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Brexit matters

Cloud Strife

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I don't personally think it's a wise strategy, but it's the one they're going with. Only time will tell.

I suspect I understand it. It's a very, very simple message to take into a FPTP election which is winner-take-all, and it effectively turns the election into 59 mini-referenda. With Labour and the Liberal Democrats having to fight the Tories in Scotland for the simple fact that the Tory government will be on its knees by then, it should give the SNP victory in most seats yet again.

The other thing is that by making it a vote on independence, the SNP will have a very strong hand as kingmakers post-election. Let's say that a Lab-Lib coalition is still short of the seats needed for a majority. The SNP can offer confidence and supply, as long as a second referendum is held in Autumn 2025. Do they accept or refuse? The SNP will have fought explicitly on the topic of independence, so if Lab-Lib need Scottish votes, they'll need to meet the SNP's manifesto promise.

It could backfire if the three Unionist parties form an electoral pact, but that could also be electoral suicide for Labour and the Lib Dems in Scotland with a Holyrood election looming and the SNP being able to very easily portray them as Tories in disguise. And of course, if the SNP win the most seats regardless, then they could punish a Lab-Lib minority government repeatedly.
 
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Doppelganger

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I think to suggest that a similar outcome would have followed if a small part of the UK disagreed with an EU proposal is stretching two points:

1. The Canada/EU trade deal required the ratification of a Treaty and thus required unanimity among the 28 members. The Belgian constitution requires the agreement of all seven of its Parliaments before the national administration can ratify an international treaty. The Walloon Parliament refused to agree. So: Belgium could not agree to the treaty; the treaty could not be ratified. The UK has nothing in its constitution which prevents the government agreeing a treaty if, say, the Scottish Assembly does not concur. So such a situation could not have been replicated here. Whether or not the Scottish Assembly agreed to the proposal, if the UK government did, it would be agreed. The failure of the Canada deal had nothing to do with the way the EU works and everything to do with the way the Belgians organise their affairs.

2. The vast majority of measures introduced by the EU do not require treaty ratification. They are introduced under Directives which do not require unanimity.
That wasn't the point, that a part of the UK could stop the rest of the UK ratifying a treaty, rather that the UK had the power to ratify or not.

The fact it chose to, was not a failing of being in the EU, but rather an example of how one country can demonstrate it has the capability to vote for its own best interests.
 
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edwin_m

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The problem with this is that the pro remain establishment did not expect to lose in 2016, and therefore had no plan as to what to do in this eventuality.
And if they'd realised they might lose, they might have campaigned more effectively to remain, instead of letting the "pro-leave establishment" make all the running.
I agree that would have been better for the country, but I can't imagine the Leave side would have gone along with that - it would be seen as trying to dictate the terms of our "independence" beforehand.
Perhaps the Leave campaign should have been consulted on what they actually wanted, and the ballot paper worded accordingly.
 

SouthernR

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That wasn't the point, that a part of the UK could stop the rest of the UK ratifying a treaty, rather that the UK had the power to ratify or not.

The fact it chose to, was not a failing of being in the EU, but rather an example of how one country can demonstrate it has the capability to vote for its own best interests.
... but chose not to. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
 

reddragon

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It's funny, I'm travelling in the EU at the moment, no Brexit didn't affect my trip.

You know all those silly EU rules we moan about? They ignore them here, blame British bureaucrats for them. All the manhole covers are stamped with the British standard code BS124/EN124, no they don't care.

They all seem to think Britain is going through a crisis, falling apart, they laugh, don't care.

So glad to be able to eat fresh produce again instead of the ageing stuff we now get after customs delays.

Nothing has changed in the EU, only in the increasingly insular UK
 

Mikw

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Or, more likely, they don't know that roaming fees are back and won't realise until they get hit with a bill when they get back from holiday.
Very likely. I remember before free data roaming was a thing. Watchdog regularly featured disgruntled holiday makers who were hit with bills totalling a hundred of pounds or more. Often they didn't even know they're data was on.

One can imagine this being even more prevalent now with many things having to be booked online when you're away, Online check ins and the use of Google Maps.
 

jon0844

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Very likely. I remember before free data roaming was a thing. Watchdog regularly featured disgruntled holiday makers who were hit with bills totalling a hundred of pounds or more. Often they didn't even know they're data was on.

One can imagine this being even more prevalent now with many things having to be booked online when you're away, Online check ins and the use of Google Maps.

Yeah, but making Brexit sound like a success is more important than someone being landed with a huge bill. Therefore, leave the phone at home and simply buy a map for your holiday, and check-in at the airport 'like we used to'. And if you want to take photos and video, buy a proper camera as smartphones suck at photography - and why share your life online anyway (actually, I can sort of agree with that bit!). Plus, if you're stuck at an airport then why do you need Netflix or Spotify to while away the time when you have shops around you to look at and spend money in?

Seriously though; it's hilarious how people rewrite history to conveniently forget just how bad bill shock was before the EU sorted it - of which we were more than willing to participate, rather than have such rules thrust upon us without say.
 

Howardh

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It's funny, I'm travelling in the EU at the moment, no Brexit didn't affect my trip.
Yes it has!!! You have had to have your passport stamped on the way in, you will have to have it stamped on the way out and you have to leave before your 90 days is up. All the other stuff, like roaming charges etc, depends on whether you use that. But immigration protocol can't be avoided!
 

reddragon

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The Guardian: Spiralling inflation, crops left in the field and travel chaos: 10 reasons Brexit has been disastrous for Britain.

Top 10 biggest failings of Brexit

It's getting increasingly challenging to find anything positive about Brexit.

I will rejoin the EU by one means or another.

Luckily I still have free roaming and hope to get around the customs issue soon.
 

ainsworth74

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I know we have a few people who are pro-Brexit around here so I wonder if they'll indulge me with a question. Those of us on the other side have, to a better or worse degree, I think explained at quite great length what the problems we think are and what we miss about being in the EU/Single Market/Customs Union/etc. But how about taking a slightly different angle. For those who were in favour of Brexit what would you miss if tomorrow we re-joined? Just to try and keep things vaguely manageable lets just assume that our membership was reset to how it was in say late-2019. I doubt we'd get that deal but it avoids introducing even more hypotheticals to an already highly hypothetical situation!

So what would you miss about our new situation if tomorrow we woke up and things were back to how they had been?
 

DynamicSpirit

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It's getting increasingly challenging to find anything positive about Brexit.

Well yes, if you keep wilfully ignoring the positive things that have happened as a result of Brexit, you will find it a challenge to find anything positive about it.

Let me remind you of some of the things you seem to be ignoring...
  • Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
  • Higher wages in certain industries
  • Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
  • Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
  • It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused
And there's also the issue of powers being returned from the EU to the UK Parliament. Not everyone will see that as a positive, but many supporters of Brexit do see that as a good thing in its own right.

(Although I've said this lots of times, just to be clear: I'm not claiming that Brexit is perfect: Clearly it's caused many bad things as well as good things. But it is completely wrong to make out that nothing good has come of it).
 

Howardh

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I know we have a few people who are pro-Brexit around here so I wonder if they'll indulge me with a question. Those of us on the other side have, to a better or worse degree, I think explained at quite great length what the problems we think are and what we miss about being in the EU/Single Market/Customs Union/etc. But how about taking a slightly different angle. For those who were in favour of Brexit what would you miss if tomorrow we re-joined? Just to try and keep things vaguely manageable lets just assume that our membership was reset to how it was in say late-2019. I doubt we'd get that deal but it avoids introducing even more hypotheticals to an already highly hypothetical situation!

So what would you miss about our new situation if tomorrow we woke up and things were back to how they had been?
They'll say "our sovereignty" except that almost every key decision taken not only in Europe but the rest of the world affects us in some way. All we've done is make ourselves a weaker player to add to all the other Brexit "benefits".

As a side issue, the case of the poor 12-yr-old that's lying in a hospital bed waiting to die, the parents I understand are appealing to one of the european courts (human rights?) which I've no doubt Brexiters want to take that away from us because it's an european institution. Does anyone really think our Supreme Court is truly independent?

Well yes, if you keep wilfully ignoring the positive things that have happened as a result of Brexit, you will find it a challenge to find anything positive about it.

Let me remind you of some of the things you seem to be ignoring...
  • Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
  • Higher wages in certain industries
  • Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
  • Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
  • It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused
And there's also the issue of powers being returned from the EU to the UK Parliament. Not everyone will see that as a positive, but many supporters of Brexit do see that as a good thing in its own right.

(Although I've said this lots of times, just to be clear: I'm not claiming that Brexit is perfect: Clearly it's caused many bad things as well as good things. But it is completely wrong to make out that nothing good has come of it).
The biggest issue with that is while in the past european migration was a two-way thing, they would come here, we would go over there. Like a cycle and there may be net gains or losses but WE had the freedom to go where we wanted as we pleased, within the EEA.

However if immigration is now from wider afield, let's say India, Hong Kong, Africa, Phillipines etc etc, how many Brits want to move there (permanently or temporarily) compared to how many of us would move to Spain, Portugal, Italy etc? We still can, but things are now much harder - they don't give out Schengen Visas to anyone, there are conditions to be met, one is financial.

As for the vaccine, yes we were the firts to roll it out...then the other countries overtook us withing a few months if I recall!
 
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reddragon

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  • Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
  • Higher wages in certain industries
  • Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
  • Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
  • It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused
Yes, employment is now freely available and wages are increasing, that's good. Lack of service due to staff shortages and the fact that it's UK employment law that caused low pay still remain.

Yes less pressure on housing but that's a SE England issue driven by internal migration more than EU migration by 10-1. Lack of builders cancels this gain.

Disagree with vaccine roll out gain.

Farmers unable to harvest crops or sell their produce thwarts that one.
 

Gloster

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As a side issue, the case of the poor 12-yr-old that's lying in a hospital bed waiting to die, the parents I understand are appealing to one of the european courts (human rights?) which I've no doubt Brexiters want to take that away from us because it's an european institution. Does anyone really think our Supreme Court is truly independent?

I am fairly sure that the court concerned is the European Court of Human Rights, which has nothing to do with the EU. Even the Attorney General seemed to think that the ECHR was connected to the EU, which is not something to make one have confidence in someone in her position. The confusion is held by others, which is why there is a movement, almost entirely among those who are sympathetic to Brexit, to withdraw and have ‘British Rights decided in Britain’.

As for the vaccine, yes we were the firts to roll it out...then the other countries overtook us withing a few months if I recall!

A lot has been made of the claim that we wouldn’t have been able to go our own way if we were still in the EU, but I am pretty sure that there was always a clause in the agreements allowing individual countries to do so in extreme necessity. Whether we would have broken ranks in such a case is not the same question.
 

GS250

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As for the vaccine, yes we were the firts to roll it out...then the other countries overtook us withing a few months if I recall!

Correct. However....the UK was miles ahead when it came to vaccinating the most vulnerable. Hence the reason why we started opening up earlier than the majority of the EU.

It also comes down to jabs offered versus jabs accepted argument too. The UK seemed to hit a lull once generation Facebook were given the chance.
 

najaB

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Let me remind you of some of the things you seem to be ignoring...
Some thoughts:
  • Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
  • Higher wages in certain industries
In other words, higher prices.
Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
Seeing as we've opened up immigration from sub-Saharan Africa and India I don't really see that as much of a gain. And that is ignoring the fact that UK native birth rates are significantly lower than replacement, so we need immigrants to maintain our current level of services.
Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
It doesn't matter how many times you say this - it still isn't true. We were still in the EU Medicines Agency when the vaccines were approved, and almost all EU countries overtook our vaccination rates once they got over their initial teething troubles. Brexit did absolutely nothing to speed up the roll-out.
It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused
Is that the same support that farmers are crying out saying that they not longer receive?

Edit. Just watched a video that referenced this FT article (https://www.ft.com/content/ae65d82f-db70-4763-9d96-65be6fc12ba1)

The pertinent part was this graph:
Image shows relative investment performance of the UK vs USA and Eurozone.  The UK line significantly underperforms the others from 2016 onwards.

The relative lack of investment really doesn't bode well for the future health of our economy - we're significantly under where we were on 2016!
 
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AlterEgo

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Does anyone really think our Supreme Court is truly independent?
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is an independent court; it is the highest court in the country.

However we do not have a separation of powers in the UK. Our constitution is founded on parliamentary sovereignty so the SCOTUK cannot strike down legislation or make law. It merely interprets law. This does not mean it isn't an independent court.
 

AM9

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I see nothing of benefit from brexit in the following:

[*]Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
Are the fields in Lincolnshire full of previously unemployed British workers?

[*]Higher wages in certain industries
Higher wages to pay for higher prices of goods that can't be supplied from underresourced UK sources

[*]Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
It was perfectly possible to allow immigration from HK etc. as a full member of the EU, but successive governments chose not to. The brexit types were amongst the most voiciferous in objecting to immigration of all kinds.

[*]Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
The UK (like any other EU member) always had the right to go its own way on certain critical matters including health. So 'sovereignty' already existed, - another false claim.

[*]It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused
Until there are food shortages and prices in the UK start to rise, then certainly this unscrupolous administration would have no hesitation in abandoning it's exhortations, - see fracking, North Sea gas and oil, - even coal mines etc..

And there's also the issue of powers being returned from the EU to the UK Parliament. Not everyone will see that as a positive, but many supporters of Brexit do see that as a good thing in its own right.
Haven't seen anything concrete yet, - just a few token red meat baits for brexit types. The government will find that trading becomes even more difficult when the UK is even further out of step with international standards.
 

Cdd89

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It doesn't matter how many times you say this - it still isn't true. We were still in the EU Medicines Agency when the vaccines were approved, and almost all EU countries overtook our vaccination rates once they got over their initial teething troubles. Brexit did absolutely nothing to speed up the roll-out.
Regardless of what we could possibly have done, I don’t think we would have deviated from the EU model without a Brexit mindset. Neither of us can know for sure, but the lack of another major EU country who opted out is not good evidence for the irrelevance of Brexit in our faster rollout.

Also, the fact other countries overtook us later is irrelevant. The important part of vaccination was delivering first doses to the elderly and vulnerable. The remainder of the program, certainly from when the rest of the EU caught up, was an order of magnitude less important.
 

AM9

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Regardless of what we could possibly have done, I don’t think we would have deviated from the EU model without a Brexit mindset. Neither of us can know for sure, but the lack of another major EU country who opted out is not good evidence for the irrelevance of Brexit in our faster rollout.

Also, the fact other countries overtook us later is irrelevant. The important part of vaccination was delivering first doses to the elderly and vulnerable. The remainder of the program, certainly from when the rest of the EU caught up, was an order of magnitude less important.
The Oxford vaccine was a development of the MERS programme that had been progressing for some time. The UK had been a leader in biotech for some time and there's no way that it wouldn't have done the same had we still been a full member of the EU. But all this claiming that the UK got their vaccinne to the public first isn't true, the Pfizer vaccine from Germany and the US started the actual vaccination programme.
And once again, every EU country has the right to override existing EU regulation in a health emergency. So many people seem to ignore that.
 

najaB

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Regardless of what we could possibly have done, I don’t think we would have deviated from the EU model without a Brexit mindset. Neither of us can know for sure, but the lack of another major EU country who opted out is not good evidence for the irrelevance of Brexit in our faster rollout.
As I discussed earlier - for something to be classed as a Brexit benefit, it has to be something that couldn't have happened while we were in the EU. If it's something that we could have done (even if we likely wouldn't have) then in what way is it a benefit of Brexit?
 

AlterEgo

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Are the fields in Lincolnshire full of previously unemployed British workers?
Why does everything come down to fruit picking? What a terrible example! That is an appalling job with dire conditions, rife with abuse - people packed 10 to a house or in caravans working on the very fringes of their employment rights.

I've done some bad jobs in my time - cleaning in a care home and picking up actual human faeces, debt collecting in a call centre, working in Maccy D's, picking and packing in a warehouse - you would not find me anywhere near gangmasters in Lincolnshire.
 

najaB

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Why does everything come down to fruit picking? What a terrible example! That is an appalling job with dire conditions, rife with abuse - people packed 10 to a house or in caravans working on the very fringes of their employment rights.
Because people like eating.
 

Snow1964

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Well yes, if you keep wilfully ignoring the positive things that have happened as a result of Brexit, you will find it a challenge to find anything positive about it.

Let me remind you of some of the things you seem to be ignoring...
  • Much easier to find employment for unskilled/etc. workers
  • Higher wages in certain industries
  • Lower immigration from the EU means less pressure on housing/etc. and may have made it politically easier to allow increased immigration from non-EU countries (Hong Kong as an example)
  • Getting the vaccine roll-out quicker
  • It looks likely that support/regulation for farmers will be able to be more environmentally focused

I think you need to have very rose tinted glasses to see these as Brexit gains

1) employment for those with no skills, this is true, but championing more low paid jobs available, is saying poorly paid jobs are good, hardly an gain, as discourages decent pay
2) Higher wages, true but has more changed the industries than widened the number
3) Not sure how changing immigration from EU to another country is a benefit, its more a case of swapping A to B, better described as fairly neutral
4) We may have started quicker, but some other EU countries overtook took us with vaccine rollout, maybe a valid point 18 months ago, but nowadays a silly example like saying X was first at end of lap 1, but didn’t win race
5) Seems to be a speculative future point, which might not happen

Clearly another person grasping at straws to justify Brexit
 

DynamicSpirit

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In other words, higher prices.

Sure, you're correct. One person's higher wages, in the absence of corresponding productivity improvements, will always be someone else's higher prices. Whether or not you see the higher wages as a benefit for the country probably depends on whether you think that the original wages were fair or not. But that doesn't really impact my argument. I'm not trying to claim that Brexit is an unrivalled good that has no disadvantages: I'm trying to answer those on this thread who keep repeatedly triumphantly spouting all the claimed disadvantages of Brexit, while completely ignoring the benefits, and then falsely deducing that Brexit has no benefits. It seems to me there are far too many people on this thread doing exactly that. As I keep saying, the reality is complex: A mixture of advantages, disadvantage, and some things that you could look at either way, depending on your point of view.

It doesn't matter how many times you say this - it still isn't true. We were still in the EU Medicines Agency when the vaccines were approved, and almost all EU countries overtook our vaccination rates once they got over their initial teething troubles. Brexit did absolutely nothing to speed up the roll-out.

We've discussed this before, and needless to say, I disagree. Brexit wasn't just a legal thing - it was also a cultural shift that changed the normal way we expect to do things. Even if it was theoretically possible that we could have done our own vaccine roll-out as EU members, the point is we (almost certainly) wouldn't have done: Pre-Brexit, the normal expectation was that we'd go along with whatever the EU decided (as did every EU member when it came to the vaccine roll-out). Brexit changed the expectations, with the result that the normal thing to do was now for us to go it alone - and as we saw, in this case, that had spectacularly good results.

(As an aside: Just suppose the UK had gone it alone on the vaccines and completely messed the vaccines up: Would you be saying, Oh you can't blame Brexit for that because we could've messed it up even if we'd been in the EU? On the evidence of most of the posts in this thread, it's a pretty safe bet that most people here would've been (quite correctly) citing it as another Brexit disaster. Yet it seems that, just because the vaccines were a success for the UK, far too many people are falling over themselves to find some excuse to avoid connecting it with Brexit. That's just plain double standards).
 

AM9

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There's one big benefit from leaving the EU: there's no justification in blaming the EU for all of the things that are wrong in the UK, - we've brought it on ourselves. :rolleyes:
 

najaB

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We've discussed this before, and needless to say, I disagree. Brexit wasn't just a legal thing - it was also a cultural shift that changed the normal way we expect to do things.
Then it's a benefit of the Brexit mindset (whatever that actually is). It isn't, however, something that you can list as a Brexit benefit as we could have done it, Brexit or not.

This argument boils down to:
Me: How has Brexit improved things?
You: They've stayed exactly the same as they were.
Me: And that's better how?
You: Well they could have been worse.
 

DynamicSpirit

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This argument boils down to:

Not at all. My argument is that Brexit substantially improved things as far as the vaccine roll-out is concerned because, without Brexit, we would've followed the EU programme, and thereby ended up with a much later vaccine rollout resulting in many more people in the UK dieing, and lockdowns having to be continued for longer than they actually were.
 
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