[mc32]

The main thing is that regardless of who pushed for or against the UK exiting the EU the voters voted to leave.

Neither Boris nor David made a unilateral decision. The people took action and voted against the EU. Lots of people are in shock but should not be.

[mstade]

Well, lots of people also voted for the EU – it was far from unanimous after all.

[mc32]

So when the votes align with the elites, do you see similar hand wringing? Oh, but so many people voted against our position... Not very likely.

[capote]

And it seems many of the leave voters are regretting their choice now.

[Kurtz79]

They both rode (in turn) petty nationalism sentiments to further their own ambitions.

I really don't think people's best interests have been served.

[pc86]

So is it better for a people to have their voice heard, and in that harm many of themselves, or to have their voice ignored "for the greater good?"

[vec]

There's essentially no such thing as pure democracy at a national level. Even in cases of public referenda and ballot initiatives there's still a small group of (usually) professional bureaucrats of one variety or another that controls what questions are asked, how they are asked, and to whom.

Asking "the people to have their voice heard" on international organizations and trade agreements is particularly ill advised because those are "how" questions instead of "what" questions, and to a first approximation nobody actually cares about how. People care about whether their job is secure, or their groceries are affordable, or their culture is preserved.

Leaving the EU may or may not be a good idea for Britan, but crucially very few people really know whether it would or not. The level of specialized training necessary to reasonably predict the effects of leaving on any of the core interests that people do actually care about is prohibitively high. Directly asking whether to leave the EU is a bad idea because it doesn't capture what "the people" really want and it forces a specific course of action even when there may be safer and more effective methods for achieving the same ends.