Today we hear that it will be a catastrophe if an effective customs system is not in place by the time Brexit comes about….long queues and food rotting at the ports.
Why though might there not be an effective system? The BBC does tell us….
MPs warn of Brexit customs ‘catastrophe’
The Public Accounts Committee warned of “huge disruption” to businesses, “massive queues” at Dover port and food rotting in lorries at the border.
The committee’s report urged the government to commit the “relatively small” sum of £7.3m to upgrade the existing system to cope with this increase if the move to the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) was delayed.
So some upfront funding, a tiny amount, is needed to fend off catastrophe. Hmmm OK, not unexpected. In fact people were demanding that not long ago in October and the request was rudely rebuffed by our pro-EU Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Brexit chaos as Philip Hammond refuses to budget for ‘no deal’ days after Theresa May announces plans
Preparations for a “no deal’ Brexit have been plunged into further confusion after the Chancellor said it would be irresponsible to start spending billions of pounds now.
Philip Hammond is refusing to open up the Treasury coffers yet, just days after Theresa May announced emergency plans to avoid border meltdown for businesses and travellers.
Those plans would involve spending huge sums of money on new IT systems and border processes, lorry parks and extra staff – when the Treasury already faces a daunting Budget “black hole”
So an anti-Brexit chancellor is doing all he can to make Brexit a disaster, a ‘catastrophe’, and does so in complete opposition to the PM.
And yet the BBC makes absolutely no reference to this? No mention that it is the pro-EU chancellor’s refusal to do anything that would ensure Brexit works that could lead to ‘catastrophe’?
How odd that the pro-EU BBC should fail to mention that when the PAC Chair says HMRC ‘should be banging on the doors of the Treasury.’
May should have ‘reshuffled’ Hammond months ago.
The BBC waffles on about a great deal here…and yet the main point of the PAC is the funding…it is the Chair’s only real point….
Chair’s comment
Comment from Public Accounts Chair, Meg Hillier MP:
“Failure to have a viable customs system in place before the UK’s planned exit from the EU would wreak havoc for UK business, trade and our international reputation. Confidence would collapse amid the potentially catastrophic effects.
HMRC is under considerable pressure to deliver the new Customs Declaration Service in time, but it does not yet have funding to increase the capacity of CDS to deal with the consequences of Brexit—nor to develop contingency options.
This is deeply worrying. HMRC requires a relatively small sum to upgrade the current CHIEF system—a move which would provide some peace of mind to traders, many of whom are still operating with limited information and in great uncertainty.
HMRC tells us it is merely ‘in conversation’ over CHIEF upgrade costs when, on behalf of business and the British public, it should be banging on the doors of the Treasury.
HMRC must press the case to secure this funding now and ensure that, if other plans fail, customs will be fit for purpose.”
Remember the Millennium Bug?
The issue of capacity is simply a matter of buying more servers to run the system in parallel. Extra server capacity can be bought and installed in weeks. training will take a little longer, but there is no reason to make a fuss yet.
Hand the job to a freight forwarder.
AM, standard practice, is it not? You always never make the old system redundant for some time, until the new system is bug free and proven as reliable.
An example of a ‘canard’ from the BBC due to a lack of world knowledge from … Mark Mardell. He really is useless and the BBC should let him go. Divide his salary among the underpaid females, BBC.
As the so called negotiations drag on it becomes ever more clear that most of the government ministers and most of our Westminster politicians have no intention of honouring the referendum result. The very best that we Leavers will get is something like associate status of the EU with Brussels still being able to call the shots. This may be presented as honouring the referendum result but it most certainly won’t be, democracy will have been trampled in the dirt. Of course in my view we threw away our chance of leaving properly at the GE.
I think that Leavers should now give a lot of thought to how they will react after the reversal of the referendum takes place. The Remainers , if they give any thought at all to how Leavers will react , seem to think that we can be duped into believing that the outcome was democratic. Perhaps their view that all Leavers are stupid allows them to kid themselves about this. However the elite must feel confident that they will be able to force their view on us and make it stick or they wouldn’t be contemplating this. I think that the fall out will be wide spread with the damage to the people’s confidence in British democracy being deep and long lasting. If politicians are concerned that people don’t think much of them now, just wait until they succeed in overturning the Referendum result. Contempt will the word on all Leavers lips.
In the space of twenty years we will have a PM Blair opening the doors to mass migration whilst deliberately lying about it and keeping it secret and then the greatest democratic exercise ever in our history will have been ignored by the politicians. On top of all that anyone who opposes mass migration or Islamisation is persecuted by the police and the elite. Do they really expect to put up with this? Do they really expect us to regard them as fit and proper people to lead us?
The longer brexit drags on the greater the chance of it being voted down by Parliament. This is why its absolutely critical to get through as quickly as possible, even if that means a no deal! Time is not brexits friend and sadly remoaners and the EU know this.
Indeed, mailman, and the BBC yesterday were making references to the transition period on R4. Thing is, to the best of my knowledge, Brussels and its Brexit team, let alone the other member States, have not yet agreed to any such thing.
29 March 2019 and the UK leaves the EU with or without deal.
What these Remoaner traitors refuse to consider is that if they prevent our Leaving then those of us who voted to Leave won’t just magically disappear, rather they’ll just delay the day when we Leave and probably cause many deaths if we have to fight for our freedom. The blood will be on their hands and we will still win – we’ll still Leave.
If we leave the customs union, everyone is automatically assuming we will slap on tariffs, but of course we dont have to! Think of the moral high ground we would conquer and the game of chicken that the EU would then find themselves in. Also savour the pleasure of watching Remoaner jaws hitting the floor as they see all those trucks being waived through at Dover, just like the good ol’ days of being in the EU.