Kafka In Amadora

Polls conducted before the European referendum indicated that ethnic minority voters were more likely to vote Remain. However, there is data to suggest that the strength of euroscepticism within the British South Asian population was perhaps stronger than previously anticipated. A number of jurisdictions with large South Asian populations delivered Leave votes, including Luton (56.5% Leave), Hillingdon (56.4% Leave), Slough (54.3% Leave) and Bradford (54.2% Leave). All have South Asian populations of 25% and above. It's not unreasonable to think that such Leave votes could not have been delivered without a significant number of Asian voters opting for Brexit. Why did a number of middle-class South Asians (most notably those living in West London) not vote in a way which their socio-economic status would predict?  One reason might be that many voters within the British South Asian diaspora don't feel European. When the Remain campaign sought to appeal to a sense of European

The vastness of the USA, combined with its great social mobility, has always encouraged people to uproot themselves from failed lives and start out again somewhere else. In the past, Britain’s smallness and its settled class system have compelled us to be polite, restrained and repressed, or face chaos. Japan’s elaborate manners and customs are a similar response to living at close quarters on cramped islands. [Peter Hitchens (2018), The Abolition of Britain, Bloomsbury Continuum]