[gambiting]

What are you talking about. UK is the prime example of political parties being extremely critical of the EU and eventually getting exactly what they asked for.

But even if you think UK is some kind of weird one-off example - it's not. Look at Poland - PiS has been openly critical of EU for years now and held power for years, will most likely win it again in the next elections. Konfederacja straight up calls EU facist on a daily basis and they have like 20% support for some insane reason.

>>by "independent" national (state sponsored) media.

You have to explain what you mean by this - you can't be independent and state sponsored. Or do you mean unbiasased(like what the BBC or TVP are meant to be, which they are obviously not but they are not "independent")

[Etherlord87]

That "insane reason" is the propaganda machine(s) of russia and china. Konfederacja is called Konfederussia by many Poles just because how often what they say align with russian interest. The founder of Konfederacja, Janusz Korwin-Mikke once said that in the war between russia and Poland, he would fight on the side of the former.

[YetAnotherNick]

UK is a wrong example as their issue wasn't EU's policies but the idea of one Europe. They wanted to have control on the borders that was fundamentally incompatible with EU.

[SiempreViernes]

Why would you first claim the issue "wasn't EU's policies" and then list the extremely central EU free movement policy as the issue?

[AlecSchueler]

And even then it was based on a misunderstanding of border policy, a false perception of control by the EU. In the years since Brexit all of the issues they had have only worsened and the biggest political agitator now is just the same group that pushed for Brexit with a new name still running on an anti immigrant ticket. Turns out the border problems were policies of their own governments.

[graemep]

I disagree. Control or borders was one of many issues. Policies and regulations were definitely an issue too.

https://media.ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CSI-B...

I think something that is under estimated is how much it was a matter of identity - do people feel British or European? The areas that voted remain most strongly were the nationalist areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland.