Since the EU referendum, more than 300 polls have asked people a variety of questions about Brexit. Conclusions may look straightforward, but polling results should always be read carefully. Simple questions about complex issues can produce confusing results. Respondents may not understand, or they may feel obliged to express views about things they don’t really care about. Asked several related questions, they may give contradictory answers. So, it helps to accumulate a lot of data from different sources and questions. Experts like Mark Pack have been exploring these. So, what is the common ground among them?
Most people are unhappy
Multiple polls find that a clear majority of people think Brexit has gone badly or very badly. Even among Leave voters, only one in five think it has gone well.
On specifics, almost all impacts are seen as negative. Half of all people think that Brexit has made them feel worse about the UK, compared to 22% who feel better. 40% of people say it has made them ashamed of their country, compared to 24% who are prouder. Ironically, given the focus of the Leave campaign, a majority now think it has made it more difficult to manage immigration and borders.
However, it is less clear how important they now think Brexit is, and what the impact has been. Recently, there has been a small rise in the numbers who want to stay out of the EU, perhaps because, surprisingly, over 40% of people do not associate pressures on the cost of living with Brexit.
Attitudes to Brexit are also entangled with attitudes to the government, since ‘getting Brexit done’ was the flagship policy which won them the election in 2019. So, for many people, hostility to Brexit is part of a broader hostility to this government, either for making it happen at all, or for failing to make it the success that they were promised. A change of government might change views.
So why not rejoin?
After the referendum, Brexit identities dominated politics. Polls found that more people identified as ‘leavers’ or ‘remainers’ than as supporters of a political party. But Brexit is no longer a big defining factor. ‘Normal’ politics has resumed, especially for Leave voters.
Half of all voters say that the Brexit issue is settled, and when asked an open question about issues of concern, Brexit no longer features in the top ten. Interestingly, immigration, which was closely linked to Brexit by the Leave campaign, is also dropping down the priority list.
The clear pattern of all the polling is that people no longer see Brexit as a high priority. Critically, they dread the return of the division and political deadlock which followed the referendum. As Luke Tryl of ‘More in Common’ commented:
Talk to people in focus groups, even who think Brexit hasn’t worked, and the idea of years of further Brexit debates fills them with dread. They think a party reopening Brexit would quickly be on wrong side of public exhaustion. It’s worth remembering people voted as much for the “done” as the Brexit part of “Get Brexit Done”.
Closer, but not rejoin
Asked simply, “Do you want the UK to rejoin the EU?”, ‘yes’ usually leads ‘no’ by about ten points. But simple questions can be very misleading, and when pollsters probe in more detail, the rejoin consensus begins to dissolve. Sometimes a clear majority for staying out emerges. When Opinium offered four plausible options, only 36% chose rejoin, 24% chose to remain outside the EU but with a closer relationship, 16% the same as now, 14% a more distant relationship, and 10% don’t know. And a condition of admission to the EU is a commitment to join the Euro: faced with that possibility, support for rejoin falls from 52% to 39%.
And answers are not always consistent or straightforward. In one poll, 51% said they would vote to rejoin, but only 43% wanted to do it in the next 10-15 years. John Curtice looked at consistency in responses to separate questions in the same poll. Asked two separate questions “should the UK make its own laws and regulations”, and “ should the UK apply EU laws and regulations”, he found a sizeable number saying yes to both.
So, we want to be closer, but there is no majority for rejoining. In fact, the ‘rejoin’ lead now is similar to the ‘remain’ lead in the run up to the referendum itself. It would be unwise to assume that history would not repeat itself in a rerun. Those are certainly not numbers which would convince the EU to take a rejoin bid seriously. They do not want to readmit us if we might change our minds again after a few years.
However, in September, a Common Ground poll found nine areas where there was clear majority support for closer relations. In only one of them did the proportion wanting more distant relations pass 10%.
So, there is room for movement.
No party would gain from a new debate
To the deep frustration of many long standing ‘remainers’, silence on Brexit has been a feature of politics in the last year or two. Conservatives know it has become an unpopular policy tied to them, and are keen to divert attention to other things. Labour, who were ambiguous in the referendum, see it as a vote loser in the Leave-voting constituencies which they lost in 2019. When UK in a Changing Europe looked at the issue last year, they concluded:
A Labour proposal to renegotiate the existing Brexit deal would make a fifth of voters (20%) less likely to vote for the party. 32% of those thinking of switching party after voting Conservative in 2019 say they would be less likely to vote Labour if the party proposed renegotiating the Brexit deal. … a pro-EU stance would increase support among those who already look sure to support Labour at the next election. However, it might alienate a significant proportion of those yet to be convinced to vote for the Party.
Deltapoll found a similar picture. Although people were positive about specific policies, like aligning with EU standards on workers’ rights or giving EU citizens the right to come and live here if they had a job lined up, the impact on voting behaviour would be very marginal.
So, what do we really want?
There are three overwhelming conclusions from this host of polls:
- most people are unhappy about Brexit and its consequences;
- Brexit is now a low priority for most people; and
- most people dread the return of the Brexit debates.
So, the small majority for rejoining could easily reverse in a new referendum campaign. And since no party stands to gain from reopening the debate, rejoin is not, at least for the time being, seriously on the agenda.
However, most people (including most Leave voters) would welcome a closer relationship with the EU, and there are many specific improvements which would be welcomed. Quietly, avoiding mentioning the B word itself, the next government is likely to work on that.
It may disappoint some, but Brexit will not feature in the election campaign. What happens after that remains to be seen.
Thanks to Mark Pack, whose substack provided much of the basis for this article
