Unintended Consequences

@Didimum

Does that include you being WAY too stupid as well?

Yep but the rest of us don’t deserve it and we have to live with it. Forgive me if I don’t find any of it snigger worthy. They were lied to and I also think Socrates was right.

Indeed but you would have thought a degree of critical thinking should have been applied to the situation - but apparently not.

”But I never thought leopards would eat my face” says woman who voted for leopards eating peoples’ faces party.

It was the opposite at my work. My head of department was handing out Remain badges.

I can be friends with people regardless of their political views, but I think it's really bad to discuss it at work.

Looking at this particular case, I'm really surprised no one's said anything.
And @ZigZagJigsaw now you said his age, I think she probably had lots of faith in the NHS in 2016 and now doesn't.

Maybe it's nice to be so self-centred! 😂

but that was a good reason for voting for the status quo. Although i realise that would have pushed back a further referendum for several years (the last one was 1973 or so)

Or people being sensible and asking the questions? People who wanted to remain had the advantage in knowing what we were voting for, but those who wanted change should have been pushing politicians for an answer. Easier said and done in hindsight.

But again: the idea that people who want to stop the boats and send them all back home, now moaning because they can't just up sticks and take advantage of other countries' excellent health system... makes me have a really good belly laugh.

I don’t think any of us knew what we were voting before because the politicians had not worked out the details themselves let alone explained them.

Yes but it’s on top of damage to the economy already done by brexit.

if not she should either have informed herself or abstained.

I don’t really see why this proves that Brexit was a bad idea. The Netherlands should be able to stop non residents from accessing their healthcare system same as the UK should. We can expect other countries to subsidise the UKs broken system

Karma's a bitch eh!

that's a bit of a knee-jerk answer though. "ohhh we have lower tariff rates than the EU"

The question is how badly will the EU be affected? how badly the UK?

FWIW i think the world is heading into a huge depression and being part of a good trading bloc, with the EU, with the US or whoever, is going to be helpful for smaller nations. we will see. There is talk of favourable trading between Canada, the UK and the EU.

It's just going to be painful for many, many years to come.

Although on the plus side, we have only 10% USA tariffs and the EU have 20%

as for how people voted: I don't find it odd that people at the time shared how they were going to vote. They could have been fibbing of course (that was the era of the "shy Tory" after all)

There were one or two good solid arguments for voting for Brexit, if you were in particular circumstances. Even i, an avid Remainer and Brit In Europe can see that. But even my mate who works in forestry, who has had mostly positive effects in his industry, voted remain. Even though he personally is better off.

There are things wrong with the EU, but everyone in the UK can keep their traps shut about it, since it is nothing to do with them. Those of us in the EU will continue to vote for what we think is best, including (in my case) some reforms to EU policies.

The UK had a really really good deal, what with the rebate etc, it baffles me why they chucked that all away.

why would i snigger at people who didn't vote to make my life difficult.

I snigger at the idiots who voted for brexit and who now complain about the things that have happened as a result of what they voted for (eg not being able to move to the NL, or spend more than 90 days in their holiday home)

They deserve it.

I work in an area where the best way to describe us is “over educated”.

I know how pretty much everyone I work with voted as we all came in the next day looking pale and shocked, sat at our desks with our heads in our hands and spent the day muttering “fuck” and “bloody idiots” a lot.

There were loads of people like this. Even at the time, "oh, but we'll be able to apply to live in France/Germany/Netherlands".

I think if Brexit taught us anything it's that there's a lethal combination of stupidity/lack of education and the craziness of propoganda and fake news out there today.

Do you snigger at people who voted against Brexit too? Do you ask them how they voted before sniggering?

the week before the referendum we were in UK visiting friends & family. My mum was voting remain, because she was aware that it may cause issues for us if Brexit happened.

But we went to visit friends of my parents, so around 65 at the time, and they were full of it. "we're voting Brexit to give Cameron a bloody nose". That's what most people said to us, "oh don't worry, it will never happen". I begged them to use their heads and vote for Brexit if they thought it would improve life in the UK. Otherwise vote stay.

Other people we heard talking (pubs and so on) were all "immigration! it's got to stop, so many foreigners here" etc etc. And i didn't engage with those because, well. Why bother?

After the referendum? Unfortunately the friends of my parents were sharing memes and making posts along the lines of "yes, got our country back" and "immigration will stop now". So. Well. Were they being polite to our faces, and really thought that? Or were they just being influenced by others?

Ex-friends now. Tbh.

My relative and her husband were very pro-Brexit and posted about it constantly on social media. "Take back control!" and "Get Brexit Done!" etc. etc. I couldn't understand it because they own a holiday home in an EU country.

Just after the 90 days only rule came in, my relative's husband was posting on Facebook asking friends to sign a petition supporting equal rights for Brits to visit EU countries. It had begun to dawn on them what was happening. I had to sit on my hands so that I didn't post a cheeky reply. He took it down fairly quickly - probably realised how stupid it made him look. They are both university- educated people who had responsible well-paid jobs, but sadly they read the Daily Mail.

I agree with most of this, but this consequence wasn't hard to see. Removal of freedom of movement is the most obvious consequence of not being part of the EU anymore.

I am flabbergasted that your colleague thinks she should be entitled to move to a European country largely because of their better healthcare system, yet she doesn't think Europeans should be welcome in the UK.

This.

She needs to know. They all need to know so they don't do it again.

(they will do it again, next GE)

I found that people who wanted to leave did. No so much those of us who wanted to stay in.

I'm curious, how do you all know who voted for Brexit? (Im not British.) Did people speak very openly about it at the time? I find that quite strange.

I think the piece people forget, is that it wasn’t a vote that came out of the blue. Elections were won off the back of promises of ‘better terms’ with the EU or the chance to vote to be in/out. Those ‘better terms’ were not secured, and I don’t think the gov at the time or EU thought the UK would go through with the vote. The next election promise came, the people voted and the EU referendum was offered.
I think the biggest mistake they made was acting on the In/out vote rather than using it to have more serious conversations with the EU. But that in itself is also problematic. Agree most people didn’t understand what they were voting for (on both sides). And how could they?
Anyway, laughing at the OP’s colleague who cannot see the irony of their predicament. What is it people say? It’s migrants when they’re in our country. But we’re expats when we move abroad for a ‘better life’. 🫠