As an undoubted Remainer, the result of “leaving the EU” is unbelievable and even painful for me. I always thought that “Leave” was just a British joke, after all, from my own understanding, “European integration is the trend, and in the long run the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.”
But on June 23, 51.9 percent of the British public really voted to leave the European Union.
I talked to horse breeders at a British horse farm about Brexit: the benefits are being taken away
Between August 2015 and April 2016, I participated in the Dubai International Thoroughbred Internship Program and was assigned to a horse farm in a small town in England for a horse breeding internship.
During that time, I tried to recreate a picture of the “exit” group in my conversations with different people.
Jim, a grassroots worker on a horse farm: “Too many EU immigrants are coming to get benefits, what have we gotten from the EU?”
Jim is a grassroots worker at the Racecourse, a native of England. In his early forties, he looks young, with a healthy, rosy face and a well-proportioned body, and it’s not at all obvious that his children are all the same age as me.
Whenever he saw me, he would teasingly greet me with “Hey Naranja!” which is my Spanish name.
Taking the opportunity to sweep the floor together the other day, I asked him about his opinion on the UK EU referendum.
“I think it’s time for the UK to leave the EU. First of all, immigration. We have too many immigrants from the EU now, and they tend to be good-for-nothing and come to rub up against welfare ……” Jim continued, “I have a friend, British, who worked for over twenty years, then last month got injured and retired early, went to the welfare office to ask for a place to live and apply for The result is that the other side said that now there is no empty house; and I also know a Polish aunt, who has never worked in Britain in his life, came to Britain only three months to fill out all kinds of forms, and now already live in a free apartment plus subsidies. Can you imagine? Alas, it’s not as good as it used to be ……”
“It sounds more like the UK government’s welfare policy is set up wrong. About dodging welfare, I see the BBC’s “Life on the dole” (life on welfare) also has no shortage of examples of grandparents who have been British for generations and have not been working, ah?” I reminded him.
“Maybe there are such people. But the problem is that as long as we’re in the EU, immigrants can come if they want to, and there’s no way to check if they’re a serious guy. I think it’s time to put the gates down, or at least stop more people from coming. In the future, those who want to come will have to go through the visa process like you (meaning us Chinese interns), so that we can rest assured.”
I bowed my head.
The UK’s work visa policy is strict, requiring company sponsorship to get out, and a Tier 5 visa like the one I have now is actually only an internship visa, which doesn’t allow me to continue working in the UK after my internship is over.
My Chinese friends who studied in the UK, both undergraduates and masters, paid high tuition fees and living expenses, but very few of them were lucky enough to stay and work in the UK after graduation. The painfulness of this is not something that can be explained in a few words to a British person who may not need a visa to leave the country for the rest of his life.
“Do you think the UK will be better off by leaving the EU?” I asked Jim.
He laughed bitterly, “Actually, it wouldn’t. We’re no longer the same Great Britain. Leaving wouldn’t be better, just maybe avoid continuing to get deeper and deeper into the murky waters of the EU …… What exactly have we ever gotten out of the EU? In fact, our economic dealings with Europe will continue even after we leave. But now we’re full of foreigners and Britain doesn’t look like Britain anymore!”
There are a few people who hold this view at the stud farm where I work.
Although horse breeding has a long history in the UK, it is after all rough work. You get up early in the morning and only get one day off a week, especially during the breeding season, and the work is mechanical and monotonous.
Despite the relatively generous accommodation, there are still fewer and fewer local young people who do not want to join the business, and the staff of the horse farm is generally over 50 years old. These older workers, who entered the industry at a young age, have either worked as stable hands to become the present-day stable supervisors, or have been apprenticed as jockeys (there are strict weight requirements to become a jockey, such as not exceeding 60kg), or have retired from horse racing coaching and dedicated their lives to the horse industry.
The influx of immigrants into the industry has not only impacted their survival, but has also made the issue of immigrants “sharing” welfare sensitive.
For them, Europe may be just a group of bossy and snobbish neighbors, the French who love to complain, is suitable for vacation in Spain, is poor Poland, a bunch of small Eastern European countries that can not be named.
“Brexit”, is the only option.
University graduate Radish: “Brexit being discussed is already a terrible thing in itself”
When I posted a survey about the almost unanimous opinion of horse farms on Facebook to find out what more British people thought, I received a link to a video from Radish: Who will vote to leave the EU?
I talked to horse breeders on a British horse farm about Brexit: the benefits are being taken away from them.
The video gives a portrait of the “Leave” and “Remain” people, with age, nationality, education level and political inclination as the dimensions, the “Leave” people are 55+ year old English people who have no diploma and voted for the UK Independence Party; the “Remain” people are 20+ year old young people from Northern Ireland who have a university degree and voted for the Green Party.
Turnip himself is in the latter category.
A graduate of the University of Southampton with a degree in Modern Languages, Radish is a typical high intellectual class local. He is my first foreign friend and an even greater linguistic genius: although hearing impaired, he has superior lip reading and phonetic imitation skills and is fluent in seven languages including English Sign Language, English, French, Spanish, and Chinese.
As a gay Jew, Radish loves to play and learn, and has both a rich nightlife and many enviable specialties: he played professional hockey in high school, entered theater directing in college, acted in numerous stage productions, and finally discovered his love for languages before turning to language study.
After graduating, he spent a year teaching English in Barcelona, Spain, and then returned to the UK to edit language textbooks, and plans to start a Youtube channel to teach people Chinese.
I asked Radish about his thoughts on the UK’s exit from the EU. It was clear that he was a staunch Remainer, “It’s scary and annoying just to have this thing (whether the UK leaves the EU) discussed.”
Once proud of the openness and tolerance of his country and its people, he has realized in recent years that there are many British people who are still ethnically discriminatory and intolerant. After the referendum result was issued, he shared a quote from the new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on Facebook: “You are welcome here …… It is the responsibility of all of us to try to bridge the differences.”
I talked to horse breeders at a British horse farm about Brexit: the benefits are rubbing off
In retrospect, the referendum result really did match previous predictions. Although 75% of young people under 25 voted to stay in the EU, these same age group had the lowest turnout, and while they protested that older people had decided their future for them, political indifference and the inability of 16-17 year olds to participate in the vote are now contributing factors to the result.
Young European working in the UK: “My job shouldn’t be affected, right?”
A young Polish guy, Waltke, is a typical “new blood” from a poor EU country who comes to the UK to work. After working as a barman and hotel waiter in Greece, he returned to Poland and worked as a construction worker, a bartender and an insurance salesman. A few months ago, he came to the UK through a friend’s recommendation and became a grassroots horse worker.
“In Poland, we might only earn 500 pounds a month. Here, the company includes lunch and accommodation, as well as a monthly salary of nearly 1,000. I’ve only been here a few months and I’ve already bought a laptop and a DSLR camera. I’m very satisfied!” For the referendum result view, he optimistically said, because he is a legitimate job, should not be affected.
A French girl, Izzy, has been in London for nearly a year and is currently working in sales for a French dessert company. She thinks the UK referendum was a mistake in finally choosing to leave the EU and is a bit worried that it will affect her next hiring by the company she applied to.
“We’re all trying to stay optimistic and hope that the UK and the EU can negotiate a better follow-up.”
But Fernando, a Spanish boy, is not so calm. He came to the U.K. from Spain, which is in a deep economic crisis, six months ago, working in a restaurant while studying to become a programmer and finding a Filipino girlfriend a few months ago. The result of the referendum gave him a headache.
“I sat on the couch at 5:43 a.m. and witnessed this stupid and arrogant bunch of Brits do something like this. Now the future is dark again. So ‘thank’ them, dumbasses!” Fernando said in the night of the big and slightly cold London city.
Nina, who is from Sweden, has spent at least eight years in the UK, from undergraduate to master’s degree, and is both successful in her career and in love. If I hadn’t known she was Swedish, I would have been unable to tell her nationality from her skilled English accent.
Nina told me that many Europeans have been working in the UK for years and are also usually too lazy to apply for British status with the government (theoretically more than 5 years is possible), and that non-British status would deprive their group of many such Europeans who clearly have a positive contribution to the British economy of the right to vote to be denied this referendum.
“For me, the UK is like my second home. But if the UK decides to ‘leave’ the EU and really leave in a referendum, I and probably Arnie and I will have to possibly consider leaving here ……”
Life goes on for ordinary people in the UK
As a Chinese studying in the UK, I know I have benefited from European integration, despite the discrimination and cultural differences I have experienced.
Because of the Erasmus exchange program, I can travel around Europe on scholarship; the Schengen visa allows me to travel freely in the European Schengen area without additional formalities …… But as an outsider, I am well aware that Europe is burdened by its welfare economy, facing an aging population, lack of social vitality and internal racial integration conflicts, and the UK is like a sinking ship, carrying the glory of its past development, but now overwhelmed and weak.
Perhaps, Britain’s exit from the European Union, is not about how the big data, but with the ordinary people closely related to life: the pound fell, British pets can not go to Europe at ease, all Erasmus exchanges about the United Kingdom are temporarily suspended …… referendum seems to have come to an end, but for those ordinary people in the United Kingdom in a different capacity, life continues.
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