Firstly, I would like to apologise for those of you (who voted to leave, in the Brexit referendum) who feel insulted by this article. This is statistical data, and does not necessarily prove that all Brexit voters are stupid, and also does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship; it merely points out a trend.

This BBC report contains an analysis of local voting data from the Brexit referendum.

The main finding was that:

• Results were strongly associated with the educational attainment of voters - populations with lower qualifications were significantly more likely to vote Leave.
• The level of education had a higher correlation with the voting pattern than any other major demographic measure from the census.

There were, of course, other correlations with demographic data, such as age and ethnicity, but they were less strong than with education.

So, again, sorry, but (and I am, of course, exaggerating here) if you voted for Britain to leave the EU, there is a chance that you are stupid, and a chance that that is why you voted for Brexit.

I have been caused to wonder recently, during the US presidential elections, listening to voters' reactions to Donald Trump's policies and their reactions to the outrageous things he said, whether some people may actually be too stupid (or otherwise mentally impaired) to be allowed to vote. I understand that this goes against what many people see as a principle of democracy, but maybe it bears thinking about. I don't mean to say that, because one person has a degree, they have a better right to vote that someone who doesn't have a degree, but maybe there needs to be a cut-off (perhaps based on one or more of IQ, memory, awareness of history and current news) below which people shouldn't be voting because they don't understand the issues, the consequences of their choices, and cannot identify when candidates are lying or exaggerating.

I am sure that many people reading this will violently disagree, as you are entitled to; it is just a thought, and not an idea that I am bought-in to, but one that might be worthy of analysis.