The vote that mattered was the referendum, the biggest vote in history, remain lost.
The majority of Labour constituencies voted to leave, millions of remainers in London
made no difference. Because of attitudes like yours that presents failure of a chosen political
stance as the winners being racist and stupid, which you were not alone in so doing prior
to the GE, it ensured that your position would be destroyed.
Because, well, it's a stupid tack to take.
I didn't say racist and stupid, I said racist or stupid.
To clarify, when I say "racist" - I'm putting all the people in that box who voted on "patriotic" lines. Some of them may not be racist I suppose, maybe "nationalist" would be a more accurate word.
And when I say "stupid" - I'm talking about people who say things like "taking back control" - a slogan that was dreamed up Dominic Cummings precisely to appeal to people who didn't really understand the EU and how it worked. Ask the majority of these people which specific EU laws and processes they didn't like and they can't answer. They just repeat the soundbite.
I also put people in this box who felt "left behind" and thought leaving the EU was going to solve all of their problems. It won't, of course. But Cummings knew there was a huge swathe of disenfranchised people, so in a classic populist move, he found out what people's fears and anger were and attached that to the "Vote Leave" cause.
Also the people who voted on the "£350m a week to the NHS", of which there were many. Again, the £350m a week holds up to absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever, and the NHS had absolutely nothing to do with the EU. It was another manipulative, disgraceful, populist lie.
Immigration from the middle east and particularly Turkey, again, that was absolutely fuck all to do with the EU. But Cummings found in his research that these are what people's main fears were, so he exploited it.
There isn't a legitimate economic argument for leaving the EU. The IFS said it was like losing a Sunday Dinner and finding a packet of crisps.
It's a clichéd soundbite the leavers trot out again and again "It's that kind of attitude why you lost" it's absolute laughable nonsense. I know exactly why people voted Leave. They had fears, concerns, prejudices, many of them understandable, and the vote Leave organisations exploited those fears and concerns and tried to wrap them all up in to a neat little box and put a big "EU" sticker on it.
But the majority of those fears, concerns and prejudices have absolutely nothing to do with the EU. And the irony is, by leaving and voluntarily making the country poorer, we will have less ability as a country to deal with those fears and concerns and help the "left behind".
But I don't expect you to agree, no one likes to think they've been manipulated.
