to ask how you’re preparing for Brexit?

[CircleSquareCircleSquare]

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.

My preparation so far includes:

Mortgage paid off.
4 years of living expenses in savings.
10 years of toiletries and cleaning products stored.
1 year of dried food and canned goods stored.
Some foreign currency - dollars and Asian currencies.
Friends and family abroad we could go and stay with for a short period if necessary.

I want us to learn another language, but I'm terrible at languages and don't know which language to gamble on? I don't think we could get visas for other countries to stay permanently? I don't want to gamble setting up in another European country if we won't be able to stay there post brexit. I think we have to stay here, but I don't want to. This kind of stuff keeps me awake at night. It must be much, much worse for other people.

And when you think of the years and years of painstaking work that went into the GFA, compared to the shambolic approach to both calling the referendum in the first place and everything that's been done to implement the result, well it's just depressing beyond words.

Don't get me wrong, the UK were within their rights to leave the EU if they wanted to. But it needed to be acknowledged that this would be a hard, labour intensive process that would leave the country economically (and culturally) worse off. I would have no problem if the decision was taken with eyes open. But it wasn't. And nothing now is being done to rectify that.

Any answer to the Northern Ireland question, Ilove?

You'll be lucky. Smiley faces are the most challenging issue she can deal with.

I’m buying shares in Kleenex tissues. The shares will rocket.

You joke ILove but things could get difficult without preparation; the preparation which has been sadly lacking from the politicians who are more interested in posturing.

Try to find out more about the last war. The V & A had a very good exhibition a few years back about 'Fashion on the ration'. One point made was that you had to give coupons for clothes, but there was initially no stipulation about quality, so the wealthy could get clothes of better quality for the same coupons, which lasted. Eventually this problem was addressed, with the Utility scheme, which brought in basic but good quality goods.

Median real wages for those born in the UK grew robustly from the late 90s until the global financial crisis. At the same time, immigration grew from the newly joined E.European countries to the EU such as Poland with no impact on wages.

Laurie hear hear. The total disregard for NI and the GFA is utterly disgraceful. I think a lot of Brexit voters know fuck all about it tbh and don't really care. Because if you knew the first thing about it you wouldn't vote leave. As could be said for Brexit in general really.

To Leave the EU required a 10-20 year plan. Not just a vote and scribbles the back of an envelope.

I think a lot of Leavers genuinely don't realise that economies can and do fail. We may be a relatively rich country now but we are trying our hardest to give it all away!

@Eltonjohnssyrup

It's a lie that EU migration has affected UK wages in any significant way. Brexiters often cite a 2015 study by the Bank of England as proof that EU migration exerts downward pressure on wages. But the author of the report has recently clarified that the negative impact is “infinitesimally small” and that his findings have been widely misrepresented. A study published last year by the LSE found little evidence that immigration from other EU countries has impacted upon the pay, job prospects or public services enjoyed by the UK-born population. Meanwhile wages HAVE dropped in real terms since the referendum and Brexit hasn't even happened yet.

They seem to have forgotten how fast we went into financial crisis. And what the impact was - years of austerity from which we have not yet emerged.

*LoveInTokyo

Any answer to the Northern Ireland question, Ilove?*

You seem to have a crystal ball Tokyo. I'll leave the scaremongering to you. I'll sit and wait like everyone else who are not privy to the information that you so clearly have at your feet.

All I can say is thank god we have a team of businessmen and lawyers behind us to negotiate the best deal for the UK.

That's far more palatable than a bunch of hysterical mumsnetters, who let's face it, have no more idea about what will happen within the UK after Brexit, than the rest of us.

Until then you carry on spreading your hate and hysteria

Brexit is supported by the most right-wing nutters of the Tory party who know it will be a disaster in the short-term, but they are obsessed with getting rid of all regulations. They want rampant, unchecked capitalism and to destroy our safety nets. The thing is, what they won't economically won't even work in the long term either, because the EU won't let it.

Brexit is also supported by the disaster communists in the labour party who want to implement an isolationist, protectionist vision. Corbyn is empowering the nutters in the Tory party by repeating racist lies about EU migration and UK wages.

We are absolutely fucked.

I am genuinely (not really) confused by people that still haven’t accepted the referendum result years later.
Surely accepting is trying to understand, deal with, work around the issues that leaving the EU will cause?

I do think food prices will go up, I do think jobs and companies will leave the UK and I do think there will be a cost to the UK economy beyond that I don’t know what will happen.

I’ve got a mortgage to pay and growing kids to feed and clothe – paying down the mortgage , building up savings and thinking about slowly stocking up on some staples over next 12 months seems sensible to me.

You'll be lucky. Smiley faces are the most challenging issue she can deal with.

Smily faces are the only response to such idiotic ramblings of those who have no idea about what Brexit will entail - but are happy to pretend they do and go all out to cause mass hysteria

So basically, no. You have no idea about any of it and no understanding of how it's a problem or how it might be solved.

All I can say is thank god we have a team of businessmen and lawyers behind us to negotiate the best deal for the UK.

This must be a joke, surely? The biggest set of incompetents we have seen for a long time -May, Johnson, Fox, Davis. We do have a good civil servant in Ollie Robins, but he's an unelected bureacrat. We don't like unelected bureaucrats, remember?

Smily faces are the only response to such idiotic ramblings of those who have no idea about what Brexit will entail your refusal to engage with any of the issues shows that it is YOU who clearly has no idea about any of it. You're making yourself look foolish. The information is out there, shitloads of it. Choose not to read it, fine. it doesn't mean these are not issues with Brexit and are not going to be solved before the UK leaves. Hence there will be a big fat mess this time next year.

All I can say is thank god we have a team of businessmen and lawyers behind us to negotiate the best deal for the UK. is anyone really this naive?

Businessmen working on a deal? No that would be politicians and diplomats. Do you see Alan Sugar or Richard Branson involved in negotiations?

The level of ignorance on here is mindbending.

is anyone really this naive?

Apparently.

Perhaps IloveAnt would volunteer to train as a trade negotiator - we’re still short.

ILoveAntButHateDec

I’m going to take that as “no, I have no idea what to do about the border but since I don’t live in or near Northern Ireland I don’t really care”.

In response to the second part of your post, I am a lawyer with specialist knowledge of EU law and until last year I worked as an in-house lawyer for the British government. Part of my role was to advise on the EU procurement and state aid rules and I also took part in planning out various scenarios for what might replace those rules.

So yeah, I’d say I do know more about it than most people, including most people on Mumsnet.

It's a lie that EU migration has affected UK wages in any significant way.

What an absolute pile of tripe? Do you remember when Poland ascended to the EU. I do. I was working in quite a low waged job at a University but my DH had a reasonably well paid construction job. Do you remember all that crowing about how marvellous it was that people could get cheap plumbers and electricians now? I do. My public sector colleagues who would be out on the pickets if their pay rises weren’t big enough did an awful lot of it.

Meanwhile, people in the construction industry saw their wages halve overnight as they are mostly self employed. And it wasn’t just the apocryphal plumber on £500,000 a year. It was people on £18/20k or just above. £30k jobs turned into £17k jobs overnight. You can get out your clipboard and say ‘studies show’ and blather on about averages as much as you like. But when people open their pay packets and can see the difference they don’t care. And much of the money which stopped wages plummeting was deliberately inflated public sector pay to hide the fall in the private sector by skewing the averages.

And it’s not just wages either. Don’t want to work 14 hour days? Fine, fuck off, a Romanian will be doing your job Monday. Don’t want to work 7 day weeks? Fine, fuck off, we’ll get a Romanian? Don’t want to work four hours unpaid overtime a day? Fine, fuck off, we’ll get a Romanian. Don’t want to work bank holidays or Saturdays or Sundays for no extra pay? Fine, fuck off, we’ll get a Romanian. Want to follow health and safety regulations which protect you and the general public? Fuck off, Romanians don’t do that. Want to work with people with properly certified skills so you can be assured of the safety and quality of the work involved? Fuck off, that Romanian told me he’s done carpentry before, he’ll do. Want to have on the job training? A permanent job? Regular hours? Opportunities. Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off. Romanians don’t ask for that.

Honestly. Some people have no clue.

Smily faces are the only response to such idiotic ramblings of those who have no idea about what Brexit will entail - but are happy to pretend they do and go all out to cause mass hysteria

So what are your thoughts on the implications of Brexit on the GFA, and which is your preferred border solution?