howard mcsweeney1 wrote:Interesting read but misses out on the fact that the areas that voted most strongly to leave received much more EU funding than places that voted to remain.
Forget your stereotype of a Brexit voter, trapped in some dismal post-industrial town. Geographically, the Brexit vote was widespread. Nine out of 12 UK regions voted to leave, including the most populous and prosperous — the south-east. Overall
408 constituencies voted Leave against 242 which voted Remain (55 of which were in Scotland). The reason the result is not seen as decisive is largely because those places most in favour of Remain (Scotland, central and west London, Cambridge, Oxford, Brighton, the mind of A.C. Grayling) all possess a sense of their own importance out of all proportion to their size. Scotland actually has a smaller population than Yorkshire.
If anyone should be investigating election fakery, it’s Theresa May. Had 533 people voted differently across nine constituencies, she’d have a full majority. This media frenzy isn’t about CANOE — it’s about confirmation bias: post-selecting facts to suit pre-existing prejudice.
Never forget that intellectuals and educated people are far more prone to feats of self-delusion than ordinary people. Amexiteer Benjamin Franklin spotted this when he wrote: ‘So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.’
Rory Sutherland in Speccie