It's less the people of the UK have chosen this and more of general apathy towards the state of the world today. The lack of unity and mobilization of the proletariat class to secure our rightful share of the productivity gains of recent decades has left us in a terrible bargaining position, and technology these days is such a huge force multiplier that it feels hopeless to go against governments, and to a lesser extent the huge corporations and elites that influence them (or totally control, according to some). Sometimes I wonder if we've already crossed the point of no return and that they've won and just nobody realizes it yet, and we're doomed to descend into some flavor of corporate dystopian hellhole future.