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.

I still don't understand why british working class couldn't utilise the free movement like others did

Plenty I knew did, travelling holidays around Europe working along the way for a whole summer or winter. Bars in Greece, France. Working at ski chalets in the Alps for cheap skiing all season. They were just normal men and women in their 20s on an adventure.

And the ones who lived here usually rather flew back to respective countries for treatments than use NHS.... Myself included! My gyno was horrified that I just couldn't go to one here when nedded treatment and had to be referred. Luckily flights were super cheap so had treatment within a week.
And dentists..... Yeah. We weren't as big strain on NHS as many belied. Many of us oaid out insurance in native countries dven after the point we were supposed to stop and have just the one here. Many paid privately there as well. Yet I kept hearing how we ruined NHS🙄

Thanks! So many people make it sound like no one below xxxxx wage could have done things like that.

It was always going to be hard at first, everyone acknowledged that. But it was morally the right thing to do.

@Florenz ah you're back. Can you answer my question please?

I hope they are all now working hard to retrain to that jobs they wanted so much.

So the solution to working class people who couldn't get a decent job in the UK was to go to France to work at a ski chalet in the Alps? Most people don't want "an adventure" they just want a decent job. Most immigrants that came to work here came because the wages were substantially higher here than they were in their homeland. There was nowhere in Europe where British people could go and do that.

Brexit was a particularly nasty brand of English nationalism and is yet another good example of why nationalism is a pernicious, divisive, and destructive force, no matter how cuddly and benevolent some politicians close to home dress it up to appear.

No one ever said (pre vote) it was going to be "Hard at First"

It was all optimism and sunny uplands.

I wonder how, as we going into recession and v high inflation, that is working out.

"Morally" 😂

As others have said some did..however there could be blockers to some lines of work.

You've mentioned one - language.

The other issue was that some EU countries had (indeed still have) local qualification requirements even for quite basic trades.

I used to live in a market town in a rural area and I agree Brexit has robbed us of loads.

Robbed us of loads of drunken male Eastern European agricultural workers wandering around the town on Fri/Sat night urinating in the streets/peoples gardens and terrorising people.

Robbed us of loads of male Eastern European workers congregating around the War Memorial at w/ends in the town centre desecrating it by either sharpening their knives on the stones or urinating on it in broad daylight.

The police did nothing because they didn't want to be seen as 'racist'.

That's why this area voted over 70 % leave.

It's why I left the area also.

There was nowhere in Europe where British people could go and do that

I did & many people i knew worked in Germany in the 80s and 90s.

Over 100k British people worked abroad in tourism alone.

We have an aging population, we need migrant labour, the EU enabled that, with a mobile workforce that could and has, quickly gone home, migrant labour from South Asia will a: be no where near as well qualified and b: will never return.

So the solution to working class people who couldn't get a decent job in the UK was to go to France to work at a ski chalet in the Alps

Oh nonsense I never said that, poor attempt at twisting things round. I was actually working in a factory as a packer at the time my friends were away, is that working class enough for you?

They went because they wanted to see a bit of the world around them whilst working. Something kids can’t do anymore. They went because they wanted to, and they could. Not because they had too. Ffs talk about clutching at straws lol

Brexit was a particularly nasty brand of English nationalism and is yet another good example of why nationalism is a pernicious, divisive, and destructive force

Yup. Brings out the twats, spouting bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, everywhere, spouted even from the heart of government now.

The people who "got Brexit done" are still in power. That's why it matters and why we still need to talk about it.

And, Brexit is far from "done". The next stage will be removing our human rights, again by appealing to racism and xenophobia but we will all lose out.

Liz Truss has talked about what's being called a "bonfire of rights" should she get to power, getting rid of human rights - each remaining EU law and regulation would be “evaluated on the basis of whether it supports UK growth or boosts investment”, with those deemed to do so replaced in new UK law. Any EU laws not replaced would simply disappear at the end of 2023.

Article: Truss vows to scrap remaining EU laws by end of 2023 risking ‘bonfire of rights’

If you're not scared by this, you should be. What pesky rights are they going to remove to make it easier for companies to exploit us and harder for us to seek legal recourse if our rights have been violated. Whatever they do it'll likely disproportionately impact the most marginalised including women and children .

Sunak is no better, he has the same politics and will do the same.

People need to realise that the Tories are toxic, they are not on our side (us being anyone except the ultra-rich). We need to vote these fuckers out, they at destroying our country and our children's futures.

Well ... because of brexit you now live in a country that performing very poorly economically. We have the worst inflation of the G7. Because of brexit. We have empty shelves and more expensive food and goods. EU countries have full shelves with cheaper food. Other countries are recovering from the Covid effects. We are not. The only country to have had brexited themselves.

Our country has lost international clout. NZ cannot understand why we have done a deal that benefits them and undercuts our farmers. Look at the contrast between the EU/Australia deal and the UK/Australia deal.

We've lost workers in healthcare - have you wondered why we have lost so many doctors, dentists, vets, carers? Drivers left and still have not been replaced.

So much more, beyond the scope of a MN post that anyone will read.

Where in Europe could British people earn enough in tourism to be able to work for a few years, return home and buy a house? There wasn't anywhere.

We do not need migrant labour, at least not in anything like the amount we had in the EU. Just pay British people high enough wages to make the job attractive. If you can't do that, you don't have a viable job to offer, you need to restructure your business or close it down.

The same people against Brexit would have been against the end of apartheid in South Africa, or the end of Slavery in the US. Moaning about how terrible it would be for the economy and how everyone would be worse off. They were correct in the short term, when you have an economy built around having a ready supply of cheap or free labour, when that ends it will take a lot of time for things to get better. But it doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do, for everyone.

Thank you.

You were had. The very people causing your suffering were the ones who used your discontent to offer you a "solution" that isn't going to help one bit, instead it'll make everything so much worse. They lied to you and are still lying to you.

These fuckers are exploiting you - and me, and everyone who's not a multi millionaire. The Tories used to stand for small business at least, they don't even stand for that now.

They are about to attack our working rights and human rights. It's fucking bleak.

What will it take for those who voted Brexit because they believed the Tory lies to realise they're being conned? When are you going to get angry?

We really need you to get angry and help us vote these fuckers out, they are parasites and can't be trusted. Boris Johnson didn't even believe in Brexit, he was a Remainder! He only switched sides because he saw it was an opportunity for him to get into power. Brexit happened because of the utterly selfish egos of two men wanting power, neither of whom actually wanted Brexit (Cameron also).

And now he's been kicked out, the two new candidates will both give us more of the same.

How much longer are you going to let these people play you for fools?

@Figmentofmyimagination

When expressed as a political ideology, nationalism holds that territorial communities called nations are necessary for human flourishing and that each nation should therefore be accorded a degree of autonomy in determining its own affairs. This idea provides the rationale for self-determination in world politics. Communities that can legitimately claim that they are a ‘nation’ should, , have a right to self-determination.

But it seems you don't believe in the concept of UK running our own affairs, you'd rather have some unelected bureaucrats in Brussels telling us what to do?

The 'nanny-state' mentality of you and your ilk is what is wrecking this country because people no longer want to take responsibility for anything.

I'm no fan of the Tories. But they did have a referendum, and did make Brexit happen. Now that we're out and as long as Labour do not make overtures about going back into the EU, I think Labour will gain votes from people that switched to the Tories in the last few elections.

Where in Europe could British people earn enough in tourism to be able to work for a few years, return home and buy a house? There wasn't anywhere

Thats irrelevant, as no one working in a whole host of jobs here in the UK can afford to buy a house or afford rent in most parts of the Uk.
FWIW, i and many others earned a lot of money working in the EU but not in tourism, it also gave me the skills to get a much better job than i previously had in the UK.

We do not need migrant labour, at least not in anything like the amount we had in the EU. Just pay British people high enough wages to make the job attractive. If you can't do that, you don't have a viable job to offer, you need to restructure your business or close it down

Sorry but thats not true at all, there are simply not enough of us (of working age) so Aldi pay more, care workers leave to work for Aldi, and with just 375k long term unemployed, many of who are, bluntly, unemployable, who does the care work? (replace care work with a whole host of jobs we have shortages in) perhaps you think there are 110k nhs staff sat at home?

If there wasn't the jobs, the EU workers wouldn't have come here... employers don't employ people for the fun of it and many filled skilled roles, there weren't all picking fruit.

The same people against Brexit would have been against the end of apartheid in South Africa, or the end of Slavery in the US. Moaning about how terrible it would be for the economy and how everyone would be worse off. They were correct in the short term, when you have an economy built around having a ready supply of cheap or free labour, when that ends it will take a lot of time for things to get better. But it doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do, for everyone

I campaigned against Apartheid, nonsensical to compare the two, Brexit cuts us off from one of the worlds richest trading blocs..

I wouldn't be soooo against Brexit IF we had a decent trading arrangement with the EU but we don't, we have a very poor agreement, made worse by the NI protocol and the dangers to the GFA, where there probably isn't a solution that enables free UK trade and protects the EU from some of the stuff we intend to import.
We cannot even protect our highly successful life sciences from the effects of Brexit, removed from 3 v important science projects.

But it seems you don't believe in the concept of UK running our own affairs, you'd rather have some unelected bureaucrats in Brussels telling us what to do?

Ah, great, if all else fails it's back to conflating the commission and the parliament.

Remind us what Nigel Farage did for a living for a few years?...I don't recall him being a bureaucrat and he was certainly elected to a parliament.

Nationalism arose in the 1800s as a post Westphalian idea that nations exist as a largely ethnically and linguistically homogenous whole and that they would be sovereign equals on that basis. It was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now. Nationalism only works if you’re the biggest country, and in that country it only works if you’re the biggest ethnic group in that country. Wow betide you if you aren’t either of those things.

Moreover, it’s the 21st century. If you think even for a second you should be able to accept that countries do not objectively exist, they’re a product of history, accident and occasionally design, but ultimately they’re a power structure we hold in our heads as we are story telling animals - same was we ‘accept’ that a company or a bank exists, but it doesn’t actually, it’s just people.

if you start putting the rights of imaginary concepts above individual people then we’re all screwed. Nationalism is about the most intellectually lazy ideology out there, which is why it’s flourished in the mass communication age. I’m young enough to be called a digital native, but old enough to just about remember dial up, and it’s amazing to watch how many ‘free thinkers’ living in the online world are just mass consuming other people’s opinions (often people who have something to profit out of it) and parroting their lies; it’s exactly what happened with Brexit, and it’s still going on to this day.

I think you don’t fully understand one of the following: the geography of Britain, the poverty levels in some parts of the country, the insularity that can be a direct result, the lack of education, the politics and attitudes inherent in a class system… oh lots of things.

I grew up poor on a typical squalid northern estate. Left home to go to Uni at 18 with what my parents gave me which was little enough. I did not even have sufficient clothing. The idea of spending whatever it was then, £60 on a passport and then on travelling over to the continent would have been laughable when I could barely afford to pay rent and feed myself. I knew plenty who could not have afforded to go to Uni - just in terms of travel - even had they got the results, and why try hard to get them when you know that.

I know several people who have still never been abroad in their lives, who think the next town is a foreign country. The kind of people who went abroad even to do crap work as students, whom southerners insist on calling ‘working class’ because they come from the north and not landed estates, are locally called middle class.

Living in that kind of environment means you do not hear other languages and rarely get the chance to learn them. Again why even bother trying against those kind of odds.

Honestly a lot of mumsnet posters really need to learn more about their own country, and recognise the impact of both geography and regional inequality.