Digby wrote:Eugene Wrayburn wrote:Mellsblue wrote:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why the working class voted leave.
It is absolutely because they are malcontent morons.
If we want to look at working class concerns I'd be more than willing to look at the inequality across society, to look at how money is becoming more concentrated at the top end, to look at better funding for the NHS, to look at radical improvements in educational spending, to look at actually addressing social housing rather than making house prices go up and explode social housing costs in rent.
I'm not though sold making us all poorer is a good way to go about addressing their concerns. Indeed for all I'd be accepting of many of their concerns this is not a solution and actually something I view which will make their lot in life still worse. I'd view the voting over Brexit to be driven by ignorance, by fear, and generally by some less than pleasant views - thus malcontent morons. I'm both cross and sad that my country could vote this way, to want to withdraw from the world and pretend it's a smaller place, to close off opportunities, and especially that's it's old people who've voted to screw the grandkids given the old will die first (although given voting turnout of the young my sympathies are somewhat limited)
I can agree with the first paragraph. Whether staying in the EU is the answer to their prayers I would contend. Freedom of movement, though I have no problem with it, exacerbates low wages and high unemployment in traditional working class sectors, and how anyone can argue the EU has helped the working class in Greece and Spain is beyond me. The only way we have so far been made poorer is the fall in the pound which will of course make the UK less attractive to foreign workers. Bad news for those of us who want to go abroad or build an extension, eg me, but good news for those looking for a min wage job.
I'd also contend the 'little englander' argument. Have a look at the tariffs imposed on African farmers so as to protect French farmers and see whether that is an outward looking stance. That's before you get to the fact that 40% of the EU budget goes to CAP. Other such stringent tariffs are put in place to protect European sectors, leather shoes is a good one. Then look at the UK's attitude to global bodies. We are the only/one of only two Eu nations (can't remember about Poland) to pay our agreed allocation to NATO (with some useful massaging of the figures, admittedly) the EU on the other hand undermine it by not coughing up the readies and by setting up an EU army. Look at our international aid budget compared to anyone else, even if a lot of it goes to EU bodies who make even the DFID themselves look thrifty. Look at charitable giving per capita, again way ahead of other EU countries, except the equally Euro-sceptic Dutch. Look at the UK's stance on free trade deals compared with the EU. None of that paints a selfish or 'little englander' picture.
I am starting to come across as a bitter Leaver which I am not, but you can't just say that the EU is all good and those who voted against it are morons. Yes, there were plenty of ignorant people who voted Leave but then, if we want to paint with a large brush, there were plenty of cosmopolitan Liberals who voted remain purely because the EU suits their social and economic status and they themselves are ignorant of the problems of those in depressed areas. Ignorance goes both ways. For every Remainer who says that Brexiteers are bigoted and ignorant of what is best for them, there is a Brexiteer saying that Remainers are arrogant, selfish and ignorant of what is best for the working class. That's before you accept that there were an awful lot of highly intelligent people who voted Leave.
As for those who used the Leave vote as a free pass to be racist, they can f**k off.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to all go away and for us to be spending all our energies pushing the EU in to being less protectionist and less wasteful whilst maximising all its positives but that isn't going to happen. And, to brand those who voted leave as uneducated morons is just exacerbating a major issue that led to the result in the first place.
