I’m convinced a pro-EU message by Labour will force the Brexit issues back onto the political agenda, to the party’s advantage. Starmer needs to decide quickly which side of the fence he’s on. When faced with a clear choice, I think voters disillusioned with Brexit will see the sense in reversing it.
Best for Britain has commissioned some polling ahead of next month’s budget statement to check out voters’ attitude to the EU. The chancellor has already stated that the effects of Brexit have been worse than expected, and the governor of the Bank of England has echoed that message. Andrew Bailey said Brexit is expected to have a "negative impact for the foreseeable future." I think Reeves has asked the OBR to produce some extra modelling to show how Brexit has affected the UK economy and government revenues. This should be published alongside Reeves’ statement on 26 November and will reinforce the message.
So, the polling comes at a timely moment.
The survey presented in this report included a total sample size of 4,368 adults, so quite a serious effort by pollsters YouGov. Fieldwork was undertaken between 5th - 10th September.
Asked if Brexit has been more of a success or a failure, 35% of those who voted to leave in 2016 said it had been more of a failure. Only 2% of Remain voters thought it had been more of a success, and you tend to believe these are people who never bother to inform themselves about anything.
When those who thought Brexit had been a failure (62%) were given a choice of figures and asked who they held responsible, 80% said Boris Johnson (59% thought he was very responsible and 21% somewhat responsible). By comparison, Farage was found responsible by 69%. The really odd thing is that 26% of people who voted Reform last year hold Farage responsible, as does 35% of those intending to vote for Reform next time!
It's impossible to see the logic they are using here.
David Cameron was blamed by 74%, although apart from calling and losing the referendum, it’s hard to understand what he did to make Brexit a failure or a success. Nevertheless, more people blame him than blame Farage.
You couldn’t make it up. I’m not sure if voters realise just how much damage Brexit has already done economically, diplomatically and socially to this country and what it’s likely to cost in the future to reverse it. We will have to give up the budget rebate for a start. Yet around a third of voters stand ready to give Farage another opportunity to deliver more chaos after the next election.
To demonstrate the pickle that Rachel Reeves is in, the public borrowing figures for September came in at £20.1 billion, their highest level since 2020 when Covid was ripping through the population and we were in lockdown. It means borrowing for the first half of fiscal year 2025-26 is at £99.8 billion. I seem to remember MP's almost fainting when Alastair Darling forecast annual borrowing of £175 billion after the financial crisis. Nowadays, nobody bats an eyelid. Without growth, the situation is going to deteriorate even more.
Rafael Behr in The Guardian has a nice article on Labour being dragged kicking and screaming towards the obvious solution to counter the growth problem: Nothing else has worked – so Starmer and Reeves are finally telling the truth about Brexit
Things have reached such a state that politicians are being compelled to actually tell the truth! It must be bad.
Labour is making the first small, tentative baby steps towards reversing Brexit, but it is in danger of looking like Johnny-come-latelies. Zack Polanski, leader of The Green Party, has openly declared that their policy is to rejoin. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has said we should rejoin the EU Customs Union and last year, suggested EU membership was a long-term objective. The SNP's position is that an independent Scotland should seek to rejoin, just like Plaid Cymru.
The Tories are in danger of disappearing altogether. They’ve become a collection of non-entities adrift without any clear policies and a lacklustre Kemi Badenoch in charge. You can imagine the rump either switching to Reform or joining them in a loose coalition to avoid a wipe out at the next election. Reform is admittedly in a strong position at the moment, but the party is a scandal-ridden, one-man band almost certain to implode before the next election.
Labour is very slowly coming to the same conclusion. But, as Anand Menon wrote a few days ago, the EU aren’t interested in 'making Brexit work.' Why would they be? The sooner Reeves, Starmer and the Tories disabuse themselves that there is a perfect Shangri-la midway between being in or out of the EU, that we can define, will actually work in our favour and is negotiable with the EU27, the better.
It is delusional to think that Brussels is concerned about the UK. They have plenty of their own problems to resolve without spending time comforting an ex-member and thrashing out a bespoke deal that makes Brexit appear remotely acceptable.
Labour are in the position of a senior manager or an adviser. The voters are the shareholders or the board of directors. They made a decision nearly ten years ago that they think was wrong and continues to damage the business.
Aren’t they duty-bound to say so and to show how the mistake can be corrected? They need to be bolder.
