Is it time to move on positively after Brexit?

[TheReluctantPhoenix]

The following article appeared in the Times today (hopefully the share token has worked properly)::

The pain of Brexit isn’t as bad as I’d feared

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-pain-of-brexit-isnt-as-bad-as-id-feared-9n58bgcs5

This is written by the Britain editor of the Economist, one of the most ardent pro EU journals.

In it, inter alia, Emma Duncan admits that a mere 7,600 financial service jobs have moved from London to another European capital because of Brexit and that the BOE is now forecasting a post COVID bounce back of 7.25% to our GDP.

Of course, the article has many caveats about what might yet happen, but also some explanation as to why the U.K. might be far more resilient than she (and most ardent remainers) feared.

Don’t make silly assumptions.

That’s a bit rich given your comments to Peregrina.

It seems a little dappy to be saying 4 months in, mid COVID lockdown. it’s not turned out as bad as you feared.

Be superficially chirpy if you like, but why are you invested in what others think?

@LindainLockdown

Feeling angry for the rest of your life is a shit way to live, I wanted to remain, we lost, we need to adapt and move on.

I agree. I was a remainer, very upset at the time. I’ve made peace with Brexit and I’m trying to be positive for myself and my children. Previous threads saying life will be worse in future aren’t helpful for the younger generation. They need positivity and an attitude of adaptability looking forward.

I do believe in the concept of the nation state, though. This is a concept that the ‘citizens of everywhere’ literally do not understand.

Who are "citizens of nowhere"?
How do you know that every single one of these people literally does not understand the concept of the nation state? That's quite a skill set you have there.

Given the tenor of your remarks it was perfectly reasonable of me to assume that you were a Brexiter.

You could have stated at the beginning that you were a reluctant remainer, but for you this [whatever] had been the way forward. Have others found it the same? But you didn't say that.

You are saying that you have family abroad, so do I, but you don't expect to make much difference. You are not saying, as the Brexiters did, that it would make life easier. I am quite sure that Brexit has made life significantly more difficult for one of my children because of the lack of FoM. It's extremely annoying and we have no choice but to live with it and make the best of it, but I fail to see why the Brexiters should be let off the hook.

Previous threads saying life will be worse in future aren’t helpful for the younger generation.

But we are not saying that. We are saying where are the bonuses? So far it's all "it's not as bad" or "the EU is doing worse."

Things like the silly non full accreditation of the EU Ambassador were ill mannered and petulant, and don't enhance the nation's credibility. Soft diplomacy does matter.

I was a Remainer who campaigned for a second referendum, and even I now think we now have to accept that Brexit is reality, it isn’t going to be reversed in my lifetime, and we have no choice but to be pragmatic and make the best of a bad job.

Hopefully, at some point in the future, we will have some sort of non-Tory government which can renegotiate our agreements with the EU to increase cooperation for everyone’s benefit.

I suspect I will move on from Brexit with the same grace and generosity that Brexiteers showed our membership of the EU. For decades.

I fail to see why the Brexiters should be let off the hook.

Quite. Why the desperation not to count the cost or hold Brexiters to account?

Every single downside should be highlighted and addressed.

Brexiters need to own it.

I’m not going to fight it anymore, but I won’t get behind it.

For me, you move on in part by fighting for what you believe in.

In 2014 I took the DC out of school and went round EU countries for 5 months in a campervan. I met a British couple who had been travelling in a converted bus in France for a year. I had ambitions to do it again when the DC leave home but those trips wouldn't be possible now with the 3-month limit. I've lived and worked in the EU, my daughter was born in France- no longer possible for me. So if it hasn't affected you personally in your little life in which you just go for your 2 weeks every so often, well congratulations. I've moved on all right- I've disengaged from this country and I no longer really care what happens in it, I watch it from what feels like some distance. It's going to be mildly amusing to watch Boris try to please the Red Wall and Rees-Mogg all at once, but I don't much care about the outcome. Bust up of the UK? Inevitable I think. Bring it on. Or not. Whatever. Don't care. Although Boris doesn't seem too keen on Take Back Control if it's coming from outside England. Privatised NHS, starved of funds, no £350 million a week in sight because there's no money? It's the Will of the People. Brilliant NHS because it turns out the Brexit streets really were paved in gold [for Boris' buddies]? Great, congratulations. I still can't go anywhere else to live. My kids have other passports so they have choices. I only really care about the environment now, because if there's no planet to live on, then all other arguments are pointless. But the UK? Whatever.

Privatised NHS, starved of funds, no £350 million a week in sight because there's no money?

Yes and this annoys me about the Crony led Tory party. I am retired now, I worked for 40 years, I still pay tax on my pension. This is my money that has been bunged to your cronies, who with the one exception of Kate Bingham have spectacularly failed to deliver the goods. Too right they need to be held to account.

Yet Johnson won the last election so I assume that other taxpayers are perfectly happy with it. The Tories didn't win my seat, so I know I am not alone locally.

Yes, I need to move on. I move on by harnessing that anger.

I can "move on" positively by campaigning for Scottish independence and then rejoining the EU

I don't think that that is quite the sort of apathetic acceptance "moving on" that the OP is expecting pro-EU citizens of everywhere UK voters to do

And yes, I do literally know what a nation state is And the examples that the OP provided just prove yet again that "nation states" still had sovereignty, as members of the EU

To answer the OP: I personally find it hard to move on. I live in the eu. My professional qualifications are worthless, my UK pension will be taxed at an eye-watering rate, I have to retake my driving test, we will have to pay thousands if we ever need to move back to the UK (if allowed - dh is a low earner) and we have to pay at least a tenner to collect every birthday and Christmas present from British relatives (insult to injury).

So there have been huge personal costs, inconvenience and loss of freedoms for me and my family. But as well as that I am so sad that a minor issue prior to 2015 has created a poison divide in the uk. And for what? I really after all this time really don't understand why life needed to be up-ended. I suspect that was just to make a relatively few people much richer.

The stoicismen of some people just accepting brexit like bad weather at a bbq just baffles me. I feel like I and the country have been mugged (some more violently than others).

I see where the op is coming from though. Bitterness is corrosive. The problem is to "get on with it" needs shit loads of hard and skillful work by the government. Just to get back to where the uk was (economy, etc). And this government has neither the competence or motivation. That's why we are here.

60% of businesses report negative Brexit impacts.
Rights to travel and move have been permanently lost.

I think reality is reality.

I do think we have to work together to make the country better but fir the most part it's too early to tell and in many ways Covid has hidden the impacts.

Furlough has cushioned the blow and FoM hasn't been a thing whilst people have been in lockdown. Fishing has been code for International Relations and the likely outcome is we are diminished as a country both literally and figuratively.

I think this is probably a necessary part of our journey as a country, we've been smug and not really looked at the reality of a country with such little inward investment and equality.

@TheReluctantPhoenix

I have, however, ‘moved on’. Brexit has made minimal difference to me personally. I have family in France and intend to visit as often as I did before.

Though of course now, post Brexit, a British passport holders visits will be restricted by either having to comply with the 90/180 Schengen limitation or pay for a Visa.

I think the union will break up in the not too distant future.
I think most people don't care.
This government encourages selfishness. Fair enough don't expect people to "Do the right thing" when you don't do it yourself. Another wave of covid resulting in lock down won't be tolerated.

I do think we have to work together to make the country better

Why? I’ve worked hard my whole life. I am not lifting a finger to help a country that shot itself in the head. The Brexiters can sort the shit out that they created.

Our 10 year plan is to move to Europe once our youngest has finished education. DH will be 60 at that point and can take ‘early’ retirement from medicine, altho he will still work, just not in his current role.

Many of us did feel that we were working hard to make the country better, just to see a small clique of Tories wreck it for their own ends.

What do you mean by "I do think we have to work hard to make the country better."

Wasn’t Brexit was supposed to ‘make the country better’?

@Onlinedilema

What do you mean by "I do think we have to work hard to make the country better."

At a guess: You have to work hard o make the country better ....

No actually I don't mean 'you' , I mean 'we' or more specifically 'me'. If youcread the rest of the post you will realise that I don't think brexit is great.

And I doubt that I will have the option to relocate as I'm tied here for many reasons. So my choices are try and make it better or be miserable. But I'm buoyed by being an area of the country that got rid of both its Tory council and Mayor.

Currently, we are doing pretty well, and certainly better than the Eurozone. @Peregrina, if we get to where we were by year end, in the middle of a global pandemic, that would actually be pretty remarkable.

We're really not. If you use your simple measures you can get statistics to say that GDP growth is better in the UK this year, but as the fall last year was far, far worse, it's not saying what you think it is.

By the impact on peoples lives, we're suffering. And I don't see any signs of it improving.