Interesting counter narrative to the themes prominent on Redcafe
That article is basically a more eloquent way of saying "it was because of the immigrants". Some choice excerpts of it were particularly egregious, and somewhat ironic in an article railing against supposed lies.
Our leaving is the result of a collective decision, taken by a majority of its people, about the destiny of their national community — or what most consider to be their home.
Right away, this is not, strictly speaking, true: it wasn't a majority of the "national community" but a majority of those who turned up to vote that day. Not quite the same thing. But it's a minor quibble compared to some things to follow.
They were asking for two entirely reasonable and legitimate things: for decisions that affect their country to be taken in their country
See, this is the kind of thing that gets you labelled stupid. Because, frankly, a whole lot of decisions that affect a country will be taken outside the country. That's just how the world works now. The point of the EU is to make sure that those nations that MUST co-exist will not screw over each other with their decisions. That Germany cannot simply introduce a tariff that destroys, I don't know, Slovenia's export of tiny plastic cocks.
The idea of their home being governed by people whose attachments appeared to lie elsewhere — in distant and insufficiently democratic institutions — seemed alien to the very things Leavers associate with the nation.
The UK is not governed by the EU. That is simply a lie. Nothing more, nothing less. So that "idea" he's talking about here is simply fiction.
those who put their cross next to Leave shared a clear and coherent outlook.
Right, right, I'm sure. Does anyone really actually believe this? Unless that outlook really was just about "let's have fewer immigrants".
Remain asked people who had been
priced out of their local housing markets, and who had been the
most heavily exposed to economic shocks from globalisation, to walk to their local polling station and vote to stay in this dreary existence.
But this, this right here! This one is simply disgusting. There's really no other word for it. It subtly implies that all the above is the EU's fault and the only way to solve these problems, to end this "dreary existence" is to leave the EU. This is the crux of it: the UK's problems are someone else's fault! (This part also happens to contradict one of the first sentences of the article: "And this decision, contrary to the liberal view of citizens as autonomous individuals who are mainly driven by self-interest, was never rooted in transactional considerations about money." - apparently, it was after all.)
They wanted to regain their national independence
Again, they never lost it. Will the UK exit every single international agreement that puts any obligations on its participants? Or what does national independence mean then?
Leavers favour returning to an era when there was more economic equality and more working-class MPs.
I'm sure voting for the Conservative Party
en masse will make that happen.
... one-in-three of Britain’s black and ethnic minority voters backed Brexit (...) many ethnic minority Leavers
share the exact same grievances as their white counterparts. They felt that Britain was controlled by the EU, they worried about the EU overriding UK law, they felt anxious about immigration and believed that minority rights are better protected in Britain than in EU member states.
Again, a clever bit of fibbing. One in three sounds good - but it also means that two-thirds of black and ethnic minority voters backed Remain - apparently, the vast majority did not actually believe that minority rights are under threat if Britain remains in the EU. And then there's this bit from HIS OWN LINK:
"White British were the most pro-Leave, followed by those of Indian background who were almost twice as likely to support Leave as other minority groups. There were much higher levels of support for Remain amongst Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Black Caribbean and Black African groups – on average a quarter being more pro-Leave than Remain."
None of this will stop the cultivation of further myths of course. Brexit, we are now told, is unleashing a wave of racism, even forcing members of the Royal Family to flee abroad. Yet prejudice in Britain
continues to decline.
You just know that the link will point to a 2014 study (that is to say, it's pre-referendum) that begins with this:
The British, it seems, are becoming meaner and more inward looking: less willing to help the poor, more suspicious of immigrants and narrow in their interpretation of who counts as “truly British”.
All the study says is that racial prejudice declined compared to the 80s, based on measuring "social distance". Which has very little to do with Brexit potentially unleashing a new wave of racism but hey, who cares?
And, since voting for Brexit, the British people have, overall,
become less concerned about immigration
Well, no fecking wonder: they are dreaming about sending home those dirty Poles, Romanians, Hungarians and so on. Some of them are probably dreaming about sending home the Pakistanis and such but of course those people will be disappointed, since that is not an EU issue.
In all, this article was very typical of the whole Brexit process.
