The cosmopolitan-communitarian divide explains Britain’s EU split
PUBLISHED by YouGov yesterday, the above map caught my eye. Using a 80,000-strong panel of voters, the pollsters have ranked 188 of the 206 local authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales by their propensity to vote for Brexit at the referendum on June 23rd. The result neatly illustrates the argument of my recent column on the demographics of the Europe vote. Once you have noticed the markedly pro-European leaning of Scotland and Wales (the product of left-leaning political traditions and a different national self-image to that of England), the next most striking thing is Britain’s class-educational split. The Europhiles are most concentrated in those prosperous cities and university towns (Bristol, Manchester, London, Oxford) with populations dominated by highly educated professionals. The most Eurosceptic areas are often “left behind” ones (the Thames Estuary, declining coal mining areas and seaside towns) where qualifications are poorer and work less skilled.
