All eyes now turn to Brexit.

Hancock

And it getseven worse- what a mess

A “haulier handbook” to prevent Brexit border meltdown on 1 January has been delayed and will not be ready for another month, it has been revealed. So will be available, if all goes well, mid Decenber- just 2 weeks before sheer madness.

In short, don't get to excited about the vaccine- we need to get some into the country first, somehow. EU countries will probably favour EU members and those with strong currencies.

One of the phrases of this year is the concept of "the new normal"

We, in the UK, are, tragically, going have to accept that, because of brexit. everything will get more difficult, more complicated, take longer and cost more.

In the "new normal" we will have to accept that our little isloislolated nation has a much lower standing in the world.

We will always be at a disadvantage in any trade deals and powerful countries willways put us at the back of the queue.

Don’t feel I like thinking about blasted Brexit but I liked this

Should say I don’t feel like....

So true, Lucca

Well this is now very clear.

*“This is a clear red line for us.”
Congressman Brendan Boyle tells Channel 4 News Matt Frei “there will be no US-UK trade deal - period” if the UK government moves forward with the Internal Market Bill.*

Official now, No Deal means the Financial Sector will be locked out of EU access with no equivalence- meaning all Financial Firms in the City and elsewhere will have to leave to continue to work- with a massive loss of taxes for London and the country.

Just thought I would drop this nugget in

A C Grayling

Total UK contributions to EU since 1973: £215 billion (return value: £3.25 trillion - CBI figure of £70 billion pa X 45 years),

Total expenditure on Brexit since 2016: £203 billion (return value: wreckage of economy, international pariah status, loss of rights & freedoms).

But, WwMk2

Blue passports
Sovrinty
No more freedom of movement...

Yay!

Not even Del Boy could even think of that.

Fascinating thread here by 'Steve Analyst' about how the UK moved from pre-referendum Leave promises of not leaving single market, 'Norway' deals etc to a dogmatic belief that leaving the single market was absolutely the intention all along. Particularly with regard to the role of the media post referendum in planting and reinforcing that belief.

Particularly interesting to me was the way Cameron was implicated in the 'no to the single market' belief, as people have quoted it to me on a number of occasions...

Hello, tonight’s thread is going to be focused on the recent article by @anandMenon1 and @jillongovt about how we ended up outside the Single Market.

( www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/who-killed-soft-brexit-eu-european-union-no-deal )

It makes various claims which have merit, and some, like the EU’s attitude to bespoke deals, which are inaccurate, but it’s biggest failing is not recognising how the media is the main actor in this.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1327002960484818945.html

biba70

Not even Del Boy could even think of that.

I'm sure that Del By voted Leave

Well Farage has been re-named lately as 'Del Boy gone wrong'
very apt, I think.

We are the only population in Europe whose freedom has been limited by the government.

Just as predicted, Johnson is now beginning to negotiate more sensibly and addressing the the narrative. Biden has done exactly what was expected and Johnson has fallen into line.

It is called taking back control??

Something bizarre is happening on GN- and other social media. The Brexiters have gone very quiet- is the penny dropping, or has dropped (along with Sterling).

biba70

Something bizarre is happening on GN- and other social media. The Brexiters have gone very quiet- is the penny dropping, or has dropped (along with Sterling).

Yes I think so. Next we will see the offending clauses being dropped from the IM bill.

It took the election of a grown up in the USA to make our child-like government see sense.

Glad we’ve got so much control.

With luck some sort of deal might be cobbled together but it will be touch and go, and not as comprehensive as it could have been.

It is now apparent to anyone who reads a newpaper, or watches the news, or has a relative working in the car industry or finance.....this is going to be an absolute disaster if it goes ahead. There are absolutely no positives and I find it really disturbing to live in a country with a Home Secretary who celebrates the fact that we cannot go where we want, when we want, and for how long we want, why is this to be applauded? Has anyone read the implications for musicians and associated staff? Catastrophic.

it is quite nice talking among ourselves, isn't it

It is a bit of an echo chamber Biba70 but it won't be long before we get there is no point in discussing it, we have been over it again and again and that old favourite it would have been worse under Corbyn . So, anyone reading this like to make the case for positives?

Don’t think there are any positives. What an all round disaster. I feel sorry for young folk who will lose out being able to travel, be educated and get European jobs.

There is one positive. And that is that other EU countries, seeing the mess that we’re in have stepped back from the anti EU feeling that had started to spread through them. And this has been echoed in America with the defeat of Trump.

Yes I think it is becoming easier to understand the psyche of the leave voter, and what drove them to inflict such harm on the country.

The government must address this, just as must be done in the USA.

As rosecarmel said on another thread, the harm done over past decades needs to be unpacked and repacked in a way that there is greater fairness and less grinding generational poverty.

Without this recognition, there will be even more willingness to vote for greater extremes. We’ve seen it in Trump and Brexit and the harm it does.

I am hopeful that Biden understands this with his agenda of inclusiveness. We are still stuck in the mire with the pigs and their snouts firmly embedded, but it can’t last for ever.