This significant discrepancy between the middle class metropolitan left and the working class of the Labour heartlands has been starkly revealed by the EU referendum debate. On one side, prominent politicians have been busy emphasising how the Remain campaign has not done enough to reach out to the working class, being “far too much Hampstead and not enough Hull”, while on the other, similarly prominent voices have criticised the Leave campaign’s “disingenuous campaigning” for luring the working class from voting against their genuine interests.

Of all the political discussions in recent memory, the Brexit debate is unique in the extent to which it reveals these sharp divisions along class lines.

The debate has been disturbingly full of innuendo about Essex man in his white van, pubs and taxi drivers, and studies approvingly shared that reveal Remain voters are more likely to have a degree, and live in traditionally middle class or urban gentrified areas, and less likely to live in towns in industrial decline, as though this represents that the Leave camp are simply a bit thick. “Are you sophisticated, cultured and cosmopolitan, or an uneducated pleb?” is implicit in much of the discourse.

For many middle class people on the liberal left, this failure to engage with the concerns of the working class is not incidental, but is indeed central to their campaigns to persuade others to vote Remain. Rather than framing the debate as one of a strategic decision – basically the “least worst” option from the narrow neo-liberal options we’re given to choose from - for many, positioning on the EU has come to represent a broader social signifier.

This is a worrying development as firstly it clearly cannot be a strategy for popular engagement with remaining in the European Union (at least until we have done the groundwork in national politics whereby Lexit may be possible), and it further fans the flames of conflict that have made this debate so pernicious.

This divide reflects the discourse on immigration more generally. Middle class liberals are often actively involved in a “divide and conquer” strategy with recent immigrants and the established working class. They disingenuously praise immigrants not out of any sincere commitment to open borders, but rather as a way of distancing themselves from and expressing their disdain towards the working class. They reiterate a version of the Tories’ “skivers and strivers” rhetoric through appeals to a dichotomy of plucky hard-working immigrants versus our own feckless, lazy underclass.

The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit Show all 7 1 /7 The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 22 May 2015 In his regular column in The Express Nigel Farage utilised the concerns over Putin and the EU to deliver a tongue in cheek conclusion. “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” PA The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 13 November 2015 UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Mike Hookem, was one of several political figures who took no time to harness the toxic atmosphere just moments after Paris attacks to push an agenda. “Cameron says we’re safer in the EU. Well I’m in the centre of the EU and it doesn’t feel very safe.” Getty Images The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 19 April 2016 In an article written for The Guardian, Michael Gove attempts to bolster his argument with a highly charged metaphor in which he likens UK remaining in the EU to a hostage situation. “We’re voting to be hostages locked in the back of the car and driven headlong towards deeper EU integration.” Rex The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 26 April 2016 In a move that is hard to decipher, let alone understand, Mike Hookem stuck it to Obama re-tweeting a UKIP advertisement that utilises a quote from the film: ‘Love Actually’ to dishonour the US stance on the EU. “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend” The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 10 May 2016 During a speech in London former work and pensions secretary Ian Duncan Smith said that EU migration would cause an increasing divide between people who benefit from immigration and people who couldn’t not find work because of uncontrolled migration. “The European Union is a ‘force for social injustice’ which backs the ‘haves rather than the have-nots.” EPA The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 15 May 2016 Cartoon character Boris Johnson made the news again over controversial comments that the EU had the same goal as Hitler in trying to create a political super state. “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically.” “The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.” PA The most scaremongering arguments for Brexit 16 May 2016 During a tour of the women’s clothing manufacturer David Nieper, Boris had ample time to cook up a new metaphor, arguably eclipsing Gove’s in which he compares the EU to ‘badly designed undergarments.’ “So I just say to all those who prophecy doom and gloom for the British Business, I say their pants are on fire. Let’s say knickers to the pessimists, knickers to all those who talk Britain down.” Getty Images

Needless to say, this does neither group any favours. Essentially they are praising immigrants for being easier to exploit and framing it as industriousness: an argument a lot harder to swallow when you lay it bare. Meanwhile, criticism ends up falling to the British worker, who is no longer willing to work in poor conditions for poverty wages mainly because of the trade union movement. This is reframed as uppity entitlement. These types of so-called liberal thinkers shake their heads in horror as the tabloid press stirs up hatred by blaming immigrants for unemployment among the working class, all the while ignoring a huge irony: they themselves reiterate this very idea of inherent competition over work and space between immigrants and the established working class. They just don’t want to see it that way.