The possibility of another general election was met with little enthusiasm by both leave and remain voters in Watford this week, with some saying they had lost faith in the political process altogether.

“Carnage,” is how one leave voter described it bluntly, shaking his head at the prospect. “Utter carnage.”

“It’s a way too divided nation to go down the route of picking a leader again,” he said, adding an election would be an unappealing prospect for a floating voter. “I feel like traditionally [I am] very much Conservative – Labour. I personally don’t feel like I can associate with either of those now. So then you go down the route of ‘should I go for a protest vote?’”

Others said they could not see the point in voting at all any more. “I wouldn’t vote. Why should I bother to vote?” one woman said.

Another woman asked: “What’s the point of voting again?”

Focus groups run by the thinktank BritainThinks asked a cross-section of voters – eight from the leave and eight from the the remain camp – to discuss the state of UK politics for their Brexit Diaries project. Among the questions was how they felt about being sent back to the polls.

Sitting around a table in a community centre 15 miles north of London, the leave group went first and showed sheer fatigue at the thought of another election as well as disdain for the two main political parties.

One woman rushed to say: “Because Labour and the Conservatives are so split, I would find anybody who feels passionately about Brexit – and most people do – would feel themselves drawn to vote Liberal Democrat, or the Brexit party.”

She said that would create a situation of people backing political parties they know very little about in terms of their domestic policies. “This is why we’ve got to get this issue out the way before we go to an election,” she added.

The issue of integrity, or lack of it among politicians, also permeated the discussion. “We voted for MPs in 2015 and 2017. A lot of them are no longer in the parties we voted for either. Who can we trust?” a member of the leave group asked.

And older man jumped in: “There is no integrity.”

While being downbeat about an election, participants of the leave group were surprisingly tolerant of a second referendum – normally the preserve of a remain voter.

On whether there should be a public vote with Johnson’s deal or remain on the ballot paper, three of the eight said they wouldn’t mind that as an option.

The bleak outlook on another election did not improve in the remain group either. A young man said: “If you want another vote it’s the lesser of two evils [compared to a second referendum] but it’s a waste of time.”

He added later: “More red buses, more lies, more politicians’ ‘BS’.”

A woman among the remain participants said: “I feel like the result would be the same. I think it will still be a Tory government. It just delays it further as well which is annoying everyone … because you just want it over and done with.”

Another female participant added: “Nothing will change and they are just spending more money.”

However, one man thought it could provide much needed clarity and was more positive about the prospect than anyone in the leave group, despite many in that discussion seeing Johnson as a relatively strong leader. “Theresa May was unelected [sic], Boris Johnson was unelected,” he said. “So I would like a clear general election where you have a party with the most MPs that can pass through bills going forward.”

Deborah Mattinson, the founding partner of BritainThinks, said the 16 members of the public had presented some powerful examples of disillusionment which might make any upcoming election difficult to predict.

She said: “For lots of reasons this coming election is going to be particularly hard to call and one of the reasons is people are so disillusioned with all politicians that I think it’s very hard to judge what turnout will look like.

“I think a lot of people think, ‘Well I voted last time, they didn’t do any of the things I asked them to do, I don’t trust them to do what I’m going to ask them to do now, so why bother?’

“There’s this complete dejection really, and rejection of the process.”