Michael M. 🇨🇭🇳🇴🇮🇸🇱🇮🇬🇧/🇨🇾
@vivamjm
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Leeds lad. Worked 30 years at the Freight Forwarding & logistics/coalface with owner drivers thru intro of fax machines & C88s to 2017. Escaped using my FoM 😉
Cyprus
Joined April 2015
"No deal" food shortage fears in "news" yet again (with no doubt the usual 'project fear' retorts). Let's see if I can *again* (as an ex logistics freight forwarding customs 30 years - dare I say it - expert) demonstrate how without transition this will be a *fact* not a "claim".
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"I voted Conservative, it seemed the lesser of two evils. I've no clue what Labour's policy is." he says". so votes for the ones that fucked him over because "lesser of two evils" than the one whose policy he knows nothing about. How stupid can you get?
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9km growing queue at the moment . anything on your TV over there?
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Just caught a bit of Countryfile. conversation with a Pig Farmer. Journalist "Brexit . ?".Farmer "Well. it is happening . but as long as we keep our frictionless trade we'll be happy".Jounalist & farmer happily bouyant together !!. People haven't got a bloody clue have they?.
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"What Brexit was largely about was people at the top being able to employ the rest of the country for a lot less and pay a lot less tax". if only enough of the dear British public had recognised this instead of succumbing to racism, tribalism & flag waving
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Are any journalists or MPs over there asking why UK Gov is asking for "grace periods" from the EU when it refused the Transition Extension last June?.
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Some British passengers claimed Irish citizens are getting “preferential treatment". oh Jesus. FFS. Why is it apparently still so hard for so many Brits to understand they have lost (unlike the Irish) their EU membership benefit of Freedom of Movement????.
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UK was on its knees with loss of its empire. UK knew it needed to join with Europe. It did. It retained large influence in the world & ever expanding influence in Europe. Its prosperity boomed. (becoming 5th largest economy). UK left. UK now back in decline. Silly fucking UK.
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Why *is* there no ongoing coverage on news about the biggest cull of (100,000?) pigs ever in UK history?. thanks to more of those brexit "freedoms".
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From a friend "I've visited UK 3 times in last 6 months. I can compare with here (Ireland) & other EU countries I've visited. UK in deep trouble. More than many think. It's heading for supply chain collapse Oct/Nov. Sadly UK needs to hit rock bottom before denialism is defeated".
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Man leaves club.Man loses all the benefits of club membership.Man is angry, moans & whines about his former club "punishing" him for no longer giving him these benefits.Man is angry they are no longer even concerned about his better interests outside the club.Silly, ignorant twat.
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How many people realise that 'our' tiny former colony, commonwealth country, Cyprus and 'our' even smaller commonwealth country, Malta have more powerful passports in Europe than we Brits do? And that Ireland now has the most powerful passport of all. The irony is palpable.😎.
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A pair of ignorant, selfish, old twats that have taken full advantage of FoM, that they would now happily deprive the successive new generations of, . and with no sense of self awareness of their own status. C u n t s .
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UK ends freedom of movement. UK perpetually moans, gets ever more angry & blames others for the consequences of UK's decision to end freedom of movenent
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Just made contact with somebody in UK after 5 years who "doesn't take much interest in politics" but thinks "Boris is doing good job under difficult circumstances" .Fuck me if she's typical of general public opinion over there then UK's truly lost. the contact will be lost again.
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Brexiters:.2016 Brexit will make us better off.2017 Brexit could make us better off.2018 Brexit could make us better off in 50 yrs.2019 Nobody said it wld make us better off.2020 We won't starve so we should be grateful.2021 It's Covid's fault.2022 It's Russia's & Remainers fault.
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From a Polish neighbour here in Cyprus: "so the UK won't let Ukrainian refugees in & people there can't get aid out. It's like UK is the one now behind the Iron Curtain" of course she is ('Brexit Curtain not yet fully descended') correct 😐.
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"The way the government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it".
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From a friend ."It is terribly sad Michael. I live in Dublin, 100m from the US Embassy. Britain is seen as a hostile power here. Tony Blair and the Olympics are long gone. I don’t think that the English have any idea of what they’ve done".
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I just happened to turn on Sky News for its 2pm headlines (4pm here). why is Johnson having yet another baby considered more of the "news" than his missed *breaking the law* deadline to submit his phone whatsapp records for the Covid enquiry?.
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CNN report now that UK/Johnson will pay a big price for supporting Trump/Brexit. and Johnson's comments about Obama. Biden will focus on Ireland/Germany/France/EU.
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I still cannot get over this causing so little if any discussion . *178* times !!!.
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It might be worse than "economists warned about" but not worse than we mere (ex) Freight Fowarding/Customs Agents tried to warn of. Read. "The reality of Brexit is much, much worse than we economists warned about. It goes like this. The British economy is starting to shut down.
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Hate to say it. but it's clear from recent "news" & tweets people really did not know what leaving the EU meant (or at least leaving the CU after 47 years & SM after 27 years).It is why I have had my mouth agape these last 4 years. people have taken it all too much for granted.
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Country votes to become a non member of the EU. Country continues to be furious at the "self harm" consequences of no longer being a member of the EU.
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So just caught some France24 news here in Cyprus . where food shortages & broken supply chains in UK is headlined. featuring milkshakes & chicken. And where the word Brexit is not afraid to be used by host, reporters & interviewed hauliers . same on UK news/BBC? 😐.
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The worst is yet to come. "It doesn’t sound much. Just 90 seconds. But then add the numbers up. It would take a single passport lane an extra 17,010 seconds (nearly 5 hours) to process the 189 passengers on a single Ryanair flight, if all were UK passport holders and all checked.
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Out here in Cyprus it only hits me so often. What fucking country *voluntarily* inflicts not just worse trading conditions upon itself. but the near polar opposite (economic sanctions) of what it's built over nearly 50 years. & removes extended freedoms across its continent?.
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God help the UK. seriously. This dolt is a "trade representative". & apparently does not grasp the basics that there's no external money coming in to the Treasury from tarriffs loaded onto imported goods. It's a tax paid by the consumer designed as a deterent to buying the goods.
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What a mess UK in. BBC news on in background. Priority news about a Serbian tennis player with even a report from Belgrade to ask local what they think. Secondary brief mention about Kazakhstan. Nothing on the shit that brexit is causing to UK business; livelihoods & imports.
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@HopeJohnw @laurencehazlew1 @Hubertlaneite @terryw04 Listen mate I'm just a working class Leeds lad. but with knowledge of working 30 yrs in Freight/Logistics. UK 44 years dependent on being *inside* the SM/CU. out of it we are fucked practically/infrastructure wise/IT wise/experience in customs formalities/trade/on NI. Fact.
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@changed_gear @Nigel_Farage . and for musicians/the arts/anybody wanting to work/retire/travel with as much in value & food as they want, as often as they want.
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I am old enough to remember, in the UK, when we used to laugh at Berlusconi and Italy for his and its levels of corruption and embarrassment.🙄.
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From a mate: "Hello! I was on a Border meeting earlier with the cabinet office. They were not wanting the truth, quite insistent that reports of queues, at either side of the channel were a fabrication by the media and social media.
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Has anybody picked up that UK's announced new law on paying the national minimum wage for seafarers on "ferries using British ports" .will not apply to privately owned, deregulated "Freeports" ?.
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A Brit friend and I in Cyprus watching C4 news . "world beating test & trace" farce, "14 days quarantine".farce . and a lying, hapless, bloviating PM. we concluded "thank god we're out of it" and "isn't it amazing how much the UK public apathetically, complacently accepts?".
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From a friend "Several years ago we both pointed out that Brexit would lead to food shortages.We said stock up. Pet food would be the first casualty we said. Fresh stuff next. Some laughed at us. When the supply chain collapses so must the Government".
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My local Cypriot supermarket. This used to be *English* cheddar here 😬
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I know it. You know it. Brexiters continue to deny it. (or be ignorant of it)
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POLICE from more than 30 constabularies all over Britain - including Cheshire - have been redeployed to Kent to help the authorities manage Brexit traffic chaos, it has emerged.
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I bloody detest these Daltrey & Dickinson dickheads. UK no longer wanted to be part of same customs (union) territory, nor part of same (single) market of regulations. it wanted to end FoM. The EU are not "punishing us". They are giving UK what UK wanted.
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We should see more of this.
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GB News were going to send large TV crew to Calais on Thurs to film the food supply lorries refused boarding (blaming EU of course for the 5 times delayed *UK* border controls). But the dicks didn't realise they now need permits, carnets & to leave their packed lunches at home 😂.
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Are enough Brits putting two and two together yet? 🤔
"P&O Ferries said it was trying to get food and drink to passengers waiting in the buffer zone at the entrance to the port.".#BrexitReality
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As long warned: you aint seen nothing yet!!.“If just 10% of what you sell goes to the UK, chances are with the cost dynamics, your rational business decision in that scenario is to stop serving the UK. “The end result is less choice. and higher prices.
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So Brexit is especially destroying fishing & farming. Were they not the two sectors that were supposed to especially benefit from Brexit? .& yet nobody (looking at Johnson, Frost, Farage, Rees Mogg & co) that promoted it is being held accountable. In fact they're still largely.
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Once again for the Brexit liars & dummies .1/ All countries start with their own market standards, regulated & customs territory. If an outsider wants to sell on it you must prove you meet its standards & pay a tariff at its border.
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I don't live in UK & avoid the UK "news" over here . but can just imagine all the joyous media proclamations that Johnson has secured a deal . but all failing to solemnly point out will make UK far *worse off* in ease of trade, travel, work, choice & costs to consumers. Sickening.
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From an Irish friend "nobody here buys from UK anymore unless absolutely necessary. I've already noticed since Jan.1st the EU food exporters, especially the Netherlands, are shipping to Ireland by the bucket load. The range of tomatoes,fruit & veg I saw today was unbelievable".
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UK was the "sick man of Europe". Then it joined the EEC/EU. Then it left the EU. It is now the *sick, thick man of Europe*.
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The UK Gov just needs to pass a law that says UK is not in a recession .
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If given the power I'd have the UK regaining its position of one of the three leading nations in the EU, have it join Schengen & the Euro. & lock up all the Brexiters (Johnson, Gove, Cummings, Littlewood, Farage, Rees-Mogg, Braverman, Leadsom etc) for treason: .Who's with me? 😬.
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Bloody BBC. @BBCMorningLive .again. talking about changes on the validity of UK passports when travelling into EU by describing it as "changes in EU law" (fucking wrong, there has been no changes) instead of it being because .*UK left the EU and ended UK's Freedom of Movement*.
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From a friend in the Freight Forwarding Industry who has authorised me to send this message as he has now just resigned !!! .Hi Michael. I don't know want this public for the moment. Let me think about it. What I have seen going in the EU has been a total car crash.
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Liz Webster, a Wiltshire farmer who sells meat to Marks & Spencer, has said that while the pandemic has undoubtedly been a contributing factor, these issues began with Brexit – not the ‘pingdemic’. “[The right-wing media] are trying to scapegoat the blame onto the Test and Trace.
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"The main obvious beneficiary is Malaysia, which stands to gain tariff-free palm oil exports into the U.K".This is UK's trajectory away from EU membership. One of lowering its market standards, no longer setting them. It was always going to be so.
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Among worst of Brexit voting idiots are those living in EU countries that voted Leave to "stop immigration". Learned of a Brit here who never bothered to check Cyprus immigration rules for non EU citizens, never learned about the WA, has now been told to leave & blames Cyprus 🙄.
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I remember at school (the ones with blackboard dusters . thrown with uncanny accuracy by our capricious Latin teacher. & wooden lift up lid desks) we used to debate 'how could the Germans allow the incremental rise of the Nazis to power'? .You *are* living it.
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I have just come across demented @CatharineHoey claiming that the border issue for UK/Ireland could be "solved" by Ireland also leaving the EU. Putting aside the arrogance. how?.
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you just know UK Gov will provoke the French fishermen into blocking Calais to cause & amplify the growing shortages/collapsing supply chains that were going to happen anyway.
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Geert Wilders vote would now be PM in the UK. He probably won't be able to form a government in the NL. That is the difference. FPTP has to go.
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Have enough Brits yet realised?.That UK is step by step making itself the new DDR/East Germany of Europe. by choice.
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As of 5.06 pm UK time today 19/9 some might be interested in median waiting times at ports .Harwich 50 hrs!.Hull 50 hrs!.& Ashford (before release to Dover) 45 hrs!.All so incomprehensible after spending 3 decades working in the Shipping/Logistics industry as part of the SM/CU.
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@StevenEdginton My relative in Prehistoric times. Back (in the ultimate good old days) when you could live life without waiting for anybody to decide how free we can all live
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. just had a whole host of new HMG brexit info emails drop into my box. Guess what? Not one evoking any "opportunities" but all telling me (what I knew. in more detail) that eveything will be more difficult and more costly. Isn't it a shame UK news/media doesn't convey this?.
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How do Brexiters reconcile "EU/French are *punishing us* with "we hold all the cards"? .And "taking back control" with now being wholly dependent on the French providing sufficient increased border force personnel?.
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Man votes to end Freedom of Movement (& a customs union) . Man is "frustrated" & cannot understand why he has lost the reciprocal benefits. of Freedom of Movement (& a customs union). 😂.
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is frustrated by the impact of #Brexit on UK artists performing abroad, and feels the government can do more to help. #KayBurley UF
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Just had misfortune of coming across a Brexiter living here in Cyprus wishing he hadn't now voted Leave (good so far) because he "didn't realise how awkward EU would be in preventing him getting the food etc he wanted from UK".He still wanted to blame the EU even when I explained.
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I will again repeat If the UK was to announce it was to renegotiate a (partial) cu inside the Single Market, the pound would soar, the foreign investment flood in, and the economy quickly boom.
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Northern Ireland has become the first of UK region to put its foot down over what they say is the increasingly absurd Brexit position. Businesses said yesterday they were “simply not ready” for mandatory border checks from 1 January & have asked for an extension to the transition.
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I wonder how many Brits know that if you live abroad with ur 'forrin' spouse/family & want to return to UK you must return *alone* for a min of 6 months earning a 'qualifying salary' before your spouse/family can apply (for a min couple of grand) to join you but only for 2.5 yrs.
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“Hitachi bought a site in the north-east with a view to building trains for whole of Europe. The place was big enough for 3 factories, but they've only built 1. If you want to see where the trains are going to be made for the EU, you need to visit Hitachi’s new factory in Italy.”.
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drinking a beer in sun trying to avoid twitter but thinking out loud I'm (yet again) amazed at what's happening back in UK. Imagine UK still EU member & EU "negotiating" a trade deal with Oz to crucify/kill UK farming. There'd be huge outcry by same people lauding Johnson & Truss.
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What *is* wrong with people even in business?? FFS more telling me they didn't expect this shit!.Leaving a customs union means a customs border. with the customs union. Leaving the single market means a standards proving border. with the single market.whatever the bloody deal.
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Time to sign out of twitter for a while. I've tried for five years to warn of what is never "news".despite no-skin-off-my-nose-I-am-now-a-permanent resident of Cyprus .Remember too brexit is still not done until at least March 2022: it's still in its destrucive infancy.Good luck.
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As of 1.06 pm UK time some might be interested in HGV median waiting times to get out of UK ports.eg.Dover (Dunkirk) 10 hours!!.Portsmouth 23 hours!!.Immingham 40 hours !!.(Ashford now risen to 31 hours!!).Will rise tomorrow .with.Permanent Operation Brock & TAP already in place.
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Just been to a local supermarket. The expressions of relief, joy and thanks that we are out of the EU were extraordinary. Needless to say, I wasn't in Central London. but in Cloud Cuckoo Land with my head stuck up my arse.
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I am a little bloody sick of hearing Brits on UK TV news reports I catch, lamenting the cost of living when many of them voted to help make themselves poorer in 2016 and 2019. And would still 'vote the same' again for 'good old Boris' at least.
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A return to the SM & a cu would HUGELY expand the UK economy & value of the pound; reduce your cost of living; return all your former access rights & benefits across your continent; & return Stormont/end the Protocol in NI. All indisputable *facts*. Is anybody in UK saying so?.
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What is it called when trade suddenly stops? .Sanctions. Britain is the only country in the world — the only one I can think of in modern history — amazingly, comically, painfully dumb enough to impose sanctions on itself.
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"Refusing to extend the transition period was a huge tactical error on Johnson’s part, which will become obvious as the clock ticks down to the end of the transition period". You're not kidding
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In short tomorrow will be sad day for me. My whole (personal & freight/trade working) life seeing & experiencing first hand Europe opening up before us. all shut back down/reversed to a time of less. Europe once again becoming the "playground of the rich" of my early 1970s youth.
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Why are clips like this not played back repeatedly to Gov ministers on political programmes. ? on the news? anywhere in MSM broadcasting really?.
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From Italy "My dears! You don’t even have a clue what awaits you in a few weeks! And how in such a short time your life changes, turning into a film - a catastrophe in reality. So, if you still hang out, go to visit, to work, take your children to kindergartens and schools,.
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Can't do this anymore. NONE OF THIS IS FUCKING "NEWS" .ALL now unfolding *GUARANTEED* once UK decided it would be *outside* the Customs *Union* (big fucking clue in the name) & *outside* the *Single* (big fucking clue in the name) Market. regardless of *any* (FTA) fucking deal.
Small UK businesses are drowning in post-Brexit red tape to trade with the EU. "There's so much complexity," @BCCAdam says. "It's like an onion. The more you peel, the more you cry"🧅. With @lucy_meakin, @DeirdreHipwell, @Joe_Mayes & @_DavidGoodman 👇.
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"You cannot strip human rights from people in a country in which we have the Human Rights Act and have signed the Refugee Convention. You can't do this kind of **** and still pretend that you are legal"
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Brits still don't get it do they?.You are slowly being separated into the new European DDR behind that Brexit Curtain. No shared market, so worse than NO/CH/IS/LI.No cu, so worse than Turkey. No convergence, so worse than Ukraine/Balkans.an equivalent to Belarussia on EU border.
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I've asked this question before: where *is* UK going to pay its way in the world? As many of us warned, Brexit will finish off what's left of UK auto, manufacturing generally, food n drink, farming & fishing with its arts & service industries also crucified on the Brexit altar 1/.
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So many yet don't realise do they?.that the days of loading up the family car with vast volumes of goods & food supplies (& family dog) & hopping onto a *cheap regular* ferry to France or Ireland (or even NI) .with no hassle going out or returning to GB similarly loaded. are over.
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As of 5.30pm UK time some might also be interested in median waiting times at other GB ports .(all showing red on Sixfold).Felixstowe 48 hours!!.Harwich 50 hours!!.Purfleet 53 hours!!.Portsmouth 25 hours!!.Hull 52 hours !!.(Ashford now risen to 42 hours!!).
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You can *only* have "frictionless trade" when you .*share customs territory* (a customs union) & .*share market standards territory* (a single market).No Free Trade Agreement can do same. Why was this simple *fact* not repeated clearly & often throughout these last five years??.
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Majority of Brits still do not grasp it do they? .For 50 years we all benefitted from an expanding open Europe: our rights & access to our continent & its produce for less cost. Now Brits are incrementally facing being more cut off for more cost. "Gammon Curtain still descending".
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I just watched some local BBC SW news. some guy from fishing industry? complaining the new deal isn't "free trade" . it *is* you idiot. but it is *not* and never could have been (customs free) "free movement". and there lies the complacent ignorance all these years.
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"When did this level of stupidity become patriotic? When did the foolishness of not reading and understanding the small print of laws, contracts and treaties become a public virtue? When did it stop being an MP’s solemn duty to scrutinise policies, laws and treaties.
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How many Brits realise that "Freeports" operate outside the laws of the host country? This might initially be just its tax laws. But. Consider what these (Tory mates/donors) *privately owned* territories mean in conjunction with unfolding "deregulation" & what deregulation means.
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