Is Brexit the biggest act of self harm to the IK?

[Ownedbykitties]

I heard it described as such on the radio last week and I have been mulling it over. Perhaps it is? Though I cannot quite get past the fact the our politicians and the government, who are paid to make these decisions in the best interests of the people and the country, asked the general public whether we should remain or leave. How could the vast majority of us hope to know the intricate details of either staying in or leaving, and if it would be a deliberate act of self harm to leave? Then to cap it all off, David Cameron walked away. Yet, for something that affects individuals personally, the politicians are asked to decide on the Assisted Dying Bill. I'm confused.

Apart from Free Movement, and the cost and bureaucracy of imports, how does it affect you personally?

That's enough of a downside for a kick off! Especially when it was supposed to be all sunlit uplands. You say those two things casually, but they have a massive knock on effect on all aspects of life and business. And forever. You don't have those problems in the EU. We do.

And nobody said that being in the EU was perfect.

Apart from Free Movement, and the cost and bureaucracy of imports, how does it affect you personally?

The lack of freedom of movement is a big one. I am married to an EU citizen, so it would cost us a huge amount of money to move back to the uk. If he earns over the salary threshold of course, otherwise we can't move back ever unless i divorce him, but then I'll lose my child. A very big one that!

Everytime a relative sends a present, I have to pay about a tenner in tax to collect it. So now my family don't send birthday and Christmas presents to my child, which makes me sad.

But otherwise, we get to go through passport control much more quickly and smuggly. That makes up for the other things.

I know Free movement and cost/timing of imports have had a massive effect. It is the day to day impact on daily lives that I'm interested in. For example how does Brexit affect employment, schools, public transport, human rights and so on. So when you wake in the morning does anyone say "Oh Hell, I can't do this or that today, or go here or there, or buy this or that" etc. Do you think the cost of living is impacted by Brexit - it is happening everywhere but maybe Brexit has exacerbated it in the UK.

I'm aware that Erasmus has been replaced with a similar scheme in the context of Third Level, is it Turing? Apologies if I've got that wrong.

BTW I am not doing a thesis or anything, I'm an ordinary person mooching around on MN.

Undoubtedly it is the biggest act of self-harm for the UK in modern history, or I think for any country. I'm struggling to think of any similar example of an entirely voluntary and unnecessary decision of any country that was so obviously stupid, when friends, allies and experts who understood pleaded against it.

How could the vast majority of us hope to know the intricate details of either staying in or leaving, and if it would be a deliberate act of self harm to leave?

If you didn't understand it, and you didn't want to listen to the experts who did, then either you should not have voted, or you should have voted for the tried-and-tested option of leaving things be and remaining. To acknowledge that you did not understand it, but to vote for radical change is an amazingly stupid thing to have done. (I think the "Dunning-Kruger" effect was very much in evidence to be honest).

I’m not even in the country. I live in Ireland. I hate the way it has divided you up though.

Apart from Free Movement, and the cost and bureaucracy of imports, how does it affect you personally?

One of the most serious impacts is on FDI - foreign direct investment. EU membership, and decades of clever diplomacy led to the UK's placement of itself as the gateway to the single market and attracted large inflows of investment into this country, which had a big impact on wealth, productivity and incomes overall. As with everything it's difficult to put a precise figure on the damage caused by brexit but the general agreement is that it's serious. The LSE thinks investment from overseas is around 22% lower. We are no longer an attractive place for business to invest. Those investors want their investment to be in the huge EU single market, not the now much smaller UK market, and they can easily find other countries which are. This is a permanent and worsening impact on our economy as the years go by, and there is no easy way to change this. We do need to learn to live with it.

There are advantages to brexit. Every time my mother sends a box full of plastic tat for my kids it gets stopped by customs and returned to her as I refuse to pay the import fees.

Puts me in mind of this sketch

I am an ordinary English woman living in the East Mids and it doesn't impact.
It affects those who have family in the EU more or if you are a Brit living in the EU.

@NewPanDrawer Yes, that would be problematic, and as you say the effects are probably not fully seen yet, and big decisions on foreign inward investment may go to other English speaking EU countries gradually for example Malta and Ireland. Although I haven't heard anything either positive or negative about FDI in UK yet, but of course I may have missed it.

Apologies, I haven't read the entire thread so this may already have been discussed - when Brexit was mooted there appeared to be panic in the City about trading and so on. That doesn't seem to have materialised AFAIK. Maybe London has become a laundry for ahem.... funds now that it doesn't have oversight by EU money laundering legislation anymore. Does UK have its own laws about this aspect?

I must say, looking on from afar I was so surprised at the ease with which voters decided to leave the Bloc. Now sorry for saying it, but I got the feeling (especially from the negotiator David something that the UK believed in its own exceptionalism. I found that bizarre and a bit entitled TBH.

I'm an ordinary woman living in the EU, fist bump! I can see what you mean, the effects of Brexit are impacting investment, education, free movement and so on, which is tremendously important and it's the rock on which things can perish, but day to day I always got the feeling that few were directly affected.

Thanks. Others may have a different experience of course.

Yes, freedom of movement is very emotive for some, but with the pros came the cons. Britain was not keeping track of who was in the country, we messed it up and Brexit was a consequence. Now we are keeping track and folk can see the impact of legal immigration and we are not happy!

With education, my nephew opted for a semester in Australia. Oz seems very popular with his cohort and it could be the language. Just a thought.

It is a shame it ended like it did. I'm sure most Brits would be happy to go back to a trading bloc experience like in the days of Thatcher.

I always find it interesting when citizens of Eire weigh in. The Republic of Ireland sets corporation tax at 12%, rather than 25%. Understandably there are countries within the EU that find this a less than level playing field who are cross with the Irish government, and I am equally sure that while some Dubliners are happy and prosperous, there will be many people who don't benefit much directly, and who are paying a fee to see the GP.

Why would any of you want my 2cents worth? I voted in 1975 to continue membership of the Common Market. I was completely on board with the addition of new countries to the Common Market. I did not support the shift towards political and fiscal union, mainly because I don't believe it will ever be possible to create a fair regime that works from the Baltic to the Mediterranean or from Portugal to Moldova. I thought the 1991/92 treaties were dishonest.

Quite happy to have free movement of skilled and unskilled people across the EU, but successive UK governments didn't strain out the controversy or limit the numbers, and it has come back and bitten them on the bum. Why should the UK pay child benefit for a child in Poland or Estonia?

Eight years after the referendum, I am starting to think that removing the EU's second largest contributor nation is beginning to fragment the centre of the Union. France is avoiding the difficult questions about how their social funding can be afforded. Germany is deindustrialising without access to cheap Russian energy. Spain and Italy have had to face their crises already, but both have massive youth unemployment issues, and they can't just export them to UK hospitality anymore. I don't like it, didn't want it, but I also really don't believe we would be better inside the EU either. Rejoin the EEA and CU... absolutely.

It was badly handled no doubt but the same old "All Leave voters are thick and Remain voters are clever and articulate and just marvellous people" has surely been outgrown. Just as it was too complex for us all to understand then - so is it now. There have been and winners and losers and how things will look in five or ten years remains to be seen.

Corporation Tax is lower in many EU countries compared with UK.

Why does UK not reduce its CT in order to attract inward investment? Or do all other countries need to raise theirs to match the UK? Exceptionalism again maybe.

ROI and other low CT economies in the EU may be affected by Trump's plan to lower US CT significantly.

I am not quite at the point where I think we are better out than in, but it's not far off. If the French economy cannot be propped up, then I shall be quite glad to be off the hook for huge subsidy payments and adjustment fees.

Un fucking believable! Bond yields 33% lower in france than the UK but its France the markets will turn on or perhaps even Germany.

A change of Govt doesn't mean economic collapse, as the UK has proven over the last 8 years....

Brexit and its justification is strong in some posters here.

FOM ? anyone actually noticed immigration into the UK is 300% higher now than it ws in the highs of Blairs Govt... only now the migrants are from Asia n Africa, with little chance of returning when visas expire.

Anyway @Papyrophile aren't you looking to emigrate to an EU country?

It was economic suicide. Unfortunately so many who voted leave did so completely ignorant of the repercussions for trade, research and education. Some cannot even articulate why except they didn't want to be dictated to by Brussels (regardless of the fact we had British MEPs who had a voice) or completely spurious reasons egged on by right wing press. We also do have a large section of society which is inherently racist.

Predictably the ones suffering most with COL now are the poorest and least educated who ironically probably voted leave.

Source?

The OBR said UK trade deals fell sharply and are still not back to 2019 levels whereas the EU is doing better.

For me the biggest home goal was Wales. They received the most funding of all the home nations and voted decisively to lose it all.

I know the NI is in the UK, but it isn't in the EU (although I am aware that there are special arrangements for some imports). The parcel was being sent from Germany to the NI so I assume they can charge some kind of import tax? It was calculated at check-out, so I just assumed it was correct.

@username358

Cornwall was the same. They used to get so much from the EU as it was an area of low income then suddenly twigged the day after the referendum that the EU money would no longer come. The assumption was Westminster would make it up like that was ever going to happen

It is a possibility @Alexandra2001 although it is driven by winter weather! DH did not spend a lot of his youth in the UK and fancies a change before he's too old to adapt.

Yes. Simple as that.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz