I want to digress, though. For several decades, Britain's approach to negotiations was to let the EU do it, and sometimes get an excetption that the Germans pay for. That's been a lot simpler than "real" negotiations between states, and it sounds as if they're really out of practice.
As was also visible last week, when an Australian minister was to be put "on an uncomfortable chair" and made to sign a deal. Of course the Australian arrived with a ready offer and willing to sign at once, and of course the British signed what the Australian wanted.
Experienced negotiators do not signal being in a hurry.
Also the last time UK had to negotiate on their own it's economy was still bigger than China's. The world has changed and Brexiteers hadn't noticed that their lack of influence was not the EU's fault but rather a general shift of power to Asia.
Something which large parts of the British public and reportedly even of the politicians didn't really realize or appreciate, because Brussels was always a derided side-show, to a higher degree than for most other countries.
I'm getting sick of people talking on behalf of brexiters, or what they know/think/believe - this colonial reference is just another "little Englander" smear.
How badly the UK did in the negotiations can be seen in the concessions won by the EU with the NI protocol. The actual trade deal covers goods where the UK has a large trade deficit and does not cover services at all.
Also the EU is starting to impose tariffs and checks on goods coming out of the UK, while the UK won't do the same for some time as their border control systems aren't ready and they're missing some 40 000 customs agents. So even as exporters are feeling the pain, the actual mangling of supply chains for british importers is still to come.
While the best case scenario for the EU would've been the UK staying in the customs union, with that option closed this is as good as it gets. There are no winners in Brexit, only relative losers.
Firstly they didn't get free trade - there are tariffs, rules of origin, and a lack of equivalence for SPS & product safety rules. The last one is especially egregious currently, because the UK still has exactly the same agricultural rules it did when it was a member.
Secondly, there is now a customs border in the UK. That's a fairly gigantic offensive ask for the E.U., which they largely succeeded in.
Thirdly, the UK got significantly less freedom on state aid than it wanted (which is of course, not surprising, given that the freedom they wanted was "We do whatever we want").
They got control over immigration. Of course, as a consequence of this, so did we, and if you read the UK press, they're currently finding out that that's a thing that cuts both ways (and they're not massively happy about this).
I don't understand the issues about state aid, we were already at the bottom of the league table interns of doling out aid to business. We had plenty of room to expand that already if we wanted.
Right now the most likely outcome of the whole thing is the break up of the United Kingdom. The whole thing was a mess from beginning to end (not that it has ended yet).
- The City of London risks losing clearance/passporting rights
- The Ireland/Northern Ireland issues are on fire again
- Yes they got control of "immigration" (that they always had) and to the shock of some UK retirees in Spain that is reciprocal
- Anyone that exports/imports from the EU (especially more regulated stuff like food, etc) is having to work around the bureaucracy (which shouldn't have surprised anyone that knows a bit about how exports/imports work) https://www.politico.eu/article/a-brexit-lesson-eus-benefits...
- I've been seeing more job offers from the UK listed as remote (hah so you mean no more EU developers in place without visas? Good luck then)
The British approach to making a deal was "this is a disaster, we should have be given at least twice that". After 30 years of that, a divorce was for the best solution for both sides.
So whatever the cost, it was worth it.
We got a taste of what's inside that Pandora's box with Farage.
Apparently he was a loud mouthed joker at school too, who just wanted to say something that would grab people's attention. I'm somewhat thankful for him highlighting the racist, xenophobic streak in certain parts of the UK - it just happened to be the topic that got him the most attention.
Honestly, if he thought supporting immigrants would get him the most controversy/support/attention, he'd be doing that in a hurry.
Nonetheless, despite him being skewered by the UK Tory party successfully cosplaying as UKIP, he's a sure sign that a competent populist fascist could command a dangerous level of support - especially among military personnel.
This doesn't bode well for British democracy.
Also, why is this Schadenfreude? Should people only vote out of short-term self interest, and to be sneered at if they don't?
You can have schadenfreude without comeuppance, though that can verge into just plain sadism or gloating. Schadenfreude usually has a connotation that the misfortune is deserved.
So yes, Remain voters (and those who sympathize with them) may definitely be experiencing some schadenfreude watching the Tories hoist by their own petard.
Don't worry... Australia came to its rescue last week, ready for us to be shoved around by the mother country in "uncomfortable chairs".
All people who voted in their long-term interest voted remain. There is no realistic scenario where a Brexit is better long-term for anyone.
Whether the others deluded themselves into thinking that Brexit is better in the long-term or voted out of their own short-term self interest doesn't matter very much.
The "everyone will be worse off out of the EU" argument sounds a lot like the flip-side of trickle-down economics; Some may be worse off, but more equal given the spoils of remain are certainly not equally distributed.
I mean, I know why it was. It’s a nice mom-and-pop-family is suffering from the evil EU sort of image, but man it’s just wild how manipulative the anti-EU campaigns were and how successful it turned out to be for them.
The fishers are of course a magical sort of people. I mean, how could you not realise that leaving the EU would be stupid when you’re catching all your fish in Norwegian waters? Or when your entire export goes to Southern Europe because your own population mostly eats salmon and cod?
Also begs to question who the hell benefitted from all this.
One of the real reasons of Brexit: https://alastaircampbell.org/2018/08/the-book-that-helps-you...
The other one were declining oil revenues in my opinion. It is intriguing, how the oil production (and decline) correlates with the rise of the UK as the "sick man of Europe".
It seems to be summed up as such: (1) Industry decline is due to foreign fishing boats in British water (2) solution is thus to get rid of foreign fishing boats in British waters.
I don't know if (1) is a correct premise but in any case it ignores important points: First, British fishing boats also fish in foreign waters. Tit-for-tat suggests these countries will retaliate if you ban their fishing boats in your waters (can't have your cake and eating it, too). Second, most fish caught in British waters are exported (and in majority to the EU) and most fish consumed in the UK are imported. So, again, it would seem in their interest to be able to continue export to the EU as painlessly as possible.
My take is that emotions and symbolism of sovereignty over national waters in an island nation that used to "rule the waves" have clouded judgements to the point where people do not think rationally anymore.
Even just comparing the seafood stalls in supermarkets in England vs. France or Spain is striking.
I have noticed the same for most food stuff and I feel that the UK has a big potential that goes unexploited because people simply do not care much about their food.
1. Many things get automated.
2. Pricing. Labor may be too expensive in some countries.
Maybe many other industries had the same fate (textiles, shoes) but these industries were located in cities, where other opportunities materialized. On the coast, no other opportunities materialized.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/25/how-britain-let...
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/10/11/fishing-quota-uk...
Part of these 300bn are made of small $30m industries. Some exports are valuable to other countries (can't produce themselves) and thus wouldn't require negotiations. Some exports or deals can affect a large number of people who can't change jobs easily and now become a liability. You don't want to have a bunch of angry fishermen.
EU-UK negotiations didn't revolve around the fisheries only, that's part of why it took them long time and still haven't resolved all of the issues. It'd be good if someone pull up all negotiations and all industries that are going to be affected and make a interactive site/report out of it.
> who the hell benefitted from all this
The fish.
That's exactly what Lord Buckethead said.[1]
See also "Brexit trade deal: Who really owns UK fishing quotas?" -> https://www.bbc.com/news/52420116
>That amounts to 130,000 tonnes of fish a year and 55% of the quota's annual value in 2019.
This shows how trivial the fishing industry is in the UK if you compare it to the $2.638 trillion 2020 GDP. It's truly amazing how one of the least important issues of Brexit came to be one of the most spoken of.
My guess is that economics and international politics are just too complex and abstract for just about anyone to understand. So if you take something more tangible like someone literally fishing in your waters it speaks to the imagination more than things like free flow of goods and persons.
Historically bad negotiatiors? Have we read different histories of Britain?
If anything characterizes the country, it's the fact that they've been great seafarers and traders...
I'd agree however that exalting this past or viewing it with rose-tinted glasses is wrong, but saying that they are historically bad negotiators? How?
> I'd agree however that exalting this past or viewing it with rose-tinted glasses is wrong, but saying that they are historically bad negotiators? How?
Gunboat diplomacy isn't what one would call good negotiation
This is not a surprise. The influence of the industry is not to be underestimated in either country but in the UK it's a small industry with a lot of emotional baggage, especially for those supporting Brexit as it's linked to the idea of territory, even though much fishing is outside of UK waters. In Norway it's a major industry, they're one of the biggest exporters in the world and it forms a large part of the country's income. There was no way that Norwegian politicians were ever going to do anything that upset the industry. Brexit was a big win for Norwegian fisheries in a zero sum game.
The cultural roots in a much smaller population than the UK makes fishing not only a major industry but a big part of Norway's history and culture, I'm very sure the UK being an island has the same long history on fishing, I just don't feel it's so deeply rooted into the British national identity as it is in Norway.
Some quotes: "Unfriendly action from the British"
"Norway's entry into the negotiations has been the maintenance of the traditional and historical fishing patterns Norwegian fishermen have had in British waters.
- The British have responded with a number of demands and conditions that are not in line with this, and which it was impossible for Norway to accept. "
"- The lack of concessions on zone access came as a bit of a surprise to us"
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
The quote about how terrible this is comes from "UK Fisheries chief executive Jane Sandell", but later is reveals Sandell owns a business that "catches around 10% of all the fish sold in the UK's chip shops" which I assume to be those arctic fish - another [1]article reveals:
One trawler, which catches 10% of fish sold in chip shops, will be tied up for a year following the collapse in talks.
her firm having only 40% of the fishing opportunities of previous years
And here's another [2]article revealing a little of the British water side:
£160m worth of England's fishing quota is in the hands of vessels owned by companies based in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands
Edit:
Here's a site some more answers:
https://ukfisheries.net/about-distant-fishing/qsas
I was unsatisfied to the answer about why cod fishing isn't done locally, so here's an interesting [3]article:
In 2019, 70% of the UK’s seafood was exported to Europe and Asia with an end value of over $2bn. .. over 90% of the cod consumed by the UK’s domestic market is imported
cod from Iceland, the largest importer into the UK, is 38% more expensive than cod exported from the UK.
the UK is exporting an unsustainable cod catch because British waters have been overfished for decades
What I do find strange, is how Britain apparently lacks the fishing industry capable of fishing their own waters, but cod is overfished in them, very selective. But again, why isn't this fixed in trade rather than quotas?
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56940914
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/52420116
[3] https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/11/16/Fishy-busin...
Some even will very shaken when they learn this isn't India and the 19th century was more than a century ago. :)
On a more serious note, except for some specific ones, UK's problems are problems shared by most western societies, but handled in a comically tragic way. Also the government approved money laundering at cosmic proportions that has been going on for decades now is another big factor for the "inexplicably" low standard of life many people have compared to what they think they would have. Not only those deals with the many devils have a cost but also an opportunity cost in time wasted not doing any meaningful reforms deluding the population into keep doing the rat race and when they get nothing, blame the EU.
Countries should be thinking less about any potential with the UK and more about how to block any dependencies on new trade with them to be able to step out of this time sink of a drama.