INDEPENDENCE DAY!

aprilrose I run a small very niche (academic services) business with about 50% of my business now coming from abroad. Brexit has already had an impact on grant funding which means I rarely get asked to provide quotes for large funding requests anymore. My clients still use me, but for small pieces of work, so people who used to ask me to do thousands of pounds worth of work now only have the funds for hundreds. I am the only person doing what I do in the world, so it’s not competition, it is a loss of research funding. The other impact is that over the last few years the percentage of my (now smaller) business that is being carried out abroad has increased rapidly.

The amount of paperwork that will now be needed to carry on 50% of my depleted business from next January has made me decide it’s not worth it. I’l shut up shop sometime this year. It’s served me well for 15 years or so but time to go and do something else. Not in academia - it is being badly hit by Brexit.

I suspect the slow loss of funding will be the impact of Brexit. We’ll become a poorer more inward looking nation.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Yawn. Does anyone seriously think their life is going to massively improve? Plenty of possibility of the exact opposite. Taking back control - ha, ha!!!

It’s not the leavers who are sore losers growstuff ......it’s posters such as you!

PS. I've never been a fan of children's parties, so I shall be doing the same as I do every Friday evening.

Hetty I've never liked the "Leaver" and "Remainer" labels anyway. I voted to remain in the EU and, should a last minute rethink miraculously emerge, I would vote the same way again. That doesn't make me a "Remainer". It makes me a person who thinks the country has made the wrong decision and nothing has yet persuaded me otherwise.

I'm really quite bemused that those who voted to leave seem to be such sore losers. Have your little parties, if it makes you happy. It really doesn't bother me in the slightest. Nothing will be any different tomorrow morning.

The next year will be interesting. I hope people didn't really think they'd heard the last of Brexit.

Happy Indepen(dance) day!

The sky never fell in...

As I said previously, I just don't care any more.

Good point, Aprilrose. So many things conveniently explained by Brexit. So many catastrophic predictions from the doom and gloom brigade.

The remainers still say that they're remainers - even though the decision has been made. So many people dislike change - yet it's the only certain thing.

Maizie Best ignored. Leave them alone in their euphoric fool's paradise.

You're just being insulting now, aprilrose.

Nezumi65. I come from a family of business people. I personally do not run one as I really do not have the lobes for business. I dont like the stress. I would rather be an employee.... but that is as maybe.

My question to myself, which I will voice, in the light of experience is, - is your business really being closed because of brexit or is that an excuse for other factors?

Business has been tough over the last 20 years. For many it is now picking up ( as my business family and even my employers are saying). I am not trying to be rude but often there are other factors in business failure. Too many in the market, not able to invest, not having the right product/placing etc. failure to adapt..... even just tiredness sometimes.

I wish you luck in the future. I am not without empathy for your situation. Over the last 45 years I have lost several jobs which have been the direct result of EU policies .... so it cuts both ways. Always there are winners and losers.

Shall I pop the champers as I close my business Aprilrose? I shall celebrate by choosing the month to shut up shop tonight.

I’m not miserable - rather resigned to it tbh and economic suicide aside am horrified by the jingoistic patriotism it seems to have unleashed.

@Nezummi65 . But you will all be alone in that misery. No one likes a misery , so

NO optimism on this thread.? Only doom and gloom. ! Let’s celebrate our independence ??

Well there are plenty of us not celebrating, so I don’t think we’ll be alone.

and the world will smile with you.
its the beginning of the end of the EU in Britian.
Party tonight .

Let the miserable be alone.

I read the link about Australia Unfortunately, what you don't seem to understand Jennifer, is that Australia WANTS immigration. That is how there system works.

Why do people get so nasty. Possibly in reply to "nasty", prodding and pointless OPs.

I don't think anyone ever predicted an 'immediate' financial disaster, ananimous. Those who wanted to leave now intend, as a weaker post-Brexit Britain, to look to America, it seems. Good luck with that.

Independence from what anyway? Hooray we can get rid of the Human Rights Act - who wants Human Rights anyway?

We can import food more likely to poison us (& looks like we’ll have to to get a US deal). Yahoo.

I doubt they’ll be much independent about doing whatever the US wants us to.

From the point of view of carbon footprints, how can bringing goods thousands of miles from the USA and Australia be better for the earth than trading with our neighbours in Europe?

I Think it’s dragged on for so long it won’t be as big a celebration as it would have been had we left a couple of years ago ( when we were supposed to )
Most people just seem tired of it all.
Plus nothing will change for another year. And for all the arguments, no one will know if brexit has been a success for at least another 10 years.

Obviously it’s nose-rubbing - what else can it be? Everything is the same until Dec 31st and after that you’ve no evidence that it “will all come right”. - how will you measure that? The cost of your champagne? Please Also explain how the EU is “feudalistic”.

Lyndiloo You have no idea how I would have reacted if more people had voted to remain than leave. Please don't judge me by the crassness of some Leave voters.

Yes, I do know what "feudalistic", but your use of the word in the context of the EU suggests that you most certainly don't.

For those who will say Johnson is saying Erasmus will stay etc the uncertainty is already killing the scheme - unless people are loaded it is difficult to commit to a year abroad - this article explains the impact already www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/28/too-much-risk-why-erasmus-students-are-shunning-brexit-britain

The impact of Brexit on the university sector is already huge. Sadly. Universities these days work best via collaboration. Splendid isolation tends to get them very far.