Poles are well thought of here. The meme of the hard working Polish builder is well known.

I think one Pro-brexit faction created disinformation around Romanian immigrants.

The other main brexit faction created a meme around “taking back control” from bureaucrats.

Neither is based on reality.

What is based in reality is that the law isn't applied to everyone equally. That has to do with opportunistic politics and self presentation.

So ok, honestly trying to understand this. You are saying a massive country-wide vote was decided based on a couple of bizarre myths ("Romanians and bureaucrats") propagated for some reason by some vaguely motivated groups, and majority (slim, but nonetheless) of the country made a decision on some ridiculous myths that have no basis in reality.

What was the motivation for these lie-spreading groups to propagate those myths?

How could a majority of a Western, best-educated probably in the whole world, about as democratic and core-value-believing country, be in a single moment swayed by a bunch of scammers like that? Was there any other basis for that, perhaps? Again, honest question, I know almost nothing about British politics, but dismissing a major vote in a very rich and educated country as lunacy seems ... not a great explanation?

The two groups are were Vote Leave and Leave EU.

I don't want to derails a discussion about China effectively ending One Country Two Systems further but you can easily search for a description of their tactics if you want.

You can also search for news on when the UK government report in to Russian interference in the vote will be released but I wouldn't hold your breath...

Now back to what China is doing to the people of Hong Kong and why our companies are still outsourcing manufacturing to China without restriction.

>You can also search for news on when the UK government report in to Russian interference in the vote will be released but I wouldn't hold your breath...

Just like in the US, right? ;)

Funny thing, but especially given the Covid situation and worries about crops, now they want those low skilled Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians back, fighting over them with Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.

Somehow, the fact that Britain seceded from the EU over one million foreigners, makes me skeptical that they'll offer citizenship to three million foreigners.

Citizens of the commonwealth aren't foreigners in the UK (and can vote if resident -- a Canadian citizen resident in the UK can vote in UK elections), and of course, Hong Kong is ex-commonwealth so I think it's more nuanced than you're giving it credit for. The Crown was sovereign over Hong Kong for more than 150 years.

Framed as a move to spit in the eye of someone else (in this case China) it would be likely to gain overwhelming support.

it wasn't about that. they left the EU club because they thought were getting far less out of it then they should have. while I don't agree with that, I do understand it.