EU Referendum - Racists and Xenophobes

[Asprilla11]

Right I am getting a bit sick of remain voters who are insisting that Leave Voters condone racism and xenophobia and have not spoke out against it.

The reality is on my thread and on many other threads I and other leave voters have not only not condoned racism, we have condemned it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2671336-Why-I-Voted-to-Leave-the-EU?pg=1

UKIP has been around for years, Far Right groups have been around for much much longer, they exist in every EU country.

The Referendum did not invent these groups, it didn't give them an idea for a message, they had that hatred long before we even entered the EU.

Whilst the Referendum gave some of them a voice and brought them out from under their stones, they were still there to be challenged for their views for many years prior to this month!

If you judge a group of voters by your Facebook News Feed and a few tabloid newspapers then you show similar ignorance to what the racists do. Myself and millions of other people are not on Facebook or Twitter, Social Media is not the general public's gospel opinion.

Tackling racism and xenophobia is the responsibility of Society, which means leave voters, remain voters and non voters.

Angela Merkel said anyone from Syria was welcome in addition to others seeking protection from violence and warfare which is why anyone from anywhere decided they would join the Syrians and make their way to Europe. Then if they were given passports in Germany they could ultimately travel anywhere in Europe.

When Hungary, Poland and Romania applied to join the EU they obviously didn't anticipate that they would be expected to take a quota of Muslims. Mr Orban has been very clear that he isn't taking any and even if they do lose some of their grant I imagine that most Hungarians would back him.

"Then if they were given passports in Germany they could ultimately travel anywhere in Europe."

They'd have to be resident for about 8 years to achieve this, do you think someone would settle somewhere for 8 years and then move just cause they got passports?

Also, Merkel said refugees would have to go home once the war stops, they also won't automatically qualify for German citizenship.

I'll lump you all in with who I like Joysmum, you knew who you were voting alongside and why they were voting that way, you gave validation to them.

smallfox1980

Stop projecting. I lump you in with the racist remain voters, they may not have been voting because of immigration, but they are still racist.

Sorry I don't mean that, I'm cross.

I know lots of people had reasons for voting leave, however spurious I think they are.

The fact is though that a huge number of the people voting leave voted on immigration, its the reason we actually had the referendum is so many of the Tory vote had gone to UKIP because of immigration. There is no getting away from that.

You can distance yourself and say that they more opaque reasons of sovreignty and democracy were the reasons, but for a large majority of voters it was immigration.

smallfox small mind. Such a shame you lack the capacity to understand anything that doesn't fall into your own viewpoint.

Perhaps you'd like to rebut my reasoning for voting as I have. I've never had anyone disagree on my reasons, just continue not to listen because to try to disagree on the reasons I give would either be beyond them, or to realise they are wrong and there are others reasons to vote out

Can we stop with the "leave voters didn't all have the same motivation" tripe

The only tripe here is from those who oddly think all leave voters are identical.

The only tripe here is from those who oddly think all leave voters are identical

Bugger. wish I'd thought of wording it that simply. Well done.

"Lots of these areas have had their industries decimated and people (particularly men) who were once able to take pride in being a steelworker, or miner, or fisherman etc are now left with nothing. "

But these are domestic decisions, not EU ones.

On the fishing point, its funny how EU fishing quotas are to blame for the demise of the fishing industry, and not losing the Cod Wars. I'd say that is as big an issue.

Also there is not guarentee that we will be able to fish in any more waters on leaving, it is likely that the EU would seek to protect the common fisheries policy in any trade deal and that the UK would be required to operate under constraints.

I think you're right smallmum. According to the surveys done post-election, most Leavers got their information from the Leave campaign. The Leave campaign relied heavily on anti-immigration. Whether or not you agree with the anti-immigration stance, you aligned yourself with the people who used hate to get their aim. Of course, there is no way that Britain can do away with foreigners - we need them, the economy needs them but this is the message that so many Leavers seem to have got.

Oh also, prior to the vote all remainers were "sheeple" and in the pocket of Goldman Sachs too.

smallfox1980

Have you read my thread I linked in the first post? Those are my non immigration reasons for voting leave and many others share those reasons.

Thousands of refugees in Germany have already disappeared off the radar. Who knows where they have gone.

In eight years' time many refugees will use the ECHR to avoid being sent back to Syria if they don't want to go.

What about the thousands of non-Syrians? Thousands of them have disappeared off the radar in Germany too.

Many Germans (and Austrians) are furious with Merkel. That is why right wing political parties are making enormous gains in support there.

allegretto, are you seriously saying that those of us who wanted to leave for reasons other than immigration (like Asprilla and myself) should not have voted to do so because other Leave voters were anti-immigration?

Are you really saying that just become some racists voted to leave no-one else should have done so because that makes us racists too?

It does sound a bit like that.

Not all leave voters voted for immigration to change.

But your side stood in front of posters of refugees that said breaking point, your side kept referring to immigration and the supposed "pressure on services".

You can say that YOU didn't vote out because of immigration, but the majority of the campaign was about that and its highlighted as the no 1 reason for most.

You've missed the point smallfox.

These people and communities have been ignored for years. This tension has been brewing for years.

Whether it's domestically or by the EU, decisions on their lives have been made by the elite. The FPTP system means that their voices aren't heard - no party has come out and said we hear you and UKIP have capitalised on this.

In a referendum - where their voices are heard and their individual votes have counted for the first time - they have stuck two fingers up to the patronising elite who act like they should be grateful.

Regardless of whether they voted for the wrong reasons, this can go someway to explaining WHY people in these communities have voted leave.

smallfox fishing quotas and fishing grounds are EU set.

What I find most interesting in the fishing debate is that there was a strong swing to Leave in my area, but up in Shetlands the swing was to Remain.

I travel a lot and I've found it interesting seeing where the concentrations of Leave and Remain posters have been. In the more affluent rural areas of my county and the more deprived areas, it seems to have been Leave. The Remain posters seem to have been concentrated in the middle class areas.

What's even more interesting is seeing the media dissection of the vote. The categories chosen to be used have continued to follow the bias towards Remain.

If anyone could post any links towards Remain biased analysis I'd be very interested

smallfox1980

You can say that YOU didn't vote out because of immigration, but the majority of the campaign was about that and its highlighted as the no 1 reason for most

Can you point me to the research or study/poll that confirms those findings?

I suppose then you could say it was a "coalition" (for want of a better word) of people who wanted to leave for different reasons.

It was, as you quite rightly say, the No. 1 issue for most, according to the polls. Maybe if successive governments had dealt with immigration differently it wouldn't be.

Think back 20 years. Was everyone going on about immigration, or some aspect of it, every day in the press? Of course they weren't. The BNP was treated as a bit of a joke. Now we have the rise of the EDL, Britain First, and others and this has happened as a direct result of immigration. The members of those organizations were always going to vote to leave, but millions of other people were voting to leave for different reasons.

Asprilla there were various polls quoted on a number of news/current affairs programmes in the run up to the Referendum saying that immigration was the No. 1 issue rather than the economy.

The problem with polls is that the sample is always too small to be totally accurate about anything. The polls said Ed Miliband would be in No. 10, and we'd Remain in the EU.

There is nothing wrong with the level of immigration.

The debate only started really with the Eastern Europeans coming here on 2004. I'm sorry but there has never been "immigrants taking our jobs" but the constant refrain of the press has convinced a fair amount of people.

Areas with low levels of immigration have voted out because of immigration ( it was the no 1 reason given in a radio programme from Sunderland prior to the vote), why is that?

Its because immigration has been easy to blame for the ills of the nation, just as it has been in time immemorial. You want to blame 4% of the population for the NHS being under strain?

Its also been an easy way for certain elements of the establishment to convince people to vote towards their objectives.

You have been duped, fools.

smallfox I'm getting bored of agreeing with you

My area has a fairly low level of immigrants but the vote was 2/3 to Leave. It therefore isn't logical that immigration was the majority's overriding motivation for voting Leave.

But was it?

In Sunderland and Hartlepool that is the reasons that have been given.

Exactly Jamie.

Cleo your posts sum up how some people feel and why shouldn't they.