Brexit: the referendum

Joe Random said:
I've been curious about something. In looking at voting maps I saw that Newcastle voted Remain while every other are around voted Leave. Is there something drastically different demographically/socially there versus all the surrounding areas?
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There's the student vote, and Newcastle is more cosmopolitan than the Geordie average.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Sunderland also has a Uni and voted leave
Durham has a famous University and voted to leave
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Yeah but.... Newcastle is quite a tight area. Sunderland less so. Durham was not just the city which I am sure would have voted remain but the county. Twice as many people voted in the Durham Area than Newcastle despite the fact that Newcastle has about 3-4 times the population of Durham city.
 
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Lothian said:
Big cities generally voted remain. The area around is rural. There are very few immigrants, or non whites come to that, in the NorthEast region but the rural areas have even fewer. Perhaps not knowing anyone from outside the UK (or the village/town in many cases) is why they tended to vote leave, scared of the unknown/easier to blame someone you don't know.

There is also a lot of poverty in the region. It used to be a centre of coal mining but those jobs were all lost in the 1980's and unemployment rates have never really recovered. A lot of people voted leave because they are unhappy with their lot and reason that things can't get much worse.
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I think maybe my problem is one of scale. I grew up in Southern California, and looking at the vote map I'm looking at it as one general area. The distances between Newcastle and (say) Gateshead to me seem like the sort which would differentiate 'upscale area' and 'not so upscale area' where I grew up, but not drastic differences in politics.

And I'd known about the coal mining situation, but was the employment effect from that concentrated in Newcastle proper, and not the surrounding areas as much?

I mean, I am a Yank and all, but I don't think I've learned everything there is to know about the place just because I watched an episode or two of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet". :-)


That said you will be fine in Newcastle, it is a fun lively and welcoming city.
What are you doing there/what are you wanting to do there? I live 15 miles away and I might be able to provide suggestions if there is anything in particular you are looking for.
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Mainly after Roman stuff. I'm finalizing the specifics over the next week or so, but I know I'll be hitting Arbeia, taking a trip out to Vindolanda, that sort of thing. I'll be hitting the National Centre for the Written Word as well. But first and foremost I'm doing my best to avoid anything typically 'touristy' (I'm staying at a BnB vs a huge hotel chain, for instance). Any and all suggestions would be most welcomed, thanks.
 
Joe Random said:
Mainly after Roman stuff. I'm finalizing the specifics over the next week or so, but I know I'll be hitting Arbeia, taking a trip out to Vindolanda, that sort of thing. I'll be hitting the National Centre for the Written Word as well. But first and foremost I'm doing my best to avoid anything typically 'touristy' (I'm staying at a BnB vs a huge hotel chain, for instance). Any and all suggestions would be most welcomed, thanks.
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South Shields, oh ****. I was brought up in the North East and have been back here for over 10 years and I still struggle with the Shields accent! I hear Segedunum is worth a visit. As you know there are Roman sites all the way to Carlisle. Perhaps when you have firmer plans start a thread. There are, I am sure, a few others who can give you tips and Francecsa who can scare you off.
Newcastle Sceptics in the pub is the 2nd Wednesday of every month!
 
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Someone just linked me this article from The Week and I thought it had some pretty good quotes in it which many here could benefit from reading, and really attempting to give honest consideration to:

"But what we've seen from a wide range of writers and analysts in the days since the Brexit vote is not necessarily worry. It is shock. Fury. Disgust. Despair. A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured. This is what happens when a life-orienting system of belief gets smashed on the rocks of history.

The name of that shattered system of belief? Progressivism."
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"...Except that many millions of citizens in EU member countries don't see it this way. It does matter to them, just as it also matters to them whether Turkey is eventually invited to join the union, and they don't appreciate having their concerns about the ethnic, religious, linguistic, and economic character of their political communities dismissed as moral pathologies."
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"If history is moving inexorably toward humanitarian universalism, then giving it a sharp shove forward every now and then might be necessary and even admirable. And it certainly won't meet any significant resistance. It will merely hasten the inevitable.

But what if progressivism isn't inevitable at all? What if people will always be inclined by nature to love their own — themselves, their families, their neighbors, members of their churches, their fellow citizens, their country — more than they love the placeless abstraction of "humanity"? In that case, the act of ignoring or even denigrating this love will have the effect of provoking its defensive wrath and ultimately making it stronger."
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The Week - How Brexit Shattered Progressives' Dearest Illusions
 
Joe Random said:
I think maybe my problem is one of scale. I grew up in Southern California, and looking at the vote map I'm looking at it as one general area. The distances between Newcastle and (say) Gateshead to me seem like the sort which would differentiate 'upscale area' and 'not so upscale area' where I grew up, but not drastic differences in politics.

And I'd known about the coal mining situation, but was the employment effect from that concentrated in Newcastle proper, and not the surrounding areas as much?

I mean, I am a Yank and all, but I don't think I've learned everything there is to know about the place just because I watched an episode or two of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet".

Mainly after Roman stuff. I'm finalizing the specifics over the next week or so, but I know I'll be hitting Arbeia, taking a trip out to Vindolanda, that sort of thing. I'll be hitting the National Centre for the Written Word as well. But first and foremost I'm doing my best to avoid anything typically 'touristy' (I'm staying at a BnB vs a huge hotel chain, for instance). Any and all suggestions would be most welcomed, thanks.
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Probably worth a visit to Eboracum / Jorvik. (Betty's, Railway Museum, Shambles Castle Museum, Minster.) Easy day visit down the East Coast line. Conversely just take the train North but make sure you sit in a window seat on the sea side, consider visiting Lindisfarne.
 
CapelDodger said:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ose-vote-leave-unemployed-benefits-sanctioned




Seems there's a mood about to bring the Temple down on everybody's heads.

Creating a situation where a protest vote can cause this much disruption globally is a Leninist's wet-dream and Cameron did it entirely by accident. Life never runs out of surprises.
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It's all about wealth inequality as far as I can see, with it rising in the UK for the last god knows how many years and looking to continue to rise in the future.

The fourth estate has spectacularly failed to report accurately on the reasons for that, failing to gainsay the entirely inaccurate PR put out by a series of Tory governments (and Blairs whateverthehellthatwas government) that all the ills of the common man were down to European interference and not down to domestic policies that seem designed to move wealth from the bottom to the top.

Once the electorate have been convinced that it's all Europe's fault and not the fault of the people in actual power (and their corporate paymasters) it's a short step to a leave vote.



Wealth inequality has been rising faster in the UK than it has in Europe.
 
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3point14 said:
It's all about wealth inequality as far as I can see
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Not likely to be all about a single phenomenon, any more than "all about Brussels/Strasbourg". Though I agree it is about that, but more so because of no income growth at the low end.

Wealth inequality has been rising faster in the UK than it has in Europe.
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That suggests the rest of Europe will blame each other and exit too eventually.
 
3point14 said:
It's all about wealth inequality as far as I can see, with it rising in the UK for the last god knows how many years and looking to continue to rise in the future.
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It's a global phaenomenon, and started with the Thatcher-Reagan revolution and the Chicago School Discontinuity.

Wealth inequality has been rising faster in the UK than it has in Europe.
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But it's still rising in the rest of Europe.

The parallels with pre-Revolutionary France are stark.
 
Francesca R said:
Not likely to be all about a single phenomenon, any more than "all about Brussels/Strasbourg". Though I agree it is about that, but more so because of no income growth at the low end.
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Let's not forget that the low end is getting increasingly large as the middle class gets hollowed out.

That suggests the rest of Europe will blame each other and exit too eventually.
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I think blaming Europe is the UK's knee-jerk response, and that's peculiar to us. Europe will blame the US, China, Russia - and the UK, why not.
 
CapelDodger said:
It's a global phaenomenon, and started with the Thatcher-Reagan revolution and the Chicago School Discontinuity.
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Before that.

But increasing inequality doesn't result in dissatisfaction nearly so much if there is still income growth across the spectrum. Actually even if there is not a whole lot other than inflation across it.

When there is neither that is trouble. There has been precious little of either since about 7 years.
 
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CapelDodger said:
Let's not forget that the low end is getting increasingly large as the middle class gets hollowed out.
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Don't really know what middle class means or hollowed out means. The tail of stangant income growth is longer and I assume that's what you mean.

I think blaming Europe is the UK's knee-jerk response, and that's peculiar to us. Europe will blame the US, China, Russia - and the UK, why not.
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Whatever, it will be "all about inequality" per our correspondent above.
 
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