EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Hypermart in Calais. Sorted.

What's the job market like in Germany at the mo' Ol? I feel a relocation in my loins..

Street sweepers remove glass and reduce our likelihood of punctures. They're actually useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWQ0T10v6Y

Show and tell BBC style, but the Brexit voter realized that it wasn't as easy as the government said it would be...

Commonwealth immigrant

Filth. Turn back the boats!

If we manage to grow grapes where I'm from, you've got a lot of waiting to do..

Different type of wine, innit

Racist wine.

Typically stronger than the French stuff (I suspect due to the increased sugar content from all that lovely sun), and strong booze does seem to have a racism-revealing side effect

Yeah I saw that earlier, I also noticed Graham has now changed the title into something that sounds a bit less like it was written by Buzzfeed. In any case, a pretty interesting video.

Also btw, being Swiss, I know what it's like to go online shopping and expect to be hit with customs on every single bloody thing - a lot of people actually started to go down the shady route of having their stuff delivered to an address in Germany (either someone they know or someone that someone they know knows), and then getting it from there in person to avoid paying customs.

I just ordered some nice carbon handlebars from Germany (via ebay) and it's such a nice feeling not having to worry about things like that. Well, in future this is going to be massively more annoying again.

Maybe not a bad business idea for people in the Republic of Ireland just over the border with NI, parcel holding for just 10% of value ;)

I have happy memories of Ramsgate-Zeebrugge on Sally lines.

'Best before date' = 'out of date' to gammons.

Have look here;
https://www.lfgss.com/events/4391/

I think the UK is just a bit too large for this to work well (in Switzerland, getting across the border and back doesn't take that long if you don't live literally on top of the Alps), but honestly I would not be surprised if such things popped up after Brexit.

@mespilus

Thanks! What does the whole 'festival of steel' thing refer to, and what is ThNRC?

In NI the border is near impossible to enforce, so expect smuggling and money going to criminals, additional costs for honest companies, companies just setting up shop in Republic of Ireland and leaving/not expanding in NI and that is just the start of it.

But nowhere is there any readiness, the HMRC custom systems are not fit for purpose as they are...let alone having to deal with all that after Brexit hassle. The ports cannot take, the staff isn't there, the processes aren't there...

Yeah I know, it's going to be a massive clusterfuck. This would be highly amusing to watch if I wasn't actually living in the UK, and if I didn't know a lot of people are going to be directly impacted by it.

Tnrc Tuesday/Thursday Night Ride Club

Mentioned it to you that night you needed a spanner.

Ah I see, I did not make that connection :) Thanks! I looked it up back then, but wasn't sure there were still regular rides happening - also I'm not really much of a group rider really, prefer to go it alone most of the time.

I live in NI, and I am Dutch so I am exceptionally delighted :(

Are you worried about the mess around settled status or think it will blow over? They are really making a mess of it, expecting employers to be able to check people's immigration status but not actually having any bandwidth to process it all in time or processes around a no-deal...

I got my PR card just in case, it won't be valid after March 2019 but at least I am in the system.

Are you worried about the mess around settled status or think it will blow over?

I am very worried. But then I'm also Swiss, so not actually an EU citizen, but of a citizenship 'tacked on' to EU citizenship rules. I don't know whether that makes the situation better or worse for me (I'm going to go with worse: even if they arrange something for EU citizens, they'll forget about Swiss etc. people). However, I have a possible 'out' as I could 'upgrade' to being a full-time student again, which is probably going to be easier to get leave to remain for.

I also considered getting the settlement thing that won't be valid after 03/19 for much the same reason as you, but the problem is that while I have been in the UK for 5 years now, 4 of those were as a student and they are a bit asshole-ish about that (and have always been), so it's unclear whether I'd actually qualify. But I definitely don't want to try and get rejected for it, that would mean 'being in the system' for all the wrong reasons.

My main worry here isn't that they won't figure out some kind of arrangement at all - if they don't, the UK economy will pretty literally start collapsing -, it's more that they will fuck it up in individual cases. I don't fancy being windrushed, but considering the general competency levels in the home office, that's a very real possibility.

Settled Status may work OK for you, it is just residency / identity / no serious criminal record and if hmrc has some data on you, happy days! The rules are quite more relaxed than the PR rules.

UKCEN is a good forum on Facebook, maybe they know more about the case for Swiss nationals.

They are currently in trial phase 2 for settled status. But yeah if there is no deal / a mess with paperwork and windrush v2 as people cannot prove they can work then the economy won't do so well either. Any Brexit harms the economy of course.

I'd register in any case once SS is out, because they also count student towards the total immigration numbers and they don't want to budge on that atm, so you better get in the system if you want to stay.

Yeah once their new system is actually up and running, I'm definitely getting on that! Thanks for the facebook tip, I'll check that out.

Any Brexit harms the economy of course.

Oh yeah, but potentially randomly deporting people will definitely be the best way of harming it. Of course I'm biased as universities are some of the most multinational environments, but one thing is for sure, most of the 'higher-grade' research departments would be at least half empty the day after Brexit if they were to get rid of all EU workers (and students). Sure that part won't have an immediate impact on the economy, but it will do irrevocable harm in the long term... but hey, the fisheries will make up for it, right?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/01/brexit-deal-on-financial-services-agreed-report

HM some good news...I think. Maybe equivalence is not fantastic?

I'd argue any semblance of something akin to a deal is better than nothing at all?

At this point, it's pretty much decided that I will leave the UK in ~3-4 years (when my PhD is done), but I mean, I don't wish people here any harm. It'd be nice if they could save the whole thing from completely going under!

Come to the Netherlands. Jobs a-plenty