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1/ When we ask Leavers to name a benefit of Brexit we miss the point. At the level of gut feelings, they are engaged in a fantasy war of independence against the EU to regain the national pride lost in the humiliating collapse of empire & our forlorn entry into the EEC.
2/ Once you see Brexit in terms of a pride-restoring fantasy war of independence you see why economic arguments have little or no impact on Leavers. Wars mean sacrifices. Hardship must be endured to restore the nation's pride. Those who question the war are suspect or traitors.
3/ I have no idea how to persuade people of the folly of such deluded nationalism. During WW2 millions of Germans continued to follow Hitler even as the promised 1000 year Reich crumbled into ruins. Extreme nationalism has that kind of perverse and terrible effect on human minds.
4/ I fear that all we can do is combat the Brexiters as strongly as peaceful politics allows, and wait for the gradual course of demographic change to restore England to political sanity.
5/ But before we say Leavers are mad, let's remember that humans have only survived by virtue of living in tribes, within which at times of danger loyalty and self-sacrifice are paramount values.
6/ Our brains have evolved to be very prone to switching into a tribal mode at times of social stress and crisis. We don't have to make a conscious decision to be tribal, it just happens to us, that's how evolved psychological dispositions work.
7/ As tribes have been vital for our survival we have a psychological disposition to want to see our tribe as strong & successful. And that's another way of saying we want to feel pride in our tribe/nation, and that takes us back to the fantasy war of independence against the EU.
8/ If those of us who are functioning in tribal mode feel the tribe/nation is weak and unable to control its own membership or affairs then they will feel vulnerable and will be quite willing to undergo hardship to restore the tribe's strength and status.
9/ At a gut level they will regard those who oppose what they believe to be measures that strengthen the tribe as directly threatening their welfare, which they believe/feel depends on the tribe/nation.
10/ If you think this is all fairly abstract and disconnected from the daily reality of Brexit just take a look at pro-Brexit propaganda. It plays to exactly the kind of fear-driven and pride-craving tribalism I have been describing . 
