"I suspect things in the UK will be bad for a few years..."
I suspect that most people on this forum are reasonably well-to-do, but having family in the UK and seeing how it has changed in the last 20 years, I think for a lot of people, it's already been bad for a while. Poverty, lack of affordability etc. I didn't go back to the UK for a few years after I left but when I did, I was shocked at how down trodden many areas have become.
Makes me very sad.
I think this has little to do with the EU, and indeed the British economy, and more to do with changing perspectives.
I'm 34 and I own a Maserati and a Lotus, so you can tell I'm not doing too badly. I have a fairly large mortgage but it's only just over 4x my annual income (and my wife works too).
20 years ago I had 2 years of High School left - the 2nd worse ranking High School in my region / county. I was staying at home in my parents first and only house - an ex-council house bought by them in 1990. Prior to that, I lived in a council flat 10 minutes walk away in one of the poorest and roughest areas in my city.
So, I feel pretty well placed to talk about poverty.
What have I seen as I've grown up?
The quality of housing has improved. More people have cars, and the quality of the cars is very much improved over 25 years back. There are less stolen / burnt out cars too.
Most people seem to have a PC, and the internet, and a flat screen TV, and sky or cable TV.
Most people seem to have a mobile phone, and a smart phone at that.
I used to play with discarded fridges, record players and boxes, have light sabre fights with old strip light bulbs or whatever else was laying around.
I have worked hard to get myself out of that, and am proud of myself, and my parents for raising me to be better than the areas of my upbringing would have you believe.
To me, the change in 'poverty' is very much a social thing. Entitlement is confused with affordability. Debt is almost expected, and and the UK is now so consumerist that people are even more likely to run higher and higher debts, with consolidation loans etc. simply to keep up with the Jones'
We have so many pound shops and bargain shops, and Primark like discounted trend clothes shops, and pay day loan companies, and bright house style pay up a TV places that are designed to enable the poor to keep up with technologies and fashions that it has become expected. People like to own nice things, and people nowadays own more things than ever, and
This makes me very sad.
It is what it is, the majority has voted, stop whining and get on with it.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty". Winston Churchill
The winning side of an argument complaining about those on the loosing side being unhappy is a drop in the ocean compared to the potential of the unknown, and unwanted which those who wished to remain will endure. I think people have a right to be unhappy. People (myself included) will come around, we'll have to. It's the British way to get knocked down, to get up again, and to rise again - even when the wounds are potentially self inflicted.
Given what the EU has done for the world, perhaps quoting an openly racist, anti-semitist, anti-muslim whose views on human rights were interesting to say the least wasn't the best of ideas
"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade-race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." Winston Churchill
