Opinions on Brexit

[GS250]

Very good.... Pick your experts carefully though!

When 'experts' also have huge vested political/economic interests...they are to challenged rather than just taken as gospel.

Personally I don't think the larger public trust financial 'experts' after they failed to predict the 2008 slump.

 

[Doppelganger]

Not the general thrust of the campaign, and I'm fairly sure a lot of those are covered by separate UK legislation anyway.

Which is exactly why the UK is now trying roll back on a lot of it like workers rights.

So how do you square that circle?

 

[DustyBin]

Please tell us what to be positive about, as this has been asked so many times and nothing tangible has been presented.

We left an institution that didn’t serve our best interests, and removed the threat of “ever closer union”. You’ll no doubt argue that these aren’t tangible benefits, but I’d argue they are. We’ll never agree as (presumably) we have ideologically opposing views of the EU.

We did all of this without wrecking our economy. There was no talk of recession or economic turmoil at the time, quite the opposite in fact (again, see Spring 2020 Budget). There’s no reason to believe that without Covid and the war in Ukraine, we’d be in our current position.

 

[busestrains]

Though not necessarily representative of the wider populous, I thought it would be interesting to see how the members of this forum feel regarding Brexit.

If you didn't vote at the time, pick what you would have done had you been able to/wanted to.

I personally voted leave and i stand by that decision. If there was another referendum i would still vote leave and choose to remain out of the EU. The main issue for me is that i think the EU is undemocratic and it forces countries to follow laws and rules and regulations even if they do not agree with them. I believe that each and every country should be able to set their own laws and rules and regulations. So overall i think that leaving the EU has improved things.

The leaving could have been handled much better though so that is one criticism. One thing that should have been done is employing far more border staff and expanding border faculties to avoid overcrowding and excess waits and queues at airports and ferry ports and Eurostar terminals.

I am very much against the EU and EFTA and EEA and believe that in the long term we will definitely benefit from staying out of all that. I think the fact that we can now choose and dictate our own policies and laws without the EU having any control or say is a major bonus.

I also think the media has made brexit sound so bad when in reality it is not. There is always articles about how it has been so bad for business but i do not agree with that. I run my own business that i have run for just over fourty years now and brexit has not affected my business at all. Yes some prices have increased but that was happening long before brexit happened. So i think the media has made brexit sound so bad even though it has not affected most people.

 

[Yew]

I personally voted leave and i stand by that decision. If there was another referendum i would still vote leave and choose to remain out of the EU. The main issue for me is that i think the EU is undemocratic and it forces countries to follow laws and rules and regulations even if they do not agree with them. I believe that each and every country should be able to set their own laws and rules and regulations. So overall i think that leaving the EU has improved things.

So which EU regulations do you disagree with? Painting fire extinguishers red?

I am very much against the EU and EFTA and EEA and believe that in the long term we will definitely benefit from staying out of all that.

Definitely? What evidence do you base this on?

I think the fact that we can now choose and dictate our own policies and laws without the EU having any control or say is a major bonus.

In theory that sounds nice, but exporters are still going to have to make EU compliant goods.

I also think the media has made brexit sound so bad when in reality it is not. There is always articles about how it has been so bad for business but i do not agree with that. I run my own business that i have run for just over fourty years now and brexit has not affected my business at all.

And yet in the next sentence you complain about prices going up; and you are aware that other businesses may not be so lucky?

Yes some prices have increased but that was happening long before brexit happened. So i think the media has made brexit sound so bad even though it has not affected most people.

But prices are going up more rapidly than they could have been if we were in the EU. That's money that could have stayed in your businesses bank account.

 

[Doppelganger]

I am very much against the EU and EFTA and EEA and believe that in the long term we will definitely benefit from staying out of all that. I think the fact that we can now choose and dictate our own policies and laws without the EU having any control or say is a major bonus.

A strange position, when globally countries either are large enough on their own (US, China) or are moving to form trading blocks.

How do you feel about the UK trying to join CPTPP? A very much take it leave it arrangement with a trade block on the other side of the planet?

 

[Essan]

My bold. What do you mean by this exactly?

I mean there is a shortage of workers in some sectors (farming, hospitality for example) due to the reduction in East Europeans (and others) coming here to do the jobs Britons won't get out of bed to do.

 

[busestrains]

So which EU regulations do you disagree with? Painting fire extinguishers red?

Definitely? What evidence do you base this on?

In theory that sounds nice, but exporters are still going to have to make EU compliant goods.

And yet in the next sentence you complain about prices going up; and you are aware that other businesses may not be so lucky?

But prices are going up more rapidly than they could have been if we were in the EU. That's money that could have stayed in your businesses bank account.

Prices have been going up over the years long before brexit happened. Every year prices increase. Even ten or twenty years ago it was happening. Prices would go up regardless of whether we had brexit or not. I very highly doubt that brexit had much to do price increases when you consider that they happened in the past too nor do i believe they have gone up any more rapidly. If we did not have brexit they would blame the war in the Ukraine for the price increases. There will always be something that will increase prices regardless of brexit happening.

A strange position, when globally countries either are large enough on their own (US, China) or are moving to form trading blocks.

How do you feel about the UK trying to join CPTPP? A very much take it leave it arrangement with a trade block on the other side of the planet?

I am strongly against all trading blocks which is why i did not want any sort of EU trade deal when we left. I believe that every country should manage all trade on their own without joining such trade pacts. This allows countries to maintain full control of their trade and their policies. These trade pacts greatly restrict countries sovereignty as they put far too many restrictions on. So as for the CPTPP i am strongly against the UK joining that too as the CPTPP puts far too many restrictions on countries that they can not choose or opt out of.

 

[Bantamzen]

I don't agree. The remain campaign made a lot of the consequences very clear, but Brexiteers dismissed it all as project fear.

Project fear has now become project reality and despite all the "I told you sos" now, many still have their head buried in the sand.

We hear a lot of nonsense like, "well, we've left now anyway", again just shutting down debate, or just simply pushing the blame of issues in to COVID or the war in Ukraine. I know there are a lot of factors at play affecting the global economy, but only the UK has Brexit and this has made things worse than other places, despite what some try to spin. It is very much a boiled frog syndrome in the UK, that you can't see the wood for the trees.

But the point is they didn't do enough, hence the result. They engaged in as much petty point scoring as the leave campaign, diluting the deeper debate about economic consequences.

 

[DustyBin]

with the benefit of hindsight (and a couple of years), our Covid response was little different to most other developed countries, right or wrong though it was. We locked down a little later than most, and a little more leniently, vaccinated a little earlier, and reopened a little earlier than most developed countries. In broad comparison, given what happened, it’s much of a muchness. Similarly Ukraine has hit us broadly the same as other European countries, and perhaps we have had it easier as we do at least have some of our own gas.

on a baseline, then, that the impact of Covid and Ukraine on us is broadly the same as the rest of Europe, the fact that we are performing worse than the other main European economies must be due to something else. And that something else is Brexit.

I too would like to know what positives there are, as there were none identified beforehand, and I have seen none that have happened since. But I’m willing to learn.

I’m not going to argue that we’re seeing any economic benefit of Brexit here and now. Brexit is contributing to a perfect storm that none of us could have predicted. Like all storms however it will pass. I’ve no doubt the UK recovery will then be in spite of Brexit and not because of it!

 

[Bald Rick]

I am very much against the EU and EFTA and EEA and believe that in the long term we will definitely benefit from staying out of all that.

in what way?

And how long is ‘long term’

I am strongly against all trading blocks which is why i did not want any sort of EU trade deal when we left.

you might be strongly against it, but it goes against every economic theory on international matters. The U.K. has been in a trading block of one form or another for well over 400 years, notably the Empire then the EU.

If Scotland gains independence, Are you against a trading block with them?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Feb 2023 ==

The main issue for me is that i think the EU is undemocratic and it forces countries to follow laws and rules and regulations even if they do not agree with them.

And how did that affect you, or anyone you know, neagatively?

In what way is a resolution that you don’t like passed by a democratically elected European Parliament any different to a resolution that you don’t like passed by a democratically elected U.K. Parliament, or a democratically elected Salisbury City Council?

 

[Doppelganger]

But the point is they didn't do enough, hence the result. They engaged in as much petty point scoring as the leave campaign, diluting the deeper debate about economic consequences.

To be honest the EU was used as the scapegoat for all the UK's ills for decades. The likes of the Express and Mail almost had a daily anti-EU campaign.

The remain side always had an up hill struggle, all leave had to say was things like let's leave the EU and the NHS will be automatically better. Well, the NHS is on its knees now, the staff shortages are beyond acute and we are where we are.

The one benefit of Brexit is that that the UK government can no longer hide behind the the excuse that the EU made them do it. Although, I'm sure there will still be plenty of blame apportioned nevertheless.

 

[Yew]

To be honest the EU was used as the scapegoat for all the UK's ills for decades. The likes of the Express and Mail almost had a daily anti-EU campaign.

Indeed, there were lots of unpopular decisions that were made and blamed on the EU, despite the Germans or French seemingly not being able to do it; typically these relied on a very specific prima-facie interpretation of the rules.

An example could be in Public tendering, in the UK we rarely considered the wider macroeconomic benefits of domestic manufacturing; and thus lots of a rolling stock was imported. France on the other hand did consider these benefits, and the majority of their stock was domestically built. However any criticism of buying foreign rolling stock was met with politicians hiding behind EU tendering laws and saying "we must take the most economic option' - despite the fact that it's perfectly fine to consider wider economic effects in a contract.

 

[AlterEgo]

Of course it is.

People deal with material reality and not nebulous non-descript and non-tangible ideas that have no basis in the physical world.

They deal with both. If people dealt only with material reality you wouldn't keep getting Tory governments.

 

[Doppelganger]

They deal with both. If people dealt only with material reality you wouldn't keep getting Tory governments.

The majority at least don't vote Tory. But I would say a lot of those who do, do deal with material reality and the accumulation of wealth through the ownership of land, resources and the like.

 

[eldomtom2]

Which is exactly why the UK is now trying roll back on a lot of it like workers rights.

So how do you square that circle?

Square what circle? "The EU acts as a check on the Tories" is hardly the most inspiring argument, especially when its checks are frequently not left-wing...

 

[AlterEgo]

The majority at least don't vote Tory. But I would say a lot of those who do, do deal with material reality and the accumulation of wealth through the ownership of land, resources and the like.

It's really naive to suggest people only vote based on what material things they can accumulate. Tell that to Scottish Independence campaigners, most of whom frame Indyref2 as a question about unmooring the state from English Toryism and being able to determine their own future.

 

[Doppelganger]

Square what circle? "The EU acts as a check on the Tories" is hardly the most inspiring argument, especially when its checks are frequently not left-wing...

And yet the UK is now dismantling workers rights...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Feb 2023 ==

It's really naive to suggest people only vote based on what material things they can accumulate. Tell that to Scottish Independence campaigners, most of whom frame Indyref2 as a question about unmooring the state from English Toryism and being able to determine their own future.

I'm talking about Tory voters, so that fits with your comment about why the Scots vote for the SNP.

 

[eldomtom2]

And yet the UK is now dismantling workers rights...

I suspect they could do an awful lot of dismantling within the EU, as well. And the EU arguably prevents some cases of mantling worker's rights, as well.

 

[Annetts key]

When 'experts' also have huge vested political/economic interests...they are to challenged rather than just taken as gospel.

Personally I don't think the larger public trust financial 'experts' after they failed to predict the 2008 slump.

Ahh, this old chestnut…

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.

Yes, the above quote was not about not about economics, but it may well have been. We know that eventually there definitely will be another economic downturn or crash. But as the cause and trigger is different each time, the length of time before it happens is different each time, it is currently not (and may never be) possible to predict when, or how bad such an event will be.

All predictions we make (no matter who) about the future are derived from what has happened in the past. But only after the predicted event can you really know how much to weight each factor that was involved that lead up to the event.

Plus, some people or organisations may make decisions on the prediction, hence if this is a significant effect, it may change the outcome of the prediction.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Feb 2023 ==

Not the general thrust of the campaign, and I'm fairly sure a lot of those are covered by separate UK legislation anyway.

Can you please point to the U.K. legislation that predates the U.K. laws that were introduced based on the E.U. laws, on all these subjects then?

 

[Doppelganger]

I suspect they could do an awful lot of dismantling within the EU, as well. And the EU arguably prevents some cases of mantling worker's rights, as well.

But waited till they were out, so what does that say?

 

[jon0844]

Personally I don't think the larger public trust financial 'experts' after they failed to predict the 2008 slump.

Plenty of people could see 2008 happening. It was hardly surprising when Governments all around the world seemed to love the idea of people getting loads of credit (when they buy things on credit, like a car, new TV, holidays or even over stretching on a mortgage they all feel great - until they can't pay the bills).

The bubble was seen by many as about to burst, and the only thing maybe you couldn't predict was exactly when.

Labour was certainly partly to fault on this by giving too much power to the banks and not regulating things properly. These days it's a lot harder to borrow, you have to sit through videos and other warnings about your ability to pay and the risks, and it seems credit cards can no longer write to customers to encourage spending by giving interest free periods, 0% balance transfers and the like - which invariably saw people get a new card, transfer the balance, then max out the old card again, then repeat with another card and another...

What's concerning is that the Tories seem to want to somehow remove some of these safeguards to give more freedom to banks, so let me put on record again that if this was to happen, we'll have a repeat of 2008 again in the future. And I'm no financial expert.

 

[GS250]

Plenty of people could see 2008 happening. It was hardly surprising when Governments all around the world seemed to love the idea of people getting loads of credit (when they buy things on credit, like a car, new TV, holidays or even over stretching on a mortgage they all feel great - until they can't pay the bills).

The bubble was seen by many as about to burst, and the only thing maybe you couldn't predict was exactly when.

Yes, even next doors pet Gerbil knew what was coming. Those who are apparent 'experts' on the subject were in constant denial though. The quite ridiculous scenes at Northern Rock where customers were told they may not be able to retrieve their own money stuck in a lot of people's minds.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't agree. The remain campaign made a lot of the consequences very clear, but Brexiteers dismissed it all as project fear.

Not really. The Remain campaign did make it clear that there would be economic consequences, but they so over-exaggerated the likely consequences that it became hard to take them seriously (Remember George Osborne's prediction that if the UK voted Brexit, he'd have to do an emergency budget with swinging cuts to everything? Whatever happened to that?). To that extent, with hindsight, the 'project fear' nickname was arguably fairly accurate.

We hear a lot of nonsense like, "well, we've left now anyway", again just shutting down debate,

To my mind, that's not shutting down the debate. It's making it clear that circumstances have now changed and we have to live in the World as it is today.

or just simply pushing the blame of issues in to COVID or the war in Ukraine.

Eh? But most of the current issues in the UK with cost of living etc. are caused by Covid and the Ukraine war! You seem to be objecting to people stating objective reality. Of course Brexit has also made a contribution to our economic problems (And I'd argue there's also a long-standing issue of with the general direction of the UK for the last couple of decades to factor in too) but it's not by a long way the biggest cause of the current difficulties.

 

[Yew]

It's really naive to suggest people only vote based on what material things they can accumulate.

I'm not entirely sure that @Doppelganger was?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Please tell us what to be positive about, as this has been asked so many times and nothing tangible has been presented.

More correctly, I think you mean that nothing that you, personally, regard as positive has been presented. Clearly there's some subjectivity there. I can see several things that I regard as positive: The fact that the UK can in principle now determine who/how many people can legally come to live here. That we are no longer bound by the common agricultural policy. That we can now make our own laws/regulations in areas where previously we had to go along with EU rules. That the immigration system is now fairer to the extent that we are no longer granting huge (and arguably, unfair) rights to EU countries while denying those same immigration rights to from similar non-EU countries. To my mind, those are all positives. But I guess to you, they aren't.

 

[Annetts key]

More correctly, I think you mean that nothing that you, personally, regard as positive has been presented. Clearly there's some subjectivity there. I can see several things that I regard as positive: The fact that the UK can in principle now determine who/how many people can legally come to live here. That we are no longer bound by the common agricultural policy. That we can now make our own laws/regulations in areas where previously we had to go along with EU rules. That the immigration system is now fairer to the extent that we are no longer granting huge (and arguably, unfair) rights to EU countries while denying those same immigration rights to from similar non-EU countries. To my mind, those are all positives. But I guess to you, they aren't.

So, just expanding on this, should we (as in, as a country) have the same rights for people who were born here vs. people who have emigrated here? If yes, then should there actually be any restrictions on immigration?

 

[Enthusiast]

One negotiated by our PM, David Cameron ......

Except that at 8am on 24th June 2016 he stood on the steps of No10 and chucked his toys out of the pram. This is despite calling a referendum and pledging (in writing to every home in the land) "the government will implement your decision." True - he didn't say whose government would do that but since his government called the referendum and made the pledge, it was not unreasonable to have expected him to see it through, even though the "wrong" answer was provided by the electorate.

Not the general thrust of the campaign, and I'm fairly sure a lot of those are covered by separate UK legislation anyway.

Yes they are. Some were introduced to comply with EU directives but some were not. For example:

Equal Pay for women: Equal Pay Act 1970 (two years before the UK joined the EEC).

Safety At Work: Heath and Safety at Work Act 1974 - some time before EEC/EU legislation on the topic was introduced (Directive 89/391 is the earliest I can find, introduced in 1989).

(and probably more besides)

It was disingenuous of the Remain campaign to suggest that all those rights were only possible because of our EU membership. But then lies aplenty were told by both sides - hence the reason why no voters should have cast their votes based on what they were told by politicians.

So which EU regulations do you disagree with?

All of them. No supranational organisation should legislate for the UK.

In theory that sounds nice, but exporters are still going to have to make EU compliant goods.

Of course they are. But they should not be forced to comply with (say) regulations on the number of hours their staff are permitted to work in order to trade under a trading agreement. The UK government is responsible for framing UK workers' rights.

Which is exactly why the UK is now trying roll back on a lot of it like workers rights.

Which workers' rights do you suggest the UK government is trying to roll back on? And even if they are, do you suggest the UK government should not have the right to legislate on employment law in the UK? Or should that be the preserve of a supranational body of dubious democratic legitimacy?

So, just expanding on this, should we (as in, as a country) have the same rights for people who were born here vs. people who have emigrated here? If yes, then should there actually be any restrictions on immigration?

If people have migrated here legitimately they should have substantially the same rights as those who were born here. But why should that influence the right of the UK (or indeed any other) government to determine who is allowed to live and work here? It's precisely because those rights are universally bestowed on everybody here legitimately that the numbers and quality of those arriving should be subject to control.

Membership of the EU meant that 500m people had the unfettered right to live and work here and, with one or two very minor exceptions, the UK had no control over how many of them actually did.

 

[Yew]

All of them. No supranational organisation should legislate for the UK.

Go on, one specifically that you think is harmful.

 

[Cdd89]

More correctly, I think you mean that nothing that you, personally, regard as positive has been presented.

I tend to find the requests for “benefits of Brexit” (or the converse, specific things people dislike) a bit disingenuous. It usually takes the form of:

1. A demands B names an individual benefit
2. B names a benefit, such as the removal of some legislation/regulation
3. A explains that the legislation/regulation is actually good, or if it isn’t that we have to comply with it anyway since the EU is a large market, and therefore the reason given is invalid

This is rarely engaged in by someone truly wishing to establish common ground, or (more charitably) someone unable to see the issue from a perspective of disliking the EU. Brexit doesn’t have concrete benefits because the EU is a democracy and so any such concrete benefit could, in theory, have been negotiated within the EU. The benefits, such as they are, are nebulous and surround the idea that we are outnumbered by nations that are fundamentally different to ourselves.

I selected the option for “voted remain but changed my mind” — it’s not entirely accurate, but I have made peace with the decision, and would not support rejoining.