> as a young Brit you just had a door shut in your face

I keep reading this and it's just not true. The vast majority of young Brits go to work or study in the USA/Canada/Australia/NZ, by far, and they don't have the EU's "freedom of movement".

Several of my friends worked and studied in Europe before the UK signed the Maastricht treaty in 1992 and it wasn't a problem for them. If you're determined to move countries, which is a significant undertaking, you'll do it regardless of whatever extra perceived barriers there are.

After the bridge has fallen, there may yet be people ferrying themselves across the river. This, however, does not mean the absence of the bridge is not a notable impairment to people's movement across the water.

That's what they wanted, to keep pesky immigrants like you away. /s

I don't think this merits the /s. Keeping immigrants out literally was a rationale for many Brexit voters, like it was in our 2016 US elections.

They didn't want unspecialised poor immigrants from Eastern/Southern Europe and didn't want immigrants / refugees running away from Africa.

They're more than happy to charge thousands to qualified Eastern/Southern European to get them to come here and pocket high salaries and relatively cheap cost of living / taxes (the other place that compares in EU is Switzerland, but it's much more expensive).

Also, they didn't want to pay for poorer countries that will never get their economy together.

The UK was one of the few net contributors to the EU.

"The UK was one of the few net contributors to the EU" -> UK was in very good company as can be found easily here: https://www.statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-... and it's not difficult to see that the amount of the net contribution is somewhat proportional to the share of the European GDP .

"They didn't want unspecialised poor immigrants from Eastern/Southern Europe" -> the fact is that they were getting a lot of graduated/high specialized immigrants from southern Europe as well.

I don't know if this is 100% true. Part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is "they're coming here and taking our jobs", which applies just as much to white collar professions as to blue collar ones. Think of all the people in tech who complain about immigrants using H1B visas taking programmer jobs. If you have a zero-sum worldview about how the economy works and how jobs are created, then all immigration is bad, and immigration of people competing with you in the same segment of the labor market is the worst.

Exactly, such kind of thinking is unfortunately very much prevalent outside the big cities, even in developed nations like US and UK.

I guess it is because the folks outside big cities never had a chance to interact with the immigrants and see the value they add to the society, rather than seeing them as a threat. It is quite sad :(

I'm not so sure about that. E.g. there aren't any German truck drivers and trucks anymore, just companies and drivers from eastern europe, because it's cheaper. Similarly for lots of jobs in agriculture, construction and some industries like food processing. That's surprisingly not a problem because of unemployment in Germany as much as it is a social and legal problem: Eastern European workers abroad are underpaid (minimum wage circumvented), uninsured (social security dues circumvented), without appropriate workplace protections (truck drivers doing overtime, illegally having to sleep in their trucks for weeks on end, lax technical safety of the trucks), and draining the economy of their home countries of workers because factories that could have been nearby are in Germany instead.

This begs the question: Would it have been as bad as Brexit to restrict worker movements a little more? I would suggest that such restrictions could have even had an overall benefit if done properly. It's just that Germany desperately wanted those cheap workers.

With the 2004 expansion, Germany (among other states) pressured for restrictions and transitional agreements were made that allowed restricting movement of workers from the newly added countries for up to seven years. The UK was one of the few countries that did not do any of those restrictions, because it's government wanted direct access to cheap labor.

That is true, but changed over time with the changing local political climate. Back in 2004 Angela Merkel was still strictly right-wing anti-immigration, later she drifted more and more left and pro-immigration.

2004 Merkel also wasn't in power. And I think it's relevant, because IMHO the years after 2004 lead to the shift in British public opinion that lead to immigration restrictions becoming such a big topic, and pushing politics towards the referendum.

Is that really true? Truck driver is a recognized trade in Germany, and the number of apprenticeships continues to rise: https://www.eurotransport.de/artikel/bkf-azubis-und-eu-beruf...

I did exaggerate and the problem is also not so simple: https://www.timocom.de/blog/personalmangel-bei-lkw-fahrern

tl;dr: Nobody wants to become a truck driver anymore, even with improving salaries. Higher qualifications and better working conditions might solve the problem in the future.

In the meantime we still need drivers from eastern europe.

Yea and was why May who was pro-EU refused to agree to freedom of movement because she considered the Brexit vote to be a vote primarily againist freedom of movement. Johnson agreed.

And one theory/perspective is that May (with the background of a home secretary) was focused too much on that and drew lines in other sectors without enough consideration for the consequences she then had to try and walk back, which put her always on the defensive against the hardliners, which made a positive framing of a closer-aligned deal impossible. It's fascinating how that shift from "Brexit means a wide range of options and people voted for something of it" to a pile of red lines blocking out a large range of the solution space happened - apparently even to the surprise of members of the government.

What’s so upsetting. Young brits voted overwhelmingly to remain.

We saw a similar situation play out in the US.

A large aging population of post war baby boomers unhappy that younger generations are more liberal and different looking voted in a hardline anti immigrant admin.

Just like in the UK, a very large fraction of youth is very much against "leave".

I expect this to play out interestingly in the next 5-10 years when younger generations wrest political power from the baby boomers. I fully expect "millennials revenge" with a hard left turn eand forced generational wealth transfer using higher estate and property taxes

People age and change their points of view. Older people are naturally more conservative when they realize some things are better off the way they are.

More like "the way they used to be" which is what's causing friction in the US and UK.

Today's youth grew up with the dotcom bubble, financial crisis, 9/11, and COVID. They're far poorer with less opportunity than prior generations had. The government has failed them and they want change.

This is pushing younger generations hard left, and I don't think it's going to change. Most of the "conservativizing" life events like home ownership and building a family are being delayed or just never happening. Today's mellenials and gen z will likely lean democrat till they die.

There's also a social theory that older generations lean conservative because the conservative movement dominated their youth, not because they became that way with age. Today's boomers grew up during a ~20 year streak of conservative dominance. Today's youth are the opposite, it's yet to be seen what this will do to political beliefs.

this

> some things are better off the way they are

doesn't follow from this

> Older people are naturally more conservative

Yes it does because as one ages, he realizes why things are and have been the same for a long time. Plus one gets used to those things. And therefore conservatism creeps in.

the statement is about things being better is in absolute terms where in fact it's just perception, as you said yourself biased due to age. older people may perceive lack of change as better but it doesn't mean it's in fact better.

People become more conservatives as they age, probably after understanding their tax returns and when the year of school (which is a prevalent liberal environment because of teachers) are a far memory.

Despite this, there's a increasingly liberal trend: spending, taxes and inflation keep raising, no matter the party.

This may not hold with today's youth. There's theories that people identify with the political party of their youth (much like they do with music) as they age. This is an alternate explanation for the increasing conservativism of older generations in the US that grew up during Reagen years. For nearly 20 years conservatives ruled and this lines up with the formative years of today's pensioners.

Another theory is that youth are not going through conservatizing life events like marriage or home ownership because they've been screwed by so many economic disasters. It's hard to argue against this theory, the question is how much of an effect this will have long term.

Yet another theory is more obvious. The anti immigration and anti gay policies of conservatives are wildly unpopular among those under 45. Some estimates I've seen are that less than 25% support either. The younger generations are also less religious, more urban, and more ethnically diverse. All traits that tend to increase left leanings.

I personally doubt school had much of an impact. Educators have been left leaning for centuries. I think it's used as an excuse by the conservative party in the US unwilling to admit their policies are unpopular for more based reasons.

I agree with you that deficit spending has become bipartisan. The fiscal conservatism that once defined Republicans is more of a libertarian aim now. Again I think this will play out in an interesting way. Without fiscal conservativism the Republicans are left with religious and cultural conservativism which are both wildly unpopular among younger generations.