https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1357292569512837121
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1357292569512837121.html
On Brexit, James Buchan, Chief Exec of Scottish Seafood Association tells the Scottish Affairs Select Committee: “I’m not going to say it any other way: for our members it has not been the best deal- it’s a sad state of affairs.”
James Withers, Chief Exec, Scottish Food and Drink Federation adds: “There have been catastrophic decisions taken to create enormous non-tariff barriers. We have ended up with a trading regime which is complex, costly, slow, prone to break down at its best.”
Withers continues “At its worst some food exporters have been shut out of the EU market altogether in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Unfortunately it’s the very predictable outcome of trying to test a multi billion £ trading system in real time in the middle of a pandemic.”
Withers excoriating about the UK government’s approach: “We asked, we pleaded for a grace period. Those pleas fell on deaf ears...Instead we got a deal on Xmas Eve, a final border operating model on NYE and a lot of businesses feel they were thrown to the wolves the next day.”
“If we listed everything what has gone wrong we’d just run out of time. It’d be dark very soon...The biggest single challenge we have right now is denial, denial from the UK government in particular on the scale of the problem.”
“We can’t accept that these are just teething problems, or even the statement from @DefraGovUK this week that trade continues to flow smoothly because it doesn’t. It’s not flowing smoothly and it hasn’t done for five weeks.”
Elaine Whyte, Exec Sec Clyde Fishermen’s Association: “Our EU markets took 40 years to build up. We can’t just go to the Far East, we can’t go there overnight...there are big issues about customers going to Norway and Ireland for the same product.”
Withers: “I know the PM on Xmas Eve said there weren’t any non tariff barriers. Well there are and they’re huge. The reality is now we’ve got a third country delivery system which was never built for the UK. Never built for those moving perishable products from Scotland.” .@scotfoodjames: “It’s easier to send red meat to New Zealand at the moment than it is to send it 30 miles across the English Channel.”
“Buyers, loyal customers of ours built up over 40 years are already going elsewhere. Seafood buyers are going to Norway and Denmark instead of Scotland. Red meat buyers are going to Spain and Ireland inst
... keep reading on reddit ➡Or Alan Rickman, Samuel L Jackson, Ian Mckellen, Or Martin Lawrence? This just randomly popped in my head lol
James Earl Ray is the man who pleaded guilty for the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior. At the time he was a wanted man, and had he been pulled over, there's a good chance he would have been arrested on an outstanding warrant. What if he never got got a chance to kill MLK?
