I find it rather frightening that our man in Ruffec might be a teacher. Perhaps he’s a Corbynista.
Afternoon David, You can relax i am not a teacher, and although i agree with some of labours policy’s overall i don’t think they will make Britain better. I am Simply someone with 3 children of primary school age concerned about the amount of time there teachers spent helping children that don’t speak English. For some people that is not a valid enough reason to vote leave, some it would be. You go through life experiencing different things and that is what shape’s you and your opinions.
I am sorry that some people will get hurt by Brexit but no one should get shouted down or called names for having a different view.
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Hi Geof.
Thank you for the reply. I am only a Cox by marriage although I have researched my husband’s family which was more difficult than my own less ‘poplular’ name.
I made my comment because I had read that so many people did not know about future plans for the EU not because I didn’t know. Also being fiercely British, I feel any sleight levelled against Britain, is a sleight against me. (Sorry but I can’t help it) I have read so many website articles even though having lived here for nearly 20 years I was not eligible to vote. I tend to look towards those that are the ‘underdogs’ for want of a better word and see it from their point of view.
I think the last effort by Cameron to get some change to immigration was the last straw for some people showing that the EU really have little interest in the difficulties for some countries. This is quite apparent when visiting our home town in Gloucestershire, a quiet respectable town, that the amount of non English we hear spoken is becoming more and more the norm. My husband went back in August for the first time in nearly 16 years and he was shocked by the change. A long section of the main street was taken over by non English shops, great for diversity but a complete change which some people resent.
I do wonder whether the UK is no longer a democratic country with so many people going out of their way to make mischief instead of trying to come together to make the best of the referendum result. I appreciate that it is difficult for both sides to accept something that does not sit well with them but the hate and vitriol that is evident is alarming.
Personally, the result will affect me no worse that any other person as I will accept the overall decision, even if I don’t agree with it as I no longer have a vote and there is little I can do.
Not only is radical reform required in the EU, it is in Britain also. The UK governments of all colours have not carried out the necessary reforms to ensure that fairness is meted out to all. There are always those that do everything they can to cheat the system and it is these people that we should be targeting, then perhaps more poor people will get the help they truly need.
We just have to hope and pray that the final deal or agreement is something we can all live with and start to heal some of the wounds that have been opened over the last 2 years or so.
Best wishes,
Elizabeth
I thought he was referring to me! And I am a teacher. And I have a vast experience of teaching in schools where we had a steady stream of children arriving without any English and of seeing the progress they made, the problems along the way and the positive points that they brought to the classroom.
It’s interesting that Gloucester is mentioned in one of the posts; my paternal grandmother lived near there in her old age. She was an immigrant two times over, she had been born in then lived in India for most of her life, her parents emigrated from Ireland to India to farm there. Perhaps now, given my family history and the fact that I am an immigrant in my chosen home, as are my children, born in Germany but now living and working in Britain, I find it a bit hard to have much support for people who voted Leave on the immigration card. As has been pointed out, it is much more straightforward for EU citizens to settle in the UK than countries like a France and Germany. If that is the fault of anyone it’s the fault of the British government who have always had the power to tighten the rules, more than is of the EU.
Elizabeth, you can’t help how you feel, and most of us would have full sympathy with that.
But no sympathy with your assertion that, in a Gloucestershire town of your acquaintance, non-English speakers are “the norm”. That, IMO, stretches credibilty to breaking point. Which town is that?
And what, in the main street of an English town, is a “non-English shop”? Do you mean a shop that sells pizza, pasta, French wine and cheeses, baguettes and croissants, German or Czech beers and lagers, noodles, imported grapes, peaches and bananas, Danish bacon. rice and mango chutney etc. Or maybe the owner or check-out operator has a brown skin?
Not being “nasty”, Elizabeth, just wondering where you are coming from… 
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They will be living in bungalows next Peter and possibly having a siesta on the veranda by the rhododendron after lunch. I still don’t understand how people who have been living as immigrants in France for 20 years, and possibly shopping in British shops, using British tradesmen, drinking in British bars and eating in British restaurants can resent citizens from other countries who have chosen to mirror their lifestyle and become immigrants in Britain.
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Their teachers. Nobody’s shouting anyone down as far as I can see. Teachers are also helping native English speakers who come to school unable to tie their shoe laces and some who are barely toilet trained.
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Their There, seriously? Any thread (not just on here) about Brexit, people that bother to join in that voted leave are more than not called idiots, racist etc etc and are shouted down and receive big cut and paste sections from the Guardian. If you and some others want topics that are called “We know best” or " Brexit is for Idiots" or point out spelling mistakes, then you can all pat your self’s on the back at how liberal you can be then carry on. It will be a very boring topic.
Or the alternative and what i would prefer is to engage, listen and respond with others with respect.
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Peter, Perhaps I did exaggerate a little saying non English being the norm but one is more aware of the amount of ‘foreign’ language being spoken than from a few years ago. Anyway, I said it was becoming more and more the norm, not that it was. Normally, most people take no notice of people speaking the same language as oneself unless they are being particularly loud or offensive. When mixing in with other shoppers, the sound of foreigners is more pronounced and that is what I am trying to get across. I cringe here in France when I hear English spoken in a loud and annoying way, so it is a two way objection that I have. I live in an area where we are the only Brits so do not seek a British lifestyle here and accept that I am a guest in anothers country and try to behave as such.
As far as the shops are concerned, I think you are being a bit disingenuous as I am sure you know what I mean. Shops that are owned and run by those from another country. Not a bad thing if it is interspersed with shops that have English as their main language so the mix of people visiting is balanced. I quite like to visit different shops but in this case it has isolated to a certain degree many of the local people as they do not feel they want to shop there. I do not have to shop there as I only visit the UK occasionally now so it doesn’t affect me, I am only going on what others have told me. I have experienced the increased mix of different mother tongues though in some of the shops I have visited so have noticed the increase.
David, if you are referring to me in your reference to British this and British that, I inform you that I do not go to bars British or otherwise, I do not visit British restaurants, do not use British workmen unless I can no other alternative and do not even know of any British shops locally. The only time I do, is when I am in England no more than once a year. I live in a house, you know a bungalow with another layer on top, I have never ever taken a siesta and I don’t have a rhododendron any longer after the hot summer, as it died. I see you had the sense to write that the above suggestions were a possiblility and not an accusation but inference is still there.
I do not resent foreigners making a lilfe in Britain as long as they are doing the right thing and not being a drain on the British tax payer, just as we are here. All my friends here are either French, German or Dutch and I only know one other English couple, so I am hardly what you would call a British seeking individual.
I am going to mute this topic for me as it does not seem to be going anywhere (that I want it to go to!)
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I often do that… it is quite calming…
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I am going to join you Mat. Good idea.
“I’m only going on what others have told me?”
That’s enough for me, I’m out too.
Me too and I wasn’t even in!
Those remaining can continue to play with themselfs (sic)
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or with one another
It isn’t that Brexit is for idiots - I can think of good reasons to leave, in particular the fact that the UK (and UK voters) probably does not have an appetite for “ever closer union” - especially as the next steps towards that union might well involve moves such as closer tax regimens and/or benefits schemes or healthcare systems.
However the Leave campaign did not really focus on these issues so much - perhaps they felt (rightly I suspect) the average voter would not be that interested. So it went, frankly, for a more visceral campaign and aimed directly at voters’ baser instincts including xenophobia.
Pretty much Leave lied. It lied about the financial gain and the increased NHS funding. It lied about the logical outcome - for all prominent figures such as David Davis and Liam Fox offered platitudes about the single market it was obvious that the only logical way to meet the “control our borders” and “do trade deals around the world” promises was to leave the EEA - sadly I was not astute enough to notice the extent that would cause problems with the NI border at the time but they lied about that as well on the occasions that it did come up. It lied about how much we could reduce immigration, it lied about the real cause of problems with housing and schools and, instead, chose the simple but intellectually lazy path of “blame the immigrants”, it lied about Turkey joining (there was slim chance even in 2016, slimmer now) I could go on.
Not that the remain camp was all that better but the Leave campaign slapped down honest attempts to predict the outcome as “Project Fear” - and still does as that becomes “Project Reality” as if a stiff upper lip and a jaunty cap angle is all we need to ride into the Brexit sunset to adulation and success.
So, yes, I’m afraid I do tend to be a bit critical of Leave voters who trot out these largely discredited arguments - apologies if they are heartfelt beliefs - but I didn’t buy them during the campaign and I don’t buy them now so, while I wouldn’t say I will never change my mind it is going to take significant new evidence (and all te evidence so far is that the predictions were correct).
If, however you want to talk about the structure of the EU parliament, whether it is democratic, whether EU quangos should be shut down, whether Cameron was effective in trying to change the EU, whether the EU is truely blind to the problems of FoM and whether it could change in time (there are some moves to change benefits rules for instance) - those are more interesting
However, whatever you can say about the rights or wrongs of Brexit it was always going to be difficult to extricate ourselves from 43 years of close relations with Europe and we are doing it in the worst possible way. I blame Cameron here as he effectively turned an advisory vote to a binding one with all his talk of invoking A50 on June 24th; I also blame the EU for a lot of the early “well you voted to go so go” pressure.
the only sensible course of action is to admit we can’t do it on a two year timetable (despite the campaign claims), stop, figure out what relationship we do want with Europe and not just bow to ERG pressure and, if we are going to leave, do it properly - not just crash out on 20th March next year without a safety net.
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I think the subtlety of my comment has been lost on you stella
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Evening Paul, great post full of level headed examples and ideas to think about. Maybe if someone from remain would of stood on my doorstep and people i know and had a conversation about things you mention i think the vote might have had a different outcome. Or the government focused on the positives of remain rather than the negatives of leave the result might of been different. The general population are tired of politics, since the crash of 08 its just been a blame game and we are bored of it all, I have voted my whole life but i now wish there was a box for none of the above. Maybe the leave vote in many ways was a protest vote against the establishment, probably not wanting to win but certainly send a message to our leaders.
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Way too late for ‘level headed’ discussions, we either leave the EU (with or without a deal) or don’t, it’s that simple. The Labour Party had a great chance to do something brave this week but predictably chickened out.