Junior visited the UK for the first time in years recently. He went to visit a friend at uni in Glasgow. He found people friendly and helpful, chatty even. He even had some sunny days to walk the Three Lochs Way. He loved the busking and music in bars in Glasgow. Well done Scotland.
The Ouibus took two hour to get through formalites on the way in but no connections were missed. On the way out he had to take a later Eurostar after standing in line two hours at passport control. He felt sorry for the old and infirm in the queue with nowhere to sit.
That positive experience contrasts with my friend's son who eventually got a visa and is now studying at Manchester. He is unimpressed by the quantity and quality of teaching - 12 000e for 40h of contant time if I've understood right - most is still on-line whereas unis are operating normally here. He was shocked when the university authorities threatened to disqualify him when he made a formal request to leave the UK for a day to fulfil a military commitment. They eventually granted permission but he felt a prisoner of a country for a few hours of classes a week. Not good Manchester.
Wtf had it got to do with the university if be needs a couple of days off in his first year?
Yeah, MCR uni is heavily online still, for anything with large attendance. There are reasons though... it's not that they hate having students in the big lecture theatres.
The leaving the country in term time thing sounds very odd indeed... not sure what that's about... it is a second hand incomplete story though... must be more (or perhaps less) to it.
weve not even started implementing full brexit checks yet
tho tbf this is mostly due to leavers dying & remainers turning 18
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1459158680369352710
The 82/18 split in favour of rejoin for the people who didn't vote in 2016 is a fascinating stat.
However amazing/depressing/fascinating those stats are, they're irrelevant, aren't they?
Chances of Con gov giving another referendum are next to zero. Chances of the EU letting the UK return are just as slim.
Hopefully the people who couldn't be bothered to vote in 2016 will have learned the value of participating in any future 'advisory' referendums too.
But otherwise - what alpin said.
In other news Boris and his mates look keen on triggering Article 16. In fairness that will be a good distraction from tory sleaze... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59256153
Chances of Con gov giving another referendum are next to zero. Chances of the EU letting the UK return are just as slim.
Whats more likely is that we end up back in SM/CU & get FOM back in 5-10 years, which would be great for my kids & my retirement!
We're headed back in without a doubt. I'll take 10-20 years but it will happen
No chance, the parliament won't vote for UKIPers back disrupting its work. In case you hadn't noitced the EU has got a whole lot better at getting things done without the UK championing the heel draggers.
No chance, the parliament won’t vote for UKIPers back disrupting its work. In case you hadn’t noitced the EU has got a whole lot better at getting things done without the UK championing the heel draggers.
Chances of the EU letting the UK return as full members is pretty slim without a total overhaul of Government but I reckon the UK might quietly go back into the Single Market / Customs Union via a back door. It'll be done in some sort of way that presents it to the great unwashed as a triumphant British victory over the unelected Eurocrats or some such bollocks but it's the only realistic way for the UK to survive, even Boris can probably see that.
After all, the original promise of Brexit was that we'd stay in SM / CU, that nothing would change, that we'd get some kind of Norway / Switzerland gold-plated deal.
but I reckon the UK might quietly go back into the Single Market / Customs Union via a back door.[ ] but it’s the only realistic way for the UK to survive, even Boris can probably see that.
Yep, we'll end up back to SM/CU as far as makes no difference but quietly enough so it doesn't frighten the horses and when the polling looks good, there'll either be a vote in Parliament or there'll be a referendum, and it'll be a done deal.
I’m afraid we’ve still got further to fall before we hit the bottom - now waiting for UK to invoke Article 16 and start a trade war/invoke sanctions from the EU.
I’ve just reopened my online business and having to tell EU customers I can’t send them stuff because the cost of the paperwork exceeds the value of the business.
I think you're overly optimistic, nickc. Frost is currently on course for Art. 16 because he won't accept the authority of the European court as abritrator. Name a topic and the UK and EU have been in conflict. Vaccination, Covid measures, honouring immigrant quota promises, implementation of custom controls, arms deals, measures againt money laundering and taxing tech, honouring fishing licence promises, Ireland, non-payment of the Calais frontier bill... .
The EU is going to set the bar too high for the UK to jump over. The EU knows its up against bad faith and the only solution is rules so strict they won't be accepted. In December last year I posted on this thread that if the EU member states had unanimously approved the deal with the UK it was because it was a better deal for the EU than the UK. Britain signed without reading, that much we know.
Even if the UK bins all of its red lines the conditions and price for access to the EU market will be too high to get through parliament or a referendum.
I wish that the UK could return so that all my family, friends and the rest/most of you can enjoy the freedom of movement that I, as a German, have access to.
I just can't see it happening.
There's a certain amount of animosity towards the UK and a good deal of schadenfreude with its position.
I've received/seen a great many memes that do the rounds taking the piss out of the UK's situation.
If the papers keep printing headlines about Tory sleaze then triggering article 16 is an absolute given
Johnson won’t think twice about causing huge economic damage for a short term fix to save his useless fat arse
Nothing like a good, old-fashioned trade war to get the morons waving their little flags and not talking about MPs extracurricular activities
Macron looks like playing his part with his own pre-election nationalist tub-thumping
**** knows how much damage they’ll have done by the time these Brexiteer clowns are finished
The EU is going to set the bar too high for the UK to jump over. The EU knows its up against bad faith
This particular govt, and even possibly the Tories as a whole (unless they re-invent themselves again) but eventually it'll happen
At last, an actual brexit bonus!:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/12/brexit-easier-small-boat-crossings-to-reach-uk-refugees-say
**** knows how much damage they’ll have done by the time these Brexiteer clowns are finished
We'll need to hit the depths of having to go cap-in-hand to the IMF for a bailout or some such action first, then things might have a chance of turning around. As for re-joining, it will happen at some point but we will have a massive issue with certain sections of the political class (and a lot of the general public) thinking we can go back with our vetoes and other concessions but in reality we will be begging to come back and have no bargaining position whatsoever. We will be held to the same standards as any other country joining for democratic, legal, social and humanitarian standards.
The EU will take us back just not on terms we might like. It's just business.
So, as seemed to be the case at the time, they never actually understood what it was they were actually campaigning for. Terrifying…
https://twitter.com/gavinesler/status/1459214872487596040?s=21
That reminds me of the trump book quote -
"No one on Donald Trump's presidential campaign team thought Trump would actually become president—and they didn't really want him to either, according to excerpts from Michael Wolff's book published Wednesday in New York magazine.
Now-President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Donald Trump Jr., campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and first lady Melania Trump were all reportedly left dumbfounded and afraid on the night of the election in 2016, the book claims. Shortly after 8 on election night, it became clear that Trump had a real shot of becoming president. Wolff wrote that Don Jr. said his father "looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears—and not of joy." Steve Bannon, who helped run the Trump campaign and helped Trump's team through the transition, said he saw Trump morph from "a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump."
Boris is our Trump!
Unlikley we could rejoin in current state without substantial constitutional reform as we don't meet the basic level of democracy requirements for new EU entrants with more than 50% of our parliamentarians unelected.
Tourism has completely tanked. Visitor numbers for the UK are worse this year than last! 3/4 of European citizens don't have passports, (ID cards giving them freedom of movement throughout Europe) making it more difficult and expensive to visit Britain.
Likewise with foreign school trips, the entire class need to have passports or the trip is cancelled because it seen as discriminatory to pupils without passports. Ditto for the enormous number of language schools, their numbers are down about 85% IIRC and that's a pretty big industry. Ireland and Malta are doing their bit, taking up the slack by opening their own language schools.
The VAT relief that was available to the rich far eastern and middle eastern shoppers has been stopped as well, apparently because the gov't didnt want to extend the scheme to European countries post brexit they scrapped the whole scheme..
Oh, and the budget for promoting British tourism has just been cut by a third as well. When you ombine all that with totally confusing covid regulations and a Continent wide perception that we aren't taking the virus seriously we're totally screwed.
The only visitor numbers that are up are those making their way across the channel in kayaks.
The only visitor numbers that are up are those making their way across the channel in kayaks.
Not all bad news, then?
3/4 of European citizens don’t have passports, (ID cards giving them freedom of movement throughout Europe) making it more difficult and expensive to visit Britain.
Yep making that 20 mile gap harder to cross makes no sense for tourism.
Still wait til Etias kicks in, then see the whining start from your side.
It won’t have nearly the same effect though, will it, as everyone needing a visa waiver already needs a passport. It’s the loss of non-passport backed travel that’s the killer for into UK tourism (especially school trips).
Well, I got told last night by a middle aged woman that now we are free from the EU we were able to make fantastic deals with the Commonwealth countries whereas before we hadn't been able to trade with them at all because of EU law.
I'm afraid I laughed at her.
I reckon that with ETIAS in place junior might have caught the Eurostar he intended. If everyone had provided all the information on the on-line ETIAS form in advance of travel the people at border control wouldn't have wasted so much time asking questions. It's a shambles with random outcomes at present that hopefully ETIAS will improve.
Edit never mind, too early.
Junior... went to visit a friend at uni in Glasgow.
...
The Ouibus took two hour to get through formalites
Surely given the destination, that's the wee bus?
Colleague off to Germany next week. As she's working she wanted to make sure all her paperwork was in order. There's apparently a form required. Despite extensive time trying to find it she couldn't. Fortunately we have German colleagues. It took one of them 2 hours on the phone to get the correct form even as a native German speaker.
Red Tape Tories.
The EU is going to set the bar too high for the UK to jump over.
It'll be the rUK, as Scotland will have already joined.
Colleague off to Germany next week.
My company has an agency for this. Last time I went to Switzerland for a week it cost us £1500 for them to tell us where the form was. They're definitely going to be one of Brexit's big winners.
My company has an agency for this. Last time I went to Switzerland for a week it cost us £1500 for them to tell us where the form was. They’re definitely going to be one of Brexit’s big winners.
At home we were just talking about this last week as my OH needs to travel for work to France, Belgium and possibly Spain after Christmas. I've previously worked extensively overseas and while for the EU countries just basically took my passport & credit card at zero notice, for other countries my first call would be to our Travel Agents to see what they needed to organise (Visa's, health insurance, vaccines, certs etc, hotels etc).
But now, companies are going to be spending a lot of money & time getting to understand the 'New Normal' - and there will be 'collateral' from this, and it won't be the Politicians that have dropped us into this 5h1tshow, but ordinary folk going about their lives.
My son wants to do TEFL in Spain. Before, this would have been easy, now it's a nightmare. What kind of Brexit benefit is this?
My son's looking at secondary schools at the moment, and one of them is bilingual Dutch and English. Their weeks away are in Malta rather than England now, so I see that as an absolute win!
BrexiMaths.
Ignoring any other good or bad things, part of the Brexit argument was the membership fee (claimed at £350 per week or £18bn per annum, but actually more like £10bn per annum).
So UK tax take £633bn in 2019/20.
OBR (the government) says Brexit has cost the economy 4%.
Assume that equates to a tax take reduction of 4% ignoring increased tariffs etc.
Cost £25bn per annum.
(Before more cash in your pocket directly, before spending in deprived areas, before being able to get a job anywhere in Europe.)
Spending £25 to save £10 (or even £18) is just bad business.
Idiots.
@igm - I'll place a big bet that there's a few for whom it's been great business.
But for everyone else, it's just crazy maths.
You're missing the important bit of the maths... it means fewer Spanish, Dutch, French people will come here to study and work... and that's all millions of people here in England wanted. They aren't stupid, they know that Brexit means net economic loss... but they hope/think that will impact others more than it impacts them, and it's a price worth (others) paying to have less foreigners studying and working here. It's not "stupid", it's just hateful, fearful, insular and selfish. Until those people need the NHS, need care, need working supply chains, feel the pinch of rising costs... and at that point... you can be pretty sure that it's everyone else's fault... including the Spanish, the Dutch, the French... and on and on...
I'm currently ringing around trying to find anyone with spare essential consumables for my child's insulin pump due to broken supply chains... but, hey... fewer funny accents on the trains... go us!
@kelvin
Firstly my sympathies. Not a great situation.
Secondly I agree my maths does miss the point you make (deliberately actually) and I agree with the point you make.
All I was saying was even if you ignore all the good things that “£350m a week” bought us, and you shouldn’t, it was still cheaper for UKplc to pay the membership and accept the invigorated economy. Which I don’t think you disagree with.
But yes you’re right.
Oh there's plenty of immigration, just not the skilled kind...
https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1459568686168215567/photo/1
Don’t share that *** * *** **’s hateful bullshit please.
