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Brexit

What have we gained by Brexit/leaving the EU?

999 replies

Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 18:39

In simple terms.

I've read so much about what we've lost.

Please no sarcastic comments. I just want to know what we've gained - probably best if those who think Brexit is a positive thing post.

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Goodbye2020Hello2021 · 29/12/2020 18:41

I'd like to know too...

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Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 18:55

Not much then - by the looks of it ...

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Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 29/12/2020 19:00

I'd go and ask in the Brexit Arms, they seem to know what they want and expect from Brexit and whether they've got what they want and expect. (I can't understand them as it seems to consist of "we won, you lost", as far as I can tell. Something about fish and blue passports and regaining sovereignty (which was never lost) and bringing the death penalty back, possibly. But then I'm a very old, tired and skeptical non-Tory Remainer.)

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Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 19:12

I can’t understand them either. It is just we won we won - you’re right.

That’s why I was asking separately for more factual information about what we have gained by leaving.

I actually voted to leave. I thought I was sticking my fingers up to the Tories. What a mistake that was.

I believed all the bullshit.

Or was it all bullshit? Nothing I’ve read, seen or heard has made me feel better about voting to leave so far.

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KarmaNoMore · 29/12/2020 19:13

I really don’t know.

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Walkintal · 29/12/2020 19:20

Unexpectedly Covid vaccines www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/vaccination-rolls-out-across-europe-but-anger-remains-over-late-start. Germany, for example, has only 400,000 does until March - we have already immunised this many people and they need 2 doses each.
Other benefits (such as reformed CAP and animal protection laws) have been announced.
Other benefits are available once the UK govt (this one or a future one) decides to do them.

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Whythesadface · 29/12/2020 19:23

We no longer have to pay into their budget.
We have made loads of trade deals.
Our fishing industry will recover.

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Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 19:24

Didn’t we have all those same trade deals before?

Which ones were different @Whythesadface?

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Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 19:26

Other benefits are available once the UK govt (this one or a future one) decides to do them.

Like what? What do you mean @Walkintal?

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NovemberR · 29/12/2020 19:27

Honestly, don't you think this might better be answered in, say, 6 months time? Or a year's time?

It seems a bit premature to be demanding answers even before 1 Jan. You voted Leave - why have you now changed your mind?

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Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 29/12/2020 19:27

Sorry, @Elephant4, I'm afraid I can't help you, as I don't see it and have never seen it. Oh, well, maybe happy leavers feel they have gained the ability to "speak their minds" (be racist, sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic, white-supremacist) without all those awful "politically correct" people, who think Black Lives Matter (for example) pulling them up for their disgraceful behaviour? Maybe they think it's great that the GFA has been compromised and mainland England may well go back to the fear and horror and deaths experienced before the GFA was finally brokered? That it's fabulous that the area round Dover is now a gigantic lorry park? That the Erasmus programme is spoiled for British students, as is their freedom of movement to work in the 27 countries of the EU? I don't know, but I'm very depressed about it all.

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KarmaNoMore · 29/12/2020 19:28

We definitively had better trade deals and with far more countries before this.

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Elephant4 · 29/12/2020 19:31

Honestly, don't you think this might better be answered in, say, 6 months time? Or a year's time?

I think it’s desperate if we don’t know now. So much seems to have been lost, but nothing gained at all.

Isn’t that enough to change a person’s mind. It’s not a cult I signed up for. Is it? I’m not being blasphemous by questioning what I’ve done am I?

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Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 29/12/2020 19:42

@Whythesadface

We no longer have to pay into their budget.
We have made loads of trade deals.
Our fishing industry will recover.

It is argued that the UK has already spent far more since 2016, trying to conclude Brexit, than they paid into the the EU for the past 47 years. Though to be fair, it is difficult to get exact figures, as it is comparing apples with oranges.
What trade deals? With whom? Are they good deals?
The fishing industry is a mere drop in the ocean of the nation's economy. From the Government's mouthpiece, the BBC www.bbc.com/news/46401558:
"But it's worth remembering that fishing is only a tiny fraction of the overall economy both in the UK (about 0.02% in 2019) and in the EU (some landlocked countries have no fishing fleets at all).

According to the Office for National Statistics, fishing was worth £437m to the UK economy in 2019. By comparison, the financial services industry was worth £126bn"

Bear in mind that UK fisheries chose to sell some of their fishing quotas to other European countries anyway. So all this mithering about the importance of the fishing industry to the UK is ridiculous.
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laudemio · 29/12/2020 20:11

Freedom from the European Courts? Blue passports? Ironically our departure has probably shifted politics on the EU to something closer to the EU many wanted - less talk of ever closer union these days. I must say I think Ursula von D is bloody marvellous.

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Walkintal · 29/12/2020 20:20

@Elephant4

Other benefits are available once the UK govt (this one or a future one) decides to do them.

Like what? What do you mean *@Walkintal*?

Less regulation on GM foods, lower duties on imported products, zero VAT on sanitary items, different levels of VAT on many items (EU only allows 2 rates), so could effectively introduce a luxury tax.
Look at the EU rules and we can now change them.
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Walkintal · 29/12/2020 20:23

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom

Sorry, *@Elephant4*, I'm afraid I can't help you, as I don't see it and have never seen it. Oh, well, maybe happy leavers feel they have gained the ability to "speak their minds" (be racist, sexist, chauvinistic, misogynistic, white-supremacist) without all those awful "politically correct" people, who think Black Lives Matter (for example) pulling them up for their disgraceful behaviour? Maybe they think it's great that the GFA has been compromised and mainland England may well go back to the fear and horror and deaths experienced before the GFA was finally brokered? That it's fabulous that the area round Dover is now a gigantic lorry park? That the Erasmus programme is spoiled for British students, as is their freedom of movement to work in the 27 countries of the EU? I don't know, but I'm very depressed about it all.

EU is generally far more racist than the UK and has many for voters prepared to support it. (French national front got 21% of the vote in the 2017 election).
EU rules on favouring EU workers over non-EU workers is inherently racist.
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Peregrina · 29/12/2020 20:25

Less regulation on GM foods,

This is good, or potentially damaging?

Given that VAT was an EEC/EU tax anyway, they could abolish the lot and bring back purchase tax.

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laudemio · 29/12/2020 20:29

This reply has been deleted

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Peregrina · 29/12/2020 20:33

French national front got 21% of the vote in the 2017 election

But they do not operate a first past the post system. I could easily see that this could be the same in the UK which is one argument that some people will use for not reforming our system.

You can look to the Euro elections of MEPs and see how well UKIP/Brexit did in 2014 and 2019 to see what support there is for UK racist parties.

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newstart1234 · 29/12/2020 20:33

Michael gove thinks that one benefit will be that businesses will have more red tape and this will make them better at it; this will give them a competitive advantage 🤨

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Ylvamoon · 29/12/2020 20:35

@Walkintal - 😂 anyone who believes that is The Guardians star pupil!
Honestly, don't believe every little "feel better because" piece of news that is fed to the British public.
I have learnt a long time ago that news is diluted, bias and sometimes evern censord. (Yes, even in a democracy like the UK ...)

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Sinuhe · 29/12/2020 20:37

Well the exchange rate for Euro has stayed the same... but then its not 1st January 2021 yet.

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tenredthings · 29/12/2020 20:37

If you're a rich sociopathic businessman I would have thought you'd be looking forward to the potentially lower taxes, the scrapping of minimum wage, abolishing workers rights and having less environmental constraints etc.

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WiseUpJanetWeiss · 29/12/2020 20:40

@Walkintal

Unexpectedly Covid vaccines www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/vaccination-rolls-out-across-europe-but-anger-remains-over-late-start. Germany, for example, has only 400,000 does until March - we have already immunised this many people and they need 2 doses each.
Other benefits (such as reformed CAP and animal protection laws) have been announced.
Other benefits are available once the UK govt (this one or a future one) decides to do them.

Nonsense. Any EU country could have opted for their own regulator to approve the vaccines.
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