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?

Critique of another recent report here - in fact the BBC is criticised in how they presented it;

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-effects-of-brexit-are-still-being-misreported/

Can you provide a report on how Brexit has benefitted the UK's economy?

@Rummly
pro-EU economists must have been very poor at making a case against Brexit

I've found this pro-remain economist being interviewed by Andrew Neil - the economist didn't do very well - quite amusing to watch;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wftdw

If you pay me £55,000.

I take that as a No

Sir Keir Starmer has struck Britain’s biggest post-Brexit trade deal, hailing a “landmark” agreement with India that will boost trade with the country by £25.5bn.
In what the prime minister is billing as a major coup, he said the agreement, which focuses on whisky, gin, cars and cosmetics, will boost the economy and cut prices for consumers.

TBH, a well thought-out deal with Mumsnet users would raise £25bn in gin and cosmetics sales.

It's a step in the right direction undoing the damage Brexit has caused.

We don't need to stop immigration. We need to stop unskilled immigration by raising the earnings a person has to earn to live in UK. Atm people are coming in waiting in restaurants and their employers are stating they are skilled yet pay them minimal wage. Anyone earning less than £40k shouldn't be allowed in. We need to focus on illegal immigration and stop putting illegal immigrants I to 4* hotels costing £145 per night. 11k illegal immigrants come over on boats since KS has been in power. That's up 40 percent on previous year. There should be a ban on immigrants claiming benefits until they have paid into our tax system for 5 years.

Those 4* hotels are basic rooms often shared, not luxury.

Where would you prefer to house them, tents like Jenkyns is proposing?

Befote 2018, boat crossings weren't recorded as they were so rare

And immigrants don't get benefits

The boat thing comes up a lot but it’s more to do with lorries and suffocation risk which the public reacted to causing a clamp down.

Brexit had an impact on refugees crossing the Channel in boats.

Unless you can provide evidence otherwise?

It’s your claim, feel free to provide evidence. Germany and other EU countries struggle with the same issue and they haven’t left, can you say why that would be the case?

https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/law/news-and-events/news/2023/february/new-report-on-small-boat-crossings-launched-by-professor-thom-brooks/

I am sure you have seen this link before

Have you read it? Any key points?

The summary seems odd. ‘whereby anyone making the crossing could be returned’. That wasn’t the case otherwise the rest of the EU could do the same and the figures under the DA wouldn’t be around 500. Every country would send back as many as they wanted.

Everyone is struggling for the same reason. Look at @Clavinovapost on how many were sent back. That is similar everywhere. Anyway watching something so will read later.

It's not just the DA that was lost with Brexit, it was access EURODAC, co-operation with other countries

The UK left the EU without any deal or agreements on refugees/asylum seekers in place

I have - I looked at the report again several weeks ago;

Professor Brooks has written his report as though we left the Dublin Regulation on 31 January 2020 (”UK’s failure to retain or create a new returns agreement with the EU after 31 January 2020”) – however we did not exit the Dublin Agreement until the end of 2020 (31 December 2020). Indeed, the Home Office submitted more returns requests under the Dublin Agreement in 2020 (over 8,000 requests - but resulting in only 105 returns) than it did in 2019 - Professor Brooks only gives figures for 2019.

He links regulatory changes in 2020 to the rise of small boat arrivals in 2020 (8,466) - however the regulatory changes he refers to did not occur until January 2021. He also notes that the ”biggest dip in non-small boat irregular migration happens in 2020” - particularly by air - but he hasn’t considered that Covid restrictions are the probable cause of the dip. The Brexit transition year and Covid seem to have passed him by – or perhaps he is trying to bend the facts to his conclusion.

In addition, Professor Brooks claimed in June 2016 (link in his report) that, 'if anyone sets foot first in Greece or Italy [from where the majority of asylum seekers were arriving] and makes a claim for asylum in Britain later they can be returned to that country'
*
His reference to Greece in particular was substantially incorrect at the time as the UK had not sent any Dublin returns to Greece after 2010 – following an ECJ ruling in 2011 which the UK and Irish governments lost - and after the EU had suspended all Dublin returns to Greece. There was a partial resumption by some member states in 2017 - but not by the UK, since conditions in the refugee camps in Greece had not materially improved and the Home Office was still open to legal challenge on any returns. Not to mention that 'first safe country' is misleading in any case.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16285573

So if Brexit had nothig to do with the increase in boat crossings, then what has?

I don’t understand the rationale behind non-cooperation on intelligence sharing and the like. If international treaties require states to process asylum seekers, why don’t those states cooperate in the task? Surely there’s no EU-based reason to exclude any other nation from information, whether it’s the UK, the US or anyone else?

@Clavinovathank you! Just from the opening summary it didn’t make sense

@TopPocketFindprobably more to do with opening up new entry method which takes time after lorries down and higher migration generally across EU

Because the UK was bad at negotiating post Brexit agreements?

If that’s aimed at me, my point was my - genuine - incomprehension about why countries don’t share refugee information irrespective of what international blocs they’re members of.

To take a very loose parallel, don’t all countries cooperate globally on arrest warrants and fugitives?

What’s in it for the EU to withhold information about asylum seekers?

Agree with this. ^

Agree with this too! ^

I bet you can't find any 'report' on how Brexit has damaged the UK economy. You can't, because it didn't damage it. The economy in the UK - and the rest of the world - got fucked by the covid pandemic, and the cost of living rise. There is zero proof of Brexit doing anything negative to the UK economy... Any 'UK economy damage' was done by the lockdowns/covid/the cost of living crisis!

The only 'negative' of Brexit, is the fact you need to have 3 months on your passport now - to travel to Europe. Who cares? Any sensible and rational person would have made sure they had at LEAST 3 months on their passport, before travelling ANYwhere on it, (before we left the EU!)