4 ms·

As an American what shocks me is the accusations of racism, the anger, and the outright attacks on the British. Talk about fair-weather friends.

paganel 10y ago
I'm from Eastern Europe, have lots of friends who live and work in the UK. To see how important the anti-immigrant, anti-Eastern European discourse was as part of the "Leave" campaign was a real kick in the balls, so to speak. Hence the "the accusations of racism, the anger, and the outright attacks on the British"
k__ 10y ago
They never seemed to be really interested in the EU, often wanting their "own" thing, like keeping the Pound instead of adopting the Euro. Also, I found countries keeping rich royals around a bit suspicious to begin with.
tluyben2 10y ago
Yes, the outright attacks are not ok but if you look at the more vocal parts of the British Brexit voters a lot clearly have racist motivations. People I considered almost friends posted on Facebook about throwing all Muslims out after brexit, blaming foreigners in general for a lot that is wrong. Things like: 'it has gone too far, I feel like I live in Islamabad here! OUT!'. These people voted for the Brexit to refuse and throw out foreigners. In their minds anyway. So it is not strange as that is what people see. There are many who voted for other reasons but those are far less vocal.
- return0 10y ago
  It was expected that racists would vote for brexit loudly anyway. The problem is why everyone else, and especially what you would consider moderate people voted against EU (which is not really a vote against immigration; and it will barely stop it)
jacquesm 10y ago
Racism was one of the major drivers of the 'brexit' camp, as well as a whole pile of fearmongering. The attacks on the 'British' are just as dumb, since a lot of people (50%, plus a majority of the Scots and the Irish) are being dragged into this. It's dumb beyond understanding, but it's a nice insight in how much of the lessons learned during the last two world wars have been forgotten.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > It's dumb beyond understanding, but it's a nice insight in how much of the lessons learned during the last two world wars have been forgotten. It's a cycle - every 3 generations like clockwork. The generation that goes to war comes back swearing "never again", their children grow up hearing war stories, but everything is going well around them as they grow up. Their children's' children have long forgotten the lessons of conflict, and proceed to uproot the trees their grandparent planted. Rinse and repeat.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> Talk about fair-weather friends. To be fair, we continental Europeans have been at the butt end of patronizing hogwash and armchair economical and ethical advise from our Imperial friends from the island, so a bit of a role reversal is appropriate.
return0 10y ago
As an american you should realize that nationalist sentiments are stronger in europe. It's like baptists or racists or antifeminists lashing out against others in america. The problem is that nationalist sentiments are a lot more dangerous. The saddest of all is that there was barely any talk of talking out a deal instead of separation. OTOH i think most europeans do not consider britain racist relative to some continental countries.

paganel 10y ago

I'm from Eastern Europe, have lots of friends who live and work in the UK. To see how important the anti-immigrant, anti-Eastern European discourse was as part of the "Leave" campaign was a real kick in the balls, so to speak. Hence the "the accusations of racism, the anger, and the outright attacks on the British"

k__ 10y ago

They never seemed to be really interested in the EU, often wanting their "own" thing, like keeping the Pound instead of adopting the Euro. Also, I found countries keeping rich royals around a bit suspicious to begin with.

tluyben2 10y ago

Yes, the outright attacks are not ok but if you look at the more vocal parts of the British Brexit voters a lot clearly have racist motivations. People I considered almost friends posted on Facebook about throwing all Muslims out after brexit, blaming foreigners in general for a lot that is wrong. Things like: 'it has gone too far, I feel like I live in Islamabad here! OUT!'. These people voted for the Brexit to refuse and throw out foreigners. In their minds anyway. So it is not strange as that is what people see. There are many who voted for other reasons but those are far less vocal.

return0 10y ago
It was expected that racists would vote for brexit loudly anyway. The problem is why everyone else, and especially what you would consider moderate people voted against EU (which is not really a vote against immigration; and it will barely stop it)

jacquesm 10y ago

Racism was one of the major drivers of the 'brexit' camp, as well as a whole pile of fearmongering. The attacks on the 'British' are just as dumb, since a lot of people (50%, plus a majority of the Scots and the Irish) are being dragged into this. It's dumb beyond understanding, but it's a nice insight in how much of the lessons learned during the last two world wars have been forgotten.

sangnoir 10y ago
> It's dumb beyond understanding, but it's a nice insight in how much of the lessons learned during the last two world wars have been forgotten. It's a cycle - every 3 generations like clockwork. The generation that goes to war comes back swearing "never again", their children grow up hearing war stories, but everything is going well around them as they grow up. Their children's' children have long forgotten the lessons of conflict, and proceed to uproot the trees their grandparent planted. Rinse and repeat.

_pmf_ 10y ago

> Talk about fair-weather friends. To be fair, we continental Europeans have been at the butt end of patronizing hogwash and armchair economical and ethical advise from our Imperial friends from the island, so a bit of a role reversal is appropriate.

return0 10y ago

As an american you should realize that nationalist sentiments are stronger in europe. It's like baptists or racists or antifeminists lashing out against others in america. The problem is that nationalist sentiments are a lot more dangerous. The saddest of all is that there was barely any talk of talking out a deal instead of separation. OTOH i think most europeans do not consider britain racist relative to some continental countries.