Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

I'm not sure, but wikipedia has a longer report abut the Suiss-EU relations.

Everyday dairy products such as butter, yoghurt and cheese could become luxury items in Britain after Brexit, with price rises being caused by the slightest delay in the journey from farm to table, a report by the London School of Economics finds.

The LSE research, commissioned by the company behind Lurpak, Anchor and Arla brands, also found that speciality cheeses could become scarce after Brexit, with escalating costs whatever the outcome of the exit negotiations.

Ash Amirahmadi, the UK managing director of Arla Foods, said: “Our dependence on imported dairy products means that disruption to the supply chain will have a big impact. Most likely we would see shortages of products and a sharp rise in prices, turning everyday staples like butter, yoghurts, cheese and infant formula, into occasional luxuries. Speciality cheeses, where there are currently limited options for production, may become very scarce.”

The LSE report comes a year to the day after the government was warned that it was “sleepwalking” into a post-Brexit future of insecure, unsafe and increasingly expensive food supplies.

Theresa May has struggled to explain how her post-Brexit customs plan will work, during a difficult appearance before a Commons committee where one senior MP said the proposals had left her “really baffled”.

In tough exchanges at the liaison committee, which brings together the chairs of each of the subject-specific select committees, the prime minister eventually seemed to concede that elements of the plan were still to be decided.

Coming shortly after the former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, labelled May’s customs idea “a fantastical, Heath Robinson customs arrangement”, the PM was pressed repeatedly on the issue by Yvette Cooper.

The Labour MP, who chairs the home affairs committee, asked how mutual trade in a future era of potentially different tariffs would work, noting that the Brexit white paper says Britain is “not proposing that the EU applies the UK’s tariffs and trade policy at its border for goods intended for the UK”.

This is a key contradiction for May’s “facilitated customs arrangement”, after she a accepted on Monday an amendment to the customs bill that said the UK could not collect duties on goods on behalf of the EU unless there was a reciprocal arrangement.

May said there was no disconnect, insisting the white paper allowed for reciprocity. She said it proposed a method under which any varying tariffs would be collected for goods arriving in the UK destined for the EU, and vice versa.

“The important thing here is there is reciprocity in the sums of money that would be paid,” she said.

However, under repeated questioning from Cooper, May struggled to explain how the system would actually operate.

“This is not a question of somebody physically handing cash over at the border,” the PM said, but added only that a “formula revenue agreement” would determine what payments were made and to whom.

Cooper asked where this would happen. May replied: “There will be a formula agreement with the the European Union in terms of the sums of money ... Importers will be under a requirement to ensure they have paid the correct tariffs.”

When she was then asked to whom the money would be paid, she responded: “What matters is what money comes to the United Kingdom.”

After more expressions of confusion from Cooper, May appeared to concede that many details had yet to be worked out.

Cooper said May’s responses had left her “really baffled”, adding: “We’ve still got this statement in the white paper which says that we’re not going to have the EU applying the UK’s tariffs and trade policies at the border, but you accepted an amendment, new clause 36 two days ago, which requires reciprocity.”

Cooper said such vagueness risked jeopardising public faith in May’s Brexit plans: “Everybody’s confused, and as a result nobody trusts what the government is doing.”

May responded: “I’m not sure what is baffling about it, exchanging sums of money that are relevant to both parties, but there we are.”

Coming shortly after the former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, labelled May’s customs idea “a fantastical, Heath Robinson customs arrangement”

I think after they finally cut this cord, things will improve.

Mr Barnier said Ms May’s complicated proposal for customs would likely create huge amounts of new paperwork, warning: “Brexit cannot and will not justify additional bureaucracy”.

The Commission chief negotiator also raised a series of concerns with the PM’s plan to keep the UK following a “common rulebook” of single market rules for goods, which she had hoped would allow frictionless trade with the EU.

Mr Barnier said the plan to exclude UK services from following single market rules could give a “significant competitive advantage” to the UK and that agreeing to such a plan might not be in the EU’s best interests.

He also suggested it would be unreasonable to exclude some goods such as animal feed from the rulebook, as proposed by the UK, stating: “We have a duty of care to protect consumer sin the single market and on which basis could we accept the free circulation of goods?”

The chief negotiator also said the EU could not delegate collection of its own customs duties to a country that was not a member state – suggesting that the backbone of the PM’s proposal might not even be ”legally feasible”. Mr Barnier also said there would be “practical problems” determining which tariff to apply to goods and that there was ”major risk of fraud”.

But he was was careful not to reject the plan outright, phrasing his criticism as questions to the UK negotiators. Mr Barnier said the plan was positive in many ways, including the UK signing up to EU “level playing field” competition rules, the creation of a free trade agreement, and on security cooperation.

“There’s no justification for us to create additional burdens on business just because the UK wants to leave,” he told reporters in Brussels. ”If you look at the political situation today we have many reasons to keep and protect our single market, find ways of cooperating with the UK, whilst respecting their decision to leave the EU and looking at the red lines of the UK. They’re the ones who established the red lines.”

The intervention by Mr Barnier represents the first response from the to the PM's white paper, which Boris Johnson, David Davis, and the majority of ministers at the Department for Exiting the EU quit the government over.

The EU official reiterated that the UK needed to agree to a "backstop" solution to the Northern Ireland border if it wanted a withdrawal agreement and did not want to crash out with no deal come March. He stated that there were just 13 weeks of talks left.

I think after they finally cut this cord, things will improve. The sky isn’t falling.

Pre-Obama, most American presidents would have embraced a post-EU England.