The Guardian
What's on the minds of voters since the Brexit result?
Research by BritainThinks has followed the thoughts of leave and remain voters in two areas of the UK since the EU referendum
Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart
Sunday 24 July 2016 12.16 BST Last modified on Monday 25 July 2016 00.25 BST
In the run-up to the EU referendum, the Guardian hosted two focus groups in Brighton and Knowsley that shone a light on the impending vote. Sessions organised by the research organisation BritainThinks told a story of voters who were confused, distrustful of politicians and deeply concerned about immigration.A picture emerged from discussions both in Merseyside and on the south coast of a battle in which the remain campaign’s focus on the economy was not sticking while the £350m claim of the out camp was getting through.
It was clear that voters had lost faith in politicians, whose integrity appeared to fall further during the referendum campaign, with leavers arguing it was the rich and “unaffected” who were most likely to back the status quo. They were also upset about the intervention of President Obama. Remainers, on the other hand, regarded Brexiters as xenophobic.
On 23 June, Britain voted to leave the European Union. In the month that followed, how did those same voters react in the aftermath of the most momentous vote in the country’s political history?
Much like the rest of the country, the Guardian focus group voters woke up after the Brexit vote to an explosion of powerful emotions. An overwhelming sense from leavers was anger at the way they were being portrayed.
“To hear what the remain camp are calling the leave voters is dreadful. They are calling us stupid, uneducated, racist. It’s disgusting. And the fact that they are calling for a further referendum is diabolical,” said one woman who voted leave in Knowsley.
Another called on people to respect democracy. “I would equate it to a football match between two teams and when one team loses they wait outside for the other team’s supporters and beat them up because they won,” she said.
A third woman on Merseyside said she felt low about comments from younger people that the older generation had let them down. She said her son was furious and she questioned her decision but concluded that Britain would have to navigate a “few rocky roads” but eventually would be fine.
For remainers, there was sadness and confusion. “A few skilled – and almost universally posh – politicians managed to connect and lead this anti-establishment tsunami into a direction that has no hope of solving the problems they daily experience,” said one man from Brighton.
One woman added: “Why would they want to take away the opportunities for their children and grandchildren to possibly work or study abroad when they are older? Why would they want their children to live in a country that is intolerant, unequal and that will now probably suffer a horrific recession whilst being an easy target to terrorists ... I’m baffled!”
David Cameron had announced his resignation; Boris Johnson had already pulled out of the Tory leadership race, making Theresa May a clear favourite; Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was destabilised by an attempted coup; and there was a spike in race hate crime.
Britain had entered a tumultuous period with massive instability in Westminster leaving many people still unsure about what the 23 June vote would actually mean.
For remainers in the focus groups, there was a glimmer of hope that something might still change. “I think we should all go for a re-vote and I bet you would see the decision overturned, I can’t believe how many politicians are quitting their posts,” said a man in Knowsley who voted remain.
“Apparently some people think that article 50 won’t actually go ahead and we won’t leave the EU but will try and negotiate a better deal. I like this idea but wonder if we are just in denial,” added a woman in Brighton.
But leavers were left angry by the outpourings of the 48%. “I’ve just read that hundreds of young people have taken to the streets of London in protest of the Brexit vote which makes a mockery of democracy but they obviously feel strongly about the decision. I feel that the country is going to be divided for a long time to come,” said a leave voter in Knowsley.
They were also at odds over the issue of Johnson’s decision not to stand for the Tory leadership. One leaver from Merseyside said that despite her stance, she agreed with a Facebook post that was a scathing attack on Johnson.
“He rallied everyone to leave the EU and now he doesn’t want to face the consequences of what he has done. This too makes me feel really angry – bring us to our knees then desert a sinking ship,” she said. Another said she found him “quite endearing if a little bonkers”.
The voters also talked about the rise in the number of racist incidents. “I saw a YouTube blog about racism and Brexit. I am feeling quite guilty that my vote is involved with this but my intention was never racist, it was merely worry and concern towards monitoring and capping something maybe the government should have prioritised earlier,” said one woman.
A man in Brighton, who voted remain, said: “I’m noticing a lot of racist and xenophobic incidents being posted on my social media. I seriously believe the EU referendum has made some people more xenophobic and confident to challenge people of their intentions to remain in this country.”
One month later
Some remain voters involved in the focus groups were still holding on to some hope about what might happen, but there was an overwhelming feeling that Britain needed to move on from the referendum. The number of Westminster resignations had left participants unimpressed, with deep levels of distrust in politicians, and some had started to feel uncertain about the economy.
“I’ve seen a few articles today about the low value of the pound. It does make me feel quite worried for the future of our economy if it doesn’t bounce back. Feeling more and more like we’ve made a really bad decision,” said one remain voter, while another said it “reeks of recession”.
But there was no great sense of buyers’ remorse among leave voters, with most standing by their decision. One admitted to being worried, but said it was the right decision: “I’m surprised at the amount of scaremongering and nasty people around. A bit of fear sure does bring out a bad side in some people and we’ve really seen that. All in all … it’s shown that the public really do have a voice.”
Another said they felt “surprisingly optimistic”. Although one leaver, from Brighton, admitted to feeling a “little isolated” after so many friends voted remain: “It makes me question if I did the right thing.”
Young remain voters felt nervous about the divisiveness that appeared to have exploded, and about racist rhetoric. One said: “I think that there isn’t really a way you could have voted to leave without being closed minded and at least a little anti-diversity and that makes me sad for our country.
“Little hidden racists have come out of the woodwork,” added another who felt “disgusted, horrified, saddened and angry”.
But one leave voter echoed others by arguing it was about immigration concerns and not racism, saying it was great to have a “mixed culture society” but reasonable to be worried about numbers.
There was a debate about why Britain voted to leave, from a remainer who said the working classes were “manipulated”, to others who said people were misguided if they thought leaving would solve their problems.
But one leaver said the referendum had taught them that in Britain “we can fight for what we believe is right for us and we are not scared to make a change even if it does mean we’ll have to make sacrifices along the way”.
Some remainers hoped there was a chance of staying in the EU, but felt it was a risky path. “This morning I saw the EU flag hanging from someone’s balcony. I liked the sentiment but fear that despite people saying we won’t actually leave we will probably have to or there will be riots from all those people who voted leave.”
Another said: “I want another referendum and I want it now. Let’s get back to the EU and work with our neighbours for a better United Kingdom!”
But the more common voice from leavers was to say that things were now settling down and there was a task to get on with. One said: “Things seem to be calming down a bit, people are discussing the Brexit result as if they have accepted it and are moving on to the next stage.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-europen-free-movement-eu-migrants-paying-their-way-european-immigration-is-working-a7153551.html
INDEPENDENT
Voices
European migrants are not just paying their way, they're paying our way too
When politicians speak of a need to ‘control’ EU immigration, we should be asking why. The evidence shows that free movement of people is working for all of us
Charlotte O'Brien Sunday 24 July 2016
The misrepresentation of migration from Europe was a driving, corrosive force in the EU referendum. And now the referendum is over, free movement is the core issue in the debate over what happens next.David Davis, Secretary of State for Brexit, has made his distaste for free movement clear, suggesting that “uncontrolled mass migration” has been an “unhealthy characteristic” of our economic growth and suggesting that our “ideal aim” would a Swiss arrangement “but without free movement of peoples”. He claims his Prime Minister’s priority is also border control – even if it comes at a cost to the economy – because “that's what the British public wants, to take back control of the borders.”
But free movement within Europe is still on the table. Brexit may mean Brexit, but that Brexit still includes a full range of free movement possibilities.
We might seek to remain in the European Economic Area (the so-called ‘Norwegian option’), and so be bound by the EU free movement rules. We may choose an adapted EEA agreement. We might seek Swiss-style bilateral agreements, and so be bound by most of the EU’s free movement rules. Or we might have no free movement agreement at all.
Either way, Parliament will have to assent to the next treaty or set of treaties that will govern our relationship with the European Union post-Brexit. Since a clear majority of parliamentarians favoured remaining in the EU, it seems plausible that they may push for continued single market membership. And it is highly likely that if the UK wishes to remain part of the single market, free movement of people would be part of that deal. So we need an honest assessment of free movement, something notable by its absence from both referendum campaigns.
The strong evidence indicating that EU residents in the UK have a positive economic effect has been disregarded for years.
In 2013, the then prime minister David Cameron declared that “free movement within Europe needs to be less free”. In 2014, the government unveiled welfare reforms targeting EU migrants, announcing it was “accelerating action to stop rogue EU welfare claims” and that “abuse and clear exploitation of the UK’s welfare system will not be tolerated.” Yet the Department for Work and Pensions had reported to the European Commission in 2013 that there was no evidence of benefit tourism. This departure from evidence has distorted the ensuing debate, and opened the gates for negative, discriminatory campaigning. But EU migrants could not be benefit tourists even if they wanted to – which, the evidence suggests, they do not.
In the run up to the 2015 general election, Labour and the Liberal Democrats also emphasised the need to address EU benefit tourism. Labour’s Rachel Reeves called for a two year benefit ban and decried the “absurdity” of exporting child benefit to other EU member states, while the then Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg put forward plans to curb benefits. The result of playing to the gallery is that we have populism-led, not evidence-based, law and policy.
But the available evidence suggests the overall impact of EU migration is beneficial to the UK. EU migrants are more likely to be in work than UK nationals. And, according to the UCL Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, EU migrants provide a net economic benefit of £22bn. As the LSE Centre for Economic Performance notes, “this effects may seem small, [but] in the longer-run impact could be substantial”.
EU migrants are net contributors to public finances, and to a greater degree than UK nationals. They are not merely paying their way – but they are paying some of our way too.
Public services are potentially better funded per head than they would be if EU migrants were not here. If we scrapped free movement there might be fewer people in the UK, but they would be competing for comparatively fewer resources.
Studies have found no systematic evidence to link immigration with pressure on schools or the NHS. In fact, the average use of health services is “considerably” lower for immigrants than UK born nationals, and EU migration does not lead to an increase in waiting times, either.
Existing evidence is unclear as to whether there is a relationship between immigration and social cohesion problems. There are some indicators suggesting a reduction in shared social norms and civic participation as immigration increases, but these may be offset by the creation of more co-ethnic communities, which become cohesive. Other studies have argued that income inequality plays a larger role than immigration in social cohesion.
Many worry that the presence of EU nationals makes it harder for UK nationals to find jobs. But the perception of the labour market as a zero sum game is what economists term the “lump of labour fallacy” – or, as the poet Hollie McNish calls it, “crappy mathematics”.
The Migration Advisory Committee conducted a study in 2012, looking for the relationship between migrant work and the employment of UK nationals. For every 100 EU migrants working the UK, they found there was no statistically significant associated reduction in UK employment. In other words, EU migrants are not making it harder for UK nationals to find jobs.
Studies vary as to whether there is an overall increase or decrease in wages linked to EU migration, but in either case the overall effect is small (a 1 per cent increase in immigration can leading to 0.1-0.3 per cent difference). These differences are not felt evenly along the wage spectrum, however; the Bank of England’s research found that the biggest effect is in the semi-skilled and unskilled services sector, where a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants is associated with a 2 per cent reduction in pay, which might provide an argument for stronger wage regulation.
Overall these studies show that free movement is working. When politicians speak of a need to “control” EU immigration, we should be asking why. We are being urged to fix something that is not broken, and which appears to be working in our favour. Brexit need not mean abandoning a commitment to an inclusive, welcoming society; we need to preserve solidarity and unity as we navigate the unknown territory ahead.
Charlotte O'Brien is a senior lecturer in law at the University of York
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/munich-shooting-nice-attack-terrorism-robert-fisk-catch-all-finally-caught-out-a7153176.html
INDEPENDENT
Voices
We love to talk of terror – but after the Munich shooting, this hypocritical catch-all term has finally caught us out
How come a Muslim can be a terrorist in Europe but a mere ‘attacker’ in south-west Asia?
Robert Fisk @indyvoices Sunday 24 July 2016
The frightful and bloody hours of Friday night and Saturday morning in Munich and Kabul – despite the 3,000 miles that separate the two cities – provided a highly instructive lesson in the semantics of horror and hypocrisy. I despair of that generic old hate-word, “terror”. It long ago became the punctuation mark and signature tune of every facile politician, policeman, journalist and think tank crank in the world.
Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Or terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.
But from time to time, we trip up on this killer cliché, just as we did at the weekend. Here’s how it went. When first we heard that three armed men had gone on a “shooting spree” in Munich, the German cops and the lads and lassies of the BBC, CNN and Fox News fingered the “terror” lever. The Munich constabulary, we were informed, feared this was a “terrorist act”. The local police, the BBC told us, were engaged in an “anti-terror manhunt”.
And we knew what that meant: the three men were believed to be Muslims and therefore “terrorists”, and thus suspected of being members of (or at least inspired by) Isis.
Then it turned out that the three men were in fact only one man – a man who was obsessed with mass killing. He was born in Germany (albeit partly Iranian in origin). And all of a sudden, in every British media and on CNN, the “anti-terror manhunt” became a hunt for a lone “shooter”.
One UK newspaper used the word “shooter” 14 times in a few paragraphs. Somehow, “shooter” doesn’t sound as dangerous as “terrorist”, though the effect of his actions was most assuredly the same. “Shooter” is a code word. It meant: this particular mass killer is not a Muslim.
Now to Kabul, where Isis – yes, the real horrific Sunni Muslim Isis of fearful legend – sent suicide bombers into thousands of Shia Muslims who were protesting on Saturday morning at what appears to have been a pretty routine bit of official discrimination.
The Afghan government had declined to route a new power line through the minority Hazara (Shia) district of the country – a smaller electric cable connection had failed to satisfy the crowds – and had warned the Shia men and women to cancel their protest. The crowds, many of them middle-class young men and women from the capital, ignored this ominous warning and turned up near the presidential palace to pitch tents upon which they had written in Dari “justice and light” and “death to discrimination”.
But death came to them instead, in the form of two Isis men – one of them apparently pushing an ice-cream cart – whose explosives literally blew apart 80 of the Shia Muslims and wounded at another 260.
In a city in which elements of the Afghan government are sometimes called the Taliban government, and in which an Afghan version of the Sunni Muslim Islamic State is popularly supposed to reside like a bacillus within those same factions, it wasn’t long before the activists who organised the demonstration began to suspect that the authorities themselves were behind the massacre. Of course, we in the West did not hear this version of events. Reports from Kabul concentrated instead on those who denied or claimed the atrocity. The horrid Islamist Taliban denied it. The horrid Islamist Isis said they did it. And thus all reports centred on the Isis claim of responsibility.
But wait. Not a single report, not one newscast, referred to the Kabul slaughter as an act of “terror”. The Afghan government did. But we did not. We referred to the “suicide bombers” and the “attackers” in much the same way that we referred to the “shooter” in Munich.
Now this is very odd. How come a Muslim can be a terrorist in Europe but a mere “attacker” in south-west Asia? Because in Kabul the killers were not attacking Westerners? Or because they were attacking their fellow Muslims, albeit of the Shia Muslim variety?
I suspect both answers are correct. I can find no other reason for this weird semantic game. For just as the terrorist identity faded away in Munich the moment Ali Sonboly turned out to have more interest in the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik than the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Mosul, so the real Isis murderers in Kabul completely avoided the stigma of being called terrorists in any shape or form.
This nonsensical nomenclature is going to be further warped – be sure of this – as more and more of the European victims of the attacks in EU nations turn out to be Muslims themselves. The large number of Muslims killed by Isis in Nice was noticed, but scarcely headlined. The four young Turks shot down by Ali Sonboly were subsumed into the story as an almost routine part of what is now, alas, the routine of mass killing in Europe as well as in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The identity of Muslims in Europe is therefore fudged if they are victims but of vital political importance if they are killers. But in Kabul, where both victims and murderers were Muslim, their mutual crisis of religious identity is of no interest in the West; the bloodbath is described in anaemic terms. The two attackers “attacked” and the “attacked” were left with 80 dead – more like a football match than a war of terror.
It all comes down to the same thing in the end. If Muslims attack us, they are terrorists. If non-Muslims attack us, they are shooters. If Muslims attack other Muslims, they are attackers.
Scissor out this paragraph and keep it beside you when the killers next let loose – and you’ll be able to work out who the bad guys are before the cops tell you.
On this day in 1923 The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I.
The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. It officially settled the conflict that had originally existed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied British Empire, French Republic, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, and the Kingdom of Romania since the onset of World War I.[1] The original text of the treaty is in French.[1] It was the result of a second attempt at peace after the failed Treaty of Sèvres, which was signed by all previous parties but later rejected by the Turkish national movement who fought against the previous terms and significant loss of territory. The Treaty of Lausanne ended the conflict and defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic. In the treaty, Turkey gave up all claims to the remainder of the Ottoman Empire and in return the Allies recognized Turkish sovereignty within its new borders.[1]
The treaty was ratified by Turkey on 23 August 1923,[2][3] Greece on 25 August 1923,[2] Italy on 12 March 1924,[3] Japan on 15 May 1924,[3] Great Britain on 16 July 1924.[4] The treaty came into force on 6 August 1924, when the instruments of ratification had been officially deposited in Paris, France.[1]
After the withdrawal of the Greek forces in Asia Minor and the expulsion of the Ottoman sultan by the Turkish army under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Ankara-based government of the Turkish national movement rejected the Treaty of Sèvres previously signed by the Ottoman Empire.
Negotiations were undertaken during the Conference of Lausanne, where İsmet İnönü was the chief negotiator for Turkey. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary of that time, was the chief negotiator for the Allies, while Eleftherios Venizelos negotiated on behalf of Greece. The negotiations took many months. On 20 November 1922, the peace conference was opened and after strenuous debate was interrupted by Turkish protest on 4 February 1923. After reopening on 23 April, and following more protests by the Turks and tense debates, the treaty was signed on 24 July as a result of eight months of arduous negotiation.
- Treaty of Peace with Turkey signed at Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, 24 July 1923, retrieved 28 November 2012
- "League of Nations, Official Journal". 4. October 1924: 1292.
- Martin Lawrence (1924). Treaties of Peace, 1919-1923. I. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. p. lxxvii.
The Ankara-based government, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, moved swiftly to implement its nationalist programme, which did not allow for the presence of significant non-Turkish minorities in Western Anatolia. In one of his first diplomatic acts as the sole governing representative of Turkey, Atatürk negotiated and signed the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" on 30 January 1923 with Eleftherios Venizelos and the government of Greece.[1][2][3] The convention had a retrospective effect for all the population moves which took place since the declaration of the First Balkan War, i.e. 18 October 1912 (article 3).[4]
By the time the Exchange was to take effect, 1 May 1923, most of the pre-war Greek population of Aegean Turkey had already fled. The Exchange involved the remaining Greeks of central Anatolia (both Greek- and Turkish-speaking), Pontus and Kars, a total of roughly 189,916.[1] 354,647 Muslims were involved.[5]
The agreement therefore merely ratified what had already been perpetrated on the Turkish and Greek populations. Of the 1,200,000 Greeks involved in the exchange, only approximately 150,000 were resettled in an orderly fashion. The majority had already fled hastily with the retreating Greek Army following Greece's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, whereas others fled from the shores of Smyrna.[6][7] The unilateral emigration of the Greek population, already at an advanced stage, was transformed into a population exchange backed by international legal guarantees.[8]
In Greece, it was considered part of the events called the Asia Minor Catastrophe (Greek: Μικρασιατική καταστροφή). Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Turkish War of Independence. These included exchanges and expulsion of about 350,000 Muslims (mostly Greek Muslims) from Greece and about 1,200,000 Greeks from Asia Minor, Turkish Eastern Thrace, Trabzon and the Pontic Alps in northeastern Anatolia, and the remaining Caucasus Greeks from the former Russian province of Kars Oblast in the south Caucasus who had not already left the region shortly after the First World War.
The convention affected the populations as follows: almost all Greek Orthodox Christians (Greek- or Turkish-speaking) of Asia Minor including the Greek Orthodox populations from middle Anatolia (Cappadocian Greeks), the Ionia region (e.g. Smyrna, Aivali), the Pontus region (e.g. Trapezunda, Sampsunta), the former Russian Caucasus province of Kars (Kars Oblast), Prusa (Bursa), the Bithynia region (e.g., Nicomedia (İzmit), Chalcedon (Kadıköy), East Thrace, and other regions were either expelled or formally denaturalized from Turkish territory. These numbered about half a million and were added to the Greeks already expelled before the treaty was signed. About 350,000 people were expelled from Greece, predominantly Turkish Muslims, and others including Greek Muslims, Muslim Roma, Pomaks, Cham Albanians, Megleno-Romanians, and the Dönmeh.
By the time the conference in Lausanne took place, the Greek population had already left Anatolia, with an exception of 200,000 Greeks, who stayed after the evacuation of the Greek army from the region.[] On the other hand, the Muslim population in Greece, not having been involved to the recent Greek-Turkish conflict in Anatolia, was almost intact.[10]
- Gilbar, Gad G. (1997). Population Dilemmas in the Middle East: Essays in Political Demography and Economy. London: F. Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4706-3.
- Kantowicz, Edward R. (1999). The rage of nations. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. pp. 190–192. ISBN 0-8028-4455-3.
- Crossing the Aegean: The Consequences of the 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange (Studies in Forced Migration). Providence: Berghahn Books. 2003. p. 29. ISBN 1-57181-562-7.
- "Greece and Turkey – Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations and Protocol, signed at Lausanne, January 30, 1923 [1925] LNTSer 14; 32 LNTS 75". worldlii.org.
- Renée Hirschon. (2003). Crossing the Aegean: an Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey. Berghahn Books. p. 85. ISBN 1-57181-562-7.
- Sofos, Spyros A.; Özkirimli, Umut (2008). Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey. C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd. pp. 116–117. ISBN 1-85065-899-4.
- Hershlag, Zvi Yehuda (1997). Introduction to the Modern Economic History of the Middle East. Brill Academic Pub. p. 177. ISBN 90-04-06061-8.
- Yosef Kats (1998). Partner to Partition: the Jewish Agency's Partition Plan in the Mandate Era. Routledge. p. 88. ISBN 0-7146-4846-9.
- Koliopoulos, John S.; Veremis, Thanos M. (2010). Modern Greece a history since 1821. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 94. ISBN 9781444314830.
- Pentzopoulos, Dimitri (2002). The Balkan exchange of minorities and its impact on Greece ([2. impr.]. ed.). London: Hurst. p. 68. ISBN 9781850657026. Retrieved 9 June 2013. At the time of the Lausanne Conference, there were still about 200,000 Greeks remaining in Anatolia ; the Moslem population of Greece, not having been subjected to the turmoil of the Asia Minor campaign, was naturally almost intact. These were the people who, properly speaking, had to be exchanged.
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