I think it was some kind of sexual thing?

It really is a bizarre document. I could understand a wishlist or even a future tense fantasy, but the way they wrote it in past tense from a future vantage is just bonkers. It's so weird.

But looking at the dates it was published a couple days before the actual Brexit vote, which they expected to lose, so I think this was meant as a tantalizing fantasy to use to chide people once the vote failed. But then it didn't.

The UK thought it was getting a poor deal, when it had the most exceptions in the EU. It will still need another generation or two for the UK to realise that it is not the old empire anymore.

I lived in the UK for a decade until Brexit.

Most of the population has massive Nationalistic Delusions Of Grandeur, including Remainers (one of the Remain arguments was "We should stay in the EU and change it from the inside" or in other words, Britain and it's 50 million people know best and should be making the other 470 million and 27 countries to change their community for the benefit of Britain), though the Leave campaign was incredibly deluded, mainly anchored on what can be summarized as "we'll leave and they'll still give us the priviledges of membership but without the obligations".

There really was none of the "let's cooperate for the common good" spirit that most other countries have (some more of it, some less) with regards to EU membership, and their take on the EU was all "what can we get from it" and, as far as I can tell, still is. (This, by the way, is quite consistent with how Britain behave when inside the EU: it was allways "what's in it for me", always a you win or you lose vision, seldom if at all win-win)

Until that widespread heavilly nationalist and quite deluded spirit amongst the British population changes (and all that stuff is heavilly pushed by the local Press, with for example the coverage of International news there always slanted to make it seem like other countries are listenning to Britain and its PM, which is very much not the idea that the coverage of the same news in other countries passes) Britain won't be back, and frankly, having seen it up close and personal from the inside, I think is best for the rest of the EU that Britain stays out until its people accept it's just another mid-sized country and Britain becomes a normal country rather than this "old wierd uncle of Europe who is constantly going on and on about war stories which are almost a century old"

I suspect that's true for the English within the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland right now.

A lot of brexiters legit thought they'll get to enjoy free travel within the EU, but not the EU citizens to the UK.

Also, many companies pulled their head offices out of Britain in preparation for Brexit.

Depends on how you look at it. Some effects were probably visible even before the referendum just by announcing that. But on the other hand if you think "8 years ago is long enough that we should have seen all the effects by now" then the 4 year figure is probably more appropriate to make that evaluation.

This really just goes to show the strength of the global economy overall.

You're not going to play hard to get with it. You try to leave or isolate yourself, and you lose. The gaps left will be filled in quickly, and the world will move on.

Genuinely felt some betrayal and paranoia after I voted against it and it went through.

True but it’s also firmly out of our European hands now. The uk left, and we only let them back in when they have learned some humility and are willing to rejoin on standard conditions. That is not happening yet.