@Pepperwort Well, if I felt like really looking at utter short-sightedness and self-interest I could use Cameron and his fear of Farage (and whoever's behind that last individual) as an example. Though I don't think Cameron was as malevolent as Prime Minister Rasputin and his rag-tag cabinet of yes-men, headed up by Head Boy BJ and Deputy Head Girl PP.
People voted Leave in 2016 as they were sold a dream of a retro-England that never existed, all Enid Blyton and jolly hockey sticks and lashings of ginger beer. The only compelling argument I've heard any 2016 Leavers trot out is one about the EU spunking money about and awarding contracts to their mates. (Because of course that never happens in the UK.)
It's very, very rare for people to think through the logical consequences of their decisions, in my experience. And while they might be able to work them out for themselves and their nearest and dearest, I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of times I've encountered people who thoroughly think through the consequences of their actions, beyond, say, a year maximum, on others not in their racial/social/friendship group.
An analogy I often used at the time was that there wasn't enough information and evidence for me to feel happy about voting against the status quo, which was membership of the EU. It was like buying a really expensive concept car without having even seen the plans, never mind given a prototype a test drive.
If some kind of Schengen style arrangement had been mooted, I could have understood it, even though I would still have thought it was the wrong decision for the UK. But it wasn't.
There were several reasons I was on the side of remain. As as student, long before we were part of the EU, I spent time as part of my degree working in France and Germany for a while. Trying to do ANYTHING was incredibly difficult and long-winded, whether it was exchanging money or many other daily activities. (And yes, I do speak both languages. Reasonably well.)
Before I made my decision, I took a walk through a couple of local supermarkets, just for fun, to see where most of our food, particularly the fresh produce, came from. Most of it did not, and currently does not, come from within the UK. (And the south of Ireland is still part of Europe.) And what is harvested within the UK is often picked by Eastern Europeans. I took a walk round a few NHS establishments (including the one I worked at, at that time) and had a look at what nationality the nursing staff were, and many of the doctors and other specialists.
I took a look at where typical medications we might use in this household came from. Strange how many of the factories were based in, oh, Germany, for instance. Cars - where did they come from? Hardly any are still made in the UK by British companies, and the ones that are, are either high-end (Bentley, Rolls-Royce, for instance) or fall apart (I learned to drive in a Ford Fiesta).
Years ago, as a civil servant, we had a presentation from a very senior naval officer who invited us to guess how much of everything we eat, sit on, wear, and generally use, comes in through the ports.
20%, my group guessed.
Nope.
Guess again.
It was closer to 97%.
And that's 20 years ago now, long before all this climate change malarkey started and the planet's population doubled every few years, it seems. The truth is we don't produce much any more, except dodgy politicians, the service industry, and financiers, retirees, and landlords. Even our much vaunted education system is starting to look a bit green around the gills now that all those Chinese students are pretty unlikely to come here and study. (Take a walk around any large university city to see how many blocks of accommodation that's going to leave empty.) Our manufacturing base is long gone, and for what's left, some of them (especially smaller companies, I suspect) are going to get a bit of a shock when they realise how much they're going to have to pay for raw materials.
Anyone who's enjoyed COVID-19(R) - the magical, global, multiplayer virtual reality game is REALLY going to love Post-Brexit Britain.
Anyone who doesn't believe some of those of us on here who are warning that food is going to get scarcer, more expensive, lower quality, and much less varied after January 1 2021, might listen to Morrisons. They're one of the few supermarkets who produce around two thirds of their food in the UK and who still have butchers, bakers, and so on. Their warning is very clear. Get used to eating less, get used to paying more.
We've given up trying to talk to Leavers. We might as well be speaking Klingon. So we're now on the side of emigrate, before it's too late for this household. That's assuming we can find anywhere that will still let us in.
And in the meantime, we buy local, we've cut back on meat, we've managed to grow a small amount of our own food this year, and we're stocking up, quietly, on dried goods and other things we can store.