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Comment by jonplackett | Hacker News Reader

This Brexit 'deal' just gets worse and worse by the day.

Weren't they supposed to have turned all existing EU law into UK law anyway as a starting point? Maybe phone operators will be next on this train.

I also don't understand how this 'free trade' deal seems to still be costing businesses so much money in customs fees? Isn't the point of a free trade deal that you don't pay customs?

At least Boris Johnson got the Coronavirus pandemic right, oh wait...

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No, we explicitly rejected a customs union. Customs union would result in no customs (though probably not as you'd have to also be part of the single market to eliminate all checks).

The free trade agreement is different, and a step down from that. Given the amount of trade I think the customs fees will come down significantly over time once things are bedded in a bit more.

The mobile operator 3 have upped their prices on pay as you go. They had a "123" PAYG plan that was 1p/MB 2p/Text and 3p/Min. They now are changing it on Feb 16th to 5p/MB 10p/Text 10p/min. They claim "Some of our international roaming rates are also increasing. This is to keep them in line with domestic standard rates and not a result of brexit"

it's explicitly not free trade, the entire purpose of leaving the EU was to erect barriers to trade and remove the regulation (good and...bad). "free trade" is just a phrase the Tories like to say because "we're the party of protectionism and crony capitalism" sounds bad even if it is honest...if they cared about trade between the UK and the EU then they wouldn't have left the single market or the customs union, but they prioritised ending free movement above absolutely everything else including the UK economy and UK global competitiveness. and after all this, they *still* didn't manage to make the far right of the Tory party banging on about europe.

they were supposed to transcribe all the EU regulations and law into UK law, but they also granted themselves power to change lots of it via regulation (ie without going to parliament)...it's unclear what specifically happened here.

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