Westministenders: This is not the Brexit we voted for

[ListeningQuietly]

UK Shellfish industry destroyed because our inshore waters are not clean enough
Welsh Ports on their knees because the Land Bridge has found another route
Horticulture seed producers lost all of their mainland EU customers

Antique dealers lost access to their suppliers
Small businesses being told (by UK Govt) to relocate to the EU to avoid red tape
Brits in the EU discovering that stopping Free Movement applies to them too
Northern Ireland in Unionist flames because there is a border between them and Great Britain, but not the Republic
And the UK has still not taken control of its borders

Brexit is shaping up as predicted, but none of those who voted for it seem to have what they wanted

This is as I have always said - half of the Leave voters were people who were comfortably off outside the Red Wall areas.

Although the numbers involved in the survey I mentioned above are very small.

“Labour and the minority need to RAMP UP the pressure on cronyism and corruption... The elections are only a few weeks away
they need to pull their fingers out“
Completely agree LQ there’s so much of it now it feels like it’s finally starting to cut through especially Cameron. What they need to hammer home is it’s Tory corruption and this government is no different.

I do fear that the European Super League shambles may take over the but surely there’s a way they could use it as example of how it’s always unfettered competition only for anyone but the already super wealthy who are protected from the fall out. Reminds me of something else now I think about it!

@Peregrina Just read this article and thought it was really interesting if not that surprising.
The bit about people thinking benefit claimants are lazy and 'scroungers' sadly suggests that so many years of tory indoctrination have been pretty effective. One remark by someone that the british were 'feral'
and lacked ambition, should be 'made to clean toilets if necessary' struck me as very similar to what was written in 'unchained britannia' by priti patel, raab etc. Don't think labour have a cat in hells chance as those kind of opinions are prevalent now even in w/c communities..

It was certainly very depressing to read the comfortably off talking about people being feral and having to clean toilets if necessary. Would they, if they were down on their luck? I can imagine that Patel's parents might have done their share of hard graft; I somehow doubt whether she has.

www.rte.ie/news/2021/0419/1210667-juncker-cameron-brexit/

I have a friend who is first generation British - her parents grafted..... she however was raised a complete Princess! I love her - but her upbringing was so different from mine....... I was taught that I was never above a job. That was not her experience - and having organised charity events with her - it showed.

That awkward moment when you realise your prime minister has shagged more Russian agents than James Bond.

I am waiting for tomorrows court case to be out of the way
then I'll focus on Brexit again

Ho hum Johnson breaks another pledge, that 'wild horses' would not stop him campaigning to save the union. Or in this case not campaigning to save the union. His spokeswoman blames Covid for the cancelled visit.

I think the Scottish expression is Aye Right.

And today from the BBC Reality Check Team:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/56763859
Northern Ireland: Did anyone warn about Brexit border checks?

Just

And via the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/half-of-brexit-supporters-were-not-left-behind-red-wall-voters
Half of Brexit supporters were not ‘left behind’ red wall voters
Research sheds fresh light on motivations and aspirations of typical Brexit voter in Britain

They did not have huge expectations of “sunlit uplands” or economic gains but believed that leaving the EU was an opportunity to address a perceived loss of industry, community services and national pride.

Fucking flags.

A quarter of the leave vote could be categorised as “economically deprived, anti-immigration with monthly household income of less than £2,200 a month. A third of leave supporters were older working class, with an average age of 71.

However, almost half were “affluent Eurosceptics” who shared the domestic priorities of the poorer cohort – they wanted further investment in police, the NHS and care workers and “proper, secure work for high-quality domestic production, as well as apprenticeship in real jobs”, says the briefing paper.

and

“Many of the comfortable leavers liked where they lived, they spoke about access to green spaces, shopping malls and local amenities but were aware of areas close by where they saw problems of crime and antisocial behaviour, a lack of opportunities for young people and loss of local manufacturing industry. They believed that Brexit would free up funding for some of this investment,” the researchers report.

Their views on immigration were more nuanced than the leave narrative suggests and were “most scathing” about British people on benefits who refused to do the jobs migrants would do.

“The English are feral, and they were fed for years and years off, if you stubbed your toe you got disability living allowance for the rest of your life … The English need to be retrained that, to feed your family, if you have to go and scrub toilets … that’s what you do,” said one female from the west Midlands.

“Poverty was often linked to narratives of ‘scrounging’ and ‘laziness’, of poor role models and a ‘something-for-nothing’ culture,” says the report.

National pride was a strong identifier for comfortable leavers with little support for devolution.

“The expectations and hopes for the post-Brexit world among comfortable leavers show a nostalgic optimism that leaving the EU (and the pandemic) might be a catalyst for change, but a change that could restore industries, services and a sense of pride from an earlier era,” concludes the report.

People who wanted to reverse technological advancement I guess...

“The English are feral, and they were fed for years and years off, if you stubbed your toe you got disability living allowance for the rest of your life … The English need to be retrained that, to feed your family, if you have to go and scrub toilets … that’s what you do,” said one female from the west Midlands."

Fed that by the papers they read, of course.

Let me guess, the female from the west Midlands expects other people to do this? Brexit was, as ever, the result of resentment.

Meanwhile the lead story on the BBC news website for the past 3 days has been all about football ...

The football stuff is ridiculous. Who cares, really? Even football fans know the Premier League is just a big money making machine, and they’ll be able to watch the matches anyway. Maybe people will complain to the BBC like they did after PP’s funeral.
This is a good take on it:

www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/halifax-town-torquay-united-and-stockport-county-join-european-super-non-league-20210419207270

Another fisherman realising he got it wrong.

Too late, too late...

The BBC Reality check is just not how I remember the Referendum - protecting the GFA (as I have said before) is the issue which swung it for me, and overcame my desire to give Cameron a good kicking in the teeth. Now if I thought that, the information must have been out there.

As for the survey of the smug south-east. I was gratified to note that it was a very small survey, but at the same time, I do know Tory voters who express exactly the same sentiments, so sadly I fear it is more representative than the small number might suggest.

Turning to Football - well it would be very good if somehow the teams proposing the Superleague found that they had shot themselves in the foot. But personally, I don't care too much.

Maybe people will complain to the BBC like they did after PP’s funeral.

It was more nuanced than that though. People, including me, complained about the blanket coverage with the same stuff on repeat, and in my case, I complained about the banal quality of some website articles being passed off as news. "Old grandfather dies, we are upset." Of course you are, unless you had hearts of stone, but it's not news.

For his actual funeral, I think both the Royal Family and the BBC got it right. Having to scale it down because of Covid made it much more of a family funeral than all the ceremonial marching in London would have done. About the same number watched PP's funeral as watched the QM's. Still only about 1/3 of the numbers who watched Princess Di's but deaths of young people are always more shocking and especially if they happened in an accident.

Ooh, I've just found a website that c&pova will like; boris-johnson-lies.com. Starting with this beauty about Turkey because we know there was absolutely no hint of racism in the leave campaign, no none at all

My morning exercise routine was just ruined by hearing Gavin W wittering on. Moreover he was supposed to be talking about apprenticeships but instead they asked him about bloody football (cue clueless wittering) and climate change (ditto), at which point I finished my stretches and turned him off. Gaaah.

.

@Peregrina

The BBC Reality check is just not how I remember the Referendum - protecting the GFA (as I have said before) is the issue which swung it for me, and overcame my desire to give Cameron a good kicking in the teeth. Now if I thought that, the information must have been out there.

As for the survey of the smug south-east. I was gratified to note that it was a very small survey, but at the same time, I do know Tory voters who express exactly the same sentiments, so sadly I fear it is more representative than the small number might suggest.

Turning to Football - well it would be very good if somehow the teams proposing the Superleague found that they had shot themselves in the foot. But personally, I don't care too much.

Well yes.

It was one of my main reasons to Remain.

It certainly was talked about on MN and I do think there were articles at the time in the media that mentioned it and I do think that protecting the GFA was a subject that the official campaign mentioned because the earliest Westministenders threads made a point of looking at this when people started to say, 'well no one mentioned it'. The general Westministenders line was that it was mentioned, not nearly enough but it was there, and people were actively choosing to ignore the subject (on both sides of the argument) either in favour of other issues or because they didn't like the monkeys at someone else's circus.

I find that BBC reality check slightly alarming tbh, and it is tempting to go back to 2016 and review what was said on MN. I'm not sure I can be bothered though. Its very clear a rewriting of history is going on.

One thing I do very clearly remember off the top of my head was Nick Clegg writing an article (about a week later than I had written very very similar on MN which still sticks with me) about how to vote. It was published on 22nd June in the i.

Now I believe that Clegg was part of the Official Remain Campaign, unless I'm going completely bloody bonkers.

This is the article:
inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/will-wake-vote-leave-11756

He certainly mentions it and how people have been talking about it.

Why would he do that, if it wasn't a subject that was part of the dialogue of the time?

The point was that you had an issue with borders and control of borders the GFA put certain limitations on what you could and couldn't do without causing problems.

Maybe people at the time only interpretated as being about immigration because the naive assumption was we would stay part of the customs union / get a good deal, but it certainly was discussed when people were talking about swiss deals and australian points and norway etc. That was done more after the ref, but it certainly was talked about pre ref too.

Or maybe I'm just going completely bloody insane.

I hadn't seen that Clegg article but he's pretty spot on I would say.

I also recall Major and Blair talking about it, but I don't remember when that was.

Dated the 9th June 2016

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-tony-blair-and-john-major-warn-brexit-will-tear-apart-britain-a7071731.html
EU referendum: Tony Blair and John Major warn Brexit will ‘tear apart’ Britain
In a joint speech in Northern Ireland, the former PMs will warn that leaving the EU would be a ‘deeply damaging and reckless course’ that would put the region’s future at risk

“Their ideological fixation with leaving Europe is more important to them than the clear disadvantage Northern Ireland would suffer if we left and the consequent damage to the UK as a whole,” he will say. “We should always distrust those who put ideology before practical considerations”.

Currently, the UK and the Republic of Ireland operate a Common Travel Area, in which citizens of the two states can move freely without passports and enjoy almost the same rights as citizens in each other’s countries – an arrangement that pre-dates the EU. However, a vote for Brexit would create a land border between an EU and a non-EU state. Remain campaigners have warned that it could lead to the return of a “hard border” between the two countries, putting trade and economic collaboration at risk.

Leave campaign figurehead Boris Johnson has said that the border arrangements would be “absolutely unchanged” in the event of Brexit. However, other Leave campaigners have suggested some border controls would be necessary to prevent opening up a “backdoor” to the UK for EU migrants.

Hmm.

Interesting how even the Leave supporters mentioned in that article who suggest things might not be as simple as BJ intimated seem to focus on immigrants...