Brexit

[PerkyLady]

Hello.
Maybe some of you will consider this a fresh topic, but I'm interested in it nevertheless.
Did you vote for or against Brexit?
And what were your reasons?
Stay well.

Name is familiar from another forum I follow, posting the same stuff on same subject.

Just a coincidence though.

Plenty of folk with passion for a subject appear to have a cut and paste file. So maybe they cut and paste each others ?

@Talkinpeace

has successfully destroyed another thread that could have been interesting

The OP question has been asked and answered many times. In the same way as benefits of Brexit has been asked and answered many times.

So, what could be interesting about the same questions over and over for an event that will soon be 10 years ago?

Benefits of brexit has been answered many times ?

I must have missed that.

@RedTagAlan

Benefits of brexit has been answered many times ?
I must have missed that.

If you use the search function on MN you will find many threads both on the AIBU and Brexit sections. As an example to get you started, there was a thread titled One Positive of Brexit started in December 2023 I remember.

I will always be a remainer. Maybe a remoaner!

I thought Brexit would be a massive act of economic self harm and that’s clearly turned out to be the case. I’m late 40s. What I find most horrifying is that is my kids will be far more affected by this calamity than me and others who actually voted for it. Though I take some comfort in the fact that in their lifetimes, it might get reversed

@RedTagAlan And they're just as convincing as you'd expect...

I voted remain. I hold Farage totally responsible for the mess it left. Everyone focused on immigration, yet the reality is we’ve gone through many governments and none have been able to stop it. And yet this man, who damaged the economy so badly, seems certain to win the next election. I really do worry what that will mean for us.

I have read many threads on many forums on this, and I have yet to see any real benefits explained. The closest we got was Trump's tariffs againt the EU that we escaped, for a while.

So, for the sake of brevity, can you just name the biggest benefit of brexit, To save me from trawling through hundreds more pages, as I seek the Holy Grail answer.

Just one. Should only take half a mo to post,

Don't you have it on cut and paste ?

rather than blaming Farage himself, I blame the media for pandering to his right wing nonsense. When he wasn’t even an elected MP!

The lib dems have hugely more MPs in parliament than reform. Yet do the lib dems get 10 times as much attention from the media as reform? Of course not. Because they’re not anywhere near controversial enough so they won’t make headlines. It’s a total disgrace.

I also blame Cameron for the referendum. Such important questions shouldn’t be put to a largely ignorant electorate. He took a massive gamble and assumed he’d win. Of course it took him five minutes after the vote to quit and mosey off into the sunset without taking any responsibility for the mess he left.

@RedTagAlan

So, for the sake of brevity, can you just name the biggest benefit of brexit, To save me from trawling through hundreds more pages, as I seek the Holy Grail answer..

You are the one looking for the benefits people have posted in the past, not me. I have explained where to find them.

As to which is the biggest benefit, there is no single answer as it will vary from one person to another.

You could start another thread, but remember that there have been many already. So, you may not receive many responses.

In other words, "no, I can't"...

I voted remain

I believed the EU was a force for good in the world overall. Not perfect, but better to be inside than outside.

@Clearinguptheclutter

Leaving the EU came about by an act of parliament, before Farage became an MP, as opposed to the 2016 referendum. So, I can’t work out why people blame the referendum.

Right about Cameron though. He had no plan for a leave result because he believed the polls that forecast a remain victory.

The Liberal Democrat’s having more MPs than reform is an example of how the FPTP system does not reflect the actual votes. Reform received almost 700,000 votes more than the Liberal Democrat’s, but due to FPTP they have 70 seats compared to reforms 5 seats.

For Labour, it’s even more skewed. They doubled their number of seats, but received fewer votes than in 2019.

So as @MaybeNotBob said, you cant' simply state one benefit ?

And when you say this: "As to which is the biggest benefit, there is no single answer as it will vary from one person to another", did you not dwell a bit before you posted that ?

You can't name a single one line universally accepted benefit ? And that's before any semantics of how to define universal.

@RedTagAlan

So as MaybeNotBob said, you cant' simply state one benefit ?

I can state the benefits to myself as follows:

Paid in Euros. So, I receive more £’s than before.

Since Brexit, UK citizens can spend a maximum of 90 days per 180 in the Schengen area. So, I now work on a hybrid basis. Two or three days maximum per week in clients’ offices for maximum 45 weeks per year.

Clients happy too as its costs them less on accommodation and travel expenses when I am in their country.

Stamps in passport make it easier for me to demonstrate to the HMRC I am in the UK for less than 91 days per year. Previously, I had to provide; ticket, boarding passes and receipts for accommodation.

Duty free is now super cheap in the EU if your destination is outside the EU.

You can't name a single one line universally accepted benefit ?

Correct. Reason is that there will never be an outcome of an election or referendum that pleases everyone. Those in the service sector may say the TCA is the biggest benefit. Those who export to the US may say tariffs are the biggest benefit. Some may say the biggest benefit is that the majority got what they voted for - to leave the EU

Also, to provide a universal benefit would require knowledge of what 10s of millions of people are thinking. Not possible.

I voted remain and would definitely do so again.

Brexshit was the single biggest act of self harm that this country has ever committed, enacted based on the results of a supposedly non-binding referendum.

I would be totally behind any proposal to rejoin, even though we would be very unlikely to get back the favourable terms we threw away by voting for Brexshit.

Leavers are so stubborn and ridiculous.

So that's a no, again.

Quoting you here: " Also, to provide a universal benefit would require knowledge of what 10s of millions of people are thinking. Not possible."

I don't think you personally need to know what everyone is thinking. Poll companies deal with that detail. Just post a poll. Or an article summarizing a poll.

Here is an article about poll results I just found.

Backing for Brexit hits new low - with FEWER than 3 in 10 voters supporting it (thelondoneconomic.com)

This is pretty much up to date.

Did you notice that all the Brexit benefits it could come up with were specific to itself?

Not that Brexiteers can't see beyond the end of their own nose or anything...

Yeah, and TBH I am not going to research those specifics, cos they are far far far from universal.

This one tho, to quote @GlobeTrotter2000 : " Duty free is now super cheap in the EU if your destination is outside the EU."

I am not following this one at all. When we were in the EU, we got duty free when travelling to outside the EU.

So, um, the Brexit stan relies on Europe for their living? Not sure if that's hilarious or tragic.

Wait... is that you, Nige?

Yeah, its IP address is in Orban land

@MaybeNotBob

Did you notice that all the Brexit benefits it could come up with were specific to itself?

By definition, I can only say how I have benefited as I don’t know how 10s of millions are thinking. Do you know how the entire country is thinking?

@RedTagAlan

I am not going to research those specifics, cos they are far far far from universal.

Same reply as to Maybe above.

@user427654

So, um, the Brexit stan relies on Europe for their living?

I took up residency in Bulgaria in 2003 which was:

4 years before Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007
13 years before the referendum in 2016
14 years before the HOC vote in 2017
17 years before the UK left the EU in 2020

The project I currently work on is a chemical plant being built in Antwerp, Belgium, on before of the end user, INEOS which is a UK company.

So you are back to saying you don't know what 10s of millions think, rather than state a single benefit that is universally accepted as a benefit. The universal concept not being defined yet of course, but that's easy enough once the benefit is known.

Is there not even a poll you can link to ?

I have a poll. It's one of favourite GBeebies clips.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugrnftrSqgE

@RedTagAlan

rather than state a single benefit that is universally accepted as a benefit

It’s not possible, as why people chose to vote leave or remain can’t be known. Nor can it be identified who voted which way.

There will never be an outcome of a vote that pleases everyone. If everyone thought the same, voting would not be necessary. So, on that logic there will never be a universal benefit.

As for polls, based on their previous performance, I don’t consider them to be accurate. As TalkinPeace has pointed out previously, the only poll that counts is the ballot box where the entire electorate are asked to choose as opposed to a small sample of a few thousand.