No, Brits don’t want to rejoin the EU
A poll published last weekend has been spun to claim that UK voters are experiencing Brexit regret. But other polls suggest that Rejoiners are being overly optimistic, says Gully Foyle.
The Sunday Times published an article at the weekend, regarding a poll of 2,000 British adults conducted on its behalf by More in Common. This poll showed what they reported as a turning of the tables on support for Brexit, with only 29 per cent of those included in the poll saying they would still vote to leave the EU.
The story has been picked up by numerous outlets in the intervening days, and the usual pro-EU suspects on social media have been keen to capitalise on what appears to be an important change in support in the British electorate. But as ever with catchy headlines, the devil is hidden in the detail of the article, and the raw data from the polling itself.
One of the joys of modern digital news consumption in the social-media age is that narratives are easily spun by catchy headlines to those who don’t read the articles. Moreover, the ever-growing increase in paywalled content means that the vast majority of readers could not and would not read the article even if they wanted to. So, the gem that Conservative supporters and Reform UK supporters, who between them currently represent over 50 per cent of voting intention, overwhelmingly still support staying out of the EU is lost on all but a handful of those who would be exposed to the headline. This detail is also, of course, left out from those who are peddling the narrative over social media.
Unbeknown to The Sunday Times, another larger poll was being conducted as they were preparing their article. However, this one was looking to avoid the use of the dreaded ‘B word’ completely and instead focusing on the underlying wishes of the British electorate and where they would ultimately like power to preside.
The poll was conducted by YouGov on behalf of Dr Richard Johnson of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), and spoke to over 4,500 British adults asking them to answer a single question on 20 areas of legislative competence – areas which were all either fully or partially ceded previously to the EU when the UK was still a member, and where changes (read: ‘Benefits’) have been able to be made since our departure. The results could not have been more authoritative and damning for those still wishing to see a return to the EU.
On all 20 areas of competence, the most popular answer selected was that the UK government alone should ultimately be in control in setting policy and legislation, without involvement or instruction from international bodies or neighbouring political unions. This was not only the most popular answer, but also saw overall majority support in 17 of the 20 areas.
The polling only gets more interesting as you drill down into the detail on party affiliation, however. The pro-EU ‘B*llocks to Brexit’ Liberal Democrats gave majority support to legislative independence in a whopping 16 of the 20 competencies. This does put quite the dampener on the notion that pro-EU Lib Dems ‘knew what they were voting for’ in 2016.
The outcome of the YouGov/QMUL polling should not be of major surprise to followers of UK polling, as the disconnect between sovereignty and EU membership has always been apparent. To see this in its clearest form, you only need look at the weekly voter intention polling conducted by WeThink/Omnisis from November 2022 to June 2024. These weekly snapshots asked their respondents two questions nestled between their other topics of the day. First, how would you vote in another EU referendum and secondly, how would you vote in another referendum if the Euro was mandatory (which it now is for EU membership). The result was always the same – that the first question would see a majority for rejoining, and the second would see a reversal and majority for staying out.
It seems from all this that there are a couple of takeaways from these polls – that no matter how much opinion may change on whether it was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU in 2016, the British public do not want the UK to join the EU on the terms it would have to accept in 2025.
Gully Foyle is an outspoken pro-Brexit commentator on social media, and the author of the soon-to-be released book 75 Brexit Benefits: Tangible Benefits from the UK Having Left the EU. You can follow him on X here.
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