So you want to stay in the EU?

[trampie09]

I'm much more a Remainer now, but I could easily have voted Leave back in 2016. The main reason I didn't was that I didn't want to vote on the same side as Nigel Farage or people who say England when they are talking about the UK - I can remember listening to a radio debate a few weeks before the vote from Margate I think it was, where it seemed that all of the leavers who spoke did so solely in terms of England (there were plenty of other times I wondered if we were allowed to vote in Wales when I heard English leavers being interviewed but that one was the worst).

That said, I don't go along with the theory that Wales voted Leave because there are so many English born people here. I've been living in the Rhondda for ten months now and in some ways it's been an eye opener, because although I like it here, there is a lot of deprivation and it's easy to see how, given the chance of a vote between the status quo (which, essentially, remain was) and a new start, people living in less affluent areas after nearly a decade of austerity would opt for the latter.

I happen to think they picked the wrong "villain" though, because the unpopular policies they voted against were, mainly, domestic ones and when you think of it, it takes a special kind of political naivety and arrogance to hold such a vote at such a time if your preference was to remain, but that's what David Cameron did because he's a Conservative and, as has been the case for the last forty years, party comes before country for a Tory when it comes to Europe.

About fifteen years ago, I can remember reading that, after a few decades under the likes of Heath, Thatcher and Major, the Conservative party was becoming as "toff" dominated as it had been at any time since the days of MacMillan and Douglas-Home. Cameron was one sort of toff - lazy, a trimmer and a huge superiority complex, but the likes of those CardiffIrish2 lists are, basically, toffs as well and the idea of them being at the forefront of some working class revolt (as the Referendum result is often described as by Leavers) is hilarious - Nigel, Boris and Jacob taking up the cudgels for the downtrodden? Yeah, right.

If those three (with a few others) were who Donald Tusk had in mind, then I agree with him entirely.

No argument with that at all Bob, the result for Wales as regards change was devastating in my view, if Wales had voted to remain alongside N.I and Scotland then the union state would be in immediate danger but that didn't happen, Wales voted leave 52.5% to 47.5%, we know England voted leave more strongly than Wales, whereas Scotland & N.I both voted remain quite strongly [Scotland well over 60% and N.I nearer 60% than 50%], so incomers into Wales from England on the face of it were more likely to vote leave and if that was the case and those incomers did not vote and remain happened to have won in Wales as a result even if it was 50.1% plays 49.9% then there would have been hell to play, what we see now is tea party to what would have happened in that scenario.

But that is all by the by instead of the union breaking up now in the short term, its had a reprieve on the back of Wales until the medium term.


You are right about people living in less affluent areas voting against the status quo and I cant blame them and you are right that they have taken it out on the wrong 'villain', they should have voted for the Green party or Plaid in General or Assembly elections in protest against the big Westminster parties but there you go.