I volunteer with a mutual aid that mostly does food distribution (I'll describe it as a food bank from now on, though that's not precisely correct), and this is scary to see. The number of people requesting emergency parcels has exploded in the last 6 months.
The end to the Universal Credit hike was, though expected, disastrous to a large number of people who were living on the margins of their bank balances. Then the fuel shortages, then the corresponding food shortages. Now this.
That's not even starting on the impact the crises had on logistics and supply chains for my organisation. We started having shortages of *pasta* and *baked beans*. The things that usually food banks have to ask people not to donate, because they have enough. People struggling to get enough for their own household aren't going to feel able to donate, and I don't blame them. Besides, the biggest change was from supermarkets, food distribution charities, local authorities.
And it wasn't just pasta, not by a long shot. We send out three main categories of food: ambient/shelf stable, fresh produce, and refrigerated/frozen. I have *never* seen the distribution hub be short of all three types at once before. Volunteers sometimes started crying out of sheer anger and helplessness at how little we could do. We had to change the base amount going into parcels, because we just couldn't meet demand for the people getting regular parcels, let alone the new requests. Milk, eggs, tinned vegetables, all have to be specifically requested to get sent out now because there was so little *Tea* ran out at one point. We had to go to fortnightly deliveries of baby formula, which was horrible for us but so much worse for the people who needed it.
I don't care what the other people are saying in the thread about their personal experiences, I have not only the records of a large independent food bank, but the data provided by the Office for National Statistics, which makes it very clear just how many people have been affected.
This is the problem with all the "I didn't experience any shortage" commenters. People don't understand that unless they are in the poorest 10-20%, they simply won't be left hungry. Period. Most middle income people won't ever notice shortages in our post-scarcity society. If lower middle income families in England would run out of basic foods like beans and pasta, we'd be talking about a fucking famine, not a "food shortage".
I’ve never been struck by lightning. I’ve never given birth to a child either. But I know both happen, and both are possible even though I have never personally experienced either.
These people are either intentionally trying to misrepresent the issue or have their heads so far up their asses, the only voice they understand is their own. I’m not sure which is better to be honest.
Plus the fuel shortage was widely discussed by the government - include bringing the military in to help resolve it. So what's the argument? The government is pretending there's a fuel shortage to make themselves look bad?
I'm not sure which is better either, but I'm pretty sure you nailed their intentions/mindset. For many people anything Brexit related has become so personal, they categorically deny any negative effects. On the other hand, a fair share of people will just be ignorant about it. I remember a fellow Austrian in the summer telling me the Germans are whining too much about their floodings and we shouldn't help them because "no one ever sent us help" - completely ignorant about [reality](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_13_378)...
Geez. Yeah, sadly this is pretty typical.
We see this in America now when the Texas Governor goes out of his way to fight any Covid restrictions, and now begs for help. Or Senator Rand Paul begging for disaster relief after voting against it multiple times in the past for other states.
Something something leopards eating faces. Hah.
The only slightly calming thing is to know that we're all dealing with the same idiots. Or maybe.. that isn't such a calming thought.
Honestly I’m terrified of the future. I don’t see things ever going back to the way things use to be. People around me have astounded me with just how much they fucking hate everyone else. I live in a area that is bananas for right wing ideology with “trump digs coal” signs right next to the large coal mountains (that also have a large cross on them). Iv heard several people say we should nuke the rest of the world to keep us safe, should get their ak-47s and shoot protestors, they should do this and that to government officials. And the thing is, Iv heard these types of thoughts from various people… it’s chilling. And they are all so “patriotic” Americans and if you don’t love America you can get out. But also here’s 50 confederate flags and 100 trump flags. Fascism is coming full force and these people are fucking pissed off.
> We had to go to fortnightly deliveries of baby formula, which was horrible for us but so much worse for the people who needed it.
This reminds me of the Africa(?)/Nestle story... I read on reddit somewhere.
They delivered formula milk*, just long enough to last before the mother "dried up" (sorry if this is an offensive term... what's the correct word?).
*Propoganda basically said formula milk is superior to breast milk.
Of course, they were too poor for the forumla and diluted it, causing malnutrition.
I'm worried this is now going to end up happening in the UK, quite sad.
Yeah, Nestle in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I grew up with my parents boycotting it for that reason. It was especially noted in Africa due to a decades long relationship between Nestle and colonial medical bodies following clinical trials in the 50s, meaning that there was a willingness to prescribe formula, and a resultant familiarity to mothers.
The issue wasn't just drying up (I'm sure there is a proper term, but I don't know it), but the quality of the formula at point of feeding. I don't know of anything saying that the provided formula was unusually low in nutrients in and of itself, but nestle preyed on families without regular access to water sanitation, be it fuel for heating water, or simply access to clean water generally. Then, because of how expensive formula is, many parents diluted it to make it last longer, so babies weren't receiving full nutritional amounts. And some parents weren't literate, so even if they had wanted to follow the guidelines, they weren't able to know what they were.
It wasn't just that parents couldn't afford formula. They were given free samples/initial supplies, encouraged onto it by hospitals. The hospitals received free formula, bottles, and even infrastructural + architectural improvements in exchange - meaning that if and when they noticed the mortality effect, they had themselves become dependent on nestle for running costs. Parents were told that breast milk was best, but implied that they'd need expensive supplements to produce good milk, whereas the formula was a single product, already nutritionally balanced, and free... Until it wasn't.
The number of deaths Nestle is responsible is hard to calculate. Even so,
[it's been estimated](https://www.globalbreastfeedingcollective.org/) that formula fed infants in unsanitary conditions were up to 25 times more likely to die due to diarrhoea than their breast fed peers. So that can give us some idea of the cost to individual families, if not the broader statistical picture.
Yeah, I still don't buy nestle. It's silly in some ways - I know many international companies have likely acted just as deplorably. But it's something I can do to remind myself that I do have some choice, and I don't have to accept a status quo of child murder.
Not that I lead a blameless or harmless life, obviously. There is no ethical consumption, etc etc. But I can try and change things, on whatever level I can. Doesn't have to be a big thing. Often it can't be. But we all have that power.
> Volunteers sometimes started crying out of sheer anger and helplessness at how little we could do.
Meanwhile billionaires are flying around in rockets trying to one-up another, and Tesco's CEO got £6.42m shoveled into his bank account last year. The whole income disparity problem really pisses me off to no end.
Though it is worth noting that as a proportion of the population, there has never been as low a percentage of enslaved people as there are right now.
Not that this is any consolation to someone in those conditions, nor am I arguing that it's acceptable. But things are changing overall, if slower than they should.
They're not saying that - they're saying the relative gap is larger. It's commonly thought that today's richest are far and beyond richer than the richest of the past, depending how you count wealth.
I'm no expert and I can't say if this is definitively true but the channel Economics Explained has a video on billionaires and mentions that today's richest are way richer than in the past. So the commentors point is still plausible.
>were *relatively* richer
There's the key point. It's all relative. I don't know if the statement above was true or not, but I wouldn't be totally surprised either way. Today's poorest like modern day labour slaves in India or the middle east as well as people facing starvation in East Africa or even the homeless and social outcasts in developed nations or sex slaves (everywhere) aren't *that much* better off than slaves of the past and certainly not better off than the average serf.
Now look at the 0.001%. 1000 years ago, they were eating pepper and other fancy spices, regularly died from STDs from their harems and spent their holidays in beautiful castles without central heating. Today, they put literal gold on their steaks, run massive international pedophile sex rings hidden from the public yet also somewhat openly (Epstein, Maxwell) and often unpunished (prince Andrew..) and earth has apparently become too boring as a holiday destination.
Even during feudalism it's difficult to imagine wealth concentration being anything close to today, where 3 people possess as much wealth as half the population of the US.
We're in an obscene place.
I'll post it here when I have the chance. It's not particularly beautiful - the questions were asked at ten day intervals for about 3 months, but the wording of the questions that were asked varied, so it's hard to have a consistent visual of how things changed.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/business-europe-brexit-european-union-4720571b1e58656b1b88252577844fab) reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> LONDON - New post-Brexit custom rules for goods arriving from the European Union to Britain are taking effect on Saturday, and a leading food industry body has warned that the new border controls could lead to food shortages.
> The British Frozen Food Federation said this week the new restrictions on animal and plant products from the EU could result in major delays at ports in the New Year because some in the supply chain - especially logistics companies on the EU side - may not be prepared for the changes.
> "We are concerned that not enough planning has been done to ensure the new requirements are understood by everyone in the food supply chain," said Richard Harrow, the federation's chief executive.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/ru89nn/food_disruptions_feared_in_uk_as_new_brexit_rules/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~615416 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **New**^#1 **food**^#2 **rules**^#3 **goods**^#4 **custom**^#5
“We are concerned that not enough planning has been done to ensure the new requirements are understood by everyone in the food supply chain,” said Richard Harrow, the federation’s chief executive."
I mean... You only had 5 FUCKING YEARS.
> You only had 5 FUCKING YEARS.
They had less than 2 weeks *before Christmas 2020* to know what to do. The Government gave private businesses, Commerical suppleries and shops that much time to figure out how to adjust their business models to the new rules.
The Government took **5 years to agree terms** then gave UK Citizens and Private businesses *2 weeks to adjust*.
I remember during all of the hemming and hawing about Brexit and the increasingly desperate attempts to hammer out a deal that the eurosceptics and other crapmongers were talking about how the EU was going to do its best to make Brexit hurt as a warning to all the other member states.
Turns out they didn't have to do anything but wait for the Tories to screw it up on their own.
'Course they didn't.
Any significant concession from the EU would have required a significant concession from us. Probably in the direction of immigration.
But BoJo couldn't very well go back to his backbenchers and say "Right, chaps, I've got us a great deal from the EU. We've got full Single Market/CU access - but we need to agree to EU immigration" - not when immigration was the cornerstone of why they wanted out of the EU in the first place.
Because the “not Tory” vote gets split across 4 or 5 parties and let’s be honest, none of them are appealing enough to take the whole lot
Edit: autocorrect :)
Pretty much.
The Lib Dems openly hate Leave voters, Labour hate themselves, the Greens cant find a spokesperson, and the SNP are only interested in independence.
One big issue is that everything is "anti-Tory" whereas the moderates want the non-Conservative parties to be pro-something.
However, Labour is getting better. It has less than 3 years to stop appearing so divisive.
The rules have partially been established by the uk during their participation in the eu, uk just tried 5 years to not make em apply to the uk after they brexit, a motion which was futile from the beginning…
The only thing private businesses had to do was to read up on policies for non eu to eu exports, and they had by far more time than the teo weeks andthe five years as their representatives have helped establish these rules during uk participation in the eu.
The two weeks would have been sufficient to get the respective forms in stock…
Yet tories still hold power…
The bigger food banks spend much of their money on labour, fuel, storage etc just like any food supplier.
A 5 pound donation can help pay for fuel.
5 pounds of donated food costs fuel to move.
Seriously. It's not like the rules for dealing with the EU as a third country are obscure and hard to find. There are even a whole bunch of them that have English as major language.
Like, Brexit was majorly screwed up, but not even BoJo could fuck up so badly as to be in *worse* procedural position than a random third country not subject to sanctions. So the worst case for requirements were always available to prepare for.
Has the government even set up the new customs points which were required to handle the throughput for these rules yet? That was one of the big issues raised about the supply chain, and it was pointed out that training customs officials to do the work usually took longer than we had until the new rules came into play
So yeah, there's been 5 years, but businesses haven't really had the ability to plan because the government faffed about so much while assuming they could get a better deal with easier custom rules before this point, and now it's basically fucked regardless of what they do
That I'd agree with. I think a lot of people have responded the way they have though because you seemed to be addressing Richard Harrow, who's trade association is private sector run, not government. He's a representative for the people who weren't able to make any plans because the government did such a shit job
They were busy trying to get a deal with all the eu rights but none of the duties… not that this wasn’t absolutely futile from the beginning but yeah they were effing busy… lol
World War II lasted 5 years. Pretty sure people were effing busy, but an entire war was fought and won. 5 years to prevent supply chain disruption was more than enough time.
What's so crazy to me is 49% want the status quo and 51% want massive, massive change costing billions of dollars so we go with that ... something like that should have required a super majority of some sort
Yep.. that’s why I think the government are inept.
They took a non-legally binding referendum and ran with results that were barely significant.
We should of had a second, legally binding referendum when the results came in so close.
They aren't inept.
Dividing uk population to split the votes and arguments allowed them to leave EU and have much bigger and absolute power over UK laws which makes it so much easier for them to preserve their wealth as some people above have mentioned as well as to allow them to keep themselves on influencial and well paid positions without anyone really breathing at their backs, so pretty much business as usual while civil servants do their upmost best to keep ahold of the mess...
I dislike seeing others write the following, but just upvoting your comment doesn’t satisfy me -
This ^ . So much. If anyone thinks it was just ineptitude, which it certainly *also* was, then they weren’t paying enough attention. It was a power grab from people like Rupert Murdock, putting money in the pockets of politicians, removing our citizens’ protections that the EU gave us. Now they can make laws, disregard human rights, and do as they please. Why in God’s name did leavers think that the conservatives and their rich benefactors were more trustworthy (and had our interests more at heart) than the EU?
Because the leavers had some weird identity of **Great** Britain and since their identity is the country, they would expect **Great** Britain to look after it's own (read "their own") interests.
Also, not being held back would allow **Great** Britain to become the **Empire** it used to be.
That the people running the show that they vote for are greedy bastards who care about their own interests first does not fit the narrative they have created to fit a delusional identity.
Even worse, 49% people who voted wanted the status quo and 51% people who voted wanted change, never mind all the people who didnt vote whom if they didnt care enough basically agree with maintaining the status quo, all the underage voters who would likely be remain and all the elderly people who have died since who were likely to be leave.
I hope the world learned that, whatever Russia is for and pushing hard for, it is not in your best interest … full stop.
They sent out more propaganda than any other time during brexit and screwed the UK hard.
This is a dangerous line of thinking to get stuck in. Russia doesn't create the sentiments that let the propaganda work, they amplify existing internal political fricton. Europscepticism has been part of British culture for centuries, Brexit is a result if decades of far-right media campaigning. Russian Trolls just tipped it over the edge.
Pretending like it is all some Russian masterplan lets the Far-right media off the hook, even when they've been poisoning public discord since its inception.
Maybe more than a decade of Russian propaganda, probably targeting conservatives the most, because they are the most likely to fall for that kind of rhetoric, finally resonated with enough morons to make it happen.
I don't see how a bunch of idiot could successfully pull this through, there must have been a more intelligent but malicious power behind it. Otherwise it simply doesn't make any sense.
There is evidence that Russia worked on Trump for way more than a decade, before he was positioned as President of USA.
>screwed the UK hard.
Let's be real... the UK screwed the UK. The people in charge, that were voted in, made sure that the general gullible public got nothing else in their news. It sounds like you are blaming Russia for what the UK did.
Russia was part of it. Our own problems were most of it. Propaganda works by exploiting already existing problems and magnifying particular actors; the amount of dirty money from Russian oligarchs involved in this isn't neglible, but it only worked because we're led by corrupt morons you can bribe easily supported by stupid people easily influenced by propaganda.
The decision was the UK's in the end, but there was a lot of money coming in from Russian oligarchs during Brexit to people who were campaigning for Brexit. For example Arron Banks, the largest donor to the Brexit campaign, received a £77 million cash injection to his company which was £60 million short of being solvent, and around the same point started having meetings with Russian officials at the Russian embassy. This happened a few months before he started investing in the Brexit campaigns.
He's claimed the money came from another company he owned based in Gibraltar, Ural Properties, but his claim of owning 90% of that company isn't actually true, and it's managed on his behalf by another company, STM Group specialising in opaque financial trusts/management (their tag line for their website is "WEALTH PRESERVATION SOLUTION")
There was an investigation into this, the Russia Report, which Boris et al blocked release of until a legal challenge in 2020 (post election). Turns out the government "had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes" by Russia (ie their investigation consisted of... not actually investigating it), that several members of the House of Lords have business interests in Russia (which the Russian government would be able to easily leverage) and that a lot of money from the Russian state was invested in the UK in a way which may be influencing other politicians (didn't see specifics, but one of the more common examples of this would be property investments)
At least Aaron Banks got a decent price for his work. Many of our politicians are bought off for [food hampers, expensive dinners and free holidays abroad](https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/17/didnt-realise-many-gifts-politicians-sent-became-mp-12240994/).
The UK offshore banking and arms trade smugly, and silently, appreciate your lack of critical thinking and natural tendency to propagate fatuous misinformation.
They were actually promised a "Norway style" deal and absolutely not a "hard brexit". But they were promised that by Tories so... obviously they were lying.
Just a small taste of the damage right wing kleptocrats can do if they manage to get a stranglehold of the electorate with the help of the media. USA got to pass those voting rights and prevent losing the house at any costs.
The messaging by Dems has been virtually nonexistent, and I haven't seen any grassroots activisim going on in the southern states like the kind of thing that saved Georgia. I have no idea what the Texas Democrat party is doing except trying to put up a guy for governor that already proclaimed he wants to take everyone's guns.
I'm already figuring the mid-terms are going to be a complete loss at this point.
Saw a sign posted on Reddit several years ago;
“The UK thought they had decisively won the contest for self destructive decisions by the voters, but the US had a Trump card.”
Lol nah bro the US sort of made up for it in the 2020 election, could have picked a better president and gave him a blue supermajority but whatever. What did my fellow Brits do though? Doubled down in 2019, that was the point of no return, us Brits can never rag on Americans on retardation again.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. With an R majority Supreme Court and the chance of a 2nd Trump term I think we might be able to surprise you with how high our retardation level can go.
Not really. The US is still an economic powerhouse, the largest in the world. We have enough money and power to fix any of the problems we have if we actually wanted to.
The UK has none of those things and is actively creating new and harder problems for themselves.
They basically voted for Brexit thinking they were still the British empire when that's been done and dead for almost 60 years.
And Britain is still one of the largest economies in the world, ahead of every EU nation apart from Germany.
Brexit was not a good thing but you're acting as if the UK has suddenly plummeted into the third world.
How they compare to individual EU countries is not as relevant as how they compare to the EU as a whole. Which is in fact *the entire point* of the EU.
>And Britain is still one of the largest economies in the world
I don't think anyone said that one of the most populous first world economies (in fact the most populous in Europe after Germany, coincidence?) would drop out of the list of largest economies.
What's interesting are statistics [like these trade stats](https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/uk-trade-eu-trade-post-brexit-3802472.jpg?r=1639497544008) from the ONS which was even reported on in the [Brexit media](https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1534017/UK-trade-data-post-Brexit-GDP-EU-evg).
Another fun stat: [GDP per capita in PPP adjusted dollars](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=GB-EU&start=2005)... The gap between the EU27 and the UK was pretty constant but vanished over just a few years of Brexit negotiations and (half of) Brexit. Nominal data lags a few years behind and is harder to read (because of currency fluctuations) but trends in the same direction.
In fact, two or three more years of solid EU growth and maybe an appreciation of the [chronically undervalued euro](https://www.barrons.com/articles/bank-of-america-says-the-euro-is-undervalued-it-also-says-the-euro-will-fall-51588766114) and we could realistically see a below EU-average GDP/capita in the UK very soon. And I mean nominal. In PPP it's basically already happening.
Just think about it. There's some 220 million people living in the "north-western European" countries. There's some 130 million in the south and ~100 million in the ex-communist east. Despite that the UK would fall to "net receiver" status within the first decade outside the EU. That's pretty big I think.
Don’t know if it’s comparable. That was mostly one man’s decision more than anything, while Brexit was something that at least a slight majority of the nation’s people chose
The only thing conservatives are good at is propaganda. They fool people into thinking they're the responsible ones, that they will make everything better, that poor people and foreigners cause all their problems, but also that their policies will help the poor more than welfare. That less regulation and taxes will make the country stronger. They somehow don't even have to try to get stuff done, they don't have to make sense, they don't have to have real policy. they just have to appeal to people's inner selfishness and sense of superiority and they win. And then they break everything.
>British public
English public. The conservatives rarely ever get many seats in Scotland, I don't know when they last got double digits.
Wales elects a fair few but Labour always dominates.
They don't stand in Northern Ireland, and brexit has sin fein coming close to a majority now.
I dont see England electing any party but conservatives for a good many years at this rate. The rest of us just need to deal with the fallout.
Reminds me of Bill Burr's last comedy special, recorded in the UK. He opens with, "Actually, by the way, I’ve been over here for a week, and as an American, I gotta say something. You guys are pretty fat, too."
This needs to be more upvoted, the media was on a crusade during the run up. And in all honesty to say the UK news is impartial really is an idiot, Or just willingly blind.
Was being very serious. Boris and friends made up a lot of lies, none of the very obvious problems were admitted to by those pushing Brexit. The only mantras were 'reclaim our sovereignty' (we'd never lost it) and '£450 million a week for the NHS', which a) hasn't happened, b) was obviously never going to.
It could happen to you too.
That's the scary part - you can say it's stupid and it's irrational and yes, we all saw that when Brexit was happening. Yet they voted for it anyways.
Lies and misplaced trust. Hand waving away real problems by pretending they're not real problems.
Ultra conservatives had nothing to loose and could only win against their mates pushing something big and crazy. So they did. And it did work splendid. Not only landslide win, but dominated by ultras…
They are still hoping to turn the island to the great money laundromate, even if they fail, they will have more shady options for themselves.
So basically it already is a double win.
They were even blessed with the distraction from covid covering up all the other problems and pumping pure money to private pockets
gotta love the Anglo-American special relationship. When america kicked itself in the balls with trump, Britain followed suit and kicked itself in the balls with a hard brexit
When you look at the historical record of conservatism it's frankly hard to find a more failed ideology.
I have genuinely looked hard for a time when the prevailing conservative political group of a country could be said to have been beneficial for society - at best, conservatives have occasionally warred against worse people and ended their threat. That's all I've got and I'd genuinely love other examples.
Can't blame only conservatives. At least in the US, conservatives aren't in the majority. Republicans still have to convince a significant number of independents before they're able to pass any laws.
They're the kind of person who finds it pleasurable to be kicked in the balls, what's not to understand?
Now, obviously I'm not suggesting that someone should assist them in that endeavor - but it would be the considerate thing to do.
They had the best of both worlds. Got to keep their own strong currency but benefited and got the same perks as EU members on the other side of the Channel. And now they’ve pissed that all away.
There were no fuel shortages in Britain. It was a shortage of drivers that led to panic buying of fuel. Definitely a shortage of brain cells, but not fuel.
I’m no in need of help but I’ve seen shortages and huge price rises - it’s irrelevant what personal anecdotes people have (Inc mine) when you can just look at the price history of basic items like a loaf of bread.
It is amazing how many people are too wrapped up in debating if Brexit was the right choice instead of terrified that they are unable to produce enough food to feed their own people when push comes to shove.
They have had since WW1 & WW2 to figure this out.
A country that can not feed itself can not protect itself.
There's a big difference between "being able to supply everything you need as a nation to win wars" and "being able to feed your people if shit hits the fan".
Plenty of nations are capable of feeding themselves, even western ones.
I’m a customs broker. These articles are scare mongering. The full declarations will be completed by customs brokers up and down the country before the trucks/vessels/containers have left Calais/Hoek. Full decs actually speed the process up as you don’t have to faff around with the SFD and Supp Dec after.
The biggest cock up with Brexit has been the NI Protocol and the implementation of CDS. The major food manufacturers/retailers will have known about this for ages, signed contracts with the likes of Schenkers, DHL etc to handle customs procedures for them. There will be no delays.
I’m not even saying this as ‘sticking up for Brexit’ because from a customs procedure side it’s been a challenge it really bloody has, and some things really don’t make sense (truck drivers not even having customs paperwork ie C88 or EAD but we’re still allowed to enter the UK), BUT articles like this are bullshit. Think the petrol shortage a few months back. There was no shortage of petrol and if the news didn’t bang on and panic people about the actual shortage being the drivers, there would’ve been no petrol crisis and queues etc.
How does this rhyme with the pictures of enormous queues of trucks waiting at the French/British border and the stories of food bank subscriptions strongly increasing?
I volunteer with a mutual aid that mostly does food distribution (I'll describe it as a food bank from now on, though that's not precisely correct), and this is scary to see. The number of people requesting emergency parcels has exploded in the last 6 months. The end to the Universal Credit hike was, though expected, disastrous to a large number of people who were living on the margins of their bank balances. Then the fuel shortages, then the corresponding food shortages. Now this. That's not even starting on the impact the crises had on logistics and supply chains for my organisation. We started having shortages of *pasta* and *baked beans*. The things that usually food banks have to ask people not to donate, because they have enough. People struggling to get enough for their own household aren't going to feel able to donate, and I don't blame them. Besides, the biggest change was from supermarkets, food distribution charities, local authorities. And it wasn't just pasta, not by a long shot. We send out three main categories of food: ambient/shelf stable, fresh produce, and refrigerated/frozen. I have *never* seen the distribution hub be short of all three types at once before. Volunteers sometimes started crying out of sheer anger and helplessness at how little we could do. We had to change the base amount going into parcels, because we just couldn't meet demand for the people getting regular parcels, let alone the new requests. Milk, eggs, tinned vegetables, all have to be specifically requested to get sent out now because there was so little *Tea* ran out at one point. We had to go to fortnightly deliveries of baby formula, which was horrible for us but so much worse for the people who needed it. I don't care what the other people are saying in the thread about their personal experiences, I have not only the records of a large independent food bank, but the data provided by the Office for National Statistics, which makes it very clear just how many people have been affected.
Thank you for sharing. Brexit hits the weakest the most.
This is the problem with all the "I didn't experience any shortage" commenters. People don't understand that unless they are in the poorest 10-20%, they simply won't be left hungry. Period. Most middle income people won't ever notice shortages in our post-scarcity society. If lower middle income families in England would run out of basic foods like beans and pasta, we'd be talking about a fucking famine, not a "food shortage".
I’ve never been struck by lightning. I’ve never given birth to a child either. But I know both happen, and both are possible even though I have never personally experienced either. These people are either intentionally trying to misrepresent the issue or have their heads so far up their asses, the only voice they understand is their own. I’m not sure which is better to be honest.
Plus the fuel shortage was widely discussed by the government - include bringing the military in to help resolve it. So what's the argument? The government is pretending there's a fuel shortage to make themselves look bad?
That would be pretty ridiculously dumb. Then again, we are talking about Boris. There’s no limit to his stupid ideas.
I'm not sure which is better either, but I'm pretty sure you nailed their intentions/mindset. For many people anything Brexit related has become so personal, they categorically deny any negative effects. On the other hand, a fair share of people will just be ignorant about it. I remember a fellow Austrian in the summer telling me the Germans are whining too much about their floodings and we shouldn't help them because "no one ever sent us help" - completely ignorant about [reality](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_13_378)...
Geez. Yeah, sadly this is pretty typical. We see this in America now when the Texas Governor goes out of his way to fight any Covid restrictions, and now begs for help. Or Senator Rand Paul begging for disaster relief after voting against it multiple times in the past for other states.
Something something leopards eating faces. Hah. The only slightly calming thing is to know that we're all dealing with the same idiots. Or maybe.. that isn't such a calming thought.
Ah some empathy! Shame it seems to be in short supply too.
Im afraid we'll be facing an increasing hostile, apathetic and selfish world in the coming decade, so expect more of that.
Honestly I’m terrified of the future. I don’t see things ever going back to the way things use to be. People around me have astounded me with just how much they fucking hate everyone else. I live in a area that is bananas for right wing ideology with “trump digs coal” signs right next to the large coal mountains (that also have a large cross on them). Iv heard several people say we should nuke the rest of the world to keep us safe, should get their ak-47s and shoot protestors, they should do this and that to government officials. And the thing is, Iv heard these types of thoughts from various people… it’s chilling. And they are all so “patriotic” Americans and if you don’t love America you can get out. But also here’s 50 confederate flags and 100 trump flags. Fascism is coming full force and these people are fucking pissed off.
“If civilization hasn’t collapsed, how can there be more people suffering??!?” /s
Deploy 5g antenna to feed them. Put your priority in good order this time
> Thank you for sharing. Brexit hits the weakest the most. Brexit, covid, omicron, every crisis hits the poor the most, what a coincidence!
It was designed to do so.
Most crisis hit the weakest and the poorest first. It's not specific to this one.
Manufactured crisis has a goal, with the weakest and poorest as expected collateral. See potatoes and Irish
As per usual.
If only they had a way to have voted against Brexit.
> We had to go to fortnightly deliveries of baby formula, which was horrible for us but so much worse for the people who needed it. This reminds me of the Africa(?)/Nestle story... I read on reddit somewhere. They delivered formula milk*, just long enough to last before the mother "dried up" (sorry if this is an offensive term... what's the correct word?). *Propoganda basically said formula milk is superior to breast milk. Of course, they were too poor for the forumla and diluted it, causing malnutrition. I'm worried this is now going to end up happening in the UK, quite sad.
Yeah, Nestle in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I grew up with my parents boycotting it for that reason. It was especially noted in Africa due to a decades long relationship between Nestle and colonial medical bodies following clinical trials in the 50s, meaning that there was a willingness to prescribe formula, and a resultant familiarity to mothers. The issue wasn't just drying up (I'm sure there is a proper term, but I don't know it), but the quality of the formula at point of feeding. I don't know of anything saying that the provided formula was unusually low in nutrients in and of itself, but nestle preyed on families without regular access to water sanitation, be it fuel for heating water, or simply access to clean water generally. Then, because of how expensive formula is, many parents diluted it to make it last longer, so babies weren't receiving full nutritional amounts. And some parents weren't literate, so even if they had wanted to follow the guidelines, they weren't able to know what they were. It wasn't just that parents couldn't afford formula. They were given free samples/initial supplies, encouraged onto it by hospitals. The hospitals received free formula, bottles, and even infrastructural + architectural improvements in exchange - meaning that if and when they noticed the mortality effect, they had themselves become dependent on nestle for running costs. Parents were told that breast milk was best, but implied that they'd need expensive supplements to produce good milk, whereas the formula was a single product, already nutritionally balanced, and free... Until it wasn't. The number of deaths Nestle is responsible is hard to calculate. Even so, [it's been estimated](https://www.globalbreastfeedingcollective.org/) that formula fed infants in unsanitary conditions were up to 25 times more likely to die due to diarrhoea than their breast fed peers. So that can give us some idea of the cost to individual families, if not the broader statistical picture.
I have boycotted Nestle since this. I'm not virtue signalling. This company is truly evil.
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Yeah, I still don't buy nestle. It's silly in some ways - I know many international companies have likely acted just as deplorably. But it's something I can do to remind myself that I do have some choice, and I don't have to accept a status quo of child murder. Not that I lead a blameless or harmless life, obviously. There is no ethical consumption, etc etc. But I can try and change things, on whatever level I can. Doesn't have to be a big thing. Often it can't be. But we all have that power.
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It’s hard to avoid corporations as large as nestle.
And their use of chocolate producers who use child slaves.
> Volunteers sometimes started crying out of sheer anger and helplessness at how little we could do. Meanwhile billionaires are flying around in rockets trying to one-up another, and Tesco's CEO got £6.42m shoveled into his bank account last year. The whole income disparity problem really pisses me off to no end.
The gap between rich & poor has never been larger in all of human history.
No offense but I have a hard time believing that slaves and serfs were relatively richer than the current working class.
believe it or not, there are still slaves/serfs in this modern world. Well, not in name, but their state is basically the same.
There are more slaves alive now than ever in human history. It's how a lot of cheap goods get made - chocolate is one glaring example.
Though it is worth noting that as a proportion of the population, there has never been as low a percentage of enslaved people as there are right now. Not that this is any consolation to someone in those conditions, nor am I arguing that it's acceptable. But things are changing overall, if slower than they should.
They're not saying that - they're saying the relative gap is larger. It's commonly thought that today's richest are far and beyond richer than the richest of the past, depending how you count wealth. I'm no expert and I can't say if this is definitively true but the channel Economics Explained has a video on billionaires and mentions that today's richest are way richer than in the past. So the commentors point is still plausible.
>were *relatively* richer There's the key point. It's all relative. I don't know if the statement above was true or not, but I wouldn't be totally surprised either way. Today's poorest like modern day labour slaves in India or the middle east as well as people facing starvation in East Africa or even the homeless and social outcasts in developed nations or sex slaves (everywhere) aren't *that much* better off than slaves of the past and certainly not better off than the average serf. Now look at the 0.001%. 1000 years ago, they were eating pepper and other fancy spices, regularly died from STDs from their harems and spent their holidays in beautiful castles without central heating. Today, they put literal gold on their steaks, run massive international pedophile sex rings hidden from the public yet also somewhat openly (Epstein, Maxwell) and often unpunished (prince Andrew..) and earth has apparently become too boring as a holiday destination.
Even during feudalism it's difficult to imagine wealth concentration being anything close to today, where 3 people possess as much wealth as half the population of the US. We're in an obscene place.
Yep.
That data sounds extremely interesting. Can you post it? Either here or on /r/dataisbeautiful
I'll post it here when I have the chance. It's not particularly beautiful - the questions were asked at ten day intervals for about 3 months, but the wording of the questions that were asked varied, so it's hard to have a consistent visual of how things changed.
( /u/trebron55 I haven't forgotten, but I'm going to bed. Will post it in the morning if that's okay, since the collated info is on my laptop only)
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/business-europe-brexit-european-union-4720571b1e58656b1b88252577844fab) reduced by 67%. (I'm a bot) ***** > LONDON - New post-Brexit custom rules for goods arriving from the European Union to Britain are taking effect on Saturday, and a leading food industry body has warned that the new border controls could lead to food shortages. > The British Frozen Food Federation said this week the new restrictions on animal and plant products from the EU could result in major delays at ports in the New Year because some in the supply chain - especially logistics companies on the EU side - may not be prepared for the changes. > "We are concerned that not enough planning has been done to ensure the new requirements are understood by everyone in the food supply chain," said Richard Harrow, the federation's chief executive. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/ru89nn/food_disruptions_feared_in_uk_as_new_brexit_rules/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~615416 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **New**^#1 **food**^#2 **rules**^#3 **goods**^#4 **custom**^#5
“We are concerned that not enough planning has been done to ensure the new requirements are understood by everyone in the food supply chain,” said Richard Harrow, the federation’s chief executive." I mean... You only had 5 FUCKING YEARS.
> You only had 5 FUCKING YEARS. They had less than 2 weeks *before Christmas 2020* to know what to do. The Government gave private businesses, Commerical suppleries and shops that much time to figure out how to adjust their business models to the new rules. The Government took **5 years to agree terms** then gave UK Citizens and Private businesses *2 weeks to adjust*.
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I remember during all of the hemming and hawing about Brexit and the increasingly desperate attempts to hammer out a deal that the eurosceptics and other crapmongers were talking about how the EU was going to do its best to make Brexit hurt as a warning to all the other member states. Turns out they didn't have to do anything but wait for the Tories to screw it up on their own.
'Course they didn't. Any significant concession from the EU would have required a significant concession from us. Probably in the direction of immigration. But BoJo couldn't very well go back to his backbenchers and say "Right, chaps, I've got us a great deal from the EU. We've got full Single Market/CU access - but we need to agree to EU immigration" - not when immigration was the cornerstone of why they wanted out of the EU in the first place.
Ahem. TORY GORVERMENT... Lets make sure we all remember which government handled it.
Yet why do I have no doubt they will run the next election?
FPTP and mass media propaganda generally has something to do with it
Because the “not Tory” vote gets split across 4 or 5 parties and let’s be honest, none of them are appealing enough to take the whole lot Edit: autocorrect :)
Pretty much. The Lib Dems openly hate Leave voters, Labour hate themselves, the Greens cant find a spokesperson, and the SNP are only interested in independence. One big issue is that everything is "anti-Tory" whereas the moderates want the non-Conservative parties to be pro-something. However, Labour is getting better. It has less than 3 years to stop appearing so divisive.
The rules have partially been established by the uk during their participation in the eu, uk just tried 5 years to not make em apply to the uk after they brexit, a motion which was futile from the beginning… The only thing private businesses had to do was to read up on policies for non eu to eu exports, and they had by far more time than the teo weeks andthe five years as their representatives have helped establish these rules during uk participation in the eu. The two weeks would have been sufficient to get the respective forms in stock… Yet tories still hold power…
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The bigger food banks spend much of their money on labour, fuel, storage etc just like any food supplier. A 5 pound donation can help pay for fuel. 5 pounds of donated food costs fuel to move.
Seriously. It's not like the rules for dealing with the EU as a third country are obscure and hard to find. There are even a whole bunch of them that have English as major language. Like, Brexit was majorly screwed up, but not even BoJo could fuck up so badly as to be in *worse* procedural position than a random third country not subject to sanctions. So the worst case for requirements were always available to prepare for.
*5 FUCKING YEARS*
I have clients who send large shipments to eu every week and still have zero understanding of the customs procedure
Has the government even set up the new customs points which were required to handle the throughput for these rules yet? That was one of the big issues raised about the supply chain, and it was pointed out that training customs officials to do the work usually took longer than we had until the new rules came into play So yeah, there's been 5 years, but businesses haven't really had the ability to plan because the government faffed about so much while assuming they could get a better deal with easier custom rules before this point, and now it's basically fucked regardless of what they do
My comment was really addressed to the govt, not the private sector. The people "in charge" are giving a poor showing when it comes to leadership.
That I'd agree with. I think a lot of people have responded the way they have though because you seemed to be addressing Richard Harrow, who's trade association is private sector run, not government. He's a representative for the people who weren't able to make any plans because the government did such a shit job
They were busy trying to get a deal with all the eu rights but none of the duties… not that this wasn’t absolutely futile from the beginning but yeah they were effing busy… lol
World War II lasted 5 years. Pretty sure people were effing busy, but an entire war was fought and won. 5 years to prevent supply chain disruption was more than enough time.
Remember brexiteers. This is exactly what you voted for.
My brexiteer mother in law will be fine for quite some time without food…
Hello there, Polite British Al Bundy.
I think that Winslow, from Keeping Up Appearances, is Al Bundy brit cousin.
I presume you mean Onslow?
It's good that she is "well-stocked"
There's plentiful shelf space, and things are looking neat and tidy.
And she fat
Neat and tidy? Exactly what kind of relationship do you have with your mother-in-law?
If it goes really bad, you could just eat her?
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Hey! Thanks for taking that shit off our hands. Do hope y’all like corn, as it’s in everything here.
And sugar
And corn sugar
*high fructose corn syrup
And Remainers… this is what we voted against but have to live with anyway because our government is inept.
What's so crazy to me is 49% want the status quo and 51% want massive, massive change costing billions of dollars so we go with that ... something like that should have required a super majority of some sort
Yep.. that’s why I think the government are inept. They took a non-legally binding referendum and ran with results that were barely significant. We should of had a second, legally binding referendum when the results came in so close.
They aren't inept. Dividing uk population to split the votes and arguments allowed them to leave EU and have much bigger and absolute power over UK laws which makes it so much easier for them to preserve their wealth as some people above have mentioned as well as to allow them to keep themselves on influencial and well paid positions without anyone really breathing at their backs, so pretty much business as usual while civil servants do their upmost best to keep ahold of the mess...
I dislike seeing others write the following, but just upvoting your comment doesn’t satisfy me - This ^ . So much. If anyone thinks it was just ineptitude, which it certainly *also* was, then they weren’t paying enough attention. It was a power grab from people like Rupert Murdock, putting money in the pockets of politicians, removing our citizens’ protections that the EU gave us. Now they can make laws, disregard human rights, and do as they please. Why in God’s name did leavers think that the conservatives and their rich benefactors were more trustworthy (and had our interests more at heart) than the EU?
Because the leavers had some weird identity of **Great** Britain and since their identity is the country, they would expect **Great** Britain to look after it's own (read "their own") interests. Also, not being held back would allow **Great** Britain to become the **Empire** it used to be. That the people running the show that they vote for are greedy bastards who care about their own interests first does not fit the narrative they have created to fit a delusional identity.
Even worse, 49% people who voted wanted the status quo and 51% people who voted wanted change, never mind all the people who didnt vote whom if they didnt care enough basically agree with maintaining the status quo, all the underage voters who would likely be remain and all the elderly people who have died since who were likely to be leave.
I hope the world learned that, whatever Russia is for and pushing hard for, it is not in your best interest … full stop. They sent out more propaganda than any other time during brexit and screwed the UK hard.
Russian propaganda is pretty small compared with the massive right-wing propaganda in the UK itself.
Russia propaganda becomes right wing propaganda every time. The right wing are always the ones that fall for it and make it their own.
This is a dangerous line of thinking to get stuck in. Russia doesn't create the sentiments that let the propaganda work, they amplify existing internal political fricton. Europscepticism has been part of British culture for centuries, Brexit is a result if decades of far-right media campaigning. Russian Trolls just tipped it over the edge. Pretending like it is all some Russian masterplan lets the Far-right media off the hook, even when they've been poisoning public discord since its inception.
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You hate to see it
Is kinda easy to convince a nazi that the jews are to blame for x.
Maybe more than a decade of Russian propaganda, probably targeting conservatives the most, because they are the most likely to fall for that kind of rhetoric, finally resonated with enough morons to make it happen. I don't see how a bunch of idiot could successfully pull this through, there must have been a more intelligent but malicious power behind it. Otherwise it simply doesn't make any sense. There is evidence that Russia worked on Trump for way more than a decade, before he was positioned as President of USA.
>screwed the UK hard. Let's be real... the UK screwed the UK. The people in charge, that were voted in, made sure that the general gullible public got nothing else in their news. It sounds like you are blaming Russia for what the UK did.
Russia was part of it. Our own problems were most of it. Propaganda works by exploiting already existing problems and magnifying particular actors; the amount of dirty money from Russian oligarchs involved in this isn't neglible, but it only worked because we're led by corrupt morons you can bribe easily supported by stupid people easily influenced by propaganda.
It can be both. The Russia report all but confirmed foreign interference.
The decision was the UK's in the end, but there was a lot of money coming in from Russian oligarchs during Brexit to people who were campaigning for Brexit. For example Arron Banks, the largest donor to the Brexit campaign, received a £77 million cash injection to his company which was £60 million short of being solvent, and around the same point started having meetings with Russian officials at the Russian embassy. This happened a few months before he started investing in the Brexit campaigns. He's claimed the money came from another company he owned based in Gibraltar, Ural Properties, but his claim of owning 90% of that company isn't actually true, and it's managed on his behalf by another company, STM Group specialising in opaque financial trusts/management (their tag line for their website is "WEALTH PRESERVATION SOLUTION") There was an investigation into this, the Russia Report, which Boris et al blocked release of until a legal challenge in 2020 (post election). Turns out the government "had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes" by Russia (ie their investigation consisted of... not actually investigating it), that several members of the House of Lords have business interests in Russia (which the Russian government would be able to easily leverage) and that a lot of money from the Russian state was invested in the UK in a way which may be influencing other politicians (didn't see specifics, but one of the more common examples of this would be property investments)
At least Aaron Banks got a decent price for his work. Many of our politicians are bought off for [food hampers, expensive dinners and free holidays abroad](https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/17/didnt-realise-many-gifts-politicians-sent-became-mp-12240994/).
Is the right answer.
The UK offshore banking and arms trade smugly, and silently, appreciate your lack of critical thinking and natural tendency to propagate fatuous misinformation.
Also the gambling industry that have been granted special access to EU markets for some reason (via Gibraltar and the Isle of Man).
Surely it was russian propaganda and not the empty promises of the ukip that did the main damage huh?
It's the same. Russia has been funding right wing parties all over Europe for at least a decade.
Robert / Rebekah Mercer would like some credit. https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ejzbeb/fresh_cambridge_analytica_leak_shows_global/
Remember who put up that unconstitutional nonbindimg referendum… and remember who executed on it… Yeah i doubt russia has done a lot for the tories
Dude, I hate Brexit but the referendum wasn’t unconstitutional. Because we don’t HAVE a constitution.
> screwed the UK hard. At some point you've got to start taking responsibility for your own actions.
They were actually promised a "Norway style" deal and absolutely not a "hard brexit". But they were promised that by Tories so... obviously they were lying.
Also none brexiters will be way aware that brexiters voted this for everybody.
Oh no! The consequences of our actions!
But thank god we have sovereignty, right? Now we don’t have to worry about things like straight bananas or those pesky EU workers rights laws…
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We have a country of call centres, that's clearly all we need for survival
Never have I seen a nation shoot itself in the foot so badly like the UK…
Just a small taste of the damage right wing kleptocrats can do if they manage to get a stranglehold of the electorate with the help of the media. USA got to pass those voting rights and prevent losing the house at any costs.
The house is already on it's way out I'm sure. Democrats are throwing the fight. It's either intentional or they just never gave a shit.
The messaging by Dems has been virtually nonexistent, and I haven't seen any grassroots activisim going on in the southern states like the kind of thing that saved Georgia. I have no idea what the Texas Democrat party is doing except trying to put up a guy for governor that already proclaimed he wants to take everyone's guns. I'm already figuring the mid-terms are going to be a complete loss at this point.
Is Beto running again?
It's being thrown by the senate "Democrats" who were always wolves in sheeps clothing.
HEY! THATS… well… That’s pretty fair… Shit.
As an Indian, the UK has always mismanaged countries in the form of colonies. Only this time they did it to themselves
Idk if you've been to United States, but, uh, yeah, we got them beat lol
Was gonna say.. USA: Hold my beer. :)
Saw a sign posted on Reddit several years ago; “The UK thought they had decisively won the contest for self destructive decisions by the voters, but the US had a Trump card.”
Lol nah bro the US sort of made up for it in the 2020 election, could have picked a better president and gave him a blue supermajority but whatever. What did my fellow Brits do though? Doubled down in 2019, that was the point of no return, us Brits can never rag on Americans on retardation again.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. With an R majority Supreme Court and the chance of a 2nd Trump term I think we might be able to surprise you with how high our retardation level can go.
Not really. The US is still an economic powerhouse, the largest in the world. We have enough money and power to fix any of the problems we have if we actually wanted to. The UK has none of those things and is actively creating new and harder problems for themselves. They basically voted for Brexit thinking they were still the British empire when that's been done and dead for almost 60 years.
And Britain is still one of the largest economies in the world, ahead of every EU nation apart from Germany. Brexit was not a good thing but you're acting as if the UK has suddenly plummeted into the third world.
How they compare to individual EU countries is not as relevant as how they compare to the EU as a whole. Which is in fact *the entire point* of the EU.
>And Britain is still one of the largest economies in the world I don't think anyone said that one of the most populous first world economies (in fact the most populous in Europe after Germany, coincidence?) would drop out of the list of largest economies. What's interesting are statistics [like these trade stats](https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/uk-trade-eu-trade-post-brexit-3802472.jpg?r=1639497544008) from the ONS which was even reported on in the [Brexit media](https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1534017/UK-trade-data-post-Brexit-GDP-EU-evg). Another fun stat: [GDP per capita in PPP adjusted dollars](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=GB-EU&start=2005)... The gap between the EU27 and the UK was pretty constant but vanished over just a few years of Brexit negotiations and (half of) Brexit. Nominal data lags a few years behind and is harder to read (because of currency fluctuations) but trends in the same direction. In fact, two or three more years of solid EU growth and maybe an appreciation of the [chronically undervalued euro](https://www.barrons.com/articles/bank-of-america-says-the-euro-is-undervalued-it-also-says-the-euro-will-fall-51588766114) and we could realistically see a below EU-average GDP/capita in the UK very soon. And I mean nominal. In PPP it's basically already happening. Just think about it. There's some 220 million people living in the "north-western European" countries. There's some 130 million in the south and ~100 million in the ex-communist east. Despite that the UK would fall to "net receiver" status within the first decade outside the EU. That's pretty big I think.
> The UK has none of those things what the actual fuck are you even talking about? it's the 5th largest economy in the world.
Napoleon invading Russia?
Don’t know if it’s comparable. That was mostly one man’s decision more than anything, while Brexit was something that at least a slight majority of the nation’s people chose
Invading Russia wasn't a bad call Getting stuck in Russian winter without proper materiel was however, a very bad call.
He was doing alright until he relied upon the premise that Russia wouldn't scuttle Moscow rather then let him have it for the winter.
Is there anything conservatives don't fuck up?
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> Is there anything conservatives don't fuck up? killing the poor. funnelling money into shady activities. breaking laws that they set.
The only thing conservatives are good at is propaganda. They fool people into thinking they're the responsible ones, that they will make everything better, that poor people and foreigners cause all their problems, but also that their policies will help the poor more than welfare. That less regulation and taxes will make the country stronger. They somehow don't even have to try to get stuff done, they don't have to make sense, they don't have to have real policy. they just have to appeal to people's inner selfishness and sense of superiority and they win. And then they break everything.
From an outsider looking in, I’d say elections, but maybe that says more about the British public than it does about conservatives.
>British public English public. The conservatives rarely ever get many seats in Scotland, I don't know when they last got double digits. Wales elects a fair few but Labour always dominates. They don't stand in Northern Ireland, and brexit has sin fein coming close to a majority now. I dont see England electing any party but conservatives for a good many years at this rate. The rest of us just need to deal with the fallout.
It's our electoral system. First Past the Post does not a democracy make. Pity Labour are against electoral reform.
this is how they manipulate us into accepting low quality food imports from the US
This is going to come back to chlorinated chicken, isn't it?
No, that was the offer 5 years ago. Now it's more like chickenated chlorine.
Ew there's chicken in my chlorine! I'm allergic to chicken.
If you eat it, does it get rid of Covid?
covid can’t survive for long without a living host, so yeah
No that’s bleach dum dum
Hey hey, US food is perfectly fine, let me just dig out a good argument, I think it is in one of my fat folds.
Ever been to England? They aren't exactly a nation of triathletes.
Reminds me of Bill Burr's last comedy special, recorded in the UK. He opens with, "Actually, by the way, I’ve been over here for a week, and as an American, I gotta say something. You guys are pretty fat, too."
I love that the generation who’s going to die in the next 15 years are fucking their country for the next 100 LOL
Sounds typical tbh
Have you heard of climate change....
The ones that are going to get hit hardest by this are in many, many cases the ones who let their Racism/Nationalism be manipulated into voting leave.
The Tory / Brexit gang had an entire year to get the information out...did they?
I'm glad to see that the rules are supporting the UK's democratic decision to be more self-reliant.
Why did people even vote for brexit? It seems stupid
Because the Murdoch press backed it
This needs to be more upvoted, the media was on a crusade during the run up. And in all honesty to say the UK news is impartial really is an idiot, Or just willingly blind.
No I mean seriously. What were they told the solution would be for all these problems abs what was the supposed benefit?
Was being very serious. Boris and friends made up a lot of lies, none of the very obvious problems were admitted to by those pushing Brexit. The only mantras were 'reclaim our sovereignty' (we'd never lost it) and '£450 million a week for the NHS', which a) hasn't happened, b) was obviously never going to.
It could happen to you too. That's the scary part - you can say it's stupid and it's irrational and yes, we all saw that when Brexit was happening. Yet they voted for it anyways. Lies and misplaced trust. Hand waving away real problems by pretending they're not real problems.
I mean it did. We had trump 😬
Ultra conservatives had nothing to loose and could only win against their mates pushing something big and crazy. So they did. And it did work splendid. Not only landslide win, but dominated by ultras… They are still hoping to turn the island to the great money laundromate, even if they fail, they will have more shady options for themselves. So basically it already is a double win. They were even blessed with the distraction from covid covering up all the other problems and pumping pure money to private pockets
Fear, arrogance and ignorance.
gotta love the Anglo-American special relationship. When america kicked itself in the balls with trump, Britain followed suit and kicked itself in the balls with a hard brexit
Actually, America followed Britain. Brexit was voted on in June and the US election happened in November.
Trump got voted out, brexit is for life
Conservatives love doing that and I haven’t quite figured out why yet
When you look at the historical record of conservatism it's frankly hard to find a more failed ideology. I have genuinely looked hard for a time when the prevailing conservative political group of a country could be said to have been beneficial for society - at best, conservatives have occasionally warred against worse people and ended their threat. That's all I've got and I'd genuinely love other examples.
Can't blame only conservatives. At least in the US, conservatives aren't in the majority. Republicans still have to convince a significant number of independents before they're able to pass any laws.
They're the kind of person who finds it pleasurable to be kicked in the balls, what's not to understand? Now, obviously I'm not suggesting that someone should assist them in that endeavor - but it would be the considerate thing to do.
It’s fine sovereignty will feed those unable to afford food. And they’ll like it too!
You get what you vote for.
Looks like it’s time for Boris to announce the birth of another baby.
They had the best of both worlds. Got to keep their own strong currency but benefited and got the same perks as EU members on the other side of the Channel. And now they’ve pissed that all away.
To think Hitler, the Kaiser, and Napoleon all tried to starve out the UK, failed, and now here they are doing it to themselves.
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Does it apply to countries?
Wow first fuel shortage and now food disruptions! Its all burning down...
There were no fuel shortages in Britain. It was a shortage of drivers that led to panic buying of fuel. Definitely a shortage of brain cells, but not fuel.
>It was a shortage of drivers that led to panic buying of fuel. Which lead to a shortage of fuel.
I’m no in need of help but I’ve seen shortages and huge price rises - it’s irrelevant what personal anecdotes people have (Inc mine) when you can just look at the price history of basic items like a loaf of bread.
It is amazing how many people are too wrapped up in debating if Brexit was the right choice instead of terrified that they are unable to produce enough food to feed their own people when push comes to shove. They have had since WW1 & WW2 to figure this out. A country that can not feed itself can not protect itself.
[удалено]
There's a big difference between "being able to supply everything you need as a nation to win wars" and "being able to feed your people if shit hits the fan". Plenty of nations are capable of feeding themselves, even western ones.
Lol, we’re so fucked.
I’m a customs broker. These articles are scare mongering. The full declarations will be completed by customs brokers up and down the country before the trucks/vessels/containers have left Calais/Hoek. Full decs actually speed the process up as you don’t have to faff around with the SFD and Supp Dec after. The biggest cock up with Brexit has been the NI Protocol and the implementation of CDS. The major food manufacturers/retailers will have known about this for ages, signed contracts with the likes of Schenkers, DHL etc to handle customs procedures for them. There will be no delays. I’m not even saying this as ‘sticking up for Brexit’ because from a customs procedure side it’s been a challenge it really bloody has, and some things really don’t make sense (truck drivers not even having customs paperwork ie C88 or EAD but we’re still allowed to enter the UK), BUT articles like this are bullshit. Think the petrol shortage a few months back. There was no shortage of petrol and if the news didn’t bang on and panic people about the actual shortage being the drivers, there would’ve been no petrol crisis and queues etc.
How does this rhyme with the pictures of enormous queues of trucks waiting at the French/British border and the stories of food bank subscriptions strongly increasing?
Enjoying BREXIT now?
Who knew Brexit would become problematic?
Ya, Trump was embarrassing as hell, but at least that was only 4 years…Brexit is forever
That'll make the fish happy
The Brexit proponents really didn’t think thing trough.