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).

I've just had an email from a company I used to buy from announcing Brexit / customs delivery charges.

Feel really sorry for all the people whose jobs are affected.

@HannibalHayes

"So point out where racism & xenophobia have been used on this thread."

You're like the government. "We've investigated ourselves for institutional racism, and wow!, we've found ourselves innocent!"

Is that your example?

I come from a normal family and when we have been on holiday and bought clothing, jewellery and other things without thought.

I went to france and on the way back we stopped to buy booze from the supermarche in calais-it was definitely more than £135! It all adds up and quickly too.

@Persiantrio

Er, customs declarations; VAT issues; having to queue with the rest of the world and his dog at passport control; visas; no freedom to live / work; no EHIC cards; no Erasmus schemes; issues with holiday homes / second homes / retiring to the EU.

Basically a massive faff for nothing, when we had access to live, work and trade freely with one of the most amazing and varied continents in the world right on our doorstep.

You can still use the Ehic, or whatever the card will be called now.

@thereisonlyoneofme

Pre EU ( in olden days) we still went on holiday and bought stuff and maybe had to fill in forms and pay duty on stuff, and magically we survived. I remember that when we were having a financial crisis late 60s, early 70s you were only allowed to take £30 out of the country for holiday money.

Yes, thereisonlyoneofme, but we moved on from there, joined the EU & got rid of the red tape. But now we're back to square one..

Xenophobia and racism don’t always need to be explicit in so many works though, do they. It’s an attitude of mind and you know it when you see it (or in this case, read it). It often manifests as disproportionate or bizarre expressions of hostility, or wilful misinterpretation, personal attacks and stereotyping of anything perceived as different / inaccessible to them and therefore “other” I would sum up the attitude as “I don’t do that. You’re different to me so F off.”

“words” not “works” - I apologise.

Vat was always payable, its just who did the paying.

For business to consumer sales the seller would have paid vat in their country.

Now, in theory, the customer pays vat instead.

That shouldn't mean too much of an increase.

Still hassle mind.

I will never forgive those who are responsible for Brexit. As someone who lived and worked in Europe and with family members who did the same I think it’s heart breaking that the opportunity to do the same has been taken away from my kids. And to those of you who will say we can still do it - no we can’t, not without dealing with masses of paperwork and legal hoops. I will forever be European 😟

@SchrodingersImmigrant

If I understand it right you can still bring 18 litres of non sparkling wine so that's still cases allowed. Or 9 litres of sparkling and strong one?

www.gov.uk/government/news/duty-free-extended-to-the-eu-from-january-2021 42 litres of beer 18 litres (24 standard bottles) of still wine 4 litres of spirits OR 9 litres (12 bottles) of sparkling wine, fortified wine or any alcoholic beverage less than 22% ABV 200 cigarettes I would think that this was enough to be getting on with.

There's also this interesting bit at the bottom:
Any other goods
£390 or £270 if travelling by private plane or boat
There you are OP, if you are bringing your shopping home on the train or plane, the limit is £390 before duty applies. Looks like the £135 limit is for freight/postal consignments only. Spend away!

Seriously cba to RTFT.

First three predictably entrenched pages were just depressing.

An observation: diamonds should always be bought in Antwerp.

I’ll keep buying mine there, proud multilingual Brexiteer that I am.

@littlemissfoodlover

'i think I'm better than anyone else'

What bullshit. I think people trying to limit the actions, choices and lifestyle of others because they are jealous is disgusting. I worked hard from a very poor working class background to be comfortable. I actively help others around me to grow and achieve their goals, rather than pull others down to the lowest common denominator.

Brexiteers though, I have no more words to describe how much disdain I feel for their stupid selfish actions.

topcat - what often seems to be happening though, is that for items bought in the EU, prices are still simply being converted from Euros to the £ and therefore inclusive of VAT (as previously). But this VAT is not stated on the delivery note filled in by the sender - they just write the value of the goods (ie what you have paid) as they always did when posting to the U.K. So then, when it gets to customs, customers are being charged VAT again, plus customs charges and other random admin charges that the delivery companies now impose.

My DH often orders various bike paraphernalia from a company and didn’t realise that some of their warehouses are in an EU country. Previously it hasn’t mattered. But there have been about two occasions recently where DPD or UPS have brought a box to the door which they wouldn’t hand over unless he paid a ridiculous amount. Last time it was £150! It turned out he had paid VAT twice, but it’s very time consuming having to chase these things up, not to mention confusing.

[quote Treacletoots]@littlemissfoodlover

'i think I'm better than anyone else'

What bullshit. I think people trying to limit the actions, choices and lifestyle of others because they are jealous is disgusting. I worked hard from a very poor working class background to be comfortable. I actively help others around me to grow and achieve their goals, rather than pull others down to the lowest common denominator.

Brexiteers though, I have no more words to describe how much disdain I feel for their stupid selfish actions.[/quote]
You've just contradicted yourself, by stating that brexiteers are stupid you are then saying that you aren't stupid because you didn't vote for brexit. Great argument

It was not calling Brexitiers stupid, it was calling their actions stupid

We went to France or Belgium at least once a year for a weekend trip and it was so simple, and so inexpensive - easily comparable to a trip in the UK. Why the fuck wouldn't you visit Paris, Brussels, (and all the rest Europe has to offer)

Eh?
As has been pointed out, Brexit isn’t going to stop anyone going to Europe for a holiday.

@lavenderbongo

It was not calling Brexitiers stupid, it was calling their actions stupid

Just like I'm sure many people who voted For brexit would consider remainers actions to be stupid. I don't understand why everybody is always so vile about any opinions that don't match their own.

@Bagamoyo1

Everyone knows that Brexit was about immigration.

The problem with freedom of movement is that it works both ways. Whilst it enabled Brits to travel and work freely in EU countries, it also meant that EU citizens could travel freely here too. That was fine when it was just just a handful of Italian exchange students working in Costa or whatever, but once thousands of eastern European men came over, the great British public didn't like it. And that's why they voted Brexit.

I'm not saying that's my personal view by any means, but from my extensive conversations with many people from different walks of life, that was the tipping point. Massive own-goal by David Cameron.

This is largely the fault of Labour who failed to cap EU immigration in the mid 90s when a number of Eastern European countries joined. I have no problem with immigration from any country, but it needs work both ways. The problem is that our net immigration has been the equivalent of a population the size of Liverpool moving to the UK every single year. This has a disproportionately negative effect on poorer communities who have seen increased competition for jobs, wages undercut, increased competition for school places, increased difficulty accessing healthcare, overcrowded public transport, skyrocketing house prices... the list goes on an on and on. Many of these issues go over the heads of the wealthy who can afford to go private.

How can you possibly blame Labour when the bloody Tories have been in charge for the past decade? Have you no shame? Or do you think we’re all 18 year olds with no memory of how things happened.

I feel more sorry for the families who have to fork out money for citizenship- you’ll survive without your Paris shopping trips 😅

www.itv.com/news/2016-06-19/gove-i-shuddered-at-farages-migrant-breaking-point-poster here’s that poster for another look. Your bedfellows dear Brexiters.

My DH often orders various bike paraphernalia from a company and didn’t realise that some of their warehouses are in an EU country

Good. We need the import duty he will pay in order to fund furloughed workers, etc

Agreed YANBU we will look back on this as pure self harm - life is going to be much harder

@Persiantrio admin charges will be to declare the goods to customs and complete paperwork
Vat will need to be paid on entry to the uk as vat is paid on imports , not sure if you should pay vat on country that is exporting though but think that may depend on there rules
Im pretty sure when i used to send stuff to us there was no vat charged ?

I'm sure it is inconvenient if you are the kind of person who does that sort of shopping - though you'd think the nature of the complaint might give some insight into why the voting when the way it did, OP.

At one point as a member of a commonwealth country, I'd have been able to come live in the UK, home of my ancestors - my mother could have - but no more. I'd rather have liked to have done so, at leas for a few years.

I'm not sure people would really give me the time of day if I complained that it's unjust though or a removal of my rights, given that I was born and am a citizen of a completely different country.