[LatteLazy]

Brexit was sold to different people as different things. You're right for some people but you're missing a much bigger voter block: the lazy and jealous.

A shit tonne of brits haven't done much with their lives. They've just sat and grumbled that their job doesn't pay enough (while refusing to work harder or change employer or get a qualification).

At the same time, for the last 30 years anyone who worked hard, invested, got skills, started businesses etc has been rewarded.

The first group are really upset they're being left out. That's why you get all this talk about mysterious "elites".

The first group voted for brexit to fuck with people just trying to get on. They're actually very pleased that those companies are struggling and their workers are suffering. The first group would never have started a small business exporting to the EU. They'd have stayed in the pub moaning over stale lager.

This is result (and many more to come) is exactly what many brexiteers wanted and voted for: a fuck you for trying hard.

[agd]

To suggest that inequality is due to people being lazy is not supported by the facts. Opportunity is not equally distributed and there’s a reason many people felt left behind.

[makomk]

Not only that, the fact that some of these people don't have jobs is directly related to the things that were removed by Brexit and that "fuck with people just trying to get on". For example, the top comment on the other Brexit-related article on the HN front page right now is about how logistics companies are pulling out of the UK because it's just too much hassle and gave this as one reason:

"For those who believe the market will fix it: Well paid drivers no longer exist. The last time he has seen a local work as truck driver was in mid-2000 and meanwhile salaries have dropped to ~€700 and less therefore only some Eastern Europeans can justify that working as a driver still makes sense for them. There is not much wiggle room left in terms of just paying better salaries - even smaller freight-forwarders are asking themselves whether it continues to go there (at least for now)."

Think about that. A job which used to pay enough for British people to live on had its pay driven down so much by EU rules that the only people who can afford to do it are Eastern Europeans living in countries with much lower cost of living. (More specifically, by the requirement that people living in those low-CoL states and with licenses issued by them be able to compete freely with local drivers for deliveries.) In this case, the Brexit-related change that's fucking with businesses is literally the removal of the direct, casual reason why some people are unemployed in Britain - and the response has been to insist that it didn't happen, that those people were just brainwashed into thinking the EU was the reason they didn't have work.

(The Eastern European countries with lower cost of living don't seem to be doing all that well in many ways either after joining the EU, which is probably partly why they continue to have such low cost of living in the first place.)

[LatteLazy]

I didn't say inequality is due to people being lazy. It's not.

Nor did I say equality was equally distributed. It's not.

I just said a significant number of people CHOOSE (chose) not to take whatever opportunities they were presented with. Now they're upset because the world where you sit in 1 job for 50 year, get a pay rise every year, don't have to worry about anything, and get a nice house and to retire early is long dead.

Some of the most deprived places in the country voted to stay in (London) because they choose opportunity. Plenty of well off rural areas voted out because people their don't like others succeeding.

That's the great irony here. The people with the least opportunity and the ones at the worst part of the inequality problem mostly want opportunity. It's the ones further up the curve that are standing on the hose. Those who insist they're middle class but are really just workers who inherited a bit of cash or got a free council house.

[radicalbyte]

The North of England has suffered from generational lack of investment. If you follow the UK elections, there was a big fall of the "red wall", which put the Tories in power. That "red wall" are all areas which have been totally abandoned by the UK Government for the last 30+ years.

For these people, the "elites" are people in the South East: people in Greater London who have benefited from enormous investment - the investment which should have been spread out more fairly.

Because these areas have seen a lack of investment, they are cheap to live in. They also see a lot of Polish/Romanian/Hungarian immigrants who are doing seasonal / tough work (because it's cheap).

So if you're going to get **d anyway, why not take some of those smug **s down with you?

* Even TheGuardian are a great example of this horrible LONDON focus.

[jlokier]

> That "red wall" are all areas which have been totally abandoned by the UK Government for the last 30+ years

Ironically, in some of the poorer areas there's been a fair amount of investment by the EU (via local development grants). You can see it: There are signs on various local features and buildings saying supported an EU grant, with an EU symbol.

That EU funding in poorer areas is now going away, to be replaced by what?

The UK gov't promised it would make up for the lost funding, but I honestly don't believe them, because it could have done so before and did not.

[LatteLazy]

So now we're right done here in the depths of grievance politics. That's where I thought we'd get to. That's what I was talking about above.

Let me surprise you: I don't really disagree about the North getting a rough time. I'd argue about some definitions and whether that excuses crashing the rest of the country in revenge. But whatever.

Here is the thing though: why do you think that makes you special?

I am in Dagenham in East London. We were dock workers. Then the docks shut or went containerized and electric so there were no jobs and a lot of poverty.

Westminster, less than 50 miles away did nothing for us.

Ford came and opened a plant here because we were willing to work. They became the major employer.

Then they shut.

Central government again did nothing for us.

So we went up into London, got jobs in insurance. We had to start at the bottom. We had to spend a lot of money and time on overpriced trains. We had to retrain, office work is nothing like assembly lines.

Tell me I'm wrong.

When a load of that offshored, we jumped to finance.

Right now, they're building crossrail near me. The first investment we've had in a century.

I don't doubt the North has had it hard. But so had the South. I agree Westminster is a bunch of toffs with no interest in the lives of real people. But I'm as much of a real person as you.

The only difference here is we know no White Knight is coming to save us. Given the last 1000 years of history, I don't know why the North keeps thinking that the likes of Boris and Farage are "on their side". It's especially amazing to me that you call me and elite (first person in my family to go to uni, born and raised in one of Europe's most deprived areas, no inheritance coming for me) and not them?

Your comment on immigrants underlines my point: immigrants getting on and working hard is exactly the sort of thing people who don't want to get on and work hard find maddening.

Are you now ready to go to those fields and do that work? Or will you continue waiting for Westminster to save you?

I've been quite blunt with you here. Its not because I don't like you. It's not because I think I'll win something. Its because this is where we are. Whether I like it or not, we're in this together now. The North, like everyone else, will need to get on and go. If you don't think the North got the investment it needed before, it won't get it now, so there is no point waiting. Its go time.

This is the horrible truth that Farage and Bojo will never speak aloud. They'll keep lying and telling you it's the Europeans, the immigrants, the elite, the educated, the benefit claimants, and whoever else.

Now tell me I'm wrong.

[radicalbyte]

I'm not from the North. Grew up in Devon and lived in the South Midlands on the M4. Left the UK 15 years ago for somewhere better :)

The UK has - quite literally - decayed in that time. It's really sad visiting, seeing high streets gutted. Infrastructure dilapidated. So few young people. So many people in terrible shape. All signs of the economic disparity that the statistics showed.

The right have their modus operandi, they're the same everywhere. The two-party system in the UK (and US) enables the very worst of their behaviour because they're able to concentrate power more easily and have paths to minority rule.

I almost suspect that the Farage class of politicians are designed (and funded) to fill the gap which which would otherwise be filled by socially progressive populists. Someone to the left of Corbyn (who is center-left despite the media lies) but with charisma.

[notdang]

Just to chime in about immigrants, since I've seen them mentioned several times as hard working and willing to do so for little remuneration and you are suggesting that British people should be more like them.

I am from one of those countries that come and work in UK. The people that work in the fields for cheap, live in horrible conditions in UK, just to be able to send money to their families back home, their life is not in UK. That's not a role model for hardworking, these people are just desperate and would prefer to live a more normal, less hardworking life.

[LatteLazy]

You're right.

Actually making a go of modern capitalism (or whatever we call this) requires a lot of steps, over a long time.

I'm sure plenty of immigrants manage the "go where the work is" and "earn more" but then fail to manage the next step.

It's hard. But it's the only option anyone has and it does work. No one is going to wave a magic wand and make the North of England (or those immigrants) NOT have to work hard and take risks and "make it work". All brexit does it reduce the opportunities they could have used...

Thats sort of my whole wpoint here: not only is there is no alternative, refusing to engage is why people are in this position to begin with.

[foolmeonce]

I don't really see that. Working very hard in the UK pays very little, less than most second cities in the US, and it generally requires living in or near London with one of the highest costs in the world.

The general problem with the UK is that it has the expectations of being treated according to its legacy. It expects the world to keep throwing away money on financial services in London, because?! As part of the EU, if they switched to Euro, that could have made a little sense.

I think the US also spent the last two decades going into that legacy rut where it expects it can sell high priced information while becoming increasingly disconnected from the actual places information is used. The US is quite lucky to have had some industrial restart thanks to greater automation.

[LatteLazy]

People buy financial services because they're really really useful and important. I don't know why some don't see that. But no one is paying bankers trillions just because of our legacy.

I agree the uk and London are high cost. For the uk that won't change. For London, it's high cost and high wage. Maybe when the wages disappear the costs will fall. But I don't think that's what people want. At least not what they claim to want.

[foolmeonce]

Finance is important, a foreign national paying a premium for the inconvenience of services being conducted in London is a very old signal that is approaching worthless. It probably made a lot more sense when language barrier issues required a native English speaking intermediary.

The wages in the UK are embarrassing, I think your reference must be within the UK and maybe part of Europe? There is simply limited capacity and a lot of old legacy things competing to occupy London. Plenty of east coast US cities are similar. Not enough going on, but insufficient housing stock. Rents take too much of the profits and are driven up by older businesses owning things they could not afford to rent at the market price on their income.

[LatteLazy]

I'm not following your point on finance, surely people paying a premium (either cash or inconvenience) for London shows London is either the only supplier or a very high quality one? Otherwise why not buy local?

[foolmeonce]

> Otherwise why not buy local?

Yes, why not? Reasons like expertise on EU investments in English were already an eroding advantage. Many finance groups were already reducing the portion of their staff there and are now moving more of their staff to offices in the EU.

(The UK was in a tough spot because it wouldn't commit to the EU. The fix was to make a worse choice, the UK is too small and too dependent on eroding advantages to maintain what it had.)

[mrlonglong]

I'm pretty angry with the first group for doing this to the country. I've had to get an EU passport as it was vital to keeping my domains as a consequence. I shall keep fighting until the day the UK reconnects.

[LatteLazy]

Agreed. I think we're both in for a long "winter" until brexit voters basically die out.

[mrlonglong]

Scotland is quite likely to leave the UK and join the EU. Hoping that happens within my life time

[iamacyborg]

There are plenty of Brexit voters in their 20's and 30's. You'll be waiting a long time.

[LatteLazy]

They're really aren't.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028

A nice fat majoring of people under 45 voted Remain.

Edit: and that was when the bore happened, so that's not basically everyone under 50...

[Semaphor]

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/0...

A majority, sure. But that’s still 29% (or 27% with your source) of 18-24 year olds. That is certainly what I’d call "plenty"

[brigandish]

Where is the evidence for these two groups and the behaviour you describe? Anecdotally, my experience is quite dissimilar, so I'd be interested to know.

[Tarq0n]

You should read up on Dutch disease and how that might affect a country with a large financial industry and a highly regarded currency.

[LatteLazy]

Oh, I know only too well!

If only we'd stayed in, we could have joined the euro and fixed that issue.

As it is, places will have to compete or we'll need a second currency?

[iamacyborg]

> A shit tonne of brits haven't done much with their lives. They've just sat and grumbled that their job doesn't pay enough (while refusing to work harder or change employer or get a qualification).

This is neither fair nor accurate, and is the same kind of thinking that people attributed to Trump supporters in 2016. The reality is there are whole areas of the country that feel unsupported by their government.

Jobs they held have been offshored as a result of globalalisation and deepening income inequality ensures that they receive smaller and smaller shares of the pie, despite worker productivity vastly increasing.

[pwm]

Do you think brexit will solve this?

[iamacyborg]

Not at all. I think politicians exploited the plight of workers.