Brexit has made Coronavirus much worse

[ludicrouslemons]

Brexit means we started this crisis with

• fewer nhs staff
• knackered civil servants
• a PM and cabinet elected for loyalty to an ideology rather than competence and experience
• less money (more has been spent on Brexit prep than we've ever given in eu contributions)
• failure to co-ordinate with Eu nations on sourcing ventilators etc
• taking eye off the ball re pandemic readiness

I'm sure there's more. Is it still project fear? I think there would have been ways to deliver Brexit responsibly but they haven't been found.

Most notably, Johnson should have a wider range of ministers including people prepared to oppose him and voice dissent. He appointed a load of inexperienced lackeys and it shows.

I'm worried about food security, especially if they go ahead with brexit regardless of the consequences to food imports.

How could anyone think brexit should go ahead amid this mess?

No idea. Try asking Mr B Johnson.

I don't know how to break this to you but the UK legally left the EU on 31 December 2019.

What we are going through now is a new and quite separate treaty that expires on 31 December 2020 unless an extension is agreed.

However, what this new treaty is not is the Lisbon Treaty. Legally, we have already Brexited.

I think she probably gets that...... I think she is hoping - which I believe is futile that brexiteers acknowledge the harm they caused...... which because of their arrogance (or ignorance) of course they won't....it's not about have we or haven't we - it's about the downstream affects. And now Gove and Bozo are talking essentially no deal - when the country and worldwide economy will be in the toilet . No deal was of course what they always wanted ...... but it will make the UK weaker, poorer and ever more irrelevant......

Wow, I'm shocked. Haven't been on here in a while and the Remainers were in full name-calling, hate the Leavers mode and here you are still at it. You must be exhausted.

TedsFederationRep is absolutely correct but you don't want to hear that because it's the truth.

I don't know how to break this to you but the UK legally left the EU on 31 December 2019 at 11pm on 31 January 2020

Fixed it for you @TedsFederationRep

Thank you. Put it down to an exceptionally tough day yesterday.

Ah well, as long as the Brexiters enjoy what they get. Shortages of food - yes, fine, they lived with corona virus shortages. Can't travel easily, yes, fine, they couldn't travel anywhere with the corona virus.

I for one just won't want to hear a single word of complaint.

It was never about what is good for the UK. Only about what is good for a very small number of very rich and powerful individuals. That hasn't changed. Maybe it makes things easier for them if the country is even weaker, due to the virus.

I can't see us managing to get a suitable deal in place by the end of June. So, if we haven't agreed anything by then, it would be better to end the negotiations and spend the next few months preparing for a no-deal exit.

Most companies and individuals have more than enough on their plate with the virus situation. What I'd like to say about this government and those behind its success is unprintable.

So what exactly would they need to do to prepare for a No Deal exit? I think it needs more that them sitting on their arses thinking up soundbites.

it would be better to end the negotiations and spend the next few months preparing for a no-deal exit.

Good thing there's nothing else major happening, and plenty of money to do this. Because otherwise that would be insanely, criminally irresponsible.

Lets not forget who could benefit from brexit - the vultures of disaster capitalism. They could profit even more from a combination of a no deal brexit and an incompetent handling of the pandemic.

When (not if) Brexit is a fuck up, it will be blamed on Covid 19.
And when we get a second wave of Covid 19 it will be blamed on "some people ", not on vague and incoherent government strategy.

Well I actually think that the fact that we are having this dreadful virus and subsequent lockdown will, at the end of the day have some positives for Brexit. Many of us are rethinking our purchasing, buying local, ordering locally produced veg. boxes, having their milk delivered and buying from the local butcher or farmer as I am. I am certainly rethinking my need for so much imported goods and have genuinely started to look at the origins of products. Many will revisit the benefits of holidays in the UK and make a concerted effort to boost the economy of this country. Many people are now enquiring about going into nursing and the caring professions, there has never been such interest for a very long time.
Farmers are having to use UK labour in the main to pick their produce and have discovered a whole host of students needing jobs.
Things like the speeding up of greening our environment having now seen the benefits of cleaner air and wanting to keep it will hopefully ensure loads more funding to speed up the removal of fossil fuels completely. Thus a massive increase in these manufacturing sectors.

I think the government should stick to their guns and keep to the 31st Dec. date. They should definitely prepare for no deal, it's about who blinks first. Plenty said Boris wouldn't get a deal last autumn but did.

"Who blinks first"
Can we assume that they really don't need us more than we need them with all this going on and how badly we handled it. A basket case shit show on the doorstep is not something you want to open your doors to.
They have no incentive to let us go anything other than get on with fucking things up.
It is now only a matter of time before Scotland secedes from the Union and NI is back with the rest of Ireland. Sorry, Wales, you are stuck with us.

I really can't see any appetite for a new referendum any time soon in Scotland. The SNP don't come out of this smell of roses that's for sure.

Johnson is, in effect, in this matter the PM for England. Not for the UK. I think people will get a taste for it. No, the SNP are not without criticism in this or any other scenario but the three other nations of the UK have not needed Johnson as much as he has needed them.

@Doubletrouble99 as admitted this week, Mr Johnson's 'deal' was to capitulate and agree a border in the Irish Sea. Any idiot could have got that deal. It was a deal the previous leader of the Conservative and Union party refused, well, because of the union bit.

For goodness sake. I cannot believe you are all still not accepting that the people of the UK want to leave the EU asap.
Do you really think we should capitulate and give away all of our fishing rights. M Barnier needs to accept that David Frost and the Government will not budge.

Trouble is @yellowhammers we don't own the majority of those fishing rights. Uk fishermen, particularly English UK fisherman have sold them. It's a legal point not a political one.

I know that but we don't want to allow unlimited access to EU boats?

No one expects unlimited rights - there are quotas that sit alongside the fishing rights and in any case, fishing is such a small part of the UKs GDP it's a bit of a red herring dog whistle to English nationalism, if you pardon me mixing my metaphors

First of all bellinisurge, I think Scotland, Wales and N Ireland will be needing the UK Gov. when it comes to their funding of vaccine research and production and will be more than happy to take the vaccinations they will be funding and handing out to the whole UK first if, hopefully they are successful.
Secondly Jason118 as far as I'm aware fishing rights are what you have on a river. In the UE UK fishing boats have quotas, of which many English owners sold to EU owners. Now we have left the EU all the boats will still have their quotas and it would cost a fortune for the Government to buy the foreign boats out. But we can control who fishes in our waters and remove our waters from the EU common fishing area. Thus having control over our waters in that way.
As for the SNP, well in Scotland they are not doing well, they are not doing well controlling the virus in Care Homes and there has been a lot of negativity about their management. I can't see how anyone could justify the enormous cost of running another independence referendum any time soon. Let's just see how the economy is when we come out of this pandemic and how the UK Gov. manage it.

Should read EU not UE!!