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Real story behind the Brexit vote

In or out? Remain or leave? Economy or immigration? Freedom or security — the debate has been the talk of the UK for months.

Today, Brits, Irish and eligible Commonwealth citizens will head to polling booths around the country to answer the question: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

But while the actual question is simple, the situation is anything but.

The choice is being billed as the most important in a generation that could affect everything from supermarket bills to global security.

But look deeper and it’s apparent what began as a political question has lifted the lid on a vicious and seething cauldron of dissatisfaction. Whether it’s directed at political elites, immigrants or European bureaucrats telling them how straight bananas should be — people have had enough.


It’s part of a huge wave of populist politics sweeping Europe, the US and UK that has fuelled the rise of the anti-politician like Trump, Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. It’s why gaffe-machine Boris Johnson has taken the Leave vote to within a whisker of the Remain campaign backed by global heavyweights like Obama and Merkel.
Twelve hours before the vote opens polls were still too close to call in a vote that has shocked leaders with how tight the race is. The all-encompassing European Union has provided the perfect sounding board for everyone to vent on everything from immigration to jobs to political correctness and who should be entitled to what.
London School of Economics sociologist Lisa McKenzie, who champions the working class, said the vote has opened a “Pandora’s box of working-class anger and frustration.”

She said it’s become a referendum on everything from the cost of living to “precarity and fear”.
“As a group of East London women told me: ‘I’m sick of being called a racist because I worry about my own mum and my own child’, and ‘I don’t begrudge anyone a roof who needs it but we can’t manage either’,” she wrote inThe Guardian.
“The women in East London and the men in the mining towns all tell me the worst thing is that things stay the same.
“The referendum has opened up a chasm of inequality in the UK and the monsters of a deeply divided and unfair society are crawling out. They will not easily go away no matter what the referendum result.”
 
Pro-remain campaigners from ‘Operation Croissant’, a French pro-EU group, hand out postcards written by Parisians urging people in the UK to vote to remain in the EU. Picture: AFP/Leon NealSource:AFP
Pro-remain campaigners from ‘Operation Croissant’, a French pro-EU group, hand out postcards written by Parisians urging people in the UK to vote to remain in the EU. Picture: AFP/Leon NealSource:AFP

It’s a feeling echoed up and down the country by voters who say friendship groups and families have been divided over the choice that cuts through typical indicators like age, wealth and party lines.

Following an early lead, the Remain camp edged ahead following the shocking andtragic death of Labour MP Jo Cox which stopped both sides cold and halted momentum for the Leave campaign.

However the outcome is still up in the air with undecided voters and turnout poised to make a difference. A Leave win on Friday could see UK Prime Minister David Cameron face calls to resign, or a leadership challenge to secure his stature, reports BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.

“The alchemy and atmosphere on Friday morning and how the prime minister handles the immediate aftermath will matter,” Kuenssberg reports.

“Like in the Scottish referendum, campaigns that are not just about policies or personalities but about identity can unleash feelings that can’t be put back in the bottle.”

Source: News Corp Australia Network:

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