Brexit

A reminder of what we’ve lost

Don’t forget that you also lost a month-long delay getting the COVID-19 vaccine approved, along with a typical political decision to better wait for a French-developed vaccine (maybe ready mid-2021 if we’re lucky) instead of buying enough of the already working-and-proved German-US vaccine and other non-EU developed and produced vaccines.

But yes, losing the advantage of the removal of roaming charges is perhaps more important than a few thousand lives.

@Steffen Hear hear

It was a combination of a deep brooding xenophobia (close the borders! kick all the foreigners out! ¹) especially those perceived as having a certain incompatible religious outlook…

…and a deep brooding hatred of “the elite” and all that people like David Cameron stood for ²…

…and a combination of right wing press lies and probably the worst person in living history to ever lead an opposition government meant that there pretty much wasn’t any opposition…

…and a generally poorer education, particularly in the post war generation meaning that a large of people would rather believe some random unelected wanker holding a pint than people that actually had some sort of idea of what would happen ³.

This, combined with a toxic combination of a very right wing government ⁴ and a heavily polarised press ⁵ that prints large amounts of outright lies under the guise of “opinion pieces” means that a referendum that was supposed to be purely advisory in order to gauge the opinion of the people became a quasi-religion in and of itself. You know things have gone seriously wrong when the mainstream politicians talk of “crashing out” and they aren’t trying to make pointless threats. We still have to see if the hard right of the government will consider the current agreement as acceptable.

I wish it was less complicated to obtain French nationality ⁶. All Britain means to me now is “the country that issues my passport”. After the last four years, it’s quite clear that the country as a whole, and I, have very different outlooks.

But, hey, I suppose Britain can go down in history as the first country to impose sanctions upon itself?

¹ Oh, the irony as several million displaced Chinese may be on the way.

² Oh, the irony as Johnson and Rees-Mogg are even worse than Cameron ever was. Cameron was a prick. Those two are devious and malicious and concerned more about what it means to them rather than what it might mean to the country they’re supposed to be in charge of.

³ It wasn’t helped by the fact that you can’t explain finance and complicated trade in easy terms, and all the leave side had to do was shout “Project Fear!” and other such idiotic mantras over and over until people believed them instead.

⁴ It has been said that the current Tory party are even further to the right than the British Nationalist Party were in the eighties…

⁵ Oh, the irony as much of this media is either owned by foreigners (the same Murdoch that brings you the delightful Fox News) or owned by British billionaires that live overseas to avoid paying taxes.

⁶ Complicated paperwork reasons that may be show stoppers, plus the costs. Sadly France isn’t like Spain…

the positives are less middle eastern people flooding the market and taking away from nationals resources

And which part of The Middle East is in the EU?

Traditionally “the EU” has long been a scapegoat for everything the government has screwed up. Mark my words, when the excrement hits the ventilation device as it surely will when the scale of what is different begins to hit home and job losses happen, it will be the fault of the EU, not the idiots that failed in pretty much every way possible over the last four years.

As for taking away resources, well historically Britain has been exceptionally poor at controlling its own borders. That coupled with an irrational fear of having and carrying any form of identity papers ¹ means that it is damned near impossible to know who is really an eligible citizen and who isn’t.
Under the Treaty of Rome, I think it was, I was granted rights in France and to be considered equal to a French person in many respects, but only after five years of continued residence. Up until my fifth year, France had utterly no interest in me and actually would have had the right to have kicked me out should I have become a burden on the social services.
If only Britain had bothered to read, and actually implement, the rules.

The general perception amongst both (illegal) immigrants and the natives is that people just turn up, get a house, get a job… if such things really happen then it’s a fault of the local government not the EU. But it’s the EU that will be blamed as that’s easier than actually changing anything.

A lot of people think the EU is responsible for daft things like the straightness of cucumbers. The financial and development support in otherwise forgotten rural areas, cleaner beaches, better working conditions, improved employee rights… all those things are not really understood as it isn’t common to thank or consider the EU for anything. Quite a number of things at work, and around here, have been supported by EU funding and there are big signs saying so. A new(ish) fast road was built and a sign erected at each end saying how much the region, France, and the EU contributed. At work, some of the machines have signs or stickers with the stars-on-blue flag. They’re actually doing quite a lot of rural support development around here, just like they were doing in Wales.

Oh well, it’s happened and there’s an end date that is about to go “ping!”. People are very soon going to wake up to the reality of what the naysayers were trying to tell them. Project Fear indeed. Wake me up when somebody has figured out what to do with the thousands of trucks that go in each direction. I understand Kent is doing double duty as the world’s largest car park…….

¹ Older people have told me that this is because of the whole “papers please” thing in the wartime. Which I could understand if it had been an occupied country, which Britain never was. Most of the rest of Europe doesn’t have any qualms about carrying some sort of identity card, so what’s the deal with the British?

carrying some sort of identity card

When I am “controlled” by the gendarmes, I’ve only ever run into two problems. Once, one of them had a question about who or what “IPA” was as the passport issuer (it’s supposed to be a location), so I had to explain how Britain issues passports to overseas residents.
The other time, nothing to do with my identity, just a flic that had difficulty understanding that a person driving a “voiture sans permis” didn’t have a “permis”. Clue in the name there. Though I suspect he was bored and was trolling.

Generally, treat the fuzz with respect and don’t be a twat and there’s no problem.

Pretty much the only comment I ever got from anybody official regarding my nationality was at the end of 2016 when registering with a new doctor (my previous retired). She said, in English, “Oh my god you’re English ¹… I’m so sorry”.

¹ I’ve given up explaining that Scotland is a different country. We’re all “Les Anglaises”.

carrying some sort of identity card

To be frank, I think there’d be an uproar if this were a legal requirement in Sweden as well. I mean, most everyone has an id on themselves most of the time, since you need it for everything from picking up packages and prescription medicine to buying alcohol and of course driving a car, but I think there is a hard line between that and being required to be able to identify yourself when going about your business.

From The Guardian:

Yeah. You and all the rest of us. What promises have actually been kept?

lost a month-long delay getting the COVID-19 vaccine approved

According to a BBC fact check ⁰, the speedy UK approval of the vaccine had nothing to do with Brexit, but was done following the EU laws that the UK are bound by for four more days.

⁰ https://www.bbc.com/news/55163730

It was a combination of

You missed a primary item from the combination: Money. What do the Brexiteers (top end) gain?

What promises have actually been kept?

You do appreciate that breaking in to the “stand up comedian” part of the job market is extremely difficult in the best of times?

It’s Boris and the Brexiteers, they find breathing harder than lying.

I understand Kent is doing double duty as the world’s largest car park…….

Such a shame that France did not want their own drivers back in the country

Right, we left the EU last January, we’ve now got a comprehensive free trade deal this January, so it’s time to stop moaning about the past, and start making a success of the future.

+1 David. We are where we are and need to look forward.

we’ve now got a comprehensive free trade deal

Funny, it’s only the pro-Tory press saying that. Others are, rightly, pointing out not so much what has been gained but what has been lost. Remember, Britain didn’t start from zero.

Assuming, of course, that both sides actually ratify the current agreement. ;-)

so it’s time to stop moaning about the past, and start making a success of the future.

While I wish you every luck in that, it is the choices of the past that got y’all in that situation.
If Farage didn’t exist and Brexit never happened, there would likely only be the usual minority of people moaning about “the EU” (the same ones that habitually tell lies) and everybody else just would not care because, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s something big and nasty doing the rounds like a medical Godzilla which is perhaps what everybody should be thinking about.

Not how best to patch things up and recover from the decisions that were taken four years ago.

So, honestly, from where I stand, your looking forward to a comprehensive free trade deal is looking a lot like two steps back, one step forward. That’s progress?

PS: As a committed European citizen who has had my Europeaness stripped away in an undemocratic clusterf*ck that I didn’t even have the right to vote for – I’ll moan all I bloody want. As far as I’m concerned, the wrong half of my personality has been excised.

a lot like what has been brewing over here the last 16 years

My personal theory on this is that it’s the crazed response of a bunch of angry old white guys who are used to bossing the rest of the world around, failing to cope with the fact that the rest of the world is less dependent and less interested. Old colonial powers and military might is falling, and those in charge are having a hard time adapting to the idea that other countries that are maturing as their own entities and determining their own futures (the BRICS, for instance) have less and less need for The Old Powers.
As such, The Old Powers stop viewing them as something to care for (read: oppress, control) and start viewing them as a threat.

Globalisation was a great thing when you could have your tat made dirt cheap by slave labour. Now? Well, somehow a massive workforce and many years of extremely low prices no only made huge amounts of cash for western company directors and shareholders, it also basically turned China into the world’s warehouse. Now China has the economic force and the resources to make its own choices in how it interacts with the West, and since so many industries depend upon it (there’s a pretty good chance that most if not all of your PPE currently comes from China, and large amounts of components in your electronics, assuming they aren’t entirely made there (hello Apple)), suddenly the Old Powers are realising that this actually puts them in a position of weakness. China doesn’t depend upon the West any more, the West depends upon China.
So angry old white guys who can’t cope with the idea of not running the show react with insular protectionist behaviour. To exert what little power they have left, but exerting it more over their own populace than those who they used to boss around (because they no longer can).

China, for its part, is taking it pretty well. Everybody lets Huawei be a scapegoat for some ridiculous notion of government spying (as if we’re supposed to automatically trust American providers?) and this farce keeps both sides trading pointless insults. If China decided to react to the various trade penalties, they could if they wanted, simply stop shipping everything for a length of time (a month, a year, whatever). Then the West would be screwed. Well, probably America and Britain, as I think they’re at least smart enough not to take out their squabbles on trading partners that aren’t throwing hissy fits.

The problem here is that the world is increasingly globalised. Everything now depends upon everything else, and I’m having a hard time trying to find any actual solid logic in how it’s supposed to be a benefit that Britain has just walked away from being an active partner in the world’s largest trading arrangement. Sure, there is an agreement, because the alternative would have been utterly insane. However…….

My personal theory on this is that it’s the crazed response of a bunch of angry old white guys who are used to bossing the rest of the world around, failing to cope with the fact that the rest of the world is less dependent and less interested. Old colonial powers and military might is falling, and those in charge are having a hard time adapting to the idea that other countries that are maturing as their own entities and determining their own futures (the BRICS, for instance) have less and less need for The Old Powers.
As such, The Old Powers stop viewing them as something to care for (read: oppress, control) and start viewing them as a threat.

I don’t disagree with any of this, but it’s only half the story. Another thing to consider the number of people who are feeling increasingly powerless in their own lives. It is an instinctive response in such circumstances to reduce what one perceives to be external influences as a means of regaining a sense of control. It doesn’t matter whether the influences are positive or negative – only that they are external.

I can think of several examples. My parents, both in their 80s, are educated and during most of their life they would have been regarded as either socialist or at worst marginally-right-of-centre but, especially over the last 10 years, I have watched them become progressively more reactionary in almost all areas. To hear them talking about the “foreigners in the shops who talk so fast they can’t understand them” is actually quite painful, new, and very recent (well, back in the days when they went to shops). Not every super-senior-citizen is like this, but I would bet that a sizeable number are.

I have Swedish friends, in their mid 60s, who have lived in the UK for about 20 years. They voted for Brexit because they believe “the EU” has too much influence over their lives. One of them is a physicist who has worked at CERN. I’m getting… older… and I’ve noticed some alarming trends in my own ability to tolerate difference and take on new ideas.

When you get down to the pointy end of the stick, it doesn’t matter where they got their information, or whether it is justified or accurate (and I’m sure some of it is, because nothing is perfect). What is important to these people isn’t that they are no longer colonial masters, or that they can’t dominate others – it’s that they feel that they are being dominated by others in ways which they don’t understand and can’t control. And they want it to stop. Fertile soil for those in the first category you identified.

That’s my one and only foray into this conversation, I think. It’s an emotive subject and hard for anyone to discuss rationally. Some years ago, I received a very wise piece of advice, which I have tried to live by: “Don’t argue with fools – and remember that on the Internet, everyone is a fool. Including you.”

Quoting Johnson’s father (as he applies for a French passport):

“You can’t tell the English ‘you’re not European’. Europe is more than the single market, it’s more than the European Union.

And for all the rest of us?

And for all the rest of us?

As a matter of interest what, if anything, would preclude you from obtaining French citizenship (assuming you don’t already have it, of course)? Surely you meet the residency requirements by now?

I’m currently in a bit of a morass of conflicting principles. I’m eligible for Irish citizenship through my grandparents. The complication is that my grandfather – like many other Irish men and women – chose to fight alongside the British against the Nazis. During and after the war he – like many other Irish men and women – was treated shamefully by the Irish government and society. (Yes, I realise that the situation at the time was… complicated.)

Fast forward to about 20 years ago, when I mentioned to him that I was considering applying for Irish citizenship. He sat me down and explained everything that had happened to him and his family after he returned home – which is why they all came to the UK in the first place, and why he had never returned home even for a visit. He asked me to promise that I would never apply for Irish citizenship and, since he was someone I both adored and respected, of course I acquiesced. The thing is, it wasn’t really an issue back then, just a matter of identity. Now things are a bit different. At some point, I will probably get around to it; I just need to process the emotional issues first.

I’d dearly love to be able to go to sleep at the moment. However, after dozing off earlier I now find myself wide awake and staring with mounting horror at the alarm which is set for 5am. More Horlicks, I think.

Surely you meet the residency requirements by now?

France isn’t one of these “live in the country ten years then apply” places.
Living there for a length of time gives you the right to apply.

Application requires a degree of competence in the language which was B2 and was recently changed to B1 (or maybe the other way around), and I’m not sure I’m actually that good. I learned French by reading the newspaper, basically. So my pronunciation is awful as, well, I “see” the words.

Application also requires original documents to be less than six months old. While I can probably get copies of my birth certificate and so on, there is no copy of my name change paperwork. It was a one off done at a solicitor’s office that no longer exists. So my birth certificate and passport don’t match. That’s been fun…

And as for knowing my antecedents, well I have exactly zero idea of any of my father’s side. My parents left Scotland when I was six months old to work down south (which is why I sound like a southern twat and not anything even remotely Scottish) and they never kept in contact.
And as for my mother? It’s complicated. In a “this paperwork will never be available” kind of way.

It also means juggling paperwork in England, Scotland, and the US plus getting official notorised translations and getting it all done and submitted within the six month period.

Put simply, you need a lot of luck, persistence, marriage, or money (or combinations) in order to make it through this quagmire. This isn’t entirely unexpected, countries generally want to make citizenship challenging in order to stop “just anyone” applying.

Spain’s is supposedly a lot easier (ten years and no legal problems, plus some basic paperwork) but the spanner in the works there is that Spain doesn’t accept dual nationality, so a Brit wanting to be Spanish would have to renounce their British. While I would have no problem with that, a lot of expats are used to flitting back and forth so they wouldn’t want to do that.

It’s… complicated.

Maybe some day in the future I can become a European again with a nice shiny new burgundy coloured passport issued by the newly independent EU member state known as Scotland?

Ah. Bugger. You have my commiserations. Friends of mine have recently become German citizens after their mandatory 8-year residency and passing the examinations in German language and culture (including being able to recognise several types of sausage at a distance). People, as Douglas Adams once said, are a problem. Countries, being political associations of people, are doubly so.

I lived and worked in Marseille for a couple of years, back in 2005. Loved it, and seriously considered settling there. However, glandular love brought me back to the UK. The “love” bit didn’t work out but I’ve got the garden laid out how I like it, so I’m staying here now. Still enjoy walking holidays in various bits of France, and am moderately vexed that they are now made that little bit harder to enjoy.

Horlicks is working, going to try to get some sleep before the bloody alarm starts beeping. Grr.

Countries, being political associations of people, are doubly so.

Very deep. You should send that in to the Reader’s Digest. They have a page for people like you. ;)

I don’t have a paisley sweater, so I can’t subscribe to Readers Digest. I can, however, misquote Douglas Adams at some length.

Cheers to that!

And as for knowing my antecedents, well I have exactly zero idea of any of my father’s side. My parents left Scotland when I was six months old to work down south (which is why I sound like a southern twat and not anything even remotely Scottish) and they never kept in contact.

Genealogy can be handy, it’s pushed governments to make info more available
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ and https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/family-history for starters.

And as for my mother? It’s complicated. In a “this paperwork will never be available” kind of way.

You make it sound like a witness protection thing.

Genealogy can be handy…

I’ve not had time to get back into genealogy recently. About a decade ago, I was very keen and discovered a couple of factoids of which none of my siblings were aware.

As a child in Darlington, it never occurred to me that my paternal grandfather’s accent was quite unlike everyone else’s in the family. As a child, you just accept these things. I later discovered that he was born in Paisley Barracks in Glasgow and that he (a labourer in a warehouse) and his wife (a silk weaver) lived in The Gorbals. He moved his family to Darlington in time for the 1911 census where he was described as a joiner.

Two surprises came out of all this. Firstly, I had an aunt who was killed in a road accident in Darlington. My father never spoke of it, not even to my mother who would have passed on the information had she known it. Secondly, although my grandfather was born with the surname McCarthy, both my father and the unknown aunt were registered as McCartney. So my father was like that well-known spelling mistake, Spike Milligna. Naturally, all his children have carried that incorrect name.

It turns out that my great grandfather was born in Naas, Co Kildare, and joined the British Army when conditions after the potato famine became unsupportable. He was then posted to Paisley Barracks. I’ve not gone further back than that and I doubt I’ll have the time to do so.