Brexit two years later: Why the UK is struggling | DW News 

Brexit was the first time a nation imposed economic sanctions on itself.

You cut yourself from a market and you expect things to become better? Genius.

The irony is also that the UK now suffers from laws that apply to third countries wanting to import into the European market, which the UK insisted on introducing when they were a member of that market.

I must say, thank you UK!. Here in the Netherlands there was also some internal discussion to leave the EU/Nexit... Nothing really major though. But now the whole discussion is gone!

Imagine being surprised that leaving a trade union means loosing the privileges that come with being in the trade union in the first place. It's mental.

Some of the people in UK thought that a union is a bad thing. They forgot they live in a Union and they are vehemently opposed to its dissolution.

"We did want to be ourselves again". How was being part of the EU not allowing the English to be English? The EU let them keep the British Pound and not use the Euro. They still lived on their island and still had the monarchy. I just don't understand how leaving the EU made them more British.

There is one major thing that went right with Brexit. Movements to leave the EU that existed in Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and other EU countries all fizzled after observing the British experience.

No way? Putting up trade barrier hurts the economy!? Who would have known.

The UK complained that it was supporting other EU members for nothing, wanted out, and got what it wanted. Things couldn't be any better, right?

Nothing went "wrong". Everything, from the loss of GDP to shortages to increased red tape, to increased immigration, to UK's requirement to implement regulations and standards it has no say in, to the EU having its way in everything, it all went exactly as predicted by everyone who had a clue. Living in lalaland and then finding out that reality is something entirely different isn't things going wrong.

What bothers me a lot is that there are many older people that are for Brexit. Let's be honest, they will be gone in 20-30 years while the younger generations have to deal with the long term negative consequences of Brexit. Not to mention, the older generations are retired, they are not in the work market anymore, of course many will say it has not affected their lives much.

As long as you have something, you only realize the disadvantages. The advantages you realize when you lost it.

I am a Spanish worker in the UK and sadly I will be leaving the UK shortly. I work for a Spanish company that is moving back to Spain a lot of the operations because of Brexit. It really breaks my heart after so many years here...

As an American living in England (over 30 years) I always said " Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." The UK was given misinformation by the likes Nigel Farrange and overs. A Conservative MP had the gall to say in a interview " It's to early to tell if the break with the EU has effected the UK negatively. "

I'll correct my statement. They removed themselves from a market of 450,000,000 people. How is going it alone a good idea?

I have left the UK year ago. I moved back to Poland. I got my critical surgery here, after that found a job paying the same money as I had in the UK but with half of the cost of living. Sad - UK was my home for 9 years. Seeing that decline was saddening me. Still love the people from UK. Hope it will get better soon

People were told before the vote that it was a terrible idea but they voted for it anyway due to prejudice and xenophobia. I have a friend who had a wine importation business. He voted to make life more expensive and difficult for himself with no upside. Sounds sensible to me!

Sadly here in the UK Brexit is still a very toxic subject. Brexit voters simple will not accept the damage it has done. Recent polling now shows the majority of voters regret it. Sadly that isn't the same as wanting to rejoin. However I fear the EU wouldn't have us back anyway. Honestly who could blame them?

I mean, every single person with a working brain and some common sense saw from a mile away that this was a terrible idea.

Even as someone from Southeast Asia, we know this is the dumbest move. Ever heard of ‘’team work makes the dream work’’?

leaving the EU is dumb enough, but also leaving the single market is just ridiculous. I don't think enough people appreciate just how easy it is to trade inside the single market. I've had to replace a longtime British supplier, i'm not dealing with all the extra paperwork, custom fees, VAT refunds etc.

The British decided they didn't want to pay the club dues. After they left, they decided they wanted to be able to go into the club house to sell their stuff ( like the club house needed British stuff) . They found that the club wouldn't let them sell their stuff in the club without proper manufacturing regulations (safety protocols)( protecting their citizens from faulty or unsafe products). The British are the only ones who believe in British exceptionalism, everyone else obeys the rules of the house when you are visiting or decide to live in the house.

I'm a Malaysian working in Singapore. Both countries are in the Commonwealth and have millions of investment in the UK, but most if not all of them were prior to Brexit. This was due to the familiarity of the language, laws, culture and much more due to being former colonies of the British. In short, we were used to the British and found it easier to invest in the UK because of that, and as a gateway into the EU. Post-Brexit, businesses here are concentrating on investments in the EU directly, and bypassing the UK, despite the different legal systems and languages. Oh, and Malaysia and Singapore are part of ASEAN (Association of South-East Asia Nations), which aspires to integrate their economies like the EU. As for the Brexiter's dream or aspiration of becoming a Singapore-on-Thames, well, Singaporeans are more pragmatic and realistic than Brexiters. They had to be in order to create the modern and successful Singapore that Brexiters want to emulate. Ask them if they want to exit ASEAN or exit the EU if they were part of it, the answer would be a resounding NO. Almost everybody here that I talked to about Brexit thought that it was financial and business suicide for the British. And most if not all, put it down to the UK harking back to the days of the British Empire. It wasn't helped by the fact that many Brexiter politicians and businessmen thought that the Commonwealth and the World would gladly trade with the UK on an individual basis. Why should they? And what advantage is there to trading with the UK when it is not a gateway into the EU? Business is business, and it would always look at the bottom line. Brexiters seemed to have forgotten that, or totally ignored it altogether. And with the recent news from the IMF that the UK is the only major economy expected to shrink in 2023, as well as to do worse than Russia (which is heavily sanctioned by the world and fighting a war in the Ukraine) in 2023, well, so much for Brexit!

Love the country lived there for many years, worked hard paid all my taxes, had a good life, but I got the msg they don't want us (immigrants) there any longer, so packed my bags and said goodbyes wishing you all good luck.

This is why big stuff needs a 2/3 majority. With a simple majority decisions can flip-flop around a single vote.

They listened to rich people, and rich people screwed them. Go figure.

Declining empires, in disbelief of their fall from grace, always look to blame anything but themselves. Often, it's the immigrants or a minority group. In the case of the UK, it was the EU. The mental gymnastics required to blame the EU for the UK's sense of decline must've been something to behold.

Leaving the largest free trade area in the world was never a good idea. Education, education, education......

The old lady going “oooh!” As the old man says “it’s been an absolute disaster” made me laugh so hard😂😂😂

I go to England one time each year. At Waitrose someone asked me about brexit. I told them that this was a bad idea. They asked :"but, you are from Norway. Without the EU, we can have a wealt fond, and be as rich as Norway". I told them, that Norway have twice as mutch oil and gas, and 12 times less people to share the wealth with. England also was the EU's financial leader. England is dependent on a marked it needs to compete in. Norway sell fish, oil, and high tech. And, that is global. So, EU are more dependent on Norway, than the other way around. But, they beleved their politicians. So, time to find out the hard way.

Even when UK was in European Union, they didn't accept us completely. They keep the pound as their coin, not Euro, and if you went to UK being member of EU you be treatened as a foreigner people, showing your passport on airport controls. I feel sorry for young british people who will has to move on his country harder because a decision of a lot of people that has their labour lives done.

The UK is like a cat standing by the door meowing and screaming, let me out, let me out, let me out. And when you open the door it just stands there in the doorway, for I don't know, what felt like years, like it's trying to make up it's mind before finally getting out. And after a short while it starts to whine again for being outside...

I think Brexit went exactly like the people who orchestrated it intend.

Scotland overwhelmingly voted to stay in the EU, yet they must suffer just like England and Wales who voted to leave. Totally unfair to Scotland, they deserve better.

I live in Britain, and the best thing is how this is hurting those who voted for it the most. The bad thing is it hurts the young who didn't vote for it the most when you consider the long-term restrictions and stagnation of the British economy and public services.

I'm not even from the EU and I knew this was a dumb move.

Sadly with each passing day we can see the impact this awful policy has had on the UK. Tied up in red tape and tariffs with lower GDP than before the pandemic whilst the others in the G7, including Italy, are above. The lower GDP means we do not have the headroom to pay our way in the world and must resort to borrowing.Whilst there are rich people in the UK; a great many of us are poor and now we are poorer still. What steps can we take to generate more income during quantitative adjustment?I can't afford my hard-earned £600k savings to turn to dust

My guess is Brexit was never supposed succeed, most of the politicians supporting it knew it was a bad idea but thought it could give their party a few extra seats. They didn’t imagine their campaign would be successful enough to put them into the position to follow through on it.

At the very least it should have been a 60% leave, such a massive irreversible decision should have a significant majority, especially when most people don’t understand what the decision means. I was 16 at the time of the vote so I had no choice, and most people my age wanted to stay. So I and many my age feel cheated by people who won’t experience the long term consequences. Even if we want to rejoin, it’ll be without the benefits we did have and probably take decades because the EU won’t want us back unless they’re certain we’ll stay. Even then they might not Edit: Also, based on how close the independence vote for Scotland was and how every constituency voted to stay in the EU, I wouldn’t be surprised if our own union broke up down the line. A complete shitshow

I used to order stuff from UK all the time. Since Brexit I have ordered ZERO things. Everything is now 20% more expensive and prices are just not competitive anymore with other EU countries.

The only good thing about Brexit is that it presents a great example of what not to do, in case anyone else was wondering.

Seriously? As a Canadian, it seems intuitively obvious that cutting ties to an enormous trading block will be uneconomic. It’s not the end of the world. Rejoin if you like!

What a surprise... What did you expect? On the positive note, other countries suddenly lost their will to leave the EU

I live in the UK. It's absolutely broken. I can't believe the decline I have witnessed recently. It's scary.

Membership £350M a week Economic benefits £2,000M a week Brits: "We want out!"

I am an EU citizen living in the UK. Remember we and nearly half the british people did not want Brextit. I would love to be as smug as the presenter on this video but the reality is that we are suffering a huge decline and knowing we were always right about it being a terrible idea doesn't help us get medical treatment or the qulity of life we used to have. Have some sympathy for those of us that are being dragged down by the muppets that voted to leave.

This is what happens when the public doesn't educate themselves about what they vote on.

2:19 that "ooooooh" and the man saying absolute disaster, that's pure meme material right here

"What went right" would be a much shorter video

EU and many economy experts tried hard to warn people of the negative impact ,but few listened.

The British believed life would be better off by isolating themselves, that strengthening legal and procedural barriers with other countries would make it easier for them to do business with other countries, that isolated self-sufficiency rather than federation would lead to economic development, Do you believe that withdrawing from a large community will expand your scope of economic activities? Do you believe that making yourself smaller will enable you to compete politically and economically with major powers such as China, the United States, and Russia? An isolated United Kingdom will be more influential? …populism has hit Britain so hard that I am very pessimistic about the judgment and IQ of the people, if this is democracy for all

Living in a global market, it's a great idea to pull out of the market and renegotiate millions and millions of laws, contracts, and deals overnight.

At a time when nations around the world were forming large trading partnerships, you chose to leave the largest trading bloc. And you did so based on lies like the Brexit Bus, £350,000,000/ Week Whopper.

What went wrong is that the UK didn't realise that it IS part of Europe after all. They will have to re-join at some stage but will be at a disadvantage due to this mess. The French and the Belgians are laughing themselves silly.

EU should NOT let UK rejoin their internal market. UK's total failure of Brexit is the EU's insurance of internal support in future.

they voted expecting the empire days without an empire

Just remember, almost half of us who voted, didn't want to leave the EU. The ones who saw the writing on the wall were punished by those who had been mislead, were over nationalistic or extreme right xenophobes.

I'm in Canada, didn't follow much of what was going on and even then it seemed like a rediculous thing to do. To cut the UK off. Everyone there went crazy thinking the Empire still existed. 🤷‍♂️

If the cost to the UK is £100B/annum, and EU membership was £350M/week, the loss of opportunity to the UK is roughly 5.5X more than the membership fee. That's a high price to pay for exceptionalism.

We don't want them back.. They knew what they voted for and I can see objections that will make it impossible. 1 they must adopt the Euro 2. No special opt outs 3 No rebate. The list is endless...

There was a lot of countries in EU who wanted to leave, as soon as they understood the results of leaving EU. They stopped. UK is suffering from Empire syndrome.

The thing that went wrong was that they allowed the English and Welsh to vote. Scotland and Ireland knew it was a bad idea and heavily voted against it. "Oh let's leave the second biggest free market economy, that's a great idea and we will prosper from it" 😢😢😢

You never appreciate what u have lost until its gone.

BREXIT IS A HUGE SUCCESS, it as worked exactly as intended. England can now maintain is fiscal paradises for the rich. That was the only intention behind leaving the rules of the common market. The day the EU proposed ending fiscal paradises the English politicians started talking about leaving the EU.

Imagine a country that has been part of an organization since the 1970s and then suddenly decides to leave without first having made a transition plan...

The Brexit instigators knew they would find themselves separated from their main market by customs barriers. They believed in British exceptionalism so much that they really thought they could negotiate access to the single market without paying the dues...

I'm shocked to hear that people believed leaving the eu would increase business. That's like telling your liver or kidneys there better off being removed from the rest of your body. They dont have to perform their functions any longer, but they no longer have blood circulating to them either.. While the government would initially save money by ceasing payments for eu policies and programs, businesses will ultimately generate less profit and pay less tax due to increased difficulty conducting foreign transactions. In the long run it simply means a reduced economy, outweighing any savings by leaving in the first place.

I have to admit that I feel a bit of Schadenfreude, but it turns into sadness and anger very quickly when I think of one of my friends who lives in the UK. 😩

The UK was my home for nine years. I waited until I had SS and left. I still miss it after 3 years and miss feeling at home, but the betrayal was too much to bear. It’s hard seeing the country I love go down the drain like this, but I remind myself that life ebbs and flows and that there will be better times ahead in the future. There must be.

Basically they want to be themselves and don't want to contribute but they still want to keep all of the priviledges and benefits of a trade union

I remember when Brexiteers said: they need us more than we need them. Maybe something gone wrong?

"Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true"

As someone who voted to remain in the EU I literally cried when they said we were out and I had nothing but abuse by friends and in the end kept silent. They are now the same ones saying it was a mistake, well duh 🙄 I can’t imagine the EU would ever want the UK back and even if it was to happen it would be as a junior or lower partner as we have proven to be unreasonable. Very sad indeed and something that should have never been given the vote for.

As someone who voted to remain in the EU I can only shake my head in amazement that so many fell for the BS of the Vote Leave campaign and are now perplexed at the problems we are facing!

Thank you Boris thank you nigel., for all this

With Brexit, Brits have proved that they still have the best sense of humour because it's also the weirdest sense of humour.

After saving 350million every week, government still doesn't have money to pay nhs nurse. Hilarious

I remember an interview with a woman in UK after the election who said she voted to leave EU just for fun and did not think it would happen. Or the interviews with the fishermen who wanted to leave EU so they did not have any restrictions on fishing and could fish in the UK water for themself. And now they do not have anywhere to sell the fish.

The UK has learned the hard way that no -country- economy is an island.

They basically got tricked with promises that made no sense, like the EU would still allow the UK tariff-free and low bureaucracy to their market. Of course that was never going to happen since then everyone would just leave if UK got that deal.

it feels good to see the market in green, but just how long until we actually break even, I’m the average retail trader, DCA-ing, buying and holding on to stocks for eons, but it’s like I’m up 5% today and down 17% the next week, Yes the market is very unpredictable, there’s winners and losers, and it’s looking like I’ve been on a losing streak, while others make huge 6figure gains in the same market. What strategies are these folks using?

Brexit turned out to be a terrible idea. Look at what happens since World War II when the UK tried to develop things on their own: the TSR.2 attack plane turned out to be too limited in function and it took the cooperation with the Germans to get the technologically superior Panavia Tornado some 15 years later. In fact, companies around the world now prefer to deal with the EU because one set of economic regulations applies to multiple countries, saving a lot of money.

While sound still travels pretty fast, even the images send from the UK get a delay these days...

Still have never seen someone say an actual benefit of leaving the eu

If I divorce my wife thinking I can do better, I can't expect her to still provide financial support and intimacy when my plans to be a player fail spectacularly, I don't get to then blame her for making my life difficult. But that seems to be the way a Brexiteers mind works.

They got what they wanted, make them enjoy their isolation and uniquness.

Brexit has played out exactly like I and many many others thought it would.

I was shocked too that after divorcing I need to leave the bedroom.

as an EU citizen living in switzerland I can tell you one thing: forgte the swiss style deal. Not because its bad, imo its great, but becaus eits super complex and delicate and because I cannot imagine British politicians having the diplomatic finesse of the Swiss to negotiate smth like that. Furtehrmore the EU hates the bilaterals with switzerland and wont be doing smth like that ever agai, im pretty sure. Fundamentally britain is not as geographically intertwined withe the EU as Switzerland is.

The public did not truly understand Brexit before the vote What a shame

What could you say if one wanted to shoot one's own foot and did it ?

The UK was never really IN. First, they didn't want to join the EEC. Then, in the sixties, they wanted to join but only on their own terms. In 1975, only two-and-a-half years after having entered, the UK had a first referendum. In 1979 Maggie wanted her money back, which she eventually did in 1984. But this was still not enough. Just before 2016, they had the best deal with exceptions and opt-outs, but it was still not enough as Cameron wanted yet more and more exceptions. It was never enough and it never would be enough. They saw the EU as a profitable free trade zone. Nothing more.

As a European, I won’t be satisfied by the UK joining the EU again before you get your house back in order politically.

Here's something interesting. Scotland was overwhelmingly for staying in the EU, and some years ago came pretty close to choosing to become independent. Could this finally tip the scale?

Thank the people who voted for Brexit and then googled Brexit the day after.

The older generation reaped the benefits and it's the rest of us who are picking up the high prices

Well, that wasn't only predictable, but it was predicted, over and over again.

The title should really be "How is the UK struggling" rather than "Why"

December 20th i put an order on Amazon UK. From France. 10 days after, still nothing. I will cancel my order and look for another in EU to order from. I didn't check first from where was the seller. Won't make the same mistake again.