Sarcasm, condescension, mischaracterisation

[smashedinductionhob]

I have been spending time on the Leave EU facebook page to try to see the other person's point of view.

I am picking up that there is a really strong reaction to being condescended to, having your words used against you, rhetorical questions, etc.

So my question to those celebrating A50: when people debate with you, how does the style of the debate make you feel/act? Does it make you rethink you views or does it harden them?

Thanks.

[Bolshybookworm]

Correlation and causation there, how. Immigration is not the only difference between Scotland and England, is it? Don't forget that the biggest migration into the southeast is from people in the rest of the uk. Many industries have centralised their operations in London and the southeast with the result that many people in the rest of the uk have to move there for jobs. This has been really significant in my field of work - there is very, very little pharma research outside of the southeast nowadays and funding for academic research is ridiculously centred on London/Cambridge/Oxford. It's beyond frustrating, especially if the credit crunch has priced you out of the southeast (speaking from bitter experience).

Anyway, sorry, bit of a tangent there but it's a massive bugbear of mine and contributes to the inequality in the uk. It's stupid to have all the jobs in one small area.

I think we agree on the problems this country faces but not on the ways to solve them. I think Brexit will make these problems worse, not better. This because the roots causes are much more complicated than simple immigration and because the British public do not like to vote for anything that penalises them, even if it is for the public good. Witness the ridiculous uturn on NI contributions for the self employed

I think your friends are more altruistic than the electorate, sadly, how!

[caroldecker]

Danny Parliament never lost sovereignty, else it could not trigger Article 50. It did, however, for 40 years delegate authority to Brussels on many areas. This meant it had limited powers in immigration, taxation and some spending. It was also responsible for the speed of changes in women's retirement ages and women paying more for car insurance, among many other things. We had a say in Brussels, but not autonomy.
The EU either refused to discuss things or pushed them into the long grass.

[smashedinductionhob]

Have been out at job 2 so am still learning slowly about the fruit-picker/carer ethical points made this morning.

"It actually shocks me that 'the migrant who will work for barely anything, and accept awful conditions, so how can we possibly do without them'passes as a left wing view. Why aren't Labour out in force on zero hours and no enhanced pay for weekends and after hours and conditions like the one I've described above?"

Is it that the migrant worker does ok because their aim is to convert the U.K. Wage to Zloty or Koruna or whatever where it will buy a good quality of life for family back home/for them when they retire? So the year I was working in Eastern Europe my salary was £1000 which was enough for a single person to live well and happily on.

And the employer in the U.K. does well too.

So the losers are the less qualified local residents who are in a relatively expensive part of Europe and struggle to get by on the minimum wage? They haven't got a cheaper area they can return to plus they probably wouldn't speak the language....

[Dannythechampion]

We will have a say in the trade deals we have in Brussles or the WTO, but not autonomy there either.

The EU can't "refuse" to discuss things either, as they can be raised by the council of ministers, the European parliament etc.

We will still delegate authority on areas to outside organisations following Brexit.

The EU has been a convenient excuse for politicians of all hues but it never dictated to the UK, we were always part of decision making policy.

[smashedinductionhob]

Sorry I meant return not retire.

[Dannythechampion]

smashedinductionhob the comments regarding EU immigrants and wages are also incorrect here.

EU immigrants have extremely small impacts on the wages of the lowest paid. Again, another thing that the EU isn't responsible for.

[smashedinductionhob]

Thanks Danny. Might they not affect the unemployment rate though?

I can see how people could get despondent if they were competing against better qualified migrants for jobs.

Also might the small average effect on wages mask some local incidents where the effects were more significant?

[Dannythechampion]

Not really, there is no evidence that EU immigration causes unemployment in UK born people

On the wages front, even in areas that have had the high level of immigration needed for it to have an effect, its about 1% over a period of 8 years. Very low, and even then far lower than the rate at which the tax threshold rose.

www.ft.com/content/0deacb52-178b-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d

[smashedinductionhob]

Danny, is that evidence disputed/debated?

If I couldn't get my kids into the local school and other people had moved in I can totally imagine I might blame them.

[Peregrina]

Theyre 'ashamed' to be british.

In a country where a group of thugs beat up a seventeen year old asylum seeker and leave him fighting for his life, and that about 20 people were looking on, without apparently doing nothing, dead right I am ashamed. All legitimised by Farage and friends, and the Tory party 'we hate immigrants' Conference last October.

[Peregrina]

without apparently doing anything or with apparently doing nothing. Either way, it's a damning reflection us.

[Figmentofmyimagination]

carol how was the EU responsible for the pace of the rise in the retiring age for women in the uk?

Sounds to me like yet another convenient stick to beat the EU with.

[caroldecker]

Figment the ECJ decided that the UK's different pension ages were discriminatory under EU law. The result is that women's retirement ages had to increase more rapidly and to older levels than would have been the case.

[Peregrina]

Presumably an alternative would have been to reduce men's retirement age, and perhaps meet in the middle at 62 or 63? So often, it's how something is implemented which is causing the problem.

Like Blair not anticipating how many Poles would want to come and so not taking up the option of holding back the numbers.

[Dannythechampion]

The increase in the pension age of women was part of an act in 1995, nothing I can find online links to your claims, other than the ECJ ruled in the 90's that occupational pensions should be equalised at 60.

smashedinductionhob on your points regarding schools. Even this year 85% of children got their first choice of school. 65% in London, but 89% of children in London got one of their 1st 3.Other areas data shows that in areas that voted predominately to leave where almost all of the children got their first choice of school.

You might blame another family and immigration, but its not accurate. Its the failure to build schools or provide places by the national government, who are currently standing by whilst schools have their funding cut in real terms and bringing in a new formula that will see the majority of schools worse off and few only marginally so.

Again its just another stick to beat the EU with, not true, not accurate.

[lavenderandrose]

But peregina, that doesn't make me ashamed any more than James Bulger's killers make me ashamed to be from Merseyside. It's awful, sickening and upsetting but at the same time I bear no personal responsibility for it.

[Dannythechampion]

"Ashamed to be British"

Same allegation made to anti war protesters on both sides of the Atlantic in 2003.

Is it fine to be "ashamed" of having to be associated with some of the leave crowd because of their attitudes and behaviour?

No, I'd be ashamed if I'd voted leave if you agree with Caroline's points.

Hyperbole and anti factual, where the evidence is sought to fit the prejudged agenda, not to make a decision.

[smashedinductionhob]

Danny I was more trying to understand the mindset IYSWIM.

[Dannythechampion]

I know what you mean. But , its that sort of casual blame, based on prejudices that many of us have been talking about since before the vote.

[smashedinductionhob]

Yes, sorry, I didn't get involved before the vote because I thought we would vote to stay.

So I am a bit behind the curve.

[Dannythechampion]

I didn't get involved here but read lots.

The post that made me delurk was just so frustrating, at the same time talking about condescension, mischaracterisation towards leavers, yet full of factual errors and massively hyperbolic in its tone.

[smashedinductionhob]

I guess I'm thinking...

1 is it true that lots of folk voted leave because they consider immigrants took up jobs causing depressed wages and unemployment.

2if so, are they, broadly speaking, right, either on average or in specific locations?

3 If not, what led them to think it?

[Dannythechampion]

1. They're not right. All the evidence points towards this, so many different sources all saying the same thing or very similar. Low to no effect on wages, no effect on unemployment, low impact on services.
   

What led them to think it was the media, and the ease of blaming the "other", that and the political expediency of allowing immigration to take the blame for austerity.

I read a thread ages ago regarding Boston, Lincs, which turned out to prove that it had always had lower average wages than other areas locally, and that the pressure on infrastructure meant that 92% of all children got their first school, and it kept their maternity unit which was due to be closed, formerly boarded up shops were now open, and the impact on crime was the same as to be expected with an increase in general population.

Blaming immigration is easy, seeking the real answers is hard.

[Dannythechampion]

More reasons.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/04/tory-mps-disown-negative-brexit-findings-by-own-committee

[EnjoyYourVegetables]

AnotherRandomMale, I think you have the right idea.