What have we gained by Brexit/leaving the EU?

[Elephant4]

In simple terms.

I've read so much about what we've lost.

Please no sarcastic comments. I just want to know what we've gained - probably best if those who think Brexit is a positive thing post.

Why do you hate this dislike this country so much? Is it because you think people like me don't therefore you have to?

You are confusing disagreeing with a govt and policy with me liking my country or not.
Thats quite insulting actually and very ignorant.

I and my family, over many generations, have given a lot to the UK, so you are wrong on many levels.

If you I don't like how the money's being spent we can express our displeasure at the ballot box at the next GE.

I'm in my 50s, I've voted in every UK election and referendum since I came of age. Not one time has what I voted for won. I suspect I'll go my whole life (if I don't move to a marginal constituency) without my say counting. Ironically, the exception to this has been EU elections because of the different voting system. I had a voice in Europe, and even wrote to my MEP a couple of times about stuff. I live in a super safe seat, my MP doesn't even write back to me, (have received automated party HQ replies a couple of times, never an actual reply from my MP though) I have no voice in Westminster, just like much of the country.

Kendodd Did you vote for Ursula VDL or Druncker before her ? As for MEP's, they are powerless. Fun as it was to watch the likes Farage in the EU's potemkin parliament, their ability to make real trouble is limited by the fact that they don't control EU law. MEPs are pretend legislators who don't have power to make or unmake law.

Also- can you tell us when MEPs have never dismissed a Commission.? No motion of censure has ever passed the EUs toy parliament. Remember when the Santer Commission staged a mass resignation, and the Commissioners were immediately reappointed. You remember that, right?

You know the only power of MEPs is to dismiss the entire Commission, and in practice, they can't use the power, right?

You do know the so-called parliament has no power to initiate legislation, right?

Under the EU, our laws are made by people we don't elect, can't remove, and who in many cases don't know our history, culture, or even language. There is no fact-based case for that being a good idea.

China play-acts at democracy. So does North Korea. So did the Soviet Union. The fact that the EU pretends to be a democracy doesn't make t one.

We have left the EU, they aren't our concern but the UK is.....

Human rights are human rights, selling weapons that kill women and children in the Yemen or doing deals with Myanma.

www.gov.uk/world/organisations/department-for-international-trade-myanmar

The horrors inflicted on the Rohingya are breathtaking, babies bayoneted, woman gang raped and thrown on fires, over million thrown out of their country.....

But focus on the EU because as a Trump Boris patriot, you see no wrong in the USA UK.

China play-acts at democracy. So does North Korea. So did the Soviet Union. The fact that the EU pretends to be a democracy doesn't make t one

Anyone who equates the EU with China, the USSR or N.Korea hasn't a clue.

Yes, Raab be ensuring UK companies don't use slave labour. This makes you unhappy does it? Unlike your much favoured [no doubt] German car companies, in whose interests the EU has signed its new investment with China, and who have form in living memory for using slave labour.

Meanwhile the EU made much in the Brexit trade negotiations of its supposed 'concerns' that the UK wouldn't match the EU's own saintly 'standards' regarding worker's rights, environmental standards, etcetera. The EU was the party making sanctimonious speeches about that, not the UK. Own it.

selling weapons that kill women and children in the Yemen or doing deals with Myanma. A response worthy of Jeremy Corbyn.

You do know that the Houthi's in Yemen are an Iranian Shia proxy fighting force much like Hamas and Hezbollah?

Yemen sits on on a very important maritime corridor where roughly 7% of global trade pass through. If this corridor were to be blocked as is the Houthi's want, the Suez canal would become useless. Do you understand what that would mean for the entire world?

Then there's the water desalination plants in Saudi. If they were hit by Iranians how long would it be before Saudi descended into complete anarchy? There'd be millions of people on the move and a complete collapse of law and order. Not just in Saudi, but in Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain possibly even Oman. Considering how one out of every seven litres of petrol sold globally comes from Saudi, a catastrophe like that would send the oil price index up to astronomical levels. In short - Saudi's stability means global stability.

The Houthis in Yemen are in possession of masses of ballistic missiles [around 600 of them], that could easily target any of Saudi's water production plants, on both the Gulf side and on the Red Sea side of Saudi. Not content with those missiles, the Houthis's even started importing more, even longer range missiles from Iran. Imagine such missiles armed with radio active Isotopes, courtesy of Iran? Even if the Saudi's intercepted these missiles the fallout would finish water production possibly for years. Do the writers of this woeful article believe the Saudi's ought to just sit on their hands and allow this Iranian threat to continue? To allow Iran [A nation that licensed every Shi'a Muslim to kill Salman Rushdie] complete uninterrupted hegemony over Yemen and this vital region?

There are also three other strategic considerations for the Saudi's. Food, energy and mercantile security. So the threat posed by Iran meant that the Saudi's had no choice but to go to war in Yemen. What would any country do in Saudi's position? Its diabolically unfair to the people of Yemen of course. They face displacement, famine and disease as a result of the conflict. But they've been overrun and held hostage by a highly ideological, merciless Houthi militia, high on Iranian cash, arms and messianic Shia fairy tales, who will not be bargained with.

World security depends on the Saudi's being victorious in this conflict. If we stop selling arms to them and if Saudi were to concede to the Houthi and stop the war on humanitarian grounds, without taking any important strategic concessions from the Houthi's, which has proven to be impossible, because they're merely a proxy of Iran, we'd be in a situation where global security would be at the mercy of the Iranian Mullahs.

Is that something you'd wish to see happen ?

@laudemio

Freedom from the European Courts? Blue passports? Ironically our departure has probably shifted politics on the EU to something closer to the EU many wanted - less talk of ever closer union these days. I must say I think Ursula von D is bloody marvellous.

I never understood the significance of the blue passport? Can somebody enlighten me?

Many European countries have blue passports, the EU didn't make us change it in the first place..?

Jaypreen

The UK isn't the worlds policeman and selling arms to SA achieves nothing, indeed, makes the scenario you've picked out more likely to happen.

Why are you focusing on the EU? we've left.

So you're now saying that if we do our bit to disarm the Saudis this will, of course, lead to the Iranians being far more peaceful and restrain their ambitions in the peninsular? I think perhaps you are Jeremy Corbyn.

Yes, we trade with Saudis; we also trade with plenty of other unsavoury regimes.

To my knowledge though, Saudi Arabia is not pursuing a policy of territorial expansion and is partly using its economic dominance to ensure others can't criticise or take retaliatory economic or diplomatic action.

For all its sins, I don't think the Saudis (or Qatar or similar) are a threat to other nearby territories as China is to Taiwan, India , Japan and the South China seas.

Got to hand it to the Chinese though, they can see the EU is especially vulnerable. It's main currency is - thanks to QE and Target 2 with the Bundesbank badly exposed - liable to go tits up soon. By helping to bail out the EU and therefore artificially prop-up a currency that is otherwise a patient waiting to die, they can guarantee the EU will do f-all when the CCP get really nasty with India, Taiwan etc.

In the long-term (it's already happening now), China - with its larger reserves of precious rare earth metals, essential to so many things we now depend on - is insisting that products that use these substances locate production in China and quite rightly so. Why, they ask, should they dig up and pollute their country so that the precious metals can be shipped to Japan or South Korea for workers there to benefit? Like I said, can't knock the Chinese for this. Japanese and South Korean companies can get the metals but only if production is eventually moved to China.

The Germans will, over the years, become more of a kind of flat-pack assembly manufacturer with low-skilled jobs in the main, still retaining perhaps a few of the higher-end R&D jobs. Production will move more and more to China.

The EU's rush to suckle on the teat of China for short-term economic benefit will have long-term consequences; not necessarily beneficial to the peoples of the EU.

As a postscript I'll ask you this - would you be so supportive of your beloved commission on this matter if the Uighurs were black? My guess is there would be huge international condemnation and no EU/China deal. The likes of you, David Lammy, Diane Abbot and Labour would be shrieking, as would all the Islingtonites. But other Asiatics? Who cares eh, and whatabout Saudi Arabia!

[quote DoubleTweenQueen]@Toptotoeunicolour What's to say? A member state's perogative under EU law.[/quote]
And yet the outcome is defined by political pressure. That's it in a nutshell, there needs to be no more justification than that.

China must be laughing behind the backs of the EU.

Whilst we are talking trade deals:

The EU Mercosur deal with South America which will mean further deforestation of the Amazon and putting indigenous tribes in danger in order that Germany can sell their cars and France can sell them Camembert and the EU in exchange will buy their beef (which is in plentiful supply within the EU anyway). Whilst at the same time the EU are championing their climate change policy.

Or the recently struck EU/Vietnam trade deal, a country that has one of the world's worst records on human rights. I guess what we really need is even cheaper tat and nevermind about the workers.

I don't want to be a part of that thanks.

Anyone who equates the EU with China, the USSR or N.Korea hasn't a clue

These are EU trade deals that have been signed in the last 18 months (although the Mercosur deal is yet to be ratified). How about the EU be the bigger person and stand up and say sort out your human rights and your environmental policies first and then we'll talk about a trade deal. It looks like they have just turned a blind eye for the big bucks.

China are accountable to no one, neither is Bolsonaro and probably not Vietnam either, these are dictatorships and the EU are being very naive if they think they have any say in how these countries do things. Nothing is going to change and the EU will carry on trading.

I'll get off my soapbox now

@Kendodd

If you I don't like how the money's being spent we can express our displeasure at the ballot box at the next GE.

I'm in my 50s, I've voted in every UK election and referendum since I came of age. Not one time has what I voted for won. I suspect I'll go my whole life (if I don't move to a marginal constituency) without my say counting. Ironically, the exception to this has been EU elections because of the different voting system. I had a voice in Europe, and even wrote to my MEP a couple of times about stuff. I live in a super safe seat, my MP doesn't even write back to me, (have received automated party HQ replies a couple of times, never an actual reply from my MP though) I have no voice in Westminster, just like much of the country.

None of this means your say doesn't count. It only means yours was a minority choice.

Well put heyhey . Good points.

None of this means your say doesn't count. It only means yours was a minority choice.

It also means none of the tsunami of shit the Tories and Brexit have unleashed on us is on me. Tory and Brexit voters can own the lot.

I see no "tsunami of shit". Shops still full, not hearing anything much about queues, nothing exciting in the City from the trade transfer, plenty of positive news in the FT and Times about the MoU for financial services and how the UK is happy to put that off to March. Good news on the vaccines because UK not under same political pressure as EU countries.

Feeling very concerned for Ireland now that they have the highest covid incidence and far too few vaccines though.

How about the EU be the bigger person and stand up and say sort out your human rights and your environmental policies first and then we'll talk about a trade deal. It looks like they have just turned a blind eye for the big bucks

Yes thats what countries do, its shameful but we do it too, the UK iseven after the HK fiasco, seeking a trade deal with China, our 6th biggest trading partner.
UK is currently seeking trade talks with Brazil.... no mention of the Amazon.... and it will happen, unlike the EU deal which won't.
www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-the-uk-brazil-jetco#:~:text=Brazil%20and%20the%20United%20Kingdom%20agree%20to%20work%20together%20towards,essential%20supplies%20to%20both%20countries.

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-brazil-to-boost-economic-relationship

Nothing in here suggesting that a possible U.K. trade deal with Brazil will have a destructive effect on the rainforest, it's more a finance deal. A Green Finance initiative is also mentioned, not sure that's going to be very fruitful.

When its the EU....You said sort out your human rights and your environmental policies first and then we'll talk about a trade deal. It looks like they have just turned a blind eye for the big bucks

When its the UK... its lets trade...and ignore your destruction of the amazon, we need the big bucks.

Double standards.

It's not double standards at all.

We are not buying beef from Brazil wholly unecessarily, meaning deforestation of the Amazon which will be needed for grazing land and all whilst stitching up farmers within the EU.

They should not be signing a trade deal on this basis, they need to take a stand but they won't and yes I do think it will be ratified.

www.politico.eu/article/eu-countries-corner-macron-on-mercosur-trade-deal/

I'm getting royally pissed of with this whole no criticism can be levelled at the EU and the standard remainer response being but but but..... U.K. U.K. U.K..... we don't even have deals with any of these countries yet. Look at what is actually happening not what might or might not. If you are fine with that good for you but I'm not.

I see no tsunami of shit either. Well I do, but that's all Covid related and none of us know if a different government could have fared any better through this unprecedented crisis, while managing the withdrawal from the EU at the same time.

I'm fully prepared for some shit. Anyone who ever though it would be plain sailing is a fool. You can't make an omelette without first breaking your eggs is something my MIL likes to say and that's a good analogy for Brexit. We will have to be very patient to see the real long term benefits but I have faith that we will see them.

In the meantime, I see no tsunami of shit, or even a small dump - yet.

Even the queues of trucks at Dover people tried DESPERATELY to pin on Brexit, saying that this was the vision of things to come. It wasn't. It was due to Covid and Macron closing the borders. (although admittedly that could be indirectly due to Brexit, panic over last minute movement of goods to beat any import taxes and Macron putting the thumbscrews on, but the fact is the utter chaos was due to a closed border at a busy time, not the extra paperwork Brexit would later bring.)

Ever since it's been open again it's been remarkably free moving given that we could always have expected some inevitable slowing due to extra border checks and teething problems.

But next time Operation Stack is triggered, just watch it be blamed on Brexit and words like 'fiasco' and 'chaos' and 'we told you so' will be used. Despite the fact that Operation Stack has been triggered at busy times since 1988 and had its busiest year in 2015, when an EU referendum was still a sparkle in Leavers' eyes.

UK along with most of the developed world (ie us) is complicite in the destruction of the rainforest, from wood to manufacturing to food inc meat, we trade with countries who actively set out to destroy the environment and trash human rights, with or without a trade deal, which we are in fact seeking anyway, with no nod to the amazon.

The Mercosur deal has been in negotiation for 20 plus years, years in which the UK played a leading part, if our Govts were so interested in the Amazon and our farmers, they'd have scuppered it long ago.
From memory, the UK has always tried to block higher EU environmental standards or got itself an opt out.

Personally, i hope the Mercosur deal is vetoed by France & plenty others, i also wish FTA's were tied to higher env & hr standards but unlike you, i think the UK is no better, perhaps worse in its haste to seek replacement deals for the ones we've lost.

We will have to be very patient to see the real long term benefits but I have faith that we will see them

I was initially going to vote Leave but once i looked into the various arguments of both sides, i was always struck that Leave always used words/phrases like "Believe, hope, in time, feel..." and yes Faith!

Plenty wrong with the EU, its just a pity we didn't use our influence and input to change it from within but we've never been fully committed to the idea of the EU as a trading bloc let alone increasing coop.

Perhaps the real benefits of Brexit will be for the EU?