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.

Staying in the single market was in the Tory manifesto on which they were elected. I continue to be amazed that for so many leavers, a single advisory vote apparently overrules all other elements of our democracy.

Tootired I voted Remain, but I think that you are kidding yourself if you thought the UK was multicultural, diverse, open, tolerant, celebrating knowledge, achievement, working together, ensuring fairness prevailed prior to the Leave vote. The 2012 opening ceremony was a work of entertainment, fiction and artistic license.

There were pockets of what you describe, but they were bubbles, usually in or near large urban centres, often surrounded by hinterlands of relative deprivation or a much more circumscribed way of life. Vast swathes of the population were left behind and excluded from that rosy picture you paint. The utopia you describe, was in a sense built on their exclusion.

And that's just at home. I would struggle to describe a UK that went to war in Iraq and Libya for example as a country that "ensured fairness prevailed.

Perhaps you might consider that the EU just has a different locus of the other...there is still xenophobia inherent in the European project. What is happening in many EU countries as the result of the way the EU is economically structured is pretty horrendous.

Your nostalgia is no less rose tinted and inaccurate than the Leave nostalgia you describe.

I agree with you op

it is remainers who are the xenophobic hate filled group, whilst Leavers want to embrace the world, rather than just a rich white part of it

There is no evidence for this, in fact, quite the opposite. The British Election Study shows that a large majority of Leave voters are opposed to policies to open up the economy and promote diversity. The difference with Remain voters (on these views and open/closed personality profiles) is highly statistically significant. There are of course exceptions, but nothing to support your statement.

Maybe what it means is that the Con should have triggered a general election (after the referendum) as their manifesto was opposite to 'the will of peole' and therefore they do NOT represent the population anymore and do not have mandate.....

I heard a Tory Council leader say the other week that this was Cameron's manifesto therefore Theresa May wasn't bound by it. This would then beg the question what mandate if any Theresa May actually did have. Sadly, no one picked him up on this to ask the question. Personally I would want to see a General Election and then she would have to publish a manifesto - although on current form, given her contempt for Parliament and vast numbers of the population, she would probably think a blank sheet of A4 would serve.

Well Wrong, it is just that you said their mandate comes from what was in the manifesto they published before the general election. Just pointing out there were other things in their manifesto that one could say had an equal mandate.

Some people seem to regard opinion polls done on a tiny and selective proportion of the electorate (maybe not even the eligible electorate for all I know) and non binding advisory referenda as having the same legitimacy as decisions made by Parliament. In a country where Parliament is supposed to be sovereign, I wonder where that leaves representative democracy.

It seems to me as if they are all touted as being on a par by some people. That does seem a strange malarkey. If they are regarded as having the same legitimacy and give the same indicator as to public support, then why not a mere opinion poll instead of a general election?

Or if we do decide that governing by Referenda is now the way we want to go, at least draw up some proper rules as they have done in Ireland, for example. Not this, let's make it up as we go along nonsense.

Absolutely, if you make it a binding referendum with everything in place, then it has a different status.

Its sad when people are racist and its also sad when being proud to be British is considered racist.

I dont think Brexit has caused an increase in racist people, that has been years in the making and the rise of the EU state has been the cause of a lot of it. This idea that a multicultural country is the purist form of equality does not seem to fit with human nature. We are more tolerant of differences when we are secure in our own identity. Unfortunately the enforced drive to an EU superstate has been striping us of our 'Britishness'. Now we are escaping from the EU we can rebuild a British culture. When people of different cultures come to stay they can be helped to integrate into that British culture rather than as currently where different cultures are ghettoized and segregated. Then over time we will be able to be more tolerant of visitors differences.

I think wealthy liberals have been sheltered from the undercurrent of feeling and now it is being uncovered they are shocked by the reality. Everyone else isn't surprised because they always saw it simmering away and growing. Now we are leaving the EU we can actually address the issue instead of sticking our heads in the sand. So while its sad to hear of a racist attack that is separate from feeling proud to be British and are working on a solution to it.

I have never met in real life anyone who is a 'little Englander', seems remainers are grouping all leavers as xenophobes, nice.

I would also like to stand up for 44% in N.Ireland and 38% in Scotland who all voted with the majority to leave the EU. Their voice seems to be ignored, I haven't heard a single Scottish MP stand up for leavers, its like 100% of them voted remain.

Its not the UK that has changed, its just that some in it have been living in a bubble >>and Brexit is the pin

I agree with Orchid. As far as I can be, I believe myself to be not racist and tolerate.

I've had stand up rows with people over racist comments, no more since the Brexit vote than before. There does seem to be more xenophobia and racism on the news I grant you. But in real life it's always been here in my experience.

" Unfortunately the enforced drive to an EU superstate has been striping us of our 'Britishness'. Now we are escaping from the EU we can rebuild a British culture. "

How are we being stripped of out Britishness? I was born in Britain and have lived here all my life, and I have literally no idea what you mean, or what you imagine a "British culture" would look like. Can you elaborate?

Yay, looking forward to this new British culture with a decimated Nhs, collapsed social care, loss of farming, higher education, science and research and financial services.
Exciting times for British people.

87% of UK primary school children get into their first choice school, any shortage of spaces in scchols is not caused by immigration

The figure of 87% is complete political spin, its meaningless. I have been through the process a few times and talked about it for years in the playground and coffee shops with dozens of parents. Your first choice school is usually one you will NEVER get into and is pointless even putting on the form. Your 'so called' first choice is really the least objectionable worst choice.

Quite, birdy, but enjoy your "feeling of sovereignty"

Don't worry Jamie, if that's true, all that's going to change not we're leaving the eu!!!

Well Wrong, it is just that you said their mandate comes from what was in the manifesto they published before the general election. Just pointing out there were other things in their manifesto that one could say had an equal mandate

I would say that a referendum of the whole country over-rules a manifesto pledge.

Some people seem to regard opinion polls done on a tiny and selective proportion of the electorate (maybe not even the eligible electorate for all I know) and non binding advisory referenda as having the same legitimacy as decisions made by Parliament. In a country where Parliament is supposed to be sovereign, I wonder where that leaves representative democracy

I haven't heard people saying this. I agree with you it is not democratic or constitutional and is not the way to go.

It seems to me as if they are all touted as being on a par by some people. That does seem a strange malarkey. If they are regarded as having the same legitimacy and give the same indicator as to public support, then why not a mere opinion poll instead of a general election?

I agree. If I gave the impression I was saying polls give a mandate, that was poor phrasing on my part - I don't believe they do. They are useful, however, as an indication (to be taken with a pinch of salt) of public opinion.

"
I would say that a referendum of the whole country over-rules a manifesto pledge."

Except that the referendum was not on leaving the single market.

No, but we cannot leave the EU in a meaningful way and remain in the single market (as thing stand).

That is a matter of opinion, not of fact, and not what many prominent leavers were saying before the vote.

How are we being stripped of out Britishness? I was born in Britain and have lived here all my life, and I have literally no idea what you mean, or what you imagine a "British culture" would look like. Can you elaborate?

I think this is really interesting. There is a lot of talk in education, social services, charities etc, about celebrating and preserving (I can't think of the right word, not really preserving) people's culture from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Likewise Scottish culture or Irish culture is seen as a "thing". But when British or heaven forbid English culture is mentioned, the reaction is more often than not either disbelief that such a thing exists or sneering.

Can anyone explain why this is so?

I would say that a referendum of the whole country over-rules a manifesto pledge.

That is only one opinion. Has it been debated anywhere? If that is the case that the Referendum overrules the Manifesto of the elected Government then we are back to the question of what exactly is Theresa May's manifesto? The question was about Remain or Leave, not do we give cart blanche to the Prime Minister who makes the rules up as he or she goes along?

No, but we cannot leave the EU in a meaningful way and remain in the single market (as thing stand).

Not with Theresa May's anti-immigrant stance, no. But remember Farage was quite happy to promote Norway as an example before the Referendum. There was no where on the ballot paper to ask those who wanted to Leave as to what their priorities were.

Read my post again. I didn't express disbelief that Britishness or British culture exists, but at the notion that this has somehow been stripped from us.

I cannot imagine what is in the minds of people who talk about British culture who think that we don't currently have it,

That was to wrong trouser, not Peregrina.

How are we being stripped of out Britishness?
British democracy where we can vote in/out politicians is becoming more and more pointless as the EU makes more and more of the rules.

Our schools are being isolated by segregated communities from different cultures.

Our language having to be translated into twenty others.
Our high streets having shops/hairdressers dedicated to separate cultures.

Our animal welfare and food production being dictated by fear of upsetting foreign cultures.

And the more cultures we have the more we take on their problems.
We used to have to avoid the rough part of town, now we need to also avoid the ghettos of different cultures.

I agree op.