To not understand Brexit?

[HakunaMatataa]

Please don't come for me, I am very out of the loop r.e: Brexit. I have no idea what is happening and what the implications of this could be on our everyday lives.

I keep seeing threads about stock piling ect and now I'm left wondering if I should be preparing?!

So basically I suppose I'd like some views on Brexit, some pro's and cons in layman's terms, so I can try and get my head around it please.

Is this just alot of scare mongering going on or shall I be concerned?

I've obviously googled this but politics isnt my strong point and I just don't get it.

“I just wish the people responsible for calling the referendum would just admit they made a mistake and put a stop to the madness.”

They haven’t made a mistake as far as they are concerned - they have made and will make a shitload of money from this. The people have been played by the establishment

That's just even more depressing that this is all about money. There are just so many things the government could be focusing on to make this country a better place to live rather than leaving the EU 😔 it just so desperately sad.

I agree with that @Trimummy3 but ultimately how you voted has led to where we are just now. There shouldn’t have been a referendum in the first place but given that there was at least own the fact it’s your vote that has led to this mess. Not mine.

I think blaming the voting public for not understanding what they were voting for is tantamount to blaming someone for not being able to fix their own car and saying "if you own a car you should be able to fix it" but of course that's rubbish. Even though most of us use a car, most people don't need know how to fix them. There are mechanics whose job it is to know all about cars and they are able to fix them. We all have different talents and abilities, you hope that the people you elect to run your county read deeply and discuss with relevant people to find out the implications of decisions that could make or break the county and they should be making those decisions, not us.

I think a lot of people are like this, they didn't understand it or the possible consequences of Brexit and they DID vote even when OP didn't

People should have educated themselves BEFORE the vote properly

For anyone thinking 'we give all this money to the EU and get nothing back', check out this interactive map site. It shows all the investment directly from the EU in your specific area (and obviously there will have been more in the areas that needed it most)

www.myeu.uk/

The 'red tape' that Leaver MPs want to cut is the rules that keep workers safe, give maternity and paternity rights and leave, that prevent accidents or illness from contact with chemicals etc.

The fishing quotas issue, I only very recently found out, is because our fishing was privatised by the government, so Icelandic, Spanish and Dutch 'flagships' hold 50% of the UK's quota. There's an article online by Greenpeace which has the full statistics and sources.

The MPs who want us out of the EU want us out because they can lower standards for workers, lower food quality checks, they can make a load of money out of the collapse of jobs and housing.
Jacob Rees Mogg's father wrote a book still available called "Blood in the Streets: Investment Profits in a World Gone Mad" about making money from disasters.

And then there's Northern Ireland, where border controls could spark violence and going back to the troubles.

The EU has been blamed in a lot of the media for decades for being some sort of bully, when in fact it has been a force for good on the whole, and has been blamed for things that are actually due to our government's actions.

Yes, nothing's perfect and we could definitely do with chatting much more with the EU to get things better for everyone, but that takes actually being a part of it.

So anyway... we buy loads of stuff, isn’t it in the eu best interest to make a way to keep selling to us?

Well, they did make a way to keep selling it and called it the Single Market & Customs Union. The UK has decided they don't like that any more, nor does it like any of the options offered by the EU.

So now all those isotopes and tomatoes will arrive at the UK border and the UK will stand there saying "We have bowed out of every guarantee we ever made that you'll get paid for these. Even if we honour the bill, we have no process in place for the banks to send your money.

Also, we no longer have to guarantee that anything we send back in your trucks will be of a good standard.

Also, we bowed out of recognising your truck driver's licenses & insurance so they'll be illegal on our roads.

Also, your drivers are French or Dutch or Polish so they will be illegal immigrants when they cross this line.

Also, we haven't figured out a way to inspect these goods as the EU way of doing things doesn't apply any more so we have to do it here at the border. No saying how long that will take so you'll lose money every minute while we faff about.

Oh, and we bowed out of our agreement on how to carefully handle these isotopes so you have no way to know if the product you've sent will be the product that is actually used to treat human beings."

If your livelihood depended on these isotopes or tomatoes, would you still send them to the UK or would you find more reliable buyers?

Max- thanks so much for your post. It outlines things very clearly. I didn't know that about the tax

Junker has not done much for the cause has he?
Some of his quotes are chilling. Same with guy de vorch....
Scary bunch.

Duffle what about pro eu supporters who turned whilst working in the eu system like Andrea ledsome and gisela Stuart?
Working within the eu apparatus showed them very clearly that the eu is too large, burocratic and clunky to change, which, is why they vote leave.

How does 'chatting more' possibly change that!?

You need more in depth understanding of big government, burocracy etc. Chatting more is not going to wash

But if your car’s unfixable then most people would accept that they wouldn’t keep shouting and insisting it should be fixed even where it isn’t possible.

I just don’t think leavers should get to take no accountability for this mess. If the vote had gone my way this wouldn’t be happening. Because it went their way, it is. Why don’t they want to take responsibility?

Yadnbu I understand the basics. But I feel likes it’s a complicated tv drama and I missed one episode and now I’m totally out of the loop. I do try to keep up but most of it washes over me

@LatteLove

I just don’t think leavers should get to take no accountability for this mess. If the vote had gone my way this wouldn’t be happening. Because it went their way, it is. Why don’t they want to take responsibility?

You make a really good point there. I often see Leavers saying, “If Remain has won you wouldn’t be complaining and asking for another referendum!” Well no Sheila, I wouldn’t. Because this catastrofuck wouldn’t be happening.

I think Bury football club would laugh bitterly at the football analogy.

Autumn any big organisation is going to be bureaucratic to some extent, and the EU is handling a massive, massive amount of legislature and agreements for all its members. Quite how big a process that it is highlighted in how little our government's been able to arrange in just 3 years.

I have a friend who was a councillor and who got quite disillusioned about how much of a difference she could make because of how slowly things moved, so I do get how frustrating it must be trying to make changes in a huge organisation.

Maybe chatting was the wrong word - there must be processes in place to discuss and review certain things with all other 27 countries. It'll be a slow process, but if we're out of it then we get no say at all.

I think it’s surprising how many people think they fully understand Brexit. Yes it’s been in the news relentlessly, but to fully understand all the implications and consequences of a deal or no deal, you’d have to be exceedingly proficient in international relations, politics, economics, socio-cultural issues - amazing how the some posters consider themselves to be experts in all these complex fields. OP you’re quite right to admit you’re not an expert in all these areas and to not have kept yourself abreast of a volatile, changing political situation for years on end. YANBU.

Can we stop having a go at clueless people asking questions. At least they realise they didn't (don't) understand it all and are making an effort to understand. I'd much rather have them than they even more clueless 'we knew what we voted for' lot, yes, this shitshow is what you voted for. Dominic Cummings has even said most of the cabinet didn't have a fucking clue what it all meant (this is after the referendum) and didn't even understand what the single market was. The public had zero clue what it was and so that's why he took the decision not to campaign on it or the customs union.

And for the people who think we can just sign trade deals easily, there's a picture on the internet (I'll try to find it) of a trade deal between the EU and somewhere. It is stacks of thousands and thousands of pages, ever word will have been written in complex legal language and agreed by dozens of people.

“If there was a GE I would vote conservatives 100percent. Partly because I want this shit situation to go away where we are all arguing.”

Why do so many people still not understand. “Leaving” will not be an end to this, it will be the beginning. It will take years, possibly decades to negotiate free trade deals with countless trading nations and will take a far greater skilled group of negotiators than this bloody rabble. It will dominate the political agenda as infinitum and the division, arguments and blame will intensify as the repercussions are felt.

Remaining in the EU is the best possible deal available to us. Sadly, that won’t be one apparent to many until the damage is done and there’s no way back.

Future generations will look back on pre-Brexit Britain as another country. The Sunny Uplands, perhaps.

People voted leave because they were disillusioned and there was a very convincing campaign making out that being in the EU was the source of all the county's problems. I'm afraid I can't blame them. What I don't understand, however, is why people who voted leave and have since seen that the leave campaign was a load of lies and wishful thinking and can see the mess we are going to be in if we leave the EU are not asking for another chance to vote and to vote remain.

“Leaving” will not be an end to this, it will be the beginning. It will take years, possibly decades to negotiate free trade deals with countless trading nations and will take a far greater skilled group of negotiators than this bloody rabble. It will dominate the political agenda as infinitum and the division, arguments and blame will intensify as the repercussions are felt.

This

I'm in Ireland and there are a number of issues that are currently being highlighted on the radio, etc.

Anyone who lives in Ireland (and is from any part of the EU) can currently drive here without issue. But anyone from Britain has to apply for the correct driving license for after November 1st as they will no longer be covered under an EU agreement. It's a small thing but I imagine there will be lots of small things like this.

There are ads telling people that they should carefully consider where they are buying online goods from as post Brexit goods from Britain will not be safeguarded by EU directives as they once were...if someone wished to buy something from England to check carefully the sellers policy regarding tariffs, delays, etc.

Death by a thousand cuts is a phrase that comes to mind...

That’s telling and interesting Sailorsgirl. We in the UK, whilst it will obviously have dire effects in Ireland and to probably a lesser extent the other 26 countries, will probably suffer the most severe, direct consequences. As yet, there is no readily available public information on our airwaves/TV, whatever in respect of preparedness. There’s a Government website you can search out (which is next to useless to an ordinary member of the general public anyway) but so far bugger all else. A very expensive preparedness campaign was announced last weekend but I’ve yet to see anything, anywhere, that you don’t have to seek out.
Funny that!

Anyone who lives in Ireland (and is from any part of the EU) can currently drive here without issue.

I live near(ish) the border. I never even thought of this. Surely the amount of cross border traffic will be a huge issue?