‘The Brexit vote came in part as an outcome of the aforementioned inequalities’, says the December 2018 report (pdf) from the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) on Brexit and inequality.
The collection of essays finds:
- Brexit has diverted the attention of the press, politicians and civil servants. As such the opportunity cost of negotiating Brexit has come at the direct expense of addressing the burgeoning domestic issues such as the housing crisis, NHS and school cuts as well as other urgent issues such as climate change
- A fall in immigration is already causing labour shortages and will have a negative impacts on growth. But the issue here is one of narrative – “immigrant bashing” has been core to political narrative for some time and was prominent during the Brexit debate
- The lack of trust in politicians and political reporting cannot be taken lightly – when combined with issues of economic inequality and the anti-immigration narrative, one can see it provides a fertile breeding ground for the Far Right
