The only bombshell would be if the UK negotiators managed to prevent a hard Brexit. Given the current track record of their leading political party, this seems unlikely.
Actually we were repeatedly told otherwise. Not that I believed any of it.
Oh no, most of them expected this sort of thing. They just stated otherwise to persuade the rubes.
I'd imagine continuing the current scheme would add a lot of regulatory and procedural complexity for Amazon, which they are unwilling to handle.
Isn't this something that was expected by sellers?
If they've believed UK Government rhetoric about how Brexit will be a smooth process that will enhance the UK's trading opportunities, this may come as a surprise.
There are (IMO) a reasonable number of UK citizens and businesses who haven't grasped the likely consequences of what's happening on 1/1/21
Instead they explicitly rejected that opportunity and carried onwards...
I think it could well be right that they're hoping for the (likely impossible) blink from the EU, but between that, the heavy political toll a US trade deal would require (it would have a big impact on the UK farming community+possibly other areas) and the expanding spat with China, it's really not shaping up to be a good period, economically speaking.
Because those who promoted brexit comprehensively lied to the electorate about the consequences of brexit.
What's bizarre is that when challenged on how ridiculous that is, they'll immediately accept it as rational before saying "well we voted out anyway so it doesn't matter".
Still, nothing beats the cluelessness of pro-brexit British expats when they are faced with the consequences of what they demanded.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/brexit-voting-pats-sp...
I can believe that.
> Even many remain voters don’t realise all the downsides.
I can believe that, but what makes the confusion one-way? i.e. do leave voters realise all the upsides?
The upsides of Brexit are generally, at best, very subjective and ephemeral (‘sovereignty’ in the sense of passport colour change) or outright imaginary (the EU is banning kettles and jam).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29607906-why-vote-leave was a good book for understanding some benefits of Leave.
Please don't discredit the positions or the book solely from my my hazy memory of the book, but here goes:
* EU is a weakening trade bloc, so we're better off out of the customs union, and making trade deals that work for UK, rather than that work for the EU (example: cheaper tomatoes from Africa, that the EU will not make, since it'll make Spain/Italy worse off)
* UK's voting patterns within EU was anomolous: UK voted against policies far more than other countries anyway.
* UK public seems to have a max acceptable rate of immigration, and we may prefer more selective immigration policies (e.g. target the high skilled workers in India, China, Australia)
Those are meant to pique your interest in the book. I don't think starting a debate on HN will be productive, at least because I barely remember the book.
By that I meant that the Brexiter conception of sovereignty is heavily based on surface symbolism; the archetypical Brexiter is fine with taking US rules on food safety, in which they have no voice in making, if it means they can change the colour of the passport (which, of course, they could do within the EU anyway, but never mind). That is, Brexit is not generally actually concerned with sovereignty in any real sense, and Brexit Britain will lose control, not gain it.
In a mixture of losers with cocky winners, you have people who overestimate their abilities and people who are bitter.
The bitter ones demand protection against the people who come over and over-compete them, so you introduce non-meritocratic barriers like nationality. Starting on 2021, Polish and Bulgarians and so on will be barred from coming over and compete with the local workers.
The winners are cocky, many of them are really the best - UK has a great talent pool. They have a great thing going on for them, and they believe that they can overcome EU, USA and China.
The protection demand of the lower skill people seems to be served, shortly UK will start building it's non-merit based workforce(unless UK residency is a merit).
The time comes to put the winners on test. This is indeed a bombshell to the cocky ones, the people who had a good thing going on for them and believed that due to their expectational abilities everything will be about the same or better.
I still think that the UK would be able to find it's place in the new world order but many people will face bombshells as their freedoms and abilities to do business will get a haircut.
EU's skilled ones will be protected from UK's in a similar fashion of UK's less-skilled are about to get their protection. It is not as meritocratic system as before but that's what people wanted.