The Brexit Effect

Well if the problems the country is experiencing are just “teething problem”, I doubt I’ll still be around when the full set of choppers emerge.

Interesting how Brexiteers, possibly former, still explain the problems caused by Ukraine and the pandemic. I don't think any other EU countries are suffering in quite the same way as the UK. Why is the UK so different?

At one time the then "minister for brexit opportunities" Jacob Rees Mogg was so desperate to find at least one "brexit oppotrunity" that he made a plea to the readers of The Sun to identify a "brexit opportunity". As far as I recall none of them did.

Cameron has been ‘lucky’ . He presided over a dreadful referendum, badly phrased, with the Remain camp, supposedly his favoured outcome, so badly managed and outplayed by the Leave campaign.
Add to this his famous austerity programme, which continued under successive conservative pm’s. Cameron though, takes the prize for announcing the closure of Sure Start Family Centres. He stated these centres weren’t hitting the people who needed their support because families like his dominated, taking resources they didn’t need. Try telling that to social workers in Bury, Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley, Bolton, oswaldtwistle - that’s just a few in the north west, mirrored throughout the country
Yes Brexit is the disaster many of us predicted but it’s not the only disaster initiated by Cameron

Sorry GG13 and thank you for having the courtesy to reply, but we all had the same barrage of information, all had the opportunity to do research. I agree with you about Cameron, a weak and ultimately cowardly man but I only had to look at the people promoting Brexit to understand that their motivation for promoting it was very contrary to my welfare, contrary to the benefit of anyone other than some extremely wealthy individuals.

Fleurpepper

We can certainly say loud and clear now- without any doubt whatsoever, that no-one, just no-one, from the Government, Ministers, MPs and all of us the people knew what they were voting for.

So many MPs, businessmen, farmers, fishermen, and on, and on, and on - now say 'THIS is not the Brexit I voted for'. Brexit was totally unclear, totally loose, and based on so many lies and deception- and once voted for, could transform in any kind of beast imaginable, or worse, un-imaginable.

I don't think that is true. As I had said in the post just before yours, I could, as many could, see that whatever Brexit meant to the individual (and there were as many "Brexits" as there were individuals voting for it), it would never survive daylight. There were many who could see that and did know what they were voting for when they voted remain.

Of course Brexit was a blunder seized on by Johnson as the route to power. He made Rees-Mogg Minister for Brexit Opportunities but I can't recall Rees-Mogg identifying a single one.

Sorry from me too GG13

The disastrous effects of the brexit you voted for are not "teething troubles" unless you agree with Rees Mogg that we would have to wait for fifty years to see the "benefits of brexit"

As his psychiatrist asked "Mr Ress Mogg - these brexit benefits that you see - are they in the room now?"

No problem volver

I'm sorry GG13, let me say that in advance.

But I do blame people who voted for Leave. It was plain that the whole idea was ill conceived and was going to end in tears. I do blame Cameron for having a referendum in the first place, but that doesn't excuse the Leave voters for not having the sense to see what was going to happen.

What we're seeing is not "teething troubles". This is our lives now. Leave voters made it this way.

MaizieD

HousePlantQueen

Yes thank MaizieD for sharing a very honest and straightforward article. Now...would any of you on here who called me (and others) a remoaner, told me to "suck it up" told me "we won, you lost, get over it" accused me of being unpatriotic..
How about an apology and an acknowledgement that you were wrong? I cannot express how angry I am at the impact your vote has had.on my future, my finances, my pensions. I am waiting.

I don't think that you'll get an apology. Most of the Leave voters don't come anywhere near Brexit threads...

It really is interesting to read the other interviews on that web site.

I must be the exception then?

I will not apologise for how I voted.

If you want someone/something to blame start with Mr.Cameron who gave the U.K. the referendum without thinking it through.

I will not deny that Brexit is having teething troubles, as long as it is also acknowledged that the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine is having a major impact on the U.K. finances as well as the rest of the globe.

Both have brought to the forefront how reliant we are on other countries, it’s time to move forward and look at being self sufficient in energy (preferably renewables) along with looking at many other areas here where the U.K. can be more self reliant.

HousePlantQueen

Yes thank MaizieD for sharing a very honest and straightforward article. Now...would any of you on here who called me (and others) a remoaner, told me to "suck it up" told me "we won, you lost, get over it" accused me of being unpatriotic..
How about an apology and an acknowledgement that you were wrong? I cannot express how angry I am at the impact your vote has had.on my future, my finances, my pensions. I am waiting.

I don't think that you'll get an apology. Most of the Leave voters don't come anywhere near Brexit threads...

It really is interesting to read the other interviews on that web site.

Yes thank MaizieD for sharing a very honest and straightforward article. Now...would any of you on here who called me (and others) a remoaner, told me to "suck it up" told me "we won, you lost, get over it" accused me of being unpatriotic..
How about an apology and an acknowledgement that you were wrong? I cannot express how angry I am at the impact your vote has had.on my future, my finances, my pensions. I am waiting.

Thank you MaizieD for the link to that very revealing interview with Phillip Hammond.

This is massive, symbolically and politically. Yes, France has its issues, but it is recovering well, same as the rest of Europe, Slowly, but surely. As the UK heads for the deepest and longest recession in history.

''Britain has lost its position as Europe’s largest stock market, as Paris overtook London for the first time since records began in 2003.

While Rishi Sunak and his chancellor Jeremy Hunt prepared to announce tens of billions in tax hikes and public spending cuts in Thursday’s autumn statement, concerns over growth loomed large in Britain’s fall from the top spot.

According to Bloomberg, the combined market value of primary listings on Monday on the Paris bourse ($2.823tn) surpassed that of the London Stock Exchange ($2.821tn) – finally closing a gap of around $1.5tn which has been narrowing since the Brexit referendum.

In response, one recently-departed member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee – which is warning of the longest UK recession since the 1920s – lamented that leaving the EU has “permanently damaged” not only the City of London, but “the UK economy as a whole”.

As for Putin, we have never seen the full and unredacted Russian interference report. But we know that much

www.thearticle.com/the-russia-report-who-paid-for-brexit

Russia wanted to break up Europe so he could go on the rampage, and Johnson was with him most of the way. And probably shared very sensisitive security information when he went on a p*ss *p with the Russian oligarchs in Umbria, and had to give peerage to Lebedev to stop them spilling the beans. Blackmail probably.

As we are all bracing ourselves for the Budget on Thursday, it is important to know that Brexit is now playing a huge part in this recession, and its consequences

'Brexit ‘damage’ is cause of ‘austerity budget’, says ex-Bank of England economist

‘The need for tax rises, spending cuts, wouldn’t be there, if Brexit hadn’t reduced the economy’s potential output’

Farzanah

Has anyone seen what George Eustace has said in Commons about our duff trade deal with Australia and N Zealand?
“Since I now enjoy the freedom of the back benches, I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed”.

A propos of this I was following a twitter thread by historian, Robert Saunders, on the way that the Aus trade deal had been deliberately rushed through parliament with no scrutiny, when I came a cross a response which referred back to Philip Hammond's in depth interview on the 'Brexit Witness Archive' web page, which has transcripts of in depth interviews with key people from either side of the Brexit divide.

Anyway this one with Hamond is very interesting and reveals some shocking detail. Most shocking for me is this, about the conference speech May made in 2016 which ruled us out of the Single Market and the CU:

(Hammond) Look, what happened, I was completely stunned by the speech that she made at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2016. I hadn’t seen the relevant part of it in advance. I’d had no input to the speech. Nick Timothy kept me completely away from it. I did see some text on the economy the day before, but I had no idea that she was going to describe Brexit in the hardest possible terms.
My assessment of Theresa May’s Prime Ministership, in terms of Brexit, is that she dug a 20-foot-deep hole in October 2016 in making that speech and, from that moment onwards, cupful by cupful of earth at a time, was trying to fill it in a bit so that she wasn’t in such a deep mess.
Remember, the complex narrative about the nuances of Brexit and so on came much later, so I’m not even sure that she understood, as she was delivering that speech, how extreme the words coming out of her mouth really were. I think if she’d understood, if she realised that she was lining up people like me and metaphorically kicking us in the groin, I don’t think she would have done it. I don’t think that was her intention.

UKICE (interviewer): Was it not, though, to some extent a function of the fact that she, perhaps because of her experience as Home Secretary, interpreted the referendum result as all about immigration? Therefore, leaving the Single Market was almost the ‘sine qua non’ of respecting the referendum result.

PH: Part of Theresa May’s challenge – she’s not going to like me saying this, but if we’re doing a historical record – was that her experience was exclusively in the Home Office. She was the world’s leading expert on everything to do with security and immigration. You couldn’t touch her on it. There was no point even arguing with her on it, but she didn’t have a well-rounded view of the economy.

Because the Prime Minister was obsessed by migration, as were a sizeable chunk of the Tory Party. Even people who weren’t in the extreme wing of the party were very nervous about delivering something on migration. I also think most colleagues – political colleagues – frankly, have only a really rather tenuous grip on, or interest in, how the economy works, and were not particularly taken with the argument that we need these people.

This interview was in 2020. I think that Hammond's concluding words have been completely confirmed now as pretty accurate.

History will decide. I think I said at the beginning of this interview that the terrible thing here is that I am pretty sure that, in the end, the one thing I can guarantee is that, whether we have a no deal Brexit or a hard Brexit with a deal, the price, the cost that that imposes on the economy, will be pretty much 100% absorbed by exactly the demographic profile that voted Leave and then voted Boris Johnson, having never voted Tory before, in December 2019. I’m pretty sure that is almost exactly the definition of the people who are going to bear the costs of Brexit.

ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness-archive/philip-hammond/

What shocked me so much was the fact that May delivered that speech and was completely unaware of its implications and possible repercussions (it caused a steep drop in the value of sterling for a start).

The whole interview is long, but really well worth reading. I've just taken out a few extracts. The other interviews on the site are worth reading, too.

Hammond strikes me as being a politician in the John Major mode. One of those decent tories lost to the nation....

The twitter thread that led me to this interview was this one:

twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1592457143676207104

I'm in France hadn't noticed it was a strike day

For me Brexit has gone pretty much as I expected, I didn’t believe any of the potential benefits and when Brexiteers started talking about “cherry picking” I knew that was totally unrealistic.

“Oh well we will survive if nothing else happens,” then Covid happened, then Ukraine, now we are very vulnerable to a serious recession. If we thought austerity was bad under Cameron, get prepared for much worse because the hole we are in now is going to be very difficult.

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

How do your children feel about it now, GG13?

Sorry for delay in answering MaizieD I have been to the opticians.

AC all stand by their decisions.

Which has to be respected, of course. Even though it is very hard, now that we know the massive and long-term damage it is causing, to the economy and to individuals, to understand.

I wonder, and of course you may choose not to reply. Are they not affected by the consequences? Are they not concerned about the effect it will have on their own childrens' future?

Varian I know a young man from Yorkshire who was a true Ambassador for British cheeses all over Europe. He opened a shop, and gave tastings, conferences, wrote article for the Press and specialised magazines, etc. VERY successful and imported and sold tons of the best of British. He opened people's eyes in Europe about how brilliant, varied and amazing British cheeses are, and how they can truly compete with the best.

After Brexit, he tried to make it work- but it was just too complicated and costly and gave up. He now sells the best of British in the best cheese places in London, but exports have had to stop. A huge blow for the best cheese makers.

MaizieD

How do your children feel about it now, GG13?

Sorry for delay in answering MaizieD I have been to the opticians.

AC all stand by their decisions.

Has anyone seen what George Eustace has said in Commons about our duff trade deal with Australia and N Zealand?
“Since I now enjoy the freedom of the back benches, I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed”.

I've read of other examples where companies have moved abroad in order to deal with exports but it shouldn't have to be like that.