The UK and EU exit

[Annoying Twit]

Voted in the UK EU membership referendum today. Fingers crossed for a sensible result.

[DivineDon]

Voted in the UK EU membership referendum today. Fingers crossed for a sensible result.

I don't know how you voted, AT but I think the result is far from sensible!

[UndertheWire]

I agree DD. It nows seems like a world where Donald Trump and Boris Johnson could be meeting as US President and UK Prime Minister and that scares me.

[buffyfan145]

What happened in the UK is all over my various social media feeds and on the news. I never thought it would happen and it just seems like it keeps getting worse with what's going on now that they left the EU. I've even heard now it's likely Scotland and Northern Ireland will try to leave the UK, and Northern Ireland might rejoin Ireland. It's just crazy and I feel so bad for my UK friends and worried even more about our elections in November.

[Glennsallnighter]

I dont tend to get political here but after over 800 years I can't see a NI, ROI reunification being that easy - not impossible but IMHO highly unlikely

[Annoying Twit]

I don't know how you voted, AT but I think the result is far from sensible!

Fully agreed.

Can I say that even as someone in my 50s, I very much agree with this Financial Times comment that has gone viral. Particularly the bit about facts being ineffectual against myths in our society.

[Freypower]

My husband is British & would have voted 'leave' because he finds the oppressive bureacracy of Brussels & unlected fat cats dictating to sovereign nations too much. But then he hates all politiicans, both sides. I think they should have remained but there is a core of Britain which has always disdained Europe & refused to accept that the country was ever part of it. That is the core which won the argument.

[UndertheWire]

This has come up in the "What's happening in your life" thread but if anythin should come under "Wonder at the Powers That Be", it should be this.

My sister in Canada forwarded an email she received from her financial advisor and it was clear he didn't understand the issues behind the decision. He thought it was about trade surpluses/deficits and refugees. So I thought it might help some of us to vent and to try to understand what's going on.

One thing to remember is that most of us from the UK who post here are likely to be in the demographics who voted to remain in the European Union.

Starting with a reposting AT...

Fully agreed.

Can I say that even as someone in my 50s, I very much agree with this Financial Times comment that has gone viral. Particularly the bit about facts being ineffectual against myths in our society.

[UndertheWire]

I live in one of the few areas in England where the majority voted to remain in the EU. It's not really surprising, because it's an affluent university town with a large tourism industry. For this vote, there appear to have been two clear predictors of how people would vote - age and education. The older the voter, the more likely they were to vote to leave and graduates were more likely to vote to remain.

The emotive subject of immigration is not about refugees. Under the EU, people within the EU are able to work and live in any other country within the EU. This has lead to a large number of immigrant workers from the former eastern-bloc coming to the UK. While I'm not against this, I can see why many people would feel threatened.

[Annoying Twit]

Here we had a majority for remain too.

In terms of understanding why people voted to leave, I think we have to consider that many people on both sides don't understand the issues. E.g. the immigration that many people are most upset about is not immigration from EU countries, but immigration from further afield. Some people, I have spoken to them, believe that now that we've voted to leave the EU, that these other immigrants will then 'go home' as well. There is also, it seems, considerable misunderstanding of other issues as well.