> I have a mixed bag of UK friends, and it's about half-half.

Polls show the population regrets Brexit. [1]

> One thing I think myself is that there was an ugly _hope_ that the UK would suffer as a result. A hope which, as far as I can see, wasn't realised. Living in Europe, I saw a lot on the news about how the UK had shot itself in the foot and things were going badly, but when I visit friends, not so much.

The UK took a big hit to GDP as a result of Brexit [2], it drastically raised export costs [3] and ordinary people have faced steeper household bills ever since. [4] Meanwhile it led to increased immigration [5] with consequent social tensions.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-po...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/how-brexit-is-estimated-hav...

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-exp...

[4] https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cp628.pdf

[5] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2025/7729...