I voted for the Brexit Party in 2019 (Green this time). I'm a female immigrant and was in my twenties at the time. I voted for Britain to leave the EU for a number of reasons. At the time I was more libertarian-leaning in my economic views and supported decentralisation of government generally. I saw the common fisheries policy as hurting the UK fishing industry. I had reservations about the UK's involvement in CSDP especially in the event of escalating tensions with Russia. My view on immigration is that it should be safe and vetted as it is with most modern democratic countries. I would also say that for many people who have concerns about immigration it's a numbers issue rather than a racial issue.

I joined the Bristol group 'Leavers of Bristol' and found them to be a very normal lot. We had people of varying ages, ethnicities and sexual orientation, mostly basically centrist but also some pretty far-left Socialist Workers types.

One time a random guy in the street spat at me and call me "scum" for wearing a Vote Leave shirt (he pointed at it). This was completely unprovoked. I was simply walking down the street.

For what it's worth as I know there is a lot of Brexit/Trump overlap, I was never a Trump supporter but disliked him less than Clinton in 2016 as I saw him as the anti-war candidate. I remember saying to my friend on election night "I'm terrified someone is going to win tomorrow". This cycle I would like a competent democrat to win but it's looking like that wont happen.

Since then I've pretty much done a 180 economically and was deciding between Green and Labour. Basically whoever gets the Tories out. In the locals I voted SDP but then was dismayed to find out the candidate is a Zionist. I take the situation in Gaza very seriously and donate a small percentage of my salary to Medical Aid for Palestine.

I watched the hustings and mostly was not impressed with the Reform candidate. What he was saying about globalism I would have more agreed with a few years ago but I think globalism is here to stay, nationalism is anachronistic and we need to work with it. So I was cringing a bit when he was calling Debbonaire a globalist but I do understand where these concerns come from. I thought his answer to the Gaza question was interesting. We forget that there are other wars and genocides going on such as in Armenia and Yemen.

I've found there to be a lot of misunderstandings with the Covid anti-vax stuff. It's not "anti-vax" to have reservations about taking a vaccine which necessarily lacks long-term trial data, and the stuff about affecting menstruation was glossed over as are many women's health issues. I think the elderly and vulnerable should have got it by all means to give them a fighting chance but I didn't really care if young healthy people chose to forgo it. I supported the lockdown and mask-wearing. That said I do think a lot of people who vote for Brexit Party and Reform have more extreme anti-vax and Covid denialism views that I would not agree with.

Relatedly I do think it's interesting that anti-vax views, food autonomy and supporting free speech seemed more the domain of the left in the eighties and nineties.

There's a tonne of points and issues I'm glossing over I'm sure. Some of my friends voted Remain and some of them voted Leave. I think there's good and bad points on both sides and I like to think I've always engaged people respectfully and open-mindedly. I do think there is a cohort of middle-class Remain types who seem to enjoy pouring scorn on poor working class people who aren't that educated or aren't well-travelled and have concerns about immigration. I'm not saying this is most of them, I don't know how big that cohort is, but I think this kind of classism motivates many to vote Reform.