To feel extremely depressed about how Brexit is limiting the lives we once knew.

[Persiantrio]

Presumably now, if you want to go shopping in Paris on the Eurostar, you will have to declare, queue and pay customs on any clothes / goods over a given amount at the border. How crap and inconvenient is that?

Same with any holiday purchases from anywhere in the EU? Not worth it.

Also if you order anything online that happens to come from the EU and costs over over £135, you get hit with massive customs charges of about 40%. Companies like Etsy etc are taking a massive hit as a result.

How is this “taking back control?” Its so depressing and backward. The only reason nobody is kicking off about this yet is because nobody could go anywhere anyway. People don’t realise the freedoms they had and that are now gone. What a shit and insular place to live this will be.

And I don’t wait to hear any predictable ‘vaccine nationalism’ waffle either (because that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I’m asking in this instance and we could have done exactly the same within the EU anyway).

That should say before freedom of movement actually ended (not did, which makes no sense!).

I’m fairly certain that Scotland will go independent in the next few years and that this is the obvious and inevitable consequence of Brexit. Who could blame them? Personally I wish Scotland well with independence.

So what will happen at that border? We’ll have customs borders at Calais, borders at Scotland and whatever is panning out in NI? Think of the bureaucracy and hassle of it, not to mention years and years of political wrangling.

To be honest, if our kids weren’t in school we’d get out, I think. But one still has some years to go, so we’re stuck here.

Brexit hasn't affected me apart from now I check that I'm buying british to save on duty

As for immigrants we will have more not less due to brexit

@Peregrina,

'This was NOT what it said on the tin.'

What tin? You cannot assume that everyone who voted for Brexit did so on the basis of the most hyperbolic claims of the Leave lobby. No more than anyone can assume that people voted remain as they were scared that there would be food and energy shortages and the army out on the street to prevent rioting, claims made by many on the Brexit board over the years.

What Brexiters not doing the 'heavy lifting'? You have no idea who voted for what and many will be quietly beavering away, having no time to post on boards like this one.

I can totally understand people being idealistically attached to 'leave' or 'remain', although I think many attach far more weight to Brexit than it actually deserves, one way or another. What I do find objectionable, however, is the ardent remainers who live in this country but actually want the UK to 'get a kicking' and 'learn our place', as has been posted in this thread.

Everyone knows that Brexit was about immigration
This is completely untrue.

No, for the people who through their lot in with Farage this is most certainly not untrue. Farage and his Brexit party got 5,248,533 votes in the 2019 election - so roughly 8% of the population.

What Brexiters not doing the 'heavy lifting'?

Government and Farage (where's he now?) and leading noisy Brexiters like Dyson, Jim Ratcliffe, both of whom have done a bunk, or more minor Brexiters like Carswell who has also done a bunk.

@Hoorayforsunshine

Absolutely, Hooray.

It is has always struck me as bizarre that at the time of the internet and such unrestricted publishing without accountability, we didn't offer a counter narrative. This to me, is one of the great failures of the intellectual and academic classes when they had the worlds attention. To distribute 'facts' without context is as disingenuous as to offer opinion as fact, imv.It also gives carte blanche to the conservatives to come in and simplify everything quantitatively (inaccuracies and bias in the datasets that have been built, largely unregulated, over the last 20 years, for example).

If anyone remembers Obama' initial election campaign he really worked with social media to get at grassroots communities and reluctant voters (particularly in the black communities). The messages were clear, direct and simple - perfect to offset against the internet clutter. I remember thinking at the time that he was using tech to get into spaces previously inaccessible (as they would be deemed in the UK to violate privacy standards, etc). My thought was 'if he does this, what precedent does it set for future governments?' If we allow this to happen for a left of centre party who are doing it for good reasons, we have established a paradigm that can be used in teh future against us. The right, I am sure was watching him with glee as they knew he had given credibility to a tactic (using social media platforms) that they could then exploit (tailored messages that can't be traced, direct misinformation, unregulated platforms, etc). Along comes Trump and Cambridge Analytica and Leave, etc who used Obama's progressive approach as a rule book to follow but with the messages they wanted.

So, my point is that this sis how politics work but it isn't just that we send different messages to different groups but we send different ideas of acceptability within the law to different groups. Anyone who has been to university and seen the permissive drug culture there will see the disparity between the law, public messages and the spaces in between and who gets to fill them whilst at the same time bearing down heavily in w/c communities telling them they have to jump through a miscalibrated, narrow hoop.

But I really think this has now just become a war of the middle classes with the w/c as chess pieces to be moved in terms of an ideological strategy.

I am so disillusioned I am just waiting until to my pension when I can drink my body weight in gin.

@SchrodingersImmigrant - I don’t think I was clear enough in my comment.

There is the legal Brexit, which has only just happened.

Then there was the societal, cultural impact of the referendum decision - which caused people to leave because the UK suddenly became a much less friendly, open, attractive place to be if you were EU or from other places - and lots of jobs started to be relocated well in advance of Brexit actually happening because businesses like to be able to plan ahead and planned for the worst.

People who voted for Brexit and then were happy on 24 June 2016 - well, they were happy to have been delivered a bunch of lies and promises because nothing actual legally happened then, and little happened economically except that sterling dropped and politically the UK started looking like a small country that had been playing on the big boy stage for longer than it deserved.

All quite separate from the legal Brexit which disentangled 40 years of different laws and systems. Which has now happened and the effects of which we will see.

I suspect my point still isn’t clear! But there was a political, social ‘Brexit’ and the legal.

We didn’t need to mess with the legal bits (like sharing security information, research grants, competition laws, safety requirements) to have an open debate about what kind of culture and society we want to be.

[quote Hoorayforsunshine]@DynamoKev and that is sometime entirely down to UK elected politicians elected by UK voters.

What does it have to do with the EU and Brexit except that we know there were lots of politicians who had a stock in trade in pinning domestic issues (long term lack of investment in something domestically) on the EU (oh it’s because of EU rules that you can’t get a job!).[/quote]
As I said, a lot of claims of "we could have done this but chose not to" are founded on some idea that if only we'd amended our entire legal and benefits system to be more like Belgium's or Germany's we'd have ironed out some of the issues arising from EU membership (like benefit entitlements) that were problematic.
We couldn't have made those changes without massive costs and upheaval even if we'd wanted to.
I assume if everything that politicians and the press blamed the EU was actually a domestic issue they will now have nowhere to hide (or perhaps we'll now have 40 years of blaming brexit?)

@Smurfsarethefuture

I’m with you on the body weight in gin.

It’s all so depressing and even worse when you remember that apathy works in the interests of those who want a small state low regulation, little oversight of the political class system. So you can’t just tune out or throw your hands up. You have to keep fighting and voting and being engaged even when it feels utterly utterly pointless.

Lemonroses: Join the RYA (Royal Yachting assoc) and take their 'International Certfiicate of Competence. It does what it says on the label and is usually a requirement for your insurance. In any case, it's a good idea to have trained yourself in the 'rules of the road' when using waterways abroad.

@DynamoKev

I think we’ll have a long time of blaming Brexit. We are already seeing people talk about the betrayal of the withdrawal agreement and the deal.

It will never be the fault of Brexit or the politicians involved, the narrative will always be that it went wrong because Brexiteers were denied the one true Brexit.

The sunny uplit have your cake and eat it Brexit that never existed, nor could it.

My DD has done seasonal work in Europe in the past and would like to continue once uni finishes. Not this year, not ever!!?? For example, I understand it that hospitality jobs in the Alps, now have to be advertised locally for 8 weeks , before being advertised elsewhere. If you do get yourself a job ? It costs £300-400 to complete the necessary administration paperwork. Hotels and holiday companies are going to have to complain loudly to government to review this. And I'm not stealth boasting about "working in the alps" just an ordinary family , trying to open up the world to our family , give them life experiences.

@Hoorayforsunshine

You have to keep fighting and voting and being engaged even when it feels utterly utterly pointless.

I do try. I always try and see every point of view, every side of the argument but it is clear to me that we have created such divided classes who determine the outcome of these things. It is either 'that is irrelevant so I wont consider it and will continue to build on what works for me and mine' or 'deconstruct everything and leave it a mess for the locals to sort out. Again'. I think of my own circumstances (mature/disabled/renting) and think I am going to just have to prioritise my own needs now as there is no community, no society as such. Just consumerism and the merry go round of buying and selling.

The OP probably didn't use the best example of detrimental effects of BRexit. If all it did was stop people popping over to Paris for a shopping trip on Eurostar, that wouldn't be significant for many people. However, there has been an impact, particularly in small-ish businesses who export food and drink to the EU. www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/22/data-shows-collapse-of-uk-food-and-drink-exports-post-brexit Now, many people prbably haven't noticed the impact of Brexit themselves et, partly because the pandemic has laid other problems on top. BUt people will go out of business or their costs will rise alarmingly and that will impact on how many people they can afford to employ. Losing your job, if you're unfortunate enough to do so, will impact your health, wealth and well-being in most cases. Also if everyone is only concerned about what impacts them directly, we'll be in a sorry state, because believe it or not,we are all effected when certain sectors are: if food'housing prices rise and NHS workers have to take on multiple contracts, for instance, the standard of care you'd get from an exhausted worker will be less than ideal. Only one examope, but we do all depend on each other. That's what 'society' is.

Everyone knows that Brexit was about immigration
This is completely untrue.

Of course it was about immigration. People had been bombarded with racist lies from the press for years and millions of them were stupid or racist enough to believe them. Even the polling about why people voted Leave shows immigration was by far the biggest reason. It laughable to try to pretend leave voters all careful studied the economic and political consequences (that Dominic Cummings very extensive research showed we were to ignorant to grasp). Oh and they also all carefully considered how Brexit would affect the peace in Ireland as well.

I think that the reason you're receiving so much hate here is probably the timing of your post being so awful. I understand that people may be affected by brexit but unfortunately it's something that everyone is just going to have to move on from now as it's happened and that won't change.
But your post has probably angered people because there are such a massive amount of people who have recently lost their jobs. You say your husband has had to let go a lot of his employees, so I would suggest thinking.. if my husbands ex employees were reading this now how would they feel about me moaning that I can no longer go abroad on expensive trips or buy expensive things abroad.
Yes it may be a problem to you but I doubt you will get much sympathy. Especially from those ex employees who may be about to lose their houses ect because they no longer have a salary. It's just putting things in perspective really..

Completely agree OP.

And what makes it worse for me is that my lovely Polish neighbour has been here for years, her whole family has settled status and/or British citizenship AND EU citizenship through their Polish heritage so they all still have free movement and their kids can travel easily and work wherever they want etc... Good for her but I'm so sad for my family.

Cameron could not make a decent case for Remain, because it would highlight how many of the effect of austerity were nothing to do with the EU but were the effect of his and Osborne's policies.

He could have been a sight smarter, as Harold Wilson was, and stepped back from leading the Remain campaign, knowing that for some it would be a vote on his Premiership. But Wilson was known for being crafty.

The life enhancing experiences of working a few summer seasons in minimum wage jobs on the Costas or wherever, things poor kids with few qualifications did, those chances are gone, we've voted to take them away and given them nothing in return

Yep, it's not all about rich kids. I know lots of WC young people who used to go Spain/Ibiza to earn money in bars/cubs or as tour reps. Must have been fun jobs & easy money for kids who maybe weren't going to go to uni but could still travel and earn money.

Working classes who voted for Brexit have taken that away from their own kids.

summerlovin - going to Paris in the train does not have to be an “expensive trip abroad.” It can be more expensive to go from London to another U.K. city.

You mention the people my husband has had to make redundant. This has been extremely difficult, believe me, and if there has been any other way, he would have taken it. These are people at all levels - from graduates on entry salaries through to people who have been on the journey of this particular company with him from day one and were on MD salaries. Not only that, he used to have offices in Poland, Italy and Germany (among others) and there was free-flow of staff and exchange between these. No more. This is nothing to be celebrated in any shape or form.

These people were not on MW and hopefully their skills will get them work elsewhere - but it won’t be in Europe now will it? This is a tech industry where people have very transferable skills. Many of them were Europeans working here and vice versa. Fortunately, for us my husband is diversified enough that we’ve survived. But there’s been an incredible amount of risk along the way and it’s not been easy.

But my point was, at some point travel will resume. When people are in holiday, it’s hardly unheard of for them to buy something while there - whether this be pottery or local crafts or your husband buys you some jewellery or whatever the case may be. This hardly a wild concept, is it? Nor is it limited to the super-wealthy. The difference is now, you will have to factor in customs taxes in a way you wouldn’t have before. I think a lot of people are likely to be caught unawares when they try and enter the UK with holiday purchases. For instance, you’re out in a Greek resort after a few drinks and you might be more inclined to splash out on something you might not buy at home. It’s a special purchase, but one you possibly wouldn’t make if you knew there was going to be another 20/30% at customs.

@Persiantrio

summerlovin - going to Paris in the train does not have to be an “expensive trip abroad.” It can be more expensive to go from London to another U.K. city.

You mention the people my husband has had to make redundant. This has been extremely difficult, believe me, and if there has been any other way, he would have taken it. These are people at all levels - from graduates on entry salaries through to people who have been on the journey of this particular company with him from day one and were on MD salaries. Not only that, he used to have offices in Poland, Italy and Germany (among others) and there was free-flow of staff and exchange between these. No more. This is nothing to be celebrated in any shape or form.

These people were not on MW and hopefully their skills will get them work elsewhere - but it won’t be in Europe now will it? This is a tech industry where people have very transferable skills. Many of them were Europeans working here and vice versa. Fortunately, for us my husband is diversified enough that we’ve survived. But there’s been an incredible amount of risk along the way and it’s not been easy.

But my point was, at some point travel will resume. When people are in holiday, it’s hardly unheard of for them to buy something while there - whether this be pottery or local crafts or your husband buys you some jewellery or whatever the case may be. This hardly a wild concept, is it? Nor is it limited to the super-wealthy. The difference is now, you will have to factor in customs taxes in a way you wouldn’t have before. I think a lot of people are likely to be caught unawares when they try and enter the UK with holiday purchases. For instance, you’re out in a Greek resort after a few drinks and you might be more inclined to splash out on something you might not buy at home. It’s a special purchase, but one you possibly wouldn’t make if you knew there was going to be another 20/30% at customs.

Yes I understood your original point. My point was purely that your timing is very off. Yes people will need to deal with problems in the future but right now is not really the right time to be asking if it's unreasonable to be annoyed that you can't take trips to Paris to buy expensive items. Many people won't be in a position to travel now for a long time if they have lost their jobs ect so to be asking this (especially when you admitted that your husband has had to let many employees go) is a bit tactless

Er summer - nobody can go anywhere right now anyway, regardless of financial circumstances. I’m obviously talking about when people do start travelling again. Which will happen.

I hope you’re across all MN threads about buying houses / cars / other items ; or independent school choices; or “can I book a holiday?” etc etc to tell them they are not allowed to discuss such ‘tactless’ matters. Good luck with that.

@Persiantrio

Er summer - nobody can go anywhere right now anyway, regardless of financial circumstances. I’m obviously talking about when people do start travelling again. Which will happen.

I hope you’re across all MN threads about buying houses / cars / other items ; or independent school choices; or “can I book a holiday?” etc etc to tell them they are not allowed to discuss such ‘tactless’ matters. Good luck with that.

Clearly not understanding my point again

Like I said just go and show this post to all your husband ex employees, I'm sure they will have nothing but sympathy for you