Westministenders: The Beginning of Negotiations

[RedToothBrush]

Transition has a few hours left.

Then negotiations start and trade stops.

Far from being over, there are huge numbers of issues that lay unresolved.

And businesses both now in the UK and EU will cease to trade with each other just because the red tape is such a pain.

So whilst people will celebrate and think things are 'done' that just shows how much people are paying attention.

It will be interesting to see people gradually realising what has been lost...

For the hundreth time not all of us.

I could also say that of us older ones when the statement is made that we were Leave voters. It was by no means all of us.

I never describe myself as English. I hold a British passport.

As do the people who voted for Brexit.

I am well aware that the people of Kent are not homogenous, but I strongly suspect that the people in Kent who are moaning were Leave voters

That seems like a huge assumption. I suppose there’s a a 59% chance you are right about any one individual. It seems to me reasonable to assume 59% of those moaning were Leave voters and 49% were Remain voters.

I could also say that of us older ones when the statement is made that we were Leave voters. It was by no means all of us..

You could and should say it. There are far too many lazy assumptions about how people voted based on their age or where they live.

Sorry - whilst maths was never my strongest suit I’m not quite that bad! Flagging a bit and 49% was a slip of the keyboard. Of course I meant 59% and 41%.

Ditto those of us who are pensioners in Europe. Nobody knows how many voted for Brexit, but I certainly don't know of any. As far as I am aware there were no actual polls taken, just the odd visit by journalists to a bar on the Costas and anecdotes about some people's elderly relations. Nevertheless we constantly receive cheap jibes, including, sadly, on these threads.
As for Kent, never let it be forgotten that Tunbridge Wells voted remain by 55% to 45%.

I am not wholly unsympathetic to the people in Kent. Two things struck me - poor Government communication, and what sounded like arbitrary re-designation of agricultural land as industrial. Both of these are legitimate complaints.

But, unless my memory is incorrect and it may be, with all the twists and turns going on, I think that the deal that Theresa May was working towards would have avoided customs inspections. Boris Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Co voted down May's deal. By December 2019 people should have been fully aware of the character of Johnson, lying, cheating on all the women he had a relationship with, illegally proroguing Parliament, yet all bar one Kent constituency returned a Tory MP. So with a majority having voted in a con man, they shouldn't be wholly surprised that he cheats them either.

IMO May was treated shabbily by Johnson and The ERG people. Deep down I think she was a conscientious woman trying to get the best deal while honouring the result, but was hopelessly out of her depth.

@FlouncingBabooshka

Why all this defensiveness? My sister lives in Kent. She feels that all the Brexiters deserve exactly what is coming and all the Remainers have to put up with the folly of the majority.

It was very, very obvious from before the referendum that Brexit would turn Kent into a customs bottleneck and lorry park.

I'm not unsympathetic to people in Kent (although I do think that for some it will be a lesson in being careful what you vote for). The leave vote was not an overwhelming vote; in most places, at least 40% of voters voted remain. That's a pretty chunky minority of Kent folk who got not only Brexit but a lorry park in their back garden. Those people have every right to feel aggrieved.

As for Brexit voting pensions in Europe. I'm sure some exist but I have never come across one in the wild - only on BBC clips. I suspect journalists had to look for them specifically, and then carefully select their case studies.

I think that the deal that Theresa May was working towards would have avoided customs inspection

No it wouldn’t have done - to do away with all customs inspections you need both CU + SM.

Any kind of hard Brexit means customs.

I thought May had managed to keep the UK in the CU for now until the technology was developed to deal with customs. The famous 'backstop'? Which effectively was kicking the can down the road for a few more years?

The Brexit voting pensioners seem to be mostly in Spain. The pensioners I know in France and Italy are all pro Remain. French & Italian expats seem to have generally higher levels of education or at least culture.

Even then TatianaBis the Bremain in Spain movement was a very strong one, with a big presence at the London demonstrations. I think Mistigri is right, the journalists flew to the Costas especially to find them and frequently those interviewed were not actual migrants.

You still need SM checks even in a CU.

The barebones CU outlined in the May’s WA would have lasted only until May was replaced by a hardliner who ditched it.

I’m not disputing Brexit expats would have to have been dug out.

I’m not disputing Brexit expats would have to have been dug out.

I have a suspicion that the same is going on when reporters go back to Leave voting areas, and tell us that people haven't changed their minds. They never seem to interview young people for a start.

the journalists flew to the Costas especially to find them and frequently those interviewed were not actual migrants

I am certain this is the case.

Because of the fuck up over postal votes, only a proportion of actual full-time migrants who were entitled to vote actually managed to do so. Of the people I know, I'd think about a third voted, a third were not entitled, a third were prevented from doing so by the postal vote fiasco. Everyone I know who voted, voted remain.

It's actually very credible to me that a lot of "expat" Brexit voters in Spain interviewed by the press were not residents but sunbirds who spend summer in the U.K./winter in Spain.

Well I spoke to a couple in Spain who had a boat based there, were planning on buying a villa there for their retirement to move to live permanently in Spain, and who proudly informed me they both voted for Brexit.
On the basis that
"They need us more than we need them"

I was speechless, and certainly doubt that that line of reasoning was particularly rare amongst the expat community.

I'm sympathetic to people in Kent who voted Remain and got this shitshow, as I am to all of us who voted Remain and have got this shitshow. But those who voted Leave can suck it up - they say they know what they voted for.

Although KonTikki they were not actually migrants at the time that you met them, were they? Which kind of proves the point.
I have no doubt there were fuckwits that voted for Brexit. It is the stereotyping of the whole community that boils my piss.

Some say they know what they voted for.
An awful lot voted for something completely different that was promised them.
I have sympathy with anyone who is scammed, whether or not it would have been obvious to me.

You could and should say it. There are far too many lazy assumptions about how people voted based on their age or where they live

I agree

The use of remainer/leaver as a homogeneous mass contributes massively to the polarisation on mumsnet, and goes some way to explaining the apparent viterol

On the money again...

The trouble is we’re dealing with a nation of 68 million people here. For comparison that’s about as many people as are thought to have lived in the entire Roman Empire at it’s height. With these unprecedented - and recently hugely increased - population levels anything you say of trends and groups is necessarily a gross over-simplification. But we don’t get anywhere, can’t say anything about anything, or learn anything about anyone without looking at trends and groupings.

All any of us can do is use the main data, combine it with personal knowledge and anecdata, and remain firmly aware of its limitations at all times. It’s difficult to do on emotional matters - neither Brexit nor Covid are trivial things.

Is Brexit the only even in human history where the losers have been told not to gloat?

I absolutely agree may

But it help with phrases like ‘leavers are ....or ‘remainers are .....

Or maybe it wouldn’t 🥺

@HannibalHayes

Is Brexit the only even in human history where the losers have been told not to gloat?

I think so 😀