There are various theories to explain why some groups and regions voted heavily Brexit and others didn't. The most annoying one, and the one most at variance with what I actually saw is that of Daniel Hannan. In his view Brexit was a triumph of the smirking classes over the working classes. None of the white working classes that I know, with one exception, voted Brexit. And he changed his mind soon afterwards. In fact all the vocal Brexiters I know are quite the opposite - middle class and very much not manual labourers.
And yet the polling evidence and the distribution of the vote does suggest that a lot of people who would definitely identify themselves with and be identified by others as working class clearly did vote Brexit. This indeed has been the predominant narrative in the mainstream media. In fact you would be forgiven for thinking that was the whole story if you only followed the newspapers. But although it is beyond doubt that many working class people did indeed vote Brexit, it is nowhere near that simple. For a start the majority of Labour voters, most of who are working-class, voted to remain. And there were big remain majorities in some very working class places such as Manchester and Liverpool. There is also the intriguing statistic that the majority of people in full-time employment voted to stay in the EU. So whatever is right, there is no doubt that Daniel Hannan is wrong.
And there was plenty of support for Brexit from people who would definitely count themselves amongst the middle and upper classes. So this is clearly not a proletarian revolution, just one that large chunks of the proletariat joined in with.
So what is going on?
I think the explanation might well be something a bit more subtle than class. And indeed one that is correlated with but not entirely related to age and education. There is no doubt that being young and having a degree made you much more likely to support the EU. One easy way to explain this is simply that the EU offers these people more benefits. By comparison people with fewer qualifications and less opportunities to change their skill set are more at risk from competition from EU migrants. This all sounds very plausible. But I think it might be a little bit more complicated than that.
But it does not explain why big cities were more pro-EU than the surrounding countryside. I think the factor that is not been taken into account is that of social networking. The degree of networking is something that we all understand very well from our own lives as being very important. We rely heavily on family and friends to help us out if we are in trouble, and are happy to return the favour. Most of us have some kind of network of people we do business with as well. It is just the way the world works.
This very important part of the way the world works is, like most important things, totally ignored by economics and economists most of the time. But they have delved into it a bit, in particular in the work of Robert Putnam who coined the term social capital. The basic idea is that societies that have better networks tend to be more prosperous. This is a difficult area for economists because these things are hard to measure, and even harder to harmonise with the interests of the rich and powerful. But that doesn't stop it being a powerful idea.
I wonder if the people who feel that they have lost out as a result of the EU's lack of controls on immigration feel vulnerable not because the immigrants are eating their lunch so much as that they are threatening their networks? If you look at Lincolnshire, one of the parts of the country that was most pro-Brexit, the kind of immigration that they have experienced doesn't on the face of it look too disturbing. Eastern Europeans are white for a start, so don't trigger off what people think of as traditional racism. And they are mainly coming to do jobs that the locals don't much want in the first place. Picking vegetables is low paid and uncomfortable. So what is the objection?
In fact if you think in terms of social capital then the natives might have a legitimate grievance even if they aren't apparently being directly harmed. If you live in a community that is small and well connected where everyone shares a common culture, you have a pretty high level of social capital. You might not have a lot of money in the bank, but you know your bank manager. You know your neighbours, and can trust them to look out for you. That is in fact probably a bigger source of feeling comfortable than having policemen out on the beat. Bringing in a large number of newcomers, even if they are hard working and law abiding upsets this social capital quite badly. "We're not racists" they say, and they are quite right. They look like racists because outsiders can't see the damage that is being done. The insiders probably can't articulate it either.
This social capital is a very real thing. People might not know what to call it, but they are definitely aware of it. But it works very differently in different places. In a big city the arrival of a community of Poles in a place like Bristol brings new skills, some extra choices of groceries when they open shops and actually builds the social capital of the city. The new links between Bristol and a foreign country opens up new opportunities. It isn't entirely win-win. Poland has lost some productive citizens and the people in Bristol who directly compete with the Poles will find it harder to get a job. But the overall benefits are real enough. They are even big enough for economists to notice them.
The polling evidence indicates that people with incomes and educational levels on the low end of the scale tend to vote Brexit. It is true that for a lot of this group, they are also on the bottom of the pile when it comes to access to resources. But there are plenty of people who on paper look quite prosperous who also are quite keen on Brexit. Older people tend to at the very least have substantial capital in the form of owning a house, and often have shares and pension plans that make them very well off indeed. I don't know about the country as a whole, but there are plenty of people I know who are big supporters of leaving and are certainly not struggling or left behind economically.
And if it was just about the money, surely the EU's regional development programmes would have swayed some people to support in less well off parts of the country?
It looks like the main reason people voted Brexit was that they were lonely.
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