In the midsts of a decent conversation, even you’ve resorted to playing the blame game! I’d say that the British have shown as much contempt for the EU by their behaviour too, by their lack of preparation & their subsequent clarion call of “It’s the EU’s fault”.That is very true.
What surprises me most is that the contempt shown to the British by the EU was so self evident that anyone, irrespective of their political persuasion, would even think of staying in.
There are two distinct issues in play here. Getting out of the EU is one thing, preparing for later relations is quite another.
Many Brexiteers, like me, consider that we are not out of the EU. Put simply, the EU still has control over some of our affairs, so by my reckoning we are not actually out.
But more importantly the government wasted 4+ years in the hope that something would happen so that they could somehow cancel the whole thing and stay in. Most retainers and almost the entire government/civil service cabal wanted that too.
Which brings us to where we are today, stuck with possibly the worst possible outcome.
It’s also notable in the media that our govt’s behaviour is explained away by us “sticking it to them” - if anyone thought that the EU would simply roll over because “we’re British & that’s it!”, they need to give their head a wobble.
IMHO, I don’t think the lack of action by the govt can explain any desire of theirs to get Brexit cancelled - I genuinely believe that they simply used it as a vote-winner to say they would “deliver Brexit”, & then buoyed by Johnson’s usual boisterous nature to say lots but do very little, couldn’t be bothered to do the actual leg-work for it, thinking that they could bluff the EU & get them to blink first.