Brexit benefits – lets start a list

For the vast majority hardly anything has changed.

It has, they (and you it seems) just don’t realise it yet.

It has, they (and you it seems) just don’t realise it yet.

Enlighten me. Seeing as you seem to know how I’ve suffered I’m all ears as to how you think my life has been materially damaged by being out of the EU.

You must be one of the very few – are you insulated from the inflation it has caused?

Up here the damage is obvious.  from destruction of industries to the collapse of hospitality trade for lack of staff

You really are sticking your head in the sand Dazh

are you insulated from the inflation it has caused?

I’ve already posted many times about inflation. It’s not a result of brexit.

Not disagreeing with the impact on the Scottish hospitality industry. But that hardly constitutes a material impact on the lives of everyone in the UK.

The UK will never give up its status as an independent nation state.

The clue is in the title here – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
It’s not and never has been an independent nation state. Presently it is four nations bound together in an economic union, defence union, partial legal union and no educational union.  Someone will be able to fill me in on the niceties of the financial / monetary union, which I think is fairly but not completely a total union (tax issues for example).
Generalising for effect, the Scots and the Irish spotted the EU was just a prototype of a bigger better version of the UK. The northern Welsh spotted it too, but the southern Welsh and the English didn’t.
In particular the English (as a nation) failed to spot the economic union nature of the UK – or perhaps only liked economic unions where they were by far the biggest partners.

It’s not and never has been an independent nation state

Nonsense. The uK has been a sovereign (hate that word) nation state since 1705. The integration between England Scotland and wales is closer and more ingrained than anything between EU states. The two simply don’t compare. That’s why Scotland leaving would be far more catastrophic for Scotland than the UK leaving Europe ever could be.

I’ve already posted many times about inflation. It’s not a result of brexit.

But Brexit is making it worse and for longer. You appreciate that, right?

It’s not all a result of brexit.

If you think Brexit doesn’t mean higher costs and prices (on top of other world events) you’ve bought into one of the main lies of the campaigns that we’re still living with and need our politicians to work to fix (rather than ignore). We’re only a few years away from the “rip-off Britain” headlines once the rags can rely on their readers to forget Brexit was a thing and that the barriers they* so embraced and pushed for are to blame.

[ *the papers, not the voters… UK voters have never voted to be cut off from Europe in the way papers and politicians pushed for after the Referendum, they just voted on one occasion to stop being an EU member, just like Norway and Switzerland aren’t members ]

I’ve already posted many times about inflation. It’s not a result of brexit.

Its that old head in the sand again.  Of course brexit caused inflation – it putextra costs on importing stuff.  Its one of th emajor drivers

That’s why Scotland leaving would be far more catastrophic for Scotland than the UK leaving Europe ever could be.

apart from being in the union is catastrophic for us and being in the EU would be a huge boon.  Independence is the only way to get away from the rest of the UK that is dragging us down

But Brexit is making it worse and for longer. You appreciate that, right?

Yes it’s a contributory factor, but compared to the Ukraine war and the hangover from covid only a small one. And also you can’t discount the outright greed of UK companies. Greedflation is absolutely a thing, and a direct result of small state neo-liberal ideology. Being in the EU would have done nothing to stop that.

Being in the EU would have done nothing to stop that.

Leaving the EU makes it worse. For example stopping buyers (consumer or business) from taking their purchase power elsewhere. Cutting ourselves of from Europe increases costs, reduces options, breaks supply chains and makes smaller companies and households fish in a barrel waiting for the big guys to take advantage of our self imposed isolation.

Just dropping in again for a quick check – anyone found any benefits yet?

I know there are other things that are also bad, this thread wasn’t meant to be about all the bad things that Brexit, COVID, Ukraine war, Boris, Trump etc, etc, etc have caused. It was meant to be for the Brexit champions to remind me of what we have gained beyond being able to paint crowns on glasses and having different coloured paperwork.

Anything? Anyone?

this thread wasn’t meant to be about all the bad things that Brexit, COVID, Ukraine war, Boris, Trump etc, etc, etc

But you can’t talk about any of this stuff in isolation. It’s simplistic nonsense and serves very little purpose other than to obfuscate from the real issues. If you want to blame everything on brexit then go ahead, but don’t complain in 10 years when everything is still f*****.

It won’t be BTW, some things, maybe many things, will be better depending on the ambitions of Starmer and the Labour Party when they replace the tories. Starmer is on record about ‘making brexit work’. That actually gives me a tiny bit of hope because it means he’s going to have to break the mould to deliver on that promise.

Agreed but right now I think even simplistic nonsense would be a start.

A bit like the best remembered benefits from all the money spent on the space race and moon landings etc are non-stick frying mans and ballpoint pens that write upside down.

Would it be easier, and cause less arguments, to create a list of Brexit downsides?

The OP was a simple question ( maybe a deliberate act of poke the bear ) but a black and white, pro’s and con’s list of Brexit benefits.

I’ll start with the current thing I’m dealing with, Erasmus or lack of it! My daughter goes to France in a month to study, and my word, we are jumping through some hoops, and shelling out lots of euro’s to get her there.

Amazed this is still going, but some people still think Brexit is not a problem.

Yes, it’s not just brexit. All economies are struggling with those non-brexit problems.
But they’re all doing way better in terms of coping than the UK.
Brexit is the reason that the UK is now bottom of European OECD nations for economic growth, with only Russia for company.
Russia had sanctions imposed on it by the war.
UK is struggling with self-imposed sanctions thanks to Brexit

dazh – please either stop posting on this thread or choose a position and stick to it. You’re just picking the alternative side of every argument right now and contradicting yourself multiple times. It’s almost like you’re bipolar (that’s not a joke, I’m serious) and cannot walk away.

EC membership provided a steady flow of cheap labour. Since 2008 businesses failed to invest since capital could be substituted by labour. Since that time we’ve had the absence of organic growth, EC labour disappearing and hence businesses sweating assets, landlordism and ‘pressing down on margins’ aka profiteering to increase their share. So the redistribution from poor to rich has continued and the British economy is the worst performer in G7 etc etc.

Re-joining might make a bit of a difference but the major issue is the imbalance between capital and labour and neither major party is prepared to address that issue so it’s pointless getting obsessed with the parliamentary musical chairs because they are not going to deliver for the majority. As that Guardian article pointed out, both parties are offering SFA apart from toilets, hanging, football, small boats, flags and so on.

Starmer is on record about ‘making brexit work’.

there is no making brexit work possible by an stretch of the meanings of the words.  Nothing about it can work apart from the freedom to fiddle taxes

How do the other 165 countries not in the EU manage? I agree we’d be much better in but to say it’s not possible for a country to function out of the EU is somewhat stretched. Blaming everything on Brexit is letting the government off their repeated failure and rather like brexiteers blaming everything on the EU (or more accurately foreigners)

How do the other 165 countries not in the EU manage?

Name a country not cooperating with its neighbours in a similar way as per…

EFTA, NAFTA, Mercosur…

You don’t need to be in the EU… but not being part of the Customs Union or Single Market of the countries that surround us is just plain bonkers for the people that actually live and work here. The extra advantage for us of being an EU member above and beyond being in EFTA or the Customs Union or Single Market is that we had control, especially as a large country. Now the EU will carry on setting the rules, not just for its own members but also for its neighbours and trading partners (hint, that means us).

“Making brexit work” surely means getting an advantage out of it.  As this is impossible then there is no making brexit work

Nonsense. The uK has been a sovereign (hate that word) nation state since 1705. The integration between England Scotland and wales is closer and more ingrained than anything between EU states. The two simply don’t compare. That’s why Scotland leaving would be far more catastrophic for Scotland than the UK leaving Europe ever could be.

Not English by any chance, he asked innocently.

For what it’s worth, I’m a Scotsman and against independence. But the same arguments that work for Brexit work for Scots independence.  I reckon their both wrong, but I can understand why TJ and other pro-independence folk disagree with me.

It’s a golden age for anyone involved in the business of red tape, paperwork and bureaucracy, it created another 10K civil service jobs and decades of work for consultants to duplicate the processes of various European institutions, so it’s not all bad.

“Making brexit work” surely means getting an advantage out of it.

Well that’s the core of the issue.  It could mean anything to anyone, depending on your sympathies.  That’s why they make political slogans like this.

To me, it signals that they want to start the process of rapprochement, but he’s still having to rule out CM/SU for now because of the political reality.  But to others, it might mean that they are going to make Britain into a golden city on a hill.  Anything to anyone. It’s not even a policy commitment, it’s just a slogan.  Like ‘Brexit means Brexit’ or ‘we’re all in this together’. Just meaningless slogans designed to evoke a sentiment in the listener.  And the more listeners it evokes a positive sentiment in, the more votes you get. It has no actual practical policy-based meaning whatsoever!

Blaming everything on Brexit is letting the government off their repeated failure and rather like brexiteers blaming everything on the EU

An excellent point.

But the same arguments that work for Brexit work for Scots independence.

they really do not at at all.  Thread drift and we have done it too many times 🙂

Many remainers simply don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge that for millions of people, the UK already was a mess for ordinary folk whilst we were in the EU.

1) This is a lie.

2) I thought you were flouncing? You see fit to lecture us about leaving the EU and yet you can’t cope with leaving a forum thread. Which part of “leave” didn’t you understand?

Enlighten me. Seeing as you seem to know how I’ve suffered I’m all ears as to how you think my life has been materially damaged by being out of the EU.

I’m lead to believe that you’re loaded, so your life has likely been “materially damaged” far less than most. The initial infighting which sparked it aside, brexit was a vehicle to empower the rich.

Opportunity costs.

There have been a lot of those.

But why are we talking about the downsides @dazh, the question is about benefits. Go on, enlighten us. Tangible ones if you could.

One upside – many of the idiots have outed themselves good and proper

Couldn’t agree more!

Yeah, there’s a slim chance that might actually precipitate an end to the endless series of shit politicians we’ve had for decades, when we finally realise that they actually need to get shit done and be competent. People might realise that empty slogans don’t actually help.  The shit might finally hit the fan.

Some good new words and phrases.

Brexit, remoaner, brexiteer, bregret etc all fun.

Dazh – I just asked the question and am still waiting for a coherent and quantifiable benefit but shall be avoiding the pubs in Todmorden for a while anyway.

Bexit benefits in the short term are indeed thin on the ground.  Longer term benefits could take years or even decades to reveal themselves.

For me, Bexit is only one symptom of the malaise affecting this nation.  Rejoining the EU tomorrow might make it easier for the middle classes to pursue their continental lifestyles, but would do nothing to fix the fundamental problems we have.

Unless we can reform our political system to embed ‘proper’ democracy (where the make-up of Parliament better reflects votes cast) and foster a culture of more honest political debate, the UK will continue to sink beneath the waves.

EDIT – Post I was quoting is deleted so I am removing this to save the Mods time.

Thank you Mods.

The uK has been a sovereign (hate that word) nation state since 1705.

The UK is a state, but it is not a nation state.

All economies are struggling with those non-brexit problems.
But they’re all doing way better in terms of coping than the UK.

Well, not really. There are 10 EU economies with higher inflation than the UK, and all the rest are lower.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?continent=europe

Nah… I’m really struggling…

What was it, that was supposed to be so good?

One thing… just one…?

Just a teeny tiny little benefit…? anyone?

I think we have (genuinely) only had ‘those that wanted out, regardless of cost or benefit, get to feel a sense of victory on the subject’

You could argue for the “sovereignty” garbage as well.

Alao lol at Daz who has “moved on with his life” by constantly talking about Brexit… still

And that’s even worse. I will get very **** angry if you call me a Brexiteer.

Labour’s position is a hard brexit position. A vote for Labour is a vote for hard brexit.

Yes it’s (mostly) happened and therefore it’s maintaining a hard brexit rather than implementing it, but it’s the same brexit either way.