Unintended Consequences

Some interesting articles from the Guardian (2008) although not specifically bananas:

"This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot," said the European agriculture commissioner today, referring to the imminent decision to scrap EU laws banning imperfect-looking fruit and vegetables.

Marketing standards for 26 fruit and vegetables, which led to a lot of less-than-perfect items being thrown away, are to be repealed.

However, the change in thinking in Europe was prompted not by an acknowledgment that the rules should never have been introduced but by a belated decision that they were inappropriate during a food crisis. Those who point the finger at alleged EU bureaucracy note that the ban will remain in place until July next year.

The rules have, of course, supplied Eurosceptics with valuable ammunition in their campaign to highlight the perceived excessive interference of the EU. Regulations that say cucumbers "must be reasonably well shaped and practically straight (maximum height of the arc:10mm per 10cm of the length of cucumber)" do not exactly tally with most people's everyday concerns.

And stories such as Sainsbury's decision last month to drop plans for a healthy-eating Halloween campaign featuring "zombie brain" cauliflowers, "witch's fingers" carrots and "ogre's toenail" cucumbers, for fear staff might be prosecuted, did not exactly help.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2008/nov/12/eu-food-veg-cucumber

A leading supermarket has been forced to ditch a healthy eating campaign at the eleventh hour after discovering its staff could be individually prosecuted under EU regulations.

The retailer has written to the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn expressing its concerns over 'bonkers' regulations and has launched an online poll for customers to join the fight for 'wonky' fruit and veg.

'We're not allowed to use up to 20 per cent of what's produced in this country and in the current crunch climate, we cannot continue to waste this much food before it even leaves the farms.'

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/nov/02/sainsbury-supermarkets-eu-regulation-halloween

But if you go to a hospital without insurance they will still treat you

So every other country is himky dory? If you say so lol

It is not happening worldwide. It hasn't happened in other countries in Europe, it hasn't happened in Asia. I haven't heard about any issues in Canada or South America either but I only rarely read news from those areas.

Not everybody who voted against Brexit is against the whole concept of immigration.

Many just do not support free movement of people. You can be against that but pro controlled immigration.

Of course free movement would have made her life easier now….

uhm. No. It is quite expensive to move to the UK now due to the health insurance. There has been a lot of articles about it.

I think the website must have been taken down but I remember quoting this from the site in a previous post;

Is Brussels really meddling in what our beloved bananas should look like?
Answer - Yes & No.
The regulation states that bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature."

I see Donald Trump and his advisers are seeing their own “unexpected consequences” in relation to tariffs.
He’s beginning to row back.
It’s not a look he’ll like 😀

My so called highly educated in-laws voted for brexit. Now they said if they had known what was going to happen they would not.

Just proof that education and intelligence aren't really comparable. But we all knew that anyway, didn't we ? I hope we did. I've spent my working life being wary of qualifications.

vote in stupidity, repent at leisure

Don’t people have to pay an nhs surcharge?

Dont think there's any health requirements to move to the UK.

Those things are happening worldwide though. I temember my OH blaming Brexit for food banks in New Zealand And TBH no . Most doctors I've ever seen are Asian and nurses from phillipines and African nations

The restaurants that don't have staff is because they won't bloody pay for them not that they can't get them . Same in retail There's loads of people saying their youngsters can't get jobs . So the people are available to work in UK. Minimum wage rises don't help ( DD is high level management in hospitality)

Not a clue on the language teachers tbh. Never had issues getting petrol for car (- in fact only ever heard of issues when half a dozen petrol stations ran out and the media hyped it up so much that people panic bought like sheep and caused a bloody shortage. Nor have I noticed empty shelves in any supermarket apart from asda

So not really affected EVERYONE. And as I said many of these issues are in many countries. Including ones in the EU I suspect

Yes, it was in the tabloids at the time. The people concerned were/are avid DM and occasional Sun readers so I imagine it was from one of those🤦

My so called highly educated in-laws voted for brexit. Now they said if they had known what was going to happen they would not. it was purely to keep the immigrants out!!!!

many times I have been temped to to ask for the amount our bills and outgoings have gone up thanks to brexit from their triple locked pensions as it is thanks to idiots like them we are in this mess.

YANBU. I’ve had many arguments with my father who lives in the EU but would have voted for Brexit if he could 🤦‍♀️ he doesn’t seem to realise the only reason he was able to move there, and claim his UK state pension, was thanks to the EU!

This isn’t correct - healthcare in NL is not free at the point of delivery like with the NHS. As PP said above, there is mandatory health insurance (plus employer co pay etc). It’s certainly not free!

the bananas thing was a lie by "journalist" Boris Johnson when at the telegraph, IIRC.

The EU actually have a section on their website with all the lies/mistruths printed about their regulations. And a lot of it comes from UK.

Oh lordy, that's funny but depressing 😂
Although that bendy bananas thing - wasn't that in one of the main tabloids? Think it was The Sun or could be wrong. Was one of them anyway, where they were saying if we left the EU we'd be able to have more say over the size of our food, and wouldn't have to put up with the EU saying we can't have bendy bananas anymore, something like that anyway 😁

This always baffles me - if you voted to end freedom of movement, what did you expect?!
It's done what it says!

In Finland it was apparently a coin toss if it went smoothly or not - some got a fast decision with no difficulties, others waited a long long time and had to give further info/evidence and were left in limbo for ages. Plus the expense. Getting Finnish citizenship requires passing the language exam which can be very difficult for many people.

I was worried for my Finnish mum in the UK as she never got British citizenship and at first she was just saying she had got indefinite right to remain donkeys years ago and didn't see the need to do anything more but thankfully she did get things sorted in time.

I'm in Germany so it was fine, they were very helpful. I don't live in a huge city, and our local mayor's office wrote to all of us Brits reassuring us that everything would be fine, but if we wanted to apply for citizenship we could get info from them.

I dithered for ages because it is a big step, but in the end the process was very straightforward, and when it got close to the date we received another reminder, and then we were given priority so that it could all get done and dusted. Other countries were different, my friends in France decided not to take citizenship, but got residence permits. Other friends in Spain said the hurdles were very high, and in know one lot went back to UK rather than face the costs.

People who had moved over more recently had more worries over here, because you have to live here for 8 (or 5?) years before you can apply but even then most of them are fine. EU friends in the UK paid out way way more than we had to, hideously expensive.

ETA: to get back to the major point of the OP. I wouldn't feel at all uncomfortable in politely, kindly even, pointing out that this is exactly what Brexit was about and that it is hardly surprising that other countries want to (p)reserve their resources for their own citizens.

Brits living in the EU also experienced Brexit first hand. I was alright because I've always had dual citizenship but other Brits had to go through the long and stressful process of getting their right to remain sorted and there is always the risk of the rules changing and no longer having the right to remain in their countries.

Agree.

And this is why I hold David Cameron, amongst others, responsible, and all his supporters who voted for him while being anti-Brexit smugly thinking that we would never leave. It’s not just the Brexit voters, it’s the pro-remain Tories who enabled the referendum to keep the Tories in. I’m looking at you ILs.

Ursula said yesterday she wanted a tariff free trade deal with the US, but stuffed the UK a neighbour out of spite.

oh god, "spite" is such a MN word.

The EU have consistently offered the hand of "friendship" (customs union) to the UK and time and again whoever is in charge that week says "nope". Presumably in the belief that the UK can negotiate better terms with individual countries if they aren't tainted by the EU.

That may be the case, i haven't yet seen any evidence that they are managing this particularly well, and the new Trump presidency seems to be firmly sticking spokes in all the wheels of international trade so it is stymied a bit by this.

Free movement of goods and services (which includes humans as services) is the bedrock of the EU. IMO it will be one of the last things that goes, if the EU does indeed dissolve.

For me, with the EU the bigger issue is that we need to cut loose the takers like Hungary (happy to take funds, less happy to abide by the conditions those funds impose on everyone) the better.

I also think a lot of people see the words "free movement" and think only of their holidays - which is fair enough, not everyone works in logistics, or international business etc. And if you shop online it is not always clear that there is also a mechanism for the import of small value goods to individuals for personal use.

As for immigration - lots of south Asian communities voted firmly for Brexit in the (mistaken? not sure how it actually works) belief that they would find it easier to bring over family members or workers in their businesses etc. Certainly they knew it would level out tariffs for imports/exports where previously they were at a disadvantage to EU companies.