Its not. But this is what happens when you have a leave campaign run on lies, and people who happily believe what they’re told without questioning it
IllustriousLynx8099 on
> Once seen as a rite of passage
Get the impression I grew up in a completely different world to the average Guardian reader
Amazing_Battle3777 on
In Europe? Some guardian love letter this.
Canada / US / AUS – sure that would make sense, in fact it’s better than ever for young people for Aus and Canada than 10 years ago, mobility visas and second year stays are much easier.
Marcuse0 on
>Working in the rest of Europe was seen by some as a rite of passage
Yeah, privileged kids who can afford to fuck off abroad for a gap year might have done so, but normal people never even considered it a possibility.
They quote that in 2011 400000 Britons were in the EU for over a year, but they quote figures for 15-49 year olds. Probably not all taking very important gap years then.
What this amounts to is fudging stats to act like hundreds of thousands of people are being deprived of some right they give a shit about. The population of the UK according to the 2012 census was 56.1m meaning this 400000 figure is a fraction of the overall population even doing this.
So are they really stating we should be upset about losing a right that less than 1% of the population was even utilising to any great extent? There’s plenty of things wrong with how Brexit was sold to people, but arguing from this point is a terrible idea, because it just smacks of intense privilege to argue that everyone should think the way they do because of a right the overwhelming majority of the country wasn’t using and didn’t care about.
HorrorDate8265 on
They say this, but out of my friend group, I’m the only one that had the drive to actually go ahead and work overseas for a year 10 years back. And I’m in my mid 30s now, so my friend group absolutely had the opportunity to do this and didn’t.
Also, they can still work abroad. When I did it, it wasnt to an EU country. You can sit and complain about it to spite leave voters who don’t even know you exist, or get off your ass and make it work or find another destination.
*edit* Typical downvotes. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck. My point is, are you going to do something to make it work regardless? Or are you just using this as an excuse to punish yourself so you have something extra to complain about? If you’re under 35, you really have no excuse to not move abroad if you’re dead set on it.
Get a working holiday visa, study visa, or a job overseas and *leave*. Why are so many Brits happy to wallow in misery and pessimism?
LicenseToShill on
Canada for work/ski holidays. There are so many schemes for young people to get out and about and involved with seasonal work. They just got to want to it but sadly it isn’t everyone’s interest.
An article about over 35’s having fewer opportunities might have some truth.
essex-not-me on
Left wing propaganda appealing to middle class labour voters.
Pre Brexit there were many more EU workers and benefit claimants moving here than UK people moving to EU.
The huge influx of EU workers caused depression of salaries at the bottom end of the employment market. This effect continues to this day as many of these people stayed.
Absolutely the last thing working class people need now is another huge influx of EU labour competing for their jobs.
StagnantMonk on
Holy sheet… My old snowboard holidays 20years ago were expensive.. hense why I did them living at home and working full time. Sod trying to afford them now!! The ski passes and rentals add hundreds.
Scratch_Careful on
FOM may have absolutely destroyed the trades and basically all semiskilled entry level work for native Brits but Seb cant do the gap year at a ski lodge so Brexit was a lamentable mistake that must be reversed.
TheLimeyLemmon on
Small price to pay for taking back control of our borders, making us richer, and building a fuckton of new fully staffed hospitals.
kahnindustries on
Of course it isn’t fair. It wasn’t intended to be fair.
It was intended for boomers not to hear the plumber speaking a foreign language
And for the billionaires running the media not to have to identify their foreign holdings as per new EU laws that were on their way in
By the time we actually left enough had died that we wouldn’t have voted to leave
And at this point it’s over 70% would have voted to stay in
They don’t care, it only affects the young, they don’t care about you. They never cared about anyone
Veritanium on
How about the right to not have to compete for your job with shitloads of other countries? No?
cjc1983 on
I don’t doubt there is a legitimate loss of opportunity for young UK people however not many UK based people speak a foreign language to a level where they would compete in a European job market …
You could point to the seasonal jobs in beach and ski resorts however UK travel companies also destroyed seasonal careers …and Im saying this as someone who was fortunate enough to bum around ski and beach resorts for 4 years when I was younger.
Was it a great experience – absolutely. Am I gutted my kids can no longer do it – absolutely.
BUT… Ski companies were some of the worst at using exploited UK labour with benefit in kind contracts which meant staff were paid WELL BELOW European minimum wage – locals could never compete.
These were tens of thousands of seasonal summer and alpine jobs given to UK teens to work for peanuts, at the expense of local staff who would have been on full paying local contracts.
The reason so many chalet companies went bust post brexit is because they could no longer pay their staff £50 per week.
noticer626 on
American here with a question for people from the UK: Why doesn’t the UK government just negotiate the right to work in these countries?
One of the strangest things for me watching the Brexit stuff from across the sea was all the people in the UK arguing that the UK can’t negotiate with foreign countries in they leave the EU. Like didn’t you guys rule the biggest empire in the history of the world and now you are saying you can’t negotiate trade with other countries? It was confusing to me.
AntiquusCustos on
Bad for many young people, but not for me.
The US is the only way to get a high salary and a successful career as far as I’m concerned. Hoping to get a job there!
OkReporter3236 on
I was too young for a vote in 2016 and don’t know what this work bit was like but it would be interesting to see something like it again. (and wanting this does not entitle me as privileged, for the comments talking about this at the top)
16 Comments
Its not. But this is what happens when you have a leave campaign run on lies, and people who happily believe what they’re told without questioning it
> Once seen as a rite of passage
Get the impression I grew up in a completely different world to the average Guardian reader
In Europe? Some guardian love letter this.
Canada / US / AUS – sure that would make sense, in fact it’s better than ever for young people for Aus and Canada than 10 years ago, mobility visas and second year stays are much easier.
>Working in the rest of Europe was seen by some as a rite of passage
Yeah, privileged kids who can afford to fuck off abroad for a gap year might have done so, but normal people never even considered it a possibility.
They quote that in 2011 400000 Britons were in the EU for over a year, but they quote figures for 15-49 year olds. Probably not all taking very important gap years then.
What this amounts to is fudging stats to act like hundreds of thousands of people are being deprived of some right they give a shit about. The population of the UK according to the 2012 census was 56.1m meaning this 400000 figure is a fraction of the overall population even doing this.
So are they really stating we should be upset about losing a right that less than 1% of the population was even utilising to any great extent? There’s plenty of things wrong with how Brexit was sold to people, but arguing from this point is a terrible idea, because it just smacks of intense privilege to argue that everyone should think the way they do because of a right the overwhelming majority of the country wasn’t using and didn’t care about.
They say this, but out of my friend group, I’m the only one that had the drive to actually go ahead and work overseas for a year 10 years back. And I’m in my mid 30s now, so my friend group absolutely had the opportunity to do this and didn’t.
Also, they can still work abroad. When I did it, it wasnt to an EU country. You can sit and complain about it to spite leave voters who don’t even know you exist, or get off your ass and make it work or find another destination.
*edit* Typical downvotes. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck. My point is, are you going to do something to make it work regardless? Or are you just using this as an excuse to punish yourself so you have something extra to complain about? If you’re under 35, you really have no excuse to not move abroad if you’re dead set on it.
Get a working holiday visa, study visa, or a job overseas and *leave*. Why are so many Brits happy to wallow in misery and pessimism?
Canada for work/ski holidays. There are so many schemes for young people to get out and about and involved with seasonal work. They just got to want to it but sadly it isn’t everyone’s interest.
An article about over 35’s having fewer opportunities might have some truth.
Left wing propaganda appealing to middle class labour voters.
Pre Brexit there were many more EU workers and benefit claimants moving here than UK people moving to EU.
The huge influx of EU workers caused depression of salaries at the bottom end of the employment market. This effect continues to this day as many of these people stayed.
Absolutely the last thing working class people need now is another huge influx of EU labour competing for their jobs.
Holy sheet… My old snowboard holidays 20years ago were expensive.. hense why I did them living at home and working full time. Sod trying to afford them now!! The ski passes and rentals add hundreds.
FOM may have absolutely destroyed the trades and basically all semiskilled entry level work for native Brits but Seb cant do the gap year at a ski lodge so Brexit was a lamentable mistake that must be reversed.
Small price to pay for taking back control of our borders, making us richer, and building a fuckton of new fully staffed hospitals.
Of course it isn’t fair. It wasn’t intended to be fair.
It was intended for boomers not to hear the plumber speaking a foreign language
And for the billionaires running the media not to have to identify their foreign holdings as per new EU laws that were on their way in
By the time we actually left enough had died that we wouldn’t have voted to leave
And at this point it’s over 70% would have voted to stay in
They don’t care, it only affects the young, they don’t care about you. They never cared about anyone
How about the right to not have to compete for your job with shitloads of other countries? No?
I don’t doubt there is a legitimate loss of opportunity for young UK people however not many UK based people speak a foreign language to a level where they would compete in a European job market …
You could point to the seasonal jobs in beach and ski resorts however UK travel companies also destroyed seasonal careers …and Im saying this as someone who was fortunate enough to bum around ski and beach resorts for 4 years when I was younger.
Was it a great experience – absolutely. Am I gutted my kids can no longer do it – absolutely.
BUT… Ski companies were some of the worst at using exploited UK labour with benefit in kind contracts which meant staff were paid WELL BELOW European minimum wage – locals could never compete.
These were tens of thousands of seasonal summer and alpine jobs given to UK teens to work for peanuts, at the expense of local staff who would have been on full paying local contracts.
The reason so many chalet companies went bust post brexit is because they could no longer pay their staff £50 per week.
American here with a question for people from the UK: Why doesn’t the UK government just negotiate the right to work in these countries?
One of the strangest things for me watching the Brexit stuff from across the sea was all the people in the UK arguing that the UK can’t negotiate with foreign countries in they leave the EU. Like didn’t you guys rule the biggest empire in the history of the world and now you are saying you can’t negotiate trade with other countries? It was confusing to me.
Bad for many young people, but not for me.
The US is the only way to get a high salary and a successful career as far as I’m concerned. Hoping to get a job there!
I was too young for a vote in 2016 and don’t know what this work bit was like but it would be interesting to see something like it again. (and wanting this does not entitle me as privileged, for the comments talking about this at the top)