To absolutely not want closer ties to Europe

[Viviennemary]

What is the matter with Stammer toadying up to the EU. We voted Out. Has he forgotten. I switched the TV off when I heard the word contribution and free movement. Here we go again. Shafted and ripped off at every turn and following their dumb rules. It's groundhog day. I'm furious.

I think it’s a good thing actually. Given the way things are in the world right now, it’s not a good time to go it alone. We’re stronger together. The Brexit agreement still applies, but the red tape has been cut to make it easier for us to trade with each other, which can only be a good thing in the current climate.

It's very dangerous to make assumptions. Not everyone agrees with you simply because fishing, just as not everyone who disagrees with you lives in London/the south east (though last time I looked there were fishing communities in the south east). I live near Newlyn. Brexit wasn't nearly as clear cut in "the fishing community" as the press would have you believe. Some of the shellfish companies were devastated by Brexit, for example. Also not all fishermen are "poor" 🙄

I voted Remain in 2016. In an ideal world I would like the UK to rejoin the EU but, in my view, it would need to be done on the basis of an absolutely overwhelming consensus which is at least generation away and more likely even further.

In the meantime, I am keen to try and move past Brexit and deal with the here and now. As such I actually occasionally find myself sympathising with Reform because I am deeply dillusioned with the ability of the established parties to deal with the fundamental issues facing the UK.

There are two things that pull me back every time. The first is that Reform is a bit too Putin apologist. The second, and more pertinent to this, is that they can't seem to accept they won and begin to be even vaguely pragmatic when it comes to our relationship with the EU and instead continue to act like some sort or WWII Japanese holdout a decade after the fact.

This fundamentalist view of Brexit was just not a thing until Theresa May, David Davis and Nick Timothy made an utter Horlicks of the negotiations. Even the official Vote Leave line at the time was "there is a free trade area that stretches from Iceland to the border of Russia and we will be a part of it".

This outline of a trade agreement is utterly unremarkable, does not impinge on UK sovereignty compared to any other meaningful international agreement we are a party to and is not even vaguely some back door to the EU (it's not clear they'd even have us). And if Reform ever wants to be a party of government they need to stop fighting long fought battles and stop just being a party of grievance.

@Tigergirl80 well it didn't really go as planned did it just when things started to happen something called covid hit us.

Unfortunately the entire world has struggled including Germany. Germany is really struggling.

SparklesGlitter
Name a law that’s enforced by the EU

Lots here:

According to the EU treaties, the Commission may take legal action – an infringement procedure – against an EU country that fails to implement EU law. The Commission may refer the issue to the Court of Justice, which can impose financial sanctions.

https://commission.europa.eu/law/application-eu-law/implementing-eu-law/infringement-procedure_en

I hate to break it to you but only 17m out of 66m voted for it to start with and the result was never the true reflection because there was people overseas whose postal votes never arrived, there was a large section of society that didn't vote at all because they didn't the consequences either way! Now a lot of that 17m are dead or regret what it's done to retirement dreams or businesses! Look at the result of the poll on this thread! Leave voters are now virtually extinct!

Clearly a Reform voter! You do realise the mess we are in is largely down to the 🐸! Fortunately many us are more intelligent than you appear and no how truly awful he was as an MEP, took the salary and pension and did nothing! He attended 1 out 42 fisheries meetings, do you really think he’ll be any better as PM? Fortunately we have 4 years of them running councils to prove to the deluded how truly useless Reform are! Ffs they’ve appointed a 19 year old to run children’s services in Lincolnshire! People joke that only the educated should vote, but seeing what’s happening in the US where most people are not educated beyond 6th grade does make a case for it!

As a previous poster has said we were able to influence the outcomes of all EU legislation when we had a seat at the table. I used to work in Gov policy and saw how much of a voice we had. Many environmental, agricultural and data security issues were led by the UK with other countries aspiring to reach those standards. You only have to look at some of the activities in those other European countries to see how far ahead we WERE!!

Leave voters are now virtually extinct!

That's debatable:

6–8 May 2025 BMG Research for The i -
Rejoin 41%
Stay Out 40%
Neither 18%

Pinkproseccolady
As a previous poster has said we were able to influence the outcomes of all EU legislation

We obviously lost this one;

Britain has been defeated after being outnumbered 26 to one over controversial European Union proposals to impose caps on bonuses paid to bankers.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9909798/George-Osborne-is-defeated-26-to-1-on-EU-bonus-caps.html

I think we should get on well with our neighbours, and work together, whether we're in the EU or not.

Not sure what you were expecting OP, but you got the expected responses on this topic. MN is known for being against Brexit, and if you don't agree then apparently you're thick, a bigot, a racist etc etc. Clearly Labour were always going to want more ties to Europe, and I suspect there will be a lot more to come.

Sorry sparkles I wasn't suggesting that you had insulted anyone,

Rather saying that I wasn't posting to say Brexit is great, or retainers are awful.

I think rather more venting frustration at any side of the argument (again not you!) that throws around insults.

We need a relationship with our closest neighbours and the poll on the thread proves that next to nobody wants Brexit
This time last year we had just had the 18 wettest months on record which had severe impacts on crops! Many farms shut up shop because of the loss of EU subsidies and this time this year we've have barely any rain for three months and there's concern about the crops again!

We aren't going to have magic wands for this! We are going to need our neighbours for produce and grains etc! Many people will not want American produce because it's dirty chemical filled stuff! They have outbreaks of Ecoli, listeria, salmonella almost weekly sometimes twice weekly as I get news alerts on it for some reason!

No worries, I do often feel the same ❤️

Fair enough.

I think it might dissuade them from sharing advantages, as in my mind.

If someone calls me an idiot or something else for holding an opinion, I think I won't bother because they don't really want to know what I think, they want to prove I'm wrong so they can say I told you so.

Now very happy to admit that may not be the intention behind the insult, but if it was me, I wouldn't bother to respond

In that vein, Labour did not hide its intentions to have closer relationship with the EU. They won the election on that basis. If the UK had really wanted a Euroskeptic government it had those choices. It decided otherwise.

Which laws do you object to, in particular?

Horserider5678
Ffs they’ve appointed a 19 year old to run children’s services in Lincolnshire! People joke that only the educated should vote

Not a Reform voter but I did read the young man achieved 10 A*s in his GCSEs (not sure what he achieved in his A-levels). And I doubt he is actually running children's services - probably some bod on £100,000 plus a year.

So are we are pretending that not only the poll in this thread but plenty of opinion polls are all wrong? I don't trust your figures, because there's nobody now that wouldn't vote one or way or the other because everybody feels the consequences! I don't think 18% of the population loves standing in airports queues or not being able to retire to Spain etc.

So, the estimate for how much Brexit has cost the UK so far, is £140,000,000,000. That's 140 BILLION quid (I had to google the zeros..)
We are definitely not better off outside the EU. Supermarkets have already said that food will get cheaper. Brexit sold people lies about gaining control of borders or putting money into the NHS. It did neither of those things. We already had control of our borders. It made a few people very, very rich. It screwed the rest of us over. As will Farage again (he hates the NHS and wants to privatise it, he's on record in 2012 saying this.) Brexit sold people lies and it has cost the nation dearly. Feel free to google any of this to independently fact check.

Presume you mean the Eu. We are part of Europe whether you like it or not !
Of course, Brexit was such a rip roaring success - why on earth would we want to change that ? !

Christ, it's like the mad old bat on my FB page who said "I voted leave because I wanted to see the return of traditional Christmas cards. You don't see those any more".

Or the Oxford graduate I know who was working in Parliament at the time of the vote who said "I voted leave because I love my country".

I am old. I cannot cannot cannot believe anyone is still thinking this absolute bollocks when the only world leader who was pro Brexit was Putin. What is wrong with people?

And if we are being rational, Labour was voted in on a democratic vote and a reset of our fractured relationship with Europe was in their manifesto.

Stop infantilising them.

The OP made this post and a few subsequent ones of no substance or fact, just spurious claims and empty soundbites and downright fucking lies

They have been asked repeatedly, and reasonably, to back up claims.. with even ONE example. Nothing, not a single solitary fact have they uttered. Others have followed.

They aren't children to be gently handled. These are adults who are doubling down on something so demonstrably devastating to our country that the days of holding back and caring who is offended have passed, certainly for me anyway.

interesting, thank you.

I read the page here. I can’t really see any downsides though tbh

ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6110