> Questions such as "should we stay in the EU" can't be answered by experts.
There's an interesting idea for a method of government based on the distinction between values and policy results.
> In "futarchy," we would vote on values, but bet on beliefs
https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
In my opinion 'should the UK stay in the EU' would very definitely be a question of policy not values. It would actually be pretty difficult to disentangle the brexit question into meaningful values.
You could say it's about 'sovereignty', but the UK parliament is as sovereign as it ever was - as the very fact that it's currently leaving demonstrates. In fact for the pure self-interested, short term version of sovereignty, the right thing to do is to plough your own furrow, taking advantage of the benefits and ignoring what you don't like until you are finally kicked out of the EU, which is something we might well see some other EU countries do. Any more nuanced understanding of sovereignty would realize that sovereignty is how we describe an entity that is able to enter into and keep agreements, and exercise infuence on other actors, not one that is unable to because it might restrict its freedom of action. Just as for humans, the end result of refusing all bonds is not freedom, it's extreme restriction. And that's not even considering the strain that leaving the EU puts on relationships with Scotland and Northern Ireland. It wouldn't surprise me at all if down the road brexit ends in break-up. Sovereignty takes on a bit more nuance when you're simultaneously denying it to your constituent members by leaving.
You could say it's about 'migration', but that's not a proper value either. I suspect that people who complain about migration have values to do with crime, economics, and needing to be around people 'like them'. The only thing about those values, is that for most of them, migration is exactly the wrong thing to be worried about. As 'experts' know, migrants are less likely to commit crime, and more likely to pay taxes than the native born.
I don't think the UK should be leaving the EU for policy reasons. I believe that it's in the interests of the UK, of Europe, of the world to resist the forces trying to disintegrate Europe (I've read enough history to know what happened last time). I think many of the disagreements I have with people who think it should leave are at the level of reality - things that could be established by fact.
Trying to claim that it's motivated by differences of values is part of what is making the issue less clear.
Of course this is all made extra difficult by the fact that the whole thing has been horrendously mishandled. The government has repeatedly and continually believed things for long periods of time about negotiating with Europe that are simply untrue. It was obvious from the start that this was going to be complicated, and pressing the button to start the ticking timebomb you're sat on top of, is not a great way to negotiate either. Whether you want Brexit or not, invoking article 50 before anyone knew what it meant was the height of idiocy.