Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

breezy1985

We were listening to the Beatles in the 60s followed by punk, prog, New Rom and all that and English soccer teams have been supported for as long as Ireland has had soccer which is how many Irish clubs can trace jersey colours to UK teams.
Also UK department stores have always been a feature in Ireland.

I do hope Brexit changes some of that with the exception of the music maybe

20silkcut

breezy1985 wrote: »

We were listening to the Beatles in the 60s followed by punk, prog, New Rom and all that and English soccer teams have been supported for as long as Ireland has had soccer which is how many Irish clubs can trace jersey colours to UK teams.
Also UK department stores have always been a feature in Ireland.

I do hope Brexit changes some of that with the exception of the music maybe

At the risk of stating the obvious. Language is a huge cultural barrier not easily solved either and definitely not anytime soon because there are so many different languages on the continent.

Capt'n Midnight

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Rosslare to Dunkirk ferry will lose UK Billions one would imagine. Hardly anyone will use land bridge, the amount of fuel truckers buy in UK, and food, and tyres, and breakdowns ect.
Now it's Rosslare to Dunkirk,

Long distance trucks have large tanks so they can avail of wherever fuel is cheapest.

yagan

20silkcut wrote: »

At the risk of stating the obvious. Language is a huge cultural barrier not easily solved either and definitely not anytime soon because there are so many different languages on the continent.

True, but it's more language blocs. Spanish songs can understood to an intelligible degree by French and Italians, the slav countries had a similar large market.

English is very common across the continent too, so in a way GB sidelining themselves opens up a massive market for Irish bands too. Actually freedom of movement allowed one Irish singer move to Germany where he became one of the most successful German acts on the 00s but he's rarely heard of here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamonn

strandroad

20silkcut wrote: »

At the risk of stating the obvious. Language is a huge cultural barrier not easily solved either and definitely not anytime soon because there are so many different languages on the continent.

Interestingly language is becoming much less of a barrier due to Google Translate etc. Today you can have videos captioned and translated in real time, or speak into your phone and have it live translate it. You can already see teenagers on holidays doing exactly that to communicate. It's only gaining momentum too, in a few short years it will be seamless, for leading languages anyway.

tubercolossus

Just watching 'The way we were' on RTE, about the Irish holidaying back in the day. Straight away there's Joe Duffy talking about the train trips out to Bray - marketed as 'an Irish Brighton' - and literally saying "it was like we were copying the Brits". 60-plus years ago.

yagan

tubercolossus wrote: »

Just watching 'The way we were' on RTE, about the Irish holidaying back in the day. Straight away there's Joe Duffy talking about the train trips out to Bray - marketed as 'an Irish Brighton' - and literally saying "it was like we were copying the Brits". 60-plus years ago.

Bray was developed by the Brits for the British middle classes of Dublin. The slums of north Dublin were for the locals.

Irish Praetorian

CelticRambler wrote: »

What really struck me was 2000's Ireland opting to follow the UK's lead in just about everything relating to housing - the idiotic sales process with competing bids and gazumping, the ridiculous concept of a "property ladder", treating homes as "an investment"; and related to that, every square metre of public, communal and commercial space being given a monetary value and every last cent being squeezed out of it. It was also rather depressing to see so many commercial spaces (especially shopping centres) becoming clones of the same in England.

This might be more of a Americanisation than a Britishisation, but on a social/personal/human level, it felt like people had drifted into the mentality of "looking after No.1" as a priority, with a concurrent mistrust of strangers. On top of this, a feeling that everyone was busy-busy-busy all the time - everything scheduled to within thirty minutes of the available hours in the day.

There were plenty of purely "Irish" reasons why I didn't feel Ireland was the right place for me either - especially the attitude to drink (both the excessive consumption and the nonsensical control measures) - but even with the economic "correction" I still feel that there's a lot less difference between today's Ireland and Britain than there was when I left the one to go to the other; and no real new rapprochement between Ireland and any of the EU26.

I fear to say that sounds more like a description of modernization rather than any particularly brand of national or semi-national identity. Don't get me wrong, it's not exactly an unmitigated bag of fun, but would you not be experiencing something similar in your travails to other Western nations, perhaps with some minor variation?

If anything I would have thought much of the charm in Ireland is down to those parts of the bygone era that we can retain - the small talk, the 'shure tis grand' attitude to rules, the sense of friendliness you tend to get at the local level. Again, perhaps I'm mixing signals, but I would be curious to learn about your societal experiences abroad which were different.

Fr Tod Umptious

CelticRambler wrote: »

Well, as I've been around for half of the last hundred of those, I'm saying that I saw Ireland of the 80s and 90s becoming more and more European; and then with the arrival of the Celtic Tiger, that seemed to stop, and the country as a whole seemed to make a sharp and deliberate turn towards the Anglo-American way of life, with (as I said) a huge amount of easily accessible British culture becoming the norm in Ireland, at the expense of continental influence.

I acknowledge that my use of the term "West Brit" was somewhat provocative, but (yet again) looking from 1000 miles away at the country where I was born and raised, I'm finding it damn near impossible to tell the difference between the "traditional" West Brit and your average modern-day Irishman or woman.

As this decade unfolds, I will find it interesting to see how that might evolve; but my impression is that, despite the overwhelming support in Ireland for the EU as a concept, Mr. Average-Modern-Day-Ireland is too addicted to British TV and British snacks and British fashion and British music and British brands and all the rest, to let Brexit change the relationship too much. Which is a shame, because there's so much continental culture that could be usefully incorporated into Irish life.

You are correct to a certain extent but only to a certain extent.

During the Celtic Tiger it was not a swing from a contential influence to a British influence, it was a swing from a local Irish influence to a corporate British influence.
We never had a contential influence.

The Irish "Main St" became a mirror of the British "High St."
Examples are companies like Eircell became Vodafone, Esat Digiphone became O2, Roaches Stores became Debenhams.
Cablelink became NTL which became Virgin Media.

But we always listened to British music over European music, and watched British TV over European Tv.

ancapailldorcha

Mod: Ok, let's get back on topic please.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Mod: Ok, let's get back on topic please.

Two posts have been removed.

breezy1985

Given that he was a vocal Brexit supporter is there any word of Wetherspoons pulling out of Ireland ?

AutoTuning

The comment further back on screw in light bulbs isn’t a U.K. specific thing. The bayonet type was used in France too. It’s just manufacturers don’t make items with those very much anymore. Globalisation rather than Europe vs U.K. thing. I’ve light fittings that are probably 45 years old and have screw in bulbs. Was always the way!

Obscure national standards for things like that are a bit of an own goal - effectively no technical advantages to them in reality and you reduce your market choices and increase prices, often dramatically, for absolutely zero gain. They’re even more ludicrous when you’re adopting someone else’s odd closed standard, which we did in quite a few areas, without any legacy of even a domestic industry to protect.

If we are part of the single market, we should be adopting single market technical standards for everything we can. We *are* the EU and the Eurozone. We’re not just an adjunct to the U.K. market. Otherwise you’re just adding costs and reducing choices for no logical reason other than inertia.

Enzokk

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They are down £2m because of Covid.

The EU grant was significantly larger at £3.2m

The article didn't blame leaving the EU for the pandas leaving, so it may have been the user making that connection. The programs that will be under threat from EU funding is arguably more important than the pandas they have, but its the pandas that will be the major draw for visitors.

Just to summarize the article, the zoo is under pressure for funding due to Covid. It costs £1m per year to have a mating pair of pandas from China. So Covid is causing pressure as the zoo has to cut costs and one of the obvious ones coming up is paying £1m per year for the pandas.

In addition to this they will also lose out on crucial EU funding that has helped programs like reintroducing wildcats to the wild in the UK and breeding programs that they participate in. They are falling short in these areas and with the zoo not eligible for UK funding, because they are too big, it means these vital programs are at risk. They have been receiving £3.2m from the EU Life fund which helped these latter 2 programs at the zoo.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Two posts have been removed.

Please take the discussion of Ireland and the Single Market to a new thread. Another post has been removed.

10000maniacs

Just watching Sky and a lot of UK ex-ex pats (now immigrants) are being refused entry to Spain after visiting the UK for the Christmas period because they are not officially resident (they don't have the correct docs).
If any of them voted for Brexit, I must get out my smallest violin and play along in sympathy.

https://news.sky.com/story/british-expats-barred-from-boarding-flight-to-spain-as-id-documents-not-valid-post-brexit-12178554

opinionated3

10000maniacs wrote: »

Just watching Sky and a lot of UK ex-ex pats (now immigrants) are being refused entry to Spain after visiting the UK for the Christmas period because they are not officially resident (they don't have the correct docs).
If any of them voted for Brexit, I must get out my smallest violin and play along in sympathy.

https://news.sky.com/story/british-expats-barred-from-boarding-flight-to-spain-as-id-documents-not-valid-post-brexit-12178554

No doubt the "it's all Spain's/the EU's fault" brigade will seize upon this to say the Brits are now being actively punished for leaving......

peter kern

Brexit 'big bang' to trigger tectonic trading rift in Europe

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-markets-trading/brexit-big-bang-to-trigger-tectonic-trading-rift-in-europe-idUSKBN2930HQ

is it happening ?

CelticRambler

10000maniacs wrote: »

Just watching Sky and a lot of UK ex-ex pats (now immigrants) are being refused entry to Spain after visiting the UK for the Christmas period because they are not officially resident (they don't have the correct docs).

I think the slow-news-weekend is allowing a few cases to be amplified, so I wouldn't read too much into them for now, but ...

"We're going home. Spain is home. We class it as home. And my husband is in urgent need of medical care, which we're running out of tablets, so we need to be home."

... then why on earth were you not at home - in Spain - while there are movement restrictions in place???

And why do none of these articles ask (or report the answer to) that question?

I think this is probably more of a Covid story than a Brexit story.

CelticRambler

CelticRambler wrote: »

I think the slow-news-weekend is allowing a few cases to be amplified, so I wouldn't read too much into them for now, but ...



... then why on earth were you not at home - in Spain - while there are movement restrictions in place???

And why do none of these articles ask (or report the answer to) that question?

I think this is probably more of a Covid story than a Brexit story.

More likely to be expats who are using the NHS and living in Spain, this means that they must make regular trips back to the UK and using the address of one of their children as "home" to get medication before flying back.

But flying during the current COVID "crisis" was the final straw.

dogbert27

Deleted User wrote: »

More likely to be expats who are using the NHS and living in Spain, this means that they must make regular trips back to the UK and using the address of one of their children as "home" to get medication before flying back.

But flying during the current COVID "crisis" was the final straw.

I read it as Spain being "home" for the tablets as they are cheaper to buy there.

Nody

CelticRambler wrote: »

I think the slow-news-weekend is allowing a few cases to be amplified, so I wouldn't read too much into them for now, but ...



... then why on earth were you not at home - in Spain - while there are movement restrictions in place???

And why do none of these articles ask (or report the answer to) that question?

I think this is probably more of a Covid story than a Brexit story.

Actually it's a Brexit story albeit with a different twist; it appears to be IAG not knowing the policy rather than anything else (remember they are stopped being boarded in the UK by the airline and not sent back by the Spanish border agencies after landing).

The British embassy in Spain said the confusion "should not be happening".

"The Spanish authorities have today re-confirmed that the green residency document will be accepted for travel to return to Spain, as stated in our travel advice," it said.

British Airways and Iberia, which are both part of the IAG group, did not immediately respond to written questions from the media.

dogbert27

dogbert27 wrote: »

I read it as Spain being "home" for the tablets as they are cheaper to buy there.

Probably pensioners thus entitled to free consultation & prescriptions.

yagan

I reckon it's only the start of the Brexit reality as there's feared to be tens of thousands undocumented Brits in Spain who for a combination of reasons preferred to stay hidden.

“Lots of people have just buried their heads in the sand,” O’Reilly said. “It’s not hard to pass under the radar, halfway up a mountain in Spain. There are people here really living on the breadline: pretty much undocumented migrants.

The Spanish authorities will have no qualms about deporting illegals who would become a liability now that they don't have health cover.

kowloon

Deleted User wrote: »

Probably pensioners thus entitled to free consultation & prescriptions.

Yes, medicines are generally cheaper in Spain but in the UK, at least in my case, everything was free under the NHS. But Spain is a destination for surgery tourists.

Silent Running

yagan wrote: »

I reckon it's only the start of the Brexit reality as there's feared to be tens of thousands undocumented Brits in Spain who for a combination of reasons preferred to stay hidden.


The Spanish authorities will have no qualms about deporting illegals who would become a liability now that they don't have health cover.

My daughter-in-law's mother is one of those. She's lived in Spain for over 20 years and doesn't even have an NIE number, never mind residencia. She's been working cash in hand for most of the 20 years.

I know that she's in a panic now and trying to get it sorted, but the waiting time is now huge as she's not the only one.

dogbert27

Silent Running wrote: »

My daughter-in-law's mother is one of those. She's lived in Spain for over 20 years and doesn't even have an NIE number, never mind residencia. She's been working cash in hand for most of the 20 years.

I know that she's in a panic now and trying to get it sorted, but the waiting time is now huge as she's not the only one.

This would be an interesting one from a Revenue point of view. Was she still tax resident in England that whole time?

Would she have been able to collect social welfare in England while working cash in hand in Spain?

Could start opening a big can of worms for a lot of people.

Silent Running

dogbert27 wrote: »

This would be an interesting one from a Revenue point of view. Was she still tax resident in England that whole time?

Would she have been able to collect social welfare in England while working cash in hand in Spain?

Could start opening a big can of worms for a lot of people.

That's why she's in a panic now. She's scared spitless that there will be an open can and worms everywhere.

dogbert27

Silent Running wrote: »

That's why she's in a panic now. She's scared spitless that there will be an open can and worms everywhere.

Could be that her life in Spain is over and she has to return to Brexitland.

yagan

dogbert27 wrote: »

Could be that her life in Spain is over and she has to return to Brexitland.

It truly is the end of a British lifestyle expectation.

Now the remaining Brits will have to integrate as the usual influx of new arrivals that sustained the British communities aloofness dries up.

I can imagine many businesses solely servicing the expat community will be severely impacted without a fresh inflow of cash in hand hospitality, home care and handyman workers.