“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?

No. People really are thick. read the Darwin awards.

Yes, I found it useful to read some of her speeches rather than go on what people said she said.

I also found it really interesting to talk to a guy at a party who described the atmosphere around the time of the 1975 referendum. I hadn't really realised (being a toddler at that point) that the EEC/EU was far from being a done deal. It was always treated as a fact of life when I was at school.

But how can you attempt to persuade anyone of anything if you start from the premise that they're stupid if they don't agree with you?

Mrs Thatcher hated Europe. But as a non thick person, she was able to be pragmatic and put her needs behind those of the country (the country in this case being the UK not Russia).

There are several instances where she put fact and science ahead of her own prejudices. The UKs ground breaking tacking of AIDS being another example.

And yet I never saw any. Maybe my local area didn't receive any funds. I certainly noticed them when I travelled elsewhere so I would have noticed them at home if there had been any. So they weren't 'everywhere'.
Edited because posted before finished.

The structural problem for the ex-mining town mentioned is that it is geographically remote. That didn't matter when its wealth was connected to what was sitting under the ground. Now it is a long way from the economic heart of the country and the continent.

EU regional policy was to subsidise poorer areas, so Wales, Cornwall, the NE got funds to help those areas economies. Our government could do the same but chooses not to.

Brexit is not the only reason these towns are suffering but it's a drag on our national economy. We are poorer as a nation that we would have been had we stayed in the EU. I understand why people voted for change when they voted for Brexit but it was still a fucking stupid national decision and our political class should be ashamed they led us to it.

She agreed with joining the European economic community , but she would not have agreed with joining the political union that it morphed into without any of us having any say about that.

Do people remember the fight over agreeing the Maastricht treaty?

Does anyone know that the EU is now double borrowed against the same assets? Each county has is own eye watering national debt borrowed against its own ability to pay the interest. But on top of that the European Central Bank has borrowed again against those same countries abilities to pay the interest.

God help the EU when the first lender to either one of those countries (France being top
of that list) or the ECB, decides they want their capital back and nobody else wants to buy it).

Everyone with half a brain told you the risks of Brexit. It was all dismissed as project fear. Unfortunately, some people are thicker than a submarine door…

I didn't know that about their borrowing and that is v interesting info - thanks for sharing it.

To be fair, a lot of it was "Project Fear". Have people forgotten Gordon Brown's threat of a "punishment budget"? Obama's veiled threats?

If the Remain campaign had explained how much more difficult it would be to take your dog on holiday they might have got somewhere. Ditto how it was going to affect Northern Ireland.

But they ran a lazy campaign from a liberal elite position of "surely everyone can see how good being in the EU is for us?" and accused people of bigotry and racism instead of listening to their concerns and acting on them.

Brexit didn't win, Remain never got off the starting blocks.

i checked out some of the house prices, many auction 5-10K a real opportunity for someone. even 100k for a solid 2 bed with no sign of water/moisture.

That argument would stand up if the economy as a whole hadn't been negatively affected by Brexit.

But if the overall pie is significantly smaller, then people will inevitably get smaller slices of pie.

Many people told them. But they chose the lies due to racism. Brexit was a xenophobic, racist referendum. And those same people are going to do it again, and wreck things for my children, grandchildren, and every decent person in the U.K. I despair. I am also very, very angry.

The Remain campaign did highlight many of the issues that subsequently transpired, including the hit to the economy, the Northern Ireland issues and the increased barriers to travel.

The problem wasn't that people weren't warned, it was that they put their fingers in their ears and chose not to listen.

The Remain campaign was undoubtedly too complacent. They were operating from the assumption that the electorate wouldn't be stupid enough to vote for Brexit, and obviously that was wrong. But it absolutely isn't true to say that the big issues weren't talked about

Unfortunately, Michael Gove told people that they had had enough of experts and they chose to believe him.

The message might have been correct but it was coming from people they distrusted.

Our GDP is not smaller than it was at Brexit, it is smaller than some people think that it might have been if we had not Brexited (in spite of the fact that other major EU countries are in worse economic positions).,

There is no reason for smaller than previous regional payments than that our own elected government has other priorities for the money.

The Remain campaign did highlight many of the issues that subsequently transpired, including the hit to the economy, the Northern Ireland issues

I learned about the NI issues from posters on another forum, I have no recollection of it featuring in the Remain campaign.

It isn't smaller. It's smaller than some people think it might have been without Brexit.

Your poor memory and/or lack of engagement during the referendum campaign doesn't mean that the issue wasn't highlighted at the time. It was.

It isn't about raw numbers, it is about purchasing power. Costs have gone up across the board, and a vast amount of money is spent on servicing our debt interest - a lot of which links back to covid and all of the support measures that were implemented during the pandemic. That isn't the fault of Brexit of course, but it would have been easier to pay for it if the overall economy had grown as economists think it would have had we stayed.

I'm not sure where exactly you think all the extra money has gone or what these other government priorities might be. ..it isn't as if anything in the country is well resourced any more. But we are paying billions in interest on our national debt.

I’m from a very deprived part of the north-east. All we’ve ever known, really, is being let down by successive governments. The decline started in the late 70s and now it’s getting harder & harder to access the few public services that are left. I don’t like Reform at all and know they don’t have all the answers, but I think I can understand the draw to some people; they’re talking about the things that people in these areas are experiencing and, simply, Reform are something different to try. All the other parties have done next to nothing for them, so why not.

@MrsMurphyIWish everyone had google or wikipedia or books from the library etc

I recall David Cameron sending out leaflets extolling the virtues of staying in the EU before Brexit referendum.

Its fairly obvious, if you read the post, i was referring to the UK.

On Reform, 24% of the vote atm?? so 3/4 don't support the far right.

We have carried on taking HCPs from any country that will allow us to do so, we voted back in, Govt s that did this, we are still doing it.

Net migration might well be lower but thats in no small measure to people leaving, inc around 70,000 EU citizens last year, the UK is no longer quite so attractive to our European neighbours as it once was or you think it still is.

A migrant from Somalia is going to take many years to obtain EU citizenship, if he/she ever does.

Why do you think migrants didn't cross the channel in boats pre 2020?

Someone I know had a property in Spain and had plans to retire there. Still voted for Brexit. That’s just being thick.

Wales voted for Brexit in the most deprived areas despite benefitting hugely from EU funding. There is no way the Welsh Parliament can make up for that funding loss.