He even refused the young persons scheme FFS.
You can go to Australia, NZ, Uruguay, but not France...
Mind, the other way to look at it, France is cheap and easy to get to, Australia, NZ etc aren't cheap and easy. By banning the easy option young people can't escape and see the UK isn't wonderful.
I closed my online business for good this week - 6 years and not much to show for it. The new product regs for the EU were a further nail in the coffin. Even when I sent stuff to the EU with the correct paperwork, declarations etc they often got returned because the buyer wasn’t prepared to pay the charges.
That's a shame.
The public’s opinion is meaningless though really,
Yep , no party with who wants to sit at the table is going to be putting freedom of movement on the table when you have Farage stirring it up 24/7.
If it’s not on the table you can’t vote for it.
I’m watching a few websites for the ‘older generation’ that like to reminisce about the good old days that have gone thru a few name changes, someone’s getting ready to keep the drip,drip of hate and fear of furrineers alive.
I closed my online business for good this week – 6 years and not much to show for it. The new product regs for the EU were a further nail in the coffin. Even when I sent stuff to the EU with the correct paperwork, declarations etc they often got returned because the buyer wasn’t prepared to pay the charges.
I’ve had a few U.K. bike packing things sent over to here (Spain) and tbh,it’s a nightmare for all involved.
Both companies were really good and everything was sorted but one parcel never arrived and another got import duty applied on prepaid import duty, everything seems to disappear in Madrid for a while then the tax/handling charges start arriving.
I was expecting it and so were the companies but once your at the mercy of customs it’s all bets off 🙂
(Back in the day I broke a plastic end on a boxster roof at the beginning of the holiday after driving to Spain and had a new one from the U.K. in days at my holiday address.)
Yep , no party with who wants to sit at the table is going to be putting freedom of movement on the table when you have Farage stirring it up 24/7.
Farage is the single most successful UK politician of the last 15 years.
And we, the electorate, enabled this to happen.
Off-topic, but the cost of domestic post staggers me. What’s a regular first-class letter now, £1.85? I can order slave labour electronics from China and get free postage so long as I’m not in a hurry.
You did not get free postage, what you got was postage bundled into the cost of the purchased item.
"Free postage" = Marketing
Although I understand why people cite public opinion on Brexit, theres a difference between what people say is important, and what they actually vote for/do in their lives.
Not a great comparable, but public concern about the environment is something that's been cited before on this forum.
In Spring 2024, 80% of people said they were very or fairly concerned about climate change, with 37% very concerned (Figure 1.2). In total, 18% of people said they were not very or not at all concerned, although very few (5%) said they were not at all concerned.
If you can remind me where the Green party ended up at the last UK election? And the environment isnt new news, this is decades in now.
I dont have the willpower to dig through the 2024 existing statistics but some airport (groups) are seeing records.
Manchester Airport welcomed 17.8 million passengers in the first half of the year, with its rolling annual total hitting 30 million in September for the first time in its history.
And then there is the rocket fuel to Farage. I get where people are coming from, but dont expect people to "vote" in their own interests (as you perceive it) because of opinion polls and it making sense to you on a personal level.
Starmer voted for the current deal, he even whipped his party to support it. It would be hard to be more culpable. The current situation is the predictable consequences of his actions. And those of others, of course – there is plenty of blame to go round
And the alternative was No Deal - stop trying to change history.
I agree that merely focussing on the blame alone isn’t particularly helpful, but pretending that Starmer is part of the solution rather than part of the problem is wishful thinking at best. It’s not just that he was at fault back then, but that he has promised to persist with the fault indefinitely into the future.
And the alternative is what exactly?
And you'd have done WHAT in his place?
Captain - how did you vote in 2016 and 2019, or do we need to go thru the original thread to find out?
You did not get free postage, what you got was postage bundled into the cost of the purchased item.
“Free postage” = Marketing
Within the UK I'd largely agree with you. But I'm not talking about big ticket items. Eg,
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1930374811.html
That's a microcontroller sensor I can have delivered from China in a week, for less than a quid all-in. How much of that is postage?
If you can remind me where the Green party ended up at the last UK election? And the environment isnt new news, this is decades in now.
British politics - politics in general even? - suffers badly from inertia. People vote for Party X because they've always voted for Party X. There's no point in voting for Party Y because they've no chance of winning, it'd be a wasted vote.
What the solution to this is I don't know short of dissolving both Team Red and Team Blue and starting again. Say what you like about Rygel but he's very adept at reinventing himself. Despite being UKIP with a different coloured rosette, Reform UK will gain traction because they're "new." Hey, Marketing again!
Hell, look at GB News. It's GREAT and it's BRITISH and it's NEWS, it's machined to directly appeal to the sorts of people Al Murray has been satirising for years. They know their audience in a way that the Left are still failing to grasp.
Farage is the single most successful UK politician of the last 15 years.
And we, the electorate, enabled this to happen.
I agree but tbh, it’s not wholly the electorates fault
Despite being an MP for just five months, Farage is the joint sixth-most platformed panellist on BBC Question Time, appearing 38 times and averaging 1.6 appearances per year. Yet host Fiona Bruce introduced him by saying “making his second appearance as a panellist since 2019”.
He was getting a lot more air/media time than he deserved,he’s been very lucky with his media and news positioning which has given him a bigger platform than he should have.
He’s now got a mouth piece on CBeebies to keep spreading disinformation without fact checking.
He’s just more media savvy than Starmer and has more charisima and has no baggage, as he succeeded in getting the U.K. out of the E.U. Which is easier than sorting out the mess left which is now his new battle cry of ‘Brexit wasn’t done properly’.
That’s a microcontroller sensor I can have delivered from China in a week, for less than a quid all-in. How much of that is postage?
It’s weight/mass probably makes it stupidly cheap to ship and it’s not like China isn’t known for subsidising stuff 🙂
meeting today about radiation sources at my work
thanks to the magical B word, the cost of returning used equipment with Caesium radiation sources, (the kind used in labs and mostly hospitals for radiotherapy etc) back to Germany where they were made has gone from a £6000 fee to a cool £1million thanks to our being on the outside......
the gift that keeps on giving
Just hire a white van and fly tip them at Sellafield.
It's no different from what the water companies started doing when they realised what our Brexit freedoms would allow when purification chemicals were in shortage during peak covid.
Funnily enough, though, they never really stopped afterwards. Nor did they stop paying exec bonuses and dividends...
Freedom, eh?
Unfortunately fly tipping them would have terrible consequences!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I dread to think how many of them are in labs and hospitals that will now have to pay a fortune to dispose of them, we also looked at an option in Hungary but the red tape for that was innsumountable
and the above link shows what can happen when a private company goes bust (though much of the fault was with the local authority and courts) but an extra million to decommission them will be in no ones budget
Well the lib dems went from circa 12 MPs to 72 MPs in the last election.
That's a seismic shift, but no one likes to talk about that.
Well the lib dems went from circa 12 MPs to 72 MPs in the last election.
That's a seismic shift, but no one likes to talk about that.
They actually got slightly less votes (but pretty much the same). Not sure I'd class that as a seismic shift.
Unfortunately fly tipping them would have terrible consequences!
Entirely in keeping with Brexit itself then.
👍
Well the lib dems went from circa 12 MPs to 72 MPs in the last election.
That's a seismic shift, but no one likes to talk about that.
They actually got slightly less votes (but pretty much the same). Not sure I'd class that as a seismic shift.
Depends on how your scales are weighted I guess.
An interesting piece in the New York Times about the changing world order :
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/world/europe/icc-hungary-us-israel.html
Although the issue is never mentioned anymore one of the principal arguments I heard in support of Remain during the referendum campaign was that EU membership guaranteed protection against the worse excesses of Tory governments. It was never a convincing argument but this drives a horse and coach through it :
“Orban is playing special relations — special relations with the Russia, special relations with Trump, special relations with the Chinese,” said Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies. “He’s trying to create a story of Hungary being the member of the European Union that can do what they want. ”
“So if somebody wants to invest in a country in the EU, go with Hungary,” Mr. Krastev said. “Because they can do what they want. They can veto sanctions. They can leave the International Criminal Court. They’re kind of the only free spirit in the E.U.”
It also of course undermines the Leave argument that it was necessary to free the UK from the constraints placed on it due to EU membership. Although I am not sure there is any evidence that Hungary doesn't comply with EU economic diktat.
Another interesting point in the article is that apparently Hungary doesn't even see itself as part of a Europe with a globally dominant future, Orban's priority seems to be Asia :
Mr. Orban laid out his grand strategy for Hungary in a wide-ranging and detailed speech last July, in which he outlined his vision of a new emerging world order. As he sees it, Western liberalism has lost and nationalism is back. For the next decades, or perhaps centuries, the dominant center of the world will be in Asia, he predicted.
For a small economy like Hungary, that means ignoring any marching orders from Brussels or Washington to isolate Moscow or Beijing.
So, to summarise… losing 5% of our GDP was worth it because… Hungary
Righto. Glad we’ve got that one sorted
So, to summarise… losing 5% of our GDP was worth it because… Hungary
Righto. Glad we’ve got that one sorted
I think that's the total opposite of what he is saying?
I think the point is more that Hungary stays inside the tent whilst acting ****ishly in seeking special arrangements here and there. Let's call it "cake eatism".
Whether we would want to be a country that takes all the advantages of EU membership whilst being a total pain in the arse to the wider collective is a different argument. Sending them ****s like Farage as MEPs would suggest we did a fair amount of that anyway.
🤷♂️
So, to summarise… losing 5% of our GDP was worth it because… Hungary
You think that is a summary of the New York Times article?
I suggest you read it again.
I'll also add that one of De Gaulle's main reasons for turning the UK down for EU (or whatever its acronym was back then) was the UK's supposed special relationship with the US.
"Ne pleurer pas, milord" as I believe CDG said at the time.
And, when we were in the EU, the likes of Cameron (and especially Blair) mentioned the supposed special relationship about once every hour. Especially when trying to justify joint military action against a country loosely associated with terrorism. One that happened to be unfinished business for the Bush clan.
The UK was never forced to choose. But the Brexiteers went on about Brussels Jackboots, put pictures of brown refugees up and convinced a country to vote away £120bn odd per annum on the basis of 'sovereignty'.
🤣
I think the point is more that Hungary stays inside the tent whilst acting ****ishly in seeking special arrangements here and there. Let's call it "cake eatism".
Ah but Mrs Thatcher her did get us those way back 🙂
and yet more proof that public opinion has changed.
Starmer must drop his srupid and damagining red lines and drop the pretense that we can get better trade wuth the eu without joining the SM and CU
They can leave the International Criminal Court. They’re kind of the only free spirit in the E.U.”,”
article conveniently ignores that Hungary have been penalised for their attacks on rule of law?
Well to vist the UK I now need an ETA (19e), a British passport (whatever that costs) or a certificate of entitlement (£589). That in addition to my French passport. Pre Brexit my free identity card was all that was needed.
Madame is currently in Hamburg with 30 school kids on an exchange, a trip which has replaced her UK trips. Apparently the number of EU students in UK universities has about halved since Brexit and EU school groups were already significantly down before this ETA requirement. The more barriers the fewer visitors you'll have spending their money.
and yet more proof that public opinion has changed
And yet; more and more folks are saying that they'll vote Reform and prefer Nigel over Starmer..?
But Nigel and reform are giving people something to vote for rather than just don't vote reform rhetoric from labour.
You'd have thought lessons might have been learnt from the Brexit vote but it feels more like momentum is building for reform. We are now trapped on this cursed forsaken Island.. doomed to be ruled by Farage.
But Nigel and reform are giving people something to vote for rather than just don't vote reform rhetoric from labour.
You'd have thought lessons might have been learnt from the Brexit vote but it feels more like momentum is building for reform. We are now trapped on this cursed forsaken Island.. doomed to be ruled by Farage.
Chances of a red/yellow/green coalition, or even unofficially standing candidates from each strategically?
There's a clear and present danger the two nasty parties might come up with a simmilar scheme 😐
