Forums Forums National News Brexit - A Few Years On

I still think we should have gone for a harder Brexit, however our virtual/partial Brexit has reaped rewards.


In the 7 years since the referendum our exports have increased by 50%.
We are second in the world for service exports.
40% of our exports are to the EU, 60% to the Rest of The World.
We have attracted a lot of foreign investment, in 2021/22 we were second in the World.

Things we still need to work on.

We still import too much from the EU which is higher priced.
We legally cannot produce some oil based goods but we still import them.
Our internal distribution of wealth is appalling.

I've not fact checked these figures but they are unlikely to be wrong.

Is that you giving the Tories some credit DD?

Only Reform will deliver a harder Brexit me finks.

Far from it, Boris completely bodged Brexit into a compromise in favour of the EU. I supported Brexit like many other socialists did and most of us felt like we got a 20% Brexit at best.

Reform is Farage's revenge on the Tory party for bodging the Brexit deal, it has no relevance in the contemporary and future running of the country.

I really really don't want to vote Starmer but it is essential to remove the Conservative party who are outright thieves, they have destroyed every aspect of our country and left a trail of debt and commitments that will take years to recover from. We still haven't recovered from Thatcher and now we have had a second bigger wave of the gentry vs the populous.

Strategic Reserves - totally destroyed
NHS - totally destroyed
Defence - totally destroyed
Leisure Services - totally destroyed
Sewage - totally destroyed
Policing - destroyed
Justice System - destroyed
Energy Supply - destroyed
Energy Infrastructure - destroyed
Food Supply - destroyed
Water supply - destroyed
Transport - destroyed
Education - destroyed
Food Supply - destroyed
Housing - destroyed
Local Councils - destroyed

Not one of the above have shown any improvement, they have all gone backwards despite us being well inside the top ten countries in the world.

Labour will take us back in to Europe, perhaps through the back door but closer ties we will have with them that we voted to leave behind. I've voted Labour all my life but I don't trust this lot and I certainly don't trust Starmer who changes his mind like the weather. I'll probably waste my vote on one of the minor parties as a protest.

TBH I don't think Starmer will be in office for a full term. I'm still on the fence about Raynor, she was rock solid socialist at one time, I really can't believe she could change her colours that fast, I think she decided it would be better monitoring from the inside than be blind on the outside.

The EU won't co-operate with any requests from Starmer, if he asks for anything they will want a few pounds of flesh in return I hope he's not as daft as Boris and give them it on a plate..

One things you can guarantee is the the Tories will be crying about the financial state of the country even though it is their excessive borrowing that has created the mess.

The EU will have us back in the blink of an eye, of course they will have their pound of flesh but Starmer & Co will very likely give it to them. If you think illegal immigration is bad now, stand by it's going to get a lot worse, I'm still waiting to hear what the Labour party are going to do with those who are already here, never mind the millions who are yet to come.

It's what they haven't said more than what they have said is the reason they are not getting my vote.

Nobody has a solution to illegal immigration, especially where you can't identify the correct country of origin.

The Rwanda plan is not going to deter anybody, as Starmer correctly points out, adding 1% extra risk to the illegal immigrants is not a deterrent.

The high numbers of immigrants is not primarily down to the illegal immigrants, its the accumulation of legal immigrants.

For 2003:-

Humanitarian 120,000
Settlement 119,000
Citizenship 202,000
EU Settlers 417,000

So that is 858,000 extra legal permanent immigrants per year which completely dwarfs the number of illegal immigrants per year who are likely to be be around 1% of that figure.

This is how we have accumulated over 10 million first generation immigrants in the UK, it is not a consequence of illegal immigration.

Other figures related that are of use for an idea of scale.

84,000 asylum seekers (of which probably around 60,000 will be approved)
54,000 immigrants returned
1,800 immigrants detained
1,300,000 non-visitor visas issued
686,000 permitted extended stay
2,000,000 visitor visas issued

The actual number of permanent illegal immigrants is of course unknown but it is certainly considerably less than the number of asylum seekers.

There shouldn't be any asylum seekers here unless we invite them or they fall from the sky, they should seek asylum in the first safe country they step foot in and that can never be here. I see them as illegal for that reason.

Legal immigration can of course be beneficial in some circumstances but that has be sorted before our infrastructure collapses.

The "First Country" is an EU rule, not International.

The problem with "First Country" is that neighbouring countries would be totally overwhelmed, left defenceless and there would soon be a humanitarian crisis due to lack of social and policing infrastructure to support all the people in the country. Starvation, disease and crime would soon become prevalent.

It could also be fair for asylum seekers to seek asylum in countries that speak the same language, English being one of the prominent languages is the reason some people want to be here, it is often a second language.

Even adding non-invited asylum seekers and illegal immigrants together, it is only a small fraction of the legal immigrants allowed in the country and not the reason for the substantial increase in population.

Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Germany and Ireland are some European countries that had a higher proportion of foreign born people than the UK (2022 figures). Our problem is that we already have a high population density without immigrants, even more of a problem when you look at our lack of natural resources.

More so, we are a soft touch with plenty of benefits and freebies.

If we didn't treat people as a commodity by importing them when we need them then we could tighten rules. Interestingly Enoch Powell championed bringing mass immigrants in to work despite most people believing he was anti-immigration. We need to train existing members of the population instead of relying on immigrants, we are not short of people.

At the end of the day unless you are prepared to shoot unwanted immigrants (which I hope you are not) then there is very little you can do, as successive Governments have found despite putting their neck on the line thinking they could resolve the problems.

You cannot send immigrants back to another country without the cooperation of that country, we passed the "travelled through a safe third country" rule which was obviously targeted at France but it is often toothless without France agreeing to take back the individuals. You can criminalise double returnees but the jails are full and expensive.

I would tend to disagree about plenty of benefits and freebies, they are amongst the worst in Europe.

The only developed country that has made significant control is Australia which has resulted in the problem passing to New Zealand. Just thank yourself that you don't live in Greece.

Eventually there will be mass evacuation of a lot of Southern countries as global temperatures rise and there exists nations that can't afford the infrastructure to cope. The world population needs to run down in anticipation but capitalism encourages the increase of the population to be able to exploit more people cheaply. We should be putting our solar panels etc in the southern countries to both increase those countries' economy and provide sustainable energy. Lack of investment encourages emigration.

My 4 penneth, is probably not likely to be of any great interest, but I'll contribute, like so many others should do as we clearly have all had an opinion on the GE and our politicians.

For myself, I didn't vote. The first time in my life. I could no longer support the Tories, and Labour are a mixed bag of undercover marxists etc. Neither do I think Starmer will last the term, which is concerning should Rayner reach her desired poistion.

Mrs May buggered Brexit, initially, to unravel her original agreement was a battle of wills, so far as I could understand. Boris followed, and with all considerations, he had little time to do much, firstly contracting Covid, the lockdowns, and the recovery, with Dominic Cummings playing his hand behind the scenes, who even admitted on BBC interview that Boris was used and the intention was to remove him from office asap. Boris didn't want 'lockdown'. These are the devious games played within the highest office in the land.

There was so much infighting in the party, it was fairly obvious it was crumbling within. Sunak arrived without being elected, and proceeded to ditch all the promises and Manifesto of 2019. He thought he could do things better, by throwing money at everything.
I understand that global affairs have played a big part, but my own thoughts are the Tories were grasping at straws for the last two years.

So far as the migrants travelling across the channel, Starmer is going to 'smash the gangs'. Twit !!
How does he thinks he'll do that ? The 'gangs' are all over the world and mostly in African countries at the moment.
Remember Gadaffi , who tried to blackmail in return for stopping millions of people making their way across to Europe ? Well, we killed him, and now we see what's happening, and the 'gangs' are out of Starmer's reach. So we could go back to Cameron's premiership and figure out how his actions have contributed.

Many of the illegal migrants come from countries that speak French as their second language, and as many of them have been refused refugee status in France, one has to wonder why.
The Rwanda policy seemed a sham, however, if we are now pulling out, I bet any money another European country will pick up on an offer and ship their own illegal migrants to the place we set up.

Of course, the illegals will continue to arrive. When they are sending photo's of their 4 star accommodation to their friends in distant lands, who wouldn;t want to join the happy throng ?
One point that really makes me wonder,....... if many of these migrants crossing the channel have come from countries where they earn just a few shillings a day, how on earth do they afford £1000's to pay traffickers.

I did read that they can have their passage on 'tick' and pay back when they get here. Another insentive for them to join criminal activities but that would indicate there are already ' gang masters' operating throughout the UK.
Now we don;t have enough prison places.

Basically, we are stuffed and Starmer and Sunak should have put their heads together on this long ago, instead of the likes of Braveman a Patel trying to be innovative. It's IMO a national emergency which needs combating .

I have no confidence in this new Government, but I suppose we have to give them a chance to prove something .

Legal migration is different, and I don;t think most have a problem with that.

My post is longer than your's DD> Whoop ! So there.

I'll keep this one short then

If the illegal immigrants and gangs can find each other, then the intelligence services can also find them - it just takes the will to do it.

Not that for one second do I believe there will be a true will to achieve this. why would there be? It doesn't make financial sense, it is just a political football!

So we can't shoot them, Rwanda was never going to work and we won't smash the gangs, Twit is right Granny.
It turns out that physical barriers in the channel are against Maritime International law even though it would save lives and deter small boats crossing the channel which apparently is what all these MP's are concerned about, saving lives.

What next, have a cruise ship on stand by in France to bring them here safely?
As part of we must do our bit in agreement with Europe.

If less fuss had been made about an almost non-existent problem, the attractiveness of coming to the UK might not have been have become a thing. There has always been a background number of illegal immigrants and to an extent the numbers are self-regulating due to lack of opportunities here.

Illegals have no benefits, no health care, very few employers, no justice system, very few landlords that will house them and they run the risk of entering illegal slavery. What would be the attraction of that?

What cost to the UK is an illegal immigrant? Virtually nothing! But when the Government start throwing billions of pounds at it, it is easy to convince potential immigrants that the Government are protecting something that is worth coming here for.

However. it is too late, the fuss has been made, money has been wasted, the problem exists and nobody has come up with a solution.

This political footballing is paralleling the anomaly of benefit cheating whereby far more money and time is thrown at it than the problem actually costs.

Remind me who was against having a national ID card, was it people who had nothing to hide, or those that can exploit its absence? It is getting harder and harder to get by in society without proving your ID and this has been a lot more difficult with paperless billing becoming the norm.

I've long thought that a cruise liner anchored off the UK coast to take the illegal migrants onboard for processing , would have been an option. If they don't step on land I don't think they have entitlements. Those who failed the tests could be transported back to their homeland.

People compained about the cruelty of housing illegal migrants in the 'barge'. That is luxury accommodation, campared to cabins on Merchant vessels, staff cabins on cruise liners, and cabins on submarines where they go away for months on end.

It's particulalry annoying that so many young men have abandoned their wives and children, most of them from Muslim background will be married with family, and been given asylum in this country. If they work, they might send their earnings back home, but that drains our system .

Also, now we see that 220 of those expected to go to Rwanda have been given bail. Who has paid for the bail conditions ? Plus there are too many crooked lawyers working on their behalf in this country. It's all money in the pot for them at the tax payers expense.

Remember the plea for clothes, tents, blankets on here by a particular member, all those years ago, to be sent to Calais for the migrants ? Initiated by Claire someone from Heswall. She's continued running that 'Care4Calais' until recently, but she had a bad track record and was having an affair with an illegal migrant.

Another thing I came across is the 'foodbank' senario. Europe has a federation for foodbanks which includes the UK. Launched in USA in 1986, Blair triggered the food banks in this country, it was a way to keep wages low for businesses, and to expect the people to feed the people. Very sort of 'kibutz' style and we seem to be moving further andd futher to Kibutz way of living. Children being cared for whilst mothers are expeted to go out to work. The promise of free schools breakfast for every child ! Breakfast clubs,After school clubs, cleaning teeth lessons, potty training lessons... so it goes on. Let the mothers have the contributios to childcare and allow them to stay at home with their babies,and also increase the population that we are apparently so worried about ?
Now a European Federation is big business under the guise of caring. Comes under 'FareShare' in UK.

https://www.eurofoodbank.org/#

Grrrrrrrrrrr !!!

It was 2008 and the credit crunch that triggered UK food banks which was after Blair and their creation was not a Government matter. This was the same period that food banks grew around the world. The Conservative austerity measures then escalated food banks further in the UK.

The EU foodbank systems MDP then FEAD have never contributed to the UK foodbank systems.

The European Federation of Foodbanks (FEBA) is nothing to do with Governments other than advising them and getting some grants, it is an NGO. Fairshare is a member of FEBA which is the UK connection, Fairshare is also an NGO. FEAD aid/grants to FEBA have targeted 10 unspecified countries, it is unlikely the UK was one of them, there are members from 30 countries in FEBA.

The backlog in the immigration system is partly caused by the difficulty in returning immigrants, if the claimed country of origin doesn't agree to take them back, there is very little the UK can do about it. Normally it eventually happens after diplomatic negotiation but only after a substantial delay. The US has the same problem with Venezuela making it very difficult to return immigrants.

Processing immigrants is hard, without proof of the country of origin, you cannot return them, evidence has to be found which is time consuming.

The original Rwanda proposal/brief was for it to partly be an extended processing centre for non-straightforward cases, it has changed considerably since then.

No, the Trussell Trust began the first food bank in 2000, due to people needing emergency food.
Blair had introduced minimum wage in 1999 which was £3.60 per hour. Some had been paid less than that, but as soon as minimum wage was introduced in UK , (as well as EU) it became the norm for any company to offer only minimum wage. Prior to that, it was competative wages as to what a company were prepared to offer.

Trusseell Trust network was rolled out nationwide in 2004 .

I didn't say that the FEBA was Government aligned or connected to Government. My point was that the 'food banks' continue to be expected to be operational, which in turn saves Governments lifting the Minimum Wage.
The FEBA is a Foundation, with highly paid officials, is a distributer of food to charities . Food poverty is initiated by low wages . So the 'foodbanks' and distribution of donated food from the public etc., is now extending to other charities. Ongoing.

FareShare is the UK's largest food redistribution charity, with 25 warehouses across the country. It takes food from the food industry that can't be sold in shops, either because of packaging errors, a short shelf life or overproduction.


Just as a matter of interest, when a 3 bed terraced house costs £1,750 per month to rent, how are families expected to manage or even have a roof over their head ? Then Governments complain because the benefit bill is too high. Of course it will be . BUT, now everyone is welcome and Starmer is about to make plans to build 1.5 million houses. Absolute rubbish ! Even if they do,, it won't be affordable for most either purchase or rental.

Looks as if we might be creeping back into EU, through the back door, so another waste of money and if so, and we'll have to take the Euro as our currency and a quota of migrants each year.

Before 2008 food bank usage was insignificant, it would have saved the Government and employers nothing. There is no correlation between food banks and the introduction of the minimum wage which was introduced in 1999. Prior to Thatcher there were other methods of wage control.