BLeP wrote:
I don't think that the Brits really had any clue what they were voting for and what would be the ramifications.
In a vote of this nature, the ramifications are almost impossible to predict though. The politicians leading the Leave campaign weren't actually in power, and unlike a normal election "winning" the referendum doesn't put them in power, so they can't actually make any promises about policy (or rather any promises they do make are even less credible than politicians usual election pledges). And the EU obviously isn't going to put any kind of deal on the table for what Britain would get if they left, since doing so simply makes the Leave campaign more credible.
So voting Leave was a leap of faith that firstly British politicians will actually pay attention to the concerns of the voters and make some changes, and secondly that the EU will be grown-up enough to negotiate a deal that recognises that we're all still each other's closest neighbours and trading partners, rather than cutting off their nose to spite their face. Opinions on how the EU would behave were largely predictable given the views of the person offering their opinion. At some point in the next few years we'll see who was right.
The fact that so many people were prepared to make that leap of faith is testament to how make of a divide there has become between our political and metropolitan classes and vast swathes of the country. Not all of the things that people are concerned about are necessarily directly the fault of the EU, but referendums often turn into a vote on people's satisfaction with the government generally. When a lot of people feel that their views aren't represented by any mainstream political party, and then there's a referendum where nearly all the mainstream politicians are lined up on the same side, it's always highly likely that they'll take the rare opportunity to give them a good kicking.