Being blamed

Also, Really glad that England got thrashed by Iceland; lets Europe see the yobbo face of England - very nice.
The Sun is offering free beer from Iceland tomorrow - what a hoot!

Thanks dd. Have just sent it on to friend and family. Thanks.

I am surprised at the nastiness of some of these posts on this subject!!! I take exception to being called an old codger, let's face it 'ladies' none of us are spring chickens.
I voted out to enable my country to make their own laws and to safeguard our borders, I am neither a racist nor a xenophobe.
I also think that what is happening with the Polish people is disgusting, I work with many Poles and they are lovely people and very hard working. If they all decided to return home we would be in a terrible state.
JessM there are far more important things than cheap washing machines or mobile phones!

Can someone tell me why the Poles?

There is never any rationality in racism or xenophobia. No point in explaining it.

There are more Poles (nearly a million) than from any other EU nationality.

The far right have always been there, in this country, Europe and the USA, lurking barely seen, but most definitely there. If anything worthwhile is to come out of them raising their ugly heads though a misguided sense that most of the 'leave' camp are like them, then it is that they have come into the open.

At least that way they can be identified and dealt with. And they can see from the public's reaction that their views are abhorant to us.

This also applies to the closet racists. Many of them have expressed xenophobic views and exposed their true colours. I've petsonally dealt with one of those myself in the last few days.

Very good article therJen - however you managed to find that. She expresses the anger so well and how we will all be so affected by this vote.

The question I have this morning is. - was Cameron still an outer in reality and only pretending to be a remain person? - I find it totally amazing that he keeps saying the will of the people etc and not doing anything to try and stop the massive fallout which is continuing around our ears. As the experts keep saying it is not a legally binding result and Parliament can overturn it or indeed completely ignore it. As people who support PR in whatever form always point out at election times - this was not a majority of the population who voted to exit - the majority was very small and as Heseltine said yesterday had it been the other way round Farage would be crying for a second run - as it is he has gone to ground hoping no one remembers what he said.

I think that many people still do not understand what they have done. I am not referring to people on these threads because whichever way they voted they are aware and had a good idea of the ins and outs. Last night I saw people 'on the street' being interviewed and they think that the 'immigrants' are all going to be sent back from whence they came. They have not understood the situation at all. No one actually asks them who they mean by immigrants - I am not sure they actually mean only the people from the EU.

Boris giving all the assurances he did yesterday - he has no authority to tell me I am going to be allowed to remain in Europe and keep my house etc. only the French Govt and the Eu can tell me that - he has made no agreements with Brussels and they have made it quite clear - as they said before the referendum and he dismissed the fact - no talking till after the whole process has begun.

hermione89 these are just examples. We import goods and export services. It is problematic putting tariffs on goods from abroad if we don't make anything similar in this country. It would cause quite a bit of inflation.
We are in a very weak position.
DH cheerfully pointed out this morning that our energy policy is in disarray since it relied on borrowing a lot of money to subsidise the building of new nuclear power stations. In the last couple of days UK has lost its credit rating. George Osborne has struggled to keep this credit rating and now his party has blown it. I suspect HS2 will go the same way and maybe Trident. Huge projects like this + a country with a large national debt are not viable because of our indebtedness.
If any of you are bored or feeling sensitive because some of us are a little tetchy please be aware that it is rapidly becoming crystal clear leave voters have not voted to get their country back, they have voted to wreck it when it was already holed below the waterline. So excuse us if we are a bit pissed off. No-one is forcing you to be on these threads.
It will not be alright in our lifetimes. And in twenty years time we may be experiencing frequent power cuts because we have not been able to put in place the generating capacity we will need in the future.

Your last paragraph is only an opinion Jess not a fact. There are those who would welcome the scrapping of HS2 and Trident and that is a fact, not surmise.

I welcome the post by Welshwife who acknowledges that most on this forum voted from an informed standpoint at least.

I can see why some are more than upset, even incandescent with fury but when you can't do anything about a situation then you are only going to make things worse, for yourself, by giving in to very strong negative feelings.

Yes, well said Welshwife

Not negative: I'm positive about how angry I am. HS2 would have created a lot of jobs (but,hey, in this land of milk and honey who needs to work).I doubt that the dual carriaging of the A1 in the north will happen now,even though the road is a death trap.

Oh I am more than 'upset' as well. I am angry but I am also ashamed. Not just because of the extreme racists who are now becoming more visible, but also because of all those who are now holding their hands up and crying "We're not racist,we just voted with them."
As was said when the drunk lay in the gutter besides the pig. "You can tell a man who boozes, by the company he chooses."

I don't want to be negative, but we have a long way to go before/if things start to look up, I'm afraid. For instance, I won't be the only one on the forum affected by the state pension age equalisation issue. Women born in the 1950s are having to bear the brunt of this and some of us are losing out on 6 years pension. There are some desperate cases of women of my age (61) with health issues who are having to eke out their retirement savings just to pay the bills for the next 5 years. We (WASPI, the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign) are having a demo outside the House of Commons tomorrow. If you're passing by, please give us a wave, and if you hear a bum note from the choir, I'm afraid that'll be me (I'm just practising my bit of the anthem and the cat has taken flight through her catflap).

The point is - and sorry, I've been long-winded, I just wanted to let you know about the demo - that I met with my (Tory) MP on Friday. He is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group that supports our cause and told me that they were close to reaching an agreement on transitional arrangements for the 50s women, which would have been announced after the Summer recess. Of course, he said, this will slip right down the agenda now and will have to be renegotiated when the new leader is elected. This is so disappointing if it's correct. Especially as the lie that EU regulations had brought about this situation apparently persuaded some older people to vote leave.

On the positive side, though, we couldn't have had more of a press presence for our demo

We expected upheaval if an out vote was cast.
The reality is more than most were expecting and is not helped by the lack of a solid PM for the Tories and a mutiny by Labour.
I don,t think the antics of either campaign were admirable,and I consider those of the out campaign to be illegal.

I voted out as I am very wary as to the future direction of the EU.
It has not finished expanding and developing by a long way.
The anthem for the EU is Beethovens Ode to Joy,which was suggested by Coudenhove-Kalergi,who is accredited with the original thinking /plan for a fully integrated and expansive Europe with one currency.
It is why we have countries being encouraged to join who have poorer
economies.
This information has been around for many years .
Those of us with a longer life ahead may be able to look back and be relieved that we left the EU.

Well said, trisher.

It's all very well for Leavers to say we must stop complaining, cheer up and get on with it, but will they still say it when the public spending cuts and the tax rises start? As the prices rise in the shops and the property values fall? And all as a direct result of a short-sighted decision - and, yes, it was older people who are mainly responsible, even though many of us did vote Remain. Our generation can't disown responsibility for all that's coming our way.

If you voted for us to Leave, then you've got to be prepared for the fact that a lot of us find it hard to be cheerful when we face a lot of very serious problems which, with the best will in the world, we can do nothing about.

I am as shocked, worried and downright scared as many others about the result of the referendum. I voted remain but I did not do so lightly, in fact I agonised over my decision until the very last moment. I can only reiterate, this was not a right/ left decision nor was it based on racism or xenophobia. Do people really believe the EU is a great institution committed to upholding workers' rights, because that's certainly not how I see it. I may be stuck in the past but I could never get beyond the fact that Tony Benn was a lifelong eurosceptic. I don't think he could be accused of being stupid, ill educated, racist, or any of the other insults being directed at those who voted to leave.

OMG! Not the Coudenhove-Kalergi conspiracy theory again! Are you practical in disguise?

Coudenhove-Kalergi was an inter-war philospher, who dreamt of a united Europe in the context of all the conflict which was going on. Which conspiracy theory website have you been visiting?

I would expect that crass comment from you daphnedill,my only surprise is that you were not my first choice !!!

I have been an avid reader of history books since I was a 16 year old schoolgirl.
You can read an awful lot in 50 years .

No I am not PRACTICAL in disguise.
Is it un-nerving that there may be conspiracy theorists on Gransnet ??? grin

That was supposed to be a grin logo .

You didn't read about Coudenhove-Kalergi in any respected history book!

However, as you're such an expert, I expect you know the history of 'Ode to Joy' from Schiller's original poem, written before the French Revolution, and Beethoven's setting it to music after the uprisings of the early 1820s.

Over the years it became an uplifting anthem almost in the way Lennon's 'Imagine' has.

Coudenhove-Kalergi was an idealistic philosopher who believed in the ideals of the Enlightenment. It would appear he's been 'hijacked' by the conspiracy theorists of the far right. When 'practical' posted a link a few weeks ago, I Googled him and found references to the conspiracy, but only on far right and/or white supremacist sites. The Daily Express picked up on it (surprise surprise!)

PS. Have you tried looking up 'crass' in a dictionary?

I first came across him on Wikipedia some time back.My brother has more in-depth knowledge of history than me,and has read some of Coudenhove-Kalergis writing ,so my knowledge of him stems from those sources.
My brother is not right wing or a conspiracy theorist either.

I did study the French Revolution for A level,but we missed out on the poetry.
I don,t frequent far right ,white supremacist sites,or The Daily Express.

Crass has many meanings,including unpleasant.
Your aspersion to my sources of information was indeed that daphnedill.

One of the headlines in France today translates to - The English are Fools- and has photos of The Queen, Cameron and Mr Bean - says it all really
.
Glad to see Farage having a hard time in Brussels - would have liked to see the whole spat. The Scottish MEP spoke well and got a standing ovation.

Poor George - doing his best to keep positive - hard task ahead of him to try and get things back on an even keel.

I think there are still a few worms to come out of the can and these will not appear for a while. Those who voted out are maybe a bit afraid that if the referendum result does not get agreement this time they never will - there wil be changes to the EU and they should be to the good of the comunities of the members.
I would be interested if the person who said that she did not find the workers rights good from within the EU could tell us in more detail what has he means as I have always thought they were much better than what workers had previously.

If we had all voted exactly the same then we could be described as 'sheep' JessM

Just answering Jane10's comment to Smileless which I assumed was tongue in cheek.
We don't live in a totalitarian society.