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

“Watch Question Time next Thursday..the audience will be made up entirely of those who voted Leave. It will be a bunfight, but very interesting.”

No it won’t because the questions will be selected to be controversial, it won’t conclude anything. The facts are, we have left the EU and just have to do the best we can, nothing else matters

Nezumi65

I find it odd that there’s this idea that nothing much has changed. Maybe if your only contact with the EU is a two week holiday once a year, but for others things have changed dramatically.

I've lived between France and England for 45 years, not an occasional two week holiday. I'm currently in Brittany. Yesterday evening over dinner, Breton friends told me that all these hospitals had to close their A & Es on certain nights last month due to a lack of staff. Fougères, Dinan,Redon, Pontivy, Avranches. Which meant that the big hospitals in Rennes couldn't cope any more.
Yes, things gave changed, but it's a worldwide situation, not Brexit related.

Standing right beside you Fleurpepper. Keep going. Those who yawn and bully you to shut up are usually those who voted for Brexit and who now secretly feel guilty

Not true, have you read the whole thread, specki4eyes? The majority here are saying they voted remain.

Standing right beside you Fleurpepper. Keep going. Those who yawn and bully you to shut up are usually those who voted for Brexit and who now secretly feel guilty about how they have helped to turn Great Britain into Little Britain, bobbing about vulnerable and alone on rough and chilly seas. Winston Churchill must be turning in his grave after he fought so bravely for a united Europe.

Funny how that huge weekly amount promised for the NHS never materialised, nor the massive trade deals with the US, nor the reductions in illegal immigrants..etc etc....
Watch Question Time next Thursday..the audience will be made up entirely of those who voted Leave. It will be a bunfight, but very interesting.

I find it odd that there’s this idea that nothing much has changed. Maybe if your only contact with the EU is a two week holiday once a year, but for others things have changed dramatically.

fancythat

EU isnt united. Never will be.
Why should it? It is multiple distinct countries. With multiple peoples. Even more so now than perhaps ever before.

I think it was more united when it was the smaller, original group. I've no idea how nany members it has now, 28? The dynamics changed and a Federal Europe, which I would like, is a pipedream.

Oreo: "Divided over what?"
Well, we could start with Brexit! There's a reason many don't want to discuss it; it makes them feel uncomfortable. I sense this so leave topic well alone when I meet people.
I find it incredible how you can claim the nation is not divided. Head in the sand?

Perhaps that is a bit of a muddled post using the word EU. But I would hope people get my drift.

EU isnt united. Never will be.
Why should it? It is multiple distinct countries. With multiple peoples. Even more so now than perhaps ever before.

maddyone

Just interested sue, but how have the rules changed that make it more difficult for you to trade? And the same question about your friends? What has changed that prevents you from trading? Especially trading in books?

I voted remain by the way, but interested to know.

In reply to some I do NOT support anything below the minimum wage and would love us all to be paid fairly - but it isn’t going to happen! I think many others have put it more succinctly than I did when referencing that we need the EEs or from wherever, to be prepared to do jobs the Brits WON’T.
MADDYONE Re the Book Trade - I am speaking from the point of view of a one person second-hand and Antiquarian Bookseller pov.
Pre Brexit an order from Europe would arrive and we would pack it and post it - no regs . Now we have to Register to post abroad, fill in long forms and vastly increased postage - Ok more annoying but not world shaking, Books are zero registered so no issues with customs THEN. NOW you come up with Customs charges which either have to be paid by you or the customer the other end - often more than the book is worth! Customer complaints cos they didn’t know about charges!. France and Germany (first-others to follow) have now brought in Packaging rules re no plastic and in order to sell there you have to REgister IN the Individual countries Separately, and pay them a fairly substantial annual fee to register with one or two companies that will allow you to post without hassle. Costs all round have risen - but when haven’t they - but after 43+ years in the Trade it’s all too much for this 77 year old! Etc.
I still send the odd parcel Internationally, the US is still OK - but a flourishing trade with the EU is no more! Similarly it seems the reverse is true - the orders from the EU almost stopped once Brexit went through.
And before anyone tells me about eBay’s Global Posting service I have almost never ever used ebay to sell through . I use a database that until just recently didn’t allow for uploading to ebay. I’d have had to do that individually plus costs. For the youngsters that are more active I’m sure they have the energy to game the system - I no longer have!

Dickens

Louella12

Fleur, I don't know a soul who is bothered about Brexit. It's done. What is this vast majority you talk of? Ridiculous. Brexit is not on most people's minds. We're getting on with life. Why don't you take up a note productive hobby? We're not going back into the EU. Suck it up .

We're not going back into the EU. Suck it up .

How rude!

In fact, the decision whether or not "we" ever go back in might be taken decades down the line by following generations - when many of us will no longer be around to have a say.

And, as with most political decisions, it will largely be based on the economic climate at that time - if the then government of the day consider it to be in our interests (or theirs) then there is a distinct possibility the country will rejoin.

I would love to rejoin!

Thanks. Maybe his chaos theory approach to things didn’t lend itself well to business ventures of that nature.

MayBee70

I’ve still never found out what the other arch brexiteer , Dominic Cummings did when he spent several years in Russia. I can’t remember where I heard it ( even though it was only recently) but someone said that conspiracy theories are usually based on some sort of fact.

I think DC was working for a company that were attempting to set up some business venture or other in Russia, but I don't think it happened...

... ah, I've just looked it up on 'wiki'...

After graduating, Cummings moved to Russia and lived there until 1997.[12] He worked for a group attempting to set up an airline connecting Samara in southern Russia to Vienna in Austria which George Parker of the Financial Times said was "spectacularly unsuccessful".[13] He subsequently returned to the UK.

Oreo

But that’s a very loooooong way in the future Dickens even if it ever happens.We have to live in the here and now, and y’know most of the population are happy to actually do that.

Yes, I'm aware it's decades away (if at all). My point is that some who voted Leave appear to believe it's now set in stone.

I'm not one of those who are agitating to rejoin immediately - we are nowhere near that point at which it might become feasible, it's quite unrealistic at this present time.

Of course we have to live in the moment - and much as I think leaving was a mistake, and say so when the subject comes up - I do actually live a life that doesn't revolve around the matter.

Whether or not "most" of the population are in fact happy to do that is rather debatable at the moment. It's more a situation where there is little alternative. We debate this in my local and there are most definitely some disgruntled Leave voters - three of them among our crowd of seven - who feel that they've been conned.

In fact, people who are on holiday are usually trying to enjoy themselves sightseeing, relaxing for a while away from any worries back home.

Or they're all desperately trying to avoid getting trapped in a conversation with OP about Brexit.

For about 7 days following the referendum I can remember it being the sole topic of conversation. Since then, I cannot remember one single conversation I've had with colleagues, friends, family or neighbours about Brexit. Not one. I can only imagine why it completely obsesses the OP, to the exclusion of any other topic.

Another account of how everybody is laughing at the UK?

I don't think they are as they all have their own troubles in their home countries, some worse. Stones and glass houses comes to mind.

In fact, people who are on holiday are usually trying to enjoy themselves sightseeing, relaxing for a while away from any worries back home.
It would be most unusual to have a discussion about something that happened in another country 7 years ago!!
Especially if you were visiting from the USA or Japan.

but Johnson chose to go for the hardest of Brexit, and get rid of Free movement
We were never part of the Schengen area.

Divided over what?
This stuff is only on SM anymore.Everybody I know never even mentions it and gets on happily with life especially after the pandemic, which made everyone realise what’s really important, and it’s not about being in or out of the EU! Seeing friends and family and trying to enjoy any spare time they have together is what they want to do.

Callistemon, the UK could have had the sort of Brexit that would have had a Swiss/Norway style agreement- but Johnson chose to go for the hardest of Brexit, and get rid of Free movement. Remember all the promises made during the campaign that Brexit would not endanger our place in the Single Market and the Customs Union

The vote was a stark choice - in or out.
The result was close, however, the Swiss vote was decisive that's why I wondered if it's still debated there or not.

Yes, he's gone but he won't go quietly, I think.

Foxygloves

^Not talking about the Euro! But this thread is not about me^

Ah, but isn’t it?
Another opportunity to do down the country you profess to be a proud citizen of?
( the demise of the UK )
Another opportunity to claim bullying from those who dismiss your preoccupations?
Another account of how everybody is laughing at the UK?
I think it is very much about you - the “vast majority” you claim to represent are for the most part not whingeing, but getting on with their lives and if things are not necessarily what they might be, recognising that the world is a very different place from what it was pre-pandemic, pre-Ukraine, pre-Putin and not blaming everything on one event 7 years ago.

But everything is linked. One of the reasons Putin thought it was ok to invade Ukraine was because he thought that Europe wasn’t united. Russian oligarchs had bought up a lot of this country; property annd football clubs. Disgraced liar of an ex PM , brexiteer in chief Johnson even got one of his Russian mates into the House of Lords. I’ve still never found out what the other arch brexiteer , Dominic Cummings did when he spent several years in Russia. I can’t remember where I heard it ( even though it was only recently) but someone said that conspiracy theories are usually based on some sort of fact.

Oreo, I'm not convinced that most people are happy to live in the here and now at the moment. I can't remember a time when the nation was as divided as it is now.

maddyone

The EU had nothing to do with the tightening up of safety requirements after Herald of Free Enterprise capsized.
The International Maritime Organisation introduced new regulations, one of which was that the ferry remain in port until the closure of the watertight doors is verified with the Captain on the bridge.
The biggest change was in fact the introduction of The International Safety Code.
I wish people wouldn't attribute factors to the EU that have nothing to do with the EU.

I did not attribute the change in the laws to the EU. I merely said that the Tories are trying to relax them.

But that’s a very loooooong way in the future Dickens even if it ever happens.We have to live in the here and now, and y’know most of the population are happy to actually do that.

Louella12

Fleur, I don't know a soul who is bothered about Brexit. It's done. What is this vast majority you talk of? Ridiculous. Brexit is not on most people's minds. We're getting on with life. Why don't you take up a note productive hobby? We're not going back into the EU. Suck it up .

We're not going back into the EU. Suck it up .

How rude!

In fact, the decision whether or not "we" ever go back in might be taken decades down the line by following generations - when many of us will no longer be around to have a say.

And, as with most political decisions, it will largely be based on the economic climate at that time - if the then government of the day consider it to be in our interests (or theirs) then there is a distinct possibility the country will rejoin.