[Politics] Brexit

[A1X]

We haven't "ended Freedom of Movement".

We've ended our Freedom of Movement.

 

[Garry Nelson's teacher]

Not my own words but it pretty much sums up what’s in that article….




Read the first page ("Our Achievements so far") and weep.

Ended free movement and taken back control of our borders.

And what a benefit that turned out to be.

Restored democratic control over our lawmaking.

Apparently, the EU parliament does not exist and neither do member state governments have any say in what the EU decides. Also it seems "Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh" are not that happy about being shut out of making these laws now that London has "taken back control".

Restored the UK Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the law that applies in the UK.

Except, of course, in Northern Ireland, any trade dispute with the EU, the Irish sea border, ... Also note the fact that they felt they had to specify that judgments are now (?) issued in English, not French, because the language in which the judges deliberate is far more important than the decisions they make. Not that it matters, of course, because the rule of law in the UK is somewhat shaky of late.

Made it tougher for EU criminals to enter the UK.

Except that it has now become much, much harder to determine who those criminals are, because the UK is shut out from various databases and cooperation agreements.

Ended the acceptance of ID cards for most EU nationals travelling to the UK.

That'll show those pesky tourists, coming over here booking our hotels and spending their money over here like they own the place.

Taken back control of our waters.

.. and dumped sewage in them.

Restored fair access to our welfare system.

"We ended the preferential treatment of EU migrants over non-EU migrants", which they could have done any time they wanted even in the EU. This only makes sense if they plan to take rights away from EU cititzens, rather than grant the same rights to other people as well.

Set our own tariff regime via the UK Global Tariff.

We made it easier for others to export to our market so that they now no longer need to negotiate a free trade agreement with us ... oh wait. In reality, of course, there was no significant change at all.

Committed £180 million to modernise and streamline our import and export controls by creating the Single Trade Window.

... to no apparent effect, as witnessed by the queues at the border, massive delays, reduction in trade volume, ... Unless that was the objective, of course.

Given UK regulators the ability and the resources to make sovereign decisions about globally significant mergers.

Sovereignty! We now choose to allow foreign interests to take over various strategic companies and utilities. It's a sovereign garage sale for private equity firms.

Launched and are undertaking reviews of the status and substance of retained EU law.

One would assume that you'd do this before leaving, but who am I to judge. AFAIK, Scotland and Wales are not all that happy about this either as they seem to think that a lot of these reviews should fall under devolved administrations' purview. Taking back control, I guess.

Reintroduced our iconic blue passports.

We need more benefits. Somebody find me a Brexit benefit!

Reviewing the EU ban on imperial markings and sales.

There was no such ban. Why not list a review on all the other things the EU never did to further pad out the list? "We reviewed the EU baby-eating mandate" I'm surprised prawn cocktail flavored crisps are not mentioned.

Enabling businesses to use a crown stamp symbol on pint glasses.

They could always have done so. They just didn't see why they should. I don't remember ever looking at the bottom of a glass and wondering about the stamp symbols

Honestly, I don't think anyone needs to read the rest. It's all mindless nationalism, some of it designed to play on xenophobia ("French"). I wonder who they are trying to reach with this, because they obviously think the audience is stupid and xenophobic enough to fall for what they're trying to pull. Do they think voters who fell for their rhetoric in 2016 routinely read policy documents? Will it make tabloid headlines when all these "points" have already been made and remade hundreds of times? Is it simply some red meat thrown to the radical Brexit MP's to drum up support for a failing government? Whatever it is, it is not a plan for a workable trade and economic policy.

Actually, do read on. The second page is equally ridiculous. Is it usual to consistently spell "Freeport" with a capital letter? Special mention goes to the chapter "Global Britain" which lists, among others, "carrier deployments to the Bay of Bengal" as a Brexit benefit. "Desperate" doesn't really cut it. This is a somewhat facetious post but I can just open the document on a random page and find yet more generic marketing spin full of platitudes and empty promises. Mocking it is probably the kindest thing you can do to it. This is advertising, not policy. One wonders who the target audience is supposed to be.

Many thanks for saving me from the bother of reading that utter crap!

 

[Randy McNob]

We haven't "ended Freedom of Movement".

We've ended our Freedom of Movement.

exactly, the surrender of personal freedoms in return for more authoritarian control, sold to the population as a benefit, with the reasoning being nationalism.

that's facism

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

We haven't "ended Freedom of Movement".

We've ended our Freedom of Movement.

Why can't you travel freely do you have a disability?


Regards

DF

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Considering how many Guardian readers we have on here I am a tad surprised no one has mentioned this article ...

The post-Brexit economic crisis never materialised – Labour is right to move on

Plenty of people – on the left as well as the right – believed George Osborne when he conjured up a dystopian vision of Britain after a vote for Brexit during the final weeks of the referendum campaign. The then chancellor said victory for leave would result in a “DIY recession”, the loss of 800,000 jobs, a weaker housing market and a stock market crash. Two years on from our date of departure from the EU, none of it has happened.

Unemployment is lower than it was in 2016 and, although this is very much a mixed blessing, house prices are higher. Share prices have risen and until Covid-19 arrived there was no recession. That hasn’t halted the flow of gloomy predictions: Nissan would quit the UK, tens of thousands of City jobs would be lost to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. More recently, Brexit supply chain problems would mean a turkey-less Christmas and empty high street shelves in December. None of that happened either, and the wait for economic meltdown goes on.

Far from quitting the UK, Nissan last year announced it was investing £1bn in electric vehicle production at its Sunderland plant. Children didn’t wake up to empty Christmas stockings. A study by the consultancy EY found almost nine out of 10 global financial services firms plan to establish or expand operations in the UK this year.

Confirmation bias is where people latch on to evidence that suits their argument while zoning out things that don’t. Opponents of Brexit, for example, filter out the success of the UK’s go-it-alone vaccine procurement strategy and the freedom the government now has to cut VAT on domestic energy bills.

Brexit supporters, by contrast, point out that UK exports to the EU in the second half of 2021 varied little from their level in the same period of 2020 when trade was still frictionless, but ignore the fact that other countries performed more strongly last year as lockdown restrictions were eased. Likewise, they downplay the loss of share trading to Amsterdam and the UK’s poor investment performance after the Brexit vote.

Stripped of the social media spats, the reality is that Brexit has not magically transformed Britain’s economic prospects, but nor has it been calamitous. From a big-picture perspective, Britain’s economy will exit Covid-19 looking pretty much the same as when the virus first arrived two years ago, even though the UK left the single market and the customs union in the meantime. Unemployment is little different, interest rates are a little lower, the housing market is hot. The big difference is that inflation is a lot higher, as it is in every developed country...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/31/post-brexit-economic-crisis-labour-eu-britain

.... what a refreshing change to read a balanced sensible article instead of the usual partisan drivel claiming this country is a disaster zone

 

[Lever]

This is an interesting assessment.....

LIFESTYLE & CULTUREBrexit Diary: ‘Wait, no one told us that was going to happen’ (Actually, they did)

https://dispatcheseurope.com/brexit...s-that-was-going-to-happen-actually-they-did/

 

[usernamed]

Considering how many Guardian readers we have on here I am a tad surprised no one has mentioned this article ...

The post-Brexit economic crisis never materialised – Labour is right to move on

Plenty of people – on the left as well as the right – believed George Osborne when he conjured up a dystopian vision of Britain after a vote for Brexit during the final weeks of the referendum campaign. The then chancellor said victory for leave would result in a “DIY recession”, the loss of 800,000 jobs, a weaker housing market and a stock market crash. Two years on from our date of departure from the EU, none of it has happened.

Unemployment is lower than it was in 2016 and, although this is very much a mixed blessing, house prices are higher. Share prices have risen and until Covid-19 arrived there was no recession. That hasn’t halted the flow of gloomy predictions: Nissan would quit the UK, tens of thousands of City jobs would be lost to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. More recently, Brexit supply chain problems would mean a turkey-less Christmas and empty high street shelves in December. None of that happened either, and the wait for economic meltdown goes on.

Far from quitting the UK, Nissan last year announced it was investing £1bn in electric vehicle production at its Sunderland plant. Children didn’t wake up to empty Christmas stockings. A study by the consultancy EY found almost nine out of 10 global financial services firms plan to establish or expand operations in the UK this year.

Confirmation bias is where people latch on to evidence that suits their argument while zoning out things that don’t. Opponents of Brexit, for example, filter out the success of the UK’s go-it-alone vaccine procurement strategy and the freedom the government now has to cut VAT on domestic energy bills.

Brexit supporters, by contrast, point out that UK exports to the EU in the second half of 2021 varied little from their level in the same period of 2020 when trade was still frictionless, but ignore the fact that other countries performed more strongly last year as lockdown restrictions were eased. Likewise, they downplay the loss of share trading to Amsterdam and the UK’s poor investment performance after the Brexit vote.

Stripped of the social media spats, the reality is that Brexit has not magically transformed Britain’s economic prospects, but nor has it been calamitous. From a big-picture perspective, Britain’s economy will exit Covid-19 looking pretty much the same as when the virus first arrived two years ago, even though the UK left the single market and the customs union in the meantime. Unemployment is little different, interest rates are a little lower, the housing market is hot. The big difference is that inflation is a lot higher, as it is in every developed country...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/31/post-brexit-economic-crisis-labour-eu-britain

.... what a refreshing change to read a balanced sensible article instead of the usual partisan drivel claiming this country is a disaster zone

It is largely a balanced article, and it is nice to see an article focusing on reality rather than rehashing old positions on the EU referendum. However, it doesn’t appear to touch on a couple of salient points:

1. We (the British taxpayers) have (thanks to Covid) directly paid for our current levels of employment. It has not been business as usual, we’re really not going to see what the new normal looks like until 2023/2024. I suspect (for example) fewer of us can afford discretionary spending, and leisure/retail businesses may not experience a return to pre-Covid levels of custom.

2. Nissan were given a package worth approximately £80 million pounds of taxpayers money to remain in the U.K. It seems there is a magic money tree, but it’s selective.

Both sides in this debate became far too polarised and we still see otherwise reasonable adults unable to climb down from their pre-referendum positions, but the reality is that while there are benefits to EU membership that have been lost, this does not mean the irretrievable breakdown of our society.

It is possible that there may be tangible benefits to Brexit, but our government appears to have spent the last two years drunk, and hasn’t got around to implementing them yet.

The battle that this government has to win to remain in power is to improve living standards. Business needs customers with money in their pockets, people who can’t pay their basic living costs are unhappy people. When you’ve spent years telling everyone the EU was the problem, then you have to perform in a post-EU world.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

It is largely a balanced article, and it is nice to see an article focusing on reality rather than rehashing old positions on the EU referendum. However, it doesn’t appear to touch on a couple of salient points:

1. We (the British taxpayers) have (thanks to Covid) directly paid for our current levels of employment. It has not been business as usual, we’re really not going to see what the new normal looks like until 2023/2024. I suspect (for example) fewer of us can afford discretionary spending, and leisure/retail businesses may not experience a return to pre-Covid levels of custom.

2. Nissan were given a package worth approximately £80 million pounds of taxpayers money to remain in the U.K. It seems there is a magic money tree, but it’s selective.

Both sides in this debate became far too polarised and we still see otherwise reasonable adults unable to climb down from their pre-referendum positions, but the reality is that while there are benefits to EU membership that have been lost, this does not mean the irretrievable breakdown of our society.

It is possible that there may be tangible benefits to Brexit, but our government appears to have spent the last two years drunk, and hasn’t got around to implementing them yet.

The battle that this government has to win to remain in power is to improve living standards. Business needs customers with money in their pockets, people who can’t pay their basic living costs are unhappy people. When you’ve spent years telling everyone the EU was the problem, then you have to perform in a post-EU world.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sovereignty was the driving force of Brexit not the economics

Move on with your life





Regards
DF

 

[Randy McNob]

Considering how many Guardian readers we have on here I am a tad surprised no one has mentioned this article ...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/31/post-brexit-economic-crisis-labour-eu-britain

.... what a refreshing change to read a balanced sensible article instead of the usual partisan drivel claiming this country is a disaster zone

 

[Randy McNob]

Sovereignty was the driving force of Brexit not the economics

Move on with your life

Regards
DF

I agree with you PPF. Brexit is ideological, there are no tangible benefits and the Brexiteers on here don't pretend otherwise

and that's the divide - those on one side who buy into nationalism and the other side who don't feel it is important and want whats best for Britain, them and their families

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

I agree with you PPF. Brexit is ideological, there are no tangible benefits and the Brexiteers on here don't pretend otherwise

and that's the divide - those on one side who buy into nationalism and the other side who don't feel it is important and want whats best for Britain, them and their families

Oh well two years and counting


Regards
DF

 

[nicko31]

Considering how many Guardian readers we have on here I am a tad surprised no one has mentioned this article ...

The post-Brexit economic crisis never materialised – Labour is right to move on

Plenty of people – on the left as well as the right – believed George Osborne when he conjured up a dystopian vision of Britain after a vote for Brexit during the final weeks of the referendum campaign. The then chancellor said victory for leave would result in a “DIY recession”, the loss of 800,000 jobs, a weaker housing market and a stock market crash. Two years on from our date of departure from the EU, none of it has happened.

Unemployment is lower than it was in 2016 and, although this is very much a mixed blessing, house prices are higher. Share prices have risen and until Covid-19 arrived there was no recession. That hasn’t halted the flow of gloomy predictions: Nissan would quit the UK, tens of thousands of City jobs would be lost to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. More recently, Brexit supply chain problems would mean a turkey-less Christmas and empty high street shelves in December. None of that happened either, and the wait for economic meltdown goes on.

Far from quitting the UK, Nissan last year announced it was investing £1bn in electric vehicle production at its Sunderland plant. Children didn’t wake up to empty Christmas stockings. A study by the consultancy EY found almost nine out of 10 global financial services firms plan to establish or expand operations in the UK this year.

Confirmation bias is where people latch on to evidence that suits their argument while zoning out things that don’t. Opponents of Brexit, for example, filter out the success of the UK’s go-it-alone vaccine procurement strategy and the freedom the government now has to cut VAT on domestic energy bills.

Brexit supporters, by contrast, point out that UK exports to the EU in the second half of 2021 varied little from their level in the same period of 2020 when trade was still frictionless, but ignore the fact that other countries performed more strongly last year as lockdown restrictions were eased. Likewise, they downplay the loss of share trading to Amsterdam and the UK’s poor investment performance after the Brexit vote.

Stripped of the social media spats, the reality is that Brexit has not magically transformed Britain’s economic prospects, but nor has it been calamitous. From a big-picture perspective, Britain’s economy will exit Covid-19 looking pretty much the same as when the virus first arrived two years ago, even though the UK left the single market and the customs union in the meantime. Unemployment is little different, interest rates are a little lower, the housing market is hot. The big difference is that inflation is a lot higher, as it is in every developed country...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/31/post-brexit-economic-crisis-labour-eu-britain

.... what a refreshing change to read a balanced sensible article instead of the usual partisan drivel claiming this country is a disaster zone

What ever happened to sunny uplands?

 

[Lever]

It is largely a balanced article, and it is nice to see an article focusing on reality rather than rehashing old positions on the EU referendum. However, it doesn’t appear to touch on a couple of salient points:

1. We (the British taxpayers) have (thanks to Covid) directly paid for our current levels of employment. It has not been business as usual, we’re really not going to see what the new normal looks like until 2023/2024. I suspect (for example) fewer of us can afford discretionary spending, and leisure/retail businesses may not experience a return to pre-Covid levels of custom.

2. Nissan were given a package worth approximately £80 million pounds of taxpayers money to remain in the U.K. It seems there is a magic money tree, but it’s selective.

Both sides in this debate became far too polarised and we still see otherwise reasonable adults unable to climb down from their pre-referendum positions, but the reality is that while there are benefits to EU membership that have been lost, this does not mean the irretrievable breakdown of our society.

It is possible that there may be tangible benefits to Brexit, but our government appears to have spent the last two years drunk, and hasn’t got around to implementing them yet.

The battle that this government has to win to remain in power is to improve living standards. Business needs customers with money in their pockets, people who can’t pay their basic living costs are unhappy people. When you’ve spent years telling everyone the EU was the problem, then you have to perform in a post-EU world.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am afraid that there are no tangible benefits and many Brexit lovers seemed to think that 'sovereignty' (whatever it means) would provide them.... This video exposes the vagueness and deception two years on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ve69BSyvU

...and this might explain Larry Elliott's article.....

Elliott is an outspoken critic of the European Union, authoring articles for the Guardian such as “Brexit is a rejection of Globalisation,”saying that the decision of the UK population to leave the European Union in 2016, is testament to the failure of the E.U. to act on promises it previously made to protect its member states from the worst extents of Globalisation.

 

[nicko31]

Whilst the government engage in "faux levelling up" the post Brexit reality is the LIE AGAIN

They were supposed to match EU payments to our poorest regions, instead they are being sold short.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...t-funds-cut-brexit-levelling-up-b2004944.html

 

[Randy McNob]

I'm chuffed JCFG is an avid Guardian reader

[tweet]1488790215980470276[/tweet]

 

[GrizzlingGammon]

Oh well two years and counting


Regards
DF

Latest waiting time at Dover?

 

[WATFORD zero]

Considering how many Guardian readers we have on here I am a tad surprised no one has mentioned this article ...

The post-Brexit economic crisis never materialised – Labour is right to move on

Plenty of people – on the left as well as the right – believed George Osborne when he conjured up a dystopian vision of Britain after a vote for Brexit during the final weeks of the referendum campaign. The then chancellor said victory for leave would result in a “DIY recession”, the loss of 800,000 jobs, a weaker housing market and a stock market crash. Two years on from our date of departure from the EU, none of it has happened.

Unemployment is lower than it was in 2016 and, although this is very much a mixed blessing, house prices are higher. Share prices have risen and until Covid-19 arrived there was no recession. That hasn’t halted the flow of gloomy predictions: Nissan would quit the UK, tens of thousands of City jobs would be lost to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. More recently, Brexit supply chain problems would mean a turkey-less Christmas and empty high street shelves in December. None of that happened either, and the wait for economic meltdown goes on.

Far from quitting the UK, Nissan last year announced it was investing £1bn in electric vehicle production at its Sunderland plant. Children didn’t wake up to empty Christmas stockings. A study by the consultancy EY found almost nine out of 10 global financial services firms plan to establish or expand operations in the UK this year.

Confirmation bias is where people latch on to evidence that suits their argument while zoning out things that don’t. Opponents of Brexit, for example, filter out the success of the UK’s go-it-alone vaccine procurement strategy and the freedom the government now has to cut VAT on domestic energy bills.

Brexit supporters, by contrast, point out that UK exports to the EU in the second half of 2021 varied little from their level in the same period of 2020 when trade was still frictionless, but ignore the fact that other countries performed more strongly last year as lockdown restrictions were eased. Likewise, they downplay the loss of share trading to Amsterdam and the UK’s poor investment performance after the Brexit vote.

Stripped of the social media spats, the reality is that Brexit has not magically transformed Britain’s economic prospects, but nor has it been calamitous. From a big-picture perspective, Britain’s economy will exit Covid-19 looking pretty much the same as when the virus first arrived two years ago, even though the UK left the single market and the customs union in the meantime. Unemployment is little different, interest rates are a little lower, the housing market is hot. The big difference is that inflation is a lot higher, as it is in every developed country...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/31/post-brexit-economic-crisis-labour-eu-britain

.... what a refreshing change to read a balanced sensible article instead of the usual partisan drivel claiming this country is a disaster zone

A journalist with a long history of writing anti EU articles says that the bits of Brexit that have been implemented so far hasn't resulted in the complete collapse of the UK economy and you're posting this as a Brexit benefit ? Well there'll be dancing in the sunny upland streets tonight

And talking of large parts of the Oven ready Brexit deal which still haven't been implemented, what is your proposed solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol that you campaigned and voted for and have now decided that you don't want and is unimplementable

 

[WATFORD zero]

As each little part of 'The Oven Ready Brexit Deal' gets implemented piece by painful piece, British Exporters and Importers face death by a thousand cuts

Record use of Dover emergency traffic measures as new Brexit border checks bite

Emergency traffic measures to control congestion at the Port of Dover have already been used as many times this year as in the first six months of 2021 combined, following the introduction of new Brexit border checks.

Figures provided to Sky News by National Highways reveal the Dover Traffic Access Protocol (TAP), designed to prevent tailbacks of lorries causing gridlock in the town centre, has been instigated 18 times since 1 January. That compares to 69 times in total during 2021, almost half of which occurred in the last two months of the year.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/record-use-of-dover-emergency-traffic-measures-as-new-brexit-border-checks-bite/ar-AATmZxn

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

A journalist with a long history of writing anti EU articles says that the bits of Brexit that have been implemented so far hasn't resulted in the complete collapse of the UK economy and you're posting this as a Brexit benefit ? Well there'll be dancing in the sunny upland streets tonight

And talking of large parts of the Oven ready Brexit deal which still haven't been implemented, what is your proposed solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol that you campaigned and voted for and have now decided that you don't want and is unimplementable

View attachment 144630

Scrap the protocol go WTO wash our hands of the EU and then you won't have to ask the same old questions


Regards
DF

 

[Randy McNob]

Scrap the protocol go WTO wash our hands of the EU and then you won't have to ask the same old questions


Regards
DF

That won't happen because they don't want a situation where they actually get Brexit done, they want to maintain a situation where we are at continual loggerheads with the EU as well as migrant boats in the channel so there is always an 'enemy at the door' and you'll always vote Tory