to find it impossible to forgive Brexiters

[mrsmootoo]

Can't forgive Brexiters for voting Leave. Find it impossible to move on from this. If there are any positives about leaving EU (?!) they are far outweighed by Remaining. Brexit posts on social media are so aggressive and unpleasant - you lost get over it. Really concerned about my kids' prospects, not being able to travel/work abroad as easily etc.

Interestingly, some of the smartest and best educated (lawyers, bankers, doctors...) people I know voted Leave (for the record, DH and his entire family voted Remain, I didn't get to vote at all as I am not a citizen but would have voted Remain). This helped me adopt a more balanced view of the Brexit. I don't think it is helpful to paint black the entire camp one disagrees - it is a fact that there are a lot of crazy racists amongst Brexiteers but it is also a fact that a lot of very smart and successful people voted Leave as well.

As someone who comes from a non-EU country and had to jump through a lot of hoops (and pay extortionate amounts of money) to get British education and work permit - I have somewhat conflicted views of the EU. A mundane example would be having to wait in the 'tourist queue' at Heathrow passport control every time I travel in in spite of paying two average salaries in taxes to the UK and being a resident here for years, while EU weekend visitors go through the fast lane. Another good example is the dramatic downturn in quality of work in my field of expertise that I witnessed over the last 10 years. This especially applies to academia and institutes and has as a result bleeding of the best and brightest to the private sector. Counter-intuitively, competition there did not breed quality. What happened was that the sheer number of applicants for every job lowered the salaries (supply-demand, simple as that) and got those institutions in a situation where most of the applicants nowadays are those who can 'afford to work for them' and not necessarily those who are the best in what they do. This led to a number of kids of well-off parents from UK and EU countries getting jobs on the pure basis of being able to afford to work for really miserable remuneration. In turn, the quality of work declined and those who could not afford to work for 'glory and prestige' went to private sector.

That being said, I see more benefits for the UK being in the EU for all the reasons already elaborated by other PPs and if I had the right to do so I, personally, would have voted Remain. The whole point of this post is - things are not black and white and it will do no good to anyone to dismiss the 'other' camp as 'stupid, ignorant, racist...' etc.

The majority of the issues leavers have blamed the EU for, are a consequence of our governments.

I'll never forgive them either. And LOL at the people still saying 'tough, it's happened'. It hasn't even started yet.

Prices are more than likely going to rise has anyone noticed prices to ever go down?

mothertruck3r most of the people I know voted Remain and few of them fit your ridiculous manufactured stereotype. Plenty have modestly paid jobs, some are disabled and on benefits.
We all tend to be quite engaged with politics and current affairs though.

On this thread we have Leavers arguing both that post-Brexit the UK will be some sort of free trade capitalist utopia and that it will be able to implement policies such as state aid for failing industries. Which is it, Leavers?

And for those claiming more people voted Tory which somehow equates to the country wanting to leave? 13.9m voted Tory out of approx 32m voters. That is not a fair representation of the country's views on Brexit.

This result is oddly familiar...

@Aneley

I totally agree.

Do people really believe the Tory party will raise animal standards? Or maintain or improve workers rights (you know the bit they took out of the WA)? If that's what some people believe despite history showing that is precisely what the tories are against, well good luck them. Hope they work for companies who will maintain current workers rights rather than drop them as soon as they're able.

I am genuinely still baffled as to how anyone put an 'x' next to the Tories on their voting slip. I don't think I'll ever forgive them either, soulless fools.

The idea that wanting to preserve the right to free movement in Europe is class interest is not one that survives contact with reality. Those who are already privileged are more likely to be able to meet the more stringent visa requirements that will, as things stand, replace FOM for UK citizens. If you're rich enough or skilled enough, you get to go where you like anyway.

I wonder how many remainers would have still voted remain if they had to adopt the euro and the children would have to learn one or two big european languages all through secondary.

I studied both French and German throughout secondary. It was normal then, in the 1980s, to have to study another language until you were 16. I have no issue with this. It's an important part of anyone's education and learning other grammatical structures can actually be really helpful in improving your native tongue. As for the Euro - yes. I would be OK with losing the pound. I can't speak for other remainers.

It was one of the issues with the referendum that we were only offered in or out. No-one talked about either a hard remain - adopting the Euro, joining the Schengen area - or a hard Brexit. No-one talked about options in between which might have been far less divisive. It was just in or out. There was no nuance on offer so it's hardly surprising that we have no divided into two camps.

I live in a very pro-Tory, pro-Brexit area. I have to get along with people who voted for things that I fundamentally disagree with. And by and large I do get on with them. My close friends are more politically aligned with me. But if it all goes wrong, and I expect we will see a gradual decline in the economy and standards of living, I'm not going to help those who voted for this. They were warned. And I will remind them that this is the doing of the Tory government. The Tories have been in power since 2010 so if there are problems, it is down to them, not immigrants, not the poor, not the EU. It's them.

I think Brexit will be very similar to what is happening in education. Boris promised that funding per child would go up, which it is - all good. However, staff salaries, pension costs etc are also going up and the contribution from the government for these increases are going down, so ultimately the majority of schools will actually be worse off than they are now. So TAs can look forward to a good pay rise, unfortunately schools won't be able to afford TAs so there will be many redundancies. Teachers will get paid more (all good) but again schools won't be able to afford to pay them, so the number of teachers employed in schools will be reduced and so class sizes will be increased as classes are merged. So education standards will go down. But good news school funding is going up, and that is what makes the headlines.

So there will be some benefits from Brexit, which will be publicised, but the downsides will be greater and have more impact, but that won't be publicised.

I guess if people can't forgive those who didn't vote LibDem in December (which would have stopped Brexit), their only option is to sign up to the campaign to rejoin the EU.

those who didn't vote LibDem in December

I didn’t. If I had, my marginal constituency may well have turned blue.

I am gobsmacked that anyone would consider good MFL teaching in secondary schools to be a BAD thing. My mind just boggles at so much ignorance. In Dutch schools, English is compulsory no matter what, because language learning is considered key to employability. In addition students get at least 2 years of a second MFL and those in academic schools working towards the equivalent of A levels will get at least 2 years of a third MFL. Learning languages is useful and has benefits for cognitive health too. How insular do you have to be to see this as bad?

As for no one answering Molly's 'thoughtful' post, I am afraid that I read it as standard Lexiter stuff, not the thoughts of someone who has really sat down and thought for themselves. Subsequent posts confirmed this. As for the thought of voting for what might benefit your great grandchilden, I was bemused at best. In 100 years time, my currently toddler grandson is also likely to be dead, so it might be his children and grandchildren who benefit.

Now someone who did sit down and think about her vote was my MIL - she didn't feel very well qualified to do so, but thought it important. But then, she was a young adult during the war.

But as for this 'no one said it would be easy' stuff - that is exactly what was said. The alternative was dismissed as 'Project Fear'.

Why is learning a foreign language a bad thing? It was compulsory when I was at school. It's a bloody shame that it isn't now.

And as for the Euro. We were never going to join it. That issue was resolved ages ago.

I've heard some odd arguments about leaving but I have to say, being forced to learn a foreign language being described a a negative is one of the oddest yet.

*I think maybe I am not putting my point across well.

To put it simply, I'm not sure how leaving the EU will solve the problems which you outlined in your original post, given that the 2nd and 3rd largest population of immigrants into Britain are not from EU member states.

Equally you say that all immigrants, if skilled, should be allowed to enter the UK, then again, what does leaving the EU have to do this?

It just doesn't seem to stand up as a robust argument for Brexit. But I understand that different people voted leave for different reasons. So for one person, it might be NHS bed shortages, for another the idea of 'taking back control'. Another to end FOM, another to have the freedom to negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world. Maybe another to control fishing waters, another because or crumbling infrastructure or high unemployment and lack of opportunity.*

It’s the mass immigration and sheer number of unskilled workers that have arrived since the borders opened, that people have an issue with.

Controlled immigration is great. The government can look at areas they need to increase the workforce and recruit from all over the world. Engineers, medical/nursing staff, teachers whatever it is they have a short fall in.

That’s fair to everyone despite where they come from. If they have the qualities we need at a particular time then they should be allowed.

If we are all now blaming people for having different views to yourself.

Can I now blame every Person who voted labour and as a consequence got tony blair in power for him lying and getting British soldiers plus Iraqi personnel killed. I’m my eyes he’s a war criminal

The problem with Lexiters is that while there have always been legitimate left wing arguments against the EU, those making them recently have been the useful idiots of the right and far right. The version we're going to get, with this lot at the helm, is not going to be one that will do anything for the working class. Quite the opposite.

@pointythings quite. I boggled at that.

Blame the EU, not brexiteers. They were faced with a crisis but instead of taking this extreme displeasure of its membership as a wake up call, the EU just pulled the blinkers a bit tighter and reiterated its commitment to an ever closer union. When the probe t began there were two paths liberalisation and the European superstate. They chose the wrong path.

It’s the mass immigration and sheer number of unskilled workers that have arrived since the borders opened, that people have an issue with.

Except, it's not. Most Leave voting areas have low immigration. Even those areas which do like some of the fruit picking areas, you need to ask why? Before the War you used to get roving gangs of Travellers doing agricultural work, or East Enders going to Kent for the hop picking season. This doesn't happen now.

*Chocowoka
*
It was always possible to get EU migrants to return home after three months if they failed to find work/didn't have enough money to support themselves. UK politicians chose not to. Not the EU's fault.