BREGRET stands for BRExit reGRET, i.e. voting to Leave the EU and then regretting that decision later.
A person who Bregrets is known as either a Bregreter or Bregreteer.
BREGRET spread even faster across the country when Nigel Farage,
head of the anti-EU UKIP
party, went back on a Leave campaign pledge to channel £350M each week that went to the EU, to the NHS. He said that it had been a mistake to make that pledge, and that he had never made it – he blamed Boris
Johnson and his campaign for making that mistake.
Many
people who voted for Brexit, wanted to protest against the establishment. They had not really thought the consequences through. It was not until later that they realised they were not only harming the establishment, but perhaps themselves too.
On Friday morning, when the result came in at 52% supporting Leave and 48% backing Remain, the
pound went into freefall, the stock market fell, the price of property started to fall. By the end of the day, Moody’s, a company that rates countries – gives them a credit rating score – announced that because of the
UK’s Brexit vote, it was downgrading
Britain’s credit rating to ‘Negative’.
Then later in the day, a conservative
MP said the level of immigration is unlikely to decrease just because the country left the EU.
So two major pledges – money for the NHS and
cutting immigration – collapsed within one day. Hence the term BREGRET emerged, as scores of
people started to regret voting for Brexit.