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?

My mother voted leave because David Cameron and Angela Merkel are lizards in human form. I shit you not.

I only know one person who voted leave. A friend of my father. He did it because of 'all these foreigners'. I'm sorry if that upsets the Leavers because it fits a stereotype but there you are.

Rhiannon but when there is a vast amount of poorer people, with low expectations of their working conditions and little knowledge of their rights, many employers exploit this and it has led to a race to the bottom in sectors such as care and agriculture.

Thank you for his thread.

1. Identity. I think some people identify themselves as European at a deeper level. So that separating the political institutions from the idea they have of themselves as having a European cultural identity difficult.

2. Legal rights. Some people believe that rights that they care strongly about only exist because of the European Union.

3. Romantised view of politicians. I think there is a perception that only the brightest and best politicians become MEP's.

4. Status Quo. I think that some people prefer to avoid any change into the unknown.

Hope that's not too controversial. I also think they are all valid. Each person has their own values and beliefs. I think that's why the referendum has hit everyone so hard because it has challenged values and beliefs. Which is hard work!

I think there is a perception that only the brightest and best politicians become MEP's.
Er, what? Nigel Farage? BNP MEPs? MEPs are usually either the dregs or newbies or no-hopers.

And I'd challenge all of the rest except possibly the identity one, but that wasn't a major reason for me - though I do feel that the idea of voting leave "because we aren't European" is an insult.

Are these reasons that people you know gave? Or just speculation?

Because they think the UK is more important than it is. And racism - I heard and challenged it a fair bit in the run up but not heard it so blatantly recently. And maybe they believed the lies and sound bites.
The idea that we'd get a 'deal' was laughable from the outset and I think TM etc know it and are only going through the motions now because they need to find someone/something else to blame. I'd like to be wrong. Time will tell I suppose.

Reasons people gave me for voting Leave:

1. We get our passports back!

The stupidity of the above mentioned argument is so colossal that I was actually stuck for a riposte. DH’s uncle has a nice line in ridiculous arguments, though, he once told me that teachers are responsible for the housing crisis because of ‘that London weighting you get’ (I’m a teacher. I moved out of London because I couldn’t afford to buy).

1. Sovereignty/democracy

Anyone who believes that power will reside in Westminster or our devolved institutions once we leave the EU is deluded. The UK will be run by a cabal of super-rich fascists who will pull the strings of government from behind the scenes.

1. Immigration

No point arguing about this, people are too entrenched. The economy relies upon free movement of workers; clearly, we’re going to have to look elsewhere to plug the massive gaps after 2019...

Ah yes, MIL is a conspiracy theorist. Anything she doesn’t understand is Not To Be Trusted. So we must leave the EU Right Now, the moon landings didn’t happen and Mr Tumble shouldn’t be allowed to hang around with children

Because all those refugees Merkel let in wild be flooding over here as soon as they can.

Because you hardly see a white face on the bus these days.

Because they EU provided money for greener street lighting but the road surface needed doing so they had their priorities wrong. There was nothing wrong with the lights, it would have been fine to carry on using twice as much energy as needed for the next few decades, it was very wasteful to just get rid of a perfectly good light.

Because they didn't want a European Army.

The remainers I know seemed to think - 'better the devil you know!'
They were scared of the ramifications and believed project fear.
They think our ability to have holidays in Europe will change.
They think all leave voters are mad, rabid, right wing racists.

I think very few people who voted on either side had sufficient information to make a meaningful decision. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about the EU, have a degree in international relations and have worked in an EU-associated area and I found myself coming across all sorts of things I had no idea about in the runup to the referendum. As a nation, we have always distanced ourselves from the EU, not helped by decades of anti-Europe bile from some of the press.

Of the remainers I know, many of us are passionate about Europe, but that's hardly surprising as a lot of my friendship circle were made when I was studying and working in Europe. Others were happy to keep the status quo.

Of the leave voters I have spoken to personally, none are of either the Lexit or North camp. I have only heard about either immigration or "feeling like a change." Not sure they've got the changes they were looking for. I also have the sense of huge misunderstanding about payments to the EU, with a staggering amount of people who thought we pay money without getting anything back, not recognising that the net benefit to our economy dwarfs our contributions.

Wisterical

but when there is a vast amount of poorer people, with low expectations of their working conditions and little knowledge of their rights, many employers exploit this and it has led to a race to the bottom in sectors such as care and agriculture.

Indeed. And how is this the doing or the fault of the EU?

From reading these boards (and others) I have found quite a number of leavers with well thought through and sourced arguments. I don't agree with them but I have found some to be thoughtful and reasonable. Out in the world though, not so much. Within my family and small town it's racism - nasty and overt too, not the kind of search-to-find-it discrimination by a thousand cuts stuff. The real deal. Also they believed that 350m for the NHS stuff, although they've pretty much ditched that now.

Interestingly there seems to be across the board acceptance that it's going tits up. Although the reasons for that are mostly the foreigners' faults of course and nothing to do with having no plan or common understanding of what they actually thought was going to happen.

A pro-Leave friend said Sovereignty and Make Our Own Laws. She was all on Principles and I was all on our future in practical terms and safeguarding rights. I thought Sovereignty under the Tories was undesirable anyway. She was keen on Breitbart and I had to change the subject, there was no common ground for discussion. We’ve never discussed it again.

The majority of leave voters that I spoke to voted to leave because of immigration. I think they were fed a load of lies by the right wing media about immigrants. They wanted to believe the lies, because immigrants are a convenient scapegoat. People believe what they want to believe.

I know one very nasty leave voter, who loves to see others suffer, so that was probably her sole reason.

I also know one other leave voter who cares about people, but she voted leave because David Ike did.

All of my friends and most people I know voted remain.

(Sigh).
So colleague & I were working on an EU funded project, sitting with EU colleagues in a European capital (restaurant), & colleague announced she didn't want Brexit but she & husband would vote leave anyway ("to give the establishment a kicking.").

I really like colleague who fucking IS establishment. I thought that was a very stupid reason, it shocked me into silence at the time. Since then I discover that many people voted Leave to "kick the establishment." I can't relate even though I have close relatives living homeless and didn't receive anything like the elite private education that colleague did.

I think that story could be summarised as "Nowt as Queer as Folk."

I haven't really asked other people, but the main impression I get ( like colleague) is enormous ignorance. They have no idea how much hassle Brexit is going to cause. They don't work with Europeans who were only good applicants for their job, they don't understand the Eur. Medicines Agency or the Nuclear regulations or anything to do with benefits of CE standards. They don't recognise MEPs as democratic representatives, they don't believe in consensus politics. When they think of lazy MEPs, they don't realise Farage IS the laziest of the bunch. They think UK is an island far from anywhere else & can be insulated & safely self-sufficient.

Well yes, non EU citizens often have to get visit visas. But there wasn't a visa requirement for Spain ( for U.K. Nationals) before we joined the EEC and no reason why there would be in the future.

Woman I spoke to re voting remain honestly thought that travel to EU countries didn't take place before the EU.

rhiannon free movement of labour, a requirement of EU membership has led to this exploitable workforce.

The EU's 4-day-a-month shuttle between Brussels and Strasbourg 'was enough for me' said one leaver I met recently. Who lives on the Isle of Man for tax reasons.

Immigration, immigration, immigration.

So many of the older people I spoke to during the campaign were absolutely furious about immigration. They may not have been overtly racist, but they were angry about the fact that they no longer recognised parts of their own towns in which they had lived all their lives.

There was real anger that uncontrolled mass immigration was putting intolerable strain on public services, and that immigrants were unfairly 'jumping the queue' for housing and NHS treatment ahead of people who had 'paid in all their lives'.

Who am I to tell these people that their lived experience was wrong?

In a word, Yes.

Xenophobia and a belief that the UK can stand tall on its own in the world and have the world do its bidding.

(which is total mince, outside of actual war and global depressions, the worst the UK has done economically in the last 500 years was when we had lost the empire and hadnt yet joined the EU. When the UK plundered the world it was ok economically and when it had shared access to markets it did ok as well. The period when we didnt was really bad and took about 15 years to recover from).

One leave voter I know, they've been a Eurosceptic for decades, having been against Britain joining in the first place. I'm still not quite sure why, but they're consistent at least, and have said they're opposed to UKIP's racist attitudes.

Personally it was the Leave campaign that persuaded me to vote Remain. What saddens me most isn't actually leaving the EU, but the way the referendum campaign and result have strengthened nationalism and xenophobia in the UK.

Who am I to tell these people that their lived experience was wrong?

Jump the queue thing is a lie so people can be told that they are wrong then.

If they didnt like immigration you could ask them where their NHS staff are supposed to stay? Or the care home workers? Etc. Just because someones experience is lived, just not mean they interpret it correctly.

Because theyre deluded