[mytailorisrich]

It depends on the issue. Immigration has caused real problems among the lower earners and free movement prevented any curbs.

IMHO on this the EU put ideology before pragmatism in 2004 and the British government has also massively screwed up by being the only country (ok, also Ireland) not to put any restrictions when that was possible.

Then, obviously Merkel's open door policy in 2015 did not help at all...

Note that the result of the referendum was not binding. But it did not matter: democratically and politically you cannot organise such a referendum then ignore the result because you don't like it.