Comment by exasperaited

> I don't know where you get the idea that the Leave campaigns were complacent about racisms and bigotry and xenophobia; they excused it or amplified it at every turn (while lying about everything else)

I'm saying that despite knowing the populace had problems with immigration, and that this was a big driver of the Brexit vote, they had the Boriswave.

Secondly, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about: you're dismissing at least half the population, who has repeatedly voted for meaningful immigration restrictions in the UK and never gotten them, as racist xenophobic black-hearted bigots. Even if this was 100% true, you have to address this, rather than just leveraging institutional power to silence them. You have to actually convince people they're wrong in democratic societies, and if you can't, you have to steer the ship of state in the direction they want, or you are building up explosive and dangerous forces. You don't get to say 52% of people are wrong, screw them, we're not doing what they want because they're bigots.

There are deeper questions involved here too: whether it is a "good thing" or not, it is true that migration in the UK in many other places has resulted in rapid and massive demographic and cultural change. In no case did this take place with democratic input; instead, it was treated at some sort of natural, unavoidable force of nature, and now anyone who has any problem with it is a racist bigot. Perhaps all this could have been avoided with periodical referenda on desired immigration levels, which would have legitimized the whole ordeal. It's likely there never would have been a Brexit vote, although the UK's increasingly miserable economic path may have pushed something like it to happen eventually anyway - even before Brexit, the UK was simply in an awful, awful position economically, particularly stunning for what was a short time ago one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Perhaps UK politicians should consider some sort of dramatic change rather than re-arranging the deck chairs and arresting people for holding crimethink signs if they don't want social unrest.

(To be fair, I don't think there's much that can be done other than managed decline. The UK economy has been almost entirely hollowed out except for the finance and service sectors, the former of which survives only due to inertia from their glory days. Thatcher and Churchill really did a number on the UK. And regardless of your thoughts on immigration, at no time in history has it promoted social cohesion and harmony.)

> This just isn't true. I know some people who move in pretty elite circles, City circles, Oxbridge, and I can tell you that Brexit had at least lukewarm support and in some circles (those who don't know or don't care that Boris is a habitual liar) rabid support.

Regardless of personal anecdata, the data shows Brexit support was highly stratified by social class, income, and education.