Brexit discussion thread XIII (Please read OP before posting)

RobMc59

yagan wrote: »

There were a pubs near where I was living in England that flew paratrooper flags around poppy season, obviously not places for an Irish person to go for the craic.

When you say paratrooper flags do you mean parachute regiment flags?
When last in Derry I saw a few of those flags on the waterside of the city.

yagan

breezy1985 wrote: »

I even once had to step in and help a woman when neither herself or the bank clerk could remember whether it was Dublin or Belfast that used Sterling.

One of our Scottish friends used to love paying for his round with Scottish notes because when they'd get knocked back his English Brexiter friends would have to pay for him.

breezy1985

Dr Cockhound wrote: »

To be fair, most right thinking locals would avoid such places as well. There's also an unspoken rule of peaceful, social drinking that any pub with a flat roof is to be avoided.
Out of curiosity Yagan, whereabouts where you living at the time?

I never thought of the flat roof but your spot on. My rule was never go to a pub in London if it was called "The Rising Sun"

In fairness most of the racism I saw towards EU citizens was English people bad mouthing foreigners assuming I was not a foreigner

yagan

Dr Cockhound wrote: »

To be fair, most right thinking locals would avoid such places as well. There's also an unspoken rule of peaceful, social drinking that any pub with a flat roof is to be avoided.
Out of curiosity Yagan, whereabouts where you living at the time?

North England, heavy Leave vote area.

I know what you mean about the flat roofed pub, or estate pubs as I've head them also called. Lots of them with names involving Wellington, Victoria, Nelson, Trafalgar, Waterloo etc... each November I was there the poppy festooning got more elaborate. Older Irish who'd been there for decades told it never used to be like that.

Dr Cockhound

yagan wrote: »

North England, heavy Leave vote area.

I know what you mean about the flat roofed pub, or estate pubs as I've head them also called. Lots of them with names involving Wellington, Victoria, Nelson, Trafalgar, Waterloo etc... each November I was there the poppy festooning got more elaborate. Older Irish who'd been there for decades told it never used to be like that.

Indeed it didn't. I put it down to the increasing fetishisation of causes due to social media.

The herd don't care about the Poppy or its purpose, it's more about being seen to wear one.

Standing outside applauding key workers will be forgotten once Covid19 becomes a memory. It's all a convenient way of pretending to do something whilst expending little or no effort.


Apologies all, I fear I'm unintentionally dragging the discussion off topic.

Thargor

Shelga wrote: »

Mark Francois has resurfaced in the HoC. How I haven’t missed him.

Yes Ive seen him popping up more and more in my newsfeeds in the past couple of days, wonder if he settled his *cough* proceedings or if a judge set the date 18 months+ in the future or something like that?

Something else Ive noticed in my feeds lately is the Express/Mail/few others referring to the ERG and other hard Brexiters as "Spartans", its happening too often to be coincidence.

Jizique

Thargor wrote: »

Yes Ive seen him popping up more and more in my newsfeeds in the past couple of days, wonder if he settled his *cough* proceedings or if a judge set the date 18 months+ in the future or something like that?

Something else Ive noticed in my feeds lately is the Express/Mail/few others referring to the ERG and other hard Brexiters as "Spartans", its happening too often to be coincidence.

The police decided not to proceed with the case.

This is the starting gun for the 2024 election, which will be fought on brexit.

writhen

Thargor wrote: »

Yes Ive seen him popping up more and more in my newsfeeds in the past couple of days, wonder if he settled his *cough* proceedings or if a judge set the date 18 months+ in the future or something like that?

Something else Ive noticed in my feeds lately is the Express/Mail/few others referring to the ERG and other hard Brexiters as "Spartans", its happening too often to be coincidence.

Charges were dropped. Case "did not meet the evidential test"

Imreoir2

breezy1985 wrote: »

Problem for a lot of these companies is shipping to Ireland alone is not worth it given the niche market so all our orders go through the UK

I think you might be exagerating to suggest that it is not worth supplying Ireland. It was just more convinient to bundle Ireland into the UK supply line. That link has been broken, but I doubt many companies will take the long term decision to pull out of Ireland entirely as a result. There will be some disruption as supply lines are diverted and settle down again, and there may be a slight increase in cost to consumers here to cover greater transport costs, but that is likely all we have to worry about.

Dave0301

Thargor wrote: »

Yes Ive seen him popping up more and more in my newsfeeds in the past couple of days, wonder if he settled his *cough* proceedings or if a judge set the date 18 months+ in the future or something like that?

Something else Ive noticed in my feeds lately is the Express/Mail/few others referring to the ERG and other hard Brexiters as "Spartans", its happening too often to be coincidence.

Given the vitriol he is spewing in the HoC I am already missing his enforced hiatus. Using this kind of language in relation to the EU and Brexit is what led to it being so divisive in the first place.

Starting his speech holding a copy of the 1,2000 page Brexit agreement, Conservative Mark Francois says "the war is over" and, addressing his eurosceptic colleagues adds "perhaps we should now lower our spears."

However he goes on to say: "Perhaps we should keep them to hand just in case one day someone, perhaps the leader of the opposition, should try and take us back into the EU."

"The battle for Brexit is now over but I suspect the battle for the union is about to begin.

"We are about to write a new chapter, but now after a truly epic struggle we will do it as a free people."

fash

. It will be interesting to see the various landmines hidden in this agreement emerge...

yagan

Dr Cockhound wrote: »

Apologies all, I fear I'm unintentionally dragging the discussion off topic.

Not really, it's all related.

One of weirdest and funniest exchanges I had in England was not long after the vote and before the backstop issue when upon hearing my accent an old war vet who had proudly served in the "imperial forces" (his description, not mine) during the Suez crisis asked me what the reaction to Brexit had been in Ireland.

He was a full blown UKipper, had even stood for them a few times. I was slightly stumped by his directness, so as diplomatically as I could to avoid being a target for his anti-EU vitriol (he called the EU Nazis) I simply stated it would be hiprocritical of us in Ireland to not respect any country's desire to leave a union they weren't happy in.

I then explained that just before the Brexit vote we had just commemorated the centenary of the declaration of Irish independence from the UK.

"Was that something to do with a postoffice?" was his last remark on the matter before dropping it entirely.

I did find the whole exchange illuminating, his perspective was simply letting the Empire go for Europe was a huge mistake and he wasn't alone in stating that.

Strazdas

yagan wrote: »

North England, heavy Leave vote area.

I know what you mean about the flat roofed pub, or estate pubs as I've head them also called. Lots of them with names involving Wellington, Victoria, Nelson, Trafalgar, Waterloo etc... each November I was there the poppy festooning got more elaborate. Older Irish who'd been there for decades told it never used to be like that.

There is a suspicion that the poppy is now becoming a symbol of 'English nationalism', which was absolutely never its intention. I think Starmer is making a huge mistake courting these people btw, the so called Red Wall Leavers. It can only end badly.

RobMc59

yagan wrote: »

Not really, it's all related.

One of weirdest and funniest exchanges I had in England was not long after the vote and before the backstop issue when upon hearing my accent an old war vet who had proudly served in the "imperial forces" (his description, not mine) during the Suez crisis asked me what the reaction to Brexit had been in Ireland.

He was a full blown UKipper, had even stood for them a few times. I was slightly stumped by his directness, so as diplomatically as I could to avoid being a target for his anti-EU vitriol (he called the EU Nazis) I simply stated it would be hiprocritical of us in Ireland to not respect any country's desire to leave a union they weren't happy in.

I then explained that just before the Brexit vote we had just commemorated the centenary of the declaration of Irish independence from the UK.

"Was that something to do with a postoffice?" was his last remark on the matter before dropping it entirely.

I did find the whole exchange illuminating, his perspective was simply letting the Empire go for Europe was a huge mistake and he wasn't alone in stating that.

If he knew about events at a certain post office he was pulling your leg and obviously knew a lot more than he was letting on.

Dr Cockhound

yagan wrote: »

Not really, it's all related.

One of weirdest and funniest exchanges I had in England was not long after the vote and before the backstop issue when upon hearing my accent an old war vet who had proudly served in the "imperial forces" (his description, not mine) during the Suez crisis asked me what the reaction to Brexit had been in Ireland.

He was a full blown UKipper, had even stood for them a few times. I was slightly stumped by his directness, so as diplomatically as I could to avoid being a target for his anti-EU vitriol (he called the EU Nazis) I simply stated it would be hiprocritical of us in Ireland to not respect any country's desire to leave a union they weren't happy in.

I then explained that just before the Brexit vote we had just commemorated the centenary of the declaration of Irish independence from the UK.

"Was that something to do with a postoffice?" was his last remark on the matter before dropping it entirely.

I did find the whole exchange illuminating, his perspective was simply letting the Empire go for Europe was a huge mistake and he wasn't alone in stating that.

For all of their bluster, UKIP at the height of their prominence only ever won one single seat in the Westminster Parliament, and he resigned and became an independent.

These kind of people are a tiny but very visible minority in the UK, and generally go by the name of 'Nutters'.


You were very unfortunate indeed, to bump into that twat.

yagan

RobMc59 wrote: »

If he knew about events at a certain post office he was pulling your leg and obviously knew a lot more than he was letting on.

He was a military history buff, he'd heard of the Larne gun too but didn't know the detail. However in his mind all the old empire are all just chums and Brexit was an opportunity to get the old gang back together. He also still thought Britain was still Ireland's biggest export market and our largest exports were butter and beef.

He was definitely more comfortable steering discussions back towards glorious imperial era struggles like Waterloo, the Spanish Armada, the Somme, D Day etc.. He couldn't mention the EU without referring to them as those Nazis in Brussels.

He was nominated numerous times for UKip so his outlook certainly wasn't an outlier.

A Dub in Glasgo

Deal passed as expected

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1344292403381985280

yagan

Dr Cockhound wrote: »

You were very unfortunate indeed, to bump into that twat.

I actually found it rather interesting really. He was never rude to me personally, he just had a world view formed when Britain still had a empire and he couldn't see anything positive about losing it.

yagan

yagan wrote: »

North England, heavy Leave vote area.

I know what you mean about the flat roofed pub, or estate pubs as I've head them also called. Lots of them with names involving Wellington, Victoria, Nelson, Trafalgar, Waterloo etc... each November I was there the poppy festooning got more elaborate. Older Irish who'd been there for decades told it never used to be like that.

Easy to blame social media and I won't argue it's not a part of it but it's very easy to forget the deprivation and poverty there is in the North of England. I was talking to my mother recently about the documentary on Netflix about Peter Sutcliffe and she was saying about the state of some of the places and I could bet that some of them still have the same rubble lying in the same wasteland.
Decades and decades of neglect and decay has to permeate the culture, even those who are doing comparatively OK. In the 80s they at least had Thatcher to blame. In the 90s and into the 2000s things improved a bit, though I'm sure plenty had an underlying feeling of "things aren't quite as good as we're being led to believe". Once 2008 came along everything went to **** all over again. And that was with a labour government.
So yeah, a lot of people needed something to hold on to. Someone to blame. And 40+ years of little or no improvement while being told it's not their fault, it's not London's fault, it must be someone else's fault. So that'll be the Europeans.

breezy1985

yagan wrote: »

Not really, it's all related.

One of weirdest and funniest exchanges I had in England was not long after the vote and before the backstop issue when upon hearing my accent an old war vet who had proudly served in the "imperial forces" (his description, not mine) during the Suez crisis asked me what the reaction to Brexit had been in Ireland.

He was a full blown UKipper, had even stood for them a few times. I was slightly stumped by his directness, so as diplomatically as I could to avoid being a target for his anti-EU vitriol (he called the EU Nazis) I simply stated it would be hiprocritical of us in Ireland to not respect any country's desire to leave a union they weren't happy in.

I then explained that just before the Brexit vote we had just commemorated the centenary of the declaration of Irish independence from the UK.

"Was that something to do with a postoffice?" was his last remark on the matter before dropping it entirely.

I did find the whole exchange illuminating, his perspective was simply letting the Empire go for Europe was a huge mistake and he wasn't alone in stating that.

Show some respect
That man lost a lot of good friends on the Death Star

yagan

Deleted User wrote: »

Easy to blame social media and I won't argue it's not a part of it but it's very easy to forget the deprivation and poverty there is in the North of England. I was talking to my mother recently about the documentary on Netflix about Peter Sutcliffe and she was saying about the state of some of the places and I could bet that some of them still have the same rubble lying in the same wasteland.
Decades and decades of neglect and decay has to permeate the culture, even those who are doing comparatively OK. In the 80s they at least had Thatcher to blame. In the 90s and into the 2000s things improved a bit, though I'm sure plenty had an underlying feeling of "things aren't quite as good as we're being led to believe". Once 2008 came along everything went to **** all over again. And that was with a labour government.
So yeah, a lot of people needed something to hold on to. Someone to blame. And 40+ years of little or no improvement while being told it's not their fault, it's not London's fault, it must be someone else's fault. So that'll be the Europeans.

Most people in Ireland think only of London when they imagine England, but if they stood in places like Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Bradford, Blackpool and Huddersfield they might understand why some people could think things couldn't get worse.

I really found the whole landscape of post industrial decline in north England overwhelming. I'd traveled in a few former soviet bloc countries just after the fall of the Berlin wall but none of that felt as grim.

kowloon

yagan wrote: »

I really found the whole landscape of post industrial decline in north England overwhelming. I'd traveled in a few former soviet bloc countries just after the fall of the Berlin wall but none of that felt as grim.

I've been to a few towns in the UK that had the whole crumbling concrete vibe to them. It would definitely colour your perception of the world (grey).

breezy1985

yagan wrote: »

Most people in Ireland think only of London when they imagine England, but if they stood in places like Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Bradford, Blackpool and Huddersfield they might understand why some people could think things couldn't get worse.

I really found the whole landscape of post industrial decline in north England overwhelming. I'd traveled in a few former soviet bloc countries just after the fall of the Berlin wall but none of that felt as grim.

Some of those towns have a real strange feel alright. I can't think of anywhere in Ireland has the same sense of irreversible decline about them especially the towns built solely on the coal trade and I really can't see any future for those places other than a slow migration away for the population of those towns.

But it's still no excuse for voting for something and someone who will make it even worse

kowloon

breezy1985 wrote: »

But it's still no excuse for voting for something and someone who will make it even worse

Like the rust-belt Trump voters. If things are bad it's easier to believe any kind of change is good.

yagan

breezy1985 wrote: »

But it's still no excuse for voting for something and someone who will make it even worse

If I grew up on one of those towns where the world is falling down around me under both Tory and Labour governments I'd be tempted to flip the table, especially if things like the Euro are talked of negatively by both parties.

In these places "take back control" may as well be "stop local decay!".

Strazdas

yagan wrote: »

Most people in Ireland think only of London when they imagine England, but if they stood in places like Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Bradford, Blackpool and Huddersfield they might understand why some people could think things couldn't get worse.

I really found the whole landscape of post industrial decline in north England overwhelming. I'd traveled in a few former soviet bloc countries just after the fall of the Berlin wall but none of that felt as grim.

I've been to Manchester a few times in the last couple of years and went well out into the suburbs like Oldham. I was a bit shocked at how run down parts of the city were. As you say, grim and post-industrial looking.

I got chatting with a friendly Pakistani taxi driver on one trip and he told me London felt like a whole world away, a different country nearly.

Captain Lugger

yagan wrote: »

If I grew up on one of those towns where the world is falling down around me under both Tory and Labour governments I'd be tempted to flip the table, especially if things like the Euro are talked of negatively by both parties.

In these places "take back control" may as well be "stop local decay!".

It will accelerate decay and I'm flummoxed as to there being any upside at all. More pertinently, I lived and worked in Bristol for a year in 2011 and the hostility to 'foreigners' and 'Brussels' by some very vocal working class people I worked with persuaded me that what has come to pass would happen. I've lived on and off in England over the years but mainly in London but never saw the visceral hatred towards the other there, that I saw in the west of England. Curiously enough me being Irish wasn't an issue for most of these proto-Brexiters, but one manager that I worked with had to be told firmly I wasn't either an IRA or SF sympathiser in any shape or form.

It is going to be very strange over the next while and the Moon on a Stick is not going to be delivered to the people who expected it. How that will turn out is anyone's guess.

yagan

Strazdas wrote: »

I got chatting with a friendly Pakistani taxi driver on one trip and he told me London felt like a whole world away, a different country nearly.

Was listening to a community radio station somewhere out of Manchester and an old guy who'd come from India in the 1950s was saying how many of his kids had taken up indian citizenship as they felt there was more opportunity back there.

Likewise in the few Irish clubs I went along to watch a GAA game most of the members were of the emigrant waves up to the 1990s. Their offspring were more interested in watching the premiership on another TV!

yagan

Captain Lugger wrote: »

It will accelerate decay and I'm flummoxed as to there being any upside at all. More pertinently, I lived and worked in Bristol for a year in 2011 and the hostility to 'foreigners' and 'Brussels' by some very vocal working class people I worked with persuaded me that what has come to pass would happen. I've lived on and off in England over the years but mainly in London but never saw the visceral hatred towards the other there, that I saw in the west of England. Curiously enough me being Irish wasn't an issue for most of these proto-Brexiters, but one manager that I worked with had to be told firmly I wasn't either an IRA or SF sympathiser in any shape or form.

It is going to be very strange over the next while and the Moon on a Stick is not going to be delivered to the people who expected it. How that will turn out is anyone's guess.

I remember watching a hurling game in an Irish pub in Manchester and some local English lad asked if that was shinty. "No, it's hurling" I said, to which he replied "yeah, but it's posh like hockey, ein't it?"

Where do you even begin with that?

Captain Lugger

yagan wrote: »

I remember watching a hurling game in an Irish pub in Manchester and some local English lad asked if that was shinty. "No, it's hurling" I said, to which he replied "yeah, but it's posh like hockey, ein't it?"

Where do you even begin with that?

Sufferin' Jaysus!!