My family's protest vote - about what?

[Mom2Monkeys]

I can't talk to my family about this, as I was the only person who voted remain amongst them. So sorry, I'm letting off steam here.

I am really fed up of my family going on about how they voted Leave as a protest vote and using words like 'exploitation', 'lies', 'struggling', etc, to justify it. My Dad said angrily the other day that 'as a white middle-aged, middle class man he is last in the queue for everything'. It made me fume inside. He means opportunities in life.

He actually believes it. He worked really hard through the years, but my Dad, and the rest of the family, have done pretty well for themselves, when compared with lots of people who ARE actually struggling.
He could have gone to university if he'd wanted (his sister went). He had one stable middle-management job his whole life, with a lucrative pension (cash payout and generous monthly payments), which enabled him to retire in his late forties. He then bought a flat (cash) to rent out as extra income. He also paid off the mortgage on his house completely years ago. He is careful with money and always been a saver, so does OK.

My husband and I, on the other hand, have no personal pension (SAHM and moved around in jobs) and who knows what the state pension will be like when we retire. House prices are now astronomical. Yet, my mother talks to me as if we are really well off and in a better situation than they are (we do OK, but not well off). They don't seem to realise that their retirements are probably way more comfortable than we could ever hope for.

When my family talk about being 'expoited', they are not talking about other people - they believe it about themselves. My aunt, retired in her big country house - talks as if she is the 'under-class', looking up at people better off than her.

Why don't they realise they ARE the ones who've had it good!?!

Brexit is going to be economically disastrous-
I think there are those who:
1 didn't realise that - they're the small group showing 'buyers remorse'
2 don't believe it - their heads are so up Nigel's arse they can't hear anything 'it'll be fine in a few months" (wtf)
3 they think it's a 'price worth paying' for 'freedom' these are the older and/or the comfortable like ops parents.

The media has a lot to answer for.
Before all of this political and economical turmoil, I knew that there were papers that exaggerated and took a particular political position, but it now seems so much more manipulative and menacing. Their slant on 'how things are' really influences popular opinion, and before you know it, every dick and harry on Facebook is repeating ignorant bigoted crap.
The law needs to change somehow. I'm all for freedom of speech though, so not sure what could be done realistically.

Luckily, this is not a problem for me because my close family and friends were all remainers. It must be very difficult for those whose families did vote differently to them though, as there is still such bad feeling about this bloody referendum. I wish we'd never had it.

With regards to the demographics of the leave voters op I totally agree with you. The one thing that you safely can say about the leave voters is that they tended to be older and retired. Often comfortably off. So the papers going on about the poor, the underprivileged and the overlooked is a bit of a red herring imo. Yes some poor and underprivileged people did vote leave but many also voted remain. But this is the people's revolution innit? Against all those nasty, well off elites. So it doesn't sound too revolutionary to say well actually it was John and Shirley, retired, from Barking who voted to leave. Because no revolution EVER was made up of comfortably off old people. The problem then is it hides the real and more unpalatable truth of Brexit, which is that it largely pandered to white, middle class, middle aged/older people's fear of the 'other', the immigrants. But no, let's dress it up as poor, honest, working people, versus rich, liberal, elites because that's easier to swollow isnt it? Daily Mail I'm looking a you!l

Each person had their own reasons for either voting to Leave or Remain, and broad sweeping judgements about the so called 'types' of voters is very wrong. Ultimately, the vote was cast and the the result was to leave. In a democracy, that should be accepted, and people need to stop thinking they can protest against the rights of the majority. As I see it, both Brexit and the U.S presidential vote demonstrated that people want change, and only time will tell how it will work out.

I don't understand the idea that discussing who voted what, where and why is wrong. What upsets you about political discourse so much?

I agree people voted for "change" - that's what we will get. Exciting times.

and people need to stop thinking they can protest against the rights of the majority.

Hooey.

a) It wasn't a majority of the electorate by any stretch. b) Significant numbers who are directly affected were not enfranchised e.g. EU citizens in the UK, UK residents abroad, some postal ballots were not sent out on time, hence disenfanchising other legitimate voters.
c) Although we have almost forgotten it, we have a Parliamentary democracy, not a plebiscite democracy and it's Parliament's duty to promote the well being of the country, which may at times not be an expression of 'popular' will.
d) If we had a Referendum on the death penalty a small majority would probably vote to bring it back, forgetting the outcry there was after the last few executions - Bentley, Ellis, Hanratty - it still wouldn't make it right.
e) We are in a country where protest is allowed - we are not living under Communism or a Right wing dictatorship (yet).

The other red herring that I see across the media is the "desperate poor, sick of seeing their jobs taken by immigrants, voting leave" narrative. With some exceptions, such as Lincolnshire I believe, the majority of Leave votes came from areas with low immigration (again, Cornwall anybody ?), and the majority of areas with high immigration (such as, er, London) voted to remain.

What seems clear to me is that an awful lot of people who have little immediate experience of immigration and its benefits or drawbacks were told that it was a bad thing. And believed it .

Each person had their own reasons for either voting to Leave or Remain, and broad sweeping judgements about the so called 'types' of voters is very wrong.

This.
Agree completely.

I think most of the bullies voted for brexit.

people need to stop thinking they can protest against the rights of the majority

This isn't the way our democracy works. They may not be doing a fabulous job but we have an official Opposition to the government - that's basically what they're for.

I know a lot of leave voters who are well-off. They've had years of reading the Daily Mail and have taken it all in. Even though they live in an area where there are very few immigrants, they see immigration as a massive issue and when I ask how it has directly affected them, they say 'oh, but they'll all be coming here soon ...'. My approach is to ask them questions about why they voted, and depending on their answer I will give them some facts that will unpick that or force them to re-examine. Ultimately I think many people voted leave truly believing the campaign lies and thinking it would be beneficial for all. Unfortunately they were duped and they need to realise this before it's too late and Art 50 is triggered ... then we're all shafted.

Broad sweeping judgements are wrong, but why not discuss how and why things happened/are happening?

It's such a bizarre view, I can't get my head around it at all.

LOL
What I said isn't really arguable is it?! merely stating the obvious.

I agree birdy, discussing how & why things happen is great.

However, making broad sweeping generalisations about people is not.
It gets us nowhere.

There were so many different elements to both sides of the vote:
rich, comfortable people voted both ways; poor, disenfranchised people voted both ways;
minority groups voted both ways;
guardian readers voted both ways;
daily mail readers voted both ways;
middle income people voted both ways;
degree educated people voted both ways; people with only high school education voted both ways;
Etc etc etc

Of course, but there were marked trends/patterns. Trends that people feel haven't been accurately represented in the media.

What's the problem in discussing them?

By all means....
I was just putting my views forward, as we are all entitled to- wouldn't you say.

What is actually KNOWN as a fact is that:

16.1m voted Remain
17.4m voted Leave
13m didn't bother to cast their vote

Instead of going over the tired old ground of who voted what way (people across all different groupings voted both ways), what of the non voters?

13m people who could have emphatically swung the vote one way or the other.
What demographic were they?
Who didn't vote & why?

Is there a tangible, neatly boxable grouping that could apply to them?
(There is certainly doesn't appear to be amongst those that did vote).

I think reasonable rational political debate is what we DO need. Everytime I try to do it with my family I get shut down with insults and labels (which I absolutely have not been doing to anybody). They don't want to have discussion or debate. I can't get anywere near discussing anything to do with Brexit. I don't think anyone has said on here that political views should not be discussed.

Democracy is all about freedom of speech and being able to discuss differing views. Autocracy is when views are squashed and silenced.

My bet is that many who didn't vote, will be voting next time they get any opportunity. In the past, voting for anything has never made any substantial difference, so perhaps they thought there was no point. This time it was different.

Those are interesting questions, Mango. ;)

It looks like young people didn't turn out strongly. Those who did on the whole voted Remain, but yes, millions didn't - (they tend not to vote in elections as well). I'd find it interesting to hear more about that group.

Old people by contrast have very strong-turn out which tends to be the reason both Cons and Labour have pandered to them so much over the years, at massive cost to the young.

Well two people I know to voted leave because 'the EU are trying to abolish the queen' it's literally so stupid I don't even know where to begin to start arguing with them

What can you do?

All MPs agreed to an ADVISORY referendum. As such, there was NO discussion of a minimum majority turnout or the usual 2/3 majority required for any major constitutional change. The fact that they promised to enact what people voted for in the referendum was not based on the legal status of the referendum - it was essentially misinformation from the Tories. Any advanced democracy using binding referenda require a 2/3 majority. This being the case, we would not be Brexiting right now - rather we would be investigating the reasons for the 52% voting as they did and aiming to tackle their concerns, both domestically and within the EU, as full members.

In addition, in the Tory manifesto for the 2015 election they committed to staying in the Single Market. Surely this should be a red line for all Tory MPs in deciding whether or not they will vote to trigger Art 50.

Doesn't majority mean more than the opposition (of those who did vote that is)?!
and those who didn't, I suspect, didn't vote because maybe they didn't think it would matter for various reasons. I think it a fair guess that if voting had been mandatory, the outcome would have been the same.

I think it a fair guess that if voting had been mandatory, the outcome would have been the same.

I think so too.

There doesn't seem to be an actual 'type' of either voter - both Remain & leave voters across all demographics, with each 'side' being of broadly similar number; the number of Leave voters being marginally more than Remain.