Let's take an example:
My Dad works in recruitment and a colleague of his voted to leave. So obviously I asked him why, because I have strong remain views.
He responded with - "well now we can do our own trade deals and business arrangements with countries such as Germany without being restricted by the EU"
My response - "Germany will still be in the EU once we leave, so how can we do our own independent deal with them. Also, why could we not do that deal with them when we were both in the EU"
This example is proof that there were some people who did not understand Brexit hence did not know what they were voting for/against.
To be honest, I don’t think either side was particularly well informed. I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that all the people entering “What is the EU?” into Google the day after the referendum was Leavers.
That's not to say that many of them weren't well-informed about what the EU was and chose to vote against it, just as there were many remainers who voted to remain without really understanding why.
In addition, the impression that remainers were generally more educated about the EU was because prominent anti-EU individuals and media outlets repeatedly published incorrect information about the EU (and Britain's relationship with it) without Leave voters taking them to task for it. However, many remain campaigners were very bad at putting forward the positive case for the EU, instead of making apocalyptic predictions (which may or may not be true when we actually leave) which allowed the Leave campaign to simply shout them down with accusations of ‘fake news’ and disdain for experts.
So I think it's fair to say that no leavers did not know what they were voting for, but many of them did know what they were voting against. I do believe that remain voters were able to be more educated about it simply because there are reams and reams of information about how the EU truly operates, so it's possible to understand it. For that reason, it strikes me as somewhat strange to have voted for leave, given that the upsides were known, and the downsides completely impossible to predict.
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