{"id":670682,"date":"2026-01-03T07:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670682\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T07:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:25:13","slug":"uk-voters-want-to-be-part-of-the-eu-more-than-french-or-italians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670682\/","title":{"rendered":"UK voters want to be part of the EU more than French or Italians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Half of British voters said they would opt to be an EU member if there was a referendum now, putting pressure on prime minister Keir Starmer\n<\/p>\n

The YouGov survey, carried out in six European countries, showed 50pc of voters in the UK would opt to be an EU member if there was a referendum now, compared to 45pc and 46pc in France and Italy. The numbers were higher in Germany (62pc), Denmark (75pc) and Spain (66pc).<\/p>\n

It also found that in the UK, just 31pc of people said they would vote to be outside the EU \u2013 far lower than the 52pc who backed Brexit nearly a decade ago. In France, that figure was 30pc, while in Italy it was 28pc, Germany 20pc, Denmark 14pc and Spain 13pc.<\/p>\n

\n

Just 31pc of people said they would vote to be outside the EU<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The findings will put pressure on UK prime minister Keir Starmer days after No 10 said he would stick to his EU \u201cred lines\u201d, despite an interview in which health secretary Wes Streeting appeared to back a customs union with the bloc.<\/p>\n

In what was seen as a direct challenge to the prime minister, Mr Streeting said a \u201cdeeper trading relationship\u201d with Europe would boost UK economic growth.<\/p>\n

Mr Starmer has pledged a \u201creset\u201d of UK-EU relations but has rejected calls to rejoin the group or become part of its single market or customs union. <\/p>\n

Despite his stance, Labour ministers have begun to talk up the economic costs of Brexit more.<\/p>\n

\"Health<\/p>\n

Health secretary Wes Streeting said a ‘deeper trading relationship’ with Europe would boost UK economic growth. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n

Last month, it was reported that Minouche Shafik, Mr Starmer\u2019s chief economic adviser, privately recommended rejoining the customs union in the run-up to November\u2019s budget, arguing it would cut costs for businesses and increase exports.<\/p>\n

The deputy prime minister, David Lammy, also suggested that rejoining the union could increase economic growth, although he stressed it was not government policy.<\/p>\n

It comes after an analysis revealed that Brexit is costing the UK up to \u00a390bn (\u20ac103bn) a year in lost tax revenue.<\/p>\n

Dr Mike Galsworthy, chair of the pro-EU campaign group European Movement UK, said the new figures showed \u201cthat the majority of the UK public now knows that Brexit has damaged the UK, and continues to make almost every one of us poorer, and that rebuilding the relationship that we smashed up with the EU doesn\u2019t mean a \u2018Brexit betrayal\u2019 \u2013 it just means closer trading and better business, to immediately kick-start our struggling economy, and bring all of us some much-needed financial relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe question is, how many times will polling show our politicians that the public is sick of this failed Brexit experiment, and take real steps to grow our economy, rather than tinkering with trade deals that are the equivalent of losing \u00a350 while finding 50p? The tide has turned, and our politicians need to catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of British voters said they would opt to be an EU member if there was a referendum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[802,2000,299,5187],"class_list":{"0":"post-670682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115829979465332625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}