This has the potential to go off the rails very quickly.

51% of the electorate who voted 5 years ago said they wished to leave the EU. This is absolutely true.

The nuance here is that of that 51%, their reasons for voting to leave and their intended/desired future arrangement with the EU was not uniform. Some wished to maintain close ties (common market, freedom of movement, regulatory alignment etc), others wanted a clean break from everything, and a spectrum of opinion in between the two

Brexit was many things to many different people. It’s this ambiguity and room for manoeuvre in defining what exactly “Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union” is, which has been seized upon by the power-hungry, who are a minority of all Brexiteers, but a sizeable portion of the Eurosceptic MPs of the Conservative party at the time.

It appears obvious that Cameron intended the referendum to silence the eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party once and for all, as the Alternative Vote referendum did to reform of “first past the post” in the previous administration.

This backfired on him spectacularly. And he resigned immediately once the gambit failed.

But even in the "best case" where 51% voted to remain it would still have not settled the conflict. It was essentially 50/50 and that's not a clear vote for anything.

The UK was (is?) deeply split on what relationship it wants with Europe.

I agree completely with you. Personally, the referendum in my opinion should have been "Remain in the EU" vs "Clear defined vision for what we want after leaving the EU", literally any of the definitions of it; "hard brexit", or "soft brexit". That would have killed the ambiguity, and would have ensured that any the end result of such a referendum would carry the support of all the people who voted to leave.

I don't think a yes/no vote on a complex issue where there was blatant propaganda (bordering on misinformation) in support of either side really tells you much about how citizens feel about the actual complexities of case.

Phrased differently: no. I do believe the UK is deeply split on whether to believe certain media/politicians though.

there was zero discussion on the pros and cons of staying/ leaving. lots of stupid statments with lots of emotions and lots of made up promises

"Zero discussion" seems like a stretch.

from my angle yes, zero, nothing not one proper conversation

I tried many time to talk anyone about the logic, nothing

after the vote the same.

and I'm not really an emotional person at all, but I realised early on this was emotional subject. I just wanted to understand the facts and the reasons

Ok

Not them, but the people who lied to them.

Source on the lies? I always hear these types of things on HN, but nobody seems to ever back it up. We get it, you didn't want Brexit, but that doesn't mean I'm going to blindly believe that the Leave campaign was full of liars.

Here's one. (Only just read your response. Sorry.)

"There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present."

(Signed Boris Johnson, Priti Patel and Michael Gove. June 1st 2016.)

This one is pertinent as the deadline for "Settled Status" is looming. Johnson could pass a law honouring his promise to 17 million Leave voters who were reassured by his promise that their friends and family would not even have to apply for permanent residency in the UK, but hasn't.

Here you go.

https://fullfact.org/economy/brexit/

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/list-of-brexit-lies

Frankly, google "Brexit Lies". Even the spectator was laying in to the tories.

If you haven't seen the lies, respectfully, you're either blind or willfully ignorant.

I don't think I'll be taking GQ's opinion on politics seriously. That first link is very interesting -- it seems to show that Brexit is pretty much a mixed bag.