Brexit means whatnow?

I’ve started writing political posts a few times over the last 6 weeks and I end up getting far too deflated to engage in any debate or prompting discussion… I’ve opted for nature documentaries over the news countless times and have broken more than one television set after throwing remote controls at seeing Farage flexing that vile grin of his, like a bullfrog attacked with a multitude of frying pans.

Brexit has been the only subject of discussion for 3 years. It’s been the first news story every day and driving everybody so far up the wall that they’d admit themselves to Broadmoor just to avoid the conversation, but here we are, one day until the deadline and absolutely nobody is talking about it. Anyone seen Spy in the Wild by the way? Them robo monkeys were mad weren't they!? Anyway - this time it sticks - brexit means brexit, the bullfrogs rule breaking, flag waving goodbye speech a cringeworthy and embarrassing end to our association with the greatest peace project in the world.

I have long since accepted the result of the referendum, but I must say I’ve never felt as European as I do right now. There’s a great feeling of regret as so many of my countrymen are happy, nay elated, to sacrifice so much for so little... is it a refusal to accept that they could be wrong, or such stubbornness that to win is more important than the wellbeing of fellow man? 
I still don’t understand in the face of everything why people are so proudly determined in undertaking such a monumental risk to gain such minor benefits, if indeed any at all. It makes sense to me that billionaires would approve, or those with their money in offshore accounts, of course they’re set to increase their wealth and avoid the stricter tax laws the EU are set to implement. But the man on the street? Help me out here! What on Earth is in it for you!?

Whilst we technically leave the EU tomorrow night at 11pm, this only begins a transition period in which we have absolutely no voice in the EU parliament… something that Brexit party MEP’s are suddenly seriously unhappy about, despite it being exactly what they campaigned for.

So, for a laugh, as we continue to operate under EU law despite removing our MEP’s, here’s some of what we’ve learned, what’s gone on, and where we are at…

• The cost of brexit so far has already amounted to approximately £130billion… more money than we have ever paid into the EU to receive all of its benefits, combined.

• £350m per week will absolutely not be going into our NHS as of Saturday morning, or ever in fact, because our government is instead selling off parts of the health service to private companies whilst continuing to underfund hospitals and lying about providing more nurses and more facilities.

• The parliamentary sovereignty that was going to be ‘reclaimed’ was, in fact, never taken from us - as proved by our ability to end the illegal proroguing of parliament last year.

• Unelected European bureaucrats are making our laws!!!! Mate, we literally just had elections to elect elected members of the European Parliament what were chosen by election. Besides, the small minority of EU legislation implemented over UK laws only apply because we agreed to them. We as in, the elected MEP’s we elected at the elections. Meanwhile, you read accept and live by headlines in the tabloids, written and owned by unelected bureaucrats.

• Ending freedom of movement to ensure “British jobs for British people!!!” (Also known as ‘taking back are country’) turned out to actually mean “I’m a thinly veiled racist and preferred the times when multiculturalism meant drinking Irish wine with my dairylea cheese butty”, most of those backing this point evidently fell into one or both of two categories: 1) throwing up fascist salutes next to a union flag whilst unironically claiming their granddad fought for this country… or 2) failing to realise that ending movement means ending their own movement, and not that of brown people from the middle east, particularly Syrian refugees [see also: confused leave-voting ex-pats]
  Hate crime in the UK has massively spiked since the referendum, with reports of crimes of this nature actually doubling in Wales. 

• Those potential trade deals that will be demonstrably greater than those we’re currently a part of in the EU, have actually not happened, and while it’s possible the they still could, it’s looking more likely that whatever deals are struck will be demonstrably worse or at least more costly than what we have right now, at least according to the experts who work within the industries that will be most effected- most significantly car manufacturing, food, and healthcare.

• One of those trade deals will include the buying and selling of food. We’re likely going to receive food from America, including their delightful chlorinated chicken and various other offerings pumped full of chemicals that are currently illegal under EU health laws - what goes the other way in that particular deal remains to be seen, but Trump still states that the NHS is very much on the table (I mean, what else do we have to offer?)…
  Meanwhile an Australian minister states that the UK would now be an ideal location to sell their beef products, now that we’re not restrained by a certain EU law that protects us from heavily carcinogenic foodstuffs. Yippee!

• The ‘oven ready’ deal that bizarrely just needed to be ‘popped in the microwave’, is essentially the same deal that was rejected three times by the British parliament when brought to the table by Theresa May, which included two of the three heaviest parliamentary defeats in history. There are minor altercations though - the removal of workers rights being the main one. The suggestion being that this is just to allow for the tory party to write their own version of it once we have left, but I challenge you to find a sane human being who’d trust the anti trade-union Conservatives to write a better list of workers rights than what we already have. They proper hate you mate, what on earth will it take for the penny to drop?

• British fishermen- arguably the most vocal supporters of brexit- who wanted only British boats in British waters, have now realised that they sell the vast majority of their extremely perishable goods to European countries, and under new tariffs they will either lose that trade or have to hope that British people suddenly significantly increase their demand for seafood overnight.

• Johnson’s £46million campaign to “Get Ready for Brexit” amusingly completely failed to prepare anybody for brexit.

• He also said brexit would be "A titanic success" 

• We were promised we would retain all of the current benefits of our relationship with Europe without any of the responsibility…. I’ll let you work the likelihood of that one out yourself…

• We spent £11million on commemorative Brexit 50p’s that had to be melted back down after the deadline was moved for a third time. The newest version of these coins have also had to be remade, due to the wrong date being printed on them. The final version coming out tomorrow still contains a grammatical error. The government refuses to state how much they have cost.

• We were told we would have shiny new blue passports!!! Turns out we could always have shiny new blue passports, you only had to request one. Fortunately though the government will be issuing new shiny blue passports as standard from now on.
  The only problem is that while the old passport allowed you to work, learn, live, or love in 28 of our neighbouring countries, the new one will only let you do those things in one, providing you were born here, of course…

• Johnson still claims that there will be no red tape or extra paperwork for trade with Europe, all the while European countries set up extra red tape and extra paperwork for trade to the UK, and officials in Dover have been pointing people in the direction of new paperwork.

• We were promised that leaving the EU would not mean leaving the customs union. Admittedly this is extremely complicated, but in a nutshell, we will be leaving the customs union, this will become clearer as deals are struck during the transition, but the Irish border issue could mean we don’t have a choice.

• We were told there would be no hard border with Ireland, and certainly not one in the Irish sea. This would require the UK remaining very closely aligned with EU regulations.
  Two weeks ago Sajid Javid said this would definitely not happen. One week ago Sajid Javid said this definitely would happen. So who fucking knows pal, certainly not the Chancellor of the Exchequer thats for sure. [side note: last month Javid became the fourth tory MP to announce the end of austerity, then today announced that austerity is not over. Trustworthy bunch.]

• There is a huge change in customs checks coming. Currently due to freedom of movement, deliveries across borders only requires a single form to be filled out and shown upon passing. Whereas once we have left, every delivery vehicle will require full checks at the border which, according to the drivers, at their very fastest take 45 minutes per vehicle. For perspective, 45 minutes applies to vans at the front of the queue, and approximately 10,000 lorries pass through Dover every single day. There is currently no system in place to deal with this operation or the inevitable delays from these checks.

• There's irrefutable proof of Russian interference into the initial referendum, having hoarded online data and channelled funding into the LeaveEU campaign. There's a full documentary about it on Netflix called "The Great Hack", and it's pretty damning, and so the UK government began an investigation named "the Russia report". It was completed and due to come out before the general election, just like the report into Johnson's affair with Jennifer Arcuri which included illegally gifting her public money, but Johnson decided neither report needed releasing until after the election... needless to say neither have been seen, and there's a strong chance they never will be. I mean, remember the Panama Papers which outed all of the biggest illegal tax evaders in the world, including Johnson and Rees-Mogg? No consequences there was there... oh, except the author of the study was murdered. Another time, maybe.

• There are still no guarantees that we will have the same access to vital medicines and essential healthcare that currently come from Europe - while the deals will likely arrange for continuation of the products there is no guarantee the supply will not be slowed at the bottleneck of the border and affected by the delays. This also applies to perishable foods, and various other essentials that we rely on from the continent, which is quite a lot of things considering we’re an island and Thatcher sold everything off and that.

• There are currently record numbers of homeless people in the UK, 125,000 of them children, and the wealth gap between rich and poor continues to get wider. Food banks are now in every single constituency in the UK compared to only TWO in 2011, there are FOUR MILLION children in poverty, over half of those in poverty are IN WORK. 130,000 people were killed by austerity, schools are crowdfunding to stay afloat and teachers are buying supplies for their classrooms...
  But our Boris can't fund them.

• £120m will be spent on a 'Brexit Festival' (presumably headlined by Chas & Dave followed by a Punch & Judy show by Jim Davidson). There's been a huge tax cut for the richest 8%. And the government are promoting a gofundme page to get the public to pledge their own money so that Big Ben can bong for brexit, despite the fact that there is no bell in the fucking tower.

I could go on. Maybe I should, but I have a life to live and this is getting disheartening.

I would like to ask one question though, if you believe in brexit or disagree with any of the above facts, could you please reply in the comments with all of the actual real benefits that will impact YOUR life?

I’m not asking for an argument, I’m genuinely curious because after all this time I still see no tangible benefits. While I remain very pro-EU, I do hope that brexit is a monumental success and changes everybody’s lives for the better, because hoping it to be a disaster would only mean hoping for the unnecessary deaths of more struggling British people as the economy crashes. 

Disaster though does seem the likely option, and it would probably destroy the tory party, so y’know, I might be dead but I’ll enjoy it, and leavers have absolutely no choice but to own it. Every cloud.