January 2021 – My Brexit Blog

Rob’s politics notes, 8th January 2021

Here we are, a week after the end of the transition period, and the signs are that it’s going to get worse before it gets better (he wrote, with the naive hope to will get better).

BBC’s Reality Check asks “Were there hold-ups in first week after Brexit?” (Short answer: yes.). It also covers problems reported by Marks and Spencer, DPD, seafood exporters and others in “Marks & Spencer Percy Pig sweets hit by Brexit red tape.”

The Guardian mentions some of the “rules of origin” knock-on effects as “Firms including M&S suspend EU exports over Brexit smallprint“, and also talks to a few truck drivers “‘I’m stuck here’: lorry drivers in Calais begin to feel effects of Brexit“.

Rob’s politics notes, 7th January 2021.

Where to start?

In the USA, where Donald Trump incited his followers to stage an attempted armed coup?

Halfway across the Atlantic where various politicians tried to ridicule British politicians for criticising Trump when all they had done was suggest that perhaps a second vote on the misinformed advisory Brexit referendum that was being treated as a mandate for a “hard Brexit” might not be a bad idea.

One in particular that I’ve been following is Andrew RT Davies, a (and I dislike this phrase more than you could know) Welsh Tory.

To be honest I’m not sure you’re in the strongest position right now given you campaigned to overturn democracy and the will of the British people. https://t.co/dKV1PuB6VB
— Andrew RT Davies (@AndrewRTDavies) January 6, 2021

What’s worse is that even after many comments he doubled down on it and quoted Darren Grimes’ tweet:

https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1346941117489684481?s=20

Meanwhile, back to the Brexit stuff that kicked this all off.

European buyers of British goods have been surprised by the imposition of VAT.
I’m wary of talking too much about .eu domain names, but leave.eu transferred their registration to Ireland (as they had to do or lose the domain).
Supermarkets (or at least shipping companies) were not fully prepared for the extra paperwork to transfer goods from Great Britain to Ireland.
John Lewis has scrapped deliveries outside the UK.

This really is going to be a long year.

Rob’s politics notes, 6th January 2021.

Sheesh, United States, what the heck are you up to?

Rob’s politics notes, 5th January 2021.

We are now in the third national lockdown (which “may last for months” and whilst restrictions may be lifted for the warmer summer months of 2021, some may be re-imposed for winter). The same businesses that had support before are going to get support again, the same businesses that were #ExcludedUK before are excluded again.

It sucks, there are no two ways about it, but I don’t see what the options are either. My Dad is an extremely vulnerable person (85, triple heart bypass, Parkinson’s disease), and checking with the NHS, my wife has been told to contact the GP today. I suspect it is ‘flu as the symptoms are fairly typical and I’m probably fine because I had a shot last October. On the other hand, if it is COVID, that may now make me an asymptomatic carrier.

The BBC is, harking to my younger days, going to start broadcasting educational programmes. CBBC for primary school children and BBC Two for secondary school children, starting next Monday. Anyway, this is diverging from politics.

Yesterday, I said that border traffic was low and that the Brexit queues had yet to materialise at the ports. That’s not to say there haven’t been problems. Reuters reports that Paris M&S shops have little to no stock of fresh food.

Meanwhile, there have been multiple occurrences of problems travelling abroad, whether the destination is Sweden, Spain, Netherlands or Germany. Some of those are because of COVID regulations now that we are outside the EU.

Rob’s politics notes. 4th January 2021

Today is the day that we enter lockdown number three, or at least it is expected to be. Boris Johnson is to make an address to the nation at 8pm, but ITV’s Robert Peston apparently already knows what he is going to say.

PM will be directly addressing the nation. It won’t be a press conference. Tier 4 restrictions will be imposed everywhere. Schools closed. No more team games in parks. But outdoor exercise will still be allowed. https://t.co/dhKbH2lkgC
— Robert Peston (@Peston) January 4, 2021

I wonder why there is an eight hour delay between announcing the address and making the address, if the content is already known, other than theatre and giving the speechwriters time to come up with more bombastic wartime metaphors. Sturgeon simply announced Scotland’s lockdown during the day.

Back on Brexit, and there haven’t been any long tailbacks at the ports, but Bloomberg reports that it may be the calm before the storm due to pre-Brexit stockpiling leaving traffic levels even lower than they usually are in the New Year.