To think this was selfish?

[Fancycrab]

I’m not still ruminating on this years later! Just curious really. A friend & I got talking about Brexit recently and I mentioned that my mum and her husband had voted leave, rolling my eyes as usual. Myself and everyone I knew were firmly remain, especially because my partner was from an EU country and I was pregnant with his child at the time of Brexit. My friend mentioned she thought it was “incredibly selfish” of my mum to have voted leave when her daughter was about to have a baby with someone who may not be allowed to stay in the country. I’d never really considered this. I’m used to my mum doing everything her latest husband tells her to and taking on all their opinions and values as her own, so it was down to this she voted leave. I doubt she would have if she’d been with the previous husband. Would you find this selfish if it were you?

I’m quite surprised that the thought didn’t occur to you at the time, not a decade later!

My parents both voted for Brexit.

I live in the EU, married to EU citizen with children, EU nationality.

So, my parents also effectively voted against the rights of their own grandchild to enter, work, study etc in UK .

I don't think they were selfish though.
Just bloody ignorant like the rest of the Brexit voters.

Yes it was but it was a decade ago. You missed your opportunity to be angry.

Yes but she probably didn't think it through. I'm not saying this is true of everyone who voted for brexit but many- if not most - people who did failed to understand the consequences and certainly didn't think it would affect them and their families negatively.

It is selfish, yes.

To argue the other side you can say if she really believes Brexit is the right option it's more morally consistent to vote for it, rather than against for selfish family/nepotistic reasons. Like voting for tax rises that cost you money but will fund services better etc.

Also I genuinely don't think a lot of Brexit voters (and the rest of us)! thought the free movement situation would end up as rubbish as it has. But part of the problem is that Brexit was not properly defined pre-vote.

Also married to an EU national living in the UK. My parent voted for Brexit as did my brother. Never gave it a thought to be honest. I knew dad’s views and it didn’t come as a shock. Whilst I didn’t agree with them, I actually prefer people to vote in line with their principles rather than out of naked self interest, wish more of the electorate would.

I don’t think the people who voted for Brexit were really voting for Europeans who were settled and working in the UK to be forced to leave, I don’t remember that ever being discussed as a desirable goal or even a possible outcome.

In fact I know people who’d moved here from
Europe themselves/their spouses had and voted for Brexit.

There were a lot of factors driving the vote, but I don’t think that was one of them tbh. I doubt it occurred to your mum that there was any danger of your husband being forced to leave.

I doubt it even crossed her mind, plus it was years ago. Bit late to be bothered by it now.

Yes this is what I think - she didn’t think it through, like the majority of the other Brexit voters. But that’s so massively irresponsible! People who can’t even be bothered to research what they’re actually voting for or aren’t smart enough to understand the consequences of their actions should not be given so much power!!

I agree - it made me question whether democracy was such a good thing when you have a poorly educated and hard-of-thinking population!

I’ve always been slightly confused by this argument. What is it these people thought they were voting for, then?

Regardless of what one thinks about the sense of lowering the voting age, it also makes a nonsense of the idea that age necessarily equates to political comprehension . . .

Who gets to decide who votes then? Who decides what the threshold of “clever enough” is?
should income be looked at also? If you are taking any benefits or not a large tax contributor, should you be allowed to make decisions?

I guess it was attempted selfishness as Brexit is unlikely to have benefited them either.

Deluded is more likely it.

Self-harm on the promise of some nebulous ‘taking back control’.

I was in a similar position. I think they didn't think it through. In the same way that I know people who planned to retire in Spain didn't think it through, and people working in industries that heavily relied on EU subsidies and protections didn't think it through, and people in areas that hugely benefited from high levels of EU funding didn't think it through. I've had people who voted leave basically say to my husband that when they don't want foreigners here they 'don't count him' because he speaks English very well, contributed to the economy, is from one of the 'more acceptable' countries etc. I think they thought people like him would be fine

I think some people truly believed that Eu membership was costing us money - because they were told it, they thought it must be true.

Less brown people, mainly. And something about straight bananas?

Someone I know has a second home in Spain and voted to leave. I’ve never understood that decision.

Yes, it did always smack of being willing to make one’s own life measurably worse just to stick it to immigrants.

To just stop immigration. It was quite funny watching all the older people having to come home from Spain. There were articles featuring people who had to give up properties etc saying they'd been lied to. But they hadn't, like the reform voters of today, they don't want to listen.

And blue passports!

I’m not convinced it was ever about that for most people who voted to leave, to be honest. You only have to look at the US to see that people with a particular axe to grind will pretend to believe just about anything that an old white bloke in a suit says.

Maybe your mum actually did want to leave, you don't know and years on why are you thinking about it. There would be no point bringing it up with your mum now. If you were angry she was voting against your family then you should have told her at the time.