And I sense that this tendency to call the surrounding lands "hinterland" is one of the things that offended people and made them vote for Brexit.

(At least in my ear the word is often used in a pejorative manner).

Ok, my mistake, I live in those areas and have never heard it used in a derogative manner - I'll check it out though and change if needed.

I would have said suburbs but that wasn't quite right as there are decent sized towns and cities encompassed in the area I am talking about but whom OP was using to claim that Newcastle voted leave when it didn't - it was the surrounding towns and cities that did.

OK. IN this case it might be just my ear - I'm not a native English speaker - but I've recognized the tendency of urbanites to dismiss suburban areas as "hinterland" or something similar. At their peril.