Thread by @redalphababe

I totally agree with this very well expressed piece. At the core of brexit was always that willingness amongst too many supposedly mature people to blame the problems they saw with things like housing on the Eastern Europeans in particular that came to the UK. 1/

https://twitter.com/kacidama/status/1365622076279836673

In fact the statistics never support this age old narrative that getting rid of the foreigner will make things better. An influx of young ambitious immigrants can even help to revive local economies which are struggling due to the demographics of an ageing population. 2/

https://twitter.com/redalphababe/status/1231171665054359552

I am always a little dubious about the argument that it’s down to the education system. The UK is not a third world country, the population is by and large educated to a reasonably high minimum standard. /3

In fact more liberal and open views towards immigration and other issues are far more prevalent in under 40s. It’s amongst middle aged people like me and older where the biggest problem of xenophobia lurks. /4

Is it a remnant of the intolerance and attitudes from the 70s and earlier that these age groups grew up around? I don’t know. I guess the years of intolerant and anti European headlines in the UK’s favourite newspapers ensured that these toxic attitudes never quite died. /5

So the likes of Farage and Johnson and Gove were able to simply gather those attitudes together in a tin called #brexit and use them to indulge their desire to build their own little political empire. /6

I always think about the Brown “bigot” hoo ha. This was the exact moment that pointed the way for the brexit leaders and showed them how to target people and exploit the attitudes fuelled by the tabloids in order to get what they wanted for themselves. /end

https://twitter.com/inlimbobrexit/status/1365626195602210820