britain's been in constant growth since the BRC survey started - so of course the first decline is going to be the "worst".

Similarly "Tesco unveils modest like for like rise". Modest compared to what? How many other businesses in the Western world - of any sort - had Tesco's growtht? Tesco's just had its busiest ever Christmas.

What's the point of meaningless slogans like "Tesco's Britain's biggest private employer" when you're so single-mindedly determined to twist every story to meet the media's preoccupation with gloom?

The industry's got real problems. It doesn't need ytou to "back it" as if we were still in the 1960s. It just needs you to report what's really happening, without unnecessary spin - or sugar-coating