I don’t think any kind of “unity” is possible - the best we can hope for is peaceful parallel lives

[Really222]

On the News yesterday, I caught the tail end of a report about Brexit and the fishing industry. A woman who runs two businesses has already lost 40K preparing for a possible no deal, but maintains that she would vote leave again.

When asked why, she said she had voted not for herself but for the good of the country as a whole, and for her grandchildren.

Another fisherman was interviewed. In his opinion we have to leave, deal or no deal, and no deal is fine, as long as we leave.

I am speaking from a remain point of view, but I hear stuff like the above and now feel a level of despair.

Presumably there are leavers who feel the same way about what they would consider to be extreme remain positions.

So when the PM talks about unity, he and others are totally deluded IMO. I think the best we can hope for is people getting on with others inside their own communities, but having very little understanding of or empathy for what is going on for other communities. Maybe it has always been like this.

I think whatever the outcome now, many people will feel bitter for a long time.

Leaving the EU will temporarily damage any area in which we are not used to creating our own regulations independently. Because now we’re going to have to do that independently. And our Government seems to be not particularly competent.

I’m not purposely misunderstanding. I think you’re not thinking it through. I agree with you that fundamentally changing our relationship with our biggest trading partner without any planning is damaging. But how could it not be?

We are talking about a long term strategic choice, upon which millions of jobs and billions in trade depend. It could never be a “choice” like whether or not to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest.

If the EU doesn’t care whether or not membership of it leaves member states unfit to govern themselves, then it isn’t democratic. Because membership of it effectively ceases to become voluntarily.

I think it has to be asked at this point if we actually have the ability to run a country ourselves. Because current performance would suggest not.

SerendipityJane no you are right. They didnt have to help.

But I feel they hindered and gave more duel to leave side. You see that's my opinion. Which I am entitled from watching and listening to their words.

But if you handed your notice in and your employer claimed they wanted you stay but acted in a way that made you want to leave. You would definitely leave.

I’m not purposely misunderstanding. I think you’re not thinking it through

And there it is. The staunch leavers default. You are not thinking it through. Back to the OP, this is exactly why there is this divide because of comments like that.

SerendipityJane no you are right.

Not one of Mumsnets more common posts

But I feel they hindered and gave more duel to leave side. You see that's my opinion. Which I am entitled from watching and listening to their words.

Quite, we can all have an opinion. You opinion is that the EU didn't do what you felt it should have. Suggesting either they made a huge fuck up down the line, or - with respect - you may not understand what the EU is ?

But if you handed your notice in and your employer claimed they wanted you stay but acted in a way that made you want to leave. You would definitely leave.

Ah, the problem is the EU-UK relationship is not one of employer-employee. So any comparisons are worthless, if not positively unhelpful.

Before I said you’re not thinking it through ( I didn’t call you thick) you accused me of purposefully misunderstanding and therefore accusing me of dishonesty. If I am part of the problem, you are so more so

What is an appropriate analogy for the EU then?

What are the responsibilities of an institution which reduces the ability of a country to govern itself?

I agree OP I can't see any unity for a long time. Leaving with a no deal is not going to bring unity. They keep talking about the will of the people but there was no mention of a no deal in the referendum and 48% of the people are being ignored anyway and have been since 2016.
I haven't seen anything that can even begin to heal that divide

Before I said you’re not thinking it through

To be fair, no one (bots excepted) in the discussion regardless of what they are supporting is "not thinking". There's an awful lot of thinking going on, on both sides.

The problem is that some people are "thinking" about things that are either wrong, or have nothing to do with the issue.

Ah, the problem is the EU-UK relationship is not one of employer-employee. So any comparisons are worthless, if not positively unhelpful.

Neither is it a marriage, where 2 individuals have promised to love eachother and stay together forever. That's why it's an anology. Let's change it. You dont tell a group of people you want them to stay then fuel the fire of the ones wanting to leave.

I dont think the EU itself, fucked up, I think some of its representatives did with their language. I think it ended with some undecided people, who probably were leaning towards leave, to cross into actually voting leave.

The whole Barack Obama situation was a fuck up too, for the same reasons.

@LaPeste I didnt say you called me thick. I was talking about your actual words.

YANBU

What is an appropriate analogy for the EU then? What are the responsibilities of an institution which reduces the ability of a country to govern itself?

When did you stop being an arsehole ?

Any idiot - myself included - can ask a stupid question when it's predicated on an invented fact. The deeply unpleasant legal maxim that was used in the Commons Wednesday being another example.

I don’t understand that answer.

But if your parents voted leave and you voted remain for example, and you’re happy to destroy your relationship with them over that, then your priorities are seriously wrong IMO.

Huge difference between personal relationships and a wider divide in the country. My df voted leave, he's now dead and I wish more than anything he was still here so we could carry on debating (plus I'd have loved to him have met my dd as he died when I was six months pregnant).

One of my Grandmothers is from S Yorkshire. Their community is still divided by the miner's strike. My MiL is from NI... I don't see the wider divide healing any time soon because history has shown that these divisive moments don't heal, they fester and they seep through the generations spreading poison. We're in Scotland and I'm seeing more and more pro Independence statements from friends who I know voted No last time. My dh (being half NI and half Scottish) has always been Unionist to the core, his intention is to vote SNP at the next election as he believes Brexit has shown that we're not in a Union of Equals and that the average English person on the street couldn't care less about Scotland or NI and that this will show in any negotiating strategy post Brexit.

You have unwittingly given a great example of the problem with the debates on Brexit

Person 1: makes personal attack
Person 2: comes back with negative comment
Person 1: these personal attacks are so unfair.

I recognize that saying you’re not thinking it through (not the same as not thinking) could be viewed as a minor attack but it’s hardly the worst

The problem is that fundamentally, the backers of leave designed a campaign that was intended to be divisive from the start.

Neither is it a marriage, where 2 individuals have promised to love eachother and stay together forever. That's why it's an anology. Let's change it. You dont tell a group of people you want them to stay then fuel the fire of the ones wanting to leave.

Personally I've never liked or used the example of marriage either.

And it's not just a "group of people", which could just as well apply to a swingers party as the Peaky Blinders or people who argue over Coldplays thirds album. In some ways it's unique, which is why analogies are tricky. It's more than a trading bloc, but less than a federation. It comprises sovereign nations that have tried to put in place something to make not just trade, but life in general a bit better for it's members. But as an entity, it has no voice except that of the 28 members that make it up. Which is why it had no role to play in the UKs decision about membership. It's not the Borg from Star Trek.

And the crushing irony in all this, is you think - of all the nations in the EU - the one that would instinctively understand that situation would be the U fucking K. Since we comprise of 4 nations etc etc etc etc ....

But no, in the rush to diss the EU, we managed to forget that being a UK citizen is more than being English. And if we carry on forgetting, we might not want to remember.

These are discussions that should have taken place before people loaded the lethal weapon of a ballot paper with the ammunition of choice and fired it into the air without a care where the bullet lands. If we're doing increasingly vivid analogies.

If your parents voted for an outcome that directly impacts your partner's potential ability to stay in the country, and has already affected your job, it's hard not to see that roll over into every day life. It's not to say that you hate them and wish them dead or anything so ridiculously extreme, but it's perhaps a pivotal moment in the relationship.

Anyway, I agree that this is not something which is going to go away. How can it? Regardless of the outcome of the vote, it was madness for Cameron to pursue such a divisive thing without anyone having sufficient info.

I don’t understand that answer.

If no one else does either, then I'll happily retract it and rephrase it, in the interests of debate and not being deliberately insulting (which I wasn't).

I understood it

I feel sorry for those of you who seem incapable of doing that as you will have very unhappy lives. But if your parents voted leave and you voted remain for example, and you’re happy to destroy your relationship with them over that, then your priorities are seriously wrong IMO

You’re over-simplifying the issue.

I am not prepared to carry on a relationship with one family member and a friend because their behaviour over the referendum brought into very clear focus how utterly xenophobic they are. The referendum simply brought out a legitimate vehicle to spout completely abhorrent opinions.

I also have friends who voted leave and we remain friends.

The issues are very often more nuanced than simply “I don’t like the way you vote”.

I don’t see it as being insulting.

Who is or is not being an arsehole?

What question is idiotic?

What does it have to do with a statement on parliament on Wednesday?

I thought I was saying something fairly factual and straightforward, to which there must be a factual legal answer and a more complicated moral and political one?

But no, in the rush to diss the EU, we managed to forget that being a UK citizen is more than being English. And if we carry on forgetting, we might not want to remember

This is where you are wrong and trying to attach intentions you believe are there, but are not. I simply commented that ist made me uncomfortable. I am nor 'dissing the EU'

Though personally, I believe if you think the whole of the EU representatives have behaved in a way above reproach, then there isnt really a way to discuss the issue.

Person 1: makes personal attack
Person 2: comes back with negative comment
Person 1: these personal attacks are so unfair.

This has totally confuses me. I havenr personally attacked anyone or feel personally attacked. I comment that the 'not thinking it through' is a comment made by staunch leavers, over and over again and is part of the wider problem the OP is talking about.

The "both sides need to come together" argument is an excellent one if you're on the side of the argument that makes no sense. I would like to be able to be all conciliatory and identify advantages of Brexit - I tried, during tge the campaign I looked up the opinions of pro-Brexit people that I usually agree with, like Larry Elliot at the Guardian and Matthew Parris. The main thing that came out as an advantage was being able to make your own trade deals, and I could see an argument that the EU might be less focused on deals with the English speaking world than we are, and that would be a benefit - but the EU has completed deals with Canada and Australia and it's only Trump that's in the way of a US one right now. So I don't know what I'm supposed to be acknowedging. Can someone tell me what they think the advantages are?

Can you explain it then LaPeste?

I think I am asking a fairly straightforward question about what the EU’s relationship to us is when we now have to go through a potentially decades long process of creating a whole series of areas of governance which were previously organised by the EU.

What does the answer given mean? What is fabricated?