Still told to 'get over it, it's done.

This is the really significant section of Clarkson’s rant.

But it's a billion times worse if you go there with a film crew. Because, today, you have to list everything you're taking and its value and its serial number. Every lens. Every cable. Every reflector. Every 4×4. Everything. And then, after you've spent several days doing all that, you pay a company thousands of pounds to put it all on a form, which is called a carnet.

This, and the 90day rule has seriously adversely affected those working in the entertainment industry who could previously come and go and work in the EU for extended periods when work was available. Apparently UK musicians were in demand in the EU until we became a 3rd country.

Once again, I am stunned by the indifference of Leave voters to the harm their vote did to people’s careers and livelihoods.

Buried in a 19,800 word Spectator essay written by former online editor and Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings is an admission: The Brexit referendum was won by lying to the public.

The piece, found here, is well worth reading but also falls victim to classic mansplaining of a complex issue with many words wasted on prose that most politicians would be proud of, working around the subject rather than delving in to the heart of it.

Of course, that’s for a very good reason, because at the heart of the vote to leave the European Union is an entanglement of lies and propagandist sensationalism that even the most brave souls wouldn’t dare admit to.

There is the admission that the NHS wouldn’t really take back our £350 million EU fee, and that immigration wouldn’t really be capped, and that standards of living wouldn’t really change if we left the EU. All of which are matters that the general public voted on, and all are incorrect.

And so to the damning paragraph that outs the Leave Campaign for what it was:

Pundits and MPs kept saying ‘why isn’t Leave arguing about the economy and living standards’. They did not realise that for millions of people, £350m/NHS was about the economy and living standards – that’s why it was so effective. It was clearly the most effective argument not only with the crucial swing fifth but with almost every demographic. Even with UKIP voters it was level-pegging with immigration. Would we have won without immigration? No. Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests No. Would we have won by spending our time talking about trade and the Single Market? No way.
To casually admit that the NHS swung the vote is an admission that the Leave campaign won because they lied to the public, and few tweets better sum up the state that that leaves the rest of us in than this:

Clarkson
“The presenter also said he felt there were “compelling” reasons for leaving but added: “They’re not compelling enough for me to say I want to drive a Morris Oxford, which is what would happen.”
2016

I’ve never thought of Clarkson as a prophet, but he was pretty close

MayBee70

Oreo

I confess I didn’t reach the end of it Maybee70 it was just too much, in every way.
Why would it be cos you had posted this comment, I have no idea who you are beyond seeing your name now and then on this forum.
Seeing it’s by Clarkson makes sense of the OTT content.

Can't win really. Post a link and people say they don't like links. Post a whole article and people find them too long to read. Anyway, as you say you're a long time Labour voter I would have thought you would have agreed with Clarkson about this.

Why would you think that? Labour voters are all different, some voted to leave and some to remain.Clarkson is a bit like Boris, he says what suits him at the time.He may not always be wrong, even a stopped clock is right twice a day but I rarely agree with him.

he is a big mouthed maverick, I don't like him and often disagree with him. On this occasion, he is spot on. Same as Piers Morgan.

Not a single person here has been able to give a clear good effect of Brexit- not a single one that could not be immediately countered with fact (like the vaccine access nonsense). NOT ONE.

But the list of lies and disastrous effects is so long and getting longer by the day. So often here on GN, a thread will be started about the NHS, or about business, or about shortages of medicines or other stuff, or about the loss of Sterling values, or energy costs, and on, and on - and never accepting that Brexit is one of the major cause factors.

How do you 'get over' something - when we don't even know what it consists of, and its main supporters have changed their mind, or said stupid things like 'ah, it is very bad, but it wasn't done properly' à la Farage!

GrannyGravy13

Allira

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Oh Clarkson!
You have to read right to the end to find out ….😶

One minute he's loathed on GN, the next he's a fount of wisdom 😀

Depends if you agree with what he is saying at the time I suppose 🤷‍♀️😹

Well, that did make me laugh 😂

Thanks MayBee70, Clarkson is such a brilliant ranter.
His programmes on farming were very entertaining and thought-provoking too, showing the problems farmers are encountering with political interference.

However, I thought the consensus of most Gransnetters on the left seemed to be that he is a loathsome misogynist to be avoided at all costs.

He was rather a luke-warm Remain voter, I thought.

Clarkson has previously declared being in favour of remain, saying it would be “better to stay in and try to make the damn thing work properly”.

The presenter also said he felt there were “compelling” reasons for leaving but added: “They’re not compelling enough for me to say I want to drive a Morris Oxford, which is what would happen.”
2016

Oreo

I confess I didn’t reach the end of it Maybee70 it was just too much, in every way.
Why would it be cos you had posted this comment, I have no idea who you are beyond seeing your name now and then on this forum.
Seeing it’s by Clarkson makes sense of the OTT content.

Can't win really. Post a link and people say they don't like links. Post a whole article and people find them too long to read. Anyway, as you say you're a long time Labour voter I would have thought you would have agreed with Clarkson about this.

I confess I didn’t reach the end of it Maybee70 it was just too much, in every way.
Why would it be cos you had posted this comment, I have no idea who you are beyond seeing your name now and then on this forum.
Seeing it’s by Clarkson makes sense of the OTT content.

Mollygo

MayBee70 take care of your stress levels over things that have been done.

How kind of you to be so concerned about my well being. It surely wasn't meant in a sarcastic way was it ?

Allira

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Oh Clarkson!
You have to read right to the end to find out ….😶

One minute he's loathed on GN, the next he's a fount of wisdom 😀

Clarkson made a tv series about Europe many years ago which actually made me warm to him. For that reason I've never totally dismissed his comments out of hand or loathed him.

Oreo

Phew * Maybee70* 😄 that’s a bit of an essay to read.Who wrote it btw? Over the top nonsense.

I assume you didn't bother to read it or the comment I'd added at the end of the article. Just dismissed it out of hand because I'd written it....

FriedGreenTomatoes2 we have never had a problem flying into Malaga, Portugal or Cyprus since UK left the EU.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

mayBee that sounds like a FB blog.
Not that I’m on FB. 😂
But it sounds like regurgitated guff.

It was in todays Times...

Phew * Maybee70* 😄 that’s a bit of an essay to read.Who wrote it btw? Over the top nonsense.

No. It’s just that whenever we fly Manchester to Málaga it’s a dream. No queue as he described. (Mind you he was in the wrong one!).

I know he’s describing’the arts’ or business checks. Which don’t affect Himself and me.

But one person’s anecdotal story (his) is often cancelled out by another (ours)!

Mollygo

Claremont
Are these the meats that conform to
Romola’s
European values, standards and rights?

😂
I was just wondering the same thing.

Allira

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Oh Clarkson!
You have to read right to the end to find out ….😶

One minute he's loathed on GN, the next he's a fount of wisdom 😀

Depends if you agree with what he is saying at the time I suppose 🤷‍♀️😹

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Oh Clarkson!
You have to read right to the end to find out ….😶

One minute he's loathed on GN, the next he's a fount of wisdom 😀

Since we left the EU it's been easier to get into Iraq than France.

Our relatives go back and forth regularly. They've ever mentioned any difficulty.
(I mean France, not Iraq.)

Oh Clarkson!
You have to read right to the end to find out ….😶

In the meantime, if you follow GB News, you would not have seen the results of the YouGov statistics posted above- as they did not want you to see them. Wonder why?

Sorry, I don't Claremonr.

Would you recommend it?

mayBee that sounds like a FB blog.
Not that I’m on FB. 😂
But it sounds like regurgitated guff.

MayBee70 take care of your stress levels over things that have been done.

“Brexit makes me want to sit in a gutter and weep
Since we left the EU it's been easier to get into Iraq than France. None of this has made our lives better in any way
Unlike absolutely everyone on social media, I find it quite easy to get on with people whose views on life differ from my own. I don't want to murder someone who likes cats just because I prefer dogs. I can tolerate those who drink the juice of a nut rather than milk. And if someone comes up my drive in an electric car, I don't wave a shotgun in their general direction and tell them to back up.
I have a partner in my brewing and pub businesses. He's shy so I won't name him. Let's call him Peter. He's a Blairite leftie whose love of the Labour Party is so profound that he even voted for Starmer. But we get on well. If our political differences seep into the conversation, we josh one another in the same way we do when we are discussing Chelsea and his team of reds, Arsenal.
On the farm show, one of the producers believes that Jeremy Corbyn lost because he was too right-wing. He's a proper Marxist and it doesn't matter: he's a good chap, and fun to have around.
There is an exception to all of this, however. People who voted for Brexit. It's not so bad if they put their hands up and admit they made a mistake. But if I encounter someone who still thinks it was all a brilliant idea, I get so cross my hair catches fire and my teeth start to itch.
Brexit hasn't made our lives better in any way that I can see. It's bad enough these days going to Europe as a tourist, standing in the passport queue behind three million Nigerians and a plane-load of confused people from Japan. And then getting a text from Lisa, who's already by the pool with a glass of wine, because she's Irish.
But it's a billion times worse if you go there with a film crew. Because, today, you have to list everything you're taking and its value and its serial number. Every lens. Every cable. Every reflector. Every 4×4. Everything. And then, after you've spent several days doing all that, you pay a company thousands of pounds to put it all on a form, which is called a carnet.
But then you're done, right? Oh no you aren't. A couple of weeks ago, I needed to go to the Netherlands for Clarkson's Farm. So we spent the money, got the carnet and set off for Ashford, where we'd board the underwater train to Calais. Well, that's how I described it to Kaleb, my farm manager. I might even have said he'd be able to see fish out of the window.
Before we reached the tunnel entrance we had to leave the motorway and park up in a gigantic lorry park full of trucks from every conceivable European country. I even met a driver there from Belarus. And got on with him so well that he gave me a hat.
More has been spent in this place on high-visibility jackets than the NHS spent on PPE during Covid. And what was happening? Nothing, as far as I could tell. No lorries were being opened and checked. No dogs were sniffing tyres. We were simply waiting for someone in a cabin to stamp our form. And God did we wait. For two bloody hours.
Still, at least we were then done with the bureaucracy. Oh no we weren't, because having checked all our equipment out of the UK, we then had to check it all into France. So we got off the train and entered another gigantic lorry park, behind all the artics that had got off the earlier train, and the one before that. And when we reached the booth, the man explained that we'd been in the wrong queue and must follow the orange line to another lorry park a mile away. And we couldn't find the orange line. And it was raining, and I'd been looking forward to mooching around Bruges that night and now we wouldn't make it and I wanted to sit down in the gutter and weep.
I have crossed many tricky borders over the years and the paperwork always takes time. Iraq to Turkey took a moment, that's for sure. And Rwanda into Tanzania was challenging as well. But nothing has ever taken as long as it took us to get from post-Brexit England into France.
For the return journey, I suggested we drive to Calais and use a dinghy to cross the Channel. At least we'd get a biscuit when we arrived, and maybe even a free house. My communistical producer didn't find this funny and said we should follow the rules. This meant I had a choice: I could be a team player and stick with the crew, or I could travel on my own, in an aeroplane. So I went to Schiphol and checked in for the short hop to Heathrow.
I haven't yet worked out how to blame Brexit for this, but as air travel in Europe is now so bad, I got back to the farm that night ten minutes after Kaleb, who'd stuck with the crew and driven. So that made my teeth itch as well.
This, of course, is a trivial problem. It's no skin off your nose if it takes a whole afternoon and a couple of grand to carry a camera lens into France. But I suspect that every company wishing to do business in or with the EU has broadly similar problems.
And what's the upside? We are told it's better to be governed by a democratically elected parliament than some bankers in Brussels, but I'm not sure about that. I'd certainly prefer the bankers to Starmer and Reeves. I'd prefer anything. The fourth form of my local school. My dogs. Trump, even.
Lord Sir Sugar said recently that the biggest mistake in his lifetime was Brexit and that if he were prime minister, he'd crawl on his hands and knees over there, begging to be let back in. I'd go with him. Even though after two hours in a lorry park in Kent, I fear our knees might be quite sore.“
Jerem Clarkson in today’s Times. Of course people will disregard it because it’s Clarkson. The same people that probably applaud in him for siding with the farmers re inheritance tax. Clarkson, along with Branson and Sugar were largely ignored during the referendum debate because the news media were fixated with Dyson and Tim Martin.

Claremont
Are these the meats that conform to
Romola’s
European values, standards and rights?