Читать книгу My Secret Brexit Diary - Michel Barnier - Страница 18

Now that the shock has subsided, the analysis begins.

In reality, Thursday’s vote reveals a threefold divide within British society.

First of all, a geographical divide. England and Wales may have voted to leave the EU, but the Remain camp accounted for 62 per cent of voters in Greater London and Scotland, and 56 per cent in Northern Ireland. Poring over this map of a ‘Disunited Kingdom’, I also note with interest the position of the great industrial working-class cities affected by the decline of industry, whose Leave vote can in part be understood as a rejection of the Prime Minister’s austerity policy.

Second, a very clear social divide between graduates and well-off workers, who voted to remain in the Union, and the working poor and the unemployed, many of whom voted Leave as a symbol of their rejection of a Europe they associate with globalization, and in particular with the arrival of workers from Eastern Europe, who they accuse of stealing jobs and driving down wages.

Finally, there is also a generational divide behind this result, a divide between young people, who see their future as being within the EU – more than 70 per cent of 18–24-year-olds voted to remain – and older people, the majority of whom voted to leave. In this generational battle, the older cohort had a significant weapon at its disposal: participation. In all, 83 per cent of over-65s cast their vote, compared with only one in three young people.