The UK has left the European Union

[Jungibaaz]

They blamed the old, the same old who charged the beaches of Normandy, the same old who built this country, and gave the young the wonderful standard of life they have. Their ungrateful behaviour knew no bounds, having contributed nothing themselves, and then insult the elders who they should thank day and night for their freedoms.

Boomers and the like had nothing to do with WWII or Normandy. In order to have even been of age during WWII (18 years by VE day in 1945), one needs to have been born no later than mid-1927.

Meaning that in order to have even been of age during WWII, by the time of the June 2016 EU referendum, you need to have been at least >89 years old. To put this into perspective, that's a little over >0.61% of the entire UK population (both sexes included).

To give you a rough estimate of how many living WWII veterans there would have been at the time of the June 2016 referendum, we can refer to the 2015 armed forces population survey. As you can see in breakdown by age on Page 5, Table 1, by 2015, those aged 90 and above are roughly 125,000.

Even if I were to be generous and grossly stretch the statistic and say that 150,000 of them were alive at the time. And then make the completely false set of assumptions that says that 100% voted in the referendum and 100% of them voted to leave the EU... It would still only be 150,000 WWII veterans out of 17.41 million leave voters, or in other words only 0.0086% of the total leave vote. That's not even one in a thousand leave voters, despite me making every favorable false assumption and stretching the stats massively.

In fact, there's scant evidence that the WWII veterans or the war era generation are even pro-Brexit or pro-leave. There is some evidence out there to suggest that the WWII era generation are in fact way more pro-EU on average than their younger peers in the over 65s bracket, perhaps even second only to millennials:

See the way the chart below on attitudes towards the EU changes between generally boomer and post war generations, vs much more positive attitudes from the WWII era generation, almost mirroring the young:

Figure 1: Image of the EU among different generations in the UK



Note: For both charts, a higher value indicates a more negative image of the EU

One explanation for these results is that the war generation give a premium to the pacific benefits of European institutions. Having experienced first-hand the horrors of war, they place a high value on the founding principles of unity that the EU promotes. The most recent generations also view integration more positively, given that these individuals have grown up with the UK’s membership of the EU as the norm.
............

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

Other related sources: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0328/Battle-of-Britain-s-history-How-the-myth-of-WWII-shaped-Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eterans-come-out-against-brexit-a7019646.html

I think therefore it's fair to say that most likely the WWII era generation probably didn't vote too much in favor of leave, certainly nowhere near the same level as all over 65s. And to conflate the leave vote with the war is both a gross exaggeration and incorrect as borne out by multiple facts.

Apologies for the long essay, I've heard a lot of people talk about the Brexit vote in these terms, and I believe it needed to be challenged.

 

[Ali_Baba]

Boomers and the like had nothing to do with WWII or Normandy. In order to have even been of age during WWII (18 years by VE day in 1945), one needs to have been born no later than mid-1927.

Meaning that in order to have even been of age during WWII, by the time of the June 2016 EU referendum, you need to have been at least >89 years old. To put this into perspective, that's a little over >0.61% of the entire UK population (both sexes included).

To give you a rough estimate of how many living WWII veterans there would have been at the time of the June 2016 referendum, we can refer to the 2015 armed forces population survey. As you can see in breakdown by age on Page 5, Table 1, by 2015, those aged 90 and above are roughly 125,000.

Even if I were to be generous and grossly stretch the statistic and say that 150,000 of them were alive at the time. And then make the completely false set of assumptions that says that 100% voted in the referendum and 100% of them voted to leave the EU... It would still only be 150,000 WWII veterans out of 17.41 million leave voters, or in other words only 0.0086% of the total leave vote. That's not even one in a thousand leave voters, despite me making every favorable false assumption and stretching the stats massively.

In fact, there's scant evidence that the WWII veterans or the war era generation are even pro-Brexit or pro-leave. There is some evidence out there to suggest that the WWII era generation are in fact way more pro-EU on average than their younger peers in the over 65s bracket, perhaps even second only to millennials:

See the way the chart below on attitudes towards the EU changes between generally boomer and post war generations, vs much more positive attitudes from the WWII era generation, almost mirroring the young:

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

Other related sources: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0328/Battle-of-Britain-s-history-How-the-myth-of-WWII-shaped-Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eterans-come-out-against-brexit-a7019646.html

I think therefore it's fair to say that most likely the WWII era generation probably didn't vote too much in favor of leave, certainly nowhere near the same level as all over 65s. And to conflate the leave vote with the war is both a gross exaggeration and incorrect as borne out by multiple facts.

Apologies for the long essay, I've heard a lot of people talk about the Brexit vote in these terms, and I believe it needed to be challenged.

For Richer or poorer, for better of for worse, we are now an independent country who has thrown off the yolk of our foreign occupiers. Other countries have had to wage wars to become free, lost the lives of their citizens to become free. We, thankfully achieved it through a democratic act, but this does not devalue what the outcome is.

The completion of brexit was and is the only shining light of 2020, everything else this year, was and is sh*t ...

 

[Nowshera]

Bad deal. EU got the better end as they export to the UK more which will continue tariff free but the UK's service exports were not included.

The UK can still do well out of the EU but that probably involves becoming a low tax low social service economy more akin to the US. I personally would do well out of such a situation but most of the Pakistani community in my area would not. My family would also depend more on me than the state so I would prefer the status quo.

Someone earlier in the thread was also talking about migration/deportation but there will be no change there. Noone already in the country will be deported (unless they commit crime etc) as it damages the country's reputation and migration will not reduce until big business says so.

 

[Nowshera]

Boomers and the like had nothing to do with WWII or Normandy. In order to have even been of age during WWII (18 years by VE day in 1945), one needs to have been born no later than mid-1927.

Meaning that in order to have even been of age during WWII, by the time of the June 2016 EU referendum, you need to have been at least >89 years old. To put this into perspective, that's a little over >0.61% of the entire UK population (both sexes included).

To give you a rough estimate of how many living WWII veterans there would have been at the time of the June 2016 referendum, we can refer to the 2015 armed forces population survey. As you can see in breakdown by age on Page 5, Table 1, by 2015, those aged 90 and above are roughly 125,000.

Even if I were to be generous and grossly stretch the statistic and say that 150,000 of them were alive at the time. And then make the completely false set of assumptions that says that 100% voted in the referendum and 100% of them voted to leave the EU... It would still only be 150,000 WWII veterans out of 17.41 million leave voters, or in other words only 0.0086% of the total leave vote. That's not even one in a thousand leave voters, despite me making every favorable false assumption and stretching the stats massively.

In fact, there's scant evidence that the WWII veterans or the war era generation are even pro-Brexit or pro-leave. There is some evidence out there to suggest that the WWII era generation are in fact way more pro-EU on average than their younger peers in the over 65s bracket, perhaps even second only to millennials:

See the way the chart below on attitudes towards the EU changes between generally boomer and post war generations, vs much more positive attitudes from the WWII era generation, almost mirroring the young:

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

Other related sources: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0328/Battle-of-Britain-s-history-How-the-myth-of-WWII-shaped-Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eterans-come-out-against-brexit-a7019646.html

I think therefore it's fair to say that most likely the WWII era generation probably didn't vote too much in favor of leave, certainly nowhere near the same level as all over 65s. And to conflate the leave vote with the war is both a gross exaggeration and incorrect as borne out by multiple facts.

Apologies for the long essay, I've heard a lot of people talk about the Brexit vote in these terms, and I believe it needed to be challenged.

Correct the most leave cohort are the boomers who haven't fought in any war. I've heard from taxi drivers that this age bracket tends to also be more racist than the war generation. The message a lot of white working class got was vote leave and we will stop NON-WHITE immigration (esp the Muslim refugees). This was different to the message South Asians got, one third of whom voted leave. I'm impressed by the Vote Leave campaign to be honest for managing to get the job done - they somehow convinced disparate groups with conflicting aims to all vote leave.

 

[waz]

Boomers and the like had nothing to do with WWII or Normandy. In order to have even been of age during WWII (18 years by VE day in 1945), one needs to have been born no later than mid-1927.

Meaning that in order to have even been of age during WWII, by the time of the June 2016 EU referendum, you need to have been at least >89 years old. To put this into perspective, that's a little over >0.61% of the entire UK population (both sexes included).

To give you a rough estimate of how many living WWII veterans there would have been at the time of the June 2016 referendum, we can refer to the 2015 armed forces population survey. As you can see in breakdown by age on Page 5, Table 1, by 2015, those aged 90 and above are roughly 125,000.

Even if I were to be generous and grossly stretch the statistic and say that 150,000 of them were alive at the time. And then make the completely false set of assumptions that says that 100% voted in the referendum and 100% of them voted to leave the EU... It would still only be 150,000 WWII veterans out of 17.41 million leave voters, or in other words only 0.0086% of the total leave vote. That's not even one in a thousand leave voters, despite me making every favorable false assumption and stretching the stats massively.

In fact, there's scant evidence that the WWII veterans or the war era generation are even pro-Brexit or pro-leave. There is some evidence out there to suggest that the WWII era generation are in fact way more pro-EU on average than their younger peers in the over 65s bracket, perhaps even second only to millennials:

See the way the chart below on attitudes towards the EU changes between generally boomer and post war generations, vs much more positive attitudes from the WWII era generation, almost mirroring the young:

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

Other related sources: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0328/Battle-of-Britain-s-history-How-the-myth-of-WWII-shaped-Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eterans-come-out-against-brexit-a7019646.html

I think therefore it's fair to say that most likely the WWII era generation probably didn't vote too much in favor of leave, certainly nowhere near the same level as all over 65s. And to conflate the leave vote with the war is both a gross exaggeration and incorrect as borne out by multiple facts.

Apologies for the long essay, I've heard a lot of people talk about the Brexit vote in these terms, and I believe it needed to be challenged.

Wait I only wrote about the vets because you wrote this;

"Nostalgic older folks", I took that, and so would anyone else to also include vets from the Second World War, who I can assure you, working with them closely are nostalgic as hell.
If you meant "boomers" a deorgatory term I might add, then I would have geared my responses accordingly. But no problem, let's do this.
Firstly the vets did get a special mention, but I also included the wartime generation in my statements, that will be those who were/are 85 plus. In 2018 they numbered 1.6 million people, and from the vote leave figures that would have made 0.09% of the votes, if they all vote leave, which I have never said, and you correctly said is an assumption.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/later_life_uk_factsheet.pdf

Here's a an insight/breakdown on how age factored in regarding the referendum;

The trend is as clear as day i.e. that the older voters were the higher the percentage opting for leave. Unless there was an immense statistical anomaly , there's no way that the war time generation would have voted to stay or even stayed neutral.


Yes you put up this link from LSE;

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

This was based on 1,000 interviews, and the methodology isn't available to rule out bias. Although he asked relevant questions, I couldn't find the answer to the question regarding membership being good for the UK. The question is why didn't he come out and straight ask them wether leaving was a good thing?

As for the rest of the links you put up here look at this;

Neutral view from the video three for out (Jeffery, Colin, Bryan) , two for remain (William, Jan), one of which is a European vet (Jan Black) and the gent has strong ties to Europe.
This mirrors my own experiences speaking to vets with most voting out.

Now to those born between 1946-1964, the so called 'boomers'.

They paid the highest rates of income tax (aside the immediate post war years) between the years of 1971-late 1980's.
Notable points in time include top rates of income tax in 71 of 75%, in 1974 83%, in 1978 83% (but was cut 60%). Basic rates at 33% 1979 (but was cut to 30%), in 1986 29% , in 1987 27%, in 1988 25%.

Here's a detailed breakdown;

We only saw a lower basic rate, and a lower top rate from 1988 onwards. NI contributions were also higher. So with a smaller workforce they contributed high levels of tax, I could imagine the uproar now if such brackets were placed now.
Much of this was used to finance the great spending increases we saw from the 80's onwards. Here in charts;


More spending on benefits, born post Second World War had less spent on them but they funded the rise.

More spending on the NHS, generation born post Second World War had less spent on them but funded the rise.

Health chart again no brainer. Although as people age costs health care costs do increase, however we had no such 'age time bomb' in the 80's, 90's and early 0 years.

Enough said.

Let's see what else these nasty boomers did;

Oh they worked through numerous recessions.

Endured the Winter of Discontent and came through stronger.

Won the Falklands war

Built the very nation we sit in

and so on.



Anyway the generation born post Second World War gave the swinging 60's, have you heard of these guys?

I'll get back to you when I find just how much of a contribution those young folks who point fingers at the elders have made so far, God knows they haven't contributed much in tax, yet hate the 'boomers'.
Ah got it, maybe all those Instagram models, social media stars and erm....

That's my last post debating this, I have no need to now. We won this war, and remain lost miserably. Why am I going to go back to the debates from four years ago.

This is not aimed at you bro, and I did post generally until you quoted me.

I'll leave it at that.

 

[Ali_Baba]

Bad deal. EU got the better end as they export to the UK more which will continue tariff free but the UK's service exports were not included.

The UK can still do well out of the EU but that probably involves becoming a low tax low social service economy more akin to the US. I personally would do well out of such a situation but most of the Pakistani community in my area would not. My family would also depend more on me than the state so I would prefer the status quo.

Someone earlier in the thread was also talking about migration/deportation but there will be no change there. Noone already in the country will be deported (unless they commit crime etc) as it damages the country's reputation and migration will not reduce until big business says so.

The deal preserves the current status quo.. yes, that is all it is meant to do. We dont want the drama of queues at Dover. But... now, that the UK is in charge of trade deals, we can "trade" away those EU exports into the UK for access that we want from new trade partners for our exports, eg North/South America, Africa and Asia.. we can formulate trade deals that make sense for our economy alone.

We currently import alot of food from Europe, as we were forced to hide behind EU standards for "importing into the UK/EU", mostly dictated by France.. Now, we can dictate what standards we enforce and what standards we recognise for imports into the UK for food.

I expect the food exports that the EU currently enjoys into the UK to go down over time and our food imports from the common wealth, africa and USA to increase, thereby reducing EU's advantage over time. Both sides in the deal, know this and are preparing for this, even before the ink is dry,

 

[waz]

Correct the most leave cohort are the boomers who haven't fought in any war. I've heard from taxi drivers that this age bracket tends to also be more racist than the war generation. The message a lot of white working class got was vote leave and we will stop NON-WHITE immigration (esp the Muslim refugees). This was different to the message South Asians got, one third of whom voted leave. I'm impressed by the Vote Leave campaign to be honest for managing to get the job done - they somehow convinced disparate groups with conflicting aims to all vote leave.

You must have heard wrong and I campaigned extensively for Leave. I've literally bought up White working class kids, and one of their biggest grievances were against the Eastern European community i.e. due to low skilled labour and not integrating. Crime and other factors came in as well.

 

[Nowshera]

The deal preserves the current status quo.. yes, that is all it is meant to do. We dont want the drama of queues at Dover. But... now, that the UK is in charge of trade deals, we can "trade" away those EU exports into the UK for access that we want from new trade partners for our exports, eg North/South America, Africa and Asia.. we can formulate trade deals that make sense for our economy alone.

We currently import alot of food from Europe, as we were forced to hide behind EU standards for "importing into the UK/EU", mostly dictated by France.. Now, we can dictate what standards we enforce and what standards we recognise for imports into the UK for food.

I expect the food exports that the EU currently enjoys into the UK to go down over time and our food imports from the common wealth, africa and USA to increase, thereby reducing EU's advantage over time. Both sides in the deal, know this and are preparing for this, even before the ink is dry,

There can be many upsides to Brexit including lower food costs (read up on why Charles De Gaulle said Britain would never join the common market). The reason the EU had high standards was because it couldn't compete with cheaper produce from elsewhere.

This deal that is being presented as a win is debatable though.

I also never get invested in politics. I know people that have changed their mind since the vote but won't really admit it due to being too emotionally invested.

 

[Nowshera]

You must have heard wrong and I campaigned extensively for Leave. I've literally bought up White working class kids, and one of their biggest grievances were against the Eastern European community i.e. due to low skilled labour and not integrating. Crime and other factors came in as well.

You have brought up working class kids? Does this mean you are a teacher? - kids are more okay with non-whites/muslims especially if they have grown up around them. They also don't see you as a foreigner if you're born here/speak with a British accent. When I used to work part time at a warehouse whilst at Uni the English used to group together with the ethnics that spoke English and the Eastern Europeans used to be together. The 50+ age bracket is completely different though.

Also the whites that have not come into contact with Muslims are massively prejudiced against them. They believe everything they read/see about us from the TV/internet. Some of their views were almost comical. I had to defend some stupid mangy/deflect questions after he went around working telling people he married his cousin - all of a sudden I got all kinds of questions and was shocked at what people actually believed.

 

[waz]

You have brought up working class kids? Does this mean you are a teacher? - kids are more okay with non-whites/muslims especially if they have grown up around them. They also don't see you as a foreigner if you're born here/speak with a British accent. When I used to work part time at a warehouse whilst at Uni the English used to group together with the ethnics that spoke English and the Eastern Europeans used to be together. The 50+ age bracket is completely different though.

Also the whites that have not come into contact with Muslims are massively prejudiced against them. They believe everything they read/see about us from the TV/internet. Some of their views were almost comical. I had to defend some stupid mangy/deflect questions after he went around working telling people he married his cousin - all of a sudden I got all kinds of questions and was shocked at what people actually believed.

Yes I am. You're right about kids being comfortable with different ethnic groups, faiths etc, as long as they were born/raised here, they then have commonality of culture with them.
You made an interesting point about your job and how tribal loyalties play out, I've seen the same.
You're also correct about those who haven't come into contact with Muslim folks, indeed they often have the worst views i.e. mostly because they believe everything they see read.
May I ask what you studied at university, and are in your chosen profession?

 

[Jungibaaz]

Wait I only wrote about the vets because you wrote this;

"Nostalgic older folks", I took that, and so would anyone else to also include vets from the Second World War, who I can assure you, working with them closely are nostalgic as hell.

Well, as I pointed out, IMO it's incorrect to conflate. I'm not here attacking old folks at all, just that nostalgia was undoubtedly a factor for voting leave, for those old enough to have lived before the EEC. The point was that at least >99.9% of the leave vote had nothing to do with WWII whatsoever. And yes, I said nostalgic, the campaign ran by leavers and views expressed by leave voters often had palpable nostalgia in my opinion. It's not a value judgement, just an observation. Hearkening back to better times before the EU.

If you meant "boomers" a deorgatory term I might add, then I would have geared my responses accordingly. But no problem, let's do this.

"Boomer" is just short for "baby boomer" an officially recognized term for the generation born between 1946 and 1964, after the post war baby boom. Some embittered kids today use it in a derogatory way, but I haven't at all. We can talk about why those kids are embittered, I think they have some valid reasons, but attacking a generation is ageist, hateful, and also misdirected given their problems.

Firstly the vets did get a special mention, but I also included the wartime generation in my statements, that will be those who were/are 85 plus. In 2018 they numbered 1.6 million people, and from the vote leave figures that would have made 0.09% of the votes, if they all vote leave, which I have never said, and you correctly said is an assumption.

That figure is incorrect, it's overstated by a lot. The demographic to have lived as adults during the war are not the over 85s in 2018, as of 2016 they were the over-89s. You are at least six years off in these estimations. That might not mean much on its own but the population distribution massively shrinks at these higher ages.

As of 2018, those old enough to have lived as adults through even an iota of WWII would need to be 91+
According to figures from the ONS which you can find here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/datasets/tablea21principalprojectionukpopulationinagegroups

I simply took the age brackets, quickly plotted a histogram and used FORECAST function to interpolate values. A decent guess from me as to how many people there were from that era in 2018 is about 0.426 million. At the very most, if we include all over 90s we get 0.584 million. Hence your estimated value in bold is completely incorrect, it's off by a factor of almost 3.

~

If you want this spreadsheet, I'll see if I can make a public one and pm you the link. I don't trust posting it on the forum publicly.

Also, you've misread why I was making those assumptions. I made the assumption that the stated number of WWII vets living in 2015 was even higher than reported, and that instead of falling as you might expect by the 2016 referendum, I increased the figure to 150k. I then said that EVEN IF 100% voted, and voted leave, they'd make up an absolutely minuscule proportion of the leave vote.

The point of that little exercise was to point out how incorrect the conflation of WWII generation and Brexit was. I think I made that point already, but this should clear out any misunderstanding now.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/reports-and-publications/later_life_uk_factsheet.pdf

Here's a an insight/breakdown on how age factored in regarding the referendum;

View attachment 700426

View attachment 700427

The trend is as clear as day i.e. that the older voters were the higher the percentage opting for leave. Unless there was an immense statistical anomaly , there's no way that the war time generation would have voted to stay or even stayed neutral.

Sure, generally speaking, the old massively voted in favour of Brexit, and the young in favour of remain, as well as other education, urban/rural, regional, and class related divides. However, to say that most over 65s voted for leave, hence the WWII generation era must have isn't sound and it's at least an unfounded assumption.

And to then conflate the leave vote with WWII is even less valid, despite the assumptions I granted as I displayed adequately earlier.

So the question then becomes are we adamant on making the unfounded and faulty claim that just because a population overall broadly supported something, that this trend must also apply to sub sectors within that population? Or are we saying that all over 65s are the same, no generational differences? Meaning it's okay to compare a man of a generation born in the 1920s (WWI era who would have been of age before 1945) vs one born in the 1960s (post war generation)?

Is it possible that war era generations mostly backed leave? Sure, but there's no good evidence. Remember, I've not made any assumptions here. I suggested that it is possible that war era generations were more pro-EU than their younger post war era peers. I added multiple qualifiers in my text such as "some evidence to suggest", "perhaps", "most likely". I wasn't conflating WWII veterans with all old people, or even WWII vets with all leave voters. Even now as we are making the unfounded assumption that this generation voted in line with all over 65s, I'm saying that it's possible that they voted mostly for leave, but their surveyed attitudes suggest that they might not be as Eurosceptic as post-war era generations.

Yes you put up this link from LSE;

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019...neration-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

This was based on 1,000 interviews, and the methodology isn't available to rule out bias. Although he asked relevant questions, I couldn't find the answer to the question regarding membership being good for the UK. The question is why didn't he come out and straight ask them wether leaving was a good thing?

As for the rest of the links you put up here look at this;

Neutral view from the video three for out (Jeffery, Colin, Bryan) , two for remain (William, Jan), one of which is a European vet (Jan Black) and the gent has strong ties to Europe.
This mirrors my own experiences speaking to vets with most voting out.

I think you didn't read the article properly. First off I did say this was judging "attitudes". The author did outline that he used Eurobatometer survey data:

To address these questions, I have conducted an Age-Period-Cohort (APC) analysis using Eurobarometer survey data. APC analysis is used to ascertain if distinct generational effects are present in public opinion. Generational effects refer to the influence of environmental factors during each generation’s formative period (approximately between ages 15-25) on their long term political opinions, such as the prevailing social attitudes of the time or the occurrence of important political events. The Second World War is undoubtedly just such an event that may have deeply influenced the opinions of the generation that came of age during wartime.

This APC analysis used a longitudinal dataset of Eurobarometer surveys covering the years 1970-2017. These biannual surveys, consisting of 1,000 face-to-face interviews with members of the British public, ask respondents a range of questions, including their opinions on European integration. When controlling for a range of factors that have been identified as influencing attitudes towards integration – education, occupation, left-right position, gender, urbanisation – generational effects are confirmed in the data.

He did not conduct any of these interviews himself, hence could not possibly ask which way they voted. What he refers to as Age Period Cohort analysis is a form of data analysis meant to extract insights from broad population by their demographics, you can read about it here. If you want to scrutinize the data yourself, be my guest, here's where I found some links:

https://www.gesis.org/en/eurobarometer-data-service/search-data-access/data-access

If you have some proper reservations or concerns, feel free to look up the data yourself, or to ask the blogger to write up his analysis methodology. I'm afraid we have to do better than just randomly questioning the method, data, and the possibility of bias, in order to discredit any conclusions.

I'll get back to you when I find just how much of a contribution those young folks who point fingers at the elders have made so far, God knows they haven't contributed much in tax, yet hate the 'boomers'.
Ah got it, maybe all those Instagram models, social media stars and erm....

That's my last post debating this, I have no need to now. We won this war, and remain lost miserably. Why am I going to go back to the debates from four years ago.

This is not aimed at you bro, and I did post generally until you quoted me.

I'll leave it at that.

Brother, I've cut out all the charts and vids in this part of your post there that were aimed at pointing out the contribution of older generations. I'm afraid I'm not arguing anything at all here... I never made any judgement about old people, nor did I belittle their contribution to the country at all. This is a debate you are only having, respectfully. I only questioned the logic of conflating all WWII vets with with the leave vote, that is what I objected to and I think I've made clear why.

I don't think it's right to belittle old or young, each have their merits. I respect the older generation more for a variety of reasons. And yes, I'm a fan of classic rock too. And we Brits run the classic rock scene!

This is not aimed at you bro, and I did post generally until you quoted me.

I'll leave it at that.

You're a bother, we're all good. A little debate sometimes is okay.

 

[waz]

Well, as I pointed out, IMO it's incorrect to conflate. I'm not here attacking old folks at all, just that nostalgia was undoubtedly a factor for voting leave, for those old enough to have lived before the EEC. The point was that at least >99.9% of the leave vote had nothing to do with WWII whatsoever. And yes, I said nostalgic, the campaign ran by leavers and views expressed by leave voters often had palpable nostalgia in my opinion. It's not a value judgement, just an observation. Hearkening back to better times before the EU.



"Boomer" is just short for "baby boomer" an officially recognized term for the generation born between 1946 and 1964, after the post war baby boom. Some embittered kids today use it in a derogatory way, but I haven't at all. We can talk about why those kids are embittered, I think they have some valid reasons, but attacking a generation is ageist, hateful, and also misdirected given their problems.



That figure is incorrect, it's overstated by a lot. The demographic to have lived as adults during the war are not the over 85s in 2018, as of 2016 they were the over-89s. You are at least six years off in these estimations. That might not mean much on its own but the population distribution massively shrinks at these higher ages.

As of 2018, those old enough to have lived as adults through even an iota of WWII would need to be 91+
According to figures from the ONS which you can find here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/datasets/tablea21principalprojectionukpopulationinagegroups

I simply took the age brackets, quickly plotted a histogram and used FORECAST function to interpolate values. A decent guess from me as to how many people there were from that era in 2018 is about 0.426 million. At the very most, if we include all over 90s we get 0.584 million. Hence your estimated value in bold is completely incorrect, it's off by a factor of almost 3.

View attachment 700511~

If you want this spreadsheet, I'll see if I can make a public one and pm you the link. I don't trust posting it on the forum publicly.

Also, you've misread why I was making those assumptions. I made the assumption that the stated number of WWII vets living in 2015 was even higher than reported, and that instead of falling as you might expect by the 2016 referendum, I increased the figure to 150k. I then said that EVEN IF 100% voted, and voted leave, they'd make up an absolutely minuscule proportion of the leave vote.

The point of that little exercise was to point out how incorrect the conflation of WWII generation and Brexit was. I think I made that point already, but this should clear out any misunderstanding now.


Sure, generally speaking, the old massively voted in favour of Brexit, and the young in favour of remain, as well as other education, urban/rural, regional, and class related divides. However, to say that most over 65s voted for leave, hence the WWII generation era must have isn't sound and it's at least an unfounded assumption.

And to then conflate the leave vote with WWII is even less valid, despite the assumptions I granted as I displayed adequately earlier.

So the question then becomes are we adamant on making the unfounded and faulty claim that just because a population overall broadly supported something, that this trend must also apply to sub sectors within that population? Or are we saying that all over 65s are the same, no generational differences? Meaning it's okay to compare a man of a generation born in the 1920s (WWI era who would have been of age before 1945) vs one born in the 1960s (post war generation)?

Is it possible that war era generations mostly backed leave? Sure, but there's no good evidence. Remember, I've not made any assumptions here. I suggested that it is possible that war era generations were more pro-EU than their younger post war era peers. I added multiple qualifiers in my text such as "some evidence to suggest", "perhaps", "most likely". I wasn't conflating WWII veterans with all old people, or even WWII vets with all leave voters. Even now as we are making the unfounded assumption that this generation voted in line with all over 65s, I'm saying that it's possible that they voted mostly for leave, but their surveyed attitudes suggest that they might not be as Eurosceptic as post-war era generations.



I think you didn't read the article properly. First off I did say this was judging "attitudes". The author did outline that he used Eurobatometer survey data:



He did not conduct any of these interviews himself, hence could not possibly ask which way they voted. What he refers to as Age Period Cohort analysis is a form of data analysis meant to extract insights from broad population by their demographics, you can read about it here. If you want to scrutinize the data yourself, be my guest, here's where I found some links:

https://www.gesis.org/en/eurobarometer-data-service/search-data-access/data-access

If you have some proper reservations or concerns, feel free to look up the data yourself, or to ask the blogger to write up his analysis methodology. I'm afraid we have to do better than just randomly questioning the method, data, and the possibility of bias, in order to discredit any conclusions.



Brother, I've cut out all the charts and vids in this part of your post there that were aimed at pointing out the contribution of older generations. I'm afraid I'm not arguing anything at all here... I never made any judgement about old people, nor did I belittle their contribution to the country at all. This is a debate you are only having, respectfully. I only questioned the logic of conflating all WWII vets with with the leave vote, that is what I objected to and I think I've made clear why.

I don't think it's right to belittle old or young, each have their merits. I respect the older generation more for a variety of reasons. And yes, I'm a fan of classic rock too. And we Brits run the classic rock scene!



You're a bother, we're all good. A little debate sometimes is okay.

Good stuff bro and of course debate is healthy. But I’d say we look towards the future, which of course is anyone’s guess.
Hope you and family are well.

 

[letsrock]

I support brexit even though i understand many who voted it did so for racist reasons. The fact is EU is no less racist. If anything its even more probably. Just see the way they treated turkey. It is basically a country club for white europeans running a social welfare state. Well brits are no less white why do they need "whiteness" from eu. Morover they have always had significant relations with rest of world why throw it all away ?

 

[Francesco Guicciardini]

I support brexit even though i understand many who voted it did so for racist reasons. The fact is EU is no less racist. If anything its even more probably. Just see the way they treated turkey. It is basically a country club for white europeans running a social welfare state. Well brits are no less white why do they need "whiteness" from eu. Morover they have always had significant relations with rest of world why throw it all away ?

Brexit is not about race or racism or even about immigration..
I remember reading a book more than 30 years ago about the advantages and disadvantages of the UK joining the EU (at that time it was still called CEE). At that time (before the Maastricht treaty) there were few problems with immigrants in the UK, whether Europeans or not, just because immigrants and their descendants were much fewer
Still, in UK there was already a public debate about the CEE.
Imho, brexit is much more about sovereignity: it is always hard for a former superpower ceding parts of their sovereignity to become a part of a club. Even if participation in that club gives you some advantages.

 

[letsrock]

Brexit is not about race or racism or even about immigration..
I remember reading a book more than 30 years ago about the advantages and disadvantages of the UK joining the EU (at that time it was still called CEE). At that time (before the Maastricht treaty) there were few problems with immigrants in the UK, whether Europeans or not, just because immigrants and their descendants were much fewer
Still, in UK there was already a public debate about the CEE.
Imho, brexit is much more about sovereignity: it is always hard for a former superpower ceding parts of their sovereignity to become a part of a club. Even if participation in that club gives you some advantages.

Yes I agree. Thats why i said in my post racism is irrelevant to Brexit. And i was pointing out how the EU "liberals" use it as a stick to beat brexiteers.

Not only the loss of soverignity - it is the forced socialism on more successful western european countries to bear the burden of eastern european countries while actively eroding the cultural uniqueness of Easterners. It just wont work in my opinion. Nation states are enough to take care of the needs of their people as long they effectively represent their people.

As soon as Poles etc are reasonably prosperous they too will quit EU. Italy is already unhappy with the support it got for Corona.