Brexit: ‘the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated’

34 comments
  1. “This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever.” -Donald Trump (not about Brexit, but that would have been 100% accurate)

  2. This is not trolling but an honest question. I am French and wondering what would be the delicious British cheeses the gentleman in the article is now struggling to bring to shops near me. Can you name or describe one or two that are nice? Back here in Paris, and when it comes to French things, I am having a Saint-Agur moment, even if this basically an industrial product. I wonder what Britain had in store and I am now going to be missing unbeknownst to me.

  3. Eli5 please: Why is there a duty on imported cheese in some countries that is 3x the worth of the import?

    I get duties to level the playfield or slighty disadvantage the imported goods against domestic products, but 3 times seems highly excessive.

    Edit: To add the source of my confusion from the article:

    >“And now we’ve also lost Norway since the trade deal, as duty for wholesale is 273%. Then we tried Canada but what the government didn’t tell us is that duty of 244% is applied on any consignment over $20 [£15].”That meant Canadian customers who ordered a gift pack worth £50, including transport fees, were asked to pay £178 extra in duty when the courier arrived at their door, Spurrell said. “As you can imagine, customers were saying: ‘You can take that back, we don’t want it anymore’.”

  4. To be fair, I doubt that even the best negotiator in the world (whoever he or she maybe) could negotiate something worthwhile out of the mere idea of Brexit.

  5. I’m a pro EU person, but reading these articles you’d expect britain is about to sink under the sea, when in reality things aren’t all that much different for the average person.

  6. British cheeses are among the best in Europe. I think only Italians make better cheeses than us. It’s sad that our delicious products are not appreciated by European bullies.

  7. This same guy has done a number of articles with *The Guardian*.

    * [December 27, 2021: Brexit: ‘the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated’](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/27/brexit-the-biggest-disaster-that-any-government-has-ever-negotiated)

    * [March 27, 2021: Brexit: UK cheese firm boss in despair over minister’s export advice](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/27/brexit-uk-cheese-firm-boss-in-despair-over-ministers-export-advice)

    * [January 23, 2021: Cheshire cheesemaker says business left with £250,000 ‘Brexit hole’](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/23/cheshire-cheesemaker-says-business-left-with-250000-brexit-hole)

  8. While it’s fucking bad by all account, it’s not the “biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated”.

    Come on.

  9. tl;dr: he said the worst part of it was not to be able to do online business with Canada or Norway due to some 250% customs taxes…

  10. Politics, if nationalist ideas (Farage, May, Johnson) are fed to ignorant people, there will be plenty of disaster for everyone for time to come.
    Bunch of morons.

  11. This is the part that seems especially unfair…

    >The “sad” thing, Spurrell said, is that it is the small to medium-sized companies such as his, important employers up and down the country, have been hammered by Brexit and other trade deals struck by the government, rather than giant rivals.
    He noted that the Canadian company Saputo, with a market capital of more than C$14bn (£8.3bn), had done well out of the Norwegian deal as producers of three of the four “premier” cheeses singled out for “significantly reduced tariffs”.

    So if you’re big enough, you don’t have to worry about little things like tariffs because you can get them reduced while the little guys can’t.

  12. > His online retail business was hit immediately after the Brexit negotiator David Frost failed to secure a frictionless trade deal addressing sales to individual customers in the EU.

    I have tried to explain this to Brexitters for almost 10 years. Outside the single market, the UK’s online business will collapse. Ordering anything from outside the single market is a legal and customs nightmare.

    Unless the UK accepts the jurisdiction of the ECJ, there is no way to fix that. The individual customer doesn’t have the means to sue a supplier under a foreign jurisdiction. The legal costs in most cases by far exceeds any benefits of ordering from the UK. Only a European law applicable in all EU members can give legal security

  13. Just sell it to the UK, no immigrants, no rules from EU, sounds perfect to do business with. And do your holidays there as well as our beach’s might have to many imigrantes serving you. Don’t leave the island, please.

  14. Surely, the worst negotiated deal was the Russian sale of Alaska to the USA in 1867 for $7.2 million. Those Ruskies f’d themselves in the patootie by giving up their access to North America.
    Give Brexit +/- 5 years and it’ll be as right as rain.

  15. “Tories destroying the middle class and small business? I am shocked. They have a long history of doing this but I didn’t think they’d do it again.” – Tory voting morons

  16. That’s what you get when you do huge economy affecting reforms by the will of the people. The average person is incapable of thinking on the macro level, they only think about the direct affect on them, and even that rarely to the reality of the situation. I’m just weirdly happy seeing them struggle (though that mostly comes the from the annoyance I had to go through of hearing about brexit for years and years despite living nowhere near UK).

  17. Is it just me or does the world think less of the UK since Brexit? We dont hear much of Brits anymore unless its about Brexit and every time Im just baffled that they did that to themselves

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