The Truth About Brexit: Britain BETRAYED - ULTIMATE DOCUMENTARY 2023

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. The City was mostly anti-Brexit

The causes of Brexit have been caricatured based on whatever angle someone wishes to push.

However two key overlooked points are:
- the abolition of the agricultural wages board by the Coalition government that removed the floor of wages in the agricultural sector.
- the decline of collective bargaining and union density in construction, hospitality and light manufacturing.

Once David Cameron offered a referendum then the Brexit campaign found some willing constituencies. One willing working class constituency was one that used the Brexit vote as a crude mechanism to raise wages. I was a trade union branch secretary at the time (of a very pro-EU union) and some people in certain sectors gained huge pay raises (in some cases 9-15% yearly in the 2016-19 period here in Kent for construction and light manufacturing), pay raises beyond the dream of union negotiations. The reason was that the referendum resulted caused a dramatic reduction of free movement into sectors heavily dependent upon migrant labour, even though free movement technically continued until 2021.

During March-June 2016 I had conversations with many members in my branch who were “voting out” in their words and wages were a big reason.

Brexit was a complex phenomenon.