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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if those who want to leave the EU are happy to be personally worse off in order to do so

530 replies

Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 10:28

Following lots of discussion on the subject, it’s clear that leaving the EU is based on something other than financial impact, however, even the government’s impact assessments make it clear that there will be a negative impact.

Would you still chose to leave if you knew it would make you personally financially worse off?

OP posts:
Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:27

inept politicians that won't do their job because they are afraid of losing their cushy number in parliament

And yet you thought it was a great idea to give them full control........

OP posts:
HateIsNotGood · 09/07/2019 22:28

Ok Bear I see that you are being somewhat inundated with requests to answer the many points that many posters have made.

There is a fundamental basis to a tranche of answers that involves FOM - your only response to this so far involves saying that your impression/belief of people who voted Leave is that they don't know the difference between FOM and Immigration.

Very nicely, may I point out that this is indicative of your inability to try and understand a pov that differs from yours - it doesn't suit your thinking that others think of the same thing from a different perspective - hardly unusual after all.

I know you'd rather I post a link (again!!!) on the economic impacts from FOM - I will, in my time and not at your behest - if you actually went through your own links and yer mates' on the Brexit Threads you'd find it - it's in the same studies that say that FOM has an overall postive economic impact. Check Your Facts or someting some such site.

ShowerOfBrexshit · 09/07/2019 22:31

Lol at oliversmumsarmy saying she voted remain! Shame some leavers don't own their shit.

Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:35

hate it must haven’t taken you longer to type that than find the link to what you are referring to.

If you think I don’t understand anything then perhaps you could explain the difference between FOM and EU immigration

Or explain how stopping FOM will affect immigration from non-EU countries

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EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 09/07/2019 22:37

I never said immigration wasn’t an issue

But the undercutting of wages in let’s say the building trade has been a known issue for years FOM allowed companies to exploit that. Larger number of immigrants will live in areas where there is higher poverty so it will have a bigger impact on their lives, fewer good job opportunities now there is more competition, these are often then very people that feel they have been left behind (and with wages stagnant for so long they were left behind) add to that they may feel that for them immigration has had a negative impact on their lives (school places/longer wait for gp appointments) more competitive job market and lowering of wages it’s easy to see why people felt things were unfair. If this was mentioned they were shouted down as being racists (not saying some are not) or someone from what many see as the political elite come along with some stats and ignore what they said and gave them a load of stats that didn’t reflect their experience in other words they were ignored

A very good example of this was Mary Beard and the woman from Boston on question time I can remember thinking why are so many unwilling to listen to what people are experiencing

But Farage was there to listen and add fuel to the fire which is easy when people are ignored

The writing was on the wall. As Boney has already said if our MP’s were all doing their job correctly and people were listened to we wouldn’t be in this mess

BoneyBackJefferson · 09/07/2019 22:39

Bearbehind

And yet you thought it was a great idea to give them full control........

According to you they have always had control.

I have always considered them inept, its a shame that it has taken this for you and so many people to see the same thing.

Dapplegrey · 09/07/2019 22:39

perhaps you could explain the difference between FOM and EU immigration

Why don’t you explain it since you seem to think you’re such an expert on the subject.

Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:41

dapple I don’t think there is a noticeable difference between the 2 -do you?

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Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:42

According to you they have always had control

They pretty much did, so remind me again what leave is for?

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NinjaInFluffyPJs · 09/07/2019 22:43

Tbh tho.

I would just add (from experience) "or you don't want the job"

To ask if those who want to leave the EU are happy to be personally worse off in order to do so
BoneyBackJefferson · 09/07/2019 22:47

Bearbehind

*They pretty much did,

And yet they are the same aimless, inept people that you were voting for. The difference is that you now know they they are inept and the vast majority only care about themselves and their position.

so remind me again what leave is for?

Who for?
Me?
Every Leaver?
Every remainer?

Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:49

boney you’ve lost me now - I’ve no idea what point you are arguing anymore.

Let’s just agree we’ll never agree.

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BoneyBackJefferson · 09/07/2019 22:49

NinjaInFluffyPJs

that's exactly the "you're not listening" shit that has been talked about.

BoneyBackJefferson · 09/07/2019 22:52

Bearbehind
boney you’ve lost me now - I’ve no idea what point you are arguing anymore.

Its not that complex. I'm sure that you will; work it out

Let’s just agree we’ll never agree.

Sounds good to me.

HateIsNotGood · 09/07/2019 22:55

All life isn't quantified in the same ways, as I stated way upthread, it's far easier for me to post than research - MN is 'off' time for me. I won't explain much about my life but in the spirit of The Pheasant Plucker:

I'm a self-employed single mother of a special needs son.

Easier to say over and over than pheasant plucker but comes with more challenges if you live it every day for years on end with no end in sight.

So, you now demand my explanation of the differences between Immigration and FOM? Well, easy peasy lemon squeazy, as my son would say:

Immigration a Country/Islands has some control over
FOM - the same Country/Islands don't

Bearbehind · 09/07/2019 22:59

Except we could have controlled EU immigration more than we did.

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HateIsNotGood · 09/07/2019 23:06

But we didn't did we - we could have but we didn't.

Mintychoc1 · 09/07/2019 23:10

Blimey are you still going bear?

NinjaInFluffyPJs · 09/07/2019 23:13

I do think FOM should be restricted. Not really on numbers itself. Rather on criminal records. I don't see why someone with serious offence or string of offences should enjoy equal privilege as people who obey the law do. And AFAIK UK does have that power.

@BoneyBackJefferson I am not sure what do you mean, but that's probably me because I keep getting lost in this thread now. Sorry!

HateIsNotGood · 09/07/2019 23:40

I do think a pertinent factor is the UK population's resistance towards being a 'police state'. Whilst ID Cards and all that comes with them are a good idea in terms of exerting 'control' over the movements of people within and in and out of the UK - there is a 'native' resistance to this.

The reasons for this 'resistance' does need greater exploration and further understanding.

Cultural differences aren't just determined by skin colour and religion, geography and climate are as equally important - why hide away from this, why hide away and pretend that our often gloomy shores are anything other than what we and the land we live on actually are?

Why are we ashamed of this? Why did our own people say Brits don't know how to work, they don't work hard, they're useless, they can't invent things, they don't know how to make things, they're useless come about?

That perception is what we need to change for the many millions who earn way below the average wage, the many who don't have jobs and no perceivable future except for hope...

Telling them that they're useless and not as good as the 'others' that easily replace them hasn't been particularly helpful so far has it?

RedToothBrush · 09/07/2019 23:53

I find the whole customs union argument about how we need to be out of it to trade with other countries outside the EU.

It's an argument that neglects how shit our industry is at exporting.

Germany is much better at exporting outside the EU than we are. Why is that?

Thats what we should be looking at.

DH currently is working at a company which won an award for export. They export to over a hundred countries. Yet most companies who win the same award export to 20.

We are completely barking up the wrong tree when talking about WTO terms etc as the extra red tape caused is highly likely to further shrink our lack of interest and enterprise in exporting. We just don't have the right mindset for it.

Equally the whole immigration and FOM thing is somewhat farcical. The talk is how we can restrict immigration and how this will improve work opportunities for British workers. Yet this relies on a fundamental shift in long term thinking and investment in training. Three years in and there's nothing from government to encourage this. For example the NHS is merely looking for nurses from further afield rather than a strategic shift from government to reinstate training bursaries and look at ways to promote the career to a new generation. Or the assumption that anyone unemployed is suitable to become a care worker just because its a largely unskilled job. No thought is given to the culture which is encouraging people into that job and how an aggressive DWP might contribute to abuses of vulnerable people by forcing wholly unsuitable people into the job rather than looking at the entire sector, working conditions, pay and how its respected as a career and how this might affect attitudes.

I don't know what the solution is but what frustrates me is how the real problems that are out there and were drivers for Brexit are being totally ignored, overlooked or deliberately twisted to avoid doing something about those issues.

And on this score I think many Remainers are as guilty as leavers because they treat remain as preserving the status quo and ignoring some of these issues rather than a wholesale look into how opportunities in education and work are causing problems and how there is a certain reluctance for change. Equally the failure of leavers to acknowledge that actually many of the issues they blame on the EU are nothing to do with them and everything to do with domestic policy isn't helping.

I grow frustrated with the whole damn lot of it, because as it stands I don't think EITHER leaving or remaining is going to fix the broken nature of our society because we aren't interested in taking a good look at the issues which we have because our thinking has almost become entrenched in false notions of a utopia that hasn't existed whether that be the rose tinted view of a 70s era or the idea that things werent that broken pre-ref.

I don't see any sign of either government led vision nor entrepreneural vision. We are stuck in a rut of 'the lazy route' or 'the path of least resistance'. I don't think a harsh shock to the system will suddenly spark it out of necessity either because quite honestly Johnson is a lazy idiot who hasn't a clue and I haven't identified anyone else from any party with much more to inspire that either.

It's all around thoroughly depressing and I don't think it a pure leave / remain issue anymore although it almost suits to confine it to that because the blame game deflects away from producing strategies for change which we need regardless of our EU trade status.

But hey ho. That's where we are.

NinjaInFluffyPJs · 09/07/2019 23:56

Interesting you mention ID cards. I don't get the resistance. Many other countries have it. It's something you would get, in uk case at 16 I guess, and it's a proof of identity and address. Plus a travel document in EU. Without that I couldn't get a loan or finance in my country of birth and that's extra safety too. Plus people who are not able to make this kind of decision are still registered but don't have it or have a different document issued. Again, extra protection because all contracts must include this.
We change our address when we move, like you would do on driver's licence. IMHO it's the same. There are same data on it🤷 Except obviously which vehicles you can drive.

NinjaInFluffyPJs · 10/07/2019 00:04

Why are we ashamed of this? Why did our own people say Brits don't know how to work, they don't work hard, they're useless, they can't invent things, they don't know how to make things, they're useless come about?

It's not about not knowing how to work etc. My best employees were British. What's the problem is that someone with basic education and tiny to no experience expects to work for more than NMW.
NMW is a starting point. Even with no or low education one can work themselves up if they want to and are willing to do something for it. That's where majority of that immigrants they don't want here because they are"stealing jobs and lowering wages" started. And worked themselves up. Getting good job nad wages is a process. That's coming from someone who started from absolute zero, with good, but not great English, a level equivalent no one gave a fuck about because it's foreign and having to live without a family here, so paying rent

I get it though. Every country has this. They moan about not enough jobs, but wouldn't touch certain ones because "That's like what foreigners from East of us do. I am local I deserve better job". It's everywhere. Not just UK

RedToothBrush · 10/07/2019 00:11

Why are we ashamed of this? Why did our own people say Brits don't know how to work, they don't work hard, they're useless, they can't invent things, they don't know how to make things, they're useless come about?

I don't think British class attitudes to education have helped. There are communities which have a negative attitude to it, with a mentality of don't get ideas above your station or a self limiting belief that x profession isn't achievable for someone from that background (which in fairness might have a certain amount of economic reality to it) the point being that expectations are really low.

In the past such communities were the same ones which championed libraries (the coal miners for example) and improving your status and really valued what education could bring them so their children didn't gave to all repeat the experience of their parents of going down the pits.

This was part of an old fashioned blue collar conservatism which often was associated with the church (particularly many of the nonconformist churches of the Victorians era)

This does seem to have been something that has been rather lost and there's something if a political void in British politics for this slightly more right wing idea of self improvement in the working class and this hasn't been helped by Labour also moving away from its roots of supporting the same communities in left wing ways by maintaining their commitment to a social safety net by jumping on board with the 'undeserving' narrative because its chased a more middle class voter.

The whole thing has only served to reinforce the idea that there is no hope and no one cares. Cos to be blunt, its very hard to see anything but that right now.

This is very cultural and feeds upon itself. And owes a lot to growing inequality too.

HateIsNotGood · 10/07/2019 00:14

That inexplicable 'resistance' to ID cards exemplifies that there is indeed a 'difference' in the UK. I equally find it inexplicable that cultural differences are discounted because the 'culture' in question is predominantly white in skin colour and northern European.

Irrespective of differences I look towards the similarities between Island Nations, wherever they are, and find more cultural similarities there.

So the man-made, imaginary land-mass that links us to a Continent has greater credence than trying to understand the UK as the Island People they actually are.

No other country and it's people would be looked down upon because they think like Islanders, but apparently the UK's people are fair game

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