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?

I live in an area with high immigration. The primary school closest to me was, 12 years ago, 98% English as an Additional Language (May have reduced slightly since because the other school was no longer able to accept placing requests). Our catchment primary school (slightly further away ) was 60% EAL.

The secondary school ds now goes to has about 30+% EAL speakers. 55 languages are spoken. (It is proud of its diversity).

By far the biggest ethnic group is the Indian subcontinent. (About 55% of ds' primary school).

Immigration from the Indian sub-continent has nothing to do with the EU. The shopping street closest to me is a vibrant one where spices and Asian foods abound.

Study after study has shown that EU immigrants as a whole are net contributors to the UK economy - mainly because they are mostly young and healthy and go "home" when they get older and are likely to become more of a drain on resources.

Any problems with waiting lists (health, housing) are to do with (Westminster) government policy and its adherence to austerity economics. Not the EU whatever the false perceptions of the older people you talked to.

Oh - and my constituency, with all those "nasty" immigrants leeching resources voted 70% Remain

TTIP was a big one for a couple of left-wing leave voters I know. Another leave voter has actually said that she regrets her vote (she's the only one I've come across) as she feels the process was mis-sold as easy. I didn't say anything to that as I think I would have snapped at her, and what is the point, I'm sure some of my own thinking was equally stupid poor. I know that I felt very sick and still do about the whole European response to the migration and refugee crisis of recent years. Voting Remain wasn't something I did with a song in my heart.

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.

Er, that was 40+ years ago. The EU is shoring up its external borders and introducing the ETIAS scheme, similar to the USA ESTA scheme. It will require travellers from outside the EU (+ Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland) who do not require a full visa to register online for a permit (at a cost) before travelling, giving personal information and details of their health.

The permits will last three years, but I don't think a decision has been made yet whether you will have to state your travel plans before each visit. However, as part of the initial registration process is supposed to ask for your travel plans and details of where you will be staying, presumably you would have to do that for each visit.

Wisterical, how does free movement of labour automatically lead to low-paid jobs and exploitation of workers?

Most of the low paid jobs Wisterical mentions will not be done by the very same UK citizens who voted leave "because there are no jobs".
E.g. the food companies who say that they can't get local people to even apply for their jobs because, partly, they don't have the skills.

But drsprouse many of these low paid jobs are done by people who voted leave , including me! And many of the jobs with the very poorest conditions are done by EU migrants. Employers in the care/agricultural/food processing/hospitality sectors do say that 'local' people don't apply but it's not due to lack of skills or laziness, it's because the work is often seasonal and zero hour contract and often 'live-in' - impossible to support yourself/family on the wages unless you are a migrant worker.

I believe 'free movement of labour' is a neo-liberal concept at the core of the modern EU and an exploitative employers wet-dream. I respect and appreciate the work done by EU migrants and on one level am really pleased they can earn higher wages here to support families in their home countries but it is exploitative and like all neo-liberal policies, makes the rich richer.

It's not the only reason I voted leave and believe me it is galling to have voted the same way as Farage et am (I nearly didn't vote at all because of that) but Osbourne, Cameron and May weren't comfortable to vote with either!

What change do you expect to happen soon, Wisterical, on back of Brexit? Do you expect wages to go up and working conditions to improve in those lowest paid sectors (carework, agriculture, Sweatshop Direct, etc.?)

Post Brexit, with lower tax income & reduced GDP, the Uk govt. will be in weaker position to make any of that happen. The conditions you see as unacceptable are more likely to persist, not get better.

One of the reasons I voted remain was because I thought working conditions and pay would be eroded without EU protection.

I'm a long-term temporary worker, the EU has improved my rights and made things a bit fairer. I'm really worried about what will happen now.

It won't just be the people that voted leave that will suffer, I think the majority of people will.

A mum at DS school voted remain as "she liked going on holiday to Spain and wanted to ensure she still could". She was astonished to hear that people visited Spain well before the EU.

Jeepers. No wonder most people in the UK voted to leave if that is an example of the general level of awareness about what the EU is and does. Thorough and balanced analysis of the issues in the lead up to the referendum might have provided this information to more people.

But then I remember that Penny Mordaunt lied a number of times on Andrew Marr, stating the UK did not have a veto over Turkey joining the EU. So it was't just not balanced. If you have people like her brazenly lying like that over an indisputable fact, what chance of an honest discussion on areas which are open to debate. If it was a courtroom, it would have been perjury. In the den which seem to constitute this post referendum cabinet, known liars seem to do well. Johnson was sacked a couple of times for lying, I believe, but promoted. Nobody was disgusted enough at Mordaunt's character in lying to the public either. Not only not an apology, but a position. Even the disgraced Liam Fox, who had previously acted in a way which made others think him unfit for the cabinet before the referendum and resulted in his resignation, was provided with the new status becoming to these liars birds of a feather.

The honour among thieves was exhibited by Gove betraying Johnson.

A mum at DS school voted remain as "she liked going on holiday to Spain and wanted to ensure she still could".

That's not really so ridiculous if she meant with the same ease, access to health services etc as we have now.

Don't forget that we used to have exchange controls - limits on how much currency you were allowed to take out of the UK . I remember parents of a friend of mine talking about having bought tickets right to the top of the Jungrau via their travel agent for a trip to Switzerland, because there was a limit to how much they could take out of the UK and they didn't want to waste it on train tickets.

Because (various from different people)

The Eu is a corrupt organisation
We need a change
There are too many immigrants

I think people voted with their emotions. The one who voted for change wasn't able to articulate what change she desired. Full disclosure, it was boyfriend's mother and he still can't speak to her about it. After the vote he explained to her why he felt it would negatively impact him. He is currently avoiding spending a lot of time with her as her new partner is pro-brexit and insists on bringing it up at social gatherings. I have never done so much moving the conversation on and 'so, subject change'. It's not worth entering into a dialogue about it, because reason is not part of the rhetoric.

I went round leafleting for Remain. The poorer parts of the city were hugely emotional about wanting Brexit. It was quite scary. I was told that the EU was about to turn into a superstate, and there would be no separate countries anymore. There would be no more football world cup because the whole of Europe would be one country with one national football team. Turkey was about to join the EU and Muslims would start taking over. I think people thought that the refugees from Africa would be allowed into the UK unless we left the EU. If I said anything different from what they believed, or pointed out that all political parties bar UKIP, and the unions, wanted to Remain, they just said that everyone was lying.

The only person I know who openly voted leave was full of platitudes about taking back control, and refused to have an actual discussion although she posted many memes in Facebook which suggested she didn't believe the European parliament was really elected. She also started posting anti immigration memes during the run-up to the referendum, which seemed out of character for many reasons. Gone right off her, but not exactly because of how she voted so much as due to the combination of being prolifically opinionated on social media yet unwilling to be analytical/ have an actual conversation about it. Either you don't want to discuss it, which is fine, or you do, which is fine too, but shouting that you're right but nobody has the right to discuss it is frustrating.

She was also one of the people showing the jaw dropping lack of understanding straight after the referendum by shutting down discussion saying "it's done now, let's all just crack on" as if Brexit had already happened as soon as votes in the non binding advisory referendum were counted...

My mum and the rest of the older generations of my family all voted out because they're racist. I know Leavers will come along slagging me off 'Leavers aren't racist blar blar blar' but that's the fact of it with my family. Any price is worth paying to boot foreigners out.

Main reasons I voted remain.

NI peace.
The economy
Keeping the opportunity FOM brings
Close cooperation and relationships with our EU partners

I don't know much about economics, I read a bit but was more swayed by the fact that every major financial institution and almost every internationally recognised economist said Brexit would make us poorer and was a bad idea. I have respect for expert knowledge and don't think I know better than Nobel prize winning economists. :)

I went round leafleting for Remain. The poorer parts of the city were hugely emotional about wanting Brexit. It was quite scary.

Not my experience at all. Nearly everyone I know is poor, nearly all of them voted remain. This is a common lie being peddled; I think so that when it things go pear shaped the middle classes will blame the poorest and not feel guilty about what is done to them. Most inner cities voted remain.

Racists/stupid people/nasty people can be rich or poor.

Racists/stupid people/nasty people can be rich or poor
Indeed, namechanger22, and such people could also have voted leave or remain. Vilifying people who voted a different way from oneself doesn't improve anything.

Namechanger That's something I worry about, too.

I'm not discounting anyone's personal experience - it is probably true on a personal level - but my experience was similar to Namechanger 's, in that well-off, poor, in the middle: all Remain. And there was a lot of passion, for Remain, particularly from people with a personal history of immigration.

If you look at the statistics on 'Leave' areas, it tended not to be 'poor' areas per se that voted 'Leave' - there were outliers, which grabbed headlines (mainly because it is so clear that the impact of Leave will fall disproportionately on the lower-income groups) - often it was more like the sort of groups that would be coded C2.

The only leave voters I know, voted that way because they wanted an extra £350m to spend on the NHS or were worried about (largely Indian/Pakistani in our area) immigration. I'm sure many leave voters had good reasons for voting as they did, but I can't pretend to be impressed with the reasoning skills of the ones I do know.

Racists/stupid people/nasty people can be rich or poor.

And they also can be from any & all political persuasions, all levels of education, come from all countries, be any sexuality, gender, age and ethnicity, have voted Leave, Remain or abstained etc etc.

Racists/stupid people/nasty people are a factor in each and every social division you can name.

To reduce the Brexit divide to racists/non racists or nasty/nice is lazy & narrow minded.

My sister voted out because 'london is crowded' which it always had been and it is difficult for her son to get a job (even though he has a job currently but finds it difficult to keep them because he is feckless)
Another sister voted leave because she believes everything ukip tells her
The rest of us voted remain because having done lots of research on balance we believe it's the best option. We are also a fair bit younger than the other sisters who are retired. We believe the leave vote will adversely effect the rest of our working lives and has already cost my business.
It's ironic my two older sisters are anti immigrants are my grandparents were Irish immigrants and my dad's family comes from Hugenot refugees.
Several neighbours voted leave because of the £350 m message.
Someone I know is a leave campaigner and is an ideologue but is mightily confused now.
One doctor I know voted leave (all the rest voted remain and I know a lot because of my job) because she is Asian and she wanted other Asian doctors to have a head start over EU doctors. She regretted her vote straight after as she didn't realise Cameron would resign and there would be so much chaos.