Has the penny dropped (as fast as the Pound)- Brexit is a disaster

Just looked at exchange rates

€1 buys $1.08

£1 buys $1.27

It’s not all sunny uplands in the eurozone despite what is being implied on this thread.

OP, I’d assumed the 60% drop in your income you complained about earlier and said you couldn’t have planned for was somehow due to Brexit, which is why I questioned it earlier in the thread (the only reply I got was that the thread wasn’t about you).

But it’s since you left the UK decades ago? Most of the decline in the value of the £ against the Swiss Franc occurred during our EU membership. A month previous to the vote the exchange rate was 1.35.

I’d guess that many (most?) other currencies have done badly against the Swiss franc since 1930. However, I’m not going to waste time googling while the sun’s shining outside!

Callistemon21

Exchange rate fluctuations happen constantly due to all kinds of factors and world events.

Dont they just.

Back in the day, decades before Brexit, I used to have to change the foreign exchange boards to the public, as part of my job.
Some days I used to go in, and things had barely moved. Other days I was out there ages, as something had happened or other, sometimes overnight, to make most of the rates alter a lot. I would have to change most of the numbers. And that was just a one day change.

Same old. Same old.

The exchange rate between Australia and the UK has been pretty much the same for years and years. In fact the pound is probably a bit stronger now than it was pre Brexit. Just saying.

Of course, fluctuations occur, up and down. For the Pound recently the trend has been down, and down.

Katie, many have planned and calculated very carefully for decades, using all savings to do up a little place they'd bought at a good price- to retire to. Some have been able to cope with the low sterling values, but so so many have had to pack up and return- unable to sell even at a very low price.

But this is not the topic of this thread, which was to find out if anyone here still did not realise that Brexit is an unmitigated disaster- or let's put it another way, that Brexit was and still is a good idea with no or few negative consequences for the UK.

It is nowhere near €1.25 Katie59. We lose a couple of cents in transfer, but have had around 1.14 recently, which is the current rate on XE.
We considered our finances in depth before we moved. We took into account fluctuations. The spreadsheets allow us to continually model our finances and make adjustments.
I don't think we considered a situation where a string of ill-considered political decisions would cause a long-term decline in the country's financial position.
As I have said many times, I am far more concerned about the impact of Brexit on the future of our grandchildren than on us.

I think that the foundations for all that has happened to the U.K. during the past 7 years or so were laid from the very beginning of the Tory rule in 2010.

Cameron’s disastrous austerity, which did so much damage to the whole of society, particularly the NHS, housing, social care and so forth, meant that the effects were felt throughout society, and people looked for someone or something to blame. It laid the path wide open for opportunistic ideologues like the anti- Europeans to argue and represent the EU as the bogey man or scapegoat for the whole of the UKs ills.

It only took then, the right wing media and groups like the ERG to capitalise on this you have a society who desperate for change, willing to accept the arguments.

Cameron of course showing very little spine, caved into what in effect was a small minority and gave way to a referendum, but in doing so failed to set necessary parameters for such what would be a fundamental change to our economy.

He failed the country at every level.

nanna8

The exchange rate between Australia and the UK has been pretty much the same for years and years. In fact the pound is probably a bit stronger now than it was pre Brexit. Just saying.

It was $2.4 to GBP1 when we first went, then went right down at one point several years ago but recovered and has remained fairly steady for some time.

Whitewavemark2 Mr.Cameron obviously didn’t have a Plan B…

GrannyGravy13

Whitewavemark2 Mr.Cameron obviously didn’t have a Plan B…

None of them did. Certainly not the brexiters.

Never mind the exchange rate on those who have chosen, for one reason or another, to go and live abroad.

The fall in Sterling affects much more important things, like food, energy, essential chemicals (for water treatment for instance) medicines, and so much more, like paying for debts, including massive Government debts, aka our own in so many ways.

Katie59

The spreadsheets show the picture of decline in the pound against the euro since Brexit very clearly.

Yes if sterling is converted to Euros there was a 30% fall due to Brexit, from around €1.40 to 1.10, it’s now recovered nearly half that at around €1.25. Nothing you can do about the state pension, if you are living overseas you are probably not on the breadline anyway.

When did the breadline become criteria for feeling robbed by low Sterling rate? My quite wealthy brother is not thrilled to his 'Social Security' (USA oap pension $3600/mo) arrive at a low amount.

Same here Mamie- very concerned about mortgage rates, energy prices, the demise of the NHS and inflation, on food, medicines and everything else, for our ACs, but more importanly, on our grandchildren, who will be paying the hightest price for Brexit in years to come.

Fortunately, ours have access to other passports, and will always have two escape routes. Most will not.

🥱

Why does anyone need to escape from the UK? The grass on the other side of the channel is not as green as you would have us believe. And increased mortgage rates, fuel and (most) food prices and the problems with the NHS are nothing to do with Brexit. Why must you continue complaining about this country and blaming all its woes on Brexit? You seem obsessed with it.

Oh well, just to lighten today's mood and go irrelevantly and irreverently away from the requested discussion ......
This morning in France I filled up with petrol and drove to the little hut where the cashier takes the money, (why you can't just put your card in at the pump I don't know?) Anyway, cue a jolly five minute conversation, ending in his saying, "thanks for your English pounds sterling, we need it more than you do!"
Eh? Firstly I gulped because I thought he had charged me in £ and I would have been done, and secondly why do they seem to think that Brits are the more wealthy, living the good life?

Phew! My receipt was good!

Fleurpepper

Same here Mamie- very concerned about mortgage rates, energy prices, the demise of the NHS and inflation, on food, medicines and everything else, for our ACs, but more importanly, on our grandchildren, who will be paying the hightest price for Brexit in years to come.

Fortunately, ours have access to other passports, and will always have two escape routes. Most will not.

What have now reasonable mortgage rates to do with Brexit?

Or energy cost? Or NHS?

Medicines? My friend here, France, told me her DD recently had to drive nearly 60 kilometres to get antibiotics for her little daughter.

Joseann

Medicines? My friend here, France, told me her DD recently had to drive nearly 60 kilometres to get antibiotics for her little daughter.

Unfortunately the entire planet is still plying catch-up after Covid when it comes to medicines and the packaging it comes in.

We have family in three mainland European Countries and they are telling us pretty much the same.

The grass is greener stuff about the EU appears to be rubbish.

I do think sometimes though, it depends on circumstances.
I always thought it was a good thing to do, what they used to always do in that come to Australia programme. Forget what it was called.

They used to have one side of the paper for a complete list of expenses and income in the Uk.
And compare it with what the income would be like in Australia with that particular job, and just as importantly, what your personal family expenses would be. Which obviously varied family to family.

People are not always comparing like with like.

Germanshepherdsmum

Why does anyone need to escape from the UK? The grass on the other side of the channel is not as green as you would have us believe. And increased mortgage rates, fuel and (most) food prices and the problems with the NHS are nothing to do with Brexit. Why must you continue complaining about this country and blaming all its woes on Brexit? You seem obsessed with it.

This.

Germanshepherdsmum

Why does anyone need to escape from the UK? The grass on the other side of the channel is not as green as you would have us believe. And increased mortgage rates, fuel and (most) food prices and the problems with the NHS are nothing to do with Brexit. Why must you continue complaining about this country and blaming all its woes on Brexit? You seem obsessed with it.

Indeed.

Only months after quitting the EU, we were thrown into the chaos of Covid-19. This plandemic wasn't caused by Brexit. Although, it is a very convenient excuse for remoaners to keep moaning. It's a bit like the gas shortages 'because of the war in Ukraine' when we only get let than 4% of our gas from Russia, but hey, why waste a good excuse!

Norah

Fleurpepper

Same here Mamie- very concerned about mortgage rates, energy prices, the demise of the NHS and inflation, on food, medicines and everything else, for our ACs, but more importanly, on our grandchildren, who will be paying the hightest price for Brexit in years to come.

Fortunately, ours have access to other passports, and will always have two escape routes. Most will not.

What have now reasonable mortgage rates to do with Brexit?

Or energy cost? Or NHS?

It's all linked, believe it or not.

If we buy energy (or food, medicines, chemicals, parts, etc, etc, etc) from abroad, in Sterling, then the low value of Sterling makes everything more expensive. And inflation is happening all over, but in the UK is even higher due to Brexit, and low Sterling values. It is not that complicated to understand.

Obsessed with Brexit? Oh yes, I am- and I can assure you I am not the only one, and for very good (bad) reasons, as it is affecting us all, our ACs, and grandchildren who will pay a very heavy price. Yawning, Aveline, will not change that.