An open letter to leavers

[LoveInTokyo]

Dear Leavers

I’m sorry that David Cameron offered us a referendum and promised to respect the outcome, whatever it was.

Unfortunately, he was fucking with you.

He promised that referendum when he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance in hell of getting a majority, and never thought he’d actually have to deliver on it. When he got his surprise majority, he made a big show of going to Brussels and pretending to negotiate with the EU to get us a “better deal”. Unfortunately, he already knew perfectly well that the UK already had a better deal than any other country in the EU, and that they were not going to bend over backwards to get us to stay. So he made a big show of negotiating and then tried to pretend that he had done something meaningful. He then went through the motions of holding a referendum, half-heartedly campaigning to remain. He did absolutely no contingency planning, partly because he never believed that leave would actually win, and partly because he already knew that he had no intention of staying to deal with the fallout if they did. That’s why he resigned the day after the referendum and waltzed off, whistling a merry tune.

He played a high risk game of poker with our money, and lost.

I understand that many of you feel defensive about your decision and dislike being labelled “thick” by angry remainers. As a remainer myself, I feel saddened and frustrated that none of you seem able to articulate any benefits that will actually come out of Brexit. But at this stage, I would quite happily accept that there will be no benefits, and settle for damage limitation. Unfortunately none of you seem able to explain how we limit the damage either.

We cannot leave the single market and customs union without there being a hard border in Ireland, which will put people’s lives at risk. We cannot leave the single market and customs union without severely damaging most sectors of the economy, which would cause untold hardship for millions of people living in the UK. I realise that remaining in the single market and customs union would make leaving the EU pointless, but it is the only way to limit the damage.

The government has made almost no progress towards getting a workable deal in place, and time is running out. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to ensure that supply chains of essential food and medicine will not be disrupted after Brexit day. We don’t have a plan to ensure that planes will still be able to take off and land, or that satnav will still work. We do not have any trade deals lined up. We simply do not have time to do any of these things.

Dear leavers, you do not have solutions to any of these problems, and more importantly, neither do Theresa May, Boris Johnson, David Davis, Liam Fox, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrea Leadsom, Daniel Hannan, Jeremy Corbyn, Kate Hoey or any of the people who claim to think Brexit is the right choice for the UK.

A no-deal Brexit is unthinkable. It is not an option.

I realise that many of you will feel betrayed if we do not get the kind of Brexit you want. But to be honest, you’re going to feel betrayed even if you do get the kind of Brexit you want, because it will be unimaginably shit. This is not "project fear", it is "project reality".

The government has a duty to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. It’s not good enough to lay the blame at David Cameron’s door and say he held the referendum so we have to respect the vote. David Cameron has been out of office for two years. It is now plainer than ever that leaving the EU is a terrible idea, and there is still time to put the brakes on and not go through with it. If the government goes through with this when they could put a stop to it, they cannot continue to blame David Cameron and claim that their hands were tied. They are not.

It is time for Theresa May to do the decent thing and say, “I’m sorry, I know it’s what the people voted for, but it simply can’t be done without causing a totally unacceptable amount of harm to the country. And I have a duty of care towards everyone, not just the 51.8% who voted leave.”

Can I recommend Pete North on Twitter for all you Leavers? He's a committed Leaver.

He has an excellent understanding of the impact of Brexit on the U.K.

To a lot of people I know who voted leave they didn't take any notice of the campaigning and the results have had the desired effect.

These people lived in areas where if you went to the local supermarket or coffee shop and asked a question to one of the staff, "Where is the cauliflowers", " Have you got anymore chocolate chip cookies" you were met with blank stares because no one spoke English.
If you went for a job at one of these places you knew you wouldn't get it because you didn't speak the language.

These people felt like foreigners in their own country.

To them voting leave has had the desired effect.
The supermarket and coffee shop people have now gone and they have now got employment there.

This is just a small example. So asking if they are happy with the results to them it will be a resounding yes.

With regards to the NI border why can't the status quo remain but we have more stringent checks coming in to the mainland. Or am I missing something.

FWIW I would have preferred to Remain but have a lot of friends in different parts of the country who I could see for them the EU wasn't working and Project Fear meant nothing to them. In fact to some it felt like a positive.

And yet.... your friends may not have got that leave win if the minority who thought they were voting to leave political EU but stay in the free trade and freedom of movement hadn't also voted leave. Isn't that funny? That's the thing.. the leave vote put a bag of different ideas together and now we are trying to pick out which ones. And people are claiming a leave vote meant end of FOM or exiting SM etc when actually no, it didn't necessarily.

I dont know what they thought just that for them the EU wasn't working and given a vote they voted for something that didn't for them work.

DC seemed to focus on middle class issues and property prices and ignored the huge problem with the unemployed and poor section of society.

I don't think it even crossed his mind that people would have an issue with what the EU meant for this demographic

falcon5 it said on the vote paper leave or remain in the EU, the majority voted to leave the EU, that’s all, yes leave voters have a few different reasons for voting that way, I would imagine FOM was high on people’s lists and it’s one of the governments red lines.
So we will have to leave the SM/CU as they stand at present, we will have to see if UK and EU can negotiate something new

Liam Fox saying that a no deal versus deal scenario is now 60/40.

FWIW I would have preferred to Remain

But you voted leave, no?

I’m glad your friends are happy. It will be interesting to see how happy they are after Brexit.

Oliversmumsarmy what do you mean 'they' have got their jobs back now that the supermarkets and coffee shops have gone? Surely supermarkets are amongst the most essential and basic of resources and employment? I am trying to imagine what has taken the place of these supermarkets that mean the, presumably white locals, are suddenly happy and back to full employment now that all the pesky foreigners have trotted back 'home' wherever that might be..

Oliversmumsarmy

Exactly - the poorer people living in areas really hit by FOM are benefitting already.

Oliversmum are you saying that previously all the jobs in the coffee shops and supermarkets were being done by people from the EU ? Those people have decided to go elsewhere and your friends who were previously unemployed have now got the jobs in the coffee shops and supermarkets ?

It may be true in London that the people in the supermarkets don't understand where the cauliflowers are because they don't speak English, - perhaps - , but London voted Remain.

Leave areas like Sunderland had something like 1% immigration - fancy that, every single one works in Oliversmumsarmy's local supermarket.

Peregrina I was in Morrisons in Sunderland the other week , all the staff seemed to be locals and lovely they were too

@Oliversmumsarmy

My local area voted overwhelmingly OUT, rarely ever see a foreigner.

Reasons were immigration, shitte public services, over crowded roads, a feeling no one listens to their concerns and a chance to do something it was clear the establishment didnt want them to do!
there is little if any poverty and in my circle of friends (who predominately were leavers) they are well off, in work, all own their own houses, indeed some own a few!

No something else was going on here, its as if they felt the EU had robbed them of their Englishness eg its great to drape yourself in a Scottish or a Welsh flag but try that with the George Cross and suddenly you re a BNP thug.

The EU had robbed them of their Englishness? How? Because UKIP had managed to associate itself strongly with the flag of St George? And that's the EU's fault?

Such insecurity. Constantly bleating about their Englishness being under threat. By what exactly?

They can sill eat the food they've always eaten, watch the telly they've always watched, speak English, pursue their interests.

What is it they've lost or are losing exactly?

Ah that bastion of Englishness , the St George cross , St George of course being a Roman soldier born in Turkey

Agree cobblers, i feel English, i dont feel it is under threat by the EU or anyone else for that matter!
The over whelming thing i see is brexitiers blaming the EU for UK specific and solvable problems.
Read it in every 'fangirl, Surfer or Double post.

But dont worry, L.Fox believes the chances of a no deal is 60/40 and that ll frighten the EU into giving us what UK wants lol!

Frumpety... Please dont destroy their ideals of Englishness :)

jasjas1973 its a shame more people don't have pride in being English and being part of the UK, ( Im not talking about the Bnp either)

Frumpety & jasjas1973

You appear to despise anything English.
Why is that? Do you actually live in England?

Rosstac. That's exactly my point. All it said was leave or stay in the EU. Norway model was leaving the EU but did not mean ending FOM or out the SM. Yet it keeps being presented as 17.4 voted against those things. Actually some leave voters voted for a Norway model. I'm just saying those red lines were not explicit on the ballot paper but have been decided afterwards.

It might be true that in Derek Skinner's Bolsover constituency where the Sports Direct warehouse is situated, that they only employ East Europeans, via Agencies as part of the gig economy. Germany as far as I know, doesn't have a gig economy. Here we have legislation to pay the minimum wage, there is legislation to enforce housing standards for two examples. These often come under the remit of the Local Authority for enforcement, but Local Authorities have been hobbled by diktats from Central Government. Once again you are back to something which Westminster could be tackling and has chosen not to.

Oh but the wealthy cry, we need 'flexibility' and 'cutting red tape' i.e. workers rights. Why anyone thinks that a post Thatcher Tory Westminster Government will suddenly have a change of heart and start to care about people who aren't extremely wealthy is beyond me.

I say post Thatcher, because before her, I believe there were Tories who cared for the prosperity of their local communities.

its a shame more people don't have pride in being English and being part of the UK

How do you mean?

I live in France.

There are French flags flying from every public building (often alongside an EU flag and a regional flag). People drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of cheese. They think their food is the best in the world (even though it isn't). It is difficult to find non French wine and non French food in the supermarket - not because there's any law against it (that would be illegal) but because there's very little demand for it. (This is one reason why I prefer British supermarkets.) They take lots of coffee breaks and long lunch breaks and go on holiday for the whole of August (usually to somewhere else in France). In Paris people are rude on the surface but usually very nice when you get talking to them. People read philosophy (French philosophy, naturally) on the metro.

The French have been in the EU (and its predecessor organisations) for a lot longer than we have. But they are still definitely, unambiguously French.

My uncle's Polish wife has been in the UK for 15 years, yet she is a devout Catholic, goes to Polish mass when she's in London and English mass when she's not, and when we go for lunch we get served delicious Polish food.

Based on recent holidays I can also confirm that the Italians are still very much Italian and the Spanish are still very much Spanish.

Even in Brussels, which is a real melting pot and somewhere you might expect people to lose their national identity, they don't. Talk to someone who works in the European Commission and they'll tell you that the French are infuriating and will never say in five words what they could say in 45. The Germans are logical and risk averse. The mediterraneans are emotional and excitable. The Brits are were considered cool and pragmatic. Together they achieve things. They all speak various languages but tend to default to English or French as a lingua franca. But they never lose their national identity. Their motto is "united in diversity".

Even in the UK, the Welsh are still Welsh, the Scots are still Scottish, the Northern Irish are still...well, it's complicated!

Only the English seem to fear that being in the EU has robbed them of their national identity. Why is that? Is it because the St George flag as now become associated wih football hooligans and the EDL thugs? If so, claim it back! Is it just insecurity? Is it that the Scots tend to fly the saltire and the Welsh prefer their dragons and daffodils and leeks to proudly flying the Union Flag? (And if so, perhaps the English need to take a long hard look at themselves and think about why that might be.)

The EU has not robbed us of our national identity, and leaving the EU will not bring it back.

That’s because people in other EU countries are proud of their country & heritage, they fly their flags with pride.
It’s only the English who are hated & called racist just for flying the English flag. Usually by other English people.
Would you get a French person calling another French person racist for flying their country/ regional flag?
Just wouldn’t happen.

Oh, & Wales voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU.