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.

What are your feelings on Lidl and Aldi, Jamie?

I don't think they should use University educated as a correlation for intelligence. There was a big expansion of University education in the Sixties, followed by later expansions in the 80s and 90s. Significant numbers of people who left school at 16 in the Sixties would easily have been able to cope with a University education. Even professional jobs didn't require degrees e.g. a Solicitor could qualify by taking articles. Nursing, Midwifery and Teaching back in the Sixties were non-graduate jobs. I would use the comparison of post 18 education then and University now, and I think you would have a better measure.

Yes maybe so Peregrina - but then, they are not seeking to correlate intelligence. The only thing being correlated is university education and a remain vote.

What are your feelings on Lidl and Aldi
They are not catering for one culture and dividing us.

Trying though it isn't worth it The young people going on Erasmus come from a lot of different backgrounds. The whole point is that it offers the same opportunity to study there as here, and a lot of the universities that actively engage with it also have extensive access schemes that are enabling less well off students to study there, and therefore to also embark on Erasmus, contextual offers, bursaries, scholarships etc. It isn't even confined to EU countries, one of the most popular destinations from my university was Turkey. But we really do not want our young people understanding the rest of the world do we?

Jamie Your hairdressers point is bonkers. People's hair and the way they like it done varies and in some cases requires specialist treatment and so providers will spring up to meet that consumer need. It is market forces not ghettoisation. Just like an old person is unlikely to want to shop in Top Shop or a young person too set foot in the Edinburgh Wool mill (or even M&S).

All this petty resentment is just sad and I think a lot more to do with individual's frustrated sense of entitlement than the issues facing our country.

Yes - whatwould - spot on about hairdressers and shops!

How is a Halal butcher or a Polish supermarket dividing us, Jamie?

"It is market forces not ghettoisation"

This is the nub of the whole issue.

janie are you french by any chance?
That's sort of the way they look at this there.

Just looking at the food examples people are giving for English culture. There isn't really anything particularly unique about them. Tea, India/China. As for Christmas dinner, It was not too long ago that Goose was the main bird. Of course, the turkey is the US thanks giving meal as given to commemorate the early immigrants from Europe. Democracy explored all those years ago in Greece. The cradle of western civilisation. People adopt and adapt. Good ideas and foods are always to be celebrated. Wherever you find them. I'm sure even Haggis, Welsh rarebit and Irish soda bread, dillisk/dulse and carrageen moss have their variations on a theme around the world too. Japanese use of seaweed, Croque Monsieur. Just to clarify, I'm not dissin' any favourite dishes. Just sayin' I'm not so sure these things are uniquely found in any one culture.

Someone said the minority leave voters in N. Irl and Scotland who voted in line with the majority remain voters in England and Wales should have their voice. I suppose this goes the other way too. The difference is that two of them are being pulled out of a Union they wish to remain inside, so any voice is just rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic. It is going down, whether you like it or non.

seek

It came in very handy let me tell you , when for some obscure reason the children wanted fortune cookies...straight to the chinese supermarket in china town

Only really see this in cities in my area

Rufus, is that in London?

Yes cailleach

We were visting for the day

Like i say i have only really seen this in cities when i have visited them...i think our nearest town may have a polish shop but its very new

Thanks. I may have a gander.

What are your feelings on Lidl and Aldi?

I much prefer Aldi to Lidl. We just had an Aldi open near us and it's changed my life.

Yes, you can pick individual examples and say the idea is ridiculous. The idea isn't ridiculous because its how a lot of people think. The principle is that cities/towns get divided by cultural enclaves, they dont integrate and then they clash. You can stick your head in the sand but enough people see and feel it happening to an extent that they are now prepared to leave club EU. Had those in their liberal bubbles addressed the problem before now then we probably wouldn't have come to this. I dont see anything wrong with asserting a British identity and working towards being a welcoming place for everyone dependent on a desire to integrate.

There have been Chinatowns in London and Manchester, at least, for a very long time. They date back to Victorian times. It is a great place in which to get insight into Chinese culture and buy foods that you cannot get in UK supermarkets. The UK supermarkets are responding to consumer needs and stocking more world foods like in the case of China, decent Soy Sauce and other sauces but at the same time the Chinatowns have become less dominated by Cantonese culture and expanded into offering the food of other regions, like Sichuan. Plenty of Caucasians shopping there too......The Chinese New Year celebrations draw huge crowds.

And there is a Chinese supermarket on the North Circular where you can buy a box of 150 Fortune Cookies for a tenner......

We also like to shop in Asian supermarkets, again a huge variety of ingredients, and often fresher that in UK supermarkets. For my daughters who grew up as a minority in another culture they enjoy a chance to escape the homogeneity of much of the UK.

I don't see that as a threat to ye olde English tea shoppe though, the numbers of those are expanding.......

You can stick your head in the sand but enough people see and feel it happening to an extent that they are now prepared to leave club EU.

Except that the areas with strong Leave votes in the main never see an immigrant from outside the UK. Their idea of an immigrant or an 'incomer' is someone from a town more than 20 miles away. Leaving the EU won't make the foggiest bit of difference.

I much prefer Aldi to Lidl. We just had an Aldi open near us and it's changed my life.

See....dividing the country

Jamie It may be how a lot of people you know think..... A lot of other people think you are sad and xenophobic, and taking our country back to a time that never existed.

If you find a thriving and inclusive historic asian area a threat then i suggest you visit one and find out what it is really like

peregrina

My immediate area voted leave....very, very low immigration rate, i am not even sure there is one

Mil and fil were very interested to hear about all the minorities/immigrants in the local school

They were very disappointed to hear that there were hardly any

what

Christ yes

You cant bloody move for t shops...and fake italian coffee shops

What is this "bubble"? Why is a person who experiences multiculturalism positively deemed to be living "in a bubble" while someone who neither experiences it nor wants it is supposedly more real?

I get that MN is quite liberal, but plenty of places in the UK are not and their opinion is just as valid.

Jamie if I'm honest I have senthe divide you have been talking about with Asian communities more than anything else.
I haven't seen any areas in town that have become suddenly Polish or French or German. So I'm a bit at loss as to why it has anything to do with Brexit...
But if you go my way towards Bradford for example, yes you do find that.

You will also know that a lot of effort has been invested in avoiding that.
And that accepting people from other culture with their culture has long being one of the tenets of the British culture, one based on openness and respect.
That was really the start of this thread wasn't it? People being sad that this is/has gone replaced with a 'we want Britain back wo all these pockets of immigrants'