How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I think it's stupid to even try to evaluate it. Nobody saw the pandemic or the Russian invasion coming, and the problems that has caused. Either one of those would have created turmoil, let alone both of them right on top of one another so to expect us to be entering a wonderful new post-Brexit era right now is just absurd, and that's putting it nicely. It would have taken many years to see any real benefits even without all that.

Does that mean we need to reevaluate the 50 year timescale for real benefits to 60?

 

[coolcity]

Does that mean we need to reevaluate the 50 year timescale for real benefits to 60?

Probably. I won't be around either way, so...

 

[coolcity]

mate - when pushed on it just after the result before war and pestilence struck even Rees-Mogg said it was a 50 year project. Its a bust - always was going to be a bust - by the 50 year period was up most of the country would not have been alive when we were in the EU so could be told any old bollocks about how bad it was

Can't really add to anything I said. After what's gone on the past couple of years I really don't think you can evaluate anything. I think we're lucky things are not a lot worse than they are.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Probably. I won't be around either way, so...

Isn’t that the point? There aren't any tangible benefits and we’ll all be dead before we see them?

 

[bluethrunthru]

Isn’t that the point? There aren't any tangible benefits and we’ll all be dead before we see them?

so will some of our kids - grandkids might see something I suppose - won't be the predicted collapse of the EU I bet

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

so will some of our kids - grandkids might see something I suppose - won't be the predicted collapse of the EU I bet

It’s more likely we’ll be spending Euros by 2040.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Can't really add to anything I said. After what's gone on the past couple of years I really don't think you can evaluate anything. I think we're lucky things are not a lot worse than they are.

Brace yourself.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I think it's stupid to even try to evaluate it. Nobody saw the pandemic or the Russian invasion coming, and the problems that has caused. Either one of those would have created turmoil, let alone both of them right on top of one another so to expect us to be entering a wonderful new post-Brexit era right now is just absurd, and that's putting it nicely. It would have taken many years to see any real benefits even without all that.

That’s precisely the point, though. By leaving a stable, established trading and political union we gratuitously and unnecessarily exposed ourselves to the vicissitudes of fortune of international affairs and made ourselves less able to respond to unforeseen global events.

Covid and Russia invading Ukraine might not have been foreseeable in a particularised sense, but anyone applying logic and common sense in 2016 to the question of whether far reaching international events would occur in the decade that followed would have said ‘yes’. That’s because shit happens.

It’s simply no excuse to point to covid or Putin as a get out of jail card. It’s akin to cancelling your house insurance on a home you’ve had for 50 years because you haven’t had any subsidence and then complaining when it catches fire and burns to the ground.

We cancelled our nation’s insurance policy when we voted to leave and the fact that covid and Ukraine happened made that decision more, not less, reckless.

 

[coolcity]

I think calling it "stable" is a bit of a stretch.

I'm not calling it one way or another, I'm just saying it's impossible to tell because it's far too early. Sure, those events have made a big difference but they would have done either way. Staying in the EU wouldn't have helped, and with the vaccine distribution it might well have made things worse. We did manage to jump a very long EU queue when the vaccine was released, simply because we weren't part of the EU any more.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I think calling it "stable" is a bit of a stretch.

I'm not calling it one way or another, I'm just saying it's impossible to tell because it's far too early. Sure, those events have made a big difference but they would have done either way. Staying in the EU wouldn't have helped, and with the vaccine distribution it might well have made things worse. We did manage to jump a very long EU queue when the vaccine was released, simply because we weren't part of the EU any more.

That’s just not either proveable nor true. We made AZ break a contract to have a 6 week head start on vaccination, which cost that company billions of pounds and undermined our status within the EU and more widely too, for no real benefit in hindsight.

Exports have dropped off a cliff. This is neither Covid, nor pandemic related.

What do you think has stopped our businesses exporting goods?

So, given exports are dying, what benefit have we had from leaving the EU to counterbalance the losses our businesses have faced from our decision to leave the EU?