Brexit is Brilliant (or is it?)

[CelticRambler]

Brexit is done, the oven-ready turkey has long since been cooked, Britannia has recovered her independence - and yet, and yet ...

So howzabout a thread to discuss all things still Brexity? On the Other Forum, I observed that "Brexit" was crystallised almost entirely into a discussion about "the Northern Irish Protocol" and "Amazon VAT bargains" with very little impact on the people of Ireland other than that. For those of us looking at GB from the East rather than the West, Brexit is a right frucking pain in every orifice.

Anyhow, two recent Brexit stories in the Guardian caught my eye:

(1) Karma'll bite you on the ass:

Brexit supporters reacted with fury this week when the commission said plans for a European travel information and authorisation system (Etias) were on track to come into force for travellers in late 2022.
...
The British government was one of the “biggest supporters” of EU plans to require non-EU nationals to obtain authorisation and pay a fee to enter the bloc’s passport-free travel zone, the Guardian has learned.

The fee is negligible, but I reckon the authorisation - or lack of it - will lead to a few interesting meltdowns in airport and ferry port arrival lounges, where British residents are already now living in a two-tier society: those with EU passports and the freedom to wander when- and wherever they want in the EU, and the Britannia-Blue passport holders who are "on the clock" as soon as they leave their island. The sadist in me is waiting to read about some poor couple's HONEYMOON being WRECKED because the groom forgot to renew his ETIAS.

(2) A Brexit win - 19 agreements instead of one!

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) this week released a statement headlined “Visa-free short-term touring allowed in 19 member states”. It said that following discussions with every EU member state it could confirm that performers did not need visas or work permits for short-term tours in 19 countries.

This indirectly affects me personally, as we would always have had British performers at the festival I'm involved with. But this doesn't really solve the problem, because these are not Big Name Headliners - they're small groups, or individuals, who travel with a commercial sideline that makes the trip worthwhile for them and for us. And the commercial sideline is still mired in Brexity red tape.

[Banshee Bones]

Two years in, with a global pandemic to boot, and all the remain sides short term forecasts of doom about Brexit never manifested, and it looks like the medium term is going to work out okay too.

What really strikes me in retrorespect is that the remain side focused entirely on the negative economic aspects of Brexit. The Remain side was overwhelmingly populated by liberal social democrats whos enthusiasm for the EU was fuelled by social and culural reasons rather than economic ones yet they didnt have the courage of their convictions to try to sell the benefits of the EU as a political entity to the British public.

[peasant]

A very definite result of Brexit is that the island of Ireland, as far as the supply chain is concerned, has been pushed out into the Atlantic.

The landbridge through Wales and England is no longer viable, it has become a bottleneck with totally unpredictable transit times. So everything that you need to receive or deliver reliably has to go via the "short sea" route directly from Ireland to France, Belgium or NL which adds two to three days to the journey in comparison to the landbridge of old.

Which in consequence leads to the need for more stock on either end as a buffer, which increases cost and makes Ireland less competitive in our just-in-time economy.

[CelticRambler]

Two years in, with a global pandemic to boot, and all the remain sides short term forecasts of doom about Brexit never manifested, and it looks like the medium term is going to work out okay too.

Hmm. That's an interesting take on it. From my continental point-of-view, all of the short (and medium) term forecasts are spot on. Now that's mostly good news for me, as the British have been wiped off the face of the European employment map, and there are an uncountable number of new socio-economic holes to fill by EU citizens and EU businesses, with the jobs and tax revenue to go with them.

But the real personal impact is at the social and cultural level. Even though, intellectually, I knew that Brexit would put the British into a new category of not-quite-as-good Europeans, it still feels surprising retrograde to have to specify "no Brits" in so many different situations. And that's while the pandemic is still keeping things off limits.

[316670]

Two years in, with a global pandemic to boot, and all the remain sides short term forecasts of doom about Brexit never manifested, and it looks like the medium term is going to work out okay too.

What really strikes me in retrorespect is that the remain side focused entirely on the negative economic aspects of Brexit. The Remain side was overwhelmingly populated by liberal social democrats whos enthusiasm for the EU was fuelled by social and culural reasons rather than economic ones yet they didnt have the courage of their convictions to try to sell the benefits of the EU as a political entity to the British public.

Oh dear! Where to begin, so much wrong in one post
I suggest you start here
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/the-davi ... e-dossier/
You can see all the Upsides of Brexit (15) and compare them to the downsides(228)
I doubt you will be back to defend your original position on Brexit working out okay.

[Banshee Bones]

You don't know where to start but you didnt address anything, not a great start eh?

Two years in and the sky hasnt fallen, want to take a guess when the sky will fall in for the UK?
Any guesses when the UK motor industry is going to up sticks for the continent?

[316670]

You don't know where to start but you didnt address anything, not a great start eh?

Two years in and the sky hasnt fallen, want to take a guess when the sky will fall in for the UK?
Any guesses when the UK motor industry is going to up sticks for the continent?

How is the Honda plant in Swindon doing these days?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-57987601

[CelticRambler]

Nobody (other than Leavers misquoting miscellaneous others) ever said the sky would fall on the UK.

That doesn't mean, though, that the sun will shine. It speaks volumes that the most ardent defenders of Brexit can only say that it hasn't resulted in total disaster for GB as the best outcome so far.

[Hairy-Joe]

A cold examination of Brexit being brilliant or not is difficult due to people having views on it. You are either for Brexit or against it.

I think that Covid masked a lot of the effects of Covid. If there was any problems in getting material into the UK, Covid was a handy excuse. Then again, some people were smart and stockpiled and put mitigation plans in place before the exit day.

Impact for us ordinary folk here? Well, warehousing got busy to hold the extra 24 hours worth of stock. We are not getting as much stuff via landbridge so it takes longer. Some UK products will be more expensive. What's worse is some of our exports to the UK will be more expensive in the UK and this has a knock on effect on our companies exporting less.

From looking at Twitter (shudder), I see a few Brexiteers saying that "this isn't the Brexit I voted for" when having to queue to go through the non-EU passport control. Some UK companies can't get labour. Again I think the effects of Covid are being used to mask the effects of Covid.

I can see the UK suffering more and more and it will be along the lines of a death from a thousand cuts rather than a big bang. Not being in the EU means having to follow GATT rules and loosing out on the trade agreements. This will cause economic trouble when the transition period ends. Look at some of the manufacturers. Land Rover being made in Slovakia (I think), BMW moving some Mini production to Denmark. Scottish fish producers loosing EU markets. Honda loss was due to the EU - Japan trade deal.

[Memento Mori]

It is important for the EU as a concept that Brexit is a success. By success, I mean that the sky does not fall in, which it has not. The idea that you cannot leave the EU or else will be ruined, is not conducive to the idea of a freely assembled group of countries working together. People need to be in the EU (like with any relationship) because they want to be, not because they will be destroyed if they leave.

Brexit, and the democratic vote to leave, has actually dispersed many of the concerns I had about the EU.

[CelticRambler]

Brexit, and the democratic vote to leave, has actually dispersed many of the concerns I had about the EU.

It's certainly taken all the wind out of the "Frexit" movement, that's for sure.

Meanwhile:

The Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) has won a significant post-Brexit victory after government has agreed to scrap the time consuming and costly VI-1 forms on imported wine.

The GB government has u-turned on the red tape it decided to put in place itself, demanding DNA testing on every wine entering the Green And Pleasant Land. Still some way to go, though, according to one Tweeting wine importer, who's pointed out that if you want to import organic wine, you have to be registered with a British organic certifier, just so you can sell on the bottles to restaurants and off-licences. Oh, and (as things stand at the moment) you can't pack a crate of organic wine with a crate of non-organic wine, in case the organicisms escape from one bottle and infect the other. But it's OK for the supermarket to put them side-by-side on the shelf after you've gone to all that trouble. ...

[Peregrinus]

It is important for the EU as a concept that Brexit is a success. By success, I mean that the sky does not fall in, which it has not. The idea that you cannot leave the EU or else will be ruined, is not conducive to the idea of a freely assembled group of countries working together. People need to be in the EU (like with any relationship) because they want to be, not because they will be destroyed if they leave.

Brexit, and the democratic vote to leave, has actually dispersed many of the concerns I had about the EU.

If your definition of "success" is "the sky hasn't actually fallen in" then, yeah, Brexit is a success both for the EU and for the UK, since the sky hasn't fallen on either of them. But that's a fairly weak definition of "success"; by that definition, an awful lot of endeavours commonly considered to have failed have in fact succeeded. I'm not sure that that's a terribly useful definition.

While it is an example of a country leaving the EU and not immediately disintegrating, we've known for decades that this was possible. Greenland withdrew from the EU in 1985 and has yet to disintegrate. So I don't think we have learned anything about the EU that we didn't already know.

From the point of view of the UK, presumably advocates of Brexit will have hoped that Brexit would achieve something more than simply not destroying the UK. To say that Brexit hasn't been a success for the UK, therefore, I think we need a little bit more than simply "the sky hasn't fallen yet". After all, had the UK remained in the EU, the sky equally would not have fallen. Brexit is hardly a "success" because of something that would have happened with or without Brexit. At a minimum, you need to point to something that has been achieved by Brexit that couldn't have been achieved without it, and you need to make the case that that something justifies the undoubted costs that Brexit imposes on the UK.

[CelticRambler]

Within the family, we've decided to nominate one particular individual as a "freight forwarder" for the purposes of Christmas gifts. Presents to those resident in GB would typically consist of "grouped goods" with a similar mix going to several addresses. Experience so far of sending individual parcels has been less than enjoyable, requiring an obligatory trip to a post office during working hours to get the export declarations stamped (whereas parcels to Ireland can be paid for on line and left outside the front door for the postman to pick up the next morning).

This year, it'll be one package with its seven pages of paperwork, to be opened and repackaged once it gets to an address in GB, assuming there are no unexpected SPS surprises (I think all concerned products have already been struck off the list, even though they're the most appreciated, but who knows what GB border checks will be like in three months' time).

[Wibbs]

While it is an example of a country leaving the EU and not immediately disintegrating, we've known for decades that this was possible. Greenland withdrew from the EU in 1985 and has yet to disintegrate. So I don't think we have learned anything about the EU that we didn't already know.

If I were to try and conjure up two countries in Europe who could be more different P I'd be hard pressed to beat the UK and Greenland. The latter is has a tiny population(sixty odd thousand IIRC) on the biggest island on Earth, most of which is ice covered, infrastructure is minimal, industry high tech or no is non existent, ditto for service industries and the financial sector and the biggest industry by far is fishing, compared to the UK which is the polar(no pun) opposite on all counts. Greenland's relationship to the EU is also quite different. It's got a special status within the EU as an overseas country and territory. Greenlanders remain EU citizens is another difference and it has extensive trade deals with the EU.

So one tiny nation left the EU, but pretty much didn't and retains most of the advantages of membership and did so 50 years ago, another much larger nation cut as many ties as possible and retains almost none of the advantages of membership and is seeing more and more of the costs on non membership.

Though I would agree with your other points. I'm not seeing too many advantages of the UK leaving the EU and more and more disadvantage on a few scores.

[Memento Mori]

If your definition of "success" is "the sky hasn't actually fallen in" then, yeah, Brexit is a success both for the EU and for the UK, since the sky hasn't fallen on either of them. But that's a fairly weak definition of "success"; by that definition, an awful lot of endeavours commonly considered to have failed have in fact succeeded. I'm not sure that that's a terribly useful definition.

While it is an example of a country leaving the EU and not immediately disintegrating, we've known for decades that this was possible. Greenland withdrew from the EU in 1985 and has yet to disintegrate. So I don't think we have learned anything about the EU that we didn't already know.

From the point of view of the UK, presumably advocates of Brexit will have hoped that Brexit would achieve something more than simply not destroying the UK. To say that Brexit hasn't been a success for the UK, therefore, I think we need a little bit more than simply "the sky hasn't fallen yet". After all, had the UK remained in the EU, the sky equally would not have fallen. Brexit is hardly a "success" because of something that would have happened with or without Brexit. At a minimum, you need to point to something that has been achieved by Brexit that couldn't have been achieved without it, and you need to make the case that that something justifies the undoubted costs that Brexit imposes on the UK.

As Wibbs has pointed out, Greenland is very different to the UK. As was the EU in 1985. The entire global political system has changed since then, with the collapse of communism.

My point, which you seem to have missed, is that a group of countries working together works best when the people at the table are there because they want to be, not because they feel under threat or faced with doom if they weren't. There were, and are, serious issues with how the EU is run in terms of democratic accountability. The demonstration of a country being able to leave the EU acts as a serious counterweight to the more anti-democratic aspects of the EU, and a halt on their growth, and indeed should spur a reversal of this trend as there is now the knowledge that if a country so decides, or is provoked, it can disentangle itself and leave.

Considering the amount of fear and scare tactics raised, Brexit has certainly gone better than many predicted. As I said, I think this is good for all concerned. But, my points have been made from the perspective of a citizen of the EU, and not the UK. But for the UK the sky has certainly not fallen in. The economy has maintained growth, and the financial markets responded very well to the Brexit deal. International private equity is hoovering up underpriced companies in Britain at an unprecedented rate, obviously Britain is regarded as having a foundation now for a stable economy and growth. Britain has returned more power and decision-making abilities to its own government, which will be exercised (badly no doubt) by the elected representatives of the British people. It is not for me to say that the British were wrong to decide they wanted this, it was a legitimate choice and an expression of democratic will. Do I personally think it was the right decision? No, because on balance I think they have lost more than they gained. But someone else might weigh things up differently, I'm not British.

[Hodors Appletart]

I take issue with the legitimate choice

it was a non-binding referendum for a start, and that was very obvious. But then they treated it as a binding vote "will of the people"

the whole process was manipulated by bad faith actors, and outright lies (350m!!)

people absolutely did not know what they were voting for, many still don't

[Scotty]

What really strikes me in retrorespect is that the remain side focused entirely on the negative economic aspects of Brexit...

What are the positive economic aspects?? UK trade with EU down £10 BILLION or 13.5%. How much is that per week? And it's still declining! How do you get a positive from that?

There's empty shelves in the UK because there's no workers available to harvest and if there were, there's no HGV drivers to move it. The 100,000 migrant EU workers that usually hit Britain every summer couldn't come this year and not because of covid. But it's OK because the ARMY are on standby to help. Where's the positives?

[Memento Mori]

I take issue with the legitimate choice

it was a non-binding referendum for a start, and that was very obvious. But then they treated it as a binding vote "will of the people"

the whole process was manipulated by bad faith actors, and outright lies (350m!!)

people absolutely did not know what they were voting for, many still don't

Ah yes. Best not to let the uneducated peasants vote at all to be safe.

[Hodors Appletart]

Ah yes. Best not to let the uneducated peasants vote at all to be safe.

this nonsense and paranoid

[CelticRambler]

My point, which you seem to have missed, is that a group of countries working together works best when the people at the table are there because they want to be, not because they feel under threat or faced with doom if they weren't.

Nobody in the EU menaced Britain with threats of impending doom. By far, these forecasts were Leavers re-interpreting arguments made by Remainers; and if you strip out the exaggerated worst-case scenarios, many of the pretty-bad scenarios are playing out as predicted.

Your re-assertion that "for the UK" the sky hasn't fallen is true enough - for the UK as a whole. But for very many individuals, especially young people, the sky certainly has fallen on them. I know several of them through my cultural and professional networks, and there is absolutely no doubt in the minds of these young Scots, Welsh and English that their opportunities have been drastically curtailed. They cannot travel like their European friends and they certainly can't work like their European friends. That's about as disastrous for them as any Brexit outcome could have been.

[Hodors Appletart]

I'm unsure how anyone can look at the UK and think that things are "going well" in relation to food stocks and HGV driver shortages.

Those aren't Covid related issues

[6456739]

Going to be honest, I still have the odd day when I think "I can't believe that they voted for this". We're pretty much at the stage now where the Tory party is happy to throw the concept of the four-nation UK under this bus in a desperate attempt to cling to power. It's quite a thing to see such an influential, prestigious and powerful country fall so dramatically in so short a time but there we are.

[6456739]

I take issue with the legitimate choice

it was a non-binding referendum for a start, and that was very obvious. But then they treated it as a binding vote "will of the people"

the whole process was manipulated by bad faith actors, and outright lies (350m!!)

people absolutely did not know what they were voting for, many still don't

The flaw with that notion is that the British public loudly rubberstamped it when they awarded Johnson with his 80-seat majority over 18 months ago. Sure, he only got 43% of the vote but that's how British democracy, such as it is works.

[peasant]

Going to be honest, I still have the odd day when I think "I can't believe that they voted for this".

*Disclaimer (see end of post)

My personal take on this "vote" is that it could only have happened in Britain...sort of in the way that Hitler could only have happened in Germany.

The British mindset of "stiff upper lip" and "mustn't grumble" is only a few steps behind the "Gehorsam" (obedience) that Germans used to display towards "Obrigkeit" (the leadership).

Both nations were sold a propaganda lie (largely based on xenophobia and an inflated sense of self and nation), a diffuse sentiment that they could be so much better off if it weren't for the "others", that if only they were left to their own devices and fully able to use their mythical special strengths and character traits, their world would be a better place.

That's what they voted for...no details, no plans, just sentiments (and lies of course, lots of lies).

Shortly thereafter it became clear that what they really had voted for was unsavoury characters coming into power and the usual suspects making a lot of money.

And that's when they just folded ..well, it's what we voted for. Hell no ...we did vote, ...this ...yes exactly this is what we always wanted ...Britannia waives the rules and Heil BoJo.

Madness ...


* this post has to be taken with a hint of salt and sarcasm

[6456739]

*Disclaimer (see end of post)

My personal take on this "vote" is that it could only have happened in Britain...sort of in the way that Hitler could only have happened in Germany.

The British mindset of "stiff upper lip" and "mustn't grumble" is only a few steps behind the "Gehorsam" (obedience) that Germans used to display towards "Obrigkeit" (the leadership).

Both nations were sold a propaganda lie (largely based on xenophobia and an inflated sense of self and nation), a diffuse sentiment that they could be so much better off if it weren't for the "others", that if only they were left to their own devices and fully able to use their mythical special strengths and character traits, their world would be a better place.

That's what they voted for...no details, no plans, just sentiments (and lies of course, lots of lies).

Shortly thereafter it became clear that what they really had voted for was unsavoury characters coming into power and the usual suspects making a lot of money.

And that's when they just folded ..well, it's what we voted for. Hell no ...we did vote, ...this ...yes exactly this is what we always wanted ...Britannia waives the rules and Heil BoJo.

Madness ...


* this post has to be taken with a hint of salt and sarcasm

I'm going to nitpick if I may.

Firstly, you are indeed correct that something like Brexit could only happen in the UK with its unwritten constitution. Ironically, British diplomats were instrumental in writing the constitutions of several states, particularly and ironically Germany.

Secondly, the stiff upper lip thing is a complete lie based on my experience of living here for over a decade. I stopped thinking that people voted for Brexit because they expected benefits some time ago. I think they voted for it for cultural reasons, to express their anger and being economically abused in some cases (especially the north of England) and, sadly, for xenophobic and racist reasons. English nationalism is characterised by a persistent and enduring nostalgic pessimism. This goes back to Shakespeare's day if not further. The theme of a beautiful and industrious England of the past having been ruined and facing a foreign threat is literally centuries old. Therefore, it can be concluded that the economic justifications for Brexit were just soundbytes so Brexit voters wouldn't feel stupid. Voting to liberalist trade sounds better than voicing a hatred of Indians.

I think what we're witnessing is the disintegration of both the United Kingdom as a political unit and the destruction of the UK's constitutional tradition of governance by what Peter Hennessy and Andrew Blick called "the good chap theory of government". Just as Yugoslavia couldn't survive Serbian nationalism after enduring it from Croats, Kosovars and Bosnians, the UK can survive Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism as long as the English remain true believers and that's no longer the case.

Frankly, there's a significant cohort of older, middle class voters in the wealthy southeast with their Waitrose, their M&S, their Butlins, their private pensions and their Spanish villas who know they're insulated from the consequences so they can indulge their political peccadilloes knowing that the results won't affect them. When I moved here, I quickly learned that England is so much more individualistic than Ireland. Often, this offers huge benefits but with both a codified constitution and a more cohesive society, this could never have happened in Ireland or any other European state not desperately clinging to some apocryphal glorious past.