To think Brexit has robbed us of so much?

[elzober]

A friend of mine from America recently obtained citizenship of an EU country due to family links. She's now ready to look for a job and open to anything as she doesn't have a degree but worked in the family agricultural business back home. She's fluent in English.

A few years ago I would have been able to invite her to stay with me here in the UK, help her get established and set her up to apply for one of the many jobs over here. But now I can't do any of that.

The ridiculous part is I know local businesses that are really struggling to recruit, can't find people locally and have struggled with the lack of EU workers since Brexit. Particularly in hospitality, agriculture and travel.

Why did we close the door to people who filled these vacancies and contributed to society and paid taxes?

She would have been a decent tax payer, nice member of the community but she's not allowed in.

She's probably going to Ireland now as apparently there's lots more opportunities there since we became an isolated island.

I will never forgive the Conservatives for this shambles. Don't get me started on the fact that a British passport is now worthless and we've lost our right to live in 27 countries. Madness.

@EdBallsDay You've nailed it in one. There are a few posh mummy's on here (mumsnet- not specifically this thread) defending it to the hilt and I'm hazarding a bet they have benefited from either offshore rules or husbands in banking/currrency/hedge funds .

I actually have more sympathy (although in the long term I think it's short term thinking) for the HGV drivers wives saying they are getting £4 an hour more- at least it's honest and not pretending there are other huge benefits that the rest of us aren't seeing

Sadly their £4 per hour will be more than wiped out by the inflation and devaluation of GBP. In fact, doing some rough mental maths, it has been already and we haven't even entered the 5 quarter recession that's been forecasted yet. Plus inflation forecast to rocket up from 10% now to 13% in the winter.

Fun times.

I actually have more sympathy (although in the long term I think it's short term thinking) for the HGV drivers wives saying they are getting £4 an hour more- at least it's honest

I'm always happy to see anyone (who isn't benefitting from offshoring and betting against UK companies/currency) who can show they are now earning more due to Brexit (unless it's because they are working insane hours due to lack of staff). I would be genuinely happy if someone could show me even the first teeny-tiny green shoots of anything successful that is related to Brexit.

But i just don't see any. I'm not seeing any ideas about where these green shoots might come from. It has happened, it's a fact of life and much as i think it was batshit, we have to live with it. Maybe i just have a lack of imagination.

(actually i met a chap from Scotland over summer who is in an industry that is benefitting from Brexit, so that is good, but it isn't a huge industry and also has limits so personally good for him and his few coworkers, the rest of the country, not so much)

@EdBallsDay Indeed as I was saying below-- I'm sure Truss will have some little wheezes in to make sure those rates come down -

The rubbish I have seen too justifying all of it such as 'EU encouraging companies to leave by offering incentives (pre Brexit) other companies were incentivised to actually come here, it's swings and roundabouts and the EU can still offer sweeteners to any company who thinks it now makes more sense to be in the EU. !! We have basically just handed over a ton of our decent business on a plate. If we were all in the same position and EU had collapsed, then yes it would be different , but that isn't the situation.

cigiwi, well you can froth and rage as much as you like, it will change nothing. This thread will merely become a facsimile of the others.

I'm disappointed in the leave result, I'm sad for the electorate who misguidedly voted for it. I'm reserving my future for the so-call-government who put us in harm's way and made this possible. That is what is unforgiveable.

I agree with PP that looking at the reasons why voters opted to leave would be a useful endeavour. I think that leave voters reading this thread would opt to do it again in retaliation for the invective and insults (of which there have been many). How is going on and on about it, on a chatboard, going to change anything let alone achieve anything positive?

Where are the blowhards who keep ridiculing the great unwashed, illiterate and uneducated voters when it comes to pre-elections? When the information (such as it is) could be useful? They are nowhere, unless it is to say that it's 'not their job to educate'. It doesn't stop them wailing and gnashing their teeth after the fact though.

We don't have a sound parliament, we have a corrupt government who lies - and that's across all parties. Who the hell are people supposed to trust? I don't know what the answer is, I don't think though that it is to be found on a brexit thread bemoaning what is now a done deal.

I would be very interested to listen/read the people who say they know/are informed because I don't believe that I am. If only we actually had any who would be willing to put a bit of time and energy into that, rather than this.

You sound so ungrateful OP. We now put so much extra money into the NHS, we control our own borders, and not 1 person claiming benefits for being unemployed now in the uk all this foreigners are taking 'their jobs'.

And you can get a shiny new blue passport.

Definitely winning with brexit....we live in a utopia

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe there was a ton of this pre referendum - the problem is a great many were lied too - remember the 'we aren't planning on leaving the single market ' from so many voteleave people and some people simply didn't want to listen- they swallowed Farages bullshit or Barry's down the pub .

It's a bit like Trump in the USA and 'we are going to open up all the mines again and all that stuff' designed to appeal to those who want easy solutions to frustrations- how much of this actually happened? Zilch

It's hard to conclude that anybody still supporting this is not either wilfully ignorant or incredibly thick.

You could say the same of being a devout Christian or Muslim. Brexit is a religious experience, not a political choice. That's why it's worshippers can't see anything wrong with it and how it's going. That's why so many people on this thread are happy to suffer for their Brexit.

The Boris Johnson denomination of the Tory party saw that behaviour and thought to themselves "if we could leverage that sentiment to vote for us, we could be in power for ever. Even if we turned out to be the most corrupt and venal government the UK has ever seen, people would still queue up to vote for us".

Why do people think that Brexit is now a thing (despite being "done") in the non event that is the tory leader contest ? Just wait till the election that Truss calls. You'll be hearing about Brexit all over again.

Where are the blowhards who keep ridiculing the great unwashed, illiterate and uneducated voters when it comes to pre-elections? When the information (such as it is) could be useful? They are nowhere, unless it is to say that it's 'not their job to educate'. It doesn't stop them wailing and gnashing their teeth after the fact though.

If by "blowhards", you mean economists like me, we were shouting from the rooftops - publishing data and studies, running public meetings and producing webcasts, explaining the inevitable outcomes of the various options for the British public. Which went in a clear pattern from:

1. No Brexit - best option;
2. Stay in single market - some damage but manageable; to
3. Hard Brexit - permanent and significant damage to the UK economy.

We were told everyone had had enough of us and knew better. Turns out they were wrong about that, too.

You could say the same of being a devout Christian or Muslim. Brexit is a religious experience, not a political choice. That's why it's worshippers can't see anything wrong with it and how it's going. That's why so many people on this thread are happy to suffer for their Brexit.

I would say this of any ideology with no rational basis that people try to inflict on others and harms society more than it benefits it. So yes.

Haha I know, it's comical isn't it?

Imagine other countries acting in their own best interests and those of their citizens, rather than putting the British first (who have spent years insulting them and lying about them and being xenophobic to them). How very dare they??? It's almost like they take their responsibilities to their own citizens seriously.

They should have ignored their own people and focused on carrying the (largely) English Patient to A&E after it chose to shoot itself in the face.

@EdBallsDay Ha--- are you Yvette cooper?? Lol.

Lol!!! No. Not even a labour supporter. No political affiliation and never have had. I prefer science, maths, data, logic and rationality.

I realise I am in the minority.

However, from what I have seen of her she is one of the few British politicians worthy of some respect, who has some intellect and integrity. So thank you.

If we ever rejoin it should be from a position of strength not this self loathing attitude going back to Brussels crawling on our hands and knees.

If we ever rejoin it should be from a position of strength not this self loathing attitude going back to Brussels crawling on our hands and knees.

Good luck with that.

Perhaps it's time to eat a little humble pie. I mean, it's preferable to the food bank offerings, I am sure.

@EdBallsDay Indeed- I have a lot of time for her. and an economist like yourself- as isEd Balls.

A fellow sane person! Nice to meet you.

Indeed. The irony now looking at that "coalition of chaos" campaign in 2015. I wonder how much more chaotic it could possibly have been? But we can't have a PM who looks less than instagram perfect when he eats a bacon sandwich now can we? That would be a disaster. Rules me out for sure.

I do still find the Ed Balls Day thing amusing though - child that I am - hence the username.

Oh no! Surely ranting on Mumsnet is going to change the world?

No, nothing will change. But it's still worth telling the truth.

That's not what I meant, perhaps I worded it wrong. When recruiting (within the UK,) EU members got priority. So if 3 EU citizens living here applied and 3 Americans living here applied, the EU citizens would have to be prioritised first. I didn't mean recruiters had to advertise to the whole of Europe!

If we ever rejoin it should be from a position of strength not this self loathing attitude going back to Brussels crawling on our hands and knees.

We didn't join from a position of strength the first time. In 1972 We were Right Royally Fucked and it took decades to drag us up from that. The UK had been banging on the door for all the 1960s - before the Beatles first hit. Before JFK was assassinated. Even before my first memories.

It took 11 years to get in. So in a sense that's 61 years pissed away. What a waste.

Oh no! Surely ranting on Mumsnet is going to change the world?

No, nothing will change. But it's still worth telling the truth.

Agreed.

I'd also like to hear that poster's suggestions about how they intend to fix the mess??

Rejoining the single market as I said earlier in the thread is the obvious first step that most 10 year olds could work out when the facts of the situation are explained.

Does the poster advocate that? Are they lobbying their MP to make it happen?

If not, what are their alternative suggestions? I am sure we are all ears (for any suggestions that are actually feasible and would actually work).

And now we await their insightful response.

Do not hold your breath.

I've had to stop thinking about Brexit, it still makes me furious. So fucking pointless.

Yep. Not to mention that despite this through years of hard work but (again, much maligned but competent civil service officials working in the EU) we had the best deal of any country in the EU. Exemptions from economic integration, joining the single currency, from many things that did not suit us. EU budget contributions massively reduced per capita compared to other similar countries. We were cut a lot of slack but meanwhile our contribution was valued, people listened to us. Of thousands of EU wide regulations that were implemented there we only a handful (maybe 5??) that we had voted against or not got exemptions from.

All thrown away, off the back of ignorance, so that we could achieve a 4% drop in GDP in perpetuity.

Anybody heard of compounding?

My main impression from the whole thing is that a large proportion of the UK public is completely ignorant of finance, economics and international relations. And that this is one of the reasons that state education is deliberately underfunded - to keep it that way.

Why do the main skills that you need to be a functioning voter - a grasp of the basics of the political system and international comparisons, basic economics and the teaching of logic - not feature anywhere in the national curriculum?

Yet so many politicians have studied PPE which focuses entirely on those subjects.

Another mystery. Or not.