The perception is that things like worker protections, environmental standards, safety standards, human rights protections, maternity leave and so on are bad for corporate profits. It's not clear to me that this is true in the long run (i.e. in the order of tens of quarters, not one quarter).

The British population would probably hate a neo-liberal EU even more because it would become the excuse for taking away their rights and benefits. The British media might very well love it to bits though, if that's what their bosses told them to do.