Actually, Britain (like Germany) has long been financing a growing portion of the debt of the truly failed economies across Europe, in an attempt to keep Europe together.
Many socialized European economies have been dependent on further financing and bailouts!
Socialist parties across Europe (including Britain’s Labor Party) are furious with these results!
The people of Britain have been feeling the financial pressure of EU debt more every year for a long time.
The rhetoric of those who have long been seeking to desovereignize individual nations around the is telling as well.
This does shake things up a bit, but the potential for Britain is greater without the debt of Europe.
I suspect many Brits assumed that while they would pay a price for subsidizing the poorer EU nations, they also felt they’d have a leadership position and watched Germany take that instead. Besides the debt of those poorer nations (primarily in the south), I think they were fed up with having to take the Third Worlders in that had reached those southern member states...
London, like any major city in America or Canada, is very socialized and dependent on government hand outs and cronyism.
Like our American cities, London’s socialized demographics have truly worked to tear apart the principles necessary for their free society to continue to exist.
The onslaught (invasion) of undocumented Muslims is also direct threat to the future of Britain.
There are many legitimate reasons for British citizens to have voted the way they did.
You may have an overall point.
Back in 1998-1999, there was a major buzz in EU countries about a single European currency kicking in, and how EU was going to be like the U.S. - a United Countries of Europe (so to speak).
Actually, the original EU (post EEC era) was established to somewhat (I say somewhat) economically rival the U.S. The other consideration was to politically unite many European countries, in case of another World War.
Of course, Europe, historically, and in many other ways, is not the U.S.
I would not be surprised if the entire EU fell on its face, in its entirety. After all, some never liked the original vision & purpose of it, to begin with.
By the way, Britain has never considered itself “Europe”. Europe is the continent of Europe and Britain is, well, traditionally known as the British Isles, west of the “Europe - the continent”.
So, the Brit independence type of thinking shouldn’t be a novelty or a surprise.