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▲ jakub_g 10 hours ago

> Basically, you need to follow the tracking regularly until the package is tagged as lost or failed delivery, which is the cue to pay import fees.

> It’s the normal procedure to buy things from Europe since Brexit 2020. It’s actually quite shocking that Royal Mail still hasn’t updated their tracking system to be able to give a status “waiting on import fees to be paid online”. They had 6 years!

Wow.

▲hdgvhicv 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Another Brexit bonus

It’s no coincidence those that championed Brexit are those that wanted a weaker Europe and weaker U.K.

That’s why the majority of tax payers were against it, the majority of educated people voted against it, the majority of working people voted against it, the majority of people alive today who voted voted against it

Yet we still got it.

▲davidwritesbugs 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Bloody poor people deciding for themselves what they want. Shouldn't get a vote unless you have a degree and property. If only they'd had the sense to listen to their betters.

▲mig39 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And those poor people are objectively poorer because of Brexit. But as long as there's fewer foreigners coming in, then they're happy?

▲hdgvhicv 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There’s more foreigners coming in. Which was “project fear” back in 2016.

▲infinite8s 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those poor people voted for something for which they were explicitly mislead. The results of Brexit have in no ways made their lives better.

▲ifwinterco 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The elites made the mistake of actually putting political power in the hands of the British people for once.

Catastrophic error on their part, they won't do that again

▲bflesch 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's never to late to rejoin, we've all learned a lot about foreign propaganda in the last decade.

▲yetihehe 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Someone at Davos commented "It took you 7 years to negotiate your way out, it will take you 7 years to regret and then 7 years to negotiate back in".

▲consp 9 hours ago | parent [-]

All while losing all goodies and setting the economy back a decade.

▲Nextgrid 8 hours ago | parent [-]

But the remaining wealth of the country has successfully been extracted in the form of overpriced and not-fit-for-purpose utilities, transport companies, taxes, and so on and given to corporate interests. From their perspective it's a resounding success.

▲hdgvhicv 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Didn’t need Brexit for that - it’s been going on for decades.

▲blibble 7 hours ago | parent [-]

with most of the privatisations triggered by EU law!

▲ulfw 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You must have forgotten Thatcher

▲blibble 5 hours ago | parent [-]

she was certainly a fan, but the spark for the match for almost all of the privatisations was EU/EEC directives

if the UK had never joined the EEC those industries would likely still be under government ownership

(for better or worse, water certainly was a disaster, but telecoms and airlines seem to have gone reasonably well)

and rail was done post Thatcher, with her on record as saying it is "a step too far"

▲LightBug1 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I wouldn't strictly put all of them at the feet of the EU. While what you say is true, the Conservatives were frothing to privatise whatever they could. Labour just went along with the process (and I'm no Labour supporter either).

The one I won't forgive was our water. I believe we're the only developed country to have privatised our water, with disastrous consequences.

And that one can be squarely laid at the feet of Margaret 'Fucking" Thatcher (real name).

▲blibble 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> The one I won't forgive was our water. I believe we're the only developed country to have privatised our water, with disastrous consequences.

100% agreed

there's no market or competition at any level (even RAIL had somewhat competitive bidding for franchises)

they're just Henry VIII style granted monopolies, with the results are the same as they were 800 years ago

(well, other than the civil war bit)

> And that one can be squarely laid at the feet of Margaret 'Fucking" Thatcher (real name).

water was another EU triggered one: the EU (EEC) kept writing new water directives, and the government couldn't figure out another way to fund their implementation

▲iknowstuff 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is wrong.

A large chunk of the “classic” UK sell-offs were 1980s to early 1990s: BT (1984), British Gas (1986), British Airways (1987), and by 1991 regional electricity and water companies had been privatised.

A lot of EU single-market liberalisation in network industries ramped up later (late 1980s/1990s, and beyond). For example, telecoms EU “competition” directives begin in 1988/1990 and are amended through the 1990s. Meanwhile, the UK government had already announced plans to sell major chunks of BT by 1982, and BT’s privatization was implemented through UK legislation. England/Wales water privatization was created by Water Act 1989.

▲wizzwizz4 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If the government couldn't figure out a way to fund their implementation, then either the government was insufficiently-wily (in which case, they could've hired wily consultants), or it was genuinely impossible without taking money from another pot. If the latter, then selling to a for-profit corporate structure was the worst possible decision they could've made.

▲blibble 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm absolutely certain mountains of useless consultants were involved

▲tonyedgecombe 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We need a whole generation to die off before that becomes likely.

In the mean time we should move closer when the opportunity rises.

▲bloomingeek 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'll bite on this one. I've been saying to anyone who will listen here in the states: my generation, the Boomers, needs to die out and/or get the hell out of the way. We're trashing almost everything because of a cult of hero worship.

▲fnimick 6 hours ago | parent [-]

While I used to agree with you, based on the most recent polling, Gen X and Gen Z are both farther right than Boomers are these days. So we're fucked long term too.

▲bflesch 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Don't be so sure that the next generation automatically gets less indoctrinated.

Facebook at least documented content interactions out in the open. With tiktok you don't notice what kind of content someone consumes.

There are tens of thousands of people working a full time job just to influence people in democratic countries to act/vote against their interests. Then we have hundreds of thousands more in advertisement industry with their own interests, mainly in line with goals of US companies.

There is reason for optimism because if everyone is on tiktok it becomes "uncool" again but still it is a very dangerous tool.

▲Reason077 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> "Paid the fee online, 20% VAT + a few pounds of handling fees ... It’s the normal procedure to buy things from Europe since Brexit 2020."

Why don't Amazon and other online retailers just charge you the UK VAT when you order and ship it "VAT paid", so it doesn't get held up at the border?

That's how it works in New Zealand. You pay New Zealand's GST when you place an order, not after it arrives. Any online retailer that ships over a certain volume of products to New Zealand is required to implement this.

▲alibarber 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Strangely, if I order from Amazon UK to Finland in the EU, the VAT is already all included and it comes directly to me, no customs. Even for some third party sellers too.

▲neilwilson 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It would be far better if we could get a government in who would use Brexit freedoms to scrap VAT and all the other sales and import taxes. They are an administrative nightmare and both unnecessary and ineffective. Stick to simpler taxes.

The problem is that we have one side who loves all things EU and the other that loves all things neoliberal - both of which are obsessed with sales taxes for some reason

▲laurencerowe 4 hours ago | parent [-]

VAT is not really all that complicated and accounts for around 15% of the UK tax take. Moving that to income tax would mean a substantial redistribution from working people to pensioners and incentivise moving more production abroad.

Import taxes are pretty complicated but unilaterally removing them would mean we would have nothing to negotiate tariff free access to foreign markets.