Does anyone else find themselves getting more sympathetic to the other side

[whydidhesaythat]

I don't know if this is just another stage in the cycle of grief but I'm starting to feel that:

Those of us who were doing very nicely out of Europe thank you ignored those who didn't

EU money can go into buildings but that's not the same thing as helping people

People outside the urban centres felt the EU was just another siphon of power away from them

London patronises the regions

Not everyone got to go on a gap year to a European country so why should they be bothered about my kids having one?

There actually is a non racist anti immigration argument

I'm not saying any of this right, it may just be another reaction....but does anyone else find themselves empathising with the other side more than they did?

And not only did the Tories get it so wrong labour did too. Why were there so few opposing the referendum loudly before because they thought remain would win easily they couldn't see people needed to feel a change could happen

Take Back Control spoke to many it was not just about our borders it was about people having some say in their life and circumstances

I am angry but I am angry that the country has got to this state and yet so many politicians who are meant to represent the people didn't have a fucking clue

I really don't know how deprived areas can say they didn't see anything change under Labour. I think people have short memories, mind you it was 6 years ago now that it all ended.

The "politicans aren't in touch with voters point" is incorrect, the real swing was in areas that got far larger turn outs than they do in general elections, which essentially means that the politicians aren't involved with people who don't engage even when offered the opportunity.

They were galvanized by the media and the leave campaign pandering to their prejudices.

Like I said previously, disparate groups who were courted on very different agendas, all voting for one outcome that will end up meeting none of what they think they were promised.

Just look at the language, "We need to control our borders and immigration" that's fine but it doesn't say anything about cutting immigration does it?

Its not about gap years though is it. Try the prices of basic food items in supermarkets.

See that stuff about "gap years" is just inverted snobbery, oh and most gap years are taken outside of the EU so shows a massive ignorance too.

I feel very sympathetic for people who are suffering from government cuts, feel desperate, don't see a future and feel they have nothing to lose. I felt like that before the referendum and I feel the same now. I still think they have made a bad decision.

I don't feel any differently about the comfortably off pensioners I know who voted out because they dislike immigration and 'want our country back'. They didn't know or care (or both) about the implications on the economy and the consequential impact on services and they still don't. One person, one vote, so in that regard I'm happy for them that their voices have been heard, but I don't respect the post fact decision making process that led to it.

With regard to FOM for Brits going abroad being written off as only for the privileged, maybe that's largely true, but removing it entirely really cuts off any extra chances for the less well off. Lots of people saying that we will still be able to study and work abroad- true, but that will become even more exclusive and less attainable. I'm from a working class family, I both studied and later on lived in the EU. First member of my family to get A Levels, let alone a degree. I don't see my son having as many opportunities as I have had. It makes me feel very sad.

Nah, I'll choose to do what I want Maki thanks.

I feel very sympathetic for people who are suffering from government cuts, feel desperate, don't see a future and feel they have nothing to lose. I felt like that before the referendum and I feel the same now. I still think they have made a bad decision.

THIS!!

When I studied abraod I didnt have to pay my tuition fees in the UK (changed now) and I paid £3 in uni admin fees. As an 'overseas' student you are looking at thousands and thousands of pounds in fees. Definitely made sure that languages are now just for a privileged few via brexit.

"Another nice thread monopolised by a few shouty types. Boring!!"

Do you know the difference between "shouty" and "not agreeing with you"?

I feel very sympathetic for people who are suffering from government cuts, feel desperate, don't see a future and feel they have nothing to lose. I felt like that before the referendum and I feel the same now. I still think they have made a bad decision.

That and a very big worry for my dcs who have the 'chance' to be born from a British parent and an EU one and have now to deal with xenophobic comments.

People have voted for lots of different reasons.
As a non Brit, I have seen the rise of that situation in the 20 years I've spent here. IMO, it's not surprising in the least that people have voted that way. (And I'm not really talking about xenophobia here but about the attitude towards the EU in general)

Who's shouting?

I voted remain and am still shaken up and angry at the economic and international relations impact this will have. I do however want to be part of the solution so am active with eth Lib Dems and will get involved in trying to protect those EU values of environmental protection, regulation, health and safety, workers rights. Lots of things that the Leave voters may not miss unless they are gone.
So yes I do have empathy for the other side but only in the way this will negatively affect communities that currently benefit from EU funding or employment from say Banking operations like call centres because as we enter into recession and as global companies stop investing in the UK I think they will suffer the most.

eurochick and snowbells presumably eastern europeans come here to work because there are more jobs/better wages than in their own countries. Or because working here for a couple of years, sharing accommodation with other workers gives them sufficient money to take back to their own countries where it is worth more and then finances a higher standard of living than they would otherwise have if they had stayed at home. None of that applies to British workers.
It is the young who move, not so easy for those with kids in schools and mortgages etc

I think monopolised is the most important word in that sentence.

It was an interesting thread.

We are allowed to carry on believing that Brexit is a bad idea and saying why, you know. Just as Leavers are allowed to carry on believing it's a good idea and not saying why............

I'm a Leaver. I'm very sympathetic towards Remain voters whose jobs or businesses are directly affected by all this. Losing your livelihood under any circumstances is awful, and I've never thought that 'Leave' is some kind of magical solution to all problems. I'm also worried about the NI border and Gibraltar. On balance, though, I don't regret my vote.

I have no sympathy for:

• people whose European holidays will be more expensive or who want to hire cheap nannies or tradespeople
• gap years/study abroad types
• MNetters who think I am too ignorant to deserve a vote. Seriously appalled by the anti-working class suffrage comments on here after the referendum. Nice throwback to 1867.

"On balance, though, I don't regret my vote"

Can you help me understand? Could you give me 3 ways you think life will be better post Brexit, and when you think th bare going to happen?

eurochick and snowbells presumably eastern europeans come here to work because there are more jobs/better wages than in their own countries. Or because working here for a couple of years, sharing accommodation with other workers gives them sufficient money to take back to their own countries where it is worth more and then finances a higher standard of living than they would otherwise have if they had stayed at home. None of that applies to British workers.
It is the young who move, not so easy for those with kids in schools and mortgages etc

Plenty of immigrants come as whole families, I know lots of eastern european families and they all come and get jobs- I know one family where the wife is aNHS dentist and the husband works minimum wage jobs. They have to pay the same rent and bills as British people.

It is a myth that most people coming here are young and live in crowded houses, if this were the case, then how would restricting immigration help the overcrowded schools and NHS problems (as young men very fit and rarely need NHS)?

Why do whole familes relocate? Lack of jobs, very poor pay in their original country and almost no benefit system so it is extremely frightening to be out of work.

It not being so easy to move with kids in schools and mortgages is why I didn't book a ticket to ANYWHERE ELSE in Europe on June 24th.

BertrandRussell, thanks for posting that link from Newsnight further up the thread, Hislop is spot on. well worth watching and I don't know how I missed it.

I/we voted remain and absolutely nothing since has changed my mind. We are the working poor and things will be so much worse for us. We don't live in London and we don't go to expensive concerts, but I clean houses and child-mind for people who work in these places and when they cut my hours our lives will be harder.

Too much closed thinking from leave voters here and everywhere else, it wasn't a protest vote, the Tories have caused austerity, not the Polish workers who come here looking for a better life and why you all cant see that is beyond me.

Agree that sometimes whole families do relocate, but often people do go abroad when they are young and single and it is easier to do so. Either way, if people are coming here it is because there are opportunities which don't exist in their own countries which is why it is daft to tell Brits to just up and move or accuse them of laziness if they don't.

I don't understand why it is good to have large numbers of Eastern Euopeans doing low skilled manual work here instead of having British people who are already here do it. Presumably if they are unemployed the state is having to pay benefits so it costs the country money to have the work done by people from other countries. Maybe I am missing something but why aren't we making unemployed Brits do the work and insist that employers pay decent wages that people can actually live on?

"Calling people stupid and ignorant on a thread about sympathy is a bit rude imo."

It's not a thread about sympathy. It's a thread about whether we feel more sympathetic towards the other side. And, actually, I still feel absolutely no sympathy at all for the "protest voters" and I do think they are stupid, because they didn't think through exactly what it meant. Just my opinion, though. You wanted opinions, didn't you?

And while I agree (and I hadn't thought this before) that there will have been voters whose situations are so desperate that they felt any change would be better, than where they are now, I am pretty sure that they did not form anything like the majority of the Leave vote. Apart from anything else, people in those sorts of situations tend not to vote at all.