I can’t disagree that the Tories totally fucked-up pretty much everything they touched and it rather hung itself over immigration. Labour are continuing in a similar vein.
The LSE concluded that at present the effects have been more limited. That doesn’t make some of those figures irrelevant or “half-baked”. It’s worth noting that much of the data available doesn’t take into consideration the increase in border checks on goods that has only recently come into effect for imported goods. We can waste £50bn without Brexit, it’s a piss in the ocean for the UK Government and our already leaky economy.
Could you pluck out 12 economic bulletpoints, indicators that show that, on-balance, Brexit has had a net positive effect on the UK and the people of the UK? I had an open mind ready to be convinced leaving was a good idea in 2016 so I wasn’t a hard-line Remainer at the time.
On a personal note, Brexit has had a profound effect on me and those effects drove me to consider suicide, so forgive me if I’m a bit spikey on this subject.
My constituency voted for Brexit, now our University, ports, manufacturing businesses and even the insurance offices are laying staff off, meanwhile our farmers can’t get crops picked because they can’t get cheap EU labour or pay UK wages for UK staff. I know an out-of-work Professor who is doing manual labour on a cash-in-hand basis in order pay his ever increasing bills.
My neighbour made his living touring Europe with a band every summer. Now it’s too costly and there’s so much paperwork that they’ve stopped touring, sales of albums in the EU are down as a result. Slow, knock-on effects that are yet to be truly quantified.
Each area of England will have similar issues that effect of which are far too nuanced to be included in 12 bullet points.
Let’s revisit this in 2030 when we’ll have had 6 years of a true “Hard Brexit” and we can’t blame Covid for anything anymore.
It has been a massive failure for the main reason these types wanted it - immigration.
All you did was replaced immigration from France, Spain, Portugal, Czechia, Poland - people with similar cultures - to now being bent over the barrel by the likes of India, and now you have hordes coming from wildly different cultures.
If you were pissed about the smaller relative amount of foreign immigration before, check now after Brexit.
Idiotic, and it was pointed out back then as well tbf.
But I guess not too widely as immigration is always a touchy subject on all sides, I think a straightforward discussion on that is difficult.
A mate of mine voted Brexit because “illegal immigrants”, he moved down to the East Sussex coast to make finding a property and a job in France easier. That was in 2011, now he’s moaning that he can’t move to or work in France because we no longer have freedom of movement.
I suspect there are millions who expect every country in the world to welcome us Brits and speak our language while being utter pricks about foreigners coming here.
A lot of the people I know that voted for Brexit are the same people shouting the loudest about how it’s made things more expensive.
Maybe they shouldn’t have been so gullible to believe the promises made on the side of a bus or the lies that they were told by Rees Mogg, Farage and Boris.
Brexit has been a complete failure. There is no metric available that shows as a country that we are better off after leaving the EU. If anything the impact of Brexit has been hidden partially by Covid and by the impact of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Without the impacts of these, the economic impact would have been much more obvious.
It is complete nonsense to suggest that Brexit has been positive. Brexit was built on lies and prejudice and was not in the best interest of the UK. I live in hope that the day will come when it will be reversed.
That kind of information is out there already, I don’t see the value in me regurgitating it here tbh. Obviously, like how I have an issue with the Independent, I’m sure you’ll have doubts about data presented by pro brexit outlets reporting on subjective “benefits”.
I’ve always said measuring the impact of brexit cannot be reduced to binary pro and cons especially if we’re having a discussion about complex things like international trade, regulation or wider economic performance. Its also not a discussion that can be reasonably had with very limited short term data.
If people want to acknowledgement that the period following the withdrawal has not been advantageous/beneficial to the UK, then OK fair enough any reasonable person would concede that. No one ever said there would be no impact and detriment to the UK following departure of a political and economic union.
Even then context is required because its an objective fact that the impact of leaving is not as severe as original projected and the scope for the UK to level up outside of the EU is more than viable.
I think primary issue the UK faces are not tied to Brexit at all. There’s so much we can do with deregulation and planning reform that would turbo charge growth, Labour have made some good noises on that, lets see if they execute
I think alot of people need to drop the reductive view on the impact of Brexit and see thing in a more fluid way.
I’m all for people (even slum landlord bullies like Alan Sugar) to admit they were wrong about Brexit. For the Daily Mail to publish it is quite amazing.
“Surrender” or fiscal pragmatism? That Union Flag in the front garden is a symbol of the far-right now. Isolation, arrogance and cowardliness in the face of anything “un-British” (usually a nod towards non-whites and different cultures).
We’re not an empire anymore. We’re a tiny island on the edge of a huge trade block which we could have stayed within even if we left the EU and we opted out. Even cunts like Sugar are making good points about it.
You don’t think suggestion of returning to the EU on bended knee is a bit ridiculous, even if you’re inclined towards a pro eu position?
Fiscal pragmatism is an interesting concept, not entirely sure its through EU membership though. I’m open to a honest discussion about it but since our departure our economic performance as nation has been similar or better than France or Germany by most indicators.
We had the fastest growing economy in the G7 since covid with exports for both goods and services increasing every year, and that’s occured under an incompetent Tory government with high levels of taxation AND without FTA with major economies like china, India, Russia or the USA. There’s clearly scope for more global harmonisation of tariff free trade and growth as a direct by product.
I’m not sure accepting the flaws of EU political membership is worth a relatively small boost in goods exports, particularly when we know trade generally naturally evolves towards knocking down barriers.
It’s important to note that when we were in, we were a net contributor with a economy based on services and apart of the fiscally minded northern European nations.
Thats just trade, its hard to put a £ value on areas like state aid/subsidises or regulatory divergence as these are long term plays.
If the Prime Minister told me to go to Brussels and kiss the feet of everyone in the EU parliament and say “Sorry, we made a mistake”, I’d do it.
Your premise is that there’s weakness in admitting mistakes. You’re wrong, it takes enormous strength to admit your mistakes.
I’m not in anyway suggesting full EU membership is possible or pragmatic. It’s more nuanced than simply looking at imports and exports, supply chains have been decimated.
As you may have read, the subsidies given to farmers and the UK fishing fleet by the EU have had a negative effect on production, prices and employment.
It’s fair to point out the EU’s flaws, but boy do they look like small feed compared to the UK government’s failures over the last 15 years.
The biggest hit has been the loss of freedom of movement within the EU. We’re struggling to fill low-paid posts, kids can’t dream of moving to the EU to work and experience new cultures. People with chronic illnesses like mine can’t improve their quality of life and move to where it’s milder and still claim our pension and get free healthcare.
I don’t care if some think it’s weak of the UK to admit that Brexit has had no positive effects on the quality of life of normal people in the UK. Unless you can convince me otherwise.
And the immigration thing. If anyone supported Brexit because they don’t like foreigners, different cultures or were falling for the narrative that millions were trying to get into the UK illegally, well, they are the biggest cowards.
