I’m yet to meet a leaver

[ScafellPoke]

Or have I but they’re just too ashamed to admit it?

"All the Remainers who despise Leavers just for their views really need to give their heads a wobble and get some bloody perspective and learn the meaning of tolerance and respect"

But it ISN'T just for their views. It's their actions, in voting for Leave. As a result of that action they have limited the life options, outlook, and expectations of all of us. I am thinking more immediately of my teenage daughter. So no, I will not 'respect' the refusnik Leaver voters who celebrate in their ignorance of how the world actually works, or their childish stubbornness to reflect on how their racism/thickness/false patriotism/gullibility/selfish financial interest/ignorance (and anything else) affects us all.

They can def. fuck off to the very furthest side of fuck.

My in laws. Land owners who get high subsidies from the EU. When they found out they wouldn't get that anymore they went fairly quiet.

2 of their children have now lost their jobs due to Brexit. They hugely regret their decision.

I know 3

My parents: northern working class Labour voters. Immigrants taking our jobs etc

A neighbour in London. Late 40's, Cleverest most gentle and kindest man I know. Well travelled. Educated but not privileged. Jewish. Gay. Researched well. Annoyed with bureaucracy and wanted to get rid of the EU due to their increasing expectations of power. Also was aware of the cultural and 'tribal' nature of UK communities that needed consideration and preservation. I totally agree with him.
I voted remain but we had incredible conversations both before and after the vote. I respected his decision. He mine. We still discuss it. He is sad it's degenerated to this level. We both are.
Should the vote happen again? His concerns are not abated. Neither are mine if I'm honest.

MrPan

To paraphrase Windowsareforcheaters

"This goes both ways"

Unless people get off their high horses no compromise will ever be met.

And frankly for a side that preaches tolerance and inclusion. Some are just showing what hypocritical bigots they are.

I know a handful. I can have respect for some reasons for voting to leave the EU but a few family members voted for racist, ignorant reasons such as 'keeping the Afghans out'.

A People's Vote could potentially overturn the result simply by more young people voting being on the electoral register this time. A couple of percent change in opinion would clinch it, it was only won by 4% on a turn out of two thirds or so.

BBJ Happy to NOT be tolerant and inclusive of the type I refer to in my last post. For the reason given.

MrPan

Does it ever occur to you that you could be wrong? Or that you could not fully understand people's reasons.

I don't understand people's refusal to engage with different views, even those that you find really difficult to understand. A lot has been said about racist leave voters but is anyone really listening to what those people are saying. Of course there are a few absolute idiot racists out there but on the whole most people aren't really racist. We need to actually listen to what these people who are expressing these views are saying, what their experiences are. Only then can we challenge those views and find ways to alleviate the issues. If we label those who are expressing concerns about immigration or employment or about how the area in which they live has been changed massively, then we just push them further into the arms of the actual racists.

MrPan

You’re not doing your side any favours by constantly referring to leave voters as thick racists.
I didn’t want Thatcher running the country for years but she did - because people thought differently to me & wanted her in power. I had to live with it.
People had to live with Blair, millions hated him! but they had to live with it.
Life goes on.
Remainers have a real problem with accepting different opinions.

There is no compromise though.

The best we can hope for is no violence and try to retain some level of civilised political debate. But TBH I think that boat has sailed.

People are so viscerally angry, jobs are lost, life chances on hold, crushing expectations how can you be polite to someone who has voted in a way that has changed the course of your life for the worse?

I'm not saying you should but I can understand why people feel this angry.

It's such a tragedy for the country.

@surferjet

Remainers have a real problem with accepting different opinions

Will you stop lumping all Remainers together!

You want people to accept that leavers have differing motivations but then you say Remainers are all the same.

how can you be polite to someone who has voted in a way that has changed the course of your life for the worse?

Maybe get off social media?
You don’t have to be on here arguing with leavers.

surferjet

It was a rhetorical question.

How can you be polite to people who don't care about you? It is a way of focusing a debate. It does not require a literal response.

Anything else you need help with?

Windowsareforcheaters

You’re right yes. Sorry!

some remainers - & I think they are the minority. Most remain voters just want to get on with it like leavers & respect the referendum result.

I assume every person of my parents generation who didn't get higher/further education is a leaver, and every person my generation or younger with a university education is a remainer.

So someone of your generation with a 'degree' from a former technical college is automatically more intelligent that someone from mine who did a 4 year nursing or engineering qualification before people started believing that a degree in anything at all was the be all and end all? And you think they taught you critical thinking.

MrPan

If you are the Pan (and there has been a few new ones), my respect for you has always been that you have listened and argued the points put to you.

Even if you didn't agree with me or others your points were well thought out and took in to consideration the points of those taking the opposite side.

For myself I have always been a fence sitter, I will often argue the opposite point of view to my own or others, either to try and get others to understand why people did what they did or to better my own understanding.

Brexit has been true anomaly because I have found myself being pushed further and further in to the leavers points of view.

Why? Because there is no give in the hardcore remainers.
In the beginning they asked why the poor would vote for Brexit and I (and others) tried to explain, and got back jargon and general abuse and ignorance.
Other questions were asked and I (and others) answered and got back the same.

We even had the whiny posts of 'why won't leavers engage' again explained and abuse followed.

So I and others gave up.

Why?

Because no one listens, its what got us into this mess.

No-one listened then, no-one is listening now.

And all that is happening is abuse is being spouted by hardliners on both sides.

Anything else you need help with?

You any good at putting shelves up?

I live in a remain stronghold and work in academia - in an area of research which is highly dependent on EU funding so I don't really come into contact with leavers very much at all. In fact I only know two.

Unfortunately one of the two is my dad. He is a massive racist and voted leave solely to get all the (insert racial slur of your choice here) out of the country. I'm very low contact with him but we do have the misfortune to speak, he rubs his hands with glee, giving me a countdown to the day when Britain becomes Great again. Interestingly he believes my mum also voted leave but she tells me she didn't and is terrified that he'll find out she defied him.

The other leaver in my life is my uncle who wrote a passionate and articulate post on social media at the time of the referendum, outlining his reasons for voting the way he did, which were all economical and he did seem to have done his research. I completely disagreed and had my own counter-arguments to his views but I can't fault the way he went about it which wasn't just a knee-jerk reaction. Since then, he's completely swung the other way and is very vocal in calling for a peoples' vote as he feels he was duped and lied to.

Brexit will have such an immediate effect on my career, my family and the way we live our lives that it is pretty much on my mind 24/7 and is the focus of pretty much every discussion and formal meeting at work right now so I do find it really interesting to come into threads like this and find that there are people and areas of the country where it barely registers or where leavers and remainers live harmoniously within families and marriages.

I voted remain but 3 family members voted leave.
One is undoubtedly a bit racist, enjoys Roy Chubby Brown type “humour” etc...

The other two are intelligent, educated and well informed.

No-one listened then, no-one is listening now

Well Vincent enough people listened to vote for Brexit.

The trouble with this issue is their is no 'give' we are either in or out. Leaves don't want a compromise of staying in the SM and Remainers don't want to lose FOM and the SM.

Both sides are intransigent because that is the nature of the debate.

I have listened and can absolutely and totally understand why people voted as a cry of desperation. Many voices in poor and impoverished communities are totally ignored in the U.K.. I just really believe Brexit will make their situation worse.

What I really struggle with are middle class, middle aged, well off people who will not suffer the worse aspects of Brexit voting for notional ideas of 'democracy' and 'sovereignty' - arguments I have yet to meet one person able to sustain beyond feelz.

Gosh. I voted remain and live in an area that the majority voted remain. I still know lots of leavers.

Windowsareforcheaters

Well Vincent enough people listened to vote for Brexit.

congrats on the smarmy bullshit response, it makes my point.

You do know that there will be racist remain voters out there too, right? Voting to remain in the EU because you think it's advantageous, doesn't mean you can't possibly be racist. People vote for all sorts of reasons - self interest being one of them.
I don't go around assuming all remainers are a homogeneous group, with the same priorities and concerns and beliefs. Am fed up of the narrative that remainers are all lovely people and leavers are all selfish and evil!

It seems some people believe in democracy and tolerance, only so long as everyone holds the same views as them. Any deviation and they start making noises about how some people shouldn't get a vote because they are too old or that this shouldn't be a decision for the people at all.

There is definitely a win-win situation here.

Revoke Art 50 and stay in the EU. Avoid horrendous damage to the economy, jobs and lives (though it will take time to repair the harm already done to our reputation).

At the same time - listen to the reasons why people voted leave. Most of them were nothing to do with the EU really, so they won't be solved by leaving. Apply the restrictions to FOM which are already available. Reduce inequality, treat people with dignity and stop cycles of poverty.

HoustonBess

Shush.

Talking sense is not allowed. :)

Can we all just agree it's a shit show whatever way you voted, the country is in the hands of a breathtakingly incompetent group of twatbadgers but we will still have to soldier on because we're British and that's what we do?

Thanks in advance.