Some future election, yeah, more or less. Remain win would have meant the leave campaign's electorate would have been further embittered (i.e. more supportive of the campaign's political backers), and the parties behind it would still be able to lie out of their ass and blame most everything the british government was screwing up on the EU, which was probably half or better the reason many of them were still in office/power.
Also as a stick in negotiations with the EU -- like I mentioned, what they were doing/intending to do/still may end up doing was use the threat of leave largely like the republicans in the US use the threat of default, using the threat of economic ruin as a lever to get more preferential treatment. Was basically a bluff the EU couldn't afford to call, and a hand the UK politicians were better off* not actually playing, even if they had the cards for it. But forced hands and all that and now the EU is mostly telling them to put up or shut up :V
E: Though as near as I can tell from seeing all sides of the UK folks talking about this stuff, nigel is not actually a politician, but in reality an ambulatory pustule that has somehow managed to detach itself from britian's ass and started babbling at people. There's probably some that did actually want it (there always are), but... not many, and even them apparently couldn't be arsed to have an actual day 1 plan ready to go in case it happened.
*Especially from a domestic political standpoint; basically no one came into this mess having any goddamn idea what they were going to do if leave won; not the leave campaign, not the remain campaign, not random hobos in the street, which is why the current actions more or less boil down to panic and stall for time and some of their political parties are functionally imploding.