I agree completely, but this was touted frequently during the referendum. The general Leave campaign spiel was that somehow the neighbouring EU countries were l

I agree completely, but this was touted frequently during the referendum. The general Leave campaign spiel was that somehow the neighbouring EU countries were leeching money from the UK. A horribly misinformed argument yes, but that line of reason works for people who want someone else to blame for their financial woes. Unfortunately, that kind of propaganda is incredibly convincing to a person with 0 political or economic education and becomes an issue when they have the same hard voting power as a person with a PhD or other form of expertise on the said topic. The only way the vote could have changed is if there was more effort from the Remain campaign, people were better educated on the aforementioned subjects, or the voting system for the referendum was based on a technocratic system (more of a think-tank).