2y ago

Britons who want to rejoin EU at highest levels since 2016, survey finds

www.theguardian.com

UK Politics @feddit.uk

theinspectorst @kbin.social

2y ago

Britons who want to rejoin EU at highest levels since 2016, survey finds

www.theguardian.com /politics/2023/jun/23/britons-who-want-to-rejoin-eu-at-highest-since-2016-survey-finds

24 comments

tl;dr:
Seven years after the Brexit referendum, the proportion of Britons who want to rejoin the EU has climbed to its highest levels since 2016, according to a new survey. Data from YouGov's latest Brexit tracker survey found that, excluding those who said they would not vote or did not know, 58.2% of people in Britain would now vote to rejoin. The percentage is only fractionally down on the 60% recorded in February this year - the highest figure since comparable data began in February 2012 - and has risen more or less consistently since a post-referendum low of 47% in early 2021. A record proportion of respondents in Britain also think other countries are now unlikely to follow its example and leave the EU in the next decade - 42% said it was unlikely, up from 26% three years ago, while 40% said it was likely, down from 58%. EU member states showed a similar trend, with 45% of respondents in France saying they thought another EU-exit was likely, compared to 55% in February 2020. In Germany the figures were 36% and in Denmark 29%. While sentiment towards EU membership has shifted significantly in Britain since the referendum, a slim majority of respondents say they still think it is unlikely Britain will rejoin the EU at some future point in the future.
I am a bot in training. Suggestions?
- Good bot.
  
  Does this get registered?
I remember the day after the referendum, an economist on the news said that once we leave we would spend 10 years regretting it, 10 years begging to be let back in, and another 10 years trying to meet the standards to be let in. Only 3 years in and I think about that a lot. Mostly because I consider it both depressing and optimistic.
- Yeah I do kind of suspect that's an optimistic one. I could genuinely see us doing: 10 years of bickering over whether it's going well or not, then 10 years of regret, 10 years trying to get back in but by a very slim margin while 48% of the voting public tries to undermine it at every turn, 10 years and untold amounts of money trying to meet the criteria to be let back in, then it goes to a vote and someone puts an idiotic slogan on the side of a bus again and it doesn't go through. Then we go back to square one.
I think thats a great idea. Please submit you application for joining. And don't call us, we (the EU) will call you when we are done with
Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Moldova
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Serbia
Türkiye
Ukraine
And the potential candidates
Georgia
Kosovo
And what is your stance on King Charles on your Euro coins. But we can always talk about someone else on the Euro currency.
As an EU-citizen I would love to skip the customsline and start working there without any interference
- Absolutely zero chance the UK would have to wait for Turkey to join before being allowed to join.
  I am myself am a EU citizen and I still don't understand that anger of EU people against the British people over Brexit. The Brits fucked themselves over, they didn't do anything to the EU. Actually, about half of them are suffering from the decision of the other half, so I can only empathize with the shit show they have to endure.
  
  The EU seems more cohesive because of Brexit - all the fears about our large countries leaving seem to have evaporated and the utter abject failure of Britain has really taken the wind out of the anti-EU movement. Not to say there aren't still major problems and challenges for the EU to rise to, but fragmentation seems like less of a risk now.
- The majority of Britons who want back in understand fully that we won’t receive the special treatment we did before we left.
  
  This was one of the arguments I posed to people I know that wanted to leave. That we'd never get a deal as good as we had.
  No-one on that side would listen at the time.
  
  I also don't believe that we'd receive none of it either.
  The EU will certainly have to exact a price for the whole debacle, but it'd also be beneficial to the EU to add a large, relatively-affluent trading partner back into the bloc. The EU strike me as more pragmatic than petty, and having someone leave and then come back again would really validate the whole community.
  I expect in reality we'll rejoin the EEA and find ways to wrangle most of the benefits (for both sides) without having to fully rejoin and deal with that embarrassment.
  
  Do they really? Would they really accept a situation worse than what they previously had in the EU? Wouldn't that lead to an incredible resentment towards the EU?
  I still thinks it's a great idea. I love visiting friends and family there. But please wait your turn before being considered a potential candidate
No shit. Half of us didn’t vote for it, and we’ve spent the last 7 years suffering it.
- When you say half, you refer about those who actually went to the polls.
  Because most eligible voters decided that PoLiTiCs iS fOR wAnKeRs and went to the pub instead, then woke up the following day in a new world that they directly helped create, as the Brexit idiots were motivated (out of ignorance and ease of manipulation), so not voting was effectively counted against Bremain.
- Wow it's already been 7 years!?
This kind of polling is pointless.
Brittish media/government never really mentioned the concept of "ever closer union". To the average British citizen the EU was primarily a trading block that was to blame for everything wrong.
You can see it in things the UK vetoed (e.g. EU Defence Army, Euro, etc..). There was never interest in "ever closer union".
For Britain to rejoin it would need to accept the concept of "ever closer union", but considering half the country was sold on "muh sovereignty" its highly unlikely people would want to give up what the EU would demand.
The ideal would be to scrap the hardest of brexit style deal, for something closer to EEA. Give the UK to figure itself out and move forward with the ability to rebuild ties.
While I think the next election can bring a change in political will from the UK side, I think many in the EU were upset and there isn't the drive to improve relations.

24 comments

tl;dr: