Sign Pet Care Agreement Made Easy

Sign pet care agreement

[Music] hello everybody people are slowly coming in um gordon great to see you thank you very much indeed as ever for bringing your expertise to this extraordinary topic um great to see you everybody thank you for coming in um jenny adrian mark marta great to see you all as i say every time chrissy good to see you too well not to you but you know what i mean as i say every time we do these um i so wish we could all be you know in a lovely five star hotels together somewhere having just had a nice coffee but never mind we are not and we are making the best of the technology that um luckily we are blessed with so we have 160 people signed up today as you know um people come and go um the session is being recorded so i will get that out to you tomorrow and it'll go out to the members um next week so here we are again uh gordon discussing brexit and i think um it's it's been it's been interesting over the months you know the last few of these we've kind of you know you've kind of always started off by saying it's not really that different to the last time we spoke this time it is significantly different to the last time we spoke thank goodness but my goodness that went to the wire didn't it it was incredible um and really until we had the deal that last minute deal it wasn't clear at all but it would be a deal i mean it was still really possible that uh there would be a no deal brexit so we got there um we have a free trade agreement called the eu uk trade and cooperation agreement tca as it's been called at least in the uk um and the big thing is it avoids tariffs it avoids quarters um it it the agreement that's actually being described by some opponents as thin um but equally um it does deal with um a lot of big issues um and it's over a thousand pages of dense legal text plus guidance notes so perhaps describing it as thin is uh it's inappropriate but it's quite fact what was what was so fascinating to me because this came out of christmas eve didn't it and on christmas day i'm looking at my feeds i was like all those poor journalists who were having to try and read this thousand page document over christmas um and trying to get some kind of some facts out there as quickly as they could um that ruined quite a lot of press christmases i would say but after the year we've had they deserve it um it's so good no it's just going to say the the big thing just sort of summing up where we've got to um is that the eu and the uk have actually separated on reasonably amicable terms and you know that's so important um because the economic consequences of no deal were really looking pretty serious from all sides so uh so yeah it just the importance of getting any deal was was really pretty critical and it was i mean it was very interesting i've been talking about this with board members in the chat and you know it came down to you know people were really down to two sites i was convinced we were crashing out with no deal i think you and i had several conversations i had several conversations about there with alistair other board members the you know come on get it together because there really wasn't the positivity coming out of those negotiations that we were expecting so that that being said um first of all we're going to talk about what's covered by the trading cooperation agreement but who won the negotiations if such a thing could be said um both sides are left feeling reasonably satisfied with the deal um you know a great test of that is um the fishing leaders from the eu and on the uk side both are really dissatisfied and feel let down by their governments therefore that suggests that actually a reasonable compromise was reached uh somewhere in the middle the eu although they were never public on this they had three broad objectives that had to be met firstly that there shouldn't be a serious economic hit as a result of britain leaving um which no deal would have caused so you know take that box there may be a bit of a hit um but that will be mainly the uk end um secondly they wanted to make sure that britain would be leaving on with you could say worse trading access than they had with the status quo as being part of the eu there was no way the eu would be satisfied if britain left and actually they were getting all the advantages of um being part of a trading block but actually being outside it and getting other advantages as well and that leads into the third real objective of the eu um and this particularly going back a few years was a real concern at one time that there might be a bit of a chain reaction you know the uk leaves negotiates a good deal from a uk perspective and other countries are thinking ah well well maybe we could do the same and you know it's not so long ago that um particularly opposition leaders in a number of eu states and thinking here marie le pen for example in france but there were others too saying well we think we should have a referendum an eu membership and they've gone really pretty quiet on that um in over the last year or so as as the uk has gone through so much pain through this long negotiating period um and um so in that sense i think the eu its three objectives were equally from a uk point of view i mean firstly they needed a free trade agreement and that was that's been achieved thin or not um and on the other hand you know you'll recall the uh the brexit slogan about taking back control well the uk has taken back control of immigration they've taken back control to a large extent of regulations and in areas like you know environmental um not having the european court of justice having jurisdiction in the uk um but that's probably oversimplifying it because there are lots of exceptions and lots of just still hurdles in there for example the european court of justice still has jurisdiction over northern ireland because northern ireland um continues to be bound by the single market and the customs union so um it's not as simple as saying the court of justice no longer has jurisdiction in the uk it does in part of the uk and even in you know all the areas where the uk is free to regulate now we do have these level playing field provisions which means that if the eu feels it's being undercut by the uk then they can take steps to have arbitration on on what's changed and if necessary impose tariffs so um but overall yeah i think the uk uh would be pretty happy with the deal that's been achieved and again this is in the context that you know as recently as three weeks ago there was a real danger of no deal so both sides pretty happy i mean one thing that occurs to me you know i i don't know if you've done any um these classic uh one-day courses on how to negotiate a deal you know it used to be your standard part of management training and you would have case studies um and it might be you know it could be the arab israeli conflict and peace dealing in the middle east um but i just wonder if this is going to be a case study and to some extent it's almost how not to negotiate because it went to the very last minute and the disruption that that caused um in you know for businesses in the eu and in the uk is significant but it did get a deal done so uh so maybe at the end of the day um they achieved something very important but i don't think it'd be a classic case study on how to negotiate a business deal there's going to be an awful lot of mba final final essays on that over the coming years but i do find it fascinating that i mean you followed this politically all the way through and there was political will and there was no political will and there was more and there was posturing and you know all of those things that you say you know are not what you should do when negotiating um when it came down to the final final um sort of hurdles and sticking points was there just a rapprochement because people had said some very strong things up until that point you know i think both sides and this is where it's different from a business deal it's politics and so both sides also had to appeal to their own electorates and therefore they had to make these harsh statements that made it sound as if they were being tough at least that's how they would justify the the way things went um you have to wonder given the the kind of deal that was made and the fact it's been generally accepted as reasonable by you know all parties could that not have been done six months ago you know wasn't it already clear um in the middle of last year that this is the kind of what they call the landing area the area where we're likely to do a deal and i'd be surprised if it wasn't pretty clear what that landing area was uh months earlier but you know so politics maybe got in the way of just straightforward negotiations i think very interesting comments just come through to the q and a box um oh and by the way if you have a question or a comment please put them in the q a box and put them in the chat um we'll come to them as it seems logical but very interesting on that political uh point the uk can still sink the deal at any time after the first year this was done to placate the dup and the erg so there's still the possibility of politics rearing its ugly head again yeah um and so the suggestion being that it could fall apart after a year well that we could walk away from it i think but let's let's let's move away from the political spectrum and move more into the specifics of you know we've talked a lot about what was going to happen when brexit happened according to our industry what how is it going to impact on mobility generally how's it going to impact on um uh you know the europe providers all over the world so where would you like to start with that yeah i think we have to start with the two uh big areas that we um everyone's had concerns about or that would really impact directly on relocation services one is immigration and and the other is um personal data on how we would deal with that after brexit in terms of immigration i mean it has to be said this is the positive for our industry because immigration firms will be um there will be more work because every time somebody moves between the uk and the eu and i don't know what the figures are but you know huge volumes uh clearly um in future visas work permits whatever will be required so um so happy days if you're an immigration firm um we already knew from the withdrawal agreement that um existing rights would be preserved and that's clear cut if you were already a uk citizen working in the eu or eu citizen working in the uk with your family whatever the situation provided you followed the country's registration requirements um then you're fine your your rights are preserved in the uk we call it pre-settled status and if you've been around for five years in the uk settled status so that that's unchanged and and clear cut but of course going forward um eu citizens will have no special immigration rights at all in the uk um it will be um a case of applying under our new points based system just as you know a citizen of india china or the united states would apply um so it becomes a lot harder to to enter the uk for for work purposes um and of course the same is true uk citizens now um wanting to work in france germany italy will have to comply with the individual requirements of that country the only exception to that is what's called the common travel area and that is just the uk and ireland and that was a treaty that was before the eu came into being and and that will continue to to exist so it does mean for example an irish citizen is able to live and work in the uk um that's unchanged um i think i mean one of the interesting things for somebody running a relocation business you know i think back to my days when our we had offices in the uk and we had several offices in uh in mainland europe and it didn't really matter to me if i was going over to spend some time in our paris office i didn't really need to think of oh is this for a business meeting or a conference or you know and can i spend a few days getting on with my work while i'm in the paris office whereas now of course it has to be compliant with in this case french immigration law so if i'm planning to go over there and be working in a routine way um then it's highly likely that i will need to apply for a visa so just having to think about these things is you know is is new to us um and when i was doing uh the an article for the most recent european i gave the example of musicians um which um some countries uh will waive any visa requirement for cultural activities but other countries don't you know specific to each country so i think in france and germany there's a a cultural activity exemption but if i'm performing at la scala in milan i will need a visa and if i'm part of a symphony orchestra of 70 of us that's 70 visas and probably national insurance requirements because the the old day one exemption where i could say i was paying national insurance in the uk therefore i don't need to pay for it as well in italy these these disappear now and so there will be some organizations where the kinds of things that they are used to doing with no cost for immigration or national insurance purposes now become very much more expensive so uh but it will it will be down to the individual country it's not as if there is an eu immigration law um we will have to if i'm going to france if i'm going to germany i will need to check the specific visa requirements in that country um the the other uh thing i mentioned in that article was um football clubs and um you know that a nice example is that um the the manchester united manager uh ollie gonna show salshar would now be unable to get a job in the uk um at the time he joined manchester united he was manager of a norwegian team and he wouldn't have passed the the points based requirement for a football manager coming into the uk because the norwegian league is regarded as a minor league um and and and so it goes on you know it brings footballers and footballers going from the uk uh to the european union again it will depend on that country's individual rules relating to bringing in sports people so we'll see in the uk slightly fewer eu footballers and like except at the very top you know of their game uh internationalists for example um and we might see relatively more south americans and asian footballers that remains to be seen but it just becomes tougher now to uh do these sort of things that football clubs didn't need to think about at all or orchestras need to think about in the past so uh yeah that's fascinating because again i mean we've had a conversation about whether or not we as the team delivering a conference would be on requirements for a business visa in spain as opposed to if we last year you know in germany it raises these questions and i mean obviously um and chrissy twig you've put a good question in the in the chat box what's the maximum time that you can work in europe without a visa again the same sort of conversation that i'm having about can we go and deliver a conference two weeks without a work visa and does it apply to any and all trips but i think you're going to come to that yeah well i mean really just to hit that one on the head right away because in some ways if you're going to work well firstly it will come down to the individual country's rules but um if you're going to work then you will require a visa i don't you know it doesn't matter in theory whether it's one day or you know two weeks no practice uh if you're going for one day it's probably just going for a meeting here um so uh i mean for yura you're in the fortunate position being able to phone up a spanish member of europe and just ask the question and get a very practical answer to that but if you don't happen to have the privilege of knowing uh member firms around europe if you know if you're not in the relocation business then um yeah you're gonna have to pay for that advice or yeah so um i had a really interesting question yesterday from tony van gaal thank you tony from smart move who asked this question um and gordon i had a chat about it and then i asked um fiona mugano if she had any insights as an immigration specialist so you know i'm gonna unmute your mic if that's okay um the question was will a british national living in one eu country not the uk but commuting weekly say monday to friday to work in another eu country say for example luxembourg to belgium um need a residence permit work permit or both if yes for which country or both so gordon and i decided we were not specialists so piano i'm gonna just unmute your mic if that's okay um do you want to um give us an answer [Music] i see this is where the technicalities of zoom you know sometimes it just doesn't work um listen i will read out what what fiona said and just to also codify this by saying we are running a specific immigration session um for oh hi fiona how are you fine how are you very good lovely to hear you how are you doing i'm very good i'm very good thank you please and and thank well thank you very much for this wonderful case study because it really is a case study we can i think we could put it to the immigration group at one time um so i did come back with i mean there are obviously lots of questions that you'd have to ask a client like is the person single um as that could have implications i mean they might be married to an eu national for example so the quickest route is then to file for a permit as spouse of an eu national um and it also would have in my opinion and i'm sure gordon can probably expand on that it could have implications on the income tax and determining where is his home is his home in his home country uh where are the family then there would be questions like um where is the where is the employer based um is that in eu country where he lives or works or is that in the e in the uk if he lives in the eu country a and is only there for the weekends and maybe some holidays in my opinion he would need to determine whether he overstays the 90 days during 180 day period in that country and if so then at least a residence permit would be required there for the eu country in which he is working monday to friday he obviously overstays the 90 days therefore he will require a work permit and a residence permit as it's probably going to be a combined one as if he has been working in that country and living in the other one prior to the 31st of december well in most cases he's going to be able to jump on to the withdrawal agreement does that make sense yeah it does and it does i mean what it does so perfectly is really defeating my new shy and the complexities of how this is going to play out and that's why as i say thank you you're going to take part in a specific brexit immigration seminar i think it's the 21st of january details of that are going out very shortly thank you so much fiona lovely to hear you thank you later bye i'm sorry i'm so glad we had fiona for that question like you say i mean we're very privileged in this industry that we can just reach out and ask people because they'll be able to give us the answers but i mean from the point of view of that level of minutiae there is going to be a great deal of uncertainty and corporations are going to find themselves in situations where they may be non-compliant through no fault of their own so you know never more has mobility been been a big deal um can we move on to oh sorry i was just i'm just going to bring in this question from adrian leech just to really raise tad's blood pressure um i'm looking forward to gordon's insights onto how vat is covered by this trade agreement do you want to come on to that later 30 minutes after we finish it's a great question thank you adrian um sorry uh go ahead i'm just gonna say there has been quite a lot of stuff on vat and how that's changed on goods people for example in the uk finding it difficult to buy from some specialist suppliers maybe in sweden denmark because these specialist suppliers now required to register for vat in the uk now my understanding is that's not directly to do with brexit it's just the uk now having taken the opportunity to change their vat regulations and not give suppliers in eu countries any different status from non-eu suppliers um now in terms of how it affects um services i'm not aware of any change yet but um that's something i will look out for so i think you'll be getting a telephone call from ted about that anyway because the vat situation with our conference is incredibly complex we all love v8 but uh i mean what it does mean is that the uk does can now depart from eu rules on vat eu and vat was the one tax that was eu controlled and each country had to operate within certain fixed parameters in terms of rates and how it was structured so in theory the uk could um depart significantly from that but in terms of uh relocation businesses i'm not aware of a change yet but yeah we'll keep an eye out for that rob fletcher's just put into the q a our accountant has confirmed no changes based on the delivery of quote services yeah yeah great and rob another great question from you which i'll come to at the end um because it ties immediately so gordon another thing that we've talked an enormous amount about over the years is data and data security what's happening yeah so the big issue we had was whether the uk would receive what's called an adequacy decision so that means that eu data could be moved to the uk without any formality it was just as if the uk was still in the european union now effectively the uk has given an adequacy decision the other way so that there's no problem moving data from the uk to the european union the european union is still being cagey on this one it's not covered by the agreement other than to say that for an initial six months period while the situation is reviewed by the european union then european data can be moved to the uk so it's almost like another transition period has been agreed specifically for data obviously the uk fully expects to get that adequacy decision but at the moment that's just a short-term solution we have so again it's another area we'll be keeping a close eye on and as when a decision is either made in favor of the uk or at worst against the uk and then we can talk about the consequences of that uh further down the trail but at the moment uh no concerns no immediate concerns about that i think the other area around data which i've highlighted and companies now need to think about is if you have your office in the uk and you have no eu offices now whether you're a uk business or you might be an american business with just a uk office for europe it's whether you need to appoint a european representative now for smaller businesses um and i'm thinking here of typical dsps it's highly unlikely that will be required um and the reason for that is around the wording it's uh it doesn't apply if your processing is only occasional and of low risk but if you're a larger company and you're handling more sensitive data and you're really involved in supplying services to eu citizens on a regular basis then you may have to appoint a representative in the eu whether that's a law firm or whether it's an arrangement you have with a a partner firm in the eu but it's something to be aware of and and to get the kind of exact um details and examples so you can decide if it applies to you the ico website as the information commissioner's office is the website to look at and there's a section there on do i need a european representative that's ico.org dot uk yeah and there is a lot of really good data on it i mean this is something we're going to have to talk about all year because we're still in flux about the um the us privacy shield as well so yeah i mean in terms of the privacy shield um really no progress has been made in terms of any attempts to replace it there was talk of negotiations between the eu and the u.s to see if they could come up with something that seems to have gone dead and i guess nothing will have happened there until the new president's in place um and even then i think it could take some time so the for relocation management companies in particular who are moving data from the eu to the us they really now need to put in place um what are called the standard contract clauses they need to update uh their their agreements with their suppliers uh and partners in the us so uh so yeah um that's uh that's that's a hassle and that's the kind of hassle we want to avoid for european data moving to the uk um a couple of interesting things through the q a uh baz thank you very much bus openman existing rights are preserved so for example the uk nationalists going back to what we were talking about before who already was an employee or self-employed in the eu country can normally continue to live work in that country what about a uk company that started a service provision in an eu country before the 31st of december but now needs to continue or finish the same service is my understanding correct that these services cannot be continued without a local work or residence permit again i think that's a bit specialist for us um but certainly join in with the immigration session but gordon what's your initial thought yeah i yeah it's really to say it will come down to the individual country that we're talking about here because it will be subject to their immigration rules so i think yeah these kind of questions it will be great to capture them and we can then actually build that immigration uh session around uh very specific questions like that but uh yeah unfortunately with most of these questions on immigration we really have to pick them up take them away think about them uh and um and often as fiona had to do there you're coming back with some questions to the questioner because you need to know more about the status of the company the country involved etc so uh so sorry to be talking immigration questions but i think uh it is more uh beneficial if we carry them forward to the next session but like you know like you've raised bars the specifics are so my new the you know this is this is where expert advice is absolutely essential so we talked a lot um about the immigration part of data transfer how the the ecj is going to work um for individuals now um what are we talking about the impact on individuals being primarily yeah so this has now become clearer um and again i'm probably repeating some things that we've talked about in previous sessions but you know it is clearer um for example uh personal banking is one area of hassle so if you have expats uh uk expats in the eu they're probably finding that their banks are saying if they have still a uk bank then they may find their accounts being closed and the credit cards are being discontinued and they're having to make new banking arrangements and that's all to do with um the ending of passporting which allowed financial institutions to operate across all eu countries um that has now ended for uk banks they have um or they're looking for something that's called equivalence as a technical term and that's where the eu say well for that particular type of service that type of activity we're satisfied that you are subject to the same rules and standards as the eu therefore we'll let you do that but that's not in this uh agreement uh it's really being carried forward a bit like the data issue as well so it means that in the meantime banks uh which don't have licenses in every individual state of the eu are having to withdraw facilities from uh british customers so that that will have a an effect obviously on uh on relocation and how you set up banking arrangements for uh for assignees um the the general um if we move away from the working side i mean for actual visits you can have visa free access for 90 days up to 90 days in any 180 day period so that's agreed though from 2022 so sometime next year i think there's no date for this yet but uh there will then be the need for a visa waiver certificate and it's called the european travel information and authorization system um we're used to for the united states with the estas the european union will be introducing its equivalent so there'll be a little bit of cost um and you know paperwork uh for going to uh a european union country on holiday but it lasts for three years um so that that's not a big deal the agreement does sorry is that reciprocal um the uk is talking about introducing a system as well but uh that again further down the road there's nothing there yet but yeah the 90 and 180 days is reciprocal yeah um there is a fair bit in the agreement about reciprocal health care so there has been an attempt um to allow uk citizens to use um health care facilities in the eu and vice versa um [Music] all the details are still to be sorted out on that and and obviously we'd be advising people to take out travel insurance anyway but uh but there has been at least an attempt to uh uh sort that one out um that's that in itself is quite interesting because again conversations that we had at the time that was quite a political football here about access to the nhs that's right yeah yeah it was so um progress on that um mobile roaming charges um there's nothing in the agreement about that which means that um the uk uk citizens will now be subject to roaming charges if they were imposed now what the mobile companies are saying is there's no plans to reintroduce mobile roaming charges so for the moment that's fine but uk citizens are no longer protected by eu law which says you cannot impose roaming charges so we'll see how that one rolls out um driving in the eu for uk citizens um you will now need what's called a green card to show that you have insurance so you have to obtain that from your uk insurance company before heading off to to drive in france or germany and it's a little bit vague as to whether an international driving permit will also be needed there's some feedback that's suggesting that some countries in the eu will require an international driving licence and others won't so that one's a bit vague but obviously if you are going to a specific country you would be checking in advance whether a license was needed again it's a small payment for that but uh just another bit of paperwork that you would need in advance um other things um britain tried hard to get mutual recognition of professional qualifications they failed and that and that is is really again another area that's been carried forward and it may come down to country to country reciprocal arrangements so if i'm a a uk physio it might be there's a deal where my qualification in the uk is accepted in germany specifically or in france but at the moment there's no big overarching deal which um britain was pushing for but and had to drop in the end and the last one last but not least pets so britain is no longer part of the pet passport scheme uh there is an arrangement now that involves you getting a certificate from your vet and costs almost 100 pounds now and it lasts for one visit uh and for four months yeah so um if you're making regular uh trips with fido to france then uh yeah it's quite expensive so um as a dog owner that's a bit of a disappointment but uh there it is it's uh hardly the most important aspect of the brexit it's i mean it's better than nothing but it's again it's just another thing um chrissy twig very interesting question thank you any impact on arrangements with banks on incoming assignees to the uk will it be more difficult to open a uk account no coming to the uk um in fact um we are being actually very welcoming to financial institutions of whatever uh you know so foreign banks eu banks will be able to operate as normal in the uk the problem is just the other way around um but if it's a more general question about uk banks and you know if you're an eu citizen opening an account with the uk bank i've not heard of anything that would cause additional problems i mean it's a big enough hassle already i can't imagine it's going to get harder to open a bank account in the uk uh you're now signing your life away and producing a massive documentation so uh so that that's something again we'll look out for but i've not heard of any specific banking problems for eu citizens so what does this mean for the corporates the corporate clients of euro members yeah i think we can split this into those in the manufacturing sector and those in the service sector so you know if you're um in the car industry if you're in the food and drink sector um it's it's good news because there are no tariffs um there's some extra paperwork you know the customs checks um rules of origin compliance um that that kind of thing um but uh it's uh you know the agreement is really all about making it as straightforward as possible subject to the paperwork requirements for goods to move between the uk and the eu so good news for car manufacturers for example but completely different for service companies because the agreement doesn't deal with services at all um and so for example in the financial sector which is huge in the uk we've already mentioned the loss of passporting rights and reliance on new negotiations now around this concept of equivalence one thing about equivalence is even if it's granted for your bank's activities in the eu it can be withdrawn by the eu on 30 days notice so it's a far weaker right and you know would you be building your business around something that was so uncertain so um there are some some real hurdles um for uk banks now operating in the eu um i mean from from an eu perspective i guess they see this as an opportunity to develop the financial sector further in uh european cities um i'm just checking the latest estimate is that probably only around seven and a half thousand jobs have financial sector jobs have moved out of london to the european union so it's relatively small um and one of the negatives for the eu is that they don't have an equivalent of london in some ways and we've seen the competition that goes on between amsterdam paris luxembourg um they're all competing um for uh to be the center of financial activity in in you know whatever sector they're in and that sort of spreading of uh the financial centers means that they don't have that kind of inbuilt infrastructure um and range of expertise the city of london does have so for the moment the feeling is that while the city of london would have preferred the brexit didn't happen the damage to it looks like being relatively small relatively contained now whether over the next few years there will then be more of a drift and paris or amsterdam really becomes um a center you know to compete with uh with london um remains to be seen but uh so there has been some laws some loss of jobs some loss of business but um really uh not great in the big scheme of things so thank you that's that's very interesting because that was one of the things that was a real hot topic wasn't it when when all of this all the speculation was going on it was like will we lose um from that point of view who will be the winners so um rob fletcher put a question in early on which is a very interesting one how much will the european union miss the net contribution of the uk to the eu's budget yeah i mean it means that all the other net contributing countries in the eu are having to contribute more so that that is significant i mean the other thing around this is the the way that the eu has shrunk as a power you know in population terms and gdp terms so you know there is a sense of loss from an eu perspective as well not just you know cultural terms but in hard financial terms it is a smaller trading block it's still an enormous trading block but it's lost a big chunk it's lost 60 million people has lost a big chunk of of gdp when you're comparing it as a block against china or against the united states so so there's no way uh the european union would see this as anything other than a negative albeit again life goes on and it was probably more important just coming back to the the point we talked about earlier the worst thing that could have happened from an eu perspective would have been the knock on effect the domino effect if um if the netherlands or if france had started going down the same path or even considering holding a referendum you know the negativity that that would have caused would have been enormous but really there's as far as i'm aware there's no sign of that other than in very much fringe groups rather than mainstream uh political parties politics is a very fast moving environment and you know with not just the geopolitical issues surrounding brexit but obviously at the moment with the code of pandemic um you know you you and i have talked about this and and and you brought up some some wider issues just to have a quick discussion about um at the moment given like you say the stability of political structures within the eu do you see that any other eu like a country is likely to follow the uk in pushing for no i i don't think so i mean the eu's difficulties at the moment are tending to be with countries like hungary and poland where um you know it's more about rule of law issues and and values as the eu would see it but i again i don't think that's been translated into political parties saying oh well in that case we're we're going to hold a referendum about leaving the eu so i think these are different kinds of of difficulties and the eu certainly has plenty of difficulties with its neighbors you know and russia on one hand turkey and middle east issues so but i i don't think that's really on their agenda now that oh we have to uh make sure that nobody else follows the uk i think i think that has that issue for the moment has uh died down and i'm not meaning to be the prophet of doom but the last time i was in athens was was i think 2012 after the financial crash and obviously greece had been extremely badly affected by that and i think at that point janus ruffakus was in power and there was quite a big push for greg's it as it was being seen then so you know when you know as as you know fortunes change then so political wills also shift so we'll be keeping an eye on all of that but will the eq now regard the uk as a friend or as a competitor yeah in some ways it will be a friend you know when we look at things like security cooperation and sharing of your fingerprint data and terrorist information all of that where the uk is fairly advanced in the field and you know the cooperation will continue to be very strong there are one or two specific areas around security where there may be additional kind of administrative hurdles now but equally a lot has been agreed to continue just as as we are so i mean that that's a huge thing you know you're talking about security cooperation um i would imagine that keeps people being pretty friendly you know even although they may be annoyed about specifics the kinds of areas that could cause problems would be um i think firstly um the financial services sector as we've said is is far from clear and if the uk feels it's really being excluded from europe um in terms of ability to do business um then you know there's a potential for friction there if the uk starts to deregulate in some areas um with a view to you know used to talk about singapore on terms you know really getting rid of red tape and getting rid of a lot of um employee protections and environmental protections and getting costs down now i don't think for a moment that's going to happen but that was a huge fear from the eu now if if another future uk government started to go down that route um then yeah i guess there is the potential for uh being seen as a very unfriendly competitor on the doorstep rather than this kind of amicable arrangement that we appear to have at the moment so but for the moment yeah um i think it's probably worked out as well as it could have i mean again just from that sort of political point of view a lot of the kind of pro-brexit arguments you know during the referendum and and following were were about things like well we can drop our corporation tax and encourage inward investment i'm assuming that's been locked out by the deal by the tca interestingly it's not so much been locked out no i mean the uk in a sense won the argument that it could make changes to its regulations but there is then arbitration on whether that is unfair competition whether they're un using that change of regulation to unfairly compete with european union companies so britain can do what it likes and that's what boris johnson is able to say we're in total control now but against that if they do certain actions it could trigger um a ruling which could end up with the eu being allowed to impose tariffs for example so um so there's a mechanism there that um it allows both parties to have kind of walked away from the agreement saying they achieved what they wanted to achieve um going back to the thing we were just talking about in terms of other uh eu states leaving robert fletcher asks an interesting question which is given that there is now an actual template for how that worked for the uk would it be simpler if somebody did decide to to renew and it would it be a spark for those discussions about leaving so i i think in terms of the process you know going back to article 50 and all these things that we kind of largely forgotten about now um yeah you know the actual process is straightforward um but it's the political machinations it causes in a country i mean this country is peaked through hell um uh governments have fallen prime ministers have fallen um the country has been terribly divided i think if you were an eu nation looking in on that you would say well okay there is a process here but you know the consequences go with that process um so yeah i i would have thought it would be off-putting um rather than encouraging urging yeah so final point that we are going to discuss that you you brought up and obviously as um as you know gordon is in scotland he's living in edinburgh the capital of scotland will the united kingdom stay united yeah it's certainly the calls for independence in the case of scotland and reunification in the case of northern ireland um have you know these voices are stronger than they've ever been before in some ways you know taking northern ireland first um to avoid a border with ireland for customs purposes the uk's had to agree to effectively have a border in the irish sea so the customs checks are done between great britain and goods going to and from northern ireland it feels like a pretty artificial device um and so those who want to united ireland and and want to then rejoin the eu on the back of that um you know their voices i think have been strengthened um and there is um under the the irish good friday agreement there is provision for a referendum to be held when you know a majority or appears to be a majority of people uh wish to to achieve that so um they're the risk of northern ireland uh becoming part of ireland and from a uk point of view losing northern ireland um has never been greater um and also to bear in mind that northern ireland did vote to remain in the eu so as with scotland you know they can say we've been taken out of the eu against our will and the scottish situation yeah i mean over 60 percent um voted to remain in the eu it was a strong vote and there will be elections in scotland in may and if the nationalist party who are currently in government are returned to government there will almost certainly be a referendum on leaving the uk within maybe 12 months of that and very much in the basis of we want to return to the european union but of course a huge debate about scotland then being separated from its biggest trading partner ie england um and um so that that's a huge debate to follow but i you know i i feel it's probably as high as you know 50 50 that scotland could end up as a as an independent country and rejoin the eu following this and would there be any um political [Music] influence on whether or not scotland's eligibility to rejoin the eu is is in place and do we know that because there's been a lot of speculation about that yeah i mean before brexit there were various statements particularly from spain uh yeah which were very discouraging so um those in scottish independence and trying to rejoin you as an independent country but again from the eu perspective that's really changed now that um the uk has pulled out of the eu so um the official line um is that the eu won't get involved in domestic uk politics um but certainly um privately a number of uh political leaders in europe have now made very positive statements about um the uh the prospect for scotland rejoining so uh so yeah that that is a real issue and uh again that would be a hugely divisive issue in scotland that uh comes up i think fairly shortly um gordon thank you so much we we've come to the end of my door um if anybody has any questions quickly um pop them into the q a or into the chat box um but like i say uh like i said before if you go to the euro website and click on the events tab you'll see the list of webinars that are coming up we've got two on corporate housing and we've got two on immigration one of the immigration ones is going to specifically look at brexit and the impact the second one is going to look at the impact on the biden administration and that was just something i wanted to bring up with you finally gordon um it's well known that you know that joe biden is a great fan of ireland and was very anti-braces if there were moves for northern ireland and ireland to be unified would the uk's special relationship be in any way in jeopardy um no i don't think so because biden's concern and the genuine american concern on this is uh an upsurge of violence in ireland around um you know nationalists being unhappy that a border is recreated in ireland um so if it goes the other way um i mean god forbid but i mean i i guess it could trigger some unionist violence against a united ireland um but no i think the american position would be that they would have no objection to a united ireland far from it it would be in there it was the democratic will of a majority of the people of northern ireland so uh so yeah i think that that's um he would not be an obstacle far from it um jenny hogan thank you for your question will we need a visa to go to the euro conference in future i mean probably not it's we have looked into this in other areas when we've gone to visit um china for example to go to a conference do you need a business visa or can you go in on the touristic visa it really depends but in 99 of cases if you're going for a conference you can go in on a tourist visa but it's worth checking because again you don't want to be turned away at the airport um thank you so much gordon as ever um we will be returning to uh many a topic over the coming months but certainly data um and thank you again for your legal module which is in the mim academy um that's free to certify all the modules free to certify until the end of january at least um we made them all three again um that's great gordon that has certainly brought clarity for me like i said 21st january impact of brexit on immigration will be a specific session that's live to sign up for now on the website we'll be sending out all the details of those next week um thank you to everybody thank you sylvia thank you adrian thank you alistair for your kind comments it's always great to bring everyone together i'm just it's just a shame we can't now go off and have a coffee and a cake somewhere but we will we will in the meantime gordon thank you so much for your expertise thank you to every beer yeah not coffee forget that adrian you're quite right um we will um we'll see you all soon thank you for ever to everybody for joining and as i say the um thank you arena that's very kind thank you for joining the recording i will get that edited and put us up to youtube tomorrow to be sent out to you all and it will go to the rest of the members next week so if you want to return to it or you want to use it as a training thing for your team you're very welcome in the meantime gordon thank you so much great to see you as always thanks everybody for joining take care and goodbye [Music]