To still be really sad and angry about Brexit

We still have allies.
We're in NATO.

Yes, I bloody well am.

@PollsCantBeTrusted

Toy write in a very assured manner. Do you have any knowledge or insight to back it up? What is your area of expertise?

The UK will be fine.
I expect to see the UK economy continue to outgrow the EU over the coming decades, overtaking Germany in the late 2030s or early 2040s to become Europe’s number one economy. This should heal the political divide and usher in the restoration of mature political discourse.

I am far more concerned about the future of the EU without the UK’s moderating influence.

We already saw the first cracks appear immediately after Brexit, when faced with the two great crises of the twenty-first century; Covid 19 and Ukraine - the EU behaved shamefully. One possible scenario I envisage is the complete collapse of the EU within 15 years.

For continental Europe is now set on an glide path which will see more nations embracing rightwing politics as the Union’s cohesion slowly ablates under the insurmountable pressure from globalist immigration policies which are incompatible with western culture.

Civil unrest will proliferate and unless the Commission makes major reforms, more nations will follow the UK out, first as a trickle which will build to a runaway chain reaction of <insert name>exits.

Tens of thousands of ex-eurocrats will ultimately be left pensionless as departing members refuse to pay their divorce bills and there will be zero appetite among the public to reward the failed technocrats who caused the crisis.

This will precipitate a Euro currency crash and the unfinished business of the Euro sovereign debt crisis will flush-through the banking system first to go under will be the French and Italian banks with high euro debt exposure.
The newly-liberated central banks will then be forced to re-adopt Europe’s twentieth century fiat currencies.

As ex-members liberate their sovereignty and restore democratic accountability people will begin asking tough questions such as: ‘Where did our money go?’ Which will all amplify the EU’s unresolvable contradictions as the arrogance, maladministration and corruption of its leaders is ultimately exposed.

In the final analysis the EEC will be remembered favourably, Brexit will be seen as fortuitous and timely but future historians will forever associate the EU with corruption and decline in a stark reminder of the historical truism that every time throughout history, whenever someone tries to unify Europe, it always ends in a bloody mess.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but this scenario is certainly not outside the realms of possibility.

I think I can say with some confidence that a referendum, advisory or otherwise is more democratic than a petition @Shakeoffyourchains

In what way did you find it revealing?

Are you suggesting that democracy is a one time thing or that the results of an advisory referendumin which only 33.5m people, out of a population of 65m people (46m eligible voters and 19m ineligible voters), had a say should be forever binding?

I also found it quite revealing that the same people who were saying Brexit was an affront to democracy organised a petition to overturn it. A petition! Some people have absolutely zero self-awareness.

@Corinthiana

utter nonsense.
its a stupid concept
in this global world

even in the Second World War we had allies
nothing is done alone so you are talking about some stupid concept especially versus the harm done.

Very interesting read.

I think this is interesting to read

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/brexit-disaster-rejoining-channel-europe-economy

You don't hear them talk about it because if they do they're told to 'get over it' and made to feel like a petulant child. Plenty of people still care, as evidenced on this thread. But the reality is that it's done now, and even if we rejoined it would be on much worse terms. So what's the point? Still entitled to feel very angry about such monumental change based on the slimmest of margins against a backdrop of lies and misinformation.

"Poorer in every conceivable way" is what the country has become. I'm not just referring to material wealth but social fabric.

The best thing about first past the post is it’s kept the cranks, including the LibDebs out of power. Unfortunately there was that one time in 2010 when they sold us all up the fucking river.

It was addressed, at length and in great detail, but many leavers weren't interested in listening to anything that didn't conform to their narrative.

For example many of the 'ridiculous' EU directives (bendy banana anyone?) the leave campaign liked to claim were examples of the EU stomping all over sensible British people were developed, reviewed and fully supported by the UK government, and that's before we get started on the various opt-outs we had secured.

If people were genuinely concerned about national sovereignty then their focus should've been directed towards our first past the post electoral system that's underpinned by a hereditary monarch. Although the fact that many leavers now support people who would reduce democracy if they ever got to power suggests that wasn't really a major concern.

I haven’t ever said ‘we won’ because I voted remain, despite some misgivings. There has been a quite extraordinary response to Brexit and I believe it’s in no way fuelled by middle-class people caring about the poorest people in the UK, despite your claims. If they did actually care you would hear them talking about it more. Which they don’t.

Sick man of Europe if I fondly recall 🤨

We're talking about removal of people's rights and protections and making the UK poorer in every conceivable way, not a game of Thumb War. "We won, get over it" doesn't quite cut it in these circumstances.

Why should I get over something that I still have to live with the consequences of, daily? I choose to fight to get back in the EU.

I'd be happy with the Euro as a currancy too. It'd still have the King's head on it or whatever. But it would make travel spending so much easier.

Go in and all in, I say.

Huh? I have literally no idea how you have missed the point I was making in this and my subsequent post. It didn't start with the slaughter of millions. It started several years earlier, in a democratic (at that time) political system. I am drawing parallels between the political and social period that allowed the rise of the Nazis, with the inherent danger of the policies of Reform UK in the modern era.

Michael Rosen articulates it far better than I can:

I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."

My husband has a Dutch mother and English father. He was born and bred here in England. His mother had the good sense to get him a Dutch passport "incase things go belly up", he would have an out.

So he is a European Union citizen and we have a daughter and we are applying for a Dutch passport for her too.

My son, from another relationship is getting married this year, to a European woman and the hoops they have to jump through, is insane. If he was a EU citizen, he'd be able to just move to Europe and work and live a life with his girlfriend. But no. He has to marry young, apply for citizenship with the country he will be living in.

I wish him every happiness and success. We have all lost so much.

I cried bitter tears when the results came in

Meanwhile us working class types saw our wages been reduced from in the £30k's to low £20k's because EU immigrants

you saw your wages reduced because UK employers refuse to pay fair wages. And of course if EU immigrants came here, you could have gone overseas to work and seek higher wages as they did

I agree it has become an emotional obsession with some people. I wonder how they manage with other situations which don’t go their way?

Yes. It's been a disaster and I don't think we've even seen the real impact yet. My teen son seems to acknowledge that his generation's task will be to rejoin.

It is emotional. It's embarrassing. And sad. Doesn't mean we aren't getting on as best we can but we can also still mourn what's lost.

DappledThings, "Nobody's claiming we couldn't function as a country before the EU or that we can't function now"

Have you listened to the serious Remainers? They know there is no way forward and don't want to try. They see failure even as our economy grows relative to other EU countries because they need it to fail. It's gone from political position to an emotional obsession.