Doers and Talkers
The victory of the leavers in the EU Referendum has been variously ascribed by those 90% of commentators who supported “remain” as due to class: “working class versus middle class”; age: “old versus young”; education: “ignorance versus academia”; morality: “xenophobia versus internationalism”.
Being wordsmiths themselves, not one has drawn the more pertinent distinction: between doers and talkers.
Entrepreneurs vs Corporatists
The two business chiefs who really made an impact in the Referendum – James Dyson and John Bamford (JCB) – have both built up manufacturing businesses from scratch, one of only three manufactured brands (the other being Rolls Royce Engines) which are present in large numbers and instantly recognisable as British across the world, just as Mercedes, BMW, and Siemens are instantly recognisable as German.
Both Dyson and Bamford backed Brexit and the Rolls Royce board is rapidly back-pedalling from its highly improper attempt to get its employees to back “remain”. Apparently now (28th June 2016), just five days on, Brexit will have “no impact” on its business.
Nationism vs Internationalism
Though there is of course much overlap between the motives of the various socio-economic segments of our population, the most profound distinction, this writer believes, is between those who put the idea of nation first, and those who put other peoples first – in effect nationists versus internationalists.
Even the journalists commented on the huge differences between the enthusiasm of “Leave” campaigners and the lack-lustre campaigning of “Remain”. The Leave people were not evidently campaigning for their own jobs – there were none: the UKIP MEPs were campaigning actually to lose theirs.
Special Interest Groups: Science
Remainers comprised many groups who apparently saw only their own interests. Over a period of 12 weeks, large numbers of the science community bombarded the media with letters and interviews about their EU grants, immune to the arguments of simple arithmetic made on radio and TV by this writer, that since only about 40% of Britain’s EU contributions came back in the form of grants to special interest groups like the farmers, the class I and II development areas, and science itself, then not only would the cash continue to flow, but coming direct to them from the UK Treasury, there is ample scope to increase it, if of course they make a good enough case.
To be fair, only after much prodding from people like this writer for the science interest, and farming supporters like Stuart Agnew (MEP for the East of England) did the Vote Leave leadership issue a statement on 14th June that the equivalent of all EU cash flows to the UK would be maintained until 2020, after which new British systems of support would be installed.
