To be getting more not less depressed about Brexit as time goes on

[teneastereggs]

It all seems so pointless doesn't it, I feel sorry that some- probably many- people were duped into voting for it, I feel annoyed that the 48 percent who voted remain have been completely ignored, annoyed about all the divisions it has caused our country and all the rows, and overall just really fed up with the state we are in now. I thought it would be getting better by now but actually feel worse about it now than I did at the time.

Brexit was stirred up by people like Farage and Johnson, with the English too stupid to see through their lies and a pathetic Cameron who pandered to their wishes, if ever a PM should be charged with Public Office offences, it is him

This. Johnson didn't even believe in Brexit. He just used it as a Trojan horse to secure himself a ckear route to No 10.

To be fair to England, Wales voted for Brexit too. Although the vote was skewed by the English people living in Wales, allegedly.

I feel very sad still about the loss of freedom of movement and the curtailment of opportunity for younger generations. The UK feels like a mean, dark place right now.

This is very backward thinking - Brits who exercised their rights to freedom of movement should clearly have a say in whether that freedom is revoked!

The 15 year rule is not one you will see in other democracies, because citizenship doesn’t expire. There are queues outside embassies in London on foreign voting days.

The UK is not at all democratic when you consider the FPTP system (only Belarus shares this system) the new boundary changes, the lack of voter ID (I appreciate the pros of this but when you tell foreigners about it they are shocked at the vulnerability to voter fraud it allows). This is before looking specifically at Brexit, before looking into the influence of Putin, vote leave’s illegal campaign and Cambridge analytica. Brexit was a modern civil revolution, and revolutions are never won cleanly.

Soz that Jocasta and Tarquin can’t do Erasmus but I shan’t be losing any sleep over that

Are you also soz that people who need social care and residential care are suffering massively because of lack of staff. That the NHS is hugely understaffed? That the hospitality industry is on its knees?

I think you are on a wind up.

I think Brexit is great, we have our soverignty back, can make our own laws, with the help of the cronies of various Prime Ministers and the son of a Russian spy, we have control of our borders, and most of all I can moan about how awful Brexit is and feel smug about not having voted for it.

This is all absolutely correct. Medical and scientific research at universities has also been decimated. UK based researchers have been cut out of EU research programmes and funding. Academics have been moving overseas when their contracts end, sometimes resulting in closure of entire departments.

And allied industries that are affected too, from the companies that test clinical trial samples, to UK contract research organisations, specialist technical consultancies, medical gas suppliers, facilities maintenance, admin staff. All helpful to the UK’s reputation and tax take, not to mention the usefulness of new discoveries and product spin off companies, now lost.

Thing is, if that happened, the UK would go to the back of the queue behind all the accession states currently awaiting full membership, so it would be a very very long wait.

Yes, that is what is required. I don't see how it is undemocratic. We absolutely do need to rejoin.

Look at the shortages of some foods on the shelves of UK supermarkets! Tomatoes and other stuff. However, several members of our family have visited different places in Europe over the last few weeks and found no shortages in EU supermarkets. Lorry drivers aren't coming here so much because of the paperwork involved.

Brexshit was a massive act of folly and needs to be reversed. Urgently.

YANBU to be depressed. I agree about the divisive nature - that's the biggest issue for me. I foolishly thought that, despite not wanting the referendum (never voted Tory in my life) but feeling compelled to participate, that after the vote, whatever the result, people would accept the result and move on. The fact that it's caused so much resentment and nastiness is really depressing.

"Muchtoomuchtodo · Yesterday 23:09

My FIL voted to leave because ‘things were fine before we joined the EU’. He cannot see how trade and movement of people around the world and Europe has changed in all that time and that ‘taking back control’ works both ways.

It’s now become a taboo subject because he is so blinkered."

See I think, sadly, this sort of thinking was common to a large proportion of the leave voters. It's pretty similar to the "I was hit as a kid / expected to always give up my seat on the bus for adults / coped with no heating etc and it never did me any harm. Young people today don't know they're born. They're such snowflakes"

It's like because things were tough for them when they were young they want young people nowadays to suffer too. It's vindictive. And a very common attitude it seems.
Of course I'm sure they're happy to accept their triple lock pension increase though, while families struggle to feed their kids.

I realise not every leave voter has this attitude and of course not everyone of that age does either but it does seem to be a fairly common theme.

My FIL voted to leave because ‘things were fine before we joined the EU’

But things weren't fine before we joined the EU. Our economic performance was below that if Germany and France and our position as a country with power had declined. We were desperate to join. We first tried in 1961 but it took until 1973 before it happened.

A vote based on resentment and nastieness has resulted in more of the same, well that is a surprise.

It's been a shambles for me being a business owner in Ireland. I had a number of absolutely brilliant British suppliers but it is just too hard now with customs and charges and paperwork. I have had to source companies in EU. It has affected my business dramatically because the UK suppliers are better and it has affected their businesses even worse as the majority of Irish buyers in my field have pulled out of using the UK which is such a shame.

The irony is that historians will look back on the U.K. time in the EU as its last hay day period. We did very well out of the EU and boomed with cheap EU Labour on tap. Unless we now reinvent ourselves as highly productive highly educated specialised Singapore/Switzerland style it is going to be all down hill from here. Small country, limited resources. All we ever really had was drive and people.

The long term outlook for the British pound looks very much downward trending long term. Tech could come to our rescue if we wake up and face the music. Equality is important too. There is too much division currently.

I feel annoyed that the 48 percent who voted remain have been completely ignored
Do you know how voting works?

I find that people from both sides of the argument focus too much on individual things that they see directly or which affect them directly.

Every major event causing civil upheaval in history has brought both great costs and great benefits. The black death of 1348-50 (in the UK, slightly different timeframes elsewhere) was the greatest pandemic in human history. In England (specifically, I don't know if it applies to other parts of the UK) at least 1/3 of all people died, many more in famines that followed due to a lack of agricultural workers. But in the decade or two that followed, the old serf structure began to collapse, workers wages spiralled upwards overnight, major advances in milling and weaving technologies occurred to help offset the worker shortages. Many new opportunities opened up for the survivors who would otherwise have been doomed to a life of serfdom. So was this event a good thing or a bad thing? It was both - major upheaval always brings opportunity for those prepared to grab it.

Likewise, think about the massive changes in social structure and technology that occurred during and after both WW1 and WW2. Noone would choose to get those changes through war, but the net effects of both were massively beneficial for most, especially those at the bottom of the pile.

At the time of the Brexit vote when there was lots of talk about the economic costs and how it would be madness to vote leave I always went back a one analogy:

Imagine a successful couple in London, perhaps traders, senior lawyers, whatever. Salaries and bonuses most could only dream of, Perfect home, Perfect children, all in perfect private schools. Life's great right? Except something doesn't seem right. They start to think how life would be much better out in the country, they dream of being hill farmers in Wales. They do their research. They know it will be hard. Long hours, bad weather, little financial reward. But somehow it still seems right. They can't really judge whether it is the right thing to do or not - there are way too many variables to know how things will actually turn out - sometimes you just have to prepare as best as possible and then just leap into the unknown.

Ultimately when you make those kind of decisions you know there are massive costs, there will be massive changes, it won't be easy. But there will also be new opportunities, new adventures. Would it be the right decision for everyone - of course not - but that couple, at that moment, feel it is right for them. It is down to them to make the best of their decision.

That's how it was with the Brexit vote. You can only vote for what you feel is right for you. You can of course believe that your choice is also good for others, but they are the ones that have to work out how to make it work should the majority agree with your view.

Brexit hasn't pushed up the wages of care workers, has it? So care workers are still being exploited, regardless of whether they are from the UK or abroad.

But it is all OK with you because your wages have gone up thanks to Brexit.

Thank you. And this is the most important argument against cries that another referendum would be undemocratic - that disinformation was used to influence voters therefore they should be given another opportunity now that the truth has come to the surface

Your hypothetical couple can move back to London the year following their move to Wales if they regret it.
Brexit is apparently the only choice that can’t be revisited

Oh I agree OP. I’ve been watching the polls though. We are at the point where if a second vote were held, we’d vote to rejoin the EU. Just been lobbying my MP to see if he has the balls to suggest it to Parliament.

It’s been seven years, long enough for it to not be democratic if the people today have changed their minds and nothing is done about it.

Cheap EU labour on tap was never a good thing! Maybe for the employer who could get away with paying dirt cheep wages, but not to everyone else who suffered from the stagnant wage over the years, meaning people couldn't afford to actually live without having to recieve some sort of top up benefit to just recieve a living income!

WrigglyDonCat great answer

I do have to laugh MNers complaining about not being able to retire in the EU or DC not being able to do Erasmus. Builders becoming too expensive to do their extension. The average person who voted for Brexit will never get those opportunities anyway they voted for their own self interest as most people do.

To be honest it doesn't effect me I've always travelled in non EU countries more and I qualify for a visa for all of the Anglosphere ones. I don't understand why people bleat about visas it doesn't take long , I guess because I've always travelled worldwide it's not a big deal It's not been good but I understand why the disenfranchised voted for Brexit. They didn't think they got any benefits from the EU unlike others who got cheap labour on tap and a second home in the south of France.

Stagnant wages was surely better than the wage cuts of the last couple of years though?