Why is the Leave vote surging?

May want to reassess your grammar.

The Remain campaign has been abysmal and has been based on treating the public like idiots. Not that the Leave campaign has been much better, mind.

... because that's relevant

In my area there seems to be a lot more support for leave, I haven't spoken to many people about it but certainly the majority of posters in windows are Vote Leave and the majority of campaigners I see around are from Vote Leave as well.

You are absolutely right. This referendum isn't really about the country. It is about divisions in the Conservative party and we will pay the price. If you ask most people what their top issues are, Europe doesn't even come into the top 5. The economy, job security, the NHS, education etc are much more pressing issues. Yet we are being asked to make a decision that most don't really care about, which is fiercely complex and where the outcome could have severe consequences for years to come.

It is genuinely scary stuff, especially when so many people will be voting with their hearts (which includes prejudice and this "sticking one to the other lot" attitude) and not their heads.

This is the thing, I feel like either way I won't be happy down the line, it'll be 'what if' no matter what. The good news is, if we leave and go badly then people are going to hate Gove even more, so we'll have less chance of him running the country!

Honestly I'm 50/50 which way I'm going to vote atm though. I love Europe and European integration, I live in London and it warms my heart to hear 20 different langauges every day. But the Remain campaign just annoys me so much, it's always "if we leave Europe" (we aren't moving Great Britain across the ocean, GB will always be part of Europe), and other thinly veiled pieces of propaganda (leave is guilty of this too but seems less patronising). The worst is how they paint the Leave campaign..if you believe them, its only racists, bigots and people who don't understand economics who want to leave the EU. They treat you like an idiot if you even consider it, and honestly that makes me want to leave the EU just as a big middle finger to all the condescending Remain campaigners.

So aside from that (somewhat childish) reason for wanting to leave, I want the absolute best for the UK and for Europe. I think we'd be absolutely fine if we left, honestly. We're a strong country, we've bounced back from worse than leaving the EU (wwii comes to mind). It'd be nice to feel like we aren't ruled remotely be people we didn't elect. I don't like the EU's political orientation and want nothing to do with that, they currently have an optional holocaust denial law where member states can punish people with up to 3 years in prison for holocaust denial. Thankfully the UK government cares more about our rights than to implement that, but what about if they make that compulsory and hit us with fines for not complying with it?

So my vote will be balancing my love of Europe and its people vs my love of freedom and sovereignty + how annoyed I am with the Remain campaign on 23rd June.

The Remain campaign has been abysmal and has been based on treating the public like idiots. Not that the Leave campaign has been much better, mind.

I have actually been impressed with the Labour Leave campaign - set up and run by the few remaining Labourites who don't despise the British working class. The fact that the EU is awful for the workers doesn't really affect my plan to vote for remain as the upside is good for big business but anybody who claims to represent the workers would be out of their mind to want to be in the EU. How does setting up the severe undercutting of their wages help the workers? It's insane, which is why the main Remain campaign has been utterly crap and why whenever you ask most Remainers about the whole issue, they neary always come out with nothing but nonsense. Like Eddie Izzard for example.

I agree with most of the OPs points above, but not this point about it being a stand against "the elites".

I think annoyance with "the elites" is what has put a lot of people off the campaign altogether, because lets be honest the Leave campaign is also full of elites telling us what to do, throwing out spurious facts.

How are Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling, Nigel Farage etc anything other than "elites".

They are all wealthy and enjoy political power of their own and access to others of influence. Now they are trying to position themselves as some kind of anti-establishment voice of the people, talking about saving the NHS, unaffordable hoursing, access to public services, workers rights and low wages.

Those four don't give a **** about the NHS, unaffordable housing, public services, workers rights and low wages. They have never campaigned about it in their lives before, until now suddenly they start championing it. If we leave the EU and they have got what they want on that lets see how their tune changes, they will go back to telling us the NHS needs to be reformed and more private markets involved, restrict planning permission to keep house prices high, slashing funding for public services, removing workers rights under the guise of "reducing red tape for businesses".

They are just opportunists using arguments that they don't care about but that they think people will care about, because its convenient to them in this referendum. They are two faced "elites".

Fair enough, I had you down as a Brexiter tbh.

Eddie Izzard definitely went over the top on QT but it's worth noting that Farage kept swerving his question. It was entertaining if nothing else.

Fair enough, I had you down as a Brexiter tbh.

Eddie Izzard definitely went over the top on QT but it's worth noting that Farage kept swerving his question. It was entertaining if nothing else.

I agree with most of the OPs points above, but not this point about it being a stand against "the elites".

I think annoyance with "the elites" is what has put a lot of people off the campaign altogether, because lets be honest the Leave campaign is also full of elites telling us what to do, throwing out spurious facts.

How are Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling, Nigel Farage etc anything other than "elites".

They are all wealthy and enjoy political power of their own and access to others of influence. Now they are trying to position themselves as some kind of anti-establishment voice of the people, talking about saving the NHS, unaffordable hoursing, access to public services, workers rights and low wages.

Those four don't give a **** about the NHS, unaffordable housing, public services, workers rights and low wages. They have never campaigned about it in their lives before, until now suddenly they start championing it. If we leave the EU and they have got what they want on that lets see how their tune changes, they will go back to telling us the NHS needs to be reformed and more private markets involved, restrict planning permission to keep house prices high, slashing funding for public services, removing workers rights under the guise of "reducing red tape for businesses".

They are just opportunists using arguments that they don't care about but that they think people will care about, because its convenient to them in this referendum. They are two faced "elites".

But really the thing is when we vote in these referendums and even in elections in general we ought to not be voting based on what will help us as individuals the most, but instead, what will help the country prosper the most in the long run.

People need to stop ****ing talking about elites and ulterior motives. WHO ****ING CARES WHY BORIS SUPPORTS LEAVE. It literally doesn't even matter. Nor does it matter which fancy business man wants us to stay, or which silly economist said we must leave. What matters are the facts and arguments at hand and due to all the scare-mongering of the remain campaign the whole campaign on both sides has been forced to talk ridiculously about who supports what and why. It's just ridiculous.

In the Oxford bubble there is really only one way to vote. And the same is true in the environments most of you live in I suspect. Everyone is a Remainer, the Outers are the fruitcakes and swivel eyes loons. A minority.

One thing that has interested me was the idea that the leave campaign have of how exit would work. They think we can leave the EU, stop the immigration, continue trading without following EU regulations and do it all on better economic terms than are currently in place. (Source radio 4 any questions yesterday) It just sounds like cloud cuckoo land. Existing models of trading include freedom of movement and the continued payment into the EU and regulation, only without any right to vote on the legislation. The only way we could control our borders the way the leave campaign want, is to stop trading with Europe.

I actually respect Farage(despite disagreeing with him) as he's true to what he's spouting, Boris is just a parasite who's after the PM's job and acting purely out of self-interest. As you say the pretense that it's a stand against the elites from that lot is laughable.