He is an old man from a coastal town. He’s uneducated by modern standards, and worked for an industry that is now defunct. He spends his retirement shooting suspicious looks at anyone who looks “forrun” and wincing at the sound of Polish voices. He voted to quit the EU. He’s Mr Leave.
In the aftermath of Brexit, this caricature has haunted the imagination of many a Remain voter. But a new report from the think tank British Future shows it is a false one. Just as a quarter of Remain voters also backed the Tories in 2015 (sorry, progressive alliancers), Leave voters have different views on immigration, sovereignty and the economy.
Here are some of the most surprising insights from the polling, which was carried out with pollsters ICM:
While a quarter of Leave voters cited immigration as their number one reason, more than half said they were motivated by “taking power back from Brussels”.
In contrast to the caricature of the ancient xenophobe, the older a Leave voter, the more likely sovereignty was their motivation.
more here.