Are you afraid? Brexit.

[Puddelchen]

I feel very uneasy about what the future holds for us after Brexit but am I just overreacting? Can it really be so terrible? Why is no one around me talking about this in real life, you would think it would be a hot topic.

Three days is better than nothing. And starts you thinking, hopefully, sensibly.

No I'm not scared of Brexit itself, the weeks after. My colleagues and friends are fairly relaxed however they voted and this is rubbing off on me, although when I read these boards I do pause to wonder. We will all need to adapt. I'm more scared that the post Brexit government is unable to help the economy adapt.

I really can't see the point in stocking 3 days worth of stuff, unless you usually buy all your food daily. Better think about what you usually buy and where it comes from. Olive oil and Italian coffee would be obvious ones for me, and buy several weeks worth of those - or switch to a different product not from the EU. I will be very surprised if there are fuel shortages for domestic supply.

Your choice, @Aliceinwanderland . Guess you don't know what it's like to be snowed in.

Another point @Aliceinwanderland , while yes of course it's sensible to focus on stuff that is imported and maybe tricky to get, people will inevitably start thinking about mundane stuff that might also be tricky to get. If your storage space is limited, it's not necessarily helpful to fill it up with bottles of olive oil.

{or switch to a different product not from the EU.}
I think you are missing the point that foodstuffs come THROUGH the EU. It is the transportation rather than the food itself. If the UK stops receiving food produced in the EU , the EU will be eating it forever!
I believe some foodstuffs arrive in bulk in Rotterdam, which has deep water berths, and then they are sent on by truck to EU and UK destinations. Whatever comes across from mainland Europe to the UK will be affected.
A former colleague has a couple of days work in Cuba, many years ago. There was a minor mishap in his work and he ended up staying 2 weeks. He did not starve (unlike many locals) but the food available was very limited in range and he was heartily sick of steak and rice for breakfast, lunch and tea. The moral being that although food will be available it might be very boring to have pasta and cheese for every meal.

If the worst that happens is that our dinner becomes a little dull for a few weeks/months then really we’d be emerging relatively unscathed.

I'm worried. We have no idea what's going to happen and our governing body is fragmented and more concerned with scoring points off each other than working to improve matters.
On a personal note, I require a lot of daily medication and see two consultants on a monthly basis. One is from Greece, the other Spain.
Both have been here for over 20 years.
Both are multilingual and work in the NHS as well as private practice. Their NHS work is in mostly Leave areas.
Both are scaling back NHS work as are sick of the abuse they get from people that are reliant on them to keep them alive.
Both are also looking into going back to EU countries in the future.

I live and work in the EU for the academic year, and return to the UK every summer for 2-3 months.

I may well be legally forced back to the UK in 90 days, due to losing my right to work here.

If that happens to me, it's going to happen to every single other person in my industry, which means it will be impossible for me to find work in the UK, and I will be forced to work somewhere like China, which I expressly do not want to do.

The whole thing just fills me with slow burning rage that people can't see that the problems in the UK come from Tory policy, not EU membership. We could build houses, if they wanted to. We could fund schools, if they wanted to. We could fund the NHS, if they wanted to. But sadly none of that matters to a party obsessed with austerity and preserving the JRMs of the country. Don't get me started on Corbyns lack of opposition. At least in America the Democrats are fighting Trump tooth and nail, no such luck in the UK.

lonely your post at 09:47 sums up exactly how I feel

I've been worrying about it for years now. I still have a sinking feeling about it. Nobody in real life will talk about it all. When I mention it on Facebook nobody replies or makes any comments. It's like it doesn't exist, except on TV. I think people need to start talking about it and acknowledging it. Even a remain voting friend looked at me as if I've gone mad when I said she probably shouldn't book a holiday for Easter this year.

I am worried about losing my job and things being really terrible. Total fear hasn't kicked in yet, but I think that is a matter of time.

I went to two big matches LeClerc but I’m not taking part in any ‘gilet jaune’ type of protest, because they are against the law and because protests like this can easily turn into something completely different.

You also bring up house building into this. I think conflating two issues helps neither.

marches not matches

We are farmers so talk about this all the time. It's a state of limbo rather than fear. last year was a disaster for us in the sheep breeding industry because of uncertainty. I don't see the point of living in fear though.

I'm really surprised at how many people are saying that nobody around them is talking about Brexit in real life. It's a very frequent topic of conversation among my friends and family and a source of great concern at work. I feel like we never stop talking about it.

For a long while, I tried to avoid the topic when talking to a couple of colleagues who voted leave, but even that's gone by the wayside now as the reality is starting to bite and contingencies need to be put in place.

We are doing a lot of scenario planning in work at the moment. Unless we stay in the EU, all of the scenarios end in redundancies. The only difference is how many and how soon. In a no-deal Brexit, we would have to cut very, very deep, and I have already provided a list of roles to my boss that I would cut, in priority order. I'm under no illusions about the fact that my own name probably appears on a similar list that my boss has had to produce for his boss.

The sad part for me is that I'm not allowed to discuss the contingency planning with my direct reports or the staff who report into them. Some of them are pretty canny and can see what's coming, but I reckon some near the top of the list are blissfully ignorant of the shitstorm that's about to hit. I've been trying to drop subtle hints by way of a warning, but I don't think they're getting through.

If we don't all come to our senses soon, I think the next couple of years will prove very, very difficult for some indeed.

The original Gilet Jaune protests had authorisation from the French government and they had 'permission' to protest at certain locations on defined days, and had a police presence to make sure that there was no intimidation.
I went through a few of these and typically the police were standing around drinking tea on one side of the road, and protestors would be drinking tea or beer on the other side, stopping cars/lorries and talking for a couple of minutes before letting them go on. The protesters were a mix of men women and children. Tragically there were a couple of fatalities during this 'phase', but they were genuine accidents. A woman driver got 'spooked' by something and knocked a lady protestor down being the first, and a motorbike rider crashed into a car driver who was turning into the wrong side of the road to turn around to find an alternative route.
Poster Mistigri is more annoyed at the original GJ protestors but she has more experience of France. Rural France is big, and getting around can be expensive for the local villages.
The escalation into plain thuggery is of course appalling but these are not, on the whole, the original protestors but more of the Tommy Robinson variety.

Once the more hands on protests start though, they do escalate in something else, more sinister, as the Gilet Jaune protests demonstrated and the original message gets corrupted and then lost.

I would’t want that.

I am scared and very angry , more smgry than I was when the original vote happened. No one dares talk about it where I am h less you know for certain that the people you are with are happy to talk and preferably voted the same way . Consequently you just get echo chambers

I am scared for my children , all young adults now whose life opportunities will be affected by this decision . Dh and I ( both professionals) have been asked to sign so many Irish passport applications but can’t apply ourselves. I have also signed several applications s for citizenship for eu nationals in my team , all of whom are worried.

If I understood why we had to go through this it would help but I simply cannot see any concrete gains from this . It’s all feelings and nebulous slogans harking back to apocryphal better times . I am the first to agree that the EU is not perfect but it’s not so bad that it is worth putting ourselves through this .

We are seriously contemplating selling our house and buggering up to Scotland. Sturgeon is an astute politician who will capitalise on Westminster chaos. We would vote independent in a heartbeat and rejoin the EU. Long game I know but not an improbable scenario and at least in Scotland the mood music is pro EU. We just have to swerve the impending house price crash that would surely follow a no deal. Oh and also we have a year 13 sitting A levels in June. Scared shitless tbh.

You'll have to do that pretty quickly though. Not long to go now. I've been unable to make up my mind whether to do this or not, now I think it's probably a bit too late.

I’m saddened that the rich have been able to hoodwink the poor into voting to keep them rich and make themselves poorer

ivykaty44
It's always been the case.

Not to this scale and the poor have only had the vote for the last 99 years depending on age...

I'm pretty concerned.

I'm usually a very relaxed person but if there's no deal I genuinely believe things will be pretty awful.

I'm anticipating issues with food shortages and medication shortages for 3-6 months. Mass redundancies. Significant inflation - reports are that a lot of food will go up by 10-30%.

I've done a few things to try and soften the blow to us personally

• My contract was due to end on B-day, which would have been awful, ive managed to convince them to extend to end of June. They are a UK pensions administrator so probably one of the only Brexit proof types of business, I'm hoping they'll extend me again to the end of the year

• I've started prepping with tinned food, pet food and household goods. Nowhere near enough yet but it's in progress. I hope to build up a couple of weeks and then we'll have to manage. Being rural I'm hoping we can go straight to source and buy eggs and meat from farmers before it ever makes the shops

• I've asked my private psychiatrist for a private prescription of two months of my meds. Will cost £££ to buy privately but terrible withdrawal effects so feel like it's worth it

• We can withstand the inflation, if necessary we have the room to take in 1-2 lodgers if things got really tough

• We're rural so not anticipating any issues with civil unrest other than DH needing to stay home from work in London

• I'm considering looking for a second hand freezer to buy for the garage to stock up on frozen veg and protein

A lot of the things I'm doing just aren't possible for more vulnerable people...or even people who don't have much disposable income though...