Anyone think that if Cameron had taken notice of the UKIP vote in the GE then the referendum may have had a different outcome?

[needacoffeenow]

Let me just say that I am not a UKIP voter. I'm asking this based on what a few brexit friends have said. As UKIP got 12% of the vote in the last GE, Cameron was obviously aware of some peoples views on immigration. Do you think that if he had been more convincing about lowering it and be seen to be doing something, then the EU referendum vote would have been different?

Me! DC got totally carried away with his majority and UKIP's vote share was ignored I guess. Plus labour were a disaster. Corbyn would have been better off coming out for Brexit, as we all knew he was, and have someone genuinely Remain lead the campaign. Could not believe it when they rolled out Ed Miliband, the man who lost Scotland and the election!

In fairness he did try and do something wrt to immigration in his negotiations. But I don't really know what it is people want when it comes to immigration.

Absolutely. For too long the poor, the working class and outside London were ignored by politicians and the media so when UKIP came along they had a choice of listen to them and help them or a knee jerk referendum offer to shut them up by saying "Look, we listened", never ever thinking they would lose it

he should never have called a referendum. He gambled the future of this country to save his own career. He lost and on friday wrote Britains economic suicide note.

It was the Labour heartlands where Leave was strongest.

Are you saying Cameron should have predicted that?

Cameron took fright before the run up to the last election about the UKIP vote and rumblings from the Eurosceptic side of the Tory party. Hence he promised the referendum to stop UKIP and his party splitting. They didn't expect to win an outright majority. Cameron was expecting to drop the referendum as part of a coalition agreement.
Except he got more than he bargained for and had got on a rollercoaster he couldn't stop.
He then took his harness off and nailed his colours to the mast as Remain rather than being a stable anchor.
This is an unholy fuck up of the Conservative Party's making.
People have been shown to over estimate immigration. Most people seem to know fuck all about the technicalities of immigration. You need to educate and unite rather than pander to the Immigration misconception.

I personally think that both Cameron and Corbyn should have ignored all the "all brexits are racist/xenophobic" bandwagon and spoken instead of what measures they were putting in place to get nett immigration down.

And yes wtf Labour have failed to acknowledge that the PLP with its Internationalism has moved a long way from its roots but the heartlands haven't. In the 70s the Labour Party was broadly against the EEC to protect heavy industry. Those jobs were trashed. There hasn't been an EU resurgence to compensate. A few leisure centres and bridges don't replace a job.

need firstly Corbyn has no power to do anything about immigration as he isn't in government. Secondly, any promises Cameron made on immigration were lies. Free movement within the EU means just that. Every EU citizen could have pitched up in the UK and that would have been entirely legal. That was obvious. Anyone who thought otherwise needed a reality check.

It was the Labour heartlands where Leave was strongest.

Quite. DC called the referendum, but arguably the Labour Party brought about the Leave result by failing for years to listen to their traditional voters. I said after the GE that I thought Labour had more to fear from UKIP than the Conservatives, and here we are.

(I voted Leave, but my reasons are probably not the same as the traditional Labour voters.)

Yes Flavia I said much the same in the run up to the last GE. I admired Tony Benn but he was the vanguard of Intellectual Socialism. The ILP grew out of a justified working class dissatisfaction with their lot. It was us v them.

Cameron only promised the referendum because he didn't believe he'd get a majority.

That's why his face looks like a slapped arse.

Saying that he knew he was up against it. Ukip have been campaigning in the referendum for a decade or more and will be much more effective now that they can focus on local issues.

Cameron pulled out all of the stops, every piece of the establishment working in concert.

They lost because they didn't have a case to make, all they had left was fear of the unknown.

Give it a month and people will wonder what all the fuss was about.