Augusta
It’s not ‘a fact’ that Thatcher was completely responsible for the decline in manufacturing. In fact it arguably declined more under New Labour than under her.
So not the EU's fault then, in fact.
In 2016, unemployment was around 5%. Around half a million of that number are long term unemployed. So even if every single one of them voted Leave (and many may be EU citizens not eligible to vote) that still leaves almost 17 million votes unaccounted for.
Entrenched worklessness and hopelessness, such as that that results from pit and shipyard closures and the extinction of whole industries, hollows out entire communities - economically, socially, culturally, educationally. That phenomenon affects more than just those individuals who literally speaking are long-term unemployed. Add to that the privileging in postmodernity of the concerns of big business, and the result is whole swathes of society who are dislocated from any sense of social or economic agency. People in that position are very vulnerable to the lure of the charismatic leader with easy answers and attractive slogans.
The EU’s ‘propping up’ of deprived areas frequently benefits those who are making a profit or parachuted in public sector managers and locals often feel it only offers a few badly paid jobs with little opportunity for them.
Wales no longer agrees with you. Neither does Cornwall.
Again, you are assuming that working class and lower middle class people were too stupid to know what they were voting for
I think under the right circumstances we could all have been susceptible to the silver tongue of Farage et al. It's not about stupidity.
and that their voice should be ignored because other people (like you) know better than they do themselves what they really want, so they should just shut up and do as they’re told.
On the contrary, precisely because the Leave vote was driven by structural inequalities rather than 'stupidity', I think those voices should be listened to carefully, so as to understand them better, just as the pp suggested. You're the one who would rather skip that bit and head straight for economic oblivion.
And you’re left wing. It’s an absolute disgrace this sort of thing is coming out of the left wing. It’s absolutely divorced from the original purpose of the left which championed the rights of the working class to participate in politics and decried the sort of people who claimed the working classes were too thick and ill educated to participate in politics.
That's a lot of assumptions about me. I am left wing, yes. I am also - if you force me to pick a unitary identity from the midst of an extremely complicated personal history - working class. My interest in politics derives from my trade union activities as a young adult. I am able to participate in political debate because it interests me sufficiently that I follow and understand it. I don't rely on the Daily Mail or London taxi drivers - or Mumsnet - for my information. I don't pluck buzzwords from the ether and pretend they're my original thoughts. I form my own opinions and on that basis I feel entitled to vote. I'm not accusing anyone of being 'thick and ill educated' who can be bothered to do the same.
The left wing now is just an elitist playground for posturing bourgeoisie to play at student politics.
I don't recognise this. In fact it sounds like posturing to me.