To think it’s shocking how bad Britain has fallen apart compared to other European counties

[TheColourofspring]

I am in Spain at the moment in one of the big cities. It’s clean, modern, well maintained. Transport is cheap, food is cheap, healthcare seems to work pretty well (from talking to local). Parks are noticeably well maintained- even saw park keepers! Clean & tidy.

Pensions higher, if you lose your job you get a portion of your salary in unemployment benefits while you look for another and there are no penalties. Based on the premise that if you have paid in, you will get looked after if you are in need.

I am not saying it’s perfect- no country is but it was the same when I was in France last summer.

In Britain, everything is underfunded and close to the edge. Schools, the NHS, local authorities are all at breaking point. My local parks look shabby & there is very little maintenance. Roads have pot holes. Yesterday I read an article about pharmacies being the latest at ‘crisis’ point with major drug shortages (thanks to brexit). Queues at borders, people can’t heat or eat properly, food banks, housing is ridiculous for many people.

I think it’s just so noticeable when you go to other places just how run down Britain is.

Finding it shocking and a bit depressing - like I said, all countries have their issues but I think Britain really has been pillaged by the tories & Brexit really is a disaster.

strangely enough, the EU (still) is part funding the new bit of the A30 in Cornwall, as it has done other sections of that road.

The UK is still paying the EU, we've a massive divorce bill. Plus who funded the EU to pay for the A30?

The "divorce" bill is of no benefit to the UK now but other EU countries will - the funding for the A30 project was organised before we left.

Who paid for this EU funding in the first place?

Member states of course, distributing money to poorer regions.

But a better question might be "Why, having left the EU and saving all this money, the UK is not matching EU objective 1 funding"

Cornwall will see a drop of around 66% in regional funding compared to the EU schemes, which funded roads, leisure centres, cycle trails

Brexit is costing the UK a fortune, divorce bill, just one aspect, lost trade and increased cross border costs others.

There was a James Kirkup (of the non-partisan Social Market Foundation) column in the Times (this morning for anyone who can go behind the paywall) which makes the point that there are sensible proposals being made all the time to address most or all the issues that this thread has discussed, but that all politicians of every persuasion have their sights lowered to the next GE and all the solutions involve some pain upfront.

We have an infantilised electorate in other words.

We definitely have that. What other country would vote to leave the EU with no plan as to how it was to be achieved.

Talk about hope over experience

We definitely have that. What other country would vote to leave the EU with no plan as to how it was to be achieved.

Yes, but I put that down to our wonderful leaders and our crap media- our wonderful leaders based on the SE assumed we’d all want to keep our cheap nannies and easy crossings to the continent which isn’t relevant in a low paid job north of the midlands.and the media somehow found nothing to discuss.

Well, it's the equivalent of jumping out of the plane and knowing you will land, but not knowing how, and looking at some of these total oddballs and thinking, yes, I trust these people to do it.

Now that's on the voter. Handing over the most complex economic and political separation in our history with no plan.

Truly, we are a ship of fools.

Don't be fooled.. I live in Spain and just like everywhere, it has its problems. Unemployment benefit is good as long as you pay in to the system but tax is very high.. pensions are also good but again we pay for it..

And what a bunch of people to trust!

Famous liars and the reliably wrong about everything ever.

We weren't supposed to be stupid enough to actually vote Brexit through.

Just enough to further the careers of the "Brexiteers" almost all of whom knew Brexit would hurt our country, trash our economy and make us all poorer.

They were just using Brexit voters as leverage weren't they?

Sections of other countries have flirted with the idea but luckily our dumbass country has proved a cautionary tale and nobody talks about it now.

Nobody wants to be us.

Certainly the section of it that thought you could put up barriers to your own trade with the people you do most of your trade with and things would be better are living in cloud cuckoo land .

The way I look at it is we are having the pain now and getting nowhere we might as well have pain with an end goal in mind.

But first we need to end Brexit. It's a millstone around our necks.

@verdantverdure - yes they did. There will be no delivery of levelling up, no fundamental infrastructure for the North, and no additional funds for the NHS.

The other aspect is immigration which is going up.

Matters like inflation, COVID impact, Ukraine, are common across the world. The UK has specific problems based on its choices over the last decade. I don't envy a Labour government sorting it out, and five years to do so is nothing.

It is really important to note that this government that has given Brexit to the U.K. has no serious plan in terms of industrial or business strategy. It's trying to make trade deals with the rest of the world but again, don't be fooled. These deals may or may not be used by businesses, but they will take decades to come good.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush: something the UK has forgotten to its detriment

@verdantverdure and when it comes down to it most of the people thinking that way had zero practical experience in international commerce. Often had extremely UK centric businesses like hedge funding or chains of garages etc or UK based insurance company . You get the odd one like Dyson that did have international interests and then you realise that he had shuffled vast amounts of his empire out the UK and out the EU and that actually his main competitors were all EU based. There is often an ulterior motive, in his case probably more interested about the tax rules about his vast piles of cash that were coming in under EU law.

@Anxioys as Bob Geldof rightly side in his usual style , 'it's better to be inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in'

Can I just say, as a newcomer to Mumsnet, I'm so heartened by the sense talked by most people on here! In a world of lurid headlines and soundbites, it's a relief to see reasoned responses.

Carry on... 😁

@Kangaroobrain lots of lovely reasoned intelligent women on here whose views are based in reality and experience.

Exactly! It's good to know, isn't it? ☺️

I have a retired relative has close to £1m in the bank and pension income of around £700 per week... yet still claims disability benefit for a mildly dodgy knee and has just had a full new bathroom fitted (in their privately owned house) by their local council.

Clown World

I also live in Spain (twenty plus years now) and thank my lucky Stars that I do when I look at the uk.

@Yants I would agree with you on this.

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun Yep you made the right move!!

@Crikeyalmighty my inner pedant cannot allow you to attribute that quote to Bob Geldof. It was what Richard Nixon said about his VP, Spiro Agnew.

@EffortlessDesmond Ha, ha- I didn't know that- you live and learn - just heard Geldof say it- !! It's a great point though.

People must have cottoned on by now that they were lied to, mustn't they? Whatever they voted for Brexit for they're not getting it.

It's pretty obvious the government know we're inevitably going back in to the EU. that's why there's been no serious attempt to build new Brexit infrastructure at Dover for example, and why the Brexit import checks have been put off five times.

It can't come soon enough for me. It won't solve everything but it will help.

Absolutely.

I used to think Dyson was a very clever man. Now I just think he's an arsehole and I don't buy his stuff.

@verdantverdure I'm pretty sure despite what they say labour would have us back in some kind of collaboration (although I suspect it will be called something specific to UK) it would be an easy win for them to make the economy look better very very quickly and get more tax flowing. It must be becoming clear to even the most ardent Brexit voter that being out of it isn't stopping migration- quite the opposite and more migration of the kind many who voted Brexit didn't want- apart from maybe 2nd generation immigrants from outside the EU who may well like the situation.