What Brexit consequences are you dealing with not covered in the press?

[Scrunchy95]

We bought a (not inexpensive) wine fridge from Denmark online over a month ago, which we are told is stuck at the French border due to Brexit. Apparently, you can buy bacon from Denmark but not kitchen appliances.

We normally drive to Denmark once a year, it's 8-10 hours after an overnight ferry. We normally take a coolbox and stop for a picnic/snacks en route. I'm coeliac so it's not always straightforward to find something on the road. No dairy or meat products allowed now so that journey is going to suck even more than usual.

Trying to find out if Brexit-related disruption to parcel services is going to affect my passport application (I'm applying from France).

If I'd anticipated this I'd have applied last year (passport has a 2022 expiry date before anyone comments about not leaving until last moment).

Also my neighbour just came round because he's trying to order a £2 (tiny, plastic) spare part from the U.K. and being quoted a ridiculous sum for delivery to France. So we're going to try getting it delivered to my mum and she'll then send it by letter post concealed in an envelope full of paper, to get round customs rules.

None at the moment

Also not covered in the U.K. press is the nightmare that Britons in France are having converting their driving licences, which become illegal at the end of 2021.

@Mistigri

Also not covered in the U.K. press is the nightmare that Britons in France are having converting their driving licences, which become illegal at the end of 2021.

Yup, LeClerc is having that problem.

LQ - is Leclerc on the Facebook group for swapping U.K. to French licences? Amazing source of information and the group is run very professionally and efficiently by a woman who is very knowledgable and connected.

100% disenfranchisement until the government abolishes the 15-year rule.

Already had to exchange my driving licence (expense and hoops to jump through).

In process of getting a new permanent residence permit to replace the one I already held as an EU citizen (more expense and hoops to jump through).

Loss of full freedom of movement to neighbouring countries (taken for granted in this part of the world as we have 7 international borders within a few hours' drive).

Future visits to family and friends in UK will involve seperate queues at immigration for myself and my husband and children (one parent will always be in other queue, depending on direction of travel).

But hey, "sovereignty", "control" and a dark blue passport so I'm expected to be overjoyed. I've had the whole sorry mess up to here.

@Mistigri

LQ - is Leclerc on the Facebook group for swapping U.K. to French licences? Amazing source of information and the group is run very professionally and efficiently by a woman who is very knowledgable and connected.

He's not but his daughter is .... I'll let him know.

He's not but his daughter is .... I'll let him know.

@ListeningQuietly the group is called Applying for a French licence and it is run by an awesome and scarily efficient woman called Kim. (I am nothing to do with this group - we have had our FR licences for decades - but it was recommended to me for a friend. Best expat help group on Facebook bar none).

TBH he lurks on the board so much I suspect he's seen it :-)

DS sent for his passport early for exactly that reason. He now has one of those what I call "traitors" blue passports.

BTW - they really are the same shade of blue as the old UK ones used to be i.e. a very very dark navy.

Young relatives in the Czech Republic are having difficulties finding jobs to replace the ones they lost due to covid. Nobody is in a hurry to employ the British workers at the moment (maybe at all) It was hard enough for them with lockdown, and now this
Yes we all voted Remain, and we knew it was coming, but it's still come as a shock.

The rise of casual racism

Subtle racism

We run an online business and our EU market is gone. That's 30% of our turnover gone overnight. We are now in the process of moving half of the business to the EU.

Personally, we are waiting for an EU citizenship to come through. This is mainly for the kids as an option when they grow up as I suspect that we will still stay in the UK. If I had a choice, I would probably choose to live in Norn Iron.

I buy a complimentary medicine from France - they no longer ship to the U.K. I also have poor skin due to long term fentanyl use, had finally got under control thanks to a cream I could again only purchase from France. Will no longer ship here.

I’m trying, with difficulty, to book an appointment to have my biometric features recorded so I can stay living where I have lived for the last 7 years. Also paying £149 in costs to receive Xmas parcels sent too late.

Ordered marzipan-flavoured tea. Alas, it's from Germany. Supplier has just told me they're not sure when, or if, they'll be able to supply it again.

I guess it's such a small, niche thing - and they're a small supplier - it's not worth the paperwork.

Bike parts, there are companies that refuse to sell to U.K. as the bureaucracy has increased 10 fold with companies abroad expected to collect tax for HMRC in U.K. - so they just refuse to sell to U.K. customers...they have the rest of the world to sell to so no biggy there end

Also shipping bikes abroad has trebled in price

www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021

The changes are here, I can’t say I blame overseas sellers

Surprisingly none whatsoever.

There's are things I can't order from France that I normally would - food, clothes. I don't know if UK service is gone for good or it's temporary.

Luckily I knew this was coming and stocked up enough to last until my next visit.

My sister hasn't gotten around to buying her niece a Christmas present because she left it too late and she reckons she'll have to pay tax on it. We live in the eu. Thet live in the uk. As most of my family think similarly, i doubt dd will get birthday presents from my family this year (again?).

@Yogatomorrow - why can't she order online from an EU shop and have it shipped directly to her?
That way, there will be no UK - EU transport which is completely shitty right now. I sent a parcel to family in the EU before Christmas and it got lost in the tragedy that's the Brexit impact on lorries. So pissed off.
For me, I'm no longer shopping with UK companies. Used to like River Island and Cath Kidston but that's gone now, not worth the hassle. Will be H&M, Zara etc. from now on. I also hope that the EU companies will stop using the UK as a hub and use France or Germany. UK is right now just a total waste of time and space between Ireland and the EU. I also hope to see more Irish goods in the supermarket, Tesco was particularly bad for selling lots of UK produce, even stuff like cheese and meat etc. This is a great opportunity for Irish companies to thrive. Wonder what will become of M&S, they were very expensive already. Some stuff was good but can be easily replaced by Irish or EU based stuff. I also ditched our UK based supplier of dog food and finally found myself an Irish based one, that was pure laziness from my side originally as it was so easy. I'm pretty sure they have plenty of customers left, even though they don't ship to Ireland anymore, even though they were pretty expensive so I wonder how their prices will go up.
I am pretty sure UK companies will thrive despite all that and I wish them all the luck with their local market. It's a great opportunity for the British to eat local food instead of imported one.

Shipping from EU to UK has more than tripled. And that's before I get charged VAT and whatnot on the Christmas and birthday presents we are being sent for my son (in part because my relatives don't understand what it means to ship to a non-EU country).

I spent 55 euros in beauty products from the UK* (I'm in Italy). After literally hours spent filling in multiple forms and several phone calls, I got charged 40 euros for "cross border sanitary procedures" and 27 euros for customs fees.

*according to the website, the goods were meant to have been shipped from the EU. This turned out not to be true.