Does what make me most sad about Brexit make other leave voters sad?

[TooTiredToTidy]

The saddest thing for me of all about Brexit (and there are soooo many) is that it's the country I was born in and have loved and been proud of all my life isn't the one I knew after all. I recently re-watched the London 2012 opening ceremony and it made me super sad because I remember being so proud of my country as I saw it - multicultural, diverse, open, tolerant, celebrating of knowledge, achievement, working together, ensuring fairness prevailed.

And since I've found out it isn't. There is more racism and more xenophobia than I realised. I found out so many of my countrymen have been simmering with so much anger, that what I thought was a bit of nostalgia is actually a real desire to live in the rose-tinted past, that we are sick of experts, that we so hate being part of the EU we are fine to screw over our the youth who overwhelming wanted to remain scientists (ditto) Scotland (ditto) Northern Ireland (ditto) etc. That we are more little England than Great Britain.

The huge rise in hate crime post Brexit has not personally impacted me but has impacted people I know. People who do and don't come from the EU have been told to 'go back to where you come from' and when speaking a foreign language told to speak English.

This German woman who rang into LBC radio show literally made me cry and feel heartbroken: www.lbc.co.uk/im-so-scared-now-german-woman-hit-by-xenophobia-calls-james-in-tears-132971

I know not many leave voters will have directly anticipated all these things happening but I want to know how they feel about them themselves? Other online trolls/posters I've asked just deny the rise in hate crime or say you can't believe everything you hear and say it's not happening. It is happening.

Equally if you've experienced something yourself as either an immigrant or is hate crime related I'd really like to hear about it.

In one sentence Kaija.

Said 'immigrants' then clarified 'Eastern European' - in the same sentence.

In 5 minutes of talking to him.

Peregrina's is a key point I think in what has led us here: those in power have not challenged anti-immigrant sentiment, because it suited them to have the blame for ever rising inequality deflected away from themselves and on to the convenient scapegoat of immigration. The idiocy was then to call a referendum after years of this scapegoating, in which they were unable to adequately argue for Remain because to do so would be to admit "actually it's neither the EU nor immigration that has caused your problems, it's our policies".

Kaija - your argument works for the Tories - it doesn't work as well for Labour. They did lose touch with their grassroots. I feel they have always been two parties in one - the public sector workers, and the manual workers. Blair, and Brown were IMO very much representative of the first group, and not really in touch with the second group. They also have a hostile tabloid press against them with the exception of the Daily Mirror.

Now whether the manual workers will decamp to UKIP - we shall see. No doubt they will prove hopelessly inept, as the BNP did when they were elected to councils.

Please ignore my comment. hopefully its obviously posted in wrong thread by accident. sensitive.

So having watched it all the way through - Brown handles it badly and charmlessly. I think actually 'belligerent woman' would have been a better term than 'bigoted'. And clearly the footage was reported as though the whole conversation was about immigration and it wasn't - immigration was one of a number of things that Duffy threw in as non sequiturs every time Brown was listing other things (policing, schools, NHS) - she mentioned students, crime, and her own pension.

If her concern was immigration, and it does seem as though she was concerned about it because she suddenly said 'you can't say anything about immigration, where are they flocking () from' - and because Brown said 'bigoted' rather than 'belligerent' or 'obnoxious' which I think were clearly words he was grasping for, his muttering was connected to that and only that by the press - then what it proves is, not that people couldn't talk about immigration, but that MPs had to grovel and apologize for linking 'where are all these immigrants coming from' with bigotry.

If her concern wasn't really immigration, I don't know what it all proves. That fears about immigration were hyped up by the press? That people who were concerned about immigration were concerned about lots of other things? But then, none of the other things she was concerned about were obviously connected to the EU, so why would a sense that people like Duffy weren't being listened to lead to a Brexit vote? We've been told enough times that it wasn't a protest vote and to think otherwise is typical Remainer arrogance.

So what are we to draw from this exchange?

Like I said before Seek, I remembered it exactly as you did - that she went on & on about immigrants & immigration - I was actually quite shocked when I watched it yesterday.

I wouldn't have said she was belligerent either though tbh - just a perfect example of what was once Labour's core vote - working class from a non-urban area.
She wasn't rude, she made the points that many wanted answers to in a forthright manner - Gordon Brown tried to politic her but she didn't let him; it was probably one of the more honest interactions with an MP that I have seen, where she didn't let him distract from her points.

That interview should have been the point at which Labour acknowledged that they had systematically alienated the very people the party was created to represent, but they didn't - they carried on putting their metropolitan vote above their working class vote.

As for the word 'flocking' - you put in quotes followed by - why?
It is a turn of phrase which is local to that area, not a loaded word at all.
This is part of the problem I think - she was honest, forthright & did not have wonderful word-smithery - yet rather than hearing the very real and pertinent concerns she had, people focussed on the choice of word & the tone used.
That's how she speaks, that's who she is.

Sorry, made a mistake, you didn't put flocking in quotes, just a face.

I'm from Yorkshire, I don't think 'flocking' is an especially Yorkshire thing!

I do think she was rude - I mean, that's fine, there's no compunction on her to be polite, and I'd be rude if I was given 5 minutes with Gove, Johnson, Farage, May, or Nuttal. Brown lacked the charisma to make things better, but he did try to explain what the govt was doing - it's just every time he was halfway through one answer she'd interrupt with a 'what about' something else. I can see why both became frustrated - he was right first time, when he said 'that was a disaster'.

But on the one hand you seem to be saying she wasn't really all that focused on immigration, and on the other that the conversation indicates why there was a problem - people were concerned but not being listened to. I'm not sure what we're meant to be taking from this other than that the whole thing was handled poorly.

Still, Brown's gone now - I can't imagine all those concerns have gone away since the Tories have been in!

All I can say is that if people in Rochdale, Burnley, Oldham, where-ever, decide that UKIP is a better bet, they will be sadly disappointed. Farage is very clever in what he implies but doesn't actually say, so can wriggle out of things when challenged, but what has he done for people? Or what would he do?

Brown did actually list a good many achievements - but the perception is that Labour no longer speaks for many, whereas in fact, they still speak far more than any Tories would.

Bored The year before last I attended the school proms, fun family/villagey affair, lots of flag waving. This year, two days after the ref, flags left on the ground, no waving, no singing. Same attendees as all from school community. So, were the people pretending to enjoy a British 'do' in 2015 but didn't bother in 2016 as they were cheesed off with the vote? Because if they were happy to Sing Rule Brittania in 2015 surely tgey'd be happy to sing it in 2016?

I think part of the problem might be the things we now associate with our own flag. Every racist group - EDL, NF, Britain First - has adopted the union flag in their publicity materials, on their websites, etc., along with images of bulldogs, lions, etc. Every EDL march flies the flag of St George. Is it any wonder that, given these associations, some people feel our flag/s have become tainted and would prefer not to wave them around?

Brexit has divided the nation like nothing else in my memory (and I'm old) and the subsequent talk about enemies of the people etc promulgated by the right wing media, who more or less accuse anyone who isn't jumping for joy about Brexit of being 'traitors', isn't helping with this. The Mail, Express et al are pushing notions of 'patriotism' much more since the referendum and Theresa May pushed it further at Tory conference with her talk of 'foreign born' people. I don't want to be associated with things like this, so would hesitate to pick up and wave around any of the 'motifs' associated with this kind of jingoism.

I was thinking that maybe the flat waving was in a year when Ingerland were in some football cup or other! What will happen when all these forrin players have to go home? It might make the England team a bit stronger, but Man U, Chelsea etc. - what will happen to them?

I live in Rochdale - I very much doubt that UKIP will get in here, it's still mostly Labour through and through even if the MP is a self promoting prick. The boundary changes will hit the area so it may change but parts are traditionally Lib Dem inclined rather than UKIP. Can't say for Oldham or Burnley though.