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Politics, politics, politics

It is, but any aid to sub-Sahara Africa in itself is a contentious issue. On the face of it, you would think it is a good thing but I don't purport to know the main arguments for or against it (I'll read and forget them some Saturday night over a bottle of red).

What I see is the right have claimed the migration issue and have almost weaponised it. It is a massively important issue for everyone in Europe, no doubt about it, but the left has ceded all ground on it rather than run the risk of appearing a bigot or racist.

Ironically illegal immigration is down 96% since its peak in 2015. One of the main problems is dealing with those that are already moving around the Schengen zone. The Uk and Ireland are somewhat insulated from the problem because of their geography but it still feeds the populist narrative as Brexit demonstrates.
 
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Joining the TPP has been explicitly mentioned in the cabinet briefing document:

“A commitment to the single standards model with the EU would not be a barrier to accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
 
One way to tackle the source of the problem would be to increase trade with Africa. But can not see the French allowing the EU to do that.

The left always say the right have won the immigration debate but for years you were not even allowed to mention immigration without being accused of being racist.

When the government, any government come out and say how many council homes go to newly arrived immigrants and how much extra school places are needed because of immigrant baby boom. Then we can have a grown up and open discussion about it.

But the fact that the government hide or purposely do not get the figures tell me they are not as clear cut as the left would have you believe.

I am not at home at the moment but when I do I will get some links as to how much the population has risen in the last 10 years.

My view on immigration is that when the are unskilled jobs they should be done by our work shy benefit scum. Any left over can go to who ever.

Skilled jobs should go to the best people in the world not one small part of it.

The amount of immigration into the country should not have arbitrary levels attached to it to please UKIP and Tories. It should be decided by the government of the day on the basis of what the country needs. So if it is more then now so be it. I will just have to put up with more traffic on the road.
 
For me the two solutions are:

1) Scientific development of desalinisation membranes

2) Trade deals that allow the third world to export manufactured goods, rather than binding them with raw material exploitation only being permitted. Imagine if countries could manufacture their own coffee for example, rather than having all the revenue generating bits taking place in the first world
 
The UK population has risen from 54 million to 66 million in the last 15-20 years or so. That's a massive increase - 18% or so

Even the current (relatively low since the 2004 EU expansion) level of population growth is 0.6% per year. I.e 400,000 extra people - a new Liverpool/Sheffield/Bristol needing to be built each year

Immigration policy absolutely has to be linked to natural birth and death rates and managing a sustainable population.​
 
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By about now, we should be seeing whether the mobile phone ban at Chequers has been circumvented by any minister brave enough to smuggle a burner in his Chatham pocket so that he can leak to friendly hacks.
 
Gutter Boy said:
The UK population has risen from 54 million to 66 million in the last 15-20 years or so. That's a massive increase - 18% or so

Even the current (relatively low since the 2004 EU expansion) level of population growth is 0.6% per year. I.e 400,000 extra people - a new Liverpool/Sheffield/Bristol needing to be built each year

Immigration policy absolutely has to be linked to natural birth and death rates and managing a sustainable population.​
Click to expand...

It is the difference the rate is increasing in the last 15 years compared to the previous decades that has made it a strain on planning services.

It is not an I hate foreigners thing. But what is sustainable. The fact that the government don't want to properly record it shows political motivation to me.
 
Gutter Boy said:
For me the two solutions are:

1) Scientific development of desalinisation membranes

2) Trade deals that allow the third world to export manufactured goods, rather than binding them with raw material exploitation only being permitted. Imagine if countries could manufacture their own coffee for example, rather than having all the revenue generating bits taking place in the first world
Click to expand...
they can manufacture their own coffee can't they? https://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-10-african-coffee-isnt-worth-a-bean I had no idea why there would be restrictions on African countries trading coffee google provided the article outlining the reasons -logistics, marketing & high startup costs rather than exploitative trade deals.

* M&G seems to be a decent source.
 
r-u-s-x said:
they can manufacture their own coffee can't they? https://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-10-african-coffee-isnt-worth-a-bean I had no idea why there would be restrictions on African countries trading coffee google provided the article outlining the reasons -logistics, marketing & high startup costs rather than exploitative trade deals.

* M&G seems to be a decent source.
Click to expand...

As memory serves from earlier in the thread, the tariff on unrefined beans was minimal, the tariff on processed coffee was prohibitively high.

Which very conveniently suited the enormous coffee processing plant in Germany.
 
r-u-s-x said:
they can manufacture their own coffee can't they? https://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-10-african-coffee-isnt-worth-a-bean I had no idea why there would be restrictions on African countries trading coffee google provided the article outlining the reasons -logistics, marketing & high startup costs rather than exploitative trade deals.

* M&G seems to be a decent source.
Click to expand...
That was a good article. I'm sure tariffs come into it, but the article states that one of the reasons why Africa can't move up the value chain for coffee is that roasted beans have a shorter shelf life and they are too far away from the markets. Seems to me they should adopt the Brazilian model and concentrate on instant (providing the tariffs are not prohibitive) and unprocessed beans.
 
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nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
http://www.ico.org/documents/icc-107-7e-tariffs-trade.pdf

Page 4 has some of the tariffs
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I have become an expert in the past hour since I read about this tariff and ACP counties are excluded from the tariff (wiki appears to say this agreement runs until 2020). In all seriousness I have been trying to find out if the below is still true and to the best of my knowledge it is.


http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2005/december/tradoc_126428.pdf

SOURCE: European Commission data


Some African staples: Coffee, Cocoa, Tea

• Coffee, cocoa and tea are good examples of key ACP staple products that enjoy very

favorable preferential access to the EU market, both in their basic and processed
forms. Most types of chocolate from ACP countries enters the EU entirely tariff an
quota free. This is a significant advantage compared to non-preferential chocolate
imports. All types of unprocessed and processed coffee and tea, including instant
coffee and tea bags, also enter the EU entirely duty and quota free, along with the
vast majority of staple products that are traded by developing countries.
 
First Ive seen on those lines.

It was waaaaay back in this thread as an example of the EUs attitude to fudging others to its benefit.

When I googled around earlier there was a lot of Brexiteer blogs around it raising the same point, but I didnt want to take it as a source - and lots of dead ends. Blogs with little actual data etc. Even tried the EUs own portal on tariffs but its fudging terrible to try and navigate.

The best I came up with in my limited search was what I posted, which suggests there is a big difference between refined/processed and plain untouched coffee beans.
 
Danishfurniturelover said:
One way to tackle the source of the problem would be to increase trade with Africa. But can not see the French allowing the EU to do that.

The left always say the right have won the immigration debate but for years you were not even allowed to mention immigration without being accused of being racist.

When the government, any government come out and say how many council homes go to newly arrived immigrants and how much extra school places are needed because of immigrant baby boom. Then we can have a grown up and open discussion about it.

But the fact that the government hide or purposely do not get the figures tell me they are not as clear cut as the left would have you believe.

I am not at home at the moment but when I do I will get some links as to how much the population has risen in the last 10 years.

My view on immigration is that when the are unskilled jobs they should be done by our work shy benefit scum. Any left over can go to who ever.

Skilled jobs should go to the best people in the world not one small part of it.

The amount of immigration into the country should not have arbitrary levels attached to it to please UKIP and Tories. It should be decided by the government of the day on the basis of what the country needs. So if it is more then now so be it. I will just have to put up with more traffic on the road.
Click to expand...

Top post.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
First Ive seen on those lines.

It was waaaaay back in this thread as an example of the EUs attitude to fudging others to its benefit.

When I googled around earlier there was a lot of Brexiteer blogs around it raising the same point, but I didnt want to take it as a source - and lots of dead ends. Blogs with little actual data etc. Even tried the EUs own portal on tariffs but its fudging terrible to try and navigate.

The best I came up with in my limited search was what I posted, which suggests there is a big difference between refined/processed and plain untouched coffee beans.
Click to expand...
Yep I did a lot of looking around after posting the article and it looks correct from what I can see, wont say definitively but

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI(2018)620218
"the EU-EAC EPA will provide immediate duty-free, quota-free access to the EU market for all EAC exports,"

(EAC = Negotiations for an EPA with the members of the East African Community (EAC) – at the time: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda – were finalised in October 2014. South Sudan, which joined the EAC in 2016, did not take part in the negotiations, but can join the agreement once it comes into force.)
 
A brief fudged consensus that turns out to be utterly full of holes, as one would expect, but it has the merit of testing reaction to something described as soft brexit. Makes the road to EEA a bit easier.
 
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