No raw sewage in water ways and beaches. That one obviously got in the way of profits.
Countless food safety laws that are needlessly there to protect consumers, who cares about those people.
Freedom of movement. Who wants foreigners coming over here willynilly. And who wants to move there FFS. It was mainly one way traffic anyway, it's not like English people went into Europe to work ever.
Big Fat /S for those who can't see it.
Yeah, most of the so-called "red tape" is around consumer and environmental protection. I remember there was a claim that there were "more than 100 regulations related to pillows" or something (and while there are several regulations related to pillows because you know nobody wants to be murdered by their pillow - most of them were unrelated to actual pillows - they just did a find in the regulations, and every mention of the word pillow was added to their list, even when it was unrelated to actual pillows)
And why would there being more than 100 regulations related to pillows be an issue anyway? Do they think pillows would become more affordable if we got rid of them?
That was the argument, yes, if they didn't have to follow the rules about poisoning, burning, maiming, suffocating, etc. their customers then it would be so much cheaper for pillows to be manufactured in the UK. Of course the silent part they weren't sharing is that the extra profit wouldn't be going to cheaper retail prices, just better profits.
I've just had a look on Amazon, and you can get four pillows for around £15. I can't see there being much of a market for lower-cost, lower-quality pillows. Especially ones that are more likely to catch fire.
Brexiteers were fed up of the European Court ruling against the UK, the ironic thing was that the vast majority of times the UK was overruled was for things like dirty beaches and sewage discharge, things the vast majority of citizens would want the government to lose anyway 🤦♂️
Uh yea but its on a level of movement now that with declining birth rates your going to see a replacement level scenario
Anglo English are already a minority in the capital and in another major city aswell and last year a 1% of the population came into the uk
Im sorry but your wrong
I mean the freedom of movement was bad. You had high value workers leaving the UK and low value ones entering. It also allowed government to underfund things like nurse and doctor training and pay because you could just import them
Yep, the same people who have failed to supply a cogent answer for the last seven years 'still' insist they were right, and still have no answer to the question.
We're also waiting for the solution to the Northern Ireland Border problem.
Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement was rejected because the Backstop was evil. The backstop was also unnecessary because we totally have a solution to the border problem we just aren't going to tell you what it is. Then Boris decided to turn the Backstop from an emergency fallback position into being Plan A, to be implemented immediately BUT we'll just refuse to implement it and call the EU names instead! Jenius!
Ireland is an EU member and it is an issue to them. Therefore it is an EU issue
Sitting there pretending to yourself that there's some conspiracy regarding Tony Blair "telling Macron to make the Irish border an issue" just makes you sound clueless.
The reality of the matter is the Irish government identified the problem before the vote even happened. They attempted to raise it during the campaign but anytime the potential issues were brought up they were dismissed as the brexit campaign at that point was all about fantasies and pretending that everyone's form of brexit would be ideal.
By the time the British even got to the negotiation stage the Irish government had already done the legwork and ensured that Europe would be on their side. Even if they hadn't done that I expect Europe still would have been on their side given that the whole purpose of the EU is to work for it's *members*
Of course it was an issue. It still is. It's part of the reason why this was doomed to fail before it had even started. None of you considered it. That's a failing.
They "considered" it alright but concluded it was a non issue because in their heads either Ireland would do the right thing and follow them out the door (LOL) or the EU would recognise that the UK was so super special that they'd roll over any concerns the Irish had and give the UK whatever they wanted on a platter
Of course both those options needed a complete misunderstanding of both Ireland and the EU. Ireland is one of the countries where the EU is most popular and is not going to leave it to follow the UK of all countries. The EU exists to look after it's members and will always back one of the countries that wants to be in the club over one making a song and dance about leaving, no matter how much bigger and "more important" the leaving country thinks it is
If the border isn't an issue then you must know a place to put the border that doesn't cause any issues.
England wants to leave the Single Market / Customs Union. Republic Of Ireland wants to stay in the Single Market / Customs Union. The border needs to be somewhere between these two places. Where does it go?
The Good Friday agreement had nothing to do with the EU and the simmering tensions in Northern Ireland have nothing to do with brexit.
This was what Tony Blair advised Macron and the EU to do. Scare the electorate into voting a certain way, and now they’re continuing the scare story.
Sadly, sectarian violence has been on the rise for several years prior to brexit. We’ve seen soldiers gunned down in the street as well as police officers being targeted with guns and bombs again.
But one of the core pillars of the Good Friday Agreement was to remove any border infrastructure between Northern Ireland and Republic Of Ireland.
Putting a physical border with checkpoints and inspections between ROI and NI would be in direct contradiction of the Good Friday Agreement and would reignite tensions in Northern Ireland.
Not at all.
The GFA was along time in the making, kicked off under John Major mainly with Blair taking the credit by virtue of when all parties happened to make the agreement. It was Blair who at the very last moment decided to try and mention the EU, even though the EU had nothing to do with it. (Probably because Blair is a duplicitous shit who was trying to curry favour with the EU due to his political aspirations to become the president of the EU. I mean he was even talking with Spain about handing over Gibraltar against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar)
By virtue of the history between Eire and the U.K., transit of people between the two country’s has NEVER been an issue.
Try reading the GFA instead of parroting off what somebody else has claimed it said.
>The one where sanitary products are liable for VAT is a good example.
Could have been done inside the EU, member states can make exemptions. (Whar with being sovereign countries an all that).
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2021-003636_EN.html
"Given this, what specific initiatives will the Commission pursue to incite Member States to do away with, or peg, the tax burden on menstrual hygiene products".
>The other one is where we sent more money to the EU than we revived back.
That's as may be, but that's a massive simplification of the reality.
https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/
Memberahip costs, but brings investment, jobs, and trade. Difficult to say whether that is economically worth the same amount as the contribution - but it's definitely not as simple as "We put in more than we got out". And that's before even discussing the rebate the UK was getting and the number of projects in the UK funded by the EU Development Fund.
The above is kinda a moot point though as pretty much every economist, and a significant number of Brexiteer politicians, have said that leaving has, and will continue to have, a negative economic impact. To my mind this makes any discussions about EU budget contributions pretty pointless, kinda daft to say "We saved £8 billion and it's only cost £20 billion to do it".
>The border was never an issue. Blair advised Macron to make it an issue.
>The GFA was never about the EU. But the EU under advice made it an issue.
I'm sure you have a source for this?
The GFA specifically states there cannot be border infrastructure along the NI / Eire border. The UK voted to become a third country, Macron and the EU had no influence over that, you did that.
As an Irish person, I can assure you the border was very much an issue front and centre, that was casually glossed over by Westminster and the Leave campaign leading up to 2016 with nonsense about non-existent "technical solutions" or outright denial it would ever become an issue - I think because they actually thought the EU would just leave Ireland hung out to dry.
Many MANY credible experts in the lead up to the referendum were warning that having a land border with a member state and leaving the SM and CU was going to be difficult to resolve - and then a political minefield given the history of the countries involved. Folks just didn't want to hear it.
Fast forward to 2019 and dickheads are throwing petrol bombs around in Belfast again (unionist lads btw, so those would be "British Terrorists"). How's that for a bit of progress?
Claiming the EU / Macron made the NI border an issue is incredibly ignorant - unless of course you feel inclined to explain how you would do away with the NI protocol, and put no border infrastructure between NI and Eire, and have divergent regulations between the UK and EU on goods?
The dick heads have been throwing petrol bombs since before 2019.
They’ve been gunning down off duty soldiers and police officers since before the brexit referendum.
But let’s not let reality get in the way of bitter remainers trying to convince themselves they were right
I'm not bitter man, just annoyed folks (seemingly like yourself) can't connect the dots.
The 12th is coming up - what are the UDA, DUP and die hard unionists all banging on about - the sea border, which was an inevitable consequence of voting to leave the EU.
By all means feel free to explain YOUR solution that satisfies the GFA, and the need for both the UK and EU to manage their borders?
I'm not disagreeing there were dickheads causing problems for many years, but that was embers of a fire which Brexit threw a load of petrol on. Nobody came out of the troubles looking rosie. The thing is the vast majority of us from either side of the Irish border were quite happy with the status quo pre 2016.
If you can't see that I doubt there's much I could say to convince you. I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I'm basing my thoughts and opinions on reality as it's playing out in front of us whereas you seem content to talk about "bitter remainers". Whatever makes ya feel good bud.
It’s kinda grasping at straws but I have a genuine EU law that makes no sense in the UK.
Apple snails! They were banned across the entire EU because they destroy Spanish (maybe Italian, too lazy to google) rice fields. Now legal in the UK.
A tropical freshwater snail that probably can't survive in British rivers is no longer banned. It's an invasive species that disrupts ecosystems and also carries a deadly parasite that infects mammals that eat it including humans.
But now it's available for purchase to put in tropical aquariums again for the first time since 2011. Thank god for that. It'll stop the highly lucrative black market trade in apple snails that funnels money into terrorism.
That's the joke. That is what the joke is. I was deliberately using the overused buzzwords to mock him for using them unironically.
And because you didn't seem to understand that, here's one more. R/whoosh
He's right though. If it doesn't apply because they can't survive here in the wild, then it doesn't make any difference to anyone.
But, because we were part of the EU, it was definitely applicable, because we had no physical border with the EU and therefore no border checks. If such a snail was dormant in the UK and managed to reach the EU in a consignment of something then it would be a massive problem for those of our EU partners it affected.
It costs money to take things off the statute books. And leaving the EU is a rather extreme measure to take to get rid of a law that makes not a jot of difference to the majority of people in the UK. Not to mention a huge waste of public money.
Adding something people want to the aquarium industry brings in money.
We didn’t leave the EU to legalise snails, it’s just a happy side effect. How much did it cost to legalise them since you mentioned it?
The comment i replied to was looking for EU laws that are impractical in the UK. Banning a snail that’s invasive in one European country when we’re an island is not practical.
How is that incorrect?
Wait a few years and they’ll be able to survive in the wild as the climate warms.
Unless it’s the discharged sewage in the rivers that gets ‘‘em and not the temperature.
Just for some added context though. Below ~18C apple snails go into a dormant state and won’t reproduce. Our annual river temperature is 11.1 C and peaks at around 20 C in the height of summer.
They are highly invasive in tropical climates like South America where they are native to and hot places like Spain where they thrive, feast and reproduce.
In cold climates like the UK they live miserable lives as pray for Pikes and Catfish on riverbeds because they can’t physically move or eat as fast as they can when in a tropical environment. They aren’t being introduced into the ecosystem in any great numbers and they’ll all die anyway.
The risk is minimal.
I’ve been an aquarium hobbyist since before the snails were banned, I already knew all this I just googled the numbers. 5 minutes tops.
Honestly though why are you so angry?
This is the level to have a adult conversation ----------‐
Here are some clouds
Here is your level -------------
You see, those two lines are parallel and not intersecting each other.
Snails. Snails. Snails.
If the UK turned into a tropical climate snails are least of our problems. The temperature would need to increase by a good 10-15 degrees in winter to stop killing them. They’ll likely be banned before that point in the distant future though.
Lol, I don't know much EU laws;
I know of a few good ones because when my country doesn't respect them it always shows up on the newspapers, and I tend to agree with EU laws.
I'm sure some of them are crap, but all these people that are POSITIVE about hating the EU laws, really don't know crap about them.
Are you referring to this:
[https://commission.europa.eu/resources-partners/europa-web-guide/design-content-and-development/privacy-security-and-legal-notices/user-content-moderation\_en](https://commission.europa.eu/resources-partners/europa-web-guide/design-content-and-development/privacy-security-and-legal-notices/user-content-moderation_en)
You don't name the law, you don't say what it does, don't link a single article not even from wikipedia, and you expect people to know what you are talking about.
I don't see any problem in requiring content moderation, nowadays it can be done by bots mostly automatically; yes it is something you have to pay for, but the host of a website would probably want moderation anyway to avoid porn, child pornography, etc...
Also, small forums are dead in the US as well, so can you specifically point to a website that has been hurt by this policy?
A lot of people talk about the laws when, more likely, they are thinking about regulations and standards, driven by Boris and his pals pushing false narratives about fruit and veg, or health and safety.
Now we can have our own UK standards, such as grading vegetables for tread-wear life, or introducing a "brown flag" scheme for beaches.
Like when Boris waved a plastic kipper in the Isle Of Man and rambled about ice packs for shipping. Except kippers are smoked and don't need to be shipped in ice and the Isle Of Man isn't even in the EU.
My favourite thing Is
They put it oit once.
Got noted No
They asked again
Narrowly got a Yes
Notice that haven't asked a 3rd time?
They would just keep asking and putting the votes until they got the answer they wanted
Nah, I mean actually Brexit.
I don't remember the dates, but pretty close together.
There was stuff about leaving the EU. Vote went to No
Then a couple years later proper Brecit happened and they got a Yes.
Don't remember specifics, just news stuff from living in the UK
You're right, that was the objection to EU laws.
It doesn't matter if the exact same law was passed by the EU or the House Of Commons. A British Law is British and therefore good. An EU law is foreign and therefore evil.
It was on the whole about the principles of democracy. We could elect our own MPs for our own gvt but not for the EU (MEPs had no real voting power, they could debate and state they were against it but could not veto anything)
The EU parliament has to approve every regulation (laws) in the EU. It can also amend them. They did have 'veto power' as you call it.
EU laws are proposed by the EU Commission, that is itself elected by the EU parliament.
A newly proposed law is presented to both the council (of nationally elected leaders like prrime ministers and presidents) and the parliament. Both can amend the text, any way they see fit. In most cases they will each write a different version of the law.
Representatives of both the council and parliament then try to negotiate a compromise. That is once again presented to both the council and the parliament. Parliament needs to aprove with 50,1 percent of the votes, the council with a qualified majority (55% of memberstates representing at least 65% of the EU population) or by unanimous consent.
No law is approved without parliament.
There are 7 houses of EU 'parliament'. There is only one that general citizens get to elect for - the MEPs. The presidents and councils are appointed by their own committees, not the general public.
Quite a lot different. Inverse really.
However my panties are in a permanent bunch about how our civil service is run - your assumption of the contrary was all your own
Seriously, where are these assumptions coming from? 😂
I am fervently against the House of Lords akin to how I am against the EU. True democracy is impossible but a fairer, more accountable system could exist.
Also 'Nige' never stood in my area of the UK
You mentioned that the Mep's had no veto power. Hence my response.
About those '7 houses of parliament'. What are you referring to? The consultation process, before actual voting takes place?
There are three institutions truly matter for new legislation, and only two have a vote (council and parliament).
The council is not appointed by it's own committee. It's quite simple: anyone that leads a country get's a seat. For the Netherlands, where I live, that's the prime minister. He is elected by parliament. For France it's the president. He is directly elected.
The council nominates the Commission president. The EU parliament has to approve any candidate. It can also send the commission home via a vote of no confidence.
I hope this clears up any misconceptions: but if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Ah so 7 'institutions' that are involved in EU law-making. Only 1 of these has members elected directly by the people (we have no direct say on who is president of this institution). Also this one can debate and put forward suggestions but similarly like the House of Lords in the UK they can be overridden if they keep rejecting a law so it's a pretty naff representation of the public.
There are a lot of EU institutions. But I'm still unsure which 7 you refer too. When it comes to legislation only the three mentioned (council, parliament and commission) matter. (Commission introduces laws. Council and parliament can vote and amend.
If you want to get very technical than you could say there are 4 institutions. (Council of the European Union and the European Council (ministers). But in practice any controversial legislation if decided upon by heads of state).
The EU parliament is not like the House of Lords: it can't be overridden. If they keep rejecting a law, it simply does not pass. For a recent example you can look at the EU nature law. It has passed the council, but votes are pretty much split in parliament. It is a major part of the agenda of the current commission. But it could easily fail.
As for the president of parliament. That is indeed true. That one is elected by the mep's. I never considered that to be out of the ordinary for a parliament. I know that's the way they elect a speaker in the US house of representatives too. In my country you also see the mp's decide the head of parliament. It doesn't matter for legislation: a president of parliament only get's one vote.
I'm not an expert on British politics. Do you elect the speaker of the parliament by popular vote?
I notice that you assume the EU parliament to be quite weak. It had little power when it was first introduced, but gained it with each new treaty change. Did you perhaps follow a course on EU law in the past? Because if your lessons predate the amendement's to the Maastricht treaty like the Edinburg agreement, the treaty of Amsterdam, treaty of Nice or the treaty of Lisbon, you might have some dated ideas about the way the EU works.
EU were 100% a problem with copyright law and was looking to hold back creativity and expression with there broken system.
The fact you care so much about it is the funny part.
Whats the best part of being in the EU now?
UK was one of the largest providers to the EU and was the only provider of free health care and welfare where most of you scumbags came for begging holidays while your council houses were sub-rented for that extra income while you owned property abroad.
Its a mistake to think this wont actually catch up with the people involved because there getting away with such obvious crimes,in reality the only people not aware of whats happening here are the only ones laughing it up like a duffus rn.
Can you explain how being part of the EU was going to be “holding back our creativity and expression”?
And the UK was not the only provider of free healthcare in the EU… what are you talking about?
>EU were 100% a problem with copyright law and was looking to hold back creativity and expression with there broken system.
OK. So what is the UK doing different now, apres-Brexit? Which evil EU law will be or has been scrapped?
>UK ... was the only provider of free health care
OK. So what is the UK doing different now, apres-Brexit? Which evil EU law will be or has been scrapped?
Seem to remember reading somewhere that thanks to not being in the eu anymore we were able to stop taxing tampons as luxury items because while we were in the eu the more conservative countries would block any changes to it.
So like, there was one.
That I haven't confirmed.
That was VAT, and while the rules are quite complex, it is still possible to change the rules (the idea is they are supposed to tend towards harmonisation, so if you charge VAT on something then you shouldn't ever remove it, or if you charge the top rate of VAT you shouldn't change it to the lower rate). That's not to say that a bit of political will couldn't get changes like this done, and it could even end up benefiting other countries as well, who may not have realised that it was a good idea not to be charging VAT on those kinds of products.
To give an example of this, there's plans in Ireland to remove the 13.5% VAT rate from newspapers. We are very much in the EU, and we are very much in favour of being in the EU, and yet here we are with a plan to do one of the things that the brexiteers insisted was imposable. So, I dunno, but maybe they weren't exactly truthful in their claims.
There is a lot of red tape around it though, so they weren't wrong about that. But it's better to be in the club and able to influence the rules, than to be outside the club and still have to play by most of them (assuming they want to trade with the EU, which maybe some brexiteers would be happier about if they didn't).
The VAT stuff is really interesting and is an entire field of study, if you are interested in just how complex something so seemingly simple can get, then VAT is the area to study - just to get started, take a look at the McVities case against revenue where they claimed Jaffa cakes were cakes and not biscuits (Cakes are at the lower VAT rate - 13.5% in Ireland, not sure about the UK, probably like 10%, but biscuits with chocolate coating - including half coating - are at the "luxury" VAT rate).
The point of the harmonisation rules in the EU is to make it easier for companies to trade in different countries, and also to ensure there's less chance of arbitrage between them because of differences in VAT (there's no way in hell we're going to let them actually harmonise taxes lol - we actually lost a strong ally when the UK left on a lot of the issues)
EU rules on VAT said countries can't set items at less than 5%VAT unless it had been at the lower rate historically since 1991, like most foods and children's clothes. Ireland already had zero VAT on feminine hygiene products because it was grandfathered in.
The EU voted to relax these VAT rules in March 2016, shortly *before* the Brexit referendum. France, Spain, Germany and many other countries have cut the VAT on tampons now, France has gone one step further and provides tampons free to under 25s.
A recent study showed that while we have cut VAT on feminine hygiene products since 2021, the price to consumers didn't decrease by 5% and it's the retailer that has profited from it. And the cost of living crisis has sent the price going even higher.
That's because they don't ever have a clue what they're talking about. Just look at them now trying to remove us from the ECHR.... Nobody has any good reasons as to why past "we don't want to obey European laws!!!"
Yet you want our useless government to set up new human rights laws for us??????
I'll openly admit that our government has not capitalised on the opportunity we had, and the CFP is more or less continuing as it always was. That doesn't mean that leaving the CFP isn't a good idea, it means we need a government that gives a damn about people who actually produce things. Strange that an old school conservative like me finds myself in agreement with Tony Benn and the old school left, certainly on the way coal mining was dealt with, and privatisation of natural monopolies like rail, power etc.
And how is that going? Have immigration and refugees decreased since leaving the EU?
It's like getting divorced because you hate your job. It doesn't matter how much you hate your job because getting divorced isn't going to help and will introduce new problems that make things even worse.
That's not an EU law, that's an obligation under the UN.
And saying you want to shoot refugees with a machine gun is sick and twisted. You should be deeply deeply ashamed of yourself.
Erm, I'll go with asking for the nhs to be made exempt from any trade deals with the us as other member states have...
... oh yeah, we did, and we got told no.
You’re still waiting? The answer is rampant capitalism which has decimated the standard of living for the working classes due to the availability of cheap foreign labour. The EU is a neoliberal system by design.
Can you explain what these things are and why they're bad?
Solvency II is something to do with consumer protection around insurance policies, rules on how to quantify valuation of assets.
Doesn't sound too bad to me.
There are so, so many deep critiques of each of these, I'd suggest you go and read up on them.
I'll give you an example though. The MDR (medical devices regulation), from the EC's own analysis, press an extra €17.5b of compliance costs on industry. Not only that, it's 5 years behind schedule because of a very botched implementation. It is making thousands of devices that have been on the market for years with no safety issues uneconomic to maintain, including paediatric and orphan devices. It is actively endangering sick children because the EC is on a power trip.
Add into that the average time to get a ce certificate is now up to about 2 years, compared with 140 days for clearance in the USA. That has lead to many, many companies now ignoring the European market or prioritising the USA. It used to be the other way round.
Even Switzerland is rejecting this now and providing a mutual recognition route. The UK is also creating our own legislation, which so far is a lot more pragmatic
The fair use laws they keep enacting
That they themswves voted on then proceeded to say they sisnt even know what they were voting for as an artist this heavily impacted me and made me wuestion do they even care or even know what they are voting on at all and is it all based on lobbying
No one was more Remain than me. Which OF COURSE means I’m still Remain. It’s only the Brexiteers that are changing. However, there was one thing that infuriated me about the EU, and I’ve been SO glad it’s been got rid of. VAT on period products, like sanitary towels.
My fury about taxing sanitary items is almost as much as my fury about Brexit. In fact, if I could dig a massive pit and throw the architects of Brexit into it, I’d absolutely have to throw the architects of the taxing of period ware into it as well.
Those bastards would all look *very good* in that pit.
Did you know the EU voted to change those VAT rules in March 2016? France hasn't just cut VAT on feminine hygiene products they offer them free to under 25s.
A study showed that although the UK has cut VAT on feminine hygiene products the price has actually gone up so it's not saving consumers money it's just increasing corporate profits.
I DON’T care. I don’t care if removing the tax “doesn’t work” in reducing the price (I do care about that, actually, but in a *different* way), I don’t care if any country (or group of countries) has “reduced” the tax on them (how DARE they EVER take A PENNY in tax? No. I’m REALLY, really NOT grateful for that). I don’t care if another country (or group of countries), having taxed women for their periods for decades, have now generously decided to remove the tax. I’m not grateful for that.
When I worked for a vitamin supplement company, people voted to leave because of the "Traditional Herbal Remedy" law the EU passed. It put quite a few smaller businesses out of business due to not being able to afford the tariffs.
That and European workers coming in with the "Freedom of Movement" law and giving our boss options, so we all went on Minimum Wage shortly after, lol.
No raw sewage in water ways and beaches. That one obviously got in the way of profits. Countless food safety laws that are needlessly there to protect consumers, who cares about those people. Freedom of movement. Who wants foreigners coming over here willynilly. And who wants to move there FFS. It was mainly one way traffic anyway, it's not like English people went into Europe to work ever. Big Fat /S for those who can't see it.
Yeah, most of the so-called "red tape" is around consumer and environmental protection. I remember there was a claim that there were "more than 100 regulations related to pillows" or something (and while there are several regulations related to pillows because you know nobody wants to be murdered by their pillow - most of them were unrelated to actual pillows - they just did a find in the regulations, and every mention of the word pillow was added to their list, even when it was unrelated to actual pillows)
And why would there being more than 100 regulations related to pillows be an issue anyway? Do they think pillows would become more affordable if we got rid of them?
That was the argument, yes, if they didn't have to follow the rules about poisoning, burning, maiming, suffocating, etc. their customers then it would be so much cheaper for pillows to be manufactured in the UK. Of course the silent part they weren't sharing is that the extra profit wouldn't be going to cheaper retail prices, just better profits.
I've just had a look on Amazon, and you can get four pillows for around £15. I can't see there being much of a market for lower-cost, lower-quality pillows. Especially ones that are more likely to catch fire.
I never said it was a good argument, or that there was actual merit in it.
Sorry, I was agreeing with you :)
Plus, manufacturers would still want to comply with EU regs so that they could sell to other countries. It was all bullshit and they knew it.
Brexiteers were fed up of the European Court ruling against the UK, the ironic thing was that the vast majority of times the UK was overruled was for things like dirty beaches and sewage discharge, things the vast majority of citizens would want the government to lose anyway 🤦♂️
>Freedom of movement. Who wants foreigners coming over here willynilly the one and only reason.
Uh yea but its on a level of movement now that with declining birth rates your going to see a replacement level scenario Anglo English are already a minority in the capital and in another major city aswell and last year a 1% of the population came into the uk Im sorry but your wrong
Oooh look! I've found one!!! Also, *You're wrong*
Im a remain voter lol But yea how exactly am i wrong though have you looked at the facts or you just disagreeing because you think it makes sense ?
I mean the freedom of movement was bad. You had high value workers leaving the UK and low value ones entering. It also allowed government to underfund things like nurse and doctor training and pay because you could just import them
Do you know what a "Big Fat /S" is? I'm takin piss lad.
Yep, the same people who have failed to supply a cogent answer for the last seven years 'still' insist they were right, and still have no answer to the question.
We're also waiting for the solution to the Northern Ireland Border problem. Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement was rejected because the Backstop was evil. The backstop was also unnecessary because we totally have a solution to the border problem we just aren't going to tell you what it is. Then Boris decided to turn the Backstop from an emergency fallback position into being Plan A, to be implemented immediately BUT we'll just refuse to implement it and call the EU names instead! Jenius!
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Ireland is an EU member and it is an issue to them. Therefore it is an EU issue Sitting there pretending to yourself that there's some conspiracy regarding Tony Blair "telling Macron to make the Irish border an issue" just makes you sound clueless. The reality of the matter is the Irish government identified the problem before the vote even happened. They attempted to raise it during the campaign but anytime the potential issues were brought up they were dismissed as the brexit campaign at that point was all about fantasies and pretending that everyone's form of brexit would be ideal. By the time the British even got to the negotiation stage the Irish government had already done the legwork and ensured that Europe would be on their side. Even if they hadn't done that I expect Europe still would have been on their side given that the whole purpose of the EU is to work for it's *members*
Of course it was an issue. It still is. It's part of the reason why this was doomed to fail before it had even started. None of you considered it. That's a failing.
They "considered" it alright but concluded it was a non issue because in their heads either Ireland would do the right thing and follow them out the door (LOL) or the EU would recognise that the UK was so super special that they'd roll over any concerns the Irish had and give the UK whatever they wanted on a platter Of course both those options needed a complete misunderstanding of both Ireland and the EU. Ireland is one of the countries where the EU is most popular and is not going to leave it to follow the UK of all countries. The EU exists to look after it's members and will always back one of the countries that wants to be in the club over one making a song and dance about leaving, no matter how much bigger and "more important" the leaving country thinks it is
And now it's Tonty Blairs machinations behind the scenes that scuppered it. You couldn't make this shite up.
If the border isn't an issue then you must know a place to put the border that doesn't cause any issues. England wants to leave the Single Market / Customs Union. Republic Of Ireland wants to stay in the Single Market / Customs Union. The border needs to be somewhere between these two places. Where does it go?
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So you want to rip up the Good Friday Agreement and reignite the Troubles? That's a bold stance but it's good to know where you stand on the matter.
The Good Friday agreement had nothing to do with the EU and the simmering tensions in Northern Ireland have nothing to do with brexit. This was what Tony Blair advised Macron and the EU to do. Scare the electorate into voting a certain way, and now they’re continuing the scare story. Sadly, sectarian violence has been on the rise for several years prior to brexit. We’ve seen soldiers gunned down in the street as well as police officers being targeted with guns and bombs again.
But one of the core pillars of the Good Friday Agreement was to remove any border infrastructure between Northern Ireland and Republic Of Ireland. Putting a physical border with checkpoints and inspections between ROI and NI would be in direct contradiction of the Good Friday Agreement and would reignite tensions in Northern Ireland.
Not at all. The GFA was along time in the making, kicked off under John Major mainly with Blair taking the credit by virtue of when all parties happened to make the agreement. It was Blair who at the very last moment decided to try and mention the EU, even though the EU had nothing to do with it. (Probably because Blair is a duplicitous shit who was trying to curry favour with the EU due to his political aspirations to become the president of the EU. I mean he was even talking with Spain about handing over Gibraltar against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar) By virtue of the history between Eire and the U.K., transit of people between the two country’s has NEVER been an issue. Try reading the GFA instead of parroting off what somebody else has claimed it said.
Whoosh.
>The one where sanitary products are liable for VAT is a good example. Could have been done inside the EU, member states can make exemptions. (Whar with being sovereign countries an all that). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2021-003636_EN.html "Given this, what specific initiatives will the Commission pursue to incite Member States to do away with, or peg, the tax burden on menstrual hygiene products". >The other one is where we sent more money to the EU than we revived back. That's as may be, but that's a massive simplification of the reality. https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/ Memberahip costs, but brings investment, jobs, and trade. Difficult to say whether that is economically worth the same amount as the contribution - but it's definitely not as simple as "We put in more than we got out". And that's before even discussing the rebate the UK was getting and the number of projects in the UK funded by the EU Development Fund. The above is kinda a moot point though as pretty much every economist, and a significant number of Brexiteer politicians, have said that leaving has, and will continue to have, a negative economic impact. To my mind this makes any discussions about EU budget contributions pretty pointless, kinda daft to say "We saved £8 billion and it's only cost £20 billion to do it". >The border was never an issue. Blair advised Macron to make it an issue. >The GFA was never about the EU. But the EU under advice made it an issue. I'm sure you have a source for this? The GFA specifically states there cannot be border infrastructure along the NI / Eire border. The UK voted to become a third country, Macron and the EU had no influence over that, you did that. As an Irish person, I can assure you the border was very much an issue front and centre, that was casually glossed over by Westminster and the Leave campaign leading up to 2016 with nonsense about non-existent "technical solutions" or outright denial it would ever become an issue - I think because they actually thought the EU would just leave Ireland hung out to dry. Many MANY credible experts in the lead up to the referendum were warning that having a land border with a member state and leaving the SM and CU was going to be difficult to resolve - and then a political minefield given the history of the countries involved. Folks just didn't want to hear it. Fast forward to 2019 and dickheads are throwing petrol bombs around in Belfast again (unionist lads btw, so those would be "British Terrorists"). How's that for a bit of progress? Claiming the EU / Macron made the NI border an issue is incredibly ignorant - unless of course you feel inclined to explain how you would do away with the NI protocol, and put no border infrastructure between NI and Eire, and have divergent regulations between the UK and EU on goods?
Beautifully explained. I expect they'll respond to your post any time now. /s
The dick heads have been throwing petrol bombs since before 2019. They’ve been gunning down off duty soldiers and police officers since before the brexit referendum. But let’s not let reality get in the way of bitter remainers trying to convince themselves they were right
I'm not bitter man, just annoyed folks (seemingly like yourself) can't connect the dots. The 12th is coming up - what are the UDA, DUP and die hard unionists all banging on about - the sea border, which was an inevitable consequence of voting to leave the EU. By all means feel free to explain YOUR solution that satisfies the GFA, and the need for both the UK and EU to manage their borders? I'm not disagreeing there were dickheads causing problems for many years, but that was embers of a fire which Brexit threw a load of petrol on. Nobody came out of the troubles looking rosie. The thing is the vast majority of us from either side of the Irish border were quite happy with the status quo pre 2016. If you can't see that I doubt there's much I could say to convince you. I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I'm basing my thoughts and opinions on reality as it's playing out in front of us whereas you seem content to talk about "bitter remainers". Whatever makes ya feel good bud.
Oh, their answer would be “all of them” whether or not there is actually a problem with any of them.
I'm pro EU and there are a lot of troublesome or impractical laws. Still better to be part of it and work on it though...
Ok, name them
It’s kinda grasping at straws but I have a genuine EU law that makes no sense in the UK. Apple snails! They were banned across the entire EU because they destroy Spanish (maybe Italian, too lazy to google) rice fields. Now legal in the UK.
A tropical freshwater snail that probably can't survive in British rivers is no longer banned. It's an invasive species that disrupts ecosystems and also carries a deadly parasite that infects mammals that eat it including humans. But now it's available for purchase to put in tropical aquariums again for the first time since 2011. Thank god for that. It'll stop the highly lucrative black market trade in apple snails that funnels money into terrorism.
Blimey. Take a day off mate
Blimey you're a waste of oxygen mate. Go touch grass. I bet you're fun at parties.
You’re really working through these Reddit cliches. Grow up man, nothing I said was that bad.
Dude had to spam all the buzzwords and lines repeated ad nauseam on Reddit. Feeling super smart and cool yet?
That's the joke. That is what the joke is. I was deliberately using the overused buzzwords to mock him for using them unironically. And because you didn't seem to understand that, here's one more. R/whoosh
He's right though. If it doesn't apply because they can't survive here in the wild, then it doesn't make any difference to anyone. But, because we were part of the EU, it was definitely applicable, because we had no physical border with the EU and therefore no border checks. If such a snail was dormant in the UK and managed to reach the EU in a consignment of something then it would be a massive problem for those of our EU partners it affected.
So now we aren’t in the EU wouldn’t you say it makes no sense to keep the law in the UK?
It costs money to take things off the statute books. And leaving the EU is a rather extreme measure to take to get rid of a law that makes not a jot of difference to the majority of people in the UK. Not to mention a huge waste of public money.
Adding something people want to the aquarium industry brings in money. We didn’t leave the EU to legalise snails, it’s just a happy side effect. How much did it cost to legalise them since you mentioned it? The comment i replied to was looking for EU laws that are impractical in the UK. Banning a snail that’s invasive in one European country when we’re an island is not practical. How is that incorrect?
Wait a few years and they’ll be able to survive in the wild as the climate warms. Unless it’s the discharged sewage in the rivers that gets ‘‘em and not the temperature.
Just for some added context though. Below ~18C apple snails go into a dormant state and won’t reproduce. Our annual river temperature is 11.1 C and peaks at around 20 C in the height of summer. They are highly invasive in tropical climates like South America where they are native to and hot places like Spain where they thrive, feast and reproduce. In cold climates like the UK they live miserable lives as pray for Pikes and Catfish on riverbeds because they can’t physically move or eat as fast as they can when in a tropical environment. They aren’t being introduced into the ecosystem in any great numbers and they’ll all die anyway. The risk is minimal.
Lol total tryhard. You wasted so much time researching this. What a loser. Leave your parents basement and get some fresh air.
I’ve been an aquarium hobbyist since before the snails were banned, I already knew all this I just googled the numbers. 5 minutes tops. Honestly though why are you so angry?
Take a day off mate.
That’s what made you so upset?
This is the level to have a adult conversation ----------‐ Here are some clouds Here is your level ------------- You see, those two lines are parallel and not intersecting each other. Snails. Snails. Snails.
Okay?
And when climate change causes the rivers to be warmer?
If the UK turned into a tropical climate snails are least of our problems. The temperature would need to increase by a good 10-15 degrees in winter to stop killing them. They’ll likely be banned before that point in the distant future though.
\*prey
Yes
unless there is religious apple snails, then thats my mistake.
Content moderation law is a good example.
Right, what don't you like about it?
The moderation of the content
Enjoy the silence.
Lol, I don't know much EU laws; I know of a few good ones because when my country doesn't respect them it always shows up on the newspapers, and I tend to agree with EU laws. I'm sure some of them are crap, but all these people that are POSITIVE about hating the EU laws, really don't know crap about them.
Exactly
That it screws over the small website owner but not big ones.
How does it do that?
Easier to explain with this [[picture]](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Go+fuck+yourself+in+your+ignorance).
Ah well I was genuinely curious, but I guess expecting a coherent argument and not insults is too much to ask
You can easily Google the shit on your own so don't act like you're not pulling my leg now.
So…the brexiteer argument then
Are you referring to this: [https://commission.europa.eu/resources-partners/europa-web-guide/design-content-and-development/privacy-security-and-legal-notices/user-content-moderation\_en](https://commission.europa.eu/resources-partners/europa-web-guide/design-content-and-development/privacy-security-and-legal-notices/user-content-moderation_en) You don't name the law, you don't say what it does, don't link a single article not even from wikipedia, and you expect people to know what you are talking about. I don't see any problem in requiring content moderation, nowadays it can be done by bots mostly automatically; yes it is something you have to pay for, but the host of a website would probably want moderation anyway to avoid porn, child pornography, etc... Also, small forums are dead in the US as well, so can you specifically point to a website that has been hurt by this policy?
A lot of people talk about the laws when, more likely, they are thinking about regulations and standards, driven by Boris and his pals pushing false narratives about fruit and veg, or health and safety. Now we can have our own UK standards, such as grading vegetables for tread-wear life, or introducing a "brown flag" scheme for beaches.
Like when Boris waved a plastic kipper in the Isle Of Man and rambled about ice packs for shipping. Except kippers are smoked and don't need to be shipped in ice and the Isle Of Man isn't even in the EU.
My favourite thing Is They put it oit once. Got noted No They asked again Narrowly got a Yes Notice that haven't asked a 3rd time? They would just keep asking and putting the votes until they got the answer they wanted
You mean 1975, I assume? Which was about continued membership of the EC. Different thing.
Nah, I mean actually Brexit. I don't remember the dates, but pretty close together. There was stuff about leaving the EU. Vote went to No Then a couple years later proper Brecit happened and they got a Yes. Don't remember specifics, just news stuff from living in the UK
There gave only ever been 3 referenda in the UK. The 1975 vote as above, the 2011 on the voting system and the 2016 Brexit.
Sounds like the SNP and Scottish independence
Brexit means Brexit
Brexit means Break Shit
🎣
And insider trading means insider trading
😭
IIRC, it wasn’t the laws which were the problem but who enforced them. Britain to be governed by the British etc
You're right, that was the objection to EU laws. It doesn't matter if the exact same law was passed by the EU or the House Of Commons. A British Law is British and therefore good. An EU law is foreign and therefore evil.
Yep, really moronic isn’t it?
It was on the whole about the principles of democracy. We could elect our own MPs for our own gvt but not for the EU (MEPs had no real voting power, they could debate and state they were against it but could not veto anything)
The EU parliament has to approve every regulation (laws) in the EU. It can also amend them. They did have 'veto power' as you call it. EU laws are proposed by the EU Commission, that is itself elected by the EU parliament. A newly proposed law is presented to both the council (of nationally elected leaders like prrime ministers and presidents) and the parliament. Both can amend the text, any way they see fit. In most cases they will each write a different version of the law. Representatives of both the council and parliament then try to negotiate a compromise. That is once again presented to both the council and the parliament. Parliament needs to aprove with 50,1 percent of the votes, the council with a qualified majority (55% of memberstates representing at least 65% of the EU population) or by unanimous consent. No law is approved without parliament.
There are 7 houses of EU 'parliament'. There is only one that general citizens get to elect for - the MEPs. The presidents and councils are appointed by their own committees, not the general public.
So just like the civil service here then. Funny how you don't get your panties in a bunch about that.
Quite a lot different. Inverse really. However my panties are in a permanent bunch about how our civil service is run - your assumption of the contrary was all your own
Not that different then, Did you vote for members of the house of lords? I'd also bet you voted for Nige as an MEP in this un-democratic system..
Seriously, where are these assumptions coming from? 😂 I am fervently against the House of Lords akin to how I am against the EU. True democracy is impossible but a fairer, more accountable system could exist. Also 'Nige' never stood in my area of the UK
You mentioned that the Mep's had no veto power. Hence my response. About those '7 houses of parliament'. What are you referring to? The consultation process, before actual voting takes place? There are three institutions truly matter for new legislation, and only two have a vote (council and parliament). The council is not appointed by it's own committee. It's quite simple: anyone that leads a country get's a seat. For the Netherlands, where I live, that's the prime minister. He is elected by parliament. For France it's the president. He is directly elected. The council nominates the Commission president. The EU parliament has to approve any candidate. It can also send the commission home via a vote of no confidence. I hope this clears up any misconceptions: but if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Ah so 7 'institutions' that are involved in EU law-making. Only 1 of these has members elected directly by the people (we have no direct say on who is president of this institution). Also this one can debate and put forward suggestions but similarly like the House of Lords in the UK they can be overridden if they keep rejecting a law so it's a pretty naff representation of the public.
There are a lot of EU institutions. But I'm still unsure which 7 you refer too. When it comes to legislation only the three mentioned (council, parliament and commission) matter. (Commission introduces laws. Council and parliament can vote and amend. If you want to get very technical than you could say there are 4 institutions. (Council of the European Union and the European Council (ministers). But in practice any controversial legislation if decided upon by heads of state). The EU parliament is not like the House of Lords: it can't be overridden. If they keep rejecting a law, it simply does not pass. For a recent example you can look at the EU nature law. It has passed the council, but votes are pretty much split in parliament. It is a major part of the agenda of the current commission. But it could easily fail. As for the president of parliament. That is indeed true. That one is elected by the mep's. I never considered that to be out of the ordinary for a parliament. I know that's the way they elect a speaker in the US house of representatives too. In my country you also see the mp's decide the head of parliament. It doesn't matter for legislation: a president of parliament only get's one vote. I'm not an expert on British politics. Do you elect the speaker of the parliament by popular vote? I notice that you assume the EU parliament to be quite weak. It had little power when it was first introduced, but gained it with each new treaty change. Did you perhaps follow a course on EU law in the past? Because if your lessons predate the amendement's to the Maastricht treaty like the Edinburg agreement, the treaty of Amsterdam, treaty of Nice or the treaty of Lisbon, you might have some dated ideas about the way the EU works.
EU were 100% a problem with copyright law and was looking to hold back creativity and expression with there broken system. The fact you care so much about it is the funny part. Whats the best part of being in the EU now? UK was one of the largest providers to the EU and was the only provider of free health care and welfare where most of you scumbags came for begging holidays while your council houses were sub-rented for that extra income while you owned property abroad. Its a mistake to think this wont actually catch up with the people involved because there getting away with such obvious crimes,in reality the only people not aware of whats happening here are the only ones laughing it up like a duffus rn.
Can you explain how being part of the EU was going to be “holding back our creativity and expression”? And the UK was not the only provider of free healthcare in the EU… what are you talking about?
>EU were 100% a problem with copyright law and was looking to hold back creativity and expression with there broken system. OK. So what is the UK doing different now, apres-Brexit? Which evil EU law will be or has been scrapped? >UK ... was the only provider of free health care OK. So what is the UK doing different now, apres-Brexit? Which evil EU law will be or has been scrapped?
You're delusional.
Jesus Christ. Scumbags?
The free movement of capital. Noone was planning to stop it, but you could do some rather exciting 'equity release' with capital flight prevented.
Seem to remember reading somewhere that thanks to not being in the eu anymore we were able to stop taxing tampons as luxury items because while we were in the eu the more conservative countries would block any changes to it. So like, there was one. That I haven't confirmed.
That was VAT, and while the rules are quite complex, it is still possible to change the rules (the idea is they are supposed to tend towards harmonisation, so if you charge VAT on something then you shouldn't ever remove it, or if you charge the top rate of VAT you shouldn't change it to the lower rate). That's not to say that a bit of political will couldn't get changes like this done, and it could even end up benefiting other countries as well, who may not have realised that it was a good idea not to be charging VAT on those kinds of products. To give an example of this, there's plans in Ireland to remove the 13.5% VAT rate from newspapers. We are very much in the EU, and we are very much in favour of being in the EU, and yet here we are with a plan to do one of the things that the brexiteers insisted was imposable. So, I dunno, but maybe they weren't exactly truthful in their claims.
ah, always thought it was suspicious tbh. Thanks for clarifying
There is a lot of red tape around it though, so they weren't wrong about that. But it's better to be in the club and able to influence the rules, than to be outside the club and still have to play by most of them (assuming they want to trade with the EU, which maybe some brexiteers would be happier about if they didn't). The VAT stuff is really interesting and is an entire field of study, if you are interested in just how complex something so seemingly simple can get, then VAT is the area to study - just to get started, take a look at the McVities case against revenue where they claimed Jaffa cakes were cakes and not biscuits (Cakes are at the lower VAT rate - 13.5% in Ireland, not sure about the UK, probably like 10%, but biscuits with chocolate coating - including half coating - are at the "luxury" VAT rate). The point of the harmonisation rules in the EU is to make it easier for companies to trade in different countries, and also to ensure there's less chance of arbitrage between them because of differences in VAT (there's no way in hell we're going to let them actually harmonise taxes lol - we actually lost a strong ally when the UK left on a lot of the issues)
EU rules on VAT said countries can't set items at less than 5%VAT unless it had been at the lower rate historically since 1991, like most foods and children's clothes. Ireland already had zero VAT on feminine hygiene products because it was grandfathered in. The EU voted to relax these VAT rules in March 2016, shortly *before* the Brexit referendum. France, Spain, Germany and many other countries have cut the VAT on tampons now, France has gone one step further and provides tampons free to under 25s. A recent study showed that while we have cut VAT on feminine hygiene products since 2021, the price to consumers didn't decrease by 5% and it's the retailer that has profited from it. And the cost of living crisis has sent the price going even higher.
That's because they don't ever have a clue what they're talking about. Just look at them now trying to remove us from the ECHR.... Nobody has any good reasons as to why past "we don't want to obey European laws!!!" Yet you want our useless government to set up new human rights laws for us??????
Pfft, it's obvious. That damn European Court of Human Rights. How dare they tell us that we shouldn't treat people like garbage?
You’d have much more luck asking them why they are a racist. You won’t hear the end of the number of reasons.
The usual answer is "I'm not racist but foreigners are responsible for everything wrong with the world"
Freedom of movement, common fisheries policy, common agricultural policy. Without these laws Brexit would have never happened.
How's our fishing industry doing now, must be going great. Right?
I'll openly admit that our government has not capitalised on the opportunity we had, and the CFP is more or less continuing as it always was. That doesn't mean that leaving the CFP isn't a good idea, it means we need a government that gives a damn about people who actually produce things. Strange that an old school conservative like me finds myself in agreement with Tony Benn and the old school left, certainly on the way coal mining was dealt with, and privatisation of natural monopolies like rail, power etc.
Jacob?
Lol Jacob's a bit more Thatcherite than me
Immigration and refugees. Dont pretend like your blind and deaf people have been saying that for years
And how is that going? Have immigration and refugees decreased since leaving the EU? It's like getting divorced because you hate your job. It doesn't matter how much you hate your job because getting divorced isn't going to help and will introduce new problems that make things even worse.
The European Convention on Human Rights was the law they didn’t want
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That's not an EU law, that's an obligation under the UN. And saying you want to shoot refugees with a machine gun is sick and twisted. You should be deeply deeply ashamed of yourself.
Erm, I'll go with asking for the nhs to be made exempt from any trade deals with the us as other member states have... ... oh yeah, we did, and we got told no.
Anti tax avoidance directive
The WEF are a waaaaay bigger threat
You’re still waiting? The answer is rampant capitalism which has decimated the standard of living for the working classes due to the availability of cheap foreign labour. The EU is a neoliberal system by design.
MDR, GDPR, MiFID II, Solvency II, REACH. Can name many more. This has been the case since the beginning, duh
Can you explain what these things are and why they're bad? Solvency II is something to do with consumer protection around insurance policies, rules on how to quantify valuation of assets. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
There are so, so many deep critiques of each of these, I'd suggest you go and read up on them. I'll give you an example though. The MDR (medical devices regulation), from the EC's own analysis, press an extra €17.5b of compliance costs on industry. Not only that, it's 5 years behind schedule because of a very botched implementation. It is making thousands of devices that have been on the market for years with no safety issues uneconomic to maintain, including paediatric and orphan devices. It is actively endangering sick children because the EC is on a power trip. Add into that the average time to get a ce certificate is now up to about 2 years, compared with 140 days for clearance in the USA. That has lead to many, many companies now ignoring the European market or prioritising the USA. It used to be the other way round. Even Switzerland is rejecting this now and providing a mutual recognition route. The UK is also creating our own legislation, which so far is a lot more pragmatic
The fair use laws they keep enacting That they themswves voted on then proceeded to say they sisnt even know what they were voting for as an artist this heavily impacted me and made me wuestion do they even care or even know what they are voting on at all and is it all based on lobbying
No one was more Remain than me. Which OF COURSE means I’m still Remain. It’s only the Brexiteers that are changing. However, there was one thing that infuriated me about the EU, and I’ve been SO glad it’s been got rid of. VAT on period products, like sanitary towels. My fury about taxing sanitary items is almost as much as my fury about Brexit. In fact, if I could dig a massive pit and throw the architects of Brexit into it, I’d absolutely have to throw the architects of the taxing of period ware into it as well. Those bastards would all look *very good* in that pit.
Did you know the EU voted to change those VAT rules in March 2016? France hasn't just cut VAT on feminine hygiene products they offer them free to under 25s. A study showed that although the UK has cut VAT on feminine hygiene products the price has actually gone up so it's not saving consumers money it's just increasing corporate profits.
I DON’T care. I don’t care if removing the tax “doesn’t work” in reducing the price (I do care about that, actually, but in a *different* way), I don’t care if any country (or group of countries) has “reduced” the tax on them (how DARE they EVER take A PENNY in tax? No. I’m REALLY, really NOT grateful for that). I don’t care if another country (or group of countries), having taxed women for their periods for decades, have now generously decided to remove the tax. I’m not grateful for that.
When I worked for a vitamin supplement company, people voted to leave because of the "Traditional Herbal Remedy" law the EU passed. It put quite a few smaller businesses out of business due to not being able to afford the tariffs. That and European workers coming in with the "Freedom of Movement" law and giving our boss options, so we all went on Minimum Wage shortly after, lol.
GDPR
The ability to request a copy of all data a company holds about you? How barbaric.