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Was immigration policy the only factor driving people's votes? Do you believe that over 50% of the UK population harbors ill will towards immigrant populations?
by q5 10y ago
Was immigration policy the only factor driving people's votes? Do you believe that over 50% of the UK population harbors ill will towards immigrant populations? What about the democratic arguments against the European Commission or the arguments against protectionist trade barriers? To distill the entire vote into a single issue is foolish.
I think it's easy to say that immigration and underlying racism or xenophobia were the cause for the result if you don't agree with the result. Comparing 5% of Australian voters electing Pauline Hanson is a far stretch considering that one vote was a general election, the other was a referendum and one result was 5% of the population and the other is over 50%.
Anecdotes of some campaigners citing Australia's immigration policy is not a strong enough argument to refute other fundamental issues that went into people's votes and is not proof of "Yet another example that immigration policy trumps pretty well all other concerns".
- Gatsky 10y agoI'm not saying that 52% of the UK voted leave because of immigration, but I'm certain that at least 4% did, which is enough to clinch the win. In an otherwise tight race, that is a big difference so I think it really has trumped other policy issues in this case. But I can't 'prove' it if that's what you're looking for. I don't think it is an unreasonable statement given that the polls repeatedly identified immigration as the key issue driving the leave vote eg [1]. [1] http://m.smh.com.au/world/brexit-poll-why-the-british-people-will-vote-to-remain-in--or-leave--the-eu-20160623-gpqo3n.html http://m.smh.com.au/world/brexit-poll-why-the-british-people...
- lucaspiller 10y ago> Was immigration policy the only factor driving people's votes? Do you believe that over 50% of the UK population harbors ill will towards immigrant populations? As a Brit living in the EU, yes this is exactly what the vote is about. The common Brit believes immigrants from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, etc came to steal their jobs and benefits and are the cause of all their problems. They believe by voting out it'll magically fix everything. Take a look at the media like the Daily Mail and The Sun over the last few weeks and see what they had to say about this topic.