Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Minsky Moment]

Which in turn would align with earlier rumours that Johnson isn't big on actual work.

No way. 

[Josquius]

I could be wrong, but I actually suspect that in about 5 years time we'll end up with a higher level of immigration out of the EU than we had in it.

Why would EU citizens move to the UK in the next 5 years?

Pure immigration numbers yes.
Which I guess is what idiots shall rave about.
I'd imagine higher emigration from Brits will offset this a lot however.

[Tamas]

I could be wrong, but I actually suspect that in about 5 years time we'll end up with a higher level of immigration out of the EU than we had in it.

Why would EU citizens move to the UK in the next 5 years?

Pure immigration numbers yes.
Which I guess is what idiots shall rave about.
I'd imagine higher emigration from Brits will offset this a lot however.

I think the inevitable consequence of a hard Brexit will be increased imigration from Asia and Africa. It will be delicious irony with all these xenophobes voting Leave.

[The Larch]

I could be wrong, but I actually suspect that in about 5 years time we'll end up with a higher level of immigration out of the EU than we had in it.

Why would EU citizens move to the UK in the next 5 years?

Pure immigration numbers yes.
Which I guess is what idiots shall rave about.
I'd imagine higher emigration from Brits will offset this a lot however.

I think the inevitable consequence of a hard Brexit will be increased imigration from Asia and Africa. It will be delicious irony with all these xenophobes voting Leave.

IIRC Brexit was "sold" to many Indian communities as a way to make it easier for them to inmigrate to the UK.

[Josquius]

Yep. I can't seem to find the link with some quick googling but there was an interesting part with leaflets promising brexit for easier Pakistani immigration going around in a heavily Asian post code (in Bradford maybe?) whilst in the next postcode over, heavily white, it was brexit to keep the muslamics out.

[Sheilbh]

Why would EU citizens move to the UK in the next 5 years?

Sorry I meant immigration from outside of Europe not immigration out of Europe

I think the inevitable consequence of a hard Brexit will be increased imigration from Asia and Africa. It will be delicious irony with all these xenophobes voting Leave.

This is an area I'm genuinely optimistic about:


I think we had the worst of all worlds. There was no vocal pro-European or pro-migrant movement in UK politics and there was an alienated section that felt they were ignored and had no control. The Mayor of London was always the only politician who would defend the idea that immigration was good, even politicians who supported immigration basically felt you couldn't argue for it you just backed it - I mean remember Ed Miliband's "Controls on immigration" mugs from the 2015 election.

Brexit kind of radicalised our politics so we now have a lot of people who are vocally and actively pro-European and pro-migrant (not always the same people and I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have one of the largest, strongest groups of pro-European voters in Europe), plus the pro-Brexit voters are satisfied and feel like they've been heard. The change is good as someone on the pro-migrant wing who's always been annoyed that no political party actually stood up for immigration. It'll also make trade deals with countries like India a lot easier.

[Sheilbh]

IIRC Brexit was "sold" to many Indian communities as a way to make it easier for them to inmigrate to the UK.

Yeah. There has been really interesting polling of BAME Brexiteers on this. In geeneral two thirds voted of BAME voters voted for Remain.

Part of it was sort of annoyance around that, the other view that was quite common was that European migration was straining community relations and putting pressure on public services, which these voters contrasted with Commonwealth migration. I think that's a very rose-tinted, nostalgic reading of Commonwealth migration. But, you know, I didn't experience that so who am I to judge.

One of the other themes was that some felt that other member states were racist or Islamophobic and female Muslim voters specifically raised issues like burkini bans or restrictions on the hijab. And there was a perception of Europe as a "white fortress" - and the response of most European countries to the refugee crisis was raised (Germany is obviously an exception). And you know the EU doesn't monitor diversity but Politico tried to do some work on this and when the UK left the number of non-white MEPs and officials roughly halved, and we are not the location of half the minority groups in Europe - but I think that sort of thing was possibly noticed by some BAME voters who queried if all of the benefits of Europe were for "them".

But otherwise in general the BAME Brexiteers were the voters you'd expect - generally older and male, they were more likely to be non-British born. But I think there were more female Muslim voters who voted Leave than you'd expect given age etc.

[Josquius]

Its one of the many mistakes of the remain campaign that they never tackled this fallacy that the EU was somehow racist and brexit was  actually opening up to the world. All it would have took would be to point out we're free to make whatever laws we want about non-eu immigration....

[The Larch]

IIRC Brexit was "sold" to many Indian communities as a way to make it easier for them to inmigrate to the UK.

Yeah. There has been really interesting polling of BAME Brexiteers on this. In geeneral two thirds voted of BAME voters voted for Remain.

Part of it was sort of annoyance around that, the other view that was quite common was that European migration was straining community relations and putting pressure on public services, which these voters contrasted with Commonwealth migration. I think that's a very rose-tinted, nostalgic reading of Commonwealth migration. But, you know, I didn't experience that so who am I to judge.

One of the other themes was that some felt that other member states were racist or Islamophobic and female Muslim voters specifically raised issues like burkini bans or restrictions on the hijab. And there was a perception of Europe as a "white fortress" - and the response of most European countries to the refugee crisis was raised (Germany is obviously an exception). And you know the EU doesn't monitor diversity but Politico tried to do some work on this and when the UK left the number of non-white MEPs and officials roughly halved, and we are not the location of half the minority groups in Europe - but I think that sort of thing was possibly noticed by some BAME voters who queried if all of the benefits of Europe were for "them".

But otherwise in general the BAME Brexiteers were the voters you'd expect - generally older and male, they were more likely to be non-British born. But I think there were more female Muslim voters who voted Leave than you'd expect given age etc.

Something else that I also saw mentioned as one of the reasons why part of the BAME inmigrant community (I guess the older non-British born ones you mention) voted for Brexit was a lack of attachment to the "European ideal", as that messaging just didn't resonate with them, so any appeals at European brotherhood didn't work. I also saw a perhaps anecdotical case of the owner of a Bangladeshi restaurant complaning on how difficult it was for him to hire a Bangladeshi cook for it, and blaming in on EU inmigration policy, or somesuch, with Brexit campaigners promising him how it'd be much easier to do that after Brexit.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. I think that's fair on the European "ideal" and Tyr's right on non-EU immigration always being in our control. There were also specific EU policies that were sometimes unpopular in ways you wouldn't expect - so CAP was raised by some BAME voters as something that disadvantaged developing countries. I think the white Leave voter might mention CAP but it would generally be because it's "waste", or "corrupt" or whatever else.

But there's the general UK BAME voting patterns. So I think about 50% of British Indians voted leave, and British Indians are also the group most likely to vote Conservative (I think the current cabinet has more British Indians than any previous government). Pakistani, Bengali, black Caribbean and black African voters were far less likely to vote Leave but, still, a quarter to a third of those communities did.

[Sheilbh]

I think the sub-editors at the Times enjoyed this

[Tamas]

 

[Sheilbh]

A Labour front-bencher and her lover were breaking lockdown rules (I have sympathy with her situation, by the sounds of it he was married, they were having an affair but he's now separated from his wife and moved in with the MP - so I imagine you'd want to talk things through at some point). She's apologised and resigned.

[Tamas]

Sounds like they still won't introduce 20th century technology to handle voting in the Commons, they will just queue around the whole building instead of a single lobby.

[celedhring]

Sounds like they still won't introduce 20th century technology to handle voting in the Commons, they will just queue around the whole building instead of a single lobby.

So British.

i fully expect this to become standard procedure, and people eventually forgetting why it's done so.