• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

The Brexit Thread

I know when it was proposed and I know how stupid the arguments were by Brexiteers that doesn't make it any less of a stupid and awkward system, that realistically is going to have no benefit to the EU or any other people trying to enter it. I would've never been in favour of a system like this, I view these sorts of systems as a waste of time and money that could be better spent making going through passport control quicker and more efficient while still completing a high level of checks. Visa waiver is a lie, it's an E-visa that will make very little impact.
 
JAperson said:
I know when it was proposed and I know how stupid the arguments were by Brexiteers that doesn't make it any less of a stupid and awkward system, that realistically is going to have no benefit to the EU or any other people trying to enter it. I would've never been in favour of a system like this, I view these sorts of systems as a waste of time and money that could be better spent making going through passport control quicker and more efficient while still completing a high level of checks. Visa waiver is a lie, it's an E-visa that will make very little impact.
Click to expand...
To suggest that there is no benefit to the EU is a tad ridiculous, they're not just coming up with this for the sake of it. The sheer cost of setting this system up will far exceed the income from the €7 they're charging for some time. However, the benefits elsewhere will be far greater.

As I already mentioned, you're standardising the checks performed on those entering the Schengen area. Every passenger goes through the same pre screening process no matter which country they enter from. That reduces the worry from countries where they may be concerned that others are not applying their checks in the same way, a physical concern in the case of the likes of security and a political one because of the perception from some citizens that some checks are lax. I'd probably suggest that's one of the reasons that the UK was also such a fan of it in the past too.

As the application is done prior to travel, it means that those who have issues obtaining their ETIAS aren't going to travel to the EU in the first place, unless they've then applied for and obtained a visa. That reduces the admin required at the country's border, as they either don't travel or are refused prior to boarding. There's also an economic benefit to the airline too, as they would be responsible for the return trip to those who are denied entry, so the pre screening would dramatically reduce that possibility.

You can only do so much to 'make passport control quicker' when you're not pre-screening passengers. There's a finite amount of staff you can realistically employ, a massive number of borders across multiple countries and a limit to the amount of space you can utilise. ETIAS allows for a number of questions/checks to be recorded before arrival, and coupled with EES which will bring in biometric checks and removes passport stamping will make things quicker in the long run.

Finally, despite what you suggest factually this is a visa waiver. It's a very similar process to what is already in place for the USA with the ESTA programme and it's a term that's very well established. Even the UK have one in place for some Arab nations, known as the Electronic Visa Waiver which is being expanded next month. To obtain a Schengen visa takes at least two weeks, costs £68 and a tonne of paperwork. Having gone through other country's applications for work before - a quick 10 minutes to fill in a few questions on a computer with your passport details to hand costing £6 for three years is a far less involved process than an actual visa application.
 
JAperson said:
I know when it was proposed and I know how stupid the arguments were by Brexiteers that doesn't make it any less of a stupid and awkward system, that realistically is going to have no benefit to the EU or any other people trying to enter it. I would've never been in favour of a system like this, I view these sorts of systems as a waste of time and money that could be better spent making going through passport control quicker and more efficient while still completing a high level of checks. Visa waiver is a lie, it's an E-visa that will make very little impact.
Click to expand...
Visa waivers are used to do online criminal record checks on individuals before travel, speeding up passage at the national border.
Seems intelligent and logical to use them where there is no "free" border.
Over time, they should mean shorter queues at customs.
It will benefit the EU because it is a system for keeping naughty people out, it will benefit people at the border by speeding the process up.
Just because someone has a passport, that gives them no right to enter any country, if they also have a criminal record, they may be refused.
A system that saves time and money at the border, and should make getting through passport control quicker and more efficient.
What actual evidence do you have that it will make little impact?
 
It appears that the government is going to try and boost the use of imperial measurements, to “bring British culture back to our shops”: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...rial-measurements-british-shops-b2090148.html

If imperial measurements do return, I hope metric measurements are kept; if I’m being honest, I’d have no idea what certain imperial measurements are. For instance, I’d have no idea how much 1lb of butter is, but I would know 250g of butter. I know this makes me seem incredibly stupid, but I simply haven’t been bought up using imperial measurements in many places.

Aren’t we now one of the few countries that still uses imperial?
 
Bringing imperial measurements back is perhaps the stupidest idea, there is now a whole generation who only really know imperial measurements as a side-line with metric being our main way or working. We know stone for weight and foot for height, everything else we do in metric,
 
I’m just waiting for Jacob Rees Mogg to hail the return of the Workhouse to much applause of the average Daily Mail and Express reader.

Why we need to return to an archaic system of measurement I don’t know. Despite what some people think going Metric had nothing to do with Europe. Most of the world use it unless you tend to be a bit backward like the US. This has cropped up a few times since brexit and is nothing more than a sop to all the oldies to try and get them back on Bojos side and deflect away from Partygate.

Also to note we use miles rather than Kilometres and cars are usually advertised as attaining an average miles per gallon rather than miles or KM per litre, even though petrol has been advertised and sold in pence per litre since 1995 (Diesel is around £8.23 a gallon at current average pence per litre).

When was imperial measurements last taught in schools? In the 80’s kind of had a mixture of both imperial and metric but mainly metric and more emphasis on converting imperial measurements to the metric equivalent. Imperial seemed massively overly complicated and so did the old currency, glad I never had to deal with that.

In terms of weight I tend to use kilos now.

Confused the hell out of the immigration at the US border in 2015 when I was asked how much I weighed (because I looked a lot thinner than my passport photo). Didn’t understand kilos so told him in stone and pounds, didn’t understand that either so had to try and quickly convert that in to pounds only while he was berating me to hurry up. Took a while, not that overly fluent in my 14*table 😂
 
Matt N said:
It appears that the government is going to try and boost the use of imperial measurements, to “bring British culture back to our shops”: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...rial-measurements-british-shops-b2090148.html

If imperial measurements do return, I hope metric measurements are kept; if I’m being honest, I’d have no idea what certain imperial measurements are. For instance, I’d have no idea how much 1lb of butter is, but I would know 250g of butter. I know this makes me seem incredibly stupid, but I simply haven’t been bought up using imperial measurements in many places.

Aren’t we now one of the few countries that still uses imperial?
Click to expand...
If it helps, 1lb is 454g, so a half pound is 227g so the 250g blocks of butter are approximately half a pound (plus 1oz).
You may notice a lot of products like jars of jam are sold in 454g (approx 1lb) or 340g (approx 3/4lb) units. Although we switched to metric 50-60 years ago, that just meant everything moved to multiples of 113g rather than 4oz. So we might not say a1lb jar of jam, but when you actually look it is a 454g jar so really we are still selling them in imperial measurements, just labelled in metric.

A pint is 568ml, but other than milk there aren't many things that are still sold in multiples of 568 in the same way, but you might find 1.12L bottles of stuff.
 
Last edited:
The imperial announcement is just a dead cat to get some support for the PM from right wing baby boomers (just to be clear not all boomers are right wing but nostalgia politics works well for boomers on the right of the political spectrum). it almost certainly won’t stop the use of metric.
 
Remember when Rees-Moog was asking for peoples suggestions on what EU regulations people want to abolish, well a list has been published! It seems the public want to pollute more, have more chance of being electrocuted and less employee rights. Also many of these were never EU regulations, the vacuum power was 1600W then 900W, never 1400W. The power assisted pedal cycle laws pre-date the EU!


 
Can't wait for offices to be full of faulty wiring or equipment that hasn't been tested in years.

Hooray for all those on Zero Hour contracts having no worker rights.

Doubt anyone really cares about getting a more powerful vacuum. It's like those who were against the removal of old style filament light bulbs.

So much of this is stuff no one cares about. Much like the nonsense regarding the crown marker on pint glasses where it was never "banned" at all. Just manufacturers only putting the CE marking on and nowt else.
 
I mean they aren't wrong when they say that Brexit would change the UK a lot, they just didn't say it would mean there employers could treat them like crap and allow them to get electrocuted, as much as I didn't like the structure of the EU that hadn't actually even implemented something I had a problem with, in fact they mainly implemented safety standards and privacy standards, all of which were perfectly fine.
 
I didn't know that leaving Europe meant that employers were allowed to electrocute their staff.
That should stop employees writing up trip reports in work time...get on with the job or it is "Old Sparky".
Jacob would love the thought of increased productivity.
 
Upon landing in Gatwick on Monday we were told it would be approximately 40 minutes wait until special assistance arrived for disembarking the plane.

Fortunately as the wheelchair was only in the hold and I do the pushing anyway were able to ask the crew to just get it up to the air bridge and leave.

But I think I would've wanted to murder people if had to stay on the plane for that long. So I felt sorry for those others who didn't have the option we did.

By the time we'd go to baggage reclaim they'd only started sending stuff around too. Which amuses me always given how desperate people are to get off as soon as possible.

Just another small knock on effect from all the decisions made through Brexit and Covid.
 
The airport mess is happening across the EU not just in the UK so while Brexit may be a contributing factor, we would probably still be in this mess even if we were still in the EU. I know a lot of people who worked in the travel industry have left and started new careers, that’s the issue.
 
GaryH said:
The airport mess is happening across the EU not just in the UK so while Brexit may be a contributing factor, we would probably still be in this mess even if we were still in the EU. I know a lot of people who worked in the travel industry have left and started new careers, that’s the issue.
Click to expand...
You're right - but Brexit is amplifying it in the UK (there is no may about it). Most current issues are across Europe - with further exacerbation caused by Brexit and subsequent government red lines.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top