Do you still think Brexit was a good idea?

[YouWillGetThere]

Sorry ask a really fiddly question, but I just wondered if I could ask what people think about Brexit, with hindsight?

I have no opinion, one way or the other, tbh.

I've really enjoyed reading so many calm, sensible, Mumsnet threads on politics in the last few weeks. The anonymity allows people to speak honestly about their views, and I've been so glad understand what people really think, and why they vote the way they do.

I would be so interested to hear what people think and feel about Brexit, now we've had a chance to see how the country has changed as a consequence of it.

I supported leave, but obviously the government has made a mess of it. I was naive to assume the government was serious about putting money into the NHS, I now think the plan was to destroy the NHS all along but they dangled it like a carrot. I stupidly imagined everyone would get decent healthcare and maybe even dental care and there’d be money for better aged care homes. I still don’t really understand why we can’t have those things. I feel that the government is so dysfunctional at the moment that a vote to stay in the EU would have been just as dismal but in different ways.

Actually I think loads of people would.
There is no price people wouldn't pay for Brexit, it's a cult.
Sadly I think it will be another five years before politicians can properly acknowledge the economic vandalism of Brexit and sensibly try to repair some damage. Leave voters will never change their minds but for the most part they are older and are dying off. I think this is what is swinging opinion polls to pro EU positions, Leave voters aren't changing their minds, they are dying and younger people are coming of age.

But the government never said the money ‘saved’ by brexit would go into the NHS. The people who said that were just a bunch of people, not elected officials. And there was a zillion billion fact checking sources confirming that there weren’t any savings to be had, it was made up.

And why can’t we have those things. Sigh. I mean, we could. Other countries do. The problem is we have had successive governments who haven’t invested in public infrastructure that now it would cost sooooo much just to get it back to a basic functioning level that any government is going to be terrified to spend as much as is needed. We’d have to be taxed until the pips squeaked. And Brexit has cost this country loads and loads of money so there’s even less to start that work.

I’m sorry you feel you were lied to but a simple google search at the time could have told you the people in power, who had the ability to deliver anything ALL said Brexit was a terrible idea, and the people who wanted it were just a bunch of random clowns with no power at all. Anyone can get a bus and print whatever rubbish they want on it, it doesn’t make it true, and if you believe that stuff, shame on you.

@Kendodd That is undoubtedly true of some.

My own parents voted for Brexit because people they trusted (Tory MPs mostly) said it would be a good thing for this country.

My parents are very patriotic. They wouldn't have knowingly voted to damage our economy, make it harder for British businesses to trade in Europe, take away jobs in industries like steel and car manufacture, make things harder for British farmers, increase immigration to record levels, or create skills shortages in the NHS and shortages of builders and vets etc.

They didn't know how it was all going to work but they trusted Tory MPs who said it would be booming Britain and all that.

A lot more of us would be dead from Covid if we had stayed in. We had the vaccine under our control and we all had it That would never had happened otherwise.

The anonymity allows people to speak honestly about their views

I don't think this is true. Too many people cry over others opinions and they are removed if they don't tow the line, instead of being allowed to stand as a difference of opinion.

That's what disgusts me about this site tbh. Any opinions that aren't the majority end up being censored and posters think they are being clever by crying victim and reporting anything that doesn't fall in line with their opinions, and having it removed but that just just shows immature patheticness to me tbh. And intolerance and fascism.

We were still in the EU during vaccine procurement.

We left the EU when the transition period ended on January 31st 2021.

I’m just going to leave this here…

https://x.com/clivewismayer/status/1802672370936643796?s=46&t=3jdYTQQp9l0wb2lBdAs_NQ

OMG!
I wonder if those people are embarressed to look so dumb.

Why not? I'm in Italy. My brother in the UK had his first vaccination just before I did. I had all the boosters before they were available to him. There was no big difference between the UK and EU - and in any case, Covid was before we actually left.

And I think some people deliberately refuse to acknowledge how much Brexit has cost (and is continuing to cost). It's actually quite gut-wrenching when you think what that could have been spent on.

Funny how those who admit to voting leave also refuse to engage in a discussion, to give their reasons for continuing to support their vote.

In / out? if I didn’t know I wouldn’t know.

Haven't noticed a single difference personally.

Hell no, it was a stupid idea. I voted remain and if there was referendum tomorrow, I'd vote to rejoin. Brexit has cost billions, and will cost billions more. It's been a disaster as many of us thought it would.

I kind of got the feeling that some of the things that annoyed people and made them want to vote leave were actually the fault of our government and not the fault of the EU.

For example I noticed that tradesmen round here were really annoyed that guys from Eastern Europe were coming and doing trades work here and sending money home, to places where they could buy houses much more cheaply.

Conversely, when I tried to apply for a permanent post as a scientist in Paris, I was told that the French government had made a rule that only French people could apply for those posts.

It made me think that perhaps the French government were being a bit more canny about protecting their citizens' employment rights, in spite of the freedom of movement laws. Conversely, our government seemed to be happy to throw us under a bus (no pun intended) in order to get better (healthier, brighter, better educated) people from overseas.

But that wasn't the EU's fault surely? I figured that must be our government's fault here, if France were doing it better.

Also I heard from someone that locals near here were struggling to get good healthcare in an area of high immigration because their surgery had had to use a lot of their budget to hire translators. But surely if they had high immigration and those people were working and paying tax, then the tax should have been paying for the translators shouldn't it? I'm not sure.

I would have thought that one advantage of Brexit would have been a house priced crash, which I reckon would help the younger generation, but we don't seem to have had one.

I usually think I'm quite bright, but the massive complexity of the EU debate, and all the lies and so on, really boggled my mind. Everyone I know is a remainer and so ardently so that they don't bother to explain why. The few leave voters I know are on very low wages and just want the healthier more active foreigners to go away. I don't think they understand the bigger picture.

Tbh I don't think I know anyone who fully understands both sides' point of view and how to help the leave voters to get a better life.

I keep wondering if everybody secretly now wants to rejoin, but I don't know enough leave voters to ask.

I voted remain.

Tbf I don't think it's particularly complicated to understand that being in a alliance with your closest neighbours is going to be way cheaper and easier than not.

@verdantverdure I think that's a very accurate post. And as a Tennant farmers wife, more so important.

The decimation of our local area and farms is incredible. I think people put a huge amount of faith in the position that many UK people were desperate for work. Where in actual fact, the seasonal type hard going positions were filled by people travelling. Same as many of our youngsters do when they head out to somewhere like Australia to work for a couple of months.

I voted to stay and I'd vote to go back if we could re vote. It's been a disaster ever since we left 🙈

I keep wondering if everybody secretly now wants to rejoin, but I don't know enough leave voters to ask.

Two of my friends voted Leave. One never talks about it now despite having been very vocal about Leave being a good thing at the time.

The other friend regrets her vote. She says she only voted as a protest against our government and didn't think we would really leave.

Both of them work in an international banking business that has made redundancies due to Brexit.

Does anybody know if the energy shortages in the winter last year were caused by brexit. (or was it the previous year? I have lost track of time.)

I only ask because one of my nice tradesman really had a hellish winter and I really don't think that was what he was voting for when he voted leave. But maybe it was nothing to do with Brexit. I have no idea.

I don't live in the UK.
I am not a UK citizen so I didn't have a vote.
How has it been so bad for the UK ?
Could someone please explain it to me.
Thank you in advance.

Well the shirt version is:

imagine you were part of the most successful trading bloc on Earth so not only did you have frictionless trade with everyone on your continent, you also had preferential trade deals with most of the rest of the world via deals negotiated by the aforementioned most successful trading bloc on Earth plus you were an influential member with plenty of say on policy and a veto.

And instead of that and that precious frictionless trade you chose to put up trade barriers costs and red tape against yourself.

Because you don't have enough staff or infrastructure for this, in the words of Tories Jacob Rees Mogg and Chris Grayling "we're not going to check the lorries".

And we don't. Check the lorries.

Our borders are wide open to anything.

And all the criminals know.

So disgusting meat and lorry loads of illegal immigrants come in all the time.

Also, Growth has plummeted, investment has plummeted, trade is down, SMEs are struggling, larger concerns had to open EU offices, everything's more expensive our food miles are crazy, and the standard of living of people living in the U.K. has dropped for the first time ever.

And it costs the country about £2billion a week to stay out.

Thank you @verdantverdure

I voted to remain.

I mean if you like the price hikes, I guess brexit was a good thing!

Had we not brexited, Starmer's plan to tax private education would be illegal.