[theo_luddite]

So, we want a trade deal with the EU but we didn't want to sign up to the trade deal that was already there and would have solved the Irish Border problem at a stroke. Now we want to do this - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/202...aws-brexit

Now, the dullards in Downing Street, and those elsewhere that voted for Brexit, might not have grasped this yet, but if you want to sell anything into Europe, particularly into the EU it has to meet or beat their standards. Are they really claiming their standards are, er behind the times?

Are these clowns trying to say we've got better technology coming through than them in cars/vehicles when, er, apart form a few small manufacturers our main auto builders are owned by European, Indian or Japanese manufacturers, who are mostly at the centre of these new technologies and many if not all have factories, er, guess where? There's a reason why Musk chose to put his first European factory in Germany, it's not a million miles away from why Disney built their European theme park outside Paris instead of outside Larndan. Just don't expect the current dullards of Downing Street to ever understand why.

While there was (might still be) a huge difference in US and EU safety standards (a Ford Focus in the US weighed more or less the same as one in the EU, while the smallest engine available in the US was the biggest one in the EU, guess where the weight saving comes from - cheaper, thinner and not so crash effective steel bodies) not so very long ago. If we're going down that route again then sorry, but the Yanks ain't gonna buy our stuff at our prices unless it's high end (Range Rover, Jaguar etc) and the EU ain't gonna buy it either if it doesn't meet their standards. I somehow doubt that the likes of Nissan would build to some new crap UK standard when they have a far bigger EU market. Maybe they could employ the guy that puts the wobbly wheel on the supermarket trolleys to fit one on the cars just for the UK market?

So are we really going to go back down the old Blitish Reyrand route of dangerous crap that kills people - only in battery powered crap with shit self-driving satnav control that kills people by sending them into the woods or the side of a building?

We're building more and more miles of motorways that do that really effectively, so why not put more shit vehicles back on the road to accelerate the carnage? It ultimately saves the government a fortune in pension payments. Or are they inventing a vehicle that gives us Covid and kills us anyway? I think we should be told.