Those of you who voted for Brexit when is it going to get better and how?

[N0addedsalt]

I didn’t and didn’t see any benefits. Tried to refocus anger about the lies during the campaign to resignation and acceptance. Was ready to try and embrace/ focus on positives and move forward but still really can’t see any. Now just getting increasingly worried and also fearful.

Hit me with all the benefits and when we’re going to see them impacting our lives.

The LibDems offered to stop Brexit at the last election - people weren't interested.
The vast majority chose not to stop it.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe We can’t go back as full members for a long time. But we may have to rejoin the SM and CU for the sake of the economy. That wouldn’t cost much and the financial benefits would be enormous.

No we are not "flogging a dead horse", unfortunately we are living in the metaphorical stink, maggots and disease caused by the dead horse.

I think at this point we’re discussing what to do with the body.

Mirabai, that is interesting but if the financial benefits were always on the side of remain, how on earth did the politicians let this happen in the first place? What would compel them to to re-join?

Presumably we'd have to join Schengen and, if that were held up to a vote - to swap our Sterling for Euros, I imagine we'd lose that vote too. We do not have sound politicians capable of facilitating the UK re-joining and that is something that everybody should be angry about.

There are some really knowledgeable posters here who are really into politics and have a great understanding of it; I'm definitely not one of them so am really interested in the whys and wherefores if you can point me in that direction please.

27 countries are too many for an organisation which dictates to the UK about borders, laws, commerce and economy

The EU doesn't "dictate" anything. Policy is determined democratically. The UK had a great deal of influence on said policy, in fact there are vanishingly few instances where the UK's preferred policy option that it had lobbied for was not enacted during its membership, with our MEPs for that reason voting in favour of almost every single piece of legislation enacted during our time as members.

This "EU dictating UK law" mantra etc was a total myth. In many cases we drafted the laws, and the EU was developing its framework to match UK legislation already in place! This actually increased our competitive advantage because we would implement higher standards domestically then the EU would often follow suit.

So many of these comments betray huge ignorance of how the whole thing worked.

Well, there is. If they actually gave a damn about the living standards of UK citizens.

But clearly they do not.

God, the mendacious rhetoric of 'Remainers failing to make Brexit work.' It was the Leavers' hero, Boris Johnson, who got an 80-seat majority in Parliament and who, therefore, could choose any Brexit he wanted. It's not Remainers' fault that he and 'Frosty' couldn't actually be arsed to read the deal that they so merrily signed and refused to allow Parliament to scrutinise. If you were idiot enough to vote for Johnson, with his sorry, sorry record of integrity in public life and in his job history, then it's pretty bloody desperate to try to blame those who warned against this shitshow and pretend we want Brexit to fail. If we'd wanted to be in the position we're in now, we'd have voted Leave. We didn't.

I don't believe that's made up at all. I know people who have waited months for surgery which was urgent. There is still a backlog from covid. The non urgent ops are still being pushed back.

There were literally hundreds, if not thousands of 'erudite views' on why brexit was a bad idea prior to and during the referendum. It was just that brexiteers weren't interested in listening to them.

Take immigration, a cornerstone of the leave campaign, as an example. Leave set their position out as a if vote for them would result in the "taking back control" of our borders and an end to FoM/uncontrolled immigration. What they never told you/voters was that the UK have always "had control" of their borders.

I listened to countless interviews and read countless articles that explained as such in much more detail and with much more eloquence than I but essentially our "control" was thus:

For Non-EU immigration (the type most brexiteers were actually concerned with) the UK had complete control over who was allowed entry into the country.

For EU immigration (FoM) the UK still had quite a bit of control. The agreement allowed anyone who was a national of a Member State of the EU to move to another Member State almost without restriction for three months (note people with criminal records could be stopped from entering if anyone bothered to check). Those who did move could not claim ‘social assistance’ (aka benefits) nor could they claim access to student benefits (grants, loans) during this time. After three months, EU nationals could stay in the host state for the next five years ONLY if they were economically active (as a ‘worker’, self-employed person or a temporary service provider) or if they could provide for themselves (as a person of independent means or a student), otherwise they could have been removed.

Failure to "control" out borders had nothing to do with the EU or FoM and, as always, is solely the fault of the sitting government. Yet despite this information not only being freely available AND publicised most who voted leave for immigration reasons chose to ignore it completely, instead preferring to spout off about "project fear" whenever someone tried to point out these sort of issues.

This is true. Loads of people were talking about why Leave was a bad idea. Obama, Gordon Brown, Michael Dougan, Ngaio Wood, - all of them spelled out clearly the negative impacts of Brexit. People chose to listen to what suited their agenda. It still blows my mind that so many people put their tick next to Leave, knowing that this was exactly what Putin and Trump were advocating.

I've had enough of experts and their pesky facts.😡😀

I often wonder if the ordinary populace of the EU would welcome us back anyway. I get that the EU institutions are amenable to talks about re entering the SM and CU, but TBH if I were an EU resident I would keep us out. We are not needed and seem to only cause trouble wherever we go.

When I saw a clip of ex pat (immigrants) in Spain and France saying they voted FOR Brexit, well I just said, WTF? Why? There is no answer to that one is there.

Because Brexit was about getting power and wealth, it was never about what was good for the UK, look how wealthy Johnson has become since he became PM and then resigned?

£3.2m in earnings in just a few months.

The EU wont allow the UK to join the SM and became another disruptive Switzerland with dozens of deals.

EFTA don't want the UK in that because we are far too big an economy for them.

No party in the UK wants to rejoin the EU either or even negotiate a SM or CU deal.

It will 2 or 3 decades before rejoin will be a serious option and by then, the EU and its membership rules will have completely changed.

@Kendodd
@ImAvingOops

Surely both things can be true? It was a stupid idea to impose sanctions on ourselves. Once done, there were things the government could have done and growth they could have fostered that would have helped mitigate the stupidity, but they couldn't be bothered. Almost like no one in a position of power or influence had thought ahead.

To all those who are saying move past it, get over it, the problem is that it's not one and done. It's not something you can get past, it's something that will have long-reaching effects that we will feel for the rest of our lives, and if you have children, for theirs. Unless something changes radically, anyway.

I'd love to feel there was a positive side to this.

How it was let to happen is the multi-billion dollar question. I think ultimately there will be a major enquiry similar to Iraq. The question will haunt A Level politics papers for the next 100 years.

I’m not seeing any rejoin of full membership soon for many reasons on both sides. But rejoining the EEA to get the benefit of the SM and CU is a possibility.

Successive governments can’t wang on about growth and ignore the Brexit shaped elephant in the room the size of 4% of GDP.

It is shocking that the public was ever given the vote in the first place

When David Cameron originally promised the referendum (back in the early 2010s), it was conditional on his party getting an overall majority in the 2015 GE. At the time it was an easy promise to make, because he never thought he'd have to deliver on it. Then, when it did become a reality, he was hoping for a narrow victory for Remain - which would not only have quelled the rising tide of the far right within the Conservative Party, but would also have sent a message to the EU that they needed to reform.

Apparently, having gained unexpected victories in both the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2015 GE, Cameron came to believe he was invincible, and assumed that the EU Referendum would be a pushover. He even called it earlier than originally planned, in order to get it out of the way.

How wrong he was - and now we're all paying the price for his mistake.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory incredibly well put. The fact is the government here couldn't be arsed to control EU immigration in the way it was intended to work or put resources into it - let's be honest it wasn't the young Polish girl in the coffee shop or nursing home causing a poor service at GPS or clogging up A&E , or getting rid of your police station, it was piss poor management by the Tory's and an austerity that clearly wasn't needed as they found £450 billion for Brexit down the back of a sofa. Right wing Tory's have the ethos of us being like the USA without seeming to understand the USA is it's own 'EU' with big enough domestic markets to still have manufacturing etc that makes sense , even if it only relied on USA and Canada. The UK simply doesn't have that clout. Why would you invest here unless it was something purely for a UK market? I wouldn't. And that was the problem with a lot of Brexit voters (the non wealthy ones) they looked at it simply as a 'let's get that polish guy undercutting me out of business' - instead of looking at a much bigger picture- for example- if work is short I can do a few months in Germany etc!

Exactly! And as for those who claim trade deals can now be struck with non-EU countries (in far flung places) don't realise that surely it is better to encourage trade with those close to us from an environmental standpoint?

Agree and disagree. Brexit came about via political incompetence + vested interests.

Switzerland isn’t in the SM, it has access to it via bilateral deals but it’s such a pia the EU will never do that again, and it doesn’t work that well for the Swiss either.

EFTA don’t want a country the size of the U.K. joining them for good reason, but the advantages to the EU may override that.

UK political parties simply follow their voters. At the moment they believe that is Brexit. In 5 years it may not be. Both parties ultimately will have to figure out how to navigate the tidal turn against Brexit and how to frame the economic necessity of some form of rejoin. (Much harder for the Tories than for Labour).

The U.K. will not survive 2-3 decades outside the EU, economics will force its hand.

Switzerland is effectively in the SM, its residents have access to FOM etc and they, the Swiss, trade as if they were in the EU... we are splitting hairs here.

So long as the wealthy persist and the press support the Tory party, they wont allow another EU vote, we will be told "its bad everywhere" and we, the most stupid nation in Europe, will believe them.

Labour wont be in for enough terms to facilitate one either.

So it will need a new generation before rejoin will be a realistic prospect and even then, i wouldn't put it past the British to vote to stay out.

This is true. Loads of people were talking about why Leave was a bad idea. Obama, Gordon Brown, Michael Dougan, Ngaio Wood

The Tory press had done such a number on Brown that very many people didn't want to listen to a word he said.

Nah, they've just changed their focus to small boats and asian grooming gangs.

Also true, very sadly, because he emphasised the importance of the EU in preserving peace on the continent. It was a very moving intervention.

Russia is out-performing the UK because of its energy exports: no other reasons.