Can any genuine non-goady posters who voted for Brexit answer some of the following questions please?

[Spittingchestnuts]

I would prefer to avoid a goady thread if at all possible.

I'm British but I live outside the UK and I'm interested to know - now Brexit is "done" (almost) - why current discussions about it on Mumsnet and elsewhere on UK sm and in the press, are not more focused on what the UK will be doing after 1st January when the transition period comes to an end should we have no deal, and even if we do? (I'm thinking more about policy and direction rather than possible goods delays at borders but those are important too.) Is anyone who voted for Brexit prepared to admit that they are worried with the New Year looming so close and so little information coming from the government?

Some regular pro-Brexit posters on here seem to have blind faith in Boris Johnson's government and a strong belief that life will automatically be better outside the EU despite the fact that, apart from a few vague witterings about greater flexibility and increased sovereignty, we almost have next to no detailed information about it. The lack of detailed facts available is scary actually. As far as I can understand it, Brexiteers voted for a "vague notion" sketched in the briefest of terms by a proven liar and his cohorts with next to no detail or shading. If you think this interpretation is unfair, can you give me more details as to why? What concrete things did you vote for as opposed to the things you voted against?

To date, the UK government have been very vocal about what they don't want and how they don't want to be shackled to EU rules, but have been less forthcoming about what they do want and how these changes wiil translate in to legislation. We've rejected rules and policies that are roughly aligned with a Christian liberal, centre-leaning social democratic model that focuses on high product standards and good basic employment protections, so where will we go now? In a different direction presumably?

So what will the laws and policies be that distinguish ourselves from this EU mould? 52% of UK citizens voted for them so can any of you please explain them? We will presumably be steering to the right of where we are now? Given that Brexit was championed by the right wing of the Conservative party who want lower taxes, less state intervention, I would say that that's a logical conclusion, but is no one particularly alarmed by this prospect? Can anyone who voted for Brexit but doesn't view themselves as particularly right wing , explain this to me?

I know it is said that some Brexiteers voted for improved public services, and for more money being invested in the NHS etc? Can anyone explain how Boris will manage to recruit more nurses, more police, and have better environmental standards, while presiding over a low tax economy or "Singapore-on-Thames"? Does no one recognise a potential conflict between these two positions?

And now we want to trade more with non-EU countries that are geographically further away, how will be, practically and logistically, manage to do this without undermining current UK efforts to be more environmentally friendly?

And what about the "small" matter of Scotland voting to remain by 62%? And Northern Ireland by 55.8%? Is anyone who voted for Brexit even mildly concerned about what affect a Conservative government, based in Westminster, imposing a divergence away from Europe they didn't want, on citizens of Scotland and N.Ireland, will have on the unity of the UK ?

It's probably too much to hope for but I would love some non-goady genuine pro-Brexit posters to explain some of this to me. As I love and miss the UK, and have lots of family there, and there are 20 days until the new year, these questions are occupying my thoughts and keeping me awake at night.

The biggest mistake David Cameron made when allowing the referendum vote was in thinking that people would vote based on whether or not they wanted to leave the EU. They didn't. As evidenced by multiple posters, they simply voted for change, any change, because they were so disenfranchised by the status quo. PPs are right, very little of what Brexit will achieve couldn't have been done while still in the EU, but the political will wasn't there to change it.

The remain side didn't bother to put together a cohesive or compelling argument because they thought the result was a given.

The leave side put together a campaign based on half truths and downright lies, because they never thought they'd win and have to answer for any of it.

Thousands of people who wanted to remain didn't bother to vote because they didn't see the way the wind was blowing and thought it was in the bag with or without their vote.

Most people just voted for "something else". Some had a reasonable idea that it wouldn't be great, but were so overlooked by the current political climate that they just wanted to share a bit of the misery around even though it meant they'd get more of it themselves. Not many though. Most people weren't even thinking about leaving the EU when they cast their vote, so threads like these are pointless.

We shouldn't be asking why people voted to leave the EU, or what they were hoping to change because a lot of people don't have a strong idea, only a feeling. Or the reasons they give were formed after the fact, and didn't actually have any impact on their original vote.

What we should be asking is why people felt so utterly helpless in their own lives that they felt the need to vote leave in order to register their discontent, and why these couldn't have been addressed without the need for a referendum.

Brexit has been the biggest failure to read the room in political history.

"Something different" always has the possibility of "something better" attached to it. Even if it doesn't play out that way, there was that brief moment of hope that it would.

Why were the British population so unhappy with the status quo, that so many wanted "something different"? That's what we should have been asking.

Brexit was just a vehicle, and it was a terrible weapon to give a disenfranchised public.

Here's an interesting insight into the ownership of the UK's fishing rights.

It looks like ownership is mostly Tory donors...

I honestly can't believe that we are risking a no deal because of fishermen! Mind you I know someone who voted solely on fishing rights so I hope she's happy.

An interesting thread on fishing;

twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1339887037554581504

Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
It is right to ask why industries like fishing have declined. The problem is the blithe assumption that the answer must always be "because of the EU". The problems facing the UK fishing industry long predate EU membership, and will not be magically solved by Brexit. [THREAD]
Quote Tweet
Harry Cole
@MrHarryCole
· 14h
After all these years... remainers still go "AH HA but fishing is a tiny contribution to the economy".. Well why might that be? Why has it withered? Why has it become a totemic issue in our relationship with Brussels? Yes it is tiny now. But for millions that's the sodding point.
10:55 AM · Dec 18, 2020·Twitter Web App
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
·
1h
Replying to
@redhistorian

1. Fishing had been declining for much of the twentieth century. The number of UK fishermen more than halved in mid-century: from nearly 48,000 in 1938 to 21,000 in 1970. By 1970 - the year before the UK signed the Treaty of Accession - fishing made up less than 0.1% of UK GDP.

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 1h

1. That decline had many causes. A century of over-fishing had left stocks dangerously depleted. Younger generations were moving out, in search of safer and better-paid work inland. And the "Cod Wars" with Iceland (1958-76) triggered the collapse of the Atlantic trawler fleet.

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 1h

1. The "Cod Wars", in which Iceland expelled GB trawlers from its waters, were a grim reminder (a) that other states have sovereignty too & (b) that power-politics still exist outside the EU. For Cold-War reasons, the US backed Iceland. The UK had to fold. theconversation.com/fish-fights-britain-has-a-long-history-of-trading-away-access-to-coastal-waters-112988

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 43m

1. There were other challenges, too. In the early 1970s, Norway & Iceland were dumping large quantities of frozen fish on the British market, driving down prices for domestic suppliers. The fishing fleet badly needed investment for modernisation but was struggling to raise funds.

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 43m

1. EEC membership did not solve all the problems facing British fishing, but nor did it create them. Before 1970, a sovereign UK government had proven singularly unwilling - perhaps unable - to arrest the collapse of an industry that an official described as "economic peanuts".

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 43m

1. It was the UK government that made fishing quotas more easily tradeable in the 1990s, accelerating their sale to overseas fleets. The number of UK fishermen declined from 20,000 in 1994 to c.12,000. Landings by the home fleet fell from 726,000 tonnes to 391,000.

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 42m

1. In fishing, as in much else, blaming the EU became a substitute for serious thought about what kind of fishing industry we want, how much we're willing to pay for it, how we balance it against other interests & how we manage stocks, as oceans warm & great-power rivalry hots up

Robert Saunders ***@redhistorian*** · 42m

1. The challenges facing the UK fishing industry did not begin with the EU & will not be solved magically by leaving. The UK failed to address those problems before 1970. It will fail again, unless it stops blaming the EU bogeyman for much longer & deeper problems of policy. ENDS

As with fishing, so with the textile industry. Poor management and lack of investment saw the work going to the Far East in the 1960s and onwards. A realisation that we couldn't compete with Far East sweat shops but investment and better management could have lead to a high end industry. But no, it didn't happen.

Thousands of people who wanted to remain didn't bother to vote because they didn't see the way the wind was blowing and thought it was in the bag with or without their vote

Justchecking then they’re hardly in a position to call leavers stupid.

Some had a reasonable idea that it wouldn't be great, but were so overlooked by the current political climate that they just wanted to share a bit of the misery around even though it meant they'd get more of it themselves
This was a bigger factor than you think. Lots of people thought their lot couldn’t possibly get much worse and were patting themselves on the back for causing problems for the rich. They screwed us over for years and now we finally have a chance to screw them over! Can’t say I didn’t rub my hands with glee that Brexit means my twat of an ex-employer will struggle to import his stock from the EU where it’s manufactured.

This was a bigger factor than you think. Lots of people thought their lot couldn’t possibly get much worse and were patting themselves on the back for causing problems for the rich. They screwed us over for years and now we finally have a chance to screw them over!
Which forgets the fact that those with no mortgage / rent
and substantial savings and investments
and unearned income
will be just fine
no matter how shit it gets for the other 99%

Farage, Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Co being screwed over?
I doubt if any of them will be queuing at the food banks any time soon.

Which forgets the fact that those with no mortgage / rent
and substantial savings and investments
and unearned income
will be just fine
no matter how shit it gets for the other 99%

Well if tax goes up for higher earners your interest from savings and profits from investments might be affected. If house prices fall so fewer people rent your let properties might lose profit. Unearned income - you mean pension?? That gets taxed too.

A realisation that we couldn't compete with Far East sweat shops but investment and better management could have lead to a high end industry. But no, it didn't happen.
Do you mean the government didn't act because I don't think Government funding is allowed in the UK into private companies. Except to occasionally save a bankrupt high employer.
And how can a high end UK industry paying minimum wages and all taxes etc compete with sweat shops. To stay in business the UK businesses moved to overseas sweatshops too. You could say the problem is you and me, the consumer who always goes for the cheapest option when shopping.

In rural areas of Britain which often now have almost no industries except service indistries fishing can be the only industry, on a small scale but employing people just the same.

The firms themselves could have acted, and done some investment in more modern machinery and market research. Too many in my town were complacent and no surprise, they are virtually all gone now.

Do we always go for the cheapest option when shopping?

They screwed us over for years and now we finally have a chance to screw them over! Can’t say I didn’t rub my hands with glee that Brexit means my twat of an ex-employer will struggle to import his stock from the EU where it’s manufactured

Well done, give yourself a pat on the back.

peregrina, probably - you only have to look on the threads on here over the last month or so where people asked that we not overlook small local businesses in favour of Amazon and the pile on that ensued, mainly because people observed Amazon was cheaper. Also, the number of people who are prepared to buy shoddy, possibly dangerous goods from places like Wish - because they're cheap.

I know a lot of people who voted Leave. I think it partially was that as the campaign for Remain was so negative, it was difficult to identify the positives that being in the EU brought the country. It was assumed that 'free movement' was understood as being both ways etc as a bonus to British travellers.

In addition, I know many people who think the EU as a concept is quite flawed and especially economically, is a mess because of the Euro. There is also a perception that as an island, we should find it simple to regulate our borders. The EU attitude to Brent during the campaign didn't help either - Juncker etc were incredibly negative about Britain when economically there were positives for them. I think the analysis in twenty years time will highlight the lack of responsibility by politicians in running a well-informed campaign.

I also think it was one of the first big votes really affected by social media in terms of targeted content. I don't just mean the Russians and Cambridge Analytica. Obama was interviewed on David Letterman and he made the point that based on your analytical data, you are shown different results when an issue is searched online. This leads to people becoming polarised as they think they can see the whole debate but actually if their data is left wing, they see more left wing content. I think Brent was a good example of how hard an election is in the age of technology (with Donald Trump's election as the second).

@Peregrina

The firms themselves could have acted, and done some investment in more modern machinery and market research. Too many in my town were complacent and no surprise, they are virtually all gone now.

Do we always go for the cheapest option when shopping?

The lack of investment in UK manufacturing precedes the EEC, e.g. look at the motorcycle industry, world leading in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, didn't change in the 60s and by the 70s were in terminal decline.

But Triumph does show that UK can compete, John Bloor bought the name in 1983 and they now export 85% of their bikes, just 9000 are sold in the UK.
Now they face tariffs for their european market.

State intervention/aid rarely works, billions (in todays money) were poured into the british car and motor cycle industries, all failed.

jasjas - my point exactly about what was my local textile industry. The decline probably set in after the war. A factory I worked in the late 60s was still using 19th century machinery.

Now I know that e.g with a sewing machine, the design itself is old - but there is a vast difference between a machine produced today and a 19th century one.

I knew it was going to be bad, but even I am only just starting to realise how fucking awful it's going to be!

Fuck you Brexiters, for screwing up our country so fucking badly.

@AnnnaBananna

What concrete things did you vote for as opposed to the things you voted against? In a nutshell: I voted for an equal society where women are safe and respected and attitudes are tolerant and accepting. I voted for not allowing any more people into the UK who are opposed to those ideals.

I'm responding to this, posted 12/12, thus understand the conversation will have moved on, but, if these were your concerns, did it not occur to you that the trade deals we have to make come with strings attached, such as More Visas? Which is why the South Asian vote in our Midlands was for Brexit?

Like you say, so many of these 'issues', like the female second class citizenship 'thing' could have been addressed internally, were the will there to do so.

Brexit has pretty much taken away that ability, given our reliance on overseas labour. From wherever it comes.

I am coalface NHS, in a well to do market town one hour by train from London. A very white, very MC city.

Five years ago, our staffing shortfall, caused by the removal of the HCP bursary (Cons); the vilification of the nasty NHS (red top Tory donor trash-papers); the blame for 2008 being laid, by such trash papers, at the door of nurses' pensions- was picked up by the EU. Polish, Spanish, Portuguese HCPs.

And bloody good 95% of them were. (And yes, in the interests of fairness, the Slovakians weren't so great!).

Tho no complaints about the South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders!

FFW to now. They're all gone. Replaced by Nigerians, Jamaicans and Indians, in my hospital Trust.

Wow, I can see the 'Racist!!' -hackles rise!...

But, here's the thing. Not all HCP qualifications, internationally, are equal.

That's all I can say right now.

But you'd be shocked at the near-misses these 'different standards' facilitate.

In voting Brexit, you drove away the EU competence, those with qualification standards far more closely aligned to our own.

We, the NHS, now, as policy are trawling the developed and third world to make up out deficits.

Somewhat obviously this will include those whose perception of sex-equality are somewhat different to our own.

It's the fall in the value of the pound which means it isn't as lucrative to work in the UK. Better to stay in a euro zone, no benefit in being here because of that.

I'm responding to this, posted 12/12, thus understand the conversation will have moved on, but, if these were your concerns, did it not occur to you that the trade deals we have to make come with strings attached, such as More Visas? Which is why the South Asian vote in our Midlands was for Brexit?

Let's not have any excuses that Boris Johnson didn't know this. I recall that he and Theresa May rushed off to India with great fanfare to discuss trade deals, and then slunk back without a deal, because India wanted an increased visa quota for her citizens.

Genuine answer to the OP:
It is not about what this government may do differently or hat I want, it is about the UK population being able to decide what they want via elections.
All this depends on what deal is agreed but:

1. GM food - cheap and environmentally friendly
2. no fishing zones to protect wildlife
3. better rules on transport of animals
4. better worldwide agreements on immigration
5. Better tariffs for the UK - why do we want 20% on wine from Australia?

The point of Brexit is to make us more global and better integrated into the world

U love how OP wants non glady posts and the first few posts are from remainers called thise who voted basically stuoidnand uneducated. This is why many leave voters don't respond anymore because before they can they have already had their intelligence insulted. Somehow only remainers are educated people