Heck yes - I could probably cope with a 5% increase in food prices, in fact I could cope with more (and I wouldn’t be surprised if some items go up a lot more than that). Indeed if things get really bad I might have to stop shopping at Waitrose1
BUT for a lot of people 5% extra on food will simply mean 5% less food, or if cheap US genetically modified and chlorine washed products are available they won’t care whether the shops are still allowed to tell them where it came from or what it is made from. They will (rightly) figure that food that might give them a health problem, some time in the future is a whole lot better than no food, today.
However, the health problems will be real, and the effect of unfair competition on UK farming will be real, and the slow erosion of standards in society will be real.
And the true sadness is most won’t even see it.
1} For the avoidance of doubt we rarely venture to Waitrose - too blinking expensive.
This realisation has made me more miserable than in a long while, coupled with the jingoistic cries for the RN to “police our waters”.
I know we’ve had lockdowns, and travel has been difficult for most of the year - but it has at least felt temporary, we’d sort it out; outside actual lockdown travel was still possible, even if not encouraged.
The fact that we will simply not be allowed to cross into the EU from the start of the new year has a much more heavyweight feel to it; a prison door clanging shut, the drawbridge being pulled up.
I have this horrible foreboding that with the current idiots in charge and the almost certainty of a “no-deal” Brexit the heat over stuff like fishing will get stoked by all sides until our relationship falls apart completely and it will start to get very difficult to get to the continent. While I know it’s a bit of a ridiculous fear I am genuinely worried that it might take a long time for things to normalise.
And I really do miss our little corner of Brittany.
In truth I don’t think it will - as far as Covid goes hopefully vaccination programmes will have reached a good proportion of the population by Easter or so and the border restrictions lifted. I was hoping to visit in Jan which is now off the cards anyway as I can’t get the time off work, after that I still have some hope for Feb ½ term - we’ll see
Having spent fouteen years on Teeside and having had a fairly major Heritage Lottery scultpture commission on the history of Middlesbrough that has its own dedicated room in the magnificent Victorian Town Hall, I’d say you’re being pretty accurate rather than patronising.
‘Charlie don’t surf’ and Smoggies don’t ski.
wait till the French fishermen start blocking free passage into or out of French ports…
I can see it now… French fishermen armed to the teeth to ward off RN boarding parties - this is going get dirty… very dirty!
Which is why an honest appraisal will be needed - but only actual performance will be directly measurable - performance had we not left will only ever be an estimate, therefore open to debate.
The over whelming eurosceptic British press will never allow this, and the Beeb will as usual sit on the fence fearing offence
when i lived not that far from M’bro I saw a twenty something girl when interviewed (her heavily tattooed arms looked…well different) respond that it was all the EU fault the Teeside steel plant had gone bust. No persuasion by interviewer would persuade her otherwise…in fact it was nothing to do with the EU who then supplied some intervention support funds.
Bit like the occasion I watched an interview on UK TV with a Welsh person (well, perhaps a person in Wales) complaining “what has the EU ever done for us?”
This person was standing in from of a huge (and I mean HUGE) sign indicating that the much needed new road a short distance behind which was the subject of the interview was completely funded by the EU
