[URBAN NOTE] "Pro-Brexit voters in port town fear for future in divided Britain"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star carries Rich Noack's Washington Post article looking at how pro-Brexit voters in a depressed port town in England are starting to reconsider.

After mass layoffs in the 1970s and ’80s, this once-vibrant port town in southeastern England lost much of its glory. Many stores are closed, and windows are broken. A shuttered guest house in the town’s centre is plastered with advertisements for instant cash loans. “Money matters,” one reads.

Tilbury is one of England’s poorest places — and one of its most Euroskeptic. More than 72 per cent of voters here and in surrounding Thurrock voted for Britain to leave the European Union in Thursday’s referendum. Few places voted more decisively.

But by Sunday, the initial excitement among some pro-Brexit voters had already started to disappear, making room for worries about what’s next for an increasingly divided Britain.

Some in this town of 12,000 have also begun to wonder whether they had been misled by politicians advocating to leave the E.U. amid a campaign marked by negativity on both sides.

“I was swayed by the rhetorics, but if I had thought this through, I would have voted to stay in. I would certainly do so now,” said Antony Kerin, 38, who was watching his daughter at a newly refurbished but empty playground.