I want people to tell me why they voted #leave

[AliceScarlett]

I'm feeling pretty shocked and scared right now.

Why did you vote for brexit?

Hmm, I predict a labour shortage soon. Who do you think will fill these shortages Brexiters?

Possibly they'll have to pay better wages to make the jobs more attractive and encourage people to take them?

Oh but then prices will go up. How dreadful.

Honestly. It astounds me that the same people who will pay a premium to have a nice little fairtrade sticker on their rice from Bangladesh or couscous from Africa will baulk at paying a premium for someone down the road in Lincolnshire to get fair wages.

I also dont think a couple of % is a mandate. That means almost half the population are against this and going to be forced into it by the other half.

There should have been some provision to ensure a clear mandate (20% or so?) in the case of a Leave win as the effects are profound - £ falling through the floor, etc. All of which was predictable.

Erhmmm, people are all entitled to their opinions folks? No need for the swearing and name calling?

it is ridiculous to say that Brexiters are all uneducated.

Helloooo, no one said that they are ALL uneducated.

Boris, Gove and Farage are very well-educated people.

There may well be more referenda - but in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

BillSykes surely assuming that all Remain voters are affluent and comfortable is as bad (and daft) as assuming that all Leave voters are poor? There are exceptions to the demographics, you must know that. Both my partner and I used to have well paid, professiobal jobs. Him as an engineer and a Naval officer, me as a marketing professional. He's now a self-employed builder, and I'm an unemployed SAHM. We don't have holidays, savings, a second home, private schooling, private healthcare or a nanny. We earn less than £20k between us and claim no benefits. We live in what is officially the most deprived area of the UK. We both voted remain.

Let's face it people voted leave because of the massive influx of Eastern Europeans coming from Countries non of us want to go and work in ourselves.

Don't stereotype Brexiters.
Not ethnically white.
Highly educated to post grad level
Voted leave.

Don't think as a country we should have our policies and direction determined by an artificial union steeped in beurocracy and economic waste. Nothing to do with racism.

milky It wasn't Farage who made the NHS claims, it was the official leave campaign

It was. But i think a lot of people saw Farage as the non official leader of it, poster boy whatever.

My vote was a very sceptical one.

I don't really believe much any of them say.

A lot of people seemingly believe every word that comes out of his mouth.

So now we are in economic free fall.

Clever

And people who voted leave aren't stupid just because they don't agree with remain folk. A lot of them have arrived at a decision after careful consideration...

A shameful day. I think anyone who voted Leave is racist - even the (majority?) who think they're not.

Fuck right off.
Hyperbolic, hysterical, small minded, nasty, belittling, disgusting bollocks.

HTH!

Did they coffee?

All these demands to know why people voted the way they did are not helpful. If those who wanted to remain in the EU had looked deeper into the reasons PRIOR to the vote, perhaps there would have been a different outcome. But what's done is done. We can't change it, we can only move forward.

The banks have already made a statement that they're much better prepared for this than previous financial upheavals and are already moving to stabilise things. That's reassuring.

The government has already said little will change immediately, so that's reassuring as well. Cameron is stepping down in October, to my way of thinking that is reassuring as well, as he is a rubbish negotiator and we need someone who has strong negotiating skills to deal with the EU from here on in.

Frankly, I think the government shot itself in the foot on this one. In the last few years, they've pushed through things that have created scapegoats and victims of their austerity budgets and have made very poor choices. Many of those people on the receiving end of that were looking for a change, and this provided them with a voice to push for change. Perhaps if the conservative government had not been quite so damaging to some of society, they'd have had a stronger backing in the referendum.

Last year I was on the remain side but seeing the mismanagement of the EU, oppression of Greece by Germany, unnecessary provocation of Russia by expansion into Ukraine and yes, immigration issues made me sway to leave. I was happy to listen to counter arguments and have my mind changed, but 90% of what I have seen is vicious bigotry by remainers who are incapable of having a civilised discussion with people with slightly different outlooks, and immediately resort to abuse and name calling. The other 10% focuses solely on economic issues which are essentially speculation, and ignore corruption, mismanagement and immigration issues which people actually care about.

On another note there seems to be a lot of confusion between "educated" and "intelligent" here, I went to university but the idea that 3 years studying a specialised subject for a few hours a week for a chosen career makes you more worthy of an opinion than someone who has just as much or more actual life experience is pretty ridiculous.

I imagine immigration may rocket in the short term.

Yes, I agree with that Joffrey: a 20% would have been a clear mandate.

However, it wasn't done and we can't keep voting until the minority-no matter how small-become the majority. It could take several goes for the Remain to gain that 20%.

Highly unlikely.

The most that would happen is that Remain might win by the same small amount and then the Leave would want, by the same reasoning, another referendum.

It would almost be as if the secret of perpetual motion had been discovered.

It is also worth remembering that a significant chunk of Scotland didn't actually vote at all! Does that make the Scottish people stupid? What would the result have been if they had voted?

I see those very intelligent people have piled up to Boris Johnstone's home mob handed! Maybe they don't quite understand democracy.

Wow - 65+ years voted to leave 57%
18-24 yr olds voted to leave 24%

That's a big divide there.

I was a remainer, but the way I see it is if the general status quo is good enough, people vote remain, if they don't, they vote leave. For over 50% of the voters, their situation was shit enough to feel leave was worth the risk. That is actually a big mandate, because generally people are conservative with a lower case c, I mean look at the Scottish referendum.
People are saying the result is fuelled by racism, but racism is fuelled by a shitty situation (again look at 1930s Germany), I'm not saying Brexit will improve that situation, but voting leave was a cry for help from A LOT of people. Don't diminish that.

I'm in my 50s as are my old uni friends on FB. Not a single Vote Leave amongst us. Not one. I think age is one factor but education is probably a greater one.

Racism is highly relevant, btw as a vote Leave (however well itnentioned) will fuel the rise of nationalism not oonly here but in other countries in Europe. I think we're going to realise - too late - what the EU kept a lid on.

And anyone with any link to what happened in the 1940s should be shouting it from the rooftops, today as that generation who fought against this are almost all gone.

We don't have contingency plans, interviews for higher paid jobs at a moments notice & an upcoming holiday.

We're already at rock bottom.

But you know, that's not a result of the EU. It's a consequence of neo-liberal ideology, globalisation, and the fluidity & mobility of international capital.

International capital has no allegiance to nation or country. Its owners/controllers want to make more money. Britain's white working class was sold down that river in the 1980s, and placated with Mrs Thatcher's smoke screen of "reward for hard work" like buying your council house, or getting shares from privatising publicly owned assets.

And now, 30 years later, we're reaping the whirlwind of "greed is good." Mark your protest in a General Election. Get rid of the Tories - they're the ones who've sold you.

Do you know who did the tatty picking, strawberry picking, waitressing, hotel cleaning etc etc before the EU migrants?

14 - 18 yr olds.

There are none of these sorts of Saturday/holiday/seasonal jobs for kids anymore.

So when 'the migrants leave' as prophesied on this thread, I suspect the breach will be filled quite nicely.

"Looking on here this morning I've seen an awful lot of 'the price of my house is going to go down', 'my business will suffer'.
"

That's exactly it. In SE England the places that went for 'Remain' were those with the sitting pretty city workers on six figure salaries with seven figure houses. Down-at-heel Slough went for Leave, but neighbouring Windsor was for Remain.

Meanwhile the poorest Labour heartlands in the North went for Leave in huge numbers. There can be no blaming this result on rich selfish Tory bastards or whatever the usual rhetoric is - in fact the rich selfish Tory bastards voted very clearly to preserve the status quo and their privilege. It's the poor who've said 'fuck the system', and gone for Exit. Labour strongholds like Blaeneau Gwent went for Exit by 62-38%. Hartlepool, where Mandelson once racked up more than 60% of the vote, went for Exit 70-30, as did Dennis Skinner's Bolsover. Every single English region aside from London went for Exit, as did Wales.