If there was another EU referendum...

www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/worldcup/england-fans-invade-ikea-in-east-london-singing-its-coming-home-after-three-lions-win-a3882086.html

Do t think much of your reading material Jura nothing like that in my Oberver today.

POGS a good post. That is the nature of the beast, as we are talking about Brexit here. And I have little good to say about it, at all. I've tried to look at any positive side, but I just can't find any. It is a disaster in the making, for the UK, for the EU, for Switzerland too ... and for us personally. Although more and more I've come to see that perhaps we are lucky. We have dual nationality, so we can get away from it, even if it is very expensive. And so can our kids and grandkids.

It does not stop me caring, because I love the UK, did from day one- do you think I would have stayed 40 years otherwise? Gone to Uni and become a teacher, and chose to teach in State schools (when private schools were constantly asking me to work there... for all sorts of reasons).

Now, let's talk about the Education system then, the way special needs and the handicapped are (or where until the system got starved of funds), the NHS which was the best health system in the whole wide world (until it got starved of funds ad privatised by back door), tolerance for difference, SOH, and so muc more. It is a feature of many people who have travelled and worked abroad (I also spent time teaching in France and Germany)... that we tend to pick the good and bad bits about each country, each system... and also the best bits, and compare.

And it is BECAUSE I think that the UK had many excellent and very positive things to offer, way ahead any other country- that I am so upset to see it all go to pot. The rise of intolerance and even racism, the starving of the brilliant systems mentioned above- where people now feel going private is the only way forward- all this has been made so much worse since the Referendum - how people cannot see that it will only benefit the very rich... and that the very rich will always have the choice to jump off ship, laughing all the was to their bank, or Swiss ones (which is very bad news for the Swiss btw, but that is another story. The Swiss in general do NOT benefit at all from a high CHF ... at all. Exporting is really difficult due to EU competition, low cost, low wages... it is of course a disaster for us personally, but in the grand scale of things, irrelevant.

jura - this has also gone around the world:

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/03/british-divers-at-heart-of-thai-cave-rescue-among-best-in-world

it depends if one likes to always see the bad in people - or a nation - or the good.

There are many 'news items' about the dreadful British that I, and most others, would miss were it not for jura pointing them out to us.

I suppose someone has to be on the alert.

That is the nature of the beast, as we are talking about Brexit here.
Yes, the thread is supposed to be about that, but has unfortunately degenerated into yet more posts about the badly behaved, dreadful British people.

Now, let's talk about the Education system then, the way special needs and the handicapped are (or where until the system got starved of funds), the NHS which was the best health system in the whole wide world (until it got starved of funds ad privatised by back door), tolerance for difference, SOH, and so muc more. It is a feature of many people who have travelled and worked abroad (I also spent time teaching in France and Germany)... that we tend to pick the good and bad bits about each country, each system... and also the best bits, and compare

Quite a few who have travelled and worked abroad on GN yet you wish to give the impression that your experience is unique? AIBU to find such sentiments patronising?
.

You'd think the rest of the posters and our nearest and dearest had never left the village

Sometimes Jura, when Brexit is discussed, I don’t notice much ‘tolerance for others’ or shall I say, the views of others.

No Maw, you’re not being unreasonable.

Never said it was unique... would be happy to hear about your experiences for sure. There is travelling, and ... travelling. I know few in nearby France or Switzerland, who have not travelled, but lived, totally integrated (not in an expat bubble) for 40+ years...

But you are totally right, I am indeed totally intolerant of the intolerance and narrow nationalistic views of so many Brexiteers.

When I lived in Stoke, it was very much so. People in Tunstall would dread going shopping in Hanley - lol. And I was the only foreigner at work, in the 70s.

Oh Jura whatever are you getting at by “travelling”and “travelling”?
Your experience of living in England does sound very narrow, compared to where I live now , where not only are there several companies and institutions originating in France, Germany, Scandinavia, the US and Japan but many foreign nationals if I may use the term among our friends and contemporaries.
In the 47 years of our marriage ‘‘twas ever thus, so I find it hard to recognise your experience .

It's not all love hearts and daisy chains in the rest of Europe jura. Here's just a few items that caught my attention. None of them a true representation of any of the countries people but, like anywhere else in the world, there are people who act stupidly:

"German police arrested 10 people on Sunday, 8th July, over alleged anti semitic attacks in a; ^Berlin park. Local media reports that both victim and suspects are Syrian"

A relative calm began to return to the western French city of Nantes early Sunday after days of rioting over a police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man

Norway’s police security agency PST has arrested a man after linking him to Islamic fundamentalism.

Golf balls thrown from speeding car injure Stockholm pedestrians

A Zurich ticket inspector is in custody facing assault charges after he kicked a bus passenger who was travelling without a ticket.

These acts, however stupid and reckless they are, don't define that nation, they are just examples that human beings, right across the world, sometimes behave badly and the United Kingdom is no better, and no worse than anywhere else.

Since you clearly haven’t interviewed all the seventeen million plus people who voted to leave the EU jura, I wonder why it is your opinion that many Brexiteers are intolerant and hold ‘narrow nationalistic views’ . It seems to me that you have formed this view because you have swallowed the rhetoric put out by many Remainers on a variety of news/media programmes, and possibly from reading newspapers such as The Guardian. My impression from similar sources has shown that whilst there are some intolerant Brexiteers, others appear to hold very different views. If anything, my own observations have led me to conclude that there are both intolerant and tolerant on both sides of the argument. I have also noticed that there are many very well informed and very tolerant posters on Gransnet who have clearly said they voted leave. I suggest that you stop labelling those who voted leave as intolerant and as holding narrow nationalistic views.

Travelling for a holiday, or a short stay of a few months of even couple of years, is just NOT the same as living in a country for 40 years, fully integrated and fully conversant in the language, history, culture, and working in state institutions (I taught in several very different schools, covering the full secondary/6th Form spectrum).

So yes, I know expats in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, etc, who have lived here for 10, 20, 30+ years, living in expat bubbles, kids in English private schools, working in an Anglo-Saxon environment where English is the norm, going to English Churches and clubs, and who can't speak fluently, some very little... and yes, it is very different.

I don't know via Press, but through talking to them, during our many visits... and thanks to some on GN who have illustrated this perfectly, thanks. Abundantly clear...

So my late DH’s experience of spending his first 13 years in Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium up to the point where he went to secondary school, his entire primary education in French schools, his father’s education, both school and university in Switzerland, my mothers life in Germany,her university education at Heidelberg, my time at university in Neuchâtel, DDs study at the Kunstakademie in Maastricht, her productions in Mainz, Berlin, Malmö, and on Gotland , do these meet your stringent standards established in, by your own admission, a part of England where the inhabitants of Tunstall (was it? ) dreaded going shopping in Hanley.?
But of course there is “travelling” and “travelling”.
Get over yourself.

jura

" And it is BECAUSE I think that the UK had many excellent and very positive things to offer, way ahead any other country- that I am so upset to see it all go to pot. The rise of intolerance and even racism, the starving of the brilliant systems mentioned above- "

You see my problem is my granddaughter is 12 and at a very good state school.
My husband has received the best care for cancer this last 12 months.
My father died sadly after having a pace maker fitted at 94.
I have recently been onto PIP disability payment and my money has increased .

I could go on but you get my drift what we see/hear/read will always have another side.

I am no fool and understand that others will have their stories to tell. I am no fool and when and ' IF' the UK leaves the European Union , as indeed Switzerland is not in the European Union as such, things may get better or worse for the UK but nobody knows until it happens.

What I absolutely abhor is the rhetoric that flows so easily from some that 'assumes' all who voted Leave are racists, right wing, xenophobic , poorly educated fools. I voted Remain irrespective of the ignorance of some posters who say I am a Leaver and it is this attitude I find not only bigoted but sits alongside the ' I am smarter than you ' attitude. It actually loses the arguement / debate when all that is used/said/written is abuseful discord and it will naturally flow those who are on the receiving end will feel the need to hit back.

A thoughtful and sincere post POGS.
Well said.

Yes pogs well said - and maw and chewbacca.
As a Remain voter I find jura' s posts patronising and smug and do not align myself with her opinions.

Travelling for a holiday, or a short stay of a few months of even couple of years, is just NOT the same as living in a country for 40 years, fully integrated and fully conversant in the language, history, culture, and working in state institutions (I taught in several very different schools, covering the full secondary/6th Form spectrum).
Fair enough jura - but could you please then tell me why you believe everything you read in the foreign press about Britain and the dreadful British when you should obviously have a much wider perspective of the country and its people?

Don't believe everything you see in the sensational headlines!

Well said POGS and I could echo some of your post re schools, health care etc.

I would also like to say that, as a remain voter, I thought that jura's post addressed to me on another thread was both unpleasant and uncalled for - and in fact seemed like a product of imagination.

I am still smarting from what you said jura:
Unless, as we do with some family and people we know, it has become a taboo they know they can’t discuss with you... for fear of consequences.

As if I threaten friends and family with dire consequences if they disagree with me ...

Well, now I have posted it on here I can have a laugh at how ludicrous it sounds

Another remain voter who finds some of Jura’s posts downright unpleasant.

POGS I join others in echoing your articulate comments to Jura re schools, health care etc.

Although I don't share jura's uncritical enthusiasm for the EU, as I have said before, I did vote to remain., mainly because I thought it would be a gargantuan task to extricate ourselves from the organisation in an orderly and beneficial way.

I do share her dismay at what is happening to the UK - the starving of vital services like the NHS and education. Given that she has lived in this country for many years, I don't see why she shouldn't express her views without being told, in effect, that she does not have enough experience or knowledge of British culture to voice her opinions.

POGS It seems because your experience of schools, the health system, etc. has been wholly positive, you are quite happy with things as they are. Well, for an increasing number of people things aren't so great. The NHS is collapsing. There is a 15% deficit for doctors, nurses are leaving the profession in droves - hence the approaching hugely expensive recruitment drive. It was recently reported in the I that local councils are at breaking point and vital services such as day centres for the elderly and people with learning disabilities are being closed across the country. Many areas now no longer provide a Meals on Wheels service for elderly and sick people. Our railway system is falling to pieces and a large number of bus routes (particularly in rural areas) have been cut or got rid of all together. On the commercial side, many businesses are experiencing difficulties and increasing numbers are going into administration.

Those who have not yet suffered from any of these deprivations should count themselves lucky. But many people are suffering because of this government and it is too easy to blame the EU for all that is wrong or to pretend that after we leave all these issues will be resolved. In my view, it will get very much worse before it gets better and for the next few years those who are having a hard time now will have an even harder time.

Can I ask a question? If the UK is such an awful place going down the pan, why are so many still wanting to come and live here, passing through all those other wonderful countries in order to do so? I know the seasonal workers aren’t coming in the droves they used to due to the falling pound making it more profitable for them to go to Germany, etc., but why haven’t all those people wanting to come and live here turned around and stayed in France? Or camped out on the Swiss border? They must have heard that the UK is going to the dogs and is full of knife wielding yobs. Has the Calais camp been closed and I missed it?