I gave it a go just for the immigration figures[0]. Though I stripped it back to mostly plain data and nothing as extensive as this post.

I did this because a lively discussion sharing all sorts of random data was taking place between my friends, most of whom were simply pushing a biased narrative for once side of the other.

I parsed some of the plain data from the ONS and all it lead to was killing the debate dead. Literally no one wanted to continue when faced with actual data to work from.

That point has sort of turned my opinion on these events really. It's not about facts, it's about emotional viewpoints and personal world views and facts be damned. There seems to be so little actual reasonable debate seemingly because so few people actually want that.

Both sides of the Brexit campaign peddled absolute horseshit and people lapped it up to validate their preexisting views. And that worries me because the destination at the end of that particular road is blind extremism.

[0] https://josharcher.uk/blog/brexit-eu-referendum-uk-immigrati...