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> As a European I hope UK will want to rejoin the EU.

As a European living in the UK, no mate, you really don't want these folks to rejoin. Their class system is pathological and their mass-media are fundamentally corrupt. I say this against my best interests, but England in particular should never be allowed back in. They made their bed and they should lie in it.

I hear Italy is an enlightened political paradise with ample job creation and flawless social structures. No wonder you are so enlightened to make these entirely rational remarks

Can you list what interaction you've had with the "class system" in the UK? Is the media in your home country any different? What about the media is "corrupt"?

I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark. Italy has many problems, but at least they don’t enforce classism (and religious separation, which inevitably becomes ethnic division too) from primary-school age.

As for media, UK tabloids are beyond the pale. Nowhere on the continent I’ve ever seen a situation where most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. The British upper classes make a joke of it (the “daily heil” etc), because they think it doesn’t really affect them - which is only true until it isn’t, and eventually you get a “brexit moment” when chickens come home to roost. In Italy, newspapers can be partisan or influenced by industrial interests like anywhere else, but tabloid-like hate-speech can only be found in a well-defined small minority of titles. You don’t have a Murdoch-like figure - Berlusconi had his moment and was dealt with like any other political figure. The revolving door between journalism and politics is much worse in the UK, because most people employed in both fields come effectively from the same few classes. You have journalist wives writing excuses for their politician husbands, and nobody bats an eyelid. Somebody like Boris Johnson is free to write lies for decades until he gets where he wants to get.

UK tv is better, I’ll give you that, and the BBC is excellent at being the last bastion of decency in a depressing landscape.

> I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark

How do you mean? I was asking for an illustration of the "class system" that you find oppressing to your person.

> most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate.

Well that's not true is it.

> The British upper classes make a joke of it

What might be considered Victorian upper class constitutes practically no one. If you don't like the media don't consume it.

Honestly I do not understand this unhealthy fixation on class that you have and frankly reject your assertions regarding it. At a guess you are using it as a simplification to understand a landscape you can't fully understand without it.

Class is still a big thing in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...

I don't think you understand what class is. I'm familiar with the above story and it is beyond nonsense.

A communal facility maintained and paid for by some people doesn't necessarily have to be made available to anyone else.

If your back garden was in sight of someone living in social housing ought they be able to make use of your property?

Something like 60% of people going to Oxbridge went to private schools, despite 93% attending state schools, and this is after decades of campaigns, outreach, and adjusting entry criteria by school type. And this is new, the fraction from state schools used to be more like 10-20% if that in living memory.

That’s just one example of class.

Most UK doctors and barristers went to fee-paying schools: https://www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-...

Lol, if your best rebuttal is “no it isn’t, you idiot”, you risk making my point for me. The fact remains that UK tabloids are pretty shocking for anyone who was not grown inside the bubble. When even forums like Reddit consider links to Uk tabloids as “very low quality sources”, the situation is clearly dire. Deny it as much as you want, it’s still there for everyone else to see. But I understand that this sort of thing is difficult to accept, if it’s been normalized since birth, in the same way NorthKorean citizens find it normal to have a communist king or most Americans were really convinced Saddam had WMDs. Propaganda is really difficult to shake off, when it reaches a certain volume.

As for the landscape of classism in the UK, tbh, it is not that hard to elaborate. Of course we are not talking in Victorian terms, modern classism has its own conventions. The facts are, still, that most top jobs go to graduates from top universities, whose alumni are drafted overwhelmingly from certain (expensive) schools, whose pupils are put “on rails” at the tender age of 4 by parents with deep pockets. See for example this source, but the situation is very well-known: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-unive... Note that i’m not talking in absolutes, this is actually something that affects me: I know my kids will struggle to ever reach any pinnacle, if they stay here, simply because I cannot afford to put them through the “right” schools.

This system has its upsides (the upper classes are really well-educated, as our classicist PM demonstrates) but it is undeniably a drag on social mobility: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i

> the real estate market in London goes lower due to less foreign professionals competing for housing

Which is a bad thing?

Foreign professionals still allowed in (points based system), and the London property market remains a great place to launder money.

You’re right food prices will go up, but house prices won’t come down.

Why would imports of vegetables be more expensive? The EU doesn't have export tariffs.

The UK has import duties. https://www.gov.uk/check-tariffs-1-january-2021

Which it could choose to zero rate if it stabilized food prices.

Which would have the knock-on effect of making EU food competitive in the UK but UK food non-competitive in the EU. Basically, making UK food industries less competitive.

That's before you get to WTO MFN which would mean we would have to reduce tariffs to zero not just for the EU but for the whole of the world, so our farmers would be competing against low wages everywhere. It would devastate our farmers in short order.

Yeah, I thought about this but I honestly don't know enough about how it works e.g. are countries allowed to bar food from coming into a country for not meeting safety standards even though they've set global tariffs to 0?

My gut says "yes" which is why I decided to shy away from that part.

Yes, those are the famous NTBs (non-tariff barriers). Since tariffs, apart from agriculture, are generally very low nowadays a lot of aim of free trade agreements is about reducing NTBs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-tariff_barriers_to_trade

that would be against what brexit was voted for. the idea at least the one politicians were selling was that it would help improve local production by making EU products less competitive.

Given the stance of the UK government, customs procedures likely will take longer and/or get more expensive next year.

It’s unlikely none of that cost will end up at consumers.

> I guess this was not the story UK brexit politicans sold to the UK people. And yes less income less income to UK national health service in form of taxes which was also not what was sold by politicians.

You do realise that currently any company operating in a EU members country can have their HQ in any EU members country and with that, game the TAX system. So many companies operate in EU member countries, paying very little tax as they can just pay tax in another EU member country and that may well be a lower rate. For example Ireland and Luxembourg have done well in gaming the whole corporation TAX system at the expense of taxes being paid fairly in other member countries.

Then whilst some countries have a good minimum wage, you can get around that by employing somebody on a contract in another EU members country and dealt with many good workers, working in the UK under contracts in another EU members country and by that, paid less than minimum wage.

So that will be good for tax income in the UK and also fairer and something the EU has needed to address for years and failing badly as the case against Apple shows - who consolidate the bulk of all their taxes into one single member state.

>As a European I hope UK will want to rejoin the EU.

I'd look at the UK voting record, the UK veto has been instrumental in blocking so many plans by the EU. If you had an employee who was 50% a good employee and the other 50%, disruptive and effecting all the other employee's - would you want to keep them on?

Thing is, the EU needed reform and been the case for near on a decade or more and even they know that. The UK (Cameron) went to the EU to do reforms, they said no and the UK had a vote. After the vote, many EU figureheads publicly said that the EU needed reform and Macron been championing that as it is needed.

However, in all that time the UK had the vote (many years ago now), has the EU gone - ok we are doing reform - this is the plan and we want to do this and that. HAD that happened, the UK would of had something to take back to the people and go - look, we voted to leave the EU - we ain't left yet, however they are changing and with that it is only fair we put this back to the people as things have changed. THAT would of seen the UK stay in the EU. But no, that didn't happen and case of the EU going we need reform, twiddle thumbs for years and years, and all that's been decided is that Macron will drive it once and only once the UK has left the EU.

I like the EU, I like the UK and honestly it is best for both of them to have a break as best for both overall. Certainly motivated the EU to do some reform and if they don't, the divided in many EU member's is at the stage that without a sit down and addressing the issues thru reform, the EU will just erode away.

Also the whole price/inflation - you do realise that many imports into the UK from the EU are products imported into the EU from outside - like china. So would often see products shipped to central Europe and warehoused and distributed from there. After all, they only need to pay import tax and duty in one member country. Once done they can go to any EU members state. So for some countries, that worked well and others, less so.

So will be a case of for example the HD I brought from Amazon the other week, which shipped from the deepest of France and took a week. Would ship from the UK as the manufacturer would have stocks locally now. Maybe it will be a little cheaper, though that would also cover extra warehouse space/staff in the UK to handle that instead of some warehouse in the EU that is not paying UK tax, land/building rent/taxes.... Now instead of a ship dropping of in the EU down in say Italy, it will be direct to the UK. That avoids lots of lorries/planes and the like shipping stuff from the EU to the UK. So the whole environmental aspect has many opportunities to be better than current. Don't overlook that.

Many things not thought out in the news or media when it comes to brexit - mostly it is all rhetoric and ignores the pro's as well as the con's and those pro's are with the uk and the eu in many ways. The EU for a start been able to get financial control rules move forward after decades of the UK roadblocking them.

But best way to put things about the UK leaving the EU, if you truly love somebody and they are better of without you then you have to let them go.

Now, twenty years from now, things will be worth reviewing though the UK and the EU will be far different places then and not all for the worst.

I for one hope that the Apples imported from New Zealand I buy I will get them cheaper. Hopefully we will get more products from around the world at affordable prices. EU economy is inefficient and their products are too expensive. For me it is a good riddance.