Why do you think people who voted differently to you in the referendum voted that way?

[themueslicamel]

Just this really, what do you think drove people who looked at the referendum and made the conscious decision to vote the other way?

Two of my good friends voted Leave. One was mostly because of immigration (too many foreigners abusing the NHS which is why our waiting lists are so long), she can't tolerate that Germans are telling us how to run our country (?), she couldn't get her children in school of choice because places are being taken by foreigners (that's including my children BTW, I'm an immigrant). The other friend believes that we send too much money to the EU and that we should be spending it on the NHS instead.

I can't speak on behalf of the million of others who voted Leave, I don't know their personal views, but I think that my friends' opinions are replicated up and down the country.

Because they're racist idiots

Because they didn't look beyond the patriotic cries of "Taking back control", and how wonderful we British are, and how we'd be giving £350 million to the NHS. And because "immigration".

Oh dear, is this going to turn into a thread where remainers assume that leavers all voted for Brexit because they are racist or thick? No-one really knows why anyone made their choices, but we now have a majority decision and are stuck with it.
I dont like how remainers like to think they can assume things about leavers and label them though.

Same as Two and the housing costs in London.

I am also a foreigner taking up said housing and using the NHS

My mum said we could spend the £350 million we send to the EU on the NHS. She also said "There's no more room."

A professional contact who voted Leave just told me that it was the incompetence and corruption of the EU. I mentioned the current UK government. (He remarked that's what his wife said.) He said although he would still vote Leave, it should not have been a simple majority vote, it was a bit of a mess and it was all David Cameron’s fault.

My mum voted leave because she lived through WW2 and can't bring herself to trust a german, any german, with a bag of smarties. But she's very old, from London and she lost a lot of friends & relatives.

A friend's dad voted leave because he said he was lied to in the last referendum - trade agreement etc - and he's expressing his disgust.

Ex-partner voted stay because o he thought it would maintain the value of his shares (!) which seems not to have worked - at least yet.

Sis voted remain because she works in France and her dp is British but has a German passport.

Childminder voted leave because her son & family have been on waiting list for a flat for years and seem to be going down the list, not up.

I think there were a million reasons.

Various reasons. Some were self interested and stood to benefit from staying. Others for very rational reasons felt that the benefits of EU membership outweighed the costs and the risks. Others out of fear of change. Others out of ignorance of the world at large and what life outside the EU is really like. Others out of principle (yes, some people really do want a European superstate as stupid as it sounds). And some did it for the sake of political stability

I think both those who voted stay or leave believed the line they were fed.
Very few people understood the implications of leaving the EU, not many can remember or were alive before England joined the EU.
Many who didn't vote did so because they didn't want the referendum in the first place, like voting age in my family.

Leavers

• nostalgia for an imaginary 1950’s Britain.
• pressures from immigration and anger that anyone who pointed them out was dubbed a fascist and told to shut up
• years of the UK governemnet blamg Brussels for everything that went wrong.
• tabloid press
• that bus with the money for the NHS
• they were fed up with Cameron and his cronies.
• a small number genuinely concerned about Parliamentary sovereignty and the ECJ.

Remain

• more knowledge of the way the EU works, so less convinced by the idea that laws etc are imposed on the UK without consent
• more able to access the advantages of the EU (skilled, mobile workers, students etc)
• fears of uncertainty - status quo better than the unknown
• realisation that UK in EU wielded more power and influence than the UK alone
• realisation that the EU without UK would be weaker and less stable.

The only people I know who have admitted to voting leave was because of 'them damn foreigners taking all our jobs and getting council houses worth millions innit'

Or that the NHS would get all that extra money...

I'm sure there are people with valid leave reasons and not everyone's a dingbat but that's my experience sadly.

Someone I know who voted Leave, who is I'd thought educated, informed, highly intelligent and reasonable, did so for reasons including bendy bananas.

Because they had a different opinion to me?

I mean that's the answer to your question.

Or do I win with:

'Because all leave voters are thick racists and are nothing like me, cultured, educated, inclusive me?'

I mean, that's the answer you are probably seeking.

A friend of mine voted Leave, even though she thought we would 'probably be better off in', but decided to vote Leave as 'a protest vote' I still can't get my head around the utter bloody stupidity of this

Also, she reads the Daily Mail and adores Boris Johnson. I reckon if he announced the sky was pink she would believe him. She now thinks its all a big mess (mm-hmm Sherlock) and doesn't know how she would vote if there were a second referendum, but still thinks Boris is all kinds of marvellous. So that's lovely

"not many can remember or were alive before England joined the EU."

Really???

England - and the rest of the UK - joined the Common Market, as we were led to believe, in 1973. You only have to be in your forties to have been alive then, in your fifties to remember the 1970s.

Newsflash - middle aged people exist.

Flavia Ansell - thank you, I thought it was just me

I can remember the 1975 referendum, and I have a 9yo.

I know people who voted leave because they don't "feel" European, they see Europe as some land far far away that has nothing to do with them.

A couple of my friends/friends parents voted leave as they genuinely believed that 350 million was going to go to the NHS.
They also unfortunately read the Scum and Daily Fail Sun and Daily Mail.

*Because they had a different opinion to me?

I mean that's the answer to your question.*

*Or do I win with:

'Because all leave voters are thick racists and are nothing like me, cultured, educated, inclusive me?'

I mean, that's the answer you are probably seeking.*

No, not seeking a predefined** answer, just interested to see what people’s views are

I have two leave voting friends who believe the EU is a bloated, self-aggrandising, anti-democratic body, and because they felt patronised - 'the more of a disaster they say it's going to be, the more determined I am to vote to leave'. Both are early 50s, relatively wealthy and mortgage free. Interestingly, both are very disappointed with the mess they see unfolding - not that they believe they were wrong. More that the uk negotiators are a shower and that it could all have been so different.

Others I know voted leave because they were desperately unhappy with the anti-collective bargaining, heavy handed approach to wages and pensions taken by the ECB, EC etc in Spain, Greece and Portugal. I have some sympathy for this view, but the fact is that for 80% of uk workers, collective bargaining was dismantled in the 80s. Events in Spain etc are practically irrelevant IMHO unless you prioritise international solidarity over everything else.

Others I know voted leave because of unspecified concerns about TTIP. They did not agree that something much worse will come down the tracks following Brexit, and TTiP had fallen over by the ref date, even though people continued to cite it as a reason for leaving.

Others I know voted leave because they mistakenly believed Corbyn's agenda of state subsidy couldn't be carried out within the eu.

Some voted leave because they wanted to see the tories fail forever - in 10 or so years, they imagined a socialist alternative rising from the ashes.

Some voted leave because they blamed the EU for poor redundancy packages, weak unfair dismissal laws etc. They didn't accept that the EU has no influence on these rights (except to impose effective consultation).

(I went to lots of meetings and heard lots of reasons!)

The only person I know well who voted Leave and admits it was of the unions-TTIP-unfair dismissal type-Corbynista type.

There may be others who voted Leave and won't own up.

Those that I know vaguely/listen to on the bus/are my mum's bridge friends are all of the "there will be loads of money and no queues in the NHS now and the country is full". As my mum is herself an immigrant she's been biting her tongue and harumphing loudly quietly a lot.

They were also the same ones who complained about students voting in Labour in her constituency.

My parents believed the whole '35 million a week for the NHS bullshit'.

They're getting older and seem to believe anything they see written down and are weirdly trusting and seem to think that a politician wouldn't be allowed to lie.

They were duped. They regret their vote now.

Most of my friends voted remain but those who voted leave said the following:

• because Cornish fishermen are losing their livelihoods due to EU fishing quotas
• because my friend has a cardboard box factory and he has to put labels on his products in other languages and I think he should be able to use only English.
• because we can be a great nation again if we are allowed to rule ourselves.

Needless to say, I don't find any of these arguments particularly convincing.

I hate the assumption that everyone who voted leave is a thick racist and all Tory’s are mean (not that I vote either)