Brace for Brexit

[tilder]

I am a firm remainer and am pretty angry tbo. Feel disenfranchised and embarrassed about my country.

However. We have been taking steps to try and protect our family from Brexit fallout. We aren't stockpiling food or water (maybe some food items) but have done the following:

Made sure we have a few months of prescription medicines.
Several boxes ibuprofen and paracetamol.
Employed an accountant to ensure we only pay the tax we have to.
I have not moved jobs (despite a pay rise offer).
Moved our mortgage early to a 5 year fixed deal.
Managed pensions to limit uk investment.
Moved what savings we have to a non UK bank and out of premium bonds.

It's depressing and uncomfortable. I feel some of the above is a betrayal of my country. But then again, not sure I want to contribute anymore.

Is it just us? Is there more we could or should do?

I have had the same thought about Zimbabwe - somewhere I visited in my gap year.

I spent time in Zim for work in the 1990s then didn't visit again until 2016. The difference was mind-blowing. Never believe that it can't happen to you.

I'm not saying that the U.K. is going to experience a Zim style economic breakdown. But all forecasts have an upside AND a downside, and the thinking of many people seems to be that the government's no deal forecasts are the worst it can get. Actually, most of the risk is to the downside, i.e, the chance of no deal working out dramatically better than the treasury thinks is pretty much non-existent, whereas the risk of the outcome being significantly worse than they forecast is actually quite high. There are many more ways that Brexit can go badly wrong than it can go right.

{Indeed... even Dunkirk seen from the French side looks a bit different...}
It's dryer for a start

Unfortunately the perception of WW2 from an English civilian is totally different to the citizens of Europe

Absolutely. I’ve lived on the Continent for several decades, in a country that was occupied by Nazi Germany. There’s no romanticism about hard times here and how we all pulled together and survived. More about how all the young men had to run for their lives or else be arrested and sent to fight on the Eastern Front, there was nothing to eat, people starved to death, and lots of people were arrested and deported to concentration camps. There are no wartime songs here that people sing with a nostalgic tear in the eye.

I’ve seen a grown man talking about his schooldays in front of a large group of people and then burst into tears because his best childhood friend was arrested along with his family, all deported and never came back.

Sorry for the complete derail 😞

GiveMeSteam
One of the towns near me in France was 80% destroyed in 1944 and 350 civilians were killed by the ALLIES because the warning leaflets were dropped miles away. There are studs in the streets where french resistance members had lived who were shot. Of course there are the hundreds of cemeteries across most of Europe as a reminder of the struggles for freedom, which of course is the basis behind the EU.
For the last several hundred years, the UK has been on the giving end of violence and as such has not had foreign powers on British soil.

has not had foreign powers on British soil.

Not strictly true.

{ has not had foreign powers on British soil.
Not strictly true.}

So which country invaded and occupied Britain in the last 200 years?

I take it that not having foreign powers on British soil must then refer to all the post war American airbases. America, despite what the leading lights of Leave think, is a foreign power, and any thoughts of special relationships will bite the dust when the chips are down.

I was of course referring to foreign combatants actively fighting UK citizens. The Americans using the UK as a convenient dumping ground for their defence and offensive activities doesn't count.

Oh, yes, good ol' Blitz spirit - martial law because crime was rampant, trampling each other to death in a tube station to get away from falling bombs, corruption and black market because the rations were not enough to live on - and millions of men who didn't come back.

So which country invaded and occupied Britain in the last 200 years?

Nazis. Channel Islands. People were deported to the concentration camps.

The same islands that will be disproportionately impacted by Brexit.

Oh, yes, good ol' Blitz spirit - martial law because crime was rampant, trampling each other to death in a tube station to get away from falling bombs, corruption and black market because the rations were not enough to live on - and millions of men who didn't come back.

It always was - at least partly - a morale-boosting fiction; the blitz spirit. In reality, people were cracking all over the place.

The Channel Islands are not technically part of Great Britain, the United Kingdom, nor are they part of the EU. Hence their not having a vote in the Referendum.

Okay, if we're splitting hairs, but they are and we're populated by Brits, thousands of whom were occupied, terrorised, shot and sent to camps. It feels a bit off to ignore them.

Were not we're.

But true about the Channel Islands being occupied by the Nazis. I believe they only had a relative handful of Jews on the islands who all got deported.

I shared a house at University in the early 70s, with a Channel Islander - she said a woman her family knew was still ostracized because she had slept with the Germans.

But it infuriates me, the Dunkirk/Blitz spirit stuff - it's one thing suffering because the country is fighting an evil regime which murdered millions, quite another to suffer because of 40 or so selfish greedy men in the Tory party. (I might have already said that on one of these threads.)

But it infuriates me, the Dunkirk/Blitz spirit stuff -

It's very lazy shorthand. I do think the Brits have a (Not always accurate) self image of quiet forbearance though, no matter what kicks off. It comes of living under an aristocracy for so long.

I always thing of the more jingoistic stuff as coming from the toffs themselves (or the skinheads).

The OH has taken quite a lot of precautions, but has that included moving all available funds out of the UK, as advised by extreme brexiter John Redwood who was paid £200,000 last year by financial advisors Charles Stanley?

No victim of violence derserves more or less attention and memory than another victim...but still, IMO you can’t compare the numbers, and I think the vast majority of people in the U.K. right now doesn’t really know about the Channel Islands. Those who do, it’s only probably thanks to the movie (guernsey&potato pie etc, which I didn’t watch but read the book), not from school lessons....
So I don’t think you can consider that being a “scar” in the psyche of the nation. The Troubles and IRA is another matter altogether, in terms of scale and impression it left on the general population... and also knowledge of it in an international scene

if that is the case please can I have a revote for the last 2 election results as I didn't like how they ended up either. No?

hilarious

Oh, on the subject of funds...Transferwise offers multi currency card and multiple current accounts in various countries, including a € one which is based in Germany and protected up to 100k €. It comes with an individual iban, bic, etc, I assume it’s going to be available for opening until we’re EU members but don’t know if it’ll work after 29.3....

The thing about this sacred referendum is that it was an advisory referendum that has been elevated to mythical status as the last refuge of democracy. The usual rules of referenda did not apply; no one can be prosecuted because it wasn't legally binding. For that reason, and that reason alone, it can be followed by a second referendum on the same subject.

For that reason, and that reason alone, it can be followed by a second referendum on the same subject

Referendum switched from advisory to binding when Article 50 was triggered.

Can't convince myself a 2nd referendum would help. The main two reasons people voted Leave was:

Brussels are not elected, but dictate to 500 Million in the UE

Uncontrolled immigration.

As neither of those two reasons have change I can't see the Leave Voters changing their minds.

29 March 2010 is only 18 days away. Not enough time to have a 2nd referendum. If Article 50 is extended then EU would be entitled to charge UK the costs of delay.

If I was EU I would not agreed to an extension and force UK to accept the deal they drafted for May to take to UK, which according to my former German colleagues is termed passive remain, or UK gambles on No Deal.

Brussels are not elected

Still banging that drum, eh?

More elected than our second chamber or head of state. The commission is as elected as our civil service what with it being the EUcivil service. The Commissioners are more elected than our Permanent Secretaries. It's just that no voters paid attention to any of these issues. What with them not giving a shit until it served some Kippers purpose.