UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) in conjunction with the pollsters Public First, has carried out a survey about Bregret. This as the name implies, is the Brexit regret being increasingly felt by both leavers and remainers. A key finding is that just 9% of the population think Brexit is going well, and I would bet serious money that most of that 9% haven’t the foggiest idea what’s going on anyway. They live in their own bubble and certainly can’t be reading any news that’s for sure. The full report, Exploring ‘Bregret’: Public attitudes to Brexit seven years on, can be found HERE.
It’s a serious piece of work involving five focus groups (in Bassetlaw, Thurrock, and Ashfield) and a national poll of 4,000 people.
A few key points:
First, as I have posted a number of times on this blog, there has been a changing of minds on both sides, but invariably more leavers regret Brexit than remainers endorse it. In this most recent polling, the figures are 16% to 6%.
"The vast majority of voters say they would vote the same way as they did in 2016, knowing what they do now. However, Leave voters are more likely to say they would have voted differently than Remainers (16% vs 6%)."
Yes, it's true the great majority would vote the same way, but from the outset, leavers are always far more likely to switch. In this poll more than two and a half times as many leave voters as remain voters have changed their thinking on Brexit. This 10% difference is way more than is needed to reverse the decision.
I see a lot of people who don't believe that in the event of another referendum, this would necessarily mean a victory for the rejoin advocating side. But this would mean a majority and a rising one at that, living permanently in a state of regret in order to placate a diminishing minority. I don't see that being sustainable at all.
And don't forget these figures don't include the demographic changes either which are inexorably stacking up in favour of rejoin.
The report looks at why leave voters have or haven't switched with so many thinking it's either gone badly, very badly or it's too early to say.
One of the reasons is this:
"These genuinely angry Leave voters are also relatively small in number. The reality is that most voters are just thinking about other things, like the economy, the health service and crime." One focus group attendee, a woman in her 20s in Bassetlaw, said:
“I don’t know. I’m sort of in the position where I don’t feel passionately enough about it either way, I’m just a bit like hmm.”
But she was apparently passionate enough to go to the polling station in 2016 and vote for the biggest upheaval in our political, economic, and constitutional settlement in half a century. It doesn't make sense to me. What is true is that millions voted in the referendum without caring very much what the consequences would be. Whether they even knew enough to cast a vote is also telling.
Take a look here:
Almost half of leave voters thought they had been well informed in 2016 compared to 29% of remain voters. Talk about ignorance being bliss.
Despite all the difficulties - in trade, travel, and with the Irish border - a big majority of leave voters still think Brexit "will be alright in the end" with zero evidence that it will and most serious economists forecasting long-term or permanent damage to the economy and therefore to the nation's prosperity:
And here is perhaps our answer. How long will that 61% continue to believe it will indeed be alright in the end? A lot of them blame the politicians for 'not doing Brexit right' but we have had a government, since 2019 certainly, of committed Brexiteers who have been unable to show any benefits whatsoever.
If Labour gets into power next year as they almost certainly will, the pressure will be on Starmer to move far closer to the EU, follow EU rules, and so on, perhaps even to begin thinking about an association agreement. The direction of travel will be reversed if not Brexit itself.
Couple that with an improving economy and a slow rise in living standards and the case for rejoining will soon become overwhelming as they become linked in the public mind with softening or reversing Brexit.
