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).

You are not free to travel Willy nilly it’s limited to 90 days a year and in a couple of years there may be additional costs. Frictionless travel is gone.

I have had severe depression and do not mind people talking about being depressed colloquially. It’s quite normal.

First world problems are still problems.

Just start your own ' remain ' party as Farage did years ago with his leave/ UKIP campaign.
Fight back , don't just moan about all these new restrictions on your life.
A remain party would have to explain the whole vaccine fiasco , but I'm sure that could be explained away easily enough.
Big red bus promising all sorts. Turn this into a positive. Lots of people are not aware that once we can travel again, it will be more difficult etc
The 'boomer ' types who want to retire to the sun might find it very hard now. They might think again ? Nobody likes inconvenience. They didn't think it would be any different I'm sure.,

It was Nigels life work , you could do the same to hi light the many negatives to leaving the EU.

@somethingonthecarpet

Newrumpus It didn't, but previously it was easy to employ staff from within the EU since they had the right to live and work here, and those families were keen to try and make a better life for themselves here. EU families have obviously been put off this idea by Brexit, so the gap is being filled from elsewhere.

Obviously but you said “the very thing that the Brexit voters hoped to stop - immigration - appears to just be coming from outside Europe now anyway”. Even if your assumption is right, leaving the EU would only ever have affected immigration from within the EU.

Just because your life is apparently shitter and you only live in a box in the street and eat 2 spoons of hot gravel for breakfast doesn’t mean we don’t get to lament real freedoms lost.

Your contempt for others less fortunate is despicable.

Some posters on this thread make Jacob Rees-Mogg look grounded.

UK MEPs were accountable to the British public.

As if a supposed democratic deficit was the issue when we currently have the Russian son of a KGB official sitting in the House of Lords, appointed by our bastard PM.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

You could even go for just a day and on Eurostar it wasn't that expensive on a day return. No idea what the prices are now, but it was dead cheap, cheaper than even going somewhere in Britain.

Not if you live up north. Those things are only true in London/South East.

If you are up north you can easily fly for aimilar price. Look at lrices from for example Manchester. Twnner to Milan pre covid? But! It came with overnight stay expense unlike Eurotar trip London-Paris and back

Oh and I think it was Manchester which had Geneva 50 return morning there, evening back.

I won't be able to sleep tonight worrying about people who can't buy diamonds in Amsterdam anymore. Or the poor souls queuing on the way back from an expensive Paris shopping trip. It's tragic.

Don't get me started on the dogs who can't spend time at their Tuscan villas.

Agree op. All those so keen to vote out will feel the brunt once COVID settles.

Newrumpus You and I know it would only have affected immigration from within the EU, but a great many people were unable to separate that from the migrant boats /refugees from outside the EU (but who were arriving via France for example). That is my point.

@FOJN - you don’t recognise Monty Python do you.

My contempt is for reverse whatever. I have empathy for all. Especially the people who will most suffer from Brexit. Just like the thousands who died because of austerity. I’m comfortable enough to probably be ok that the price of butter has increased quite a bit in the last few years, I haven’t had to switch to margarine and can absorb the higher food prices.

But if I still had to live on £10 a week for food like I did a few years ago? Then I would be really fucking angry except I probably wouldn’t have the energy for anger.

Nasty, little England mentality is what got us into Brexit. I hate it and despair of my country and where we are going to end up.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland and @ScarletZebra I live in a crappy northern town. The reason why life is so shit for many up here has nothing to do with an oversupply of foreign labour. The ones who voted leave in 2016 and then for the tories in 2019 for the first time think it is; sadly it's more to do with austerity and underinvestment by successive governments- leaving the EU won't make a jot of difference. Let's see how well Boris' levelling up does....

@Wearywithteens

“Okay, so you think the funding it will have lost from the EU will have been replaced with funding from the taxpayer? Really?”

Probably not but that’s up to the people you vote for. And that’s the point - it’ll be distributed in the UK by British institutions accountable to the British public.

Oh great. Well thanks a lot the British public. Who gives a fuck about victims of domestic violence anyway.

@somethingonthecarpet

Newrumpus You and I know it would only have affected immigration from within the EU, but a great many people were unable to separate that from the migrant boats /refugees from outside the EU (but who were arriving via France for example). That is my point.

Perhaps the ‘great many people’ for whom you speak were disgusted by the EU attitude to immigration from beyond the EU.

@Thewinterofdiscontent

You’ll be free to travel willy nilly on your weekend breaks. Pound will get your more euros. Yes you may fill in a form on high ticket items but that’s hardly all your freedoms curtailed. Even after leaving the EU and a global pandemic the price of food in the shops has remained unchanged. I can’t really understand why you would be depressed when the majority of people will use Europe exactly as they always have done.

Except literally everything in this post is false.

The bitter xenophobes are doubling down today...

COVID will have far more effect on our travel plans than Brexit, and I can’t see that changing for years.

I also suspect that people who went weekend shopping in N.Y rarely filled in forms (even though they probably should).

It amuses me how polarising Brexit is. Even the most ardent remainer must see how crass this thread is, and yet they almost feel obliged to support the OP.

Of course it's a terrible thing

I've bought loads in Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam

We're all going to have to take the tags off like we did when we bought Gap and old navy in the US 🤷‍♀️

I've been on plenty of holidays (& work travels) outside of the EU in the past and never had any issues bringing items back in similar circumstances. Including a number of trips to the US which involved significantly heavier cases on return than when I left....with some lovely work suits etc as they have body shape options for professional women there that actually fit me!!

You just get on with it.

@Miljea

Now we have moved on from the White Heat of Brexit, I understand some stuff more.

I am a committed Remainer; but I do understand that many of the obvious losses people like me feel mean nothing to many, many Leavers.

Up front, buying stuff from the EU has become so fraught with hidden, unknown costs, I'm not buying (and, to my surprise, 😉 Britain doesn't appear to make these things); but, it's quite possible many Leavers neither had the cash or interest in buying such stuff.

Our retirement plans, a villa in Spain, are shot out of the water; however, I imagine most Brexiters had never imagined the possibility. They correctly say they'll still get their week on the Med, though I doubt many will be able to afford it.

My DC can't do Erasmus (and we aren't rich enough to afford Turing); but I guess the possibility of a child doing that wasn't even a consideration for many Brexiter voters.

Your average Brexiter probably had zero interest in the importance of international ties in the worlds of science and research.

Of course, I can plainly see the lies and manipulation that caused people to vote that way. I guess the vast majority had not the faintest concept of how the EU worked (which would explain why the most googled term on June 24th 2016 was 'what is the EU?').

Educated, reasonably well off people like us will, one way or another, weather the oncoming storm.

But my sympathy for the fate of the Tory, Brexiter voter is all but gone.

I feel my life is diminished by Brexit, but the effect is more cultural than financial. Though that hasn't helped. I suspect that once the smokescreen of Covid clears, some nasty realities will dawn. Tho many will take longer than your average shell-fisherman.

HOWEVER, and here's a thing: I actually think that, in terms of maturity, Britain -certainly England- kind of needs the kicking that's coming its way. We need to learn our place in the world. We have openly, democratically and loudly chosen to diminish our influence in the world. We had a bloody good innings, sitting at many top tables we'd long since lost our right to sit at.

But maybe we might, as a country, due to Brexit, along with many other missteps- grow up from our little Englander, flag waving, Rule Britannia mentality.

This spanking may well yet do us good.

Luckily in my family we all hold Antipodean passports... 😂

I literally don’t know where to start with your arrogance and contempt for people who don’t happen to share your view. Leavers don’t have cash to buy EU ‘stuff’ should they wish to do so, only want a ‘week on the med ‘ but probably can’t afford it now ,have no interest in science and research. You need to remove your privileged blinkers .We are educated and would probably be classed as beyond reasonably well off (top 10% income) and we voted for Brexit as did many of of our friends including many Oxbridge graduates so not lacking in education and we are all from working class families so presumably don’t fit your mould of the Tory Brexiteer voter. In fact I am staunch Labour and have never voted Conservative in my life. My dd is at Oxbridge and is a fervent Lexiteer as are many of her friends. I fully accept even now that there were strong arguments in favour of both Leave and Remain which is why so many people struggled to make a decision on how to vote - it was by no means clear cut but people like you who choose to portray everyone who voted differently to yourself as ignorant and ill educated do nothing to further your case.

*Quoting me, but did I vote for Brexit, or just come to the realisation that actually, whilst a remainer, Brexit has proved to be right? I think the EU handling on vaccination and threats about blocking vaccines has shown the whole world how insular they actually are.

I am old enough to remember before the EU and surprisingly we had holidays abroad in Europe with no issues what so ever*

So. The entire axis of Brexit/Remain is the vaccine? Yes, the EU haven't covered themselves in glory. I get that. But 447.7m people insular? And I was the first to recognise the faults in the EU. But on balance, in was, and will prove to be- infinitely better than out.

Let's revisit this in 2, 5,10 years.

I predict that the EU leading countries, of which we were one- will be streets ahead of us.

you don’t recognise Monty Python do you.

Not in this context, no.

But your contempt is apparent again.....

Nasty, little England mentality is what got us into Brexit. I hate it and despair of my country and where we are going to end up.

It's this attitude to people who have different opinions which will give us a conservative government for the foreseeable future and yet you despair. Me too.

So who then was it purchasing all those cheap flights from Easyjet and other budget airlines? It wasn't the rich 10% that's for sure. It was ordinary people who could now have a couple of weeks in Spain or Greece rather than taking a chance on the weather in Blackpool or Torquay as we used to do 50 or 60 years ago.

I also get fed up with people saying that it's just northern (working class) leave voters, who saw immigrants taking their jobs . Some of the highest leave voting areas were those where there isn't much immigration because there is no work for which you can credit Thatcher and later Cameron and Osborne - all people with money behind them. Then there were an awful lot of smug Tories in the South of England who voted leave.

HOWEVER, and here's a thing: I actually think that, in terms of maturity, Britain -certainly England- kind of needs the kicking that's coming its way. We need to learn our place in the world. We have openly, democratically and loudly chosen to diminish our influence in the world. We had a bloody good innings, sitting at many top tables we'd long since lost our right to sit at.

I agree, but a lot of damage can be done in the process.

It doesn’t matter how crass the OP is. They are right.

Feeling sad about shopping may seem crass when people are dying every day. But I can still feel sad that I can’t have a natter at work with my office mates or go poke around the shops. I still grieve every person that has died. You can feel more than one thing at a time.

What I will not stop feeling is robbed by the conservative government of the last decade plus. That enforced austerity when it didn’t need to.

When it denied people benefits it said could work when they couldn’t.
When it starved those people or pushed people into suicide via the bedroom tax.
When Boris and Nigel persuaded people living in places with very little immigration (because there is no work, and immigrants go where there is work) that hordes of dirty (Muslamic!) Turks and Syrians would flood the land.

When they told us we could have everything and all we got was a crock of shit.

When the only think stopping them continuing to dismantle the NHS was a pandemic but soon as our back is turned then US interests will be greeted warmly.

Crikey so much naivety on here. Look at the shellfish farmers threatening to take the government to court because they are struggling to sell their catches to Europe. They've been offered £100,000 per company to compensate them for their losses and people actually think all that spare money sloshing around will be invested in deprived areas .