Brexit benefits – lets start a list

at significant expense

I’d argue you can’t afford not to with your energy bills.

Go on, price up enough Kingspan and wood to do the walls of the rooms you spend most time in then ban yourself from STW when you’re not at work and get on with it.

You’re telling us to get on with brexit life, I’m sure you won’t mind being told to cut your CO2 emissions, live in comfort and save yourself money long term as long term benefits seem to apeal to you however intangible.

We’ve so far had a couple of benefits to Brexit which involve breaking foreign rules and putting foreigners in danger or immoral financial practices, we may as well derail the thread to save the planet. 🙂

Anyhow I’ve run out of things to say about Brexit till the next newspaper article on another downside.

The only way to make it materially better is to move towards SM/CU membership.

Ah that’ll be a Brexit Benefit 🙂

Kingspan is sodding expensive.  Govt should place a massive order at a low price and sell it on cheaply to homeowners or builders.  There’d be far more take-up then.  Far better than printing money for banks.

I enjoyed it. Eggsy was cool.

That princess he rescued was a bit forward thou 🙂

dudeofdoomFull Member
The only way to make it materially better is to move towards SM/CU membership.
Ah that’ll be a Brexit Benefit 🙂

yes the only real benefit is that we can now join the EU, that wasn’t possible back in 2016. Would do wonders for our economy and also open up so many opportunities for the younger generations. Why don’t the brexiters propose it?

I voted for the tories in what seems like the distant past – they used to seem to be the party that would run the country best economically, thus having the potential to make everyone better off. But the last decade or so they’ve been an economic disaster.

Tories have always been terrible at economic growth and management. They just have better 🐂 💩 and PR than labour who, sadly, aren’t different enough. Example https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/EBL/article/view/15231

Tories have only ever had interest in making themselves better off. Whether that comes at the expense or gain of other people is of no meaning to them. This may have been the only real difference between the two major parties in terms of espoused values.

That they have been responsible for the most divisive, reckless, and self-harming political change (BREXIT) this century is an indictment of their solipsistic world view.

brexit benefits? It showed how craven, foolish, short-sighted, and solipsistic the Tories are and ushered in the most effective demonstration of their limited capabilities at government. Sadly folks continue to believe their nonsense and vote them in.

Thinking the tories are the party for the people economically is unfortunately well set in a lot of peoples mind. Even after the last 13 years a lot of people will still be thinking Labour are going to give all ‘your’ money away to scroungers and waste it on mad ideas like nationalising stuff and it is safer with the tories.
People simply don’t understand how a countries economy works and what is actually best for them and they have been misled for 50 years.
If the emotion and populism was taken out of the Brexit vote and every voter was armed with objective data on the actual impact of immigration, the actual impact of EU laws, the actual impact of what we were allowed to do independently or not, the very likely pros and cons of what it would be like after the event etc,. I really don’t think Leave would have won.

Not always, Ted Heath took Britain into the Common Market, made u-turn to the left whereas Starmer regularly u-turns to the right, lost to the miners… . 😉

If the emotion and populism was taken out of the Brexit vote and every voter was armed with objective data… I really don’t think Leave would have won.

If, for example, a democratically elected group of representatives got together to discuss the supposed issues in an open forum, then made their decisions based on all the evidence provided, along with any pressing mandate(s) and feedback from their constituents, then voted on it several times to get it accepted or not?
Or we could have had an incredibly simplified ‘Yes/No’ X-Factor style vote, that was democratic in name only.
Leave was always going to win.
In terms of benefits; a lot of people now understand that hugely complex issues shouldn’t be reduced to binary decisions in the name of democracy.

a lot of people now understand that hugely complex issues shouldn’t be reduced to binary decisions in the name of democracy.

I’d wager that if you asked people if having a referendum on EU membership was a good idea or not most would still say yes. The issue of holding the referendum itself and whether leaving was a good idea or not are two separate things. The tories won the 2015 election because they offered a referendum, and then they delivered on their promise. In that sense democracy worked just fine.

Most people who voted in 2019 voted for parties offering a referendum, there was no referendum. Was that also democracy working “just fine”? Or is this a pick and choose thing, where every voting sentiment in favour of Brexit is pure democracy justifying any chosen approach to our neighbours that politicians want, and all voices calling against “a leave at all cost with the most barriers” approach as anti-democratic? That’s pretty much all we’ve heard for 7 long years… with democracy frozen and battered and trying and failing to recover from a mess of a referendum and its multiple campaigns.

I’m sure there are some people who think a “Brexit benefit” is that it “restored people’s faith in UK democracy”, but I suspect many more are now far more concerned about how the UK is run and the part we as voters get to play in that than they were before 2015.

I’d wager that if you asked people if having a referendum on EU membership was a good idea or not most would still say yes.

This is exactly the problem with Brexit, and indicates the problem with referendums very well. A vague question allows everyone to imagine any result they want, and then believe that that is what they are voting for. Is it a good idea to have a referendum? Arguably yes. Was it a good idea to have the referendum question that we had, with the government we had, with the level of education we had, and the press we had? Obviously not.

A vague question allows everyone to imagine any result they want

Do you want to remain in the EU or leave? Is that a vague question? Seems pretty straightforward to me. 🤷‍♂️

Do you want to remain in the EU or leave? Is that a vague question? Seems pretty straightforward to me

Depends on what you think “leave” actually meant.
A cursory look at what was being promised by the brexiteers indicates unless no one believed them then what people voted for wasnt necessarily what they got.

Depends on what you think “leave” actually meant.

It means what it says. Either we are in the EU, or we’re not. Pretty sure most people understood that, it’s a simple binary choice. I know what you’re getting at, which is did people fully understand the implications of leaving, but that’s not what the question was. In any election or vote the onus is on the voter to decide what they want as they see fit. If someone wanted to vote to leave the EU without understanding the issues that’s their right. That’s how democracy works.

Is that a vague question?

I remember at the time Cameron being criticized becasue the referendum was so broadly (un)defined . I mean, on the face of it, yes it seems pretty straightforward, but when no-one is saying was comes after or what changes it might mean, or even what leaving means on purpose. Then yes, it’s a vague question.

which is did people fully understand the implications of leaving

No, clearly they didn’t as it was deliberate choice not to have easy to understand explanations given to people

That’s how democracy works.

If you deliberately don’t tell people what the implications are, then by definition it’s not democracy.

If people voted to be “like Norway”, their vote has been ignored just as much as someone who voted to “stay an EU member but not be in the core group of Euro countries adopting closer integration”. Don’t blame the voters for agreeing with the multiple conflicting campaigns. The problem has been with what was sold, how it was sold, and how it has since been interpreted by politicians with minority support using a referendum to justify their own approaches only fully announced after the vote was cast.

If a Brexit benefit was “more engagement in politics” by more of the public, I fear it’s left a sour taste in the mouth for many of them, however they voted in that referendum.

Either we are in the EU, or we’re not.

So if we weren’t going to be in the EU, does that mean we are giving up the four freedoms, in or out of the CU, in or out of the SM?

The referendum question was in retrospect a bit vague really wasn’t it? Everyone interpreted it differently.

The vagueness didn’t really affect me directly as I wanted to remain, but leave voters really should have worked out what they were voting for. If they didn’t, they don’t really have grounds for complaint whatever happens to them. Remain voters do.

If people voted to be “like Norway”, their vote has been ignored just as much as someone who voted to “stay an EU member

Yet another group of people who were lied to by politicians who had absolutely no plans whatsoever other than the very hardest of no-deal leaving on their minds.

The transformation from “we can be like any number of semi-in/out European states” to “Anything other than no-deal is leaving in name only and betrayal of the people’s voice” happened literally the day after the vote.

If they didn’t, they don’t really have grounds for complaint whatever happens to them.

I don’t agree. “Voters” didn’t set out what was being voted for, the campaigners did. They were failed by politicians four times…

– politicians failed to set out what would happen when detailing the advisory referendum
– politicians converted an advisory referendum into an actionable one, only after it was set in motion
– politicians then offered all things to all people, without any need for any of it to be delivered
– politicians used the result to retrospectively claim support for their own new proposals

…it’s not really the fault of voters if they voted for one thing but were delivered something entirely different… even if that looked inevitable to many of us (if only because of the contradictions between the different campaign “proposals”, never mind the bending of reality that a total lack of accountability enabled).

Still… Brexit benefits… bonus points if it’s something not contrary to what voters were told back before the vote… GO!

@kelvin – I have sympathy with your disagreement, though I do feel if when you look at something you are being promise umpteen mutually exclusive things, then you’re probably being promised nothing, and that probably was clear.

Just for information in passing

For example, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan said during an interview in 2015 that: “To repeat, absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”.

That is a different stance compared to the main claims of Leave campaigners, and Mr Hannan’s wording isn’t consistent across the interview itself either. Earlier on, he said “absolutely nobody is suggesting we would give up our position in the free market in Europe”.

when wage inflation is outstripped by actual inflation it makes people poorer…

are people really that economically illiterate?

Absolutely. The amount of people who think that inflation dropping down will lead to price cuts is staggering. The whole system of inflation and interest on the whole is deeply misunderstood hence lots of people only ever worrying about ‘the monthlies’ on big purchases via credit. Explain to someone that if they have a £200k mortgage that by the end of it they will have paid the same amount in interest they won’t believe you, some genuinely think it’s a few thousand pounds or less! When people hear that the GDP has dropped 2% they think it’s meaningless, not the hundreds of millions it actually is.

The population as a whole are complete dunces when it comes to financial matters.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

You are either being obtuse or you are incredibly stupid. Just because a question doesn’t have many words in it, or any big words, does not mean that it’s a simple question. ‘Leave the EU’ is an incredibly vague concept, encompassing a huge variety of both fantasies and nightmares.

On the old brexit thread, I used to find myself agreeing with you quite often. On this one, not so much. I don’t know if it’s you or me that’s changed.

If you deliberately don’t tell people what the implications are, then by definition it’s not democracy.

An educated electorate is one of the tenets of democracy IIRC.

As are politicians who don’t lie.

Also: Things that I think @dazh is absolutely on the money about .

1. As far as Brexit is concerned; we are where we are, and on the list of things that need sorting urgently, re-joining the EU can wait.

2. More democratic structures are in this country both badly needed and sadly lacking

Agreed on both points.

Pretending that the referendum was an improvement on politics as usual (bad enough as that is) doesn’t help further either of those points though. Nor does trying to pretend the results of leaving are positive when they overwhelming aren’t. Much of the work that needs to be done to improve the lives of people living in the UK is made more difficult by either pretending the Brexit vote was a democratic success, or that we have given ourselves an advantage by introducing barriers to trade and free movement with our closest neighbours.

So… the benefits then… we need to know what they are so as to not risk losing them or not taking advantage of them… what are they…? GO!

On the old brexit thread, I used to find myself agreeing with you quite often. On this one, not so much. I don’t know if it’s you or me that’s changed.

When the facts change you’re allowed to change your mind 🙂

When the facts change you’re allowed to change your mind

Of course. But, relating to Brexit at least, I don’t think there has been any significant change in the facts for what… 7 years? Although I think a lot of people have become rather bored with the facts…

A Brexit benefit for intensive farmers is that the EU has banned precautionary use of antibiotics in farming, ie, giving animals antibiotic before they’re ill. The UK still permits it. It’s a serious disbenefit for anyone who may need antibiotics in future (ie, anyone), as it’s one of the main things speeding up evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

If you deliberately don’t tell people what the implications are, then by definition it’s not democracy.

There was something like a 9 month campaign where all anyone talked about were the implications. Obviously there were two sides saying different things but you really can’t say it wasn’t discussed. The problem was the ambiguity about what sort of deal the govt would seek if we left, but that wasn’t on the ballot. Maybe it should have been, but then many on here who are/were against a referendum want us to put faith in representative democracy, which is what happened in this case.

On the old brexit thread, I used to find myself agreeing with you quite often. On this one, not so much. I don’t know if it’s you or me that’s changed.

The brexit thread went on for around 3-4 years so it depends what period you’re talking about. My views on brexit being bad never changed (they still haven’t), but my view on the remain campaign (and it’s supporters) and how they subsequently conducted themselves did change significantly. Back then it was hard to step back and be properly objective or understand it properly, now we have the benefit of hindsight, so hardly a surprise some opinions have changed.

But, relating to Brexit at least, I don’t think there has been any significant change in the facts for what… 7 years?

There has. In 2016 we didn’t know what sort of Brexit we’d get. Of course, we suspected, but it was not fixed and that ambiguity was what enabled the leave campaign to get way more votes. They were promising different things to different people, including the moon on a stick. Now we know mostly what Brexit’s going to look like and far fewer people want it like this, which is why support has plummeted.

molgrips
In 2016 we didn’t know what sort of Brexit we’d get. . . .They were promising different things to different people, including the moon on a stick. Now we know mostly what Brexit’s going to look like . . .

Poo on a stick.

Now we know mostly what Brexit’s going to look like and far fewer people want it like this, which is why support has plummeted.

I recently asked my in-laws and they still stand by their decision to vote leave which utterly astounds me given the state we are in now. Well, it shouldn’t really as they read the Daily Express so continue to be fed bollocks for breakfast.

I recently asked my in-laws and they still stand by their decision to vote leave which utterly astounds me given the state we are in now.

No idea why it astounds you. The vast majority of people who voted out will have seen very little change to their lives and those who have any doubts will probably be of the view that it’s too early to judge whether it’s a success or not. Also there’s a significant number of people who voted out ‘for better or worse’ on a general point of principle. You/we may disagree with them but they’re entitled to their opinion whether it makes sense to us or not.

The numbers say lots of folk ain’t as keen on Brexit as they were in 2016.

@Dazh

hardly a surprise some opinions have changed

Agreed – I wanted to meet the Brexies halfway given the squeaking a 50:50 ish vote by the narrowest of margins.  Leave the EU but maintain the 4 freedoms, common market mechanisms etc – that sort of thing.
But after they labelled the judiciary, non-Brexy politicians and folk like me traitors, I basically felt they wanted fighting at every turn. Their behaviour since hasn’t really changed much and that late 2016, 2017 opinion remains.
Hypocritical untrustworthy crooks.

Poo on a stick.

Poo at both ends of a stick youre holding too.

You/we may disagree with them but they’re entitled to their opinion whether it makes sense to us or not.

I was talking to my elderly neighbour just tonight. A taxi driver had blocked off the street to drop off a fare. His comment was “well they’re all p@kis now anyway.”

Suppose he’s entitled to his opinion.

Their behaviour since hasn’t really changed much and that late 2016, 2017 opinion remains.

It has changed, the vast majority of people who voted to leave have long since moved on because they got what they wanted. It’s gone 180 degrees the other way. Before 2016-2019 there were a load of brexit supporters who were bitter about their views not being heard and/or implemented after the referendum, whereas now it’s the opposite with remainers refusing to accept they lost and continuing to fight battles that were decided in 2016. It serves no one’s purpose to be continually raking over old ground. For those of us who hated the idea of brexit, we need to accept that things have changed.

Suppose he’s entitled to his opinion.

He is unfortunately. You can’t stop people having opinions. You can stop them gaining an audience for those opinions (as I’ve argued about climate conspiracy trolls), but you can’t stop them having those opinions.