not another referendum
In Scotland we’ve had two referendums of some significance in the last two years. In 2014, we voted on whether Scotland would leave the UK to become an independent nation. Today we vote as part of the UK to decide if the UK leaves the European Union.
In 2014, I felt excitement about the admittedly risky prospect of positive change – aiming to keep Scotland part of a free-flowing larger political collective but as an independent nation that made more administrative sense. I felt no sense of nationalism in marking my ballot paper with a YES, I simply felt it was a pragmatic decision that would benefit all societies in the UK in terms of political organisation. But I still felt something resembling relief when my preference was not in the majority – life continues as before.
This year, I felt rather furious as I entered the polling station: furious that fear, ignorance, selfishness and misguided nationalism heavily laced with xenophobia have all pushed us to this point. I can only hope that tomorrow there will be no change and life will continue as normal.
From a purely personal point of view, I love that fact that if I ever decide I want to live in France or Spain, I can just head off and do it. I love that our city is full of people from all over Europe, and that we free flow across borders, as and when we wish. From a practical point of view, I applaud that we pool resources, trade freely, have other cultural influences on our governance, and have another layer of legal protection.
Does it all work beautifully? I doubt it. But I know it certainly doesn’t all work beautifully within our borders. Let’s keep what checks and balances we can, and act positively about the future of co-operative human societies.
Tomorrow morning if the result tells us we’re leaving Europe, it will have even greater significance for Scotland. I suspect it would drive immense popular support for our third referendum in short succession – once again on Scotland leaving the UK. And this time, if the UK is out of Europe, it’s highly likely that Scotland would chose to leave the UK in favour or renegotiating entry to the European Union as an independent nation.
I hope we don’t have yet another referendum.
I`d like just one referendum down here: jail all politicians and start anew.
Good to see you back. How’s things, apart from the whole sick-of-voting thing?
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Well I feel sick this morning. Can’t believe the result. Rest of things are good. You?
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Why, what happened? Did you all vote to leave?? Really… I haven’t looked at the news yet
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Greetings to you
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Good morning (although it’s a bad one…)
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Why a bad one good friend? Are the results in?
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Yes, rank ignorance and fear of foreigners have triumphed. We’re out. I can only hope that Scotland’s overwhelming vote to stay will mean something.
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I keep reading from the leave side that people have been losing jobs and so on that the best thing is to leave. What say you about that?
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More job losses than they can imagine on this route. Immigrants mainly take jobs no-one else us willing to do – service, low paid jobs. They come and work and contribute to the economy.
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And then they eat your cat…
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Yes, precisely the level of thinking that made the decision…
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I am horrified by the Leave vote. We are dissatisfied, and we fixed on the one thing we were given the chance to vote Against. Perhaps England could leave the UK and the rest could retain our EU membership.
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I just read a couple of comments that say it all:
1. This is the worst episode ever of Black Mirror
2. Demonstrates how quickly half the population can be convinced to vote against itself
People are truly clueless, hopeless, selfish and easily misled. Very little concern about how this badly affects people in other countries. All about ME. And so wrong that it will help them in any way….
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Good heavens, a Trump Presidency is now looking possible….
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Yes, it’s the triple whammy I half joked about a few months ago: out of Europe with Boris Johnson as prime minister chatting to President Donald Trump. Scary now, but hilarious photos for the history books. On the bright side….
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If the UK splits apart then Australia and NZ (and all the islands) have to change their flags! I think we`ll bill England
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Come on, you should have changed those flags years ago! In fact, I thought NZ was doing it?
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They wasted millions on designs and a referendum only to vote, Nah.
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Seriously?? I totally missed that. Idiots. That fern flag was lovely.
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As the Beatles once sang … I heard the news today … oh boy.
So nice to see your familiar Gravitar pop up in my Reader, Miss V.
🙂
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Nice to have comforting chat with me old buddies on a day like this. You ok?
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Yeah, 100%. Sunny but cold over here. Watching the pound/rand go a bit haywire.
Somewhat gobsmacked at what’s happening over at your spot.
Though not fully understanding why it’s happening.
Don’t really follow much news these days but Brexit made me sit up and take notice.
I realise there are probably lots of reasons simmering under the surface, but is this mostly a knee-jerk reaction because of the refugee/immigrant thing and the war in Syria?
My folks haven’t phoned so
I’m guessing you lot haven’t been issued with gas masks and ordered to hang up dark curtains and warned to stay tuned to the Home Service.
😉
How’s the family? Kids okay?
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Edinburgh was 75% stay, every single council area in Scotland voted to stay, with the country at 62%. We’re underpopulated and have less fear of immigration, generally appreciating what it brings. There’s a lot of unemployment in some parts of England, pressure on housing, and immigrants are blamed. Europe with all it’s deficiencies is an easy scapegoat to paint, and the Leave campaign had an easy job latching on to base fears.
No riots so far.
Everything else is dandy, leaving me no time to blog …
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I’m not British so I don’t have strong feelings one way or another. There is something to be said for free trade and ease of travel.
But who are your politicians answerable to? Who are they working for? The banks? The EU?
Here in the US there is the Bernie Sanders – Donald Trump phenomena: both men are utter clowns but everybody can see that the Hillary Clintons and Jeb Bushes have been running the world quite nicely for their own benefit, not so much everyone else.
Immigration is a typical point of conflict – well off people benefit from importing lots of low skilled labor, but they don’t have to compete with them for jobs, or have to watch the neighborhood they grew up in turn into a strange country where everyone speaks another language. And then rich people call you a racist if you dare complain – heads I win, tails you lose.
So my guess is that lots of Brittons were feeling like their politicians and the EU were rigging the game somehow.
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Immigration isn’t a new phenomenon dp, let’s pause to reflect where you came from. Change is scary, sure, but you can’t live in a bubble. We don’t regain control by shrinking from working together.
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Large scale migration has winners and losers. The winners are the migrants and their rich employers, the losers are poorer natives. Calling the losers cowards who are afraid of change does not change the equation.
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What’s your context for this irrelevant sweeping statement? Most of the European migrants I know here are doing the jobs that Scottish people can’t be bothered to do – cleaning, basic admin, service industry. Nobody else is losing because nobody else wanted those jobs. The ‘poorer natives’ are ‘subjected’ to a more vibrant economy because of the incomers.
People with limited outlooks and little experience of life outside of their direct community fear change, fear foreigners, and if the media and politicians whip up a blame story for kicks and power games, unfortunately too much of the population is quick to believe it. It’s the sad history of human societies. I thought we were past that kind of thing, especially here, but it’s clearly going to take centuries more of similar mistakes to learn this lesson. I think humans will eventually find a more sensible way to co-operate that doesn’t involve obsessing over geographical borders. I’m annoyed it’s taking so long.
But in the meantime, you build yourself a nice big wall around your property so none of those scary foreigners come in and take your squirrels away from you. Trump will help you. And your god – yes, your god seeks division and isolation in all things.
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If there is a segragation between the immigrants and the natives, then sure there will be losers. Wether it is going to be the immigrants, or the natives is not in any way fixed beforehand. The best solution therefore is to not segragate between people. It is to the benefit of all.
Winston Chruchill said very wisely, that democracy is a bad method of government, but the best one we have as of yet come up with. I would like to add to that, that democracy is only as good as how well the majority of any democratic body has understood, that they are also members of some minority and should treat other minorities with the same respect they expect themselves to get from the majority. Majority is always a group of other minorities.
Segragation between people according their origin is arbitrary, and it is evil in the sense of how much grief it causes. Tribal moralism comes from people not realizing how ethics actually work in the real material world and from satisfying some irrational fear, wich is an intuitive reaction of people who have limited experience of others.
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I’m aware of the argument that flooding the market with cheap labor is better for everyone in the greater scheme of things. I don’t know what to make of it, I am not an economist, but my suspicion is that it is a judgement call – some people lose their jobs, but hey, cheap food!
I frequently hear the parallel assertion that migrants are “doing jobs Americans won’t do” coming from college-educated Americans who look down on manual and even skilled labor. What they usually mean is “my lawn isn’t gonna mow itself”.
There are many reasons why “Americans won’t do” those jobs: one of them is that they are taught in school to despise labor. Another is that the pay for those jobs is bad PRECISELY BECAUSE they are competing with illegals who get paid under the table, and it makes more economic sense to collect welfare (which illegals can’t do).
As for the poor unenlightened rubes you despise so much, I’m reminded of my mother’s old neighborhood in Philadelphia. My uncle said he would never leave – he was born there, married there, had all his friends there – but eventually the local schools were flooded with children who could not speak the language and the teachers were simply overwhelmed. The quality of the teaching plummeted, and not being taught anything useful and feeling no duty to the community the immigrant children formed street gangs. They would chase my little cousin all over the neighborhood with knives. Eventually my uncle gave up and left for the suburbs. What in my boyhood was a safe and healthy neighborhood is now known for its murder rate. What would you have had my uncle do? Learn Spanish and the joys of knife fighting?
Things like community and stability are not absolute goods, sometimes you have to pull up and move. But people have every right to enjoy those things and try to preserve them.
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Welcome back, Violet! Progress always involves some degree of reaction. It’s never simply linear and additive. Progress, progress, progress, reaction, progress …. As long as the slope is generally positive, we’ll be ok. You must step outside of history with me and see the big picture!
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I’ll say the same to you when Trump is your president. 😀
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The vote result surpriced me totally. It seems like David Cameron played a dangerous wager and lost. I guess he relied on people making the descision on rational basis of long term consideration, and underrestimated the hangover the English still suffer from their lost empire? The negative side of human society? The leading power character takes risky chances and is praised, if the outcome happens to be seen as good how ever remote the chances were in the first place. Much like in economy, or in crime, as the purpetrator (the investor, or the criminal) really does not even consider the possibility of failure and only sees the possibility. The leading men are the optimists who always see the glass half full, because that is how you get to the leading position, that in your life the glass is always at least half full.
As a Finn I am mildly disappointed. Our Euroskeptics who are much the same bunch as our “immigration skeptics” do not however admit, that there is really anything wrong in immigration from other EU nations – wich much reveals the quality of their racism. The white men from Lithuania, Poland, or preferably from Germany are quite wellcome in their perspective, when they do suspect anyone coming from outside Europe, or even people from Southern Europe as Greeks and Italians are not white enough for them. Even Russians are more welcome here according to our own “breed” of racists, than people from the Mediterranean or Africa. It is easy to see why this division – a Russian blends quite nicely in the general population while a dude from Italy, or Syria, almost as much as a black man, wether he is from Texas or Somalia, stands out from any local crowd just by his perplexion. However, our government and our opposition are firmly established for staying as a part of the EU, exept for some extreme radicals within both.
Why the Brits fear immigration from the EU is beyond me. By far much more people come to Britain from the former colonies, like Caribia, Africa, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, just to name a few. The British Empire was the most extensive empire ever on the face of Earth, so no wonder there are a lot of immigrants. Or have I got this somehow wrong?
If Scotland leaves the UK as a result of the Brexit, then England will be in deep trouble, as Norway has managed fine outside the EU since it has oil resuorces, but the British oil belongs to the Scots, does it not? On the other hand, Britain is a large economical arena, and if their economics plummet, they might become the new Poland in providing cheap labour for the rest of Europe (only with less easily manouverable workforce). Not much different from what happened when Maggie Tacher botched the British economics in the 1980’s with her idealistic and naive capitalist conservative policies.
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It’s a mess. A nasty mess led by nasty people pushing nasty lies. It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. I just hope it doesn’t weaken Europe too much. There’s a loud outcry from younger people (65% voted to stay) about how the older generations who voted to leave have stripped them of the benefits they took for granted – freedom of movement within Europe is a huge loss, immigration has worked both ways.
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