The influence of the EU on Britain.

Without going into great and boring detail I think people are getting themselves confused between the "legal guarantee" and the manufacturers/suppliers "commercial guarantee" period which are different things and explained here...

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/sell-abroad/client-guarantee-redress/index_en.htm#

For those saying the Consumer Rights Act trumps EU law anyway...no it doesn't. It's the result of the EU Consumer Rights Directive being implemented across the whole single market and addressing issues like unfair contract terms, digital content, doorstep contracts and a lot more.

Did we play an important and active role in the design of the Directive? Of course we bloody well did. As others have pointed out we've long since had domestic laws addressing faulty goods, etc. and, despite what others might say, the EU respects our knowlege and expertese in these matters.

Those laws were made in 1979 and 1982 btw. How reflective of the way we shop and the modern marketplace do you think they were by the time the Directive was developed earlier this decade? We could have updated them any time we wished in the intervening 30 odd years but funnily enough the UK chose not to.

Again, it took 40 years for the woefully out of date Trade Descriptions Act 1968 to be replaced as result of a much more fit for purpose EU Directive.

Consumers are benefiting significantly from these changes of law, yet our governments, over decades, weren't interested in updating them for fear of being labelled anti-business imo and it took the intervention of the EU as a whole to ensure we eventually did undertake the modernisation so obviously required on behalf of consumers.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to guess which way the US in particular is going to want the UK to move post-Brexit either.

PragueAddick said:

Chippycafc said:

PragueAddick said:

@Bournemouth Addick

Let's remind ourselves that my Miele vacuum cleaner comes with a no questions asked 2 year guarantee which I can activate anywhere in the EU. Your vacuum cleaner sadly only comes with a one year guarantee. This is because the U.K. has chosen to ignore this particular part of the EU directive, even while the politicians persist with the fiction that UK citizens are all buckling under the onerous weight of EU laws dictated by unelected little green men.

Usually @Dippenhall chips in at this point to assert that EU citizens pay for this because the manufacturers slap a price hike on the continental prices to cover the extra year. He has never, however, presented any evidence to back up this assertion. In fact I regularly compare and find the opposite situation. For example yesterday I bought a Philips hair trimmer as a prezzie. Amazon UK proposed to charge me £52 for it, while helpfully warning me that I could have a newer model in Jan which would cost me £60. I then checked the same model on the local market, and a reliable little Czech e shop was one of several to offer it for the equivalent of £38. It's not the £ devaluation to blame for the difference as it would still have been only £42 pre the vote.

So I think this is an admirable example of what is to come for U.K. consumers. Of course I can forgive @Dippenhall for now going round his house looking for every item he might replace in the next 2-3 years, sourcing a friend in Germany and then putting in a massive bulk order from Amazon.de for all that stuff before March 2019. Of course back in Brexit Britain he won't get any help with warranty after 12 months but if he sticks with German brands that won't matter.

You're welcome, Dipps....actually if you need anything cheap from the Continent which can fit in hand lugggage, give me a shout and I will bring it over for you. I ask only for your public recorded admission that this is evidence that your assertion above is not susbstantiated by real market evidence :-)

Just spent 5 days in Germany and had the last couple of days to myself. Certainly didn't notice anything that was cheaper over there than here.

Transport was more expensive,, eating out more expensive , electrical goods and clothes more expensive. 85 euros for a fc nuremberg shirt. Next time i am over there in a few months time, give me a shout and i will bring some stuff over to you from the UK and give it to you.

You forget some of us have detached duty in europe. Projecrt fear rears its ugly head again.

And you forget that I live here. Just coming up to my 25th anni, as it was a week after we went back to the Valley.

Transport was more expensive Pull the other one. Example?
eating out more expensive I wonder how you compare like for like, but that is emphatically not my experience. Today at my usual lunchtime place I enjoyed an excellent borstch soup followed by grilled salmon steak with grilled veg, and a sparkling mineral water, for £7. And it was proper home cooked by a chef. You'd struggle to get that in Eltham High Street for less than £10, and it would likely be pre-cooked. I went in the M&S cafe and had a turkey pie plus soup, and mineral water and that alone was £10.
electrical goods and clothes more expensive. Well then how do you explain that pretty much at random I bought a regular Philips razor thing for just under 30% less than Amazon UK wanted?
At least you had the good sense not to mention the relative cost of alcohol.

Seriously you ought to know that any tourist can never get a handle on the best prices for anything, anywhere.
That's why when you come over to Prague, Mad Vincent and I will make sure you don't get mugged off in a tourist trap pub, even though the British mugs in those pubs will still be twatting on about how cheap the Stella is (Stella, ffs.)

Project fact, then, now and next.

Thought you lived in Prague not Germany, i know my way round enough to know where to eat and drink and shop. last week for example on the trams and s bahn you cant buy a return ticket you have to buy two singles, you can buy an all day ticket which is cheaper but the zones are restricted. On the flight home i was sitting next to a german couple who lived in Nuremburg and they couldn't understand their own travel system and stated it is very expensive.

I have had a full english in Edinburgh for £3 next to Waverley station...whats the point, I know where to get a bacon roll and a sausage roll in blackpool for a £1 for both, in Basingstoke market I can get a bacon baguette for a £1.

I was comparing Germany with UK, i am sure i could if i wanted to buy things cheaper than you can ie china for example.

Alcohol was very much like for like some cheaper places some more expensive for example a bottle of weissbeer was 6 euros but about 4 in the town.

PragueAddick said:

@Bournemouth Addick

Let's remind ourselves that my Miele vacuum cleaner comes with a no questions asked 2 year guarantee which I can activate anywhere in the EU. Your vacuum cleaner sadly only comes with a one year guarantee. This is because the U.K. has chosen to ignore this particular part of the EU directive, even while the politicians persist with the fiction that UK citizens are all buckling under the onerous weight of EU laws dictated by unelected little green men.

Usually @Dippenhall chips in at this point to assert that EU citizens pay for this because the manufacturers slap a price hike on the continental prices to cover the extra year. He has never, however, presented any evidence to back up this assertion. In fact I regularly compare and find the opposite situation. For example yesterday I bought a Philips hair trimmer as a prezzie. Amazon UK proposed to charge me £52 for it, while helpfully warning me that I could have a newer model in Jan which would cost me £60. I then checked the same model on the local market, and a reliable little Czech e shop was one of several to offer it for the equivalent of £38. It's not the £ devaluation to blame for the difference as it would still have been only £42 pre the vote.

So I think this is an admirable example of what is to come for U.K. consumers. Of course I can forgive @Dippenhall for now going round his house looking for every item he might replace in the next 2-3 years, sourcing a friend in Germany and then putting in a massive bulk order from Amazon.de for all that stuff before March 2019. Of course back in Brexit Britain he won't get any help with warranty after 12 months but if he sticks with German brands that won't matter.

You're welcome, Dipps....actually if you need anything cheap from the Continent which can fit in hand lugggage, give me a shout and I will bring it over for you. I ask only for your public recorded admission that this is evidence that your assertion above is not susbstantiated by real market evidence :-)</blockquote

In the last ##%% Years I cant recall ever cashing in on a guarantee beyond a month for something that clearly doesn’t work.

Except for an expensive fly rod bought in the U.K.and manufactured in Canada. Was replaced under lifetime replacement guarantee, even if broken by accident, shut car door on it.

If you voted Remain on the basis of where you could exercise the guarantee on your £30 shaver after 6 years fine, do you file 6 years of your til receipts in date or alphabetical order?

This is quite interesting. I've been watching BBC Parliament live for an hour and they're just voting now. Result due in 10 minutes.

FWIW I voted for Leave in the referendum and immediately regretted my decision. I completely admit that I didn't really understand what I was voting for.
I have been hoping that we stay in ever since.
Therefore I hope this amendment passes so that it's more likely we do (like what @seriously_red has just suggested).

Wow - the amendment passed, very good news. I thought it would narrowly fail.

Gonna be some fun headlines

seth plum said:

The defeat tonight, if i understand it correctly, is that MP's have said that MP's have to have serious control and scrutiny over brexit, and not hand powers over to just the members of the Cabinet who might be inclined to nod through, or not nod through, stuff on a whim, or without the whole of parliament agreeing.
Can there be anything wrong with that, why would the government oppose it?

Another issue is the one of a hung parliament, which is something that is going to hang around until the next General Election.

They think it weakens their hand at the negotiating table as it's not in the gift of the people doing the negotiating to make a deal as everything has to be agreed by a majority of 650 odd MPs.

The whole point is that one cannot trust the executive to always do what's best for the UK when the political stakes are so high. And when the conservative base is demonstrably out of kilter with the electorate.

The headlines and subsequent analysis will shed light on the impact of this defeat on the process... And on May's next move. It appears that 12 Tories voted against the government whilst some abstained at the last minute.

In contrast the Lib Dem amendment yesterday attempted to prescribe a single market solution and failed. Now is not to tie the hands of "negotiators" for it will become clear what is within the appetite of the EU27 soon enough.

Those who are staunch leavers might argue that this plays to the EU27 who might be less inclined to compromise. Does it weaken our hand... we will see soon enough what's on offer in the first half of 2018. Though of course it's May and Davis to move first.

The amendment passes! Glad to see our government taking back control and having a vote on the final deal. :-)

Meanwhile in the real world

% who want to abandon Brexit completely:

nationally: 15%
middle/upper class: 19%
18-24 yr olds: 21%
London: 21%
Labour: 24%
Remainers: 29%
Lib Dems: 37%

YouGov, Dec 10-11

Yes, of course you are right. Our parliament has always been able to debate, vote on and reject EU directives. My mistake.