To be astonished that wales voted to leave the EU

[ExecutiveFiat]

it’s one of the poorest regions in Europe.- not just in the Uk. It has received millions in investment, it will be fucked (like the NE and Cornwall) after brexit.
Just had a weekend in Cardiff, where I witnessed Brexit party supporters intimidating a polish couple on the street. I won’t be going again in a hurry. !! I know it was one incident, but i’m Shocked and dismayed 😨.

Peridot1

"And there needs to be a massive investigation into why people voted leave and concerns need to be addressed."

This statement and the other investigations cited show the implicit bias. Why don't we get researchers doing "massive investigations" into why people voted remain "and their concerns addressed"? (after all as the leave vote won it is the concerns of remainers that require addressing).....because we accept it was their right to do so in a democratic vote. Why can't remainers do leave the same courtesy.

"the U.K. is a net contributor,"

but Wales is a net beneficiary.

I'm a Remainer living in Cardiff. My constituency voted 70% Remain and Cardiff as a whole 60%. What you saw in Cardiff is not typical. We had a big rally last weekend in favour of the EU.

You have to take into account that the Welsh media is very weak. Many more people in Wales read the Daily Mail than do the Western Mail, which is extremely pro-Remain.

The reasons for the leave vote were similar to the reasons in England. Because of this lack of media, many Welsh people don't even know we're a net beneficiary. Some of the people living in the areas that have received funding don't necessarily like what it's been spent on and blame the EU, even though the decisions are made locally. Some are afraid of immigrants coming to steal their jobs. You can see that this is fear rather than reality as the highest leave votes came from areas with very, very few immigrants such as Blaenau Gwent. However, it's easy to divide people who are poor and some are looking for a group to blame so 'they're taking your jobs' or 'they're undercutting your wages' works with worried people in deprived areas.
Also, as someone mentioned above, many English immigrants into Wales voted to leave and this had an effect on the vote result (Oxford uni research by Prof Dorling).

Some of the areas with the highest Welsh identity, Gwynedd and Ceredigion voted Remain. There is research by Cardiff Uni on identity and vote i.e. people who feel more Welsh, voted Remain, Welsh and British voted leave, etc.

Google a video of Nick Clegg visiting Blaenau Gwent to discuss it. Or even the video with Femi in Scunthorpe, which is not in Wales, but where some of the issues are similar.

"I also watched an interesting segment on Twitter about Sunderland. Not sure if anyone follows a guy called Femi. He is an ardent Remainer and posts a lot. Anyway he went to Sunderland and was driven around by a local guy trying to explain why so many voted leave there. They had the mines. Then they closed. So they got manufacturing jobs - Nissan etc. But as he pointed out they are low skilled and low paid jobs for the majority. Even if you got to uni there are not many jobs in the area for graduates. Most jobs in the area are low paid and low skilled. It’s hard to ‘regenerate’ areas when there is little employment. And therefore little hope. They felt they had nothing to lose by voting leave really."

Ah sorry, I posted my comment without RTFT. I mentioned Scunthorpe for the Femi video, but it might have been Sunderland.

SunniDay - maybe. Works both ways I suppose.

I voted Remain. I’m Irish. Knew it would fuck Ireland over big time.

"Anglesey is the only area I can think of where English retirees may have had an influence"

Why do you say only Anglesey?

"do people really think that Westminster is going to plug that gap. That’s incredibly naive!"

No, they don't. When I ask people 'do you really trust Westminster to...' they say no.
I think explaining this to people does help, but the wider Remain movement has decided that people aren't persuaded by economic arguments, project fear, etc.

"Why can't remainers do leave the same courtesy."

Don't be silly. It's not discourteous to do research into voting motivation.

I’m in Wales, not in one of the deprived areas though. I would say that 95% of the people I’ve spoken to voted remain. I don’t understand why anyone in Wales would vote leave when there has been so much funding from the EU

Well obviously you would vote remain because the EU has been good to you.

OTOH there are areas of Wales where there has been no investment so I can’t see how you can’t understand why those areas voted leave.

Yes money has been spent in Cardiff polishing it up and bringing in jobs and businesses to the area but the rest of Wales was struggling.

I remember in the run up to the referendum a woman from an area in Wales being interviewed.

Her thought on the EU was that there was no jobs or infrastructure but the EU had spent thousands on a statue of a dragon.

I think she voted leave

I work in a school in the valleys but dont live in rhebvalleys. Both deprived areas. Both voted leave.
We have about 30% EU population in school. Even some of our staff voted leave! 🤦🏻‍♀️
If we lose that amount of pupils our school could close.
The people from the EU came to thebvaleya to work because the local population refused to work in the meat factory or the chocolate factory. So employers looked further afield. There are high levels if unemployment innthe valleys but still the locals wouldn't work the unsocial hours for the pay. Very few of our EU pupils are in receipt of free schol meals.
There may be other factors I am unaware of however.

Sorry there are spelling errors in my previous post! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Is that because they were better off on benefits?

A lot of the English are truly nasty and racist in my experience. It is very sad.

hadenough

And you’re xenophobic. Nice.

I am not sure. Maybe. Many of the pupils we have coming up to us now have been born in Wales. We had a number of pupils going back home, especially to Poland in the aftermath of the referendum.However that has stopped and we have had new pupils this year from various EU countries who speak no English so the draw to live here is still strong for some.

We have about 30% EU population in school

But.. but Wales has only a tiny amount of recent EU immigration....the OP said so....and the Welsh are being nasty racists to fret about it.

Guess the Beeb must be wrong to..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49420730

"For 362 days a year, IPS staff approach travellers at 19 airports, eight ports and the Channel Tunnel rail link.

They ask them where they're from, why they are in the UK and how long they might be staying.

Every year, they survey 800,000 people. Around 250,000 of these results are used to form an estimate for the people either arriving to live in the UK or leaving the UK for at least a year.

However, the IPS does not cover all ports, all of the time, and the sample works out at just over 1% of Heathrow's annual traffic of 78 million people.

The system has faced criticism, with two parliamentary committees concluding the International Passenger Survey is now next to useless on its own for government purposes."

There is an area of London I live close to that is predominately white working class, In the run up to the site there were flags along the streets. Free food from the Leave campaign.

Posted too soon.

The conclusion from those figures is that there has been a very large increase in the UK population, in a relatively short period of time. Poorer areas will feel it far more than richer ones, as the resources are always stretched further. Voting Leave is therefore more likely. It's not a question of not liking "forringners", it's more "Things are hard enough already", without being told they must share the meagre resources with ever more people.

I’m welsh (if you couldn’t tell) and yes I live in a very deprived part of the valleys. Also the area I was born in (in Swansea) was one of the most deprived wards in all of Europe when I was born.

Most of the people I know are remainers however I do know some
Leavers and understand why they voted leave.

It’s a “fuck you”, essentially. Wales (the valleys particularly) has been stood on so fucking much and nobody gives a shit. Conservatives did the damage and Blair largely ignored it. Ever since 2008 we’ve been squashed even more by benefit cuts and austerity, since for large swathes of the valleys (not a small area!) there is only unskilled, zero hour and temp work. Getting even a 16hr contract is like fucking gold dust. Most of the people round here know the best they’re going to get (unless they can leave for uni) is a job in a local takeaway. Our economy has been decimated, nothing was left behind or instilled for the welsh when thatcher closed the mines and its only gotten worse since. Nothing is ever done by Westminster to help us.
That’s the reality for the people in the poorest parts of wales.

Then you’ve got an elite pig fucker jumping up and down for “remain” and Nigel farage with his “friends of the common man” persona....

It’s easy to see how people were misled... I say this as a remainer at heart but I was actually not able to vote in the referendum because of my age (I am only 19 now). I can still see why people voted leave with the above in consideration.

This was a shock the day after the referendum. Why are you suddenly shocked now?

I think for me the thing that’s Coming across from this thread is that areas which are economically poor and disadvantaged are angry and looking for something and someone to blame. The EU is a convenient scapegoat. Their anger is sadly misdirected, and I think what’s going to happen is that when we do leave (and sadly I think we will) the people in the valley towns in Wales and the villages in the north east, and the tourist areas of Cornwall the are going to find out the hard way that the hard right and their useful idiots advocating for Brexit don’t give a fuck about them, and are happy for them to be collateral damage
I wonder who they’re going to blame then!
I am heartened to see that Cardiff voted 60% to stay in the EU.

While the % may be too low to make a difference,has anyone considered how any Welsh Cypriots may have voted.
I am not from Cyprus ,but perhaps many cypriots voted leave as blame germany for the bank crisis on the island in 2013 .

Tiny are you saying that you believe the EU workers to be hard working, not in receipt of benefits and essentially that those who are from the valleys are not? That they are lazy, refuse to work and claim benefits?

SuitedandBooted: "It's not a question of not liking "forringners", it's more "Things are hard enough already", without being told they must share the meagre resources with ever more people."

tinytemper66: We have about 30% EU population in school. Even some of our staff voted leave! 🤦🏻‍♀️ If we lose that amount of pupils our school could close."

These two posts weren't in reply to each other – but aptly show the picture is almost always more complicated than simplistic soundbites.

Resources may be meagre because they've been deliberately underfunded by someone else, somewhere else. "S/he's taking my job/house/school place!" is emotionally appealing, but getting rid of the scapegoat isn't going to have the result the speaker wanted.

Gwen, thanks for explaining. I see that there is a small but growing movement towards independence in wales.
I know it’s not anywhere near the the stage Scotland is at, but maybe leaving the EU will rejuvenate the debate around it.

ExecutiveFiat, I agree.
I think Scotland voted to remain overwhelmingly, as we are used to getting shafted by the tories and didn't trust the lies they told us. There's a feeling up here that the English still like to doff their caps at the posh tory boys and think they know what they are talking about. And that they'll stick up for the ordinary man. In Scotland we just don't trust them.