Your last line sums it up best. The world isn’t the same now as it used to be, on virtually any level. Even 30-35 years ago a fairly average salary meant you could buy a property of some description, and a decent salary meant you could do that while the wife stayed home and raised the kids etc. Almost anyone could just get a job down the road, local businesses were the norm, and everyone knew everyone else.
It is not like that anymore, and that’s why the older people are, the higher the chance they voted for Brexit. It is a sliding scale in terms of percentages vote to leave versus the age bracket they fall into. People voting for how things used to be, basing their logic on mantras such as “well it worked just fine when I was younger”, and quite often not being in touch with the world around them. An awful lot of people voted for Brexit because they’re scared of a world they no longer understand or feel they have a say in. That’s why the word ‘control’ was a master stroke. Take back control. Take back that feeling of knowing what is going on. Show the world that you feel is leaving, or has left you behind already, that you are valuable and should be listened to. Take it back. Take everything you remember, and everything you used to feel was familiar, back. Take back control.
We can talk about it all you want, but it’s that simple. Brexit is the result of people not feeling as though they understand or matter in the world around them anymore. The people who got older and retired or are approaching that period of life, the residents of the coastal towns that once thrived and are now rusting wastelands, the people in the northern outposts who have seen industry and local trade close down and reduce their towns to a series of abandoned factories and boarded up pubs and shops. They didn’t feel they had a place anymore, and by Christ, they were going to make sure they put that cross in that box on polling day. Because that was all they had.
They took back control of a world they feel has left them behind or cut them out, and that’s why they aren’t letting go no matter what. This is everything. This MEANS everything. With no Brexit, there is virtually no point. Because at least this is theirs - this is their legacy, their choice, their voice - and as such this is their world. Whatever follows, whatever happens, it is theirs. The real tragedy is that the people who voted for Brexit because they didn’t recognise the world anymore won’t recognise what follows either.