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Brexit is done, the oven-ready turkey has long since been cooked, Britannia has recovered her independence - and yet, and yet ...

So howzabout a thread to discuss all things still Brexity? On the Other Forum, I observed that "Brexit" was crystallised almost entirely into a discussion about "the Northern Irish Protocol" and "Amazon VAT bargains" with very little impact on the people of Ireland other than that. For those of us looking at GB from the East rather than the West, Brexit is a right frucking pain in every orifice.

Anyhow, two recent Brexit stories in the Guardian caught my eye:

(1) Karma'll bite you on the ass:

Brexit supporters reacted with fury this week when the commission said plans for a European travel information and authorisation system (Etias) were on track to come into force for travellers in late 2022.
...
The British government was one of the “biggest supporters” of EU plans to require non-EU nationals to obtain authorisation and pay a fee to enter the bloc’s passport-free travel zone, the Guardian has learned.

The fee is negligible, but I reckon the authorisation - or lack of it - will lead to a few interesting meltdowns in airport and ferry port arrival lounges, where British residents are already now living in a two-tier society: those with EU passports and the freedom to wander when- and wherever they want in the EU, and the Britannia-Blue passport holders who are "on the clock" as soon as they leave their island. The sadist in me is waiting to read about some poor couple's HONEYMOON being WRECKED because the groom forgot to renew his ETIAS.

(2) A Brexit win - 19 agreements instead of one!

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) this week released a statement headlined “Visa-free short-term touring allowed in 19 member states”. It said that following discussions with every EU member state it could confirm that performers did not need visas or work permits for short-term tours in 19 countries.

This indirectly affects me personally, as we would always have had British performers at the festival I'm involved with. But this doesn't really solve the problem, because these are not Big Name Headliners - they're small groups, or individuals, who travel with a commercial sideline that makes the trip worthwhile for them and for us. And the commercial sideline is still mired in Brexity red tape.

Two years in, with a global pandemic to boot, and all the remain sides short term forecasts of doom about Brexit never manifested, and it looks like the medium term is going to work out okay too.

What really strikes me in retrorespect is that the remain side focused entirely on the negative economic aspects of Brexit. The Remain side was overwhelmingly populated by liberal social democrats whos enthusiasm for the EU was fuelled by social and cu…login to view the rest of this post