To want Brexit be reversed

[BeKookySheep]

I don’t normally post about politics, but this has been playing on my mind for a while. I wasn’t super political before the referendum — just a mum trying to do her best for her family. But now, years later, I really feel like Brexit hasn’t delivered what we were promised. And I think we should seriously start talking about reversing it.

My eldest is 16, really bright, and had dreams of studying languages and maybe doing a year abroad. We looked into Erasmus a while ago, but that’s gone now. And the cost and hassle of studying or working in Europe is so much higher now. She asked me, “Why is it so much harder for us than it was for you, Mum?” And honestly, I didn’t know what to say. It hit me hard.

Everything’s more expensive — our food shop has gone up loads, and don’t even get me started on getting certain things for school packed lunches! Little things, but they add up. My brother runs a small business and he's drowning in paperwork just to send stuff to Ireland. And a friend of mine left the NHS because she felt so overstretched — they can’t recruit enough staff anymore, especially from Europe.

Brexit hasn’t made anything better. It’s just made life harder in so many small but important ways. And if something clearly isn’t working — and is limiting our children’s futures — why shouldn’t we talk about changing it?

We tell our kids it’s okay to admit when something’s not right and make it better. Maybe it’s time we took our own advice.

Would love to hear if others are feeling the same. Has Brexit made life harder for your family too?

I feel UK is losing its allies faster and need to be part of EU to have a strong standing in the world.

People are voting Reform, so looks like lots think Nigel Farage knows what he’s doing. Presumably they’re quite happy with the outcome of brexit and think it’s been good for the country because otherwise why vote for him ….

I don't disagree with you, but all of the issues that you've mentioned were predicted prior to Brexit, so I'm assuming that people felt that these negatives were "worth it" for whatever reason.

I’d love to see Brexit reversed - I voted to remain and couldn’t understand how people fell for the lies being peddled.

BUT we are out now and rejoining would be long and laborious, even assuming they’d want us!

I think there would have to be another referendum for us to rejoin, and I wouldn’t trust the British electorate not to vote to stay out.

I said all along it was wrong and would end up costing us all a lot both in terms of money and other things - loss of international standing, loss of opportunity, red tape for business etc. People who could see it for what it was and refused to cheer it on were labelled as doom mongers, project fear etc. And now we have sky high prices for everything, businesses in crisis, jobs that are closed to British passport holders. We urgently need to re enter the EU (and also send reform packing) but that will be difficult as you can't just burn your bridges and then expect them to be there.

I don’t think anyone thinks life is better, it’s just easier to blame anyone but themselves. Farage told them their lives would improve without Europe sponging off the UK, when that proved to be demonstrably untrue, he told them it was the fault of people coming here on small boats. Presumably, when that goes nowhere, he’ll find another scapegoat and the masses will choose to believe him yet again.

It’s thoroughly depressing.

I doubt it will happen but maybe they can do something specifically for young people

couldn’t understand how people fell for the lies being peddled.

I don't get how they haven't learned their lesson!

We have just been worse off and it would be 10 years of referendum next year. Its very clear how worse off we have been since then.

YANBU to want Brexit to be reversed, but realistically it's not going to happen.

What I'd like to see is the Labour government attempting to rebuild the relationship with the EU and maybe get some of the advantages back, such as limited free movement in return for a better trade deal.

No, I think that's a totally impractical idea, just from a completely pragmatic perspective. It likely couldn't happen and returning to the EU would be on less favourable terms than before. It would mean adopting the Euro for one thing which is a terrible idea.

And there is the deeper issue - why should it be a bad idea to adopt the Euro? Because there are serious structural economic issues with the EU, which IMO are likely to get worse. I think the UK may find they are better off out of it in the longer term, in fact I have serious doubts about the EUs survival.

A better path would be to look to forge other kinds of links, as many other countries do.

I have to say the university thing comes off as a bit whiny. I come from a Commonwealth country, in my parents generation, and especially my grandparents, it was possible for students there to study in the UK for free. It's not now, they pay as if we were outsiders. No one seems to think this is some kind of injustice or attack on our "rights". We either pay as non-residents, or what many students do is they enter exchange programs through their own domestic universities. This is very common in language programs in particular and perhaps something you could look into. As the graduate and post-graduate level many students study outside their own country, it's very common, EU or not.

YABU.
The benefits of Brexit are still to unfold. The whole world has been a shit show since then, due to COVID, Syria, Ukraine and now Trump. None of that is down to Brexit, in fact being outside the EU has helped more than hindered.

There will be no benefits to Brexit.

in fact being outside the EU has helped more than hindered

can you give some examples?

You can't reverse Brexit. We had a unique deal with the EU, with a financial rebate and no need to commit to closer financial union through the Euro. Any country joining the EU now would have neither of those advantages.

But we undoubtedly need to move back closer to the EU in a world with an aggressive Russia and a USA gone mad. Maybe that leads to realignment back into the EU but heaven knows how that looks in the decade of more it would take.

This isn’t true though. These predictions were poo-poohed and sneered at as ‘scaremongering by remainers’. Actually they were just very savvy and knowledgable economists.

Yes that is a bit more realistic.

As someone who lives in the EU but travels on a UK passport, I can say that all those cost of living challenges and strains on health care are exactly the same in the EU as in the UK. The freedom of travel and study and working is a very obvious disadvantage that is especially an issue for young people. There's work to reverse this for under 25s without having to rejoin EU and hopefully it is a strategy that will happen very soon. The UK is not ready to rejoin as this is just too devisive at this time and the EU is not ready to have them back, but policies like this can address some of the disadvantages for young people. The UK hasn't lost allies as a result of leaving EU. There is actually very little critism at official level and plenty of Countries have significant popular support for UK. We tend to see a EU perspective on this but EU is not even the European perspective. The UK has as strong aliances with France and Italy as they ever have. The Baltic Countries are strong EU supporters but also are developing strong connections with UK. This is happening across Europe with most countries.

Because the polling, especially of Labour voters switching to Reform, seems to show that people blame the implementation of Brexit rather than the decision itself.

Basically Brexit was all about immigration. People don't like the fact that it's doubled since, plus the boats.

Yes, I know that they were sneered at and dismissed as Project Fear. But my point is that the warnings were all out there, and people actively chose to disregard them.

Putin was absolutely emboldened to invade Ukraine by the perceived weakness and disunity of Europe caused by Brexit. Breaking up the EU had been his number one foreign policy aim and the reason why there had been so much Russian influence into Farage, Johnson, Aaron Banks and the Leave campaign.

Not so much unreasonable as deluded

There's work to reverse this for under 25s without having to rejoin EU and hopefully it is a strategy that will happen very soon

this would be excellent

Brexit was an arrogant vote by the unintelligent and is a damning indictment of the UK education system, IQ levels and critical thinking abilities.