Brexit vote - some analysis

Last modified on 3rd July 2016

Short extracts from The Daily 202: Stop underestimating Trump. ‘Brexit’ vote shows why he can win., https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/06/24/daily-202-stop-underestimating-trump-brexit-vote-shows-why-he-can-win/576c89e9981b92a22d2dd3dc/, dated June 24th 2016.

The British campaign to exit the European Union (known as “Brexit”), like Trump’s, was fueled by grievance. Those agitating to cut off formal ties to the continent were less organized and less funded than those who wanted to stay connected, but that deficit didn’t matter in the end, because the energy was against the status quo.
...
“The vote split the country along essential lines … Provincial versus metropolitan. Scotland versus England. Native-born Britons versus immigrants.”
--- end extracts from washingtonpost.com article ---

The article, Britain’s youth voted Remain. http://www.politico.eu/article/britains-youth-voted-remain-leave-eu-brexit-referendum-stats/, dated 24th June 2016, gives the following age-wise breakup of the Brexit vote (sourced from YouGove exit poll):

75% of age group 18-24 voted Remain [25% voted Leave]
56% of age group 25-49 voted Remain [44% voted Leave]
44% of age group 50-64 voted Remain [56% voted Leave]
39% of age group 65+ voted Remain [61% voted Leave]

I heard on an International news channel on TV today, words to the effect that the ones who have to live with the decision they made for fewer years, voted to Leave, whereas the ones who have to live with the decision for many more years, voted to Remain! The oldies won! [The youth have to live (far longer) with the decision taken by the oldies!]

Ravi: My God! I don't like the last few sentences I put up above. It seems so repugnant. But I think I will keep it on the post as I think it is the truth, and the confusing world that we live in today where we are not sure whom to trust, badly needs some truth-telling.
----------------------------

Here's an article about a viral tweet from a UK youth having a comment on a Financial Times article, capturing the despondency of some UK youth, http://usuncut.com/world/viral-post-captures-youth-mood-on-brexit-vote/. I have copy-pasted the comment text below:

A quick note on the first three tragedies. Firstly, it was the working classes who voted for us to leave because they were economically disregarded, and it is they who will suffer the most in the short term. They have merely swapped one distant and unreachable elite for another.

Secondly, the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors.

Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in a HG Wells novel. When Michael Gove said, ‘The British people are sick of experts,’ he was right. But can anybody tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has led to anything other than bigotry?
--- end comment text ---

Ravi: Perhaps the comment text is painting too dark a picture of the future. Surely UK youth will still be able to live & work in Europe but after going through visa/work-permit formalities. It will be tougher than earlier - I mean, they can't just hop on a train or ferry and explore job opportunities in the European continent by directly being there without any visa/paperwork formalities, like they could in the past few years/decades.

I feel real bad about this aspect for the youth of UK who want to look beyond Britain for jobs.
--------

The article, Is ‘Brexit’ the Precursor to a Donald Trump Presidency? Not So Fast, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/us/politics/is-brexit-the-precursor-to-a-donald-trump-presidency-not-so-fast.html, dated June 24th 2016, quotes David Axelrod as saying, "There’s a fundamental issue that all developed economies have to confront, which is that globalization and technological changes have meant millions of people have seen their jobs marginalized and wages decline.”.."And so lots of folks want to turn the clock back and make America, or their country, great again."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Axelrod, "David M. Axelrod (born February 22, 1955) is an American political operative and analyst, best known as the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. After Obama's election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to the President. Axelrod left the White House position in early 2011 and became the Senior Strategist for Obama's successful re-election campaign in 2012. He currently serves as the director of the non-partisan Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and is a Senior Political Commentator for CNN.
A former political writer for the Chicago Tribune, Axelrod is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Believer, My Forty Years in Politics, which was released in 2015.
...
In 2014 Axelrod was appointed senior strategic adviser to the British Labour Party to assist party leader Ed Miliband in the run-up to the 2015 general election."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few comments of mine on my associated Facebook post (one of a few posts),
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1757894801093756 :

Ravi responded to a comment:
Thanks for you view --name-snipped--. I was not following the Brexit vote much as I went by news reports that it would fail (like Scotland's leave effort failed some time back), even if the margin would be close. As the reaction has been rather stark both economically and politically (perhaps it is just a knee-jerk short term reaction) across many countries of the world, including India, I did some more reading up on it. Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are the key names that analysts are mentioning, and they say that immigration fears (e.g. huge numbers of Turks coming to Britain) were played upon, which swung the vote their (Leave) way. ... Surely, the USA general election is much more complex with various voter groups (like minorities) coming into play, besides the Electoral College arithmetic. However, I think demagoguery and fear mongering about immigration (Latinos as well as Muslims) seems to be paying handsome dividends in the USA among some voter groups (white rural). Whether that can be enough to swing the general election is another matter. We will have to wait and see. Perhaps you will be proved right.
----

Ravi responded to a comment:
Oh! I am just a student trying to learn about USA politics and policy making through my study of this presidential election. Whatever views I have expressed are based on this little knowledge that I have gained from this on-going study. They surely could have flaws and be even way off :-).

Interesting to see your point about illegal immigrants doing the manual labour grunt work that Americans don't want to do. I had read about this earlier and even seen videos of farm labour hard work in the USA that only immigrants (mostly illegal, I guess) are willing to do. Strict implementation of anti illegal immigration laws, especially those involving mandatory verification of farm labour citizenship/credentials by USA farmers, in some states, created a backlash from USA farmers, due to which the authorities had to go slow!

I think the biggest challenge of our times now is ensuring suitable employment for citizens of a country in the face of the serious challenges posed by globalization (international trade policies) and automation. The globalization one seems to be particularly complex due to the massive interdependencies that have come about among major countries of the world. Raising tariffs and going for self-reliance type of policies may seem attractive in theory but may prove to be problematic and even disastrous in practice as the former could lead to a tariff war/trade war (happened in the 1930s specifically, according to noteworthy sources) and the latter may lead to crippling shortages of goods and services in the short term which the populace may not be able to handle! Creating new factories in various sectors which will become economically viable quickly, is not an easy thing to do, especially on a big scale.

Immigration is, and I think has been, perhaps over all of human history, a very, very tricky issue. Hard working immigrants can be a boost to a society's functions/productivity, and so are somewhat grudgingly accepted by settled people in an area. But once the immigrants are in, they or at least their children, become citizens of that country! That brings about a change in the ethnic mix of the area long-term! [An exception are countries which are very strict about accepting foreign citizen-workers e.g. Arab oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia. Foreign workers from Asia, including India, form the main workforce base for these countries. But these foreign workers are typically not allowed to become citizens of that country. However, due to such policies, these countries are not attractive to well qualified/ capable potential immigrants, who prefer countries like USA, Canada and Australia which have a policy of allowing foreign immigrant-workers to become citizens over time.]

According to http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/ the 2014 breakup by race/ethnicity of USA population is as follows:
62% White
18% Hispanic
12% Black
6% Asian
1% American Indian/Alaska native
2% Two or more races

So I think White ethnicity will continue to dominate USA demographics for decades to come, though there is no doubt that Hispanic, Black and Asian ethnic background Americans are increasing and coming to positions of note in various fields like business, academics and even politics.

Parts of cities especially getting dominated by immigrants from a particular culture and making that culture the dominant one in those parts of the cities are, I think, quite natural in the evolution of cities. That creates some sort of a backlash at times from the natives as they feel that the immigrants must assimilate into their culture, and not try to introduce the immigrants' culture in their city. I think the brutal reality of this is that it is a numbers demographic game and such resistance from natives tends to be ineffective over time (though there may be some impact in the short-term especially if violence is used against the immigrants). The city culture then morphs into a multi-ethnic multi-racial culture. I think multi-ethnic multi-racial culture is becoming the unavoidable future of many parts of the world.

But I do think that the decisions related to immigration should reflect the will of the people (majority will) of the country. If a country's people (majority) feel that they do not want to take in immigrants from elsewhere in significant numbers (like in the case of Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf countries, as far as I know), then that should be the immigration policy and it should be implemented strictly. I mean, ultimately the will of the people (majority) should prevail, as otherwise the tensions within society may reach breaking point.

BTW some north eastern states of India (e.g. Assam) as well as Myanmar (Burma) have a serious problem of (illegal, I guess) immigration from Bangladesh. It is a major social and political issue in India's north eastern states and in Myanmar. So India too faces the immigration problem, at least to some extent.
-----

Ravi responded in a comment (slightly edited):
Read the LA Times article, http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-census-latinos-20150708-story.html. Interesting! Some key stats from it:
Census Bureau figures as of July 1st 2014 for California: 14.99 million Latinos and 14.92 million whites
The same article states that in 1970 Latinos were 2.4 million (12% of state population) and Whites were 15.5 million (more than 75%).
By 1990, the Latino population in the state had jumped to 7.7 million.

So while the white population of CA has remained almost stagnant numbers-wise, the Latino population has grown over 6 times (14.99/2.4 = 6.25) between 1970 and 2014, if the statistics are accurate!

That is a dramatic change! I wonder how much of this change can be attributed to higher fertility rate among Latinos as compared to Whites, and how much to immigration. The LA Times article states, "The continued influx and growth of Latinos in the United States is not being fueled exclusively by immigration but by second- and third-generation immigrants who are settling down and starting families, said Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, a professor and dean of education at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies."

BTW, as I have mentioned previously in some other FB exchanges we had, I spent a couple of months in the suburb of Goleta near Santa Barbara, California in the early 90s. While the two month period was very short as compared to slightly over one and a half years I have spent in New England (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) in the 80s, I did get the impression that this part of CA was very different from MA and NH. I clearly recall driving down to Los Angeles for some software business work. The drive as well as LA city felt very different from Boston which I had driven down to, and visited, many times. The company that I was visiting then in Goleta, was a small startup kind-of one then (around ten employees or so, I guess), founded by an Indian-American Muslim (named Mohammad), and had a Latino employee called Sergio. He was a friendly guy. I think Sergio is the only Latino that I have associated with during my US stints in the 80s and early 90s! Here's a small extract from the company website that I looked up today, http://www.imagexusa.com/DocumentManagement.php, "IMAGE-X Enterprises, Inc. was founded in 1989 in Santa Barbara, California, with the purpose of bringing innovative solutions across the verticals. IMAGE-X provides Document management, Workflow and Electronic filing systems. The company's important products provide to major corporations and institutions the technology needed to capture, manage and share multiple data types. Our enterprise-level product is a process-centric Document Management suite that includes XML integration, forms solutions, workflow, imaging, computer output to laser disk (COLD) and archival technologies. Our products enable our clients' existing business applications to be documented on an enterprise-wide basis over local and wide-area networks. They can be integrated with any database application running on any kind of hardware platform without modification. The components of the system are modular and can be custom-tailored to the needs of any enterprise."

I also felt it appropriate to bring in some historical context to this discussion. Some extracts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California:
The history of California can be divided into: the Native American period; European exploration period from 1542 to 1769; the Spanish colonial period, 1769 to 1821; the Mexican period, 1821 to 1848; and United States statehood, which continues to this present day.

California was settled from the North by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years. It was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. After contact with Spanish explorers, most of the Native Americans died out from European diseases.
After the Portolà expedition of 1769–70, Spanish missionaries began setting up 21 California Missions on or near the coast of Alta (Upper) California, beginning in San Diego. (Lower California has always been part of Mexico.) During the same period, Spanish military forces built several forts (presidios) and three small towns (pueblos). Two of the pueblos grew into the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose. When Mexico took over from Spain, it closed all of the missions in the 1830s. They left behind a "Californio" (Hispanic) population of several thousand families, with a few small military units. The Mexican–American War of 1846-48 brought California into the United States. The unexpected discovery of gold produced a spectacular goldrush in Northern California, attracting hundreds of thousand of ambitious young men from around the world. Only a few struck it rich, and many returned disappointed. Most appreciated the opportunities, especially in agriculture, and brought their families to join them. California became a state in 1850 and played a small role in the American Civil War. Chinese immigrants increasingly came under attack from nativists; they were forced out of mining and agriculture and into Chinatowns in the larger cities. As gold petered out, California increasingly became a highly productive agricultural society. The coming of the railroads in 1869 linked its rich economy with the rest of the nation, and attracted a steady stream of migrants. In the late 19th century, Southern California, especially Los Angeles, started to grow rapidly.
--- end wiki extract ---

Ravi: Given the immigration waves history of California (became part of USA only around 1850!), it is not surprising to me that Latinos form a big part of California today, even if their spectacular demographic growth (over 6 times from 1970 to 2014) has led them to become the majority ethnic background people of California.

About the "little Somalia" and similar little xyz areas in the USA (and in other countries): I think it is quite natural for people from a different ethnic background to initially stick to dress and culture of their native country. Mind you, typically there is a lot of resistance to such immigrant people socially from the settled people. So they tend to stay within their community from a comfort-level point of view, and also, at times, from a safety point of view. But, over time, especially over future generations, these people/their children tend to adopt some part (if not all) of the culture & behaviour of the majority people of their adopted country (or country of birth, for the children). I think that's how one has a Judge Gonzalo Curiel, American born from Mexican immigrant parents, who shot into the world spotlight due to his fearless handling of the Trump University case so far (and then we came to know of his courage in fighting the Mexican drug cartels in California and in their bases in Mexico through collaboration with Mexican authorities).

Regarding dress, I have seen videos of hatred towards orthodox Jews in the USA (yes, the USA, and including San Antonio in 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Uqt-VTCMk, 1 min. 28 secs). The way some Orthodox Jews dress makes them clearly different from other Whites, and, very unfortunately, some of them become a target of anti-Semitism. Steven Spielberg said recently in a Harvard University commencement address that antisemitism is on the rise in Europe!!!

So I would say that one should develop tolerance towards different dress code of different ethnic background people.

But, unfortunately, there are some pockets of such little xyz areas where some foolish people have ambitions of creating a different mini-state with different laws from that of the country that they live in and whose govt. protects them and provides them basic services! That is not limited to one particular religion or ethnicity in the USA, I think. I mean, I have read and viewed videos about White "patriots" who would like to have a Christian-only (and their understanding of Christian) kind of mini-state (and yes, they don't want Jews to be part of such mini-states). I think such groups typically do not last long or gain enough popularity to become a widespread movement. At some point of time, the authorities crack down seriously on them and cut them down to size.
----------------

Fascinating set of cartoon pics giving one explanation in simple language and pics of Brexit. It starts with, "Why does the European Union exist, anyway?
Europe is a collection of countries that used to fight a lot. For example, in World War II countries within Europe fought against one another, and it greatly hurt the continent."

Brexit: why Britain left the EU, explained with a simple cartoon, http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12025514/brexit-cartoon, dated June 24th 2016
----

An Indian correspondent wrote over email (and was OK with sharing; slightly edited):
This is the best analysis of the Brexit vote that I have found:

WHY THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN LOST THE BREXIT VOTE, http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-the-remain-campaign-lost-the-brexit-vote, dated June 24th 2016

Indian correspondent: The Leave campaign had a positive message to the electorate (not necessarily correct or justified) while the Remain campaign chose a negative view by highlighting the cost of leaving (6200 pounds per household per year), not the positive advantages of being in the EU.

Commentators talk of the large gap between the voters and the party leaders (of both the main parties) and how the leaders really did not know what people thought and how they would react. However, the Leave campaign recognised the fear of poorer voters of hordes of immigrants ('millions of Turks') who would further deprive them of jobs and social security and played on it successfully.

We are in London now and talked to several people. One Cockney taxi driver who is just about to buy a house in France was all for Remain; another, also Cockney, was all for Leave and told us he had done a poll of people taking his taxi on the voting day and found that 75% were for Leave. He did not want to see millions of Albanians and Rumanians coming to be supported by British social security. By the way, he has a house in Cyprus so he can't be doing badly.

Boris Johnson, Leave leader and now heir apparent to the British prime ministership, seemed today to be less than ecstatic about leaving -- he said there was no hurry to leave. Many Leave leaders seemed to want to make a point, rather than expecting to win the vote, and now seem sobered by the result.
----------------------------

My comments in my Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1758262074390362, associated with the comment (immediately above) made by Indian correspondent who is in UK now, are given below. The Facebook post generated lots of comments mainly from two persons, one in the UK who seems to be pro Leave, and another in continental Europe who has the view that Britishers would be worse off after they leave the EU.

I (Ravi) wrote in response to a comment:
I think the realization of the real impact is hitting some of the Leave voters. I read something about a move to have another referendum on it. Don't know whether that will happen though. .... These referendum votes are tricky! Some populist talk and then suddenly Britain has voted to be out of EU! This is followed by bombshells like the PM announcing his resignation (though he will stay on for some time), Scotland seriously considering a repeat referendum to separate from UK so that they continue to be in the EU, French & Dutch right-wing parties hoping for similar moves in their country ... All of this being triggered by the populist talk ('millions of Turks' swamping Britain and so on) which swung the vote the Leave way. ... Hmm. Democracy needs to have some mechanism to stop/prevent falsehoods being spread by political leaders just to get votes.
---

I (Ravi) wrote in response to a comment:
Thanks for your view, --name-snipped--. --name-snipped--'s comments on this post have given me his side of the picture which may be aligned to your view. I have been influenced by mainstream media, including Indian media reporting of the matter. Good to hear alternate views as that shows perhaps why the Leave vote won (and perhaps would win again, even if the vote was held again). .... But Scotland seems to be all set to repeat their referendum on leaving UK in the light of the Leave vote result in UK being opposite of the vote in Scotland alone. We may then see Scotland end up leaving the UK but stay with the EU. I don't think many anticipated such a possibility. ... BTW I had a good Scottish friend who was a governess (au pair) to an English family in Brussels, during the time I was there in the mid 80s, and came to know some more Scottish persons and also about Scotland, through her. [I have never been to Scotland though I have visited London a couple of times when I was based in Brussels.] I have lost contact with her and her Scottish friends, but I wouldn't be surprised if they would very much want to have freer access to EU labor market, and so would have voted to Remain! ... What is clear is that there is a big divide in the UK about this matter, and that the vote has not really put a lid on the matter for the UK as a whole (I have not touched upon Northern Ireland in my comment; BTW I had another friend in Brussels who was from Belfast and was working as a software guy in Brussels in the same company I was working in then (I was working as a contractor from my Mumbai company). I enjoyed listening to both the Northern-Irish and Scottish accented English :-) ).
---
=================================================

Given below are the contents of an additional Facebook post I put up on the matter, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/1759026607647242:

Brexit: Racist abuse in UK reported since vote to leave EU, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/27/europe/racist-attacks-post-brexit/, dated June 28th 2016

Short extracts from it:

Anti-immigrant leaflets saying "Leave the EU - no more Polish vermin" were put on cars near a school, local police said, the day after the country voted to leave the European Union.
...
"I've spent most of the weekend talking to organizations, individuals and activists who work in the area of race hate crime, who monitor hate crime and they have shown some really disturbing early results from people being stopped in the street and saying look, we voted Leave, it's time for you to leave," she said.
--- end short extracts ---

Ravi: Sad to see that the Leave vote succeeding is being viewed as a license to indulge in racist hatred by some in the UK!!!

---end post contents ---

Given below are my comments on this Facebook post:

In response to a comment, I (Ravi) wrote (slightly edited):
It seems to be a minority. See 'The vote made people just explode': Polish centre reeling after graffiti attack, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/27/brexit-polish-centre-london-reeling-after-graffiti-attack ... Very sad incident - the hate graffiti. But it was also nice to see how many British expressed solidarity with the Poles, thereby isolating those involved in such hate messages. An extract from the article: The receptionist shows me the cards, one of which reads: “Dear Poles, I am so sorry to hear about what happened yesterday. We the Brits are grateful to you for fighting alongside us in the war and now for the enormous contribution you make to our society. We love you.” The article has a video link with footage from British Parliament where David Cameron expresses solidarity with the Poles.
----

In response to a comment, I (Ravi) wrote:
Well said brother. I remember a hard working Polish family running a pub (on a small road off Avenue Louise) near where I used to live in Brussels in the 80s (a studio apt. on Avenue Louise) which I would frequent for a drink or two followed by a meal. Very friendly people - nice guys. Even though I could not speak French and they were not very fluent in English we managed to communicate :-). I still remember them quite well even now. ... The Poles in UK would not be very different from them, I guess. That's why I mentioned about them. ... It is quite nasty to target hard working and law abiding immigrants in this fashion no matter what their country of origin. ... If the immigrants are breaking the law or being a social menace then it is a different matter, which should be handled strictly by law enforcement and not vigilante thugs.
----------------------------------------------------------

Content of miscellaneous Facebook posts of mine related to this matter are given below:
A BBC interview published early June (few weeks BEFORE Brexit referendum) of the person who may be the next Prime Minister of UK implementing the Leave result, Mr. Boris Johnson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkESFmODHF0, 17 min. 32 secs.
Johnson's views on govt. controlling immigration to UK (from other EU countries), saving money that UK contributes to EU which can be spent on UK itself, Single Market of EU ... are clearly expressed. The interviewer does ask tough questions including questioning some of the Leave campaign statements which were controversial.
...
Nigel Farage on Brexit and Donald Trump (Full CNN interview), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYOqSW7VAsk, around 9 mins, published June 28th 2016
Mr. Farage was frank in expressing his views while answering a variety of questions from Richard Quest of CNN
...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyns-full-defiant-statement-8303915

Ravi: Corbyn lost the UK Labour MPs no-confidence vote by over 130 votes (172 to 40). But his view is that the MPs cannot decide on his being leader of the UK labour party (party's members decide).

His full statement from the above link:

In the aftermath of last week’s referendum, our country faces major challenges. Risks to the economy and living standards are growing. The public is divided.

The government is in disarray. Ministers have made it clear they have no exit plan, but are determined to make working people pay with a new round of cuts and tax rises.

Labour has the responsibility to give a lead where the government will not. We need to bring people together, hold the government to account, oppose austerity and set out a path to exit that will protect jobs and incomes.

To do that we need to stand together. Since I was elected leader of our party nine months ago, we have repeatedly defeated the government over its attacks on living standards.

Last month, Labour become the largest party in the local elections. In Thursday’s referendum, a narrow majority voted to leave, but two thirds of Labour supporters backed our call for a remain vote.

I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60% of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning. Today’s vote by MPs has no constitutional legitimacy.

We are a democratic party, with a clear constitution. Our people need Labour party members, trade unionists and MPs to unite behind my leadership at a critical time for our country.

--- end Jeremy Corbyn statement on losing Labour MPs no-confidence vote ---
...
Nigel Farage vs. Jean Claude Juncker in post-Brexit EU Parliament session

I was astounded to hear Mr. Nigel Farage's speech in the EU parliament today. I mean, one expects magnanimity from the victors in democratic politics and not gloating. He compounded my shock by the way he lectured the EU to have a good deal with the UK post-Brexit or else the EU may suffer! Mr. Farage does not seem to believe in polite negotiation!

Here are some of his words in his speech as reported in http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/28/europe/uk-brexit-eu-referendum/:

Mr. Farage:
"Isn't it funny? When I came here 17 years ago and I said that I wanted to lead a campaign go get Britain out of the European Union, you all laughed at me. Well, I have to say, you're not laughing now, are you?"
..
"I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives or worked in business or worked in trade or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen"!!!

Ravi: The EU Parliament president, Martin Schulz, cautioned Farage over these insults.

Hmm. I had heard some of the outrageous EU parliament speeches of Farage earlier but never thought that a day would come where he would be gloating like this in the EU parliament itself over the UK getting out of the EU and predicting that some other countries will follow, besides insulting all the EU parliament members as useless fellows (never done a proper job in their lives)!

Here's his full speech video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlN9o3g-yuA, 6 min. 51 secs.

I loved listening to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, giving it back to Farage but in a far more polished way, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltokomw4UoQ, 0 min. 51 secs. He said, "We need to respect British democracy and the decision they made." [Turning to Farage who may have been applauding] "That's the last time you are applauding here. And to some extent I am really surprised that you are here. You were fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favour of exit. Why are you here?"

Ravi: I should also say that I am quite sure that the main leaders in the mainstream political parties of the UK who campaigned for the Leave movement like Mr. Boris Johnson of the Conservative party will surely be far more statesmanlike than Mr. Nigel Farage, which would help in negotiating a good arrangement for Britain with post-Brexit EU.
----

===============================================

From a Facebook post of mine:
BBC presenter Trish Adudu in tears after racist abuse - BBC News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSHszDYYWgg. 1 min. 47 secs,  published on July 2nd 2016 by BBC News.

The bad part is the racist hate speech with a clear reference to the vote result by the (alleged) racist, as related by Ms. Adudu. The good part is the positive way in which the British police seemed to have handled Ms. Adudu's racist hate complaint.

I think this upsurge in racism in Britain after the Leave vote should be tackled by giving wide exposure to such incidents, naming-and-shaming such racists, co-operating fully with the British authorities like the police, and also the mainstream media (e.g. BBC) in tackling and condemning such racism. A few bad elements in British society should not be allowed to promote division in its current multi-racial, multi-religion (including no religion) and multi-ethnic society.
--------------------------------

Please note that I have a PUBLICLY NEUTRAL informal-student-observer role in these posts that I put up about the USA presidential elections. Of course, as I am an Indian citizen living in India, there is no question of me voting in these elections.

[I thank washingtonpost.com, politico.eu. YouGove exit poll, nytimes.com, latimes.com and wikipedia, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above short extracts or data from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]