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.

You are totally right , well said

Severance was only two years ago, and they have been shite years for almost every economy in the world, so why would anyone expect wonderful anything? I don't pretend to know how anything will end.

I do know that DH is hacked off enough that he will want to retire in Asia. So HMRC can kiss goodbye to any big expectations from our estate.

This is the eternal thread. We need to tax high earners more to pay for the under-perfomers and the idle gits. But actually, irl, the high earners read and think much more widely, and Can and Will move. We're likely to. One couple, paying 45% tax.

Under performers? Was that a dig at minimum wage workers?.

Jeez, as if there weren't enough brexit whinge threads. And a whole separate section to put them in.

I actually hugely benefitted from Brexit as the pay rate in my industry was being driven down by foreign workers prepared to work for crap money.

Seriously?

First of all, who in the remain campaign made that statement? Where does it come from?

Second, the whole European Super State title is hyperbollocks made up by the Murdoch press. So I doubt it's a phrase the Remain camp would use.

If you remember, David Cameron tried to appear to negotiate an opt clause to "ever closer union" prior to the referendum but the concept was already proving to be a damp squib in the mid-2000s, following the accession of the central and eastern European states in 2004.

The truth is that it was Brexit itself that delivered an almighty blow to the EU and fractured closer cooperation in some policy areas but it was also a catalyst to them strengthening cooperation in others. It's too soon to tell the full effects but for example, there has been a renewed determination to sort out the refugee crisis which of course being a vast, complex issue affecting many nations, requires a multi-nation solution.

I think this is common in many original leave voters...

@EffortlessDesmond Do you mean care workers, supermarket employee's, van drivers and pretty much anyone band 6 and below who work in the NHS ?

Because unless you earn over 35k, your likely to be an "under performer"

You know, the folk who kept us going during the pandemic whilst you sat at home on Furlough/WFH moaning you didn't get what you ordered from Waitrose.

Most of the van drivers I know are Lithuanian and the care workers tend to be from the Phillippines, so likely to return home when they retire! And we worked through the pandemic too, for the record.

As I said, people don't go from not caring, to half of people voting leave if there weren't issues (dating back a decade) beforehand.

Possibly, although if you tell people they have been ignored/left behind and that the reason they are struggling to see a GP, get a school place, housing, well paid work etc ( much like now, 7 years after the Brexit vote ) is directly as a result of the UK's membership to the EU and you make it sound like it will have a huge positive impact on their life, then they might ?

I also don't feel any better about it as time passes. And I find the 'move on/get over it' comments offensive. The vote wasn't a football match with a simple win/lose outcome. It was the catalyst for a series of actions/changes which continue to happen and we continue to live with (e.g., lack of freedom of movement, food costs, lack of NHS staff etc etc - and yes, I know there are other factors (Covid/Ukraine) at play too, but Brexit is clearly one factor, and a factor that unlike the others was completely self-inflicted). I'm living with it, and my life is tangibly worse because of it. I think it's understandable to be miserable about it.

I think it's had all sorts of tangible and intangible consequences for us as a country. It's incredibly polarising and the debate around it is so unpleasant ('You lost, get over it!' 'I'll never forgive those stupid racists!') It's damaged relationships and its effects will be felt for a long time to come. I think if you voted against it it's perfectly reasonable to 'still' be upset about it.

It's the fourth paragraph of David Camerons statement following his meeting with the EU council.

Basically what Britain would get as part of it's special status if we chose to vote remain. A promise that effectively could not be promised.

And guess what, after not getting a vote on Maastricht and not getting a vote on Lisbon the majority of the electorate figured out that they would probably not get a vote on any further integration of the UK into the EU in the future and that the Brexit referendum was probably the last opportunity to make their feelings known.

Democratic deficits can't continue indefinitely.

The electorate were given many chances to turn down both Lisbon and Maastricht.
Yet consistently returned pro EU Govt's, UKIP only just managing to get 2 MPs out of over 600.

You yourself pointed this out when you said that we had voted 3 x NOT to remain in the EU via a referendum and 2 General Elections....can't have your cake and eat it.

There was no democratic deficit.

The vast majority of the workforce in this country earn less than 35k p.a so by your own definition are "under performers"

...wherever they originate from, i doubt many people who have lived and worked in the UK for most of their lives here will retire to their home countries.

...how would know if van drivers are from Lithuania? are you a drivers mate?

Explain to me where the public were given the chance to turn down Lisbon and Maastricht.

They weren't. Labour in fact actually made a 2005 manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU constitution but then decided not to do it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/20/eu.politics6

Our integration into the EU has been just one long history of broken promises and lies, promises to hold a vote and then backtracks and refusals when we were in a position to do so.

And then, shock as when we were finally given the opportunity it didn't give the politicians what they wanted. Now there's a surprise. Could it possibly be that they knew all along that the British people didn't want more European integration and decided to ignore the wishes of the electorate anyway ? That the continued promises and refusals to hold a vote were because there was political capital to be gained out of offering one, but they were too scared of the consequences of actually holding it ?

I remember William Hague saying Alistair Campbell on The Rest is politics that, if Labour had done as they promised, and had a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, Brexit would never have happened

Yes correct I think ... if we had voted yes.

The bigger question is whether they would have been able to modify the treaty enough to make us vote yes in the first place. Maybe. Maybe not. It worked with the Irish (who IIRC had to vote twice to come up with the result they wanted), but the UK is a lot more Eurosceptical than them.

I think another point is if we had voted remain in the Brexit referendum, that would have been the end of the UK outside the EU. Despite Camerons opt outs (which not surprisingly I am sceptical would ever have been implemented), the EU needs closer integration if it is to survive. It doesn't need countries like the UK sniping from the sidelines causing problems when integration is difficult enough as it is. A yes Brexit vote would have green lighted further integration whatever people claimed and there would have been no way back from that position ever. It really was make or break time.

Hague was saying that the vote would have been pre-financial crisis, which would have influenced the vote.

mmmmmm well that doesn't explain the many countries outside of the Euro, countries like Sweden who are naturally Eurosceptic, nor does it explain the growing popularity of the EU, esp since Ukraine.

Countries like France are hugely nationalistic, immensely proud of their culture and traditions, i don't see them agreeing to be swallowed up in a Federal Eurostate.

I really don't see why you think the EU wants to integrate forever more, does the USA? has the Commonwealth or even NATO? sometimes things just come to an acceptable equilibrium, the EU is probably very close to that, much more and countries will kick against it.

If Brexit did anything to the EU, it was as a warning that countries can vote leave, however much they might regret it afterwards.

I agree with @Alexandra2001 that the EU has probably hit its ceiling for now, although there are still poorer countries seeking membership.

NATO has gained a new member this year, Finland, and the Standard is reporting that NATO has agreed Ukraine will be invited to join as soon as the war is over. New members have also joined the Commonwealth, which were never even part of the British sphere of influence, like Mozambique.

Re the Lithuanian van drivers, our regular DPD delivery team were all from Lithuania at one point!

TBH the DPD driver who got hit by a train, near me, on a level crossing was from Lithuania too, he survived injury free and DPD kept him on.

A fantastic guy, nothing was too much for him.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding ? I just wonder how long it will take to see any tangible benefit ?

Has the population of the UK seen a decent improvement in their standard of living since Brexit ? Is it now easier to get a GP/Dental appointment since many thousands of EU citizens have left the UK ?, Are Hospitals better staffed and safer ? Are schools much better funded/places easily available in all areas, brand new schools being built to provide for the upsurge in areas where lots of housing is being built ? Is housing more affordable, it might just be my area in the North but rents have increased massively round here ? Mental health provision ? Social care ?

Has immigration reduced massively ? And I am not talking about people in little boats who remain a minority of the immigration figures.

As we are no longer a member of the EU, the onus fall's very much at the feet of the current Government and their predecessors over the last 13 years. Other countries in the EU have faced the very same predicaments as we have, with a global pandemic and the war in Ukraine and yet seem to be able to put the well being of their citizens at the forefront of their policies, when it comes to healthcare, housing and education. Its almost as though being in the EU wasn't the biggest problem in the UK ?

I have been a proponent of EEC membership since my first vote in 1975, but more cautious since Maastricht. In 2016, I was cross with the EU, for a lot of reasons, but particularly because it seemed obvious that poorer Meditteranean countries were never going to agree on much with the nations funding their development. Yes, I hope we re-join, but we will do so, if we do, as a poorer nation and more likely as a recipient than a contributor given the regional poverty variations that were not properly acknowledged during the 2016 referendum campaign. There were a lot of areas in the UK, outside the southeast, that really didn't feel any EU benefit. Yes, there were some shiney trinkets but not much really changed. We ended up with some EU funded industrial estates with better insulation, but as the doors stay open all-day everyday anyway, it changes nothing.

Tbf, I, can believe that about van drivers as at least half, possibly the majority, of mixer drivers I've met are foreign. Mainly Romanian or Asian (as in Indian asian).

I've been contracting at a plant the past month and batcher said that whilst most of the drivers are good guys it's refreshing for him to have somebody that can 100% understand him. They keep having trucks banned from client sites due to the drivers not speaking adequate English.

Surely it's not up to the EU to benefit regions outside the South East, it's the UK government?
Blaming the EU for the Tories being shit is surely what got us into this mess in the first place?!
"We don't care about the poor, they don't vote for us" is their attitude. They might have hidden their indifference to most people's lives pretty well before but it's blindingly obvious now.