Today I’m going to visit an old subject which has not gone away and is the worse mistake we have made politically for many a long year (and we’ve made a f**king lot!) Brexit. Can anyone tell me one advantage we have gained from leaving the EU? I can tell you some of the many disadvantages that business is suffering. Businesses have given up exporting to the EU, the paperwork involved is too onerous and costly. What was the easiest thing has now become almost impossible. The Northern Ireland problem that our wonderful PM told us would be alright on the night is a joke! As individual we have lost our EU citizenship and if we want to stay for more than 90 days in any member state we either have to apply for residency or just come back to the UK. All those ex-pats in Spain who voted to leave now find themselves having to come back and can’t understand what they did wrong. Your no longer subject to the European Court of Human Rights. Slowly our hard won rights of equality and protection under EU law are being repealed and disappearing.
The irony is that as a member the UK had more power than almost any other member. We could veto anything we did not wish to join. We resisted the Euro. Our contribution was subject to rebates. Unlike France we are a nation of who follow the rules of any club we belong to even when it doesn’t suit us but we did not have to. The EU made many ridiculous decisions, nobody would deny that but from the inside we had a say in how it developed now we have no say, no control, no influence. This will last for years and years, it is not a temporary glitch while we adjust, the impact of Brexit will cast it’s shadow across the UK for a long time. The big plus is supposedly sovereignty? What a load of bollocks! We controlled our own borders, we had control over all our own laws, we were always and always have been a sovereign nation regardless of which “club” we belonged to! All those EU subsidies that helped our farmers and many other projects has now disappeared and do you really think this the Conservatives will take up the slack amid the already stretched financial position we are in because of Covid and leaving the EU in the first place? What a waste of time and energy the last 5 years has been, uncertainty, needless hardship, businesses, incurring additional expense and all for no good reason, other than those who supported Brexit either for their own ambition or because they could used the fear factor and lies to push their own agenda. Okay no one expected a pandemic and that has put a huge kink in all economies but only hides a fraction of the damage leaving the EU has caused.
Get over it I hear many say, it’s done, stop bleating and get on with it. Well to those who do why should I? If it had all gone smoothly and trade deals etc were blossoming all over the world and “sovereignty” had given us all the advantages we were promised, I would be the first to say I was wrong (actually I probably would still say we should have remained!). I am willing to bet that many of those who voted leave, may be keeping quiet but secretly know they made an error in judgement?
The EU is far far from perfect and has much that needs to be reformed, does not treat all members equally in spite of it’s stated intentions and charters. They are our closest neighbours and markets so why not remain inside as Sun Tzu said in The Art of War “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” We just shut the door in their face!
Stay well
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