
Did austerity cause Brexit? (2018) - mpweiher
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/106313/
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mooseburger
I would expect the child sexual exploitation scandal would have been the main
thing leading to Brexit. Do British posters agree?

~~~
AndrewDucker
Nope. The main driver was austerity:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-
auste...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-austerity-
welfare-cuts-vote-leave-social-market-foundation-report-a8760696.html)

Also: What scandal? I mean, there's the occasional small one, but no major
ones involving Europe that I'm aware of.

~~~
defertoreptar
I can't speak for mooseburger, but I did a search, and it turned up some
pretty shocking Wikipedia articles:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_rin...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal)

From Wikipedia:

> The failure to address the abuse was attributed to a combination of factors
> revolving around race, class and gender—contemptuous and sexist attitudes
> toward the mostly working-class victims; fear that the perpetrators'
> ethnicity would trigger allegations of racism and damage community
> relations; the Labour council's reluctance to challenge a Labour-voting
> ethnic minority; lack of a child-centred focus; a desire to protect the
> town's reputation; and lack of training and resources.

~~~
candiodari
These are both examples of the British child services, the supposed "child
protection" either directly sexually exploiting the children (their employees
getting paid to pimp out vulnerable children), or helping others do that (not
stated as such, but let's be realistic here, they were also getting paid for
it).

As for the involvement of immigrants in both cases the immigrants came from
former commonwealth countries (since child services pay is total shit, they
hire immigrants. Even those don't last, so they're fresh immigrants with often
very limited language skills, never mind actual training in caring for
children. That this is a horrible idea as it removed children even further
from their known environment, which is bound to damage them further, doesn't
matter to anyone).

But none of it has anything to do with Europe. Only 1 out of 32 involved
immigrants may have had something to do with Europe (the Afghan, as allowing
that immigration is an EU policy). Pakistani immigrate under British law.

So does this have to do with Europe ? Child protection services in the UK,
like everywhere else, is a cesspool of misery, locking children up, despair,
desperate poverty and abuses of power. But the UK service is very much
British.

So what does it have to do with Europe ? What does it have to do with Brexit ?

~~~
AstralStorm
The immigration was one of the major drivers of this ill advised decision, and
it was flipped that by allowing UK to dictate all its immigration policy the
issues would be reduced. Irrelevant of the source - despite UK already
strictly regulating immigration from outside of EU.

Others see closing of the cheaper labour influx from new EU members as the
other driving factor.

