>It is obvious that the vote had nothing to do with opinions on the EU to a huge number of voters. Just because they don't approach it from some high-minded co

>It is obvious that the vote had nothing to do with opinions on the EU to a huge number of voters. Just because they don't approach it from some high-minded constitutional-philosophy or European-project perspective doesn't mean that it wasn't about the EU. The biggest issue was immigration, because the EU doesn't allow the British to control immigration into their own country. If you wanted lower immigration, the EU gave you one option: leave the EU. When the continent totally rejected David Cameron's reasonable (and I think insufficient) list of reforms, they confirmed that. For the Tories who voted Leave, it was also about economic growth because the EU has forced all member countries into a high-regulation (and in my opinion, low-growth) model that's more about protecting inefficient French businesses from competition than about raising the fortunes of the British people. It didn't matter how many elections Conservatives won, because socialism was imposed at the EU level. The EU even ganged up on Ireland for daring to have a low corporate tax rate. No change in the composition of the British delegation to the powerless European Parliament, where they were severely outnumbered anyway, had any chance of ever changing any of this. Again, the only way to even get the chance to vote for free market policies was to leave the EU. Now the British people can decide for themselves what path they will take, a choice which is by no means predetermined. Many Scottish people feel the same way about their membership in the UK. I think that autonomy within the UK is the answer for them, but they really should leave if they think it's the only way they can control their own destiny. They definitely deserve a second Scottish independence referendum once the Brexit instability calms down.