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The Brexit Thread

GaryH said:
Unfortunately having an abundance of EU workers at the beckon call of U.K. employees sadly resulted in more poor contracts and little rights for the workers.
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It's not the fault of those workers, but the blame is the with the right-wing forces who pushed and ultimately told lies in order to Get Brexit Done in the first place, when they could have just stayed in the EU and continued to play unethical late-stage neoliberalism with the big boys, rather can collectively and misguidedly cutting the nose of the country off to isolate it's face. None of the things promised or else optimistically hoped for in this thread or elsewhere, such as better working conditions and opportunities for working people in Britain, were ever going to come to fruition under the current Conservative government. Because the fact is, they just don't care about workers. Be they from Romania or Roehampton, they are all disposable. This is beginning to feel like a race to the bottom for all but everyone at the top.

Even now, when faced with blindingly obvious labour shortages and a literal, actual emerging fuel and food crisis, there is no plan, no accountability. Just entrenched ideology and a subservient media at their disposal.

Still, it was never going to be easy, but I'm sure it will be worth it in the end. :neutral:
 
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Two pieces of Brexit related news I wanted to share today.

Fuel crisis

Although it's easy to blame the general public for panic buying petrol and diesel, let's not forget it was initially triggered by a handful of forecourts genuinely running dry due to problems with the supply chain (namely a shortage of tanker drivers).

To try and shore up the supply chain the government created an emergency visa scheme looking for 300 tanker drivers. How many people applied for them? Just twenty-seven*. This whole notion that there's floods of immigrants trying to knock-down the door and get into the country really needs to stop.

This also doesn't bode well for the other emergency visa schemes the UK is creating, such as lorry drivers in general or poultry workers. It's likely many of these labour shortages will remain unfilled.

* those who're paying attention will notice this amounts to, on average, one driver application per EU country.

Global Britain or Insular Britain?

It's being reported today that the chip-manufacturer Intel are not looking to set up a site in the UK, and the reason is explicitly because of Brexit. The CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger told the BBC that before the UK left the EU, the country "would have been a site that we would have considered", but he added: "Post-Brexit... we're looking at EU countries and getting support from the EU".

Mr Gelsinger said the firm "absolutely would have been seeking sites for consideration" in the UK, but he said Brexit had changed this. "I have no idea whether we would have had a superior site from the UK ... but we now have about 70 proposals for sites across Europe from maybe 10 different countries. We're hopeful that we'll get to agreement on a site, as well as support from the EU... before the end of this year."

The investment is worth up to £70bn.
 
A handful of forecourts being short of fuel, from one supplier, in one area in isolation, does not make a fuel crisis.
Sheeple, social media and sensationalisation of a minor issue in the national media created this "event".
The nation starts running on the top half of their fuel tank, instead of the bottom half, just in case.
It was not a fuel crisis.
The real fuel crisis is about to start...the French can't have our fish, so they might pull the plug on our european extension lead for the leccy.
Coal and logs for the fire time!!!
Start queueing for candles...haven't done that in fifty years.
 
The way this country is so dependable on other countries in order to just function is ridiculous whether you are a Brexit supporter or not we have to change this dependency on others.
 
Alsty said:
Why? It's called globalisation and it's how economies work. Being insular just makes your country poorer.
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Says who exactly???
Some third world countries used to be pretty much self sufficient, but got dragged into monoculture through capitalistic globalisation of markets, and crop failures/dependance on first world markets made them much worse off in the long run.
There is no sense in globalisation of markets, just profits for big companies, and dividends for shareholders who are already rich, compared to those in the developing countries.
Globalisation of markets is great for the haves, less so for the have nots.
There are a great many real world examples out there, coffee, tea, palm oil, forestry, bananas...loads more.
Monoculture is not sustainable, it needs fossil fuels and large scale transportation to be effective.
Not much use for the planet in the long term.
Eat local, think global.
Edit...and just about all the major world ports are logjammed with containers, not moving because of a global shortage of HGV drivers...globalisation of production is a major issue for the future to be managed if we are to protect the planet, not the answer to all our problems.
Progress is not always positive sadly.
 
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Brexit is the biggest sham this country has ever been force-fed - the Tories will be held responsible for this for ever from their own internal party argument being spilled out and dividing this great country in half with Cameron's stupid Pandora's Box. Bill Cash, Rees-Mogg, Gove, Johnson - all of the rich Tory boys and their sick agenda - like a type of Hitler they enticed the nation to think Brussels was the big enemy with their propaganda of utter lies.

The big enemy in this country has been the Conservative Party - not Brussels.

If anything, I am more anti-Brexit now than I was the day I heard the vote result.

Madness.
 
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Who will hold them responsible though? No matter how bad this government is, the next GE is as good as in the bag for the Tories. No matter what ever any of us feel towards them (it's an awful government) it's by no means unpopular and other than the SNP the opposition is completely ineffective, disunited and broken. They weren't held responsible in 1992 for the terrible state of the country and certainly won't be held responsible by the electorate any time soon this decade.

As much as I hate them and want them out of power, let's not pretend that public opinion is on our side and everyone feels the same.
 
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Matt.GC said:
Who will hold them responsible though? No matter how bad this government is, the next GE is as good as in the bag for the Tories. No matter what ever any of us feel towards them (it's an awful government) it's by no means unpopular and other than the SNP the opposition is completely ineffective, disunited and broken. They weren't held responsible in 1992 for the terrible state of the country and certainly won't be held responsible by the electorate any time soon this decade.

As much as I hate them and want them out of power, let's not pretend that public opinion is on our side and everyone feels the same.
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Indeed.

Johnson is hugely popular - this country could literally self combust in flames, and those surviving in pools of blood on the floor would still vote for him.

I accept I am (probably) in the minority (just), but if anything it makes me more determined.
 
AstroDan said:
I accept I am (probably) in the minority (just), but if anything it makes me more determined.
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I firmly believe that Johnson's incredibly incompetent government is a default government due to lack of a credible and positive alternate. Elections and referenda over the past half a decade have been dominated by Brexit, Nationalism or arguments of the 20th century with very few new ideas or policies to drive this declining nation forward. The whole political narrative has been dominated by settling old tribalist scores and to hell with at what cost it comes. Even loyal Tory voters are getting sick of it (with there being very little in way of loyal Labour voters anymore, as inside the party they prefer to fight with each instead).

Starry eyed nostalgia for red telephone boxes, blue passports and whether to re nationalise our Victorian rail network like "the good old days". Whether Scotland should gain ceremonial independence or not even though it practically has all the powers of an independent nation anyway. Whether the age old stereotype of "immigrants taking all our jobs away from us" is true or not (spoiler alert, it isn't). Warnings of raging bad guys stalking our streets around every corner, no one being safe! Will you vote to spend millions every year of money that was destined for the EU on the NHS? Beccause if you do it could spark WW3.

All "look over there" tactics employed by a political class bereft of new ideas and solutions. The white men from the upper classes and the white men from the middle classes want it this way as they know no other way of doing things.

Meanwhile, even people on good incomes can't afford to buy humble homes. If you're poor or disabled, you can take your chances on the streets or be warehoused in a highly flammable tower block. They better not want to eat Christmas dinner or heat their homes this winter either. Public sector workers continue to be grossly underpaid after over a decade of effective wage cuts, only to be hit by a large tax rise like everyone else soon in a vain attempt to sort out the shocking state of the public finances that no one seems to talk about these days. We've been sleep walking into a pension crisis for nearly 2 decades now, with many of the people effected also unable to buy property I hope anyone under the age of 40 isn't planning on retiring in the future. If you're retiring now, you're in luck on one hand because the state will fill your pockets for the time being to buy your vote at the next election, but enjoy it while it lasts because you'll certainly pay for it when you start needing care in your twilight years. Parts of Northern England, Scotland, South Wales and inner city sink estates aren't getting any richer and still bear the scars of the industrial vandalism wreaked on their communities 4 decades ago now. There's jobs available for sure, just make sure you've either been to uni first and racked up thousands in debt to be earning a Living Wage as full vocational training will not be given, failing that you could stump up £3k of your own money for an HGV license. How about those 20 years in Afghanistan with many lives lost and millions spent to remove a terrorist supporting regime to keep us all safe? How much safer are we now? Or the creation of a human rights abusing superpower dictatorship in the east, that we're now too financially dependant on to do anything about their dishonesty which wreaked a virus on the world that shut down our economies and killed hundreds or thousands of our people. Whilst we're having nonsense arguments that are costing manufacturing jobs, having and energy energy crisis and are grappling with how to pay the Covid bill, it's full steam ahead in China as they pump more and more poison into our atmosphere and crap into our oceans with every incentive not to stop doing so.

We should demand better than this. We should open our eyes, see past the the scare propaganda force fed to us by people and organisations on social media for Likes. The irony is that whilst we're all so hard focused on our differences and blaming each other, most of us are being shafted by the same cricket bat whilst our incompetent political elites sit back looking at social media statistics and polls with their spin doctors deciding which short term band wagon to jump on next.
 
Alsty said:
Why? It's called globalisation and it's how economies work. Being insular just makes your country poorer.
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There’s a big difference between being global and being completely dependent on others as we are now seeing particularly with the gas prices thanks to us having no gas storage and relying on other countries supplying us, namely Russia who are now squeezing the supplies, then our power plants, why are they made by Chinese companies when we day China is a threat to the west, or our nhs which relies on foreign workers because we don’t encourage or train our own workforce to be medics, or relying on lorry drivers from abroad because we haven’t focused on training our local workforce here. Trouble is everyone came to accept this whereas others realised the danger it was now and in the future.
 
Out of interest, why is it that the government is so focused on taking us back to how we were before joining the EU?

I’m not denying that there are certain rules people want removed, and I probably shouldn’t question the government on this as they know far better than I do, but I’d have thought Brexit would have been seen as an opportunity to carve out a new future with innovative ideas as opposed to an opportunity to go back to the 1950s.

You might be wondering why I say this. I say this because the government recently revealed a list of things they’re planning on doing now we’re out of the EU, and among them were things such as returning the crown to pint glasses and returning to solely using the imperial system (interestingly, Britain’s move to metric actually pre-dated Britain joining the EU by 8 years, in spite of the metric system often being seen as EU red tape imposed upon an unwitting British public).

I know there probably are tangible benefits to Brexit that will help us progress in the world and move forward with the times (if there weren’t, why would 17.4million people have voted for it?), as well as things that will improve the lives of the British public, but please forgive me for asking; what are the tangible real-world benefits of Brexit perceived as being, in the eyes of those who voted for it? I’m not trying to generate a flame war here, as I know everyone who voted Leave had very intelligent and considered reasons to vote this way, and I fully advocate their opinion, in spite of having the opposing opinion myself.

It’s just that as a Remain supporter who has never personally supported leaving the EU, I’d be interested to know what those reasons are. So far, it seems like we’re only using Brexit for very inconsequential things, and as a way of returning to “the good old days”, as opposed to for any meaningful positive impact on people’s lives. Is that tangible positive impact on people’s lives something that is thought to come further down the line?

I sincerely apologise if I’ve offended anyone with that question; that wasn’t my intent. I’d just be genuinely intrigued to know what people’s perceived day-to-day benefits of Brexit are.
 
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@Matt N it is your duty as a citizen to question the way your government behaves.

Brexit wasn't a vote for anything in particular and that indeed is the whole problem with the farce Mr Cameron unleashed in a failed attempt to box off a long-running stupid argument within his party. That list you mentioned is just as insincere as the promise to give £350m a week more to the NHS, or the promise in the PM's conference speech to lower taxes; stuff that looks good in newsprint but is actually undeliverable.
 
Matt N said:
I say this because the government recently revealed a list of things they’re planning on doing now we’re out of the EU, and among them were things such as returning the crown to pint glasses and returning to solely using the imperial system (interestingly, Britain’s move to metric actually pre-dated Britain joining the EU by 8 years, in spite of the metric system often being seen as EU red tape imposed upon an unwitting British public).
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It is because there is a large demographic of Brexit voters (generally older, less well educated) that see anything seen as being "imposed" on us from anyone other than our own government as bad. Changing passports to blue makes absolutely no difference to everyday life, but as the red passports were symbolic of being in the EU, they got changed. It is the government showing those Leave voters (by no means all Leave voters btw, just that certain demographic) that they have the power to "put right" things the EU imposed on us. No one is calling for money to go back to shillings and crowns and whatever else from pre-decimalisation because that change has no perceived link to Europe for example. It all feeds into "taking back control".

The metric system is championed in Europe, whereas particularly older people here prefer imperial, so the government will change it back to imperial as it is now under our control. But it is all about perception, because actually for decades inside the EU we still recorded distance in miles, speed in mph, milk and beer in pints and so on, without bearing the wrath of Brussels for doing so.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that voted for Brexit on the basis of these trivial things because they are symbolic of us having control. The problem is, while people may prefer blue passports over red, it does nothing to help bridge the economic deficit Brexit has caused.
 
WillPS said:
What's your mid-term suggestion for keeping the pipes full of gas and filling stations full of petrol and diesel without "complete dependency on others" @GaryH ?
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Thats the problem we are now seeing. I acknowledged when I voted out that the next few years after would be tough for this very reason.

Gas we need to rebuild our storage capabilities we once had again - or start investing in green solutions but given China and Russia are looking more like our adversaries in the not too distant future it would be crazy to rely on them to heat our homes in the winter!

They fuel crisis was not a crisis. A handful of stations ran dry for a day or two and the media caused panic.

I do think we as a nation have become so hard to having everything we want and when we want it we just panic when something isn’t available, even if it’s just for a day. We want our clothes cheap and delivered the same day - but then we also say we care about our planet and all things eco - but don’t care that my item was made thousands of miles away by someone on a tiny wage, then shipped by a boat using diesel, then driven by a lorry using diesel, then delivered to my house by a van using diesel, but we don’t care then, we just want the item quickly and cheaply and out eco concerns suddenly go out the window.

Surely of Brexit means in the long term we start making things here again and growing things here again resulting in less transport of goods then that’s a good thing not only for us but the planet too.

It’s not just endemic to the U.K. but it still beggars belief that most of the stuff we buy is still made in China and it’s cheaper to make it there and transport it so far than to make it in the U.K. I bought a new toothbrush the other day in Boots - even the majority of those were made in China when I looked before I found one that wasn’t. I mean seriously - have things got to the point in the U.K. where we have decimated our engineering, industry and production so much that we can make a frigging toothbrush here?!?! We have some great engineers, inventors, scientists in this country - why are we not using them?

So midterm solution is that we have to put up with it and look forward to brighter days ahead once we become more independent. And if the pack of strawberries we usually buy isn’t on the shelf in Tesco in the middle of December then so be it, adapt and buy something else for the time being.

One final comment , thinking about being in a global world - can we even do this on the future? While money can be sent digitally between countries people cannot. We are constantly having it hammered in to us we should be travelling as much as we are around the world due to emissions, use our cars less, blah blah blah so in the future, isn’ if people are more restricted to how much they can travel then again, the U.K. becoming more self sufficient can only be a good thing?

And I’m no way anti EU. I’ve been around most of the EU countries in the past and loved visiting them, for me Brexit was more about Britain being a stronger country in the long term without its reliance on others
 
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