v.a.t from Europe

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the black fox

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just picked up a snippet on faceberk , that if you now order buy any items from the eurozone via e.bay V.A.T will be added at point of sale .. I think that even applies to used items CAVEAT EMPTOR
 
Another feather in the cap there for those that voted leave! ;) Tail twisting aside, yes, I've seen the VAT thing recently on a used camera from France on eBay.
 
Lots more EU VAT discussion in this thread:
 
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Thanks Boris once again.

Does this apply the other way round, ie. selling prints to EU customers?

Yep, sadly it applies in both directions as we are no longer part of the same customs union, so you have to pay VAT and duty fees on goods coming into the country, and the receiver in Europe would have to pay the relevant taxes etc in their country too.
 
I am looking forward to my duty free's at the airport this year....:)
 
I am looking forward to my duty free's at the airport this year....:)
I’ll be happy if my hols to Majorca happen ,but I won’t bet on it
 
Yep, sadly it applies in both directions as we are no longer part of the same customs union, so you have to pay VAT and duty fees on goods coming into the country, and the receiver in Europe would have to pay the relevant taxes etc in their country too.

Alright that really stinks but at least I can now face the reality. I think I will forward non UK customers to fineartamerica or similar for the particular products/images and they can then also deal with vat issues and printing within that region. It's not like there is any other practical choice left.
 
There are confusion EVERYWHERE.

Sellers don't know the law.
Websites don't know the law.
Buyers don't know the law.
Couriers don't know the law.

I bought a Piano Stand from Italy this week for £66.63, under the £135 limit off Reverb (it's a massive site like eBay), the site has set up so it collects all VAT for the seller under £135 (as per their website instruction post-brexit), but when UPS has asked the seller to ask me for my National Insurance Number! I have never been asked for my NI number for buying something.

I kid you not.

p.s. I am not a n00b when it comes to international shopping, £500 pedals or £2000 guitars from the States, £3000 camera gear from Hong Kong, massive figurines from Japan. I know which couriers does what and which charges fees when and how much to expect. The fees i couldn't give 2 toss about but the confusion on the whole thing from people who don't know what they are doing is fustrating.

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If VAT is being added for a sale to UK surely the EU seller won't be adding EU VAT too?
 
I think it was obvious from the start that Johny foreigner was going to try to make it as difficult as possible for us. the ungrateful bar stewards forget what we did for them in the 1940's ... but every dog has his day ... out turn will come
 
I think it was obvious from the start that Johny foreigner was going to try to make it as difficult as possible for us. the ungrateful bar stewards forget what we did for them in the 1940's ... but every dog has his day ... out turn will come

I think people who voted leave to fix the whole thing across Europe. Show them how it's done, we are that smart.
 
There are confusion EVERYWHERE.

Sellers don't know the law.
Websites don't know the law.
Buyers don't know the law.
Couriers don't know the law.

Yup.

Add to your list..

- Blame Boris and Brexit.
- Charge more.

Granted I haven't done this for over 10 years now but back when I did shipping stuff anywhere was a non issue. Granted if you scream loudly and run about like a headless chicken it can look like a big issue but if the people doing this engage their brains and calmly work through the process surely it can be done and done smoothly. Without a jot of training on this I did the paperwork for a group of manufacturing companies and not once in 12 years was there an issue but suddenly it's a complete mess?
 
I think it was obvious from the start that Johny foreigner was going to try to make it as difficult as possible for us. the ungrateful bar stewards forget what we did for them in the 1940's ... but every dog has his day ... out turn will come
I understood that the EU hasn't yet implemented the change but we have. Happy to be proved wrong.
 
Yup.

Add to your list..

- Blame Boris and Brexit.
- Charge more.

Granted I haven't done this for over 10 years now but back when I did shipping stuff anywhere was a non issue. Granted if you scream loudly and run about like a headless chicken it can look like a big issue but if the people doing this engage their brains and calmly work through the process surely it can be done and done smoothly. Without a jot of training on this I did the paperwork for a group of manufacturing companies and not once in 12 years was there an issue but suddenly it's a complete mess?

Well, it is kinda Boris' fault, the other side is the people who fell for the lies. Without his lies (NHS £350mil a week crap) and without Brexit and there wouldn't be a rule change, and no rules change there will be no confusion....so yes. It is Boris and Brexit. Cause and effect and all that.

But that is done, what is important is people need to learn the rules, it's quite simple.
 
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I think it was obvious from the start that Johny foreigner was going to try to make it as difficult as possible for us. the ungrateful bar stewards forget what we did for them in the 1940's ... but every dog has his day ... out turn will come

Its always about the War for some people isn't it? Its childish. God sake some people need to grow up and look forward; whatever happened in the 40's 50' or whenever in the past is now totally irrelevant.

We're talking about peoples livelihoods, businesses and jobs here and all you have to offer is "the 1940's" and "blame johnny foreigner" its pathetic; this mess is the fault of the UK Government and their utterly shambolic efforts to prepare; signing a deal with less than 7 days notice to business was a complete dereliction of duty without agreeing some kind of implementation period of a few months.
 
Granted I haven't done this for over 10 years now but back when I did shipping stuff anywhere was a non issue. Granted if you scream loudly and run about like a headless chicken it can look like a big issue but if the people doing this engage their brains and calmly work through the process surely it can be done and done smoothly. Without a jot of training on this I did the paperwork for a group of manufacturing companies and not once in 12 years was there an issue but suddenly it's a complete mess?

I had already posted this in another thread, but when experienced HMRC staff are saying it is very complicated and the government are recommending companies employ a specialist then maybe it really isn't that straight forward?


One customs expert who had worked at HMRC for 30 years and now advises MakeUK even admitted the new requirements were "very complicated", Mr Fletcher said.
Compounding the problems is the fact that there is no helpline to resolve issues with the 30-year-old IT system required to log customs documents for imports and exports. Instead, businesses are referred to an HMRC email address which promises a response within five days.
A government spokesperson said: “Now the UK has left the EU customs union and Single Market, there are new rules and processes businesses will need to follow.
“We have encouraged companies new to dealing with customs declarations to appoint a specialist to deal with import and export declarations on their behalf
 
Well, it is kinda Boris' fault, the other side is the people who fell for the lies. Without his lies (NHS £350mil a week crap) and without Brexit and there wouldn't be a rule change....so yes. It is Boris and Brexit. Cause and effect and all that.

We are where we are.

I'm not going to look at how to import or export stuff today as I have more interesting ways of spending my time and it's not my job anymore. My point is that if people/companies can't work out how to do this maybe they should employ someone with a functioning brain.

If I was able to do this with no previous experience and no help (except Google and a phone) but it's now so difficult I wonder what's changed?
 
We are where we are.

I'm not going to look at how to import or export stuff today as I have more interesting ways of spending my time and it's not my job anymore. My point is that if people/companies can't work out how to do this maybe they should employ someone with a functioning brain.

If I was able to do this with no previous experience and no help (except Google and a phone) but it's now so difficult I wonder what's changed?

Yes people need to fix it but it doesn't remove the cause of the problem. That cause will always be in history, as is that red bus with NHS £350 million lie. You can't erase that.

The problem before is the existing system has been evolved and around over the past few decades, then you do a sudden switch and put an agreement in place over the whole continent with 7 days to go, what they should have done is agree it with a period to set it up, but it was done between Christmas and New Years when everyone was off work.
 
I had already posted this in another thread, but when experienced HMRC staff are saying it is very complicated and the government are recommending companies employ a specialist then maybe it really isn't that straight forward?

Yes people need to fix it but it doesn't remove the cause of the problem. That cause will always be in history, as is that red bus with NHS £350 million lie. You can't erase that.

The problem before is the existing system has been evolved and around over the past few decades, then you do a sudden switch and put an agreement in place over the whole continent with 7 days to go, what they should have done is agree it with a period to set it up, but it was done between Christmas and New Years when everyone was off work.

I'm not going to look into this, I'm a full time carer these days with next to no free time and I just haven't got the time or energy but I will be absolutely gobsmacked if this is as difficult as some are making out. Companies should have people in place to do this if not a whole department plus many companies will possibly be members of trade organisations or other groups who should be able to help. One man bands, small outfits etc need to work through it themselves. Companies have been importing and exporting between the UK / other markets including those with no trade agreements for ever, they managed. I managed.

It's not as if this process has to be painful for every single transaction as once you've gone through it for one customer in one market the process should be the same for the next customer in that market. Unless something changes. I just had a folder with various documents for each country/market with the process mapped out so if my brain needed a jog there it was. Simples.

As above. I managed to sort this out with no prior experience and I managed to keep on top of it. No issues in 12 years and now it's impossible?
 
Well, it is kinda Boris' fault, the other side is the people who fell for the lies. Without his lies (NHS £350mil a week crap) and without Brexit and there wouldn't be a rule change, and no rules change there will be no confusion....so yes. It is Boris and Brexit. Cause and effect and all that.

But that is done, what is important is people need to learn the rules, it's quite simple.

What you need to remember about Boris is that he helped to start all this, he wrote many an article for the Telegraph that made up stuff about the EU. Bendy bananas for example. A selection of the population lapped it up, and are still doing so. Farage made a One-Hit Wonder of himself over it, and now we are where we are.
 
What you need to remember about Boris is that he helped to start all this, he wrote many an article for the Telegraph that made up stuff about the EU. Bendy bananas for example. A selection of the population lapped it up, and are still doing so. Farage made a One-Hit Wonder of himself over it, and now we are where we are.

Yup, he stirred the pot, the whole thing was to use this inner nationalist idea to further his political career, and to his credit, he made it. It does not however remove all the lies.

I'm not going to look into this, I'm a full time carer these days with next to no free time and I just haven't got the time or energy but I will be absolutely gobsmacked if this is as difficult as some are making out. Companies should have people in place to do this if not a whole department plus many companies will possibly be members of trade organisations or other groups who should be able to help. One man bands, small outfits etc need to work through it themselves. Companies have been importing and exporting between the UK / other markets including those with no trade agreements for ever, they managed. I managed.

It's not as if this process has to be painful for every single transaction as once you've gone through it for one customer in one market the process should be the same for the next customer in that market. Unless something changes. I just had a folder with various documents for each country/market with the process mapped out so if my brain needed a jog there it was. Simples.

As above. I managed to sort this out with no prior experience and I managed to keep on top of it. No issues in 12 years and now it's impossible?

You don't need to do research, I already posted some screenshots for you from this week showing you how UPS of all people, a massive world wide courier, is ballsing things up. Literally a personal, 1st persion, example. Not hearsay, not off the news but direct screenshot of MY conversation with the seller.

When I asked Reverb for advice, their advice is "Nothing to do with us!"

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Can we please drop the Leave/Remain aspect of this?

We had a referendum and a GE over this and whinging on here isn't going to get us back in the EU.

I do suspect that at least a part of this is generated by people who don't want this to work or see this as an excuse not to bother.

The same panic affected some when RoHS and WEEE came in, then REACH. It's the same every time. People who don't want to comply scream and run around like headless chickens and look for someone to blame. Others just wade through it and then get on with it.
 
Yup, he stirred the pot, the whole thing was to use this inner nationalist idea to further his political career, and to his credit, he made it. It does not however remove all the lies.



You don't need to do research, I already posted some screenshots for you from this week showing you how UPS of all people, a massive world wide courier, is ballsing things up. Literally a personal, 1st persion, example. Not hearsay, not off the news but direct screenshot of MY conversation with the seller.

I meant research how to go through the process not look at screenshots.

You got one thing right. UPS ballsed it up.
 
Can we please drop the Leave/Remain aspect of this?

We had a referendum and a GE over this and whinging on here isn't going to get us back in the EU.

I do suspect that at least a part of this is generated by people who don't want this to work or see this as an excuse not to bother.

The same panic affected some when RoHS and WEEE came in, then REACH. It's the same every time. People who don't want to comply scream and run around like headless chickens and look for someone to blame. Others just wade through it and then get on with it.

No one is trying to change Brexit, but merely stating the cause of Brexit. And now the EFFECT of Brexit. Cause and Effect, they are hard to separate.

Of course there is also the solution, but it seems the people who caused Brexit, who are still in charge didn't give much time for others who work out a solution to fix this whole mess because they struck a deal on Christmas Eve!

People are just pointing it all out, it's not a lie, it's the truth. You might not like the truth, as they say, Truth is like Poetry, and everyone ****ing hate poetry.
 
I meant research how to go through the process not look at screenshots.

You got one thing right. UPS ballsed it up.

The problem is no matter how well you think you know the process, it is pointless if the people who are actually handling the parcel doesn't know the process. What are you going to do? Go over and teach a class? The seller was going to cancel my order because i couldn't give him my NI number. I can't speak to UPS (have you tried?), especially not to their Italian branch, and especially when it hasn't been shipped without a tracking number. If I had a tracking number then I wouldn't need to give my NI number.

You can either NOT buy something or you can either buy something and pay whatever fees they ask and go with whatever stupid rule they are making up at the moment and move on or you work it out and spend day and night and fight for every penny you think they overcharge you after all the currency conversion and whatnot.
 
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Without a jot of training on this I did the paperwork for a group of manufacturing companies and not once in 12 years was there an issue but suddenly it's a complete mess?

Yes, suddenly it's a complete mess. Since January the 1st.
If I was able to do this with no previous experience and no help (except Google and a phone) but it's now so difficult I wonder what's changed?

What has changed is that anyone selling to the UK now has to collect VAT at their end on behalf of the UK, then deal directly with HMRC to pay it. They can no longer rely on the purchaser to pay it on import. Duty also has to be paid on many items. This new administrative burden falls on exporters from all countries, which is why some overseas companies can no longer be bothered to sell to us. Within the EU, of course, none of this is necessary - the item simply has to be shipped. If you can sell to 27 countries without the paperwork, is it worth the trouble of dealing with UK tax regulations to sell to one more? For some, the answer is no. Others are doing their best.
 
I think it was obvious from the start that Johny foreigner was going to try to make it as difficult as possible for us. the ungrateful bar stewards forget what we did for them in the 1940's ... but every dog has his day ... out turn will come

And it's probably statements like that which make "Johnny Foreigner" think good riddance to bad rubbish.
 
Yes, suddenly it's a complete mess. Since January the 1st.


What has changed is that anyone selling to the UK now has to collect VAT at their end on behalf of the UK, then deal directly with HMRC to pay it. They can no longer rely on the purchaser to pay it on import. Duty also has to be paid on many items. This new administrative burden falls on exporters from all countries, which is why some overseas companies can no longer be bothered to sell to us. Within the EU, of course, none of this is necessary - the item simply has to be shipped. If you can sell to 27 countries without the paperwork, is it worth the trouble of dealing with UK tax regulations to sell to one more? For some, the answer is no. Others are doing their best.

It's working out swimmingingly!

 
Yes, suddenly it's a complete mess. Since January the 1st.


What has changed is that anyone selling to the UK now has to collect VAT at their end on behalf of the UK, then deal directly with HMRC to pay it. They can no longer rely on the purchaser to pay it on import. Duty also has to be paid on many items. This new administrative burden falls on exporters from all countries, which is why some overseas companies can no longer be bothered to sell to us. Within the EU, of course, none of this is necessary - the item simply has to be shipped. If you can sell to 27 countries without the paperwork, is it worth the trouble of dealing with UK tax regulations to sell to one more? For some, the answer is no. Others are doing their best.

It sounds so simple when you explain it. I wonder why it's a problem...

They're not learning a process to sell one more though. Once they know what and how to do it it's the same process for every sale to the UK. If the company wants to lose one sale, fair enough, but do they want to lose every sale? If they do, fair enough.
 
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Read my article above, it's not just "learn to do".

I think people who voted leave should dig deep and pay for the cost of transition, i think it's a fair trade for "Sovereignty".
 
The problem is no matter how well you think you know the process, it is pointless if the people who are actually handling the parcel doesn't know the process. What are you going to do? Go over and teach a class? The seller was going to cancel my order because i couldn't give him my NI number. I can't speak to UPS (have you tried?), especially not to their Italian branch, and especially when it hasn't been shipped without a tracking number. If I had a tracking number then I wouldn't need to give my NI number.

You can either NOT buy something or you can either buy something and pay whatever fees they ask and go with whatever stupid rule they are making up at the moment and move on or you work it out and spend day and night and fight for every penny you think they overcharge you after all the currency conversion and whatnot.

Read my article above, it's not just "learn to do".

I think people who voted leave should dig deep and pay for the cost of transition, i think it's a fair trade for "Sovereignty".

Why on earth should I pay the costs of a company in Rotterdam who doesn't want to put the effort in?

There's a process to learn and implement. That's all.

I'm surprised you're aiming at couriers though. Surely the company supplying the item to be shipped is doing the paperwork (computer work these days?) and ensuring the courier doesn't have any problems. That's what I did.

This may come as a shock to the Europhiles here but most of the world isn't a member of the EC and many, shock horror, don't have a free trade agreement with the EC. How on earth do they manage?

Companies have choices, go the headless chicken route, pretend it's an insurmountable issue for political noise or so that they can stop doing something they really don't want to do (go through export procedures) or bite the bullet and sort it out.

Just on the insurmountable issue option. I did product approvals for years and some companies used incoming EC things like RoHS as an excuse to drop slow moving products they'd wanted to drop for years. I suspect that there's an element of this now with companies just not wanting to go through the process because they think it's not worth it for them.

Anyway. You're right. It's an insurmountable issue and it's all Boris's fault :D
 
It sounds so simple when you explain it. I wonder why it's a problem...

They're not learning a process to sell one more though. Once they know what and how to do it it's the same process for every sale to the UK. If the company wants to lose one sale, fair enough, but do they want to lose every sale? If they do, fail enough.
Imagine you are a small company in France with small margins. Perhaps you sell most of your stuff domestically, but if an order comes in from Germany you are happy to put it in the mail. You learn about the new UK tax regulations, look back at the relatively small proportion of orders that came in from across the channel last year, and decide it's not worth the bother. This isn't a theoretical possibility. Some traders have already made this decision.
 
There are confusion EVERYWHERE.

Sellers don't know the law.
Websites don't know the law.
Buyers don't know the law.
Couriers don't know the law.

I bought a Piano Stand from Italy this week for £66.63, under the £135 limit off Reverb (it's a massive site like eBay), the site has set up so it collects all VAT for the seller under £135 (as per their website instruction post-brexit), but when UPS has asked the seller to ask me for my National Insurance Number! I have never been asked for my NI number for buying something.

I kid you not.

You obviously don't know the law either.
What you had to do previously has little baring on the situation under the new post-brexit rules.

£135 was the threshold for customs duty, but the threshold for VAT was somewhere around £15. This threshold has apparently now been removed as the UK has decided to ditch the lower VAT limit. (Info from the Uk.gov website).

Many EU traders will no longer send to the UK as they have been told to register with HMCE (paying a fee to do so) for them to collect VAT at source...

Given the last minute squabbling that was done before the 'deal' was determined it's hardly surprising no-one knows the details of what needs to be done.
 
Imagine you are a small company in France with small margins. Perhaps you sell most of your stuff domestically, but if an order comes in from Germany you are happy to put it in the mail. You learn about the new UK tax regulations, look back at the relatively small proportion of orders that came in from across the channel last year, and decide it's not worth the bother. This isn't a theoretical possibility. Some traders have already made this decision.

That's it in a nutshell. Some just don't want the bother but as I mentioned above this may be a bother for one sale but once you've learned the process for that market it's the same for every sale until the rules change again. So, time and effort spent for one = not worth it... but spend that time and effort and you're sorted for every sale until the rules change again.

As above, if I walked into this with no help and managed perfectly well for 12 years with not one problem I'm sure others can manage too. If they really want to.
 
Its always about the War for some people isn't it? Its childish. God sake some people need to grow up and look forward; whatever happened in the 40's 50' or whenever in the past is now totally irrelevant.

We're talking about peoples livelihoods, businesses and jobs here and all you have to offer is "the 1940's" and "blame johnny foreigner" its pathetic; this mess is the fault of the UK Government and their utterly shambolic efforts to prepare; signing a deal with less than 7 days notice to business was a complete dereliction of duty without agreeing some kind of implementation period of a few months.

From what I have have read, and seen on the news, the EU ALWAYS go down to the last minute before they sign anything. There was no need to take that long, but again from what i've read, it seemed like the EU were trying to pressure the UK by dragging their heels. Macron & Barnier were prepared to let us roll in to a no deal situation, until Germany stamped its feet, mainly about their auto industry as the UK is one of Germany's biggest markets.

I still wouldn't put it past some of the EU to make things as difficult as possible to ward off any other country from thinking about breaking away.
 
You obviously don't know the law either.
What you had to do previously has little baring on the situation under the new post-brexit rules.

£135 was the threshold for customs duty, but the threshold for VAT was somewhere around £15. This threshold has apparently now been removed as the UK has decided to ditch the lower VAT limit. (Info from the Uk.gov website).

Many EU traders will no longer send to the UK as they have been told to register with HMCE (paying a fee to do so) for them to collect VAT at source...

Given the last minute squabbling that was done before the 'deal' was determined it's hardly surprising no-one knows the details of what needs to be done.

FYI I am aware. If you read my screenshot you will see I stated TO THE SELLER of the £135 value and where VAT was collected. (I might have worded it slightly wrong regarding VAT but threshold and the principle of HMRC rule and companies needs to register WITH A ANNUAL FEE, I am fully aware).

It was actually £18 for normal and £36 for gift at one point in the past. It was lowered to £15. I have been buying stuff online from around the world for 2 years. I even know a trick on how to get the admin fee taken off FedEx packages.

Why on earth should I pay the costs of a company in Rotterdam who doesn't want to put the effort in?

There's a process to learn and implement. That's all.

I'm surprised you're aiming at couriers though. Surely the company supplying the item to be shipped is doing the paperwork (computer work these days?) and ensuring the courier doesn't have any problems. That's what I did.

This may come as a shock to the Europhiles here but most of the world isn't a member of the EC and many, shock horror, don't have a free trade agreement with the EC. How on earth do they manage?

Companies have choices, go the headless chicken route, pretend it's an insurmountable issue for political noise or so that they can stop doing something they really don't want to do (go through export procedures) or bite the bullet and sort it out.

Just on the insurmountable issue option. I did product approvals for years and some companies used incoming EC things like RoHS as an excuse to drop slow moving products they'd wanted to drop for years. I suspect that there's an element of this now with companies just not wanting to go through the process because they think it's not worth it for them.

Anyway. You're right. It's an insurmountable issue and it's all Boris's fault :D

Everything comes at a cost, you want it, you pay for it, such as life. So if you want sovereignty, pay for it. I think that is perfectly fair.

It's not about paying for a company who doesn't want to put an effort in, it's because of people like you, I gather you voted leave (which I am surprise about given that you have travelled), and not thought about the consequences of your vote. Freedom of Movement of Goods, that came to an end. What I find alarming is those who voted remain warned about all this, they know something like this was coming, and they would have prepared given the time, but those who voted leave literally all they will say and could say is "it will all be okay eventually". Yet offer ZERO solution, Offer ZERO awareness, completely clueless as to the size of the problem because they put their head in the sand.

As to many parts of the world no part of the EU, have you looked at a globe lately? Know where we are? Do you think you can drive over some Strawberries from Japan or do you think driving it over from Spain would be easier? Do you know how long those systems have been set up with the rest of the world and do you know how long they have had to set this up with the EU currently? Hint Hint, it's a week.

I mean that is the exactly thing i am saying, you just say "it's fine!" but offer zero awareness as to the problem.
 
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Its always about the War for some people isn't it? Its childish. God sake some people need to grow up and look forward; whatever happened in the 40's 50' or whenever in the past is now totally irrelevant.

We're talking about peoples livelihoods, businesses and jobs here and all you have to offer is "the 1940's" and "blame johnny foreigner" its pathetic; this mess is the fault of the UK Government and their utterly shambolic efforts to prepare; signing a deal with less than 7 days notice to business was a complete dereliction of duty without agreeing some kind of implementation period of a few months.
And why not ,we must learn from history .. I think you will find the whole Brexit thing stems from the fact that the majority of the u.k population did not want to be ruled by what was heading for all intents and purposes towards a fourth reich. ... yes I could have worded it more flowery but why should I ..
Yes mistakes have been made but I really do wonder how much of was simply chess moves to make it into a unworkable scenario ,somewhere in the midst of all this there will be people in the u.k and in Europe rubbing there hands in glee while there bank balance. Increases .
 
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