Wales votes 'leave' despite millions in EU support
[...] none of that impresses John Thompson, a retired truck driver who recalls the days when the area in Blaneau Gwent county was bustling with life, and the coal mines and steelworks provided thousands of jobs.
[...] he notes, the EU doesn't just hand out the money: They tell us how to spend it.
South Wales is a pleasant landscape of lush green hills with small towns in the valleys featuring rows of two-story brick homes that look quaint at first glance but have a certain sadness to them on further inspection.
Besides a few factories, there is little work in the towns themselves, so people commute to Cardiff or other big cities.
Similar signs in neighboring Ebbw Vale explain the EU's role in building a modern hospital, train station and learning center that now occupy the grounds of the former steelworks that once employed more than 10,000 people.
"[...] people actually used the opportunity of the referendum to say: 'Whoa, stop the car, I want to get out,'" says Welsh Conservative leader Andrew R.T. Davis, who voted for Britain to leave the EU.
In Port Talbot, 57 percent voted "leave" despite warnings from some analysts that losing access to the EU's single market could have devastating consequences for the city's steelworks.
None of that can reasonably be blamed on the EU, and yet when Cullen says people have "had enough" he is directing his frustration at Brussels, not the market forces or British governments that killed off coal mining.