Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

999 replies

Persiantrio · 31/03/2021 20:10

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).

OP posts:
DoubleTweenQueen · 02/04/2021 12:18

Still no suggestions as to how Brexit will benefit anyone

LadyWithLapdog · 02/04/2021 12:20

@Inwiththenew

Brits have to start making their own cool stuff again. Screw this basic income shit that’s on the cards. People in the uk need to realise there’s now a massive gap in the market, being the stuff you can’t order from abroad anymore. When life gives you lemons....
This will take decades, even if there’s a will for it. Will you still be around to see any benefit? And also, why? For chest thumping?
lifeturnsonadime · 02/04/2021 12:22

So your saying that staying in the EU has no consequences for anyone? What about our basic right to democracy?

What basic rights to democracy didn't we have when in the EU?

Original poster
Persiantrio · 02/04/2021 12:28

There was a farmer on the news the other week who has the most beautiful fields in Cornwall, full of daffodils overlooking the sea. But he was bemoaning the fact that there is a very small window to pick daffodils (ie while they’re still buds), but this years crop was ruined because there was nobody to pick them. He said nobody locally was interested. He said he managed to get 5 people from a nearby town, but by mid-morning they said they were going for a coffee break and never came back. The next day, three students showed up but said it hurt their backs and went home. Also, he said this is not something he can invest in machinery to do as it doesn’t work with these flowers. So he said that was the end of that business.

OP posts:
Newrumpus · 02/04/2021 12:32

@DoubleTweenQueen

Still no suggestions as to how Brexit will benefit anyone
Read the thread
Original poster
Persiantrio · 02/04/2021 12:32

I love how the SAHMs have now been brought into this Grin

OP posts:
TheReluctantPhoenix · 02/04/2021 12:33

@Persiantrio,

I bet if he paid double, there would have been queues of people.

Yes, it will be inflationary, but cheap goods (especially things like daffodils) based on exploitation are not worth having. No one needs cut daffodils.

lifeturnsonadime · 02/04/2021 12:33

I have read the thread and haven't seen any benefits.

What are they 'Newrumpus'?

MidnightMeltdown · 02/04/2021 12:33

@Peregrina

Lots of people voted for the long term implications rather than the shorter term hit over the next few years.

Really? There wasn't supposed to be a short term hit - we held all the cards and so on.

Rubbish. It's always been obvious that there would be an adjustment period of 3-5 years while Britain finds a new way forward, but people were willing to take the hit for a different future. However, all the hyperbole peddled by remainers about how Britain is going to collapse without the EU is utter nonsense.
TheReluctantPhoenix · 02/04/2021 12:34

I wonder how many SAHMs on this thread will volunteer for a spot of crop picking for luxuries?!

LadyWithLapdog · 02/04/2021 12:35

LOL at “no one needs cut daffodils”. By no means, there’s an environmental point to be made, but I think this is not the right context.

We’ve gone from shopping in Paris to having a bunch of daffs in March. Brexiters day not needed, move on.

MarshaBradyo · 02/04/2021 12:37

@Persiantrio

There was a farmer on the news the other week who has the most beautiful fields in Cornwall, full of daffodils overlooking the sea. But he was bemoaning the fact that there is a very small window to pick daffodils (ie while they’re still buds), but this years crop was ruined because there was nobody to pick them. He said nobody locally was interested. He said he managed to get 5 people from a nearby town, but by mid-morning they said they were going for a coffee break and never came back. The next day, three students showed up but said it hurt their backs and went home. Also, he said this is not something he can invest in machinery to do as it doesn’t work with these flowers. So he said that was the end of that business.
So he relied on new immigrants from EU?

Were wages very low

WaverleyPirate · 02/04/2021 12:38

people were willing to take the hit for a different future.

They were willing for other people to take a hit.

Original poster
Persiantrio · 02/04/2021 12:38

“I wonder how many SAHMs on this thread will volunteer for a spot of crop picking for luxuries?!”

GrinGrinGrinGrinGrin

OP posts:
DoubleTweenQueen · 02/04/2021 12:39

@Newrumpus
I have read the whole thread, and much more besides since, and prior to, 2016

Original poster
Persiantrio · 02/04/2021 12:41

I did wonder what the farmer in Cornwall was paying people, but whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t enough. Even for the SAHMs.

OP posts:
MarshaBradyo · 02/04/2021 12:43

@Persiantrio

I did wonder what the farmer in Cornwall was paying people, but whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t enough. Even for the SAHMs.
It sounds like it was enough previously? So for people more desperate maybe

I did kind like this before university started it was tough no doubt and I can’t say I lasted longer than a week (hop picking in Aus etc)

MarshaBradyo · 02/04/2021 12:43

This kind of thing...

MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes · 02/04/2021 13:01

@SchrodingersImmigrant

No. I am not being deliberately obtuse *@YouAreYourBestThing*

It's not "being deliberately obtuse" to point out that not being able to buy a house is not struggling.

It is, when you remember that housing is a basic human need, and that without owning your own you will be trapped into paying private rent for your entire life.

The point about owning is that at some time you will be able to live rent free. The baby boomer generation were paying off their mortgages and living rent free by late middle age, which is why they - collectively, before someone pops up their head to say ‘not me guv, how dare you’ - have so much wealth to buy up the housing stock that forced so many of us under 50 into the private rent trap.

That is an economic bomb waiting to hit this country, as generations age and can no longer afford to pay rent on non-existent pensions. On the bright side few will be able to deny we’re in a two-tier society then, although many of the richest will lie through their teeth trying regardless.

Original poster
Persiantrio · 02/04/2021 13:01

I live near the hub of the Polish community in London. The labour force they have supplied in terms of construction work has been unparalleled. Many of the young women initially took jobs as au pairs or nursery staff on next to minimum wage, but found out they could make more money and have more flexibility as self-employed cleaners. I know quite a few personally who have eventually built up businesses here. The work ethic of those who make lives here is striking. Some have gone back, some got married and stayed. I remember one guy in particular who was the brother of next-door’s Polish nanny. He would do literally anything. He started with decorating / gardening. He drove the London buses for a while. Anyway, he’s ended up as an airline pilot. These people are an asset wherever they go and we were lucky they came. Every workman or builder I’ve ever employed in the last 20 years has been East European. I wouldn’t say they are cheaper, it’s just that they are the ones who actually show up.

OP posts:
MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes · 02/04/2021 13:08

Talking of which, I am tired also of seeing people go on about what a rich country this is, 5th or 6th biggest by GDP, without ever attempting to consider what that means for the people living here. There are many ways of measuring wealth, and that stat is priced out as the one that sounds good politically. I’ve seen others that put us down as 22nd to 25th richest behind many EU countries. At the very least it should never be quoted without recognising that we also have several of the most deprived regions in the EU here. The wealth is not evenly distributed and that means that for most of its people Britain is very definitely not a place of wealth, but of deprivation.

coogee · 02/04/2021 13:08

It is, when you remember that housing is a basic human need, and that without owning your own you will be trapped into paying private rent for your entire life.

The Swiss must be really struggling. Home ownership is around 40%

MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes · 02/04/2021 13:10

I paid enough in rent over 20 odd years to buy 2 houses, at the prices that the baby boomer landlords paid for them, for instance.

DdraigGoch · 02/04/2021 13:15

@Peregrina

Lots of people voted for the long term implications rather than the shorter term hit over the next few years.

Really? There wasn't supposed to be a short term hit - we held all the cards and so on.

Actually if you look at polling from the time, most Brexit voters were aware that there would be some short term disruption, they considered that worthwhile.
LadyWithLapdog · 02/04/2021 13:19

It was sold as only advantages and no disadvantages. Did I miss the bus telling us about the downsides? If you have that info, do share. How long will it last? What will it affect?