| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7776 Registered: 05-2005 |
If you are in the UK and considering voting no, have a read of/listen to this http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicbl og/2016/apr/21/gruff-rhys-hear-his-song- i-love-eu-and-find-out-why-he-wrote-it | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1068 Registered: 04-2005 |
Not that I needed convincing, but top tune Pádraig. I've just sneaked into the eligibility conditions for voting (another few months and I would have been away from the UK more than 15 years) and will certainly vote to remain. If the UK (or more accurately England ?) votes to leave, my situation in France could become extremely complex. I love the way that rightwingers refer to people like me (British in another European country) as "ex-pats", but a Pole living in Britain is an immigrant worker. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7780 Registered: 05-2005 |
I can't understand why working rights aren't being used as a tactic by the stay advocates. As in "Hey, young Britons, you can currently work legally in 26 European countries. If we leave, you can work legally in one." | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3642 Registered: 03-2005 |
Sigh. To this big lifelong internationalist, the EU has long represented mankind's greatest hope. As a model for a modern cooperative state the U.S. can only serve as a transitional example, now rather out of date. After all we were forged in genocide and slavery and seemingly have never yet truly learned how to embrace the diversity of culture within our own borders. It is the EU which shows so many people around the globe how human beings can move forward from their provincialism. When I just visited, London was obviously literally booming. I think this has lulled people to the danger of their own hubris, forgetting that one of the big reasons their city is booming is because of its position as international financial capitol. If the Little Englanders have their way, it will be the international financial capitol no longer. (Of course we can argue whether that's such a bad thing but you can be sure that Mr. Johnson and many other Brexit proponents will consider it so.) While there I visited an ex-pat friend who has lived in the U.K. for something like 15 years. He is a citizen and carries a U.K. passport but has never emotionally embraced his citizenship. He was planning not to vote in the referendum at all, insisting that he only votes in U.S. elections. I pulled every cheap sentimental trick in the book; I think I finally convinced him that he must vote. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7782 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, fair play to you for twisting your friend's arm. Every vote matters, even more so when voting is not compulsory. I love that Australia has compulsory voting. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 346 Registered: 08-2005 |
While I do have doubts about the EU (as I do about any large bureaucratic organisation) I think it's the better of the options. Sheesh, have you seen the people who actually want to leave the EU? Not the sort of people, on the whole, I'd like to be trapped in a lift with! | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3656 Registered: 03-2005 |
I remember the front page of the Guardian after the U.S. Presidential election in 2004. It was a huge rectangle of black ink with "oh God" in the middle. Or maybe it was "oh no." This is my "oh God" or "oh no" moment. Andrew, Stuart, I hope this doesn't disrupt your lives. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 7852 Registered: 05-2005 |
Oh, God. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1290 Registered: 10-2006 |
All the papers here jumped the gun and got it wrong: "Europe wins!" " "Farage admits defeat!" etc. Only when one of the blokes in the bar asked me if I could sell him an umbrella did I realise things had gone awry. I suppose Italian citizenship may be the way to go. Oh what fun. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 361 Registered: 08-2005 |
Yowza! I work in a large office - c80 people - and at 53 I'm the oldest. Not one person I spoke with voted to leave. I'm staggered and concerned; it's a dreadful, dreadful decision by the old and the predominantly white working class (there's no point dodging that issue); England's former industrial heartlands voted to leave, I suspect as a result of getting screwed over by successive governments of various hues that have done nothing to address their issues. Scary f***in times indeed! Small saving graces (tiny, tiny ones): Nigel Farage will have to leave his job as an MEP, and I'll be able to say I told you so as the country goes to hell in a handcart. But recession beckons... and the thought of Boris Johnson as PM is a sickener. One Eton twat was enough. F*** me! | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1189 Registered: 08-2004 |
If you don't surround yourself with right wing slobs you tend not to see the danger coming. This is a very dark day. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3657 Registered: 03-2005 |
"If you don't surround yourself with right wing slobs you tend not to see the danger coming." I work in a largish law office. There is one person I am aware of in the office who is a Trump supporter. He is the first generation in his family born in the U.S., his parents originally from Mexico. He claims to put priority on his "Christian values." Maybe it is significant that he was never able to pass the Bar exam. (He works as a paralegal.) Concerned about the support for Trump in fly-over land, somewhere in another thread I asked the U.K. members here a rhetorical question, about how the de-industrialized parts of the country adapted to the changes of the past 30 or 40 years. I guess I have my answer. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1082 Registered: 04-2005 |
I've already started looking into trying to obtain French nationality. Mind you, if I hang on a wee bit maybe Scottish nationality will be an option too ?! What a mess. What is quite ironic is the number of Brit ex-pats in the Dordogne that are rabid right wingers (Telegraph readers!). I would love France to ask them all to leave tomorrow. Once, when I was making polite conversation at the school gates, I asked an English woman why she had chosen this area in France to live. Her reply ? "Too many black faces in London". | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 363 Registered: 08-2005 |
Jerry/Randy, nail on the head. For generations England's industrial north (yes, I know it's a broad term and this is a broad-brush-strokes argument) had a place in the scheme of things, but from the 1950s onwards the industries faltered, were marginalised and then royally screwed by Thatcher. Her analysis may have been correct, in that the industries were past their peak, but refusing to invest in modernising industries (unlike the much more economically successful Germany) and putting workers on the scrapheap, and creating a low-skilled, low-paid economy has resulted in this. Okay, that's a broad simplification of one of the strands; the inability of mainstream politicians to argue that immigrants play a positive role in society is another one. I could go on, but frankly I'm despondent. The positives?: younger people believe in closer harmony with Europe and by extension the wider world (but they've just been royally screwed - my phrase of the day - by their elders). | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3659 Registered: 03-2005 |
Simon, my impression is that a lot of the same is happening in the so-called "rust belt" here. Old industries are being allowed to wither and die. In some cases it's ok; Pittsburgh, PA is the poster-child for a steel town that reinvented itself as a modern economy. But I'm pretty sure its population is smaller than it was in its prime as a steel town. So many of the old automotive centers are dying, with new factories opened in the Southern so-called "right to work" states which is Orwellian U.S. jargon for non-union states. A lot of people cannot reinvent themselves if they lose their gigs when they've passed 50 years of age. These are the Trump voters and I perceive the English Brexit voters fit a similar mold. I could go on and on about the dynamism of the young generation in the EU, until now including the U.K.. That ability to absorb and circulate among so many cultures is an incredible adaptive advantage for the future. If your kids can do that they will thrive in the world old bozos like me will barely live to see. But I'll stop picking at the wound. For me it's a depressing disappointing development in one of my favorite countries. For you, Simon, it's a grinding reality to address in your daily life. Just know that there are some of us scattered around the globe who feel it on your behalf. We share values which transcend mere national boundaries. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 3660 Registered: 03-2005 |
Simon, my impression is that a lot of the same is happening in the so-called "rust belt" here. Old industries are being allowed to wither and die. In some cases it's ok; Pittsburgh, PA is the poster-child for a steel town that reinvented itself as a modern economy. But I'm pretty sure its population is smaller than it was in its prime as a steel town. So many of the old automotive centers are dying, with new factories opened in the Southern so-called "right to work" states which is Orwellian U.S. jargon for non-union states. A lot of people cannot reinvent themselves if they lose their gigs when they've passed 50 years of age. These are the Trump voters and I perceive the English Brexit voters fit a similar mold. I could go on and on about the dynamism of the young generation in the EU, until now including the U.K.. That ability to absorb and circulate among so many cultures is an incredible adaptive advantage for the future. If your kids can do that they will thrive in the world old bozos like me will barely live to see. But I'll stop picking at the wound. For me it's a depressing disappointing development in one of my favorite countries. For you, Simon, it's a grinding reality to address in your daily life. Just know that there are some of us scattered around the globe who feel it on your behalf. We share values which transcend mere national boundaries. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1190 Registered: 08-2004 |
Quite prescient and ties in with everything written above. The median income in top 5 Remain areas = £30,000 The median income in top 5 Brexit areas = £18,500 The news media are complicit in their peddling of misinformation. Since their core readership come from lower/working class backgrounds. 4 of the big 5 tabloids in England backed the leave campaign. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 365 Registered: 08-2005 |
The irony is that leaving the EU could (I'd say probably will) impact upon the lowest earners most. It's pretty likely that workers' rights will be reduced even more, jobs supported by EU funding will be threatened, power and money will be ever-more-concentrated in the hands of the few - a minority which espouses xenophobia and racial hatred. Nothing to worry about, then.., |