Re: Disappointing
Really?
I mean we only had this discussion 2 months ago, and that 6 months after we'd previous done it.
Last time, I cut-and-pasted the previous post, with an addition, so continuing that pattern, I've cut-and-pasted the answer for you, but with yet another addition:
As I said at the time, there were benefits in remaining, and there are benefits in leaving.
I shall not address the benefits of remaining, since you have not asked for those.
The UK's response to the vaccine roll-out (including sign-off for use and production/acquisition), and then the ability to lift lock-down several months earlier than in the EU, saved the UK huge sums of money, plus, by re-opening access to the routine services of the NHS saved countless lives. The long discussion already held in the thread two months ago correctly pointed out that in theory the UK (or any other EU country) could have approved the vaccine separate from the EU approval process. History shows that a number of EU countries started down that route then gave up and remained within the EU scheme. The idea that the UK would have procured the vaccine separately from the EU scheme, were it not for BREXIT, is highly disingenuous. It is also fair and proper to note that BREXIT opponents claimed at the time that BREXIT would actually delay procurement of the vaccine:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-vaccine-delays-brexit-ema-expensive
The UK is no longer complicit in the agricultural dumping that the EU has been doing in Africa (the last case I am aware of involved dumping milk powder, mixed with palm oil, onto the West African markets, meaning it not only undercut local farmers but meant that the poorest people there were under-nourishing their children, since the palm oil content reduces the milk's nutritional value).
The use of animals for testing cosmetics which had been made legal again by a EU ruling (in limited circumstances, true), has now been explicitly blocked, so animal testing for cosmetics is no longer permitted in the UK
(Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65623580)
We have indeed, taken back control - meaning that for most issues, UK politicians can no longer get away with blaming Brussels, like they have for decades (and like politicians in the remaining EU 27 continue to do). Thus, our politicians are now more accountable.
This also means that we can better control our fishing grounds, to the benefit of the environment. Bottom-trawling continues to occur, but is set to be banned (finally!) in UK waters; given that many of the boats carrying out this harmful activity are EU registered, it is evidently not something that the EU has acted to prevent:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/hoovered-up-from-the-deep-33000-hours-of-seabed-trawling-revealed-in-protected-uk-waters
Related to that, but a bit more recent:
UK's puffin protection laws at centre of post Brexit row - BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9rrpn955qo)
Note particularly: “Wildlife campaigners across Europe have reacted with fury at the EU’s demand, with 38 conservation groups pledging their support for the UK ban, including the RSPB, ClientEarth, Oceana UK, Birdlife International, and the Marine Conservation Society.”
The UK was historically a brake on the EU federalist agenda / plan for ever closer union. With the UK having left, the EU can now more readily progress in that direction. (I'm assuming that you are not so parochial as to only want Brexit bonuses that apply to the UK).
Outside of the EU, the UK is able to make foreign policy decisions much more speedily than the EU can, since the EU typically requires consensus, which inevitably, takes time. The value of this was demonstrated 27 months ago, when the UK was one of the few countries rushing arms to Ukraine immediately before and after the Russian invasion, and more generally led the response of the world’s democracies, while the EU sought to achieve consensus amongst 27 nations. Such time-consuming census forming was entirely right and proper of the EU, but was also entirely predictable, and would have likely seen Putin achieve the gains of his 3-day Special Military War before any meaningful EU response would have taken effect.
The UK has left a customs union and pollical organisation that amounts to about 14% of the global economy (16% if including the UK), the countries of the EU 28 (ie EU27 + UK) having previously (1980's) amounted to about 25% of the global economy, and joined the free trade organisation that is CPTPP (which we could not otherwise have done), whose 11 members (prior to UK joining) amount to about 14% of the global economy, but whose importance has been growing. Furthermore, the potential expansion of the EU is limited to relatively small/relatively poor countries, plus Ukraine (which is understandably going to be a huge drain on global funds for many years after their victory against the Russians, to repair the damage the Russians have done). Oh, and Turkey, though we were all told quite specifically by the 'remain' campaign that they were definitely not joining the EU. The current and potential candidate (last time I checked, roughly half a dozen applicants and half a dozen 'expressed interest in joining', from memory) nations for CPTPP meanwhile include a number of significant and significantly growing economies.
So plenty of clear, tangible, benefits.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
