Postby atbattersea » Mon Oct 08, 2018 1:37 pm
I think TAP makes a good point, the great inequality in the country. For a large section of the community the EU is just some abstract concept that they cannot engage with, and thus do not appreciate. They vote against free movement, essentially, because they think their livelihoods are threatened - but at the same time we apparently have very high levels of employment. They have had their heads turned by the likes of Johnson, Reece-Mogg and Farage, who are using these people as cannon fodder in their ideological battle.
We ignore those left out at our own peril. I always considered that having the eastern European states join the EU was somewhat premature. However, at the same time I realised that bringing them into "our" club and supporting their economies and democracies was good for the whole of Europe, because it gave us all stability.
It is time we realised the same thing about our own regions and the disadvantaged amongst us. If we pay lower income and council tax that affects the support the state can give, and consequently the poor get poorer and slip into delinquent behaviour that we'd generally wish they'd avoid.
I'm not apathetic about Brexit, but at this point I'm not sure what point there is in protesting, because ultimately we don't have a position on the table that we can or cannot agree with. You probably still have something like 25% of the country wanting a hard Brexit, because they do not understand the consequences, you are not going to change their minds.