Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.I need to put myself forward to tell you how most of us feel about this drama that is Brexit.
As citizens we remain unheard and unrepresented and find there’s no one who is listening to us anymore.
I voted for Brexit in the referendum but as the years rolled on and the talks and negotiations made no sense to the common man, I slowly realised that the referendum and manifesto promises were lies and the oven-ready deal have never materialised (so more lies). I am enraged that I am not getting what I voted for! I know I am not alone.
Are we sitting back and allowing elections to be won on blatant lies and not holding those same people accountable? If you got a job via lies and kept lying, would your employer turn a blind eye and allow you to still stay on?
Brexit feels like receiving a purchase and it’s not as described – only that this comes with a “no return” clause and it cannot be recycled next Christmas!
A no-deal Brexit is, probably, only looking good for Boris Johnson and his cabinet. Didn’t Boris once say that a no deal would be bad... another U-turn perhaps?
Wasn’t Brexit supposed to make our life better? Apparently, it’s going to be far from it. Already, UK citizens could be barred from entering the EU from 1 January because of our high cases of Covid-19. Who’s responsible for that then?
The very prime minister who through shambolic leadership and lies is, nonetheless, allowed to deliver on such an important decision that will affect so many people’s livelihoods and plans. Is there no one to hold him to account? Even with a landslide majority win?
Put it back to the people if this Brexit is what we want. Lay the final deal out to us in its entirety (in layman terms). How many of us know what an Australian-style Brexit vs Canadian-style Brexit is? What real consequences are to be had with either a deal or no deal?
It might be too late but why not try? Extend the transition period; this was offered by the EU as we are fighting a global pandemic. Give us, the British people, a say.
After all, we were trusted with that decision in 2016. Let us decide again with the full, honest facts. Let this not be Johnson’s Brexit just to boost his ego and his name in history.
Binda Pathak
Address supplied
So the EU will not back down. We had the best terms with opt-outs and rebates and like a greedy schoolboy we still want more. Theresa May tried divide and rule – it failed, and the current PM tries the same tactic again and fails. Why?
Charles de Gaulle was right 70 years ago when he said the UK didn't know whether it wanted to be part of the USA or Europe. We have been a Trojan horse for the USA, now it will not have the same soft influence on EU policy through the UK.
The EU will continue protecting its citizens from a race to the bottom over weak labour laws and lower food standards.
The price of Brexit for the EU will be the removal of an irritant, one they consider worth the cost.
Like the boy who cried wolf, we did it once too many times.
Alan Hutchinson
Address supplied
Is this the new global free trading Britain? The news has broken that we have four ships of the royal navy ready in the Channel to protect fish, most of which we have no capacity to catch and for much of which we have no market.
All this whilst negotiations for our future harmonious dealings with the largest trading group on Earth hang in the balance.
Is this where Boris Johnson and his renegade band of Brexiteers have led us? A stunt aimed at giving the right wing of his party and a jingoistic press something warm to bask in, or an alarming view of the future?
There is no such thing as a trading nation with total so-called sovereignty. It is a myth being peddled by Johnson and his cohorts, pandering to a right-wing, populist, flag-waving press. Neither can there be an isolated fishing industry. This gunboat diplomacy shows how far from reality this dangerously incompetent deluded government is.
David Mason
Darlington
Boris Johnson has failed this country and failed his party. Well, I say that he’s failed his party but the bare truth is that Johnson has never been a true Conservative – not with a capital C nor yet with a small one.
He has only ever been playing a part, while his sole actual interest has been nothing more than naked self-promotion. He played at being a Conservative merely because those were the people with whom he grew up, insofar as that he ever grew up at all.
With his foolhardy, devil-may-care approach to the United Kingdom’s fortunes (not to mention his notoriously casual relationship with the truth; very much akin to his approach to fidelity), this self-styled jester has betrayed the very essence of Conservatism and now betrayed the nation itself.
The time has come for the government to call an urgent vote of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership. Someone else must now take the reins and try to steer a course to save us from a calamitous no-deal scenario. At the moment he is very much the wrong man in the wrong place at the worst possible time.
Julian Self
Milton Keynes
Jess Phillips hits the nail on the head when she says in her piece: “We need a good deal that protects our workers, our rights, our livelihoods and our household budgets, and not one that feeds the egos of Tory MPs.”
It has become ever clearer in the Brexit negotiations that this Tory government believes it’s all about them: their winning the game, their admiring themselves in the mirror of their own ideas and polishing their own egos.
They give no thought to the people on whose behalf they are supposed to be acting. They have no concern for the practical consequences of their games for families and for businesses.
The Conservatives have always been the party of self-interest – this government takes it to the extreme.
Helen Bore
Scarborough
Boris Johnson’s objection to ongoing harmonisation with the EU – on level playing field rules – only makes sense if he intends to have lower standards than the EU.
If he intended to have better workers’ rights and environmental laws than the EU it would be they who would have to come up to our standards in such an agreement.
Steve Neachell
Address supplied
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments