Are there are some very sore losers after the EU Ref result?

[brodchengretchen]

Should we now challenge parliamentary elections too if we don't like the result on the basis that some people are too lower class/poor/stupid to make a proper first time vote?

Or could that be a tad arrogant and patronising to the the section of the electorate that cast their vote and won, 'ignorant numpties' or not?

People who think that a discussion should stop after one fucking glorified opinion poll are deluding themselves. They say it's 'undemocratic'. Pah!

By that definition, America would still have slavery now, if it had all boiled down to ONE referendum of keeping slaves or not.

Because believe me... the first referendum would have firmly landed in the "keep" camp.

It can't be the same older generation - my grandparents fought in the war and my parents were kids (all sadly dead now) so technically those who fought in ww2 have been let down by their spoiled brat post war babies.

originalmavis

Yeah, I read an article by someone who fought in WW2 and was firmly in the "remain" camp. His reasoning was that he saw the Europe that wasn't united (unlike younger people), and he didn't want to go back there, because they fought for what we're about to chuck out of the window..

There can't be all that many ex combatants from ww2 left though, can there? My late dad was just too young to fight (by a gnats) and he would have been approaching 90.

My grandpa would have had a stroke if he saw all the racist little Englander shit flying around now. He was a gruff north easterner who witnessed the liberation of one if the camps, so saw/ smelled first hand what had been done. He spoke highly if the poles he met during the war and definitely had a soft spot for them.

He even holidayed in Germany and Italy after the war. However he wasn't too keen on the French mind you - they spat on and flung abuse at the retreating British army and he always said after the war he wouldn't go back there.

originalmavis

Britain was on the side that won the war. Whilst those who really witnessed the war may have felt the need for a united Europe more, those who never actually went there would have grown up in post-war Britain where everyone was proud to be British, etc. - which they could afford as an island nation. This whole being proud of one's country/origin is a little bollocks to be honest. At the end of the day, we're all just made of atoms.

I wonder how much the Queen's Birthday celebrations and the run up to the Euros with all the imagery around the home nations helps create that sense of 'Proud to be British, we're a plucky nation, a massive heritage'

Well... England's performance in the Eurocup must have dented that a bit...

Further to my previous post, I have had an even more depressing conversation today. My neighbour is in her sixties and a real sweetheart. We live away form family and she has been brilliant to me and my kids. She voted out. Because of immigration, and because Britain is better alone because there were too many rules. And because the Remin persons who spoke to her talked about Cornwall needing to sell cabbages which was very funny but doesn't make sense.
We had a chat. I said Cornwall would lose out. But Cornwall was fine before the EU so we don't need them anyway. I said immigrants as a group brought in more money than they took, and that more came from outside the EU so were subject to controls, and she shrugged. I said that we needed to be in the single market to trade and that meant free movement anyway and she shrugged. She said, as far as she is concerned, we are better off out and the sooner it happens the better. We need to leave now. Not in two year. Why they keep saying about two years she doesn't know, we need to just do our own thing now. We traded before, we can trade again but on our own terms. I pointed out the world had moved on a bit. She said we didn't even need to trade, we could just do it all ourselves here in the UK.
The scary thing in this whole conversation was not her idea of how it all works, or her idea that we could just announce that with effect from tomorrow we could effectively become completely isolated from the rest of the world with no problems tomorrow. It was the fact that she didn't even see there was a hole in her knowledge of the situation.
I've read up, I considered things, all the stuff you'd expect to do if you weren't sure. There are still massive holes in my knowledge, such that if a properly knowledgeable Brexiteer had an argument with me I'd probably lose. I know what I've researched. If they cover ground I've read up on, great. If they don't, I can't play because I don't know enough. It's why I go to experts, because they know stuff I don't, and I know when I need that kind of help.
She doesn't even see that there are gaps in her knowledge and understanding. So finally I see why people disregarded the experts. Her understanding of it all is so basic that she genuinely feels it's like finishing a cup of tea at someone's house and leaving. We've worked together well but I'm off home now. There is no comprehension of what might need to happen, and trying to say it's a bit more complicated she thinks is some sort of skullduggery going on. Where do you start with that?

babybythesea

It was the fact that she didn't even see there was a hole in her knowledge of the situation.

You see that a lot. I'm pretty sure that's how MiL's friends have voted (they live in an area that voted "Leave"). I don't know what's wrong with this country. What causes the blinkered attitude?!? Is it education - not enough critical thinking? The reporting from Ruper Murdoch's empire? (I'm going to have a private party once dear Rupert finally keels over)

I really don't know.

babybythesea my PIL voted leave because they want all the immigrants to leave. I am a EU immigrant, admittedly with a British passport and they love me and I do believe so. They also love my brother and think he is amazing, he is also here working in a high skilled industry. But they want the immigrants to go home and they are telling me that.

They also sent a celebration text to my DH on the morning of the result even though our whole family so their two sons were voting remain and they knew that. They then proceeded to text about how the entire EU establishment will collapse soon, very soon without realising what that means from an economics point of view let alone anything else.

So yes, where do you start? How can you accept the result when people voted without knowing what they are voting for? The consequences long term... It feels like some of them thought "oh well, I haven't got long to go, I may as well stir some shit before I go so they remember me".

I don't think my neighbour was stirring. There is no-one less likely to shit stir. She'd be the one handing round a placatory cup of tea. I just suspect the irony of it being Indian tea would be lost on her.
I don't know what you do about it. I was chatting to a work colleague and he said, the problem is we've lost respect for knowledge. Both knowledge through education but also knowledge through experience. H said his grandfather was working class and had a huge amount of respect for anyone with a degree. He also had respect for someone who knew what they were talking about through experience, eg someone who travelled talking about another country, or someone who'd done a long time in a particular job or field. Now we seem to be in a stage when everyone is an expert. The rhetoric is 'no-one is better than anyone else' which is true up to a point but we've gone so far over it that I wonder if we now don't acknowledge when people are better than us.
We don't think the doctor's knowledge is worth much, so we google and go in demanding they agree with us on our own diagnosis. There are so many stories about 'the time I proved all the docs wrong' that it confirms us in this belief. And we vote in a referendum on one of the most complex issues we will ever face without batting en eyelid because we know all about it (very true in both camps). Michael Gove only put it into words with his 'we don't need experts'. We have been carried along with this idea that we are all as good as each other and no one person is better that we've forgotten to acknowledge that sometimes, one person is better. Sometimes, the person with the Nobel Prize in Economics is better than the lady next door who doesn't even understand that there are trade agreements, never mind how they work. Maybe she is better at turning out an amazing meal, in which case we all need to admire and learn, but at economics, maybe she isn't the best person to ask.

It's why there should never, ever have been a vote.
I'm starting to wonder if the group that doesn't deserve the most respect is the abstainers who stayed away because they didn't feel they knew enough.

baby With you 100%!

We've been talking about the referendum so much at work, unsurprising when it is a very international bunch many of whom would experience direct effects. It being a biology lab, none of us are experts in economics or politics, but we like to think we are of reasonable cognitive ability. Not a single one of us felt we were competent to cast judgement on such an enormously complex issue.

I'm sure I will get into trouble for saying this, but the whole sorry mess is a nightmarish lesson in the Dunning-Kruger effect .

"none of us are experts in economics "

Umm, hate to break this to you but...

smallfox I don't think you work in my lab no economists there!

fair enough :)

MIL said to DH tonight, "the old people voted, but I don't think they realised what they were voting for".

I think that's her way of saying she's a Bregretter.

Remainer here. DH is 66 and a Remainer too. We are social housing tenants.

Re NHS. When food prices soar malnutrition and obesity will soar too (and yes you can be obese and malnourished) which will put more pressure on the NHS.

The Leave vote has made things worse in this area not better. I agree with the other Remainers on this thread about other things discussed too.

Because all food will go up when fuel does but you can bet the healthier food will go up by more.

I've just discovered David Icke was an ardent brexiter, I never realised he had become so popular

I think lots of leave voters can't even get their racism right. I'm sick of hearing people saying/posting that they voted out because they don't want anymore Muslims coming over here.

Yeh, bloody polish Muslims. Big sigh. Thick as long shit.

Woman on TV asked what she thought of the potential pull out if investors to hinckly point 'wew we fort two world wowers...'. is that really the answer? And no you didn't you spoiled bloody baby boomer. You don't even remember ww2. You screwed us with pensions and now you are screwing the next generations.

I saw some polling that suggested that those old enough to remember the war voted remain.

I heard that you. I'm telling you, it's the bloody baby boomers who probably barely even remember rationing.

It's not football, we carn't just get a bit disappointed and move on. The decision could monumentally mess up a lot of people's lively hoods. And mostly older people voted out for flimsy reasons, without consideration of what it ment for the younger generation.