Remainer 'moral superiority'

[coffeeaddict]

I voted Remain but I dithered and I can see both sides of the argument. (Am I the only one?! Everyone else seems to be so polarised.)

What gets me, especially when I've read discussions on here, is all the very vociferous Remainers who talk as though they have a claim to the moral high ground.

I find the accusation that Brexiteers are 'racist' particularly weird. Europe is mostly white like us. How does race play a card? If anything, letting our borders open to all and every European (majority white) means necessarily less room for other people from different countries and therefore different races.

In fact, what is the EU? A band of rich, predominantly white countries banding together to be more powerful. Fine, this might be best for our trade and prosperity. It might be pragmatic. We might like feeling we could go and live in Spain one day. But that's not the same as being morally 'better'.

But a lot of Remainers behave as though they are inherently 'virtuous' and Brexit is inherently 'evil.'

I don't get it.

People did have the chance to vote that way if they felt it was a major issue. You said there was no one to vote for, there was.

Moral superiority doesn't come into to it - it is downright common sense. People who voted leave didn't have a clue what they were voting for. Two years after the referendum those who pushed the leave agenda still have no clue how it is going to work. Voting leave was essentially voting for no plan. Placemats nails it for me and I'm copying her link so people don't need to scroll back to find it. Everyone should listen to this.
Anna Soubry sums it up for me. I honestly don't believe that those who voted to leave thought the consequences would be so catastrophic for their livelihoods. They certainly don't have gold plated pensions and inherited wealth and they certainly lack intelligence.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-44853389/tory-mp-anna-soubry-attacks-wealthy-brexiteers

You said there was no one to vote for, there was.

Actually, I didn't. I asked who there was to vote for, knowing that you could only suggest a party with no chance of getting into power.

Now I'm out.

"I asked who there was to vote for, knowing that you could only suggest a party with no chance of getting into power."

But there was someone to vote for.

If the British electorate had felt that it was such a big issue they would have voted that way.

In the end they didn't, and to inspire the brexit vote the leave campaign had to make it about a lot of other things other than issue to do with the EU.

I voted leave.

I have always argued that the EU immigration policy is racist as it prioritises white immigration over the Commonwealth.

Immigration from Eastern Europe has meant reduced immigration from Nigeria, India, Pakistan etc.

If you speak to someone from India or Nigeria, they have great English, they were taught British history in schools, they have an affinity to Queen and country and I sense they want to build their lives here.

I'm not saying that all eu immigrants don't but there are obviously Alot here who come for a few years, send money back home because the pay is better, but don't have the same vested interest in the country.

I don't necessarily want less immigration and I'm in favour of immigration, but I believe we should choose who comes into the country, based on ability to speak the language and fulfil skills we don't have.

Re needing eu doctors and nurses for the NHS, there are doctors and nurses all over the world who would work here, plus we should be training our own population. Same with fruit pickers or any role we apparently 'need' the eu for.

What skill does it take to pick strawberries from a field or apples from a tree? The loss of these migrant workers, that have always been here in the UK is devastating.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/09/lack-of-migrant-workers-left-food-rotting-in-uk-fields-last-year-data-reveals

What about the Windrush generation?

@givemesteel - did you vote Leave as an anti racism strategy? If so, what did you think of the racist vitriol some other Leavers were spouting including the twat that murdered Jo Cox for political reasons.

I don't think this was ever a moral argument as such but a matter of outlook. For a lot of remainers I know this was a question of increased mobility, a sense of openness, but also a pragmatic view that brexit was too high risk in an already uncertain world. The business case just wasn't there unless, like Fox and Hannan, you believe in an ultra liberal approach ripping up all regulations and letting goods in tariff free. There was also a strong sense that disentangling 40+ years of agreements across all aspects of business and law was bound to be a nightmare. Finally, but that's perhaps less common, for some older remainers there is the ghost of war: the conviction that NATO and a purely military alliance is not enough to keep Europe safe, that only intertwined interests can keep so many different nations in a relatively small space truly on the same side. I'd say current geopolitical trends should strengthen that view... simply put: we need friends, literally close to us.

bellinisurge why are you asking about anti racist strategy? Did you not read Gives post.

In the history of British democracy I don't think there has ever been an election where the winning side has whined and moan as much as in this one. I'm positive that some proportion of the leave vote subconsciously wanted to lose so that they could see themselves as put-upon victims of the terrible "elites". Now they've actually won they're desperately flapping around trying to find some way to justify their sense of grievance.

I'm positive that some proportion of the leave vote subconsciously wanted to lose so that they could see themselves as put-upon victims of the terrible "elites" really?

Now they've actually won they're desperately flapping around trying to find some way to justify their sense of grievance. Really?

"I have always argued that the EU immigration policy is racist as it prioritises white immigration over the Commonwealth. "

Yet non EU immigration is higher than EU immigration and has always been?

"Alot here who come for a few years, send money back home because the pay is better, but don't have the same vested interest in the country. "

Yet the no 1 destination for remittances in the UK is Pakistan with over 15%, followed by India, then Nigeria?

Quietrebel the conviction that NATO and a purely military alliance is not enough to keep Europe safe It has though, for 70 years next year, longer than the ECSC/EEC/Eu has been about. Article 5 guarantees it, and who would really, if Article 5 is invoked, want to take on the US military? None of the EU Member states who are also NATO nations could do so.

"longer than the ECSC/EEC/Eu has been about. "

Well as the ECSC was founded 1951 and NATO 1949 I think we are splitting hairs there.

NATO and the EU ( in all its forms) have been able to keep the peace in Europe.

Oh and who could take on the US military? Well the Iraqis and Vietcong managed.

Posts like give's tend to annoy me because I don't think they're intellectually very honest. I personally agree the immigration system needs a massive overhaul and that everyone should be treated fairly. I have seen non EU friends & acquaintances unceremoniously kicked out by the HO.... that being said, comparing non EU and EU immigration is frankly BS. Non EU, Commonwealth countries like India Pakistan and Nigeria have a complicated relationship with their former colonizers to say the least; to argue they care MORE about Britain precisely because of that past is just weird. And patronising. The economic gap is much larger between those countries and the UK so you're more likely to see migrants from there send money home (ever walked into a Western Union shop?). As for the level of English, kids in the EU learn it and learn it well... but apart from that, the very nature of EU immigration is different: it's more casual so a lot of people come in every year but a lot leave as well. Including Brits to the EU. Net figures are therefore lower. Whether you like it or not , EU countries are closer (in all respects) and for most of them, of a similar standard of living to that of the UK. Poland catching up nicely btw. I really dislike anyone implying that one type of immigrant is better than another. They're very different but neither are a problem for the country.

So, so far, one of the brilliant results of Brexit from March will be ability to have tighter controls on EU immigration. (because they're not vested in the country like Nigerians and Indians).

So even though we could have put tighter EU immigration mechanisms in place without brexit, Brexitteers still think that's worth the economy tanking, our NHS crumbling, Irish peace agreement in trouble, and food supply difficulties.

Have we got any other great news?

Yes I agree with you completely op.

There was literally no plan for Leave.
No-one would vote in an election for a party without a manifesto.

Now we stand to lose our workers' rights, air quality, clean beaches, clean water, peace amongst many other things. For what?

Of course I judge those who voted for this. I feel more upset and sad now then I did then. It's a terrifying world and Brexit and Trump are too sides of the same coin.

You won the referendum. You don't get to tell me how I feel.

In the history of British democracy I don't think there has ever been an election where the winning side has whined and moan as much as in this one.

This!

Be glad its just a bit of smug superiority. If I showed you how I really felt it would be a lot messier!

Yeah in two years time, they’ll all be pretending to be Remainers.

My experience of the EU has been that it us rather amoral (cough cough Germany 'wlecoming' refugees on the proviso that they make a dangerous seas crossing and trek through several other European countries first. They knew that deaths would spike, they didn't give a shit because the people dying weren't Germans).

Topcat no, we are not splitting hairs. NATO was founded in 1949. The ECSC took some while to morph into the EU in its present form. If you bother to read my post very carefully the very clear inference is that none of the EU member states who are also NATO nations, (given the parlous state of their defences), would be able to face down the US military. Thus, peace is assured.

The EU as is now was actually founded in 1997 with Maastricht, and the legal structure of the EU was changed with Lisbon in 2002, so NATO had been going and keeping the peace for at least 48 years up to Maastricht.

Racedriver, Germany welcoming migrants was a GERMAN decision, not an EU one. Proof if any that individual countries within the EU are sovereign indeed.