Brexit Impact on Northern Ireland

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121175919#Comment_121175919

Pragmatism at work. Would be impossible to police. Big penalties if you are caught reselling.

Sam Russell

Policing is done by market surveillance - like all single market issues.

No-one cares if a bag of contraband is sold illegally. It is when a business is made out of it. They detected the horse meat going into burgers by market surveillance in Dublin , even though the illegal bit centred on Hungary and Belgium, with a bit of activity in a few other EU countries.

Goods destined for NI, but not the EU are hardly going to affect anything much. A few packs of M&S sausages that M&S source in Ireland for the Irish market.

This whole issue is a bottle of smoke. It is not as if better quality similar products are not readily available in the EU, probably at better prices.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121175919#Comment_121175919

Is reselling a problem in the first place though?

reslfj

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121176447#Comment_121176447

If a profitable business case pops up it could easily be a problem. In most cases, however, the UK products could be directly imported into the EU/Ireland using the TCA rules (incl. zero tariffs). The EU has indicated a willingness to mitigate SPS problems.

It's not a problem if you buy some 'NI only' goods in a NI shop and your sell it to your mother in law when arriving back in Ireland.

Lars 😀

FrancieBrady

Has Jamie got wind of an impending climbdown? Seems to be softening the demands here.

https://twitter.com/JamieBrysonCPNI/status/1708089870655049829

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121176447#Comment_121176447

No, it isn't. There really isn't much money to be made in buying at retail prices in NI and then reselling in the Republic — there'd be very few products where the price differential would be large enough to justify the bother. Clearly the thinking is that that the "not for EU" labels will assist in identifying and interdicting any reselling that does occur.

FrancieBrady

At least they have figured out who their beef is with and the landmass from whence their problem comes.

https://twitter.com/TalkLoyalism/status/1708458119792087312

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183667#Comment_121183667

Unwilling to show their faces. I wonder why?

All male, by the look of it - and not many of them.

FrancieBrady

Stephen Farry handing Jim Allister his ass on Nolan. Pointing out all the other times that a border in the Irish Sea operated. All Allister can reply with is 'the WF delivers what the IRA could not'.

Emotive dogwhistling in other words.

Peregrinus

A trawl through their Twitter feed suggests that as many as five people attended their Christmas bash in December 2021. Photographs of their Dublin protest in 2022 show at least 6 participants, and I count 11 participants in the photograph of today's protest. So membership figures are trending in the right direction!

They need to trend a lot more in that direction, though. And, while picketing the Tory conference shows, as Francie points out, a dawning realisation of why they are where they are, there are still a few dots they need to join. If you object to the Protocol, the proper response is not to attack the GFA; it's to attack hard Brexit.

Sam Russell

Attacking the GFA is akin to kicking the cat because your horse came in last.

yagan

I'm really struggling to think of what products sold in ni would be profitable to sell onto the continent.

I can imagine a British consumer aversion to products labelled "not for sale in EU".

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183880#Comment_121183880

It is likely that very little will be marked 'Not for Sale in [the] EU'.

It is only of interest to those willing to comply with the requirements. Saying you will comply but not complying will bring down significant penalties, such as being unable to use the system in future. I doubt Sainsburys or Tesco would take the risk.

M&S have set up their Irish (N&S) distribution hub in Ayre in Scotland - not a clever move. I do not know if they are distributing the Irish supplied beef into NI.

I did come across some thing strange quite while back. A product (I forget what it was - maybe a pack of premium biscuits), that was produced in GB, but had a little label stuck on it with a Lurgan address on it to refer any queries. Struck me as strange at the time - and I assumed had something to do with the NI Protocol - pre WA.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183880#Comment_121183880

In so far as there's an issue here, it's not about resale of NI-purchased products on the continent; it's about resale of NI-purchased products in IRL.

The issue is not really products being bought from retailers, imported into the Single Market, and then resold. There simply aren't the margins that would make this attractive. The issue is produce being bought wholesale in NI, imported into the Single Market, and then sold retail. If it hasn't been produced in NI, produce sold in NI shouldn't get into in supply chains that end in the Single Market. The labelling is intended to prevent this (or to facilitate detection, if it does happen).

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121183934#Comment_121183934

Aside from cheaper booze I struggle to think of any items that are a lot cheaper.

I used to live in England and use the ferry a lot and I honestly couldn't see a massive difference in my regular aldi/Lidl shop in both countries.

If anything meat and salmon were cheaper in Ireland while alcohol was a lot cheaper in England.

Excise labels on alcohol already exist and a good few irish offlicenses have been caught and fined for reselling NI booze before brexit.

FrancieBrady

Hard to fathom how this can be seen as a 'warning', given that many many thousands more than Bryson can now muster, took to the streets against the AIA and the GFA and achieved nothing by way of preventing them.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/jamie-bryson-warns-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-that-mass-street-protests-will-occur-over-stormont-return-if-protocol-not-scrapped/a629629400.html

Even harder to know why the NI media continue to give this guy headlines.

Pete_Cavan

What really surprises me is that they think this nonsense helps their case. I can't imagine too many people in Britain looking at a photo like that in the media (often tabloid) and feeling any support for these guys. I'd say many of those who realise to what Agreement is being referred, will look at the photo and automatically assume these guys are IRA sympathisers and won't bother to inform themselves any further.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121185817#Comment_121185817

More likely to think that Anonymous crowd are on about something again. Bizarre look.

retalivity

I had to mute Bryson on twitter, used to be funny seeing him yammering on about nonsense and getting his arse handed to him 2 or 3 times daily. The guy is a cretin.

But how he has somehow managed to become the figurehead of belligerent unionism, and seems to have influence over the dup, is indicative of the sorry state of unionist politics. But whats worse is the NI media platforming him, the constant attacks on Alliance and lundying of the UUP, the lad get far more oxygen than he deserves.

Peregrinus

Bryson serves as a psychological defence mechanism for unionism.

Basically, unionists are where they are, and NI has the Windsor Framework, because the political establishment in the UK values hard Brexit more than it values the Union. They'll undermine the Union rather than soften their Brexit.

That's a problem for unionists - they are heavily invested in a relationship with a partner who doesn't respect or value them, and who will pursue other interests rather than maintain the relationship. That's scary to contemplate, especially when your whole identity revolves around being in this relationship. We're talking existential fear here.

What's also a problem is that a significant strand of unionism actively supported and encouraged the British political establishment in prioritising hard Brexit over the Union. They did this, I suspect, because they thought that hard Brexit would undermine the GFA (which, ironically, it has, but not in the way that they expected or wanted). So as well as the scariness of facing up to the fact that your partner, your very reason for living, despises you, there's the guilt at your own complicity in undermining the Union.

Bryson peddles a narrative which enables unionists to avoid fear and guilt. Bryson tells them that the Windsor Framework was foisted on NI by IRL/the EU/a Remainer conspiracy/whatever, and that the hard Brexiters who actually asked for it, and therefore their useful idiot supporters in NI, are in no way responsible for it.

Bryson tells people what they want to hear, in short; he says things that are psychologically comforting. And that's often an easy route to popularity.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121187058#Comment_121187058

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121187383#Comment_121187383

When it is time to dispense with Jamie it will be messy and there will be much gnashing of teeth,

https://twitter.com/News_Letter/status/1708899218029482480

And a wee not so subtle warning back to Jeff:

https://twitter.com/JamieBrysonCPNI/status/1708928619869765714

FrancieBrady

Seems clear now from Twitter and the Nolan Show that Jeffrey has begun his offensive to try take control of Unionism back from those he ceded it to. Should be an interesting few weeks.

https://twitter.com/NewtonEmerson/status/1708907145188593965

breatheme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121184333#Comment_121184333

I'd love to see that protest. Maybe they can get 13 to show up. Are you telling me, though, that this means that in theory the DUP won't take their seats in the Assembly ever again? That SF will be the party that does not take their seats in Westminster and the DUP will be the party that does not take their seats in the Assembly? Wild.

FrancieBrady

The threats and melt downs from certain Tweeters will be legend today.

https://twitter.com/BelTel/status/1709309032799117580

Seth Brundle

So their seven tests must suddenly and finally have been met?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121192074#Comment_121192074

Gonna need a bigger distraction.

Michael D humming Oh Ah Up the Ra at the rugby World Cup Final or some such.

Jeffrey hasn't mentioned the 7 Tests for a while now as far as I can see.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119483220#Comment_119483220

We would have to accept it all

tinytobe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121192319#Comment_121192319

The problem is some people wouldn't.

And that's what the argument is or would be all about.

I don't think people in the Republic would be per se against an Irish re unification, but they would be against any kind of conflicts of the North, being played out on the soil of the current Republic.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121192379#Comment_121192379

Yes agreed. And here is a snippet of what us northerners would have to learn to live with, not to mention paying for doctors, etc, etc. UI would be difficult for all the people of the island , for different reasons.

https://twitter.com/teamunion_uk/status/1709607145153446233?s=46&t=poNfuHo5eDxzcFF6ukRJOw

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121196009#Comment_121196009

Jamie Bryson is lashing out at everything these days downcow on all his Twitter accounts.

He is not altogether a fool and is clever enough to see the DUP preparing to climb down over Brexit and the WF.

Nobody has said that this island is problem free or that a UI is going to be some sort of Utopia where invisible benefactors selflessly pay for doctors etc.