To tell you why I voted to leave

[readingreadingreading]

I'm not brave enough to say this IRL and that is part of the problem.

I refuse to believe that I, or 52% of the British population are either thick or racist. I also think that such a pessimistic view of our population is leading to more divisions.

I have wanted to leave the EU since the Maastricht treaty was signed (I even sent off for a copy of it). I always said I'd campaign to leave as soon as I got the chance. I didn't campaign as it would have meant aligning with groups such as Farage which I do think are racist. But I still chose to vote leave.

I think the EU are getting too big and have always been too bureaucratic. The countries aligned to it are too varied for a common purpose to be right for everyone.

I don't know if we have an immigration problem or not. If we do we need to be able to restrict the number of nationals of other European countries moving here. If we don't we should be a lot more welcoming to people from other parts of the world, people who really need asylum. The current situation has desperate people turned away at borders and highly skilled workers having to jump through hoops for a job where they are wanted and needed.

No of course I didn't believe there would be extra money for the NHS. However I think currently we give money to the EU and we get money back whereas giving the same money directly to British needs would be a better use of it. Not to mention the savings from all the extra MPs.

I'm old enough to remember life before the EU. We managed to travel to Europe, live and work in different countries, eat food and not go to war. I'm reasonably sure we can continue to do so without them.

I don't think the EU can last much longer and I thought (wrongly) that coming out now in an orderly fashion would be better that having it all crash down around us. I'm nervous of new laws being enacted that we have no veto on and drifting into closer integration.

I hate to watch the current mess and no, this isn't what I voted for. But if we can't get out there shouldn't have been a vote and I don't think everything can be blamed on the leavers.

What I would say however is that I don’t think it is necessarily “racist” if people are struggling to get GP appointments, get their kids into local schools etc and perceive this, rightly or wrongly, to be a consequence of high levels of immigration into their area.

People struggle to get GP appointments because there is a nationa shortage of GP's that immigrants are helping to fill.

People struggle to get their kids into local schools if they are popular, and usually the 'unpopular' ones are in white working class areas. There's a fight for the best schools, but every child will get a place at a school. Where I live white middle class people flood into the areas with the best schools, which causes the difficulty.

It is racism, pure and simple, to blame immigrants for these things. If your mind goes straight to a different race/nationality when looking for someone to blame, you are a racist.

I think it was all a big protest because people simply felt that no one was hearing them. And as time has gone on, people have become more and more entrenched.

I'm old enough to remember life before the EU. We managed to travel to Europe, live and work in different countries, eat food and not go to war.

A couple of bits of history seem to have slipped your memory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

I wouldn't call the democratically elected leaders of the member states "functionaries". Get your facts straight.

I think now anyone talking about EU and 'Unelected' really needs to think long and hard. Only a small number of people voted for Boris Johnson to become PM and NO ONE voted for Cummings, the man pulling his strings.

Although I never vote Tory, I was incensed last night to see long standing Tory members like Ken Clarke, Nicholas Soames and others be booted out of the party that they had served for so many years.

*I'm old enough to remember life before the EU. We managed to travel to Europe, live and work in different countries, eat food and not go to war.

A couple of bits of history seem to have slipped your memory.*

And WW1 and WW2 of course.

it’s comes

it’s come

BooseysMom I also recall the EEC and was actually there at some of the meetings held in Brussels around 1989-1990. Imho it was just as mind-numbing then as it is now and i will forever hold in my memory the image of one of my college mates fast asleep and snoring in the middle of said meeting! We'd been out clubbing the night before and were late for our bus to the EEC HQ the next morning and some of us still had our PJs on

The Court of Justice now employs two people to go round prodding people and ejecting them for sleeping! The seats are very comfortable and everyone speaks very slowly and rhythmically so that the interpreters can do their stuff...

Not everyone has that sort of insight though, do they?

I’m not saying they are right.

I don't know anyone daft enough to think ALL of the 52% are/were racist or thick.

When you take all the emotion out of it, there are pros and cons on both sides. What really pisses me off is how hard it is to find the true pros and cons under the tons of BS the politicians seem desperate to pile up on both sides.

Not everyone has that sort of insight though, do they?

I’m not saying they are right.

Well if they aren't right, they are wrong. So why defend them?

And WW1 and WW2 of course.

Well yes - I was assuming the OP meant the post war period, specifically the period that is likely to be in living memory .

Pre-1945 it's difficult to identify a period when there wasn't war in some part of Europe.

Looks like we are stuck with the current shower, following tonight's vote.

I've done a couple of name changes recently but HQ will be able to confirm I've been here a long time before anyone starts shouting TROLL!!!

OP has put my reasons for voting Leave very well. Mine were slightly more simplistic - I don't have a problem with trade deals, however I was and remain worried by the bit that says 'Ever closer social and political union'. I would quite like to have been asked when Maastrickt was signed. And I am rather pissed off that no one asked me about Lisbon.

Farage is an utterly objectionable arse and Boris was highly
entertaining on HIGNFY but is utterly ridiculous as a PM.

Actually, pre-referendum, the media had split opinions. The Times was slightly inclined to leave; the Sunday Times, just, preferred remain. The serious press was nuanced and covered the ideas but did not suggest the fury that would descend from Mount Brussels. From my reading of three or four papers a day (none of them red topped) I wavered and wavered. Mine was a knife-edge decision, but the sore losers' vicious retaliation have damaged friendships and corroded the exchange of views. I think the OP has been brave to start this thread.

Qualbot this seems to suggest not

iea.org.uk/brexit-and-pharmaceuticals-separating-fear-from-reality-2/

I think the fears are more to do with medicines being stuck at Dover, but the government apparantly has plenty of air freight booked to bring in essentials if the ports are gridlocked

Maastricht put Brexit into motion. It was inevitable from that moment.

But why are people so hysterical? I just do not get this hysteria.

The two largest countries in the world - USA and China - both trade with the EU on WTO Rules, so why is it so bad for us?

Immigration is irrelevant. Europeans including UK, are not having enough children, so immigration is required.

The OP may talk like a spoofer, she may act like a spoofer, but don't let that fool you.............

She really is a spoofer.

@QualCheckBot.. that's brilliant! Just imagining it now if they had had a prodder in place back then! Those meetings put me off a career in politics. I was and still am too much on the fence (but i did vote)

I fully respect all of those that voted remain, I would love to know in a polite way, what positive reasons they had for doing so? What are the positive reasons to remain?

Haven't read all the replies in between so probably all these points have been made before but just in case:

1. The most important - a minimum level of protection for workers rights, health and safety law, environmental protections. We have the freeodm to raise these but not go below them. All these can, and will be, under attack from a Conservative government.

2. The Single Market ensures a degree of fair competition without a race to the bottom.

3. The Single Market and Customs Union allow us to do business as easily with Berlin as Birmingham.

4. The collective strength of the EU allows us to trade and gives us more power in trade deals not to drop our standards. US, for instance, eants is to lower food standards in return for a trade deal, Malaysia wants us to allow the import of more palm oil - which is hugely environmentally damaging.

5. Because the EU is a collective it can have more effective environmental protections. When countries are competing directly against each other there's always a pressure to lower standards to gain an advantage - EU Laws help to prevent that.

6. FOM is a great benefit - for musicians, as one example, it allows them to take up short term contracts which simply wouldn't be accesible to them otherwise.

Michael Gove was in the Commons yesterday saying how No Deal gave us the ability to have different rules on governement procurement to make things cheaper (which means diluting/removing TUPE rights which protect employees when a contract changes hands) and more "freedom in regulation" in scientific advances (genetically modified crops and perhaps removing the precautionary principle in chemical regulation) so it's not as if Brexiteers aren't telling us what they want to do with their new "freedoms". I have had the following conversation with Brexiters;

"Why can't we have all these rights outside the EU?" "We can, but those leading the Brexit campaign are the same people who have always wanted to remove them." "Well, we can just vote them out if they do that?" "Which party are you going to vote for?" "Conservative."

I think, if you're a person that wants to remove rights and protections from people then of course it's logical to support Brexit. I just don't get how they've persuaded other people to do so.

@Groucho, and what does that add to the debate? DFOD.

Firstly let me say Antoine who wants to be a politician should instantly be disallowed. It should be a provelidhe bestowed to people with proven skills not random fuckwits who come from the right family/ school.
Secondly I voted leave for all of OP’s reasons and more.
Thirdly I can see where we are heading, a GE. And the 52 will become 60+ and half of them will vote brexit party. We’ll end up with that knob farage as deputy PM as part of a coalition with conservatives and I’m not even sorry. As he may be a knob but all the remainers have bought it on themselves.
Government want remain. The people want out. If “ they” didn’t want the answer they shouldn’t have asked the question.
I don’t particulaly like Boris, but i want a strong vocal leader? And JC is not one. He’s a weak Lilly livered turncoat terrorist who slept with dianne abbot. Enough said.

The two largest countries in the world - USA and China - both trade with the EU on WTO Rules, so why is it so bad for us?

Because they are large economies trading with other economies. Size matters in trade.
China laughed when discussing this at a parliamentary committee and described as now being a practice country before trading with the EU.
And ifbirs do good why does the EU and China have a commitment and in active work to move to an agreement?

From my reading of three or four papers a day (none of them red topped) I wavered and wavered.

Why not research the issues properly rather than relying on newspapers?

What ‘fury’ from Brussels?