To ask what impacts of brexit you have seen in your day to day life?

[Bregxit]

Any whether good or bad
Yabu-yes I have
Yanbu-no I haven’t

Forgot to mention huge shortages of professional healthcare staff, particularly in large cities. Some London trusts are running at 40% vacancies in some professions.

@PersonaNonGarter

Thank God, we’re actually out.

There are so many people who would love to re-run the Brexit arguments - and I understand why - but it is like people arguing for re-opening the coal mines now. Just ain’t going to happen, although that doesn’t mean the transition won’t bring pain. I have sympathy for those who are feeling that pain.

Sympathy doesn't help anyone, does it? I'd like to know the actual tangible benefits. If this thread is representative, then I'm seeing negligible benefits and huge negatives. Why the fuck have we done this to ourselves??

We have not been self-sufficient for many decades (centuries by some measures).

Considering we have only been part of the EU for 47 years, how did we cope for the centuries before that?
Clearly we will find ways to provide the large scale things we need as a nation that we can't be self sufficient in, but it's not exactly a hardship to ask individuals to consider not importing odds and ends. A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it.

But why should we reduce choice in so many ways? Many German engineered products are great, for example, and if I want to buy bike bits, I have the whole of Europe to choose from to get what I want, rather than having to buy the lower quality, reduced choice available here. Why would people prefer that? No, it might not be a huge sacrifice but if it reduces choice and makes shopping poorer, why would you deliberately choose it?! Accept it when forced, obviously. No-one is saying you can't get by without some things. But why go for a system where you have to accept lower quality and standards because you have no other options.

@ChazP

For those citing covid vaccinations as an advantage to Brexit, our procurement of vaccines has NOTHING to do with Brexit. If we had remained in the EU we would still have been able to procure our own supply of vaccines.

Now try and come up with a GENUINE advantage to Brexit. We’ve been waiting 5 years for anyone to come up with anything. I’m sure someone somewhere has something by now...

Oh, come on. Do you really think that if any of the previous Prime Ministers we have had over the last 25 years (not to mention the current leader of the opposition) were in charge, we'd have gone it alone? No, when Britain was a member state we moaned a lot but always went grudgingly along with the schemes like good little Europeans. We almost ended up in the Euro. We'd have relied totally upon the EU scheme and found ourselves high and dry - Viktor Orban might feel up to going it alone despite being a member state but no Europhile British Government would have done so.

but it's not exactly a hardship to ask individuals to consider not importing odds and ends. A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it.

Why minimise the importing issue? For many it's not about importing a scarf rather than buying one in the UK. Although as pointed out for some buying from the UK isn't actually possible right now, even though they're living there. Many businesses will close due to not being about to import goods they sell, and those that can source products in the UK now have a reduced marketplace to sell their products to.

I've not seen Danish Blue cheese on the shelves for a while

@Terfy

We have not been self-sufficient for many decades (centuries by some measures).

Considering we have only been part of the EU for 47 years, how did we cope for the centuries before that?
Clearly we will find ways to provide the large scale things we need as a nation that we can't be self sufficient in, but it's not exactly a hardship to ask individuals to consider not importing odds and ends. A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it.

We coped , but we were on our knees and realised how much better off we would be in Europe

Go search why we joined in the first place

Considering we have only been part of the EU for 47 years, how did we cope for the centuries before that?
Very busy this morning, so no time for a more comprehensive answer, but we had a much smaller population for one thing! We were also busily exploiting our colonies and plundering their raw materials etc.

A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it.
People really don't get it, do they? Never mind the manufacturing process, do we grow cotton? Do we have silk farms? Do we manufacture enough polyester fibres, etc etc... It's nothing to do with branding. It is everything to do with raw materials. (And I know they don't all originate in the EU.)
The posters making the 'let's make more stuff' argument never address the issue of raw materials, do they?

No, when Britain was a member state we moaned a lot but always went grudgingly along with the schemes like good little Europeans.

The Uk didn't though did it,?

You've already pointed out the euro.
We stayed on imperial measurements.
We even retained square style, three pin plugs..

We..oh heck, it's easier to paste a wiki link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_opt-outs_from_EU_legislation

I work in the financial sector so there has been a huge impact at work, a lot of our work has been moved to the EU, I’m very lucky that I have kept my job in the UK for now.

• Having to pay close to £2k to get British citizenship to make sure I'd have the same rights as before (specifically the right to return after being out of the UK for a few years)
• Having now moved from the UK to the EU: the added paperwork for my British husband to formalise his right to live and work in the EU (basically the local equivalent of 'settled status')
• A ban on most non-EU travellers means my PiLs can't visit us until that's lifted. Obviously they wouldn't visit us right now anyway because of the lockdown in the UK, but otherwise they could fly here if they wanted to: EU citizens only need to present a negative covid test, while non-EU citizens can't enter at all, with a small number of exceptions.
• We used to order sports equipment from the UK because it's about 25-30% cheaper than buying locally, and there is more choice. Some companies still ship here, but with import taxes the price difference is negligible while other companies have stopped shipping here completely.

Possible upsides: There was an article in the FT that said there might be a growing demand in the UK for employees who can work & travel freely in the UK and EU, so at least having both a UK and EU passport may be advantageous if/when we move back to the UK...

No. We have not stayed on Imperial measurements. All supermarket food is in Kg/grams. Petrol in litres. Engineering deign and maths is metric. Weather forecasts are centrigrade. Have you confused the UK with the USA?

Plugs sre a different matter as it would be very expensive to change everything and arguably 3 pin is safer.

No we did not want the euro because it did not suit our business model in the uk. I agree that raw materials is key. You cannot just start up manufacturing business either . It takes a lot of investment. Something the Brits are less keen on. Our wages are high compared with elsewhere. Many people could not afford to buy what we made due to higher prices. Just like the food prices. Sadly a lot of people do not have a grasp of manufacturing reality or economics - let alone running a business. You can want other people to manufacture what you want, but put your own money down and make it then!

@jenniferjamesandbarryboo * I'd like to know the actual tangible benefits. If this thread is representative, then I'm seeing negligible benefits and huge negatives.
Why the fuck have we done this to ourselves??*

You aren’t listening then. I have said that I am working with clients on post-EU State Aid rules. Now. Tangible.

We had planned to move to either France or Spain within the next few years to live. That can no longer happen as we wouldn't have any health care over there. My daughter will not be able to go to work as an au pair in France after uni, as I did. Nor will she benefit from any Erasmus exchanges. It's totally shit. Id like to see if there have been any real life positives to Brexit. I suspect not.

I work in higher education and it has affected our EU students and prospective EU students. The rules around the fee and maintenance funding from Student Finance are many and complex and will affect up to 56,000 students a year. It is a nightmare.

I work in the insurance industry. We’ve all spent the last three years and countless millions in admin costs transferring tens of billions of pounds of capital relating to EU policyholders into new entities based in the EU because no deal was made on financial services. Huge amounts of time and expense for literally no benefit to anyone apart from the consulting and accounting firms who had to do all the reports - they’ve made a killing to be fair.

The upside is that we could perhaps, eventually, change the flawed areas of EU Solvency II regulation, but that would take a very long time to agree, and the advantages of an improved model might well be outweighed by the disadvantage of abandoning an internationally agreed standard.

No. We have not stayed on Imperial measurements. All supermarket food is in Kg/grams. Petrol in litres. Engineering deign and maths is metric. Weather forecasts are centrigrade. Have you confused the UK with the USA? (sic.)

Nope, though I can work in US gallons and even knots if you wish but a M apologies with regard to the comment about the Uk and imperial, I should have qualified it.

Though I am probably ancient by this places standards even I remember working in metric when I did O levels, A-levels and then a Science degree in the UK way back in the distant past.

I'm putting my faux pas down to the amount of time it took me to drive 200 plus miles in the UK not that long ago, that journey, combined with the the speed being in MPH, is still seared on my memory.

I have said that I am working with clients on post-EU State Aid rules. Now. Tangible.
If your clients really think that this government will help business, you are deluded.
The Freeports that existed in the 80s (across the EU and UK)
were shut down because they became crime hubs ....

Everyone seems to think the government will have £ billions to give away with state aid. In your dreams. The cost of covid alone puts pay to plenty of plans. Well done you for having a job, planning with other people's fantasy money, but millions of others will lose theirs. Never mind increased taxes to pay for covid issues. There is going to be a serious shortfall of tax take. A serious one. Higher paid jobs are exiting London. The highly paid pay more tax. Companies are failig and hanging on in there. Loads of tax will not be forthcoming from them. Dream on.

@Terfy

We have not been self-sufficient for many decades (centuries by some measures).

Considering we have only been part of the EU for 47 years, how did we cope for the centuries before that?
Clearly we will find ways to provide the large scale things we need as a nation that we can't be self sufficient in, but it's not exactly a hardship to ask individuals to consider not importing odds and ends. A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it.

Largely by trampling over lands owned by people with brown faces and taking their resources at gunpoint, IIRC.

Oh, I nearly forgot - and getting into wars to protect said resources.

A scarf is a scarf at the end of the day, not having your usual Italian brand is not really suffering, is it

Why are you so determined to trivialise what people are telling you?

You can buy a UK-made scarf. But where do you think the yarn / fabric comes from? We don’t have the capacity in this country to produce all the supplies needed for all businesses. We don’t have the ability to produce all the ingredients used for food available in supermarkets even if the end product is produced here.

This shouldn’t be news to anyone.

@ListeningQuietly

I have said that I am working with clients on post-EU State Aid rules. Now. Tangible. If your clients really think that this government will help business, you are deluded. The Freeports that existed in the 80s (across the EU and UK) were shut down because they became crime hubs ....

Oh @ListeningQuietly thanks for this advice. I will pass on to my clients that someone on the internet says something about Freeport’s in the 80s. And that must mean there are no benefits to being outside the EU State Aid rules. The person on the internet sounded very clever and unbiased.