Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

rock22 · 19-04-2022 6:34am

What is extraordinary is that there is obviously a market in Ireland for British beef. Who would have thought

Peregrinus · 19-04-2022 6:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944950#Comment_118944950

The beef concerned is almost certainly from NI so it is, in fact, Irish beef. Having said that, I don't know how much beef M&S actually sells in the Republic. While M&S aims to position its groceries as premium products, people who want reliably high-quality beef in Ireland will generally head to a butcher's shop, not a supermarket.

pixelburp · 19-04-2022 7:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944950#Comment_118944950

I'd speculate wildly that the market share for M&S Food is tiny, with the market therein for UK beef smaller still. M&S Food is extremely expensive and at best a treat for certain, specialist items (case in point: their potato farls are far nicer than Tesco's own, but 100% a rare treat too given the mark up).

Certainly, by the evidence of one guy (ie, me), by end of day, generally there'd still be shelves full of fresh meat, compared with others areas like baked-goods, dairy or even their ready meals. I never got the impression people bought the fresh meat, with the exception of the chicken, and that's understandable as the quality of store-bought chicken can vary hugely IMO.

breezy1985 · 19-04-2022 8:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118944961#Comment_118944961

M&S groceries are really only "premium" by British standards where Tesco and Sainsburys are serving up awful crap products.

M&S generally don't seem know or care that having a Union Jack might not be the best idea on meat in Ireland. They have had a couple of incidents in the past where they have failed to understand the situation like the time they were selling electronic piggy banks that only counted sterling.

timetogo1 · 19-04-2022 9:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945059#Comment_118945059

I've noticed it in Aldi too. I bought yoghurts the other day with a Union Jack on them and "Made with British milk" branded on them. I didn't notice when buying it in the shop but I'll be looking for yoghurt "made with Irish milk" in future.

breezy1985 · 19-04-2022 9:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945298#Comment_118945298

I'm very surprised by Aldi who would have no reason to drag British milk over borders into the EU. Unless of course it is actually Irish milk from Armagh or somewhere.

timetogo1 · 19-04-2022 9:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945322#Comment_118945322

I don't have the packaging now so I can't check where it was made. It was Milbona branded.

storker · 19-04-2022 9:52am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118938926#Comment_118938926

Some retailers in the UK are sticking the Union Jack on everything, regardless of actual origin, with the idea that it will sell more.

Cassius99 · 19-04-2022 9:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945298#Comment_118945298

Aldi seem to do this quite a bit with their products. Biscuits, dairy, even household goods from the centre isle are all festooned with union flags, even the flour at one stage recently had its packaging radically altered to reflect this. It seems to have scaled back a slight amount but ultimately I presume it's just laziness on their part.

road_high · 19-04-2022 9:54am

I think the union flag thing has gotten way more prevalent since brexit! Doesn’t bother me in the slightest but would some customers. I guess they figure it’s not worth changing for Ireland and many of them treat NI and the south as the same.

M&S has definitely more limited too in stock and more expensive but so have all the supermarkets.

Sam Russell · 19-04-2022 10:31am

Having the UK flag on a product does not worry me - I just do not buy it. Simples.

joeysoap · 19-04-2022 1:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118945406#Comment_118945406

And crisps. Middle row - Tyrrell crisps - with a Union Jack and made in Britain displayed. Owned by KP - which is German owned.

ambro25 · 19-04-2022 4:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118938926#Comment_118938926

I was in the UK last week running up to Easter, first time in 2 years what with Covid and all that, visiting family and our old grounds. Worksop, Retford, Rotherham, Sheffield…

To say I was shocked at the town centres’ desertification, and the general state of the place, is a mild understatement.

M&S is gone from Worksop centre, and there is literally nothing left but pawnshops, bookies and a Greggs. Even charity shops have gone. An entire side of Dinnington’s high street is now shuttered shops. Rotherham was beyond bleak, a real shame as the pedestrianised hyper centre with the Victorian-era shops around the minster is quite nice (-architecturally).

The social fracture, as perceived, has got to be something else as well. People out and about, looking unwell and unhappy.

Can’t say I noticed an abundance of Union jacks everywhere in stores…but I did notice the shrunk shelvage and produce choices variously in Tesco, Sainsburys and Aldi (had been shopping in those for 10 years, so have a fairly educated idea of what they looked like ‘before’, well at least until our last visit in December 2019).

It was, and felt, grim. Not in a rush to go back anytime soon, I’m afraid, save for fleeting visits of family/friends.

ancapailldorcha · 19-04-2022 4:53pm

Can't say that I've noticed one way or another with regards to Union flags on food. I'm still in London and have increased my attempts to find alternative work in the UK and the EU to no avail.

The main thing I've noticed is that chicken seems to be in much less supply than before. Also, prices rose quite a bit after the UK actually left the EU. I can't speak much regarding life outside London. It's sadly predictable that the remain side just gave up the ghost when Brexit was finished while the Tories continue to evoke Remainer plots in feeble attempts to rile up their base.

Leroy42 · 19-04-2022 5:04pm

They are far from feeble attempts. The Tories really are doing a masterful job of tapping in to the feelings of a certain part of the populace. We are continually told that it is a minority, that really the UK isn't inherently racist, but the facts do not support this. Of course the local elections, and then the GE will really be the telling point, but there is nothing to suggest that the populace, as a whole, is getting tired of it all.

Grassey · 20-04-2022 6:14pm

Oh Moggsy

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities has told the EU scrutiny committee the UK will “reform” the NI protocol unilaterally if the EU does not.

We signed it on the basis that it would be reformed and there comes a point at which you say, well, you haven’t reformed it and therefore we are reforming it ourselves. And the United Kingdom is much more important than any agreement that we have with any foreign power.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1516804241083580422?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1516804241083580422%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-3754196122842566435.ampproject.net%2F2203281422000%2Fframe.html

ancapailldorcha · 20-04-2022 6:38pm

Meaningless posturing for the 5th May. Nothing more.

I'm just inured to the fact that the Conservatives aren't even pretending to have any sort of capacity for intellectual forethought and debate now. It's all about trolling the likes of Ian Dunt and James O'Brien while large swathes of the population are feeling the sting of the self-inflicted cost of living crisis (as distinct from the global effects of the war in Ukraine).

eire4 · 20-04-2022 7:14pm

In many ways they have not been fully exposed to the full consequences of brexit yet as first the pandemic and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given them cover so to speak.

pixelburp · 20-04-2022 7:19pm

I'm sure they'll run out of global crises eventually. But given CoVid and Ukraine's fallout will drag on for years yet, who knows when that'll be.

But maybe that's the point. When you decouple yourself from the economic world's baselines, every blip globally becomes magnified by isolation. There will always be something that'll effect the UK that bit more.

ancapailldorcha · 20-04-2022 7:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118953017#Comment_118953017

I would disagree.

The pandemic is largely being treated as yesterday's news here. The tube is running as it was before in my experience and virtually nobody is wearing masks. As for Ukraine, while the public may be supportive of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, they won't vote on that basis. Both parties support Ukraine.

Covid, if anything exposed the inadequacies of the state. A successful vaccine rollout was marred by endemic poverty, vast inequality and graft from the government. By doling out so much cash, Sunak has put himself in a position where withdrawing it just seems cruel and since so many seem to be struggling at the moment, the usual performative cruelty Tories and their voters adore so much isn't going to have the appeal they need it to.

The real travesty is Labour's dismal polling but that may change. Johnson has a long way to go and no real way to pull himself out of the mess he created.

eire4 · 20-04-2022 7:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118953048#Comment_118953048

What I meant was that the pandemic first and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely affected the economy allowing them to muddy the waters so to speak with the damage done to the UK economically by brexit.

road_high · 20-04-2022 10:19pm

Presume if the U.K. decide to “reform” the agreement they signed up to and indeed drafted then there goes the FTA which is the cornerstone of post brexit EU U.K. trade and into a crippling tariff tangle. Their funeral as they say. EU should let them hang at this stage.

road_high · 20-04-2022 10:26pm

Despite the obvious idiocy of Moggs lingo, I notice he stopped short of getting rid of it- “Reform” so even despite his bluster, admits there’ll still be a Protocol ;)

Peregrinus · 21-04-2022 1:44am

"Jacob Rees-Mogg says that UK government were idiots then, are idiots now, and banks on electorate also being idiots" is I think the fairest reading of this.

ancapailldorcha · 21-04-2022 7:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118953185#Comment_118953185

I know what you meant.

The flaw in your reasoning is that the state has proven to be extremely useful in alleviating the suffering of the poorest people here. It set the precedent that, by not doing so it is exclusively a matter of government choice and nothing else. Johnson and Sunak would rather party and feather their own nests than do anything meaningful to help the worst off in society.

I think they're the most toxic they have been since Thatcher. This may not cost them the next election or two but it's not going away either.

O'Neill · 21-04-2022 8:28am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118954662#Comment_118954662

i've heard lots who grew up with Thatcher say that this current lot are a lot worse.

ancapailldorcha · 21-04-2022 8:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118954782#Comment_118954782

I can imagine.

The Channel 4 thing gets me. It was founded on her watch and is intrinsically a levelling up project. However, its not being a sycophant like virtually every other media outlet here means it has to go. Our sorry excuse for a culture secretary, a woman who devoured an ostrich's anus on television and who had no idea how Channel 4 was funded wants to turn it into Netflix, a debt-laden private enterprise that in no way resembles a public service broadcaster. She's emblematic of the whole government. Venal, deeply lazy and unintelligent and without the decency to at least attempt a facade at competence.

pixelburp · 21-04-2022 8:51am

Seems like the difference is simply one of competence: you can disagree with Thatcher's politics - and god knows I'd have many to name - but she was astute, intelligent and capable of running a country. She had to be, given she wasn't simply another PM, but shouldering the burden of her gender being intensely scrutinised; if she failed then the narrative would be that women couldn't run a country. She made colossal errors in retrospect, and parts of the country arguably never recovered from those actions - but I never got the sense she hadn't a clue what she was doing either. It couldn't be claimed she half-ársed things.

This current iteration of Conservatives are almost shockingly inept and if it wasn't for the DUP hanging around like cheap cosplaying Englishmen, could be called the most incompetent party across the Union as a whole. There's barely an individual in that cabinet you could point to and say, honestly, that yes; he/she might be right-wing but they know what they're doing and have a plan. I was almost taken in by Sunak's brand, but ultimately has shown himself another empty vessel rattling around with no actual ability to call on.

storker · 21-04-2022 8:56am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118954782#Comment_118954782

I lived in London for several of the Thatcher years and I'd agree with that.

ancapailldorcha · 21-04-2022 10:17am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118954871#Comment_118954871

Sunak was always a fiscal hawk. Pro-Brexit, anti-any sort of burden whatsoever on the wealthy, pro-privatisation and so on. It wasn't until the pandemic forced his hand that he went against these instincts. He's another Osborne in the making and will have every intention of clawing back the pandemic largesse whenever he gets the chance. He had his moment in the sun but as with everything conservative, there's only so long before the festering venality comes to light.

Honestly, I'd say that the only people who remember that the DUP even exist will be those checking the BBC News website on the morning of the 6th May. Like Sunak, they've had their fifteen minutes and blown it in the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

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