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Brexit: from the garden of England to the edge of Europe
Instead of being a rebellion of the downtrodden and dispossessed, it was in many ways an optimistic vote by a broad range of English-identifying social classes who believed autonomy from the EU would rejuvenate the economy — but that was never to be, argues PHIL HUBBARD

SIX YEARS ago this week, the outcome of the Brexit vote confounded the political class, changing many long-held assumptions about the political map of Britain.

Struggling to make sense of the geography of Brexit, pundits quickly seized upon the idea that the Brexit vote had been delivered by those in “left behind” communities, with a common claim being that the legacies of deindustrialisation and manufacturing decline, and subsequent decades of disinvestment, had fomented a fundamental political discontent.

Those who voted to leave Europe were depicted as voting against Westminster as much as they were voting against Brussels.

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