Brexit has not happened because of mendacious propaganda, by government, individuals and msm.
Please be very certain that the UK has left the EU. What you should have written was “The Brexit that I wanted did not happen”.
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The Brexit that 17, 410, 741 also voted for. A fact unless you believe otherwise.
Our government did not read the small print when they signed us into the EU, and now unable to keep their manifesto pledges.
Brexit in name only.
You are in the minority who think Brexit is in name only. Please provide evidence that the Leave pledge during the lead up to the referendum (that being what people were voting for) was for the most extreme hard exit. That being what I presume you want in order it the be your Brexit proper.
Can you also explain what aspect of the exit, and post-exit EU agreement, is “in name only”? What is not in place? What is in place that, for you, should not be?
From the perspective of anyone directly affected by Brexit (companies trading with the EU, people in organisations that used to deal with the EU, people from the EU living in the UK, etc.) it is absolutely certain that Brexit happened. I can only guess that you were blissfully unaffected in any way. Lucky you.
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If it is in name only why is it causing so many problems with paperwork, red tape, trade agreements etc?
If it was in name only surely no one would notice any difference?
It may not be the Brexit you wanted but the plebiscite didn’t ask what Brexit you wanted only if you wanted one. So you got what you asked for (which may or may not be the one you wanted).
As the great English philosopher Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you’ll find, You get what you need”
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I fear we will not get an explanation of what defines an exit in name only. (It’s probably something to do with fishing and that protocol thingy.)
In the meantime the fresh veg issue has dominated the news with supermarkets rationing tomato buying. We are told by the red tops that its due to bad weather in Spain. Seems their reporters are not seeking all the answers.
Neither you or I know the true reason, but I find it amazing that we’ve been out for ages now and this is the first time it’s happened. But by the way I was in the Co-op yesterday and they had loads of tomatoes. Tom Swarbrick had a call in yesterday and there was so many explanations calling in that even he was confused, but the one thing that was clear was that here in the UK our supermarket prices for fruit and veg is a lot cheaper than on the continent. I pay 40p for a bag of carrots where on the continent it would be about £3. Apparently our supermarkets put pressure on suppliers to sell to us cheaply and they also sell them as loss leaders. If you go to independents they’re not short of them as they use different suppliers.
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The UK imports over 90% of its produce which is a result of us being in the EU in the first place. Farmers were being subsidised for for not growing produce in favour of importing from the EU (France and Spain especially) as part of the Common Agriculture Policy. A lot of our produce comes from outside the EU too - Brazil and Morocco are two countries we buy a lot from. Neither of these countries are in the EU but provide huge amounts to the UK (including tomatoes) and to the EU.
Bad weather is another reason for shortages because a lot of ferries haven’t been able to transport the goods in the first place.
Another reason for the lack of tomatoes (and other produce) in the UK is that the supermarkets won’t pay the higher cost of them due to inflation brought on by heating costs and fuel prices etc. The same goes for eggs, but the supply of meat etc is perfectly OK.
1Kg of mandarins are £3.60 in Waitrose but 900g of them in a supermarket in Chamonix is 3.99EU - just to illustrate.
This is nothing to do with Brexit, as usual.
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No it isn’t.
Northern Ireland is still under the jurisdiction of the single market, our fisheries are still under the jurisdiction of the CFP, we are tied into the EU tax rates (thanks to NI so we cannot, for example, lower VAT rates), and as part of the TCA we are tied into the EU net zero policy.
We also had a mandate for the whole of UK to leave the EU and we haven’t done that - NI is still under single market rules, there is a sea border in the Irish Sea and has breached the Union Act if 1881 and the Good Friday Agreement as a consequence.
There is no such thing as an extreme hard Brexit either, thats just a term the remainers came up with. You leave the EU or you don’t, it’s like trying to be half pregnant.
Just a few points.
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Who comes up with this strategy you are on about ? The government or individual companies in the private sector ? I can see if I can answer just trying better understand the question.
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Surely the strategy needs to come from government. The government would need to define the vision, such as a goal to have certain levels of manufacturing in different sectors. Then it would need to set out what is required to move towards that goal - what ventures with private companies might be supported, what infrastructure would be needed, how they might build up a skilled workforce, and so on. That might be called a strategy. Add in some ideas on how such UK built things might be exported - to which countries, to which customers, with what government support.
But this will not happen for two reasons. First the current government would be this a ideologically wrong. They see such involvement by government as against their principles of relying on the market and letting businesses doing their own thing. Second, this would need to be a decades long plan. The UK’s model of abrupt changes of government every five years and conflict based politics would not support such a lengthy plan. So the UK does not and will not have any strategy or plan to support manufacturing here.
So the result is multiple ad hoc decisions over many years to close manufacturing capability in the UK, switch to overseas supplies, take skilled people out of such roles and have less & less people trained to replace them, no intervention or support to prevent this happening.
But this looks like it belongs in a different thread as Brexit ain’t going to change anything here.
Why would a manufacturing strategy come from a government ? Do you think the government know more about the car markets and manufacturing (for example), that Nissan or Toyota ?
We have regulations that control things like safety and standards - the UK has some of the best in the world, in fact they all pretty much originate from the UK. But for a government to come up with a manufacturing strategy would be absolutely devastating to industry, most MP’s have never learned a trade, hired someone, fired someone, built anything, sold anything or done a VAT return.
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The Brexit, they wanted, “have your cake and eat it” was never on the cards or a possibility. It was just lies conjured up by Brexiteer snake oil salesman
Brexit was always going to be a disaster for the U.K
You leave a club, you lose the benefits of membership, plus the good will of those still members who you betrayed and deserted
And losing the good will of your closest neighbours in the vague hope of replacing it with countries thousands of miles away is just stupid
So now we’re isolated and despised and everyone else is ahead of us in the queue for tomatoes! 
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So what you are saying is that you support the current approach of there being no strategy to maintain and enhance the UK’s manufacturing capability and capacity. That is a valid stance - but do not complain that the UK has ever reducing manufacturing, little to export and reliance on imports. Because that is the result of no plan, no strategy and a reliance on the market solving everything.
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Perfectly put.
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If anything, the EU trashed our manufacturing when we joined the common market. Moving manufacturing to EU countries through EU grants and other countries like Turkey (Transit) through EU sponsorship.
The reason UK manufacturing has declined is because of the EU, the unions and high taxes. We don’t need a government strategy for manufacturing we just need a proper conservative government that creates a favourable business space of low tax, low regulation to support a free market economy. Businesses don’t invest in high tax, unionised over regulated countries.
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One benefit of Brexit that may have been overlooked is the UK contribution to the EU COVID recovery fund.
About £190 Billion in savings.
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I respect your point of view Maree, but I believe the European Union is anything but united. When all member countries are allowed a referendum then we would see who wants, who really wants a United States of Europe. Ted Heath lied to get UK into the EEC and successive Conservative and Labour PM’s have continued. Just look at today’s headlines.
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I think when the other member countries see how badly we’re doing outside the EU, they’ll be glad they’re in! They are the lucky ones, I think with a brighter future than us 
Even Johnson recommended Ukraine join, how hypocritical is that
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