One of the benefits of EU membership was the freedom of movement of goods and services. It was fairly ignored by vast swathes of the UK population - even though it was the main tenet of a very popular TV programme back in the days of 4 channels only. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet showed what that movement meant.
The construction workers went to Germany to earn money, which they sent back to their families. And when the economy in the UK improved they went back. Remember all the Polish plumbers? Were we still in the UK for sure some of them would still be in the UK. But due to EU investment in Poland it has become an attractive place to live and work, and a lot of the Polish workers (not just plumers) would have gone back home. Incidentally, countries like Poland which have been in net receipt of EU funding, who are now more prosperous and expected to pay in more and receive less to fund newer, less well off entrants, are grumbling about their own versions of Brexit. Hmmmm.
And i know a lot of people voted for Brexit "to give the government a black eye" several (ex)friends looked me in the eye and said that, even though they knew it would be a huge upheaval for me. No "oh sorry, Bref, but that's how i feel" just glee that they would be punching the PM on the nose. And of course i don't expect my friends to vote in my interests over theirs, but it was an interesting visit (3 weeks before the referendum)
Another thing i heard from people - and be sure, i talked about the referendum to just about everyone i came across on that visit - was simply "i'm voting to get the foreigners out" and they sometimes meant all foreigners (the plumbers etc) and brown people. But more often it was brown people. People who don't look like us and weren't born here (even the ones who don't look like us and are 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation immigrants).
Do you think ANYONE listened to us saying: yes, a lot of immigrant populations are voting for Brexit because they want more visas for people from their original countries, to make it easier to bring family over (often aging parents, but also siblings, cousins etc). And why wouldn't they?
Brexit was far too complicated for the nasty misinformation that lots of campaigning was based on. For people who weren't doing well, economically, were bound to vote for change, people who were doing ok or who were more informed about what the EU does (including many many UK citizens in EU countries, who were not allowed to vote) were more or less bound to vote to remain. Vastly wealthy business owners were often more likely to vote leave because they believed it would open more lucrative markets and didn't need EU trade to make money. Others realised their trade was mainly EU and they wanted to stay.
And then the third of people - the fuckers - who didn't vote at all. Pretty much rendering the whole thing meaningless (and it wouldn't have mattered which way the result went, the fact that one third of people had no opinion should have been a huge red flag). The referendum should have been a qualified majority, and the fact it wasn't is the biggest scandal here, for me. (as well as outside interference)
But again: it is what it is. We all need to work for a better future. And that should be one that doesn't consign the regions to industrial wastelands and shantytowns of internal economic migrants all over the south east.