Yeah, if there's one problem with the EU, it is overregulation of the banking sector
Have you read the abominations put into the single resolution mechanism? Even considered the effect of curtailing political options regarding the national specificities of financial crisis?
Have you noticed that the way the non-elected ECB behaves is arbitrary (they have shown themselves to not be boud by rules, rather to make them up when desired), yet elected national governments are being bound to strinct (and inappropriate) procedures?
Surely the best argument in favour of England voting for the exit is that it'll lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom.
Pointless. The UK just had a referendum on that, there is no political cover to repeat it soon.
If an exit from the EU was decided only on a government level there might be grounds to call for a new referendum (we were betrayed by the government!). But if it results from a nationwide vote there is no excuse for one anytine soon (the people of the country - of which you just chose to be part - decided it).
I'm disappointed at Sweden's lukewarm feelings about Brexit. For Sweden, UK is a very important if not the most important ally in EU politics, we often find common ground on various issues. For this reason it would be sad if UK left.
Easy solution: just leave the rotten empire also.
It's interesting to see this little drama unfold. It was clear from the start that this whole thing isn't actually about the EU. If after days of negotiating, the most important things you can come up with are: a) striking a single sentence in the enormous corpus of EU treaties b) Deregulating your pals in the City and c) Reducing child benefits for a couple of Poles*, then was that really worth the fuzz?
It was clear for a long time that these negotiations and the referendum where mainly important from a domestic British POV. Cameron promised them, and Cameron needed to make some moves to counter UKIP politically.
Everything in the national politics of a sovereign state is about the domestic POV. And rightly so.
Cameron wanted to keep the UK in the EU, so he'd take any deal offered in the end. Others want it out for a variety of reasons, and most of those reasons are non-negotiable.
Sovereingty is something you either have, or lack. That is big for the nationalists, traditionalists, the "conservatives" in general, and they won't trust any promises, not after all the moves the EU has been making towards enforcing central rule, putting the governments of member countries in a position of impotence.
Financial regulation is important for the City interests, the business-liberal types. And they
know that the ECB and the continental banks are on course to inevitable collapse: there is no technical solution to the mess (piles and piles of bad debt) in dug itself into that is also politically acceptable. They are not scared of any continental retaliation for brexit. Rather, they are jumping ship before it sinks.
Democracy is important for the "liberals" and "liberal left". And the EU has proven itself undemocratic time and again. The way the Lisbon Treaty was pushed after the "European Constitution" was rejected in referendum on the countries that counted (the ones that didn't were just ordered to vote again until their voters voted right) is prima facie evidence of its undemocratic nature. If the pro-EU party didn't fear democracy they'd put any new treaties to the vote. Hell, the UK's goverment had the courage to do it with the issue of Scotland!
And finally, security is an important issue to the career bureaucrats and intelligence-military apparatus that remains in the UK, even after it divested itself of its empire. The security of the country (many will be nationalists), and the security of their own careers. The EU reduces their options, makes their jobs harder, or even threates it with replacement by some new central bureaucracy layer. Introduces conflicts that cannot be managed directly but must (or should) go through other actors in Brussels, Strasbourg, or Frankfurt. Binds the UK to a political construct that is already fraying due to multiple conflicts (Ukraine/Russia, the unsolved and unsolvable financial crisis of the Eurozone, the central european nationalist rebellion inside the EU, the political rebellion brewing in the souther coutries, etc) and would force them to put effort into holding this misbegotten polituical construct together... for the benefit of whom? The UK can have the same benefits outside of it, no one would cease trading after a brexit.
Every organized constituency in the UK has good reasons to support "brexit". The "pro-eu" group is basically made up of the people who are pathologically afraid of change (leaving the EU will be a disaster... because!), those eating out of EU managed funds, and a few who against all evidence remain deluded abut some nebulous european ideal.
Cameron probably now regrets having bet on the wrong horse but feels it it too late to change his position. He can see where things are heading, that is why he let his cabinet members campaign for what they wished and already said he won't resign after the referendum.
