Lo que ocurrió en Sheffield explica por qué Gran Bretaña optó por el Brexit

El voto de los obreros empobrecidos por la globalización, desilusionados con el laborismo, se fueron al UKIP

Like the rest of the country, the city voted in favor of Brexit by a paper-thin margin: just 51% voted to Leave, with only 6,000 votes separating the Brexit and Remain camps. And right up until the eve of the result, Sheffield was expected to vote Remain – as was the UK as a whole.

To understand what happened here, we need to go back to April 2014, when UKIP leader Nigel Farage launched his campaign for the European Parliament elections in central Sheffield. For some, this seemed bizarre. Many had seen his party as an electoral threat primarily to the Conservatives. But Sheffield is a long-time Labour stronghold, in a Labour-dominated region. It hardly looked like fertile territory for a party nipping at the Conservatives’ heels. What was Farage up to?

At the launch, he made his intentions clear. Labour’s northern strongholds were very much in UKIP’s sights. Political scientists Rob Ford and Matt Goodwin later revealed that older, working class voters – who had long formed the core of Labour’s support – were becoming disillusioned. They felt “left behind” by social and economic change, and ignored by the political establishment (not least on concerns over rapid immigration from the EU). As a result, many were thinking of shifting to UKIP.

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