Lasting damage?
Do me a lemon.
Tell that to all the manufacturing firms that have moved abroad via EU funding.
The amount of jobs lost due to socialist labour governments making this country uncompetitive, exacerbated by the EU actually assisting the firms to relocate, and our own government now forbidden to help bail out struggling domestic firms by EU law eg British Steel (due to past socialism and trade unions thinking they own the country).
We are out of this joke political union.
Leftists... Off you trot to Belgium. Take comrade commie Corbyn with you.
That British Steel stuff is an oversimplification of matters. Bailing that out (again) would in many ways be good money after bad -- all those nice shots on the news as it was going down just served to show me how behind the curve they actually were, and looking at their general approaches there were in serious need of a stupendous cash injection to not only keep running but not get taken out for good in maybe 10 years when India or Pakistan decides to pull their thumb out of their arse and do more than cheap and simple things*. One might still make the argument as some kind of pragmatic thing if it is a one trick pony/source of all things for the area that it would be cheaper than a repeat of Thatcher vs Wales (though that might even be more apt of a comparison if the state of the mines there leading to it and lack of adoption of high tech in the fields), though it is not an argument I would normally expect to hear pass the lips of one such as yourself. Be careful you don't treat British industry like Americans treat farmers -- some kind of romantic historical notion of what it is and means to the country somehow bleeding through into the modern world. Unlike said farmers though I can see some future for it, and not just to save my own skin.
*India, and increasingly Pakistan, have some decent abilities here, and I will not discount China either and south America could come up (all those fun loans in the 80s that the UK et al sent out there to kickstart their industry did actually make some infrastructure, even if the market did not give a crap about the resulting products despite the claims of the finance peeps initially offering the loans). Their quality control is shit and thus I would hate to presently have any kind of complex, critical work done there -- a lot of what I fix and have to sort is people cheaping out there, what casting/forging shops I do deal with in the UK (though usually non ferrous ones) often (or indeed as their main revenue stream) send things out to there, China, South America... From what I saw of British Steel's machines and setup in those news reports and pity pieces they were not geared for tight tolerance work with complex forgings (not to mention they would be screaming this from the rooftops if it were the case). Their main claims to fame then being that they actually did proper material sampling, product testing and such for what amounts to fairly basic products. Judging by where my friends and associates are heading out to, and looking at the demographics of international students in UK Engineering departments (for all else that might be said the UK educational system, as much as it now costs
https://www.statista.com/statistics...-average-debt-on-entry-to-repayment-timeline/ , can and does produce some top tier engineers) then it will probably click for India and Pakistan that testing at all the proper points on the chain (something they already have all the gear to do) is a good plan before too long -- many of those I did follow the stories of have the companies (usually family ones) resultantly punch well above their weight. Once that happens and if wages have not gone like the tier 1 cities of China before then it is going to be a fairly big shake up akin to China and electronics 15 years ago.
Worse is I just dragged up a profits by year thing for its various incarnations and they were considerable at times so it is not like they have even been limping by for however long and could not afford to reinvest.
Industry wise. I would look at a variety of factors here. The UK does not really dig anything up any more (importing is then a relative expense), environmental laws are fairly harsh (some not without reason, some I find dubious, many also the reason things are not dug up any more), energy costs are pretty high (there is a bit of nuclear but not France or Japan levels, and the geography is not there like Iceland or something), labour costs are pretty high (especially compared to Asia), the financial sector (if we have to play to your "leftists ist the root of all ills" idea you will not find too many of those in the higher echelons of finance) was far more attracted to paper pushing and software and frequently denied or gave shit terms, effectively then denying, on finance (the returns on investment there are several times higher than even a well optimised factory, and said factories don't even have the massive stability for said lower rates of return that you can also find in areas of finance), the firms themselves have not been inclined to take new people in (there is a reason so many of my friends and associates are fucking off abroad, and I have seen just as many take things way below what they were trained for (presumably displacing others or denying advancement in the process) if they can even break in before toddling off to finance to program their computers or something and having it be a hobby rather than a career).
One might look at Japan (lots of often very small industry, including hand work too, though Japan's finances are an interesting one that I don't know if we would emulate) or Germany (ignoring their brown coal bonus, which will probably taper off but I am not sure of current goings there) and see something, though I am not sure it entirely applies. Also unlike the US which can try to mandate it has its massive and hideously bloated military to outfit itself by itself and thus allow for something I don't see the UK having a similar option.
Anyway we might be getting off topic a bit there. You speak of the will of the people. It seems of those that voted back then that the result was over the whole nation the desire to leave, even with the shockingly poor state of the campaigns around it. Fair enough. The job then is to do it well. It also behoves one to consider how very close it was -- much of politics is trying to balance things (or if you prefer despite how UKIP and such never held much actual power their effects are considerable with politics as a whole, and this is near enough half that cared to engage), as well as the breakdowns within the union that is the country (or would you dismiss Scotland's still also recent referendum results in a similar manner to how you approach this? If you can keep people reasonably happy then it makes sense to do it). This was not however a job well done.
Maybe it will be that it is all so irrecoverably hosed up that no deal is the best that can be hoped for in the present circumstances -- if my doctor through incompetence and inattention left my infection to go on for so long that rather than some antibiotics and a bit of bedrest I ended up with an amputated leg following a bout of gangrene I would be within my rights to be a bit upset about it all, despite the plus of not being dead.
As far as blaming labour. They have much to answer for, and I don't think history will look favourably upon this iteration of the conservatives either. They have however held power local and national, up and down the land no less (give or take the SNP since that became a thing, though it is not like they are absent there either), for how many years now (
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7529 )? If they are too toothless to undo the ills wrought by previous governments, and they seem to be able to push through utter bollocks like the various things concerning speech, the porn blocks and if we are going back to industry and trades the amount of red tape that goes on there and that has increased in the last however many years (beyond that which other countries see either, give or take Australia) then what I am supposed to think here? Some of it might be the fault of them shooting themselves in the foot with that snap election and becoming less able as a result. I would still look however at them pulling the trigger on article 50 without even seemingly the outline of a plan in place, much less a workable series,
Whats surprising though is, that out of the top personal of about a dozen people that was part of his first election team - only one (Medvedev) is still alive.. 
