Disabilty after Brexit

[sammason]

Three days ago, Britain voted to leave the European Union. Our news media are full of blaming, horror or delight depending on who you listen to.

What's Brexit (the British Exit) going to mean for us, who are disabled in Britain or anywhere else? And to our carers, workmates, families and friends? I don't yet know. Please tell friendly_crips if you want to.

Comments

[sammason]

Indeed, 'I do not know.' As you know my decision to vote Bremain, making me one of the 48% who voted that way, was influenced by the UK-based Disability News Service (DNS).

The most recent DNS article about our referendum urged us, again, to vote Bremain. But the vote's over now and we Bremainers lost. I hope there'll be thoughtful DNS articles about what should happen now.

We've heard that concern about immigration into the UK was key in this referendum. There are some obvious questions right away: how does immigration affect our healthcare and our housing?

[sammason]

Until the referendum I assumed that approx the same number of people were emigrating away from Britain as immigrating into it. How wrong I was!

I've now learned that there's a strong bias towards immigration, esp from continental Europe, since the Blair Govt signed us up to an EU rule on free movement of people. News reports say that Brexit voters were v aware of this reality. This might explain other reports which say that brexiteers tended to be blue-collar workers.

In yet other news reports, I hear that there really is a dash to get Irish passports. Don't know whether that means Southern Irish, ie the Republic which is an EU member state. Or whether it means Northern Irish which is part of the UK.

[sammason]

I hear that the dash for Irish passports is about Southern Irish passports, ie a dash back into the EU. If the story's true - I'm quoting rumour.