Brexit was bad actually, says new poll

Surprising nobody who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last few years, a new poll has found that UK voters think Brexit has made everything worse, actually. However, the flipside is that most respondents in the EU would be happy for the UK to rejoin the union.

Yonder Data solutions conducted the survey for FGS Global, a major public relations firm. Almost 20,000 people took part, of whom 11,714 were in the EU and 2,022 were in the UK.

Brexit – nothing it says on the tin

Arch-Brexiteers Johnson and Farage claimed that leaving the EU would allow Britain to ‘take back control’. However, the vast majority of respondents now believe that that was a load of tosh. In fact, on 15% believe that we have more control over our own affairs, compared to 72% who believe we have less.

Furthermore, 55% stated that the warnings of ‘Project Fear’ (a.k.a. factual statements about the potential consequences of Brexit) were correct. Just 23% of respondents thought that the warnings proved to be innaccurate.

Regarding the economy, 66% of respondents agreed that Brexit did financial harm to the UK. Conversely, 22% believed Brexit made a positive difference.

Even the banner promise of the Brexiteers – that leaving the EU would grant the UK greater control over immigration – has proven to be false in the public eye. Again, 66% said we now have less control over immigration, vs 22% who believed the opposite.

EU – you’d be welcome back

Across the channel (or over the border, for our NI readers), most voters in the EU also think the union is worse off without the UK. However, most also believed that Brexit was a shining example of why countries shouldn’t leave the EU – so that’s one useful achievement for the UK.

In total, 66% of the EU voters surveyed felt positive about the UK rejoining the EU, vs 16% who opposed a potential rejoining.

Just 19% of EU respondents believe that they’re better off because of Brexit. Conversely, 50% held that they’re no better off. Following on from this, 59% stated that Brexit acted as a warning for other countries who might want to to leave the union.

Why not rejoin then?

However, respondents were still rather ambivalent about the prospect of rejoining. In fact, people actually seemed somewhat confused by the question.

When the UK respondents were asked if Britain should not rejoin the EU, 49% agreed and 36% disagreed. Pretty overwhelming, right?

Except that, in a separate question, the participants were asked whether they believed that Britain should rejoin the EU. This time, 50% said that we should rejoin, and just 38% said that we shouldn’t. This flip-flopping closely resembles the original EU referendum itself, where Brexit won out on a narrow 52% majority.

Taken overall, EU voters’ welcoming attitude and the UK’s dismal opinion of the outcomes of Brexit should signal to PM Starmer that the public favours rebuilding closer relations with the EU. The referendum took place 10 years ago; since then, every promise of the Little Britain-bloc has proven to be a crock of shit.

The UK is worse off outside the EU. Likewise, the people of the EU feel they’re worse off without us. We are – as we have always been – stronger together, as part of an international community.

Featured image via the Canary