To ask what has improved since leaving the EU?

[Butterflyfluff]

I’ve just had to pay customs charges on something I ordered from Germany - whilst we were in the EU there were no such charges.

Which got me thinking.

Leaving hasn’t been the disaster some predicted but, I can’t think of anything that affects me that’s actually improved since leaving.

What have other people’s upsides been? (And just being able to say we’re not in the EU anymore doesn’t count! 😂)

I'm not replying to anyone that uses the c word.

Apart from increasing the chances of the UK breaking up?

Absolutely nothing.

"Also when women in Scotland wake up to how misogynistic the SNP and greens are"

Hasn't stopped millions voting for the tories, has it.

But they were still taking up houses which is why we have a housing shortage and high rents

Lol. No.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

I'm not replying to anyone that uses the c word.

Yeah, it's so much worse than suggesting that old people should die in their own shit.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

But if no one wants to do the jobs then we will have to think of alternatives.

The problem with having unlimited immigration from the EU was that we didn't have to adapt

But we haven’t adapted - that’s too much like hard work - stuff just isn’t getting done now

How is that progress?

Wages. Even us remainer as have to acknowledge the simple fact that wages have gone up because of labour shortage. If you don’t, then you are not capable of reasoned debate

Which can be seen as one reason for the high inflation rate. And of course covid-19 & the overall state of the world economy
So nope, we are not benefiting from higher wages at all.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

We can't spend billions of pounds caring for old people. Its not fair on the younger generation

You bloody what?

You know that the "younger generation" generally want to see their parents etc living a bit past 60?

@ILoveAllRainbowsx

Most people are in favour of assisted dying.

As am I, but people shouldn't feel forced in to it, which they will if there is no care available to them. And it'll also cost public money, because otherwise it's only available to the wealthy, but public money would still be needed to care for those who can't afford to kill themselves off

I genuinely believe being in the EU benefitted very few people

You are entitled to that opinion, but it’s clear from this thread that leaving has benefitted even less.

And has actually had a detrimental impact on things that we didn’t necessarily consider a benefit, but just took for granted.

Hopefully when we have a real care crisis people will realise the assisted dying is very important

I’m in favour of assisted dying but if major change comes about because we can’t provide a decent standard of care that’s perfectly possible I won’t be. That’s sick.

There’s a whacking great canyon between assisted dying implemented to ease the suffering of someone who will almost certainly die in the near future to bumping people off because they’re not capable of looking after themselves without support.

I can't think of much.

But, I disagree about the vaccine rollout. We did a much much better job than the EU. They made some stonking mistakes and some of ursula von der leyen comments were cringeworthy.

Wow.

So according to @ILoveAllRainbowsx, one of the benefits of Brexit will be that we will start "adapting" to our ageing population by euthanasing the old and sick, rather than caring for them.

The values gap is even wider than I thought. I had no idea that people would go so far in order to try and limit immigration. It's really quite chilling.

@Oblomov22

I can't think of much.

But, I disagree about the vaccine rollout. We did a much much better job than the EU. They made some stonking mistakes and some of ursula von der leyen comments were cringeworthy.

God you are incredibly incorrect. I'm embarrassed for you.

@Butterflyfluff

So you are saying we should have stayed in the EU to get all those foreigners to do the shitty low paid jobs that Brits don’t want to do?

No, I’m saying that those jobs aren’t being done now because British people won’t do them so leaving the EU means we can’t fill the roles.

Not all jobs are glamorous - it’s a question of whether doing these roles is better than the alternative

And why won't British people do them? I'd imagine because the employers don't want to change the shitty pay and shitty working conditions that they could get away with when they had loads of east Europeans to exploit.

I can see this potentially going three ways:

1. They improve wages and conditions so that more people are inclined to do the job. Inflation goes up temporarily to compensate, but then once food prices settle at a new higer level it goes down again. More people in the UK are employed (and pay tax and spend it here, rather than sending it home), less people from 'low cost countries' are exploited and we end up paying a realistic price for food.

1. They keep the conditions the same and the government start pressuring people to do it under the same shitty pay and conditions by threatening to remove benefits if you don't do it - particularly if you're young and have limited options and they decide that it's reasonable for you to go and live in a caravan in East Anglia for the summer.

1. The government decide that it's an emergency and try and persuade all the foreign workers to come back. Any potential positive from Brexit for the ordinary person is removed and the only ones who end up benefiting are those at the top who will strip out the working protections we had when we were EU members so that they can work our children to death to pay for an extra wing on their mansions.

My bet is on 2 or, more likely, 3.

@FatFredsFriedEgg

Are you in recruitment? Thought not.

[quote sst1234]@FatFredsFriedEgg

Are you in recruitment? Thought not.[/quote]
I'm an employer.

@BearOfEasttown

It's a bit of a hard question, because we had COVID immediately after leaving the EU, so life has been hard because of that. So we are NEVER going to know what it would have been like with just leaving the EU. All the shit going down - like energy and petrol prices, and food prices going up, is nothing to do with Brexit. This is a GLOBAL issue. So anyone blaming Brexit is being ridiculous.

But (in my opinion,) regarding leaving the EU.... Apart from a few extra customs rules, and getting used to having to have 3 months on your passport now when you travel to Europe, not much has changed.

I genuinely believe being in the EU benefitted very few people. Mostly the rich and privileged. So I am glad we are out! We save fuck-tons of money, and despite the EU (and a few remainers) trying every trick in the book to derail Brexit, and putting constant obstacles in our way afterwards, we are doing OK.

I also dread to think how the situation would have been with the covid vaccinations if the EU had been in charge. You can bet we would not have got the 100 million plus vaccines we had. The EU would have stopped that!!! If we'd still been with them.

I am glad we left. This is (predictably) turning into a Brexit-bashing thread, so this is my only post on here. I'm not getting into any pathetic arguments with butt-hurt remainers.

I voted remain but would prefer to hear arguments re positives than how these threads go with attacks etc

Because I want to move on and I voted years ago. I there are positives then by all means post, be better if people do debate it rather than sling insults (which yes usually happens)

@MongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLife - for me that was the crux of the problem with Brexit - there was nothing backing it up.

It’s all well and good thinking that all the foreign workers will go home but we did sod all in terms of thinking about how to deal with the consequences of that

And you’re probably right, we’ll end up with option 3, because certainly option 1, is too much effort.

So we’re in a situation where we have none of the benefits of being in the EU, and still many of the things that’s people voted to avoid.

Oooo we are allowed 6 litres of spirits in Duty Free. And 18 litres of wine.🤣

Nope...hang on, I used to be able to bring in more or less what I liked as long as for personal use.

Got nothing then.🤷‍♀️

Nothing...

The care sector needs adjustment people in universal credit struggle because employers report wrong they lump in the fuel allowance with the wages and you lose more money because its classed as "wages" when it's not no-one can afford to run there cars to do the job the people in the offices are crazy with the rota eg carer 1 lives in town A carer 2 in town B carer 1 given calls in town B carer 2 in town A they are not given calls together so they are crossing the whole time dashing from a to b there was no joined up thinking at all then wondered why staff retention was an issue

10 pages in and nobody's mentioned their idea of a 'benefit' that isn't actually based on ignorance.

Yeah, the trade deals with the US are going to be stymied unless the GFA gets protection.

The State Department et al. are incredibly proud of it and think of themselves as a partner and interested party.

States with heavy Irish-American populations remain invested, at least in theory. Reps from those states are lobbied heavily and unlikely to do anything to disrupt. It's also a rare place where Democrats and Republicans agree; last year the Senate passed a unanimous, bipartisan statement of support for the GFA.

And maybe this would have been possible under Trump, who didn't give a shit about it. But Biden cares a lot. Partly because he sees himself as a statesman, but also because he helped to push for the GFA when in the Senate. And of course because he himself is Irish-American and cares deeply about his Irish heritage.

All of which is to say, the US is going to put the screws to the UK on two fronts: one just pure capitalism of trying to get the best possible deal (and the UK is significantly weaker in negotiations than it was as part of the EU) and one politically around the GFA.

I think most people who can think of benefits of Brexit will not bother posting on here, because the vitriol rains down on them and all their points are ignored anyway. So OP, you won’t get an answer. Not that you wanted one anyway.
I’ll ask if this thread can be moved to the Brexit forum.