Data flows in a no-deal Brexit are a 'significant' concern – MPs The lack of agreement on data flows in a no-deal Brexit is a "significant" concern and possible solutions are "burdensome and costly" to already underprepared businesses, MPs have said. The comments were made in a report issued by the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in response to UK prime minister Theresa May's historic loss …
I'd like to think that the £39bn divorce bill is buying quite a lot of goodwill from the EU. On the other hand it might just be a demonstration of why agreeing the bill before finalising the departure terms was, arguably, more stupid than holding the referendum in the first place.
The £39bn is basically the UK settling its account - it's not a purchase of goodwill.
The way I see the situation, it's running up a large bar tab at your local hostelry. You decide to take your business elsewhere, so the landlord expects you to settle the bill before you go. In the case of Brexit, you can extend the analogy that it's like you've spent the last few years calling the barman a c***, but still expect him to sell you beer at a discount.
The WA is payment for all work agreed previously up until now, citizens rights, and a plug-in architecture for a later trade agreement called a backstop. Unfortunately there's a problem with the plug-in API, there are too many dependencies between NI and GB meaning the trade agreement won't work with anything but SM & CU. Strangely enough this feature was added at the user's request but it seems the user (the UK) didn't know what it was asking for.
So it just shows you have to get it right at the design stage otherwise your project turns into Agile hell.
What makes you think that?
"Brexit BASICs" in terms of data interchange might mean punched tape by horseback, in the Rees-Mogg view of the world.
Still, at least we can spend less money on memory by going back to a world where 8 bits per character was always enough. None of this foreign rubbish where the most significant bit can't be freely used for other purposes, or sliced off as payment for the moneychangers.
Loads of factories, retailers, etc, don't seem to think they'll have much work needing doing in a few weeks time.
What would be a good choice of date for a General Strike this year? November 5 is far too far away. Bastille Day might have unwelcome connotations.
How about May Day? It might be an appropriate choice of day to shut England down (yes just England, actually maybe just the City and Westminster, if we can make the shutdown a bit longer than Rees-Mogg and mates wanted) for an extra few days holiday. May Day would be appropriate in so many ways.
Be there or be square. Parliament Square. Everybody's on the square these days.
"in the Rees-Mogg view of the world"
Just a thought. As he's moved his business over to Ireland to stay in the EU is there any chance of him getting caught making illegal data transfers as a result? I assume the Irish regulators are going to be very vigilant and not very forgiving, what with what all the trouble he's causing in relation to the border.
> Still, at least we can spend less money on memory by going back to a world where 8 bits per character was always enough. None of this foreign rubbish where the most significant bit can't be freely used for other purposes, or sliced off as payment for the moneychangers.
If there is to be no 'foreign rubbish' then 7 bit ASCII will do just fine. :-)
> You do realise you will be depriving people of their emojis. How will they communicate without them?
From the ICO blog it looks like post-Brexit Amazon UK will be able to continue to pass my details to Amazon Luxembourg so that they can claim the VAT etc. and fulfil my orders...
However, if you are in the EU, you will have to deal directly with Amazon UK if you want them to send you anything...
It seems that the government is unleashing a new wave of scaremongering reports. Businesses are not unprepared and they can deal with whatever will be the outcome of the negotiations. Problem will arise only in case of withdrawal of passporting right for financial services, but that won't happen suddenly.
But it doesn't stop here, on the BBC right now I can see on the homepage the fake news about market shelves that would be left empty. Nobody is telling that the EU commission has already declared that in case of no deal Brexit they would leave a grace period probably until the end of the year on border controls, so no empty market shelves for now.
a grace period probably until the end of the year on border controls, so no empty market shelves for now
Well, that's a relief. We can worry about the empty shelves in time for christmas.
That's fine then, the government will already have plenty of armed troops on the streets by then, enforcing 'the will of the tory elite carpet baggers electorate'.
In 2 1/2 years, the UK government hasnt even managed to agree with itself what it wants, yet in nine months it can renegotiate all these trade deals that have a) been done over a 40 year period and b) were done by people who work for other countries or the EU now, not for the UK.
Good luck with that. Have you seen what happens to the shelves in shops when there is a bit of snow and deliveries are disrupted? By a two or three day event that they can presumably plan for at least shortly in advance? Do you really think the army would be talking about stock-piling ammunition if it wasnt considering/planning for martial law? In departments run by Brexiteers?
Let's see, I want to get the government to agree (with a few dozen other governments) on how to totally restructure an international economic system on the fly with what might as well be an infinite number of interconnected nodes, and do it in 2 months, let alone 2 years, when there is absolutely no consensus on what said restructuring will need to look like to be successful, and when "I want the government to do successfully" is already one of the silliest and least likely to be verifiable statements in the English (or any other language).
And I want it to be done based upon the vote of roughly half the voters who decided to vote based on what have been clearly verified falsehoods, misstatements, propaganda, and outright lies said by politicians, since they clearly know this way of operating far better than how to totally restructure an international economic system.
And this isn't some sort of Monty Python skit that ended up on the cutting floor of the BBC because even John and Graham thought it was too out there even for them........I'll have Spam, Spam, Eggs and Spam, please.
"Comes March there will be no empty shelves."
Oh, there will be empty shelves. Even if there's no issues at the ports and all goods are being delivered on time, there will still be empty shelves. It only take s a few people to be seen "panic buying"/buying in bulk and others will think they know something and do the same. Before you know it, the shelves rapidly begin to empty faster than even normal deliveries can cope with, never mind if there are delays at the ports.
Mind you, I'm not at all that sure the British people have managed to agree on what they want either. :-)
The referendum result doesn't exactly seemed to have made the more remain-leaning individuals go "well, alright then"; just as an opposite result would be have unlikely to have stopped the more Brexit-leaning ones from continuing their preferences.
"yet in nine months it can renegotiate all these trade deals that have a) been done over a 40 year period and b) were done by people who work for other countries or the EU now, not for the UK."
Don't worry. Liam Fox is right on it. He's got lots of time - several minutes each day - between issuing warnings that not leaving the EU would cause civil unrest by the majority (he seems to be assuming its about 95% who voted to leave). Just look at the stack of agreements he's already got in place.
"not leaving the EU would cause civil unrest by the majority (he seems to be assuming its about 95% who voted to leave)."
There's an interesting article/video on the Beeb website about "dog whistling". The art of deniably giving out targeted/reinforcing messages for certain groups of people "hidden" in apparently benign messages
Until the end of the year means they have time to organize everything
By organise everything, you must mean sign hastily and badly put together trade agreements with every Lion and minnow on the planet as possible whose only advantage to the UK is another 1++ on the count of trade agreements.
We live in momentous times with huge political changes implemented on the whims of a badly put together survey, unfortunately we have political Lilliputians attempting to implement it.
Look how much time they've already had to organise anything. And they have exactly fuck all actionable plan that would actually pass parliament to show for it.
May and co. clearly can't organise a pissup in a brewery. What makes you think they'll do better with more time?
The biggest change to movement of goods and services in a generation will cause disruption - project fear
Disrupting a peace deal that brought some semblance of peace after decades of murder and mayhem - project fear
Companies spending significant sums of their own money to buy up all the available storage space in the country - project fear
Businesses tightly tied to just-in-time logistics chains considering their long term future here - project fear
Government prioritising the transport of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies - project fear
Government hiring a ferry company with no ferries to provide capacity for trade - project fear
Government building hard-standing, loos and other infra-structure on an unused airfield to store the lorries with their rotting produce - project fear
Seriously I cannot believe a developed country at the start of the 21st Century is placing itself on a war footing for such an ill-conceived, ill-thought out and nebulous concept as 'taking back control'. It is as clear as it is ever going to be that we are ceding control in every area that matters and our children will never forgive use for what we have wrought.
Oh well, I'm in the prosperous south, my home is mostly paid off and I can fairly readily move to a low-income life-style if necessary. I'm pretty sure I will be okay but I do fear for my kids and the people who thought the 'elites' had forgotten them before the referendum are going to find out what oblivion is like.
Happy New year everyone!
This post has been deleted by its author
If we have ceded control of things that matter, they're being run by people doing a good job!
Actually this is not correct. The UK never ceded control on anything, they just became part of a group whose purpose was joining their forces. Being a peer in the group doesn't mean ceding control.
it does in the ears of the "Britannia rules the waves crowd".
I read an interesting article the other day about how a certain section of England (yes, it's mainly Engladers), have never understood the concept of nations on an equal footing, coorporating with each other. they only understand the world in terms of dominance and submission. its a side effect of a diet of patriotism, war stories and nostalgia of the British empire. often they dont realise that the empire is long gone and we dont actually rule Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India (both the brownies to the east and the brownies to the west) anymore. More often than not, they scoff at these colonial upstarts questioning just how great the Pax Britannic actually was for them - given the raping, pillaging, genocide, theft, slavery, etc etc.
in any case, the upshot was that Englanders simply dont understand that the EU was simply the UK cooporating with our nearest neighbours as equals. not us dominating them. or them dominating us. but equals. its a concept they cant get their heads around.
Indeed, cooperating as equals. However, I have questions: How come Spain and Portugal have shiny new highways and trains, yet the UK doesn't? How come Germany has such a large trade surplus but the UK doesn't? How come Ireland, Nederlands, and Luxembourg have such clever tax shenanigans but the UK....barely almost does? And, when Germany forces corporate tax-rate equalization on the UK and Ireland, will they simultaneously and diligently correct their trade imbalaces? Peers indeed.
"How come Spain and Portugal have shiny new highways and trains, yet the UK doesn't?" (etc)
Good points, good questions., but you then rather spoil it with:
"when Germany forces corporate tax-rate equalization on the UK and Ireland, "
Why would that happen?
On the other hand, something to reduce intra-EU moneyshifting purely for corporate tax dodging was due to happen (is happening?) across the EU as of 1 January 2019, based on research and proposals dating back to 2015, not that most people in the UK will have heard about it, though the likes of Lawson, Farage, and Rees-Mogg were well aware of its potential impact and have planned, acted, misdirected, and relocated (including relocating Big Money) accordingly.
Freedom of movement for ordinary folks isn't permissible, but unlimited freedom of movement of Big Money is sacred, for these folks.
You can see why certain corporates, especially multinationals and their financial/strategic advisers would be (a) very unhappy with this proposal and (b) want to hide their real reasons for objecting (which, sadly, they have done very well).
"On 28 January 2016 the Commission presented its proposal for an Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive as part of the Anti-Tax Avoidance Package. On 20 June 2016 the Council adopted the Directive (EU) 2016/1164 laying down rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market.
In order to provide for a comprehensive framework of anti-abuse measures the Commission presented its proposal on 25th October 2016, to complement the existing rule on hybrid mismatches. The rule on hybrid mismatches aims to prevent companies from exploiting national mismatches to avoid taxation.
[...]
The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive contains five legally-binding anti-abuse measures, which all Member States should apply against common forms of aggressive tax planning.
Member States should apply these measures as from 1 January 2019.
It creates a minimum level of protection against corporate tax avoidance throughout the EU, while ensuring a fairer and more stable environment for businesses.
* Controlled foreign company (CFC) rule: to deter profit shifting to a low/no tax country.
* Switchover rule: to prevent double non-taxation of certain income.
* Exit taxation: to prevent companies from avoiding tax when re-locating assets.
* Interest limitation: to discourage artificial debt arrangements designed to minimise taxes.
* General anti-abuse rule: to counteract aggressive tax planning when other rules don’t apply.
"
from
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en
See also
europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-6853_en.pdf
"[...]
The rules build on global standards developed by the OECD in 2015 on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) and should help to prevent profits being siphoned out of the EU where they go untaxed. In detail:
* All Member States will now tax profits moved to low-tax countries where the company does not have any genuine economic activity (controlled foreign company rules)
* To discourage companies from using excessive interest payments to minimise taxes, Member States will limit the amount of net interest expenses that a company can deduct from its taxable income (interest limitation rules)
* Member States will be able to tackle tax avoidance schemes in cases where other anti-avoidance provisions cannot be applied (general anti-abuse rule)."
(etc)
Share and enjoy.
"Companies spending significant sums of their own money to buy up all the available storage space in the country - project fear"
I wonder how much Rees-Moggs and Johnsons investments funds have in UK warehousing? And how much have the rental/storage rates increased in recent months?
Project Fear, Gammon, Snowflake, Blue passports, "taking back control"...
What a collosal waste of money and poor planning. How could anyone vote for the Conservative Party after the 948 days. ( https://days.to/since/uk-european-union-referendum-vote )
Really - 948 days x however many MPs salaries... total waste of money.
Be prepared. Like contingency freight deal handed on a plate to Seaborne Freight under the "unforeseen circumstances" exception. Except the relevant snouts in the trough were preparing for it two years earlier.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17350250.snps-joanna-cherrys-grilling-of-hapless-tory-goes-viral/
You bring brexit into every forum!
Inevitable, it's settled into every pore in the country, clogging it up with the same greasy palmed ooze on the hands of most politicians and every cabinet hound.
As clogged as the roads up from the ports of the south will be within two months.
On the 'every cloud has a silver lining' front though, it'll make adventuresome wayward immigration by dinghy across more difficult, given the barricade of parked freight that'll be queued up round the coast waiting for processing by ledger, ink and quill 'cause certain systems aren't ready/broken/overbudget but'll be delivered anyday/awaiting sign-off.
In another masterpiece of planning, with companies struggling to cope with whatever Brexit will bring, because we still don't know, and government clearly doesn't have a clue. HMRC chose to have their flawed "Make Tax Digital! (MTD)" initiative coincide with Brexit. To demonstrate how little they care for the people who have to make MTD work, they have listed lots of approved products but offer absolutely no guidance at all about which product will work with a particular OS. If you want to know, you have to trawl every website listed looking for details. And of course the vendors are most unwilling to make it clear which platforms they support and they are certainly not going to be clear about how much it will cost.
To compound woes there's very little written guidance from HMRC. Some moron thought that making several long videos with "friendly" little animations that take a long time to say nothing was more important than writing some short, effective guides to what the changes actually mean.
It's a perfect clustermess. Two significant changes in a four week period, but neither is defined, there's no help available and the government departments concerned don't care. All to be made at a time when, if the politicians slip on the banana skins that they have used to carpet Westminster, business will bear the brunt.
Gee thanks gummint, you really do have the attitude that Boris Johnson showed, "F*ck business!"
"they have listed lots of approved products but offer absolutely no guidance at all about which product will work with a particular OS."
Well, duh! Everyone paying tax uses Windows of course. Only struggling artists use Macs and only cheapskate dole wallahs use that free Linux thing.
Icon for the hard of humour ----------------------->
"Only struggling artists use Macs and only cheapskate dole wallahs use that free Linux thing."
Making a rod for my own back, I know, but having found that there's no support for Open/Libre Office at all (so far only big accounting packages and some add-ins for Excel support MTD). I've asked HMRC how I can register as a developer so that I can produce something to interface Libre Office to the HMRC API. I'd rather contribute some hours/days to a project than stick money into the pockets of the big five.
We haven't had a responsible government for years
The current government has got to be a new low. If the May deal were were a little plastic square for one of those 'shape fits hole' tests, the examiner would have given the examinee a slap round the back of the head by now for repeatedly trying to fit the square through the triangle hole.
through the triangle hole."
Yes, the more I see of May's "thinking" the more I get a feeling she on the spectrum for ASD.
Someone one with no empathy with an inability to read people is not exactly what you want in the leader of a country moving toward a colossal s**tstorn.
I like this from a BBC article...
The EU's deputy chief negotiator Sabine Weyand also said on Monday that there was a high risk of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal by accident and that other options for the Irish border had been extensively discussed with her UK counterparts during negotiations.
She said there was "full ownership of what was agreed" in the EU, but "no ownership" of it in the UK Parliament.
She also went on to single out Therasa May for doing the deal "in secret" with just a few close ministers/advisor instead of being open with Parliament over the two years.
I find it hard to disagree with the above.
"If the May deal were were a little plastic square for one of those 'shape fits hole' tests, the examiner would have given the examinee a slap round the back of the head by now for repeatedly trying to fit the square through the triangle hole."
Actually it's more like her repeatedly trying to fit the round bit of plastic into the square hole because half of those round her are telling her to go for the triangle, half for the pentagon so four sides would be half way in between.
DPE (1918) implements GDPR, so what's the issue? Of all the myriad interconnections between the UK and the EU that could cause chaos, data flows are ,well, not bottom of the list perhaps but I can't think of many things less likely to feel some impacts. I forget the exact terminology but even pre-GDPR, transfer of PII outside the EEA was perfectly OK as long as the destination country was adjudged to have "equivalent legal protections" or words to that effect -- similar data protection and privacy laws, and working institutions and processes to enforce them. There's a short list of countries passing the test, .. ah, here we are:
https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/third-countries/
Seems pretty obvious the UK goes straight on that list, and that any reasonable lawyer* at an organisation that's party to data transfers to/from UK jurisdiction would see that there's obviously no issue.
Or they could, you know, stop AD sync'ing between the firms in the UK that are part of operations that also exist in the EU27 - just like they don't have shared AD infrastructures that cross the borders of the EEA today.
:-|
* yes, I know
We will be a third country with unknown plans in the area of data protection, which almost certainly hasn't applied to be on the list, and which has recently done its level best to annoy the list's compilers. In what sense does that make us a shoe-in to be slotted straight onto it?
Because we've already implemented GDPR to EU standards?
True and as a member of the EU we get a pass on the Data slurping Laws the government has passed over the last few years. But as a non EU member Global Slurping of Internet Data becomes problematical when wanting to get our hands on EU Citizens data.
As the prospect of 'no deal' looms, it's surprising to me how many small to medium businesses have not taken any steps to even investigate what they need to do to prepare for the contingency in respect of Data Protection. Although there's quite a lot to consider and time is now terribly short, it's not rocket surgery. It'll only be really difficult if your business has so far merely made token gestures to Data Protection compliance. A simple twelve point action plan here sums up the main requirements. They're not hard to understand, so now we all just have to get on with it.
Anyone with a brain realizes that any business with any clue would have started planning the minute Brexit was a confirmed win. Anyone thinking May would push through successfully with her idiotic bills that were basically screwing over a lot of UK businesses more than before Brexit. Hell with all the countries out there like the US and Australia would love to get direct talks with just the UK without the EU pushing them to do this and that also just to trade and pushing their own ideals and rules insteady of a hosts countries own national traditions of trade. Heck Brexit is probably a great thing for businesses that planned and made unsigned agreements with companies in other nations already just waiting for the completion to lock in the deal. That's what I'd do if I was a great CEO or CFO. Heck not doing that even if it never happens would be foolish if it does even though they saved the money now they'll be fighting over scraps later.
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