Has anyone else noticed a change in mood this week, and not a positive one?

[Bearbehind]

Since the referendum it seems to me that, unless you go looking for news about it, for some reason it's not been the headline news it should be.

I think those that have been following it thought the Tory party conference would at least put to rest some concerns but it's had the opposite affect.

Last night ITV news led with a story about how, although the predictions of doom hadn't materialised, we haven't actually left yet.

It went on to talk about the tanking pound and Hollande saying the UK must pay for Brexit.

Even the Daily mail seems to be a bit less gung ho about everything.

Several people I spoke to last week were very down about it all and they're not people I'd even discussed Brexit with before.

Is the media making a conscious effort to get people to see it isn't all rosy or is it just me thinking that's the case?

Just you I think! We aren't hearing anything new.
I'm still very positive about it!

Not just you - tanking pound, ugly rise in immigration / foreign worker attitudes..

200 people being made redundant this week at work due to brexit - Many large corporates have stopped spending and investment post brexit and work pipeline has collapsed.

Whatever you views, you can't argue were not hearing anything new fitnessfad

The problem is none of it seems positive if you voted Remain and it's not looking great if you voted leave either. One of today's offerings Every EU migrant can stay

not exactly what those who voted for immigration reasons wanted is it?

positive you say fitness? Where is the positive? I for one can't (in all honesty) say that this week has brung any positives.

I think we have lurched this week from 'isolated' public acts of racism to a coordinated governmental one (with significant public outcry, altho not I note from the opposition). The Ukip MEP putting the other one in hospital (according to reports on the day) and now presenting a united "just a scuffle" front. Flash crash of the £, with further falls afterwards ...

NY Times has called the change in mood too

nyti.ms/2dGCiG2

You're right! Xenophobic rhetoric from the party in power designed to drive away "foreigners": businesses warning of dire consequences, medical bodies complaining about the threats made to foreign doctors who work here, leading universities doing the same about their foreign academics, EU nationals feeling terrified and being told they'll be used as bargaining tools, EU nationals threatened to be put in lists... have I forgotten anything from the last few days?

This week has been terrifying. I think we need a general election before this goes through.

Does anyone think that this is partly a result of the Tories going too far in their appeal to UKIP with their racist populism at Conference? Now they are being called out on it, at last, and with the pound collapsing, they realise that far from being a vote winner, it will be a vote loser?

Not just you. Dark days ahead I think.

I agree that's been the trigger peregrina

Since then there just seems to have been a more concerted effort to get the message across in more mainstream media that we're actually in the shit.

Of course the right wing press coverage is reducing - bad news is being buried.

A couple of days after the referendum one pro-Brexit paper ran an article entitled "how to Brexit proof your pension".

The right always were the masters of cognitive dissonance.

Yeah this week does seem very negative. And we haven't even left yet.

In my brighter moments, I wonder if the egregious xenophobia that was displayed during the Tory party conference was an attempt to scare the living daylights out of all right-thinking people and make us campaign against Brexit entirely or a hard Brexit at least. In my gloomier moments, I imagine it was a testing of the waters and a normalising of this sort of discourse.

It's hard to believe that less than 6 months ago, Zac Goldsmith's mayoral campaign was widely decried for its "dog whistle" politics and he was largely disgraced by its latent racism. How would his snide innuendo and Islamophobia go down today?

I started interviewing people for an important position in my company this week.

We're in the software industry, and this industry is completely dependant on talent from overseas. Completely.

Our education system has been teaching kids Word and Excel for the past 30 years, rather than programming. We've been producing admin assistants rather than tech entrepreneurs for decades.

I've looked through many many CVs and interviewed a fair few people so far. Not one British citizen. Post-Brexit I would have interviewed zero candidates and received zero applications for this crucial role.

If we continue this long, slow walk off a xenophobic cliff then small companies in my industry (of which there are hundreds) will find it very very hard to fill key positions crucial to staying in business.

So, yea, feeling pretty fucking downbeat.

And that's before I even start thinking about the kind of country we'll be living in, where xenophobia has been legitimised, democracy is essentially over, and Internet conspiracy theories are held as cherished facts.

Of course the right wing press coverage is reducing - bad news is being buried.

The Mail and Telegraph coverage doesn't seem to be reducing (not hard as its rarely headline news) but what they both covered this week has been much more negative to towards Brexit- much to the outrage of those who comment on articles.

It was the ITV news that surprised me. I realise it shouldn't as this should have been a high priority news item but it hasn't been and it's only when you see a negative story on the 10 o'clock news you realise how little is making it through to everyday life.

I used 'Poo and Fan time' in the title of the last Westministers thread for a reason. It was started on Saturday, before the start of the Tory conference.

The last week, as well as the next couple, were always going to be key moments in Brexit with the Tory Party conference and a50 starting to be heard in the courts. Its starting to get to crunch time.

May's vision was received as 'arse for everyone', rather than 'a country that works for everyone' in a lot of circles here and abroad, despite also having a lot of support domestically. Its making other countries reassess their own perceptions of us as a nation - and not in a good way. Its a diplomatic failure. It raises questions over May's priorities and indeed her competence.

She's gone further and managed to fuck it more than I thought could be done.

So no its not just you. I've seen a number of leading Brexiteers saying how this was not what they regarded Brexit to be or the way they thought it should be handled (I think names on the list include a certain Mr Banks and a certain Mr Johnson which might surprise).

She's not just threatening the economy which was always the fear but much more.

The fact large parts of the public are lapping it up, makes it even worse. Definite mood change.

Post-Brexit I would have interviewed zero candidates and received zero applications for this crucial role.

Do you think overseas candidates just wouldn't apply, or wouldn't be allowed to apply? Or do you mean that there won't be any EU citizens living in the UK looking for jobs? I'm interested to see how others think this will pan out.

*Ungoogleable
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I'm more thinking that small tech companies wouldn't be able to afford the visa application process if we don't have freedom of movement.

Aside from the cost of visa applications, lawyers and so forth, small tech companies need to be able to move quickly, and a bloated recruitment process would end up fundamentally restricting the way that we do business.

Big companies can afford that kind of process, but we don't have many big software companies here.

I'm making an assumption that we'd have a system to apply for working visas for talent overseas, which of course is pure conjecture at this point. I spent 3 years in the US, so I have some idea of how lengthy and costly the process of securing visas can be.

Ultimately, if they can't recruit talent, small tech companies will start up elsewhere in Europe. That's a big problem because some small companies blossom into huge ones...

We're in the software industry, and this industry is completely dependant on talent from overseas. Completely.

Our education system has been teaching kids Word and Excel for the past 30 years, rather than programming. We've been producing admin assistants rather than tech entrepreneurs for decades.

MIL was an IT teacher at A Level until about two years ago. She could barely use excel. DH (a self taught programmer like just about everyone he knows) despaired over it.

He works with a lot of EU nationals. Brexit may stop that and encourage outsourcing by contract overseas anyway. Workers, that due to this way of working, would never show up on any list of foreign employees (thus it wouldn't create any new jobs in the UK - nor those important tax revenues - and would just drain money out of the country). His experience with this type of outsourcing is not good, with the quality being far lower and reducing his overall productivity as he has to sort it more problems created this way than it solves.

*Ungoogleable
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Forgot to mention - if you look at how the US immigration system works, that should give some idea of what it might look like here.

The process involves having a job offer and then the company proving that they couldn't find local skills to fill that position.

People aren't just free to turn up in the US and look for a job. In fact, that's completely illegal.

There are a limited pool of visas every year, and thousands of legitimate applications go unapproved just because the pool is empty.

This is all to assuage nationalistic "taking American jobs" arguments, which are bound the play out here too.

We've just advertised for employees. One British applicant whose CV was awful. We're importing someone amazing from Ireland instead.

Post 2019 we're done for.

jm thanks for explaining, I struggle to get my head around what it might actually mean. The only think I'm clear on is that there's so much uncertainty ahead.

I'm an EU citizen, been in the UK for 12 years. Children, house, job etc.

After the referendum I was vaguely thinking that I should get citizen ship but was balking at the 1000£ expense. This week after hearing Theresa May and Amber Rudd I have decided that I will not get citizenship after all. If I'm not wanted here then I will leave. I doubt the multicultural and tolerant London that has been good to me, will exist in that case anyway.

I didn't think I would ever say this but at the moment I feel quite sorry for those people who voted to leave but not to leave in the manner May and her band seem to be determined to insist on. George Osborne is right (ugh, another thing I didn't expect ever to say) to say that people voted for brexit but not for hard brexit. Some did- a lot didn't, and when you add those who voted remain to those who voted leave but not for hard brexit, hard brexit supporters are back in a minority.

A lot of leavers immediately after the referendum were dismissive of people like me who were appalled at the result and warned it would unleash xenophobia and nationalism on a huge scale. "It's not about immigration", they kept saying, "it's not about not liking foreigners". Really? Because listening to the government of the day it's all about immigration and it's very much fuelled by a dislike of foreigners. May's focus is on immigration, not the economy. I don't honestly believe most people who voted out wanted what she's proposing.
I feel very, very sad. And for the first time in my life I want out of Britain.

*Svarte
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Being a white, British, male I'm afraid I can't begin to imagine how it must feel.

But if London and the country at large does turn into a xenophobic/racist cesspool, which lets face it it is already well on its way, then I shall be joining you and getting the hell out of here.