It would be economic disaster if the E.U. forced every country to abide by the exact same minimum wage. Why should countries with such different requirements as Norway and Bulgaria have the same minimum wage when the euro buys very different things in each country? In my opinion they should be taking Britain and other richer countries' fees and pumping them even more into countries like Bulgaria to our exclusion, but it's because they do this at all that many here wanted to leave. More metaphors: "The safety net requires a finer meshing, so let's take it away altogether."

The working classes have been rattled and harried by years of forced austerity and crazy housing prices, and then they've been told that the source of all their troubles is the proverbial other. Of course people will leap at that. Europe and immigration are tangible menaces, rather than the more elusive free market and policies of the double-talking Tory government. Just because they've been convinced that the answer to their problems is picking on other working class people doesn't mean you're being a patronising snob by saying they're wrong. And really, I'll take a bit of patronising over the kind of Saxon pigheadedness I see on constant display in this country. You know that 'patronising' line is some manipulative sophistry anyway, in the same way that people use 'respect for the dead' (such as Thatcher) as a means to enforce their line of thinking. "If you don't cater to my fragile little ego by agreeing with me exactly, you're being an elitist. There's no chance that your thoughts on Brexit are based on compassion and sympathy for those who'll be hurt by it; it's simple elitism."

Here's some elitism (from the poorest member of this forum), but what if a good chunk of the working class who voted for leaving were too busy actually working to figure out what they were voting for? What if, the more indentured they are into constant work to pay off an escalating mortgage, the easier they are to manipulate? People knew something wasn't working and change was needed, but went and changed the wrong bloody thing. Now I pay almost double the price of groceries when I can barely afford enough to eat as it is. People who don't share end up with nothing worth keeping. And if this wasn't about race, it was most certainly about miserliness.