{"id":900738,"date":"2026-04-17T13:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900738\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:32:20","slug":"more-than-half-of-britons-support-rejoining-eu-10-years-on-from-brexit-vote-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900738\/","title":{"rendered":"More than half of Britons support rejoining EU 10 years on from Brexit vote | Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Support for rejoining the EU rather than simply rejoining the single market is growing among British voters, with more than 80% of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green party supporters favouring this option, research mapping voter attitudes 10 years after the Brexit<\/a> referendum shows.<\/p>\n

But Labour\u2019s \u201cmuted\u201d approach means it now risks losing support among progressive voters and in \u201cred wall\u201d constituencies, experts have said as part of a research by Best for Britain.<\/p>\n

While three in five (61%) of all voters support the government\u2019s current approach to EU relations only 19% did so \u201cstrongly\u201d, the research showed.<\/p>\n

A full return to the EU was supported by 53% of all voters with support at 83% among Labour voters, 84% Liberal Democrat and 82% on Greens, the polling found.<\/p>\n

Four in 10 Conservative supporters and one in five Reform voters also backed the policy, Best for Britain found.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that there is inherent risk with halfway houses,\u201d said Tom Brufatto director of policy and research at Best for Britain which maps the space for public policy on EU relations.<\/p>\n

They tested six scenarios including continuing with Labour\u2019s current low-ambition policy, keeping Boris Johnson\u2019s deal, diverging further, joining the customs union and single market, and the full-fat option of rejoining the EU.<\/p>\n

Rejoining the customs union and single market, which Labour strongly opposes, would be a challenge politically as it would reopen the divisions of the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt requires a deep conversation about sovereignty, because [rejoining the customs union and single market] requires outsourcing of large parts of all of our regulation\u201d and no party would \u201cbe able to carry the public with us as part of that protracted negotiation\u201d said Brufatto.<\/p>\n

It would also mean the burden of rule taking would increase daily. Labour\u2019s current policy is to align with but not join the single market which means it has no say in the shaping of regulations and directives.<\/p>\n

The Labour party\u2019s current attempt to reduce trading barriers for farm exports through a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement provides a glimpse of the rule-taking to come.<\/p>\n

Divergence on rules since Brexit<\/a> in 2020 has seen the UK diverge on 76 rules and regulations in relation to the current negotiations over a sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) agreement designed to reduce paperwork for farm food exporters.<\/p>\n

At an event unveiling the research in Westminster, the polling expert John Curtice criticised the effectiveness of what he said was Labour\u2019s \u201cstrategy of silence\u201d around Brexit and political calculations may have to shift as the loss of the liberal voter base on issues such as Brexit could be more damaging than loss to pro-Brexit parties.<\/p>\n

Labour had lost about one in 10 voters to Reform but was losing one in four to Lib Dems and Greens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Neil Kinnock, the former Labour leader, said Brexit had inflicted enormous damage on the UK and he believed the Labour party would one day campaign for rejoining, without putting a timeline on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 84 now and probably won\u2019t see it, but the realisation [that it was best] and [in] the self interest of the people, people will see it [rejoining].\u201d<\/p>\n

Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe<\/a>, which has tracked Brexit for almost 10 years, said Labour\u2019s own position betrayed inherent contradictions in its vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomically, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s sustainable for a government whose chancellor now goes around saying Brexit has cost the economy 8% of GDP, which is the highest side, to set against a reset that is worth just 1% growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Labour party was now facing pressure from rivals to go further and faster but its current strategy to align on trade standards sector by sector meant the UK would become a ever-bigger rule-taker with all the political attention and administrative work that needed in Westminster.<\/p>\n

Aligning with EU regulation would mean a unending cycle of regulation and watching over political soldiers to see that all regulations were transposed so \u201cdivergence doesn\u2019t happen accidentally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a purely administrative sense where we are now is very uncomfortable,\u201d Menon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Support for rejoining the EU rather than simply rejoining the single market is growing among British voters, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-900738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116420303237048624","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900738","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=900738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}