I think to say that the switch of trade to the EU vs the Commonwealth caused the decimation of industrial towns is drawing a long bow. The IMF as long as 20 years ago highlighted that deindustrialisation is primarily caused by trade and technology advancement[0]; even places such as Japan and China, places hailed as manufacturing giants, have or are going through this. One of the main reasons that manufacturing took off in the 80s and 90s in south east Asia was that the wages there were lower than automation; this is no longer the case. In the next decade or two south east Asia will face a reduced middle class as well, unless drastic changes are made to the capital / labour balance of income and wealth growth.

Both sides were given to hyperbole true, but that is largely driven by the UK (and most of the population of the western world) being distracted to death. Most people think the issues are too complex to worry about; they just know that the system isn't working and they will listen to people making emotive arguments who suggest they can fix everything by going back to the way it was. Of course the technology and efficiency changes genie can't be put back into the bottle; what company would voluntarily put themselves at an unnecessary disadvantage?

Trying to turn back the clock is a waste of energy.

[0] https://www.imf.org/EXTERNAL/PUBS/FT/ISSUES10/issue10.pdf

You mean the factory towns that were getting EU money for regeneration, having been decimated by the UK's political own-goal swing away from industrial output to a London-centric "service economy"

And the idea that the UK ever "traded" with the Commonwealth on anything like the scale it trades with the EU is nonsense.

The UK did a nice line in imperial resource extraction from Commonwealth countries for a good century or so. But it was never "trade" in the common market sense.

Any suggestion that it's possible for the UK to return to a time that never existed is obviously incorrect.