Brexit reality starting to hit home
“I don’t think anyone expected the rug to be pulled from under them so quickly.”
Exceptionalism at its finest. Everyone campaigning for Remain said this would happen, that you can’t leave a club and expect to stay in with no changes. Critics called it Project Fear, but now it’s more like Project We Bloody Told You So.
8 Likes
Agreed, and what does he mean ‘so quickly’ - Brexit was confirmed 4 years ago and it’s been pretty clear since then that freedom of movement was going to be ending. 4 years is not exactly ‘sudden’.
4 Likes
Unfortunately many of those campaigning for Brexit insisted that there was no way that Brexit meant leaving the Single Market or Customs Union.
2 Likes
Surely the one thing everyone agreed on was that it would be the end of freedom of movement though?
Screw freedom of movement. Small price to pay for a blue passport!
As if Brexit couldn’t get any worse. Importing from Europe is a mess right now. A month ago, turnaround was a week from dispatch to delivery, now I’m being estimate up to 2 months for the same items, and business are very confused on whether or not I’ll be charged import fees and VAT, as they’re not being asked to, but someone has to pay it. I’ve got three shipments that have stuck at the boarder since January 4th. Whilst imports from other counties just sail on through.
I’ve come to rely so much on goods imported from the EU, and I suspect it’s going to become too slow and too expensive to continue, and I’ll be forced to seek out inferior British versions.
I love the EU. My father is finally useful for being Irish though. As it means I’m eligible for Irish citizenship. Not that it will fix my import woes however.
My hope is Scotland get their indyref 2, so we can leave the U.K. and rejoin Europe. Or somehow be allowed to remain in the U.K. and join the EU at the same time? Best of both worlds. There are some British things I wouldn’t want to lose, but at a tossup between the two, I value Europe more, and the goods and services that come from them.
Wherever I move to in the future though, all Brexit has done for me is solidified that I’ll never be going back to England.
6 Likes
I think 1 is very very unlikely (indyref2 happening anytime soon) and getting back in the EU wouldn’t be simple either. Lots of requirements to meet, checks to pass, and a really long process.
2 just wouldn’t ever be possible, I think, because the UK is a country and not an international body like the EU
1 Like
It was clear what would happen when we left, people just didn’t listen unfortunately.
First class stamps are red. Second class stamps are blue. Same goes for passports it seems.
3 Likes
It’s also the residency rules everyone else is subject too (in both directions) and has been for years. It doesn’t prevent people visiting our living overseas.
Sending post anywhere is an issue at the moment due to Covid (not Brexit).
As for the VAT rules, the new rules are EU inspired and the EU were also going to introduce them internally this month (they have delayed until July)
The problem is HMRC want sellers to register with them, which costs by the way, and means for businesses which only sell within Europe having to do something different re Vat. So unsurprisingly smaller businesses have decided not to, and won’t deliver to the UK.
It’s the fishing industry that’s suffering the most, on both sides. It’s wrecking businesses sadly. Yes, I’m sure it will get sorted but not before damage is done.
Yep but not to the extent at which my imports from Europe currently are, so it’s a bit of both I think.
I think the postal situation is much worse than you think. Even domestic 1st class letters are taking up to several weeks to be delivered and it’s far worse for international post - not helped by France closing the border which means huge backlogs in dealing with letters/parcels by Customs at Heathrow…
Perhaps. I’m going purely from my own personal experience here and nothing more. My parcels are awaiting clearance at Stansted not Heathrow, for what it’s worth. Have been since January 4th, estimated to be cleared delivered on Febuary 21st.
Meanwhile my package from the US sailed through Heathrow in under a day and I was sent an email to pay customs. Delivered 2 days later (yesterday actually).
I shop frequently at Biolindo for green home cleaning products. And they couldn’t get two of my orders into the country. U.K. border turned them away, yet UPS still sent me a letter to pay fees, despite the merchant telling me I wouldn’t need to pay anything as they would sort any tax and customs fees.
Ubiquiti are having similar issues too, which is the most annoying one right now, as my business relies heavily on their hardware, and we’re in the middle of a huge overhaul of our systems architecture.
It’s for these reasons combined that I described the EU importing situation as mess right now. Not just the delays in isolation. No one seems to know how anything is meant to work, and everyone I speak to to try to navigate the situation seem to have a differing contradictory answer. Teething problems I’m sure, and no doubt the pandemic worsens them.
The EU import/export problem is 100% Brexit and not covid I’m afraid, I work for a company that (used to) sell some items to EU customers. Delivery companies at the moment have completely stopped letting you send items to the EU because the system is such a mess. One of the issues seems to be a new piece of software written by our gov having teething issues meaning everything is having to have the customs documentation filled in by hand and it’s completely unsustainable to do this (this is info directly from DPD).
Obviously this is just exports but I’m sure it’s exactly the same on the other side. It’s not really the vat stuff that’s an issue (although that is a pain), it’s the all the new customs documentation.
4 Likes
After a week of no updates from Stansted, just started receiving these notifications from UPS:
We’re working to resolve technical issues temporarily preventing us from transmitting information to the clearing agency / Your delivery has been rescheduled for the next business day.,
I guess these are parcels that are going to be returned to Germany before they attempt to get them into the country again. What a nightmare.
My routing equipment just got flat out refused, despite me pre-clearing customs with the courier and have been returned to sender. I’m half tempted just to send my orders to the US, then have FedEx forward them to me here. Would still be cheaper than the extortionate shipping fees U.K. distributors charge for addresses outside of mainland England.
2 Likes
“No downside, only a considerable upside.”
2 Likes