Would the engineering community support a second referendum?

Mark Tickner:


The problem I find with the immigration argument is that, the immigration itself is something that has been happening to a greater or lesser degree over the millennia to the British isles.  That's something of historical and archeological fact. 

It's a bit more sophisticated than this. Although immigration on a significant scale to the British Isles has happened several times over the millennia there is the big question whether or not the latest wave of immigrants was welcome by whoever was settled at the time. Between the Norman Conquest and 1945 immigration into the British Isles was a trickle so much so that it could be argued that many of the Sussex folk who fought WW2 were the descendents of those who fought the Battle of Hastings.


Even New Commonwealth immigrants and their British born descendents are aggrieved by mass immigration from eastern Europe for several different reasons ranging from taking their jobs, to unfairness in immigration policy between EU and non-EU people, to the way that eastern Europeans don't integrate therefore potentially fracturing already strained community cohesion.

I believe that globalisation instead is actually one of the main drivers behind people vote for Britexit, but I would argue that leaving the EU isn't actually the solution.  Yes, one fix would be to race to the bottom where UK based people become cheaper and thus there is an inflow.  But I don't feel that would be actually beneficial to UK society as a whole.

The nationalist software engineer Mitchell Risbrook has mentioned globalisation as a driving force behind voting Leave. Most of the (former) heavy industrial areas that have not done well economically since 1973 strongly voted Leave whereas those which managed to re-invent themselves by successfully transitioning to the service sector tended to vote Remain. London is a city that has benefited from globalisation whereas many of the provincial towns and cities in England and Wales have not as they have lost the core of their economy which has not really been replaced with anything else.

Mark Tickner:


The problem I find with the immigration argument is that, the immigration itself is something that has been happening to a greater or lesser degree over the millennia to the British isles.  That's something of historical and archeological fact. 

It's a bit more sophisticated than this. Although immigration on a significant scale to the British Isles has happened several times over the millennia there is the big question whether or not the latest wave of immigrants was welcome by whoever was settled at the time. Between the Norman Conquest and 1945 immigration into the British Isles was a trickle so much so that it could be argued that many of the Sussex folk who fought WW2 were the descendents of those who fought the Battle of Hastings.


Even New Commonwealth immigrants and their British born descendents are aggrieved by mass immigration from eastern Europe for several different reasons ranging from taking their jobs, to unfairness in immigration policy between EU and non-EU people, to the way that eastern Europeans don't integrate therefore potentially fracturing already strained community cohesion.

I believe that globalisation instead is actually one of the main drivers behind people vote for Britexit, but I would argue that leaving the EU isn't actually the solution.  Yes, one fix would be to race to the bottom where UK based people become cheaper and thus there is an inflow.  But I don't feel that would be actually beneficial to UK society as a whole.

The nationalist software engineer Mitchell Risbrook has mentioned globalisation as a driving force behind voting Leave. Most of the (former) heavy industrial areas that have not done well economically since 1973 strongly voted Leave whereas those which managed to re-invent themselves by successfully transitioning to the service sector tended to vote Remain. London is a city that has benefited from globalisation whereas many of the provincial towns and cities in England and Wales have not as they have lost the core of their economy which has not really been replaced with anything else.