“Then why are the leaders of the LEAVE movement Eton-Oxford graduates? The cream of the cream?”
Because all the leadership in all these societies is from the elites, same as the USA, same as here in Canada.
My point is about the voters. Brexit voters are denigrated as being economic losers in the global economy, from unfashionable postal codes, and just not affluent, educated and sophisticated enough to be worthy to have a say in Britain’s future.
The same elitist garbage that gets directed at Trump voters, and also at Conservative voters here in Canada.
Well, that sort of messaging impresses and entertains the cool, woke, with-it crowd until they wake up the morning after the voting and ask: “what the f*ck just happened?”
I do think the people who voted Leave have grievances, but not all of them are caused by the EU and indeed many of them were whipped up grievances (350 million going weekly to the EU - another euromyth)
Brexit voters are denigrated as being economic losers in the global economy, from unfashionable postal codes, and just not affluent, educated and sophisticated enough to be worthy to have a say in Britain’s future.
And that is wrong. Denigrating them for their status in life or education or "sophistication" is diverting from the original debate and serves no purpose. I have never and will never use such terms to describe someone who disagrees with me as that would be besides the point.
The Referendum was badly managed and as you point out, the calling of people "losers", "deplorables" etc. defeated the remain vote. It would have made more sense to stop, find out what the grievances are and actually explain rather than talk down to people
England had a problem with immigration -- a valid point -- but most of that was not EU immigration but immigrants from Pakistan etc. - and that was the UK's own creation, not the EU's
England had a problem with loss of jobs and blamed it on the Polish plumber, but these were caused by the British government's own policies that destroyed those industries in favor of big banking
Finally the false belief that the European commission makes decisions was also a factor -- no one seems to have told them that Juncker for all his bluster is a civil servant like Sir Humphrey. The hoop-la about decision making - I ask each person here, like 9lurker, what examples he has of loss of decision making and I get... silence.
So to sum up - the referendum was badly managed and I will state that one factor was also the talking down to people
My opinion is that Brexit is economically and diplomatically bad for the UK based on their industrial set up, their export-import, their educational system and their resource capabilities, BUT, people voted LEAVE and even if it was 50.0009%, they should leave and it should ideally be NO DEAL so that they can fully see the results