“Everybody thought the EU was about people coming into the country … no-one told of us the benefits”.

[MrsMurphyIWish]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2136jnjx1o

And the response to this very now deprived community is to vote Reform.

“Brexit has removed a key source of funding, which the area desperately needs. County Durham received £154m of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, about £22m a year. Since the UK left the European Union, it receives about half that amount, £12m annually, under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.”

The story is sad (and typical of deprived areas - I know, I live in one). Towns feeling forgotten and never recovering from closed industry but why can they not see history will repeat itself?

Do you not think the UK governments of the past 30 years have a part to play in the decline or is it all the fault of Brexit?

Exactly. All this brexit stiff is getting a bit old now. The whole world went into decline for version reasons but people only see what they want

"No one told us of the benefits"
That's not true, is it?

I actually do recall the funding loss being discussed widely. Just saying.

Absolutely and time can not be reversed. However it’s the same ideology. In this community Brexit was seen as a solution to their deprivation, now Reform is and these decisions are being made based on social media slogans and not research.

Should these towns just be funded indefinitely?

It's more "I only listen to certain kinds of people and will ignore anything anyone else tells me because I don't trust them for reasons xyz"

The EU gets the projects it funds where possible to put this prominently on billboards etc. pre Brexit you used to see them across the U.K. - this project EU funded.

i was recently in the Canaries and some of their buses are EU funded - and it’s literally painted on the bus.

a lie can be round the world while the truth is still getting it’s boots on.

Very sad but I’m sure it’ll be amazing to see what reform do with the area. Go Nigel!

It's not getting old. Brexit is a slow poison, or like a parasitic weed that slowly chokes a tree. We're only a few years in and the effects are now being properly felt. Brexit was only ever going to cause new issues and compound existing problems. Who'd need that? But maybe you're right that debating the past referendum is pointless. This is now about how we can access those funds again and regain the fantastic deal that our enemies were dying to see us cast aside. They all cracked open the bubbly when that happened.

From the article in case people haven't got that far "Brexit has removed a key source of funding, which the area desperately needs. County Durham received £154m of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, about £22m a year. Since the UK left the European Union, it receives about half that amount, £12m annually, under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund."

Maybe I should have written in the OP that this isn’t really a Brexit debate - more history repeating itself with a deprived community seeing a “saviour” to their derivation and I don’t think that is Farage.

🤣

It is obviously not true to say that people weren't warned about what they would stand to lose through Brexit. Those warnings were commonly dismissed as Project Fear at the time. Turns out that they'd have been right to be fearful. No surprises there.

What is surprising is that they're willing to put their faith in Farage again, even after he sold them a bucket full of lies during the referendum campaign.

I had huge sympathy for these communities previously, but my sympathy starts to wane when they don't learn from their mistakes. People might be forgiven for being taken in by Farage once, but twice? I'm starting to feel like those who vote him in will deserve their fate.

2 of the main reasons we left EU was to be in control of our economy and to be able to control our borders...........😂

And as you can see, that's going fantastic

I would be happy to rejoin

What? You didnt realise there would be downsides, including reduced funding and human rights since leaving the EU?

In many way we were deceived. Instead of facts we had fighting and conspiracy and propaganda. That clouded any facts about any benefits.

for example the small
boats. How many knew about the Dublin agreement. I certainly didn’t.

it might have gone an different way.

the eu were choking us with rules but like you say

we need to sort these issues out now and nige isn’t the answer imo. But who is ? Honestly? the whole of the west is in decline

China and India are the new superpowers.

all we can do is try
mitigate the consequences

add ai and we are all screwed tbh Brexit will be the
least of it.

No you were fine to mention Brexit. We have a weirdly short term memory in the UK with politics, and dont seem to grasp that political decisions will affect a country for decades. The creation of the NHS is a reason boomers have a great life expectancy today, but also why we spend more on adult social care and one reason houses are not becoming available for younger generations. Decisions to only build where there is already infrastructure has created densely packed towns and cities with a severe lack of doctors, dentists and school places for children. Brexit has led to deprived communities being even worse off, and also left the UK alone and fragile during escalating global tensions which is what it was designed to do. Voting for Reform is like mixing two unknown compounds and wondering what will happen. It may be exciting for one election period, but who knows what the domino effect will be for decades to come.

Yes they should be adequately funded to ensure social care needs are up to standard

This is so sad. Stoke on Trent is the same. Rarely gets government funding but had lots of great projects funded by the EU. Nobody seemed to be aware of this though and everyone voted Brexit. And now people there are falling for Farage's lies again. As if Farage gives a flying fuck about the people of Stoke. Why cant people see this?

But look at Americans bringing back Trump AFTER Jan 6th...

In many way we were deceived. Instead of facts we had fighting and conspiracy and propaganda. That clouded any facts about any benefits.

There were facts but people refused to listen - anything said in support of Remain got dismissed as 'Project Fear'. As a Remainer, it really was like talking to a brick wall at the time.

I do think a sizeable portion of the population wants a so-called 'strong man'. It would be interesting to investigate the mass psychology that drives such decisions but if you look at history, the more a population is under economic strain the more they tend to gravitate towards simple, strong-worded lies. Doesn't matter that they're lies, people might even understand deep down that they're lies but they find the assertiveness reassuring. It's the social equivalent of curling up in the foetal position when things get on top of you. The fact that there's a big fat boot about to kick the living shit out of you doesn't factor into the equation.

England's councils spending 78% of their main budgets on social care | Politics News | Sky News

This doesn't really leave much to pay for everything else Local Authorities have to pay for.

I don't see how, as a nation, we are better off post-brexit. I think it was a stupid idea.

All the talk of "choking us with rules", a lot of the time they were our suggestions - e.g. low-energy light bulbs, that other EU nations agreed to.

I do think our country has been marginalised since brexit.

I do not see how anything would improve with farage in charge.

And yet off they run to farage again.

No sympathy from me - I would expect adults
of voting age to do their own reading instead of just listening to who’s the loudest in the room.