Brexit

Covid has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, but if you want to make an issue of that, name me an EU country that has had 127'000 deaths and rising.

Trying to make capital out of Covid for the purposes of Brexit doesn't wash. Just another cheap and cheesy distraction attempt that doesn't work.

Jeezus.... you must be getting desperate

Getting back on topic after the fake Aussie's latest (poor) attempt to deflect attention away from the s***pile that is Brexit:




Brexit: Delivering............er....... none of it's promises.

I take vaccination rates at that scale with a grain of salt.

There are towns in Alaska that are 100% vaccinated, though, they only had to vax about 180 people .... (there was some news spot on it not too long ago)

Numbers, geography, logistics ... and unfortunately political attitudes play a part in these rates.

You're right to ignore percentages because they can be manipulated. What can't be manipulated is 125'000 (and rising) deaths in UK to Coronavirus. The worst in Europe..

Even then, the 125'000 figure is manipulated by excluding various categories. The figure only includes those who died directly according to Covid 19 and excludes, say, those who had certain underlying conditions. The Government argues that Covid might not have been the sole reason they died and in doing so, ignores any possibility that Covid was a factor at all. Some estimates argue that the true British figure for Covid deaths should be closer to 200'000. Questions to the Health Minister about this are brushed aside or ignored completely.

Faux Aussie is only quoting vaccination rates because it was something that the Tory government lucked into.

The Oxford AstraZenica vaccine was not proven or fully tested when it became available but Johnson took a punt and signed a huge contract with AstraZenica to supply UK. It was a pure gamble on his part and it could have gone horribly wrong. No doubt had it gone wrong he would have blamed it on the EU.

But it turned out to be reliable and Britain got ahead of the game. But another factor that helped Britain get ahead was the EU making the decision to ensure that vaccines acquired by the EU were distributed fairly among member nations and there would be no "Vaccine Nationalism". They went out of their way to ensure that powerful member nations like Germany, France, Italy, Holland, etc didn't take disproportionate amounts of vaccine.

The delay in that process meant Britain got even further ahead in the vaccination programme and all of a sudden, headlines started to appear in the Tory press claiming a victory for Brexit.

It soon became apparent that AstraZenica were giving Britain priority over deliveries. AZ tried to cover their arse by claiming that they were having "production difficulties"... but it seemed a bit odd that the same machines and the same production processes were having no difficulty in production for UK supply. Hmmmmm... how does that work..?

This led to the fiasco of the threats to block exports to UK which clearly couldn't happen and only made a bad situation look worse.

It's still rumbling on and the EU won't forget this. AZ will one day need EU co-operation over something.

The bottom line, however, is that the vaccine procurement by UK was a complete and utter throw of the dice by Johnson that got lucky.

And it had nothing to do with Brexit.

This is the difference between the dignified and noble EU and the Little Englander / Brexiter.

Yes the EU is so dignified. They steal Australia's AZ vaccines and then tell us they haven't taken them they are just managing them! The CCP would be proud of such propaganda. We ordered 3.8 million doses which were to come from facilities in the EU. So far none of these have been delivered thanks to the EU stepping in to prevent a private company from fulfilling a legal contract. We have however received 700k doses from UK facilities which were not meant to supply any under the contract we have.

Then we had the EU invoking Article 16 to effectively put a hard border btw the Republic and Northern Ireland...without even bothering to inform the government of the Republic that this was their intention. Nice one. Now they did back track after a few hours but that doesn't change what they did and how they did it.

Of course we have to mention the total clusterf^ck that is the EU's vaccination procurement programme. You know, the programme that the British opted not to join. A decision that remoaners/rejoiners said would have devastating consequences for the UK. The programme that has been so badly managed by Brussels that a number of countries have now joined Hungary and Austria in deciding to purchase vaccines on their own despite pleas from the thoroughly incompetent EU that they all stick to together. Here we should mention that Moderna have gone on record saying that dealing with the EU is very 'complicated'. This led to long delays re agreements with Brussels. Compare this to their dealings with the UK and other countries.

At the end of last year we also had Brussels proudly announce a new CAI with China. Yes, this would be the same China ignoring WTO rules, crushing democracy in HK, threatening Taiwan, and imposing severe and wide-ranging repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia. How very dignified of the EU to forge closer ties with the CCP when countries like the UK are stepping back from China. Here it's worth mentioning that Article 21 of the Lisbon Treaty states: "The Union’s action on the international scene...seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity…" Yeah right.

So much dignity.

Bulls***, bulls***, bulls***.

I fail to see how vaccination rates should be taken with a grain of salt. They are simple facts that have serious health and economic implications. Yes of course vaccination rates are impacted by the things you mentioned. Most importantly in the EU and UK are they impacted by political and administrative decisions which is the whole point. When the UK opted not to join the EU's disastrous vaccination procurement programme they were loudly critised by the same people who now claim that vaccination rates are irrelevant. Only one can be bloody certain that had the EU programme been more successful than that of the UK they would be gleefully mentioning this every day and claiming it was proof that the British should have stayed in the bloc.

Bulls***. The UK's vaccination programme has been far superior to that of the EU for a number of reasons. Firstly the UK, unlike the EU, invested a substantial amount of money in the early AZ development phase. For example, in April last year the U.K. government pledged to provide £65 million to help the University of Oxford execute its production plan. This later evolved into a fully-fledged contract between the government and the British-Swedish company. Then in May the UK signed an agreement with AstraZeneca which was a binding deal establishing "the development of a dedicated supply chain for the U.K." This gave the UK a significant advantage over the EU who had no such agreement.

Then there are the differences btw the main supply contracts signed with AZ by the UK and the EU. They are in a number of areas quite similar but with some key differences. For example, under the UK contract it is specified that AZ will supply vaccine doses from it's EU plants as well as it's UK plants to the British government in order to meet their contractual obligations. The EU contract with AZ on the other hand specifies that:

"AstraZeneca shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Initial Europe Doses WITHIN the EU for distribution, and to deliver to the Distribution Hubs, following EU marketing authorization…"

There are a number of other important differences regarding the supply chain. In short the UK signed a stronger contract with AZ than did the incompetent bureaucrats in Brussels.

Now maybe like the EU you don't think contract law is important (unless it benefits the EU) or maybe you don't understand the basic concept of a contract. Could easily be both.


This was due to the differences in the nature of the contracts that AZ had with the UK and the EU.


It works very easily. The UK signed a deal with AZ covering supply chains many months before the EU did. In fact the EU's contract doesn't even specify the supply chains. Furthermore, as previously discussed, the UK's contract with AZ was stronger in key areas than the one the EU has with AZ. To you and the EU contracts may not matter, but they matter to private companies and to most governments.

During the early roll out AZ experienced a number of technical, production and logistical problems with their UK plants. These have been sorted out. Brussels came late to the party and when plants in the EU experienced variations of the same issues that had occurred in the UK the bloc demanded that they receive vaccines being made in the UK. This demand was made (and is still being made) even though the contract they have with AZ specifies that their vaccine doses are to be manufactured within the bloc. The EU wouldn't accept that their roll out, like the one in the UK, would have teething problems. Furthermore, they were of the view that if there were teething problems their vaccination supply shouldn't be impacted and that the UK should wear the consequences for the blocs actions. The arrogance is breath taking.



AZ and other companies will long remember the bullying tactics of the EU and no doubt will be far more cautious about dealing with them in the future. The EU's treatment of AZ has been appalling.





Could the UK have signed it's own independent deals with AZ and other pharmaceutical companies had they still been in the EU? Maybe. It would all be a matter of timing. The EU for example prohibits member states from signing individual contracts re covid 19 vaccines with companies that the EU already has agreements with.

The reality is that all EU member states signed up to Brussels hopelessly inadequate VPP. This was because the EU brought a LOT of pressure to bear on member states to take a 'unified' approach. Being outside of the EU meant the UK wasn't subject to this pressure and nor were they subject to any EU imposed restrictions like the one previously mentioned. So was the UK's vaccination programme the result of Brexit? No, not directly. To argue however that Brexit played no part is to place your hands over your ears whilst walking around repeating "i'm not listening" over and over and over again.

Comparing vaccination rates btw the UK and similar countries like France and Germany is a world away from comparing vaccination rates btw a small settlement of 180 people and a large town or city. It's also different to comparing vaccination rates btw say Russia and Luxembourg or India and Singapore.

7-day rolling average of deaths per day per million, ‘related to’ Covid-19

* United Kingdom: 0.45
* Germany: 1.46
* Spain: 1.85
* France: 4.06
* Italy: 6.78
* Poland: 10.09

Number of COVID-19 vaccination doses administered in Europe as of April 8, 2021, by country (per 100 population)

* United Kingdom: 55.83
* Germany: 20.33
* Spain: 20.99
* France: 19.31
* Italy: 19.95
* Poland: 19.19
* Hungary: 39.49
* Serbia: 39.49

According to the EU's own figures in 2020 the average Dane was paid over seven times the salary of the average Bulgarian. Where does this factor into the EU's so called 'level playing field'? On something as simple, as basic, as wages there is clearly no level playing field within the EU. Furthermore, Brussels usually refers to the bloc as if it were one country and yet what western democracy would allow such a huge disparity in wages btw different 'states/provinces/counties'?

Recently the IMF published their latest World Economic Outlook Projections for 2022. Some key projections for economic growth:

UK - 5.0%
EU - 3.6%
Germany - 3.1%
France - 4.1%
Italy - 3.6%
Japan - 2.4%
USA - 2.5%
Russia - 3.9%
World - 4.4%