@Gatekeeper ,
Since you're in UK, what's the sentiment there regarding Brexit , I was there in Dec of 2019 and had discuss it a lot with my supplier with a pint of beer (Corona beer), lorry driver and tour guide most of them are against it, especially those who came from the northern region (Liverpool & Manchester)and Scotland. Wales and most of London are for Brexit, I'm surprised cause London under EU thrive.
I think you have caught the nations mood quite well. It is mainly southerners and Londoners, but also in places where you least expected like north east England.
Like you said the surprised are Londoners who would benefit more by staying in. But then the same can be said of farmers with their fat Europe subsidies. We also had the owner of a pub chain staunchly wanting Brexit.
Even a lot of my close friends wanting out. In my circle of close friends of say 8, only me and one others wanted to stay in. This, I put down to years and years of drip drip attack on anything EU from the tabloids and Nigel Farage.
I mean the propaganda goes from straight bananas to loosing pounds and ounces. It just ridiculous. I got friends repeating things from the right wing paper, and these are my friends who are normally very very liberal.
They say things like Britain is a big country, and can negotiate with any other countries on a equal footing. What! Well let see now, you get that pratt Rabbs repeating we had conducted a deal with New Zealand! (No offence to kiwis). But since when this is a big result?
So we ended up with a Canadian style solution. Yippee. That means accept all the rules and regulations of EU, but this time no voice or influence.
And they call that a price worth paying for taking back control. Yeah, they sound like one of our members here.
I teaches economics. I can tell you, this saga have provided me with enough teaching materials to last a life time. And none of it is good for UK. I mean, every body is trying to forge blocs and alliance's in the world. who in the right mind would leave the largest trading bloc in the world!?