A Brexiters chat with a German on a Portuguese beach.

[themueslicamel]

Just got back from Portugal and when there was on s beach where I left my shoes on s rock, s nice German chap brought them over and asked me where I was from (London) and how I voted in the referendum.

I was honest and told him I backed leave and we had an interesting conversation.

I told him my reasons for doings so, pro Europe, anti EU and confirmed I was for immigration, just having controls over who we let in and in what number.

I said we should and will take our share of refugees however I did not like the way the EU was going with the EU army on the horizon and feels we should look to trading freely with the rest of the world too.

He said many Germans feel let down as they need us as an economic powerhouse to pay in and we should close the borders with Africa and send all of the migrants back.

Some of his views seemed to be along the lines of what is often thrown against brexiters, and I appreciate it was a lone view but closing borders and sending people back seemed at least to him to be the way forward.

Not sure where I am going with this, just thought it may be of interest on this forum and provide an alternate (albeit limited) prospective.

Is that 59% Leave voting Kent?

32% of the vote on a 48% turnout in France doesn't sound that convincing tbh. I was hopeful that both France and Germany would use Brexit and the space their electoral systems give to reform the EU. I guess it is still wait and see till after the German elections.

32% of the vote on a 48% turnout in France doesn't sound that convincing tbh

Who would you have liked to have won the French elections then?

We have had a vote, a decision has been made , although it was a close call. Many people are not willing to say that voted to leave due to fear of racist allegations or other slurs. There are many in other EU nations who would like to leave and many who would like to stay. My point is the decision has been made, no one know if another referendum was held what the outcome would be , but there shouldn't be one as we have voted.

Democracy is a process not a result.

This thread could also be called "I went on holiday and met one person from another country, had a chat and found we agreed on a subject"
It's interesting that Brexit is viewed as being about immigration.
Brexit will not solve the economic and social issues that are driving African immigration to Europe.
Nor will it halt immigration to the UK from Pakistan, India and other former Commonwealth countries.

How many of the 100,000 who marched in London in support of the EU actually voted?

Every one I was with voted. BTW from my section of the crowd at least, they were mostly middle-aged people 40s, 50s, 60s and relatively few young people.

I don't know why we shouldn't have another Referendum. By that logic, this one shouldn't have been held, because we had one in 1975 which gave overwhelming support to staying in. Ah, you say, that was different, because the terms have now changed. Well, if when May and her three stooges finally manage to negotiate something, we will finally have an idea what the terms are, which have changed from what people thought they were in 2016, so following your logic, we should have another say.

This thread could also be called "I went on holiday and met one person from another country, had a chat and found we agreed on a subject"

Its far more profound than that!

It would be "I went on holiday and met a real foreign person! We had a chat and found we shared similar ill-informed views on immigration! Can you believe it?!"

But did this German hog the sun lounger? I assume not, so that makes him a good guy.

Haven't read the thread but I do live in France where I haven't met a single person who thinks that Brexit is anything other than madness, even though some do understand a degree of frustration.

I've lived and worked in France for 19 years and in all that time I've encountered one person with explicit anti-EU views. And I live in an area where Melenchon and Le Pen pick up signficant votes, so you might reasonably expect to encounter some euroscepticism.

Re the last election, don't mistake the Le Pen vote for an anti-EU vote. It was an anti-immigrant (and anti-muslim/ anti-semitic) vote. But the immigrants that Le Pen voters dislike are not from the EU but from North Africa. And the Le Pen vote collapsed following the last presidential election debate, when her plans to leave the eurozone were taken apart by Macron.

On this subject I spoke with a translator from Strasbourg. She said that the amount of corruption and the way Strasbourg operates is appalling. She also said that if ordinary Europeans understood how much waste there is of the money we all pay in there would, if it were possible, be a mass exodus from European Union. The decamping from Brussels to Strasbourg alone costs over €100 million each month.

"but there shouldn't be one as we have voted."

Then we voted in 1975 and shoudn't have had another one. Democracy is a process, it doesn't start and end with one vote.

I think most ordinary people Nellie would be horrified with the waste and such in all parliaments. Did you know for example that the HoL refused to share catering with the HoC incase the Champagne wasn't as good ? There are infinite examples, people pick peanuts out of poo for the EU cause it suits them.

Wastefulness and corruption in the eu, in the govt and in local govt is disgusting.

We saw it at grenfall, we see it with Jeremy hunts £44,000 bathroom paid for by us, or Ian Duncan smiths £39 a day breakfast allowance.

It needs to stop.

In 1975 it was about a common market.

That was a good idea.

If the question had been "Would you like to join a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy whose eventual aim is forming a United Member States of Europe", then I have a hunch that it may, just may have gone the other way

The concept that we could somehow 'pull together' over Brexit is incredibly facile and utterly meaningless. It is said by people who want opposition silenced, but that really isn't how democracy works. Brexit needs to be scrutinised and challenged every step of the way. I very much hope that process of scrutiny details it, of course, but of it goes ahead then it needs to be rigourously debated in every aspect in order to mitigate to any possible extent the incredible damage it will wreak.

If the question had been 'would you like to leave the eu and btw btw the eu has nothing to do with your problem with muslims- indeed maybe immigration will increase)?' then I have a little hunch it would have gone the other way too.

If the question had been "Would you like to join a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy whose eventual aim is forming a United Member States of Europe", then I have a hunch that it may, just may have gone the other way
Oh, for god's sake. This is ridiculous barrel-scraping.

We need to disassociate racism with genuine criticism of the EU.

I am neither racist, nor do I lack sympathy for refugees, but this is what is implied.

Just because racist, mouth breathing knuckle draggers voted leave, it does not make all who voted leave racist.

The EU needs reform, Cameron tried and they laughed.

So we voted leave.

In the Second World War we fought fascism along with the Soviet Union, but this did not make us Bolsheviks.

Eh? You said in your op how you met a guy on the beach who wants to close borders, send people back and was quite animated re the threat is Islam.

You seemed to think there was something quite...revealing or interesting about this close-up encounter with a German racist. You were the one who connected it with Brexit.

BTW. I have met several English people who told me they voted Brexit because of Muslims. This certainly doesn't mean all Leave voters were racist but I didn't say that, did I?

Would they still have voted Brexit if they understood that even ardent Brexitteers now admit to being very tough times for a generation in the UK - and possibly more migration from Africa and India?

No, I don't believe they would. Just a hunch of mine.

That was the German bloke I spoke to in the beech in Portugal?!?!?

*beach even....

"In the Second World War we fought fascism along with the Soviet Union, but this did not make us Bolsheviks."

Maybe not, but it did make us colluders in possibly the largest act of genocide in human history - Soltzhenitzyn estimates that upwards of 66 million died in the Soviet death camps, - and we sent back thousands of Russian refugees and emigres, despite knowing that they would be imprisoned and murdered, so it's not really a very good example.

To me, the EU is a cancer that has infected vast areas of country.

From that initial cigarette in 1975 grew a tumour that has metastasised into the bloated behemoth we see today.

What I find stunning is that in every culture and society in history the older generations are seen as the wise ones, village elders if you like, paterfamilias and wise matriarchs, but not in our youth worshipping society.

Here we accuse the old of stupidity and not understanding, of shafting the young whom they raised and nurtured.

How many societies other than ours stick their old folk in "care" homes?

So when a large part of a generation says we need to leave, to apologise for agreeing in 1975 as this was not what they agreed to, I for one listen without calling them stupid racists who don't understand.

We have made enormous social strides in recent years, racism and homophobia rightfully being shown the door, maybe respecting our elders will be next.

I still don't understand what on earth you are talking about.

You are fed up with leavers unfairly being accused of being racist, I think, so you decided to introduce us to a nice racist German. Is that right?

Now you've decided both that the eu is a cancer and too many old people are stuck in care homes?

I can assure you that life for poorer old people is going to massively improve post-brexit. Ha ha. No it won't but hey, who cares, you'll have killed that cancer.

I still don't understand what on earth you are talking about.

You are fed up with leavers unfairly being accused of being racist, I think, so you decided to introduce us to a nice racist German. Is that right?

No.

The German was incidental, he has taken up way to much of this post.

It made me curious what other EU members thought, as the media in this country gives the EU as a unified front, however speaking to a Greek or a Frenchman or a Spaniard might yield conflicting opinions.

The bloody German was supposed to be just the first, and by the way, he approached me and asked how I voted, I was minding my own business at the time.