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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask how you’re preparing for Brexit?

999 replies

CircleSquareCircleSquare · 13/03/2018 15:54

There is so much uncertainty surrounding what will happen with trade deals and goodness knows what else, that I’m starting to wonder about making some sensible plans.

We have put a stop to some planned works we wanted to do to our house, we have downsized to one car and we grow a small amount of veg. We keep some stocks of food in the house but we have a large family so I never feel like we’d have enough.
We have discussed not taking a holiday this summer and DH is taking every training course possible at work in order to diversify his skills should his industry go tits up.

I’m wondering what decisions you’re making in your homes for what could possibly be a really uncertain time for a few years.

OP posts:
CadyHeron · 14/03/2018 14:35

Well I'm panic searching how to start building a bunker now...

Don't forget you'll need some chickens too.

frankchickens · 14/03/2018 14:43

The sad fact is Leave arguments are very easy to demolish being so weak.

And yet the referendum went that way - maybe shouting people down on an online forum (sorry "providing reason and logic to counter their pitiful intellect") isn't the way to get things done :)

TalkinPeace · 14/03/2018 14:43

FWIW for some years I worked where I could see France from my office windows
but could not go there without a visa
so I never went.

If the UK brings in restrictions for EU residents, they will act the same way I did - there are another places than the UK to go after all.

LoveInTokyo · 14/03/2018 14:45

frank, the plain and simple truth is that we shouldn’t have had a referendum at all.

We as a country were clearly not grown up enough to handle that kind of responsibility. The average man on the street does not know enough about the EU, does not have sufficient means with which to inform himself properly, and is too easily led by propaganda to be able to make an informed decision.

Theresasmayshoes11 · 14/03/2018 14:49

Yes it’s a great pity we don’t abolish democracy at all loveln and hopefully then just clever people like you can rule unchallenged.

Let them eat cake quite right. Bloody morons

itstimeforanamechange · 14/03/2018 14:49

I am assuming that we either stay in, or there will be a sensible deal.

There has to be legal certainty, so we can't leave without a deal, whatever Boris and Jacob say. So I don't think an apocalypse is coming.

However, I'm not booking any holidays that involve air travel after March 2019 until I know I am right.

LoveInTokyo · 14/03/2018 14:50

Sorry to disappoint you, but there will be no cake. I know Boris promised you cake, but he lied.

I believe in representative democracy, not X-Factor style democracy. Important and complex decisions such as this should be made by people with some knowledge of the subject.

frankchickens · 14/03/2018 14:59

the plain and simple truth is that we shouldn’t have had a referendum at all.

I agree, but for different reasons. We shouldn't have had a referendum because more people voted for parties who didn't promise a referendum than those who did. The longer term issue is our shitty electoral system - and that still isn't being addressed.

I didn't vote for the referendum - but once it was called what was I supposed to do? Not vote - not an option if one believes in democracy?

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:02

And yet the referendum went that way - maybe shouting people down on an online forum (sorry "providing reason and logic to counter their pitiful intellect") isn't the way to get things done

Who’s shouting?

Yes I think that we have established that lying to a gullible populace and plastering newspapers with populist propaganda is one way to ‘get things done’. Seen before in populist regimes.

The question is what have we done? Leave voters rarely seem to agree on what they voted for or what they want to happen. Fewer if any seem to have solutions for the intractable problems of the NI border, trade and customs.

LoveInTokyo · 14/03/2018 15:07

I can’t disagree with anything you say in that last post, frank.

frankchickens · 14/03/2018 15:15

Leave voters rarely seem to agree on what they voted for or what they want to happen.

17 million people (ish) voted leave in a simple binary question - of course they don't all have the exact same picture of how it should happen. Why is that their fault? Should we all have voted remain because there might be some differences later?

All of this is the fault of the process, not the voters.

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:24

Some differences? We are nearly two years past the vote and there’s no agreement at all.

It’s absolutely voters fault that they didn’t notice the question was so vague that there was no clear consensus on what it actually meant. That everybody had different pictures of what would happen - most of which had no basis in political or economic reality - thus instability and uncertainty after the vote was a given.

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:26

The democracy defence of the referendum has always been particularly weak. Referendums being an easily manipulable mob vote beloved of despots to give them a veneer of public support.

Just ask the Germans who abolished them after the war.

frankchickens · 14/03/2018 15:26

It’s absolutely voters fault that they didn’t notice the question was so vague that there was no clear consensus on what it actually meant.

What is you contention here? That everyone should have understood this and voted remain?

frankchickens · 14/03/2018 15:28

TatianaLarina

I didn't vote for the party that promised the referendum - I didn't want a referendum. But once it was happening should I have voted or not?

Golondrina · 14/03/2018 15:31

See - once you have such a closed mind, there's really no point in further debate.

Asking for reasons and then just saying "but they are all wrong" isn't achieving much - you aren't really asking to hear reasons that might exist - just ones you can ridicule.

Show me an argument for leaving that hasn't been debunked as inaccurate, wishful thinking or just plain wrong. I'm not ridiculing anything, I'm saying that the case for Brexit is nonsense. It just is. I've read the main arguments and they are pie in the sky.

specialsubject · 14/03/2018 15:31

referenda are a bad idea. Complex questions such as our future with the EU cannot be reduced to yes/no, which I guess (and it is only a guess as with all the other parameters except the vote count) would account for quite a lot of those who didn't vote.

Scotland should be grateful that they voted 'no' because there was also no plan for a 'yes'. The 2016 referendum is the first one we've had where the result was for a change.

thanks, Cameron...

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:33

I wouldn’t oblige anyone to vote any way in a referendum - that is the province of fascists.

But to vote Remain would be to keep the status quo which, in spite of its faults, at least we know it works; the other option was to abstain.

Golondrina · 14/03/2018 15:33

What is you contention here? That everyone should have understood this and voted remain? Well, if the option is a woolly vague proposal for how to conduct our affairs in future or what we know about the current state of affairs, it's a bit foolhardy to vote out, is it not?

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:36

Quite.

scaryteacher · 14/03/2018 15:40

And yet that model of efficiency that is Switzerland runs on referenda, and the sky hasn't yet fallen in there. They too are reconsidering their relationship with the EU, and iirc, it is all getting a bit contentious.

BogstandardBelle · 14/03/2018 15:48

Applying for French citizenship (we’ve lived here happily as long term expats for 10yrs). Contemplating selling UK property before prices go down, My folks are wondering what to do with their holiday house if it gets a lot more expensive to fly here.

TatianaLarina · 14/03/2018 15:51

If you call political quagmire, racing to keep up with EU regulations to maintain equivalence and lobbying for 20 years or so for increased single market access for financial sector and failing, efficient.

The Swiss model doesn’t work that well which is the EU are not keen to repeat it.

Switzerland didn’t start with a trade and economic model based on EU membership. With trade and industry dependent on sm and cu, with complex supply chains across Europe - motor and aerospace and chemical industries for example, with whole countries EU presence headquartered here on the basis of the sm - Japan for example.

scaryteacher · 14/03/2018 15:51

Tatiana But to vote Remain would be to keep the status quo which, in spite of its faults, at least we know it works That would be OK if it were to remain the status quo, but things change. From 01.04.17, QMV came in for lots of things that we could formerly veto, so that was gone. Further enlargement is on the cards, together with new pushes on defence, finance and taxation. and the mantra of 'more Europe' and ever closer union. You may be happy with that - I'm not.

If the EEC had remained a loose federation of trading states, then perhaps I might have voted to remain, but it has morphed into something far beyond that. The referendum was the first chance I have had to have my say, as I was too young first time around, so I took it, and voted leave.

TalkinPeace · 14/03/2018 15:51

scary
And sometimes the Swiss have to totally back down when reality hits
and their referenda tend to have better thought out questions with clear options on both outcomes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2017

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