“Everybody thought the EU was about people coming into the country … no-one told of us the benefits”.

I am however amused that, because it's a lot harder for Polish, Portuguese and other European healthcare and hospitality workers to come to the UK, they've now been commonly replaced by people from places like Ghana. I bet the leave voters didn't see that coming.

I made this very point to my Brexit-voting MIL when she complained that all the nurses and domestic staff who looked after her when she was in ICU a year or two ago were Filipino.

When I asked her if there were communication issues, problems with her care etc, she said there weren't, but she was most unhappy that they served her Weetabix without any sugar...

I voted yabu because people did say about the benefits, and Brexiteers described it as “project fear”. I personally can’t understand why people fell for it, rather than listen to the economists who almost without exception predicted exactly this.

Let's face it, people are just fucking stupid. The ones who voted leave will now vote reform. And they will be royally fucked....again.

The money was there though as UK no longer paying it to the EU. Blame the UK government for not propping up these places

Not just the poorest regions, either. There were projects in some smaller deprived areas in Sussex that were EU funded. They all ended up folding because councils couldn't cover the shortfall.

No. You were given facts, but you chose to see conspiracy. You were given facts, and fought against them rather than listen. You claimed facts you didn't like were propaganda.
All the facts were right there, but people wouldn't listen to them.

Which is why a supermajority would have helped.

Also dismissing peoples pathetic idea that the two options were in anyway equal.

It wasn't really that simple, the advantages of going to Germany began to lessen because the employment market there became less favourable, and the population - particularly other builders - resented the foreign workers to some extent, and so they changed the tax advantages involved. And IIRC also made it harder for British workers to take those kinds of jobs, though the details on that element are hazy in my mind now.

I am seriously underwhelmed by the idea that these kinds of problems are really about Brexit. I also doubt that Europe, and by Europe I suppose we mean Germany, is really all that keen to be funding towns in the UK.

I think the problem is that it's far easier to sell an idea to change the status quo, promising mythical sunny uplands, than it is to campaign to essentially keep things as they are.

They could have flown EU flags everywhere and celebrated the benefits of remaining and it would not have made any difference. It is extremely difficult to campaign on a complex issue using facts when those campaigning against you are lying and using simple (often completely irrelevant) soundbites. What I do wonder though is how those campaigning for leave got away with the lies and misinformation? I would question where and what were the the electoral commission doing at the time, because it was obvious voters were being misled

It's not true, no, but the people that focussed solely on immigration were brainwashed to believe any "benefits" were either lies or would be overcome by the extra £350m a week the NHS would have.

Now, sadly, the same people (i.e. Reform) are continuing to be brainwashed into voting for them.

The Brexit campaign was boosted by Bannon/Epstein and other foreign influences.

I think a lot of people, including Cameron, thought it wouldn't happen, he completely misjudged and I blame him for that.

It's not even a Left v Right issue. Cameron and May were Remainers and Corbyn a Brexiteer.

This is a great example of the way the campaign asked people to vote with their emotions based on ideas. The 'will of the people' was one such idea. Many people were invigorated by the idea of the referendum itself, and the short term ability for everyday people to make a huge change. The will of the people was to gain the concept of sovereignty. We have that now. However, global politics is bigger than a blue passport. We are enmeshed with every nation we seek to trade with, and we have to follow their rules in order to trade with them, which involves a lot of compromise. EU membership meant we paid money in, we got some money out, but we also had easy trade with a huge economic bloc that had high standards and an insurance plan against war. They were the features that came with the subscription.

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/brexits-slow-burn-hit-uk-economy

"New data shows #Brexit has lowered UK GDP by 6-8% over the past decade. Investment down 12-18%, employment down 3-4%.

It's even worse than economists had predicted pre-referendum, because they thought there would be a bounce-back long term.

"Economists were roughly right on the magnitude of the impact, but wrong on the timing.

The consensus pre‑referendum forecast of a 4% long‑run GDP loss turned out to be close to the actual loss after five years, but too optimistic about the longer run."

😆 🤣 😂

@Seymour5 We live in a very deprived area overall, vote reform sprayed on walls and flags everywhere. I live in the part of town that has a few roads where it’s another world compared to the streets full of terrace houses which were for mill workers and are still really cheap.

Many remain voters will look to their critical thinking skills but they often don’t have to live in it. Instead of hating leave voters it’s better to try and understand why and not just immediatley shout racist. I am upset my council is Reform and I would say I’m in an area where there is an actual chance of us getting a Reform MP. I’m mixed race in what is a very predominantly white area. What kicked off Reform doing so well here was the only local hotel took migrants. They laid off 25 staff and of course in a small town almost everyone knew someone who lost their job.

We have lived in this town for 26 years what made me stand out was my Southern accent and that’s all that made me feel different.I can honestly write that I have experienced some awful looks in my direction of late. DH actually saw a man really give me evils in a supermarket recently, he was utterly shocked. I remember looks like that when I was a child growing up in the 1970’s.

@Seymour5 We live in a very deprived area overall, vote reform sprayed on walls and flags everywhere. I live in the part of town that has a few roads where it’s another world compared to the streets full of terrace houses which were for mill workers and are still really cheap.

Many remain voters will look to their critical thinking skills but they often don’t have to live in it. Instead of hating leave voters it’s better to try and understand why and not just immediatley shout racist. I am upset my council is Reform and I would say I’m in an area where there is an actual chance of us getting a Reform MP. I’m mixed race in what is a very predominantly white area. What kicked off Reform doing so well here was the only local hotel took migrants. They laid off 25 staff and of course in a small town almost everyone knew someone who lost their job.

We have lived in this town for 26 years what made me stand out was my Southern accent and that’s all that made me feel different.I can honestly write that I have experienced some awful looks in my direction of late. DH actually saw a man really give me evils in a supermarket recently, he was utterly shocked. I remember looks like that when I was a child growing up in the 1970’s.

Those despairing at the fact that a majority of voters voted fro Brexit

Actually they didn't. But carry on.

Those despairing at the fact that a majority of voters voted fro Brexit - don't worry, Labour seem to be trying very hard to get the UK back into the EU, despite the fact that voters decided to leave. They still have a few years left to carry on with this reintegration no matter who leads them.

I still don’t understand how people who were taken in by Brexit promises, who now concede they were “lied” to are prepared to do the same again.

They feel them and their area have been left behind - social mobility done nothing but go down in last few decades - they want a decent life for them and their kids.

I personally don't think Reform are a serious party- but these people are fed up at being ignored and fed up they lives keep getting harder.

Instead of blaming the electorate and calling them thick why are the other poltcial parties getting in their with polices selling themsleves with a view to imporving those areas?

Thing is I strongly suspect I know why - as social moblity has declined more poltcians and their advisors come from a very narrow social economic strata and from same edcuational backgrounds and increasingly little to connect them with these communities - they haven't come up through trade unions or even churches ( more US in recent past ) many go straight from uni to political jobs - and areas become more disjointed not like they even have the links old noblity had with their workers in those areas. Instead of thinking how can we reach these voters they increaingly seem to sneer at them and look down and then act surpirsed those voters vote for people who at least appear to talk to them notice they exist.

It's not just poltcian acting another area - media more general from news to publishing - the doors in if you aren't from certain group/class have in last decades started to close - people there come from an ever narrower group and have little contact with other groups and then start to look down on those groups when they don't behave or think in the same way.

I'm pleased this article has made it onto Mumsnet. I'm so tired of hearing Reform voters are thick as pigshit racist gammons.
No. Most of them are really struggling. They feel completely sidelined and they are completely sidelined.
And just for info, I am not a Reform voter, because I am lucky enough that society sort of works for me. It's a very privileged position.

As stated below on a typical year

Playing devil’s advocate here, the government of the time were absolutely playing with fire holding the referendum, especially at the time they did. But politicians and the media had for years blamed all our woes on the EU. If they had wanted us to stay in the EU, there needed to be a longer, concerted period of highlighting the positives of our membership.

I also think it is important to address the fact that people did/do not trust the government. The booklet we all received regarding their position of the benefits of remaining in the EU was seen as a waste of public funding, and propaganda by many. You were never going to get a whole country doing their own independent research, or understanding the impacts of Brexit, but the government’s word would have been taken much more at face value if people had felt they were trustworthy.

And lastly, we were told this was a once-in-a-generation vote. After many years of the EU being blamed for out problems, there should have perhaps been an idea that if people voted to remain, there would be a period of absolutely trying to improve things, with another vote further down the line if people still weren’t happy.

These are just some thoughts I have had over the years, and I think the government should be held to account a lot more than they are.