UK buyers beware of EU goods

The London Stock Exchange is also getting less transactions for shares in non-UK companies.

Are the bookies taking bets on when the UK will ask to be re-admitted yet?

It’s not just extra paperwork, it appears the requirement themselves are little over board. They wanted drivers license information, banking information and mortgage information.

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From what I’m seeing online, you’d be at the back of a very long line…

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I really feel sorry for hard working businesses in the UK when I see messages like this https://www.alclad2-online.co.uk/ translating into “We can’t sell to our largest client base because …”

The huge risk for these companies is that their European clients may search for alternatives and never come back, even when this standstill is only temporary.

But then, as Mr. Johnson seems to have put it so nicely “F…k business”.

It appears that last year, Belgian (for those who don’t know, this is outside the UK) were getting letters from the UK government instructing them to fill in a heap of paperwork, and request for UK “certificates” (of course against a nice fee) or they would no longer be allowed to drive to the UK.

The reaction was quite calm. Why would a trucker want to fill in paperwork to drive to the UK, when that same truck can travel through 27 EU countries, and additional EFTA countries without any hassle?

The simple solution is to let UK truckers apply for a certificate and pay a nice fee so that they can come and collect their import goods on the south side of the Channel :grin:

Yep Robin, and a lot of this kind of “tit for tat” tactics are currently on-going between the EU and the UK.

The problem is that all this comes at the expense of the average Joe and Jane on both sides of the channel, and contributes to the further deterioration of the atmosphere between both blocks.

The recent AstraZeneca COVID medecine dispute raised “the temperature” in Northern Ireland to the level that some people were threathening customs officers (who were withdrawn for security concerns), truckers are starting to talk in a hostile way about their colleagues from the “other side”, fisheries disputes are heating up, businesses are forced in the direction of smuggling instead of trading, Europeans living in the UK for many years are met with hostilities, …

Honestly, it scares me.

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and Mr Farrage is hiding somewhere …

He’s started UKIP mk4, or is it MK5?

Last seen, he was standing on a cliff at Dover, staring across the Channel to scare away dinghies. (Or act as a seagull roost?..)

bild

I get the impression of a political opportunist:

" During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Farage wrote “protecting us all from an epidemic should be prioritised over the economy”, and criticised the herd immunity policy pursued at the time by Boris Johnson’s government.[178] However, after Johnson’s strategy changed and the UK introduced various lockdown measures to control the disease, Farage said in November 2020 he thought “the cure is worse than the disease” and announced the Brexit Party would rebrand as Reform UK and campaign against further lockdowns.[179]

Farage has described lockdown as “cruel and unnecessary” and endorsed the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates focused protection of those most vulnerable to COVID-19 with the majority of the population allowed to resume normal life.[180] The approach was conceived by Sunetra Gupta, a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford, as well as Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University. The scientists were concerned with lockdown’s effects on public health and mental health, especially for the underprivileged, which they described as “devastating”.[181][182] However, the approach has been criticised by Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the World Health Organization, and Robert Lechler, the president of the British Academy of Medical Sciences.[183][184]"

While “Hunting the Farage” is a fine sport, my mind turns back to the matter in hand - the impact of all these new rules on cross-border hobby trade. I wonder how long it will take for things to settle down into the New Normal? Meanwhile I’ve heard from friends whose imports have arrived not only unmolested, but sometimes completely untaxed! Seems that Brexit hasn’t changed the underlying fact that we’ve never had enough Customs staff to check more than a tiny fraction of the daily imports. But of course MINE would be the one they do check…

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose …

Customers will eventually adjust to the new situation but it will probably be a different situation than before. Some traders will get a boost and some will lose …

Two quick things, noticed yesterday that Sprue Brothers here in the US has suspended their UK sales for now. Have no idea how much business they did that direction but I’m betting other US hobby shops are doing the same.

2nd, I sell cars for a domestic manufacturer. Have sold for our ‘Big 3’ now off and on for 4 years. Typical our truck and car prices rise about 3% per year, over the last 2 years it’s averaged closer to 7 to 8. Pretty dramatic when the average SUV is $35k and up and slot of the 1/2 ton trucks I sell average 47k. All the result of a trade war and tariffs sold to the public that the foreign companies selling the raw goods will pay. Unfortunately too many people here are ignorant on the real process. I promise Ford isn’t eating the higher cost for a computer chip or steel or aluminum panels, I see it quite clearly on the window stickers.

So for what it’s worth to the UK guys here and those feeling the ripples, we know the pain on prices, thankfully we never had the flow in or out of goods to worry about like those in the UK apologies to you guys that our former adminstration had the isolationist/nationalist fever that infected your leaders.

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The end customer always pays, one way or another …

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When you sit in the right place (meaning you are rich and not having too many problems with things such as integrity and ethics) you can make a ton of money exploiting market disruption with some companies collapsing, other thriving … The more disruption, the better.

When Mr. Johnson said “F…k business”, I think he really meant “F…k the people, I’ll make a ton of money out of this mess”.

By the way, did you know that your “friend” Mr Farage was working for a company that was forced into bankruptcy in 1990 due to its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market.

if we can return to the topic and avoid all of the political bashing as it was my intention to warn people of the increase in fees for those of us who order items from outside of the UK.

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A valid point but a little bit difficult to make hard considering that you have pointed towards

[quote=“Klaus-Adler, post:12, topic:4978”]
the greedy UK government is hell bent on screwing us out of every penny they can.
[/quote] and

which all seem like fairly political oriented statements to me, and an invitation to a discussion on the reasons behind the current trading problems (which hopefully will fade away with experience).

Anyway, only people who are living in the UK are ordering items from outside the UK. The rest of the planet is, well, the rest of the planet. I hope it all gets solved.

@drabslab I agree, but mine was a general comment about the UK government but some people are discussing specific political parties and individual politicians and their respective policies. This generally goes against this sites guidelines on political discussion.

I hope this helps,

good luck and stay safe. :sunglasses:

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Yes, it is sometimes difficult to prevent a discussion from wandering into “dangerous” territory and to avoid that it escalates into a screaming match. I am always tempted to such discussions as it coincides with my work… guilty as charged :slight_smile:

I think we did pretty well here having a more or less civilized discussion on a quite sensitive topic (certainly when you are on the receiving end of the sh!t it causes) but you are right that we should not push it too far.

The sites guidelines are very sensible and this is not a political site although modelling is never far from history and human conflict.

keep it safe too
:raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:

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