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My feeling is that the vast majority of the leave voters in these area weren’t labour voters, they were Tory / UKIP and the other key demographic, the none voter (as far as general elections go).
Very few were Tory I'd suspect. There are a lot of long memories in these areas who remember the decimation of manufacturing and the pits and voting Tory is anathema to them.
Some would have been Labour who switched to UKIP. UKIP became the acceptable face of the Labour protest vote for those who would never vote Tory but felt that Labour had abandoned its working class roots.
Whether or not Labour is currently a viable party for a lot of these people is open to debate. Corbyn has struggled to win over a lot of them, things like this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45634379 make people think that the focus isn't really on the things that matter to them. If an about face on Brexit is added to that then those voters will be going elsewhere.
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I’d hazard a guess that Labour base their messaging on very specific voter data and analysis, not feelings.
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@HousecatHST
I don’t really understand the labours obsession with these leave votes from the north / midlands, I really think there reading it wrong. My feeling is that the vast majority of the leave voters in these area weren’t labour voters, they were Tory / UKIP and the other key demographic, the none voter (as far as general elections go). These people are never going to be won over to the labour side and not to put too finer point on it who cares. It’s the reverse in my area, the local Tory mp eat her UKIP baby (by being batshit mental brexit hard case) at the last election and increased her majority to 15,000 plus. Labour hoovered up the 45% remain voters in the area and then Lib Dem after being second for a number of elections lost there deposit.