To think no one can name a single positive benefit of Brexit

[measuringmylifeincoffeespoons]

Just that really. I'm genuinely curious. There seems to be increasing coverage and evidence of the harm and cost of Brexit. Can anyone point to a positive benefit?

It is silly to ignore that we have made life harder for ourselves, including the useful habit of making good money, for tampons.

You can't vote anyone other than you own constituency MP out. This is really lazy thinking.

There's plenty of evidence they are doing better than us and the prime reason is Brexit.

We could have done exactly the same if we had been in the EU. And ultimately we did a whole lot worse than many EU countries.

The difficulties we are facing now trading with European companies are exactly the same as the difficulties other countries faced trading with us when we were in the EU. Only having left are people seeing the impacts of trading with an insular, closed trading block and the benefit we have from leaving the EU is that we can trade more freely with the rest of the world.

@TreadLight ans how’s that trading with non eu countries going then??

But we had preferential access to the EU, a Single Market that we invented!

Yes you may strike a deal with other countries but that is not easy - easy to make a bad deal, and easy for other countries to exploit poor government.

Look at this government you have. Do you think it is doing the absolute best job it can to make new deals, and improve life for its people?

We're all looking forward to it immensely.

US not really interested…

The problem is many Brexitiers had/ have an over inflated view of the U.K. as regards the rest of the world. They’re only just beginning to see the reality.

True it’s not Brexiters re not accepting it

I did get to have a good laugh at my entitled Uncle and his wife, who voted for Brexit despite living in Spain. They were so arrogant that they failed to complete the required paperwork to become Spanish residents (also he would have had to decalre income he hadn't declared or paid taxes on for years, I suspect that had a lot to do with it). So they have had to sell up and come home.

The reason I laughed at them so uncharitably was because they were absolutely raging that they were told they weren't eligible for a council house in their chosen area (or anywhere). Despite them saying they must be entitled to one as it wasn't possible to buy a house in that area now with the amount they got for their Spanish house... It seems the council has "chosen to give houses to immigrants" (not sure what they themselves think they are now?!) instead. They are having to - shock horror - RENT a house privately, which is obviously disgusting. And the NHS is disgraceful compared to the Spanish healthcare system now apparently.

We don't speak much anymore.

Well yes. Formerly we were top flight members at the WTO as part of the EU.

Now, a second tier economy for trade with less influence

Brought down house prices in parts of Europe from UK sellers returning to the UK.

@Exasperatednow oh, I agree. They get touchy if you're too direct though.

Brought down house prices in parts of Europe from UK sellers returning to the UK.

So...we were part of a trading bloc...and now we've removed ourselves from that bloc...which means we have to re-do all the trade deals we previously had as part of the bloc...and we can no longer trade easily with the bloc...and that's a good thing, according to you? Because now we know how other countries felt who weren't part of our bloc? I think?

We could have had that any time without Brexit.

And that was worth 6% on my food shop ?

Fuck that.

Name changed since this might be outing.

I voted remain and still would prefer to be in the EU. But the information given earlier on this thread about COVID vaccines is not completely correct. Medicine regulation is very complex (but keeps me in a job!). It is true that the UK could have granted emergency approval for the vaccines under EU legislation. However, without Brexit, it is highly unlikely that it would have happened. The UK regulatory authority (MHRA) was an integral part of the EU licensing system. Where the UK need for a product was not different to the EU need, they would not have deviated from the EU-wide approach. The UK would have probably also joined the collective purchasing of vaccines.

There is a benefit to Brexit with medicine regulation. The MHRA have been able grant authorisations for some medicines faster than the European Medicines Agency and also approve them for larger groups of patients. The MHRA are also able to work with non-EU agencies, such as the US, Canada, Australia and Switzerland to share work and knowledge. This did not happen pre Brexit.

But Brexit is still crap. My workload has massively increased with no extra pay. The NHS cannot always afford these lovely new medicines. Northern Ireland still follows the EU systems so sending medicines to NI is harder and filled with pointless bureaucracy.

We still had more people die from Covid comparatively and the rest of Europe caught us up on vaccine roll out pretty quickly.
Best thing about Brexit is it spurred me on to get my daughter on the Irish Foreign Birth Register and to get passports for all of us - DH also has an Irish parent.

MissMarpleRocks
Luckily for me, dh & dcs thanks to our ancestry we could apply for EU passports. Eldest has worked abroad for 6 months. Got the job purely due to European passport.

Not really a benefit for you if your children live and work in a different country and you don't get to see them as often as you would like.

Yes dear, we all know Brexit happened.

What positives can you name?
Some that have happened, some that will happen soon, some it the future.

Brexit has happened, it would be nice to know it had been sucessful.

The point of threads like this is, the benefits may take a while to be realised. But if they take too long a fair few will be disappointed. So we want to be presented with evidence. Some posters like @sashagabadon have pointed out personal benefits. What are your personal benefits?

How come there have been medicines shortages in the UK but not in Europe. Have they run out of HRT in France, in Germany?

@Roomba that must have felt good. Just shows how flimsy people’s logic and judgement has been around the issue.