Okay Simon, I’ll give you an answer, both to your main point and the subsidiary.
The subsidiary point:
It is just possible that responses have been few because you are very aggressive. I know that the Editor will be quick to reprove me but there is no other way to describe you. I have read the exchanges between you and others (including myself) and I came to the conclusion that a friendly debate, with respect on both sides for the others point of view, was not going to be possible. It was always going to be an interrogation, the plain assumption being that the intelligence was all on your side. Others shared my opinion which they articulated in the Survive France correspondence.
Now for your main point (incidentally “adversely” is misspelt in your post)
The employment reality for British young people (particularly those who wished to work with their hands) in the last 30 years has been much harsher than it should have been; they are competing for jobs in a market that was progressively opened up to some 500 million people. Thus the young man or woman who tried to get an apprenticeship a few years ago might well have found a real difficulty, in that employers and government signally failed to provide him or her with training opportunities; they simply relied on the already qualified artisan applying for the job from the EU. Belatedly the government is addressing this, but too late to avoid the historical prejudice. Nor has the government shown much interest in taking vigorous action to curtail the “pull down” effect on wage rates that the unscrupulous agent can exert by offering a team of foreign builders on a UK construction project at below the usual rate. The French, to their great credit, have protected their artisans from this type of unfair competition. Doubtless they would take an equally disdainful view of the “hot bedding” that facilitates the practise in the UK.
Unrestricted EU migration into the UK on the scale Tony Blair deliberately encouraged, so as to permanently alter the UK demographic, was always going to cause problems. This, even amongst a fundamentally good-natured group of people who, despite your contempt for many of them, the British remain. My French neighbours asked my wife and me, over a meal: “Why Brexit”? I asked them how the French would feel if small towns began to have significant numbers of foreign nationals in their midst and local shops began to advertise their wares (which necessarily catered for migrant tastes) in a foreign language. Couple this with school places coming under pressure and doctors surgeries finding it necessary to take on interpreters. This in a society that signally failed to provide adequate housing for its own people, let alone a population quickly expanded by inward migration. Finally bear in mind that the majority of the inward migration from the UK to France (a country that is large, relatively underpopulated and filled with derelict stone buildings ripe for re-development) consists of retirees on pension. Their medical expenses are, generally, covered by the SI/E101 and the UK Govt. foots the bill. They live quietly (as individuals) for the most part, and contribute to the French economy. They are not, in the main, in competition with French Nationals for French jobs and, where they are, there is, sometimes, a degree of discrimination.
It is not surprising that, as the economy tightened, individuals who had, and have, no stake in the wonderful mobile world of the “new european”, dependant as it was in many cases on surplus assets created by the fortunate timing of a free education, good job, house ownership and generous pension, took an entirely different view and wished to return the country to a self -governing system that had, once upon a time, offered them a better deal.
Nor should it be forgotten that the sudden impact of EU migration from the New Accession countries came on the back of an already large inward migration from Commonwealth countries. Sajid Javid today, very courageously, has identified a problem that has been apparent to many UK citizens for years and which certainly prompted some of them to vote leave. Mr Javid notes there are approaching a million UK citizens people who speak little or no English. He describes helping his mother, who could easily be excused, but the problem is much deeper than that. There are now many young people, 3rd generation born in the UK, who have no English, and this is posing a problem for teachers. There are towns, or parts of towns where the culture is squarely non-British. The sense of alienation felt by many UK nationals has been reinforced by the conviction that they were becoming strangers in their own land. Let me give you a different example from my own experience. I knew a young man in the UK who had a job in a bakery. He worked his way up to be night manager and then the bakery made the decision to employ a team of Lithuanians to work under him. Their leader spoke just enough English to understand what he/they were required to do, and he communicated the orders to his workmates who spoke no English, and made no attempt to learn any. They arrived early, worked very well and kept themselves to themselves. As workers they could not be faulted. His problem was that, for him, the camaraderie that characterised a happy workplace had been removed. He felt isolated and left the job shortly afterwards.
All of this registered with the majority of those who voted leave.
It is not possible to predict the future with any degree of accuracy. The EU Fisheries Policy has been a disaster and greater control of our waters, given we get it, can only be a good thing. We can then develop the safe havens that the UK has pioneered. The CAP has needed reform for 40 years. The practise of shifting the EU Parliament back and forward between Brussels and Strasbourg every month is a profligacy we could do without. Ditto the lavish salaries and perks enjoyed by EU functionaries. We can, and should, make more goods for our home market. The practise of shipping part-finished goods back and forwards between EU countries, because the lack of tariffs encourages the assumption that this is cost free, is very wasteful in terms of fuel consumption and pollution.
You should, finally, Simon, consider the very many highly intelligent, professional people who voted “Leave”: Ian Martin of The Times, Frank Field MP, Gisela Stewart MP, Daniel Hannan MEP and numerous others. Their error was not that they spouted cliches from the Daily Mail (they did not) but in failing to warn the British people that this major decision carried with it the certainty of short term problems, some major, that would have to be worked through; it would not be cost free.