People of Swanley demand a final Say 1st September 2018
Saturday’s Brexitometer exercise produced the astonishing result that 77% of the sample of 125 were in favour of a final say and all 5 questions on whether things would be better or worse after Brexit were answered with figures between 64% and 75% on the side of being Worse. This last finding is a complete reversal from our previous poll in Swanley on Wednesday 6th June and leads to the conclusion that there is now a body of opinion in Swanley with real doubts about Brexit .
Conversations with Swanley people 1st September 2018
1. UK citizens’ concerns
i) English nationalists (the minority) : Leave now . Why have we not left already. It’s Barnier’s fault. Send in the gun boats against the French Scallop boats etc..
ii) The others ( the majority) :
Noticeable was a palpable anger about the whole mess, at least partly fuelled by the realisation that what Leave voters thought they would get is never going to materialise. One young guy said he didn’t vote in the referendum because he wasn’t interested but was now angry at the effect on the country (so filled out the board).
On immigration, which was a common theme in Swanley, there was clear resentment by some and a grudging recognition by others that some immigration was required. Ignorance of the three month rule is widespread.
There was a recurring theme : when the reasons for leaving were teased out it turned out to be their personal situation and the failure of Governments of whatever shade that was the cause of their unhappiness and in reality nothing to do with the EU
Their Leave vote in 2016 was a protest against Cameron .
With some of this group we came away with a feeling that the ideas we were advancing were being considered and especially in the context of a Final Say.
2 EU citizens’ concerns
Several East Europeans were very worried about the future both for themselves and their families and a Latvian woman was concerned for her two children who were born in the UK and don’t speak Latvian. She is reluctant to tear them out of their lives here, the UK being all they know.
One lady from Bulgaria, very animated, thought the UK was mad to be leaving the EU.
The summarised totals can be downloaded here: 180901-Swanley Stats.