I was once convinced there would be a slow but sure drift towards rejoining that would eventually see figures close to 65-70% in favour of it. That drift seems to have stopped.
The actual R&W poll figures are HERE.
The Independent summarises the current attitude towards Brexit as follows:
- 39% said immigration is higher because of Brexit against 21% who said it is lower
- 58% said the cost of living is higher against 18% who said it is lower
- 31% said wages are lower against 18% who said they are higher
- 41% said it had made it harder for Britain to sell goods abroad against 17% who said it had made it easier
- 40% said Britain had less influence on the world stage against 21% who said it had more
Despite most voters believing Brexit has made virtually everything worse, the gap between rejoiners and stay-outers is more or less stuck at about 8% (56-48%), good but not good enough.
I think what we are seeing is partly if not wholly the result of Starmer's "timidity" on Brexit. If we look at the position on whether or not the whole question of Brexit is settled, we can see a crossover taking place around the time of the general election in July. Look at this:
There has been ambivalence on the issue for a while but Starmer's announcement last October that he would not take Britain back into the EU, and his repeated reaffirmation of Labour's policy during the election seems to have started to switch things around.
Don't get me wrong, I am still convinced we will one day rejoin and there are plenty of positives to take from the poll, for instance, this one:
"For the first time since we started our Brexit tracker poll in November 2021, more Britons now believe it is likely, rather than unlikely, that the UK will apply to re-join the EU in the next ten years.
"34% (+1) of Britons deem it likely that the UK will apply to re-join, a position that is more common among those who voted ‘Remain’ (41%) rather than ‘Leave’ (31%) in 2016. Alternatively, 31% (-3) think it is unlikely that the UK will apply to re-join the EU in the next ten years, including 37% of ‘Leave’ voters and 31% of ‘Remain’ voters."
What I think it does show is the result of Labour's current position, which has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Voters are resigned to Brexit because Labour is telling them they should be resigned.
We should get used to this. The polls on rejoining will probably remain in the 56-60% in favour range for some time until one party or another - Labour I assume - starts to make the positive case for the UK submitting an application to rejoin. At the moment it is not a question in UK politics.
When will that happen? I suspect it will begin when Starmer discovers his EU reset 'wish list" of cherries is the same one that May/Johnson/Frost started with too. He clearly thinks he can somehow negotiate improved access to the single market but offers nothing in return.
This 'strategy' is not much more than a holding position. It cannot survive in the medium term. His opponents on the right accuse him of betraying Brexit, while his supporters accuse him of timidity. It might seem relatively comfortable for Starmer at the moment to be midway with equal pressure from each side, but sooner or later he will, like all the others who have tried before him, be forced to make real decisions.
It would be strange for a political leader to make such decisions that didn't lean into where his or her supporters were.
Up to now, the Tory leaders have always defaulted to a more extreme Brexit stance, eschewing any idea of a closer relationship with Brussels, because that was what was politically possible - for them.
I suspect when Starmer finds himself facing the EU27 standing firmly behind the single market rules he will also be forced to make hard decisions and for him, making more and more concessions towards membership will be the only option. At some point he will have to start making the case for a new referendum. Then we will see the polls begin to shift again.
