Brexit Disappointed Them: For These Reasons, Two-Thirds of Britons Want to Return to the EU

The promise made by the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in 2019 was to complete the divorce of London and Brussels.

In order to achieve this promise, the Britons granted Johnson in the general elections of that year an absolute parliamentary majority that the Conservative Party had not known since the era of Margaret Thatcher, who led the country during the eighties of the last century.

Since that time, the head of the UK government has changed three times, as Johnson, who had promised to accomplish Brexit, stepped down, then the Conservatives replaced him once with Liz Truss, who took power for less than two months, and again with Rishi Sunak, who has been floundering since last October on internal and external fronts.

The crises that the UK is currently experiencing have many causes, but the most prominent of them is the failure to complete Brexit during the past two years, which coincided with major pitfalls, most notably the Corona pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As for the general mood that supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum—it has changed today. According to opinion polls, the most recent of which says that two-thirds of Britons now support a return to the EU.

Despite mounting overwhelming evidence of the significant economic costs of Brexit that have been and will be incurred by Britons, the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats have done their best to ignore Brexit in 2022, which has become a year of regret for the British.

The Times newspaper recently quoted government sources as saying that Rishi Sunak is considering seeking a new arrangement with the EU, similar to the situation in Switzerland.

 

‘Bregret’

A poll conducted by Savanta, a British data analysis, market research, and consultancy firm for The Independent newspaper, showed that nearly two-thirds of Britons currently support a referendum on the UK’s return to the EU, while more than half of them believe that their country’s exit from the bloc was a wrong decision.

Following the third anniversary of Brexit, the results of the poll, published on January 1, 2023, suggest that voters who voted to leave now feel disappointed about regaining the control they were promised, which prompted them to use the term “Bregret,” which means they regret what they have done.

The poll reported that the number of people who oppose a second vote has decreased, as less than a quarter of voters currently reject a referendum.

The UK officially left the EU on January 31, 2020, but it went through a transition period during which it committed to respecting Brussels laws and remaining in the single market until December 31, 2020.

Since then, Britons believe that the economy, the UK’s global influence, and its ability to police its borders have deteriorated, and this appears to have contributed to an increase in the number of those wishing to hold a future referendum on membership, according to the poll.

The number of those who say another vote should take place is now 65%, up from 55% in the same period last year, although they are divided on the timing.

The most popular choices on when were; Now by 22%, within the next five years by 24%, and within 6 to 10 years by 11%.

Only 4% of respondents believed that another vote should be held in more than 20 years, while those who said a second referendum should never be held dropped from 32% to 24%.

The poll also showed that 54% now say Brexit was the wrong decision, up from 46% last year, on the first anniversary of Brexit, while 56% now believe leaving the EU has made the economy worse, up from 44%.

As 50% of Britons believe that leaving has made the UK’s ability to control its borders, a key pledge of Brexit supporters, worse, compared to 43% last year.

The percentage of those who believe that Brexit has led to a decline in the UK’s global influence increased from 39% to 50%.

 

The Brexit Trap

Commenting on the results of the latest poll, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran said to The Independent: “It is not surprising that the Britons think this way, while the Conservatives are doing their best to make it difficult to trade and cooperate with our neighbors, especially during this cost-of-living crisis.”

In turn, the European Movement UK president, Michael Heseltine, emphasized in his article in The Independent on January 2, 2023, that “Brexit is not irreversible, and public opinion is moving.”

“We need to start rebuilding bridges. It is time to pursue a practical and constructive policy towards Europe in order to restore the status of this country,” he added.

Naomi Smith, CEO of Best for Britain, which campaigns for closer ties with the EU, said: “2022 is the year in which the devastating repercussions of Brexit become undeniable, with most people now agreeing that the government’s deal was an unmitigated disaster.”

“It has been a long time since those responsible for this vandalism were held accountable,” she added.

The Labour Party also criticized the way the Conservative Party and the government run the country, considering them to be the cause of the economic and political crises that have affected the country over the past 12 years.

On the other hand, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government said: “We are taking full advantage of the many benefits of Brexit and are restoring the UK’s status as a sovereign, independent country that determines its own future.”

“We have taken back control of our borders, restored domestic control over our law-making, and axed numerous pieces of bureaucratic red tape, saving businesses and consumers money across the country,” he said.

In turn, lawyer Bassam Tablieh indicated in a statement to Al-Estiklal that “Boris Johnson's policy was clear that he wanted to leave the EU in implementation of internal agendas contrary to the people's desire.”

“It has always been known that strength is with the group, and thus the UK's exit from the EU will weaken it. We also noticed that what Johnson promised was not achieved with the continued decline of the pound sterling in light of the crises that continue to shake the kingdom, which caused the British people to be so frustrated on this issue that they no longer see in Brexit any additional gains, but only losses,” he added.

Mr. Tablieh also noted that “there is an internal current that may be the deep state that runs the world. Johnson, in my opinion, was implementing this scheme because we noticed the difference with the British Central Bank because there are special interests that differ from the interests of the people. Judging by the media campaigns pressuring for secession from the EU, I think Johnson had his own agenda in this regard.”

On the repercussions of the referendums, which showed a decline in support for Brexit, the lawyer explained that “any changes in this position will be dealt with by the Conservatives in ways that do not show that they failed to take this decision or implement it.”

Tablieh also indicated that “the negative results that the Conservative Party was exposed to in the local elections, along with the economic and living crises that the UK is currently suffering from, led to a decline in their popularity. So I would expect the Labour Party, which is seeking to fix Brexit, to get a lot of the former Conservative vote that could help it win the next general election.”

 

Terrible Problems

With the end of the transitional period and the escalation of the economic crisis in the UK, the debate about the economic effects of Brexit has renewed.

On December 21, 2022, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) called on the government to reconsider how to improve trade with the EU, more than two years after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s trade and cooperation agreement was signed, according to Sky News.

According to the Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Conservative government has caused terrible problems to British trade policy with the EU, in addition, the agreements entered into by the Johnson government did not help most companies grow or increase their sales.

On December 21, 2022, a study by the Centre for European Reform (CER) revealed that Brexit had cost the UK £33 billion in losses to trade, investment, and growth, making it clear that the economic damage is worse than feared.

The study showed that the British economy shrank by 5.5% compared to what it would have been if the country remained within the EU.

According to the center’s analysis, goods trade in the UK is down 7%, and investment is down 11% from what it would have been if the Remain campaign had won the 2016 Brexit referendum.

In early December 2022, a study by the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) found that Brexit had added about £210 to UK household food bills over the two years to the end of 2021, costing British families more than £5.8 billion in high food bills.

In November 2022, the Tony Blair Institute said it was time for Rishi Sunak to consider aligning with parts of the EU’s single market for goods and reconsider the Brexit trade deal already agreed upon with Brussels.

This came after an uproar in The Times newspaper over a report that the British government was considering a Swiss-style harmonization deal to reach a single market with the European bloc.

After that, the British government began to be questioned, headed by Rishi Sunak, who had previously convinced the British of the benefits of Brexit, but Sunak denied this approach in a move that many considered to preserve his credibility and political reputation.

(Getty Images/PA)

However, there has been a long string of opinion polls finding that a majority of British voters want to re-establish closer ties with the EU.

A YouGov poll for The Times on December 24, 2022, found that only 34% of UK citizens who voted for Brexit in 2016 still believe they made the right decision.

47% of respondents said they would vote to retain the UK’s membership in the EU, 34% would vote to leave, and 8% would abstain.

On December 9, 2022, 65 percent of all voters told Opinium that Brexit is going well, while only 21% think it is going well, the highest level of negativity since Boris Johnson’s trade deal came into effect.