
Thoughts on the sociology of Brexit - reidrac
http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/
======
nsainsbury
As someone with no horse in this race, I hadn'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 "Leave" voters: Ageism. Racism. Classism
- "Only uneducated old, poor, white people voted to leave".

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 >50% of a population voted "Leave", yet based on how one-sided the
response has been you would think the votes must have been rigged.

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, "every smug,
liberal, snobbish barb that Ian Hislop threw his way...was ensuring that
revenge would be all the greater, once it arrived". 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.

In some sense I actually find it quite a satisfying outcome when viewed in
this lense. A simple analogy might be "A bullied child just threw a punch back
at his bully even though he may have deep down known it'll get him in more
trouble."

And a part of me wonders whether the same daily outpouring of hatred you see
dumped on Trump/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.

~~~
throwaway_73
I agree. There is no empathy towards people who have their jobs out-sourced
and need to compete with low-cost immigrant labor. The elite left-wing opinion
likes to virtue-signal about income inequality, but there's an easy solution
--cut immigration rates. If you reduce the supply of labor, the working class
will see its wages increases. This is Economics 101, and the unwillingness of
the elites to reduce immigration rates is what drives both Trump and Brexit.

Frankly, I'm voting for Trump because the working class desperately needs a
pay raise or I'm afraid we'll eventually have a revolution. Moreover, I think
the income inequality is what's driving our general economic malaise. We need
to improve the job prospects of the working class for everybody's good. I'm
using a throwaway because arguing against immigration is automatically
considered rascist and verboten among the elite.

~~~
aethr
You think that Donald Trump, the very definition of wealthy elite, is
seriously going to do anything to fix income inequality? As a business owner,
having access to cheaper labor is absolutely in his best interests. Any policy
he backs on immigration is guaranteed NOT to be based on the economic best
interests of the working class.

~~~
MajorLOL
>As a business owner, having access to cheaper labor is absolutely in his best
interests

As a business owner, having a thriving, growing economy is absolutely more
important than cheaper labor.

So many intelligent people on this website but I see so many fall into strange
logical contradictions like this. How do you come to the conclusion that all
wealthy elite cannot care to help repair income inequality? Do you stereotype
100% of wealthy people this way or only those you dislike, based on feelings?

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's no contradiction - it comes from understanding the dynamics of the
situation. It's a prisoner dilemma-like case. Repairing income equality
requires cooperation of a lot of people - who are otherwise competing with
each other. At any point during that cooperation, it is in each participant's
short-term interest to screw the whole thing and go exploit workers _right
now_.

Every business owner may truly care about thriving, growing economy. Hell,
they could all be nice people who are unhappy about exploiting their
workforce. But any ability for cooperation drops rapidly as competitive
tensions increase. So yes, without external guiding force, them choosing
what's best for all longer-term would literally be a miracle.

~~~
MajorLOL
>without external guiding force, them choosing what's best for all longer-term
would literally be a miracle

Do you agree that have had quite a few miraculous people in our history as a
nation? Many founding fathers, presidents, judges, military service members,
and the like have chose what is best for the long-term at the expense of
themselves.

I am trapped by your logic on this one anyway - the rich can't or only in a
"miraculous" case chose a non-self enriching endeavor; so the discussion is
futile, in your world, no human can solve this issue. Hopefully Google can get
that Skynet system up and running soon, to resolve all these issues! :D

~~~
gnaritas
> Do you agree that have had quite a few miraculous people in our history as a
> nation? Many founding fathers, presidents, judges, military service members,
> and the like have chose what is best for the long-term at the expense of
> themselves.

No actually, we've had virtually none, and this easy to see if you attempt to
count them and state their numbers in terms of percentage of the total
population inclusive of their lifetimes. 1000, even 10,000 such are merely
statistical noise basically equivalent to 0.

What you're doing is reasoning by anecdote, thinking a few examples mean
something by ignoring the hundreds of millions of times the anecdote is wrong.
You have to look at all of the people if you're going to make relative claims
like "quite a few" because it's not quite a few, it's practically none.

------
_rpd
Are there really a significant number of regretful Leave voters? This trope
seems to have been uncritically adopted by Remain supporters.

~~~
dbcooper
Probably not.

[https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/746820394217259008?...](https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/746820394217259008?s=09)

>Vote split // On the #EUref result (Remain / Leave):

Happy: 4% / 92%

Unhappy: 88% / 1%

Indifferent: 7% / 5%

(via ComRes)

~~~
_rpd
Thank you.

------
nickbauman
This brings to mind Jean-Baptiste Queru's (Yes, that JBQ, the head of AOSP)
2015 post regarding the structural problems inherent in the EU's fiscal
policy. Read it: whether you agree with his analysis or not, it will make you
stop and think.

[https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/CPB9bwHqsfn](https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/CPB9bwHqsfn)

~~~
_rpd
He's advocating for fiscal union, but in paractice this requires a "United
States of Europe". The proud nations of Europe don't appear to be ready for
this level of union yet.

It's an open question whether the current crisis is a long term step away, or
will lead to the relatively radical reformation required to achieve closer
union.

------
sandworm101
This:

>>> Amongst people who have utterly given up on the future, political
movements don’t need to promise any desirable and realistic change. If
anything, they are more comforting and trustworthy if predicated on the notion
that the future is beyond rescue, for that chimes more closely with people’s
private experiences.

I talk to too many people who have given up yet, for some horrible reason,
they still want to vote. They vote to make their assumptions reality. The
problem is that giving up is too easy. It plays into the hands of a great many
interest groups.

The climate is dead, so why bother trying? Let me drive my lead-powered car
for my last few years. The economy is going to tank no matter what we do, so
let's take a payday loan and head to Vegas.

Those of us with more than a decades or two left on this earth must force such
people to come to terms. The world is going to keep on turning. Rather than
wax nostalgic for a past that never really was a thing, we choose to actually
try to fix things today. If that means ignoring calls for a return to glory
days, so be it.

~~~
antisthenes
> Those of us with more than a decades or two left on this earth must force
> such people to come to terms.

We can start with a massive wealth redistribution backdating to 1973. How does
that sound and when can we start?

------
protomyth
" Brexit was not fuelled by hope for a different future. On the contrary, many
Leavers believed that withdrawing from the EU wouldn’t really change things
one way or the other, but they still wanted to do it."

"This taps into a much broader cultural and political malaise, that also
appears to be driving the rise of Donald Trump in the US. Amongst people who
have utterly given up on the future, political movements don’t need to promise
any desirable and realistic change."

I know quite a few Trump voters and read quite a few forums on that discuss
the GOP race, and they are expecting change ("real change" as I'm often told).
I think this assumption is pretty far off. I see it a lot in the US media, but
I think its some internal justification for why people might believe something
different than themselves. After all, people really cannot actually be
supporting Trump, right?!?

A book just came out expressing part of the phenomena by Dana Loesch
(conservative media whose preferred candidate also didn't win)
[https://www.amazon.com/Flyover-Nation-Country-Youve-
Never/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Flyover-Nation-Country-Youve-
Never/dp/0399563881/) \- Its bit a "provocative" (ok, a lot) in tone, but
might round out the discussion.

------
revelation
Has it really been less than 100 years? The point of the EU was always a
"lesson learned" from Versailles.

So you "pay more than you get back"? The EU simply put is and was insurance
there won't be another V2 landing in London, because the next version would
certainly be carrying a nuclear warhead.

All the destruction of WW2, and it only took a generation to die to forget all
about it.

------
djhn
I would challenge point 3. The Brexit campaign did make promises of future,
where the Remain camp didn't.

It's politics 101: highlight the positive. Remain side was labelled "Project
Fear" \- all they talked about were the negative consequences of a brexit
outcome.

We know from fundamental psychology and game theory research people have
different risk preferences for upside and downside. We also know from past
political campaigns, that positive rhetoric is usually victorious.

The confusing thing about this is that on the surface, it's the Leave side
that appears negative. A big part of its message was anti-immigration, anti-
modern-world, counting on xenophobia to get them the numbers.

But they offered a promise of better. Take control. Things will change if you
vote. All the Remain-side had to offer, were threats of things "getting even
worse".

They failed to see that the status quo was disappointing to a huge
demographic, not something they felt desperate to maintain. If the future
seems already grim, you might want to pick the carrot over the stick.

------
hoju
I campaigned for Brexit over the last month and am excited with the outcome.
However very disappointed with reaction in the international media - it was a
complex debate with good arguments on both sides. Former MEP Daniel Hannan
presented some of these arguments in an excellent speech at the Oxford Union:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzNj-
hH8LkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzNj-hH8LkY)

------
gravypod
I don't think this article, or many of the other articles, accurately portray
the mindset of leave voters.

Firstly, I'd like to start off with saying yes: there are many problems to
leaving the EU, but consequently there are also many positives. This isn't a
one sided issue. There is an array of reasons to vote either side.

One of my older British friends that I used to work with consistently held the
following opinion:

> Me: Do you think Britain will exit?

> Friend: I sure hope we do [...] We never wanted into the EU in the first
> place, back in the 80's. The whole population was up in arms about it [...].
> Our politicians refused to join unless we got certain exceptions. Like
> keeping our own money and a few other things. Now we are financially
> supporting the EU. Too many idiots in government though.

> Me: Looks like you've voted to leave! Also, the currency has fallen. I'm
> going to buy some GBP tomorrow when it hits 1.30 USD to 1 GBP. I'll sell it
> to make a quick buck.

> Friend: Finally. We only joined because our then prime minister John Major
> forced us to join. We didn't even elect the dude, he took over after Maggie
> Thatcher left. The pound will recover fast, so stock up now :)

Now, I'm not saying that he is right about everything, although I do trust his
judgement, but I will say that I feel he accurately represents most of the 40+
group's opinions on the EU.

His age group feels:

    
    
      - EU is an amorphous blob that has no accountability to it's actions 
      - EU is redundant 
      - The VAT that is set by the EU is antithetical to good trade deals 
      - Sending any amount of money to an organization you do not support is out of the question
      - Undemocratic (Unellected officials draft the laws, people from other countries vote on things that directly effect you)
      - The EU is making a push to blur country boarders to the best of it's efforts
      - The migrant crisis' effects on the UK are a byproduct of how the EU operates
    

As far as I can tell, all of these points are either real problems with the EU
or will soon become real problems for the EU. I don't think it's outrageous to
say that, and I definitely don't think it's crazy to want to leave an
organization like this. This is exacerbated by the fact that, as it seems,
Britain is the least-EU like country in the EU currently. Their cultural and
social values are very different from the many other cultures that are in the
EU. Due to this, they are often on the loosing side of agreements (almost 70%
from the last figure I saw [0])

What is really worrying to me is that people are now saying "You're old, so
your vote shouldn't count." This is a trend I see more and more. I feel it's
crazy to say something like that, but it definitely speaks volumes for where
our western societies are headed in the next few years.

In the end, this won't really change much either way. The UK has one of the
worlds largest economies and now they can make trade deals to encourage buys
from around the world to come to their door step. I know that I'm sure ready
to buy some British-made food items in the USA (It's been a while since I was
able to get someone to send me more marmite). [0] -
[http://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/uk-meps-lose-most-in-the-
eur...](http://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/uk-meps-lose-most-in-the-european-
parliament/)

~~~
tremon
_EU is an amorphous blob that has no accountability to [its] actions_

Neither has the House Of Lords. Do your friends know of the existence of the
EC Transparency Portal?

"As a European citizen, you have a right to know how the European institutions
are preparing these decisions, who participates in preparing them, who
receives funding from the EU budget, and what documents are held or produced
to prepare and adopt the legal acts. You also have a right to access those
documents, and make your views known, either directly, or indirectly, through
intermediaries that represent you.

This webpage is designed to be your window on this world, giving you direct
access to information that will help you to be better informed and better
prepared to follow and participate in the EU decision-making process, to enjoy
your rights and to play your role as a European citizen to the full."

[http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/index_en.htm](http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/index_en.htm)

 _EU is redundant_

There is no other supranational committee that has been able to harmonize so
many different national laws. You can argue that its goals are undesirable,
but not that there's a different entity that achieves the same goals on the
same scope.

 _The VAT that is set by the EU is antithetical to good trade deals_

VAT is not set by EU policy. The policy only sets minimum VAT percentages of 5
and 15 percent, and no maximum. The UK VAT rate is 20%, well above what the EU
requires.

 _Sending any amount of money to an organization you do not support is out of
the question_

Taking that argument at face value, does that mean that citizens should not
pay tax if the party they voted for does not win the election?

 _Undemocratic (Unelected officials draft the laws, people from other
countries vote on things that directly effect you)_

Most UK laws are also drafted by unelected officials, that's what ministerial
departments are for. And you can't have it both ways: either it is
undemocratic and people can't vote for it, or it is democratic and people do
vote directly.

 _The EU is making a push to blur country boarders to the best of it 's
efforts_

What push? Open borders was one of the founding principles of the union, so
that is neither surprising nor a covert agenda.

 _The migrant crisis ' effects on the UK are a byproduct of how the EU
operates_

The migrants themselves are a byproduct of failed (and failing) supranational
intervention in the Middle East, Libya, Somalia, and other parts of the world.
Why not blame the US, UK and UN for those?

~~~
gravypod
I am just presenting the arguments that my friend and many people like him
feel.

I'm not the one to campaign to, I'm a US citizen who don't really care about
the vote.

Make these points in TV, radio, and all that jazz. I'm just tying to give an
unbiased representation of the 'other sides'' views.

~~~
tremon
I know, it's just extremely depressing that people were basing their vote on
either misinformation (leave) or scaremongering (remain). There were good
ideological arguments to be made on either side of the debate, I guess that's
what makes the outcome for me so unsatisfying (I'm not from the UK either btw,
just mainland Europe).

------
davidf18
True, the BrExit echoes the feeling of a working class who have been
marginalized by the leadership who said they would represent the will of the
people. True of Trump supporters and Sanders supporters.

I spent a bit of time reading about the political and media elites in Britain
ignoring the plight of the working class.

1\. Apparently, the British people never had a referendum to join the EU. The
elites decided for them.

2\. Unlike the leadership of our "union" the United States, the leadership of
the EU have not been given a mandate to lead by the voters.

3\. 20 years ago there were 0.9 million immigrants in the UK, now 3.3 million.

4\. Prime Minster Cameron said he would reduce the yearly 330,000 immigration
rate to 10,000 or so and he broke his word. Had he done what he said he'd do,
BrExit may not have (probably?) would not have happened.

5\. Apparently these immigrants get four years of social support. The social
systems are stressed as is the National Health Service. Of course, the elites
can choose to use the private Harley Street doctors, something the working
class would be unable to do.

6\. Cameron did not have to call the BrExit referendum, but chose to call it
because of his hubris thinking that it could not possibly win.

The British political elite like their American counterparts have refused to
hear the suffering of their citizens. They have been marginalized by elites
who lack empathy.

Instead of listening to the voters, the political and media elites simply
berate those who do respond such as Trump. They call Trump a racist because he
is against illegal immigration. He has never said he is against Mexicans who
have legally immigrated to the US.

In the US, the media elite also refuses to use the correct phrasing of illegal
immigrant and using the term "undocumented" which is bad reporting because the
correct term is illegal.

~~~
tremon
_Unlike the leadership of our "union" the United States, the leadership of the
EU have not been given a mandate to lead by the voters._

Yes and no. The leadership of the EU (council) is composed of the leadership
of its members. The controlling house (EP) is voted directly. The only part
that isn't chosen directly is the commission (EC), and those members are
nominated by the council and vetted by the EP.

But the EU indeed does not have a mandate to lead. The EU proposes treaties,
not legislation. It is up to the national parliaments to implement legislation
that meets the EU treaties.

 _The social systems are stressed as is the National Health Service_

So are those in the other EU countries. Maybe it has something to do with a
global financial crisis that started almost a decade ago?

However, as many have pointed out even before the vote, the EU migrants are
responsible for only a small part of the strain in the NHS:
[https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-immigration-and-pressure-
nhs/](https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-immigration-and-pressure-nhs/)

"in 2014, migration from the EU added £160 million in additional costs for the
NHS across the UK [..] The same technique suggests that £1.4 billion in
additional costs were caused by other changes in the number and age of people
in the UK"

"immigrants from the European Economic Area made a more positive contribution
than UK natives—and a far more positive contribution than immigrants from
outside the EEA"

"The UK paid £674 million [in heathcare costs] to other countries, while
receiving just £49 million in return. [The NHS is] simply failing to charge
when it is supposed to—recouping only a fraction of what should be around
£340m from other countries."

 _Cameron did not have to call the BrExit referendum_

Yes and no. Yes, he had to because it was a campaign promise. Many say that it
was this very promise (to hold a brexit referendum) that gave him the election
victory at all. No, he did not have to make that promise during the election
campaign, but he did anyway, partly to win over voters, partly to soothe anti-
EU voices in his own party.

~~~
davidf18
The elites who made up the EU did not want to give EU members the mandate to
elect the leadership of the EU. It is semantics to say that the EU only
proposes treaties and it is the up to the individual countries to pass the
legislation. The point is that an unelected body, a body appointed by elites
who appear to be clueless about the feelings of the citizens of the EU,
dictates policy that has to be enforced by member states.

For example, PM Cameron wanted to keep his word about reducing the number of
immigrants to 10,000 per year from 333,000 but he was not allowed to because
of EU leadership who was unelected. Offices in the EU should be elected by the
people just as they are in the United States.

The additional burden on the social services was caused by the increased
number of immigrants from 0.9 million 20 years ago to 3.3 million today. The
original member states of the EU when Britain first joined were by and large
of similar economic wealth to Britain. But then the EU started adding much
poorer member states from the former Soviet Union (eg Eastern Europe) and it
is these immigrants that lowered the wage rates in Britain (Microeconomics) by
competing with Brits for low-skilled jobs and at the same time created an
enormous burden on social services which paid for four years for these
uneducated immigrants.

The increased NHS costs due to immigration would be about £6 billion. There
are 3.3 million immigrants out of a total British population of 64 million and
an NHS budget of £115 billion. To say that immigrants added only £160 million
to the NHS budget, or a mere 1% increase simply isn't credible. Someone is
fudging the numbers.

Readers of HN are in a position to challenge numbers fed to them and since I
reported that there is 3.3 million immigrants and that the population of
Britain is around 60 million, it should have felt wrong to see that the
increase for immigrants, 5% of the population would only be £160 million. The
NHS budget is £115 billion so 5% of that would be about £6 billion. Clearly
this "facts site" that you are quoting is fudging their numbers and probably
shouldn't be trusted for anything.

As mentioned earlier, the people should have been able to decide whether they
wanted to remain members of the EU. The Elites clearly didn't want them to
decide. Regardless of PM Cameron's reasoning for calling the referendum, he
and other elites had the hubris to think that they were right and that they
could not possibly lose. It simply shows how out of touch the elites are with
the will of the people whom they are supposed to represent.

Similarly the "rise of Trump" and that of Sanders was caused by the hubris of
the Republican and Democratic elite who thought they could use dollars and
connections to dictate policy instead of realizing that American is supposed
to be a democracy.

Representative Eric Canter, the second most powerful person in the House of
Representatives lost the primary to a political unknown -- an event which
"could never happen." The reason is that he simply did not listen to his
constituents who were against immigrants who broke the law to stay in the US.
His constituents were against illegal immigration.

One might have thought that the Republicans would have learned from Cantor's
loss, but they had the hubris to ignore this clear warning sign that people do
not want illegal immigration. Jeb Bush, Rubio, were for illegal immigration.

If Jeb Bush had listened to the voters and campaigned against illegal
immigration, if he had spoke up about the export of factory jobs out of the
country as Trump did when Carrier air conditions closed an Indiana factory and
moved the jobs to Mexico, then he probably would have been the Republican
candidate. It was Bush's hubris, that of Rubio, Paul Ryan, and other
Republican leadership that they could ignore the voters that created Trump.

Similarly, it was the hubris PM Cameron and the other British Elite that had
the led to ignoring the will of the voters even after he had agreed to reduce
immigration to 10,000 from 333,000 that to the BrExit situation.

~~~
tremon
_PM Cameron wanted to keep his word about reducing the number of immigrants to
10,000 per year from 333,000 but he was not allowed to because of EU
leadership_

No, he blamed the EU to hide his own government's failure. EU immigration
accounted for only 50% of the 300,000. So his own government allowed 150,000
non-EU immigrants into the country. The EU had nothing to do with that. You
may have had a valid point if the total immigration number was 160,000, of
which 150,000 from the EU. But not now.

 _Readers of HN are in a position to challenge numbers fed to them_

Thank you, I can, and I will. First of all, the 3.3 million immigrants are not
all from the EU. If the numbers for other years are similar, at most 50% of
those are from the EU. I suspect the number is even smaller because EU
citizens can also more easily move back home.

Secondly, the EU citizens entering the country are mainly migrant workers,
that implies that they are on average younger and more able-bodied than the
native population. So your argument that the 1.6 million EU migrants are a
similar burden on the NHS than the native (elderly) population is a stretch.

Your £6 billion figure comes completely without backing, so I will reject it
because of the above.

~~~
davidf18
The people were upset about all immigration independent of whether they were
from the EU or not. The BrExit vote was about all immigration, not just that
from the EU. The working class hardly cares whether their jobs are taken or
wages depressed by EU immigrants or immigrants outside the EU.

You present no data about immigration ages (many parents, grandparents
presumably come with their adult children to stay in Britain). In addition,
immigrants from poorer countries independent of age may have more health
problems and unhealthy behaviors (eg, cigarette smoking) that are more
expensive to treat. Thus, without additional data about the health
characteristics of the immigrant population, it is reasonable to assume that
their health problems are consistent with those non-immigrants if not more
expensive because of unhealthy environments and lower quality medical care in
poorer countries that the immigrants came from.

Thus it is reasonable to assume 3.3 million immigrants, about 5% of the
population consuming 5% of the NHS budget of £6 billion. Even if this were off
by a factor of two, it would still be £3 billion, not £160 million.

The £160 million additional increase would suggest that the NHS additional
cost for 5% of the population is 0.15% of £115.

The "fact source" you cite seems to have some sort of political axe to grind
for a 0.15% increase for 5% of the population is simply not credible.

------
saboot
A liberal echo chamber? Have you not seen r/the_donald ?

~~~
piotrjurkiewicz
@robothampsters wrote here:

> Reddit literally changed their algorithm for r/all to stop the_donald from
> showing up.

2 minutes (!) after being posted his comment was already [dead]. Very
interesting...

I hope the only reason is that he didn't provide source for his claim. So
there it is: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2016/06...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2016/06/17/trumps-meme-brigade-took-over-reddit-now-reddit-is-
trying-to-stop-them/)

Let's check if this comment will become [dead] within a few minutes as well.

~~~
saboot
Yes, r/the_donald was regularly getting to the top of r/all before the change.
However so was r/sweden with the anti-trump memes and r/enoughtrumpspam . So
either let it be a trump-antitrump war or alter r/all to be something useful
such as promoting posts that are exceptionally highly upvoted across all
subreddits.

