[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 February 2020 - 07:24 AM, said:

Has anyone been watching Cornwall: This Fishing Life on BBC2? I'm weirdly gripped. Proper tangible reasons for individuals to have voted for Brexit to try to save their industry and way of life. They are all pretty savvy and know it was the UK government who sold them out to the EU but they see Brexit as the only hope to save what they have left. Most doubt even that will work because our government are spineless. I think they may be right.

Of course it won't work. They aren't London. The government doesn't care about them and never will.

I would also be incredibly wary of anything that the conservative media department (aka BBC) puts out because they are no longer impartial or trustworthy.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 February 2020 - 07:24 AM, said:

Has anyone been watching Cornwall: This Fishing Life on BBC2? I'm weirdly gripped. Proper tangible reasons for individuals to have voted for Brexit to try to save their industry and way of life. They are all pretty savvy and know it was the UK government who sold them out to the EU but they see Brexit as the only hope to save what they have left. Most doubt even that will work because our government are spineless. I think they may be right.

No, but I might give it a look. I am genuinely interested to hear people with tangible reasons like that!

[Mezla PigDog]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 12 February 2020 - 08:58 AM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 12 February 2020 - 07:24 AM, said:

Has anyone been watching Cornwall: This Fishing Life on BBC2? I'm weirdly gripped. Proper tangible reasons for individuals to have voted for Brexit to try to save their industry and way of life. They are all pretty savvy and know it was the UK government who sold them out to the EU but they see Brexit as the only hope to save what they have left. Most doubt even that will work because our government are spineless. I think they may be right.

No, but I might give it a look. I am genuinely interested to hear people with tangible reasons like that!

It's a strange concept to try to figure out who owns the sea and should have rights to fish in it while keeping stocks sustainable. I don't blame the EU if they got it wrong, it must be very difficult especially with politics involved. But then you hear a specific fisherman whose family and community have fished in that part of the sea forever and they are only allowed to catch half the amount that a French ship is allowed to catch and were forced to scrap their boats in the 1990s. No wonder they dislike the EU. A lot of them rely on Eastern Europeans to work for them though so they want freedom of movement.

[Gorefest]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 February 2020 - 10:41 AM, said:

But then you hear a specific fisherman whose family and community have fished in that part of the sea forever and they are only allowed to catch half the amount that a French ship is allowed to catch and were forced to scrap their boats in the 1990s. No wonder they dislike the EU.

Problem is though, you will most likely be able to find French or Dutch fishermen who will tell you the exact same story. If you make international fishing rules which aim to provide sustainable fishing stocks, there will always be winners and losers. There will most likely also be British fishermen who have seen their quotas go up instead of down if you care to look. But I suspect that these will predominantly be bigger commercial fisheries who get preferential treatment from the UK government, as it is no secret that consecutive UK governments over the past 20-30 years have had a major role in assigning quotas to fishing companies. This was flagged up quite vehemently a few years ago when Michael Gove was using sob stories about his fisher family background and 'evil' EU meddling killing all these fishing communities. While some fact checking by various media outlets showed that most of this killing off was due to UK government actions, more so than EU regulations.

[Macros]

You mean the Brexit campaign had lies in it?

Forsooth no!!

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 12 February 2020 - 08:28 PM, said:

You mean the Brexit campaign had lies in it?

Forsooth no!!

The breklets are getting exactly what they wanted and voted for though, that thing being lies upon lies. Not like we were telling them since 2016 or anything.

[Maark Abbott]

Seems we are now going down the route of America where folks born and raised in the UK are denied entry back into the country on the basis that they are brown.

Oh, another reason has been fumbled out for it, but let's be honest, it's not due to that at all.

[Kanese S's]

Maark Abbott, on 14 February 2020 - 08:25 AM, said:

Seems we are now going down the route of America where folks born and raised in the UK are denied entry back into the country on the basis that they are brown.

Oh, another reason has been fumbled out for it, but let's be honest, it's not due to that at all.

It's almost like Brexit was motivated by racism or something.

[Gorefest]

I am not sure it is racism per se, more general xenophobia. Most European countries are still predominantly caucasian, so racism and Brexit don't really join up. A lot of English people generally just seem to hate everything that is not English. So places like the US, India or Australia are fine, because really they are still English in the British post-colonial psyche.

[Garak]

Can happen elsewhere too. There was a scandal last month, I think, about two migrants from Sri Lanka. The locals, some small in Romania, reacted poorly. Said people should stay were they are born, that these migrants are taking their jobs etc. The jobs bit is really infuriating seeing as we have a lot of people living off social help and refusing to work. Its not said but I'm pretty certain this is allowed on the understanding that they vote for the "right" party when needed.

[Maark Abbott]

Gorefest, on 19 February 2020 - 11:08 PM, said:

I am not sure it is racism per se, more general xenophobia. Most European countries are still predominantly caucasian, so racism and Brexit don't really join up. A lot of English people generally just seem to hate everything that is not English. So places like the US, India or Australia are fine, because really they are still English in the British post-colonial psyche.

Britain on the whole is incredibly xenophobic and jingoistic. There's this tribalistic mentality held by a vast number of people that you can see in action when football fans get together to fight over whether they like red or blue more. Just don't let them see a foreigner or they will join up as their hatred of him outstrips their hatred of one another.

[Kanese S's]

Gorefest, on 19 February 2020 - 11:08 PM, said:

I am not sure it is racism per se, more general xenophobia. Most European countries are still predominantly caucasian, so racism and Brexit don't really join up. A lot of English people generally just seem to hate everything that is not English. So places like the US, India or Australia are fine, because really they are still English in the British post-colonial psyche.

I mean, racism and xenophobia are pretty closely related, given that the concept of race can be pretty nebulous.

[Macros]

Otherism in general

[Mezla PigDog]

How are we all feeling on the No Deal Brexit front? I think they are going to push ahead right? Despite the economic consequences on top of the pandemic recession. I wonder if they are even more keen now because the pandemic recession will provide cover for the Brexit recession. And they can do their dodgy trade deals with impunity because everyone will grateful for anything by that point.

I'm so depressed about it that I totally tune out now. And I was already doing that pre-pandemic. It's all too big of a disaster to even contemplate.

[Cyphon]

Think you hit it on head with tuning it out due to sheer despondency.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Mezla PigDog, on 18 October 2020 - 01:47 PM, said:

I'm so depressed about it that I totally tune out now. And I was already doing that pre-pandemic. It's all too big of a disaster to even contemplate.

This is where I am too. It's a shit show but it'll get even more hand-waving through with the pandemic.

[Traveller]

I dread to think just how much is slipping under the radar right now, and the things that are getting through that otherwise would have had closer scrutiny and opposition.

[stone monkey]

We're not going to get any meaningful opposition. Not because the current opposition is useless (although it does have its problems), but because the Tories have such a huge majority, composed mostly of MPs who are ideologically and pathologically attached to their fantasy vision of a no-deal Brexit. At this stage the government is stuffed full of people who are essentially high on their own supply. They conned the country into giving them a mandate and the country is going to suffer badly as a result.

[glasseye]

Mezla PigDog, on 18 October 2020 - 01:47 PM, said:

How are we all feeling on the No Deal Brexit front? I think they are going to push ahead right? Despite the economic consequences on top of the pandemic recession. I wonder if they are even more keen now because the pandemic recession will provide cover for the Brexit recession. And they can do their dodgy trade deals with impunity because everyone will grateful for anything by that point.

I'm so depressed about it that I totally tune out now. And I was already doing that pre-pandemic. It's all too big of a disaster to even contemplate.

I get so angry every time they talk about the "Australian type deal".

[Maark Abbott]

To the conservatives no deal is the ideal situation that they have been banking on since day one, because it opens up disaster capitalism for them, big corporations coming in to save the day, who are absolutely not owned by donors or chums of the tories themselves.

Couple their refusal to subsidise the existence of disadvantaged children whilst claiming their own food on expenses and taking a £3k a year pay rise on top? The suffering among the less fortunate in this country is going to be immeasurable, both from increased and unaffordable living costs to spikes in unemployment. The town I live in still hasn't recovered from the 80s as of yet, and I can see a lot of families simply being unable to afford food. We've started a stockpile of tins to offset the inevitable price hikes in food once supply chains collapse.

That said I have zero sympathy for people who voted them in and are now suffering because those of us with a little foresight have been warning about this for literally years, and no one paid attention. They were either well off enough not to care, or so focused on 'diport thu imogens' (see: 'get brexit done' because foreigners are 100% the root cause of all of our domestic problems, no questions) that nothing was ever going to get through to them.

I think what galls me even more is that we went from having a meaningful (and rather strong) opposition to having red tories again. I've been left without a party because Labour are just abstinent tory lite once more. I suppose I'll eventually drift back to being a green voter. I am reasonably sure that Northern Ireland and Scotland will escape the union soonish to boot, seeing as they've been roundly shat on at every turn by London.