editor
hiraethified
This is an interesting bit of research:
Focus group participants in Merthyr and the Rhondda were notably unhappy at the increase in the Polish communities in those places. This was not articulated simply as xenophobia: a specifically working-class objection to immigration advanced to us was that, by making the jobs market much more competitive, the wages of locals were driven downwards. Thus, immigration was viewed as working much more to the benefit of managers and companies than for ordinary working people. Immigrants willing to work for low wages were also seen as contributing to the decline in some town centres, and in particular leading to the growth of charity and low-value shops catering to the needs of a low-wage economy.
Many thought that England had done much better out of EU membership, and that Wales and the Valleys had received little: “I know they done the roads round here but that’s it,” as one focus group participant put it. But even those who acknowledged that some EU funding had come their way were very dubious of its value. Several of those we spoke to talked of white elephants, and “vanity projects” that were seen to deliver little of long-term worth to local people.
I spent a year researching why working-class Welsh people in the Valleys voted for Brexit, and this is what I foundMany of those we spoke to thought that their communities were already in dire straits, and that it would be difficult for things to get much worse.