Prepping for Brexit thread

Floss

At the end of the day, we've known it was going to happen (albeit not quite how) for some time. There are a myriad of EU regulations that will have been adopted into UK legislation without us realising, but I wonder whether we will have our own version of the CE mark? Having divorced my previously resident quality expert I'm mildly curious!

tooldle

https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/UK%20employment%20rights%20and%20the%20EU.pdf
This document from the TUC “Assessment of the impact of membership of the European Union on employment rights in the UK” is an interesting read for anyone interested in the subject.

tooldle

Floss said:

At the end of the day, we've known it was going to happen (albeit not quite how) for some time. There are a myriad of EU regulations that will have been adopted into UK legislation without us realising, but I wonder whether we will have our own version of the CE mark? Having divorced my previously resident quality expert I'm mildly curious!

The answer to this i believe is yes. That said, i’m not certain it is operational. I believe its the UKCA mark and is for use in Great Britain only, with CE mark still being required for Northern Ireland. 

Floss

tooldle said:

Floss said:
 ... but I wonder whether we will have our own version of the CE mark? Having divorced my previously resident quality expert I'm mildly curious!

The answer to this i believe is yes. That said, i’m not certain it is operational. I believe its the UKCA mark and is for use in Great Britain only, with CE mark still being required for Northern Ireland. 

Thank you! 

tooldle

I’m not sure why its called UKCA, i think GBCA would be far more accurate 

MrsStepford

GreyQueen said:

  Ahhh, the wondrous working protections afforded to us by our (then) presence in the EU. I note those protections did not include having a minimum wage which was actually enough to live on. They did not include the abuse of self-employment status so that people working exclusively for one company were deemed to be 'self-employed' and thus not eligible for the rights due to employees - and that HMRC were supine in the enforcement of their own rules. That many employed people had no access to sick pay other than the measly SSP via the government. The EU did not protect the workforce from being at the beck and call of employment agencies and gang-masters. When labour was scarcer, factories and farms managed to hire their own workers and bid against each other to get even factory hands. In decades of labour glut, somehow every high street even in market towns had to have multiple employment agencies, all offering the same wages for the same types of jobs to within 5p, in my observation. Call it out for what it is; a wage-fixing cartel.

Yup, with the loss of such 'protections', those of us in the workforce are all going to be in a much much worse place (not) ....... except there will be fewer competitors for jobs as there will be fewer EU nationals entering the country. But for the economic bloodbath caused by Covid, the generality of the workforce might have been seeing some improvements in their pay, terms and conditions in 2021; the utlimate bargaining tool being the walkaway when the employer knows they'll be short-handed and that you'll be hard to replace.

EU has nothing to do with zero hours contracts, nor MPs being self-employed for tax purposes, nor UK govt selling fish quotas to foreign companies, bor Brits generally not liking langoustines. Tories are trying to remove the 48hr maximu working week, to make Brits do longer hours. If someone walks away from a job, they dont get benefits for 13 weeks. 

MrsStepford

European Commission approved equivalence for British organic food before the deal, so farmers and producers can continue to sell to the EU. DEFRA is trying to introduce gene editing (GM) and beekiller pesticides on sugar beet. DEFRA has to be careful, because too much divergence in standards will see British farmers and producers unable to sell to EU. 

1 tsp of that pesticide can kill 7 truck loads of bees. No bees, no food. 

Farway

MrsStepford said:

European Commission approved equivalence for British organic food before the deal, so farmers and producers can continue to sell to the EU. DEFRA is trying to introduce gene editing (GM) and beekiller pesticides on sugar beet. DEFRA has to be careful, because too much divergence in standards will see British farmers and producers unable to sell to EU. 

1 tsp of that pesticide can kill 7 truck loads of bees. No bees, no food.

Seems the French are also approving it's use, one rule for them etc?

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/France-approves-three-year-use-of-controversial-pesticide-neonicotinoids

Merlin's_Beard

MrsStepford said:

European Commission approved equivalence for British organic food before the deal, so farmers and producers can continue to sell to the EU. DEFRA is trying to introduce gene editing (GM) and beekiller pesticides on sugar beet. DEFRA has to be careful, because too much divergence in standards will see British farmers and producers unable to sell to EU. 

1 tsp of that pesticide can kill 7 truck loads of bees. No bees, no food. 

Farway said:

MrsStepford said:

European Commission approved equivalence for British organic food before the deal, so farmers and producers can continue to sell to the EU. DEFRA is trying to introduce gene editing (GM) and beekiller pesticides on sugar beet. DEFRA has to be careful, because too much divergence in standards will see British farmers and producers unable to sell to EU. 

1 tsp of that pesticide can kill 7 truck loads of bees. No bees, no food.

Seems the French are also approving it's use, one rule for them etc?

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/France-approves-three-year-use-of-controversial-pesticide-neonicotinoids

Both Britain and France have passed an emergency authorisation of the pesticide in question, which does kill bees.

However, background.

Global warming is happening. The climate is changing. Last winter was really mild, so an exceptional number of aphids survived, because there were few frosts to thin them out. These aphids are annoying, but they also transmit beet malaria, a disease which  decimates crops (80% loss of crop in some cases) and means that there are few beets for the domestic sugar production, or for their other uses (beet tops at the end of the year can feed migrating birds).

This temporary, emergency authorisation which scientific consensus says is of net benefit - which allows farmers to use the pesticide for a limited amount of  time, at a specific point in the crop growth - may be what saves the domestic growth of this crop. If it doesn't get authorised then the  other options are buying in the crop from abroad -say, France, or other EU countries which  are likely to approve its use. It's not going to be allowed on other crops, it's not even going to be allowed all the time on the crop it will have the temp licence for.

[Deleted User]

Thank you, it puts what on the face of it is something to horrify the layman and arouse anger into complete context with the actual explanation of why and how and when things can be used...a breath of fresh air in a stressful time when small things can rapidly become big things and add to the stress we're all under.