If there was another EU referendum...

Bridgeit: The thing is Brexit is much like religion.

I think you are right. I believe that many people who voted leave based their decision on faith; not knowledge or insight. I have spoken to many leave-voters, good people, who justify their vote with comments like ”we managed in the past; we are British; why can't we just run our own country?” All understandable sentiments but hardly showing critical thinking. Faith, like love, can be blind.

Apologies to any one who has read the silliness that Allygran1 has now introduced to this thread that was going along just fine. But I feel I should reply to her.
Allygran1:
The great British public to many of us of a certain age is an endearing description to convey a common denominator which many , but not all will take as the majority who have a standard ( just to qualify this could be good or bad, or positive or negatives) or thought pattern that binds them together some may wish to call patriotism , something that is understood without having to explain, or qualify or even quantify,it will be something that is just understood a bit like all being ABBA fans or football supporters etc.
Allygran1 you can only interpret my view through your own window of thought process. I am not ridiculing any one or any side. I remember asking you before if you were a fairly young person, I beleive you must be,or fairly narrow in your understanding of others, hence your one dimensional approach to anyone you don’t understand or agree with.
I think this highlights the misunderstanding that politicians sometimes have when trying to interact with ‘The Great British Public’ they have no understanding of the way many people express themselves & use colloquialisms . The term DoubleDutch obviously is a very apt way of telling someone you do not understand them . Perhaps Ally you are not aware of that term either. It would possibly be of benefit to you on a site like this if you did understand or were aware of a commonly shared language - by the many but obviously not by the few.

Bridgeit, your response does nothing to qualify your mocking comment when you said "great British public (or not)". The question is, (you asked what my point was remember), why do you view those you disagree with on GN as "great British public (or not)"?

You ridiculed one group, and you grouped us as "British public, (or not)", does this indicate that you see yourself as part of the great British public or not? Are you grouping the leave voters as the 'great British public" and the remain voters as "or not" or the other way around? You asked and this is the point.

I am off out so if you answer don't think I am ignoring you it is simply that I am switching off now.

Allygran1 as usual it is you who likes to ratchet things up, I never play games, yours or anyone else’s.
The thing is Brexit is much like religion, there are the passionate believers, the equally passionate non believers, the don’t knows , the don’t cares the hope it all be alright on the daters. As far as Brexit goes no one knows how it will fair this contry, there will be winners & losers as always etc. I happen to be very patriotic, love this country & it’s traditions, but I am also realistic and IMO we would have been better of staying in the EU albeit it’s not perfect, I can only hope that those of you who beleive in Brexit will be right & I will be wrong, but sadly I don’t think you will .

Hi Bridgeit. Can't play games to-day!

But since you ask. The point is, that you clearly are mocking the reputation of the "great British public (or not)" as you put it on GN, without qualifying your comment. I then ask do you include yourself in that group, the "great British public"?

ps and in country areas they're more concerned about their own family and farming problems than those of the outside world.

Coming in a bit late in this part of the discussion, about attitudes of french towards british.
Mamie as you live in Normandie I think they have specially strong reasons to be grateful to the Allies.
We were down in the SW and never came across any anti-british feelings in our village. Many of them came specially to say how sorry they were that we were leaving. And we're still in correspondence with some of them.
Speaking and reading their language is most important.
We returned for a variety of reasons, not just Brexit.

It is so good to read so many of us are able to contradict any form of extreme family divisions due to Brexit.
The horror stories of a few, must just be that. Thankfully most of our families seem to be functional, kind, and understanding, able to disagree without striking one another off, or labelling each other and calling each other names. The truly great British spirit of agreeing to disagree is alive and well!

Sorry Allygran1, your point is ???

Bridgeit, that romanticism coming out again!

Jura and yourself do seem to dislike this Country. I do have to take exception with your comment "Great (or not) British public..", I take it that you confine this comment to only those of us on Gransnet.

May I ask, do you include yourself in that statement, are you one of the "great (or not) British public", on GN?

I also have to say, that if I was the sort of person who generalised, then I would be sorely tempted to believe that all Swiss people were like Jura, fortunately and thankfully, I try so hard never to generalise, believing that one can never see anything, let alone judge an entire Nation on only those you disagree with, nor should it mean that because I disagree with someone or they with me that we should dislike each other. I often sense vitriol and hate in Jura's post, which immediately make it less believable (to me at least) because of it's extreme intensity to prove a point, replacing evidence with anecdote, which of course can never be done.

Well, I'm very proud to say that none of my family voted to leave but, had they done so, I would have just carried on as before without haranguing them - well at least about brexit.

jura2
Interesting that you accept family members voting to leave because they see which way Europe is going, which, by the way some of us have been explaining to you for 2 years but you still prefer to think of leavers on GN as rascist. mmmm?

I dare-say Jura, that Gn is even more of an education about the Great (or not) British public than was ever anticipated & a bit of an eye opener ! - ohh that’s a lovely romantic love story, best wishes to you and yours?

I fell in love nutty - that is all- I was 19, and only supposed to stay for 6 months to learn English. That is life...

As for OH, they came in 1948 to escape the awful system that was Apartheid - he was 2 year old- will you blame him too.

Nuttynana

Clearly we’re very lucky Jura, our family is not racist, though we have close family members on both sides of Brexit. They had perfectly valid reasons for voting either for or against leaving the EU, and we have never tried to change their minds whichever way they voted. I might add that clearly our children are much younger than us, all under 40 at the time of the referendum, they are all highly educated and professional, and have married professional people. I voted remain, my husband voted leave, but surprisingly we are still married. Further, we are all British and our families have been British for generations, except for one of my great grandfathers who was German.

Not posted much but have read lots and lots , trying to find out more and understand a very complex issue .
Aren't we lucky that Jura and her husband , both born abroad , decided to settle here . Not sure why , however as she does not , in spite of her protests , seem to think much of us .
Still she seems to know everything about everything and we ungrateful Brits will not agree with her . Including me. Have posted nothing re Brexit but find I must be a poorly educated , racist yob . With dual nationality she can fortunately return home and avoid us and the awful future we all face !

Yes, I am Maddy, Swiss born, British since 1972. OH is SA born, British since 1948.

No, the only 'agenda' that these groups have is to support each other and try and survive this mess. All their lives are in limbo- and have been ever since the vote- they have no idea how things will pan out- and they are truy worried.

I have cut 2 members of my family- not because of Trump, as such, but because of the related and very clear and disgusting racism they displayed. Distant cousins in te USA, whom we really liked and had hosted each other, here and there, a few times.

With close family- we will do absolutely everything so that does not happen. It is, again, not about Brexit per se - but about the total lack of understanding and sympathy/empathy for the difficult situation we find ourselves in, and us much less so than most as we both have dual nationality- but if Brexit discussions led to strong racist comments, for instance, and total mockery and glee over our situation - then I am not sure how long and how far we could keep it going- Thank goodness our DDs and close relatives do understand - some voted Brexit, but in a way that indicated concern about how the EU was developing, and not due to immigration, for instance- and they have acknowledged the very difficult situation we, and other expat friends, are in.

It is not about 'Brexit' - or mere difference of opinion- but about the way and the reasons. Believe me or not.

The groups Jura is referring to are simply people who are very worried about their position if and when Brexit does happen - whether they are living in EU countries or in U.K.
The EU parliament has been far more open to listening to all these groups of people than the U.K. Govt who for a long time refused to even listen to the worries of people.
The millions of people this Brexit will affect is far far bigger than the tiny majority the Brexiteers got - and many of the people were not allowed to vote in the referendum.

Maw, you are correct, private groups will have their own agenda, quoting their views without quoting their agenda is meaningless, and certainly not evidence.
I agree that there cannot be cut and paste or links though as it would compromise the members of the group's confidentiality.

I will repeat, there is no love if family members cut one another off over Brexit. Further, in my opinion, it is nothing less than ridiculous to allow political views to come before family. I agree that friends are different, and we all make new friends and lose contact with friends as we move through life, and often only remain lifelong friends with a very small number of people.
Anyone who puts political views before their beloved family has a very strange view of the meaning of loyalty. I
Can I just establish jura, you are Swiss with British nationality? You live in Switzerland? Have you cut off members of your own family?

“But I might suggest” - fat finger syndrome.

Ah I see I thought you meant on GN
Of course I am not interested in breaching confidentiality might might suggest that private groups might also be groups with an inbuilt bias, being self selecting.
Social media does NOT necessarily provide an impartial cross section.

Mawbroon these 'post after post' of people who are genuinely frightened of what will happen to them after Brexit, re loss of income which is very low already, loss of healthcare, loss of free transfers of pensions from UK, loss of residence permit, loss of the possibility to stay long enough to apply for nationality, loss of 1000s things they took for granted and were part of the planning - are on several closed groups of UK citizens living in the EU. They are closed groups, and I will not copy and paste. They, unlike me and OH, do NOT have dual nationality, and do not have a good cushion to rely on either- some have developed severe medical issues after their move, or have lost their OH or partner, and so on. I will not breach their confidence, even anonymously.

And yes, they are a) desperate and terrified of what may happen and b) disgusted with their Brexit voting parents, family and 'friends' back in UK- and sick of being told 'stop worrying- it will all be OK. Some have written that they have just had parents to stay, and that it was excruciating to listen to their Brexiter views and platitudes and nonsense- and are dreading having to visit UK, but managed to button their lip and keep appearances. Others have clearly said that the views expressed (not Brexit per se, but the blatant racism and prejudice associated) meant it was now a case of 'never again' and cutting contact- as it is just too painful.

Don't worry about me- the relatives I cut off for their racist views during Obama's years in office, and then their Trump support- are distant cousin. We quite liked them - but no loss really. I am very happy, thank you - despite being very sad about the country I loved for so long (I know you don't believe me). Going to UK next week and every day is filled with dates with great friends and family- a joy.

HildaW
From The Telegraph May 2016.

" Back in the 1990s, the * total failure* of eu deplomacy helped speed former Yugoslavia into a brutal ethnic civil war.
A fragile peace was finally imposed in those troubled lands.
not by the eu but by the NATO bombs and arm twisting backed by the Atlantic Alliance. So the eu record at actually keeping peace is fairly shabby"

but convenient when one wants to prove a point in argument
And it's assumed that nobody will notice. WRONG