To ask what leavers have against Poles?

[allegretto]

I keep on seeing posts complaining about Poles (hardworking, young and pay more taxes than they take out). Why?? Most Poles go back after a few years anyway! I know people say it was not a racist decision - so I don't get it. A good proportion of the pensioners in Spain will be back when pensions are frozen and they DO use the NHS and other resources more due to age. So why are they preferable if not rac ism?

I don't think you can say it was mostly the North and cornwall who wanted to leave.....not unless you have a Londoner's idea of the North I guess.

Looking at a map it seems most of the country apart from Scotland and london and some of the Home Counties and bits of Wales and the odd small pocket like Cambridge voted to leave. But plenty of the South and Midlands voted to leave

What a rude post Peregrina. Only time will tell if Brexit is a huge mistake or the best thing we ever did. The young Remain people may be right and the elderly Brexiters have sold them out for misinformation and racism but, equally, it may yet turn out to be a good thing which the young would miss out on for the promise of cheaper holidays.

I saw a very well written post earlier today from an older woman saying she was angry at the posts suggesting the young were all better educated and more aware when most of them did not know about the history and workings of the EU, the Maastricht Treaty or understand the fear the country felt when we dropped out of the ERM (which in some ways is not dissimilar to the fear a lot are feeling now).

I am in my 50s and discussed this referendum at length with both my children before deciding how to vote. My mother, in her 80s, spoke to all of her children and grandchildren before deciding on hers. Both of us took those views on board then applied intelligence to reach our decisions. How dare you write people off because of age?

People are entitled to their vote without being sneered at for age, education, geographical location or anything else

No not London and Cornwall only, but in Oxfordshire where I live for just one example the split was almost even with the Leave's edging it by about 0.4%. So they get coloured blue on the map, but it doesn't show just how close it was. A handful more voters could have turned it the other way. I don't know how many other areas are like that, but I bet there are quite a few.

I voted Brexit, no nothing at all, we need immigration for the economy to survive and to contribute to diversity of the country. I don't agree with unrestricted immigration, there has to be a boundary.

I had a lovely solidarity hug with one of my Polish friends today. I've worked with many Polish people too - they are fantastic.

peregrina Where did all the doctors and lawyers come from before 1975 then? You really are making a very sill statement there!

I would much rather listen to a 70 yr old than an 18 yr old anyway! They have no life experience, they haven't live long enough to form a mature opinion. my views have changed completely since i was 18.

Sorry, what is silly when saying that older people are less well educated? It is just a fact that a relatively small percentage of people went onto higher education. This is not a statement of their intellectual capacity by any means, and nor did I mean to imply that it was.

I am in my mid sixties, and yes, I had studied the workings of the European Coal and Steel community which predated the EEC as it then was, (I suspect before a good many of you were born or were still in infants school). I left home from the North Midlands and went away to University, in the south east, and never went back. Many of us did that, so it's the ones with less formal education who tended to get left behind.

What is never stated is how the over 65s are all lumped together. This encompasses my generation - the tail end of the baby boom, and you could say the Inter-rail generation who took foreign holidays so we are or were quite enthusiastic Europeans. An older generation, like my parents, didn't go abroad, tended not to agree with the Common Market, and I have a suspicion that it's those who voted to leave. However, even among this group there are those who were actively involved in the War and believe that the EU is or could be a vehicle for promoting peace.

Where did the Doctors and Lawyers come from? I don't know about lawyers but medical professionals came from Commonwealth Countries in large numbers.

It is just a fact that a relatively small percentage of people went onto higher education.

True, but even then, it doesn't necessarily mean they were less well educated IMO. There are so many more vocational and practical degrees now, so a lot of graduates have learned the same things in their course that a few decades ago they'd have learned at work. So I would say they're equally educated but without the piece of paper to show for it.

True, but even then, it doesn't necessarily mean they were less well educated IMO.

Quite, but the official stats were just going by the pieces of paper granted.

A Polish person I work with told me that in general, Polish people are not too keen on people who aren't white and aren't keen on Muslims/others with different religions. Is this the case? It is true that I see then mostly keep themselves to themselves where I live.

N.B I have nothing against Polish people at all!

hotdiggery that's a sweeping generalisation....the same as me saying the English don't like Polish people
There are xenophobic/racist Polish people the same as there are xenophobic/racist British people!!

Poland is a very racist country to non white people and so is Russia and Ukraine etc, to people who appear to be of African descent in particular.

Polish people are not used to other nations/religions because 98% of Poles are Catholics. All changed since Poland joined European u 12 years ago. People moved and married different nations /races Tec. Its not that bad anymore .

My GF left school at 14 but retired as the Chief Standards Officer in the design team of Concorde. My parents (a naval pilot and a SRCN) left school after school certificate, as did my parents-in-law (also pilot and nurse). I am still the only member of my immediate family with a degree. University was not the only way to a professional career before the 1980s. In the 1970s, fewer than 5% of school leavers went to university, and that was after the foundation of the red-bricks in the 1960s. It doesn't make those older people stupid because they were born before social media.

Weekend away oh really ? And you know this because? ... it's like saying every English person drinks tea and is too arrogant to learn other language.. btw as you can see since Thursday Brits confirmed they are not as welcoming as everyone thinks so there

Pfor I was a bit at Weekend's comment too....

Or naive, or disingenuous. They experienced war and rationing (which went on until 1957 for certain items); did the washing by hand and lived without fridges and central heating. The UK of the mid 20 century was not very different to less developed countries now.

I have not yet visited central Europe (a pleasure I look forward to, assuming I will be allowed in ) but I guess contemporary conditions there are like a bit like 1970s Britain during the three day week.

So do you think everyone who voted Remain loves Poles?

East European football crowds do have a certain reputation .

Scaredycat - my Polish neighbour came here as a displaced person in the 1940s. She never took up UK citizenship and is now worrying whether she'll have to leave the place where she's made her home and brought up 5 children all with good jobs.

I didn't think UK football fans had all that good a reputation either.

Football fans now .... for the love of God ....

I think it's (a little) better than in the 70s, but have to grant that, in general, they have not braced the delights of multicultural, omnisexual diversity.