Thread by @alexandrabulat

I am on a train back to Cambridge. 4 women sit down.

- 5 million signatures!
- For what?
- Article 50 petition.
- What's that?
- I don't understand the whole thing.

This is the exact conversation I often encounter outside the Twitter & academic bubble.

One of the women says: "Most of my friends voted leave thinking all immigrants will be out but obviously that's not gonna happen". The others agree. The conversation swiftly moves to shoes, going out and the price of taxis.

Now it's about the Kardashians. The Brexit conversation literally lasted 3 minutes & the conclusion was that no one understands the whole thing & that migrants will still be coming regardless. You have 3 minutes to inform someone - where will you even start?

The Kardashians win. Over 5 minutes conversation on them vs. 3 minutes on Brexit. They all still think we are leaving on 29 March. Surprise, surprise. Brexit fatigue/ lack of interest in the topic altogether is genuine.

This is the % of voters Vote Leave understood need to be targeted. Non-voters or voters for whom politics is not more than 3 minutes in a conversation. There are both Leavers and Remainers who are passionate and dicuss politics at length - they are not the ones swinging the vote.

This got more popular than expected. Clarifications:

1. I have no idea whether they voted Leave or Remain or voted at all. The only reference is to one mentioning her friends who voted Leave. So I am not "smearing Leave voters".

2. Obviously there are both Leavers and Remainers who are not well informed. Having the time to follow all the Brexit news is a luxury. Many people simply do not have time even if they wanted to. I made a point about Brexit fatigue & that not everyone cares so much about it.