I don't think it's nonsense at all. The vote was a binary yes/no. Whenever someone ascribes shades of grey to a "yes" or a "no", I'm also curious about where they derived this from. Because what he's telling us wasn't on the ballot at all.

So I'm not sure I'd agree the point is "a fairly standard one". Some will say it was about representation, some will say it was about sovereignty, some will say it was about immigration. Some will even say it was simply a protest against the status quo.

Anyone who states "this is what we voted for" has decided that their reason for voting yes was the primary reason for 17m to vote yes, with no evidence at all.

Leading up to the Brexit vote, there was famously a bus driving around expressing the idea that voting to leave would result in a savings of 350 million pounds per week, which could be reinvested in the NHS.

I don't think there was a bus about bureaucracy.

The UKIP bus pictured here one week before the Brexit vote says "British farmers freed from bureaucracy - Stuart Agnew MEP": https://twitter.com/ukip/status/743369504844091393

(It also says "Free business from EU red tape - Margot Parker MEP".)

I wouldn't say that bus was about bureaucracy. If anything, it bolsters the point that the Brexit vote wasn't about any one issue.

That claim was a misuse of statistics. It was more like 250M.

https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-s...

250M is also wrong, as mentioned in your link. It doesn't account for the benefits of EU membership.

One of the big reasons that pulled people to voting "no" was the perceived "invasion" of immigrants. There was a perception that EU were forcing the UK's hand, and aiding the "invasion".

One of the basic EU freedoms is free movement of people. Member states have no legal way of blocking people from other member states from coming (except for initial grace period, after new members were accepted into EU), so "forcing UK's hand" is a pretty accurate description.

There's also the filter bubble. People think everything is down the drains because that is all they hear about.

> However, when someone is making a point which is a fairly standard one in the Brexit debates we don't need "references".

If it's fairly standard I should be able to find at least one survey mentioning it online, right? I tried before sending that comment and couldn't find a single one pointing out corruption and bureaucracy as main reasons. (Or even at all) Ironically I find only articles about corruption in Vote Leave campaign. If it's that standard opinion, please post any source which ranks it against other reasons.