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

The EU really has moved on, Brexit is largely forgotten and it’s all about Ukraine and their accession to the EU now.

However, Brexit did appear in French media this week, using the UK as an example that even though the UK has quit the EU it still has a big immigration problem. Interesting I thought.

I imagine this will come up more as the EU deals with its own immigration problem, a big one for some countries, and no one wants voters to get too many ideas on what to do

I know someone who had a house in Spain and was planning to retire there. Voted Brexit.

@lightisnotwhite one reason for many older people is healthcare. There are complications and huge expense in using long term travel insurance that would previously have been covered off (that's if you can get it if you've had prior health issues) and it's sometimes a seasons split kind of thing- they wanted to use say April, May, June and sept oct and that now doesn't work easily.

It's certainly an issue for those who can't afford to keep 2 bases and planned on a place in Spain and a bit of occasional Airbnb when they came back to uk too. Not like your family will want you camped with them 6 months of the year .

One benefit - we get to keep Bing and Edge.

Yay.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/17/windows_bing_edge_eu_dma/

Good points and true enough (except for it being worthwhile).

Our elected officials didn’t have to jump off the cliff because their friends did it. But of their friends hadn’t done it, they wouldn’t even have thought about it.

Probably not an EU thing but the UK was less appalling than most of Europe. Not that that’s saying much.

I’m sorry about your mental health. I’m not sure if it’s helping you to feel that you were sacrificed for something bigger. You were in fact abused just because they could. Can your mental health work if you channel anger instead?

@EasternStandard absolutely. Immigration from wars and climate change will be an increasing problem in all of Europe, including UK. But Brexit is now an example to the rest of the world that leaving a large trading block and cutting yourself off economically is not the way to solve this issue.

It’s good for other countries to have this reminder IMO. Makes the EU stronger.

Yes France has zero obligation to help the UK police its borders.

& as the SC said yesterday, its not even the ECHR that led them to declaring Rwanda isn't a safe country but our own common law.

I was actually quite shocked to learn yesterday that Sunaks plan was to send 100 migrants there, thats it, 100!!!

More might have followed but not at all certain.

We seem to have gone from migration that filled UK skills shortages to far higher migration but still have even more skills shortages, i believe this is down to allowing people on work & student visas to bring in their entire families too, no wonder so many stay on.

Do other countries outside of EU do this? (in regard to workers on short term visas?)

@jasflowers - no they don't. This is part of the hypocrisy of the "migration" debate.

Truthfully you can cut it by reducing student visas, dependents and work visas. And you can spend on enforcement rather than doing very little. You could get very very nasty with overstayers, punish business and universities with huge fines and bar frauds for life. All a lot easier than this boat business. Boats are 20,000. Legal migrations are around 600,000 a year.

You know why we don't do this? I don't know why if people actually care. Truth is you would upset a lot of people already in the U.K. if this was done. So it never happens.

I was actually quite shocked to learn yesterday that Sunaks plan was to send 100 migrants there, thats it, 100!!!

We have sent more home secretaries to Rwanda than asylum seekers.

(E2A: sadly they sent them back)

I voted yes for Brexit based on the lies told by revolting Boris

I wish Id voted no

Yes i ve heard that the reason they don't do anything about any sort of migration is that business makes money out of migrants, they pay them less & business tends to support the Tories - So much for re skilling our own workforce.

Its quite crazy really, allowing in family members, means they will stay here, this just isn't sustainable, given our current rate of renewing infrastructure.

My contacts in the NHS tell me that overseas HCPs as much as we need them since Brexit, also bring their own problems & in social care, they aren't really much good as most don't drive and its in rural areas where we are so short of carers.

Two issues will get more pronounced

Climate pressure - that means not working visas but crossing the channel or Med or other. This will increase a lot for any country who is ok with it

AI will change need for workers

@jasflowers / yes that is right. You could just cut student visas, external work visas and make British nationality very hard to get (too easy in my opinion). But then you have a million complaints from business, universities, and individuals who complain that their dear old mother can't visit even though she has no one and has a mysterious number of long term illnesses which are expensive to treat in her country of origin or get married and then bring in a spouse.

I am not anti migration btw! But not doing these things and then concentrating on boats is daft.

Hard to argue against ....

Yes this is doubtless all true, which makes the Govt 's current plans/policy, if you can call them that, ridiculous.

There probably atm much we can do about x channel migrants, given we can't exactly go and invade France and put our own patrols in there BUT we can drastically reduce the 600k plus net migration we currently have.

France does loads to patrol their beaches btw and all sorts of surveillance but you can’t catch everyone crossing, I think it’s 60% stopped but would have to check

There is a country that will be feeling more secure as everyone else increasingly deals with discord and destabilising factors because they put policies in place decades ago..

That’s honest thank you. We need more of this.

Last week my neighbour stopped me to ask how dd is getting on (at uni doing a marine bio degree) and she said in a round about way that she voted for Brexit because of the fishing promises. She said she felt sad and let down that those promises didn’t actually happen. It’s the first time my neighbour and I have discussed Brexit. I’m as pro-Remain as they come but there’s no point getting angry with people who were conned.

It’s not going to get easier. Look at Scholz moving on immigration and AfD rising

Social disharmony will increase and politicians get pushed to the right

There will be lower pressure for those with policies already in place

I've got lots of stamps in my new passport. It is actually one thing I did miss when we were in the EU. Not sure you can class it as a tangible benefit though!

Yes I do, I fully support it and would vote Leave again if necessary.

@Fifteenth @CaramacFiend

It's a really crap way of looking at it.

If you use this 'analogy' then the UK would be the one of the 'controllers' as we were one of the few countries had power of veto.

The European army - we could have said no
Turkey joining EU - we could have said no.....................................

At any point, any of our previous governments could have strengthened immigration into our borders - they chose not to.

We didn't need to leave the EU to do any of these things

Its funny how people maintain their entrenched positions, be it mine or yours.

I can't see any sovereignty argument etc & i doubt you see the co operation or trade ones.

And anyone who doubts my point read this.
Not accepting 52 perc is a democratic result, second guessing why they voted and saying the will of the people is different.
This post is exactly the problem. Read what it is really saying.

The complete disdain for people who voted In a majority. Saying it was pushed through says people who voted have no ability to think for themselves. The continual narrative all those voted leave were just stupid and couldn't think for themselves. That everyone now agrees they were wrong. The lack of self awareness is almost uncomprehensible.