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.

Ah carol. Your argument is ridiculous and know it. It smacks of desperation.

BTW one of the leading points of the leave campaign was about whether we were going to give Turkey membership, and some iniquitous points were made regarding what this would lead to.

Do you really think the leave campaign would accept this or any other state being given freedom of movement?

A rather mendacious argument if our ask me.

Maybe people are pissed off because their children can't get a place at the local school or an appointment at the doctor's surgery. House prices and rents have soared.

The answer to this is investment by our own government.

but really what has happened is that the EU has become the bogeyman for everything that is wrong with the U.K. Austerity and all the cuts that come with that has led to the problems you cite. A lot of the areas hardest hit by austerity have low immigration. But immigration was allowed to be the peg to hang the all issues caused by austerity on. Austerity was government policy not from Brussels in the UK's case. The fact that the EU is also suffering from austerity measures is separate as the UK isn't part of the Eurozone. Living in a country which has suffered under EU led austerity and lack of coherent policy regarding the refugee crisis I am under no illusion that the EU is anywhere near where it should be. But I am baffled by the idea that it isn't better to remain, have a voice and reform from within. Which will happen at some point as each of the member states are just as keen as the UK to ensure the EU works for them. Each country has a government that will suffer at the ballot box at some point if the balance of negatives from the EU begins to outweighs the positives. I think one of the things that seems apparent in a lot of what I have read and heard is that so many people think in terms of the UK and the "continent", the "continent" being one mass of EU citizens instead of being 27 states of people who also are very proud of their history and culture and who also have no intention of becoming one large country at some point in the future. And so a lot of what has been stated has no basis in reality. Most of these states have been far less hawkish than the UK in becoming involved in military action and would leave the EU tomorrow rather than allow their children to be conscripted into the future European Army as one of the most outlandish lies from Leave insisted would happen. Thinking of the EU in this blatantly false, future huge one nation way has allowed the distorted facts and slogans from Leave have more credibility than if this hadn't been the case.

David Cameron has persued austerity. Also you actually need somewhere to build the extra schools and doctor surgeries. If you could control WHERE in the uk immigrants settled then there would be less of a problem. In my area there have been two new GP surgeries and nearly all the schools have been expanded. That money has had to come from somewhere at a time when the uk is under austerity.

Freedom of movement benefits those who are highly qualified or bilingual. There is little benefit for most of the U.K. Population who only see the downsides of fom.

With austerity uk citizens can't even go and do an evening class an EU country if they wanted to learn a different EU language. EU citizens mostly learn English at school where as uk children might get a smattering of French.

If the remainers had been serious about remaining in the EU they would have addressed these problems.

"Maybe people are pissed off because their children can't get a place at the local school or an appointment at the doctor's surgery. House prices and rents have soared."

87% of UK primary school children get into their first choice school, any shortage of spaces in scchols is not caused by immigration but the fact that the governments acadamy and free school policy have stopped LEAs from providing new places where they are needed in many cases. We knew in 2010/11 that there would be pressure on places as we had an increase in the birth rate. Even still 87%, with the increase in birth rate, is still not that much lower than the 90% it was pre 2004.

The GP thing? EU immigration isn't to blame, EU immigrants are likely to be young and healthy and less likely to use the doctor, its a well known thing called the healthy migrant effect. An ageing population and a shrinking pool of GPs lead to GP waiting times not immigration.

House prices and rents soaring are again not to do with immigration, but chronic under building of homes for 30 years, we have under built by 200,000 on average each year, that's 6 million homes.. We also have a situation where the supply of new homes is controlled by private firms, who at any given time are sitting on land which has planning permission for about 600,000 homes, but only releasing around 130,000 or a bit more each year in order to keep house prices high. This combined with low interest rates, help to buy, and QE since 2009 have helped house prices go up. Prior to that it was 100% mortgages etc. Not immigration.

See as someone said above, the EU has become the bogey man, something easy to blame, when its not to blame for any of the things that you mention, and they won't get better outside of the EU.

Who are you going to blame then?

Tony Blair could have asked for a stay on the movement of East Europeans when their countries acceded. He misjudge the situation badly not realising how many would come.

I would just like to pick up the argument that 'the green belt is being built on'. Yes, it most certainly is near me, but the people moving into the houses seem as British as I am.

As for Doctors appointments - you need to press Jeremy Hunt on that one and ask him to find out why so many UK doctors are choosing to emigrate.

Reallytired I am really pissed off that many in my community cannot get places at a local school and that indeed it can be hard to get an appointment at the doctors. However I am well aware that it is because our LEA have always had a strategy of under provision which leaves many parents on waiting lists for Reception and Year 7. The aim is to ensure all schools are filled to capacity and to deter as many parents as possible into moving or going private, it enables the most effective use of the budget and avoids the need for investment in new school places, as the Head of Education says it is just "unfortunate" that leaves parents without the certainty of a school place for months on end . Add in that then new school places became dependent on finding someone willing to open a Free School and that academisation landed us with some rubbish leadership that dragged schools down into special measures. Oh and that our Conservative Council Leader, an ennobled mate of David Cameron, decided that the best use of a scarce school site in the face of a school place shortage, was to donate it to the Catholic Church for his legacy an exclusive school where places are dependent on not just sitting in a pew but also getting your child baptised by six months (a policy which handily excludes those Catholics from formerly communist countries where it is not the practise ), encouraging all the other faith schools to crease the proportion of faith based places. Not many immigrants in that school, in fact half as many from BME backgrounds or on FSM as in local community schools. Of course it is convenient for our local and national government if some in our community are distracted from the real issues into thinking it is all the fault of immigrants, because it means they will continue to get away with treating local parents with contempt.

Shall I bore you with the detailed explanation explain the reasons the NHS is under pressure locally, and indeed the shortage of health professionals generally?

There are a few communities mainly in Lincolnshire where EU immigration, the result of labour shortages, has put resources under pressure. However these are EU migrants who are working and paying taxes and the government should have directed those taxes into providing resources. Of course as we have discussed there are communities in the north with large non EU immigrant populations for historic reasons where opportunities and resources have dried up along with their industry base but if anything the EU was a force for change, rather than culpable.

I am just sad that so many fell for the easy narrative that appealed to the natural human tendency to xenophobia that it was all the fault of EU immigration. It means the government can continue with it's unfair and devisive policies and dogma.

And what is really making me sad is the way that the young people who are just setting out on their adult lives have been betrayed and deprived of the chance to be part of a political and economic alliance and opportunity to live and work in 27 countries that they so valued. Instead they will leave the country to work somewhere they are valued (a bit like all the doctors and nurses are already doing because of the state of the NHS, see above) or they will have to build their lives in the ruins left by whatever form of damaging Brexit emerges from the current political mess.

The 'Brexit is to help the poor African farmers' argument is so much bullshit. Post-Brexit, EU agricultural subsidies will simply be replaced with UK agricultural subsidies.

Unless your argument, caroldecker, is that we remove subsidies from UK farmers and let them go bust so that we can buy food from Africa instead? Hmm, thought not.

I think we should also highlight the fact that in places with low immigration, people cited the "unable to get kids into schools and hard to get Dr appointments" thing, there was a really interesting radio programme which went to Sunderland where people said this, and then when questioned if it had actually happened to them, they said no.

There are a few areas where EU immigration has places some services under strain, but this is down to National government spending decisions, choosing not to spend the extra tax gained locally on local services, rather than immigration its self.

So for those who want to help the poor African farmers, do you think the UK is likely to do this? Wasn't Priti Patel talking about linking Aid to trade, (quite illegally, I gather)? Don't people already object to the amount of spending which goes on overseas aid?

As with all Brexit logic on trading there is an assumption illusion of entitlement that the world has spent the last forty years just waiting for Britain to bestow it's largesse and enable the rest of the world to support it in the manner to which it has become accustomed.

The African Union has a strategy of it's own to help it's farmers and that is to unhook itself from the dependency on commodity crops like ground nuts and cocoa that colonisation left them with, along with a vulnerability to the big fluctuations in price. Instead they plan to develop their agricultural sector to focus on the growing world market for meat and cereal crops, mainly in Asia (where their main existing trading partners are). I am sure they would welcome genuine aid to help them develop more sustainable agriculture to support African families but subsidies for British meat and cereal farmers not sure they would think welcome removal of subsidies to British meat and cereal farmers and Pritti Patel and her attempts to revert to colonial exploitation might not be so welcome....

Apologies for the dyslexic sentence wrangling, that should read

I am sure they would welcome genuine aid to help them develop more sustainable agriculture to support African families but subsidies for British meat and cereal farmers and Pritti Patel and her attempts to revert to colonial exploitation might not be so welcome....

"Freedom of movement benefits those who are highly qualified or bilingual. There is little benefit for most of the U.K. Population who only see the downsides of fom.

With austerity uk citizens can't even go and do an evening class an EU country if they wanted to learn a different EU language. EU citizens mostly learn English at school where as uk children might get a smattering of French."

This whole statement is ridiculous, in every fucking single level

whilst Leavers want to embrace the world
PMSL. If that's the case, why do you think Farage sought to get people to vote leave with his poster featuring brown people coming to Europe? He was basically showing Leavers their nightmare scenario.

This whole statement is ridiculous, in every fucking single level

Which bit is ridiculous?
The uptake of modern foreign languages has declined significantly in Universities.

MFL classes at FE colleges are being cut back. I went to one college for post GCSE spanish - the class was cancelled but I was offered another GCSE level. I found another college to do AS. All A2 language classes were cancelled the following May. It didn't matter to me as a mature student, but it did for those young people needing an A level to progress further.

"Freedom of movement benefits those who are highly qualified or bilingual. There is little benefit for most of the U.K. Population who only see the downsides of fom
well in my case which is by no means the exception IME I spoke about 2 words of the language of the country where I now live when I arrived and possessed no highly desirable skills bar speaking my native language that the local population didn't already have to offer them. I am now totally fluent in this language but that has come through time, desire, commitment and living in the country. I also come from a very financially strapped background. So no I completely disagree. Free movement doesn't just benefit those who start off with high qualifications, desirable skills or fluency in another language. Free movement offered me as someone who didn't possess those skills, opportunities to develop them and experience something that otherwise I would not been able to do so easily.

The ridiculous bit peregrina is the attempt to blame the EU for the fact that a lot of British people don't speak other languages. It once again comes down to the lack of investment / forward planning by British administrations.

OK urkelina - I get you. It's partly because we can get away with not learning languages. It's partly also there isn't one obvious language to learn as there is with other countries. If the US was predominantly Spanish speaking we would start learning it PDQ. And it's partly the dislike of Johnny Foreignor

Thanks peregrina. I fully agree. I'd add that we as parents also need to encourage this more, within our means obviously. If all the energy that is going to "immigrants are taking our school places" went to "let's improve the quality of our education" things would be different.

I have argued frequently on this site for the removal of agricultural subsidies and import duties into the UK and the EU. No need to give subsidies to Africa instead, just let them trade freely.
Only 1 'western' economy has removed agricultural subsidies (New Zealand) and its farming sector has boomed ever since.

MFLs disappeared first from those state schools that served working class / rural areas because there was a lack of demand, if families don't value them and pupils won't engage, and the government does not make them a requirement, then they do decline. In most private schools all pupils will learn at least two languages and take at least one to at least GCSE level, along with a reasonable number taking it to A level and beyond. MFL courses at university level are struggling to recruit from state schools but fill up their courses with pupils from private schools. Certainly in this area MFLs are still offered in those state schools that have a predominantly middle class intake, and middle class parents like to see good MFL provision but at the academies that don't have a predominantly middle class intake you can only study French and that only to GCSE. I have a friend who teaches MFL in a rural area and they really really struggle to engage their pupils in an interest in languages at all, in spite of making it all fun and games, they are just not valued by families so now she is diverted to teaching media and business studies . The way MFL are examined at GSCE doesn't help. My DCs persevered with their MFL in spite of the exam system which is little more than memory testing because having lived overseas they fully understood the value.

Thinking about it you have to say that it is a symptom of what bought about this vote. The government never engaged the whole UK population with the benefits of having close ties with our neighbours in a global economy based on geographical and cultural alliances. If they had they would not have allowed the neglect of MFL provision, and through it the widening of the gap in opportunities between rich and poor, cities and countryside,, south and north. Anyone who has studied German /French/ Spanish/Polish /Mandarin language and culture doesn't just have a marketable skill (and actually one that Brexit makes more in demand) they are much better equipped to understand what we have in common and sets us apart from other nations, and wouldn't feel so insecure in their "British" identity that they have to assert it above all.

Import duties are going to be comoletely removed by 2018 by the EU. Do you think the UK will.do this on its own?

Also as people have identified the nature of trade with African nations had moved on significantly. You also overy simplify the NZealand example.

I had European language skills and I never found an employer in the uk remotely interested in them! English is our businesses language I was told at interview for one major exporter. I was entry level fodder.

Then a friend who was head of foreign languages on a secondary said businesses told them there were not the language skills at higher management level. This did not surprise me given my experience and that of my DH who had worked in Europe as a youth and again has never been called upon to use anything other than English in his industry.

Stop blaming " lazy" Brits for structural issues in business.

Just a note about mfl provision, at a level especially it is being hit hard by funding cuts. It was once viable to run smaller classes but now in many schools if a course has less than 12 students it won't runeed. Again funding is the issue.

Lucy That is certainly not true for a lot of global businesses now. Some international banks require at least one language and others regard a "global perspective" as a key quality they look for in the template for recruitment . PWC for instance list "global acumen" alongside business acumen, networking skills and technical capabilities as the four important components of leadership qualities that they focus on in the recruitment and development of their employees.

It isn't really the ability to carry on high level negotiations in a language that David Davies is going to need to negotiate with Berners but rather the awareness it gives you of different cultures and ways of thinking and how to network and operate in different business environments. Any UK exporter clinging to talking loudly and slowly in English to their overseas customers /suppliers, and sadly there are plenty of them, is not adopting an effective strategy. Of course having an MFL is not a passport to a job in business, you do need to develop those other qualities too, but it is becoming more important and a useful skill. My Scientist daughter has already got a job partly as a result of being able to hold a basic conversation in German.