Just watched the highlights of Johnson’s commons speech on where he sees the way forward for Britain post Brexit.

Basically he wants to turn our economic attention to the Pacific, yet there is not a single proposal which could not have been enacted as members of the EU. Further, surely our soft power, in a world dividing into economic groupings, would have been so much stronger as a leading voice in the EU. Are these people simply pining for the lost days of empire I wonder?

And Brexit itself is turning into not only an economic disaster, as has always been obvious, but an utter farce.

The Eu are insisting we get Brexit done in Northern Ireland but the U.K.are refusing and extending the implementation of the NI protocol by 6 months so brexit can’t be done. And why , because the mountain of bureaucracy which we were going to get rid of is so much and the paperwork bozo said they should throw in the bin is so horrendous that we can’t get Brexit done.

And because we didn’t ask the Eu permission to not get Brexit done , breaking international law again, the Eu are taking the U.K. to the ECJ which we were told we were no longer under its jurisdiction which may result in fines and tariffs which will get Brexit undone. Fancy that!

Just watched the highlights of Johnson’s commons speech on where he sees the way forward for Britain post Brexit.

Basically he wants to turn our economic attention to the Pacific, yet there is not a single proposal which could not have been enacted as members of the EU. Further, surely our soft power, in a world dividing into economic groupings, would have been so much stronger as a leading voice in the EU. Are these people simply pining for the lost days of empire I wonder?

Merv you are right he did say about the economic attention to the Pacific but you leave off that he mentioned joining two groups to assist this. One being the cpttp and cannot remember the other. This has been well announced in the past and cannot be considered nothing, but please tell me how joining them could be enacted if we had remained in the eu

Tell you what Signals, I may have fallen into the old trap that absence of proof is proof of absence. I mugged up on the TPP some while ago, and could see no reason why any EU member couldn’t join, because the agreement was simply to generally reduce tariffs between members, and my understanding was that EU membership didn’t prevent that. However that may have been a wrong assumption on my part, so I will check it out.

Meanwhile, in re-checking on Wickipedia I discovered one new interesting fact. Trump withdrew from the TPP, which Biden has said he will re-join. If so, then the US is allowed tariff free access on all their agricultural products to every member. Could our Dairy and Beef industry survive that?

According to the FT and BBC joining the TPP would be "largely symbolic" and achieve "marginal benefits". We already have trade deals with most of the countries or are in the process of trying to roll over the deals we did have as part of the EU. Exports to all TPP countries are less than our exports to Germany, although our trade with Germany was down 56% in January 2021 compared to January 2020 so that may effect these figures.

Ironically hardline Brexiteers like Farage (echoing Trump) are furious about the thought of joining the TTP as they fear low cost imports will destroy what's left of British industry.

Tell you what Signals, I may have fallen into the old trap that absence of proof is proof of absence. I mugged up on the TPP some while ago, and could see no reason why any EU member couldn’t join, because the agreement was simply to generally reduce tariffs between members, and my understanding was that EU membership didn’t prevent that. However that may have been a wrong assumption on my part, so I will check it out.

Meanwhile, in re-checking on Wickipedia I discovered one new interesting fact. Trump withdrew from the TPP, which Biden has said he will re-join. If so, then the US is allowed tariff free access on all their agricultural products to every member. Could our Dairy and Beef industry survive that?

The EU would not be able to join the tpp without major alterations to the CAP and I cannot see that happening. Yes Trump did pull out of the agreement stating that it was a bad agreement for the USA. One of the reasons for his doing this was because he had to bring the agriculture and dairy standards up to the agreed benchmark. Hence it was bad for the USA. Biden is more interested in getting back into that agreement before any trade deal with the UK or EU, however he will now find it more difficult as standards are now set in stone. What do I think of the USA being in the same agreement. Well much is made of us having a trade deal with the USA and the much vaunted problems it would supposedly bring like chlorinated chicken however if we are getting the trade deal via the backdoor due to bidens wishes and they have to stop the chlorinated chicken and the raising of standards etc, it could be win win for uk