Most Brits now want to rejoin the EU. There’s an argument that could change their minds

Polling station for EU Rejoin referendum
Polling station for EU Rejoin referendum

This week will see the fifth anniversary of the UK’s departure from the European Union. To mark the occasion the Telegraph is publishing a series of essays on How to Save Brexit from expert commentators, each giving their views on how the project can be made a success. The full list of essays published so far can be found below.


The UK’s departure from the EU five years ago was occasioned by a 52-48 vote to leave the EU in the referendum held in June 2016.

Such a narrow majority was always at risk of not proving to be sustained. And, in practice, voters’ disappointment with the experience of being outside the EU means it is doubtful Britain would vote the same way now.

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Recent polls of whether people would vote to stay out or rejoin the EU have found on average that 56 per cent would vote to rejoin, while only 44 per cent would vote to stay out.

Indeed, the polls have consistently pointed to a lead for rejoin of that kind of scale ever since the autumn of 2022, when the Liz Truss ‘fiscal event’ not only undermined voters’ confidence in the economic competence of the Conservative party but also seemingly further reduced what was already diminishing support for the party’s Brexit policy.

Most voters have concluded that Brexit has been economically damaging and has failed to deliver what many Leave voters had hoped for above all, a reduction in immigration.

According to a survey conducted in September by the National Centre for Social Research, nearly three in four voters, including nearly two in three Leavers, believe the economy is worse off as a result of Brexit. At the same time, nearly half of all voters and as many as 56 per cent of Leavers reckon leaving the EU has served to increase immigration.

However, Brexit still has one thing going for it. One in three voters believe it has given Britain more control over its own affairs, while only one in five reckon it has had the opposite effect. Slightly over half of Leavers reckon Britain now has more control, while only one in eight take the opposite view.

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That helps explain why, despite their disappointment, around three in four Leavers would still vote to stay out. They may feel Britain has made mistakes in its handling of Brexit, but at least they are our own mistakes.

However, those who voted Remain in 2016 are even more loyal to the conclusion they reached nearly ten years ago. On average recent polling indicates that around four in five of them would vote to rejoin.

But the principal reason why, over the last three years, nearly every poll has suggested a majority would now vote to rejoin lies in the views expressed by those who did not vote in 2016. They back going back into the EU by nearly three to one.

In part this reflects the distinctive views of those who were too young to vote in 2016. Just 15 per cent of 18-24 year olds say they would vote to stay out of the EU, while just over three in five (61 per cent) indicate they would vote to rejoin.

Majority support for being outside the EU is largely confined to the over 65s. Unless today’s younger and middle-aged voters change their minds, demographic turnover means support for being outside the EU is set to decline in the long run.

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Of course, polls are not always right (though it is often forgotten that a majority of those conducted during the EU referendum campaign had Leave ahead). And even if we are inclined to believe what they say about the position at present, the apparent lead for rejoining is not so large that it might not be overturned by an effective pro-Brexit campaign that convinced voters that, rather being a mistake, the country had as yet to seize the opportunities afforded by Brexit.

Indeed, British Social Attitudes data suggest that scepticism about the EU is still widespread – nearly half of those who would vote to be part of the EU would like the institution to be less powerful than it is at present. That is potentially a rich seam for the pro-Brexit side to mine.

Yet the swing against Brexit, modest though it has been, has occurred even though Labour continue to rule out any reversal of the decision and even though, until recently at least, the Liberal Democrats have said little about their long-term aspiration to rejoin. If a referendum were held with those two parties advocating a rejoin vote, a referendum campaign could conceivably move the balance of opinion even further against the Brexit decision.

In practice, of course, there is little prospect of another referendum any time soon, even though, contrary to what is often assumed, two in three of Labour’s heavily pro-EU supporters are in favour of holding another ballot. However, the two to one vote in favour of Common Market membership in 1975 did not stop the UK eventually revisiting its EU membership in 2016. On current evidence, it seems equally unlikely that the 2016 referendum will prove to be the last word either.


John Curtice is Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde, and Senior Fellow, National Centre for Social Research and ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’

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Other articles in our How to Save Brexit series:

Trump can save Brexit – If we let him Douglas Carswell discusses the prospects for a UK-US trade deal

Labour is using the Northern Ireland Protocol to bring the UK back into the EU Kate Hoey describes the false choices being presented by Labour using the situation in Northern Ireland

As a businessman, this is how I’d save Brexit Luke Johnson explains the best way to use our Brexit freedoms and return growth to the British economy