Brexit: ‘There’s talk about taking back our country. From where?’

Sometimes a man can have too much freedom, the bearded, leather-clad biker is saying. “We’ve driven our bikes through Europe and sometimes I wish it was harder,” says the man, whose name is Vernon Long. “You can just drive through.”

“It makes you think the security isn’t very good,” says his friend, Neil Ballard. “There are a lot of threats coming in all the time, isn’t there? Isis and all that.”

Ballard and Long are the first Eurosceptics I meet on a week-long tour of a possibly Brexiting Britain. I meet them on the ferry. Their friends aren’t voting (“Both sides tell lies,” says Paul Robinson), but Ballard and Long are committed to a Leave vote.

“I’ve had a bit of time because I was made redundant,” says Ballard, formerly a Nottinghamshire factory manager. “I’ve spent a bit of time looking at YouTube. I’ve learned all about it . . . We’re not in control of our own borders.”

Nearby, Richard and John are returning from a fishing trip in Cavan. John is voting Leave because he is worried about immigration.

Richard strongly disagrees. "We wouldn't have railways and canals if not for Irish immigration," he says. "We wouldn't have a functioning NHS without foreign workers."

He sighs. "The problem is, it's very easy to be passionate about Brexit – you just tell people what they want to hear. But it's very hard to sell a boring European ideal."

On leaving the ferry, I drive from Holyhead to Wrexham, the largest town in north Wales. There, on Hope Street, John Gilbert has a stall for the Vote Leave campaign.

"Earlier, a man came over screaming at us, 'Are you happy now you've killed a young mother?'" he says sadly. The murder of Jo Cox has added a new layer of darkness to the campaign. "It's such a tragedy. I can't see how it's not going to have an effect."

Gilbert is here with a Ukip Welsh Assembly member, Michelle Brown, who says Brexit will be "a boost of confidence" for British values. Those are? She lists the not uniquely British "freedom of speech, democracy, self-determination and the rule of law".

Brown and her colleagues stress the importance of national sovereignty and control of immigration. They disbelieve official immigration figures. She and I have a difference of opinion about Ukip’s recent “Breaking Point” poster of Syrian refugees.

Straight racism

At a nearby market, I meet more advocates of Leave than Remain. Many had no strong feelings on the matter until last year. Many are informed by an antipathy to immigration and, occasionally, straightforward racism. (One woman chillingly seems to think it’s a vote on deporting people.) Some have no plans to vote. (“What’s a referendum?”asks one.)

Cynicism about politics is rife. The Leave campaign subscribes to such cynicism – Brown says she is worried that the referendum results will be fixed by the nefarious forces for Remain.

David Jones, who operates a stall at the market, says he’s voting Leave due to worries about immigration, though he doesn’t believe the economic forecasts from either side: “No one knows what’s going to happen one way or another.”

An older woman, Thelma Philips seems to equate a vote for Brexit with a vote against the Tories. “The way they’re spending our money, the way they’re treating our doctors,” she says. “And we’ve lost our fishing rights. We’ve lost our steel. We’ve lost our coal.”

But will the steel and coal industries come back if Britain leaves? “Why not? There’s plenty of coal here, and we’ve the best steelmakers in the world.”

No job

Brexit is marketed as a panacea for all ills. “I can’t get a job,” says a young woman, Hayley, by way of explaining why she will vote Leave.

Will that be different if Britain leaves the EU? “Yes,” she says confidently.

Younger people seem more likely to vote Remain, though not enthusiastically.

“We’re been asked to make a decision we know nothing about,” says Jamie Hamlington. “I don’t see the point of Europe, but I’m going to vote ‘stay’ simply because it’s a backward move to leave. Leave is a real British Bulldog, Boris Johnson riding a lion sort of thing.

“There are legitimate reasons to leave,” he says, “but the Leave campaign has been hijacked by racist bigots.”

Farther up the street I meet Melanie Smith, who works for a housing agency. “Immigration doesn’t bother me,” she says. “I think we’re safer being part of something bigger.”

Smith seems frustrated.

"On social media, most of what I see is from people who want to leave. If you disagree they call you 'traitor'. There's a lot of talk about 'taking back our country'. Take it back from where? It's here. I've just seen it. It's outside the window."