Meanwhile Labour and the Liberal Democrats were themselves fractured by internal leadership crises that hampered their efforts to campaign effectively for Remain.
Labour had just experienced its own revolt against its establishment and the victory of the insurgents, Jeremy Corbyn who won the backing of rank and file over the Parliamentary MPs, who remained true to the "New Labour" ideas of Tony Blair.
And LibDems had not recovered from the last general election when the Tories won a clean majority and had no further need of a coalition with them.
The split between the political establishment and the people in the UK parallels similar splits in the US which went under the name of Tea Party before Donald Trump came into politics and tried to channel the popular disenchantment with politicians into a Reagan-like capture of the working classes and white males by his rejection of Washington's political correctness.
The split in the UK has developed over the issue of migrants. The migrants in question have been job seekers from the New Member States, in particular Poland, Romania and the Baltics, who have moved to the UK en masse and in certain communities have made native born British feel alien in their own country, not to mention the effect of lowering wages by upping the supply side.
However, British resentment against foreigners in their midst was surely heightened by the migrant crisis that hit Europe last summer after Angela Merkel made her terribly superficial and selfish call for Europe to open its borders to those fleeing war and civil strife in Syria and the broader Middle East. The inability of the EU institutions to protect Europe's borders and to stem the influx other than by striking a deal with the odious Turkish president Erdogan constituted daily media content for these past months and surely influenced the vote last Thursday[6.23.16].
JB: This was helpful. How will life change once the UK has withdrawn from the EU? When would this move take place and will it be as catastrophic as some predict?
GD: For the UK, the days ahead will be difficult as the country reinvents its identity. However, it has leaders in waiting who have the reserves of energy and imagination to see them through. I think in particular of Boris Johnson among the Conservatives and of Nigel Farage of UKIP.
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