A quote about Brexit supporters by a friend of mine last week attracted a lot of attention when I stuck it on Twitter yesterday.
This is the last ‘fuck you’ from the baby boomers. They took the secure corporate and government jobs with the guaranteed pay rises and final salary pension schemes and benefitted from property they bought cheap and sold dear. They burnt the bridges behind them by colluding with the dismantling of the very things that had brought them prosperity. Their last act will be to burn the economy before they die.
It even made the Independent. Some people were offended by it but, for the majority of those who commented, it seemed to strike a chord, suggesting there is at least a grain of truth in it.
It is certainly true that the pollsters are recording the highest support for Brexit among older voters. YouGov data showed Brexit support increasing with age, with the 50:50 point at 43. ComRes released some data yesterday which points to majority Brexit support from the mid-40s, peaking among the 65-74 age group.
Thanks to the postwar baby boom, most of that group will have been born between the period after the war and the 1951. In many ways they, and those born a few years later, had the best of it. They just missed conscription, were taken care of in their early years by the new welfare state and had free secondary and higher education. They came into the workforce at a time of economic growth, bought property when it was cheap and sold it when the prices rose. They worked during a period when highly structured organisations with regular pay rises and final salary pensions were the norm in both public and private sectors. Then they retired just before the state pension age was pushed out beyond 65. Even the later boomers coming up for retirement, born from the mid-1950s, won’t be quite so lucky.
The FT looked into this last year and found that, at least in terms of income, there has never been a better time to be in your late 60s:
The average 65-70-year-old used to have lower living standards than 75 per cent of UK families. Now people in the same age group can expect to be almost in the top 40 per cent of family incomes.
It’s possible to over-state the intergenerational conflict angle in all this. There was no conspiracy by the baby boomers. Their relative good fortune is largely an accident of birth. Their working lives coincided with the lucky half century when the economy grew at a rate never seen before, when wages peaked as a percentage of GDP and when middle-earners got the largest slice of the pie. Rising incomes meant that more people could buy property which then appreciated in value. This, together with long service and occupational pensions, enabled older generations to hang on to their gains. It is unlikely that later generations will be able to pull off the same trick.
It is also worth noting that a lot of this came about during the period when Britain was a member of the EU. It’s impossible to know what might have happened had the UK stayed out but those in their 60s and 70s have certainly done well out of the status quo.
So why are they so angry with it? It would be more understandable if their anger was directed against the decline of the things that helped them achieve the prosperity they enjoyed throughout their working lives and from which they are still reaping the benefits. If they were raging against the removal of final salary pension schemes, against precarious employment, against low investment, against tuition fees, against falling wages and against the dismantling of social housing, it might make more sense. It is true, many from the boomer generations are active in such campaigns but this is not the anger that is driving the Brexit vote.
No, they are angry about Brussels bureaucrats, national identity and democracy, even though it’s quite difficult to get specific (and true) examples of what they mean. They are angry about immigration, even though a lot of them don’t live in high immigration areas. They are angry about a Britain which has actually been very good to them and, with its protected pensions and pensioner benefits, continues to be so. These are some of the most prosperous, secure and healthy human beings ever to walk the planet. Yet, with a howl of rage, they may be about to tip our wobbling economy into recession, thereby wrecking the chances of younger generations.
Why?!
Update: Thanks to Joe Sarling at Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners for this chart showing house price affordability when each generation was aged 25. This is perhaps where some of the generational generalisations fall down. Baby boomers stretch over a long period. Many of the later boomers and early GenXers got caught by negative equity. The earlier boomers did OK though. Joe reckons the next generation will be Generation U – for Unaffordable!
Flip Chart Fairy Tales 
Fascinating to me that 43 is tipping point – because I’m 40. Mind you, my cousin who is a few years older is a rabid Brexiter. Of course, he’s ex-Navy, works on ships still and largely lives in the Far East. He and his contemporaries grew up in the full on “WW2 war movie” era of TV, is my thesis. The loss of empire and dreams thereof still flooded the culture, casting identity in those terms…
Reblogged this on Shane O'Mara.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
I don’t think that anyone can give a definitive answer to “why” without falling into generational stereotypes. However, my two-pennyworth is that the 1940 situation of “Britain alone against the Nazis” transferred itself into the cultural psyche as Britain won WW2 on its own, (conveniently ignoring our allies), then built the Welfare State and NHS on its own (conveniently airbrushing out the Marshall Plan). Reinforced by the media (from films like The Dambusters to programmes like Dad’s Army) it created an image of an all-white, culturally homogeneous Britain that was independent and different to the rest of Johnny Foreigner.
The politicians (and adults) of the 1960s/70s, who had lived through and fought in the war as young adults, recognised this as a propaganda myth and knew that greater co-operation between nations was the way forward (hence the postwar establishment of the UN, international financial institutions and NATO as well as the European Community) – and that partly explains the massive majority in favour of membership in the 1975 referendum. The boomers however were children in the war and immediate post war and believe the things they were told as children to be true. Consequently to them, Britain has changed from this childhood utopia and not in a way they like.
As a baby boomer born in 1949 I was always excited by the European experiment and the realisation that my continent (I am English, and therefore European, not American or Asian or any other …an) has at last found a way to live n peaceful rather than constant war. I also know that I am one of the luckiest of all generations and grieve that our gains through the 60s were thrown away by the Thatcherite dogmas that have outlived her. Of course our younger compatriots should share the advantages that the EU have given us, and take their part in shaping it as it finds its way in this volatile world and century.
I’ve seen Brexit opinion polls breaking down responses by age-group and by social class but not breaking down age-group by social class – how many 65+ Brexiters are ABs and how many Ds and Es?
So many of the gains you’ve mentioned are heavily skewed towards the middle-classes and many older Ds and Es are not prosperous or healthy and feel very insecure – see for example
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36463880 and http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/07/nye-bevan-labour-heartland-backing-brexit-south-wales
I think you’re in danger of assuming that people actually conform with the segmental “tribes” of marketing-speak. For example, a person born in 1941-51 who went on to free further education would be atypical. Similarly, many working class people of this generation never did buy their council homes so aren’t sitting on a nice nest-egg now. Others will not have benefited from generous occupational pensions, not least because they didn’t spend 40 years with the same employer, while others yet will have been unemployed in the 80s and perhaps reduced to low-wage, part-time work thereafter. I suspect the emblematic baby-boomer is actually a Remainer.
The muck-raking against the older generation aka “baby boomers” has been fed for at least 2 years now by the govt propaganda. The basis is the size of the state pension budget – which they have unsuccessfully tried to re-brand as a benefit – is simply too big to ignore for raiding to keep the money flowing up to the rich from the poor. The state pension is already one of the lowest in the EU, and yet we are told it’s generous, and lumped in with the “gold plated” private pension lie. The same phrases and arguments keep appearing all over . It’s a coordinated campaign, based on the successful one already used to brand the sick and disabled as scroungers, lead swingers, and feather-bedded. Pure neo-lib fantasy sold through the MSM without opposition for 5 years, before the election of Jeremy Corbyn began to regain some real Labour values.
The vast majority of over-50’s I know personally and on-line are Remainers, and they care deeply about the resurgent right, racism, and the future for generations currently being locked out of any part of the economy, unless they are already rich. We do care, and are not the grasping, bugger-you oldies being scapegoated here. These are all the result of the right wing govt and of neo liberalism. It is not unique to the UK, it is found wherever the zombie neo-lib wealth life suckers have taken control.
The older generation who are Brexiters are the same who have never taken to the changes in society. They are the ones who are not, as your graph shows, doing so well, but are those who are really struggling. It’s just that they are the last ones who are only getting their information from the MSM and the BBC. Those under 65 – the WASPIS in particular – are getting more IT literate and using it to get far more information outside the usual channels. We need to be able to get this out to the older generation, but it isn’t because they are the dog-in -the manger, it’s because they have been told to be afraid, very afraid, of immigrants rather than the true reason – the Tory govt.
(BTW – I am planning with a friend to offer free on-line introduction and support to those who are not IT literate among the over 60 age group in our area. It is imperative, not only to allow them access to the much wider non-MSM news, but to the simple fact that the Govt are pushing ahead with “digital by default” especially with pensions, whereby this very group will be highly disadvantaged. This group also need to know how to purchase goods and services online to make their money go further, and to find support if they are struggling with any part of their lives. I hope others will try to do the same, If we don’t help each other, we will lose more elderly prematurely through lack of money or care. Great for reducing the pension bill, dreadful for our families and society. )
Do you need any help with this? I’m thinking of doing something similar in my neck of the woods (Camden/Brent in London).
We’re far far from London, in the furthest west you can go, so although I would love to get something bigger going, it’s a long commute. But I think we should all try and do something for our community. I hope you can help people get online and confident and start finding out that the MSM aren’t to be trusted. But most if all, the internet has been a lifesaver, literally for those who are housebound through illness and disability. Perhaps if a FaceBook page is set up to allow volunteers to stay in touch and to introduce our learners to each other,? Also to share best practice,?
Maybe try and start a grassroots movement? A blog would be good too.
I agree. And how anyone can pretend that polling data signifies anything after the extent to which the polls utterly failed to predict both the referendum and the election result is utterly beyond me.
I suspect that some opposition to the EU and immigration is due to a dislike of change, which I understand grows stronger with age.
As an aside, factory work was for most direct workers often a very unpleasant and mindless experience. Viva les robots in that regard!
Anyway, many of the baby boom and older generations will have been factory workers on low pay and subject to authoritarian management practices. Maybe a sense of entitlement and resentment towards others flows from this? My dad, before he died, insisted it was his generation that created the welfare state and his sense of entitlement was thereby justified.
That ComRes slide is interesting because it is the only one I have seen which properly segments voters by age. Most polls are treating all voters over 65 as a single block (while banding younger votes in chunks of 10 years). So is fascinating to see that anti-EU sentiment does not increase relentlessly with age but in fact starts to diminish among over 75s, who are more likely to be voting Remain than voters between 45 and 74. There are doubtless many differences between over-75s and under 75s but it may be worth remembering that most older pensioners were adults or at least adolescents during the Second World War (whereas the oldest boomer was just three when the war ended). Many of them fought in the war and/or lost friends and relatives to it. Rather than making them anti-European, perhaps it helped build an understanding of the need for collaboration between European countries and/or the dangers of isolationism.
On the other hand, poorer people dying earlier means that the older the age-group the greater the proportion of ‘boom-beneficiaries’ …
… The oldest Baby Boomers *hadn’t been born yet* when the war ended. -_- They call it the ‘*Post-War* Baby Boom’ because it started in 1948, or *perhaps* in ’46, though the case for that is tenuous at best. It is, in fact, absolutely central to the concept of the Boomer generation that if you remember the war you weren’t a Boomer; the OP rather relies on this in the main article’s analysis 😉
Boomers, in standard parlance, are those born between ’48 and ’62 (in the UK and between 48 and 58 in the US, where the boom was shorter but considerably more significant in terms of over-all demography) Boomers started retiring in 2012 🙂
Angry at false promise not coming true which has turned into fear. Believe they are acting out of fear for the future. Decided to blame various institutions instead of politicians which have helped cause this.
Having talked with some boomers (mostly of a conservative disposition) I would suggest that at least part of the reason is believing their own rhetoric about hard-work and being self-made way too much
Speaking as a baby boomer (1949) I’d agree with Florence. It baffles and frustrates me too. Though some of it is over-stated. I did go to university (first in the family) and left in the teeth of a recession when many of my fellow graduates struggled to get jobs. Writers seem to forget that the 70’s was not all milk and honey and there were major recessions then. Remember the oil crisis? 3 day weeks? Inflation?
I did buy a house in the mid-70s and I still don’t know how. The interest rates were 12% on the first 12,000 and 16% on the 1,500 ‘top up’ mortgage. Think what that means in terms of repayments – 3 times what they’d be today. And the value of the house was 8 times my income, 5 times our combined incomes. We had saved and got a small loan from parents. Without wishing to sound like an old codger, the furniture came from junk shops, meals out or pub trips were rare and forget foreign holidays. I kept all the paperwork and it was interesting to go through it with my kids – both of whom have now bought places, with help from the bank of Mum and Dad. Has house price inflation helped me? Not really. Im not a property speculator or buy to let landlord. Each move I’ve made has resulted in an ever larger mortgage to keep up with house price rises. My kids will benefit eventually – when I die… If Id not been paying daft mortgage repayments all my life, how much more would I have had available to save, put into pensions or just feed back into the economy?
Im well off by most standards but final salary pension schemes died out quite a while back, except for a lucky few. And if you were relying on a private pension plan, you might remember there was a bit of a crash in 2008. That did not help the value of people’s pensions, mine included
So Im not sure the simplistic baby boomer analysis works. The social class analyses of UKIP voting is revealing in suggesting that it is an important factor. I see more of an unholy combination; those poorer, middle aged folk who have suffered from the economics of the last 10-15 years, struggling to find jobs in their later years with flat or reducing salaries and little job security. Together with those who are responsible for creating that situation and who want to get rid of any kind of legislation or regulation that might inhibit their ability to make a fast buck. Regardless of the consequences for the rest of the population.
I agree simplistic generalisations don’t work – likewise, this assumption that people my age (30s) expect regular meals out and foreign holidays. I spent years not going on holidays precisely because I knew that every pound I could get in savings would help buy a house (which I finally did, weeks before the crash in 2007). The house was furnished with ex-rental and hand-me-down furniture, and I’ve never had a new car. And I’m certainly not unusual in this in my social circle (although we’re academics, so possibly a bit weird.) The 70s were tough in many respect, interest rates were high, but thanks to rising inequality and house prices, nothing much had changed 30 years later. Except I had student loans to pay back too.
I’m one of those ‘Boomers’ who’s supposed to be angry and has ‘colluded’ with the dismantling of things. As far as I’m aware Gordon Brown was responsible for the beginning of the problems with pensions when he introduced some legislation which afftected the tax laws relating to them. Funny how expert people can be when they weren’t there. I’m for Brexit – anyone hear of a toxic piece of legislation called TTIP? If implemented through the Eu it will damage our NHS and has various other pieces of nasty regulations included in it – it benefits no one but big business and the EU has been cosying up for this. It’s been sneaked under the radar as it would be so unpopular, if its terms were made public, but Greenpeace has been able to obtain the details and it’s now easily available online. I’m not bothered especially about immigration. The Eu has eroded our fishing industry while other countries fish ‘our’ grounds. I’m told thanks to the Eu regs a deal for tatar steel was impossible – but haven’t checked this out. the EU brought Greece down – I’ve read this up as a fact. None of this encourages me to stay in – and I voted for it before. Youth unemployment in a high proprtion of EU countries is soaring and it’s on record that non-EU countries are doing better than us. None of that encourages me to stay in.
The above sounds like some jealous, resentful rant – maybe his parents have cut him off wihtout a penny.
I strongly recommend everyone to check out TTIP – hopefully not coming to us!
Err, perhaps you might look at Germany (I live in Berlin) and Austria where there is *massive* protest against TTIP, and the new Austrian President Van Der Bellen says he will not sign it. TTIP – at least not in its current form anyway – is not going to happen. To vote to Leave the EU, to protect the NHS, because of a TTIP that is not going to happen is one of the weirdest arguments you can make.
The NHS is in a mess not because of the EU, but because of the Tories.
And as for Tata Steel – the country that was most opposed to imposing extra tariffs on imports of Chinese steel was… the UK.
The very notion that the UK is going to be a fairer place, or better for workers, outside the EU, does not hold up to scrutiny.
The Conservatives have said they will sign TTIP independently if we leave the EU.
TTIP is heavily supported by Boris/Cameron, leaving ensures we’ll get the undiluted version.
I also want to stop TTIP and the best way to do that is to remain in the EU and be part of the broad and growing opposition to it. It has to be ratified by all EU countries and several have already said they won’t do that – including France (in the current form of the treaty). Most in the leave campaign are in favour of TTIP and would sign it, without any changes.
You cannot be serious. Within the EU there is some evidence of resistance to this. You can bet that the neo liberals leading the charge out will bend over and invite the US to do their worst
Economic and Monetary Union – All the states of the EU apart from the UK and Denmark are going to become integrated politically and economically. We are going to be left sitting outside trying to change something which all the other members have already agreed to even if we agree to stay in. So better to leave now and forge our own path?
Quote – “In a deep and genuine EMU, all major economic and fiscal policy choices by Member States should be subject to deeper coordination, endorsement and surveillance at the European level. Steps towards more responsibility and economic discipline should be combined with more solidarity and financial support. Political integration, ensuring democratic accountability and legitimacy, is necessary every step of the way. This transformation would take place gradually, over the short, medium and longer term, and would entail eventual Treaty changes.
This must be built on the following basic principles. First, the deepening of EMU should build on the institutional and legal framework of the Treaties. Second, the Euro Area must be able to integrate quicker and deeper than the EU at large, whilst the integrity of the policies conducted at 27, notably the Single Market. This means that, wherever appropriate, the Euro Area measures should be open to the participation of other Member States. Indeed, while the Treaties foresee that a number of rules apply only to Euro Area Member States, The present configuration of the Euro Area is only of a temporary nature, since all Member States but two (Denmark and the UK) are destined to become members under the Treaties. ”
– Source –
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-909_en.htm
I am a boomer and I am not so much angry as resigned to the hopeless mess that is UK parliament. I have angry friends and many say they will vote ‘out’. But the reasons seem largely born of frustration, they see the lack of housing, lack of decent jobs, lack of political honesty. Some of this is held up as their own fault – nimbyism etc. But a competent politic could persuade us that housing, industry and infrastructure are necessary – and spread the discomfort fairly. Sadly short termism and cynical electoral calculation seem the only games in town.
To my mind Cameron has brought his problems on himself having run a largely ‘do nothing’ parliament. I think the outlook is pretty grim, if we Brexit then the recent Sports Direct scandal will become the normal employment model with the nastiest of the nasty party leaping for joy. I am for ‘In’ if only to see the hands of the idiots firmly tied.
Nobody who depends on the public sector – old people, sick people, disabled people, those without work, those made to work but not paid enough to live, carers, nurses, doctors, teachers, anyone without private means in need of the law – will recognise Cameron’s gang of vicious cronies as a “do nothing” parliament. We’re all in this together and everyone deserves a second chance, but only if you have friends in Chipping Norton.
So would you say people are voting brexit more at a general frustration with politics and politicians, not specifically European ones?
Because as far as I can see, most of the complaints about the EU would be sorted if we actually voted in a decent government here in the UK.
I am a boomer and I am not so much angry as resigned to the hopeless mess that is UK parliament. I have angry friends and many say they will vote ‘out’. But the reasons seem largely born of frustration, they see the lack of housing, lack of decent jobs, lack of political honesty. Some of this is held up as their own fault – nimbyism etc. But a competent politic could persuade us that housing, industry and infrastructure are necessary – and spread the discomfort fairly. Sadly short termism and cynical electoral calculation seem the only games in town.
To my mind Cameron has brought his problems on himself having run a largely ‘do nothing’ parliament. To my mind the outlook is pretty grim, if we Brexit then the recent Sports Direct scandal will become the normal employment model with the nastiest of the nasty party leaping for joy. I am for ‘In’ if only to see the hands of the idiots firmly tied.
True. I’m voting leave partly as an ‘in’ vote could be seen as a mandate to Cameron and give him free rein. Do check out TTIP.
I’d rather give free rein to Cameron, vile and worthless as he is, than to Gove, Raab, Johnson, Farage, and Murdoch.
I voted against AV in 2011 because I had a faint hope of “sending a message” to the Lib Dems about the dreadful mistake they were making; they still think it wasn’t a mistake.and I should be grateful they didn’t gift the Tories even more scope to trample on us than they actually did, and we still don’t have AV.
You might be well advised to disregard the personalities and the short term, but vote with an eye on the consequences 5 or 10 years from now.
Yet Boris who supported the EU and wanted to privatise the NHS a few years back is likely to then become the leader of your government! To me it just doesn’t make sense that you’d support someone like that…and his own political gains…by voting for a Brexit!
I hate to break this to you, but the only reason we havent had TTIP instated here yet is becuase of other EU countries vetoing it. The UK parliament are actually fighting for it to be instated. If we leave that will be one of the first things they agree to
I think ‘the boomers’ – and the 18-44/45+ cutoff – aren’t where we should be looking. The ratio of Remain to Leave is 7:2 in the youngest bracket and very nearly 2:1 in the 25-34 bracket; pick any random under-35 and you’re significantly more likely to get a Remainer than a Leaver. But once you get above 34, these figures are very finely balanced – the ratio varies between just under 3:2 (35-44) and just under 4:5 (65-74). ‘The boomers’ aren’t anywhere near as solid for Leave as the under-35s are for Remain – we just tend to overstate the impact of their preferences, because we know from experience that they’re far more likely to turn out.
I agree that the Leave campaign is appealing to anger, resentment and worse, but the question that follows isn’t ‘why are the boomers so angry?’, but ‘why are roughly half of people aged 35 and above angry, as distinct from roughly a third of under-35s?’. Which is an interesting question. (Student loans came in in 1999 – so anyone older than 35 this year would have missed them – but why would having had free higher education make (some) people more angry? Or, given the massive growth in HE participation since 1992, are we looking at a cohort who didn’t get free HE and are painfully aware that they couldn’t get it now if they tried? Or does it have nothing to do with HE?)
As someone else said previously, this seems to be born out of Cameron’s dislike of the pensions that are now having to be paid out to pensioners. I’ve heard mention of making people work until 70.
Who is the person who writes this? I wonder at their motivation.
Cameron is working desperately to get us to stay and I wonder at his motives. Nothing is done for our own good, now. Maybe he sees a fat EU job disappearing if we leave.
The City of London may well be weakened by a leave vote, see also the way the pound has slid against the euro. Hence Cameron et al’s interest in staying. No need for an EU job when he has plenty of rich UK pals.
The thing is, if nothing is done for our own good by our own parliament, why vote to leave the EU and ensure that we are only stuck with our own politicians, rather than having another arena of politics within which to deal with our own numpties?
They can afford to take the gamble and are largely shielded from the effects.
An interesting blog and interesting replies – rather than the usual rabid nonsense on mainstream sites
oh, and I meant to say thank you
They’re angry for the simple reason that they are insatiable.
Reblogged this on In the Dark and commented:
A question I’ve been asking myself…
I am coming up to 50. The timing of Maastrich and Delor’s “ever closer union” is what defined the current trajectory of EU Project to allow two speeds and basically sideline UK interests that were already holding up the desire of others to merge. I work in banks and have been a risk manager for a large part of my career working at German and French as well as English banks and observing Americans closely. Given the horrendously regressive burden of bank bailouts – agreed under a Labour government but Tories would likely have been forced to do similar – versus other small L liberal and yet socially progressive policies now pursued to curtail the Sovereign Debt explosion here .. I think middle-England, the squeezed middle of 2009, feels basically tired of the pretence. EU is not a thing, neither France nor Germany have strong enough leaders to resolve their historic problems and has no political vision greater than their short term survival. Look at how ridiculously Greece has been treated. This will keep haunting the EU system and hurt those countries that are not represented in the inner bureaucracy of that system. I see it as a way to maintain undeserved power by an elite political class in old Europe unwilling to face a changing world. UK is pretty darned successful at being practical, resolving conflicts somewhat fairly and getting on with things. It is the rather rotten EU decision making architecture that yields bizarre unworkable kludges and seems stuck in the past trying to pander to interest groups, not our old-fogies remembering bygone days of Enpire.
Does one detect a certain level of self-interest in your comment?
As a risk manager you will be aware that the EU has been pushing for tighter regulation of banks, while the UK government has continuously resisted any attempt to further regulate the financial industry.
Among the disasters that Brexit will inevitably bring (e.g. further inflating the already monstrous ego of Mr Johnson) the greatest disaster will be the utterly unfettered cancerous takeover of England by an unregulated, corrupt financial sector that is used to getting away with murder (literally, see Bill Browder’s campaign as documented in Private Eye), making the lives of everyone a misery, who was “stupid” enough to dedicate their working life to an industry that actually produces something rather than making silly money juggling virtual numbers around in finance (apologies, but living in the City and watching this train wreck runaway, hard to contain cynicism).
I can only interpret your comment as an endorsement of a system that is built on pandering to every corrupt financier on the globe.
As a risk manager working in international finance you should really know better.
The real obvious nonsense type problems caused in the UK has been caused by totally unnecessary demolition schemes that have been implemented by loony politicians like J.Prescott. Did you say……housing shortage for the young uns?? Mortgages well out of reach etc.. (From a baby boomer of late 1949)
The old are the last remains of folks who slavishly do what newspaper proprietors tell them to do, and those with the greatest propensity to demonstrate 1960s racist bigotry. Fortunately a dying phenomenon.
Dangerous generalisation. “The old” as you graciously term us are a cynical bunch who believe little of what the press tell us and are perfectly capable of seeing through the motives of opportunists like Boris Johnson and Farage. The EU is the better of two dodgy options but we must engage better with it and make sure we actively support the positive whilst resisting the wackier ideas.
One benefit of all this may be a more active electorate
I’d like to congratulate Marilynne on her excellent point in the last line above. Let us all hope it may be so.
Reblogged this on Incidental Ramblings.
It’s 90% due to the print media – your views on immigration and “sovereignty” are largely correlated with which print media you consume (paper or online version) – I think that without the steady ratcheting up of anti immigration sentiment by most of the print media over the last decade the public would not have much of an opinion on immigration. I’m sure that the age point at which your opinion about Brexit flips represents a key age at which the media consumption changes (between left and right wing print media, print media vs online and social media as main source of information and opinion, etc). The torrent of toxicity from certain papers against immigration, stoking of housing shortages, outrage over insufficient school places, congestion on transport, etc wears away at people’s souls (and brains). I know many very nice and otherwise reasonable people who live in South East England who seem to equate any inconvenience that could be attributed to lack of resources (congestion, schooling, NHS) on immigration, and therefore support Brexit. For them it is not about jobs or cultural clashes, it is about inconvenience in their daily lives which they have attributed almost unconsciously to the result of immigration (never austerity!), due to the continual toxic promptings of much of the print media – you could call it Small Island Syndrome. The continual wailings of columnists about how can we survive if we continue to import people into our tiny rock on the continental shelf? As Rick has suggested previously – the majority of the population pressure in the SE is internal migration from the north and rural areas, and it could be solved with appropriate investment into housing, services, infrastructure.
I don’t know why the ‘Boomers’ should be so angry. Truly, no generation in history ever ‘had it so good’ as the postwar generation – those born in 1945 and the ten years thereafter. I suspect it smacks of some deep disillusionment with the world – they think the better world they used to enjoy is now falling apart, and they’re looking around for someone else to blame.
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Reblogged this on Multifandom-Madnesss and commented:
“No, they are angry about Brussels bureaucrats, national identity and democracy, even though it’s quite difficult to get specific (and true) examples of what they mean. They are angry about immigration, even though a lot of them don’t live in high immigration areas. They are angry about a Britain which has actually been very good to them and, with its protected pensions and pensioner benefits, continues to be so. These are some of the most prosperous, secure and healthy human beings ever to walk the planet. Yet, with a howl of rage, they may be about to tip our wobbling economy into recession, thereby wrecking the chances of younger generations.”
Reblogged this on Borrowing Ideas and commented:
No, its not really about Borrowing, but I have just spotted this article and was fascinated by the possibility that older people have just decided to kill their golden goose.
The horse has bolted so far from the gate that even a Tornado with afterburners on full throttle couldn’t catch up, but from the Dutch sidelines I hope you, our fine British friends (haven’t spoken to all of you obviously!, but the statistics bode pretty well) won’t let yourselves get riled into a faux intergenerational conflict. The problem is not with the well-off pensioner across the street, or even with the up-and-coming City quant; it’s with those you can’t even compare your wealth to because you never learned to do long divisions thát long in school.
Or perhaps they just got off their arses and voted instead of sitting in Maccy D’s eating E numbers and liquid meat. They did this because they remember how great Britain can be. How we can stand alone in the WTO and prosper. We now lead European thinking and global democracy. Time for you guys to realise that you don’t need to suckle your mothers tits for the rest of your life. You need to grow up and get a pair.
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Why on earth do so many think they can sum up the ‘older ‘ generation as if we/they’re too gaga to think any more? We have brains , we also have experience.
I was/am for Brexit because EEC morphed worrying into the EU. It took down Greece, there are reports of a proposed EU army, we’re expected to be in the EU by 2020. There’s far too many reliable reports on how badly the EU is doing in reality. Not to mention TTIP – which wasn’t made public by the EU as they knew how bad it is for the populace in general. I never voted on the basis of Immigration. There are also reports of how highly paid many EU bureaucrats are paid – for what? They don’t run an actual country. This can be verified. They also have never – or not for many years, produced a set of accounts; you couldn’t run a country like that. The laws are set by unelected people – that’s undemocratic. EU is a toxic, expensive union passing laws which – if we’d not been in it for 40-odd years, we could have passed ourselves. I didn’t like the way Cameron started to threaten pensions – more fear tactics. That was his campaign – fear, and he sure got to alot of the younger generation. It’s said it was also a protest against Cameron himself – many are sick of him and his cronies, and I can believe that;never voted for him myself.
Seems to me ‘the young’ were – to a great degree – for remain because they don’t know anything else. Doesn’t mean it’s best for the country. If they don’t like the result, apparently only about 36% voted, they should’ve put down their smartphones, taken off their headphones – or whatever, (there’s a generalisation for you) and gone and voted!
As I was born in 1947 I feel I have to add my ‘two penneth worth’ but first stating that I voted to remain having given my vote to my grandchildren after discussing with them what they wanted.
As to Brexit being the last stand of the Baby Boomers I would suggest that it was the lack of interest, engagement and commitment, using the modern parlance, of youngsters to vote for their own future Their understanding and knowledge of the political system and the working environment in which they engage is questionable to say the least.
In defence of my generation nothing was ‘given’ to us we fought, collectively, for everything that we gained. We were not going to be treated like are parents were. A small example as an ex-Liverpool Dock Worker my generation were no longer prepared to accept casual labour in the Port Industry. We wanted to change everything that our parents had had to put up with. That is the prerogative of each generation to change the world created by their parents.
However, today youngsters are not prepared to fight for anything. They seem to feel that a blog on Facebook or a Tweet on Twitter is some form of radical revolutionary action.
One generation’s apathy and lack of knowledge and understanding of politics and capitalism is no excuse for them to turn on another generation.
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