EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Nobody wants a cliff edge Brexit, bar the ones that stand to gain a lot on the stockmarket/by vulture buying companies and capital.

Sadly, I don't think that this is true any more. Originally I think the only people who were keen on a hard/WTO brexit were motivated by some or all of: Thatcherite ideology (Hannan), nostalgia for pre-EU Britain (Rees-Mogg), xenophobic politics (Farage), and financial opportunism/disaster capitalism. What I believe happened was that this cabal of "globalising" Brexiteers managed (with the help of the grubbily opportunistic Boris) to convince a large chunk of the population that what Brexit would actually be is essentially a protectionist endeavour that would keep all the economic benefits of EU membership while reducing the (perceived) impact of immigration on wages, the NHS and housing. Of course, this was always completely impossible because freedom of movement will always be a corollary of having full access to the single market and decision-making powers within it. But it was easier to sell that lie than try to pretend that a globalising Brexit could somehow be protectionist at the same time. What was astonishing to me was that this bunch of millionaires somehow managed to convince millions of ordinary working-class people that they had their interests at heart.

Anyway, after the referendum the tactics shifted. It didn't really matter what Brexit was going to be any more. All that mattered was that the will of the people was being obstructed by the "political elite" (which somehow didn't include these people and did include judges) and, more importantly, by Brussels. The former were painted just as remainers, which is probably true, but doesn't explain why Brexiteers like David Davis were unable to find any type of Brexit that actually satisfied everyone. The latter were painted as being intransigent (i.e., consistent in representing the interests of EU members and the integrity of the EU over the interests of a soon-to-be non-member) and not giving the UK what we deserved, because "we won the war for them" and "they need us more than we need them" etc.

The upshot of this misrepresentation is that leave-voters will never have to face the truth that they were sold a pup and instead will blame the non-existence of the unicorn on people who were either unable or simply not responsible for delivering it (the Brexiteers having all fucked off out of the decision making process by this stage). This means that the leave vote is now more entrenched (and possibly bigger because of the EU having portrayed as the enemy) and that there is an increasingly large group of leave voters who actually do want a no-deal Brexit because they can't get what they were promised (i.e., a no-cost, all-benefit Brexit via an easy deal with a forelock-tugging EU) and see no-deal as the only route for nominally achieving what they voted for i.e., the empty gesture of leaving the EU, despite there being no sign that they will receive any of the promised beneficial consequences.