OK I hear you and I agree in some ways. I mean, it was easy for me to find it out. I didnt read any studies. I didnt do any time consuming research, and I knew. I think most educated people would have been in that position.
But then you had a small group of, mainly rich Tories and kippers, who had somehow cast themselves as being anti establishment, who said over and over again that "the establishment" was lying to them. I keep saying it but remember "project fear"? That was the idea that all that stuff that people were hearing from the papers, from the TV, from the discussions, from the IMF or the OECD or whoever, it was all propaganda, all lies. People were told there was a gravy train, there were special interests, that the experts were either, at best, wrong, or actually lying because it was in their interests that the UK remain as part of the EU - but not the public's. And I am sorry to sound elitist, but actually no, Im not really, a lot of people who are not very well educated, but are very angry, and do hate immigrants, either because they are racist - but also maybe because they cant get a job and resented it when they saw immigrants who did have jobs - those people believed it, hook line and sinker.
And that is the point at which we do agree, I think. Those people dont make informed decisions. And there are a lot of them. And for some reason, those people always seem to be much more susceptible to the right wing's propaganda than to the left's, as we saw in the US. Which is probably because the left is generally far more divided - but that is a different discussion.
The main point, my TL/DR version, is that while the information was out there, people didnt trust it. And they did, in some cases, trust what the Leave camp was telling them - which was that they could have free trade. And yes its their fault, but its also Cameron's fault, because actually the public wasnt screaming for this referendum, it was his party, and UKIP.
