Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It is quite depressing that people are content in celebrating the removal of insignia with the price paid for the removal of such trivia being the structural impoverishment of the nation and the visceral division of our society.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

That is what Democracy does and those who voted to leave chose. That little detail you conveniently Keep ignoring Ianch.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

No, this is not to do with the vote anymore. It is the honesty of those who voted to Leave, knowing that this would have severe economic & societal consequences and to then ignore, and worse, misrepresent the reality that was foretold.

There are those, like you and Seph, who will stand up and say: "Yes, I was prepared for the downsides and was happy with these consequences". I fundamentally disagree with you but I respect the honesty. There are others, however, who will not be this honest and will, and this is the unsavoury part, will go out of their way to pretend that there is no downside and try and gaslight the situation.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I think the problem is they didn't have a plan B (some might say they didn't even have a plan A, but that's another discussion). We left with our Government expecting the world to be tripping over itself to get us to sign a trade deal and we'd all be living on milk and honey. Meanwhile in the real world, that hasn't happened and most of the rest of the world has watched us threaten to renegade on the biggest deal we signed and then acting like a child crying because we've not got our own way. The next PM and their team need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves how they're going to repair out reputation which is becoming evermore tarnished. Let's have at least the bones of a plan - the meat can come later, but give us some idea what direction they plan to follow otherwise HMS UK will end up going in circles getting nowhere. One thing we must not do is sign deals at any price, and a good start would be employing people who can read to at least have a quick glance through any deal before we sign. That would be an improvement on what appears to have happened with the deal we signed with the EU.

Oh and I got my new photocard the other day and didn't notice any flag, but then I can't say I ever noticed any flag on my old one either. Trust me when I say there're many many more important things to worry about in life.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Your hindsight is flawed. We were part of the EU and any monies sent and/or received were sanctioned by us as a member state.

Of course, the whole point is moot since the financial cost of Brexit has now exceeded the total of the monies we paid into the EU as a member state. Sort of sums up the whole debacle.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

I think many blame leaving the EU for everything, ignoring the timing of covid/other external factors and the fact many EU countries are having some similar financial difficulties at the moment. We outperformed many main EU countries some quarters too.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Not sure who the "many" are here? The "blame leaving the EU for everything" trope is not worth the debate. No one in the right mind would do this - the issue is that all the troubled sectors e.g. farming, fisheries, trade imports/exports, R&D, Finance, etc. will have a Brexit contribution. Some small and some considerable.

It is wishful thinking that we are just like the other EU countries in our economic performance post-Covid, we're not.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

How?

Insignia symbolise things. Removing them symbolises the deeper change permitting their removal. The removal of the EU name and/or flag from our driving licences, our infrastructure projects and whatever else, is a visible reminder of where the buck now always stops. Harmonised EU rules now need no longer be an excuse for government inaction. And that’s good for our democracy because we can debate these things and hold our representatives to account in elections that can actually result in an entire change of government rather than the massive deckchair shuffling process that occurs in Strasbourg.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

:rofl:

Now we just have that they’re crap.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Quite possibly. And while it’s all but impossible to effect co-ordinated, meaningful change in the EU legislature across the entire bloc, it is most definitely possible to do it within the UK. Accountability now rests where it ought to.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Given their impotence in applying the powers they do have I look forward to the exhaustive list of planned improvements that couldn’t happen in the EU.

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

You have to admire (not really) Rees-Mogg’s brass neck in claiming £1 billion in savings/avoided costs by suspending something we only introduced because we left the EU…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...-saved-almost/

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

Johnson's terrible Brexit deal that penalised UK manufacturing continues to unravel. As a trade expert reveals, if Johnson had wanted to, he could have sorted this issue out over a couple of beers in Brussels.
https://www.ft.com/content/fcddb854-...5-4dc905abc64e

Re: Britain outside the EU
 

It's not unravelling, we were told manufacturing and farming would be sacrificed, that they are is hardly a shock to anyone paying attention