Thank you, Zoe Williams, for having the guts to challenge the already solidifying myth about the post-industrial, deprived north being responsible for the Brexit vote (Think the north and the poor caused Brexit? Think again, 8 August). A simple analysis of the population geography would show that communities such as Sunderland, Hartlepool and areas of Wales and Lincolnshire are sparsely populated and account for only a small minority of the electorate.
It was the towns and counties of the south and south-east with their high turnout of elderly voters who swung the vote. Many Labour MPs think they have to go along with what they think are the anti-immigrant views of their so-called “core voters” if they are to survive. That is a mistaken perception, fed by the never-ending “vox pop” interviews featured on TV programmes by lazy news reporters. Listen to intelligent journalists like Zoe Williams, and reclaim the debate about how to deal with the impact of immigration on wages, services and working conditions.
Richard Crook
Brighton
• Zoe Williams is partially wrong in her analysis. A wedge of the home counties voted by a majority to remain as well as the big cities. Here in Gloucestershire the more affluent, metropolitan or liberal areas of Cotswolds, Cheltenham and Stroud voted remain while the poorer and more deprived areas of Gloucester, Forest and Tewkesbury voted leave. But margins in all of these places were small. While the Ashcroft exit polls are much quoted in their analysis of voting by age, education and tenure, little exposure has been given to voting figures by socioeconomic group.
While those in groups A and B voted in the majority to remain, C1 was evenly divided, C2 D and E – the working class and approximately half the working population – when they voted 64% voted leave. Only lower turnout from this group prevented a larger Brexit majority. I am not alone among Labour party active members in recognising that this is the consequence on the doorstep of two decades in which Labour has not attended to its core voters.
Dr John Hurley
Gretton, Gloucestershire
• The majority for Brexit was so small that almost any group of people voting for it can be said to have tipped the balance. Zoe Williams has chosen “affluent southerners”, while dismissing the equally valid assertion that it was the poorly-educated and economically disadvantaged. The point might be academic were it not for the sad irony that this latter group will suffer most from the economic downturn that will be the result of their vote.
Ralph Blumenau
London
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