{"id":561,"date":"2019-01-20T09:59:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T09:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/?p=561"},"modified":"2021-04-14T14:07:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T14:07:31","slug":"was-it-really-fair-to-ask-us-to-vote-in-or-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/2019\/01\/20\/was-it-really-fair-to-ask-us-to-vote-in-or-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Was it Really Fair to Ask Us to Vote In or Out??"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/span><\/p>\n

I am putting my neck out writing this blog because as a counsellor what I think and feel ideally should be neutral to the client in order to not interest or put off certain clients. My thoughts and feelings are mostly neutral to both sides of people who voted leave or remain. However, in this blog I am going to discuss aspects that I think will impact leave or reman based on experiences of people I have encountered, my education and my experience of living in the UK all my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

I woke up on the morning of 24th<\/sup> of June 2016 did my normal thing, I did nothing different. The traffic was as it always was the weather was pretty much as it always is\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

My first experience of it was when I asked a work colleague \u201cHow are you this morning?\u201d His response was \u201cI am really pissed off! Have you not heard?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It then became clear. Of course the EU referendum result, I asked what the result was although I was pretty sure I knew. Which way did I want the vote to go? The truth is I was not sure. The facts and statistics from both sides sounded way to scare mongering for my liking. Things didn\u2019t feel like they were working politically in the UK but voting for what is inside the mystery box feels pretty scary too. Of course voting in or out, probably won\u2019t change what is not working in any case.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first thoughts of uncertainty hit as soon as the news was told to me, my next thoughts were actually my community is made up of European people. How does this vote affect them? I experience the European people in my community to be friendlier than those that are from the UK. Of course I am not standardising the friendliness of human beings based on nationality but this is actually a true observation for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Polish tattoo artist who is known across Europe for his work, told me his story in one of the 20 odd hours he was working on my tattoo. He told me that he and his girlfriend at the time had a couple of grand between them and things were not working out for them economically in Poland, so they decided to emigrate to another country and at the time his girlfriend was reading Treasure Island which features Bristol and some of its public houses. Based on this between them I quote they said, \u201cFuck it, let\u2019s go there!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I found this story inspiring, I can only imagine how adventurous their lives must have felt at that time. There is something about the free spirit of this decision based on their own ability to trust themselves and their aspirations. I also believe there is something stunning about the fact there was the opportunity to do this. I value and love the travelling I have done in this world and I can\u2019t wait to do more.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder how a voting leave affects them and other people across Europe with similar aspirations? For me, voting leave because of migration to this country is not dissimilar to those that voted for Trump in America because he was going to build a wall! And let\u2019s be honest is that really working out for them right now!<\/span><\/p>\n

No sooner had the votes been counted social media became the house of commons and people erupted into debate on what had just happened, some even already changing their minds on the vote they had cast. Claiming that they had voted in rebellion to the way things currently were. A predominant theme was for fear of the NHS being privatised.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have a friend who has worked a hard-manual labour job for pretty much all his life and in his mid 30\u2019s he had worked his back so hard it had given out completely to the point he needed surgery. He tried to obtain this surgery via the NHS, but his wait became so long he was about to lose the job that he had been in for many years. How would this man support his family with no job and no means of income due to the fact he couldn\u2019t work because he has an injury from too much hard labour? He was fortunate enough to be able to go privately (or perhaps not so fortunate as the cost of going private was well in excess of \u00a320000) to see the same surgeon he would via the NHS but the waiting times were non-existent because he could afford to pay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly after he had booked his private operation, his letter for his NHS consultation came through the post which came through pretty much the same service, the same surgeon, however this letter suggested his back wouldn\u2019t need surgery and physio would do the trick, which definitely was not the case! He needed reconstructive titanium mesh spine surgery!<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder how a voting leave affects people in similar situations? I think the answer to that is there will be no change at all, seeing as the Brexit buses were a lie! If anything I could see the need to pay for health care increase due to selling NHS trade to privatised American companies.<\/span><\/p>\n

My guess is, and it is a semi educated one, I have studied sociology and read much of the works of Karl Marx, nothing will change. On the one side it was suggested that we stayed in the EU for business reasons, for the economy, for security or we should vote out for the saviour of the NHS and closing of the borders. We have since learned the truth of this is, we need a certain amount of migration to do jobs that British people simply do not want too and leaving the EU will not make our NHS any better off.<\/span><\/p>\n

The vote that would have won for me is not the one that strived for a financial driven economy. The economy is something you know is there, but you also know its exaggerated and don\u2019t quite know how it works. It is also a measure of how the richer end of our civilisation is doing opposed to the poorer half.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could be argued I have no right to talk about any of this stuff, I didn\u2019t even vote! Yes I didn\u2019t vote. Why? Because at the time of the vote there was nothing set in stone about what impact staying in or out of the EU would have! For me that sets out a complete irresponsibility of the UK\u2019s members of parliament and also the media. I blame them for this mess! I blame MP\u2019s for not communicating with the British public about what the real implications of what the vote was for. I blame the media for filling that vacuum void of information, with bullshit! It is only now a few weeks before we are actually going to leave (debateable!) that we are starting to see what some of the impacts are. Although despite constant reading around the subject I am still not too much the wiser.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what would I vote for now? I would take into consideration the impact it had on all generations. I would vote for the encouragement to connect to others, one where you are encouraged to speak to your neighbour to smile at passers-by regardless of their skin colour or nationality. That might sound like I am a remain-er but that is not necessarily the case because I believe some of the regulations to come out of the EU are bonkers! I guess the truth still strongly sits with, I do not know enough, and I think that is the same for most, and we are the ones who are graced with the responsibility which for me is unfair.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of all of the above my vote would have gone towards the side that brought people together, a vote that encouraged us to unite behind the one similarity that we all share and that is what it is to be human, instead of claiming rights to something that is completely circumstantial\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. the bit of land you were born on!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am putting my neck out writing this blog because as a counsellor what I think and feel ideally should be neutral to the client in order to not interest or put off certain clients. My thoughts and feelings are mostly neutral to both sides of people who voted leave or remain. However, in this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncertainty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brighter-pathways.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}