Here’s what people in the Valleys have to say after voting to leave the EU in the referendum
PEOPLE across Wales voted convincingly to leave the European Union and the Valleys were no exception.
The leave campaign won most people’s vote and less than a week after making the decision, there are mixed feelings.
Those who voted to remain feel areas in South Wales will be worse off and while some Brexiteers stand by their decision others say they would reconsider their choice if there was a rerun of the referendum.
The Valleys have benefited from billions of pounds of EU funding over the years, including the Lido in Pontypridd, the Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone campus, the A465 Heads of the Valleys as well as apprenticeships for young people to help them into employment.
But last Thursday the result of the referendum from voters living in these areas proved people believed they would be better off out of the European Union.
In Rhondda Cynon Taf, 53.7% wanted things to change and voted to leave.
Leave voter, Eileen Lloyd, 60, a sales assistant from Barry, who works at Jules Clothing in Porth, said: “I’m not worried about if my grandchildren can’t go to Europe to live.
“Why would they want to go to another country? We have the best country.
“It’s the best country because everybody works together and there’s not this snobbery you can get elsewhere. Everybody gets treated equally here.
“Other European countries are in worse positions than us so why would young people go there anyway?”
Talking about the changes Brexit could bring, she believes it can only get better and will mean we will be financially better off.
“In the future, it will get better and it will stop them putting the prices sky high on the market. David Cameron’s government looks after the rich and wages are rubbish.
“But hopefully people will come together and we will be the Great Britain we were all those years ago.
“If our taxes go up a bit that’s ok.”
Eileen said she would be “devastated” if Scot- land left the UK and as she wasn’t at all shocked at the results on Thursday, she thinks a re-run of the referendum would be “terrible”.
Accountant Richard Clark, 49, from Ynysybwl, said: “I was surprised at the vote. Because the markets improved at the beginning of the week, I thought remain would win.
“I do think Scotland will go now. Devolution is greater in Scotland than in Wales. Wales has benefited a lot from the EU and a lot of people have been shocked by this, including politicians.
“Leave campaigners had no basis to what they said, just hope.
“A lot of people said they didn’t think their vote would matter. We’ve heard hardly nothing from Gove or Johnson since the results.
“We do need to have someone who believes in leaving to do the negotiation and I think Cam- eron has no authority in these negotiations. I have signed the petition for another referendum.”
Ex-soldier Gary Edwards, from Pentre, Rhondda, said immigration works both ways and many people from Wales have gone to live and work in Europe.
But he thinks the UK is not popular among other European nationals and thinks that will not be on our side if we want to try to negotiate.
“We have always been a bully in the past,” the 75-year-old said.
“We have been fighting in France, Holland, Belgium, we are always fighting somebody.
“Not many people like us. We have always been a bit on our own and that’s sad. People I know voted out but didn’t know why.
“The EU gave us the Lido, what if they close it now? Will the roads which have been started be finished? We don’t know.”