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The UK votes to leave the European Union

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Anyone can start a website, set up a brand, and drop-ship merchandise in from China at this point. It's probably even a bit too easy now.

Thursday nights vote just made that a whole heap harder to be successful with too, at least on a international level.

And yes, I'm not saying my problems are exclusive to minorities. As I said in the post you quoted, I feel that things have been made harder for anyone trying to rise above their station. black, white, young, old, rich, poor.

Well less the rich, but you know what I mean.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Most of the public sentiment against mass immigration, asides from straight xenophobia from some, is to do with overburdened public services, a saturation of low paid labour and an overcrowded housing market. I honestly think security isn't a large part of the public's concern on this. Anybody that hates a neighbouring country just because the percentage of immigrants increases is a simple racist and will be one whether Scotland has more or less immigration.

That's not what I was saying, btw. I was saying that immigrants in Scotland now have a reason to hate England and Wales.
 

BKK

Member
So assume the UK actually dissolves, and Scotland and NI remain in the EU. Presumably, they'd have to be open to taking some fleeing immigrants. Did any leave voters consider that they'd have immigrants living within driving distance of England and Wales, and now they'd have a legitimate reason to honestly hate those countries as well? The crux of their leave argument, as it pertains to immigration, is related to security, right? They just painted a target on themselves for any angry extremist, IMO.

I don't get the speak of NI leaving the UK, if it was that simple they would have a long time ago. Yes, Sinn Fein called for a referendum ... it's just mischievous, Republicans are a minority. Unionists who voted to remain in the EU would never vote to leave the UK.

Scotland and Northern Ireland receive very few immigrants, the vast majority go to England (and a lesser extent Wales). No, unlike mainland Europe the immigration issue isn't about security (UK isn't in the Schengen Zone), it's about numbers. Last year official net migration to the UK was 330,000, that doesn't include ilegal migration (actual population increased 500,000 ... some of which was births). The government's target is less than 100,000. Half of that was non-EU, which is controlable so the government isn't doing a good job of trying to meet it's target. The other half is EU, which the government has no means to control whatsoever.
 

Bold One

Member

When anime starts making fun of you....

Zioey3m.png
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
The demographics for this vote and the last election cross party lines. Social conservatives from the right, old labour from the left.

I know Nick Clegg sucked, but the alternative was to shun the LibDems and give the Tories a mandate, leading to presumably Boris Johnson as the man to lead the disaffected into the future?

If we disregard the xenophobia argument and position this as a North vs South culture clash, then it does stink of when Republicans in America complain about the "New York elite" and vote for people who do more to screw the poor than Democrats ever would.
 
Thursday nights vote just made that a whole heap harder to be successful with too, at least on a international level.

And yes, I'm not saying my problems are exclusive to minorities. As I said in the post you quoted, I feel that things have been made harder for anyone trying to rise above their station. black, white, young, old, rich, poor.

Well less the rich, but you know what I mean.

Yes, that is probably true for all the 'neoliberal' run countries. If you want to have greater chances, you need to be in Norway or Sweden. Which is more ironic in the context of this thread, since one is a EU member and the other one isn't. Yet their data presents the same effect: free education with a generous welfare state produces more options to become rich and move up in class, or at least according to this TEDx talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU
 

BKK

Member
Actually not a bad post and sums up the leave argument very well. The problem is about half of that 4m population increase can be attributed to the net difference between native births and deaths, a natural population increase. And about 1m can be accounted for by non-EU migration.

Rather than vilify people who make a net positive contribution to our economy, maybe the real answer all along was to ease off austerity, raise taxes, and invest in our under developed resources?

Yes, I'm not trying to claim that the whole figure was down to immigration, thanks for clarifying for me.

I'm sure that some people vilify, but I don't really see that myself. The immigrants that come to the UK come here legally, many to better their lives. I would do the same in their situation, and I get on well with quite a few. What Cameron said about immigrants coming to claim benefits, I just don't see it, all of the ones that I know come here to work. Which is why I thought it was a ridiculous "renegotiation" as very few just come to claim benefits.

I think that most people are fine with immigration, they just want it to balance out, or increase at a rate which housing and services can keep up.
 
Ok my apology, it is hard over posts to communicate clearly and I was posting the article not to you specifically but because it seems to be one of the few sane narratives that isn't a simple idiots vs smart people simplification. However you framed your post that you are a not a white person who now feels uncomfortable or more uncomfortable than you did before so issues of race are clearly important and certainly brexit voters keep getting labelled xenophobic racist and so on. Or just dumb, as in a sense you are doing by saying they don't realise that the EU has helped them with projects and money.

But as been stated up-thread, it clearly wasn't enough help because telling people with little hope that if they leave EU there will be little hope isn't a persuasive argument for them. The leave vote from these people was an FU to the establishment, not an FU to non-whites. They were given the option of pissing off and surprising the group-think, and dominant story, and they took it.

That said they didn't vote to nuke the country, exit might be anti-establishment but it isn't an impossible unworkable scenario. There are a number of non-racist non-xenophobic establishment figures who clearly believe it was actually a better choice and staying in the EU has plenty of issues as well. Just different ones.

But you haven't addressed my initial question. If this is such an FU to the establishment, why now? Why via this method and not the normal general election/council elections/European elections?

Why has no party come forward as replacement for labour and offered a real alternative to the working class? The problems these people have haven't appeared overnight.

At the very least, why have not the union's grown in strength?

Why has it taken a the growth of a party, with clear Xenophobic and far right policies for the people to finally think it's time to stick it to the current political process?

Furthermore are you suggesting that now the "goal" of independence is reached, the far right will dissolve into irrelevance with these people? Because clearly if what you are suggesting is true, they have no other common motives right?

As for establishment figures that were for Brexit, that really means nothing. It's clear that for some in the establishment, this whole thing was a proxy battle for power (Johnson) a fight to protect corporate interests (gove) and an idological battle against EU bureaucracy (IDS).

I also think it's not wise to consider the positions of people for the Brexit who are far more insulated from the negative effects of it than a large chunk of the people who voted for it.

For some this is just one big chess game and the end of the day they can pack up their board and go home, forgetting or flat ignoring their power plays have had real consequences on people's lives.

Every situation is "workable" given enough time to adjust and determination to make things work. That again means nothing.
 

BKK

Member
145qbuhw.jpg


"damn that EU and forcing us to adopt their pesky human rights!!"

This is silly, the Conservatives are the ones who legalised gay marriage. The UK is really quite tolerant when it comes to matters like this (of course there's always some religious nut who expresses their freedom of speech).
 

Honey Bunny

Member
I know Nick Clegg sucked, but the alternative was to shun the LibDems and give the Tories a mandate, leading to presumably Boris Johnson as the man to lead the disaffected into the future?

If we disregard the xenophobia argument and position this as a North vs South culture clash, then it does stink of when Republicans in America complain about the "New York elite" and vote for people who do more to screw the poor than Democrats ever would.

Eh, the disaffected didn't choose Tory, they just shunned Labour and voted UKIP/SNP instead.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
This is silly, the Conservatives are the ones who legalised gay marriage. The UK is really quite tolerant when it comes to matters like this (of course there's always some religious nut who expresses their freedom of speech).

Yes it's true that the United Kingdom was the 16th country in the world to adopt same-sex marriage under a joint left-right coalition government because it was pushed by the left part of the left-right coalition in a vote that the entire Conservative backbench opposed and the UKIP strongly opposed. I guess my point is that when it comes to the Conservatives, even if you put lipstick on the pig, it's still a pig.

I agree that it is unlikely that a democratic government in a country with same-sex marriage would move to remove same-sex marriage, but as the very wise people arguing for Brexit have correctly pointed out over the last 24 hours, it actually doesn't matter if someone's fears are real or not, we should listen to them anyway and treat them like they are.

P.S. Worth noting the Brexit campaign did campaign on "The EU is bad for gays", including Boris specifically.
 

Burai

shitonmychest57
Yes, this was the biggest issue in the referendum. The UK population increased from 60m in 2004 to 64m in 2014, housing and amenities never kept up with the increasing population (a significant proportion of which was due to immigration after the ascension of former Eastern Bloc countries to the EU in 2004).

Working class communities feel worse off due to this. For unskilled workers there is wage stagnation, simple supply and demand. There is no reason to increase lower earner's wages as there is a near inexhaustible supply of cheap labour from far poorer Eastern European countries, this was exacerbated by the enlargement of the EU in 2007 to include the even poorer countries of Romania and Bulgaria.

In addition to this there has been a housing shortage, and the building of new homes has not even kept up with the increase in immigration. Supply and demand. Basic housing has become much more expensive in most major cities, whilst basic wages have remained flat.

Services: Schools, doctors surgeries etc have also not kept up with the increase in population. It has become increasingly difficult for working class people to get their kids a place in the local school, a doctor's appointment etc.

This inexhaustible supply of cheap labour has been great for employers and landlords. They've made a fortune, at the expense of the working class. But that's OK, as the Labour government tells them "immigration is good for the economy". It doesn't seem to matter that all of the economic benefits goes to the rich, at the expense of the poor, increasing the economic divide.

Labour, who used to be the party of the working class, is now run by a metropolitan middle class. They care more about intelectual left wing issues such as Palestine and Syrian Asylum seekers, rather than the lives of the working class voters who elected them to represent them. But that's fine, their Northern bases will never vote Tory, so they can just parachute in one of their left wing Islington coffee slurping intelectuals to a safe northern seat. These people would vote for a cow as long as it had a red rossette on it afterall.

The local working class, without a pay rise in years, and struggling to find homes for their children after an influx of Eastern European workers to their community mention their problems to a Labour man when she happens to chance on him. He politely smiles, and gets back into his car, calling her a bigot, forgetting that his microphone was still broadcasting live.

He apologises, and says that Labour has to listen to it's working class support base. Rinse and repeat for the next few years until another middle class left wing intelectual coffee slurper happens upon a working class estate in the South East of England. Oh look, a council house with England flags hanging out of the window, and a white van in the driveway, how stereotypical! Let me tweet a picture of "the view from Rochester".

She apologises, and they get a new leader .... the working class son of a coal miner ... I joke, of course not. The Islington coffee slurping left wing intelectual Jeremy Corbyn, who says that there should be no upper limit on immigration.

For some reason the working classes voted to leave the EU .... racists!

I work in a place that has a largely unskilled workforce doing menial labour for more than the basic minimum wage with a very generous performance-based bonus scheme. The only qualification we ask for is the ability to speak and read English.

Of the 100 or so staff that have gone through our books in the past three years we've had precisely five English staff apply for jobs. We took on all of them. Only three remain as two of them decided it wasn't for them after the first day.

I just don't understand the rhetoric that the foreigners took all the jobs. Our requirement of just merely being able to understand English puts our native workers at a huge advantage during the recruitment process. Yet the English aren't even applying for the jobs we have. We're notorious to the foreign workers due to our bonus scheme making us one of the highest paying low-skill employers in the area but the English never seem to be able to find our recruitment ads in the paper, at the job centre or at agencies.

In the last five years I've seen these foreign workers move on and progress in the company so it's not a dead-end job. We now have a Latvian project manager and supervisors of various nationalities.

I feel genuinely ashamed by the anti-immigration rhetoric because from my experience I've seen 100 vacancies but only five English applicants and only three of them made it past the first day. How the hell are we supposed to run our business without the foreign workers? Where are these hard-working English?

I've just spent the entire day reading this thread, feeling as close to tears as a grown ass man can be without a death in the family, despondent, worried and real unsure on what on earth I can do next.

I'm not a successful intellectual, I haven't got an established career, I'm not rich, Im not young. More importantly, I'm not white or at least white-looking.

Where on earth can I go and what can I do that will not have me struggling for the rest of my life? I am fully committed to emigration now, but the reality is that anywhere I would go I'd be on the lowest rung of the ladder, lower than the unwanted immigrants in this country (who at least in London are highly edcuated, regardless of what minimum wage jobs they are forced to do)

I sit here and think that maybe if I plan carefully and start learning skills that in demand internationally, I may have a chance. But I work full time in a decent paying, but time consuming job that not only limits what training I can take on, but by its very nature limits my skillset to something that only is relevant in that particular industry at best and that particular company at worst.

The Xenophobic wing of the leave campaign would like nothing more for people like me to piss off and give them their country back, but I feel that this vote has damned the people who would have been willing to leave the UK eventually. I just feel so damn sad. My only positive takeaway from all this is at least, to some degree, I've enjoyed what the good times felt like. The average teenager, especially ones from low income ethic backgrounds won't even experience that.

I really hate what leave voters have done. They haven't just damned their youth, they have damned anyone with ambitions to rise above their station in life. Many will overcome this, but a great many wont. That in itself is a shameful tragedy.

I feel for you. I'm in a similar position except I have the advantage of being white, young (well, 35) and with years of middle management experience. I have kids too which makes my ability to up sticks and move pretty limited.

I'm blessed in so much that I have a secure, safe job that doesn't rely on international trade to continue but I wanted more than that. I wanted to stop merely existing in a job that I don't really enjoy and start doing something brilliant with my life but now I'm stuck. I daren't leave something so secure during a time of uncertainty and the last 24 hours have just wrecked me.

The people who've voted us out don't know just how much damage they've done to people like me, to people like you, to the students who are graduating to a job market with no certainty that the companies they start their new careers at will even survive the transition. Because we try hard, because we want more, because we excel we are now penalised to get rid of a bogeyman that never existed.

No foreigner ever harmed my career prospects because I work hard and I make my own luck. The British people have now done more damage to my career than any Pole, any refugee, any faceless corporation could.

So I'll remain in my job, resentful, stagnating, merely existing, hoping that a deal can be done quickly so confidence can return to the markets and I can finally get the career I deserve.

I'm interviewing ten people for two positions on Monday. Not a single British national has applied. The irony is sickening.
 
I don't get the speak of NI leaving the UK, if it was that simple they would have a long time ago. Yes, Sinn Fein called for a referendum ... it's just mischievous, Republicans are a minority. Unionists who voted to remain in the EU would never vote to leave the UK.

NI is a complex issue. The troubles weren't that long ago. Good Friday and Stormount are really just bandages over the problem designed to give time and distance for the wounds to heal. And now we've just voted to change our relationship with the south and build walls.
 

Lime

Member
This is silly, the Conservatives are the ones who legalised gay marriage. The UK is really quite tolerant when it comes to matters like this (of course there's always some religious nut who expresses their freedom of speech).

"outside of gay marriage"
 
This is silly, the Conservatives are the ones who legalised gay marriage. The UK is really quite tolerant when it comes to matters like this (of course there's always some religious nut who expresses their freedom of speech).

Mmm, we voted to leave EU law and red tape, then expect re-inacting those said same laws to be high on a future parliaments agenda. Not saying they won't, just not expecting it to be automatic or quick either.
 
I don't get the speak of NI leaving the UK, if it was that simple they would have a long time ago. Yes, Sinn Fein called for a referendum ... it's just mischievous, Republicans are a minority. Unionists who voted to remain in the EU would never vote to leave the UK.

Scotland and Northern Ireland receive very few immigrants, the vast majority go to England (and a lesser extent Wales). No, unlike mainland Europe the immigration issue isn't about security (UK isn't in the Schengen Zone), it's about numbers. Last year official net migration to the UK was 330,000, that doesn't include ilegal migration (actual population increased 500,000 ... some of which was births). The government's target is less than 100,000. Half of that was non-EU, which is controlable so the government isn't doing a good job of trying to meet it's target. The other half is EU, which the government has no means to control whatsoever.
When you have open borders it's extremely hard to have any sort of sovereign immigration policy that is viable, making it very hard to control who goes in and out of the country, leaving EU should give UK some relief. The problem is that when there's such a flood of migrants you'll get ethnic enclaves and there's no integration, immigrants do not adopt any kind of western values and you get a lot of social problems like honor killings.
 
But you haven't addressed my initial question. If this is such an FU to the establishment, why now? Why via this method and not the normal general election/council elections/European elections?

Why has no party come forward as replacement for labour and offered a real alternative to the working class? The problems these people have haven't appeared overnight.

At the very least, why have not the union's grown in strength?

Why has it taken a the growth of a party, with clear Xenophobic and far right policies for the people to finally think it's time to stick it to the current political process?

Furthermore are you suggesting that now the "goal" of independence is reached, the far right will dissolve into irrelevance with these people? Because clearly if what you are suggesting is true, they have no other common motives right?

As for establishment figures that were for Brexit, that really means nothing. It's clear that for some in the establishment, this whole thing was a proxy battle for power (Johnson) a fight to protect corporate interests (gove) and an idological battle against EU bureaucracy (IDS).

I also think it's not wise to consider the positions of people for the Brexit who are far more insulated from the negative effects of it than a large chunk of the people who voted for it.

For some this is just one big chess game and the end of the day they can pack up their board and go home, forgetting or flat ignoring their power plays have had real consequences on people's lives.

Every situation is "workable" given enough time to adjust and determination to make things work. That again means nothing.

If I had the answers to these questions I'd be an self-proclaimed expert and I'm just a random message board user like everyone else.

I'll take a stab at a few though.

Why now? well because when previously have disaffected working class been given a direct vote that isn't blurred by electoral boundaries and entrenched majorities and status-quo. Never, that's when. So why now? because now was the only option short of listening to Russell Brand and rioting at the doors of goldman sachs.

UKIP was appealing to these people. Why not labour? because labour has been ineffectual. That's what I'm reading. I don't know.

Far right dissolve? No of course not, I'm not suggesting anything beyond that the thesis of the guardian article seems the most persuasive to me as an explanation for "what happened". And the reaction to the leave vote seems to underline it. The disgust that people who are not poor less educated working class, has for the people who voted the other way is palpable. It seems a fair assumption that they were disregarded or ignored with similar intensity before the vote as well, beyond being tossed some EU or other development money now and again. Its a rare thing, pure democracy.

The far right never dissolves they will always be there, even in Norway they exist, and I don't know how much strength they will gain or lose. It isn't possible to say at this stage. You could argue both ways. A wake-up call to the left/middle/green/liberal classes can change things too.

I don't have anything to offer just it seems it would pay to listen to the debate, and the passing of some time, before deciding anything for sure. And not only to the debate here, which is strongly tilted to the side that voted to Remain and seems to want a simple explanation: stupidity, naked racism, old people, xenophobia, ignorance, that means they don't actually have to do anything or re-adjust any mental models of the UK society. No doubt Leave incorporates all kinds of wrong-headed thinking and people and the media is going to parade them on TV to show Stay just how bad things are but also for sure Remain has a lot of people who live in a bubble of privilege, were not paying attention, and are full of self-interest hiding behind terms like "economic progress" and other words.
 
I feel genuinely ashamed by the anti-immigration rhetoric because from my experience I've seen 100 vacancies but only five English applicants and only three of them made it past the first day. How the hell are we supposed to run our business without the foreign workers? Where are these hard-working English?.

Oh, that's easy. They're at the dole office complaining the reason they can't find work and need unemployment money is because all them immigrants have come over here and taken all our jobs. No sir, nothing to do with refusing to get out of bed for less than £12 per hour, and a total refusal to do any job that might chip a nail ;)
 

Kelthink

Member
This is silly, the Conservatives are the ones who legalised gay marriage. The UK is really quite tolerant when it comes to matters like this (of course there's always some religious nut who expresses their freedom of speech).

Following civil partnerships, same-sex marriage was always going to be implemented along the way, especially with other countries doing so. Heck, it's even alleged Cameron regretted implementing it.
 

Alx

Member
France out of the EU? Are you mental? All the current French problems would get worse immediately.

Unfortunately people don't really analyze such things, most eurosceptic parties follow the same strategy of "do you remember how things were great in the past ? We will go back to that."
It's another way of saying "make France great again", with no reason given on how we would magically travel through time to a world with no ISIS, no China, no internet and no international crisis. You have to wonder who the real "pigeon" (sucker) is.

I don't know if it was posted already. My god what a bunch of liars...

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/746466834610692096

It's very clear they want the Norway "way". What a clusterfuck

I'm always impressed how the journalist is clearly appalled in such exchanges and don't hide it. French journalists are usually too polite and try to look neutral, even when they point at obvious inconsistencies.
 

Feorax

Member
I don't know if it was posted already. My god what a bunch of liars...

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/746466834610692096

It's very clear they want the Norway "way". What a clusterfuck

It's been hinted at by the leave campaign.

I suspect over the coming weeks news will start to filter down to leave voters that actually the "benefits" that they have voted for just aren't going to happen. Will be very interesting to see the reaction.
 
But you haven't addressed my initial question. If this is such an FU to the establishment, why now? Why via this method and not the normal general election/council elections/European elections?

I'm far from an expert in UK politics, but considering the similarities with US politics at the moment, here's what I'd say.

Elections are slow, ponderous, and unlikely to make significant changes. For the people that have seen their hopes smashed against the rocks of globalization, for the people that are unemployed, despondent, the desire for change is immediate. The clock is ticking. And if the "normal" methods have been ineffectual and prone to political deals made by a self-interested class of elites paying mere lip service to their constituents, then more drastic measures are desired. They don't want to hear about vague policies that could "alleviate" pressures or "move things in the right direction." They want things fixed, post haste.

This is basically a riot by vote, in the sense that MLK called a riot "the language of the unheard." The Brexit sounds to me a lot like the massive dissatisfaction of voters on both sides of the aisle over here in the US, where being part of the establishment is a massive negative. I mean, many Republicans voting for Trump are hoping he'll blow up their own party because they feel they're not being heard. The "says it like it is" bit is because he speaks directly more than anything, and is willing to lay blame and not obfuscate what he thinks are the problems. Whether they're logical is essentially beside the point. In times of economic unrest, the patience for long-winded, slow-moving political promises wears thin.
 

oti

Banned
I don't know if it was posted already. My god what a bunch of liars...

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/746466834610692096

It's very clear they want the Norway "way". What a clusterfuck

Ah yes, the Norway way. Bummer no other country on this planet is like Norway. Bummer the EU won't give the UK a Norway deal. Bummer that even if it did, it would be even more clear that Brexit changed almost nothing. Except for making things worse for the UK. Have fun being irrelevant.
 
This is basically a riot by vote, in the sense that MLK called a riot "the language of the unheard."
I think that is exactly right.
People in the UK raging should consider it could have been an occupy-london sit-in that goes bad with bullets, or something else more nasty. The establishment in the UK was never going to put an option on a referendum that was completely unworkable. But either way, there is another project that is late and un-ignorable: stop ignoring half the population. Educate them, improve their opportunities, whatever it takes. Because if Remain is right and they voted for a poorer choice, that problem hasn't been solved.
 
It's been hinted at by the leave campaign.

I suspect over the coming weeks news will start to filter down to leave voters that actually the "benefits" that they have voted for just aren't going to happen. Will be very interesting to see the reaction.

'They lied to us'

Like you could have trusted them in the first place
 

Empty

Member
145qbuhw.jpg


"damn that EU and forcing us to adopt their pesky human rights!!"

this is going to be the case for so many issues

vital protections that we all depend on are eu law and are they either going to be quietly ditched by people who don't like things like decent workers rights for ideological reasons, or we are just simply too overwhelmed with all the new trade negotiations to be able to find the time to do them.

almost like millions of people take the advantages for the eu wholly for granted, and assumed leaving would change nothing except the things they wanted (stick it to establishment, get rid of brussels beauracrats so you can save money for other things, reducing immigration)
 
145qbuhw.jpg


"damn that EU and forcing us to adopt their pesky human rights!!"
this is going to be the case for so many issues

vital protections that we all depend on are eu law and are they either going to be quietly ditched by people who don't like things like decent workers rights for ideological reasons, or we are just simply too overwhelmed with all the new trade negotiations to be able to find the time to do them.

almost like people take the advantages for the eu wholly for granted and assumed leaving would just change nothing except the things they wanted

What I find quite funny.. Before the referendum it was all like "EU Regulations suck" now its OMG those are important
Why wasnt this discussed at all before the vote and is popping up after the fact?
 
Spain is one of the most pro european countries. Even in the worst times of the recession we suffer(ed)

Yes.
However, it is easier to be so when:

Breakdown of Spain’s finances with the EU in 2014:
Total EU spending in Spain – € 11.539 billion
Total EU spending as % of Spanish gross national income (GNI) – 1.10 %
Total Spanish contribution to the EU budget – € 9.978 billion
Spanish contribution to the EU budget as % of its GNI – 0.95 %.

And I say that fully aware that the UK pays/paid less than other rich member states (germany etc) as a % of its GDP.

I'm just pointing out that its a lot easier for a Spanish politician to show off to voters the benefits of EU membership when they don't even have to go past the pure numbers and start looking for non monetary benefits.
 

Jumeira

Banned
I work in a place that has a largely unskilled workforce doing menial labour for more than the basic minimum wage with a very generous performance-based bonus scheme. The only qualification we ask for is the ability to speak and read English.

Of the 100 or so staff that have gone through our books in the past three years we've had precisely five English staff apply for jobs. We took on all of them. Only three remain as two of them decided it wasn't for them after the first day.

I just don't understand the rhetoric that the foreigners took all the jobs. Our requirement of just merely being able to understand English puts our native workers at a huge advantage during the recruitment process. Yet the English aren't even applying for the jobs we have. We're notorious to the foreign workers due to our bonus scheme making us one of the highest paying low-skill employers in the area but the English never seem to be able to find our recruitment ads in the paper, at the job centre or at agencies.

In the last five years I've seen these foreign workers move on and progress in the company so it's not a dead-end job. We now have a Latvian project manager and supervisors of various nationalities.

I feel genuinely ashamed by the anti-immigration rhetoric because from my experience I've seen 100 vacancies but only five English applicants and only three of them made it past the first day. How the hell are we supposed to run our business without the foreign workers? Where are these hard-working English?



I feel for you. I'm in a similar position except I have the advantage of being white, young (well, 35) and with years of middle management experience. I have kids too which makes my ability to up sticks and move pretty limited.

I'm blessed in so much that I have a secure, safe job that doesn't rely on international trade to continue but I wanted more than that. I wanted to stop merely existing in a job that I don't really enjoy and start doing something brilliant with my life but now I'm stuck. I daren't leave something so secure during a time of uncertainty and the last 24 hours have just wrecked me.

The people who've voted us out don't know just how much damage they've done to people like me, to people like you, to the students who are graduating to a job market with no certainty that the companies they start their new careers at will even survive the transition. Because we try hard, because we want more, because we excel we are now penalised to get rid of a bogeyman that never existed.

No foreigner ever harmed my career prospects because I work hard and I make my own luck. The British people have now done more damage to my career than any Pole, any refugee, any faceless corporation could.

So I'll remain in my job, resentful, stagnating, merely existing, hoping that a deal can be done quickly so confidence can return to the markets and I can finally get the career I deserve.

I'm interviewing ten people for two positions on Monday. Not a single British national has applied. The irony is sickening.

Not sure why people think were going to just stop low skilled migrants coming here, its no secret people here don't work nearly as hard as migrants, my Grandad was asked to come to the UK for this reason during the 50s (first wave from the commonwealth). If there's a gap we'll continue to pool from nations around us, I don't see that ending as we rely on them.
 
What I find quite funny.. Before the referendum it was all like "EU Regulations suck" now its OMG those are important
Why wasnt this discussed at all before the vote and is popping up after the fact?

Remain campaign just didn't have their shit together in the slightest

Trying to set aside my biases, I don't see how you could reasonably look at both sides, arguments for and against, and end up with a 52% vote for Leave, without the Remain leaders throwing a massive spanner in the works by being, well, massive spanners.
 

antonz

Member
It still blows my mind people are still arguing the leave talking points. Leave leaders didn't even wait a day before they came out and admitted their biggest points were all bullshit.
 
American here so pardon my ignorance. Does this pretty much prove that we should start ignoring old conservatives(should be all conservatives) when it comes to issues that can affect an entire nation? I can definitely see something like that happening here if we continue to give Republicans control of our government.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
It still blows my mind people are still arguing the leave talking points. Leave leaders didn't even wait a day before they came out and admitted their biggest points were all bullshit.

Leaders? As in Farage? He wasn't officially part of the the leave campaign according to what I watched yesterday on BBC.
 
It still blows my mind people are still arguing the leave talking points. Leave leaders didn't even wait a day before they came out and admitted their biggest points were all bullshit.

They did yesterday because they knew it would get lost in the noise. It was a very calculated move to make sure they got that information out there, but they also so that it wouldn't be the headline of the day either.

Bury bad news in ever worse news, etc, etc.
 
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