To ask if anyone still thinks Brexit was a good idea?

[KimberleyClark]

Genuinely curious. I can't see how it has improved things at all.

YANBU - Brexit was a terrible idea
YABU - it was a great idea

That's what you observed, was it? Perhaps if they did their best to be more conciliatory during Cameron's renegotiation then more people would have voted to stay.

From where I am, I saw plenty of awkwardness for its own sake. Britain had to be punished pour encourager les autres. It didn't help of course that much of the groundwork was done by Theresa May who was too focused on immigration and practically did the Commission's work for them by coming up with the unworkable NI protocol.

In my view EFTA would have suited our needs far better.

People have short memories, we had the rise of ukip and extreme right wing sentiments in the uk and I feel brexit has helped stop these sort of parties gaining political legitimacy…

I’d say the opposite has happened. Nigel Farage is regularly interviewed on TV and last weekend, right-wing protesters were clashing with police near the Cenotaph.

Has the CoL crisis, increased numbers of those unable to pay their bills, increased numbers using food banks passed you by? What about the increase in homelessness?

The UK working and lower middle class are just about managing or on their knees. Life is not better for them in 2023. The rich meanwhile are just fine.

You should take a wee look at how narrow your own thought process is.

Cameron got 3 of his 4 demands, the EU couldn't budge on FOM, as its part of the eu's 4 freedoms.

We left the EU, May had her Red Lines - No to SM and No to CU Brexit means Brexit!!!
Johnson carried on her deal, re badging it his own.

UK then lost access to pretty much all its benefits, why people think the EU should have carried on allowing us to still have these benefits is beyond me, then again, the British seem to wallow in Exceptionalism.

EFTA was never an option, no one (with any power) suggested it and Norway said they did not want the UK in EFTA as our economy is too big.

Also, EFTA has FOM, so was completely unacceptable to anyone on Govt.

Johnson could of course had negotiated a closer relationship, he chose not and went for the hardest of Withdrawal Agreements, he even took us out of EHIC, Eurotom, Erasmus & Europol, infact anything with Europe in the title.

@jasflowers indeed- anyone would think the UK isn't in Europe. All jingoistic nonsense playing to the UKIP brigade in the public and his party

@TooBigForMyBoots and strangely I see lots of retail jobs still being paid minimum wage too or very slightly above. I appreciate getting jobs may be a bit easier in some very specific sectors , retail being one , but it's hardly a massive bonus-

I still think it was good to get out of the EU. The EU was demanding more money each year from some countries, net contributors, like we were. It was planned to make us pay almost 3 billion more each year. At the same time Macron in particular was edging ever closer to his EU army. The brakes have been put on this since the UK left which is good. The UK has been able to negotiate its own trade deals with developing economies. We've now joined the Trans Pacific Trading block and have deals with India and many individual US states. A new deal was announced with Florida today. We have deals with Australia and New Zealand too. In 2024 we take back more of our own fishing zone than we were allowed to enjoy under EU rules. We can limit our legal immigration and set limits by points to ensure immigrants can prove they have a job earning a set amount which means they won't need to immediately claim benefits. We can make it easier for people with skills we need like nurses to enter with fewer points. We also got vaccines well ahead of EU countries during Covid. Friends of ours in France got their vaccines 5 months after us and they are older than us.

I know there are disadvantages too but compared to staying in and handing over more and more money each year so the EU could play silly games moving their parliament around every few months and waste so much money it still seems good to me.

I have a holiday home in France and whilst I enjoy traveling to and having holidays in Europe I have no wish to have Brussels make rules and have unelected bureaucrats make rules we all had to obey.

Ireland went from being net receivers before the UK left the EU to now having to be net contributors.

Er, no.
It has been bad for everyone, financially, but the lower your income at the outset, the bigger the impact on your family finances.

The richest are protected from the higher food costs etc.

We just want to be able to celebrate the positive impacts of the decision

Those who didn't vote for it understandably want to be able to talk about how glad we are to have been led to these sunlit uplands.

I, for example, am extremely pleased to see all the shit being pumped into rivers and the bees being killed again.

The arguments about bureaucrats in Brussels making decisions for us would have been solved by people actually voting in the MEP elections and not allowing people like farage a meal ticket to sit around and never attend any meetings where he could have lobbied for UK interests. Didn't he fail to attend all meetings about fisheries and then have the gall to campaign on fishing rights?

@caringcarer

Not disputing these trade deals took place but if you are insinuating that these arrangements in any way make up for being taken out of the EU free trade deal you are deeply, deeply mistaken.

These graphs are from the Office of Budget Responsibility

So? We couldn't plead poverty forever. Being in the EU has transformed Ireland. Some of our English friends who live here are appalled by Brexit. Others simply assumed Ireland would have to leave as well.
There were 9 direct sailings from Ireland to continental Europe pre Brexit. Now there are 44. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good I suppose.

Brexit has been a disaster, and I voted remain, but Breixt could have been way less disastrous if Teresa May’s deal hadn’t been sabotaged by Boris Johnson. He realised that if he refused to back the deal she had negotiated, she’d be forced to step down, paving the way for him, but he and everyone else in Government knew that her deal was the best option.

90% of the mess Britain is currently in was caused by Boris Johnson being prepared to destroy whatever stood between him and power.

I was fed up with hearing about Brexit when all that May stuff was happening

What was the main difference?

Still waiting to hear your reasons for voting....

Why does it matter if it was a good idea or not. It happened. One of the main reasons for some of the current negative effects are because some just will not accept it happened and just want to continually say how bad it is. Maybe it was, maybe not so much for some. But 'I told you so' attitude has done more damage than anything. The narrative that it was xenophobic nutcases that drove it is a huge lie. Millions of people didn't want an unelected, unaccountable body dictating the rules of our society and forming a European army and implementing a socially progressive and elite agenda that nobody voted for. Of course the elite who take advantage of being educated in Paris or working in Berlin and support a progressive agenda could never see how people on estates competing for housing and health care might not support the European project.
They were so arrogant that they couldn't even persuade the majority it was in their benefit to remain. They just assumed everyone had the same priorities as them.
Leave has caused me and my family all sorts of hassle but it was what the majority voted for and that's that.
It was a great idea because

1. It showed what we have always suspected. The elite only believe in democracy if people vote the right way.
2. It showed that you can ignore, marginalise whole sectors of for society for so long and label them stupid and racist and unable to understand your privileged position, but eventually they will get fed up and give you a good kicking. Good on them.

We export services far more than goods.

Economic growth in the UK has overtaken both France and Germany. Estimates for UK were hugely underestimated.

news.sky.com/story/gdp-uk-overtakes-france-and-germany-as-economic-growth-bigger-than-expected-after-covid-12972101#:~:text=It%20means%20the%20UK%20has,pre%2Dpandemic%20year%20of%202019.&text=The%20UK%20is%20no%20longer,was%20bigger%20than%20first%20thought.

I'm guessing you have limited real life experience and are going by sensationalised media..
Also is the element that is accurate caused by brexit? Not by everyone who sat around being paid for nothing during covid?

But you've been very selective in the countries you've chosen @caringcarer

Government figures published today show that we're trailing many other countries (including the Eurozone)

Here

You should stop guessing stuff. You're not very good at it.

Well Austria has brought stricter Rawanda type immigration rules, Germany is in the process,France has dropped the Schengen Agreement on its France /Italy border,they just bus immigrants back to Italy. Germany allows no social payments until they’ve been in the country 3years.
I think immigration is going to tear it apart- I don’t think Poland allows any immigrants -nor Switzerland - poor Greece and Italy (and us unless we get our shit together.).
It’s not a happy place as far as immigration is concerned.

😂

To go from a car licence to HGV cat C E means she passed her car test over 26 years ago, everyone else has to do cat C training first.

Not since November '21. They also scrapped the reversing test I believe, which is bonkers but shows how desperate they are for drivers. It's a good time to be a trucker!

And you're having a laugh if you think a new pass starts on £30k. Class 1 agency work is £20+ an hour with overtime a fair bit higher and they'd employ an XL Bully if it could drive a truck.

Even Class 2 drivers can be on a grand a week. I know one who delivers booze to hotels/pubs in a little curtainsider and gets £200 a day - mid £50k's with some Saturdays worked.