Seven years after the referendum, new research indicates that the majority of Britons would vote to re-join the European Union, marking a significant shift in sentiment towards Brexit.
According to a YouGov survey of adults, 51% of respondents said they would vote to rejoin the EU, the largest number the pollster has seen since the 2016 referendum.
55 percent of respondents who indicated they would vote “rejoin” if a second referendum were conducted now, in 2023, while only 31 percent said they would vote “leave.”
When “don’t knows” are excluded, the percentage significantly increases to 61% in favor of rejoining the bloc compared to just 39% against.
The pollster predicted that the spike in requests for the UK to reconsider its Brexit choice from 18 to 24-year-olds, who were too young to cast ballots in the first referendum, could result in future calls for a second referendum on the subject.
The survey is simply the most recent in a growing tendency among voters that “Bregret” as the economy gets worse and British tourists see long lines at the border every summer.
Since 2021, there has been a considerable change in favor of staying in the EU, with 40% of respondents stating they would have done so then as opposed to 42% who said they would have rejoined.
Even among Leave voters, there has been a noticeable rise in those who feel they made the wrong choice, with 18% expressing regret over their vote in contrast to just 8% in 2021.
In May, a BMG for i poll found that 49% of respondents planned to re-join the EU, compared to 36% who said they would stay outside. It came after a different survey conducted in April by Redfield and Wilton, which found 56% in favor of rejoining the trading bloc and 37% opposed.
Overall, 57% of Britons believe that the UK made the wrong choice in voting to leave the EU in 2016, and 63% indicated they were more likely to view the move as a failure than a success.
Since 2021, Brits have been “turning against Brexit,” according to Beth Kühnel Mann, Political Researcher at YouGov. She said that 70% of the population thought the government handled the UK’s exit “badly.”
It appears that this is now influencing how voters might respond in a potential referendum to rejoin the Union, she added.
“Since the 2016 election, the percentage of the population that say they would vote to rejoin is 51%, which is the highest we have seen.
And given that those aged 18 to 24 who were unable to participate in the referendum saw this number rise to 62%, it’s possible that calls to review the topic could intensify over the next several years.
