What you’re feeling is called Schadenfreude. I wonder how long before enough people realize they made a mistake to trigger another referendum.
Only a narrow political class of Brexit true-believers are doing that, and it seems unfair to say they represent the UK in totality.
There are plenty of voices in the the UK who've warned about the economic consequences and even now are shining a light on the consequences of Brexit.
That happened once and people were right to be furious because the Dutch customs guy was a dick. No rule requires him to confiscate the lunch of lorry drivers and then say "Welcome to Brexit". It's that kind of nasty backstabbing pettiness that makes EU ideology so deeply unattractive that the UK voted to leave.
Nonetheless it's hilarious that so far despite the EU's best efforts to create as many problems as possible via "work to rule" type approaches, the media focuses on that. The EU-loving media class spent years telling people that if the UK dared to leave this horrible organisation there'd be immediate shortages of medicine. Now they have to hype up stories about dickish border guards whilst desperately trying to hide the fact that literally weeks after Brexit happened there are medicine shortages in the EU. People who argued against Brexit have been wrong about so many things so far I shouldn't be surprised but that one still takes the biscuit.
Actually, a rule does require him to confiscate any meat product that someone might try to bring into the EU [1] (incidentally I believe that the USA have the same rule), which is what happened: It was a ham sandwich.
If you watch the video the driver was very surprised. Personally I took the customs guy's reply "welcome to Brexit" as a humorous but factual and to the point explanation.
[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/carry/meat-dair....
Look, this is very simple: if the EU's rules require confiscating the lunch of people who are trying to do business, then the rules are wrong and should be fixed. Blaming Brexit or saying "the USA does it too" isn't a great answer when it'd be so easy to fix this.
I think the main thing I've been learning about import/export rules in/out of the EU in the past few weeks is how much life must have been sucking for years for people trying to trade with us who aren't physically in Europe. A huge number of the rules that are tripping people up are stuff that's just taken to an absurd bureaucratic extreme, like the guys who couldn't sell their fish because the Latin name on a form had a spelling error, or the others who needed to translate their product description into every single European language before they could put their goods on a lorry.
The EU could easily fix all these things and make the lives of not only Brits but everyone else easier too, but the so-called single market is basically the only argument they have for why a country should join the EU. The EU has created a perverse incentive for itself to make selling things to it as convoluted and painful as possible. That is ultimately bad for everyone, but especially for people who live and work in member states.
How did Covid start and spread? Through movement of infected meat and people. I also think you really don't understand the job of a border controller.
As for spread of people, truckers have been allowed to cross borders even when they've been closed the whole time, as otherwise supply chains would collapse. So it's irrelevant to this case. The guy wasn't doing a COVID check.
I also think you really don't understand the job of a border controller.
I think I do! Political trolling and lunch confiscation are definitely not components of it.
This is not something I or any other sane American can fix. It will take generations to root out this nonsense. Until parents/communities stop teaching their children bigotry and racism and scarcity mindset are good - we will lose this battle. It starts with the kids.
The loss of the UK is nothing but a sad occasion, because everyone in the UK and the EU is weakened as a result.
And, I think we will really know after a couple of years if this was a “mistake”. Being in the EU feels often like a “mistake”, too. I am not thinking my country should leave, but I’d love to see a major reform making the EU much lighter, less bureaucratic and focused on core topics instead of being this gigantic monster that’s deciding which popups I need to see.
The choice of matters discussed at EU level is sadly due to the agenda of national states, for the major part; in a lot of cases it’s actually what they don’t feel brave enough to touch but still think “something should be done about”, so the EU provides plausible deniability. If you feel this is not to your likes, complain to your MEPs and your national MPs.
Personally I think some issues won’t be solved until we have more European authority rather than less; a bit like the US ended up moving most powers to the federal government during its first 150 years.
This might very well be true. However, it is not only about costs, is it? I really doubt that the cost-benefit ratio is on the same level as my national one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_D...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/24/scotland-in...
If there is any truth to that it's a big vindication of Brexit and I say that as a remain voter.