BREXIT voters are more likely to describe themselves as middle class, educated and fed up, than angry and working class, according to research by a North-East university.

It was carried out by a team based at Teesside University, along with the Q Step centre at the University of Exeter and web developer company Kieskompas in Amsterdam.

The findings confirmed that people with higher levels of education were less likely to vote to leave the EU.

But they also showed that those with intermediate levels of education – good GCSEs and A-levels – were more likely to vote leave than those with no formal education and with low grade GCSEs.

Dr Lorenza Antonucci, from Teesside University, said: “Our empirical study shows that the ‘squeezed middle’ was more likely to vote for Brexit than the working class.

“We even found that leavers identified as middle class, rather than working class.

“The social malaise and the dramatic changes in the voting dynamics are not just led by the ‘left behind’, but rather include a significant segment of the population in a declining economic position.

“Responding to this dissatisfaction requires public interventions that address inequality and not just social exclusion."

  • The research was part of the VOTEADVICE project, a four-year research project funded by the European Commission to investigate the impact of new technologies on political behaviour.