Brexit and Phones

Today I got stung when calling a UK number. The call was deducted from my 100 International minutes. I contacted Vodafone and this is what they said. It's copy and paste from a Vodafone Live Chat which lasted nearly 1h 10mins and contained a lot of confusing and contradictory information.
The final and most important lines of the chat were as set out below. At one point Vodafone was telling me it was a mistake and would be correct when my next bill is issued. However, after much checking with 'a manager,' it boiled down to the bit below.

Me
My plan includes 'Unlimited calls and texts to European mobiles and landlines plus 100 international minutes and texts. The UK is a country in Europe, why were recent calls deducted from my International minutes.

Vodafone
Please help me with the UK number which you called so that I can try to check with the team.

Vodafone
I provided this number to my manager and got an update that if you call to UK number it will be considered as an international call.

Me
So, Vodafone are confirming that calls from Ireland to UK are classed as 'International calls and NOT call to a 'European' country. Is it the same for calls to NI (Northern Ireland)

Vodafone
Northern Ireland will also be considered as an international call

Me
While you're checking about that will you also check if a Republic of Ireland customer travels near the RoI/NI border and gets picked up by a NI cell will any call/data use be charged at out of bundle 'Foreign' roaming rates

Vodafone
If you call to any country which is considered as an international call, it will be considered as a same way in roaming.

Draw your own conclusions

Sign up to viber. Pay for viber out calls. Massively good value. And no BS about roaming as far as I can see. I use it all the time for international calls. I very rarely make a call on the normal phone networks. https://account.viber.com/en/

I understood free roaming was only to all landlines or mobiles in your own country. Don’t think that has changed yet! Free European calls is a different contract.

Viber and other VOIP providers are based on data use. If calling into UK & NI it's OK but if visiting or passing through and calling out the data use will be subject roaming data charges.

In fairness, The EU did not create borders, every country always has had its borders. What the EU did was to facilitate free movement of goods and services across those borders.
The stated aim of Brexit was for the UK & NI to leave that arrangement, so reverting back to pre-EU cross border trading conditions.
I'm old enough to remember how it was back in the 1960s with all the customs warehouses and clearance documentations in the pre Ro-Ro and Lo-Lo containerisation era and knew it would be a dog's dinner going back there as all the supporting infrastructure has been repurposed. Places like Larne and Warren Point which replaced them are devoid of facilities to handle customs clearance procedures and management knowledge of them is long gone. The same goes for other UK facing points of entry and exit from the EU.

Back to phones (topic).
Remember it was the EU who brought the phone companies kicking and screaming to provide free roaming for us when travelling across borders. It is now the phone companies own business decision to revert back to their previous practice. If they wanted there is nothing to stop them from giving us free roaming anywhere they chose.
We can use our phones in Morocco and Iceland without roaming or 'foreign' charges but not in our nearest neighbours, NI.