Brexit Britain on the road to nowhere, says FTA

With three weeks to go until crunch Brexit talks in Brussels, the UK’s leading logistics trade body says that its confidence in Government’s ability to deliver a ‘frictionless’ Brexit that will ‘Keep Britain Trading’ with the EU is fast collapsing. The Freight Transport Association (FTA) is one of the UK’s largest and most influential industry groups, and speaks for the whole of the logistics industry.

As James Hookham, the organisation’s Deputy Chief Executive explains, the lack of progress on the industry’s key demands of government for a trade agreement, means that those in the industry charged with maintaining the country’s supply chain after Brexit are left with no means by which to operate effectively:

“Of the eight demands made in FTA’s list of essentials to ‘Keep Britain Trading’ issued at the beginning of the year, not a single one has been progressed,” he says. “Details of whether or not the country will have a Transition/Implementation Period are still unclear, there is still no decision on what Customs arrangements we will have from March 2019 onwards.

“We keep getting told that all food and agricultural exports to the Continent and Ireland will be checked at EU ports - but there is nowhere to check them, and the system to check them does not exist. We still don’t know if we will be able to employ the 43,000 truck drivers in the UK that are nationals from another member state – that’s 13% of our driver workforce! There is no clarification on whether UK drivers’ qualifications are to be recognised, so they could well be barred from driving their own vehicles on the Continent.

“But the real show stopper is that, under European law, unless an agreement is reached, there will only be 103 international haulage Permits to cover the 300,000 journeys made by British trucks to Europe each year. The logistics industry is being asked to decide who would get a Permit to Drive if there are not enough to go around – in effect, being asked to destroy the businesses of its international haulage members.”

As Mr Hookham continues, with less than 300 days to the UK’s scheduled departure from the European Union, and no progress made on trade talks, the lack of clarity over key issues is eroding the country’s invaluable trading relationships with businesses overseas, and foreign businesses based in Britain:

“All these potential barriers were thrown up by the Government’s decision to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. In return we were promised that ‘frictionless’ trade would continue through special agreements reached with the EU. Trade talks haven’t even started. In the event of a No Deal Brexit it will be the logistics industry, which operates 24/7 365 days a year, that will have to pick up the pieces of the failure of politicians to agree. No doubt we will face the unwarranted ire of consumers and businesses if goods cannot be delivered on time.

“The industry’s frustration with the lack of progress is building daily. Logistics businesses simply cannot answer their customers’ questions about how they will move goods after Brexit. Manufacturers and retailers are losing faith and fear that post-Brexit Britain is at real risk of becoming nothing more than a series of road blocks at our ports and airports.

“What is really making our members angry is that these real, legitimate concerns are simply being dismissed by some members of the Government on the basis that it will not be in the EU’s interests to impose them. This is a reckless attitude to take and is playing chicken with crucial parts of the British economy and the livelihoods of the seven million Britons in the industry. All the evidence is that the other EU member states are recruiting hordes of border officials to enforce their rule book, regardless of the cost to their businesses and consumers. Expecting economic realism to kick in after 50 years of top-down bureaucracy is a bit of a stretch from UK politicians who have always slammed the EU for its obsession with rules and bureaucracy. The reliance on the other side blinking first is hanging the logistics industry out to dry.

“To date, all the focus has been on what the new Customs arrangements will be. But this misses the point. The real issue will be the lack of permits to allow the trucks carrying the goods to travel to the Continent in the first place. This is the trucking equivalent of the threat to the aviation sector because of the ending of Europe-wide agreements when the UK leaves the Single Market.”

Mr Hookham is adamant that Britain’s supply chain requires decisions now, in order to provide the required logistics support to the nation’s business community, but is frustrated that no decisions are being made:

“Over the past year, we have continued to push the Government on what needs to be agreed to ‘Keep Britain Trading’ after Brexit. Yet with less than ten months to go until the country is set to leave the EU, we have nothing agreed and there is every prospect of another flunked summit at the end of this month. Kicking the can down the road to October may be easy for politicians but by then the Christmas delivery season will be in full swing for the logistics sector and another four months of planning time will have been lost. Our members want to make things work, but our hands are tied. With “Armageddon” scenarios apparently being developed by Whitehall to cope with a No Deal Brexit next March even the Government seems to think it may be all over!”

FTA is hosting a one day conference, entitled Keep Britain Trading, on 20 June 2018 at 1 Great George Street, London SW1 to enable logistics operators to discuss the arrangements which need to be implemented for a smooth Brexit. Speakers will include Robin Walker MP from the Department for Exiting the EU, as well as Karen Wheeler, Director General of the Cross Government Border Delivery Group. To find out more, and book a place, please visit https://fta.co.uk/events/preparing-leaders-in-logistics-for-brexit

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There was a report on Radio 4 this morning. They sent a reporter to Norway to see how the customs work going across the border with Sweden. Norway is EFTA, Sweden is EU, Norway is not in the customs union.

Private vehicles are more or less waved through. The process takes a few seconds.

Commercial lorries take longer. It takes several minutes providing the paperwork is in order in the computer system. They also have a huge scanner that you can drive the entire lorry into for an X Ray scan.

They are working on a more sophisticated system which will bring the waiting times down to near zero -- much like our proposed Max Fac system -- but it's still not finished after three years development, which included an 18-month hiatus when they halted it because it was starting to run well over budget.

Clearly we would not be able to get this in place for next March.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Anyway, if we did aim to join EFTA, we should approach the Norwegians and see if we can help with their customs clearnace project because we need something like that whatever happens. (Only staying in the EU removed the need for some kind of customs system.)

 Future War Cultist wrote:
We need to go EFTA, so that we’re just stepping outside into the hallway rather than climbing out the window.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I should say rejoin EFTA, because the UK was a member until we joined the EU.

However, despite our prowess in big scale IT projects, the only outcome that does not require us to have something for a customs system is to stay in the EU.

Given we are going to be (in)effective EU members until the end of Dec 2020, we've now got two and a half years to invent something that supports the decision we haven't made yet about what we want to do. We might do better to hope that Norway sorts out their new system and will sell it to us.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


As Ronald Reagan once said, tear down that wall. Break these chains, these shackles, and get the feth out of the EU.

 Graphite wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


As Ronald Reagan once said, tear down that wall. Break these chains, these shackles, and get the feth out of the EU.

That must have been one of his less publicised speeches.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
We need to go EFTA, so that we’re just stepping outside into the hallway rather than climbing out the window.

As long as we get out the EU, we can escape across the roof for all I care.

As Ronald Reagan once said, tear down that wall. Break these chains, these shackles, and get the feth out of the EU.

If Britain, with all its wealth and expertise, can't come up with a half-decent IT system to sort this out, we may as well call it a day.

Billions of pounds will be lost to the exchequer as a result of delays to key HM Revenue and Customs projects caused by Brexit, The Times can reveal.

HMRC has given MPs a list, due to be published within days, of 39 IT projects and changes that have had to be put on ice as the department focuses on how it will implement customs after Brexit.

Spoiler:

 reds8n wrote:
..the gift that keeps on giving..

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7bbb110a-690a-11e8-9c53-0e2cb45ebb16

Billions of pounds will be lost to the exchequer as a result of delays to key HM Revenue and Customs projects caused by Brexit, The Times can reveal.

HMRC has given MPs a list, due to be published within days, of 39 IT projects and changes that have had to be put on ice as the department focuses on how it will implement customs after Brexit.

Spoiler:

David Davis has joked that he was not appointed to his job for “my intellect”, risking fresh accusations that he is not up to delivering Brexit.

A TV documentary on life in the European Parliament caught the Brexit Secretary’s response when he was asked if he was finding the negotiations gruelling.

“Well, I’m really probably employed for my character more than my intellect,” he replied with a chuckle.

The comment follows Mr Davis raising eyebrows last year, when he told a radio interviewer that he "doesn't have to be very clever" to do his job.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Davies is a jolly fellow, but apparently hopelessly incompetent.

Was he a Leaver? Did he not realise what a slough of despond the actual process of Brexit negotiations was going to be?

If he does resign, what kind of a signal of confidence and enthusiasm in the project does it make?

In related news, UK farmers are leaving fruit to rot in the fields because of a slump in EU seasonal labour

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


If Britain, with all its wealth and expertise, can't come up with a half-decent IT system to sort this out, we may as well call it a day.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
At any rate, I don't know why Remain supporters are that bothered by Brexit. If the latest government document is anything to go by, we're not leaving anyway.

We're looking at a 100 year transition, and the ECJ still having

Herzlos wrote:
tanked our currency (it's since recovered)

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I've heard that people of Irish descent are entitled to Irish passports even if they weren't born in Ireland. Does France do this too? My girlfriend has a French mother, would that entitle my gf to a French passport?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
My girlfriend has a French mother, would that entitle my gf to a French passport?

 Duskweaver wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
My girlfriend has a French mother, would that entitle my gf to a French passport?

Yes. Your gf would need to contact the Nationality Office in Paris to apply for a Certificate of French Nationality first. She'll need a copy of both her and her mother's birth certificates, and possibly other evidence of her mother's French citizenship.