I think the main reason was that populist politicians where allowed to lie unopposed. £350M per week for the NHS anyone? (End: constants strikes in the NHS about small pay rises to mitigate inflation). Singapore on Thames? Easiest trade agreement in the world? Trade agreement with the US? Free ports everywhere? UK world beating (of course world beating, they can't just be good, or even better than others, they have to aggressive beat them down) in everything ? I haven't heard that for a long time.
As a populist you can say whatever you want as you usually don't have to stand up for it. Same here. Three Prime Ministers in the same legislation period since Brexit was done. The liars are mostly gone but Brexit is still there.
The reason for Brexit was in no small amount that pugilistic lies where allowed unopposed.
The UK was and is a cultural outlier in Europe. Even if this were true (which I'm not convinced it was), it's not representative of what's going on in the rest of Europe.
The 52% who voted to leave were not voting for a massive deregulated society. In most cases, actually the opposite: "bring back control"
Depending on your definition of success of course.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/28/uk-eu-are-be...
I'd need to be convinced that's true. More regulation was a huge part of the successful campaign to get the UK out of the EU. It seems to get effusive praise in places like this, but in daily business, I generally hear the term GDPR spat. Is anyone expecting the incoming car regulation around beeps and bongs every time you approach the speed limit to be received well by ordinary people? The USBC stuff that this article heaps praise on is a great example, techies love it, everyone else in everyday life I've only heard complain about it. Maybe it improves things long-term, but I can't remember hearing anyone say "more, better" about any of these things.
I would say the overall sentiment I've heard is that there is a general suspicion that the reason European business lags so far behind the US is that we're held back. I don't think the handful of people that will be able to play Fortnite on their iPhones will change this. It certainly wont if they end up needing multiple app stores for their daily apps.