[rleigh]

Oddly, things kind of flipped around (in very broad terms). The left is where some of the well-off urban middle classes are, along with the far-left socialists. The right is where the less well off but working are, along with some non-urban upper- and middle-class voters. Because for a lot of working class people (primarily those who work, and aren't living off state support), they have been entirely abandoned by Labour after being treated as guaranteed votes for decades. This is a big part of what the so-called "Red Wall" is. It's socially conservative (small "C") workers from traditionally Labour constituencies. People who have aspirations and don't want to be held back.

While this wasn't previously the case, the spatial and socioeconomic patterns are increasingly similar to that of the Democrat/Republican voters in the US, from what I can tell. The leftward travel of the Democrats is a large part of that. But the left/right inversion in the UK has been slowly coming for decades, but the FPTP system hid that in the outcomes.

[zahllos]

Agree. As I once had it explained to me, "I don't choose parties any more, I just use my best guess as to which one will mean I take home more of my salary".

There's also the European angle. Those who want to work likely faced competition from EU workers and generally feel hard done by when it comes to globalisation. After all, if you worked in coal, steel, car manufacturing or your family did, quite likely you, or a relative, has lost a good portion of that work to cheaper manufacturing abroad. Which is more appealing: Labour, who prevaricated on Brexit, or BoJo, who simply said he'd do it? It isn't all that different to 'America First' in its appeal.

There probably wasn't any way to avoid the demise of coal, especially given our need to combat climate change, but did Labour provide an alternative? During the 2000s, Labour massively expanded higher education but also increased 'student debt', and only paid lip service to apprenticeships. If you're working class and working/aspirational, likely your budgeting is quite strict. Things like 'debt' and 'loans' generally mean 'trouble' and not a solution.

I agree this is broad strokes, but Labour has a problem in that it no longer actually represents its traditional demographic.

[pasabagi]

I think the idea that working people were feeling the heat from eastern european competition is a bit simplistic. Most industries have been facing a 'skills shortage', so people are generally aware that the health of their companies, and therefore their job security and career progression, are essentially limited by the pool of skilled labour. That and, working side-by-side with people from all over europe, people tend to feel a great deal of affinity.

The typical profile of a brexiteer is somebody retired, not somebody in employment, and I think the reasons are largely ideological, rather than practical; polling showed people who supported brexit would still do so if the hypothetical included economic pain.

[zahllos]

It is a little bit simplistic, of course, but any such statement will be.

That said, I stand by what I said. If you look at maps of brexit voting tendency, you'll see they map quite heavily onto rural communities and former industrial heartlands. My explanation for this is that they don't see or feel the benefits of the EU and globalisation. But we didn't have a referendum on who wants globalisation to end, we had one on the EU, and so they took what they could.

> The typical profile of a brexiteer is somebody retired, not somebody in employment

I find this slightly weird stated so definitively having just argued I was being simplistic. I'll lay my cards on the table. I'm British but took advantage of free movement, so I've been party to more conversations on brexit than I really care to think about both back in the UK and here. Trust me, however, this is not an accurate statement: there are plenty of people with jobs who voted for brexit and have strong opinions on it. You don't need to take my anecdata on it though, we can look at a study https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/0... - to put this into words:

- of every 100 18-24 year olds who voted, 29 of them voted leave. - of every 100 25-49 year olds you meet, 46 of them will be leave voters. - of every 100 people retirement age or above 36 in 100 you meet will have voted remain.

I find the 25-49 year old bracket overly broad, personally. The vote flips at 50+, but I suspect it would flip slightly younger based on my own experience.

But either way, it can't categorically be stated that all brexiteers are retired people. Actually I can lay further cards on the table: I used to do statistics as a job. So I take issue with the phrase "older people with fewer qualifications most likely to have voted brexit" used on the table I am quoting. Older people yes, but age also correlates with access to education, since my grandparents left school at 15, so there's a significant confounding factor here. I'd be interested in a more detailed breakdown, and I find the "and uneducated" part to be problematic/needing more evidence.

To come back to my point, I was offering a very qualitative interpretation of an extra factor I think encouraged previously core labour voters (in places that have returned labour MPs for about as long as there has been a labour party to choose) to switch allegiances in 2019. I agree with the fact labour does not represent them any longer. Brexit is part of, but not all of, that: I'm adding that Labour had an unclear stance on brexit, whereas these regions tended to vote more strongly for brexit.

This is obviously my opinion only, offered without guarantee or warranty.