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?

Well yes. Voted for Brexit but then followed that up by electing the Tories and Labour. That was never going to give them what they wanted. Based on the local elections they seem to have understood that now.

OP you need to look at The Turing scheme. It replaced Erasmus but Tiring scheme is worldwid not just Europe. This is broadening opportunities for young people in education to travel not limiting it. The referendum was a democratic process where everyone entitled to vote could do so. More people voted to leave than to remain. You need to accept your view was not the most popular view and move on. Only another referendum would move us back in and we'd have to accept the Euro instead of the pound.

But now, years later, I really feel like Brexit hasn’t delivered what we were promised

Shock horror. People were stupid to believe their nonsense in the first place. And now you want it reversed because of your children? I voted to remain for the sake of my children. Anyone who didn't think that far ahead was really very foolish

BREXIT has been a disaster, and anyone with any sense would have known this.

It will never be reversed, as UK would then have an even worse deal this time around. We would also have the same chaos and instability that we are having now.

@Whippetlovely but Reform isn't going to make the average person better off. Do people who vote Reform care about that?

How has it helped?

BTW some eu counties are in recession, we are teetering, eu citizens are not happy and the financial thrust of Europe is essential Germany and then France and Germany is really struggling.
So....

Well said. Changes are not always apparent overnight. We will only get our fishing rights back overtime unless KS is stupid enough to sign them away again.

Can't just reverse it because we've changed our mind. I voted remain and never believed any shit about what we were promised and I don't think those promising it did either, it just suited their political ends. But we've left now and who says the EU would ever want us back? Nor that the great British public would vote that way, given how much more myopic its got since. So YANBU to want it and recognise the problems its brought, but YABU to imagine it's viable.

People voted for Brexit due to the drop in living standards and quality of life.

Whatever our housing, public services, labour market, benefits system etc. are designed to absorb.

I don't know how you would quantify the above but we don't have enough young people to support the ageing population. So if it's no immigration, then we need to raise taxes & means test/move out the state pension. What other options are there?

People, you must be patient and wait for the full benefits of Brexit to manifest themselves.

50 years was it that Jacob Rees Mogg said? That's not too long really 😊

I also will add the EU is also in a world of shit. Much like the UK.

Brexshit (especially the hard Brexshit that we ended up with) was the biggest and stupidest act of self harm that the UK has ever committed.

I'd love to see Brexshit reversed, but realistically, it either isn't going to happen and/or will be a long and drawn out process when it does. Nor would we be likely to be allowed to rejoin on anything like the favourable terms we actually had before we left. We would almost certainly have to accept the Euro as our currency too.

I do hope that Starmer's attempts at a reset of the relationship is successful and has legs. It would be nice if some of the issues holding young (and some older 😉) people back could be addressed.

My DD3 had to spend a year abroad as part of her university course (languages). Half in a Spanish speaking country (she chose South America) and half in Italy. The visas needed to allow her to study for 6 months in Italy were much harder to procure because of Brexshit and the removal of Freedom of Movement, and costly too. It was actually much easier for her to get into the South American country and stay there, believe it or not!; 🙄🤔

As a person of above average intelligence you will of course realise that 50 perc of people have to be below average intelligence or we wouldn't have an average.
And the long term average inflation in UK is 3.2 perc a year. It's 2.6 in April. That's not rampant. EU average 2.7 with 15 Countries higher than UK.
So, as you can see, it's always better to check the actual facts in debates like these.

Did you vote to leave OP? Brexit was never going to deliver what was promised. It was obvious we would be worse off in so many ways by leaving the EU but unfortunately millions of people didn’t bother to do any research and voted to leave. I’m still furious about it now.

You've hit the nail on the head, middle class belittling the working class as usual. Sorry Matilda can't study abroad but the majority of us have real world problems. It's a nice idea to welcome mass migration but it puts a strain on schools, NHS and housing but these issues they don't have to worry about they can probably pay private and send thier kids to nice schools. They think it's lovely migrants come over and work in care because it's beneath them to do such jobs (patronising or what). Mass migration keeps wages down, construction pay has increased a lot since brexit, money in the pockets of hard working people. I don't know anyone that regrets voting to leave.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-19/brexit-s-lasting-economic-and-financial-damage-looks-inescapable

Brexit was not done as it should have been due to the remainders blocking everything and not helping together it done in a timely manner. Their refusal to accept the result gave the EU added power to give the UK a bad outcome

Begs the question - how was it supposed to have been done?

We looked at the Türing Scheme. It didn't benefit my DD and we couldn't make it work at all. Useless.

With Erasmus we could at least have used it for her 6 months in Italy but it was gone for UK students by then.

How did Farage support the UK's fishing rights when he was an MEP?

When he had a role on the European Parliament Fishing Committee

Why do you think the EU wants us back? They don't.

From an Irish perspective, Brexit has had an impact but it is absolutely nothing like the worst case senario the news was telling us would definitely happen. The economy is booming and most of our problems are home grown!

But ultimately it would be better for Ireland if Brexit was reversed. Especially with the US basically turning against all of us. I’m kind of fascinated that some people in the UK can’t seem to see that Brexit caused most of their current problems and are still putting their faith in Nigel Farage.

And now we have eejits over here jumping on the anti EU bandwagon. So you don’t have monopoly on eejits that’s for sure.

I don’t agree with this - my DH voted remain and has always voted Lib Dem - has never voted for any other party in 30 years of voting. He was very unhappy when the Brexit referendum happened and still very unhappy with the results of it.

He hates Lab and Con. However, in all the years he’s voted Lib Dem, his vote has never been in a place where they’ve got a seat - so votes all feel wasted. What does that leave? Farage. DH is in no way far right or racist, politics are central. But he is considering Farage.