1) Any analysis that tacitly assumes that the fundamental conflict is between "Europe" and "the common man" should be suspect immediately. It clearly has an age

1) Any analysis that tacitly assumes that the fundamental conflict is between "Europe" and "the common man" should be suspect immediately. It clearly has an agenda. 2) The UK government had at its disposal number of measures that could prevent or mitigate the impact of "Eastern European workers flooding the labor market" on "The Common man" (UK citizen edition thereof, only). Following the accession of Poland and other smaller states in 2004 they could have: raised minimum wage, increased social spending and outright limited the numbers coming from those countries for a time, as some other EU members did. (1) etc. The UK government chose to do none of these, thus keeping their business backers happy, and were able to avoid blame for this decision, instead pointing at an "external enemy, i.e. "Europe". Of course, this fanned the flames of Xenophobia, and... 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrations_from_Poland_since_EU_accession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrations_from_Poland_since_E...