You are talking about a country where every party is either anti-EU.
The people just plain voted for that what the media and the parties told them for decades - that the EU is holding back UK.
Don't try to rewrite the narrative to get a point, it doesn't work.
What are you talking about, I'm not trying to rewrite any narrative. I know the UK media has blamed the EU for decades but that created the toxic situation where UKIP gained voters after being largely irrelevant for decades.
The EU-sceptic arms of the Tory and Labour Party (which aren't a majority) were kept fairly well under wraps by their respective leaders for decades but the rise of UKIP which was directly cannibalising Tory voters was looked at as a threat by David Cameron so an in/out referendum was called to put an end to the question, sadly he read the electorate wrong and leave won by a tiny margin. Now the foaming at the mouth EU-sceptics on both sides of the spectrum have been unleashed and nobody dares speak out against them lest they be labelled a traitor to the party or an enemy of the people.
What I'm saying is UKIP were seen as a threat holding only one seat and managed to achieve what they've wanted for decades.
Every party isn't anti-EU either, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens are still pro-EU and the Tories and Labour were pro-EU until Leave won where they had to change their positions to match that of the electorate all because of a previously irrelevant group of nutjobs.