> I think that the Brexit vote landed at a time when there was increasing general alienation within society, a general feeling of growing wealth inequality, of social injustice etc

Hmm GDP was growing well, inflation was down, real household income was on the rise, annual wage growth was on the up, it was a long time since the great financial crash, unemployment was crashing in 2013/2014, and things comparatively were quite cheap.

Though I can't recall the general sentiment at the time. Net migration did have an historic spike (part of a longer term rise) for a couple of years. Perhaps the Brexit campaigners capitalised solely on that?

Crazy to imagine that economically things were doing great, by many metrics, but so many people got duped into thinking some foreigners were going to tank everything

(Personally, it was a fantastic period. Wages were good, jobs were good, things were cheap. I know many people who bought their first house during that period)

While the economy may have been doing ok and all that, I think its still a lot to do with the feeling that everyone around you is doing _better_, and the increasingly prevalent need for instant-gratification.

A lot of this probably comes down to cheap-credit. I am by rights in the top 1% of national income in my senior-ish BigCo job, yet I look around at the traffic lights and I am surrounded by Range Rovers, Teslas, Porches SUVs etc. I dont think I could afford one of those (I tend to buy 3 or 4 year old cars outright), yet the stats say I earn more than 99% of people ... either most days I am surrounded by the 0.1% club, or people are spending a lot of their income in PCP etc.

Is it a matter of "keeping up with the jonses"? Are people thinking "Well these people around me are driving nice cars and I am not, so clearly I am getting dicked over here somehow and everyone else is earning boatloads and I am not." Replace nice cars with expensive holidays, house renovations, latest iphone, latest shoes/handbag or whatever. And all amplified and magnified by social media. Its all the same: conspicuous status baubles making people feel like they're on the loser end of the spectrum.

See enough of that over and over (and you will if you use social media) and it'll shift your world views.