NEARLY two months ago, I witnessed history in the making at the Pavilion as thousands of Leave ballot papers began piling up on the tables of the Ocean Room; Weymouth and Portland resoundingly voted to leave the EU by a conclusive margin of 61% - the 86th most Eurosceptic region of the UK.

A majority of decent democrats, whoever they cheered on, have gracefully accepted the result.

However, a growing horde of embittered Remain voters have shown resentful snobbery at the vote outcome, and leave voters themselves, treating them as parochial, little-Englander xenophobes who are much too ignorant appreciate their superior cosmopolitanism.

This self-righteousness is rife on social media, and in letters to this paper.

They neglect to understand Leave voters’ desire for democracy and self-governance, instead viewing national sovereignty as a dirty plebiscite; preferring the soft tyranny of EU technocracy coupled with a pessimistic world-view that Britain is too small, too weak, and too ill-equipped to cope independently.

They show disdain at the genuine political apprehensions of many leave voters.

They refuse to even entertain concerns regarding the implications of mass unskilled immigration on wage depression and public service planning.

They can’t even comprehend issues around EU resource-pooling initiatives such as the Common Fisheries Policy, whose quotas and fishery-pooling have helped decimate the once-booming Weymouth and Portland fishing industry. Brushing off these legitimate opinions as petty close-mindedness is precisely why the Remain campaign didn’t win, and is entirely unhelpful for building a positive Brexit strategy, going forward.

While it may be a comforting myth to insinuate that the Remain campaign lost here in Weymouth and Portland because Leave voters are ignorantly populist, it is simply untrue.

To paint a snobbish picture of local Leave voters as inward-looking, xenophobic, uneducated elderly people wistfully longing for a romanticised Britain of times gone past, is nothing for than a coping mechanism for embittered Remain supporters. Britain is on the cusp of becoming a self-governing, outward-looking, global nation. Enough sour grapes, please; let’s stop resenting our neighbours, and make the most of this unique opportunity.

Rhys Tanner

Southwell

Portland