I am thinking about decades of missed opportunities to live and work abroad and the long term impacts of massive reductions in jobs in the poorest areas of the country.

The democratic vote could not be ignored because the people gave their whole-hearted consent.

That is the difference, June 2016 was split down the middle, a recipe for disaster.

I am aware that you like the glass half empty interpretation but you and I have no real idea how Brexit will work out in terms of the economy and therefore, in reality, we are left to choose sides based on wider ideological issues.

You might prefer the Star Trek version of the future with a world government, no real nation states, and racial harmony but in reality that seems like a far less pleasant idea when you consider that before we ever get there (we won't) there will be a population crisis ultimately causing a breakdown of society and before that, decades of religious and cultural friction and a reduction in personal wealth created by freedom of movement and automation. We will also have no say on our futures since we will be reduced to corporate drones with no influence on a centralised government who feed us what they want us to know or believe.

Captain Kirk would probably a low paid Asian who grew up in a Shanti town and the Enterprise would never leave dock because deep space travel will only done by robots built in China by other robots.

In Ireland we got to vote on it twice. We made the wrong decision the first time so had to be educated and then vote again until we got it right.
Reminds me of what seems to be a decent possibility with Brexit.

in Ireland we got vote-raped. When we said 'No' the EU said we were just being difficult and pressed on regardless.

Never forget just how evil and pushy the EU are.

Really,? The general consensus in Ireland in 70-90% like being in the EU

[Link]

Euroscepticism seems to be only an English phenomenon