Post-Brexit trade deal - Customs?

[Jonny Hart]

Well this is interesting. My parts man sources parts from Denso, Nissens and Hella. all based in the EU. The first two are business as normal but Hella charged £60 handling fee for a shipment, citing Brexit. Our man challenged this and the fee was refunded and will not be charged again.

[davidoft]

Well this is interesting. My parts man sources parts from Denso, Nissens and Hella. all based in the EU. The first two are business as normal but Hella charged £60 handling fee for a shipment, citing Brexit. Our man challenged this and the fee was refunded and will not be charged again.

no doubt there will be a slight increase in parts over time

[KS]

An interesting aside... My wife is the retail manager of a large plant nursery here in Cornwall. Today she spoke with a supplier in Holland from whom she orders houseplants and cacti. Aside from the individual specimen plant orders, they also offer mixed trolley-loads of houseplants and cacti, as supplied by their grower. Today she learned that the supplier could no longer sell these mixed trolleys to the UK as under the new post-Brexit customs laws, each individual plant has to be listed on paperwork – you can't just say 'mixed selection'. The consequence is that it is no longer viable to offer such deals as the amount of time it would take for the supplier to go through each trolley-load of plants and identify each variety would mean it wouldn't be cost-effective.

So watch out for increased costs at nurseries and garden centres, too...

[Jonny Hart]

^ Two sides to every story Keith. My missus has been growing British seasonal cut flowers for over 10 years. There is still almost no appreciation of environmental cost of imported plants and flowers due to heating greenhouses, pesticides, refrigeration and transport. The playing field is most certainly not level with Holland/Kenya having monopolised the market.

Look up ‘exporting drought’. It’s what you are doing if you are buying imported plants, flowers, fruit and veg etc.

We really do have to get out of this dependency on imports for the planet’s sake!!!!

[Jonny Hart]

I might add that buying ‘mixed selection’ undocumented plants is a potential bio hazard but to hell with our natural habitat. We lost our Elm trees to Dutch Elm Disease (which was imported from Canada) and we are currently losing our Ash trees to Ash die back that was imported from Holland.

Cheap always costs.

[inaglasshouse]

Keep it up, chaps, very educational.
I'm soooo bored in lockdown that I've started trolling the for sale threads. At least here I'm learning something about tax and flowers.

[gridgway]

I might add that buying ‘mixed selection’ undocumented plants is a potential bio hazard but to hell with our natural habitat. We lost our Elm trees to Dutch Elm Disease (which was imported from Canada) and we are currently losing our Ash trees to Ash die back that was imported from Holland.

Cheap always costs.

I don't subscribe to that argument at all. Dutch elm disease had nothing to do with cost saving. Nor ash die back. Trying to forge an argument that those things won't happen in our brave post Europe world looks challenging to me. I can see we are on very different sides of this debate!

[Jonny Hart]

I don’t do politics on social media but since DDK is quite a friendly and open minded bunch I thought I’d give my views.

There are a proportion of Brexit supporters, myself included, who voted to leave the EU on environmental and social equality grounds. This aspect very rarely gets debated.

I don’t have a political allegiance, I wasn’t manipulated by Russian hackers. I do drive a white van sometimes.

[Jonny Hart]

I might add that buying ‘mixed selection’ undocumented plants is a potential bio hazard but to hell with our natural habitat. We lost our Elm trees to Dutch Elm Disease (which was imported from Canada) and we are currently losing our Ash trees to Ash die back that was imported from Holland.

Cheap always costs.

I don't subscribe to that argument at all. Dutch elm disease had nothing to do with cost saving. Nor ash die back. Trying to forge an argument that those things won't happen in our brave post Europe world looks challenging to me. I can see we are on very different sides of this debate!

Cost had everything to do with it. There are only two reasons why things get imported. Either you don’t produce them or they are cheaper to import. The side effect of importing elm goods in the 60’s led to an unintended importing of the disease.

We are now applying our own biosecurity standards to plant imports. How is that a bad thing?

Yes it will be challenging.

[70sThrowback]

On the tree front, I was talking to a local developer who told me the cost of importing a container full of mature trees (from Holland) has gone up in January from 2k to 7k, making it basically unaffordable. They were wanting to plant mature trees along the boundary. His impression was that they bumped up the price citing Brexit but couldn't justify where this extra cost came from. Perhaps its just a case of getting used to new rules etc... but it did make me think and following on from Jonnys comments, perhaps this will enable UK producers to be more competitive (albeit more expensive to the consumer)

[KS]

BTW, the supplier in Holland isn't some cheap operation producing crap plants at rock bottom prices, but probably the best respected business in its field, with very high bio-standards. The paperwork in this instance has nothing to do with bio-standards, solely on customs red tape. The bio-standards paperwork is already available. Remember, serious horticultural enthusiasts are no different to car enthusiasts – they want interesting products that in many cases cannot be found elsewhere. If you use the 'well, tough - buy British and nothing else' argument, then it is very hard to justify being a Porsche enthusiast. Want a repair panel for you Porsche? You have two choices: buy Dansk (or Porsche, which in many cases is the same thing...) or have panels made by skilled British craftsman like Barry Carter or Steve Kerti. Dansk can undercut the prices by producing parts in volume. Is that a crime?

[kitesurfer2]

Hey at least we're not storming Parliament yet!

[Jonny Hart]

Remember, serious horticultural enthusiasts are no different to car enthusiasts – they want interesting products that in many cases cannot be found elsewhere.

Yes, I live with one. My mother's side of the family are all farmers and by stepmother is a botanist (retired but used to work for Kew) so I do know a bit about this subject. You are out of touch, the message for many years now is native species and protecting our natural habitat, not flying in a load of alien species. This is not just about the UK, EVERY country needs to think about this.

Xyllella is already taking hold. https://planthealthportal.defra.gov.uk/ ... s/xylella/

Personally, I don't believe that regulation works that well unless you go full NZ (where there are super tight checks on plants and seeds), but reducing the amount of imported plants will help.

====

As for the 'we wont get strawberries in December' gang. Click on the link below - it's one of the main areas in Spain that your imported fruit/veg comes from. The soil is turning to sand, the labour force are over worked /under paid African migrants who live in squalor. Yet all under the wonderful EU regulations apparently.

All for hard, tasteless strawberry in December. How can anybody agree that this is a good thing on ANY level whatsoever?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/04716 ... -2.7421188

[KS]

Jonny, you're missing my point – the post wasn't about seasonal vegetables or fruit (which I thoroughly agree with you about), or the ethics of importing goods from abroad, but the red tape which has absolutely zero to do with protecting local species.

But anyway, we'll draw a line under it there and get back to cars and parts...

In which case, I guess we should all be driving Morgans and TVRs, or Austins. And definitely not importing parts from abroad.

[neilbardsley]

Someone will be standing at the white cliffs of Dover shooting at returning birds, shouting don't bring your foreign bio crap in here. We've taken back control

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