EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[meridian2]

I think we can safely say, as members of a rail forum, we're all pretty mundane.

I work in the industry, what are your excuses

Like the rest of the obsessive compulsives hereabouts, taxonomic proliferation of the kind found in railwayana offers order in a world of random stupidity. Unlike some on this thread, my need for collocation doesn't stretch to the routes or timetable provided by EU central.

 

[Bromley boy]

Like the rest of the obsessive compulsives hereabouts, taxonomic proliferation of the kind found in railwayana offers order in a world of random stupidity. Unlike some on this thread, my need for collocation doesn't stretch to the routes or timetable provided by EU central.

Neither does mine. I feel your pain .

 

[EM2]

We already see this in London which is increasingly ghettoised. You can't have failed to notice that in Newham, surely?

It doesn't happen in Newham! When almost every city was rioting after Mark Duggan was killed, there was almost nothing happening in Newham, because people get on with each other.
See how little Newham is mentioned? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2011_England_riots

 

[Bromley boy]

It doesn't happen in Newham! When almost every city was rioting after Mark Duggan was killed, there was almost nothing happening in Newham, because people get on with each other.
See how little Newham is mentioned? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2011_England_riots

Get on or live alongside each other in ghettoes they share neither language nor cultural values? Not the same thing.

Looking at how Paris has gone over the last few years, sadly London is following suit.

EDIT: also the mark duggan riots were relevant to a different ethnic group to the majority in newham.

 

[AlterEgo]

We're already good at defining what we won't tolerate, reference the plethora of anti-hate crime legislation introduced over the last couple of decades.

Saying what we aren't rather than what we are leaves us with a huge moral vacuum, though, which can be easily exploited. Lots of young people in the UK are searching for an identity and sense of belonging which (irrespective of colour or creed) being "British" no longer gives.

But hate crimes are but a small slice of what we ought not to tolerate.

 

[Bromley boy]

But hate crimes are but a small slice of what we ought not to tolerate.

Well, I'd like to hear some positive commentary on who we are and the values we are proud of, rather than endlessly hearing about what we shouldn't tolerate.

I'd also like to talk more about responsibilities than rights, for once. That's probably off topic.

 

[najaB]

We will always disagree while-ever you see a moral equivalence between drone strikes and terrorist attacks.

I never said they were morally equivalent. I'm just playing the 'let's throw an irrelevant fact into the discussion' game, you moved first so it was my go.

 

[Bromley boy]

I never said they were morally equivalent. I'm just playing the 'let's throw an irrelevant fact into the discussion' game, you moved first so it was my go.

You implied it, as you well know.

Surely you can do better than that?

 

[AlterEgo]

Well, I'd like to hear some positive commentary on who we are and the values we are proud of, rather than endlessly hearing about what we shouldn't tolerate.

I'd also like to talk more about responsibilities than rights, for once. That's probably off topic.

It would be a good debate. Start a new thread!

 

[Bromley boy]

It would be a good debate. Start a new thread!

Good point, this is off topic for the thread. I'll have to formulate an appropriate thread title.

 

[EM2]

The last six pages have been off-topic

 

[EM2]

Get on or live alongside each other in ghettoes they share neither language nor cultural values? Not the same thing.

Have you actually spent time in Newham, not gone to football at West Ham or gone shopping at Westfield but actually spent time on the streets?
My downstairs neighbours were Indian and Sri Lanka. My next door neighbours were Irish and Scottish. The neighbours on the other side of them were Nigerian and Ghanaian. The garage on the other side was owned by a Pakistani and he had Jamaican and Ugandan mechanics.
I'd talk about football with the Turks in the kebab shop, and cricket with my Bangladeshi barber. I'd get curry goat from the Jamaican takeaway and groceries from the Polish supermarket, and pick up a coffee from the Algerian café

EDIT: also the mark duggan riots were relevant to a different ethnic group to the majority in newham.

Which ethnic groups were rioting in Banbury, or Gloucester, or St Albans, or Worcester?

And in effort to steer us back on topic, Newham voted to Remain, and all of the top thirty areas where people identified as English voted to Leave.

 

[najaB]

You implied it, as you well know.

Surely you can do better than that?

You may have inferred that, but it certainly wasn't what I was saying.

What I was commenting on is that it's sad when people attempt to justify their position on an entire religious or ethnic group based on the actions of a minority.

 

[AlterEgo]

Have you actually spent time in Newham, not gone to football at West Ham or gone shopping at Westfield but actually spent time on the streets?
My downstairs neighbours were Indian and Sri Lanka. My next door neighbours were Irish and Scottish. The neighbours on the other side of them were Nigerian and Ghanaian. The garage on the other side was owned by a Pakistani and he had Jamaican and Ugandan mechanics.
I'd talk about football with the Turks in the kebab shop, and cricket with my Bangladeshi barber. I'd get curry goat from the Jamaican takeaway and groceries from the Polish supermarket, and pick up a coffee from the Algerian café

It sounds like a utopia.

Unfortunately:


- Newham had the second highest child poverty rate across London (41%) and the highest proportion of children in working families receiving tax credits (44%).

- Newham had one of the highest unemployment rates in London (8.6%), while more than a third of residents who were employees were low paid (35%), the highest rate in London. The proportion of jobs that are low paid was also high (29%).

- Newham had the highest rate of overcrowding (25%) and of households in temporary accommodation (28.5 per 1,000 households) of all London boroughs. It also had one of the highest rates of homelessness acceptances, which had grown from 1.1 to 7.9 per 1,000 households.

- Newham has one of the highest ratios of pay inequality across London, but a low proportion of benefit claimants living in the most deprived areas. This suggests that while there is a significant degree of inequality between the poorest and richest households, there is less spatial segregation of households along these lines than in other parts of London.


http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/boroughs/newham/

 

[Bromley boy]

Have you actually spent time in Newham, not gone to football at West Ham or gone shopping at Westfield but actually spent time on the streets?
My downstairs neighbours were Indian and Sri Lanka. My next door neighbours were Irish and Scottish. The neighbours on the other side of them were Nigerian and Ghanaian. The garage on the other side was owned by a Pakistani and he had Jamaican and Ugandan mechanics.
I'd talk about football with the Turks in the kebab shop, and cricket with my Bangladeshi barber. I'd get curry goat from the Jamaican takeaway and groceries from the Polish supermarket, and pick up a coffee from the Algerian café

And in effort to steer us back on topic, Newham voted to Remain, and all of the top thirty areas where people identified as English voted to Leave.

Yes quite a bit of time in the Manor Park area of Newham where an ex girlfriend of mine lived. I'm afraid my impression was rather different to yours. It very much felt like being in a foreign country. There wasn't much evidence of "integration" at all. People lived alongside each other but were very much divided along ethnic and religious lines with virtually no interaction between the different groups. There's also a great deal of deprivation and unemployment in the area.

My girlfriend at the time had a lot of problems with Pakistani/Bangladeshi men approaching her on the street and refusing to take no for an answer. Lots of women wore the full niqab and a lot were totally unable to speak English, couldn't leave the house without a male chaperone etc.

Contrast this with a areas like Brixton, Lewisham and Croydon where you see true integration - people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds mixing together, interracial relationships etc. There's no getting away from the fact that certain cultures seem rather better at integrating than others.

Yes apologies this is now very off topic but an interesting sub-debate nonetheless. I imagine voting remain was more common in areas where there's a lack of a cohesive "British" identify and shared values, Newham being a good example of this in my view.

 

[EM2]

It sounds like a utopia.

Unfortunately:

- Newham had the second highest child poverty rate across London (41%) and the highest proportion of children in working families receiving tax credits (44%).

- Newham had one of the highest unemployment rates in London (8.6%), while more than a third of residents who were employees were low paid (35%), the highest rate in London. The proportion of jobs that are low paid was also high (29%).

- Newham had the highest rate of overcrowding (25%) and of households in temporary accommodation (28.5 per 1,000 households) of all London boroughs. It also had one of the highest rates of homelessness acceptances, which had grown from 1.1 to 7.9 per 1,000 households.

- Newham has one of the highest ratios of pay inequality across London, but a low proportion of benefit claimants living in the most deprived areas. This suggests that while there is a significant degree of inequality between the poorest and richest households, there is less spatial segregation of households along these lines than in other parts of London.

http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/boroughs/newham/

I don't disagree with any of that, but that doesn't make it the ghetto that is being implied by others. Nor do I deny that in many respects, Newham is a ****hole, but the reason for that, in my experience, isn't because cultures are not integrating.

 

[EM2]

Contrast this with a areas like Brixton, Lewisham and Croydon where you see true integration - people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds mixing together, interracial relationships etc. There's no getting away from the fact that certain cultures seem rather better at integrating than others.

Then we shall have to agree to disagree. My final comment will be that I had more 'interesting' encounters when visiting Lewisham than at any time living in Newham.

 

[Bromley boy]

Then we shall have to agree to disagree. My final comment will be that I had more 'interesting' encounters when visiting Lewisham than at any time living in Newham.

Funnily enough Lewisham is the only part of London where I've been openly racially abused as a white male.

 

[Bromley boy]

You may have inferred that, but it certainly wasn't what I was saying.

What I was commenting on is that it's sad when people attempt to justify their position on an entire religious or ethnic group based on the actions of a minority.

We need to be careful not to equate criticism of an ethnic background with criticism of a religion. It's reasonable to suppose that people of the same religion will have certain values in common and people choose their religion.

That's very different from ascribing certain characteristics to an individual or group based on their ethnicity.

 

[EM2]

Funnily enough Lewisham is the only part of London where I've been openly racially abused as a white male.

Exactly.

 

[NSEFAN]

Whilst the past few pages have been off topic, I think they show how EU membership and the referendum are closely tied to immigration and multicultural issues in the public mindset. The only way I can rationalise this is that the EU and multiculturalism are seen as "foreign" things which are not desirable, and are somehow lumped together so that a vote to leave the EU is somehow a vote against the establishment and multiculturalism.

The irony is that multicultural problems are largely of our own making and have very little to so with the EU (nothing to do with Merkel and refugees or Turkey going down the pan). Indeed if we end up encouraging EU migrants to leave, we will most likely replace them with non-EU ones, which may only worsen problems of integration (given the relative cultural differences).

 

[Senex]

It's reasonable to suppose that people of the same religion will have certain values in common and people choose their religion.

And within a religion they can choose how they follow that religion, with significant variation to be found in all the major faiths.

The three great religions "of the book" all seem to have their share of those who believe that what was written long ago in the context of a particular society in a particular place at a particular time must be valid without change for all places and all times. It seems a problem that one of those faiths has more than its fair share of such fundamentalists and that such people are very strongly represented in that faith's Western European diaspora.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Regarding Turkey, none other than Mr Brexit, Boris Johnson is on record as saying once we are out the UK will support Turkey's attempt to join the EU, despite using the possibility of Turkey joining as a campaign tool to get people to vote leave. You couldn't make it up.

As for "integration", if anything us "natives" are just as bad when we move to other places within the UK. Certainly based on the experiences of my friends and myself, we have been guilty of many of things that have been mentioned as evidence of immigrants refusing to integrate.

 

[WelshBluebird]

What was the purpose of the referendum if not as a decider on EU membership? A very expensive opinion poll? What would the turnout have been if the public were told we're just picking your brains? Everyone knew the country was divided on the issue, that was the nature of the problem. Cameron realised he only needed a one vote majority to secure his political position and silence the numerous euro-sceptics in his party, and he took the risk. A non-legally binding result would have to prove the government in the person of the Prime Minister had no legal right to call a referendum. If the remain camp had won by a tiny majority, would they take that inconclusive win as a clear mandate that the people were not happy with the EU, who would have to deliver on things like immigration before our membership could continue? I rather doubt that.

1 - The purpose of the referendum was, as you note, for Cameron to to silence the eurosceptic wing of the Tory party. Nothing at all to do with the actual real future of the country.

2 - If you ignore the above, then yes, the referendum was just "a very expensive opinion poll".

3 - If the remain camp had won by a similar majority, well the leave side were already sharpening their swords (Farage is on record as saying in a 52-48 remain win, then it would be "unfinished business"). So why does that chain of thought not apply after leave won by the same margin?

 

[meridian2]

3 - If the remain camp had won by a similar majority, well the leave side were already sharpening their swords (Farage is on record as saying in a 52-48 remain win, then it would be "unfinished business"). So why does that chain of thought not apply after leave won by the same margin?

It does apply, I've no gripe with people griping. The reasons people voted leave were complex and varied, but were based on a longstanding disillusionment with the political classes. Cameron along with many others completely underestimated this disenchantment and thought the Remain majority would be substantial even in the final days. The only thing that surprises me, and then not much, is the characterisation as all eurosceptics as knuckle dragging Xenophobes. I certainly underestimated the antidemocratic instincts in this country. Brexit, like the Scottish independence, only has to happen once and the opportunities to reverse it are negligible. If Cameron didn't know that he shouldn't have been in politics.

 

[Kite159]

Good news, article 50 will be triggered on the 29th March

And on the 30th march a new trade deal with North Korea will be announced

 

[Howardh]

Good news, article 50 will be triggered on the 29th March

And on the 30th march a new trade deal with North Korea will be announced

Ah, we're selling them Trident.

 

[miami]

Ah, we're selling them Trident.

That's ok, we know it doesn't work

 

[Tetchytyke]

Live footage just in of Theresa May triggering Brexit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXI1PDTp5gk

 

[najaB]

Live footage just in of Theresa May triggering Brexit.

So true. We're never going to catch that Roadrunner.