To be furious at Brexit checks 'price you pay to be sovereign again'

[NoCloudsAllowed]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/31/uk-minister-andrea-leadsom-brexit-checks-price-you-pay-sovereign-state-again

Andrea Leadsom saying barrier checks are the price of sovereignty.

This is not what they promised, is it? The bare faced lies of it all. They've delayed introducing checks because they knew they couldn't square it with Leave campaign promises. In the end, the issue of NI was only solvable by these checks.

This is supposed to cost £330m a year. It will make food more expensive and supply less reliable. There is zero, absolutely zero, benefit to the country. It's just a direct detriment imposed because they can't accept the whole thing is a fuck up.

They never actually express what this sovereignty is supposed to do for us, or what was problematic about the EU rules. It's all on 'the principle of the thing'. Sovereignty won't feed hungry children, will it?

I think I'm just as piping mad about this as I was in 2016 - they're taking the whole country for fools.

UKIP would have got about 75 seats in 2015 if seats were awarded on vote share, beating the Lib Dems by a factor of 1.5. Note this was after the Tories tried to head off UKIP by promising an EU referendum. Presumably if the Tories had folded then UKIP would have got more. Under FPTP UKIP got 1.

My concern is that a lot of people who are against FPTP are mainly against it because it doesn't deliver the results they want, as opposed to them believing that there is something fundamentally flawed with it.

I think most people would agree that UKIP did a pretty good job of influencing outcomes in UK politics during the 2010s, even though they were never huge in terms of parliamentary representation.

Some people might argue we would have been better off if UKIP had gained those seats. Although UKIP had some seasoned political operators like Farage and Carswell, the rank and file candidates were (IMO) of somewhat dubious political capability and maybe that would have shown up in government.

Sick of all of it. It honestly breaks my heart that I'll never be able to live and work in Europe as planned. If it wasn't for covid I could've probably dropped everything and tried to get settled status but it's all too late now.

I can't even talk about it anymore. I'm gutted and the feelings get worse not better.

And I can't afford higher food prices. 😢

A vast proportion of our food is imported. You are so very wrong with the above statement.

I want the liars to be held to account

You'll get your chance at the next General election.

I confess that I stopped reading the thread after your post that I quoted as it will only be a rehash of everything that's been debated before. It was a shit campaign on both sides, there was one version of remain, but many different versions of leave, etc etc. This is just another manifestation of the bullshit that many of us knew would happen.

@mathanxiety

Not to mention the gravity model of trade is very much applicable in goods.

Its fantasy to expect trading in goods with asian countries to become easier than trading with the EU, assuming you even had an FTA.

And services...well, FTAs don't cover those so the UK will basically be left trying to convince asian countries to buy expensive services in a protectionist domestic market.

This was always going to end badly, and I suspect the population will cotton on to just how bad things are when Starmer gets voted in.

Then the reality of just how bad the public finances are will be communicated to the electorate.

We have to import much if our food.

We could grow it ( perhaps) but then we need agricultural workers.

Come on Brits, you know those ‘foreigners’ who were ‘taking our jobs’ - those that returned to their Europian countries because if Brexit - the field is ( literally) open...

Exactly, fringe parties can influence the other parties in the UK without actually getting seats which is much better than PR where they can be dangerous.

Even Macron is going extreme right to appease the FN which is awful for the non-white people in France. How would non-white people here feel if you were born in the UK to foreign parents but you are not classed as British until you apply for citizenship when you become an adult? That is what Macron is trying to do to appease the FN.

They never had a plan
@BouncingJAS
other than filling their boots of course

Not every Boomer voted for it.🙄

It was largely because Tories were terrified of UKIP. They're doing similar now with Reform. Much good will it do them.

Remember we get to break environmental laws and we are now free to let s**t permeate our rivers and pollute our beaches….

Who will do that Tories? Or any other reliable political party which has a good voting base you know?

TBF the last paragraph is correct.

Why do they need an excuse? They voted to leave, and they were entitled to do so!

Spending has gone up by considerably more than £350m per week since 2016. Dunno whether that makes the NHS any better, mind.

It's batshit isn't it. As if the cost of food isn't high enough already.

Plus the £3pm bung to the DUP to restart Stormont.

Brexit has cost billions and for what?

I have no clue who would be better currently.

Labour manifesto will not be out for some time yet so it's hard to know exactly what their plans are and what they would do differently.

I don't think the Tories are doing an awful job atm in terms of trade negotiations, but there is always room to do better.

Whoever does it though its a process that takes time. And probably isn't that something either party could hurry along.

I guess we will find out what the plans are closer to the GE. I suspect world economic events are far more likely to influence how and when these things reach conclusion than which of the two main parties runs them.

BouncingJAS
Andrea Leadsom (like most of the MPs) failed to make a career in the private sector

She clearly had a reasonably successful career in the private sector before becoming an MP;

Career outside politics
Andrea worked in the banking and finance industry for 25 years, most recently as Head of Corporate Governance and Senior Investment Officer at Invesco Perpetual, one of the UK’s largest retail fund managers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/andrea-leadsom

@TheThingIsYeah

Thats only because of a sicker working population (covid) and demographics (older population requires more healthcare which is expensive).

Has nothing to do with the £350m side of a bus nonsense.

I don't think the Tories are doing an awful job atm in terms of trade negotiations, but there is always room to do better.

the CPTPP deal is estimated by the govt’s own OBR to add at best and “in the long run” 0.04% to the economy

They have to a lot better.

@Clavinova

She was a failure at her job. If you had actual experience working in the City you would know this.

But you don't. So thats that.

Oh, and I specially liked when she massaged (i.e. lied) her CV to try to impress people.

All of us in the City pretty much all fell off our chair laughing when she claimed to have worked as an investment banker.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andrea-leadsom-accused-of-misleading-claims-on-her-cv-a7122296.html

Just be thankful we aren't part of an increasingly authoritarian union that is going out of it's way to destroy the economy of a member state who disagrees with the endless support for a foreign war.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/30/inside-eu-plan-strangle-hungary-economy-ukraine-funding/

A state who's leader has been elected more times than any other european leader yet somehow is called "undemocratic" by unelected EU commision officials.

The real price of Brexit has come from Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss as Prime Ministers, whereas it would have been three more years of David Cameron and then probably Theresa May or George Osborne now. A 2019 GE would have been a Tory win, or put another way, a Labour loss given Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

Or put another way, over 20,000 avoidable deaths followed by the economy suffering leading to increased mortgage costs and a cost of living crisis.

Notonthestairs
Andrea Leadsom - We will have the same access to the single market if we leave the EU

I watched the clip in your link - in my opinion Andrea Leadsom successfully avoids saying access will be exactly the same. She only talks about tariffs.

Brexit Would Have No Impact On UK Economy, Says Andrea Leadsom

Much of what she says in the article was in response to scaremongering by the Remain campaign;

[Leadsom] says the situation is "nothing like" the "systemic crises" of the 2008 global financial crisis or 1992’s Black Wednesday.

... I don’t believe any emergency Budget is needed. Unfortunately I think it’s a tactic in the campaign to try and scare people into voting to stay, which I think is a great shame because it’s not an honest reflection of reality."

Pressed on whether she believes Brexit would have any short-term impact on Britain's economy, Leadsom replies: "Nobody has a crystal ball and if there is a short-term economic impact we have to say, 'What does that mean?' What it normally would mean is that sterling might go down, and if sterling goes down, that’s great news for exports.

It's not the Brexit that was voted for, no. But it's the one that anybody with half a brain was able to work out we'd get.

I think I'm just as piping mad about this as I was in 2016 - they're taking the whole country for fools.

Well, they're 52% right.