I tend to believe the opposite (purely anecdotally). Most people are apathetic when it comes to politics. We've just had local elections in the UK (seats for local councils and regional mayors). The turnout (i.e. the proportion of the population who turned up to vote) ranged from 21% to around the 30% mark for most regions in England. Turnout was higher in Scotland.
In the UK we have a lot of political discussion on TV, radio and in our highly partisan national press, but that doesn't mean the public are well-informed or particularly interested in politics. It doesn't help that many of our national newspapers deliberately seek to mislead or sway readers either. For example, when Theresa May announced a snap election, the headline in the Daily Mail wasn't 'May announces snap election', it was 'Crush the saboteurs' (opponents of Brexit).
I certainly did not get the sense a year ago that the average person in Britain really wanted there to be a referrendum at all. I just don't think your average person wanted to discuss it. In the end the referendum forced people to make a decision on a subject they didn't really care about. It is a bit like posing the question to a random passer-by. Do you want less bureaucracy? Well of course I do!
I tend to believe the opposite (purely anecdotally). Most people are apathetic when it comes to politics. We've just had local elections in the UK (seats for local councils and regional mayors). The turnout (i.e. the proportion of the population who turned up to vote) ranged from 21% to around the 30% mark for most regions in England. Turnout was higher in Scotland.
In the UK we have a lot of political discussion on TV, radio and in our highly partisan national press, but that doesn't mean the public are well-informed or particularly interested in politics. It doesn't help that many of our national newspapers deliberately seek to mislead or sway readers either. For example, when Theresa May announced a snap election, the headline in the Daily Mail wasn't 'May announces snap election', it was 'Crush the saboteurs' (opponents of Brexit).