Five years of Brexit reshaped Britain

Re:Five years of Brexit reshaped Britain by LatteLazy on Friday January 31, 2025 @09:05AM (#42887781)

The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. This is exactly because anyone in power rapidly understood anything else would be a huge disaster. It was interesting watching a succession of "leaders" scream that they would deliver true Brexit, be given power, and then lose their nerve only to be replaced by the next "true" brexiteer.

The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc).

I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...

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Re:Five years of Brexit reshaped Britain by blibble on Friday January 31, 2025 @09:22AM (#42887965)

> The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit.

this is not true in the slightest, we had the 2nd hardest exit possible

a possible outcome could have been that we left the EU and remained in the EU single market and EU customs union

there's this rather famous EU commission slide of the various options the UK could take: https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f... with integration decreasing as you move right (the "brexit hardness")

we ended up with the Canada option, the only harder option would have been to drop out without a signed deal (which thankfully didn't happen)

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