Some racism, no doubt … but a lot more xenophobia.
Additionally the UK population is stunningly ill educated — not as bad as the U.S. but 19th in the World at Maths and Economics, for instance … behind even Romania (which barely has the budget for an education system at all!).
The single largest indicator of whether someone was likely to vote Leave/Remain was whether they were relatively un/educated — which accounts for the seeming weighting towards Remain on the part of the younger generations, because … tada! … more of the younger generations have had an education beyond the age of 14/16/18 years of age.
After that, the concerns about ‘immigants who terk er jerbs’ were higher in those areas where they, basically, don’t have (m)any: it was the cities, with their high proportion of immigrant inhabitants that voted for Remain and the rural areas and small towns that were mostly Leave voters — again, an education issue insofar as ignorance (lack of exposure) led to concerns about a problem that those troubled by it haven’t actually experienced and those who have experienced it don’t have an issue with.
Then there’s also the ignorance about London: a lot of people who have very little to no experience of London believe it to be a) synonymous with Parliament and b) made up of Chelsea, Mayfair, Kensington, Hampstead and the like … and have, therefore, no idea that some of the UK’s most impoverished regions are to be found in the heart of the capital — they think we’re all rich here and don’t understand, or care about, their plight when, in fact, we know it all too well (often better than them). So, there was an element of wanting to give all us rich snobs and toffs a kicking.
The problem with that being, of course, that whilst I find the whole (neo)liberal sociopathy of the ‘City’ and the ‘Banks’ appalling, rightly or wrongly, London does subsidise the rest of the nation to a very large extent — the so called ‘regions’ would get even less than the little they do without the taxes raised here … So, London losing firms and employees and associated trades (cafes, bars, restaurants, etc.) means less revenue to be parcelled out (whether fairly or not) at all.
Then there’s the ignorance of what the E.U. is or how it works, why, etc. That’s hardly their fault per se, given forty years of rabidly partisan misinformation, disinformation and outright lies by the Press and the Media. But, at the same time, those who complain that FoM did nothing for them, well, whose fault is that? They could’ve got up off their arses and made use of it, so their complaint now is simply dog in a manger stuff … just like the utterly nonsensical cries about it not being fair when the idea was mooted that the EU could allow Brits to buy associate EU membership as individuals (which is like complaining that I bought a drink after they said “no, thankyou” to the offer of one ‘on the house’). Moreover, you didn’t hear them complaining about it during the era of Auf Widersehen, Pet, did you?
Then there’s the total ignorance surrounding how our own government works: they talk about taking back control and the sovereignty of Parliament but then complain when Parliament suggests it might exercise that sovereignty as is its right in a representative democracy — they don’t understand the difference between a delegate and a representative power.
As an aside, if I read one more remark about our unwritten constitution, I’ll go beserk: we do not have an unwritten constitution, we have an uncodified one — it’s written down, it just isn’t all in a single document. As a further aside the people who witter on about Magna Carta, like it were the Bill Of Rights annoy me too — they are tragicomically utterly, utterly ignorant of the history of the country whose values and traditions they claim to want to preserve.
What we have is 50% of the nation clinging on to two world wars that even their grand/parents’ generation are too young to remember with anything more than a child’s understanding of events … one World Cup (that was, frankly, so long ago it’s embarrassing and I’d keep quiet about it lest anyone notice how crap we’ve been since) … unfathomably proud of their heritage (an accident of birth) whilst criticising the ‘snowflake generation’ for wanting an ‘award’ “just for taking part” … and, understandably, more than a little upset that they have shit lives but, like Crass and Misery in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, rabidly in favour of those espousing and implementing the very policies that keep them trapped in poverty and equally hostile to any attempt to disabuse them of the errors in their thinking ... because they have nothing to show for their lives …
Add to that the disproportionate influence that those with ‘Cluster B’ personality disorders wield in almost all societies …
… and not forgetting that most people have below average intelligence to start with …
Basically, fifty percent of the nation (at least) consists of the (wilfully) ignorant, the educationally disadvantaged, the intellectually infirm, racists, xenophobes, sociopaths, narcissists, you get the idea …
Familiarity breeds contempt and all those things the Babyboomers’ parents (and even some of the boomers themselves) worked so hard to build … as you so, appositely point out “free healthcare, welfare, social housing, opportunities for social mobility etc etc “ … aren’t worth anything to them because they didn’t have to fight and die for a country ‘fit for heroes’ themselves.
Over the course of my life I’ve noticed that every twenty years, a new generation grows up with neither any understanding of what went before nor any desire to — they’re young Turks out to remake the World in their own image … who cares what the hasbeen old fuddieduddies did when they were young (were they ever young)? … they’re senile old fools … dinosaurs … and should make way for the bright young things who understand the World and how it works today.
It is said that those who don’t learn the lessons of History are doomed to repeat them but that’s only half the story — because they doom the rest of us to repeat them right along with them.
Sadly, I don’t think there’s any answer to it … think it’s just the Human Condition … that we’re just going round in circles, always have done and … unless some miraculous awakening takes us all by surprise, opening all our eyes to a more enlightened way of being … always will do …
… but we keep rolling with the punches, picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves down and storming the barricades of iniquity time and time again because, what else can we do?
The only other option is to give up altogether …
… and then we might as well simply slit our wrists … save ourselves the agony.
Dunno ‘bout you but, whilst I might be prepared to say “fuck it” and leave the country … again … (again) … in a couple of years, I’m not ready to give up altogether just yet … I’ll see what happens; who knows, we might yet remain after all — a week is a long time in politics.
In the meantime, if you can find the comment thread on The Guardian’s Brexit: Corbyn says he will table no-confidence motion ‘at the appropriate time’ — Politics live (with Andrew Sparrow) … I’ve lost count of the number of times I laughed so hard I almost choked on my own tears and snot 😆 😂
The topic has changed now and I can’t find it directly, so you may have to simply trawl through the 20,260+ comments to find the ones I was reading earlier, but there are a lot of good ones there either way 😀
Or, you could watch the fkn newz …
