OT British Uc-ers

"Fear and racism abound" - well, we can be 'full of high sentence' like Alfred Prufrock, but i definitely disagree that fear has anything to do with racism. I admit i am a coward and i fear going to England, France or Belgium after reading warnings that this summer terrorists attacks on an unprecedented scale are being planned in these countries. Although i don't fear "the other", i fear 'values' such as enslavement of women, eradicating homosexuals and Charlie Hebdo like cases. In this sense i am definitely a racist. I have several Arabic friends who are Muslims living in Germany. One of them was called 'a Jewish racist' (sic!) when she said that the New Year's Cologne incident was a horror. Her opinion was perceived as a racist attack on those 'poor' men who had the right to behave like that because it's a part of their culture. It means that Europe has gone mad and, like in Orwell's dystopia, the words have lost their original meaning. Salman Rushdie was recently called a racist when he said that it is Saudi Arabia (they have millions super comfortable air conditoned tents after each Mecca pilgrimage) and not Europe who has moral obligation to accept people of the same cultural background. We don't 'own' Europe but we should own basic values opposite to fundamentalisms. I'm not a great fan of Houllebecq but i agree with him that 'submission' has become a European state of mind which will bring about disasters. Fortunately there is Argentina where i can escape, moreover that Silvio Najt's fecal transplant clinic is becoming more and more famous for its successes :)

When enough people get fed up with the status quo--and where they live and vote doesn't matter--they will reject the status quo. I am not one of those people but cannot disregard the polarization in Europe, US, Middle East, South America causing things to happen that seem improbable.

I read that young people in UK wanted to "stay" but didn't vote. The power of a single vote seems small but in the end is great.

ewafromwarsaw said...
"Fear and racism abound" - well, we can be 'full of high sentence' like Alfred Prufrock, but i definitely disagree that fear has anything to do with racism. I admit i am a coward and i fear going to England, France or Belgium after reading warnings that this summer terrorists attacks on an unprecedented scale are being planned in these countries. Although i don't fear "the other", i fear 'values' such as enslavement of women, eradicating homosexuals and Charlie Hebdo like cases. In this sense i am definitely a racist. I have several Arabic friends who are Muslims living in Germany. One of them was called 'a Jewish racist' (sic!) when she said that the New Year's Cologne incident was a horror. Her opinion was perceived as a racist attack on those 'poor' men who had the right to behave like that because it's a part of their culture. It means that Europe has gone mad and, like in Orwell's dystopia, the words have lost their original meaning. Salman Rushdie was recently called a racist when he said that it is Saudi Arabia (they have millions super comfortable air conditoned tents after each Mecca pilgrimage) and not Europe who has moral obligation to accept people of the same cultural background. We don't 'own' Europe but we should own basic values opposite to fundamentalisms. I'm not a great fan of Houllebecq but i agree with him that 'submission' has become a European state of mind which will bring about disasters. Fortunately there is Argentina where i can escape, moreover that Silvio Najt's fecal transplant clinic is becoming more and more famous for its successes :)

I'm a single 5'0" female living on my own and I don't feel scared either here (a small town about 30 miles outside of London) or in London itself. I don't like the values of extremist muslims, and their degradation of women, any more than you do, but I'm not seeing what this has to do with leaving the EU to be honest. I don't know about Poland's immigration policies but here we don't need to be a member of the EU to let in people from all over the world - they come anyway. I personally have no problems with workers that we need coming over, but, yes, I don't want people coming over whose values are fundamentally opposed to mine and who have no intention of integrating.

It's not like us leaving the EU will change any of that though. The leave camp reneged on their promise to drastically reduce immigration almost as soon as they won. We'll end up joining the single market (at great expense) and end up having to accept free movement of labour between European peoples anyway.

It's such a farce you almost couldn't make it up.

imagardener said...
I read that young people in UK wanted to "stay" but didn't vote. The power of a single vote seems small but in the end is great.

Unfortunately this is true. If the same proportion of young people had voted as the elderly did, remain would have won. The young just don't learn. The elderly get out there, election after election, and vote for governments that pander to them and screw over the young. I still thought remain would just about carry the day this time, but alas it didn't.

Serenity Now said...
UK-ers, I have been hearing something about a Regrexit petition. Is it actually possible that Brexit could be reversed?? This is like a television drama we are watching, except it's real life! What do they always say, truth is stranger than fiction. I've felt that way about the Trump saga as well.

Possible, but very unlikely - MPs won't want to be seen going against 'democracy'. Scotland were pretending they could block it for a while, but the EU quickly slapped them down on that one. Our best bet for a reversal is a second referendum, but that's also very unlikely to happen. At least not in the near future.

Another alternative is to simply not invoke article 50 and remain in the EU that way, thus making Europe hate us even more than they already do.

This referendum has also brought the knuckle-draggers out of the closet and out into the open. They've always existed of course, but now they're becoming brazen about it. As will the far right knuckle-draggers in other European countries.

/www.facebook.com/sarah.leblanc.718/media_set?set=a.10101369198638985&type=3

Well done guys who voted Leave. You've only dragged this country back by several decades. But everything was better in the past, m i rite? Why bother moving forwards when we can look back on things like our Empire, child labour, no running water, widespread malnourishment amongst the poor, two world wars, etc. etc. with a rose-tinted glow and be "great" again.

Thanks CCinPA.

I'm hoping we do get another referendum because that's our only hope of aborting this wretched exit.

The 'good old days' largely consist of old people selectively remembering the best bits from their youth. They're about as realistic as a Hollywood movie. Anyway you're right, things were never that great for pre-EU Britain. There isn't one single golden era that anybody could point to; if they think they can, I'd like to hear it. The 1960s? Apart from fearing the world being blown up, sure. The 1970s? Nope. The 1980s? Nope.

As for the IRA bombings, that's yet another thing Brexit may have made more likely to happen. The hardline republicans now have a great excuse to start agitating for a united Ireland again. The breakup of the United Kingdom is almost a given now. The Scots will get their second referendum and leave this time, because remain won't have a hope of winning. The Irish will get even more antsy about their independence once Scotland breaks away.

Sterling job all round you might say.

And despite all this pressure, Brexit won.

The pressure ended up being more counterproductive than helpful though. The leave camp were able to deride the warnings as "project fear" and sneer at the opinion of 'experts' (which always goes down a treat with people who don't understand what being an expert actually entails). They played to people's most basic instincts: fear and mistrust of foreigners and simple-minded, flag-happy patriotism.

The Remain camp didn't really have much of a chance once the leave campaign was hijacked by opportunistic politicians and media barons. It is kinda hard to know what else they could have done, although I do think Jeremy Corbyn didn't do nearly enough to appeal to the Labour leavers - he seemed to be secretly wanting out all along, despite supposedly campaigning for the Remain side.

Aimz - despite being an 'in' supporter I agree it was your right... Similarly I do not support a re run of the referendum. No quorate level was set at the outset so goal posts shouldn't be moved now. Whilst we all know the referendum was advisory, for a government to reject the (albeit small) majority would be a blow to democracy. Groundhog Day would result!

But I can not be positive about what I consider to be a wholly ridiculous position. So many lies spread in advance it was the responsibility of each voter to find the real facts for themselves. Sadly my view is many never bothered. If they did they would have asked some key questions:
How will the UK Trade with Europe? I believe the figure is about 7% - that is all the Uk represents in trade exports from the rest of the EU. Not a big hitter.
How will the UK trade with the rest of the world? Keeping in mind that at least some of our trading value was in selling our access to the EU market.
These are two of the many immediate questions now to be asked - and there are no answers coming forward.

Everyone is now an Article 50 pseudo expert ... But how many have actually read it. Of those how many understand the legal nuances. Blimey - not sure anyone really knows as it has never been invoked.

I've heard many exit supporters claim the government is going to back track - by staying in the common market. But this was always on the cards. The appalling Norwegian approach ... A more than ironic outcome. Or I voted out to renegotiate out position in the EU. Errr sorry - that wasn't an option on the ballot paper. Out was out and in was in. And others want to return to the days of their youth- when the sun always shone .... Hmmm. My partner just flew to the UK ... Had to reset his watch by 40 years 😂

Ok joke aside - This is not a time for name calling on either side ... Sadly we all wanted what was best for the country. It's just we all had very opposing views. One side was always going to be unhappy.

The game playing in UK politics is now beginning in earnest. We need to wait and see.

One final point - the Irish question. I too lived through the bombings ... There weren't that many. I think NCOT was suggesting that the split from EU could re light conflict in NI given the nature of its vote (majority in). In addition the need to close the north south border harks back to old days. However to imply the resurgence of the IRA in a military sense is somewhat of a leap ... One that shouldn't IMHO be made. The Irish question should not be set as the focus.

Here's to intersting times (and my decision whether to go for dual Irish Nationality if I think things are going bandy). But I hope I'm wrong!

Post Edited (Duffle) : 6/27/2016 4:09:48 AM (GMT-6)

Let's play nicely folks, it's an interesting conversation but it's getting a bit testy. I'm okay with talking about brexit, but not okay with infighting and provocation between users. Nobody's inherently right or wrong on how they cast their ballot.

PLAY nice