Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

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Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit?

Poll ended at 10 Feb 2018, 9:07pm

Yes
31
78%
No
9
23%
Dont Know
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 40

mercalia
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Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by mercalia »

The Guardian comes out with a load of codswallop some times and this is one of them?

How many younger people ( ie in their late 50s+) even know we had an empire? or what it was about. Admiration for it was waning around the 1920's when the cost was crippling?

This is just another attempt to portray leavers as some kind of misquided fantasts? Rather than as people with a grievance?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/03/imperial-fantasies-brexit-theresa-may?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=262776&subid=23601318&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Last edited by mercalia on 3 Feb 2018, 10:09pm, edited 1 time in total.
pwa
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies have given us Brexit??

Post by pwa »

Absolute rubbish. I'm glad the Empire is gone and want Brexit. To link the two is daft desperation.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies have given us Brexit??

Post by Cyril Haearn »

An awful lot of people are not interested in history like we are
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bovlomov
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by bovlomov »

I think the WWII narrative has been much stronger than empire among Brexit promoters.

The Telegraph was on about the Germans and the war, only last week; Boris rarely misses and opportunity to mention the war (in his best Churchillian tones); and Farage is forever going on about it, as if he was responsible for the victory. He is 53.

It's understandable how the generation that was too young to have fought in the war might experience some feelings of inadequacy, but someone growing up in the 1970s should have got over that. It's not as if his father would have had anything to crow about, being a drunk stockbroker who walked out on the family when Nigel was 5.

War veterans (with the exception of a few Blimpish types) were quite reluctant to talk about their experiences - probably because they had no wish to relive those horrors. But while they were modest, some of their children and grand-children are less so. Some of our Brexity journalists, insulated from the war by seven decades, are keen to take the credit by associating themselves with the victory.
kwackers
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by kwackers »

mercalia wrote:The Guardian comes out with a load of codswallop some times and this is one of them?

How many younger people ( ie in their late 50s+) even know we had an empire? or what it was about. Admiration for it was waning around the 1920's when the cost was crippling?

This is just another attempt to portray leavers as some kind of misquided fantasts? Rather than as people with a grievance?

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

I'm 57, I know we had an empire, I remember being told how great England was, I even remember being told how "we" won the war (no mention of Russians, yanks or any other Johnny Foreigners helping out).

I'm guessing most folk of my age (or older) heard the same nonsense. Young folk as you say probably know bugger all about it.
But then young folk generally didn't vote for brexit, folk of my generation or older did.

So ignoring "correlation doesn't equal causation" why is it not possible for imperial fantasies to be a driving force behind brexit?
There was no shortage of leavers claiming that brexit would "make England great again"- with the emphasis being on "again".

(I haven't read the article so apologies if it's saying something different. I'm tired and it looks too wordy... :wink: )
pwa
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by pwa »

kwackers wrote:
mercalia wrote:The Guardian comes out with a load of codswallop some times and this is one of them?

How many younger people ( ie in their late 50s+) even know we had an empire? or what it was about. Admiration for it was waning around the 1920's when the cost was crippling?

This is just another attempt to portray leavers as some kind of misquided fantasts? Rather than as people with a grievance?

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

I'm 57, I know we had an empire, I remember being told how great England was, I even remember being told how "we" won the war (no mention of Russians, yanks or any other Johnny Foreigners helping out).

I'm guessing most folk of my age (or older) heard the same nonsense. Young folk as you say probably know bugger all about it.
But then young folk generally didn't vote for brexit, folk of my generation or older did.

So ignoring "correlation doesn't equal causation" why is it not possible for imperial fantasies to be a driving force behind brexit?
There was no shortage of leavers claiming that brexit would "make England great again"- with the emphasis being on "again".

(I haven't read the article so apologies if it's saying something different. I'm tired and it looks too wordy... :wink: )


I kind of agree with that until the last bit about Brexit and Imperial fantasies being linked. I feel just the same as you about Empire. And here in Brexit-voting Wales there was little desire to make England great again. Why do folk say England when they mean Britain or UK?
mercalia
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by mercalia »

bovlomov wrote:I think the WWII narrative has been much stronger than empire among Brexit promoters.

The Telegraph was on about the Germans and the war, only last week; Boris rarely misses and opportunity to mention the war (in his best Churchillian tones); and Farage is forever going on about it, as if he was responsible for the victory. He is 53.

It's understandable how the generation that was too young to have fought in the war might experience some feelings of inadequacy, but someone growing up in the 1970s should have got over that. It's not as if his father would have had anything to crow about, being a drunk stockbroker who walked out on the family when Nigel was 5.

War veterans (with the exception of a few Blimpish types) were quite reluctant to talk about their experiences - probably because they had no wish to relive those horrors. But while they were modest, some of their children and grand-children are less so. Some of our Brexity journalists, insulated from the war by seven decades, are keen to take the credit by associating themselves with the victory.


but thats the politicians and the vociferous few and they are out of touch with leavers I think. The article seems to be saying some thing about leavers in general & mistaking these few voices for the many. I am of the generation just after the war and of course have seen the war films and zulu and various b/w kipling type films about the North West Frontier in India, but they dont figure much in my thinking - by the time I became aware the empire was really history you see in films not a living reallity to mourne the passing of. Had I been of age during the war then maybe the empire would have been real as I would probably have seen the various news reels about it at the cinema?
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bovlomov
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by bovlomov »

mercalia wrote:but thats the politicians and the vociferous few and they are out of touch with leavers I think.

I have no doubt that the Leave promoters were nothing like most Leave voters, but I suppose they must have connected on some level in order to win the referendum.
pwa
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by pwa »

bovlomov wrote:
mercalia wrote:but thats the politicians and the vociferous few and they are out of touch with leavers I think.

I have no doubt that the Leave promoters were nothing like most Leave voters, but I suppose they must have connected on some level in order to win the referendum.


Not me. I'd never vote UKIP, or for Boris as PM. JRM is some sort of Wodehouse caricature, not a real person. The Leave politicians were "leading" a tidal wave that needed no leading.
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Cunobelin
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by Cunobelin »

I know of one "Leave" fanatic who is appalled that we still have foreigners in the country and that they are still taking "British Jobs"

They honestly thought that anyone non-British would have been deported by now

He is a fanatic and just one extreme example

It is not possible to neatly sort and file 'Leave" or "Stay" campaigners into a single category to suit a personal political agenda
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by Cyril Haearn »

In the 1970s we laughed and learned from Dads Army and Colditz
Later I visited Colditz, +1!
Now some of my best friends are German :)
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kwackers
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by kwackers »

pwa wrote:Why do folk say England when they mean Britain or UK?

No idea, I was just repeating what I'd heard.
Britain and England seem to be interchangeable in most people's vocabulary - I wonder how many people on the street actually know the difference? I bet it's lower than you'd hope...
(Probably higher amongst immigrants who had to pass the immigration tests :wink: ).
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Mick F
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by Mick F »

I don't find that at all.
People I know, know full well which is which.

May because we live in Cornwall.
We may be in Cornwall, but we're in Great Britain and/or UK ................. never in England.
Mick F. Cornwall
kwackers
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by kwackers »

Mick F wrote:I don't find that at all.
People I know, know full well which is which.

May because we live in Cornwall.
We may be in Cornwall, but we're in Great Britain and/or UK ................. never in England.

Cornwalls nearly in France anyway, once that crack that is the Bristol channel finally opens up it'll drift across and you'll all be wearing berets.

For the first part I'd suggest there's an age component involved. :wink:
pete75
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Re: Have Britain’s imperial fantasies given us Brexit??

Post by pete75 »

Mick F wrote:I don't find that at all.
People I know, know full well which is which.

May because we live in Cornwall.
We may be in Cornwall, but we're in Great Britain and/or UK ................. never in England.

Last time I looked at an atlas Cornwall was part of England. Has it moved in the last couple of weeks?
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