Westminstenders: In the Brexit Lane

[RedToothBrush]

I honestly couldn't think of a better starter to the thread than simply just this tweet

Robert Peston @ peston
We’ve got an official opposition tearing itself apart over antisemitism, the founder of the EDL running rings around the judiciary and a government negotiating a Brexit plan that its own MPs and ministers tell me is dead. When will we pull ourselves together, as a nation?

But don't worry, your blue passport will get you an extra special long wait at passport control. And no deal could lead to continued freedom of movement anyway. Something for everyone in there.

Yes we will have to agree to disagree. All I can say is that my experience of my unhappy childhood turned me into a political activist and a feminist in the late sixties and seventies. And that was a major factor in feeling better about my life.

DM sewed for M&S in the sixties and seventies - she also recalls them being very exacting - 8 stitches to the inch, no more no less or work would be rejected. They kept factories open locally until the nineties - I had some amazing M&S Italian wool suits from the factory seconds shop.
Sadly no more.

My experience was similar to that of Hasenstein - leaving the U.K. to discover a world of (relative) cleanliness (I exclude French cafe toilets), colour and nice food on what was always referred to as the Continent. And returning to England to grey grime, litter and Wimpy bars. So depressing. The only advantage of those days was that you could simply walk into a (fairly basic) job, no qualifications or CVs required, walk out if you didn’t like it and get another one just as quickly.
(Bill Bryson describes how he became a psychiatric nursing orderly pretty much by walking in off the street.)

If it's feminist protest you want, Emily, I suggest you pop over to the Feminist chat board. Quite a bit of activism going on there these days regarding the "Transwomen are Women" self-id consultations.

I have been following that closely Tanith. Back in the seventies we were mostly setting up women's refuges though.

Well, I wasn't born until 1987 so obviously don't remember the seventies.

They certainly don't sound like the direction the UK ought to be heading for going in to the 2020s though.

'We've survived worse' doesn't seem like a slogan I'd want on the side of the bus to be honest.

There's a definite sense, I feel, that the older generation feel that us younger ones have had it too easy - possibly a backlash from the baby-boomer jibes?

It reminds me of the elderly gent who goes in our local and rants about how national service would sort everyone out.

I don't think this interesting Twitter thread has been posted yet: mobile.twitter.com/tfoale/status/1025650267281350656

I haven't come across him before but there are a good few retweets that seem worthwhile exploring.

I feel, that the older generation feel that us younger ones have had it too easy - possibly a backlash from the baby-boomer jibes?

I agree. From the limited conversations arguments I have had with FIL he has many reasons for wanting to turn back the clock. One of his many beefs is " we should never have let manufacturing go". He wants to see our generation and the next doing this sort of work.

He is impervious to the fact that all of the richer countries have moved towards a services based economy rather than one based on manufacturing, and that manufacturing has globalised.

It's something I can't quite articulate.I think many older Leave voters had similar feelings to FIL that the good old days of manufacturing were harder but better.

Unless some rabbit is pulled from the hat, the result of the contracting economy and fall in the pound may ultimately mean that manufacturing has to increase from its 10% , supply chains permitting?

But it's future generations who will be affected and have to perform such roles. The people like FIL who wanted manufacturing back are old and won't be seeking manufacturing work themselves.

FIL seems to resent the reliance on services and at some level disapproves or is jealous that his son (DH) was far more successful in financial terms than FIL was by building a more namby pamby career in services. FIL does seem to think having a career in financial or legal services is having it too easy.

I've certainly noticed a disdain from the older generation for my 'cushy office job' (which is actually very stressful and keeps me awake at night far too often).

I'm quite convinced they think I sit at a desk and play solitaire all day.

I suspect the decline in manufactoring also ties in to anti-immigrant feeling - the traditional route of leaving school at sixteen and getting a job at the local factory and working your way up is no longer available because 'they only want to pay immigrants as they can get away with paying less'.... Rather than the decline in manufactoring jobs.

I live in York. Pretty much everyone above the age of say 45 worked at either rowntrees, Terry's or the sugarbeet factory at some point in their life or had a close family member that did. Indeed, whole quadrants of the city were built to house the factory workers in earlier times.

Now the factories are, bar a small section of nestle (rowntrees as was) luxury flats. (I think that's going in to flats too eventually) And jobs in the factories are relatively rare compared to what they used to be. Automation, moving abroad.... The factory buildings are ancient and barely fit for purpose.

So the town's biggest manufactoring base has all but disappeared. Yet york has extremely low immigration, although you wouldn't know it hearing some people talk. I think it frequently comes up on 'least diverse places to live' lists...

Again, it's immigrants being used as a scapegoat as to why things have changed without looking at the facts. There aren't the manufactoring jobs full stop anymore.

Just checked and as of the 2011 census, york was 90% white British, 4% white other.

The largest non-White ethnic group was the Chinese at 2.6%.

Yet still people here are worried about immigration...

Although having said that, york was one of the few northern places to vote overwhelmingly to remain...

Sorry guys I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole there and thought I'd take you all along for the ride

Well.

James O’Brien calls Jacob Rees-Mogg a ‘fraud’ after clip shows the MP supporting second referendum

inews.co.uk/video/james-obrien-calls-jacob-rees-mogg-a-fraud-after-clip-shows-the-mp-supporting-second-referendum/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb&utm_campaign=ijp

Has this one been posted before?

www.inthesnow.com/200-travel-companies-predict-31-ski-holiday-price-rises-and-25000-job-losses-from-brexit/amp/

even hairdressing feels the effect too...

www.standard.co.uk/business/hair-salons-giant-toni-guy-warns-of-brexit-chills-as-profits-fall-a3878011.html

Some of the comments above reminded me of an article I read some time ago, most likely following a link from these threads. I’m not sure if this was the exact article, but it seems to be covering a similar topic:

blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/12/14/brexit-appealed-to-white-working-class-men-who-feel-society-no-longer-values-them/

data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.IND.EMPL.ZS

World Bank Data on percentage of population employed in industry. You can look at the other ones too. Germany is much higher than the UK but has also fallen. It's interesting, you can compare all the countries.

The thing that bothers me about services is that a lot of it is not really anything... Like when you insure your house it's for the rebuild value and that's way less than the market price... You could say the land is worth the extra, but the whole thing is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. So the price isn't real in a way.

I probably haven't articulated that very well.

Clash

I remember going on a school trip to the Terry's factory. They were handing out free sweets to us (misshapes, I think) and I ended up stuffing my face and being sick as a dog on the way home. Chocolates were still seen as a luxury, so handing them out to deprived kids was bound to end in tears.

MybrainhurtsThat lse blog may have been posted before I think but it is really interesting...
" These findings also carry implications for how the populist challenge can be addressed. Much of the current discussion is focused on providing better material compensation for the ‘losers’ of globalisation, often in the form of more generous programs of redistribution. Yet our research suggests that support for populism is not motivated primarily by demands for more redistribution but by more fundamental concerns about social recognition and respect. Since social recognition is closely-linked to having a decent job, addressing those concerns will require efforts to create such jobs and to make existing jobs more decent. But it will also require efforts on the symbolic plane of political discourse to ensure that people in all walks of life are recognised as valued members of society.

There's increasing acknowledgement that austerity was a major cause of Brexit (wrap.warwick.ac.uk/106313/) .

The unequal distribution of wealth is also often acknowledged as a major factor.

However if there is to be a second ref, to try and shift some of the Leave votes it looks as if increasing feelings of respect for Leave voters is critical too. How weird is that?

www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

I suppose if you look at the Maslow chart you can see where some of the deficiencies are in terms of what people need, and understand where they might turn to meet those needs.

That was an interesting blog.

I do wonder if there's going to be more problems in the future - there seems to be a lack of opportunities for young men (and women) who are not traditionally academic.

Dh is coming up to fifty, most of his friends never particularly engaged in education but all have good jobs - in trades, most of which they learned from being apprenticed to a family member or family friend, or working their way up from the bottom in an entry level role after leaving school. There is a lack of formal education - most of them didn't even sit exams let alone succeed.

They own their own houses, go on nice holidays and have a comfortable income in the main. They work hard and are skilled in their jobs.

Nowadays it's being made a lot tougher to get by with a lack of qualifications - pretty much every job ask for a C (or whatever the equivalent now) in gcse English and maths. Even apprenticeships are a lot more academic than they used to be.

I do wonder if we are going to lose a generation of working class kids who do not have the opportunity for betterment due to not being academically minded.

A friend of mine teaches at the local tech college. The course he teaches has more stringent entry requirements (when previously it had pretty much none) and most of the places are taken up by people who started A levels and dropped out....so had the results to get on to the a level course in the first place.

Some of that is to do with expectation though is'nt it?

Every kid is told they can be a lawyer, a Surgeon, a Games designer etc where as the reality is they are not and should be looking at less glamorous jobs.

Couple this with FOM and why would an employer invest a fortune in little jonny or jenny only to find they FO up the road to earn more money, when they can employ Stevan from Slovenia who can start making them money from the off?

i'm a fervent Remainer but even i can see that FOM (to work) given our lack of any sort of limits, has some serious flaws, which many remainers do not see!!!

There is something seriously wrong when a 16yo in the UK is stuck on some pointless FE course, when he should be learning to be a Plumber on day release but there are no Plumber apprenticeships because all the Plumbers are fully skilled and come from the EU.

Of course its partly the UK's fault we are in this state of affairs but it doesnt make the Leavers claims any less valid.

'Pointless FE course" - that attitude may well be part of the UKs problems with trade education.

Plumbing is taught in FE colleges, the problem is it is a technical subject that requires maths skills. Many students can not perform the maths needed for plumbing so have to go on 'pointless' courses to be taught maths.

The basic maths of many Eastern Europeans is significantly better than that of
English students. This is a fault of U.K. governments and a cultural dismissal of educating the white, working class.

MN obsesses about Grammar schools but who cares about teaching maths to a reasonable level to working class boys?

If you train as a plumber (or other trade) in the U.K. the jobs are there but we don't turn out students ready to be trained from schools.

Again, this is not a FOM issue it is a problem caused by our government and our attitude to education and training. We need to sort our own house out and not blame everyone else for our weaknesses.

No grammar schools in Scotland and there haven't been for over 40 years!

#justsayin

Yes, very much agree with what you’ve written ClashCityRocker.

I think I must have also read another article that draws on this research (or similar), as I remember another point about many of the available jobs now being seen as jobs for women, so bring a perceived lack of status for men

This brilliant article touches on some of the same points: www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/john-lanchester/brexit-blues

This one I definitely read from a link from a Red thread - looking at the publication date it must have been one of the earliest ones. Who knew they’d still be running over 2 years later and that we’d be in this precarious position. The article concludes that working class white men’s vote to stop immigration would be betrayed. Sadly looks like our government is choosing economic suicide instead.

news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-heads-north-for-brexit-showdown-with-nicola-sturgeon-11463902

Ms Sturgeon added: "A no-deal Brexit would be utterly unacceptable and deeply damaging, but by talking it up as a negotiating tactic there is a very real danger it becomes a reality.
"While the UK's focus is on the scare tactics of no deal, there has been no visible progress on securing a future relationship that protects trade in both goods and services.
"The Prime Minister promised a detailed statement on the future relationship with the EU alongside the withdrawal agreement, so parliament and the people would know where the UK is going. That promise must be kept.
"Parliament cannot be asked to make the decision on withdrawal without details on what the future relationship will look like.

"With the Chequers proposals falling flat, even if a withdrawal agreement can be secured, there is a very real risk that we end up with a blind Brexit - which will see the UK step off the cliff-edge next March without knowing what landing place will be.
"That would do as much harm to jobs, investment and the economy as a no-deal Brexit, and would leave the country directionless through the transition period.

"Given this lack of clarity and real concerns of no agreement, it is time the Prime Minister told us what her plan B is. We cannot have no deal and we cannot have a blind Brexit.
"The whole of the UK deserves answers from the Prime Minister and we cannot continue without a back-up plan."

Can't believe this showdown will end well?