OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Andy_Faber]

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I’m far from wealthy but, probably like you, relatively comfortably off...there will however be plenty of families further down the financial ‘pecking order’ who may be rather more dependent on the health care reciprocity offered via the EHIC when holidaying abroad in Europe.

Well they shouldn't. If folk can't afford 'proper' health insurance they shouldn't set foot outside UK, EHIC DOESN'T cover major injuries, especially, and my eldest's friendship group know this to their cost, those which result in the need to repatriate in any way other than the return aircraft seat booked

[ramAnag]

Not denying them rA, and there are many, just pointing out a baby step that as it happened will benefit me and mine.

I think you missed my point...the denial reference was made in reference to a previous argument which I contacted you privately about.

Can’t help feeling that such ‘baby steps’ to ‘normality’ would have been completely unnecessary without Brexit.

P.S. You may well be right in your later post...doubtless lots of people - many of them poor - make ill advised decisions with regards to all sorts of insurance. I’m not sure it’s up to the likes of you and GP to be arbiters of who can and cannot travel abroad though.

[Trickytreesreds]

‘Little inconveniences’? You mean like much longer queues to get through passport control...the need for all travellers to pay for their own travel insurance rather than benefit from their EHIC...our lack of trade with our nearest neighbours, and the shortages of workers and goods that we are currently experiencing...those sort of things?

The EHIC card is still valid. This is being replaced by the UK global card, which will work exactly the same way. I got mine 2 weeks ago.

https://www.gov.uk/global-health-insurance-card

[swaledale]

I think you missed my point...the denial reference was made in reference to a previous argument which I contacted you privately about.

Can’t help feeling that such ‘baby steps’ to ‘normality’ would have been completely unnecessary without Brexit.

P.S. You may well be right in your later post...doubtless lots of people - many of them poor - make ill advised decisions with regards to all sorts of insurance. I’m not sure it’s up to the likes of you and GP to be arbiters of who can and cannot travel abroad though.

Anyway I thought Brexit was supposed to be about benefits, not having SOME things equivalent to how they were before?

[Andy_Faber]

Can’t help feeling that such ‘baby steps’ to ‘normality’ would have been completely unnecessary without Brexit.

maybe so but the workers bees are cracking on. Latest 'win', which matters a lot to the folk I feature in my magazine, is the restoration of visa free travel for (amongst others) UK musicians who tour in EU and vice versa. This is one of those areas where the Brexiteers were actually right, EU have come to the table because it hurts EU folk more than UK - especially Irish. effectively they can travel freely across the border but can't work when they get to where they are headed. Now in the process of being sorted as I said, which (knowing so many people for whom such travel is part of their bread and butter) I am very happy about.

[ramAnag]

maybe so but the workers bees are cracking on. Latest 'win', which matters a lot to the folk I feature in my magazine, is the restoration of visa free travel for (amongst others) UK musicians who tour in EU and vice versa. This is one of those areas where the Brexiteers were actually right, EU have come to the table because it hurts EU folk more than UK - especially Irish. effectively they can travel freely across the border but can't work when they get to where they are headed. Now in the process of being sorted as I said, which (knowing so many people for whom such travel is part of their bread and butter) I am very happy about.

See my second sentence (7382) and Swale’s post...you are actually ‘celebrating’ as an achievement a return to what we had before Brexit. How does that work?

[swaledale]

In truth we are nowhere near to returning to what we had before Brexit, little improvements here and there but at a cost of time and money that frankly would have been better spent on other matters.

The econmic cost of Brexit to the UK GDP already exceeds that mythical £350 million on the side of the bus we would gain!!

Exporters are increasingly concerned that the second half of 2021 will see short-term Brexit disruption evolve into the permanent loss of certain EU markets.

Many exporters had responded to the Brexit challenge so far by putting “band aids on bullet wounds”, said Neil Hammill, commercial director at Cambridge Commodities. However, he said many were now weighing up whether to stop exporting the goods that encountered the worst frictions upon arrival in the EU.

These were predominantly animal origin products and organics, Hammill said. “I sense we’re going to end up putting them in the ‘too hard box’ over there and going: ‘OK, this is what’s left’, and it might be a business that’s 75% of the size.”

When the trade deal landed in December last year, Alex Matheson, a partner at food and drink distributor Fresh Marketing, expected the first few months to be “a bit chaotic” but that the business would find a way to make things work.

But now, just over five months in, “some of our routes are becoming completely unworkable,” he said, highlighting occasions on which “hundreds of hours” had been spent trying to work out how to send £2,000 worth of goods.

“It’s not sustainable for us, it’s not sustainable for the customers, and it’s not sustainable for the brands. The only sensible thing for the importer to do is find the products from somewhere else,” Matheson added.

[Geoff Parkstone]

See my second sentence (7382) and Swale’s post...you are actually ‘celebrating’ as an achievement a return to what we had before Brexit. How does that work?

Actually it sort of does work in my book - if we can return to a pre Brexit condition on an economic issue, then that negates part of the negatives of Brexit for me. Consequently, on a net basis, the positives of avoiding an increasingly federal Europe "costs less" in economic terms

[MadAmster]

... not to mention the London Financial Markets being somewhat hogtied thanks to the deal we signed.

[Andy_Faber]

Actually it sort of does work in my book - if we can return to a pre Brexit condition on an economic issue, then that negates part of the negatives of Brexit for me. Consequently, on a net basis, the positives of avoiding an increasingly federal Europe "costs less" in economic terms

My friend the 'Greek who voted in the Scottish referendum' see this the same way but with a different outcome for Greece, he and from what i can see most of his his compatriates despise the EU but see the swallowing up of Greece into a federal EU as being the price to be paid for the EU getting them out of the financial mire

[swaledale]

Actually it sort of does work in my book - if we can return to a pre Brexit condition on an economic issue, then that negates part of the negatives of Brexit for me. Consequently, on a net basis, the positives of avoiding an increasingly federal Europe "costs less" in economic terms

In theory, but in reality there is only so far we can get to and in the main its piffling (in economic terms) little things that are agreed. We won't for obvious reasons get the same economic deal we would ahve had by staying in the EU, or even remaining in the single market and customs union.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Individually piffling but collectively perhaps more meaningful. Don't forget we are playing a long game here, not expecting immediate payback

[ramAnag]

Individually piffling but collectively perhaps more meaningful. Don't forget we are playing a long game here, not expecting immediate payback

Not point scoring here, but how long a game, GP? The foreseeable future or the ‘not in our lifetime’ future?
Many on here will have experienced the more personal process of short term pain for long term gain...eg a mortgage, and I understand the concept of ‘not expecting immediate payback’...but the question of whether we’re talking about the ‘Boris’ bus’ payback as opposed to sometime around when current ten and eleven year olds are eligible for retirement is a valid...and I believe...unprecedented one.
As things are at the moment, and I do hope to debate constructively rather than just engage in animosity, I struggle to see anything other than disadvantage.

[Andy_Faber]

Not point scoring here, but how long a game, GP? The foreseeable future or the ‘not in our lifetime’ future?
Many on here will have experienced the more personal process of short term pain for long term gain...eg a mortgage, and I understand the concept of ‘not expecting immediate payback’...but the question of whether we’re talking about the ‘Boris’ bus’ payback as opposed to sometime around when current ten and eleven year olds are eligible for retirement is a valid...and I believe...unprecedented one.
As things are at the moment, and I do hope to debate constructively rather than just engage in animosity, I struggle to see anything other than disadvantage.

While GP is ruminating on that I’ll charge in with my hobnails and ask a question I was asked by a friend at (my) birthday party, amongst friends, so most of my friendship group had their say: ‘what difference have you noticed (key word) post Brexit? So, noticed, not read about or seen on TV

[ramAnag]

It’s difficult to extricate Brexit and Covid at the moment. I think we all have to accept that, but...

Shortages of certain fruits and vegetables, the impact of the HGV driver shortage on what used to be an excellent refuse collection service (and you and I falling out over it ) and anticipated (so not I accept yet ‘noticed’) likely complications concerning foreign travel.

Could you or any of your friendship group provide any positive examples?

P.S. Happy Birthday anyway...wasn’t that the big 60?