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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

... for those who are devastated about Brexit, how are you dealing with the fear and depression and anxiety?

775 replies

testytesting · 29/03/2017 09:58

Has anyone got any strategies? I am genuinely not one for melodrama, but I am devastated, angry, terrified, depressed, and I feel so utterly helpless. Nothing in my lifetime has made me feel like this, and I just can't imagine feeling like this for the next two years and beyond. I can hardly bear to listen to the news, but I feel compelled to anyway. How are other remainers dealing with this, what are your coping strategies? And what, if anything, can we DO?

OP posts:
BillSykesDog · 06/04/2017 01:35

I have spoken to quite a few migrants as most of my husband's workmates are. All the settled ones say the same thing. That it's not possible to bring up a family with a decent standard of living in this country on the wages currently available. They are trying to feed and clothe and house families of four or five competing against people who pitch tents in woodlands and have almost no living costs for jobs!

I don't care about the nationality or race of the people concerned, many of the people concerned are two Polish or Lithuanian parent families who've been here most of their adult lives and intend to stay and have families and lives here. (And no, outside MN most of them are sensible enough to realise they're probably going to be allowed to stay once negotiations are completed and aren't hyperventilating about forced repatriations and withdrawal of healthcare, families being ripped apart etc, etc because they're not hysterics).

This isn't the first place this has happened, off the top of my head it happened when Singapore was colonised - large numbers of transient low paid workers push down wages and push up prices to the point where only the rich can afford to bring up families. Aside from those lucky enough to get social housing before it ran out this is largely the case in the SE of England now.

And yes, I do think it is more important that people who are settled can afford a decent standard of living than transient workers who intend to work here temporarily to enrich themselves can afford to buy a fancy house in their homeland or retire early. I would always prioritise people wanting the basics to live above people wanting to actually get wealthy.

It is starting to change a little as the weak pound has meant the most mobile workers are starting to think about going elsewhere.

All this 'oh the working class is going to be hit hardest': I don't think there is a huge amount of evidence for this, particularly as most EU funding goes into jobs associated with middle class white collar labour. But even if it does happen, I find the general attitude is that it can't get much worse, so it's worth a gamble. The 'oh its going to be so much worse for the working classes argument' actually comes off as 'It will probably get no worse than being the same for the working classes. But we get all the good stuff if we stay in the EU so let's try and fool them into thinking it benefits them'.

I can't believe so many people are so credulous about the EU being some sort of unionised workers utopia either. The EU is a supranational organisation which prioritises market forces and the free movement of capital and labour to the advantage of business. By it's very nature it allows businesses to move easily to places where workers have the least rights, lowest pay and worst conditions in the EU circumventing unions and accessing the cheapest labour.

I don't think you can really expect people to be mugged off that the EU is a great sharing caring socialist utopia when it doesn't take much surface scratching to see it's very much geared towards enriching the rich at the expense of the poor.

optionalrationale · 06/04/2017 04:40

EU do something to me

OhtoblazeswithElvira · 06/04/2017 06:54

only the rich can afford to bring up families
Hysterics, you said? Hmm

So, again, people living in tents are pushing up prices? Confused

So many issues in your posts and the vast majority are not related to the EU. Like I said I do hope Brexit delivers for you.

BillSykesDog · 06/04/2017 07:35

Elvira, the median household income is £25,660.

Could you please explain how you would support a family of four on that without either social housing or inherited wealth in the South East? I've tried to work that one out as there are caring responsibilities down south I'd like to share and I certainly can't make a square with housing costs, childcare and travel. Definitely not in London.

BillSykesDog · 06/04/2017 07:36

And since Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU construction salaries in London have been the same as the North. So you don't even get a London weighted salary.

woman12345 · 06/04/2017 07:40

So, again, people living in tents are pushing up prices
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-sleep-tents-dunfermline-fife-scotland-a7467657.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3625089/Shanty-towns-suburbia-Migrants-working-just-40-day-living-squalid-conditions-makeshift-camps-London.html

Apologies, one of these is the Daily fail, but it is true.
It's a travesty that people are living in tents in Britain.
It's a travesty that they are being forced to compete for jobs.

Bringing up children costs a fortune now.
The welfare state did provide:
Child benefit, Widow's benefit; state prescriptions and dental care, state transport to school, state higher education; state grants for all, including working class mature students; further education for all students to access academic as well as vocational study and grants to do so; refuge and support for domestic violence survivors.

In return we paid very high taxes, but this is has been deliberately lowered along with women's pay, and although some elements of the above exist, many have been removed, so now it does take a lot of wealth or a kind family to bring up children and the hope that one is not a survivor of domestic abuse or that one falls ill.

I voted remain.

BillSykesDog · 06/04/2017 07:41

And yes, it's quite common to have transient construction workers who will live in very poor quality housing including tents and caravans so they can take lower wages but still save. But then that means people who need to support families have to take the same wages as people who will live in tents or on timeshare mattresses six to a room.

woman12345 · 06/04/2017 07:48

And I didn't even include the fake economics of the housing market. There used to be council houses. Nice council houses with fair rents, with waiting lists, but it was part of what the state provided for its citizens. It's now an utterly broken market, based on children's school results and to be honest ethnicity and class.

None of the above will be solved by Brexit, but it's one of the reasons for it.

Labour, with their tacit approval of anti semitism today are shafting Jewish British like they have been shafting the British working class for 35 years. They were no where to be seen during the miners strike and the poll tax and they have been complicit in growing inequality. Until a few months ago I volunteered at my local branch. They disgust me now.

optionalrationale · 06/04/2017 08:02

When will I see EU again?
When will we share precious moments?
Will I have to wait for ever?
Will I have to suffer and cry the whole night through?

When will I see EU again?
Sad

OhtoblazeswithElvira · 06/04/2017 08:11

No.

you explain how that is the EU'S fault and how Brexit is going to solve those problems:

Rising costs
Suppressed wages
Housing costs outstripping inflation
People making family decisions based (partly) on handouts available
Regional imbalance
Generational imbalance

Thank you

skerrywind · 06/04/2017 08:21

I'm happier now that Spain and Germany are commenting positively about Scotland being accepted as part of the EU again after Brexit.

That make my heart fly.

Hogs · 06/04/2017 08:25

I think the idea that most funding goes to white collar industries is a bit of a myth. The largest factory in my hometown was funded by the EU. Everyone has done a stint up there, including myself, and some people have been there years. It's badly paid and hard, horrible work but it put jobs back in the town when almost all other factories (including those who had been there for decades) gradually closed after materials became cheaper to source in Asia than they were to produce in the UK.
But, like I said, the region that I come from was a major beneficiary of ERD funds). Incidentally, that funding also bought high speed broadband to the region.

I do understand, however, that experiencing EU funding first hand is not something that people from other regions, especially if they are professionals (be that white collar or blue collar - my plasterer mate can earn more than I can when business is good), may not have had the opportunity to do though.

Mulledwine1 · 06/04/2017 08:37

Those saying the EU doesn't guarantee workers' rights may have a point (though I think a right-wing Tory government would have a "bonfire2 of workers' rights without the EU framework) as this morning I saw a EU court of justice case on zero hours contracts. Their advisor (Advocate General, whose opinions are followed by the court in about 80% of cases) thinks zero hours contracts for under 25s may be justifiable discrimination. The case arose in Italy.

Thanks Advocate General! Why do we think younger people deserve to be paid less for doing the same work? Same applies here for minimum wage jobs...

Mulledwine1 · 06/04/2017 08:41

I'm happier now that Spain and Germany are commenting positively about Scotland being accepted as part of the EU again after Brexit

There's really no reason at all not to accept Scotland. It will more or less fully compliant with EU law and the "having to adopt the euro" thing is always a red herring as there are lot of Eu states which haven't (yet).

I want Scotland to stay in the UK (and the UK to stay in the EU) but all the talk of making Scotland wait until the end of the queue is a nonsense. Why on earth would you want to stop a pro-EU country from joining? At the very least they can join EFTA, be part of the EEA and have most of the advantages they had before. I just hope they allow people in England to have Scottish passports...

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 09:31

Why on earth would you want to stop a pro-EU country from joining?

Many reasons, otherwise why not just let Turkey join?

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 09:33

I'm happier now that Spain and Germany are commenting positively about Scotland being accepted as part of the EU again after Brexit.

'Commenting' positively and actually voting for it when push comes to shove are two different things.

skerrywind · 06/04/2017 09:36

The EU will welcome Scotland with open arms, the final punitive measure for England.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 10:01

The EU will welcome Scotland with open arms

Glad your crystal ball is working.

Mulledwine1 · 06/04/2017 10:03

Many reasons, otherwise why not just let Turkey join

Scotland and Turkey are very very different...

howabout · 06/04/2017 10:26

I can think of no compelling reason why the EU would want Scotland.

chilipepper20 · 06/04/2017 11:09

Why on earth would you want to stop a pro-EU country from joining?

The opposition is said to come from Spain, as they are grappling with their own separatist issues.

The EU will welcome Scotland with open arms, the final punitive measure for England.

Unfortunately, I think that is what this will be about: punishing the UK. For some reason, people are in love with this organization that we expect to deal with us in bad faith. I highly expect the EU is willing to risk european well being just to make an example of us.

Hamiltoes · 06/04/2017 13:20

I voted remain but if I had the chance again it would probably be to leave. And I understand wholeharted why some voted leave.

Sick to death of this mumsnet land of milk and honey leftism. The people I know who voted leave don't even have aspirations of sending their snowflakes off to study in a university in Milan, they just want a space in the local nursery that was only built two years ago and is already too small to meet the demand.

Have any of you ever lived in a properly deprived area? I have, I had a 3 bedroom flat in the worst shite hole in the city and the flat above and below me was packed with shady HMO properties where all 3 rooms and the living room had two adults crammed in. A rent of £700 a month divided by 8 people, do you think they were demanding higher wages and better working conditions? I think not.

The people were actually great and I'd often sit out in the garden chatting to them. But there was a lot of (misplaced) hatrid towards them, instead of the council for allowing it to happen and for building nurseries not big enough for all children.

Easy to sit back from the leafy suburbs and say "oh the EU spends millions on reasearch funding" and "I want to retire in the Alps" and "People who voted leave are just racists".

The worst thing that has happened to the Remain cause is the bloody Remoaners. Get a grip!!!

BertrandRussell · 06/04/2017 13:25

My ds's school is in the catchment of an area of significant social deprivation. The Erasmus programme gave very poor children the opportunity to travel to other countries and meet people from very different backgrounds. It was invaluable. It meant that they got some of the "stuff" privileged children take for granted. It's heartbreaking that it won't happen any more.

Batgirlspants · 06/04/2017 13:30

The EU will spit out Scotland like they have Greece.

EnjoyYourVegetables · 06/04/2017 13:34

Scotland in the EU would not be good for poorer Scots. Jim Sillars formerly of SNP puts this point of view.

I don't recognise the picture of deprived kids going off on the Erasmus programme; are these distressed gentlefolk we're talking
of here ?

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