<story><title>Thoughts on the sociology of Brexit</title><url>http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tigershark</author><text>I hope that you&amp;#x27;re really happy of the outcome of your vote.
You destroyed uk and global economy, even if you still Don&amp;#x27;t realise it.
A nation with narrow minded people that cannot understand the simple consequences of their actions will not have the most happy outcome.</text></item><item><author>Normal_gaussian</author><text>I am British, and I socialise with a whole host of young Brits who voted leave. A whole host of educated Engineers - software, civil, mech. A handful of NQT&amp;#x27;s, nurses, vets, doctors, and then a spattering of assorted jobs at large companies from banks to telecoms to charities to sales.&lt;p&gt;These are people I talk to one on one about all kinds of different issues - mostly philisophocal, rarely political - and they all had a few small things in common with the EU debate:&lt;p&gt;* a certainty that the UK is dying.  There is less and less value here, and continuing with the current setup spells for a long slow death.&lt;p&gt;* an outright distrust of the political class and the media class.  Most can cite cases where they have been outright knowingly lied to in ways most wouldn&amp;#x27;t realise.&lt;p&gt;* a feeling of betrayal by those screaming remain and insulting anyone who disagrees.  These are people who were often close friends who just weren&amp;#x27;t the kind to get into the discussions we enjoyed.&lt;p&gt;So the obvious thing for these people to do? Vote leave.  We can start the fight now and possibly survive, or delay it and definitely die.  Why didn&amp;#x27;t they talk about it? They did.  Just in places where there is no audience, only participants.</text></item><item><author>monk_e_boy</author><text>Part of the problem is &amp;quot;vote leave&amp;quot; became &amp;quot;vote leave because racist&amp;quot; so most of the vote leavers have kept quiet.&lt;p&gt;There is a whole bunch of reasons to vote leave and the debates for the last 6 months have been very informative. These, you missed. But radio 4 had debates most days from smart people on both sides. Older people listen to the radio and watch debates on the TV.&lt;p&gt;I was often surprised that the &amp;#x27;vote remain&amp;#x27; people often couldn&amp;#x27;t answer simple questions. The biggest being with uncontrolled immigration (no possible way of capping a maximum) how do you plan for schools, hospitals, teachers, nurses. So you hear from teachers, day after day on the radio with these arguments and it becomes easy to vote out.&lt;p&gt;Then you have the popular radio 1 and other &amp;#x27;younger generation&amp;#x27; tv shows, twitter, facebook, reddit etc that are posing the debate in a different light. Farage is an idiot (true.) Immigration is good, the EU is great and has done so much for us, we can fix the broken bits. Then it&amp;#x27;s much better to vote in.&lt;p&gt;A lot of people who voted remain did so because they were terrified that if the Tories had more power they would strip workers of their rights, decimate the NHS, privatise schools, etc etc (a lot of these things have nothing to do with the EU - sigh) so they voted in because they fear our own government!&lt;p&gt;Other people voted out because they hate our government - a sort of protest vote.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been a crazy time.</text></item><item><author>nsainsbury</author><text>As someone with no horse in this race, I hadn&amp;#x27;t been following the debate leading up to the Brexit but I did see the aftermath on Twitter, FB, mainstream media, etc. What I saw was really fascinating - an almost universal outpouring of scorn and derision for &amp;quot;Leave&amp;quot; voters: Ageism. Racism. Classism - &amp;quot;Only uneducated old, poor, white people voted to leave&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;It hit me then pretty hard just how much of a echo chamber places like Twitter, FB, and even the mainstream media now are and how poorly they sample and represent the views of everyone. Here was a democratically conducted vote for which &amp;gt;50% of a population voted &amp;quot;Leave&amp;quot;, yet based on how one-sided the response has been you would think the votes must have been rigged.&lt;p&gt;I deeply suspect as well that the one-sidedness of presentation in the MSM is a root contributor to the massive divide that drove the Brexit. What you have here is a failure of empathy - as the article touches on, &amp;quot;every smug, liberal, snobbish barb that Ian Hislop threw his way...was ensuring that revenge would be all the greater, once it arrived&amp;quot;. Here are ridiculed and marginalised people showing you that while they lack representation in Twitter, MSM, etc, in a democracy their vote is just as powerful as yours.&lt;p&gt;In some sense I actually find it quite a satisfying outcome when viewed in this lense. A simple analogy might be &amp;quot;A bullied child just threw a punch back at his bully even though he may have deep down known it&amp;#x27;ll get him in more trouble.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And a part of me wonders whether the same daily outpouring of hatred you see dumped on Trump&amp;#x2F;Trump supporters has also created a very large class of marginalized, ridiculed people who are going to let us know exactly what they think come time to vote -- and like the Brexit we may not even see it coming, because we live in the Twitter, FB, MSM bubble that does not accurately sample the people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>UVB-76</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; I hope that you&amp;#x27;re really happy of the outcome of your vote. You destroyed uk and global economy, even if you still Don&amp;#x27;t realise it. A nation with narrow minded people that cannot understand the simple consequences of their actions will not have the most happy outcome.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Get a grip.&lt;p&gt;Has the UK economy been destroyed? No, the FTSE 100 dropped 3.15% on Friday, reacting to temporary uncertainty, and is up 1% on last week.&lt;p&gt;European markets fell far more, reflecting the fact they have more to lose from an acrimonious Brexit than the UK does.&lt;p&gt;What is narrow minded about voting to leave an anachronistic, sclerotic, anti-democratic political union, to which the UK contributes more money than it receives back, and from which the UK imports more than it exports to?&lt;p&gt;In all likelihood, the UK will leave the EU, but retain access to the single market through the EEA. This will enable us to enter into free trade deals with the rest of the world, which we are not able to do as EU members. There is nothing narrow minded about that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Thoughts on the sociology of Brexit</title><url>http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tigershark</author><text>I hope that you&amp;#x27;re really happy of the outcome of your vote.
You destroyed uk and global economy, even if you still Don&amp;#x27;t realise it.
A nation with narrow minded people that cannot understand the simple consequences of their actions will not have the most happy outcome.</text></item><item><author>Normal_gaussian</author><text>I am British, and I socialise with a whole host of young Brits who voted leave. A whole host of educated Engineers - software, civil, mech. A handful of NQT&amp;#x27;s, nurses, vets, doctors, and then a spattering of assorted jobs at large companies from banks to telecoms to charities to sales.&lt;p&gt;These are people I talk to one on one about all kinds of different issues - mostly philisophocal, rarely political - and they all had a few small things in common with the EU debate:&lt;p&gt;* a certainty that the UK is dying.  There is less and less value here, and continuing with the current setup spells for a long slow death.&lt;p&gt;* an outright distrust of the political class and the media class.  Most can cite cases where they have been outright knowingly lied to in ways most wouldn&amp;#x27;t realise.&lt;p&gt;* a feeling of betrayal by those screaming remain and insulting anyone who disagrees.  These are people who were often close friends who just weren&amp;#x27;t the kind to get into the discussions we enjoyed.&lt;p&gt;So the obvious thing for these people to do? Vote leave.  We can start the fight now and possibly survive, or delay it and definitely die.  Why didn&amp;#x27;t they talk about it? They did.  Just in places where there is no audience, only participants.</text></item><item><author>monk_e_boy</author><text>Part of the problem is &amp;quot;vote leave&amp;quot; became &amp;quot;vote leave because racist&amp;quot; so most of the vote leavers have kept quiet.&lt;p&gt;There is a whole bunch of reasons to vote leave and the debates for the last 6 months have been very informative. These, you missed. But radio 4 had debates most days from smart people on both sides. Older people listen to the radio and watch debates on the TV.&lt;p&gt;I was often surprised that the &amp;#x27;vote remain&amp;#x27; people often couldn&amp;#x27;t answer simple questions. The biggest being with uncontrolled immigration (no possible way of capping a maximum) how do you plan for schools, hospitals, teachers, nurses. So you hear from teachers, day after day on the radio with these arguments and it becomes easy to vote out.&lt;p&gt;Then you have the popular radio 1 and other &amp;#x27;younger generation&amp;#x27; tv shows, twitter, facebook, reddit etc that are posing the debate in a different light. Farage is an idiot (true.) Immigration is good, the EU is great and has done so much for us, we can fix the broken bits. Then it&amp;#x27;s much better to vote in.&lt;p&gt;A lot of people who voted remain did so because they were terrified that if the Tories had more power they would strip workers of their rights, decimate the NHS, privatise schools, etc etc (a lot of these things have nothing to do with the EU - sigh) so they voted in because they fear our own government!&lt;p&gt;Other people voted out because they hate our government - a sort of protest vote.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been a crazy time.</text></item><item><author>nsainsbury</author><text>As someone with no horse in this race, I hadn&amp;#x27;t been following the debate leading up to the Brexit but I did see the aftermath on Twitter, FB, mainstream media, etc. What I saw was really fascinating - an almost universal outpouring of scorn and derision for &amp;quot;Leave&amp;quot; voters: Ageism. Racism. Classism - &amp;quot;Only uneducated old, poor, white people voted to leave&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;It hit me then pretty hard just how much of a echo chamber places like Twitter, FB, and even the mainstream media now are and how poorly they sample and represent the views of everyone. Here was a democratically conducted vote for which &amp;gt;50% of a population voted &amp;quot;Leave&amp;quot;, yet based on how one-sided the response has been you would think the votes must have been rigged.&lt;p&gt;I deeply suspect as well that the one-sidedness of presentation in the MSM is a root contributor to the massive divide that drove the Brexit. What you have here is a failure of empathy - as the article touches on, &amp;quot;every smug, liberal, snobbish barb that Ian Hislop threw his way...was ensuring that revenge would be all the greater, once it arrived&amp;quot;. Here are ridiculed and marginalised people showing you that while they lack representation in Twitter, MSM, etc, in a democracy their vote is just as powerful as yours.&lt;p&gt;In some sense I actually find it quite a satisfying outcome when viewed in this lense. A simple analogy might be &amp;quot;A bullied child just threw a punch back at his bully even though he may have deep down known it&amp;#x27;ll get him in more trouble.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And a part of me wonders whether the same daily outpouring of hatred you see dumped on Trump&amp;#x2F;Trump supporters has also created a very large class of marginalized, ridiculed people who are going to let us know exactly what they think come time to vote -- and like the Brexit we may not even see it coming, because we live in the Twitter, FB, MSM bubble that does not accurately sample the people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gutnor</author><text>As per the article the people that voted leave didn&amp;#x27;t really care about the consequences because they are at the bottom of the barrel already. So of course, they are not nice to fuck it up for every body else, but hey, they didn&amp;#x27;t setup a referendum in order to stay PM.&lt;p&gt;Parent is on topic and gives a slightly different perspective.
I assume each of his friend had at least additional argument that probably align with one the messages of the Leave campaign as with the argument he listed most people would just stay home and not vote.&lt;p&gt;What is done is done, you better understand what those guys think because you will need their vote.</text></comment>