A UK poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Fifty-two percent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20. That’s the inverse of the mood in June 2016 when a comparable share of the electorate backed Brexit.
Almost half of Britons support a repeat of that referendum, with opinion evenly split on whether it should happen before or after the next general election. Asked how they would vote in a hypothetical redo, only 33% said the UK should remain outside the EU. Nearly one in 10 remained undecided.
Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos, said the figures show “a clear shift in the public mood.” He added that “the debate over our relationship with Europe is far from settled in the minds of the electorate.”
Despite growing support for rejoining the EU, opinion remains split along generational and party lines. Younger voters overwhelmingly favor reversing Brexit, whereas half of those ages 55 and above oppose returning to the bloc.
Potential “Return” voters are concentrated among Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Green supporters. In contrast, seven in 10 of those backing Nigel Farage’s poll-leading Reform UK party, whose origins can be traced back to pro-Brexit UK Independence Party, would vote against rejoining the EU.
Ten years after the referendum, immigration is still one of the most contentious issues in British politics and a major source of division among voters.
Separate Ipsos polling in April found that Britons see the UK and Europe as having shared interests on issues such as defense, trade and climate change, and increasingly expect the two sides to work closely together. However, views are more divided on immigration. Almost 40% of Britons believe the UK and EU have conflicting interests on illegal immigration, while only about a quarter think their interests are aligned.
“We should be aware that a future referendum might play out differently in practice,” Pedley said. “When the public are presented with various trade-offs involved concerning the UK-EU relationship, a more complex picture emerges.”
Photograph: Protesters wave flags made up of a European Union flags and British Union flags in London in 2018; photo credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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