Brexit is increasingly regretted in the United Kingdom, but the old fear of migration still blocks the return to Europe.

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, a hearing in the European Parliament delegation for relations with the United Kingdom showed that British public opinion has clearly shifted towards regret and a desire for a closer relationship with the European Union. Kieran Pedley, research director at Ipsos UK, presented surveys indicating that 54% of Britons believe that leaving the EU was a wrong decision, 52% would vote for rejoining the Union, but the issue of border control and migration may block the transformation of this regret into a real political path towards membership.

Ten years after the referendum that took the United Kingdom out of the European Union, surveys show a clear change in British public opinion: Brexit is increasingly seen as a mistake. In a hearing organized in the European Parliament delegation for relations with the United Kingdom, Kieran Pedley, research director at Ipsos UK, presented data showing that a majority of Britons would now prefer a closer relationship with the EU, but the old concern about border control continues to limit any political discussion about rejoining.

In short

Kieran Pedley from Ipsos UK stated in the European Parliament delegation for EU relations that 54% of Britons now consider Brexit a wrong decision, while 31% believe it was the right one.

48% of Britons would support a new referendum on EU membership in the next five years, and 52% say they would vote for rejoining the European Union.

Support for a closer relationship strongly depends on how the question is phrased: when closeness to the EU is linked to access to the single market, most accept the mobility of European workers; when the question is framed around border control, most prefer total control.

Meg Russell, a professor at University College London, warned that Brexit has polarized British politics, fragmented the party system, and shifted populist anger from Brussels to the internal institutions of the United Kingdom.

The hearing took place in the context of marking ten years since the Brexit referendum and was opened by Sandro Gozi, president of the European Parliament delegation for the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. He reminded that the debate remains polarizing and mentioned a group of British citizens who walked from Westminster to Place du Luxembourg in Brussels to express regret over the decision made in 2016.

The discussion combined two plans. Kieran Pedley presented Ipsos data on British public opinion ten years after the referendum. Meg Russell, a professor of British and comparative politics at University College London, explained the impact of Brexit on institutions, parties, and political culture in the United Kingdom. Together, the interventions showed why regret over Brexit does not automatically translate into a quick return to the EU.

The central figure presented by Pedley is the difference between the current perception of Brexit and the result of the 2016 referendum. According to Ipsos data, 54% of Britons now believe that leaving the European Union was a wrong decision, while 31% consider it the right decision. However, the differences remain strongly linked to age, the 2016 vote, and political affiliation.

Younger people are more likely to view Brexit as a mistake, and voters who voted Remain in 2016 remain massively in this camp. In contrast, Leave voters and supporters of Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party, continue to see Brexit as the right decision. Pedley highlighted an important detail: even though only about one in five Leave voters believe that Brexit has gone well and has been a success, seven out of ten of them still believe that the decision to leave was correct.

This is one of the key political issues of the moment. Regret over the outcome does not necessarily mean abandoning the political identity built around Brexit. For many voters, the issue may be interpreted not as a failure of the idea of Brexit, but as a failure of politicians who did not deliver it correctly. This inertia makes the debate about rejoining much more difficult than the raw numbers suggest.

Data regarding a new referendum indicate a significant openness, but not a consensus. 48% of Britons would support organizing a referendum on EU membership in the next five years, while 27% would oppose it. Pedley noted the political irony of the figure: 48% voted to remain in the EU in 2016, and the same 48% now support a new vote. However, within these two blocks, there exists a significant area of indecision or people who do not have a firm position.

When asked how they would vote in such a scenario, 52% of Britons say they would vote for rejoining the European Union, while about a third would vote to remain outside the EU. However, Pedley warned that this is a hypothetical question, in a referendum that is not proposed and is not taking place now. In practice, the campaign, the conditions of membership, migration, the economy, and political actors could significantly change the outcome.

The most significant blockage remains migration. When Britons are asked whether the United Kingdom should allow EU citizens to come and live and work in the country in exchange for better access to the single market, 53% choose this option. Only about three in ten prefer stopping the arrival of EU citizens to work, even at the cost of more restricted access to the single market.

However, the response changes when the same issue is framed in terms of sovereignty. 52% say that the government should have total control over who enters the United Kingdom, even if this means a more limited relationship with the European Union. Only 38% prefer a closer relationship with the EU, even if the government would no longer have total control over the number of people entering the country.

This difference in phrasing shows that British public opinion is not simply pro or anti-EU. It is crossed by tensions between economy and sovereignty, between access to the single market and border control, between regret over Brexit and political fear of migration. Pedley said that when freedom of movement is presented as part of access to the single market, support for closeness to the EU increases. When the discussion is about border control, the old arguments of Brexit remain persuasive.

Another element presented in the hearing is the changing perception of the United Kingdom's interests. According to Ipsos surveys, Britons increasingly see their country's interests as being close to those of the EU and less aligned with those of the United States. In June 2022, 29% considered that the interests of the United Kingdom and the EU are completely or largely the same. This figure rose to 43%. In relation to the United States, 45% now consider that the interests are completely or largely in conflict.

For the future EU-UK relationship, the most promising areas are trade, defense, security, crime prevention, and counter-terrorism. Pedley said there is alignment in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany regarding the importance of improving the trade agreement and cooperation in defense and security. The most difficult areas remain illegal immigration across the English Channel and fishing.

Meg Russell shifted the discussion from surveys to institutions and political culture. She reminded that the 2016 referendum was largely organized to resolve an internal dispute within the Conservative Party, pressured by eurosceptics and UKIP, Nigel Farage's party. David Cameron, Russell said, expected a Remain victory and the closure of the European debate. As a result, the British state did very little preparation for the Leave scenario.

The result was that the government and Parliament had to decide after the referendum what Brexit concretely means, without a clear plan and without a serious discussion during the campaign about the future relationship with the EU. Theresa May then took over a divided country, a divided Parliament, and a divided Conservative Party. The 2017 snap elections produced a minority government and further complicated the process.

Russell said that the Brexit period has called into question the fundamentals of the British political system: the role of Parliament, the intervention of the courts, the relationships between London, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as the role of the monarchy in the prorogation episode by Boris Johnson. Institutions themselves have become objects of Brexit polarization: supporters of leaving have become more critical of Parliament and the courts, while supporters of remaining have defended them more strongly.

One of the strongest ideas of her intervention was that the referendum transformed a complex issue into a binary choice and pushed people into two camps. Russell described post-Brexit British society as being split into two political "tribes," where people no longer relate only to parties but also to the identity of Leave or Remain.

For Russell, the effect did not stop at the relationship with the European Union. Brexit contributed to the fragmentation of the party system and put pressure on the British electoral system. Reform UK, the party built on the legacy of UKIP, is now strong in polls, and the Green Party has also grown. In 2024, the Labour Party obtained 63% of the seats with less than 34% of the votes, which reopened the discussion about the disproportionality of the first-past-the-post system.

Paradoxically, Russell said that the European elections have taught many Britons to vote for smaller parties. UKIP grew through the European Parliament elections, and the habit of voting outside the two major parties did not disappear with Brexit. In this sense, British politics has become, post-Brexit, more similar to the fragmented systems on the continent.

The hardest lesson concerns populism. Russell spoke about the "domestication of populism" in the United Kingdom. Before Brexit, part of the British populist anger was directed towards Brussels. After leaving the EU, this anger was redirected towards internal institutions: Parliament, courts, parties, and political elites. Brexit did not reduce populism but changed its target.

This observation is relevant for the entire European Union. A referendum on the EU may seem a way to close an uncomfortable debate, but the British experience shows that it can amplify polarization and distrust. If the promised solutions are simple, while reality proves complicated, public anger does not disappear. It shifts to the next institution accused of blocking the "will of the people."

In the debate, several MEPs used direct language about Brexit. Barry Andrews called Brexit a political "scam" and said that the United Kingdom has not been so invisible and irrelevant on the European stage for a long time. Klára Dobrev warned that she does not like the term "rejoin," because the EU of 2026 is no longer the EU of 2016: it is a Union more focused on defense, strategic autonomy, and military cooperation.

Sandro Gozi raised the issue of the political responsibility of Brexit leaders. He asked why the main British parties have not more directly confronted the unfulfilled promises of the Leave campaign, from reducing migration to the promised money for the health system. Gozi linked Brexit to decades of euro-bashing in the British press and politics, which presented the EU as the source of many internal problems.

Pedley's response was pragmatic. Migration and asylum remain among the main concerns of the British public, and progressive politicians fear the electoral costs of an open plea for rejoining the EU. He said that a future pro-European argument should convince the public that access to the single market and a closer relationship with the EU can improve living standards.

Russell was equally cautious regarding pro-rejoining polls. She reminded that, before the 2016 referendum, polls often showed support for remaining in the EU, which is why David Cameron believed he could win. Referendums, she said, can become tools through which people punish the political class, and the outcome depends heavily on context, campaign, and political identities.

The conclusion of the hearing is that the United Kingdom is emotionally closer to Europe than in the years of hard Brexit, but still lacks a clear political path towards rejoining. Public regret exists, support for a closer relationship exists, and the distancing from the United States makes cooperation with the EU more attractive. But migration, sovereignty, and populist distrust remain strong enough to keep the door to the European Union only ajar.

https://2eu.brussels/ro/stiri/brexitul-este-tot-mai-regretat-in-regatul-unit-dar-vechea-frica-de-migratie-inca-blocheaza-revenirea-spre-europa