Dorgilo

Apologies for piggybacking on to the reply, but for me it brings up a couple of issues, namely:

1) Given what you said I think the EU completely missed the strength of feeling in certain sections of the population against the Union. From my perspecitve, having grown up with some people who were Eurosceptic and indeed voted leave, this feeling has been growing for years. I'm not sure if I was disappointed in the result or not but I certainly wasn't surprised. They, and I, feel wholly disconnected from the EU.

The other is 2) This quote:

people were very sad that citizens believed lies about the EU to the point of acting against their own interest

Do those working within the EU parliament not believe that it's possible for citizens of EU countries to genuinely dislike the EU, or at least enough of it to want out? I've seen this attitude from a number of EU supporters on Reddit, that those who voted leave must have been lied to, or been victims of propaganda, or some other reason. As I've said, I know people who voted leave. They don't dislike the EU because of lies, they dislike the EU because of certain aspects of it that are absolutely true. People on the internet is one thing, but it's a bit worrying when even those working for the EU can't seem to accept that there are issues, or at least people who genuinely have issues with the EU.

Thanks for the response, nice to have a measured conversation rather than it devolving into mud-slinging for once. For me that was one of the biggest issues on both sides - they spent the whole campaign insulting each other and not actually saying why it would be beneficial to leave/stay.

PS Don't know why you've been downvoted. Have an upvote from me to counter it.

I appreciate the reply, so thanks.

However.

we were talking about people who were told for 40 years every day that the EU is trash.

These leave voters I know did actually vote in originally, because they thought it was a good idea that we should be part of. It's the way that the EU has evolved since then that they have a problem with.

Although you say that you understand that people have legitimate criticisms, the quote that I've mentioned above suggests otherwise. It still implies that you believe they voted out because of lies and propaganda, not because they have legitimate concerns. Even in a reply to a different question you imply that those who voted leave did so because they were brainwashed.

a lot of people voted Leave because of the NHS (see where they are now), because they believed Europeans were taking their jobs, because they were afraid of the refugee crisis, because they thought that the EU was slowing the UK economy/opportunities

This was part of it, certainly, but the fact is that those I know beleive a country should be able to control it's own immigration, it's own trade deals etc. They are fine with immigration, they just want the UK to have the power to control how much we have. They weren't afraid of the refugee crisis but they think it was handled incredibly poorly by the EU.

you can't deny at the same time that Brexit is going to be a tremendous bitch on the UK

It may well be, and I accept that, but in another response you mention that the EU may make things harder for the UK (or at least not make things easier) because they don't want the Union falling apart. This is understandable but if countries would be better off outside the EU then why do we need a European Union? At least in the form that it's in now? What's wrong with countries being even more successful outside? The EU is not the goal, it is a possible route to that goal.

I understand that as an employee of the European Parliament you are overwhelmingly likely to be pro-EU but it still seems that you (and by extension the EP, as you're here representing them) cannot accept that some people genuinely dislike being in the EU. There seems to have been a huge underestimation of the strength of feeling amongst Eurosceptists and a continued misunderstanding of why people voted leave. It shouldn't be forgotten that they don't only exist in the UK.

If you want to deal with the Eurosceptic sections of the population you have to talk to them, to ask them about why they feel that way, to address their concerns. You can't just ignore them and write them off as victims of propaganda or (as many people seem to do) racists. That's where you should be focusing your efforts at improving communication. As with their feelings towards our own government, they feel ignored.

Question and answer sessions like this are a good idea but given that Eurosceptists (certainly here) tend to be older you need to hold them offline, on TV. Like how we have Question Time for our MPs.