The Brexit thread

[wheelnut]

Paying UK lorry drivers more = prices go up.

I think that outcome would happen regardless of Brexit, unless you mean stay in the EU and pay lorry drivers a pittance and keep using forrin ones, then yes, it's Brexit's fault.

I think the employment market is more global than it used to be, although that doesn’t mean I’m in favour of poor pay and conditions.

As an aside, isn’t your chosen part of the world famous for abusing migrant workers?

[DefTrap]

I'm in Ireland at the moment, there's other people posting on here from various parts of Europe, I've got friends spread all over too. Apparently there's a Europe wide shortage of drivers yet the only place that seems to be struggling to get stuff delivered is mainland UK. All Covid related obvs.

There's only so many fall-guys that the government can blame -
- Covid, obviously
- er, the EU?
- erm, previous Labour policy?
- oh, something about it being years of someone else's fault, the industry?, something a bit vague, something about there being actually being no shortages
- er, oh shit

But yeah, the government are doing their best and oh CORBYN!!, marxists!, champagne-socialists!

[Saga Lout]

North West mining towns are famous for their ethnic diversity even today of course

Burnley had a mine but it was predominantly a cotton town. And yes, the Lancashire cotton towns are ethnically diverse "even today".

[Saga Lout]

Perhaps you didn't get out much
http://revealinghistories.org.uk/what-e ... gland.html

Thanks for that link. I'd forgotten about the elaborately dressed black servants to signify our wealth that we kept in the cellar of our two up two down terraced house. How silly of me. Mind you, we only brought them out when we were having our portraits painted so I'd forgotten about them.

[slowsider]

Perhaps you didn't get out much
http://revealinghistories.org.uk/what-e ... gland.html

Thanks for that link. I'd forgotten about the elaborately dressed black servants to signify our wealth that we kept in the cellar of our two up two down terraced house. How silly of me. Mind you, we only brought them out when we were having our portraits painted so I'd forgotten about them.

Must've been crowded with the entire mono-cultural UK in with you. Or maybe the experience outside your gold-fish bowl differed.

[Horse]

Perhaps you didn't get out much
http://revealinghistories.org.uk/what-e ... gland.html

Thanks for that link. I'd forgotten about the elaborately dressed black servants to signify our wealth that we kept in the cellar of our two up two down terraced house. How silly of me. Mind you, we only brought them out when we were having our portraits painted so I'd forgotten about them.

Must've been crowded with the entire mono-cultural UK in with you. Or maybe the experience outside your gold-fish bowl differed.

It might be a complicated issue, but SL just sees it in black and white.

[Saga Lout]

Thanks for that link. I'd forgotten about the elaborately dressed black servants to signify our wealth that we kept in the cellar of our two up two down terraced house. How silly of me. Mind you, we only brought them out when we were having our portraits painted so I'd forgotten about them.

Must've been crowded with the entire mono-cultural UK in with you. Or maybe the experience outside your gold-fish bowl differed.

It might be a complicated issue, but SL just sees it in black and white.

I'm old and my memory's going. Is that what you're saying?

From the age of 5 to 7, i.e. about 1956, I went to school in Burnley and Leeds. In The Burnley school there were, if I remember correctly, two black children from the same family. I went to a couple of schools in Leeds and I don't recall any children other than white. I completed my schooling in Cumberland, as it was then, and those schools were exclusively white.

I have no doubt that in other parts of the country, especially cities with large ports such as Liverpool and London there was already an established BAME (to use modern terminology) population, but most of the country was white. It was very, very unusual to see a non white face where I grew up. The closest we got to multi culturalism was the Italian family that ran the local ice cream shop.

[Horse]

Must've been crowded with the entire mono-cultural UK in with you. Or maybe the experience outside your gold-fish bowl differed.

It might be a complicated issue, but SL just sees it in black and white.

I'm old and my memory's going. Is that what you're saying?

No.

There seems to be a concerted effort to convince us that the UK has always been an ethnically diverse ... pretty much the only black faces I saw

Are black people the full extent of your definition of 'ethnic' for diversity?

[Cousin Jack]

There seems to be a concerted effort to convince us that the UK has always been an ethnically diverse society, even though some of us are old enough to know that's not true. Growing up in the North West in the 1950s, pretty much the only black faces I saw were coal miners and mummers.

That matches my experience in the South West. I went to 3 schools in total.

The first had 100% white children, in a school of about 120 pupils.
The 2nd had exactly 2 West Indian girls in a school of about 600.
The 3rd had one mixed race boy. (his biological father was a negro US serviceman) in a school of about 350.
There were no Asians, and about half a dozen non-UK Europeans, mostly Polish.

Personally IDGAS what colour people are, but I dislike people re-writing history to suit their agenda.

[Saga Lout]

No.

There seems to be a concerted effort to convince us that the UK has always been an ethnically diverse ... pretty much the only black faces I saw

Are black people the full extent of your definition of 'ethnic' for diversity?

I don't understand the question. I really won't mind if you explain things to me.

[Horse]

You didn't see 'black faces', so is that your definition of ethnic diversity?

Seems a fairly simple question.


However, here's a couple of explanations:

An ethnic group or ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups such as a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area.

In basic terms, race describes physical traits, and ethnicity refers to cultural identification. Race may also be identified as something you inherit while ethnicity is something you learn.

[slowsider]

There seems to be a concerted effort to convince us that the UK has always been an ethnically diverse society, even though some of us are old enough to know that's not true. Growing up in the North West in the 1950s, pretty much the only black faces I saw were coal miners and mummers.

That matches my experience in the South West. I went to 3 schools in total.

The first had 100% white children, in a school of about 120 pupils.
The 2nd had exactly 2 West Indian girls in a school of about 600.
The 3rd had one mixed race boy. (his biological father was a negro US serviceman) in a school of about 350.
There were no Asians, and about half a dozen non-UK Europeans, mostly Polish.

Personally IDGAS what colour people are, but I dislike people re-writing history to suit their agenda.

My father's experience of WW2 was a single bomb falling at the end of his street. He didn't extrapolate that to conclude that it was the same in Coventry.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I would bet there're certain members on here who had loads of different ethnicities at their (British) schools, even 50-60 years ago. Personally I had many a Singh and Patel in my class at school, but then I went to school in the 90s.

What exactly is the point being made? There's some great conspiracy trying to convince us that there were more foreigners in the past than there really were? Seems a bit far fetched.

[Count Steer]

I would bet there're certain members on here who had loads of different ethnicities at their (British) schools, even 50-60 years ago. Personally I had many a Singh and Patel in my class at school, but then I went to school in the 90s.

What exactly is the point being made? There's some great conspiracy trying to convince us that there were more foreigners in the past than there really were? Seems a bit far fetched.

Not really thought about it before but we had the Singhs living next-door-but-one and a Jamaican professional footballer (with a white, English wife)* next door when I was a kid. This was in a Midlands coal town and it didn't seem remarkable despite the real sense of the exotic when we got our first Chinese restaurant and a 'Chinese chippy'. (Which became v popular, v quickly). The only sense I got from adults was an underlying unease about immigration, but these people were OK because 'They're neighbours, so that's different' or 'Have you tried curry sauce on chips? It's ace!'

*They moved in when the German woman with the English husband moved out.

[DefTrap]

I would bet there're certain members on here who had loads of different ethnicities at their (British) schools, even 50-60 years ago. Personally I had many a Singh and Patel in my class at school, but then I went to school in the 90s.

I was at school 40 years ago - I really can't fecking remember. There were some children and some teachers.
I went to a primary school in the home counties - I'm guessing 1970s market towns in Hertfordshire weren't especially diverse.
Then I went to a private international school in Belgium - I think the clue is in the name for that one. You would assume that was quite ethnically diverse, fecked if I can remember, it didn't seem that important when you were 7.

What exactly is the point being made?

No idea, some desperate attempts not to appear rassist? Or reacting to some conspiracy wind ups in the gutter press?

[Saga Lout]

You didn't see 'black faces', so is that your definition of ethnic diversity?

Seems a fairly simple question.


However, here's a couple of explanations:

An ethnic group or ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups such as a common set of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area.

In basic terms, race describes physical traits, and ethnicity refers to cultural identification. Race may also be identified as something you inherit while ethnicity is something you learn.

OK. I understand now.

When I was at grammar school we did have one ethnically diverse family move into the area and the two sons came to our school. At first we couldn't understand a word they said but they soon adapted. Nice lads, even if they were cockneys.

[DefTrap]

Is there anyone here that would object to fuel being challenging to get for a week or two, if it meant that UK lorry drivers got better pay and conditions?

Just wondering if you'd sit in solidarity with them, or throw them onto the fire and demand foreign ones be let in under a fast track visa.

You can give them better pay and conditions now, unless this is all just some sort of self-harming test.

The lorry drivers fiasco is a bit like the Nurses during Covid. Everybody has a go at Nurses, and then claps them (through gritted teeth in some cases apparently) as angels when the going gets tough.
Same with truckers - literally nobody could give a shit about them before last week - now it's solidarity brothers FFS.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I imagine the whole Top Gear truckers/prostitutes thing would hit differently now

[Count Steer]

I imagine the whole Top Gear truckers/prostitutes thing would hit differently now

Young woman hitch-hiker to lorry driver:
'Thanks for the lift, I don't know how I can repay you'
*thinks*
'I know! I'm sat on something that all lorry drivers love!'
Lorry driver:
'Oh no! You haven't melted my Yorkie bar have you?!'

(You need to be of a certain age to remember the TV ads).

[DefTrap]

Real world economics boss, if you choose to give UK drivers more pay

At what point does haulage become too expensive to operate at all in the UK? The Che Guevaras of the brit trucking industry get what they want but the hauliers can't sustain the cost, they close down and the UK relies on forrin hauliers? Or maybe goods can be transported using patriotism and british-common-sense?

Just calling out the Tories here because apparently this is easy.
I couldn't give a monkeys because there aren't any shortages here.