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This message was last edited by hughjardon on 26/11/2016.
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Done the Spain thing Happier in the UK
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Westminster party leaders should tone down campaigning that has "polarised" the country and "legitimised hate", the equalities watchdog has said.
Excellent article on BBC News this morning that we should all take note of.
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Hugh wrote:
Thats why Brexit will allow us to grow more in giant greenhouses like Thanet Earth, go check it out.
Are you suggesting the EU currently prevents the British from building greenhouses? Or do you believe British tomatoes will become a cheaper export after Brexit. I don’t follow your line of thought here.
Almost the entire region of Almeria in Spain is covered in plastic greenhouses. Also parts of the Canary Islands. Spain has and will continue to enjoy single market tariff free access to Europe and beyond. It's tomatoes are very cheap. How will Britain compete with at least 10% tariffs added to their tomatoes? Protectionism perhaps?
The French used to be a market leader in tomatoes growing them in a region of SW France with a mild climate. Their tomatoes were quite expensive because their production costs were too high. They tried protectionism to keep their market share. Even riots broke out. The growers attacked Spanish delivery trucks for years. Eventually they had to give up and become a niche market for high quality tomato varieties.
The tomato industry in Thanet faces the same future after Brexit because they will lose their access to Europe’s markets cost free. They could perhaps become a theme park for winter sunbathing under glass.
This message was last edited by Mickyfinn on 27/11/2016.
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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Sorry people I may be having a senior moment here, can someone kindly explain the basic trading possibilities for me here.
Let's take tomatoes as a basic commodity. If our export of tomatoes will cost more in tariffs how does the cost of import of tomatoes stack up.
Il let you know what I'm getting at when I have any replies that I can understand.
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Best wishes, Brian
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OK here goes economics simplified.
Trade tariffs are usually reciprocal. It depends on what’s negotiated and agreed. Britain’s tomatoes will cost more in Europe and Europe’s tomatoes will cost more in Britain.
However Europe is a huge market for European producers and within the free trade zone tomatoes will remain competitive.
So if you are a buyer for say a German supermarket chain and you need to buy shed loads of tomatoes either Britain’s producers would have to drop their prices below the tariff imposition level to be competitive, thereby reducing their profit. Spain’s producers on the other hand would have the advantage.
It may well be a 10% tariff would make it uneconomic to sell into Europe but Britain still needs tomatoes so the home market would supply that. Spain would then suffer a little but Britain will suffer more losing the market of 500 million people as opposed to the home market of 65 million. (Assuming everyone eats tomatoes)
Of course Britain may well be able to sell tomatoes to other countries economically but it would depend on what trade deals it can find.
There is also another consequence. If Britain supplies the home market exclusively producers will be free to raise their prices to consumers because of the lack of competition. If import tariffs are 10% then expect price hikes to that level before EU imports can then be economically sucked in. That is why consumer costs in a future Brexit Britain will be substantially higher unless Sterling drops sufficiently to compensate the tariff structure.
If Sterling rises after Brexit for whatever reason then thats good news for Europes producers. However with a minimum 10% tariff slapped on to every commodity the likely result will simply be less trade for everyone.
This message was last edited by Mickyfinn on 27/11/2016.
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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Not sure tomatoes are the commodity to talk about. If Thanet can grow them economically, great.
I was brought up on the south coast. In the early fifties there were greenhouses as far as you could see. However they began to become uneconomic when the first crop was superceeded by tomatoes from the channel Islands. The first crop subsequently went to Spain and the Canaries. Followed swiftly by the main crops. There has been no tomato crop and very little market gardening for many years. Some growers tried to change to mushrooms but all folded in the end with the greenhouses being knocked down and replaced by a sea of bungalows.
If Thanet is the way to go it will bring back an industry that died 50 years ago. Not a lot to do with Brexit. But I suppose it might make importers reluctant to want tarrifs on their products.
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There is another relevant factor in this tomato economic debate.
Spain remains highly competitive in this sector because it employs masses of cheap immigrant labour most of it illegal. They pay below the minimum wage to thousands of North African immigrants who even sleep in the green houses at night. I have seen it and it’s not pretty.
Britain can just about compete at the moment by employing cheap and productive EU migrant labour to work in the greenhouses.
Post Brexit and the end to free movement and a tariff structure the producers will have to find UK residents to do the work which means higher wage costs.
So folks get used to paying considerably more for stables in a future Brexit Britain. Who knows perhaps it may become economic to do a tomato run across the channel. I remember a few years ago some enterprising Brits living in SW France used to go to Spain once a week and load up a van with cheap tomatoes and sell them in the French markets. They did rather well until the home producer mafia gave them a hard time.
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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Really Micky. British tomato production can only be a pimple on the market. What you need to imagine is what will happen to Spanish exports to the UK and UK prices if we start importing african tomatoes tariff free.
What we should really be concentrating on is the likely outcome of the negociations. I still cannot see the EU imposing punitive tariffs on the UK. With the current ballance of trade it would rebound on them very badly and in any case is probably rulled out by World Trade and UN agreements.
Whatever the agreement the sooner it is achieved the better. Despite the economy doing well at the moment a poor agreement is better than no agreement, for stability. Agreements can and are frequently re-negociated. We also need to be free to negociate with the rest of the world.
This message was last edited by tteedd on 27/11/2016.
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And when the consumer of home grown tomatoes decides, hang on a minute I'm not paying that purposefully inflated price to meet your increased profit margin for self benefit as opposed to reinvestment that had potential to benefit the local community, I'd rather do without tomatoes until such time as prices become more realistic ( with the ability to continue making profit but not at the expense of the consumer) or until such time as I can see benefit from reinvestment back to my community....
Aren't we entering a period where the consumer ( read citizen) is now recognising they have the power to make their Govt address the failures, better address the problem of widening inequality, self interest ( greed or retention of power), ideological thinking that has little inbuilt flexibility to respond or demonstrate willingness to reform, for example with timely transient controls, etc, and review economic models that have purposefully hidden facts to suit political and powerful financial / corporate agendas, etc?
The point being that many citizens have recognised the need to regain control over those who have little intent to improve their lives and local communities, those who refuse to recognise the impact of their decision making on their everyday lives, their culture, their environment, the threat to cohesion and tolerance that they took great pride from, etc, all in the name of an ideological aspiration.
Time for reflection and major reform with emphasis on looking to alternatives that have the greater potential to improve citizen's lives and regain accountability?
This message was last edited by ads on 27/11/2016.
This message was last edited by ads on 27/11/2016.
This message was last edited by ads on 27/11/2016.
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When I grow older than I am I want to live in an ads world. 
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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Never say never Mickeyfinn. 😉
It's already happening as I seem to remember those who suggested the might of Banks could not be made better accountable in Spain..... But that's another story.
This message was last edited by ads on 27/11/2016.
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because you liked tomatoes so much,
Brexit, the pound and the price of fish
Brian Wilde is from J&B Wilde which has been selling fish, meat and poultry for more than a century. "It is very difficult, because we buy quite a lot of produce out of the UK," he says. While imports are more expensive, of course the pound's fall also makes UK exports cheaper. But that also makes sourcing produce harder as well, says Brian.
"Produce in the UK is getting sent abroad because it's worth more for those fishing for the fish to send it abroad." His sister, Mariella, says: "All our prices, for anything from outside this country, have gone up. Our average profits have fallen by up to 15%. Darryl Laycock, from Sale Fish and Seafood in south Manchester, says the price of his sea bass has gone up 10%.
As you can see, this fish tale comes with a double edge sword. Our supply goes abroad because it is cheaper as exports and EU fish gets more expensive coming here because of the weaker pound. Bilateral tariffs will not fix that, it will just make EU fish more expensive to us and UK fish more expensive to export.
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Well since BREXIT we have not bought any EU products and we have not missed EU products what so ever it's only people who buy LUXURIES that will be affected in my VIEW
The UK will be fine TRUMPS in CASTROS gone we are leaving EU everything's looking ROSIE for us BRITS
Love Hugh xx
THAT MICKY AND PERRY must have very SAD LIVES
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Done the Spain thing Happier in the UK
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It would be nice to hear some real facts about what will happen after brexit
Over to the govt to give us a real plan of what to expect
A definitive answer of the worst case on how much the trade tariffs will be if the uk comes out of the single market
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”
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It would be nice to hear some real facts about what will happen after brexit
A definitive answer of the worst case on how much the trade tariffs will be
Mmmm, I'll just dust off the crystal ball.
You're assuming Brexit happens - I can't quite see that in the ball but it appears very likely.
Worst case ......... looks like WTO tariffs with slowly declining contributions (and large payments towards functionaries pensions etc)
Best case.......... very much as we are (virtually tariff free) with fast declining or no contributions (and minimal payments towards functionaries pensions etc)
After that? .......Well it's all in our hands, very murky, looks good to me but others may interperate it differently.
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Mmm there is another path..............Tony Blair, Neil Kinnock & John Major team up to defeat government bill on new terms get rid of our rebate, stuff the house of lords with remoaners and the EU with even more wasters.
This message was last edited by tteedd on 27/11/2016.
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I prefer to take my advice from Mark Carney, thanks
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more fish:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/11/foreign-eu-trawlers-catch-more-than-half-fish-landed-from-britis/
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I hear Mark Carney may be leaving?
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Sums it all up really - a complete joke and mess
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”
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I thought Mark Carney was staying until June 2019?
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