Has anyone learnt anything?

[Namehanger]

I am a remainer and have spent about two hours a day reading threads and articles on Brexit. I started angry, got angrier but am now calming down.

I have disagreed with a huge amount of what posters who voted to leave the EU have said. So what I have learnt?

• I sort of knew but had underestimated how difficult life is in some parts of the UK
• that some posters had good reasons for leaving the EU.
• that immigration is patchy and is an issue in some areas
• buy to let landlords in the SE, buy cheap property in the North and turn them into HMO's filled with immigrants
• how totally morally bankrupt some politicians are, it is one thing fiddling your expenses but to create this shitstorm
• everyone has been let down, both people who voted in and out of the EU. We are a tolerant, outgoing nation.

I am no longer going to use the labels of remain and leave. They have now become full of bile and hatred.

Be flexible in your thinking about the future.

Sorry if that sounded churlish about young people but I'm genuinely disappointed in both their generation and mine.

Also that Nigel Farage is not the nastiest force in politics and that I am genuinely scared about who may now take over his job.

Also that people I disagree with can still make me laugh.

Lovely - what experts talk shit? Politicians? I don't count them as experts. Experts, to me, mean the people who have studied their subject. The Nobel Prize winners for economics, for example. What do you know that they don't and makes them talk shit and you talk reason?

I'm learning that a lot of people think this is 'over'. I find that utterly worrying. Have they not understood that 'Leaving the EU' is not a simple binary? We have the shape of the deal to negotiate.

Whenever I hear people say: 'I don't see why we can't just all accept the result and move on' I think: 'We don't have a result yet.

I think the irresponsibility continues.

People have to think about what 'Leave' means to them. It's a debate that was - shockingly - left to one side during the Referendum.

I have learnt that I am troubled and shocked that peoe are now extremely keen to abs e themselves of the responsibility of thinking through this second stage.

I have learned that our politicians didnt have a a plan. That many of them want to waste time and resource criticising the opposite camp instead of pulling together. That being voted in and well paid does not mean youre obliged to get on with the job. That if they dont agree with their colleagues its acceptable to quit and leave our poor country with no leadership. And that they have completely and utterly let us down

The bizarre outcome of this referendum is that whatever deal the government end up negotiating, the vast majority of the population are going to be opposed to it. Half the population did not want to leave the EU at all, and much of the half who did want to leave are going to be unhappy with whatever compromises we need to make to the EU in order to preserve our access to the European markets.

Politicians are even less trustworthy than I had thought they were. And I was pretty sure I'd set that bar very very low.

That people think a referendum asking us to decide whether to vote for something that has no plan or vote for the status quo is democracy in action.

I've learnt,

Just how many of my friends are bigots, and have just assumed that I voted the way that they did,

How incredibly arrogant and dismissive "intelligent" and educated people are about others,

How much I love and value my European friends, neighbours, and business owners where I live,

How much I want the U.K. to leave the EU.

Gideon I've been lookin out for you to say thanks for the PM - for some reason I can't reply!

This is a great thread.

I've learned that I REALLY value the EU, but didn't know how it worked in any detail.

I remembered I'm terrified of nationalism, and why.

I learned that right wing populism is a thing, and the rule book goes: Step 1, define an "elite". Step 2, persuade population that they can overthrow that elite through democratic uprising.

I learned that politics can make me you scared for your future, and that many people in this country have been living in pretty shitty, fearful circumstances for a long time. And that I'd kinda assumed they'd be able to sort themselves out.

Finally, that "leave EU" to some people meant walking away from tedious regulation and excessive expense. But that those people (wot I know) have no concrete idea of what that "leave" looks like, and thought we just wouldn't have to do it any more. Which means they will be sorely disappointed.

Oh, and that I need to fumblingly get involved in politics in some way, to try to sort this shambles out.

That's okay, CaptainBrickbeard! I'm still in your camp - intend to fight this every which way and delighted to see a legal challenge has been issued.

I've learnt that people just believe whatever they want to believe.

The referendum was not a class issue. I know lots of poor people who voted remain, most inner cities voted remain. The only people I know that voted leave are middle income earners. So, please stop blaming poor people for the outcome.

I agree with CaptainBrickbeard - I won't accept it either.

Sorry, I went off topic, it's an automatic reaction to seeing the words 'we should all pull together' .

I guess I learnt how militant I am..!

I have learnt that the only people in control of the country are the ones who own the media especially newspapers.
I have learnt that we need more grass root politicians not "career" politicians who decide their politics on which party they think will give them the best return for their money.

captain I think you've learnt your trigger words

And I always thought of myself as a nice, calm, pacifist type as well, Strictly .

I've learnt that pacifists don't believe in violence, but they can say whatever they like, especially when it really needs to be said, even if it slightly drifts off topic and even if it offends a few people.

Name changer

You may have missed the dozens of reports and statistical analysis that indicate that traditional Labour voters in social classes C & D were the reason Leave won.

Just because it suits your bias to believe it was Tories and the middle class doesn't mean you are correct.

Helpfulchap, you must have missed the memo about confirmation bias ONLY APPLYING TO LEAVERS!!!

I thought the consensus was that the reason brexit won was broadly down to the combination of blue collar workers on the left and older social conservatives on the right.

It's never ever helpful to start blaming groups of people for anything especially when there is no proof of who voted for what. And, we shouldn't be wasting time blaming people now, we should be thinking about what we can do about, how we can prevent the worst can happening.