Before June 23, the EU Referendum in the United Kingdom was perceived by many as an empty rhetorical tool deployed by some sectors of the British political elite in order to exercise leverage in Brussels.
Fuelled by a pompous nationalist discourse and an insistence on economic trade-offs which appeared to be disingenuous, this anachronistic vision of Britain succeeded, nonetheless, to mobilise important segments of the British population, especially those who witnessed (directly or indirectly) the ruins of a post-World War II Europe.
In the aftermath of Brexit, we need to cast doubts on the presumed “rationality” of actors, commonly discussed in economic theory. With complete information, agents should, in theory, be able to make rational and informed decisions about what is in their best interests. The focus on economic trade-offs deriving from the UK’s position inside or outside the EU, during the Referendum campaign, called for a direct judgement from the part of the British citizens on such a complex and ramified issue such as that of abandoning the EU.
